Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs & Revolution in the A…

An urgent tale of gang life, guerrilla warfare, intergenerational trauma & interconnected violence between the US & El Salvador, Roberto Lovato’s memoir excavates family history & reveals the intimate stories beneath headlines about gang violence & mass Central American migration, one of the most important yet least-understood humanitarian crises of our time. The child of Salvadoran immigrants, Roberto Lovato grew up in 1970s & 80s San Francisco as MS-13 & other notorious Salvadoran gangs were forming in California. In his teens he lost friends to escalating violence & survived acts of brutality himself. He eventually traded the violence of the streets for human rights advocacy in wartime El Salvador where he joined the guerilla movement against the U.S.-backed, fascist military government responsible for some of the most barbaric massacres & crimes against humanity in recent history. Roberto returned from war-torn El Salvador to the US. He channeled his pain into activism & journalism & began a journey to heal the roots of his own trauma. Raised in extreme poverty in El Salvador during one of the most violent periods of its history, Ramón learned to survive by straddling underworlds of family secrets & dealing in black-market goods & guns. The repression of violence in his life took its toll. Ramón was plagued w/ silences & fits of anger that had a profound impact on his youngest son which he attributes to reckoning the violence & rebellion in his own life.