Los Angeles Times

A long, bloody history of anti-Latino violence in the U.S.

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This month, a gunman in El Paso looking to kill Mexicans massacred 22 people, marking possibly the worst U.S. hate crime against Latinos in decades. But attacks against Latinos are nothing new. Just as Latinos have deep roots in the United States, the history of violence against them is lengthy too. And while these incidents rarely get widespread attention, from anti-Mexican lynchings in Texas to the forced repatriati­on of U.S. citizens of Mexican heritage to Mexico in the 1930s, each has reverberat­ed for generation­s for the families that lived them. Below is a brief history of anti-Latino attacks in the United States. It is far from comprehens­ive.

1849: Expulsion of Mexicans from mines during the California Gold Rush

At Sutter’s Mill, where the discovery of gold set off California’s Gold Rush, mobs forced out all Spanish speakers in the spring of 1849. In the following months, mobs also forced Mexicans off three California rivers where prospector­s were panning for gold.

1857: Texas Cart War

Starting in July 1857, white vigilantes in and around the Texas town of Goliad began attacking Mexican American ox cart drivers and stealing their cargo. About 70 Mexican American drivers were killed, some of them hanged from a tree that would come to be known as the Cart War Oak. The racist violence took place in an area where there were repeated clashes between Mexicans and whites dating back decades.

Dec. 22, 1877: Bakersf ield mass lynching

In Bakersfiel­d, a mob of about 100 men seized from jail five Mexican men who had been accused of theft — Antonio Maron, Francisco Encinas, Miguel Elias, Fermin Eideo and Bessena Ruiz — and hanged them after a mock trial.

1915: La Matanza “From summer through late

fall of 1915, Texas Rangers indiscrimi­nately shot and killed dozens of Mexicans without questionin­g, solely based on the assumption of allegiance to bandits” in Cameron County, Texas, according to the Refusing to Forget project. The period of time is known as “La Matanza,” or the massacre. The names of dozens of victims are known, but many others are probably lost to history. Jan. 28, 1918: Porvenir massacre in West Texas In the early morning of Jan. 28, 1918, a group of Texas Rangers, soldiers and local ranchers surrounded the residents of the village of Porvenir in West Texas. They woke families from their beds, separated 15 unarmed men and boys from the rest of the community and executed them. As a result of the attack, residents of Porvenir abandoned the village and fled to Mexico.

Nov. 16, 1922: Mob pushes Mexicans out of Breckenrid­ge, Texas

Around 300 armed men marched through town demanding that Mexican residents leave. “When representa­tives from the Mexican community appealed to the mayor for protection, he replied that he could not guarantee their safety,” wrote William D. Carrigan and Clive Webb in their book, “Forgotten Dead: Mob Violence Against Mexicans in the United States, 1848-1928.”

Feb. 26, 1931: Raid at La Placita

Immigratio­n agents stormed La Placita, in the heart of Los Angeles, pulling hundreds of men and women into vans and taking them to trains for deportatio­n to Mexico. The raid set off nearly a decade of socalled repatriati­ons of men and women of Mexican heritage, many of whom were U.S. citizens.

June 1943: Zoot Suit Riots

For several days in the summer of 1943, sailors and other American servicemen in Los Angeles led targeted attacks on young Mexican men and other men of color who dressed in zoot suits, beating them and stripping them of their clothes.

Nov. 8, 2008: Killing of Marcelo Lucero

Seven teenagers in Suffolk County, N.Y., who told friends they were going to attack “a Mexican,” found Marcelo Lucero, an immigrant from Ecuador. They surrounded and punched him before one of them stabbed him in the chest with a knife and killed him. When the case went to court, it was revealed that the teens considered violent attacks on Latinos, which they called “beaner hopping,” to be a sport.

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