“Departamento 15”: Cultural Narratives of Salvadoran Transnational Migration

In El Salvador, emigrants have been mythologized as "los hermanos lejanos" - the distant relatives. They have also been associated with "Departamento 15," the name given in El Salvador to the Salvadoran diaspora, identifying it as the 15th province of the country after the 14 departments within the country's geographic territory. Extended across the world, Departamento 15 is the product of the migrations of Salvadorans expelled by the civil war in the 1980s and their more recent translocations in the 21st century. This essay examines the narrative construction of the transnational imaginary of Departamento 15 in newspaper media, the Internet, performance pieces, poetry, visual art, music, and other materials. Focusing on the greater Washington, DC Metropolitan Area and the San Francisco Bay Area, it explores the emergence of new translocal and transnational Salvadorenidades. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]