[Indistinct distant voices] [Indistinct distant voices] It's [bleep] hot today.

Gracias.

Man: [Indistinct] Woman: ¡Hay pupusa!

¡Hay sánguches!

Avilés: Deme... fresa.

[Indistinct] Avilés: Y estas nuevas creaciones de minutas que le ponen chips, ¿eso de dónde salió?

Usted sabe que el salvadoreño no trabaja, se rebusca.

Avilés: Va.

Ah, la creatividad.

Woman 2: Gracias, señito.

Adiós.

Es que aquí yo no podía regresar por años.

Man: ¿Sí?

Y acosaban a mi familia... y hasta al fin que vine.

Aquí, mira.

Vaya, don Quique.

Vaya.

Gracias.

Mucho gusto.

Ahí estamos.

Muchas gracias.

Aquí está el otro.

Y va, vamos a... Hay que traer una cuma, vamos a limpiar y... Está bonito.

Man 2: [Indistinct] Casi 40 años de no verte.

Avilés: ¿Sí?

40 años.

40 años, imagínate.

Sí, 40 años.

Y a los 40 años te vuelvo a ver.

Créemelo que para mí es una alegría volverte a ver y saludarte.

Sí, vivo.

[Laughs] Vivo.

Avilés: Entonces, los que aparecieron fueron el Tumblimbli... Man: Mm... Avilés: ...el Zope, Juan, el hermano de... Sí.

Sí, sí.

El Tumblimbli también.

El Chino.

[Indistinct] Patchucho.

Sí, el hermano de él, ¿cómo es que le decían?

Este... Jorge.

Ese... En San Salvador vive.

No, a él lo mataron, según el ejército.

¿Quién sabe, eh?

Y al Calcuche también lo mataron.

También, ¿no?

So, this is my family that joined the revolutionary movement.

Like, a day after I left, the death squads came.

[Sighs] You know, the Molinas, nobody has bothered.

They're like forgotten souls, so I just took it upon myself, to change the crosses.

They did not deserve to be... to die the way the died.

♪ [Indistinct sounds] Woman: Quique, how do you feel about reading your poem tonight?

I haven't read a poem in Spanish in a long time.

[Chuckles] All of it is in Spanish.

[Warm up exercises] [Sighs] Yeah, that's why I need to rehearse the poem.

"Las muertes más bellas del mundo.

"Caminaría rápidamente por las calles del pueblo "con mi machete en la mano "gritando sus nombres, "confrontando a todos aquellos "que saben quiénes son mis muertos.

"En el mundo de mi deseo, "lo primero sería encontrarlos.

"De repente, todo para."

It's too complicated.

Not quite there yet.

Some things about it... [Applause] Man: Up next we have Mr.

Quique Avilés.

[Applause] Avilés: So, the poem "Las Muertes Más Bellas del Mundo" it's all in Spanish.

I doubt that I will read all of it because it's immense.

"En las noches y madrugadas caminaría descalzo por el monte.

"¿Han visto a Chamba?

"¿A Juan?

"¿Al Zope?

"¿A mi tío Ulises?

"¿A mis primas Esmeralda y Noemi?

"¿A cuántos mataron anoche?

[Rustling of paper] "¿Adónde los tiraron?

"Por favor, "llévenme al cuerpo, "a los pedazos que quedan de ellos."

♪ Y bueno, yo no sé.

Es una pieza bastante larga.

Y en realidad, no estaba preparado... preparado para... Pero por ahí va la cosa, ¿no?

♪ It didn't... It's just... I don't know.

Got jumbled.

I think I was trying so hard not to get into it.

♪ You know, I've had the time to go through all of my writings, and it is amazing the amount of poetry pieces that... some that were never finished, where there's just this darkness no?

♪ There's just this sorrow, this anger, this frustration, this feeling like you're choking, no?

Death has just become a constant.

[Distant gunshots] [Helicopter blades whirring] You'll be riding on the bus and there'll be a head of a person on a fence.

At our town, they would bring the bodies in hammocks that they would find by the side of the road, just hoping that somebody somewhere would be looking for their child.

And you couldn't really mourn your dead because if you did, then you have to walk down the middle of town with the bells tolling, and you were exposing yourself.

♪ I had known death in so many different ways, and then when I came here, most of my Salvadorian countrymen, the writers, the singers, the intellectuals, that has been a constant.

So it is this specter of death, you know?

It looms, it is there.

It kind of, like, follows you, in a way?

Tempting you somehow?

But at the same time, I think that looming of that monster, the thing that wants to take you away, is the thing that gives you strength to fight back.

And you say to that character, "Not yet, [bleep].

"Not yet."

