ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER DEATH
Tales told in book examine our nation, gun violence and debate over gun control
Gary Younge is a Guardian journalist who was based in the U.S. for 12 years reporting on distinctly American issues. His coverage about race and gun violence led to his departure piece “Farewell to America,” which went viral and articulated the reasons for moving his family back to London. He cited America’s prevalence of gun violence, racism and injustice.
Before he left, however, he completed two years of reporting on a very specific subject on a very specific day, and that work became his forthcoming book: “ANOTHER DAY IN THE DEATH OF AMERICA: A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives.” The premise: On any given day, on average, seven children age 19 and younger will be shot to death somewhere in this country. Younge chose a random date, Nov. 23, 2013, and set out to find all the youths who died from gunshots that day and document their lives. One of them, Edwin Rajo, was a Houston resident and student at Houston ISD’s Lee High School. The chilling tales, as they are grouped to represent the carnage inflicted on this one day, ultimately examines our country, gun violence and the absence of responsible gun control.
At five feet ten, Edwin Rajo (16), was a fairly tall, slender, handsome boy with tight black hair like wire wool and bushy eyebrows to match. It was perhaps a mark of his immaturity that he’d not found a wayway to capitalize on his good looks. He’d had plenty of crushes, says his friend Gabriel, but he was always too shy to talk to girls.
One girl he was particularly close to was Camilla (not her realal name) — a proud member of the e gang known as the Southwest Cholos. She has not only bought t into the gang culture; she literally ly wears it. Her hair sits high atop her head in a supertight ponytail, l, her eyebrows are drawn on in black, string rosaries hang aroundnd her neck. Big black shirt, big black ck pants, a black belt so long one end nd hangs lank close to the ground, black and white bandanna aroundnd her neck, and a pair of black Chuck uck Taylors on her feet. Butch and dark, ark, black on brown—it’s the chola style. tyle.
“Hewas always playing with her, but she had a tough attitude,” says Edwin’s mother, Marlyn, who left Honduras aged 19 and came to America via Laredo hiding in the driver’s cabin of an eighteeng wheelerwheeler withwith eight other people. “They loved each other very much. She protected him a lot.” “I knew him since third grade,” says Camilla. “Hewas my best friend. Wewere like brother andand ssister.”
ForFo the last few years, Edwin and CamillaCam had been living in Bellaire Gardens,Gard a low-rise apartment complexcomp on a busy road of commercialmerc and residential properties inin GuGulfton. Agreenfield site until shortlyshort after the Second World War, GulftonGulft was rapidly developed duringdurin the seventies, at the height of Houston’sHous oil boom. Ambitious energyergy workers flocked to Texas from thethe RRust Belt and abroad, promptinging opportunistico developers to hastilyhasti build “luxury” apartment complexescomp for young professionals.
WhentheW oil bust came, the speculatorsspec found new customers byby slashingsl rents, eliminating the “nono children” rules, and forgoing backgroundbac checks to draw in low-lowincome migrants. Within a
decade, Gulfton had been transformed in Houston’s imagination from trendy “Swingersville” to the “Gulfton Ghetto” and soon became notorious for gang crime. Bellaire Gardens is one of those complexes. It sits between a store selling bridal wear and highly flammablelooking dresses for quinceañera and the back of a Fiesta supermarket.
The Southwest Cholos run this neighborhood, complex by complex. There is no avoiding them. This is what makes the term gang-related so loaded and so unhelpful. Many young people in certain areas are gang members in the same way that Soviet citizens were members of the Communist Party — there was precious little choice. Whenit came to the Southwest Cholos, Camilla was an active member; Edwin was not. Though nobody said it, one gets the impression that his immaturity would have been a liability. He was a wannabe.
In the summer of 2013, Edwin and Camilla had become embroiled in a feud with a boy called Stevie G. (not his real name), whobelonged to a rival gang, La Primera. His girlfriend had moved into the Bellaire Gardens apartments. “We talked a lot of mess about her on the Internet,” says Camilla. WhenStevie G. heard about their insults, he came to Camilla’s apartment, threatened her, and trash-talked Edwin. Not long before that, he’d shot at Camilla’s brother when he was hanging out on Bissonnet Street. Camilla and Edwin thought they needed to protect themselves. So they pooled what little cash they had and bought a gun, which they stashed at Camilla’s house. “But we were thinking like little kids,” says Camilla. “I didn’t really know anything about guns. I just know you shoot with it and that’s it.”
