From Civil War to Safety
Sandra Andrade’s Long Journey to Los Angeles
On a gray spring morning, I sat down to talk with a woman I have known her since I was 10 months old. I grew up with Sandra Andrade’s daughter and she is like a mother to me. When we sat down at the kitchen table all I could think of were the home-cooked meals that I ate there that she made from scratch. Though she’s petite and fragile looking, you can hear her strength and self-confidence when she speaks.
She is a mother of three children and has been a real estate agent in Los Angeles for 25 years now. She’s well-established in her adopted country, but ask her about her childhood back in El Salvador and she closes her eyes and drifts back to another place and time.
As a child, Sandra Andrade’s life was about surviving the streets of El Salvador at a time when the country was spiraling into the poverty and unrest that would lead to a civil war that lasted from 1980–1992 pitting a rightwing military junta against leftist guerillas.
Andrade was the youngest of seven siblings and four half-siblings. Central America was war-torn region then and El Salvador was particularly violent. Her life as a six-year old child consisted of playing on the streets using pots and pans to make music. A normal day would be going to school until 3 p.m. and then going to the street markets. The street markets consisted of fresh picked fruits and vegetables being sold straight from el campo.
On rainy days, she would make pupusas with her friends in the mud and then they would cover their entire body with the mud. A special treat would be when her mom would take them to McDonald’s. It was a huge privilege to be able to go. The drive to McDonald’s was an hour away from her home in Sonsonate. The building was huge, it had two levels and a huge playroom for kids.
“You do not see much of a difference if you do not have anything, because to the children it is just normal.”
Sonsonate is located in the western part of El Salvador and was founded in 1524. Sonsonate was used as a provisional national capital from the year 1833–1834. During the Spanish colonial era, Sonsonate controlled the cacao trade. In the Southwest they have livestock products, tropical fruit, coffee and sugarcane.There was a small number of Salvadorians migrating to the U.S in the 1950s through the 1960s. The immigrants that were crossing over during that time period were relatively wealthy — people who came to study abroad and work as domestic servants.
Things started spiraling downward for this small, overpopulated country in the 1970’s. There was a scarce amount of resources and people were fighting for jobs just to survive. The reason why there was a limited amount of resources is because communal land ownership was eliminated and state security forces, paid by private landowners, tried to crush the peasant revolts. This system continued until the 1980s, by which this time 40 percent of families were landless.The flow of migrants soon became a flood as families were escaping and heading to Mexico. Once the civil war started, many lived in constant fear that today might be their last day alive.
In 1982, there was a spike of roughly 129,000 migrants that had left El Salvador. Thousands who stayed tried to get refugee status to escape the violence at home. The war in El Salvador, like many post-colonial wars across the globe in the 70s and 80s, became part of the Cold War machinations which often saw the U.S. supporting ruthless, rightwing regimes against leftist uprisings supported by the Soviet Union, Cuba and regional players like Nicaragua’s Sandinistas. Initially, only a small numbers of Salvadorians who applied were granted asylum status in the U.S. By 1986, though, 146,000 Salvadorians were given legal status in the U.S. Many came to the Los Angeles area.
For Andrade, life was just like other children in Central America. They were poor but still had enough to survive. She learned that having lived in El Salvador for 15 years, “You do not see much of a difference if you do not have anything, because to the children it is just normal.”
Andrade gestures with her hands as she explains that lacking phones and electronics, she and her friends would just play outside. She says she had a nice childhood in her barrio because playing was free.
Not that everything was great. Even as a kid, Andrade remembers her parents arguing and stressing about how to keep food on the table a roof over their heads and make ends meet. When she was 7, she woke up and saw her mother, Lydia, leaving.
“Para done vas?” Andrade asked, to which her mom responded, “Me voy para los Estados Unidos con tus hermanos mayores asi un dia vamos a poder estar todos juntos aya viviendo una mejor vida.”
