Posted on Aug 7, 2021
2 Years After El Paso Massacre Of Latinos, Anti-Immigrant Sentiment Festers
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Two years ago this week, a gunman in El Paso, Texas, killed 23 people in a Walmart — most of them Latino.
The white man charged with murder allegedly told police he drove 11 hours to the U.S.-Mexico border city with the intention of targeting Mexicans. He reportedly complained about a “Hispanic invasion” of Texas and warned that the U.S. was in the process of a “cultural and ethnic replacement.”
That language echoes the writing of an infamous and influential white nationalist who died at age 85 just weeks before the El Paso massacre. John Tanton was an eye doctor from northern Michigan, but he was better known to some as "the architect of the modern anti-immigrant movement."
Here & Now's Peter O'Dowd speaks with Mark Potok of the Center for Analysis of the Radical Right.
The white man charged with murder allegedly told police he drove 11 hours to the U.S.-Mexico border city with the intention of targeting Mexicans. He reportedly complained about a “Hispanic invasion” of Texas and warned that the U.S. was in the process of a “cultural and ethnic replacement.”
That language echoes the writing of an infamous and influential white nationalist who died at age 85 just weeks before the El Paso massacre. John Tanton was an eye doctor from northern Michigan, but he was better known to some as "the architect of the modern anti-immigrant movement."
Here & Now's Peter O'Dowd speaks with Mark Potok of the Center for Analysis of the Radical Right.
2 Years After El Paso Massacre Of Latinos, Anti-Immigrant Sentiment Festers
Posted from wbur.org
El Paso
Murder
Immigration
Racism
Culture
Posted >1 y ago
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
"Attacks against Latinos in the U.S. didn’t stop after El Paso’s shooting"
EL PASO, Texas — As Natalia Miranda lay on the ground, she didn’t know how she got there. Her body was severely swollen and her clothes were torn and dirty.
A SUV ran over the 14-year-old a few weeks before Christmas last year. She says she was walking the two blocks between her home in Clive, Iowa, and her junior high school to watch a basketball game.
Neither Natalia or her parents could make sense of what happened but soon, police told the family that it wasn’t an accident. The driver, a White woman, admitted that she intentionally hit the teen, police said.
“Her intention was clear … because she looks Mexican,” Natalia’s father, Cesar Miranda told CNN, referring to what the driver told police.
In the year following the mass shooting at the Cielo Vista Walmart store in El Paso, multiple attacks targeting Latinos and immigrants have taken place across the United States.
The shooting in El Paso is considered one of the nation’s deadliest shootings and the deadliest attack on Latinos in modern US history. A gunman opened fire killing 23 people and injuring nearly two dozen others.
Before the massacre, the suspected gunman — now indicted on more than 90 federal and state charges, including hate crimes — published a racist screed railing against Latinos and immigrants, authorities said. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
It was a terrifying escalation to the ongoing racist rhetoric and violence against Latinos in the country. About a year before the shooting, half of Latinos said they had concerns about their situation in America and were worried that a family member or close friend could be deported, according to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center. That sentiment didn’t vanish in the aftermath of the shooting.
The driver accused of hitting Natalia, Nicole Poole Franklin, 42, was arrested in December and remains jailed with no bond. She faces two charges of attempted murder and one count of assault-violation of individual rights, which is a hate crime. The charges stem from three separate incidents one involving Natalia, one involving a Black teen and one related to allegedly yelling racial slurs at a gas station attendant, according to jail and court records, and police reports.
The case remains pending in Polk County court. CNN has reached out to the public defender representing Poole Franklin but has not heard back.
Since the incident, Natalia and her family said they have constantly battled with anger, fear, and the teen’s mental and physical recovery.
Natalia has dreamed more than once that the same SUV returns and “runs over in her upper part of her body like it’s going to finish her up,” said Dalila Alonso Miranda, the teen’s mother.
While the state case remains pending, Natalia’s family is calling for federal hate crimes charges to be brought against Poole Franklin.
“If you don’t charge someone with a hate crime when they tell you that that’s why they did it, then when will you?” Alonso Miranda said."
"Attacks against Latinos in the U.S. didn’t stop after El Paso’s shooting"
EL PASO, Texas — As Natalia Miranda lay on the ground, she didn’t know how she got there. Her body was severely swollen and her clothes were torn and dirty.
A SUV ran over the 14-year-old a few weeks before Christmas last year. She says she was walking the two blocks between her home in Clive, Iowa, and her junior high school to watch a basketball game.
Neither Natalia or her parents could make sense of what happened but soon, police told the family that it wasn’t an accident. The driver, a White woman, admitted that she intentionally hit the teen, police said.
“Her intention was clear … because she looks Mexican,” Natalia’s father, Cesar Miranda told CNN, referring to what the driver told police.
In the year following the mass shooting at the Cielo Vista Walmart store in El Paso, multiple attacks targeting Latinos and immigrants have taken place across the United States.
The shooting in El Paso is considered one of the nation’s deadliest shootings and the deadliest attack on Latinos in modern US history. A gunman opened fire killing 23 people and injuring nearly two dozen others.
Before the massacre, the suspected gunman — now indicted on more than 90 federal and state charges, including hate crimes — published a racist screed railing against Latinos and immigrants, authorities said. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
It was a terrifying escalation to the ongoing racist rhetoric and violence against Latinos in the country. About a year before the shooting, half of Latinos said they had concerns about their situation in America and were worried that a family member or close friend could be deported, according to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center. That sentiment didn’t vanish in the aftermath of the shooting.
The driver accused of hitting Natalia, Nicole Poole Franklin, 42, was arrested in December and remains jailed with no bond. She faces two charges of attempted murder and one count of assault-violation of individual rights, which is a hate crime. The charges stem from three separate incidents one involving Natalia, one involving a Black teen and one related to allegedly yelling racial slurs at a gas station attendant, according to jail and court records, and police reports.
The case remains pending in Polk County court. CNN has reached out to the public defender representing Poole Franklin but has not heard back.
Since the incident, Natalia and her family said they have constantly battled with anger, fear, and the teen’s mental and physical recovery.
Natalia has dreamed more than once that the same SUV returns and “runs over in her upper part of her body like it’s going to finish her up,” said Dalila Alonso Miranda, the teen’s mother.
While the state case remains pending, Natalia’s family is calling for federal hate crimes charges to be brought against Poole Franklin.
“If you don’t charge someone with a hate crime when they tell you that that’s why they did it, then when will you?” Alonso Miranda said."
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