“We Were Part of the Revolutionary Movement There”: Wisconsin Peace Progressives and Solidarity with El Salvador in the Reagan Era

Abstract

Abstract This article examines grassroots sistering, a unique model of transnational social justice activism that took shape in the 1980s as ordinary people in the United States “adopted” villages in civil-war-torn El Salvador. These pages highlight the particular role that Wisconsin played in the development of this transnational sistering network, which, by the time the Salvadoran political conflict ended in 1992, linked more than fifty cities, churches, and health projects in the United States with counterparts in El Salvador. An analysis based on previously unexplored archival records of several Wisconsin-based organizations reveals that, although Wisconsinites and their U.S. allies provided real succor to Salvadorans traumatized by war, sistering went far beyond humanitarianism. In fact, sistering relationships were intentionally designed as a nonviolent protest against Cold War policies propagated by authorities in San Salvador and Washington, DC. More specifically, sistering challenged the counterinsurgency strategies of the Salvadoran government, protested U.S. interventionist policies, and modeled viable alternatives to exploitative political, social, and economic relationships. Through sistering, activists pursued an idealistic vision of democracy inspired in equal measure by Wisconsin’s celebrated progressive vanguard, the New Left, and the popular revolutionary struggle in El Salvador.