Book Club: Unforgetting by Roberto Lovato

We discuss SFPL’s On the Same Page book selection for Sept./Oct., Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas by Roberto Lovato.

This memoir jumps around in time and geography, taking place largely in El Salvador and here in San Francisco, with recognizable settings near the 24th St. BART station, local restaurants and cafes and even the Randall Museum. 

The City has a sizable Salvadoran population, and Lovato’s story explores the context and circumstance of why people might join a rebellion, or join a violent gang or emigrate here, to San Francisco. And why the poet Roque Dalton would describe his country-people as being born “half dead”. Lovato also makes clear the relationship between U.S. foreign policy and the effects of that policy on El Salvador and on individual men, women and children—those who survive and those who do not.  

“I’m here trying to forget things,” Lovato tells a colleague on one of his stays in El Salvador. Intentional and necessary forgetting of secrets, trauma, family experiences and history is recurring, and the process of un-forgetting helps Lovato with his understanding of El Salvador, the U.S., gangs, rebels, his relationships, and ultimately, himself.