♪ Woman 1: I was born in El Salvador.

My parents immigrated when I was 5 years old.

Man 1: I came to the States in 1978.

Man 2: Llegué en los 80.

Man 3: My dad came because of the conflict in El Salvador.

Woman 2: People were getting killed in El Salvador.

Then my parents wanted to get me out.

Man 4: Running away from a war.

Woman 3: Me fui por la guerra.

Man 5: Me fui por miedo a que me mataran.

♪ Avilés: In 1980, El Salvador threw a human grenade into Washington direction.

We were the pieces of Spanish-speaking shrapnel flying all over.

♪ Isn't it ironic that we ran from a war funded by the United States government?

[Scoffs] And Washington has been stuck with the pupusa ever since.

♪ Well, I think we all have something in common, no?

It's that if you came to D.C., you came to Columbia Road.

And once you get to Columbia Road, people would say, "Oh, go here, go there."

And we changed the city.

♪ So you had, like, you know... I don't know, 30-block radius?

This circle, no?

Mount Pleasant, Adams Morgan, and then all the way to 16th Street.

Man: El ambiente era un poco diferente, you know what I'm saying?

Like, Columbia Road on Saturdays.

You're hearing bachata, merengue, people were selling cassettes on the street, you know what I'm saying?

Pupusas.

My pops bringing me to La Polvosa to play soccer.

Man 2: And then there was La Capilla Latina y El Sagrado Corazón.

Man 3: The first Salvadoran restaurant was El Tazumal, and that was a big deal.

Man 4: Y que en la casa del pueblo, cada viernes o sábado, era un coffeehouse donde había música y podías venir a comerte tu pupusita, tu tamalito, y a ver a gente.

Man 5: The name of this corner, Mount Pleasant, Adams Morgan, was put on the map para los artistas.

♪ Edwin: My story is not that long, because I think that with childhoods that are very traumatic, you tend to forget a lot of detail.

I came from a very poor family in San Miguel.

My grandmother had 10 or 11 kids, and then the war started.

My grandmother started noticing certain things that could've have gotten me killed.

And my grandmother called my mom and said, "You have to take this kid out of here.

"He's 11 years old.

"He can carry a gun."

And there was another aspect that I think my grandmother brought out.

"He's a bit effeminate.

He's gonna die either way.

"You know, either he gets killed by the guerrillas "or he gets killed by the other one, "so he needs to get out of here."

♪ Back in the day, I was the only Latino with my aunt in the entire junior high.

We would [bleep] our pants to just go in there because it was a lot of aggression.

And my gym class was so packed.

And she said, "This class is too full, "so we need to pull some of you guys out."

And I hated gym.

"We just opened a ballet class.

Who wants to join?"

I was like, "Ooh!

I'll do it!"

So that's how I started dancing.

I was so into ballet at the time, and he was the one that actually said to me, "You're too short for ballet."

He goes, "But I do have a friend "that needs male dancers for flamenco."

And I was like, "I don't like flamenco."

[Laughs] [Laughter] Wait, is this gonna go...?

No, I'm kidding!

[Laughs] [Laughter] I remember telling him... I was like, "I don't like to be stomping around "while someone's screaming and playing the guitar."

And I was just like... "Oh, my God, look at me now."

♪ Finding dance, for me, meant also getting away from a lot of the stuff that was happening politically at the time here, in Mount Pleasant, in D.C., that I, as a kid, I didn't quite comprehend, and I decided to just step away and move through the classical world of dance.

♪ Hey!

[Applause] What you taking pictures for, uh?

You too, huh?

Get out of here.

[Indistinct yelling] ¡Párese!

¡Párese, le estoy diciendo!

Que se pare, hombre, ¿ah?

Man: ¡De pie!

¡Papeles!

There was a case of mistaken identity in downtown Washington tonight brought about by a lack of communication between demonstrators and D.C.

police.

Man: Sirens blared around DuPont Circle as police responded to the park.

And seconds later, officers jumped from their cars to stop what they thought was an assault in progress.

Authorities say that the group was granted a permit to demonstrate, to do guerrilla theater with toy guns, protesting alleged torture, assassinations, and kidnappings by the police and soldiers in El Salvador.

♪ Man: From the very get-go, this type of theater that I do, it's always theater that has something to say about the human condition.

Una masa de gente con visas a la nada y falsos pasaportes acumulando experiencia en la rama de la ausencia, completando el doctorado de la agonía.

Man: And that was my first job in the United States, doing street theater about the realities of Latinos on Columbia Road.

Some of the best creativity comes when you're touched by some kind of injustice.

You have no choice but to be pissed.

♪ [Indistinct chanting] Man 1: I mean, we were always at the marches.

