Brigette Amaya L&S Social Sciences
The Fight for Indigenous Recognition in El Salvador Post-Civil War
The history of indigenous people in El Salvador is marked by state violence and deliberate erasure. The 1932 La Matanza massacre, where 10,000–30,000 indigenous people were killed by the Salvadoran military, established the narrative that declared El Salvador a mestizo state with no living indigenous population. This erasure was intentional and enforced through terror. Survivors had to abandon visible markers of identity to avoid further persecution. Consequently, academia has failed to acknowledge how indigenous communities have survived, organized, and ultimately secured constitutional recognition in 2014. My project on indigenous recognition in El Salvador sits at the intersection of history, anthropology, and political science. Drawing on archival research at the Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen (MUPI) in San Salvador, this project recovers primary sources, including photographs, correspondence, and organizational records that document indigenous movement-building from the 1990s through 2014. The research also incorporates conversations with community members and indigenous rights activists to ensure the analysis is grounded in lived experience.
Message To Sponsor
Thank you for supporting my research this summer. As the daughter of Salvadoran parents who fled the civil war, this project not only highlights the resilience of indigenous peoples but also helps me understand my own family's history. Your support makes it possible for me to travel to El Salvador and conduct archival research, where I hope this work contributes to a more complete and inclusive understanding of Central American history, one that has long been absent from university curricula.