30 Apr 2025

Speak now

Myriam Gurba talks with journalist Daniel Alvarenga about El Salvador

Today: Myriam Gurba, founding editor of Tasteful Rude, and author of Creep (2023) and Mean (2017).

Issue No. 310

When Disobedience Saves Lives
Myriam Gurba

When Disobedience Saves Lives: An Interview with Daniel Alvarenga

by Myriam Gurba

Washington D.C. journalist Daniel Alvarenga was born in the United States to a family of refugees who had survived war in El Salvador, arriving in the U.S. in the ’80s. “Listening to my family discuss the years leading up to their leaving El Salvador really marked me and steered me toward journalism,” he told me in a recent conversation.

Alvarenga has worked for Al Jazeera and Telemundo, and more recently on the Sonoro Media podcast Humo: Murder and Silence in El Salvador. For the last ten years he has been sounding the alarm, warning anyone who would listen about Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s penchant for la mano dura. He has good reason to say, “I told you so.”

Now that President Donald Trump has announced his intention to imprison U.S. citizens at Bukele’s CECOT, a gulag that has been described as “a judicial black hole,” media has finally begun to take Bukeleismo seriously. Alvarenga tells me that he is relieved to see El Salvador’s fascist regime making front-page news, and we spoke about the rise of Bukele, the history of mano dura, and how to resist fascism.

This conversation has been edited for length and legibility.

Myriam Gurba: When did Nayib Bukele first catch your attention?

Daniel Alvarenga: When he became mayor of San Salvador in 2015. He spoke about “revitalizing downtown,” which is code for gentrification. He spoke about removing street vendors. He joined the FMLN, the leftist party, but Bukele plays all sides, doing whatever is convenient for him. He stood out from other FMLN members. He had a rich daddy, and they accommodated him. Eventually, he got kicked out of the party for assaulting and verbally abusing a female community leader. After that I was like, “Whoa, this guy’s not okay.”