On Film, What They Left Behind

But many people stayed here, becoming citizens or permanent residents who are able to travel back and forth and keep the link with their homeland alive. Those who could sent back money to build roads, houses and other infrastructure.

The film shows dirt roads and one-room shacks -- Intipucá before the money started rolling in -- juxtaposed with the town today, with its neat cobblestone streets and grand three-story houses with ornate balconies and front doors that look as if they came from Lowe's (in some cases, they might have).

After viewing the film, audience members, among them many Intipucans who have succeeded in business here, praised director Tomas Guevara; executive producer Hugo Salinas, an Arlington activist from Intipucá who lost a close race for mayor of the town last year; and cinematographer Mario Quiroz, a Salvadoran photographer who lives in Rockville and has put together an exhibit of photos of Intipucans on display in the lobby of the Rosslyn Spectrum.

"My father used to have a small farm in Intipucá," said Rene Rodriguez, who introduced himself as a volunteer cultural attache at the Salvadoran Embassy. As a boy, Rodriguez said, he used to travel often to Intipucá from San Miguel.

"I don't know if there's any other town in El Salvador where you see the people so together that they know how to help their homeland without expecting anything," he said.

Quiroz's exhibit of 40 black and white photos, "Km 164: 40 Años Despues" (40 Years Later), shows Intipucan townspeople: sepia-tinted photos of wrinkled faces and children who look, by turns, world-weary and hopeful. "Km 164" refers to the kilometer marker at the entrance to the town, denoting the distance from the capital, San Salvador, the first leg of the emigrants' journey.

Quiroz, who is from San Salvador, said it took time to get people in Intipucá to relax around him so he could photograph them.

"At the beginning, they were kind of like, 'Who are you?' But eventually you start talking and you become friends with them," he said. By the end, he said, some were seeking him out to photograph them.

Quiroz said he was struck by the words of an Intipucan schoolteacher who told him that most of the town's high school graduates would eventually move to the United States.

"Here, when you graduate, it's like, 'Which college are you going to?' " he said. "There, it's like, 'When are you leaving for Los Estados?' -- the States. It's like Camelot or Shangri-La. It's a mythical place."

Guevara, a Washington-based journalist for the Salvadoran newspaper El Diario de Hoy, said he was moved to make the documentary because the Intipucan experience reflects themes common to many Salvadorans -- the nostalgia for home and the displacement and dislocation caused by mass emigration.

"Immigration is not always easy; it's not only money, it's not only a big house in Washington," said Guevara, who is from San Salvador. "Families get left behind, and the second generation can lose the connection with their heredity."