It had been over two decades since I boarded an airplane to my parents’ native country. I noticed some excited kids in the row in front of me. It was clearly their first time on a flight. “We’re in the air! Are you scared?!” I remembered my first time: A little first-generation American boy stared out the window, above the clouds, and thought, “El Salvador’s on the other side of heaven.”
I was 12 years old on that first trip, excited to see family, and reveling in the miracle of air travel. I started packing my coolest sneakers, but my mother insisted on dressing down. The infamous gang MS-13 ran rampant across the country, and I had to blend in and not appear American. Spanish was the language of our house, so my folks didn’t worry about my accent.
Many years later, I was on my way again to the motherland, except this time without my parents. I readied myself to research for Elisa Bocanegra’s brainchild, the Nuestro Planeta project. Her L.A.-based theatre company Hero Theatre began the new commissioning program to shed light on environmental justice issues in Latin American countries and bring those stories to Latin American audiences.
My concentration was visiting stops on the famous “Route of the Flowers,” touting some of the world’s best coffee farms. I had always wanted to write a play about Salvadoran food but realized the play would inevitably deal with coffee.
Coffee was El Salvador’s biggest export in the 19th century, providing more than 50 percent of the country’s export revenues, but as of 2002 coffee was reported to cover only 3.5 percent of El Salvador’s gross national product. Then there’s my personal connection to the once-cherished export: My older half-brother Robert William was raised on a coffee farm. When we discussed my upcoming trip and asked for recommendations, he Googled his farm, only to find it’s gone.
What caused such a dramatic shift in coffee?
Elisa Bocanegra and Felipe Jiménez, an expert biologist and photographer from Colombia, joined my investigation in the capital city of San Salvador. We visited the Museo Nacional de Antropología; the brand new Biblioteca Nacional; and the Teatro Nacional, which was built in 1911 with tax revenue from coffee. The capital city was relatively new to me. Most of my time spent in the country had been in the small villages where my parents were born, Nejapa and Chanmico. The streets were vibrant with cumbia bands and pupusa stands on every corner. I noticed how modern the city felt. Here was a former global coffee capital, but within the historic center La Libertad, I found a Starbucks.
Our first Uber driver set the tone. I’ve found in my travels that Uber drivers are the best guides to the beauty of a city or country more than any travel book, as masters of the inner-city roads and blue-collar citizens amid ever-changing politics. As we drove up El Boqueron volcano and passed mountainside coffee farms, he talked to us about Bitcoin, now one of El Salvador’s national currencies. The current progressive president, Nayib Bukele, is not only known for putting this in effect, but also for ending El Salvador’s gang problem with a radical approach to domestic security. President Bukele has shifted the country’s economic efforts to tourism to make up for the loss of tax revenue from coffee.
Though the trip’s focus was coffee, Elisa and the staff at Hero Theatre made sure to pack our itinerary with a well-rounded understanding of El Salvador’s wider cultural and environmental history. Our stops included archeological site La Joya de Ceren, geological overlook La Puerta del Diablo, and Bahia de Jiquilisco, a marine sanctuary and the nation’s largest mangrove estuary.
Coffee cultivation continued to weigh heavy on my mind. Perhaps it was seeing the coffee-picking parents walking alongside the road as we drove past, on one shoulder carrying burlap sacks packed with coffee and on the other carrying their kids. Perhaps it was the thought of how frivolous we as Americans are with coffee orders, having no idea what blood and sweat produces the plant we proudly say we “run on.” Or perhaps I was haunted by the silence when my brother realized the place that held his childhood memories was gone.
We visited so many coffee farms and cafés, ending days with trembling hands from caffeine intake. We saw everything from the industrial way coffee is picked and made, to the artisanal and old-fashioned method of making a cup of coffee, the way my brother would have made his. Through our conversations with Uber drivers, museum guides, coffee pickers, and farm owners, we concluded that the downfall of coffee in El Salvador was due to three reasons.
