‘He drove 10 hours to kill people who look like me.’ Miami reacts to El Paso
When Emily Gonzalez and her mom, Mayra Flores, moved from El Paso to Miami three months ago, they thought they were leaving behind “a really safe place.”
“We are a border city so we have Mexican immigrants, Central and South Americans,” Flores said. “We are a welcoming community.”
As reports of an active shooter at an El Paso Walmart first started emerging Saturday morning, Flores and Gonzalez took to their phones, texting relatives and friends back home to make sure they were safe. Thankfully, they said, no loved one was among the 22 people killed.
There was a close call, though.
“My dad’s sister-in-law was at the Walmart and she was shot in the leg,” Gonzalez said. “She’s OK, but yeah, you know somebody who’s been affected, someone that’s been harmed. Everybody is like a familia there. This is still something we can’t grasp.”
The hurt and incomprehension ratcheted up when they learned the Walmart rampage wasn’t just another mass shooting, but rather a specific hate crime against Hispanics, orchestrated by a man who drove 650 miles to El Paso with the intention, according to a racist manifesto posted online, of shooting “as many Mexicans as possible.”
“When I found out he was targeting Hispanics, I took it personal. I’m thinking, someone hates me because I am Latina, because I have dark hair and skin, because I speak with an accent. He doesn’t know who I am. But that he drove 10 hours to kill people who look like me is incredible,” said Flores. “I can’t make sense of it.”
On Tuesday night, the women from El Paso were joined by local politicians — including state Sens. Jose Javier Rodriguez and Annette Taddeo — as well as by activists from pro-immigrant organizations and pro-gun reform movements. At a rally in front of the Freedom Tower in downtown Miami, the group called for action against gun violence and white nationalism, and the deadly threat they pose in combination.
Among those gathered was Bryan Hernandez, president of the Kendall Democrats. He said the El Paso attack felt different from others past.
“I’m numb to these shootings. I got the notification on my phone and I just thought, ‘another one.’ At this point, I have to do that to not go crazy,” he said. “But then I read about the manifesto and for me it was a punch in the gut. My mom is from Colombia and my dad is from Honduras. Some racist could have done this to us too.”
Adriana Rivera, communications director of Alianza for Progress, didn’t read the manifesto because she knew “it would be too hard for [her].” But she was aware the document called the attack “a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”
“I get emotional at this kind of rhetoric,” she said. “You know, I’m a Puerto Rican. Puerto Rico is part of the U.S. and everyone there is Latino. So like, are we not part of the fabric of this country as Latinos? I don’t understand how the people like him plan to get rid of all the Latinos in this country.”
Among those gathered on Tuesday was a sense of loss for “our Latino brothers and sisters,” as Hernandez put it. But there was also the feeling that an attack fueled by racist hatred could target Miami next, a city that, like El Paso, is majority Hispanic.
“I mean this could have been Miami and this could very well in the future be Miami,” said Rivera. “If somebody says, ‘Wow, I like what the El Paso shooter did, he was right on the money. Where else could I go to do something like this and kill a lot of Hispanics? Miami!’ ”
Carlos Calzadilla, president of Young Progressives of America, is “definitely worried.”
“This is something that could happen anywhere in the U.S., especially in majority Latino communities like Miami. We need to fight back politically and unite because these white supremacists want to eliminate us.”
This story was originally published August 7, 2019 at 10:53 AM.
