Lessons from the Art of Solidarity: A Teaching Experience in Nicaragua

Cultural immersion is necessary when connecting to the existing livelihood of the community so that art and life become a simultaneous experience.
—Maria Aldana, coordinator, Art of Solidarity

The Art of Solidarity is a new international community arts program in Nicaragua through the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA).[1] Maria Aldana, the program coordinator, is a community artist and former MICA student. Creating the program required the hope and faith that true cultural exchange could bridge the immense gulfs of the language barrier, disparities of wealth and differing experiences. A Nicaraguan American, Maria’s aspiration was to ignite a transformation in participants as they became empowered to share their skills in partnership with Nicaraguans, just as she herself felt called to do. Her teaching philosophy springs from a strong commitment to social justice and an uncanny instinct for teaching. This article distills an ongoing conversation between Maria and myself about the program’s pedagogy and impact — the act and art of solidarity.[2]

From May through June, 2008, intrigued by the opportunity to experience a new culture and use their talents in service to community, nine students made the inaugural trip to Nicaragua supported by four faculty members: Maria Aldana, myself (a community artist and faculty in MICA’s MA in Community Arts (MACA) program), documentary artist Aleks Martray and Kirsten D’Andrea Hollander, faculty member in Video and Film Arts at MICA.[3] Together, we worked in intensive collaboration with Nicaraguan activist groups, artisans, families and high-school students in the progressive regional hub of Esteli and the small town of San Juan de Limay.

Solidarity’s Projects and Partnerships

Art of Solidarity students worked in one of two areas, documentary video or mural arts, based on their interests and talents. Video students produced two documentaries: “Muralism/Muralismo” on Nicaragua’s historic mural movement, and “With a Guitar in My Hand /Con Una Guitarra en Mis Manos” on a family’s efforts to preserve folklore music. Mural arts students facilitated a 60-foot mixed-media mural entitled “Where We’re From/De Donde Somos” at the high school in San Juan de Limay.[4] It is based on the student’s poetry and artwork describing their town and expressing pride in their community. It combines paint, ceramics, sculptured concrete and stone mosaic work. These projects enabled MICA students to share mural techniques and technical skills in videography with high-school students in rural Limay, but were created collaboratively with Nicaraguan partner organizations that traveled with the MICA group to Limay to share their own expertise. It enabled partner groups to expand their own outreach to this very rural area (Aldana and Martray).

Coordinator Maria Aldana (right, in red) and MICA participant Kerri Dougherty (right) return from a day of mural painting at the high school in San Juan de Limay, Nicaragua. Photo by Cinder Hypki Click here to enlarge

Nicaraguan partners — art collectives, organizations, families and individuals — were essential to planning and designing the Art of Solidarity’sstructure. Their ideas, skills and enthusiasm, and their ingenuity in the face of scarcity and adversity, created a rich authentic substrate for engagement, and a challenging, meaningful learning experience. MICA video students worked with the Youth Network/Red de Jovenes, young multimedia activists who educate youth about social problems and document cultural legacies. Together, they participated in skill sharing and storyboarding sessions, critiques and production shoots; transcending language barriers, they engaged their subjects as co-creators on three bilingual documentary shorts. Mural arts students engaged the Esteli-based David Alfaro Siqueiros Muralist Collective and FunArt Inc. to learn about Nicaragua’s rich legacy of muralism. In Limay, they apprenticed at the women’s Ceramicist Collective of El Calero and the Oscar Lasco Davila Marble/Marmolina Studio to learn local artisan skills, which they incorporated into the mural (Aldana and Martray).

Nicaraguan Context

The Central American country of Nicaragua is one of cultural diversity and economic disparity; of abundant human talent, perseverance and potential; of ecological riches and environmental problems. In the past 75 years, the Nicaraguan people have suffered 42 years of dictatorship; the assassination of Augusto Sandino, their greatest national hero; 18 years of revolution; a seven-year “civil” war, orchestrated and funded by the Central Intelligence Agency; and many devastating earthquakes and hurricanes leaving thousands dead and millions homeless (Plunkett; Merrill 1993). The legacy is economic hardship: widespread underemployment, one of the highest degrees of income inequality in the world, and the third lowest per capita income in the Western Hemisphere.

