“Politics can be a barrier to people here,” Juan told the organizer at Casa El Salvador, an engineer in his early twenties named José Artiga. They met at the corner of Twentieth Street and Mission. “There are Salvadorans on the streets who aren’t all sympathetic to the FMLN. It’s best for me to stay neutral, and to help them as refugees.” It was exactly what Artiga had wanted to hear. He’d spent the past three years in the US watching the Reagan administration brand asylum-seeking Salvadorans as communists and agitators. “We’ll want you to keep your distance,” he told Juan. “You can’t be seen
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