Woman 1: There were peñas.

The Nicaraguans were trying to get rid of Somoza.

The Iranians were trying to get rid of the Shah.

Woman 2: There were protests and there were rallies.

Man 2: We could walk to the places where banners were being made, where chants were being rehearsed.

Man 3: Era el centro de operaciones de nosotros.

Entonces, de ahí empezamos también a ligarnos con la cuestión política.

Man 4: This is the area where we celebrated the Latino Festival.

Each country had their own float, bands, food from all over Latin America, a lot of dancing.

Man 5: Y es donde yo conozco ahí a Pedro, viste, al Quique.

Y fue durante los festivales latinos que había... que El Salvador presentaba una carroza, y la carroza siempre era con motivos políticos.

Avilés: War turned us into artists, and us, making an art out of war.

♪ [Indistinct voices] Muriel: I was born in El Salvador, and I'm a daughter of immigrants to El Salvador.

My father's family is a family of Palestinian Christians, and then on my mother's side, my mother is French and they're Jewish, and they had to hide during World War 2.

I grew up in El Salvador, kind of trying to blend in.

I had kind of like a crisis of identity.

And through my work as a photographer, I began to investigate my roots and the diasporas of my family.

August 1942.

That's when we arrived.

[Indistinct voice speaking French in background] When we arrived, they were taking Jews from the hotel.

♪ Barthel.

That was the name.

Barthel.

During the war, my name was Barthel.

A hand over my mouth.

I remember a hand over my mouth.

[Echo] I remember a hand over my mouth.

[Sax music playing] ♪ Walk.

Walk.

Don't look back.

Don't look back.

[Indistinct voice speaking French in background] ♪ I didn't really grow up knowing about this story, but as I became an artist, I started to realize that I really needed to know the story of my family, because there were all these emotional burdens and traumas that had be passed down without my knowing what they were.

And so the work really brings together these little pieces of memories from each member of the family to then try to recompose or reconstitute the story.

Even though my family is a family of immigrants to El Salvador, and then I'm an immigrant here, and the stories of my family are about traumas that happened in a previous generation, I think that that's something that is very specific also to the Salvadoran community here.

Sometimes the way to survive is silence.

Silence was the vehicle to survive.

And once you're trying to make a new life, you don't necessarily want to think of the past and the terrible things that happened before.

And so the next generation inherits all of these feelings and all of these traumas without really knowing what they are.

And in order to live a full life, I believe that it's really important to know those stories.

♪ That's what my work is about.

It's about telling those stories that were silenced because of persecution... you know, and even genocide.

♪ Walk.

Walk.

Don't look back.

Don't look back.

I just had a [bleep] pen around here... ♪ I need to organize all this [bleep].

See, that's what happens.

Every time I go into it, I keep thinking stuff.

When I went in September of last year to El Salvador, I was intent on asking questions, you know?

About my family.

So I got in touch with the families of my friends that also disappeared.

So these are the people that I used to go to school with.

One of those friends... I said to him, "Look, you know, "I would like to see "if any of my relatives are in the cemetery..." "No," he said.

"They're there.

"They're the ones that were killed."

So that's when we went to the cemetery.

That's when the bomb really just, like, kicked in.

So it goes like this.

"Si mi deseo fuera único y admisible, "ese deseo sería que mis muertos "'haigan' sido los muertos más bellos del mundo."

There's a page missing.

OK, so here's the other page.

So what happened here... Um... "Aquí los tienen.

"Mis muertos.

"Aquí hoy yo, los animales y el viento "los hemos traído para reclamarlos "como míos.

"Como nuestro.

"Como se debe respetar a un muerto."

It's painful.

And each time it feels like... [sighs] I'm making some progress internally to confront it, to get it out.

So the job now is to... you know, grab my balls and be a poet.

♪ They asked me to write down my race, and I think, and think very seriously and consider writing down the truth and have my answer read, "I have a dark man listening to a bolero "lighting a match inside this body.

"I have an old lady showing pictures "to her children "talking in a language called Spanish "inside this body.

"I have a drunk man asking for directions.

"He wants to go home, "wants you to tell him "which highway leads to Cuscatlán.

"I have a kid in the fifth grade "who said he's American, "but my father's from El Salvador "and my mother is black.

Both: "But I stop and I simply write down...

"'Hispanic.'"

[Applause] Avilés: There came a point when I started realizing that we were staying here.

So I said to myself, "I'm not going back to El Salvador anytime soon."

And that's, I think, when my writing changed.

LatiNegro is a collective.

What you're about to see is a piece focusing on the issue of AIDS.

So I started writing more in English and I started writing about what was going on here in the United States.

