Matthew Eisen and Tara Mathur
September 1997
Reprinted from Salvanet

Salvadoran Youth Confronted by Gangs and Violence

Matthew Eisen and Tara Mathur are members of the CRISPAZ team in El Salvador. They both work with the Generation XXI Youth Movement.

Except for making headlines as gang members and delinquents, the youth of El Salvador are a forgotten sector of society. Today’s young adults are faced with unemployment, broken families, lack of opportunity to study, and a climate of violence. The Government’s response to the inevitable problems that arise from these conditions has been inadequate. Their practical, band-aid approach, including an augmentation of the police force and a reintroduction of the death penalty, fails to address the causes of the current crisis.

Salvadoran society has increasingly turned to its youth not as a bright shining hope for the future, but rather as scapegoats for what ails the country. Many fear the route Salvadoran security forces are taking to “resolve” problems of violence. Catholic Bishop Rosa y Chavez and Lutheran Bishop Medardo Gómez have both publicly condemned groups within the National Civilian Police that have been resorting to death-squad activity which targets troubled youth.

Amidst the daily news of financial scandals, competition for the political spotlight, and the debate over privatization, Salvadoran youth often find it difficult to grab society’s attention. They find themselves to have successfully done so only when blood has been shed. They have been all but forgotten in the new post-war El Salvador, in which not even the Peace Accords mention the rights of youth. Salvadoran young people are now fighting a quiet, personal revolution to build a space within society that they can call their own. Without work or access to education, many have chosen the path of gangs and violence. However, youth that have sought out alternatives are a testament that, despite the obstacles, young people in this society are desperately searching for constructive alternatives.

Though the civil war ended five years ago, El Salvador is considered one of the most violent countries in the Western Hemisphere. Gangs are seen as the hub of this violence, which is directed at rival gangs battling for turf, the National Civilian Police force, and society as a whole.

El Salvador’s two largest gangs began in and maintain direct links to gangs in Los Angeles. Some of these gang members grew up in the United States as children of Salvadoran refugees.

Marginalized in their own country and in their country of “refuge”, they never found a path to a constructive life in the U.S. As young adults, they were ultimately deported due to their involvement in gangs and crime. Now they find themselves in El Salvador once again, but an El Salvador that is very different from when they left, and they themselves different people. Upon return, many of these young people find familiarity only in gangs.

Gangs are a serious issue facing Salvadoran youth. But it is important to recognize that the majority—whether or not they participate in gangs—face the same obstacles. Lack of employment and inaccessibility to higher education are major obstacles in one’s search for a healthy and productive life. If the majority of youth are faced with the same problems, why is it that some choose gangs and others do not?

Despite a lack of concern for the situation of youth in El Salvador on the part of the State, there are individuals and organizations who are concerned about the country’s young people and helping them to find alternatives. These groups and the youth themselves who have chosen to seek out these alternatives are not often found in the stories reported by a press that chooses to sensationalize gang violence.

A number of organizations, both church-based and independent, are trying to create spaces that provide options for young people caught in the crises of poverty, violence, and families that have been torn apart. The Generation XXI Youth Movement is one such project. Generation XXI provides a space in which young people in the urban municipality of Mejicanos (on the out-skirts of San Salvador) can search together for options in the face of these crises.

Generation XXI and other similar projects share something in common with the structure of the gangs in that they offer an alternative family or network of support to youth, and provide a place to share their troubles and realize that they are not alone. The major difference between these youth organizations and the gangs is that the youth organizations advocate non-violent methods of working through problems.

Groups like Generation XXI also work with young people in a way that allows them to develop a positive value system. Rather than being another place in which conformity is required, the groups facilitate an environment of growth and personal responsibility.

In a society where youth often feel that they are more wanted by gangs than by employers or universities, youth organizations offer an alternative to the violence. The young people involved in these organizations are making positive choices to help change themselves and their society. With limited resources and support, they are creating the foundation for a new society—a society in which individuals can live up to their full potential and where real peace, without the crime, violence, and injustices of today, can become a reality.

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