Manifest Destiny Archives

December 17, 2019

The Gilroy and El Paso massacres: Trump and the long history of anti-Mexican racism in the United States

It’s sad to say that I was shocked and angered but not surprised when I heard of the July 28, 2019 mass shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival, which was carried out by a white supremacist. I felt more shock, anger, and apprehension a few days later when I heard of yet another mass shooting carried out by another white supremacist, this time in El Paso, Tejas. Again, I wasn’t surprised that something like this could happen in the U.S. today.

Trump started his campaign for president about three years ago by calling Mexicans “rapists” and “criminals.” He has called us “enemies” of the U.S. and promised to build a wall to keep us out of this country. Once in office, he has called Central Americans “animals,” and their nations “shithole countries.” Political pundits like Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham have followed suit by claiming that immigration from poor countries makes the U.S. “dirty” and are “destroying America.” They have called Mexico a “hostile foreign power,’ implying that Mexicans in the U.S. are subversive agents. They have said that immigration is a threat to the U.S., which will lead to a less safe country and that it will result in the death of “America.”

October 20, 2019

by Héctor Rivera

Towards a new history of Black-Latinx solidarity

Paul Ortiz’s book An African American and Latinx History of the United States (2018), is a refreshing work that has opened broader vistas of the possible by recovering a wealthy history of Black and Latinx resistance. I hope to highlight important takeaways for those of us looking for a compass and to convince readers of puntorojo to engage with and expand on our people’s history outlined in the book. As I will outline below, the book allowed me to discover a proud history of Black-Brown of solidarity that shows that we are at our strongest who our struggles are united. It also provided inspiration to wage this fight in the present and I hope that it can do the same for others.

I came to An African American and Latinx History of the United States with the desire to understand Ortiz’s premise for an American history centered on the combined struggles African Americans and Latinx peoples. In this respect, the book did not disappoint, and like Howard Zinn’s classic, the historical breadth and solidarity-based ethos of Ortiz’s work is comparable. However, Ortiz’s book goes beyond the bounds of a traditional national history as the title might imply.