And for me that was Blacks and Latinos.

My interest is not to come out here and to have Quique be the spokesperson.

I mean, I'm just an instigator.

[Laughter] You know?

I started my own company, the LatiNegro Theater Collective.

We stayed together for about 12 years and we did work in the prisons, in the schools, community centers.

[Laughter] He heard it or saw it somewhere, so he named me Hoover Ernesto Rodríguez, man.

And now everybody... everybody in my family is teasing me because they say that I have the name of a vacuum cleaner and stuff.

[Laughter] So... So... So how come your name is Luisa?

That's a Spanish name.

I guess my mother saw it somewhere and like it too.

She don't say it like you say it.

How she say it?

She say "Luo-isa."

What?

Like, "Louise."

Like, Louise with an...

"Luísa."

Luisa, yeah.

Like "weasel."

[Laughter] Avilés: Kids have a lot to say, and very... it's not very often that they really get a chance to express themselves in a way that it's... that it's... You know, that they don't feel like they're being supervised.

Out of LatiNegro came another group called Cultural Bridges.

We were bringing Latino and Black kids together through theater.

The Latin American Youth Center had a silk-screen printing shop, had Escuela de Rumba teaching Caribbean drum rhythms, ¿no?

So, the congas.

And then the murals.

I mean that corner, you know?

15th, 16th, and Irving.

That's why I call it our little street academy.

The best training that one could ever wish for was all there.

♪ So, we are at the intersections of 15th, 16th, and Irving street.

[Indistinct] pa'l parque?

¿Pa'l parque fueron?

Excuse me, do you know where the music room is?

Man: The music room is right around the corner.

Go straight, make a left.

Alright, thanks.

♪ [Music grows louder] ♪ [Indistinct] ♪ Para ti.

Iván: I'm a native Washingtonian.

My parents are from El Salvador, and I was very fortunate to grow up in Mount Pleasant.

La Mount Pleasant y yo... Nosotros vivíamos in Hobart Street.

And just that block in itself was... tenía el Caribe y Centroamérica.

My neighbors were all Afro-Latinos de la República Dominicana y Salvatrucos y Mexicanos.

So literally, I grew up in a very multicultural environment, which was confusing because I didn't feel like I was Salvatruco.

♪ You know, I felt as though I was like a border crosser... ♪ Oye cómo va Eh ♪ [Together] ♪ Mi ritmo ♪ ♪ Bueno pa gozar ♪ ♪ Mulata ♪ ♪ Iván: And it hit me hard during lunchtime because I waited in line, and... You remember the trays and...?

And as soon as I got my food, I looked at... the room, the cafeteria, and where do I sit?

And there were pockets.

You had the Caucasians, the Blacks, the Latinos, and then other.

And for the first time in my life, I was... I paused.

I didn't... I didn't... I didn't know where to go.

♪ Thirteen years old, you know, star soccer player, you know, Guapo, verdad?

Bien chulo, athletic, friends of all, and... You know, el mero mero.

And you have to take an elective, so I took a language, right?

You know, that's all I knew.

And then the teacher says, "Well, we have to assume the culture, "so we're going to give you your French equivalent name."

And that's what did it, because Iván... [Imitates drumrolls] "Eve."

[Low chuckle] ¿Estás loco?

And plus, I like a girl in the class, and este machito... And then, "Eve ."

I'm like, "No, this is not gonna work."

I'm, like, "I got to get out of here."

♪ And my best friend till today, Sergio, he had this beautiful, shinning instrument.

I'm like, "Damn!

"Where did you steal that?"

And he was, "No, no, no.

I'm taking band."

[Chuckles] I'm like, "Band?

"Band is for geeks."

Nobody goes to the band.

And he goes, "No, I'm in band."

I said, "But aren't you taking French?"

He goes, "No, you can take band as a, you know, as an elective."

I'm like, "Oh, I'm there."

[Playing the saxophone] So I come up to the music teacher and I'm like, "Hello, yeah, listen, you know, "I'm going to join your band."

And he goes, "Oh, no."

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 steps.

He goes, "Wait."

And that's why 5 is one of my favorite numbers.

He says, "Come here."

Now, mind you... [Sighs] I was angry.

I was sad.

I couldn't find a center.

I was always running from the police.

I was.

I was a young entrepreneur.

And I was tired.

And he literally changed the trajectory of my life.

He brought me into the storage room and I can distinctly remember the smell of old brass.

And he goes, "OK, you're going to play that."

And this was a tenor saxophone.

So the case was raggedy.

And what's the first thing I do?

I go to Peoples Drugstore and buy a spray paint because I, you know, spray paint.

Lo dejaré bien bonito.

