EL SALVADOR

EL SALVADOR
The Migrant
Architecture
of El Salvador
BY SARAH LYNN LOPEZ WITH
PHOTOGRAPHY BY WALTERIO IRAHETA
IN THE SUMMER OF 2015 I TRAVELED TO THE CITY
of San Salvador to meet photographer Walterio
Iraheta. After publishing my book on
the remittance-funded landscape and architecture
of Mexico, I wanted to learn about
the changing rural landscape caused by El
Salvador’s remittance boom, a subject Iraheta
began photographing in his native
country in 2006. Propelled north since the
1980s and 90s because of the civil war, today
approximately two million Salvadorans—
more than 25% of the country’s total population—live
abroad. The exodus continues,
now fueled by violence and lack of economic
opportunity.
This migration to the United States
is mirrored by a continuous flow of dollars
south. By 2013, the 4.2 billon dollars
streaming into El Salvador’s economy
accounted for an astounding 16 percent of
its GDP. Some migrants have built impressive
new homes— what I call “remittance
homes’”—with dollars earned in the United
States, resulting in dramatic changes across
rural landscapes.
Iraheta’s photographs allow me to compare
the architecture of Mexico’s remittance
homes to those found in El Salvador.
The American flags etched in plaster on
the façades of El Salvadoran homes and
the miniature replicas of the Statue of Liberty
found in Mexican ones both function as
public announcements of distant horizons,
and are intended to represent migrants’
gratitude toward the United States. Iraheta
describes the homes as “autorretratos” or
self-portraits; each home is a crystallization
of the special desires and circumstances of a
migrant family in the context of migration.
While the photographs allow me to compare
the homes visually, it was out in the field
with Iraheta—when we went to document
architectural changes to homes he had
previously photographed—that the
stakes of migration and remitting as
a way to a better life for Salvadoran
families were revealed.
On our first day out, Iraheta and I
visited Ilobasco, a town about an hour
east of San Salvador with 60,000
inhabitants. Iraheta had arranged
for a municipal employee to be our
formal guide through Ilobasco’s barrios.
Upon arrival, we were told that
unfortunately there was no official
car available for our trip. But, after
we suggested the use of our car or the
local tuk tuk taxis, he explained that
it was not safe to go and take pictures
of migrant houses—no matter that
they were abandoned. The gangs of
Ilobasco have territorial sovereignty
over the areas beyond the main plaza.
These are the same places from which
many migrants have fled, and where
they subsequently built new homes
financed by dollars. Around the plaza,
where our conversation took place,
the local government maintains order
and commerce thrives, but beyond the
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