Interview: From El Salvador in Central America to Columbus GA – Supermercado Las Americas
El Salvador is a small Central American country bordered by Honduras to the north and east, by the Pacific Ocean to the south. Over the past 20 years, more Salvadorans have abandoned their homeland and immigrated to the United States due to social inequality, disputes over social and political issues, and an increase in violence in the smallest and most overpopulated country in Central America. Inequality of social classes is a tremendous issue as well as repressive military rule, and poverty. One of the biggest problems was the election process, it was corrupt, and the military knew it would always win. El Salvador had been under military control since 1931.
The United States contributed to the conflict by providing military aid of $1–2 million per day to the government of El Salvador during the Carter and Reagan administrations and provided significant training. The Salvadoran government was considered "friendly" and an ally by the U.S. in the context of the Cold War.
In 1980, El Salvador’s civil war officially began. Over the ensuing twelve years, thousands of victims perished. Often the victims were unionists, clergy, independent farmers, and university officials. Also, we can mention four US church workers found raped and murdered in 1980 and then in 1989 six Jesuit priests, were killed in their home, along with their housekeeper and her daughter.
This was the reason that Mr. Plutarco Telles Sorto made the bold decision of leaving his country and move to the United States after serving 6 years as a volunteer in the Army.
We feel incredibly lucky to sit down with mister Plutarco to give us some time to talk about his experiences in his country-of-origin El Salvador, as well as his incredible life in the USA
We start out by asking Mr. Plutarco if the Civil War from his home country affected him and in which ways. He begins to reminisce, “Of course! It affected all of us citizens, we lived in friction for years and where expected to participate with a side that endorsed Russia and Cuba or the United States. The region in which my family and I lived was taken by the Guerrilla, for this reason I decided at 13 years old that I would leave that location and make it to the capital, San Salvador. Once I was there, I joined the army, I was 14 years old. It was an incredibly sad time. I remember that families that had 10 or 12 children were divided. Some of them had to split between the Guerrilla and the Army. There was death within brothers. The Armed Forces practically took over all control of your life. There was a lot of psychological work done on all of us. I was there for 6 years until I was 21 years old and decided to leave San Salvador and come to the US along with a friend.
Our journey to California was about 15 days long. We worked in Veracruz Mexico for a few days to be able to afford food to make it as far as we did.” Don Plutarco said to us.
“Shortly thereafter I leave for Washington DC and I begin working on the 14th of February in a French restaurant as a dishwashing helper. I made $40.00 for 6 days of work. I was ready to move on, but I was offered a full-time position for double that. Soon after that I was offered $250.00 weekly pay including weekends and I tried that until about 3 months in management there offered me a job making the salads, dressings, and desserts. That paid $300.00 a week and I keep growing from there until I eventually graduates to cook and 5 years later, I oversaw the kitchen with a $625.00 a week salary. After that I was noticed by a nearby Russian restaurant which offered me the same position at double the salary and of course I moved on to work for them soon after. I did this for 6 more years until I got tired and wanted to find a new type of career.”
He continues sharing his experiences, “At one point I got my license as a truck driver and tried that for about 6 months. It did not work because I was way too far from my family too often. My wife’s name is Maria Lucia Portillo and we have 2 sons and 1 daughter together. We also have a nephew that works with us and is part of the family, he is like a son for us.”
Don Plutarco, how is it that you ended up in Columbus Georgia?
“Well, we came to Georgia on vacation because I have a good friend who lives here! When I shared with him that I was in between jobs he immediately he had an idea that we should start a business and that is what we did. What really convinced me was visiting Columbus and seeing the neighborhood and feeling like it was a safe place to make a home for my family. There was something written on a large sign that said it was number 4 in the country for healthy families. My last day as a truck driver was on February 28th and arrived in Columbus early March and my family made it sometime in May. We worked hard and our store’s opening happened on February 28th of 2004. Things did not work out well with my partner and we decided that I would buy him out and continue. That is when I opened our taco and meat shop. I invested in a few fridges and a variety of new products that our customer base had been asking for. This was a success! 14 months in we recovered our investment and we where growing. My kids went to school and helped at the store. Today they are my right hand, one oversees finances another is in management of the store and the third deals with all the legal things. I was able to afford all my children an education and they have all graduated, but they still help me and work as a team. We kept growing until we grew out of the small store and that is when we opened our second store! We were very excited to open the new Supermercado Las Americas in 2014!” He said excited and delighted! We asked him how difficult it had been to navigate at the beginning of the COVID-19 era. He said, “Honestly it affected our sales a bit but not tremendously, that think that had a lot to do with the fact that it’s considered an essential business. We had some difficulty restocking on some product and the taqueria had to close and only produce take out type sales. In the future I see my wife and I taking a less involved role, we have been a bit caught up in everything and it can be overwhelming these days. I’ll be delegating more, and my kids will be taking on new growth. We have enough to have a comfortable life, we want to enjoy the family more, get ready to enjoy our grandchildren. Overall, I really want my children to be incredibly happy and to never forget how important family should always be!”
We thanked Don Plutarco for sharing such a great testimony of what it means to work for a dream and never lose sight of what truly matters at the end of it all.
Many blessings to all of you at Supermercado Las Americas!