San Alejo, La Unión : imaginaries, collective memory and discourses of the afro-descendant heritage

Abstract

The last national population census conducted in 2007 in El Salvador, listed a total of 7.441 Salvadorans identified as “black race” ethnic origin. This count shows the existence of a community of afro-Salvadorans that refuses to disappear, despite the decades of denial that they have been subjected to, as ethnic community, by the Salvadoran government. While the mental, social and cultural whitening project developed successfully, in many Salvadoran villages such as San Alejo, people recognize from a subjacent world the presence of afro-descendants, showing them in oral tradition, religion and mythology which support the arrival and geographical distribution of African descendants in the area and its surroundings. This ethnic presence is generally associated with negative agents and symbolization originated from the colonial era, which has been kept alive in the public imagination not only of San Alejo, but of many villages of El Salvador.

Entorno, august 2013, issue 53: 104-113