Researcher ORCID Identifier

0009-0002-5536-8358

Graduation Year

2026

Document Type

Campus Only Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

History

Second Department

Chicano Studies

Reader 1

Dr. Cindy Forster

Reader 2

Dr. Arely Zimmerman

Reader 3

Dr. Martha Gonzalez

Abstract

Salvadoran migration to the United States has occurred for over a century, like my grandparents who migrated in 1968. Scholarship on Salvadorans focuses on the migration wave in the 80s, caused by the civil war. This has also influenced the research done on second generation Salvadorans, who are the children of said migrants. Drawing on my family’s oral histories, we are able to learn more about the conditions Salvadorans migrants faced in the U.S. before the civil war, how my family navigated their Salvadoran identity during the war, and how life experiences have shaped their current understanding of what in means to be Salvadoran-American. Due to Mexican hegemony in the southwest, conflating Latinx cultures with Mexican culture, my family was often assumed to be Mexican. However, there was an internal conflict in identifying as Salvadoran due to the perception of El Salvador as violent and dangerous. They expressed feelings of non-belonging between American, Mexican, and Salvadoran culture. Although my grandparents made an effort to assimilate and my family could be ethnically ambiguous, there were still a pervading feeling that their Salvadoran identity was not accepted, showing that being Salvadoran at the time was enough to feel othered in the U.S. rather than it being solely due to racial, economic, legal, or political factors. Through this thesis, readers will learn about a generation of Salvadorans that is not often researched and get more insight into how Salvadoran identity is shaped by the socio-political economic landscape of its time.

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This thesis is restricted to the Claremont Colleges current faculty, students, and staff.

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