Madison Arcatao Sister City Project
New Oral History about the Beginnings of MASCP
Antonio Portillo and his family in public sanctuary in Madison in 1984.
Mary Kay Baum delivering the official Madison Common Council resolution to Maria Chichilco (nom de guerre) in San José las Flores in fall, 1986.
U.S. El Salvador Sister Cities
Oral histories shared by people who were residents of the community of Arcatao during the period of the Salvadoran civil war
UW - Madison Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian Studies Program
Bombs were falling on Arcatao, El Salvador when Madison’s Common Council voted to make it Madison’s first sister city on April 1, 1986. Seven activists recount the events leading up to this moment in a new oral history, collected by MASCP members and published in the online "Living History" project sponsored by Madison Public Library (MPL).
Interviews in this collection include leaders in the Madison sanctuary movement, community activists and Madison Common Council alders at the time. Billy Feitlinger, who was an alder then, explained his support of the official sistering resolution this way:
“This was an issue that was a moral imperative …part of the purpose of the resolution was to raise public awareness that it was a very bad thing that the American government was involved financially and militarily in El Salvador.”
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VIDEOS
EL PASDO NO ES HISTORIA
Memorias de Guerra y Revolución en Chalatenango, El Salvador
MARIA'S STORY
A Documentary Portrait of Love and Survival in El Salvador's Civil War
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