{"product_id":"unforgetting-a-memoir-of-family-migration-gangs-and-revolution-in-the-americas-isbn-9780062938473","title":"Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAn \u003cem\u003eLA Times \u003c\/em\u003eBest Book of the Year\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e •\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA \u003cem\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/em\u003e Editors' Pick\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e •\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e A \u003cem\u003eNewsweek \u003c\/em\u003e25\u003cbr\u003eBest Fall Books\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e •\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e A \u003cem\u003eThe Millions\u003c\/em\u003e Most Anticipated Book of the Year\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Gripping and beautiful. With the artistry of a poet and the intensity of\u003cbr\u003ea revolutionary, Lovato untangles the tightly knit skein of love and terror\u003cbr\u003ethat connects El Salvador and the United States.\"   —Barbara Ehrenreich, author of \u003cem\u003eNatural\u003cbr\u003eCauses\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eNickel and Dimed\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAn urgent, no-holds-barred tale of gang life, guerrilla warfare,\u003cbr\u003eintergenerational trauma, and interconnected violence between the United States and El Salvador, Roberto Lovato’s memoir excavates family history and reveals\u003cbr\u003ethe intimate stories beneath headlines about gang violence and mass Central\u003cbr\u003eAmerican migration, one of the most important, yet least-understood\u003cbr\u003ehumanitarian crises of our time—and one in which the perspectives of Central\u003cbr\u003eAmericans in the United States have been silenced and forgotten. \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe child of Salvadoran immigrants, Roberto Lovato grew up in\u003cbr\u003e1970s and 80s San Francisco as MS-13 and other notorious Salvadoran gangs were\u003cbr\u003eforming in California. In his teens, he lost friends to the escalating\u003cbr\u003eviolence, and survived acts of brutality himself. He eventually traded the\u003cbr\u003eviolence of the streets for human\u003cbr\u003erights advocacy in wartime El Salvador\u003cbr\u003ewhere he joined the guerilla movement against the U.S.-backed, fascist military\u003cbr\u003egovernment responsible for some of the most barbaric massacres and crimes\u003cbr\u003eagainst humanity in recent history. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRoberto returned from war-torn El Salvador to find the United\u003cbr\u003eStates on the verge of unprecedented crises of its own. There, he channeled his\u003cbr\u003eown pain into activism and journalism, focusing his attention on how trauma\u003cbr\u003eaffects individual lives and societies, and began the difficult journey of\u003cbr\u003econfronting the roots of his own trauma. As a child, Roberto endured a\u003cbr\u003etumultuous relationship with his father Ramón. Raised in extreme poverty in the\u003cbr\u003ecountryside of El Salvador during one of the most violent periods of its\u003cbr\u003ehistory, Ramón learned to survive by straddling intersecting underworlds of\u003cbr\u003efamily secrets, traumatic silences, and dealing in black-market goods and guns.\u003cbr\u003eThe repression of the violence in his life took its toll, however. Ramón was\u003cbr\u003eplagued with silences and fits of anger that\u003cbr\u003ehad a profound impact on his youngest son, and which Roberto attributes as a\u003cbr\u003esource of constant reckoning with the violence and rebellion in his own life.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eUnforgetting\u003c\/em\u003e, Roberto interweaves his father’s\u003cbr\u003ecomplicated history and his own with first-hand reportage on gang life, state\u003cbr\u003eviolence, and the heart of the immigration crisis in both El Salvador and the\u003cbr\u003eUnited States. In doing so he makes the political personal, revealing the\u003cbr\u003ecyclical ways violence operates in our homes and our societies, as well as the\u003cbr\u003eways hope and tenderness can rise up out of the darkness if we are courageous\u003cbr\u003eenough to unforget.\u003c\/p\u003e | \u003cp\u003e“Journalist Lovato’s raw memoir moves from his youth in 1970s California to his time in war-torn El Salvador. He writes unflinchingly about extreme poverty and the trauma of violence and war in a way that is at once extremely personal, expansive and timely.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNewsweek\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Lovato… a preeminent voice on Central America’s tribulations… shows how reportage that is rooted in personal biography and inner turmoil can unveil a more powerful kind of truth.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew Republic\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“In a memoir that is at once profoundly personal and historically significant, accomplished journalist and scholar Lovato… relates gripping true stories populated by heroic, doomed, resilient, and unforgettable characters who shine in their humanity, hope, and endurance. This mix of memoir and history is an essential chronicle, solidly researched and carefully sourced, and enriched with some poetry and plenty of hard-won wisdom.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBooklist, starred review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"\u003cem\u003eUnforgetting\u003c\/em\u003e is unforgettable.