Junior completes research; donates grant to El Salvadorian

A University of Richmond student spent this past summer researching El Salvadorian politics and social tensions, a project that led to a 150-page research paper and a fellowship grant, which she donated to an El Salvadorian boy so he could get heart surgery.

Edith Coralia de la Vega, a junior from El Salvador,was able to study El Salvadorian social tensions as a Bonner Center for Civic Engagement fellow.

The length of Vega's paper is an exception, said Douglas Hicks, executive director of the center and associate professor of leadership studies and religion.

"Research papers generally run from 15 to 25 pages," Hicks said. "She was so enthusiastic that she just kept on going like the energizer bunny."

Hicks said the CCE sponsored research fellowships to encourage students to look at civic, social and political issues so they could understand the society around them. Vega, a Bonner Scholar and finance major, said it all started when she decided she needed to know for herself what was going on in El Salvador.

During her research, Vega said she focused on party pluralization in El Salvador before its civil war, which started in 1979, and after peace accords were signed in 1992. The civil war was fought between the far right-wing military government and communist guerrillas, led by the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), which is now an official political party. The Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), which was founded in 1981 in opposition to El Salvador's military role, has held presidential office since 1989.

Vega said she was able to do her research this summer as political campaigns were starting for the coming presidential elections in March.

"It's been very, very heated," she said, "and now for the first time the polls are showing that FMLN will win."

Vega said she had researched 108 years of El Salvadorian history to try to understand current social tensions.

"What is happening in society?" Vega said she had asked herself. "What is happening? And how can I find a parallel comparison with what happened [prior] to the civil war? Because we were in the same situation [then]."

Ricardo Ramos-Tremolada, a visiting Spanish lecturer, was Vega's mentor during her fellowship.

"It's going to be up to the two big parties: ARENA and FMLN," he said. "If they just learn to talk, it's going to be great. But the problem with that country, as many other countries in Latin America, is it's pretty polarized right now."

Ramos-Tremolada said he was impressed with Vega's paper.

"It's not usual to see that kind of paper because it's pretty sharp," he said. "I really admire her."

Vega said the money she received as a research fellow was flexible.

"I decided," Vega said, "if I have this money ... I need to help other people with it."

Every summer for the past four years, Vega has worked with two organizations in El Salvador--Operation Smile and Rotaplast International--which operate on cleft lips and cleft palates, she said.

"There was this kid," Vega said, "who couldn't get plastic surgery on his face because of problems with his heart. By the CCE giving me that money, I was able to donate more than half of it to this kid to come to the United States and ... get his heart surgery and then from then on get surgery on his face."

Vega said she had seen the boy, Mario Guevara, come in twice before and be denied both times because of his heart problems.

"I wanted it to come from me," she said.

Hicks said the center tended to fund five to seven fellowships each summer. In January, each summer research fellow presents at the UR Downtown Research Fellows Symposium. Vega said she was hoping to go into more detail and get her paper published.

"One of the appealing pieces," Hicks said, "was she wanted to draw on her own knowledge of the country to understand a fragmented society ... To understand a society where the left is more left than the U.S. and the right is more right."

Vega said she was waiting to finish her paper until after the March elections, when she would be able to see some social and political outcomes.

"It's not a thing of black and white; red and blue," she said. "It's about reaching peace not only in the battlefields, but actually in the people's hearts of my country. People are ripped between two fronts, and they do not know what to decide."

Contact reporter Laurie Guilmartin at laurie.guilmartin@richmond.edu