By Brian Montano

As I write this, it’s the 15th of September, Independence Day for the people of El Salvador, officially marking 200 years since the small Central American country broke away from Spanish rule in 1821. I’m a 21-year-old Latin-American born and raised in Illinois, to two Salvadoran immigrants who came to the United States in hopes of escaping their home country which was still on a years-long path to recovery from a brutal civil war that tore the nation and its people apart. My father was from a family of two parents and 13 children, living on a farm, tending to livestock, selling goods to the local markets. My mother was an orphan raised by her grandparents in a small house from which she was not often allowed out. Growing up, I never felt too terribly close to my Salvadoran heritage. Most of the Hispanic kids I knew were Mexican, and the way that many of them seemed so proud of their culture and heritage seemed almost foreign to me.

My parents wouldn’t tell me too much about what it was like growing up in El Salvador, other than it being rife with dangerous gangs and violence even after the war had ended. Neither of them seemed too terribly proud of their country, and it had the effect of making me feel rather detached from it as well. I had never seen it, after all, and what little I had heard only served to further convince me that I should have been very glad to be born in the United States and not know a place such as my parents described. I’m fluent in Spanish, as that’s what I grew up speaking at home, yet throughout my life, I’ve been ribbed by other Hispanic people for having a gringo accent when I spoke, making me feel just that much more alienated from my heritage. I always lamented the lack of connection that I felt to my roots, and this feeling persisted until I was 18 years old, when I went on my first trip abroad.

My father and I went to El Salvador, and what I remember the most was how it seemed like a whole different world to the both of us. Though he had grown up there, my father had not been in the country since before I was born. I remember him telling me: “When I was your age, living here, if you had a car, you were like a celebrity. And now, there’s traffic!” By that point, gang violence had gone down significantly in the country as well. Though what captured me the most were the things that my father said hadn’t changed. Countless people were still getting up early in the morning and going to the markets, children were selling fruits and nuts on the side of the street to help their families make enough money to get them through the day, and above all else: practically everybody greeted each other on the street and wished others a good morning. There was a type of togetherness there that I’d never really gotten to experience before. I even saw a different, less stern and more charitable side of my father as he struck up friendly conversation with strangers and bought from the children selling fruits on the streetside. My father had grown up doing the same thing, in an El Salvador that was in a far rougher shape than the one in which we found ourselves. I saw the house that my mother grew up in, a small house with an aluminum roof next to a Texaco gas station. There was something about seeing these places that my parents grew up in that humbled me, and moved me greatly. I had never had a deeper compassion and understanding for my parents’ upbringing before then.

Recently, I had a conversation with a friend’s father, who described a brother of my friend’s as being too “Americanized”, and with little respect for his heritage. I shared my experience with him, and we agreed that the best way to gain a true appreciation for one’s roots, is to visit them. Never before had I been so proud to be a Salvadoran-American as when I’d come back from that trip, skin extra-tanned from the sweltering sun, a belly that had had more than its fair share of pupusas, and for once happy to be back in the Midwestern winter. But I’d brought back something that was better than any souvenir: I’d brought with me a sense of cultural identity that was previously missing. I wasn’t just Latino, I was Salvadoreño. I’ve only revisited once since then, but I hope to again as soon as I can. Everyone has a cultural identity, whether they feel very connected to it or not, but I would urge anybody to find their people, to visit the places of their parents’ or grandparents’ past and see through their eyes, if only briefly. Own your heritage, embrace the cultures around you, say “Hello!” and “Good morning!” to strangers on the street. That is the food of the soul, and with a good change in perspective comes a good change in attitude.