I spoke to a number of Salvadoran immigrants yesterday to hear their reaction to the election of an FMLN candidate to the presidency in El Salvador. The party’s supporters said it was an emotional day for them, much like Obama’s election. As writer Roberto Lovato told Amy Goodman, it wasn’t merely the first FMLN victory since the 1992 peace agreement. “This is the defeat of Ronald Reagan, nothing less,” he said.

I called FMLN’s New York office in Hempstead to hear their commentary on the election, hoping to reach the people who did some campaigning this year in Port Chester. Naturally, just about everyone had gone home to vote. Anyway, here were some of the local reactions yesterday:

Salvadoran immigrants are absorbing the news of a new political era at home, where voters elected a president from the leftist FMLN party.
Mauricio Funes’ election Sunday marks a shift in power for the first time since the end of El Salvador’s civil war in 1992. Immigrants here say they are watching to see what that will mean for the country’s most urgent problems of crime and poverty, and for relations between the United States and El Salvador.
For supporters of the FMLN party — political successor to the rebel group Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front — it was a long-awaited victory.
“I couldn’t believe it. So many times, we were hoping that it was going to happen,” said Carlos Orellana, a Salvadoran immigrant who is running for a Common Council seat in Yonkers.
Walter Argueta, a theater director in Stamford, Conn., said he was thinking of those who died during the war and those who were killed just for protesting.
“Finally. Finally we made it,” he said. “We couldn’t make it with weapons and bullets, but we made it with the election, which is more sweet.”

Funes, a former television reporter who did not fight in the war, takes office June 1 to succeed the ruling Nationalist Republican Alliance party, known by its Spanish acronym, ARENA.
One issue that has loomed large in Salvadoran presidential politics has been the consequences for Salvadoran immigrants in the United States. Republican administration officials had made clear that the U.S. would not look kindly on a leftist victory in El Salvador, raising concerns that immigrants might be denied opportunities to stay in the U.S. or to send money to their families.
FMLN supporters sought to quell those fears, even visiting immigrant enclaves, such as Port Chester, to gather support this year.
President-elect Funes promised in his victory speech that strengthening ties with the U.S. would be a priority. He received congratulations yesterday from President Barack Obama’s administration.
“We look forward to working with the new government of El Salvador,” State Department spokesman Robert Wood said. “It was a very free, fair and democratic election.”
More than 200,000 Salvadorans live in the United States under a humanitarian provision called temporary protected status. The program allows certain immigrants to live and work in the U.S., but keeps them in a legal limbo.
“People here are worried,” said Dago Santos, a plant manager for a bakery in Port Chester. “There is a lot of fear because there are many families, many parents, who have children born here, and if some day they lose their temporary protection, they could be deported. Those families could be separated.”
Santos, who has permanent residency in the U.S., said he was skeptical that the new socialist leadership would rid El Salvador of corruption or gang violence. Citing homicide statistics from his hometown of San Miguel, he said the government could restore order only by putting troops on the streets.
He and others were discussing the election at lunchtime in a Salvadoran restaurant in Port Chester. Roxana Beltran, who lives in Bridgeport, Conn., said current President Tony Saca had failed to make progress.
“He didn’t do much about the gangs. He said he would put a stop to it, but I didn’t see it,” she said. “That would be the first thing (Funes) would have to do, because there’s a lot of crime.”
El Salvador limits presidents to one five-year term.
“Now the challenge for the left is to really do a good job, to be a good government,” Orellana said. “Any changes, they will take time.”