Salvadoran Finds Refuge in Cambridge

Two days after arriving in Cambridge, "Estella" sits fumbling with her hands and waiting for a translator to relay a message to her in Spanish.

"Do you think about going back to El Salvador?" says the translator in Spanish.

She hesitates, looking suspicious of the question, then answers through the translator, "Right now it would be very difficult, but I have ideas about going back. If I went back now it would be very dangerous."

Estella, using the three-syllable psuedonym to protect herself and her family in Central America, has been living in the Old Cambridge Baptist Church for two weeks to escape federal agents who want to deport her to El Salvador.

The short, sturdy young woman says she left her homeland nine months ago after finding out she was on the hit list-of right-wing death squads in her home country. She is a labor union organizer, a vocation the Duarte government in El Salvador views with suspicion.

Estella adds that she decided it was time to leave her three children and seek safety after she had been arrested by the Salvadoran national police twice and an urban battalion once. Two of the times Estella was arrested she was tortured with electric shocks, she says.

In Mexico, friends told her about the American sanctuary movement a coalition of 170 churches that offer political refuge to Guatemalans and Salvadorans who are legally barred from immigrating into the United States.

Church officials face a five-year prison sentence and a $2,000 fine if they are arrested for "aiding, harboring or transporting" Salvadoran or Guatemalan refugees.

Through a Chicago-based task force heading the sanctuary movement. Estella hooked up with the underground railroad that would lead her to the Cambridge church after shutting her through various U.S. churches. She says her journey was difficult and recalls the Texas/Mexico border as an especially hard place to pass.

"In Texas, where we crossed, it was very well patrolled by helicopters and guards," she says.

Using other sanctuary churches as way stations en route to Massachusetts, she met other Central Americans and spoke to people on the condition of her country's turbulent political scene.

In addition to telling her audience about her arrests and subsequent torture. Estella explains that Americans killed her husband and administered her torture. "The people that tortured me were North Americans, I could tell by their accents and their behavior."

According to statistics tabulated by sanctuary officials in Chicago, 10,000 Salvadorans and Guatemalans have been deported back to their homelands by the U.S. government. Estella and church officials say they have received no indication that she is being stalked by immigration authorities.

Estella stays inside the church most of the time to protect her identity. She wears a bandana in public and has only been outside of the church by herself for a total of 45 minutes during the last two weeks.

"It's dangerous for me to go outside. The people in the church think it is better for me to stay inside," she says after living in the church for nine days. Now she speaks more confidently, taking bites of ice cream while joking with Vicki, the translator.

During the day Estella has been learning English and knitting a rug. She also helps workers in the Central American Solidarity Association and New Institute of Central America offices at the Baptist church. She says she has met "muchos amigos" since she has been in Cambridge which include people from her homeland.

"Various Salvadorans have come to see me and say 'hello' and offer help if they can," she explains.

Some of the Central Americans she talked to live in sanctuary with private families, which is what Estella may do after she leaves the Baptist church's sanctuary this week. Most Central American refugees stay in sanctuary with churches for a limited time in order to protest U.S. deportation policies.

Estella says she will go underground after she leaves the church but will still maintain contact in case of an emergencies when she needs protection.