Lydia had to confront many hardships coming to an unknown country. Leaving behind her youngest child was heartbreaking and not having her husband to support her in any way added on to the hardships. Being a woman in itself while crossing the TIjuana border is terrifying. Sandra, being only 7 years old, did not realize at that moment the sacrifice her mother was going to make for her children ‘s sake.
Lydia made the perilous journey to el otro lado. It was heartbreaking to leave her youngest child and husband behind, but as the years went by Lydia continued living and working in the United States trying to buy a house for her kids to live in once they crossed over.
Eight years passed and Andrade’s life at 15 was relatively normal — going to school, taking dance classes and hanging out with her group of friends, somewhat oblivious to the hardships her mother was enduring away from her children. One morning, she woke up to get ready for school, her father told her: “Vas a ir a los Estates Unidos con tu mama y hermanos mayor.”
“You are going to have a better life in the United States and I am here to protect you throughout the journey.”
Being an adolescent, Andrade did not want to leave her friends to come to a new country. A few days later on a warm sunny day in Sonsonate, she saw her older brother walk through the door of her house after so many years and she started to cry. She told him, “ I do not want to leave the life I have here and I am scared.” Her brother responded by saying, “You are going to have a better life in the United States and I am here to protect you throughout the journey.”
Since, the older brother was a resident in the United States, their trip was not as long or terrifying as many other immigrants that have to cross deserts in 100+ degree temperatures alone and without food or water. Andrade was fortunate enough that her brother got a car and it took two days to get to Tijuana, Mexico. Once they got to Tijuana, her older brother had to start bribing the police officers to allow them to cross over the borders since he was crossing his sister illegally. She remember’s one day her brother told her, “We are almost there, once we get over this border we will be in the United States.”
Andrade’s brother had a birth certificate of his niece and tried to pass it off as Sandra’s at the Tijuana- San Diego border. The officer did not want to let them through, so he got down on his knees and started to beg: “Please let my sister through, we have our mom on the other side and have travelled a very long way.” The officer responded, “Give me all the money you have and I will let you through.” That’s exactly what the older brother did, and they both were able to cross over to the U.S.
“Give me all the money you have and I will let you through.”
When Andrade finally arrived in the United States, she lived with her mother and her siblings. She was enrolled in a new high-school and had to adapt to her new life. She would attend school, but making new friends was difficult. She would get home and just cry because she missed her home and her friends back in El Salvador. She cried for three years and realized it just was not easy being an illegal immigrant in the U.S.
When Andrade turned 18 years, her family was ready to get its U.S. residency. She was so excited to finally become a resident until her mom, Lydia, gave her bad news. “We have to go to El Salvador with all of your siblings in order to become residents.” So the very next day Sandra and her family traveled back to El Salvador, but what they did not know was that the place they called “home” was now a war zone because of the civil war.
As soon as they got to El Salvador, they looked around and what they saw was horrifying. They heard people screaming and crying throughout the barrio. They had to walk to her aunt’s house and on the way she remembers people shooting at each other and men taking children away from their parents.
Andrade’s face registers the trauma even today when she thinks of that time. She says you had to be home before the curfew and be very cautious of where you were going and what you were doing. During those times, you could be arrested for anything and the police were corrupt. Once night comes, she says you could hear gunshots, people screaming and neighbors begging for their sons not to be taken away and serve the guerillas. People just disappeared.
Of course, Andrade’s family was terrified that they were going to come for her brother or for her. They had to stay in El Salvador for three months until their documents were ready. Andrade would cry to her mom, “I don’t want to be here anymore, I want to go back to the United States!”
She realized El Salvador was not home anymore and it turned into a catastrophe. Once those tense three months passed, the family made it back to the United States. As the years went by she started to comprehend and understand the huge sacrifice her mom made so many years ago.
To this present day, Andrade does not have any regrets having come here at the age of 15 and says, “Anything you set your mind to you can achieve it and it is a great privilege to be in this country”.