The enormous role that the U.S. government has played in shaping Nicaragua’s current state of affairs can’t be overstated. Since creating the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, the U.S. has asserted its hegemony there with impunity. The U.S. occupied Nicaragua from 1909 to1933, and thereafter, supported the Somoza family dictatorship for 43 years. In 1979, after Somoza’s ouster, the Sandinista government made tremendous strides in health, education, land reform, housing and culture. However, its social-justice doctrine angered conservative elements within the U.S., and, in 1981, President Reagan launched a campaign to discredit the Sandinista government, authorizing support for groups trying to overthrow it, and plunging the country into the Contra War until 1988 (Merrill).

Despite this, many areas of Nicaragua have long enjoyed strong progressive local leadership that has helped maintain their humble “sovereignty” over their land. Examples include mayors in cities like Esteli and the North Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAN) on the Atlantic Coast, home to many of Nicaragua’s indigenous groups.[5] On a smaller but noteworthy scale, individual U.S. citizens, churches and social-justice groups, like their counterparts worldwide, have actively supported the people of Nicaragua since the Sandinista Revolution. One of these, Casa Baltimore/Limay, a friendship-city project connecting the peoples of San Juan de Limay and the Baltimore, Maryland, region, facilitates learning and service projects;[6] it provided the Art of Solidaritywith important links to community members in Limay.

Impetus for the Project

In 2008 and 2009, Aldana and I discussed the project through several interviews. Parts of those interviews are excerpted below, interspersed with observations from our students.

Cinder Hypki: What were the sparks that ignited this project, Maria?

Maria Aldana: It was influenced by my work creating B’more Cultured.[7] I teach young people in Baltimore how to demonstrate humility and pride in their values, race, class, gender and American identity through a traveling and community service-based program called “B’more Cultured.” I created it with six of my high-school students in 2005 at the Academy for College and Career Exploration (ACCE) High School. B’more Cultured challenges youth to apply their academic knowledge, talents, and life experience to acts of social justice by living and working in a foreign culture that is often labeled “third world” and impoverished.[8]

A year later, when Aleks Martray and I went to Nicaragua, we saw great potential in the mural city and cultural hub of Esteli, and were inspired by the role of artists participating in several grassroots movements. We met a few artists on the street and witnessed the social consciousness that was apparent in everyone — in children, in the local piñata maker and the workers at a tortilla shop. There was this great pride that we felt, a lot of innovative things going on. We also met a group doing video documentaries and encountered people who had limited technology but were doing radio broadcasting to Nicaraguan youth about local issues such as domestic violence and substance abuse. Coincidentally, Casa Baltimore/Limay had contacts in Limay and friends in Esteli. Art of Solidarity came about with such players aligning themselves.

Hypki: What compels you to do this work, Maria?

Aldana: Nicaraguans my age experienced a revolution that I didn’t. For the safety of my family, we left Nicaragua for the USA in 1986 during the middle of the Contra War.[9] Unfortunately, a lot of the social and personal wounds from experiencing immigration have yet to be healed in families like mine. It has been critical yet challenging for me to return as an adult without my family and instead re-experience Nicaragua through the lenses and friendships of North Americans. I createdArt of Solidarity out of my own inner conflicts between these two identities, knowing they were part of a collective cry for merging these groups. I think most immigrants and minority groups experience this conflict while adapting to the norms of American life. Therefore, this program is a vehicle for me to explore and share this spiritual opportunity and humanitarian cause with other continental Americans.

Hypki: Can you say more about your dual identities?

Aldana: I didn’t feel whole until these two main identities could confront one other. I began “making sense to myself” and taking control of my own story while being of service to others. I first experienced this in Guatemala in 2003 but it wasn’t until a trip to Nicaragua through Bridges to Community[10] that I realized something phenomenal was happening: I could see the cultural barriers and easily decode them for others since it’s what I’ve been doing between my parents’ cultural values and American society from the age of five! That’s a touchy subject for me because it was an awakening as well as a calling to do work in Nicaragua as an American! An epiphany happens every time I do this kind of work. I guess we’re destined to have our own set of privileges and disadvantages for a reason. When we’re able to work with people who have what we don’t, and vice versa, a relationship begins that is mutually beneficial. I believe that kind of transformation can happen regardless of where you come from, your religion or political views.

Forms of Immersion

MICA student Ben Hock shares:

The moments that stand out for me are all of the moments I spent with my family [in Limay], especially when we would share facts about our cultures or help each other with our respective languages. Those moments were really the most amazing and gave me the greatest sense of solidarity. That was when I saw two cultures converging and sharing in partnership, and that was beautiful.

