UTEP Professors, Alumni Discuss Aug. 3 Shooting Anniversary in National Media
Last Updated on August 07, 2020 at 12:00 AM
Originally published August 07, 2020
By Victor R. Martinez
UTEP Communications
This week, the El Paso community marks one year since the Aug. 3, 2019, tragedy that took the lives of 23 people at the Cielo Vista Walmart.
A year after the deadliest attacks on Hispanics in modern U.S. history, El Pasoans continue to mourn, heal and love.
Faculty members, alumni and students from The University of Texas at El Paso appeared in a number of national publications sharing their expertise and unique border experiences with reporters across the nation.
Here is a sampling:
Dennis Bixler-Marquez, Ph.D., director of the Chicano Studies program, provided insight on how the racially motivated attack impacted UTEP students.
“You see in essence their innocence being affected because now (racist violence) is not just something they read about,” Bixler-Marquez told Time. “Now there’s a realization that it can happen anywhere.”
UTEP alumnus David Romo, who earned his doctorate in history in fall 2014, was also quoted in the story. Romo is a Borderland historian who lost his childhood friend, Arturo Benavides, in the Aug. 3 shooting.
Jasmine Aguilera, the reporter who wrote the story, is also a UTEP alumna, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in Multidisciplinary Studies in the spring of 2016.
Read in Time: https://time.com/5874088/el-paso-shooting-racism/
Romo also authored a piece for the Texas Observer titled “To Understand the El Paso Massacre, Look to the Long Legacy of Anti-Mexican Violence at the Border,” providing historical context to the El Paso shooting.
Read in Texas Observer: https://www.texasobserver.org/to-understand-the-el-paso-massacre-look-to-the-long-legacy-of-anti-mexican-violence-at-the-border/
Irma Montelongo, Ph.D., associate professor of practice and online program coordinator in Chicano Studies, was quoted in a Boston Globe article.
Read in Boston Globe: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/08/01/business/devastated-by-multiple-tragedies-border-city-seeks-bridge-future/
Maria Cristina Morales, an associate professor of sociology, was quoted by USA Today about how racist ideas could emerge from changing demographics in a country where Hispanics accounted for more than half the nation’s population growth.
She said, “When you have a few people of color, the community is not seen so much as a threat. But the more that the population grows – the population of Latinos grow for instance – the more fear that there's going to be a loss of power.”
Read in USA Today: https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/nation/2020/08/03/el-paso-walmart-shooting-racist-motive-behind-attack/5556903002/
Yolanda Chavez Leyva, Ph.D, director of UTEP’s Institute of Oral History, said the El Paso shootings were another chapter in a long history of anti-Mexican violence in Texas.
“One of the things I find most useful as a historian — but also it's kind of a burden of being a historian — is that when things happen, you can tell when it happened before and before and before,” she said.
Read in Houston Public Media: https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/texas/2020/08/03/379089/el-pasoans-were-targeted-for-being-mexican-historians-say-thats-been-happening-for-200-years/?utm_source=rss-texas-article&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=hpm-rss-link
José Villalobos, Ph.D., political science professor, talks about how El Paso is less divisive in its politics than other parts of Texas.
He said, “This is not a city where you had, you know, people who were in an incredibly ugly way attacking each other over an issue like gun rights. And after the attack, there were very respectful debates and very, I think, meaningful conversations that were being had, even among those who were on very far sides of the political spectrum.”
Read in Texas Standard: https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/el-pasoans-remain-politically-divided-one-year-after-mass-shooting/
Dallas Wings forward and UTEP grad Kayla Thornton reflected on Aug. 3 in the Dallas Morning News.
“El Paso is where my heart is. I couldn’t be [more] blessed to grow up in a place that has a beautiful soul,” Thornton said. “El Paso, we’re very underrated, but once you live there for many years, El Paso is a relaxed place. It’s more of like a family. It’s just everybody gets along.”
Read Dallas Morning News: https://www.dallasnews.com/sports/wings/2020/08/01/a-year-after-el-paso-shooting-kayla-thornton-hopes-her-hometowns-response-to-tragedy-can-bring-unity/
UTEP journalism students Anahy Diaz, Victoria Almaguer and Claudia Hernández got together on Zoom to reflect on how they and their city have changed since Aug. 3.
All three are part of the Audio Journalism and Podcasting research course.
Read in KERA News: https://www.keranews.org/post/who-we-are-makes-us-target-students-reflect-el-paso-shooting
UTEP alumnus and Gold Nugget recipient Alfredo Corchado provided this report for the Dallas Morning News. He graduated in 1987 with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism. He was named a Gold Nugget recipient in 2009 for his work covering U.S.-Mexico relations, border violence, immigration and other border issues.
Read in Dallas Morning News: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/texas/2020/08/03/on-the-border-tears-and-promises-that-the-el-paso-massacre-will-never-be-forgotten-or-repeated/
Emmy winning multimedia journalist Angela Kocherga, the news director for KTEP-FM (88.5) and Borderzine, reports on El Paso’s resilience after Aug. 3 for Texas Public Radio.
Listen on Texas Public Radio: https://www.tpr.org/post/texas-matters-el-paso-remembers-and-covid-19-innovations-criminal-justice
