Between Roots and Routes
By Aracely Argueta
I write in the first person. It may not be the preferred format for magazines, academic papers, or official reports — but it’s mine. It’s also the one historically used by those who resist. Telling our own stories gives us back agency — the ability to recognize ourselves as part of something larger, and to bring forth the real (and sometimes forbidden) version of events, the one only known by those who lived them. These are the truths that institutional narratives seek to hide, silence, or simplify. Throughout history, the power of storytelling has been at the center of struggles for change.
Stories are both our roots and our routes. The personal narratives we carry deep in our hearts and memories remind us who we are, where we come from, and where we’ve been — even when life’s conditions or political decisions have physically uprooted us from the places we recognize as our own.
My root is El Salvador — the land of deadly sunsets, but also the Pulgarcito of Roque Dalton’s forbidden stories. In recent years, politics there has been built through official discourse and the control of public narrative. The government of Nayib Bukele has established a state of exception — now the rule — that has led to the arbitrary detention of thousands of people. It has also served as an excuse to persecute human rights defenders, activists, families, and journalists. The voices of those who oppose the regime have been silenced through fear and militarization, overshadowed by millions of dollars invested in propaganda and LED lights, and simplified by the idea that anyone who doesn’t applaud is an obstacle.
In El Salvador, fear disguises itself as order, and propaganda as progress. Security has become a currency: silence is bought in exchange for an illusion of stability; obedience is sold as patriotism. Yet, beneath the lights and official hashtags, the untold stories still pulse — the mothers searching for their disappeared children, the defenders of life fighting for justice and water, the families trapped in extreme poverty, those who have been dispossessed of their lands to make way for foreign corporations, and the thousands who risk their lives each day along the migrant route.
This politics of fear and silence is neither new nor unique — and certainly not a New Idea. Across the world, authoritarian regimes have relied on the same tactics: fear as a tool of control, misinformation as an instrument of power, and nationalism as a disguise for unity. From the manuals of European fascism to today’s governments ruling through algorithms and digital armies, repression has become more sophisticated, but the logic remains the same: to silence dissent in order to preserve the myth of greatness. In the name of the people, the people themselves are silenced.
This politics of fear and silence does more than suppress dissent; it also feeds the economic interests of those who profit from control and persecution. In the United States, corporations like GEO Group and CoreCivic have seen their stock prices rise thanks to the mass incarceration of immigrants, the criminalization of labor, and the institutionalization of dehumanization. Every forced return, every body disappeared along the migrant path, tells not only an individual story — but exposes a collective web sustained by profit and impunity.
Here or there, silence is the goal. That is why the heart of organizing work must beat to give us back our voices — it must pulse with critical thought, action, and reflection. Storytelling brings all these elements together: blending traditional organizing methods with strategic communication, message framing, and cultural intervention. In the end, telling our stories makes our roots and our routes intertwine — they become our shared history of resistance.
Because where borders divide and governments silence, our stories connect us — and leave traces behind
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