Hypki: Maria, with such a rich, complicated history and culture in Nicaragua, one that you yourself are still learning, how did you prepare students with some context to their experience?

Aldana: The most crucial aspect of preparing people to do this work is training in cultural sensitivity and historical background on colonialism. We held several orientations before leaving, including one on Nicaragua history that Aleks put together, recommended reading and overall travel preparation. We encouraged students to study Spanish. Once we were in Managua, we had an overview from the Center for Global Education on history, politics and economics.[11]

The way to make history more interesting was to tell people my story. It let people know who I am and what’s in it for me. Because it’s a first-person experience, it allowed them to pay closer attention and put the facts into context. It also introduced them to, or reinforced, historical terms and figures. Cultural immersion took many forms: intimate discussions, dinners, forums and living with host families in Limay. By experiencing everyday life, students learned of the Revolution the Contra War and post-war Nicaragua. They witnessed the beauty, social conditions and environmental problems in the countryside. The art of our partners showed them Nicaragua’s pride, trust and hopeful spirit.

Solidarity in a Community Arts Perspective

Hypki: The concept of solidarity is so layered, imbued with complex political meaning — especially in Latin America where it is rooted in liberation struggles. The name “The Art of Solidarity” seems to take on a whole new meaning. What does it mean to you?

Aldana: Solidarity is a fairly new word in my vocabulary. I was first introduced to it by doing social-justice work through my church. I’d just graduated with a BFA from MICA in 2003, and was 22. Corpus Christi church was visiting Guatemala to work with indigenous people in Sepalau and I aligned myself with the coordinator, who introduced me to working with poor people and to Archbishop Romero’s work.[12] The following year, when I went to Nicaragua with Bridges to Community, I learned how to work with people in a way that their dignity was never compromised or negotiated. So for me, solidarity comes with aligning yourself with the poor; standing with the unheard and the powerless. Connected to my definition is recognizing your own privilege and using all of your resources, like government officials and technology, to serve as an advocate.

Solidarity is the act of knowing I have certain advantages as an American citizen, that my family has survived a war, and I’ve attended some of the best schools in the nation. I’ve had the opportunity to start a new life in a country where there are resources for me to pursue any dream I have. I often talk with my siblings about what it would be like if we never left Nicaragua. It hurts to think about it because I miss it so much, yet I would never have been able to create a program like this from Nicaragua to the USA.

Hypki: What experiences brought about these realizations?

Aldana: None of it made sense until I returned to Nicaragua on my own. I learned what solidarity and collaboration meant by building houses in Ticuantepe. It was really about working as part of a team. You’re literally passing bricks from a Nicaraguan to a North American to a Nicaraguan. You dig the foundation together, mix cement together, bend steel. Teamwork is a form of solidarity. You do something to the best of your capacity and someone else fills in when you’re exhausted. Doing this kind of work is difficult, but when you have the concept of teamwork in every player, no one burns out. Each understands that their role is key to a specific accomplishment. The team takes a leap of faith regardless of all the obstacles or lack of resources.

Student Kerri Dougherty shares:

Solidarity is a new word to me. I don’t believe I ever encountered it until this program… I don’t think I’d have been able to understand it without this program. Not until after the full experience did I finally get what it meant. It is about working together…learning from each other and sharing experiences. It is not something that happens alone, but collectively. …Solidarity isn’t something you can touch and send. It is something that is touching and action and interaction and work. It takes work—hard, frustrating enjoyable work, on all sides of the connection.

Examining Privilege

Hypki: Your personal definition of solidarity and its link to privilege resonates with student Kata Frederick’s thoughts:

Solidarity means “in unity with.” The concept of charity is highly dependent on privilege. A charitable act is an isolated event done for the cause of someone or something lesser. Solidarity …requires [that] the past and present of any situation be examined and deeply understood. I entered Nicaragua with the understanding that I would be working with people “less privileged” than myself, with the expectation that I would be giving and offering my skills. I quickly became aware that giving and receiving have an inherently reciprocal relationship. I hadn't initially prepared myself to receive in such profound ways as I did...

Hypki: Students’ reflections reveal tremendous openness to learning and challenging their assumptions. Often, though, faced with huge material disparities between what we have and what a newfound Nicaraguan friend has, for example, our privilege stares us in the face; we can easily get paralyzed with guilt. At that point, some people give up or freeze. Why do you think our students didn’t do that?

Aldana: I think a lot of students realized that privilege is about having access to a certain amount of education or type of job. We were able to do the work we did because everybody was inspired by the people they worked with. They set very high expectations for themselves when they heard the stories of the Nicaraguans. Their experience had real consequence.

