Resources | Madison Arcatao Sister City Project

Madison Arcatao Sister City Project

New Oral History about the Beginnings of MASCP

Bombs were falling on Arcatao, El Salvador when Madison's Common Council voted to make it Madison's first sister city on April 1, 1986. Seven activists recount the events leading up to this moment in a new oral history, collected by MASCP members and published in the online "Living History" project sponsored by Madison Public Library (MPL).

Interviews in this collection include leaders in the Madison sanctuary movement, community activists and Madison Common Council alders at the time. Billy Feitlinger, who was an alder then, explained his support of the official sistering resolution this way:

"This was an issue that was a moral imperative …part of the purpose of the resolution was to raise public awareness that it was a very bad thing that the American government was involved financially and militarily in El Salvador."

Antonio Portillo and his family in public sanctuary in Madison in 1984.

You can see and hear the collection here

See the Press release here

Mary Kay Baum delivering the official Madison Common Council resolution to Maria Chichilco (nom de guerre) in San José las Flores in fall, 1986.

Resources and Partners

Madison Arcatao Sister City Project - Organization supporting the sistering relationship between Madison WI, USA and Arcatao, El Salvador since 1986.

CRIPDES - Organization for the Development of El Salvador. CRIPDES works with rural and working class communities. Partners with US El Salvador Sister Cities and other NGOs.

U.S. El Salvador Sister Cities - National organization, founded in 1986, organizing US communities sistered with Salvadoran communities. Partners with CRIPDES in El Salvador, a national organization for the development of El Salvador.

Unfinished Sentences - Oral histories shared by people who were residents of the community of Arcatao during the period of the Salvadoran civil war.