Script from the WBAP-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, relating a news story about the Dallas symphony orchestra touring in Central America.

This thesis grounds its examination of the maras of El Salvador in the historical past (1971-1992) rather than the present, which constitutes a departure from current scholarship on the subject. This thesis revises our current understanding of the emergence and development of maras in El Salvador through the recovery, insertion and examination of key local events, conditions, and historical actors of the 1970s and 1980s. From signifying friendship and camaraderie prior to the late 1980s, the maras increasingly became the target of public concern and Salvadoran security forces over the course of the 1980. By the late 1980s the maras increasingly became associated with criminal activity in Salvadoran society and popular culture. To document these changed conditions, this thesis relies extensively on previously untapped and ignored primary sources: newspapers and oral history interviews.

Interview with Francisco Gonzalez, a journalist from San Miguel, El Salvador. Gonzalez discusses his education, growing up during the civil war, having his appendix removed, his brother's involvement in the war, attending medical school, transition to law school and working as a journalist, moving to the US and attending UNT, work with the Dallas Magazine, his marriage, and revisiting El Salvador.

Second annex published as part of the United Nations (UN) report from The Commission on the Truth for El Salvador (La Comision de la Verdad para El Salvador). This section includes supplementary documentation of the Commission's work: statistical analysis of testimony received, lists of victims, lists of disappeared persons, a list of members of the armed forces who were killed, and a list of members of the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) who were killed.