Art by Jerome K. Moore
After Oliver Queen lost his massive wealth in the late 1960s, he began using his secret identity as Green Arrow as a political weapon in support of the downtrodden of society. During the early part of the 1980s, writer Joey Cavalieri kept that flame of left-leaning social activism burning despite the right-leaning presidency of the conservative Ronald Reagan. The most striking example was a two-part narrative appearing in Detective Comics #551 and #552 in which the Emerald Archer sided with Salvadoran refugees who were being denied political asylum in the United States.
When General Carlos Romero won the presidency of El Salvador in a fraudulent election in 1977, he declared a state-of-siege in the Central American nation, suspending civil liberties and brutally killing and torturing anyone opposed to his government. By October 1979, an insurrection against the government was brewing, and the Salvadoran military deposed Romero in a coup that was praised and supported by U.S. President Jimmy Carter at the time.
A civil war broke out in El Salvador shortly thereafter and intensified when government death squads were unleashed on the populace. In February 1980, Archbishop Oscar Romero sent an open letter to President Carter asking him to suspend American aid to the Salvadoran government as a result. The following month, Romero was assassinated as he celebrated mass, while members of the Salvadoran National Guard raped and murdered four American Catholic women – three of whom were nuns – in December.
Despite the increasing violence, the newly elected Ronald Reagan stood firm in his support of the El Salvador government – if the opposition emerged victorious, the country would no doubt turn communist in a world that was still dominated by a Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union. Caught in the middle of that Cold War were thousands of Salvadoran refugees who fled to the U.S. seeking political asylum.
As Bradford Martin notes in his 2011 book, The Other Eighties: A Secret History of America in the Age of Reagan, granting asylum would have been an admission that something was wrong with the current government of El Salvador. Refugees were therefore denied their request and sent back to El Salvador, where their “traitorous” act of seeking asylum was often met with torture and death.
It was within that real world landscape that Oliver Queen and his personal-slash-professional partner Dinah Lance head out for dinner at a Mexican restaurant. Unfortunately their plans for the evening are cut short by an immigration raid on the establishment. Queen defends a restaurant employee named Guillermo, even going so far as to punch one of the government officials in the face. Since Guillermo has the necessary identification to prove he is a naturalized citizen, no charges are brought against Queen for his indiscretion.
Other employees are not so lucky and taken away as part of the raid. “We’re from El Salvador,” Guillermo tells Queen, who currently works as a newspaper columnist. “We’d never give a thought to leaving our country if it hadn’t been split by war. I was lucky enough to get in legally, but my brother, he’s got a different story. If you want to get that story, you can find him here. And maybe you can help him?”
Oliver Queen is indeed interested in both the story and offering his assistance. The address given to him by Guillermo turns out to be a church, and Queen is not only granted entry but led into the basement where several Salvadorans have taken refuge. “This is merely a stopover for them,” a priest explains. “A station on the underground railroad. They travel further north – from church to church – until they make contact with families who can take them in and help them get naturalized.”
In 1981, an Arizona rancher named Jim Corbett and clergyman John Fife heard stories about refugees escaping El Salvador, only to be detained and returned to their country by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. Outraged by the actions of his government, Corbett decided to provide “sanctuary” for these refugees in the homes of his family and friends. After exhausting all available space, he approached Fife for further assistance. The clergyman in turn persuaded his congregation at the Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson to likewise offer sanctuary.
When the church hit its capacity the following year, John Fife contacted the Chicago Religious Task Force on Central America for further assistance. Soon an “underground railroad” sprouted up, encompassing over three hundred congregations throughout the United States – from Berkeley, California, to Cambridge, Massachusetts, with stops in Santa Fe, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Racine, Wisconsin, along the way. Even Reverend Jesse Jackson’s Operation PUSH became a sanctuary for a family of five Salvadorans, with Jackson calling it a humanitarian act for the organization.
“The government men, they say we leave El Salvador just to find work but we are really fleeing for our lives,” Francisco – the brother of Guillermo – tells Oliver Queen. “Try to envision it. Your own neighborhood a bloody battlefield. The sun sets and your neighbors disappear into the night. Everyone has a shocking story to tell, and no one can tell it. Teachers and priests, union leaders and doctors, nurses and engineers, all are targets of death squads. I myself worked on a newspaper in my town that was closed down. I also am a target, marked for death. I managed to get out under cover of darkness. But if I am found, I will be deported.”
The Sanctuary Movement in the real world also relied on refugees publicly speaking about the dangerous conditions they faced in El Salvador. A refugee named Juan, for instance, told the congregation at Chicago’s Wellington Avenue Church that he had been targeted by death squads because he was employed as a truck driver before enrolling at the University of El Salvador. While out on the job, he regularly came across dead bodies placed by the government in the middle of roads so that trucks could run over them and “hide” any evidence of torture.
Before Guillermo can finish his story in the DC Universe, federal agents arrive to arrest the refugees. When Oliver Queen again speaks up, he is not as lucky as the first time and likewise taken to a detention center.
“The bleeding heart,” the head agent says to him. “Yeah, I get one like you every once in a while. Somebody who lets his religious convictions or his sense of heroism cloud his common sense. So how much good do you think your doin’, good guy? You think it’s good bringing in a bunch of families that will never assimilate, never be absorbed into society’s mainstream? You think it’s good choking the economy with hungry mouths and unskilled hands? You think you’re helping them, but you’re not. You’re just helping them to a life of poverty in a country where they’re strangers who speak a foreign language. And now you think that ‘help’ is worth breaking the law for?”
“That’s what it comes down to for you, huh?” Queen retorts. “Makes no difference that these people are escaping a war that’s ripping their country apart!” The federal agent simply waves away the remark. “They all say they’re from El Salvador and they left because of the war,” he replies. “They all lie.”
When Dinah Lance – posing as an attorney – visits Oliver Queen at the detention center, she brings along the necessary tools for someone as skilled as Green Arrow to break out of the facility. After Queen and Francisco make it to Lance’s car, Queen says that he left his duffle bag behind and drives the vehicle through the detention center gate, allowing the other refugees to escape as well. “It’s time to follow Francisco’s lead,” he then declares. “To the next church, the next stop on the underground railroad.”
Anthony Letizia