Description
Book SynopsisThis captivating ethnography reveals the immediate and persisting impact of forced family separations and the eventual reunifications in communities affected by El Salvador's civil war. In 2005, medical student Elizabeth Barnert traveled to El Salvador to build a DNA bank for reuniting families forcibly separated during the Salvadoran Civil War. Based on fifteen years of interviews and field notes, Reunion chronicles families' experiences with military attacks, child disappearances, family separations, joyful reunions, and arduous processes of reintegration. Barnert worked alongside Jesuit priest and Pro-Búsqueda founder Father Jon Cortina, former guerrilla fighters, and reformed gang members.Told through the voices of activists and survivors, the book accompanies young adult children seeking biological kin, including a young woman returning to El Salvador twenty years after her adoption abroad to meet her mother and brother. This groundbreaking ethnography illuminates the cycles of poverty and violence driving immigration and ongoing separations around the world. Reunion includes a foreword by renowned anthropologist Philippe Bourgois and his firsthand account of fleeing a Salvadoran military scorched-earth operation, with never-before-published photos and children's drawings from the war. All book royalties ofReunionwill be donated by the author to Pro-Búsqueda and related causes.
Trade Review"Barnert’s compassionate approach to her interviews helps bring to the surface many complex feelings for her subjects and, hopefully, contributes to their healing. This book, beautifully written from the heart, is an essential tool for anyone interested in recent Latin America history."
* Science *
"Barnert’s book is moving, her dedication and connection to the work of Pro-Búsqueda palpable." * Jacobin *
Table of ContentsContents
Author’s Note
Foreword: Historical Accountability for Crimes Against
Humanity in El Salvador, by Philippe Bourgois
Introduction
Part 1 Pro-Búsqueda and the DNA Bank
(Summer 2005)
1. Arriving
2. Guarjila with Father Jon
3. At the Nunnery
4. Guerrilleras
5. Morazán
6. Gunshots
7. Sonsonate with Ceci and Lucio
8. Fathers
9. Sonia’s Reunion
10. Carmen’s Reunion
11. Suchitoto with María Inés
12. Isabel and Gloria’s Reunion
13. Meeting Angela
14. Meeting Pedro
15. Sandrita and New Separations
16. La Esperanza
17. Coming Home
Part 2 Fifty Interviews (Winter 2005–2006)
18. Father Jon’s Legacy
19. Back at Pro-Búsqueda
20. Pedro’s Testimony
21. El Norte
Part 3 Angela’s Story (2006–2020)
22. Angela’s Phone Reunion
23. Return to El Salvador
24. Angela’s Reunion
25. Blanca and Ricardo
26. Remittance
27. Home to California with Angela
28. Berkeley Days Between
29. Angela’s El Salvador
30. Onward
Afterword
Acknowledgments
Appendix A: Photo-Ethnographic Testimony of a
Salvadoran Military Scorched-Earth Operation
(November 1981) by Philippe Bourgois
Appendix B: Refugee Children’s Drawings of the
Salvadoran Civil War by Elizabeth Barnert and
Philippe Bourgois
Notes
Index
Contact Information
