A US son of Salvadoran parents explores his complex identity

While studying philosophy in college, Roberto Lovato be­came fascinated with the ancient Greek concept of aletheia, which is often translated as “truth” but more directly means “uncovering” or “unveiling.” Lovato’s harrowing memoir is a process of personal and collective unveiling.

As a US citizen born to Salvadoran parents, Lovato undertakes a journey of “unforgetting” that leads him to unveil painful realities about his parents’ and grandparents’ complex identities as both perpetrators and victims of violence. Spanning nearly a century, Lovato’s family history is linked to that of two nations, El Salvador and the United States, bound together in an asymmetric relationship of economic and military imperialism.

One of the book’s two epigraphs is from Ernest Renan’s “What Is a Nation?” It states, “Historical inquiry, in effect, throws light on the violent acts that have taken place at the origin of every political formation, even those that have been the most benevolent in their consequences. Unity is always brutally established.” Seeking to reckon with this violence in both his personal background and the wider political context of the relationship between the United States and El Salvador, Lovato’s narrative shifts between three time frames.