If I'm going to play it, it's going to look good because I'm going to walk around with this.

And that's what did it.

[Saxophone playing] ♪ So I said, OK, this is my ticket.

And all the people that I was hanging around with, I said, "No, no, no, I'm practicing.

"I got to practice."

And I slowly transitioned out of that.

[Playing the saxophone] I went from "Ayvan" to Ivan.

[All instruments playing] [Music stops] [Orchestral music follows the conductor's gestures] ♪ [Music stops] Bum!

All right.

Avilés: Now that the Salvadoran community has expanded, that there are Salvadorans now who have been born in the area, I do see a new effervescence among young people to take up the fine arts.

They're being themselves.

They're writing poetry in English.

They're writing poetry in Spanglish.

Woman: My songwriting is my strength and, you know, my melodies.

And, you know, the reason why I decided to call myself La Salvadorina was because I wanted it to be in your face that I was Salvadoran.

So, yeah, just constantly trying to create those little pieces of my childhood of, like, las cumbias that I heard growing up, but also including the new, right, that's happening here in the DMV.

Woman 2: And you have this mixture, this hybridity, what Quique calls los mixturados, right?

That can only happen with diaspora.

That can only happen when people migrate to particular locations like, you know, this area, right?

Avilés: So that was the corner.

And then the punk rockers came.

And I was a punker, so I could walk to the show.

♪ González: My name, my full name, is Alirio José González.

I was born in El Salvador, in this little town called Armenia, in 1978.

♪ And we came to the U.S.

I believe in the 81.

I was two years old.

And we moved with my family, my mom, myself, my grandmother, my aunt, my mom's sister, her husband, and I think another one of my mom's sisters.

Lived in this trailer park with this good friend of my dad's.

We all slept on the floor, and it was like, you know, packed like sardines.

♪ But my dad, he always tells me, and my mom too, like, it was a sigh of relief.

It was the first time that they were able to sleep.

Because although it was very uncomfortable, but they knew they didn't have to worry about somebody kicking in the door, or getting killed, because at that time, and this is the reason why we left, a lot of people from this town, Armenia, were disappeared.

Por ahí, por ahí, póngala.

Por eso, para descansar un cachito.

Esta es una canción off of our Sopa de Res record.

This is a song called "Heridas."

["Heridas" starts playing] I have no recollection of us traveling here.

As I got older, my mom has actually gone through and told me tons of stories now.

♪ We had to leave Armenia and move to Santa Ana, and they had propaganda in their bag, and they would hide it in my diaper bag.

They were in the bus, and you know, people, they would stop the buses and pull people down.

And they got pulled down.

♪ They had a tank with a little slot, where there was an informant inside, and they would pass each and every person in front of it, and the guy would say yes or no.

Because she was holding me, I had my little teddy bear.

My dad had the bag with the leaflets, and then go in the front, and then the guy would give a thumbs up or thumbs down, and so couple people were like, "Well, you're coming with us."

And I guess never to be seen.

♪ How the [Bleep] do you recover from that, you know?

And yeah, I didn't know that for the longest time.

I was older when she told me that.

♪ That impacts you, you know?

You grow up with that.

Even if you don't really remember, it's like part of your DNA.

♪ It's a big part of my process, my inspiration, my anger, my trauma.

It comes out through the way I play guitar, the way I write the songs.

[Music ends] [Cheering] [Guitar playing] ♪ ♪ Sabes que te quiero No lo finjas, yo no puedo ♪ ♪ Eres la que estoy amando Poco a poco, no me aguanto ♪ ♪ Si supieras lo que siento Que por ti no me arrepiento ♪ ♪ ¿Qué se aprende en esta vida si no se viven heridas?

♪ ♪ Vida, eh ♪ ♪ Si tú supieras lo que sé ♪ ♪ Y si vivieras lo que ves ♪ ♪ Te darías cuenta, si ya sabes Te quiero ♪ ♪ Amorcito, yo me muero ♪ ♪ Bien que sabes, te quiero ♪ ♪ Amorcito, yo me muero ♪ ♪ Bien que sabes, te quiero ♪ ♪ Amorcito, yo me muero ♪ ♪ Bien que sabes, te quiero ♪ ♪ Amorcito, yo me muero ♪ ♪ Bien que sabes que te quiero ♪ ♪ Mi amorcito, yo me muero ♪ ♪ So "Heridas" means wounds, and healing our wounds, and dealing with loss.

It's a song of healing.

♪ Losing something, losing someone, losing your home is traumatic.

These are scars that we carry, you know, and they're a part of us.

Living through your wounds is... is... is the way to heal, in my opinion.

♪ All right, everybody.

