What You Have Heard is True: A Memoir of Witness and Resistance (2019) — Carolyn Forché

Before the publication of What You Have Heard Is True, Carolyn Forché was best known for her poetry. In this memoir, she writes about a slice of her life—the early days of “civil war” in El Salvador when she was sought out to bear witness to the horror and brutality perpetrated on the Salvadoran people by a military government that was trained and weaponized by the United States. 

It begins one day when Leonel Gómez Vides, cousin of Central American poet and friend, Claribel Alegría, arrives with his two daughters at Forché’s townhouse in southern California. “How much do you know about military dictatorship?” he asks. “Nothing,” I answered. “I know nothing.” “Good,” he said. “At least you know that you know nothing” (pp. 9-10). 

Gómez spends the next three days teaching Forché the history of the Americas beginning with Mayan agricultural practices before the conquest. At one point, Leonel asks about the author’s grandmother: 

“You said that she prayed while she planted seeds. The descendants of the Mayans also pray, not only when they plant, but when they till, when they harvest, even when they catch birds, they pray. To whom, I don’t know. They can tell one parrot’s voice from another’s, and they know how old are the jaguar tracks in the mud, how long a time since the jaguar made the tracks, and how long it has been since the jaguar clawed the bark from the fruit trees. They know which special leaf can be boiled to cure fever. That would be the leaf from the cinchona tree, by the way” (pp. 20-21). 

Gómez explains how present-day (1970’s) El Salvador mirrors its colonial past—the usurpation of land, the disenfranchisement, exploitation and forced assimilation of the indigenous people, which has always been accompanied by repression, violence and torture. Sincerely believing that poets are as highly regarded and trusted in the United States as they are throughout Latin America, Gómez wants Forché to go to El Salvador to witness the violence. He believes poets can change people’s minds and influence policy. For Gómez, it is important that people in the U.S. know that our government is complicit in the violation of people’s human rights, and the perpetuation of suffering.

Forché agrees to go, and once there, she is a keen observer. She meets with Archbishop Oscar Romero, who is later assassinated along with several other members of the Church who speak out against the military dictatorship.* She meets with campesinos in the countryside and colonels in the government; she even goes inside the headquarters of the Salvadoran military. Gómez also takes her to Guatemala to meet Mayan Indians who still speak their own language, dress in traditional clothes and practice their customs. It is market day when they arrive in Chichicastenango:

“… but the cobbled streets were crowded with people, mostly Mayans, their wares spread before them on blankets…bundles of dried herbs…sandals with soles made from tire treads, pyramids of mango and papaya, weavings…painted masks, corn turned above coals and rubbed with limes…, and over the whole of it hung a gray haze of smoke from copal burning in braziers on the stone steps of the Iglesia de Santo Tomás, bright white in the sun and built, according to Leonel, on the foundation of a pre-Columbian temple. We climbed the eighteen steps, one for each month of the Mayan calendar, toward what was once a Mayan temple and was now a Roman Catholic church, as it had been since 1545…” (p.202).

Gómez tells her about the designs in the weavings:

“The textiles are texts, he whispered, where stories are written concerning wildcats, horses and birds, both colorful plumed and plain, and also dogs, flowering trees, and corn plants, snakes, antlered deer, and geometric designs that might refer to lightning or maps, tilled fields or stars. Every figure speaks, if one knows how to read the weave” (pp. 203-204).

While in Guatemala, Gómez introduces Forché to his teacher and advisor, an old K’ichi’ man, a prophet, who seems to know quite a bit about her and warns her to be careful.

Throughout her journey with him, Forché doesn’t really understand who Gómez is, or why he talks to military officers, nuns and priests, officials in the U.S. embassy, indigenous people and campesinos who live far from his own coffee farm—all of whom represent very different political interests and ideologies. Gómez tries to explain: 

“Who is Leonel Gómez? It’s a serious question…He talks to this one. He talks to that one…So who is Gómez? Nobody knows…that’s what I want: for people not to know but to have all sorts of suspicions. This is my only protection—this and my trophies for marksmanship. Without these things, I would have been dead a long time ago…

There are quite a few (men)…in the army, in the treasury police, in the national guard, and some civilians too, who are on the payroll of the oligarchs. There is even a dentist among them they call Dr. Death…They use machetes, knives, ice picks, blowtorches, and primitive electrical equipment. Many of them have had sophisticated training in the so-called School of the Americas (operated by the United States), where they learn more refined techniques. But…this is a poor country… and they don’t have special equipment and facilities, so they make do with lit cigarettes and rope, plastic bags and toilets full of shit. I’ll let you use your imagination” (pp. 218-219).

Forché witnesses the results of torture and the dismemberment of individuals the military has labeled  “communists” and “subversives”—people who are actually fighting for social justice, human rights and dignity. She writes about what she has observed in detail and in a voice that resonates throughout her memoir. There are a number of horrific passages to read. But they are necessary in order for us to grasp the ongoing crisis in Central America—a crisis in which the United States government has, over the course of many years, played a pivotal and nefarious role. It is why so many people feel they have no other choice but to leave their homes, cultures and often their families, to migrate to the United States where they believe they can at least hope for safety and survival.

*A highly recommended and accurate film about the Archbishop, the military’s human rights abuses and its desecration of the Church in El Salvador, along with the complicity of the United States, is “Romero” (directed by John Duigan, 1989)