As evening fell on Saturday November 23, it was unseasonably chilly for Houston— overcast and breezy with winds gusting at twenty-seven miles per hour. Edwin was cold and snuggled with Marlyn as they watched television, coaxing her phone from her so he could check his Facebook page.
Around 5:30 p.m., Edwin went to visit Camilla, without telling his mom. “He knew if he’d asked meI’d have said no,” says Marlyn. Whenhearrived at Camilla’s they chatted for a while, and then Edwin asked where the gun was. She gave it to him. Neither was remotely familiar with guns. He cocked it and then took the clip out. For a lark he pointed it at her and made out like he was going to shoot her. Then he gave it to her. “Make out like you’re gonna shoot me,” he said.
Camilla obliged. She held the gun at an angle, as though it were an extension of her arm, gangster-style. They assumed that because the clip was out the gun was empty. They didn’t realize that when he’d cocked it he’d put a bullet in the chamber. She pressed it against his chest and pulled the trigger. Pop. Then silence. Edwin’s eyes widened in shock and pain; Camilla’s eyes widened in disbelief as she felt the gun recoil. “Ohshit, you shot me,” he said. “Oh, sorry,” said Camilla. They stared at each other in a suspended moment, each realizing they could not turn the clock back and that Edwin had little time left.
Marlyn knew where Edwin was, even though he hadn’t told her, and around 7 she sent his younger brother Giovanni to go fetch him. Giovanni came back alone, breathless and with, as Marlyn recalls, “terror in his face.” “Mom, come quickly, Edwin is dying at Camilla’s house.”
Whenthey arrived, Camilla was crying on the stairs while her mother tried to revive Edwin, just outside Camilla’s room. Marlyn flew up the stairs and pushed Camilla’s momout of the way. Thinking he had reacted badly to some kind of drug, she yelled at Camilla’s mom, “What did you give him, he has asthma.” “No,” Camilla’s momsaid. “He has a bullet wound.”
Marlyn searched in vain but could see no blood. Camilla had shot him at such close range it was not immediately obvious where the wound was. Then Marlyn opened his jacket and there was the hole. She heard a noise in his chest, like a gurgling. WhenMarlyn pushed, some blood spurted out. She held him in her arms, the whole time screaming, “Edwin, what did they do to you? What did they do to you? Answer me!”
He’d been there for about half an hour, and no one had called emergency services. She knew he was dead. His skin was purple, his eyes were rolled back high under his lids. But she hoped for a miracle. She called 911. Whenthe paramedics arrived, they told everyone to clear out. Whenthey finally carried him down on the stretcher, they told her it was too late. He was gone.
They buried Edwin on December 13. “WhenI saw him in the coffin,” says Marlyn, “I wanted to go with him. But I know myother kids needed me.” For a while afterward, she thought she was going crazy. She imagined that maybe Edwin was hidden somewhere and would come back. WhenImet her, fifteen months after Edwin’s death, she started crying before I’d asked a single question.
Camilla was also struggling. She wanted to kill herself. “I wish Edwin had shot meor I’d shot myself or something. Edwin’s resting in peace right now, and I’ve still got to do everything. I still got to deal with people looking at mewrong because they know what happened.” Less than two weeks after we spoke, Camilla had been arrested for “retaliation” in what appears to be an unrelated matter. She was later sentenced to two years in prison.
The Rajos moved away from Bellaire Gardens. Marlyn couldn’t stand the memories. Whenwemetshe was heavily pregnant. Shortly before the interview was over I asked if, given everything that had happened, she regretted coming to America. “No,” she says. “It’s hard here. It’s very hard. It’s hard work just to stay alive. But I don’t regret leaving. I don’t regret coming. Sometimes I think God must know what happened to myson and why. But I don’t blame the country.”
Amonth after I spoke to her, she gave birth to a five-pound twelve-ounce boy. She named him Edwin.