[inaudible conversations] good afternoon, everyone. Welcome. Thank you so much for coming to this event. My name is i am the managing director of the hemispheric institute. And my colleague, hemi and bristol books are very proud to organize this book launch event for owes scar martinezs newly released and second book called the history of violence living and dieing in Central America. This work is hugely important for us at the institute but i think for public, englishspeaking public in United States, the circumstances of Central American refugee and migrants in their countries and in mexico and the United States are absolutely humanitarian crisis, with many, many dimensions. Oscars work and writing and Investigative Journalism is one of the key voices that is bringing the circumstances to light, and we are, again, honored and delighted to be able to host the launch of his book and have him here with us with some distinguished guests guest. Before continuing id like to hand it over to sofia so she can say a few words about herself. Thank you for coming. I just want to say a little bit our book store. We published in english, and it was one of the most critically acclaimed books ever. Huge, huge feat of journalism and were so proud to publish the second book. Were based in brooklyn and london, the largest independent radical public press in English Speaking world, and we see this book as critically politically important, and central to the conversation around justice for refugees in Central America and at large. Thank you. Thank you, sofia, and everybody who has helped make this happen. Our moderator today will be diana taylor, diana is a University Professor and professor of performance studies in spanish at new york university. The author of numerous books, including performance and the archive and the repertoire. The recipient of many awards and. Diana is the founder and director of the hemispheric performance and politics and i ask diana to come up to the stage and introduce our speakers and participants. Thank you so much for being here. Were very excited about the conversation tonight and very happy to welcome our guests. So, if you would come up here. Well be speaking spanglish. If you have trouble with that raise your hand and well try to work it out. It is an honor to be dues Oscar Martinez. He works for the first online newspaper in latin america. The original edition of his book was published in 2010 and it is titled with the second edition by in 2012. Martinez is currently working on chronicles and writing articles, investigating Gang Violence in latin america. In 20 2008, martinez won the fernando benetiz National Journalism prize in mexico, and in 2009, he was awarded the human rights prize at the jose leon Central American university in el salvador. He is most recently the author of a history of violence, living and dieing in Central America. That were here to discuss and of course the books are on sale here. And Francisco Goldman to my left has published four novels. The most recent won the his books have been published in many languages and is currently back to work on a novel, the writing of the circuit. So, he is currently back to work on the novel that writing the interior circuit interrupted. Francisco goldman has been a guggenheim fellow, and a fellow at the american academy. He has written for the no,er. The New York Times, the believer, and many other publications. He directs the prize. Every year teaches one semester at Trinity College in hartford, connecticut, and then back to mexico city. And anderson to my left is a journalist, Investigative Reporter and a war correspondent and is presently a staff writer for the the new yorker. He is renowned for this numerous profiles on political leaders, including hugo chavez, and pinochet. And recognized for teaching georgeism and working to safeguard the rights of journalists and is chairman of the foundation for journalism and teaches workshops for latin american reporters. Anderson has written several books, including the lions grave, i dispatches frost afghanistan and chronicles from iraq. Killing grounds. The next project is a biography of fidel castro. Thank you very much for joinings us. I think frank Francisco Goldman is going to start by making a few preliminary remarks. Thank you all for coming. Great honor to be here to be able to say a few words about my friend, colleague, Oscar Martinez. I really consider him the greatest artist of our time, not just in spanish. So much i could say but just to briefly say a few words. His new book comes after the beast. Which is sort of interesting because the beast narrates the journaly of migrants through mexico, up into the United States, primarily, and the new book more or less takes us back to the world that theyre fleeing from. So its kind of like if you think of the two books as providing a journalistic narrative going backwards. Have to say a few words about the things two books have. One is probably the part of oscar that some ways are great artists both books are unbelievable portraits of human spirit. More so than Joseph Conrad and heart of darkness or any book you can think of. This really makes us confront the abyss of human viciousness. When youre reading and the beast, when the migrants only route in which they can avoid the migration checkpoints on the highway and have to divert. And oscar chronicles has this great line you see so many skeletons along the path, and at one point seeing human skeletons along the path, prophecy of the future of people traveling. As he tells it were so used to saying its the authority, the police. You begin to realize these are local people who are preying on the migrants. Farmers and ranchers who realize these incredibly Vulnerable People were traveling there