Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas

A timely and no-holds-barred tale of gang life, guerilla warfare, immigration, and intergenerational trauma, Roberto Lovato’s memoir and cultural critique reflects on his multifaceted life and examines many of the self-serving myths underlying modern American culture.

The child of Salvadoran immigrants, Roberto Lovato grew up in 1970s California. Joining a gang in his teens, he witnessed a friend take a bullet to the face in a coke deal gone bad and survived his own shooting. He eventually traded the violence of the streets for wartime El Salvador where he joined the guerilla movement against its corrupt, fraudulent military government. 

As a child. Roberto endured beatings and humiliations driven by his father Ramón’s anger—a rage rooted in his own childhood in El Salvador. Raised in extreme poverty in the countryside during the time of La Matanza—in which tens of thousands of indigenous peoples were killed in the span of a few months—young Ramón also spent time in a brothel and as the leader of a small band of thieves on the streets of San Salvador. Roberto looks back to the pain of his father’s youth and examines both how he survived a life straddling intersecting underworlds of family secrets, traumatic silence, and criminal black-market goods and guns, and how these forces impacted his father’s life and subsequently Roberto’s own.

Returning from El Salvador, Roberto channeled his own pain into activism and journalism, focusing his attention on how intergenerational trauma affects individual lives and societies. In Unforgetting, he makes the political personal, interweaving his story and that of his father with wider social issues, including gang life—notably that of MS-13—and the immigration crisis, to reveal the profound ties between El Salvador and the United States that have fueled the rise of both of these issues.

1136932534
Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas

A timely and no-holds-barred tale of gang life, guerilla warfare, immigration, and intergenerational trauma, Roberto Lovato’s memoir and cultural critique reflects on his multifaceted life and examines many of the self-serving myths underlying modern American culture.

The child of Salvadoran immigrants, Roberto Lovato grew up in 1970s California. Joining a gang in his teens, he witnessed a friend take a bullet to the face in a coke deal gone bad and survived his own shooting. He eventually traded the violence of the streets for wartime El Salvador where he joined the guerilla movement against its corrupt, fraudulent military government. 

As a child. Roberto endured beatings and humiliations driven by his father Ramón’s anger—a rage rooted in his own childhood in El Salvador. Raised in extreme poverty in the countryside during the time of La Matanza—in which tens of thousands of indigenous peoples were killed in the span of a few months—young Ramón also spent time in a brothel and as the leader of a small band of thieves on the streets of San Salvador. Roberto looks back to the pain of his father’s youth and examines both how he survived a life straddling intersecting underworlds of family secrets, traumatic silence, and criminal black-market goods and guns, and how these forces impacted his father’s life and subsequently Roberto’s own.

Returning from El Salvador, Roberto channeled his own pain into activism and journalism, focusing his attention on how intergenerational trauma affects individual lives and societies. In Unforgetting, he makes the political personal, interweaving his story and that of his father with wider social issues, including gang life—notably that of MS-13—and the immigration crisis, to reveal the profound ties between El Salvador and the United States that have fueled the rise of both of these issues.

39.99 In Stock
Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas

Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas

Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas

Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas

Audio MP3 on CD(MP3 on CD)

$39.99 
  • SHIP THIS ITEM
    Qualifies for Free Shipping
  • PICK UP IN STORE

    Your local store may have stock of this item.

Related collections and offers


Overview

A timely and no-holds-barred tale of gang life, guerilla warfare, immigration, and intergenerational trauma, Roberto Lovato’s memoir and cultural critique reflects on his multifaceted life and examines many of the self-serving myths underlying modern American culture.

The child of Salvadoran immigrants, Roberto Lovato grew up in 1970s California. Joining a gang in his teens, he witnessed a friend take a bullet to the face in a coke deal gone bad and survived his own shooting. He eventually traded the violence of the streets for wartime El Salvador where he joined the guerilla movement against its corrupt, fraudulent military government. 

As a child. Roberto endured beatings and humiliations driven by his father Ramón’s anger—a rage rooted in his own childhood in El Salvador. Raised in extreme poverty in the countryside during the time of La Matanza—in which tens of thousands of indigenous peoples were killed in the span of a few months—young Ramón also spent time in a brothel and as the leader of a small band of thieves on the streets of San Salvador. Roberto looks back to the pain of his father’s youth and examines both how he survived a life straddling intersecting underworlds of family secrets, traumatic silence, and criminal black-market goods and guns, and how these forces impacted his father’s life and subsequently Roberto’s own.

Returning from El Salvador, Roberto channeled his own pain into activism and journalism, focusing his attention on how intergenerational trauma affects individual lives and societies. In Unforgetting, he makes the political personal, interweaving his story and that of his father with wider social issues, including gang life—notably that of MS-13—and the immigration crisis, to reveal the profound ties between El Salvador and the United States that have fueled the rise of both of these issues.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781094169026
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date: 09/01/2020
Product dimensions: 5.30(w) x 7.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Roberto Lovato is a journalist and a member of The Writers Grotto. He is one of the country’s leading writers and thinkers on Central American gangs, refugees, violence and other issues. Lovato is also a co-founder of #DignidadLiteraria, the national movement formed to combat the invisibility and silencing of Latinx stories and books in the U.S. publishing industry. He is also recipient of a reporting grant from the Pulitzer Center and a former fellow at U.C. Berkeley’s Latinx Research Center. His essays and reporting have appeared in numerous publications including Guernica, Boston Globe, Foreign Policy, Guardian, Los Angeles Times, Der Spiegel, La Opinion, and other national and international publications. He lives in San Francisco.

Table of Contents

Dramatis Personae xv

Introduction xvii

Prologue: Los Angelos, California 1

Part I

1 Karnes City, Texas 13

"Maras": The Short, Tragic, and Completely Made-Up Tale of the Marabunta 21

2 San Francisco 24

3 Ahuachapán, El Salvador 36

Part II

4 Ciudad Merliot, El Salvador 45

5 San Salvador 56

8 Ahuachapán, El Salvador 67

Part III

7 Ilopango, El Salvador 77

8 San Salvador 88

9 Ahuachapán, El Salvador 97

Part IV

10 Panchimalco, El Salvador 105

11 San Francisco, California 112

12 San Francisco, California 122

Part V

13 Panchimalco & Rosario de Mora, El Salvador 131

14 San Francisco, California 142

15 Las Aradas, Chalatenango, El Salvador 151

16 San Salvador 162

Part VI

17 San Salvador 169

A Náhuat Story of the Underworld: Izalco, El Salvador 180

18 Guarjila-Corral de Piedra, Chalatenango 183

19 San Salvador, El Salvador 191

Part VII

20 San Salvador 203

21 San Salvador 214

22 Mexico City 227

Part VIII

23 San Salvador, El Salvador 235

24 Los Angeles, California 243

25 San Salvador 255

Part IX

26 Northridge, California 261

27 San Francisco, California 265

28 Ahuachapán 274

29 Los Angeles, California 286

Epilogue 294

"Todos" Roque Dalton 300

Acknowledgments 303

Notes 311

From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews