When surfing was named California’s state sport last year, it probably never crossed your mind the designation would become a tool in international diplomacy. After a meeting between Governor Gavin Newsom and President-elect Nayib Bukele, it looks like surfing will become a tangible way for California and El Salvador to build an important partnership.
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data, approximately 3,000 unaccompanied Salvadoran children and 12,000 family members have entered the United States since October and many of those people make California their new home — more than any other state in the Union, actually. Poverty and extreme violence force thousands of people to leave the small Central American country every year, so Newsom’s visit is an attempt to learn more about the place and bring home a clear picture of how working together could temper some of the problems and improve life for the people living there. He’s met with citizens, politicians, and people whose family members left for the U.S. but never made it — stopped at borders or caught in the crossfire of violence somewhere along the way — and attended a conversation about human rights abuses against women and the LGBT community.
“David left because of extortion. Bryon fled from gang pressure. Another woman fled seeking protection for her nieces from gangs that killed her sister,” Newsom wrote in a tweet Tuesday. “These are not ‘animals’ or ‘invaders.’ They are real people, fleeing violence — seeking a better life.”
Currently, the U.S. government has a travel advisory in effect warning citizens about the violence in El Salvador, which has one of the highest homicide rates in the world (ten times higher per capita than the United States). Bukele says he’ll be working to get the U.S. government to remove that advisory once he takes office in June, which is where surfing and working alongside Newsom comes in.
Spent the last 72 hours in El Salvador, meeting with folks who were forced to flee their homes because of violence. Children learning to code through programs that our President is threatening to cut. We don’t need a wall. We need a realistic, thoughtful approach to immigration. pic.twitter.com/ljKo2yMIHr
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) April 10, 2019
“We have the best surfing beaches in the world and they have the other ones,” Bukele told media after his meeting with Newsom. “So we want to work together…We don’t want to meddle into U.S. politics. We will work with any administration.”
In 2004, President George W. Bush created the Millennium Challenge Corporation as a way for the United States to invest money in Salvadoran infrastructure, improving roads, water, sewage treatment, and other resources like improving or building hotels around the country’s coast. MCC has pledged $277 million for coastal development over the long term, improving conditions like these for tourism and, in turn, improving opportunities for local businesses and its citizens.
Newsom will be presenting an updated budget in May, which he says will include new resources for immigrants as well as planning to encourage California business owners to invest in businesses in El Salvador now that he has a clearer picture of the challenges people face there, the gang violence, and other problems forcing people to flee the country. Sharing California’s “expert” marketing of surf culture will be a part of the plan to boost tourism to El Salvador and, by extension, economic opportunities for the people living there.
“Clearly tourism is such a dominant industry in California. We probably do it better than any other state,” Newsom said. “It seems natural for us to engage in mutual support in terms of what’s going on down here.”
What new programs or plans will look like wasn’t laid out during the visit, but surfing’s going to be a part of the mix.