are their area and if anything was done to them, they were unlikely to good to the police because they didnt want to be deported. So they realized, way can do whatever we want. We can rob them, rape them, murder them, and so they did. Its horrifying. Horrifying to say, well, were that, too. Were all humans and anything any human does in the sense is part of who we all are, and of course there are great examples of moral bravery and resistance along the migrant trail, shelters to food to the migrants but this is a huge central fact of ohio his writing, very dark truth. And it filled me we joy to read it because i just love encountering the truth. Why we admire the very rare writer who can bring us the truth. That mix of bravery and artistry that oscar has to just make us see. Also reminds us, too when you read anyone who reads the beast. Sees that terrible journaly they untake and understands that every single time a Central American migrant manages to cross the border and get into the United States, thats a great victory. Thats something we should all stand up and cheer for. Every single last one of them. Because every single one of them has to be so brave himself, so resilient, and have endured so much, so makes you feel so proud of the human spirit, what human beings are capable of, and also understand why theyre doing it, the great love that drives them to do better by their families. Thirdly, another aspect we cant overlook is trauma. They go through so much. Im sure well talk more about this later but in oscars book he is so eloquent of portraying the damage left behind, the fact that 80 of the women who make this journey or sexually violated along the way. These are our brothers and sisters all around us. Who at this moment are being defamed every day in our political discourse. Its incredibly brave people who have been through so much and have to live and go on and endure it. If you know them and worked with them, you know they dont complain, who have been through so much. And are really heroes of our society. Lastly, the thing in the new book especially you confront that so eloquently describes this is all our problem. This is the United States, every citizen of the United States, so complicit in this situation and the roots of this situation. We all we see how these deep, deep cultural violence was has so many of it roots in the Central American wars of the 1980s. The destruction of those incredible destruction that was never addressed in any kind of positive way. Of course, the drug war at the heart of socalled drug war at the heart of so much of this. Not just the greet consumers, not just the people who our money not only drives this drug war but we also provide the arms, and im sure well talk a lot about how complex that issue is and how inter2009ed Central American problems in the Central American the problems in the Central American triangle are also our problem. [applause] thank you all, and thank its a real pleasure. I echo frank in my sentiments about oscar hello . Can you hear me . Now you can. Just like to echo frank can you hear me now . In his sentiments expressed about oscars great talent and skill as a really, i think, safe to say, foremost interlocutor for Central America. He is a person who is braving the situations and has the extraordinary not just reporter skills, reporting skills, but the writing talent, to bring us testimony and chronicles from an extraordinarily harsh and usually overlooked, ignored, neglected, reality. Its been there for a long time. Its getting worse. This isnt the kind of i dont mean this is the kind of chicken little statement, but the Central Americas always been overlooked, even when it was said to be the Number One National security priority for the United States 30 odd years ago. When i read oscar i feel wellrepresented. In knowing that heres someone who is who is an oldfashioned term, we dontite much in this country but he is a patriarch in his country in the very best sense, that oldfashioned sense that nobody uses anymore. He feels the righteous indignation of seeing theer ente destiny taken away and being chewed up and still being chewed up. Still not the country any of wuss want to live in. When i go back to el salvador and i go see them at their annual event, and i talk with them whenever i can. They just as reporters 30 years ago in el salvador they live under death threats. There are assassins, the same people that oscar meets and chronicles are people who can be turned on a dime to kill others. Some including people who write about them. So its a great act of valor, moral courage as well, what oscar and his friends are doing. They deserve a much wider audience. As frank was saying, deserves to be part of our pit political debate in the country in greater way. There are salvadorans, mexicans, guatemalans, hondurans, everywhere, and theyre not given the visibility and the place in our society that they deserve. We have placed them here. We have placed them here and that is a and that comes with a lot of baggage. Its baggage we should finally open up to and thats the underpicking of oscar it could be called a mission, oscars mission to help make us see what is going on and get some debate going. Get the conversation going in this country. So, thank you. Sorry for going on, but thank you. [applause] i cannot speak in english. I can speak in spanish. If thats case im going to try to speak in my bad english, going to do my best, so i can explain my ideas. I have some problems with the vocabulary to find the exact word i want to say. Ill do my best. First of all, thank you, particularly, dyana, thank you to the people of the book store and sofia who have to say thank you to consider you friends and the first book the beast the latest book about violence. It