Everyday Violence in Central America as Seen Through the Life of One Woman

Abstract

Everyday violence in Central America assumes diverse forms, with the structural violence intrinsic to the poverty and inequality in the region being the most predominant. The life story of Andrea embodies many elements of that violence, as it led to her entering the labor force as a child, to her having her own children early, and to her employment in the service sector. But, Andrea came of age during a revolution in her country—that waged by the Sandinistas in the 1980s—which provided her family with resources of both a material and non-material nature. The changes it wrought, however, were not deep enough to transform the opportunities of the next generation and were undercut in its aftermath. Hence, Andrea’s aspiration for her children to have different lives from her own required her emigration to achieve it. Yet, it was also the revolution, in the form of a network that emerged from it, that made possible her work abroad in Italy. She was able to earn enough there to provide the education for her children that she sought. Drawing on an oral history I collected from Andrea, this article portrays the challenges she confronted, the ways she addressed them, and how her life course has been produced by the interaction between these phenomena. In addition to telling her story and describing the ways in which structural violence colored it, the article highlights the broader social, economic, and political dynamics that make this about more than just one woman.