Hypki: And yet, privilege operates on so many levels.

MICA student Kata Frederick gets a lesson in carving marble/marmolina from host Oscar at his workshop in Limay, Nicaragua. Photo by Cinder Hypki Click here to enlarge

Aldana: When we walked to the high school each morning to work on the mural, some of us dressed in jeans and a skirt. Some of us wore a scarf, hat, handkerchief, sunglasses, and three bottles of water, as if we were going to war. That’s when you saw the disparity of wealth. We as Americans will always have greater access to material wealth, to improved technology, education. Much of that is unavoidable. I think all the participants realized they didn’t need a lot of things they thought they did; life can be simpler! What we can learn from poorer people is to make the best use of materials for a given purpose, to find solutions where there aren’t any. It gives our students a great sense of hope and confidence to carry out any goal.

Hypki: On an entirely different level, part of the privilege we have in the United States means we can choose to not see how our policies and power affect others.

Aldana: That’s where injustice comes to play. Nicaraguans are affected more by the economic crisis in the U.S. right now, because they’re not getting as many remittances from family members working in the U.S.[13] Nicaraguans have to understand what’s going on in the world — it challenges their livelihood more than ours.

Cinder: Regardless of the disparity, working in solidarity can be the beginning of a different way to see things. Kate Learson reflected that:

Working in solidarity means that we work together as a people to improve community as if we all live as neighbors, because essentially, we do.

Teaching toward Transformation

Hypki: What we’ve been discussing is so important in terms of forging a social-justice pedagogy with a global perspective, crafting the kinds of experiences, as educators, we want for students. Experiences that will enable them to engage in cultural exchange, to embrace an overwhelming amount of knowledge and stimuli from a new culture, and to keep finding their path forward, rather than becoming overwhelmed or paralyzed by guilt at their privilege.

You’ve said that Nicaraguan community leaders have a way of making people feel welcome, aiding them in making small changes, helping them reflect on their experience. I saw you doing that so naturally every day with our students.

Aldana: I see my role as ensuring that there is a transformation. All you have to do to have meaning in your life is to take the first step, and then it all unfolds. When students signed up, they knew they were going on an adventure, though they didn’t know what it was. So, I just had to ensure I gave them opportunities to be teachers, collaborators and then advocates by the time their trip was over. I just had to make sure that they cared about these people before they left, that they’d always think about this trip as something powerful in their lifetime.

Hypki: You’re really talking about something that underlies libratory education: trying to locate where people are in their lives along a continuum — the journey of becoming socially aware and empowered. Then working from there with them on the next step. You’ve also said you need to set up the experience and then get out of the way. At some point, students need to confront the culture directly without us.

Aldana: Most definitely. I think it was challenging for the students sometimes because they were given so much freedom to figure out how to make their projects happen. That was new for a lot of them. So, along the way, we’d take turns leading and we’d have a dialogue about it. It was painful sometimes, but sometimes democracy is painful. You have to hear everybody out. Sometimes the solution takes a while and it’s about confidently holding your ground and knowing: This is going to work because it has to.

In Nicaragua, there were so many things changing constantly on a daily basis, so you have to have that confident mindset: I’m not working with everything I need, but I need to be innovative with what I have. What do I have? That was the main challenge for me as coordinator: letting students know that I didn’t know much more than they did. It was really sharing the decision making, and saying: It sounds like you want to do this, and this is how much I know about it, so go figure it out! That’s very frustrating, if you think about it. But I am in their shoes; that’s the thing! We were all in the same shoe!

Hypki: That’s a really important lesson and is something that I think sets this program apart: These students felt that they had a real responsibility to help develop the program. That was huge! Revolutionary! Rarely do students have that opportunity. It’s the beginning of an exciting, empowering pedagogy for this experience that I see growing over time.

Aldana: I’m hoping I’ve given them a set of skills and connected them to the people they need to pursue their personal projects on their journey, so that it’s no longer about the program, but it’s about their life and this awakening that they’ve had. That’s what I think empowerment is: You set people up so they can make it their own.

