Unforgetting

About this book

An LA Times Best Book of the Year - A New York Times Editors' Pick - A Newsweek 25Best Fall Books - A The Millions Most Anticipated Book of the Year"Gripping and beautiful. With the artistry of a poet and the intensity ofa revolutionary, Lovato untangles the tightly knit skein of love and terrorthat connects El Salvador and the United States." --Barbara Ehrenreich, author of NaturalCauses and Nickel and DimedAn urgent, no-holds-barred tale of gang life, guerrilla warfare, intergenerational trauma, and interconnected violence between the United States and El Salvador, Roberto Lovato's memoir excavates family history and revealsthe intimate stories beneath headlines about gang violence and mass CentralAmerican migration, one of the most important, yet least-understoodhumanitarian crises of our time--and one in which the perspectives of CentralAmericans in the United States have been silenced and forgotten. The child of Salvadoran immigrants, Roberto Lovato grew up in1970s and 80s San Francisco as MS-13 and other notorious Salvadoran gangs wereforming in California. In his teens, he lost friends to the escalatingviolence, and survived acts of brutality himself. He eventually traded theviolence of the streets for humanrights advocacy in wartime El Salvadorwhere he joined the guerilla movement against the U.S.-backed, fascist militarygovernment responsible for some of the most barbaric massacres and crimesagainst humanity in recent history. Roberto returned from war-torn El Salvador to find the UnitedStates on the verge of unprecedented crises of its own. There, he channeled hisown pain into activism and journalism, focusing his attention on how traumaaffects individual lives and societies, and began the difficult journey ofconfronting the roots of his own trauma. As a child, Roberto endured atumultuous relationship with his father Ramón. Raised in extreme poverty in thecountryside of El Salvador during one of the most violent periods of itshistory, Ramón learned to survive by straddling intersecting underworlds offamily secrets, traumatic silences, and dealing in black-market goods and guns.The repression of the violence in his life took its toll, however. Ramón wasplagued with silences and fits of anger thathad a profound impact on his youngest son, and which Roberto attributes as asource of constant reckoning with the violence and rebellion in his own life.In Unforgetting, Roberto interweaves his father'scomplicated history and his own with first-hand reportage on gang life, stateviolence, and the heart of the immigration crisis in both El Salvador and theUnited States. In doing so he makes the political personal, revealing thecyclical ways violence operates in our homes and our societies, as well as theways hope and tenderness can rise up out of the darkness if we are courageousenough to unforget.