consider you not just friends but to a journalist and writer that i saw a lot of years ago. The process of the two books was a long process. Why i say that, because 2007, when i lived in mexico, i started to understand to understood i have several problems with time. I started to understood how the people across mexico, 2007 was a particular year on the Central American migration across mexico for one reason. One group of i dont know how to describe any better cave mans, one of the most brutal organization of organized crime i saw in my career, started to kidnap a lot of migrants, to sell womens in the south, in the north, mexico, and to extortion migrants. So in 2007, i know that im starting with the beast but ill going to arrive to our history of violence. In 2007 it changed, the situation about migration. Yeah, it wasnt just a cold or the trip from the top of the train. It start to be a problem of organized crime, and everybody its like if everybody opened their eyes in august 2010 when 72 migrants that happens in 2007, it just anybody went there saw what happened on the fields. I dont know why but thats the behavior of some colleagues. I did confer with a lot of good young journalists, but a lot of journalists used to make coverage of migration on press conference and never saw our migrants at a press conference. I dont know its important to understand what government think but its more important go to the fields. So, i say that the two books seems like a long way because i started for three years to understood all the things that migrant suffered to come here, to try to get in the United States without permission of nobody. But i remember that, like, in 2008, a priest from United States asked me in the south of mexico in the state of oaxaca, he asked me if they going to pass through all these things, what happened behind . What happened in Central America . I start to figure that i cant answer that question at that moment. I could not an that question. Journalists in Central America, i think that was part of the problem. We are unable is that correct . Incapable to explain, for example, young. We dont know where they come from, how they started, when they arrived and why they arrived to our society. We could not explain we was unuseful to our society. That happened when i realize that in 2010 during the Central American bottom of journalism in el salvador. I ask that question and i start to understand that the migrant was not to immigrate. Was to flee because situation of that seems january of 2011 i started to try to answer that kind of question. What happened . How its possible that a country one person, how its possible that you cannot live anymore in one country. Some people ask me what happened after the 92 in el salvador, after the peace agreements, what happened. Why we are not a peaceful society, and when i say el salvador, processing the guatemala eave similar come poem inepts but my components but my answer is not how we become so Violent Society or how can be so violent. For example, last year have to say that in spanish. Going to say it slow maybe. You can understand me that way butyrase year in el salvador one of every 900 2 person was killed 972 person was killed. If that flow to the United States you have homicides last year. If that was in the states it would have been 330,000 homicides last year. Thank you. So, in el salvador, my answer is that we never live in peace. We dont know how to practice this. Never have a society with peace. I can remember, for example, theres a lot of theories that how we get to that kind of for example, 2009, when we were the most violent country in the world. I think that its a construction of society that have some strong components, for example, one in el salvador were very unequal society. A lot of people on one side and so few people on the other side but the construction of the state is made for the few people. The construction of the salvadoran of the guatemalan, the honduran is made to solve the problems of the leader group of people. In el salvador, the most i dont know how to said murderous country the most murderous country in el salvador, one of ten homicides go to trial. Just one of every ten homicide homicides have a little possibility of get result. I dont know to tell you that that few number of homicides is not the homicide of the poor people or of the working class in el salvador. The construction of the state in guatemala, el salvador and honduras, its in a purpose. A lot of people are fleeing from that situation. They have no response from the state in their country so they try to leave the country, and for reasons they try to come here because theres like an a lot of years ago. So, this second book talk about that kind of situation. I think that one of the missions of journalism is to put light on the darkest corners of our society. Being that people experiment, daybyday its happened since 20 years ago, but its a dark corner of our society. Anybody told that kind of thing, with a so thats what i tried to do with that book because i think that different if you hear that somebody theres a country so violent that people have to flee. Thats different that you can read about people with names, last names, some specific situations. So, i try to get close that situation to you. I think that francisco talk a little bit about that, but make myself the question, why this book is important to read here in the United States. What is important that you read the book i going to be honest. I know that a lot of italians read my book but thats not my main go. I want you to read my book here in the United States. Thats my main [speaking spanish] im not talking about people who dont live here. Im talking about you. Im talking about people who live around you, all da