In this first chapter, we hear from Linda Garrett, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Democracy in the Americas; and Toña Rios, who migrated to Los Angeles from El Salvador in 1981 and is now a pastor at Baldwin Park United Methodist Church in Los Angeles County. Marta Valier produced and hosted this series based on oral histories with people that lived in El Salvador during the liberation war (1980–1992). The 1970s brought to El Salvador increasing government repression, including the creation of government-organized death squads to combat opposition movements and in 1980 a series of failed military juntas took power. By 1981, leftist guerrillas and political groups joined forces, forming the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, the FMLN. Then, throughout the 1980s, a civil war was waged between the FMLN and the U.S.-backed Salvadoran military forces.

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