For Tío Milton

Tío Milton taught me what it means to be Salvadoran: to attend family cookouts where reggaeton booms through speakers so loud that your ear drums rattle when you swim, to sit by a barbecue overcrowded with twenty different types of meat being cooked at the same time, to gather around a pool table with all my Tíos and primos and shout “hayyyy no” when you miss a shot, to listen my abuela and her friends discuss intently about the latest tela-novela on Telemundo, to play fútbol with my five year old cousin who is obsessed with Messi, and to hear the my Tías howl and watch their faces turn red with laughter. This is why I want to tell the story of my Tío Milton. It was through his achieving of the American dream that he was able to give me these memories that are so central to me. In fact, these experiences define me and, by extension, are a part of my identity. Thus, I tell his story out of gratitude, out of appreciation for making me who I am. 

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When he was just fourteen, Tío Milton was alone. His mother had left him for America. His father was a cocaine addict and a gambler who ran a prostitution house. And his older brother? He, too, was a mess—a drunkard who kept a cluttered home with just enough space for Tío Milton to sleep on the floor. It was safe to say that Tío Milton had no one to rely on but himself. It was up to him to find food for dinner, to scavenge Soyopango’s streets for leftover food thrown out in trash cans. It was up to him to put clothes on his back—to make a few colones by standing on the corner and selling cigarettes. It was up to him to find a place to bunk when his brother would come home from the bar and kick him out of the house in a drunken rampage. 

The only people, however, who had not abandoned Tío Milton—the only people whom he could rely on—were his friends. He had eight of them, a girlfriend, and seven guys, who were his sources of enjoyment. More than enjoyment, they made him feel less alone, for they too came from nothing—from farmers who earned a few cents a day harvesting coffee beans in the countryside, from drug addicted parents who lounged around brothels, or from households without parents at all. Tío Milton practically lived with these friends. He scavenged food with them. He sold cigarettes with them. He slept with them. He survived with them. And yet, it was these very friends who would not so much abandon Tío Milton but leave him alone once more. 

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At the time, 1980, a wave of communism was sweeping through El Salvador, especially amongst the youth. Young Salvadorans were fed up with the poverty and corruption that had destroyed their country for over a decade. They were tired of earning close to nothing—the average Salvadoran earned just $1.75 a day—frustrated by their inability to afford property, as 65 percent of the country’s workforce was landless, and sick of their living conditions, which, according to Time magazine, were “crumbling hovels.”^{1, 2} Moreover, they wanted to put an end to the lawlessness of it all—how the Junta, the far-right regime that had taken over the country in military coup a year earlier, treated the Salvadoran people—the laborers who made the country what it was—as something subhuman, as if they were things to be tossed out, disposed of with firing squads.³

It makes sense, then, why communism was the answer. It was the prospect of dismantling the government—of tearing down El Salvador’s economic system and rebuilding it so that power, wealth, and land would be distributed evenly to every person—that made it so appealing. Furthermore, it was the youth who believed in communism, and it was they who died for it, because they were, after all, youthful. They refused to be held down by some form of authority that would strip them of that youth, and, consequently, they formed guerrilla armies—backed by the Soviet Union—to liberate El Salvador from dictatorship. These groups, in pursuit of realizing a communist El Salvador, would start a civil war, one that would seep into every part of the country, into cities like Soyapango, and eventually into Tío Milton’s life. 

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Tío Milton first heard of the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) when his eight friends confronted him one night. They told him how they were joining the revolution—the new El Salvador. It was their duty, they said, to fight on behalf of the working class, for the farmers, for the factory workers, for themselves, and, therefore, it was Tío Milton’s duty as well. Tonight, he could join. He could come with them and kill sixteen Junta lieutenants in San Salvador. But Tío Milton resisted. He had seen the brutality of the Junta. He knew that surely he would die if he fought against them. So, though they were disappointed in him, his friends let him be, and they set off. 

The next morning, his friends returned. Just as Fidel Castro and Che Guevara had once paraded through Havana—standing in the back of a green-painted pickup truck, pistols raised high, crowds swarming around them after defeating Batista’s army—his friends now paraded through the cobblestone streets of Soyapango. They had killed all sixteen lieutenants and were proud because of it. Once more, they asked Tío Milton to join them. They wanted him to feel this pride. Their offer? To come with them the following day, on an ambush on a Junta supply truck in a little village just outside of the capital called Los Bosques del Rio. However, Tío Milton told them he would not be a fool. He would not kill another human being, let alone parade through the streets and boast about it. He would not go.