Look right over here.

And 1, 2, 3.

One more time.

1, 2, 3.

There we go.

[Thunder rumbling] [Rattling] ♪ Avilés: We did Latin American youth center brochure, center active brochure, and then if we start pairing some of that with the photos that we got, a lot of black and whites of people getting ready for the festival.

You know, now my focus is on archiving, to make sure the players here in the city make room for our stories for that new generation.

It was through making this film, no?

What does it mean to be part of an exodus, no?

Of a diaspora.

Have you seen this?

Woman: No.

Avilés: This is me and Michelle.

We have to figure out where to put it.

And we have to just kind of do it here, and maybe some around.

But we're going to give space so that people can actually walk by and see in between.

To walk around and see the artwork.

Of course, we couldn't have this without Rigores.

This will work, right?

So I just pass by a couple of times.

OK.

The idea was this, to bring stuff that has been produced all over this barrio.

Each one of you has grown up, you know, tied to... to el barrio.

So, you know, we just want you to, number one, just walk through on your own, and look at what we have, then see what it does to you mentally.

Man: We would all come here to Latin American Youth, La Peña, and certain streets, but this one was the most famous one, because it's like an artery to like everywhere you go.

Colombia, 15, Irving.

Whenever I walked in this corner, it was as though I'm coming back home.

Y por eso es que yo, que aunque soy nacido acá, que soy orgullosamente salvadoreño.

Y este fue uno de los... de los lugares que hizo ese... ese ser.

Man: Coming up, you wouldn't hear about the war.

We wouldn't hear about our own background, family history, where do we really come from.

Right now, we're like kids walking around all these shattered pieces trying to piece them together.

But we have elders like Luci, like Arturo Griffiths, like Quique, whose families have also gone through a lot of violence, and who come together to create community.

♪ Man: Trying to piece together histories from people gets difficult.

Art was more as a vehicle for understanding memory.

Woman: It really does resonate with me, those little pieces of telling stories, because that's how I found out about my history.

And to this day, I still find out, en una carne asada, something else about my parents and my grandparents.

Woman 2: I remember my high school photography teacher said, "What are you going to do, "photograph your family and your parents all day?"

And I was like, "Well, why not?"

[Laughs] "What's wrong with that, sir?"

I would take family photographs and do little interviews, and I would put those things together.

And I was all in an attempt to understand my family, their stories, where they came from.

I think that kind of set me on this trajectory of wanting to take up space in the arts world.

It made me feel like I need to be even more intentional with making that connection continue to live on.

♪ [Birds chirping] ♪ [Laughing] Ya llegó el peligro.

Can I help you guys to unload?

Man: Yes.

Woman: Give me one second.

Man: Yeah, go up a little more.

[Indistinct conversation] You know what?

I... I made changes to the poem.

Yeah, I mean... I mean, it's small, but... but now it feels complete, for some reason.

Woman: How does it feel different than the last time?

[Sighs] You know, the angst was still with me, the pain, you know?

I mean, and that will forever remain in me, you know?

Because you can't just, you know... That trauma stays with you.

It never goes away, you know?

And I thought about it, and I'm like, [Bleep].

It took me 40-something years to have the balls to go confront that part, you know?

It's not closure, but it's a start.

♪ Man: Bueno, bueno, bueno.

Hola, hola, hola.

¿Cómo están todos?

[Cheering] ¿Bien, bien?

[Applause] Esta noche se la vamos a dedicar el arte Salvadoreño, a la poesía salvadoreña.

[Applause and cheering] On that note, if Quique Avilés is ready, he's going to start off the first round with an original piece of work.

And please, everybody, start clapping all the way to the stage.

Quique Avilés.

[Applause] Muy buenas noches.

Man: Buenas noches.

Avilés: I started going to El Salvador maybe 3 years ago, because of the film.

And I finally, you know, had the balls to look for the graves of my relatives that were butchered, decapitated, that were raped and tortured before this happened.

I started writing the day after I was told all these details.

So, that's the context.

"Las muertes más bellas del mundo."

Si mi deseo fuera único y admisible, ese deseo sería que mis muertos hayan sido los muertos más bellos del mundo.

Yo borraría todo el horror y la agonía de esas muertes.

Le daría vuelta al lápiz y comenzaría a borrar y borrar y borrar hasta que el borrador se acabe.

I really love that... that line.

Turning my pencil upside down and start erasing, erasing, erasing, until the eraser can't give no more.

Convincing people to recreate that reality, that monstrosity that became so common during the war.

To see people floating down rivers, that's not easy to relive, no?

And this is what we're trying to reproduce.

And, you know, I come back as a grown man to reclaim something.