The Art of Storytelling and the Power of Witnessing

Hypki: If there were a spiritual river flowing beneath our experience in Nicaragua, it had to do with our daily acts of witnessing the storytelling constantly flowing between us and those we met. To me, witnessing is a form of active listening, listening with intention. Student Kata Frederick (2009), speaks to this:

…the most fruitful experiences I had were when I was honestly engaged and curious. My interest and willingness to listen and learn was the most meaningful thing I could give. I think there is a lot at play here, a lot to be explored. Like how class and privilege might play into that, in good or bad ways, and the effect of having a video camera... But overall, the act of listening and understanding things and people to the core has stuck with me. I want to continue to work this way in my own life as an artist…In my experiences both in creating a mural and two documentaries, I found we were always exposing the most relatable humanness.

What impact does witnessing have on our students and our partners in your mind?

Aldana: The power of storytelling is so new to U.S. culture, especially in this generation because we’re not exposed to it. We don’t really pass down oral traditions anymore as far as I’ve observed, unless maybe recipes, or technical, lifestyle lessons. There’s not a lot of moral development that comes from storytelling here; it’s left up to movies, fairy tales, fables. Storytelling is such a part of the “underdeveloped” culture because it is the main form of entertainment. And it’s theatrical, but also based on first- or second-hand accounts, so it is that much more alive.

Hypki: When you translate someone’s story, there’s a simultaneous witnessing happening.

Aldana: Yes, lots of layers going on. Translation is first, bearing witness to a Nicaraguan telling us their life story and then literally simultaneously retelling it in my own words in a different language. Then when I come out of that mindset and look around the audience to see the Nicaraguans and the American students and to see someone like you who is also retelling that story in your own mind, it’s amazing! It’s like a story out of a book being written in that moment because it’s so important and powerful, and yet it’s the first time that the story has been told in that way.

Hypki: What do you mean by that?

Aldana: So much of my Central American history is not taught in schools. I think history in general is biased and as a country we’re always out to defend ourselves, to quickly make terrorists out of anyone who is different or poses a threat to our American lifestyle. So, what I meant is that the greater story of these poor people’s side of the war goes undocumented. What fascinates me most when stories are shared is knowing that somehow everyone is thinking the same thing. You can’t put it to words. It’s a spiritual connection between the people who are listening to the story and telling the story. It’s greater awareness and mutual understanding that’s happening, bringing people together.

Hypki: I felt that every day in Nicaragua, people asked me to listen so that they could teach me something—and not in any way patronizing. I felt that the most important thing I could do was to simply witness their testimony.

Aldana: That’s amazing.

Hypki: It felt like a dual act. People wanted to relate something: Here’s what it was like for me, my family, and my country. But on another level people were telling us this history like they were praying a rosary; like you’d sing yourself to sleep if you were anxious or frightened; telling this story over and over. I felt that people had this deep need to validate their own experience, to heal. It was as if they were saying: You’ve traveled all this way to learn, so I’m going to tell you my story. Then, it will become a part of you, part of your responsibility to reconcile…

Aldana: I think it was to pass on knowledge because they don’t know what to make of foreigners, and sometimes we’re a threat. It’s several things, depending on the person. It could be a test to characterize that new person. It’s also a welcoming to their community, providing the context for why you’re there. The easiest way to answer why this person has come here is to talk about what you know of your life, and perhaps what you know of that person’s country. The war is fresh on people’s minds but far enough that people don’t want to lose the lessons gained from attaining peace. I think they want to preserve them, they’re trying to make advocates out of people.

Hypki: What impact do you think the witnessing had on our students?

Aldana: I think it made them feel loved, above all else. It takes a lot of responsibility to carry around somebody else’s story. To be given that responsibility without being asked what you’re going to do with it? That comes from the heart.

Hypki: I hear you saying that our students recognized that.

Aldana: Yes, I think it was immediate; it was what they were looking for. In any experience where you’re on an adventure, a journey, you’re looking for love. And to grasp a sense of why you’re here — whatever that may mean for people. Sometimes it’s by asking what’s out there for me? What can I do? The difficult part is that once you receive that love, you’re not necessarily sure what to do with it.

Reflection as a Means of Processing

Hypki: How do we help students know what to do with what’s entrusted to them?

Aldana: I think embracing it helps students realize what has happened and I think staying in the moment is really important. That means giving people space to let the moment sit with them. To let them think through the story, asking them to talk about it or write about it. Because then they can solidify it into who they already are and it becomes part of their personal experience. I think it’s a balance of knowing when to let people break off as individuals and giving them enough space and time to feel that moment through — for as long as they can.

