by Leyla Rivera
“I was on the bus going to school and there were two guys pointing their guns at my stomach, and, said ‘This is for you.’ That’s why I left school.” This is when my aunt Gladys Sibrian knew she had to flee the home and family she’s known all her life.
“Knock Knock,” I heard the door rumble. I frantically ran over from my room to the entryway. As I swung open the door, I saw my aunt in her utterly unique uniform, topped off with her big bedazzled beanie. Formalities were exchanged, and we headed off to the kitchen. It was a bright Saturday afternoon, with sunlight shining through the skylight. My hand was promptly shaking at the thought of pressing the red record button on my voice memos app. I am fairly close with my aunt, but I could not seem to grasp the idea of getting to know her story before she wore outfits that included a bedazzled beanie. As though she felt my nervousness, she gave a reassuring smile and we promptly commenced.
The El Salvador Civil War commenced in 1979. Students and civilians were fed up with more than 60 years of bad and non-democratic ruling. My aunt stated civilians led with the idea that “We either had to get organized and fight for our rights to survive, or we shut up and let the military and death squads kill us off one by one.”
“Wait, what exactly are deathsquads?” I enquired.
“Death squads were a group that worked in alliance with the government military. They often did the dirty work for government officials,” she said matter of factly. Death squads participated in ethnic cleansing as a form of political repression. Shortly after, my aunt mentioned that several of her friends had been killed by the death squads, and the next person on their hit list was her.
“What was your life like during this time?”
“Well, at first I was just a regular student at my high school, and I was also part of the local Christian community group. My friends and family members often disappeared or were killed by the death squads. Nothing special about that, everyone around here went through basically the same experience,” she said. I knew that people often were killed because of their beliefs, but I never imagined once how normalized it had been seen in their eyes.
She recalled that one day while she was in the mall, her math teacher went to the bathroom, and later she found that her teacher had been kidnapped. After this experience my aunt felt that she had to do something to help her country out of the misery they were facing. She talked about such a vivid memory in which one day her mother went looking for her at Monsignor Romeros’ funeral.
“This was in 1980, and there were death squads all around the funeral. It was complete and utter chaos. Bodies were on top of each other trying to escape this location; my mom was in one of these piles of bodies. Thankfully a priest was able to bring her in and save her from the events that were about to unfold.” I saw her glasses fogging up, but she kept on telling the story. “The worst part was that I wasn’t even at this funeral, and her whole motivation was to come look for me and take me back home.”
While listening to this story I try to imagine the running, flailing, shooting, kicking that was taking place as my late grandmother was walking around the streets yelling my aunt’s name, in hope that her daughter would come back into her arms. I soon snapped out of this daydream in order to formulate a response to this story.
“Wow, I cannot imagine the type of pain that you and your family went through,” I responded.
“Yeah, it was definitely a lot to manage as a 15/16 year old girl.”
“Did your family support your decision to leave?” I asked.
“No, not at all.” She declared, “Everyone in my family was filled with so much terror in my sudden departure.” I try to remember the conversation that I had with my dad where he said that he had to bury my aunt’s things in case the police ever came to search the house.
“Do you ever regret what you did, while fighting for your beliefs?” I asked.
“I am very blessed that I was able to work in education and not be in combat out on the streets. I don’t necessarily have any regrets about what I did, but I do have a lot of reserved pain for what my family suffered when I left home,” she responded.
“How did you help with education?” I asked.
“I would go to different schools and give them the truthful information on what was happening in their country, not just the government censored information,” she said.
“For how long did you leave home?” I questioned.
“I left in March of 1980 and never came back home. I went away for a couple of years but stayed underground in El Salvador,” she stated.
I halted my typing and looked at her with eyes completely wide open. In this case going away for a couple of years isn’t like going away to college without seeing your family or going on a super long trip, but rather more like running away from death and torture. Staying underground meant no one could know where you were, especially your family. You could not take anything with you, nor leave anything behind.
“But after those seven months my mom found me and basically forced me to leave. A couple of weeks later my parents arranged for my departure to leave El Salvador. They got together what little money they had saved and put it towards my trip to the United States.” She mentioned that she “went through buses and trains day and night, and one day while we were traveling through Mexico, immigration came onto the bus.”
