Readers React: Calls for Newsom to ‘forget’ about traveling to El Salvador are offensive and shortsighted

To the editor: Last weekend, El Salvador was called one of “3 Mexican countries” by a major news network. A day later, columnist George Skelton suggested that Gov. Gavin Newsom should forget about traveling to El Salvador next week and focus instead on California.

For decades the U.S. has created an incentive to “forget” when it comes to El Salvador. After U.S. taxpayers funded the war there in the 1980s at a rate of $1 million per day — a war that took the lives of thousands — we were asked to forget.

Hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans have lived in California for decades. “Forgetting” that our lives are linked with communities outside the U.S. is unacceptable. Any implication that Salvadorans are not part of the “real California” is offensive.

Immigration is not just a domestic issue, and Newsom is spearheading a refreshing new politics. This may be the first time a governor visits El Salvador, but it shouldn’t be the last.

Martha Arevalo, Los Angeles

The writer is executive director of the Central American Resource Center, Los Angeles.

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