U.S. President-Elect Donald Trump received 46% of the Latino vote, a record for the Republican Party, surpassing the number of latinos who supported the elections of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Latinos in the U.S. are not a monolithic group; there is no singular “Latino vote,” and anyone who tells you otherwise is oversimplifying. As a Salvadoran in diaspora, I can’t help but reflect on how this moment coincides with Salvadorans becoming the third-largest Latino group in the U.S. While largely a working-class and undereducated population, Salvadorans are also more established in this U.S. than ever before and our influence in this country has been steadily growing.
One might argue that many Salvadorans who voted for Trump have forgotten where they came from, and to some extent, that is true. But it’s also important to recognize that Salvadorans have long been conditioned by their history to harbor fascism in their hearts and favor strong-arm machista leaders. This reality is made even more apparent by the fact that many Salvadorans have embraced a dictator, Nayib Bukele—something that many Latinos, across various nationalities, seem to share.
I’ve lost count of how many Latino immigrants — Dominicans, Mexicans, Guatemalans, Venezuelans, and others — have congratulated me for being Salvadoran, as if the country’s embrace of an unconstitutional autocrat like Bukele is something to celebrate. It’s nauseating, because it reveals how widespread the propaganda and misinformation about El Salvador has become. This is a direct consequence of U.S. interference, which has conditioned an entire region to accept mano dura (iron fist) rule and austerity as the norm — the natural order of things. What many Americans fail to realize as they grapple with the election results is that military dictatorships are the setting of many immigrants and diasporas’ nostalgia.
Fascism has always been a global movement in which Salvadoran leaders have willingly participated. El Salvador’s former dictator, Maximiliano Hernández, was a sympathizer of Nazi Germany and adopted draconian U.S. immigration policies, such as those seen in the Chinese Exclusion Act. This is reflected in the 1933 Ley de Migración (Migration Law), which banned Black, Chinese, Arab, and Romani people from entering El Salvador. Hernández also orchestrated the 1932 massacre of Indigenous people in El Salvador. Nayib Bukele, the current unconstitutional president, is the modern leader most reminiscent of Hernández, even down to his tactics. Like Hernández, Bukele is prolonging his presidency illegitimately. In 2023, Bukele passed a law imposing a $1,000 fee on people from Asia and Africa simply for passing through El Salvador—even if they weren’t staying in the country. Much like Hernández, who flirted with Nazi ideology in the 1930s, Bukele fraternizes with the U.S. alt-right—attending their conferences, appearing on their talk shows, and adopting their stances like the anti-lgbt war on “gender ideology.” For generations, Salvadorans have been conditioned to accept fascist leaders, and this legacy continues with Bukele.
My elders always said, “when the U.S. sneezes, El Salvador catches a cold” (Cuando EEUU estornuda, El Salvador se resfría). The last time the U.S. sneezed a big orange snot in the shape of Donald Trump, El Salvador caught a condition named Nayib Bukele that it’s been unable to shake off. Donald Trump, who’s often flanked by Elon Musk at his rallies, and Nayib Bukele who has opened the country up to cryptocoin colonizers are both supported by technofascists looking to expand their power and wealth. So, what are the alternatives?
The Democratic Party, under Kamala Harris, offered little for immigrant families and Latinos in the U.S. as Harris’ campaign made it clear she would not deviate from Biden’s immigration policies, which were essentially a continuation of Trump-era measures. The Democrats have failed to provide any glimmer of hope for immigrants since Obama, who was infamously dubbed the “Deporter-in-Chief” by U.S. immigration activists and effectively killed the prospect of meaningful immigration reform. As a result, the Democratic Party has shifted further to the right on this issue — a shift that has deeply affected how many in the U.S. citizens in the Salvadoran diaspora vote, even if they’re not personally in danger often live in mixed-status families that include undocumented people.
Most Salvadorans in the U.S. live paycheck to paycheck and have struggled with the rising cost of living under the Biden-Harris administration, which, despite this reality, touted «Bidenomics» as a success. While everyday people struggle to afford groceries, the Democrats have become the face of war crimes, providing unlimited military support to the Israeli regime, which is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Harris also campaigned on having “the most lethal military” and was endorsed by Dick Cheney, the architect of the Iraq War that killed over a million people, in an effort to court conservative voters. For anyone who still carries the weight of the memory of the Salvadoran Civil War — when our people were slaughtered with U.S. resources — it should be no surprise if any conscious Salvadorans sat this election out.
My only hope for Salvadorans living under Bukele’s fascism and for Salvadorans in the U.S., the largest diaspora country, who are about to endure another Trump era, is that we strengthen ties and support each other. Forty years ago, El Salvador was living under a brutal government waging war on its people, while people in the United States were resisting Reagan. Reagan, in addition to sending U.S. tax dollars to slaughter Central Americans, was increasing the wealth gap, gutting social programs, and allowing HIV to proliferate. During those times, international solidarity helped us endure. Reagan’s reign eventually came to an end, and the war in El Salvador eventually ended as well. In the process, our peoples created an international El Salvador-U.S. solidarity anti-war movement, gave birth to the modern sanctuary movement to protect refugees and millions of Salvadorans carved out survival in major U.S. cities.
Though tough times lie ahead, we must come together to create a vision where Salvadorans — and all the world’s dispossessed peoples — aren’t beholden to leaders, both in El Salvador and the U.S., that look to undermine our collective wellbeing and self determination.
Daniel is a queer Salvadoran American independent journalist. He has held positions at Al Jazeera and Telemundo, focusing on reporting and video production. His writing has been featured in Rolling Stone and The Washington Post. Daniel’s journalism primarily revolves around El Salvador, its diaspora, and the preservation of collective historical memory. In 2020, he was honored with a Poynter Award from Yale University for his work. Born in Los Angeles, California, he is the child and sibling of Salvadoran refugees who fled the civil war in the 1980s. He currently resides in Washington, D.C., the nation’s capital, where Salvadorans constitute the largest immigrant group.
