Salvadorans celebrate lives in L.A.

[EFerrari]

Salvadorans celebrate lives in L.A.
Two local Salvadoran festivals celebrate the customs of the Central American nation and the struggles of those who fled war and created lives here.
By Teresa Watanabe, Times Staff Writer
August 5, 2007


They came with no English, little money and a shellshocked psyche engraved with the memories of a savage civil war in their native El Salvador.

Now, more than 25 years later, Mario Fuentes, Werner Marroquin and Salvador Gomez Gochez have joined the U.S. mainstream middle class as citizens, homeowners, fluent English-speakers and labor and community organizers.

As El Salvador has settled down, with 1992 peace accords and democratic elections, so have many of its native sons and daughters who fled the war's violence for the safety of Southern California.

When peace came to their homeland, Fuentes, Marroquin and Gochez decided to turn from protesting the war back home to building a community here. This weekend, tens of thousands of Salvadoran Americans flocked to Exposition Park in Los Angeles to enjoy one fruit of their labor: a Salvadoran Day festival to celebrate their community's culture, heritage — and progress.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-salvador5aug05,1,3852928.story?track=rss