Stuck in Between: A Former Marero in the «European Capital» of Salvadoran Gangs

The chapter will retrace part of the life story of Oscar (fictional name), a Salvadoran former marero, member of Mara Salvatrucha, who, at the beginning of the 2000s, migrated to Milan looking for a new life. While fighting against his provisional position, having no official documents and getting only temporary jobs, he continued to be persecuted by the spectre of his gang. Oscar witnessed the spread of Central American maras in Milan, or at least of their “brands”, adopted by small groups of youngsters who started to meet up in the public space of the city. Oscar reluctantly became a “privileged interlocutor” for journalists, video makers, and researchers (including me) who interviewed him in order to understand what was going on. Stuck between a dreadful past and a too-precarious present, Oscar did not manage to negotiate a different biographic trajectory, or, rather, he did not get an opportunity to ensure it.