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Guerra Everywhere
 In this commentary, Youth Radio LA’s Evelyn Martinez explores how her mother's memories of guerillas in El Salvador intersect with her own reality of night time gunshots, helicopters, and sirens at home in East Los Angeles.
"My mom tells me that she fled that war only to find herself in between feuding gangs and police shooting at each other in our Los Angeles neighborhood of Boyle Heights."
During the 1980's and 90's, over one million Salvadorans fled the civil war in their country and settled in the United States. Over fifty percent of those who arrived in this country decided to make Los Angeles their home. Evelyn is a product of this history. Her story provides a powerful way for educators to explore several themes, including transnational identity, the relationship between storytelling and healing, the notion of history unfolding in the present, and the ripple effects of violence for individuals, communities, and nations.
Click here to find the full script and audio for this story.
Teach Youth Radio
For this month's feature, you will be able to view these strategies and resources:
1. How teachers can align this Youth Radio story to National Standards in the classroom.
2. Suggestions for lesson plans that link the story's content to your classroom's themes and subject areas.
3. Suggestions for lesson plans that explore media literacy, using the story to re-read mainstream media.
4. Bios of the Youth Radio reporters who produced the story.
5. A list of resources and further research related to the story's themes.
6. Links to Youth Radio’s media production techniques as guides and inspiration for your students’ creative media-making projects.
1. NATIONAL STANDARDS: Standards Alignment
Subject: LANGUAGE ARTS
NL-ENG.K-12.1 READING FOR PERSPECTIVE
NL-ENG.K-12.3 EVALUATION STRATEGIES
NL-ENG.K-12.4 COMMUNICATION SKILLS
NL-ENG.K-12.5 COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES
NL-ENG.K-12.6 APPLYING KNOWLEDGE
NL-ENG.K-12.7 EVALUATING DATA
NL-ENG.K-12.8 DEVELOPING RESEARCH SKILLS
NL-ENG.K-12.11 PARTICIPATING IN SOCIETY
NL-ENG.K-12.12 APPLYING LANGUAGE SKILLS
Subject: HEALTH
NPH-H.9-12.1 HEALTH PROMOTION AND DISEASE PREVENTION
NPH-H.9-12.2 HEALTH INFORMATION, PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
NPH-H.9-12.3 REDUCING HEALTH RISKS
NPH-H.9-12.4 INFLUENCES ON HEALTH
NPH-H.9-12.7 HEALTH ADVOCACY
Subject: HISTORY
NSS-USH.9-12.10 ERA 10: CONTEMPORARY UNITED STATES (1968 TO THE PRESENT)
Subject: CIVICS
NSS-C.9-12.4 OTHER NATIONS AND WORLD AFFAIRS
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2. NEWS YOU CAN USE: Story content in your classroom, Suggestions for lesson plans
Pre-Listening Activity
Meaning: What does the title "Guerra Everywhere" mean to your students? What strikes them about the phrase? What do they think the story will be about?
Where in the world: Before listening to the piece, ask students what they know about El Salvador. Have them find it on a map. You might refer to this New York Times article from last year for some context about transnational violence extending between the San Salvador and Los Angeles. Set the stage for the different angle Evelyn brings to these themes
Listening Activity
Venn diagram: As they listen to Guerra Everywhere, have students draw and fill in a Venn diagram with two circles, one for the war in El Salvador, one for local gang violence in the U.S.. As the story plays, have students use this graphic representation to compare and contrast these two spheres of conflict—and to notice their connections—by placing words and images they pick up in Evelyn’s story.
Post-Listening Activity
Title: Why do your students think Evelyn chose to make her title bilingual? Now that they’ve heard the story, do your students feel that the title of Evelyn's piece was effective? What was it like to hear the story told in two languages? What stood out to your students about the story? What is one thing they learned, or one image or moment that resonated for them?
Lesson Ideas: Language Arts:
Opening Scenes: Evelyn’s story starts with a striking visual image: “My mom says she hated the night sky growing up. It was a place of danger.” Have students brainstorm a series of night-time images, and put them up on the board. Then hold a five-minute free-write that starts with this sentence: “I always hated (nighttime image—fill in the blank). It was a place of danger.” Have students share their writing. You can take this activity one step further by then having students pick another image, and write off this first line: “I always loved (nighttime image—fill in the blank). It was a place of safety.” Then have students reflect on how writers imbue everyday images with deeper meanings. This exercise lends itself to fiction and non-fiction writing.