My teeth were chattering at this point, knowing that she had no form of citizenship or any documents to allow her to be in Mexico. If they found out that she was undocumented, they would send her back to El Salvador.
She continued, “and the lady sitting next to me put a shawl on me as if saying I was her child, and god bless, they didn’t ask me for any documentation. Another time I was also in Mexico. This time I was in a hotel. Word that gotten out that there was a group of undocumented people traveling to this hotel. The police came to every single room, except the room I was sharing with two other women. This was an absolute miracle. At this moment I knew that my mom was praying for me at every moment,” she said with a smile.
“Looking back, what was the most traumatic event you had to face?” I asked.
“Although I wasn’t present at this massacre, my friend was present at the El Mozote massacre in Mozote province. More than 900 people were killed in a couple of days. About half were children and babies,” she said sorrowfully. I could hear the pain in her voice as she uttered those last few words. In the next couple of seconds I saw her shoulders completely drop from the stance they were in before; her scarf that was wrapped around her shoulders quickly hit the ground.
She continued, “An army unit was going to come into town and drive citizens away, in order to populate them with people they could control. The guerrillas tried warning them to leave, but they did not listen to them. To this day the government has still not opened the files of all the lives lost; these 1000 people have still not received justice.” The traumatic events didn’t just stop there; she also mentioned that “in the beginning of my involvement with the war, my dear friend Cecilia got killed, and my mentor also the priest got shot.”
Just when I thought she had finished talking about her traumatic events, the list continued and she shared, “One night we were in hiding and someone yelled that the army was coming, and that we would have to pack up our stuff to leave. My friend yelled at me to get dressed, but I was not just fending for myself as I had to take care of a friend’s six month old baby. That night all I remembered thinking was, this baby is going to die. But thankfully we were able to escape, and the army unit did not find us.”
Although at that time she was a year younger than I am now, she had levels of courage and maturity that I couldn’t dream of having.
“Looking back, would you have made any different decisions affecting the outcome of the situation?” I asked.
“I would have continued with school. I abruptly left school, and I wish that hadn’t happened. I most definitely would have wanted to get a higher education, thus, a higher possibility to serve the community. If I had a better education, I could have focused on administration and truly serve the government in a meaningful way,” she responded.
“Was there any good that came out of this event?” I enquired.
“After the civil war ended, the government made agreements with the FMLN guerrillas,” she said.
“What type of agreements?” I interrupted.
“Well, there were peace accords, and there was a new national civilian force to replace the old one. Also tons and tons of people came to support the new process of democratization, and the government has been working so hard to create institutions for women and children. Although there is still so much to work on, now there are real elections compared to the past where there was no real election. Surprisingly in some areas there is also a lot of acceptance for the LGBTQ+ community,” she responded. At this moment my aunt whipped out her pink android phone and showed me one of her role models, Lady Drag. This icon walks on the streets of El Salvador protesting anything and everything. Before the civil war, this never would have occurred, as Lady Drag would have been killed in an instant.
“Were there any moments during your traumatizing experience when you held onto some hope? Or did everything around you feel hopeless?” I asked.
“Yes, many times we talked about living in a utopia state, that soon El Salvador would turn into a country of peace and harmony. We dreamed about not having to live under violence in our daily lives,” she responded.
My aunt’s last sentence made me ponder the amount of things that still have not changed in El Salvador, even though dozens of years have passed. It is still known as one of the most dangerous countries in Latin America, filled with dozens of maras (gangs) and corrupt governments. But that same sentence struck me with so much power, as just living in the United States I am granted safety and security. Waking up thinking how am I going to escape the death squads isn’t something that happens to me. A lot of times I tend to forget how grateful I am for the necessities that I have in my life, whereas millions of other kids my age could just dream about these things.
I believe that my aunt’s role in the El Salvador civil war really touched on the enduring understanding that “Witness literature is fundamentally paradoxical—it attempts to give voice to those who have been silenced.” She had given up a normal childhood to help those who truly needed it. She fought endlessly to give a voice to the silenced people. Although she was one of the millions of people who had been silenced in El Salvador, she did not stay quiet. She continues to recount her story to all, for them to know how corrupt, violent, and unjust El Salvador was back then in the late 20th century and how it continues to be so in 2021.
The Refugee Anthology Project 