Cilantro, Not Coriander is a love story that also bears witness to El Salvador's violent war and US complicity. From Philadelphia, to Guatemala, to the blood riddled streets of San Salvador, you will be led on a riveting journey that begins with one young man's quest to follow his heart and live out his convictions.
Linda Panetta, human rights activist, photo journalist and director of Optical Realities Photography.
We find here much about the 1980-1992 war in El Salvador that only American anti-war activists know.
Cilantro, Not Coriander is a work in social science tradition describing bad governance in El Salvador aided and abetted by the United States government. One learns the real names of wayward Reagan Administration officials, perfidious Salvadoran military officers, heroic Catholic and Protestant churchmen and churchwomen, and self-sacrificing Salvadoran leaders of popular movements who died as they struggled for justice. The U.S. is shown here helping to create a terrible culture of impunity for any Salvadoran government or military related official, no matter how horrible his crimes. The U.S. is shown here in full blown support of a terrorist government.
In the context of fiction set in an historic reality we learn that the FMLN guerrillas and their actions were basically decent and just. Claims that they were Communists, or Communist inspired, or manipulated by Communists were nonsense. We see how it is that Assassinated Archbishop Oscar Romero was and is an enormous force for beneficial change in Latin America.
Joseph Betz, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy, Villanova University