\u003cstrong\u003e \u003c\/strong\u003eIt teaches an essential history which all of us desperately need in order to understand the society in which we live. A finely woven tapestry of inheritance, culture and love, this story of Latinidad in the United States is specifically Salvadoreño yet sits in a breathtaking archipelago of communities and histories on and across borders. With marvelous, intimate storytelling Lovato's coming of age story displaces ugly myths about Central America and its gangs with the truth of what made America, beginning with the ongoing violence of conquest and culminating with the gorgeous repetition of freedom dreams.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eImani Perry, Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University and author of Looking for Lorraine and Breathe: A Letter to My Sons\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“With the precision of a master seamstress… Lovato braids a narrative that spans nine decades and weaves together El Salvador’s history of genocide, civil war, revolution and migration with his family’s own…. Lovato’s book is a brave examination of the oft-erased history of Salvadorans.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Electrifying. . . . Throughout this panoptic personal narrative, Lovato aims to reframe Salvadoran American identity itself. And at a crucial national moment, he also reminds us that diaspora Latin Americans in the United States . . . share a collective experience marked by historical trauma but also enormous wells of resilience.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eDaniel Hernandez, Los Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“‘Unforgetting’ explores the traumatic history of a country torn apart by wars and gangs—and the dangers of not facing the past…. The title of Lovato’s book: “Unforgetting” is both a salve and a way of exposing the truth…. Lovato’s writing about memory and reconciliation speaks powerfully to [the] truth… that terror is never a given but rather a consequence of how power is wielded in history.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew Republic\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Groundbreaking…. A kaleidoscopic montage that is at once a family saga, a coming-of-age story and a meditation on the vicissitudes of history, community and, most of all for [Lovato], identity.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eCarolyn Forché, New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“What is \u003cem\u003eUnforgetting\u003c\/em\u003e—a coming of age story, a thriller, a slice of hemispheric history? All I can say for sure is that it’s both gripping and beautiful. With the artistry of a poet and the intensity of a revolutionary, Lovato untangles the tightly knit skein of love and terror that connects El Salvador and the United States. This book is an eye-opener into a world Anglo-Americans have been taught is enemy territory.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBarbara Ehrenreich, author of Natural Causes and Nickel and Dimed\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“There has never been a book about the Latinx experience quite like Roberto Lovato’s \u003cem\u003eUnforgetting\u003c\/em\u003e. Here is a voice that is outraged, philosophical, thoughtful, blunt, emotional, and, above all, fiercely independent. In this illuminating and insightful memoir, Lovato journeys into the underworlds of the fraught history of El Salvador, and his own California upbringing, and finds injustice, resistance, and hope.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eHéctor Tobar, author of Deep Down Dark and The Tattooed Soldier\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“For generations, from McKinley to Trump, the United States has cast a shadow of exploitation and counter-revolution over Central America.  In this stunning tale of love and horror, the journalist Roberto Lovato recounts how his own family history, from the indentured Salvadoran countryside to the burning streets of Los Angeles, has been shaped by resistance to yanqui violence.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMike Davis, author of City of Quartz and Set the Night on Fire\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Salvadorans are ‘a people in the constant motion of overcoming,’ Roberto Lovato writes in his pivotal debut \u003cem\u003eUnforgetting\u003c\/em\u003e. In it, he runs a machete through himself and his family’s history—the 1932 Matanza, the 1980s civil war, and our present-day struggles with gang-violence and migration. With raw honesty, Lovato partakes in a much-needed excavation of what it means to be ‘Salvadoran’—and ‘American’—in this world. \u003cem\u003eUnforgetting \u003c\/em\u003eis an opening, a tear in the cloth, we Salvadorans must speak through.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eJavier Zamora, author of Unaccompanied\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A provocative, revealing work of journalism that explains gang behavior but does not idealize it.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Mixing fraught reminiscence with vivid reportage… Lovato delivers an intimate, gripping portrait of El Salvador’s agony.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Harper","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44889259213029,"sku":"NP9780062938473","price":26.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780062938473.jpg?v=1730230863","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/unforgetting-a-memoir-of-family-migration-gangs-and-revolution-in-the-americas-isbn-9780062938473","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}