Nolan Publishes Article on Origins of MS-13

Members of the MS-13 gang, Chalatenango Prison, El Salvador, 2018. Moises Saman/Magnum Photos

Rachel Nolan, Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, published an op-ed in The New York Review on the rise of Mara Salvatrucha, better known as MS-13. 

In the article, titled “‘I’ve Lost Everything to the Beast,’” Nolan describes how many MS-13 members in the United States were Salvadorans displaced by the “rampage of cold war state terror” orchestrated by the country’s military dictatorship. She details how the gang evolved in the United States only to bounce from El Salvador back to the U.S. due to increasingly strict deportation laws. Nolan goes into great detail about the links between the Salvadoran civil war, deportations from the US, aggressive policing in the U.S. and El Salvador, and the rise of the gangs.

An excerpt:

The US wish to throw money at the problem in an attempt to create other jobs and opportunities is understandable, if likely naive. Still, it is encouraging to hear the [Biden] administration speak candidly about how corruption has undermined these efforts in the past. Juan González, Biden’s newly appointed lead adviser on Latin America policy, rightly drew attention to the “predatory elite” who have little incentive to change the status quo.

The full article can be read on The New York Review’s website.

Rachel Nolan is a historian of modern Latin America. Her research focuses on political violence, Central American civil wars, childhood and the family, historical memory, and U.S.-Latin American relations. She is currently completing a book manuscript on the history of international adoption from Guatemala. Read more about Professor Nolan on her faculty profile.