ALEX CHADWICK, host:
Now to a young woman in California, Evelyn Martinez. Her mother fled the Civil War in El Salvador back in the 1980s. She came to Los Angeles with hundreds of thousands of others to settle and try to make a new life. Evelyn, who reports for Youth Radio, says her mother's memories of the guerrillas, the fighting in El Salvador, sometimes, they're all too close to the violent city life in East Los Angeles.
Ms. EVELYN MARTINEZ (Reporter, Youth Radio): My mom says she hated the night sky growing up. It was a place of danger. The thing is, my experience in East Los Angeles is no different. It's 2:30 a.m. and I'm tired, sleepy, trying to rest, because in a couple of hours, I have to go to school. The gunshots echoing in the street are scaring the hell out of me. I imagine guerrillas and soldiers climbing up the staircase of my apartment building. Visions I have and heard it from my mother. You see, a long time ago before I was born, there was a big civil war going on in my mom's homeland, in Sensuntepeque, Cabanas, El Salvador.
Ms. MARIA ISABEL TORRES: (Through Translator) She tells me that on the night of March 5th, 1984, soldiers came into her house and took her brother. They just tied him up and took him with them.
Ms. EVELYN MARTINEZ: My mom tells me that she fled at work only to find herself in between feuding gangs and police shooting at each other in our Los Angeles neighborhood, Abora(ph) Heights. I remember this one time when I was just about four and a half, my sister and I were playing when this guy bangs on our door, shot in the stomach and bleeding. My mom cracked open the door and he pushed it open. He begged my mom for help.
Ms. TORRES: (Through Translator) I'm sorry, but I have kids, she said. My mom says she saw the soldiers.
Ms. EVELYN MARTINEZ: But wait, she meant to say, the police. It's like she thinks she's still in El Salvador. It was the first time I witnessed my mother's trauma in action. After that day, my mom would often talk about her memories of war in her home country. She taught us about the dangers of the world and how to deal with them.
Ms. ASHLEY MARTINEZ: She overreacts sometimes because it's not like it - in anytime the guerilleros and the soldiers are going to come over here, you know?
Ms. EVELYN MARTINEZ: That's my sister Ashley, age 14. We both struggle with how strict my mom can be.
Ms. ASHLEY MARTINEZ: Like do you rebel like, because I know that when my mom used to tell me, oh, you're not going to go outside, I'll find a way to go outside anyways.
Ms. EVELYN MARTINEZ: Usually for me, because I clean everything in the house, I'm her baby, so she lets me go outside. So, like for example, I wash the dishes for her or sweep the house or mop it or go water the plants. That's my ticket for freedom.
Mr. BRIAN MARTINEZ: If she lets us do whatever we want, we'll die faster.
Ms. EVELYN MARTINEZ: My brother Brian is just 12. He sees things differently. He chooses to play it safe over going out and having fun.
Mr. MARTINEZ: If we go to a party and they start shooting, who would they shoot? Us? Yes, they'll shoot us. So many bad things can happen. But if she raises us strict, we can learn.
Ms. EVELYN MARTINEZ: Even though we do live around violence, we do have choices. We can either stay paralyzed about it or find a way to overcome the trauma that has been passed from generation to generation in my community. If my elders who went through the civil war could talk about it like my mom has, maybe they could begin their process of healing and I could know enough about my history to not be afraid for the future.
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CHADWICK: Evelyn Martinez is a high school junior in Los Angeles absorbing the lessons of her mother, Maria Isabel Torres and her story was produced by Youth Radio.
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