Diasporas in the New Media Age: Identity, Politics, and Community

11 Salvadoran Diaspora

190 11 Salvadoran Diaspora Communication and Digital Divide josé luis benítez The phenomenon of transnational communities in the context of international migration flows and globalization processes has introduced new perspectives for understanding the dynamics of diasporas, communication practices, and the intricacies of the global digital divide. Indeed, recent communication research has focused on the intersections between migration and communication, particularly in the ways in which migrants use new information and communication technologies (ict s) and interact with identity-formation processes. In this way, the field of communication contributes with new themes and innovative methodological approaches to the emergent and crucial area of transnational studies (Karim 2003, 1–18). Nowadays immigrant groups around the world create and maintain diverse economic, social, political, religious, cultural, and communicative processes and practices that enable a new sense of deterritorialized communities or diasporas. This transnational social space entails “social practices, artifacts, and symbol systems that span different geographical spaces in at least two nation-states” (Pries 2001,18).In this manner, one significant area of communication research is to understand how immigrant or diasporic communities make use of the mass media and ict s as a way to sustain family and social networks, reproduce local and collective identities, and par- t h e s a lv a d o r a n d i a s p o r a 191 ticipate in a new transnational public sphere. Likewise, it is imperative that transnational communication studies promote consciousness and accountability about the global digital divide and its consequences, particularly for immigrant communities. These ongoing dissimilarities of Internet access and usage between developing and industrialized societies, and within different groups in the same society, have critical consequences in terms of cultural , social, and economic development. Thus, this chapter ponders some articulations between communication and migration, some examples of the Salvadoran diaspora’s usage of Internet and ict s in relation to the production of collective and national identities, and new implications for tackling the transnational digital divide. Although these considerations are based on empirical data from Salvadoran immigrant communities, I hope these issues can be helpful to other Latino diasporas and immigrant networks, particularly in the promotion of transnational public policies that undertake the challenges of the global digital divide (Benítez 2005, 279–318). the salvadoran diaspora Some studies suggest that Salvadorans migrated to the United States as early as 1941(Montes and García 1988,36). During the 1950sand 1960s, thousands of Salvadoran peasants migrated primarily to Honduras, and thus by 1969when the war between those two countries took place, there were approximately 300,000 Salvadorans living in Honduras (White 1973, 31–100).This war, known as the “soccer war,” lasted only one hundred hours, but the Salvadoran president at that time argued that the principal reason for the war had been the defense of Salvadoran migrants in Honduras (Anderson 1981, 128). During the civil war (1980–1992)between the Salvadoran government and the fml n (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front in its Spanish acronym), there were at least three distinct migratory processes: refugees within the country, people who migrated to and asked for political asylum in other countries, and a mass migration flow, predominantly to the United States. Individuals and communities were granted asylum in countries such as Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Mexico, while others migrated to Canada, Italy, Australia, Sweden, and Spain. Since the end of the war and the 1992Peace Accords, the flow of international migration, largely to the United States, has not stopped. Several factors have maintained this migration process, especially the conditions of poverty and economic difficulty, the consequences of socionatural disasters, the environment of delinquency 192 d i a s p o r a s i n t h e n e w m e d i a a g e and insecurity in the country, as well as the search for family reunification and the support of transnational social networks to migrate. According to the 2007 Salvadoran Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ report, there was a total of 2.2million Salvadorans living abroad, which constitutes approximately 35percent of the total population of 5.8million estimated by the 2007 census. These statistics suggest that 1,842,100Salvadorans live in the United States, mostly in California and the Washington, d.c. , metropolitan area. Other countries with large numbers of Salvadoran immigrants are Canada (135,500),Mexico (36,049), various Central American and Caribbean countries (137,449),Italy...