November 5 – The Cry for Independence in El Salvador

nPostednon November 5, 2014

nThisnsounds a lot like Mexican history:

nOnnthis date in 1811, Salvadoran priest Jose Matias Delgado rang thenbells of a church to signal the beginning of a revolution – thenmovement towards independence from Spain.

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nAndnEl Salvador finally won its independence on September 15, 1821.

n(InnMexico, the war of independence against Spain was marked by a priestnringing church bells on September 16, 1810, and ended in September,n1821.) n

nWherenis El Salvador?

ElnSalvador is the smallest and most densely populated nation in CentralnAmerica. It hugs the Pacific coast. I always think of the PacificnOcean as being to the west of the Americas (because it is), butnbecause of the curve of Central America, the Pacific actually makesnEl Salvador’s southern border.

nWhennEl Salvador was a Spanish colony, its most important crop was thenindigo plant (or anil), which was used to make a beautiful blue dye.nDuring the late 1800s and the early 1900s, it became known as thenCoffee Republic because coffee was almost all it exported. n

nSannSalvador is the capital and the largest city.

nWhatnis special about El Salvador? n

nEarthquakes.nVolcanoes. Destruction.

nThisnis not the happiest thing that could be said about a country, but ElnSalvador has some pretty gnarly volcanoes. Even though the nation isnonly about the size of Massachusetts, it has twenty volcanoes, two ofnwhich are active. San Salvador was destroyed by earthquakes in 1756nand in 1854, and it was heavily damaged by three quakes in the 1900s!nOne of the Salvadoran volcanoes, Izalco, erupted so regularly for 150nyears that it became known as the “Lighthouse of the Pacific,”nbecause its flares and lava flows were visible from far out at sea. n

This Googie-style car wash was
located in San Bernardino,
California. I live between
San Bernardino and Los Angeles.

nBecausenof all that destruction, San Salvador today has few Spanish colonialnbuildings. Many of the city’s most famous buildings are, instead, innthe Modernist or Googie style. I read that San Salvador’snarchitecture has been influenced by Los Angeles, California (for somenstrange reason)! n

n(Inhad to look up Googie—what the heck is Googie architecture? Itnturns out that this Southern California architecture from the 1940snto the 1960s was a sort of futurist architecture that was influencednby car culture, jets, the atomic model, and the Space Age. ThinknDisneyland’s Tomorrowland!)

nOkay,nhere are some other things that make El Salvador special: n

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Surfing is big-time in El Salvador.

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nItn has one of the highest cell phone densities in the world, with 124n cell phones for every 100 people!

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nFourn species of sea turtles call Salvadoran coasts their home.

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nThe Salvadoran national soccer team has gone to the World Cup two times, and one of the best soccer players in the history of the world, Magico Gonzales, is Salvadoran.

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