Reciprocity and the Fabric of Solidarity: Central Americans, Refugees, and Delegations in the 1980s

Service-learning in Central America in the early twenty-first century has historical antecedents that go back at least as far as the 1980s, antecedents that set a profound political and ethical standard. Studying the format and intentions of such programs in that era of Central American revolutionary unrest—moreover, their work ethic, if it can be called such—points out what may be lacking in today’s service-learning opportunities, even as the social conditions that shaped the earliest variants of this kind of work were specific to the times. Be that as it may, there were and are still paradigmatic choices about how to make such work transformative. These involve distinctions about how such work transcends charitable service, who has agency in program design, how decisions are made, and whether such international exchange can be at all reciprocal. What follows is part reminiscence, but as with every cross-cultural interaction between Central and North Americans in those days, it is girded with social analysis.