'It can happen again': America's long history of attacks against Latinos
Lois Beckett
@loisbeckett
Thu 15 Aug 2019 01.00 EDT Last modified on Thu 15 Aug 2019 13.05 EDT
Last year marked a century since another Texas massacre, part of a legacy of racist violence leading up to El Paso
“It can happen again.” That’s what Arlinda Valencia said last year, at a ceremony in Texas marking the 100th anniversary of the massacre of 15 Mexicans and Mexican-Americans by a group of white men.
Valencia’s great-grandfather was one of the 15 unarmed men and boys who were woken up in the middle of the night in Porvenir, Texas, in 1918, taken outside, and shot to death. The slaughter, which was carried out by white Texas Rangers, US soldiers, and local vigilantes, was justified by labeling the Mexican American families “bandits” and criminals.
The attack on Latino families in El Paso nearly two weeks ago left Valencia deeply afraid. “It’s history repeating itself a hundred years later,” she told the Guardian.
The 3 August mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, which left 22 people dead, appeared to be the deadliest terror attack and hate crime against Latinos in recent American history. A white nationalist manifesto that appeared to be linked to the shooting claimed that Latinos were “invaders”, even though Latinos had been living in the area long before Texas became part of the United States.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/14/it-can-happen-again-americas-long-history-of-attacks-against-latinos
