El Paso, with deep Mexican American past, rallies amid pain
The mass shooting at an El Paso Walmart struck a city that some call a Mexican American intellectual, political and literary center.
Investigators believe the white shooter wrote an anti-Hispanic, anti-immigrant online rant before killing 22 people in a community where Mexican Americans once faced violence from white mobs.
However, since World War II Mexican Americans have transformed the city into a key bicultural center that has helped reshape U.S. Latino life.
El Paso-born novelist Sergio Troncoso says Mexican Americans helped make El Paso one of the safest big cities.
But he says the shooting is triggering memories of when Mexican Americans faced racial violence and highlighting the nation’s trouble with white nationalism today.
