Teaching Central America

Article. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. If We Knew Our History series.
Too often, when it comes to U.S. Cold War interventions, the official curriculum is sanitized and disjointed, leaving students ill-equipped to make sense out of their nation’s global bullying.

Film. Directed by Eduardo López & Peter Getzels. 2012. 90 minutes.
Documentary that examines the direct connection between the long history of U.S. intervention in Latin America and the immigration crisis we face today.

Picture book. By Jorge Argueta. Illustrated by Alfonso Ruano. 2016. 36 pages.
Poems written in Spanish and English address the struggles of child refugees fleeing Central America for the United States. Grade 2+.

The government of El Salvador launched a murderous, anti-indigenous and anti-leftist campaign that led to the deaths of 30,000 Salvadorans.

Democratically elected Guatemalan president Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán was deposed in a CIA-sponsored coup.

In 1969, a brief war broke out between Honduras and El Salvador.

Dozens of high school and university students in a peaceful protest were killed and injured by the U.S. backed Salvadoran police and National Guard.

Archbishop Óscar Romero of El Salvador was assassinated by U.S.-backed death squads.

A general strike was held in El Salvador against U.S.-funded death squads.

Three nuns and a lay worker were killed in El Salvador by members of the U.S.-backed National Guard.

More than 800 civilians were massacred by the U.S.-backed Salvadoran Army in El Mozote.

A network of religious congregations that became known as the Sanctuary Movement started with a Presbyterian church and a Quaker meeting in Tucson, Arizona.

Anthropologist Myrna Mack Chang was murdered in Guatemala by the U.S.-backed military due to her outspoken criticism of the Guatemala government’s treatment of the indigenous Maya.