♪ Yeah, I want... I want... I want to be shooting.

It's 3:10.

I want to... 3:45.

¡Buenas!

¿Yo?

Quique, Quique Avilés.

El nieto de Teresa.

Aquí vamos a hacer la escena con unos muertos.

O sea, que los hallo en la bejuca.

Él va a ser uno.

La Carmen Castro, que le mataron también a sus hermanos, ella va a ser otra.

Son 3 muchachas.

Es como dramatización.

Una dramatización.

Y yo les voy a enseñar cómo actuar como muerto.

Una onda de cariño.

Porque en el poema dice de que vienen los animales y traen flores en el pico, y adornan a los... Alguna flor va a hallar.

Lo que abunda aquí ahorita es el camarón.

Están las flores, están las flores.

¿De cuál, mi amor?

Esta, $2.

¿Esta?

Esta vale 3.

Es galletada.

Avilés: Vamos a hacer este simulacro de que van a haber... vamos a entrar con dos muertos en una hamaca, ¿no?

Nah, muertos vivos.

We just want to let you know that we're going to be here.

Bye.

¡Buenas!

Dame un abrazo, pues.

Sí, hombre.

¿Cómo que no?

Buenas tardes.

I'm Quique.

Para ponerlo en contexto, parte de mi familia, de los Molina, nos metimos al movimiento.

Al primero que mataron de aquí fue al hermano de ella, Chamba.

Así es, Chamba.

Y fuimos a la vela.

Entonces ya estábamos quemados.

Y ya nos tenían en una lista los escuadrones, ¿no?

Porque la alcaldesa, ella vio la lista.

Y ella fue a lo de mi abuela y le dijo "sáquenlo".

Yo, por un día, me salvé.

Y a mi tío, y a mi primo y a mi otro primo, pedazos los hicieron.

Y empezó la mas... la matación.

Entonces la idea está basada en este poema que se llama "Los muertos más bellos del mundo".

♪ Woman: Yo me siento contenta de personificar porque nosotros, como jóvenes, debemos conocer y saber de dónde venimos, qué ha pasado en su momento, cuál es la historia de nuestro país.

Incluso la violencia que vivimos actualmente no es más que otro producto, consecuencia de todo esto.

Entonces no hay forma de creer que vivimos en paz o querer cambiar al mundo si no... si ignoramos incluso nuestro pasado también.

Avilés: Estamos grabando.

Es... es cine.

[Chuckles] No es pleito de verdad.

[Laughs] ♪ Si mi deseo fuera único y admisible, ese deseo sería que mis muertos hayan sido los muertos más bellos del mundo.

Yo borraría todo el horror y la agonía de esas muertes.

Le daría vuelta al lápiz, y borrar, y borrar, hasta que el borrador se acabe.

A la [Bleep] con las salas de tortura.

Basta de todos esos gritos que salen de esas cárceles secretas.

En el mundo de mi deseo, lo primero, sería encontrarlos.

Sea como sea.

A gritos, o [Bleep].

♪ Caminaría rápidamente por las calles del pueblo con mi machete en la mano.

Gritando sus nombres.

Confrontando a todos aquellos que saben quiénes son mis muertos.

Viéndole a los ojos a los cómplices, las autoridades, el alcalde, el padre, el pastor, el juez, los soplones ponededo, a mis propios vecinos.

Abandonarías las campanas de esa [Bleep] iglesia, los chismes del pueblo.

Ahora mi deseo se vuelve un sueño.

El sueño cambia al plan.

En las madrugadas, camino descalzo por el monte.

Por mis viejos caminos, ríos y quebradas.

Iluminando la oscuridad solamente con mi deseo y la ayuda de las luciérnagas, susurrando sus nombres al pisar la arena, las piedras, las ramas.

Escuchando el idioma nocturno de los riachuelos.

¿Han visto a Chamba?

¿A Juan?

¿Al Zope, o a Tumblinble?

¿A mi tío Ulises?

¿A mis primas, Esmeralda and Noemi?

¿Cuántos mataron anoche?

¿Adónde los tiraron?

Por favor, guíenme a sus cuerpos, o a los pedazos que quedan de ellos.

Entra un silencio, sopla un silbido.

[Whistles] Una señal ancestral.

[Whistles] Vienen los espíritus y los fantasmas.

Este es el momento en que mi deseo y mis sueños se unen y se despliegan con certeza.

Me llevan de la mano, me guían con sus voces.

Peces, culebras, pájaros, mariposas, lagartijas, jaguares.

[Rattling] [Water running] Encuentro a uno, después a otro.

Unos flotando, otros trabados en las piedras y ramajes.

♪ Hago lo que hacemos los seres humanos ante la presencia de un muerto bien querido.