Caregiver Interviews: Evelyn’s story comes to life through her conversation with her mom, which reveals how her mother’s past in El Salvador affects the way she’s raising her family in the U.S. Have students create a list of questions to interview their own parents, guardians, or caregivers about the challenges they faced growing up (see Youth Radio’s interview tips—link below under #6). See if your students can learn something about how their family members’ personal histories affect the choices they make as parents today. Notice the memory Evelyn shares of the moment when the man showed up at their home bleeding, begging for help (more on this below). Make sure your students get their interviewees to share at least one specific memory—a story that illustrates something important about how they were raised, or how they are now raising their children. Encourage students to share that moment with the class.
Moral Dilemma: Evelyn recalls a situation from her childhood: "I remember this one time when I was just about four and a half. My sister and I were playing when this guy bangs on our door, shot in the stomach and bleeding. My mom cracked open the door and he pushed it open. He begged my mom for help." If this happened to your family, how do you think your family members would respond? Do your students understand why Evelyn’s mother responded the way she did? How did Evelyn build a story that helped this scene make sense? One way to explore perspective-taking through this story would be to have students break into three groups, each “writing” the moment Evelyn describes through one of the following points of view: the mom, the four and a half year old girl, the injured man. Have them describe in detail what they imagine going on right before the incident at the door, and then add the interior thoughts of the character they’ve been assigned.
Lesson Ideas: Health
PTSD: Students can go back to two past Teach Youth Radio News Breaks where we’ve touched on the topic of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: one centered on a young man who came back from the war in Iraq and the other exploring violence in the United States (From Blacksburg to the Bay Area). Using concrete textual examples from all three stories and their own experiences, have students explore how even faraway, long-ago violence has ripple effects on individuals and communities. You might have students review recent research that links urban violence to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in children (Children who survive urban warfare suffer from PTSD, too) and other studies suggesting that violence should be seen and treated as a virus (Blocking the Transmission of Violence). How useful is it to frame violence and its effects through these lenses?
Making choices: At the end of her story, Evelyn says, "Even though we do live around violence, we do have choices. We can either stay paralyzed about it or find a way to overcome the trauma that has been passed from generation to generation in my community." Have students write and reflect on their long-term goals. What are some of the choices that students have to make on a daily basis? Have them write them out on big pieces of paper and then give them category titles. What kinds of choices are they: life or death, success or failure, individuality or community, etc.? Have students discuss their choices and how they want to live to achieve their goals.
Process of healing: : Evelyn says, "If my elders who went through the civil war could talk about it like my mom has, maybe they could begin their process of healing, and I could know enough about my history to not be afraid for the future." How does talking help to heal? Who do students talk to? How often do they have intergenerational dialogues? What are resources in their community to support young people who need someone to talk to?
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Lesson Ideas: Social Studies
War in El Salvador: Evelyn's mother gives a personal account of her experiences during wartime. Students can follow the links from the commentary to find out more information about the Salvadoran Civil War. What are the causes and effects? Who has been affected the most?
Gangs in Los Angeles: What is the history of the gangs in Los Angeles? Students can check out the resources linked to Guerra Everywhere The Conscious Youth Media Crew site has a host of youth produced videos on this topic to check out. Homies Unidos is another resource that does cross-border gang prevention and intervention work.
Venn Diagram Revisited: After researching the history of the El Salvadoran war and L.A. gangs, add to the Venn diagram from earlier. What new pieces of information did students learn? You might have students work in small groups and then present their graphic representations, before and after carrying out research.
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3. CRITICAL MEDIA LITERACY: Putting This Story in Context
Human face of war: Evelyn's mother gives a personal account of war and its unexpected effects. Have students find stories of Iraqi people, particularly youth their same age, who are living in a war torn environment. What stories do they find? What perspectives are not available? How do different news sources (mainstream press vs. alternative press; US-based vs. media from other countries; television vs. print, etc.) compare in their coverage?
Different perspectives: Evelyn's siblings respond differently to their mom’s strictness: her sister Ashley finds ways to go out, but her brother Ben agrees that it’s safer to stay in. How do these two perspectives show balance in telling the story? If the story only contained the mother’s perspective, or just the children's angle, how would that change the final message?
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5. RESEARCH AND RESOURCES
•
Salvadoran Civil War
• Gangs of Los Angeles
• Conscious Youth Media Crew
• Los Angeles Combating Gangs Gone International (nytimes.com)
• PTSD
• From Blacksburg to the Bay Area
• Children who survive urban warfare suffer from PTSD, too (sfgate.com)
• Blocking the Transmission of Violence (nytimes.com)
• Homies Unidos, El Salvador: Peer Education with Gang Members: Protecting Life and Health
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6. MEDIA PRODUCTION TECHNIQUE LEARNING: Making Audio Narratives
Click here to link to Youth Radio's guidelines for conducting interviews, writing commentaries, and producing features.
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