Volume 8, Number 1 (2004)

Volume 8 brings special attention to Central America in the post-conflict era following the 1980s revolutionary era. A decade of intense social, political, and military turmoil, tensions erupted into full-blown civil wars throughout Central America, it also brought a priority on foreign policy from the U.S. government. By 1985, U.S. intervention, particularly aimed at preventing reformist and progressive governments from gaining political power, resulted in the largest showing of U.S. military presence and financial aid in the world, and the death of more than 300,000 people throughout El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala. After the 1992-96 peace accords, fragile democracies and vulnerable economies were left to deal with the burdens that led to the civil wars: unemployment, poverty, malnutrition, illiteracy, and crime. Gathering the work of scholars, political analysts, literary critics, poets and artists, representing academic research centers and communities across the U.S. and Latin America, the diverse analysis provides a rich, yet complex panorama of Central America’s state of politics, economics, religion, human rights, immigration, cinema, literature and art.