Hypki: Faculty member Kirsten D’Andrea Hollander has advocated for that as well:

Both the student body and the faculty needed more time to reflect on what had been experienced as well as personal time and space. Though we witnessed great beauty we also witnessed a lot of hardship including befriending children begging, rape victims, men and women in prison and mothers whose sons had been dismembered in the war. …I truly believe that we should not ask ourselves to witness these levels of injustice without substantial reflection time to process.

I too think that we needed more time to process, don’t you think?

Aldana: Yes. I think that, with the muralists, we sat with them for a decent amount of time — that felt right to me.

Hypki: Do you mean that long talk in the dark when the electricity failed?

Aldana: Yes, and afterward, when the lights went back on, it was still raining and the rain made it quiet for people. We had lots of good reflections on the trip. I remember sitting on the floor of the hotel at nighttime and you led a reflection with the poem, “The Pleasure of Service/El Placer de Servir” by Gabriela Mistral. Everybody read a part and we went around the circle reflecting. Exercises like that are best when everyone participates and there’s a clear facilitator for where we’re going with the reflection. We needed more of this. That’s how as a teacher and coordinator you can capture the witnessing that happens on daily basis. Poetry is a revolutionary tool. It’s art that’s adaptable to each person, but like storytelling, it unites people and puts everybody in the same mindset.

I felt like making art with a community meant having to know that community. I am realizing now that art can in ways act as a document of that perpetual movement towards knowing. My experience making art in Nicaragua has allowed me to detach myself from the notion of fully knowing a culture that is not my own. The beauty of cross-cultural collaboration lies, to a large extent, in the difference (Frederick).

I took away an overwhelming feeling of joy. …My peers in Nicaragua were always doing so much and it really made me hopeful for the world, it made me want to do more, in my life and in my own art (Learson).

This essay is part of the Community Arts Convening & Research Project, 2009-10, funded by a Nathan Cummings Foundation grant to the Maryland Institute College of Art. The essay was reviewed and selected by the project's Editorial Board: Stephani Woodson, Arizona State University; Amalia Mesa-Bains, California State University Monterey Bay; Paul Teruel, Columbia College Chicago; Marina Gutierrez, Cooper Union; Jan Cohen-Cruz, Imagining America; Ken Krafchek, Maryland Institute College of Art; Lori Hager, University of Oregon; and Sonia BasSheva Mañjon, Wesleyan University.

Cinder Hypki is a practicing community artist and faculty in MICA’s Master of Arts in Community Arts program. She was one of four faculty members to design and teach the inaugural year of The Art of Solidarity, MICA’s international study program in Nicaragua in Spring 2008, and has lived and traveled extensively in Mexico and Central America. Hypki has worked with communities, schools and nonprofits in Baltimore and beyond, organizing and consulting since 1987, and is a former Open Society Institute community fellow. More photos of Art of Solidarity are on its Facebook page.

Works Cited

Aldana, Maria Gabriela and Aleks Martray. The Art of Solidarity, Nicaragua ’08. A final report to the Continuing Studies Department at the Maryland Institute College of Art. In-house document, 2008.

B’more Cultured. http://www.bmorecultured.com 10 March 10 2009.

Bridges to Community.2008. http://www.bridgestocommunity.org/ 10 March 10 2009.

Casa Baltimore/Limay. http://www.casabaltimorelimay.org/ 10 March 10 2009.

D’Andrea Hollander, Kirsten. MICA Study Abroad Program in Nicaragua Evaluation, Kirsten D’Andrea Hollander, Faculty Member. In-house document, 2008.

Dougherty, Kerri. Electronic communication to Cinder Hypki and Maria Aldana. 19 March 2009.

Frederick, Kata. Electronic communication to Cinder Hypki and Maria Aldana. 19 March 2009.

Hock, Ben. Electronic communication to Maria Aldana. 20 November 2008.

Learson, Kate. Electronic communication to Maria Aldana. 19 November 2008.

Lyon, George Ella. http://www.georgeellalyon.com/where.html 17 March 2008.

Merrill, Tim, ed. Nicaragua: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1993.

NationMaster. http://www.nationmaster.com 17 March 2008.

Plunkett, Hazel. In Focus: Nicaragua A Guide to the People, Politics and Culture. Massachusetts: Interlink Books, 2005.

Romero,Levi. “De Donde Yo Soy/Where I’m From.” Scholastic. http://www2.scholastic.com/content/collateral_resources/pdf /t/Target_De_Donde_Yo_Soy.pdf. 17 March 2008.

Wikipedia.org. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Romero 10 March 2009.

NOTES