This time, after the mission, not all his friends returned. Only his girlfriend came back, in the middle of the night, by herself. She showed up at Tío Milton’s house dripping with sweat and with her military green clothing torn and smudged with dirt. Her eyes were frantic, and she was panting as she begged to be let in. “All of them are gone,” she cried. “It was a trick. There was no truck. They had their rifles out when we got there. We didn’t even have a chance. They shot us the moment we popped out of the jungle. I ran. They’re after me. I cannot stay here. I need to hide in the jungle.” 

After feeding her and giving her new clothes, she left Tío Milton and fled into the brush surrounding Soyapango. For a few hours, no Junta came. Then, screams. A dozen men in black garments, their faces covered by ski masks, and rifles at their sides, dragged Tío Milton’s girlfriend by the hair into the street. All of Soyapango awoke, opening drapes and filling the street to watch the scene: the men in black were beating her. They were slamming the butts of their guns into her head and stomping on her stomach. Over her unconscious body, they took a flask of gasoline and dumped it on her, exclaiming, “This is what you get when you resist the Junta.” Then, they set her on fire, turned away, and jumped back onto their trucks before driving off. 

As for Tío Milton, he knew he had to get out of Soyapango. El Escuadron del Muerto— or “the death squad”—that killed his girlfriend was known for not settling with just one victim. They would go after that person’s relatives, friends, and anyone close. So, Tío Milton grabbed whatever things he could and caught the earliest bus ride to San Salvador. He needed to get to the city. There, he would be harder to find. He could wait for his mother to get him approved for a green card. 

Tío Milton had not left Soyapango since the fighting between the gorillas and the Junta had started. He had taken the bus to the city and had traveled this route that passed through the jungle before. This time, it was different. The trees were shredded with shards of bullets. Mounds of dirt were piled on the side of the road. Tracks of tanks and trucks were printed into the ground. However, what was most scarring were the remains of people. Young men, still dressed in their FMLN uniforms, hung from trees, and Junta forces lay dead in the brush. It was like this all the way up until the city where, for three months, Tío Milton hid away until he was cleared to go to the United States. 

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I will not go into detail about how Tío Milton became successful in the United States, but I will say this: he found a job as a bricklayer and, after twenty years in the construction business, he now owns one of the largest construction companies in Los Angeles. The reason I will not go into much detail is that what is important is not the step by step process he took create a successful construction company, but the sheer fact that a person who had nothing all there life, who lost the only people he loved, who is deeply scarred, can make it. That is exactly the beauty of the United States: anyone can come here and build their lives up from nothing. Moreover, the opportunity that the United States gave Tío Milton to build a new life for himself did not just impact him but also countless lives. In this sense, success in the United States has a cascading effect. Take me, for example. Sure, I have spent time with Tío Milton, but I am not that close to him. However, the memories that I recounted earlier are a testament to how much he impacted me. In fact, many individuals share those memories— whether that be my father, my mother, his wife, my abuela, his kids, my cousins—and, therefore, Tío Milton has impacted more lives than I can count. Thus, Tío Milton represents—better put, embodies—the American dream: to have a new beginning and to create a success that impacts everyone around you. 

What is scary about the times we are living in is that the same opportunities that Tío Milton had are evaporating. As the administration cracks down on immigrants and straight up denies them from entering the country, more and more people are losing the ability to create a new life in the first place. The consequences? The success that has defined America—success that has contributed to America’s economy, success like Tío Milton’s—is dying and, with it, the American dream itself. The truth is, the American dream is not American: it is something that is built on the backs of immigrants. As a country, if we want to continue to be this so-called great nation of the world, we need to preserve the American dream. We must do whatever we can to encourage, not deny, the Tío Miltons of the world to come to America. 

Sources: 

1. “El Salvador – RURAL LIFE.” Countrystudies.us, 2025, countrystudies.us/el-salvador/29.htm?utm. Accessed 29 May 2025.
2. Russell, George. “El Salvador: Carving up a Very Small Pie.” TIME, nextgen, 4 June 1984, time.com/archive/6884230/el-salvador-carving-up-a-very-small-pie/?utm. Accessed 29 May 2025.
3. “Massacre in El Salvador.” FRONTLINE, 9 Nov. 2021, www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/massacre-in-el-salvador/.