The first reason was the general nature of coffee competitors. Post-World War II, the demand for coffee shot up, and El Salvador was in the perfect position to start growing and exporting large amounts. As the demand continued, more countries strove to compete in the coffee craze. But as the taste of coffee drinkers matured, the demand rose for higher-quality coffee. Therefore, only the coffee farms in the higher altitudes with cooler temperatures, where coffee grows best, could thrive. El Salvador’s coffee, in other words, was no longer fancy enough for consumers.
The second reason was gang-related. For years, exporters didn’t want to enter some cities in El Salvador for fear of being robbed or killed. Coffee farmers lost their ability to produce due to their proximity to gang-run towns. In fact, one day during our travels, we stopped for coffee in my mother’s town of Chanmico and later met up with my cousin Cecy, a psychologist living in Santa Tecla.
The cup of coffee in Chanmico on the outskirts of the lagoon, cited in my second musical Somewhere Over the Border, was perhaps the best and most picturesque cup we had in the entire 12-day trip. We finished, paid, and drove off to lunch. I told my cousin where we had stopped, and she replied, “Two years ago, you would have made it into Chanmico, but you wouldn’t have made it out.”
The third reason broke my heart. At every farm we asked how climate change had affected coffee growth, to which they answered that the rainfall season was getting longer. Rains knock ripe coffee beans off the plant, lessening the crop and delaying the sun-drying process of coffee and, in turn, delaying payments to workers. It wasn’t until I met an independent coffee farmer named Don Julio Cesar, who had spent his entire life using old methods, that I told anyone about my brother’s farm in Nejapa. “Oh, well, Nejapa is too close to sea level,” he said. “That farm probably grew lower-quality coffee, but now it’s gotten too hot to grow anything there.”
Climate change was probably the deciding factor in the closure of my brother’s family farm. The play was beginning to write itself. Don Julio took his antique mortar and pestle and ground up some coffee for us to drink. As we sipped one of the finest coffees I’ve ever had, I couldn’t help but feel angry and helpless. Man is destroying the earth slowly. Over time, man-made systems of convenience have created such a disruption to the natural world that I saw clearly now in real time. I witnessed climate change affect real people; heard the stories of real jobs, and real memories vanishing. We said our goodbyes and paid Don Julio for the coffee and a little extra. He said, “I was doing this as a friend.” We insisted on him keeping the money.
The country was filled with people like Don Julio. From drivers, pupusa ladies, to coffee workers, we met the kindest, warmest, most generous people. These are my people. People living through the immense change that El Salvador is going through and approaching it with such hope. I spent the last days surfing at Playa El Tunco, the most gentrified beach of El Salvador, just south of San Salvador. I was a first-time surfer but found surfing to be almost therapeutic, connecting with the balance of water and waves and allowing the water to crash and cradle me.
After checking out of our last hotel, we drove on dusty, under-construction roads, in preparation for the growing tourism industry that will inevitably make El Salvador one of the most coveted destinations. In the absence of gangs, travelers from all around the world will come and enjoy the coffee, surfing, hiking, and stunning environmental landscape, free of fear for their safety. I boarded my flight back to New York. In my seat, I thought about buying real estate, though would that only add to the increasing gentrification?
I thought about how El Salvador felt so much like my home in an alternate universe where my parents never left. How I never once felt othered in the way I often feel in the States. I thought about how grateful I was to Elisa, Felipe, and Hero Theatre. I thought about what further steps I can personally take to slow down climate change. I thought about our world leaders and their legislation toward a more sustainable planet. I thought about my brother. I thought about the play that will come out of this. I thought about hope.
HERO Theatre will present the world premiere of its first commission of the Nuestro Planeta series, Luzmi, in Los Angeles Oct. 3-27. Based on research on Colombia’s mainland and the Amazon Rainforest, Luzmi is written by Diana Burbano and devised/directed by Elisa Bocanegra.
Brian Quijada is an Emmy-nominated playwright, actor, and composer whose original work has been developed and produced all across the country.