Tu propia sangre.

Uno por uno, los voy abrazando.

Los beso, lloro y lloro.

Los peino con mis manos.

De repente, todo para.

Viene un total silencio, inmenso.

No hay ruido alguno.

Con mis manos tomo agua del río, pero esta agua es diferente.

Tiene el sabor de lágrimas.

Y yo sé, porque las lágrimas son saladas.

El agua de este río son llantos de otros tantos llantos.

♪ Los limpio, los beso, porque somos de donde somos, y fuimos criados como fuimos criados.

Les doy un nuevo bautizo.

Esta vez, les doy nombres dignos.

Como esos nombres que le dan los padres a sus recién nacidos.

Nombres de océanos, de mares desconocidos.

De junglas vírgenes, de lindos animales.

Pero hoy me entra esta cólera de indio.

Una rabia y zozobra.

Agarro el machete, grito como si fuera una fiera.

Quiero matar, quiero matar a todos esos hijos de la gran [Bleep].

Me voy más profundo al monte.

Corto varas de bambú, gruesas y fuertes.

Luego, ramas y bejucos.

Vuelvo al río y comienzo a hacer unas hamacas para poder llevarlos al pueblo.

Otra vez oigo muchos ruidos, y es que esta vez vienen animales a ayudarme.

Micos y monos caen de los árboles, hablando sus propios idiomas.

Ahora los animales me ayudan a subir los cuerpos a las hamacas.

Llegan loras, pericos y guacamayas, cada uno con sus plumajes coloridos.

En sus picos y en sus patas traen bellas flores y adornan a mis muertos.

Los ponen lindos, como se debe.

Me convencen que mi mejor venganza no se encuentra en mi machete.

Pasan otros campesinos por el río y me ayudan a cargar las hamacas.

Salimos cuesta arriba, en camino hacia el pueblo.

Detrás de nosotros nos protegen las panteras y los jaguares.

[Bells tolling] Entramos al pueblo con mis muertos, bien limpios y adornados.

Entramos al parque frente a la iglesia, bajo los ceiba ponemos mis bellos muertos.

Uno de los monos me devuelve mi machete.

De repente, las campanas de la iglesia paran de sonar.

Como si Dios estuviera pidiendo perdón ante todos nosotros por ser tan [Bleep], por haber creado tanta muerte.

Me paro en medio de mis muertos, y miro a los ojos a la gente de mi pueblo.

Y les hablo.

Mi deseo se ha cumplido.

Y aquí estoy, bañado de sudor y cansancio, pero no importa.

Los encontré.

Aquí los tienen, [Bleep].

[Echoing] Aquí los tienen, [Bleep].

Mis muertos.

¡Mis muertos!

Este día, yo, los animales y el viento los hemos traído para reclamarlos como míos, como nuestros, como se debe respetar a nuestros muertos.

Esta vez, las muertes más bellas del mundo.

Man: ¡Eso!

[Cheering] [Applause] Gracias, gracias, gracias, gracias.

[Cheering] Hola, ¿cómo estás?

I just... I just read.

Oh, no.

It's OK.

There's a lot of good poets here.

[Sighs] I got through it.

[Soft cheering] I used to cry all the time.

No, I couldn't [Bleep] read this [Bleep].

I would break down, so, you know, I had to go through a, like, a lot of processing to... to get... And I'm like, nah, I gotta own this [Bleep].

♪ ♪ Leaving so many reasons ♪ ♪ Families have been torn to pieces ♪ ♪ Vanished ♪ ♪ Our murals vanished ♪ ♪ Mi gente ♪ ♪ Siempre hacia el frente ♪ ♪ You're trying to run me over ♪ ♪ But you're not stopping me ♪ ♪ We are the ones left over ♪ ♪ Better get used to me ♪ ♪ ♪ Salva chortís ♪ ♪ Salva pocomami ♪ ♪ Salva ulúas ♪ ♪ Salva lenca ♪ ♪ Salva pipil ♪ ♪ Salvadoreño ♪ ♪ Me llaman el hermano lencano ♪ ♪ Aunque nunca salí de mi casa ♪ ♪ Me hicieron monumento, una plaza ♪ ♪ No sé por qué me llaman así ♪ ♪ No sé por qué me llaman así ♪ ♪ I've been in productions that have treated me better, you know?

You know, I'm working as a golfer, actor, producer.

I mean, it's hot, and there's no trailer.

You know, there's no caterer.

You know, there's dogs running around all over the place.

But these are my people, so, you know?

Woman: ¿Quiere jugo?

No, gracias señora.

Woman: ¿Naranja?

No, no, no, gracias.