This panel discussion brings together UCI faculty and students to share perspectives and experiences of advocacy, migration, and research. The panel will use the 2016 publication of Susan Bibler Coutin’s book, Exiled Home: Salvadoran Transnational Youth in the Aftermath of Violence, as a springboard for discussion. In this book, Bibler Coutin recounts the experiences of Salvadoran children who migrated with their families to the United States during the 1980-92 civil war. Because of their youth and the violence they left behind, as well as their uncertain legal status in the United States, many grew up with distant memories of El Salvador and a sense of disjuncture in their adopted homeland. Through interviews in both countries, Coutin examines how they sought to understand and overcome the trauma of war and displacement through such strategies as recording community histories, advocating for undocumented immigrants, and, for those deported from the United States, reconstructing their lives in El Salvador.

A teaching guide for the book is available at: https://www.dukeupress.edu/Assets/PubMaterials/978-0-8223-6144-2_501.pdf.