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It was a Sunday, but the Catholic church had arguments have resonated. I left Henry’s True
4
been shuttered because of the pandemic. I Value and stepped back into the piñon-scented
DIFFERENTIATION Identity knocked on a few doors, rattled a few gates. desolation of Rio Arriba County.
I found a faded tribute to the TA Raiders —
Speaking and Listening Tijerina’s vigilantes — painted on the wall of an EL PASO COUNTY, TEXAS
Tobar implies that DeYapp leans more abandoned storefront, but no one was around. 83% HISPANIC
toward Trump’s policies than Biden’s; Finally, on the highway at the edge of town, I BIDEN 67%, TRUMP 32%
Trump’s policies have “resonated” more saw cars pulling up to Henry’s True Value, an
with him (par. 17). But DeYapp is his voice all-in-one liquor, hardware, and fishing-supply The Rio Grande flows south from Rio Arriba
Copyright (c) 2023 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. Uncorrected proofs have been used for this sample chapter.
for the Tierra Amarilla section, which voted store. Inside, I found a young clerk with tousled County toward El Paso, my next destination.
66% Biden. You might have students dis- hair standing behind the counter, brown eyes Trump last visited El Paso in August 2019,
cuss the effectiveness of Tobar’s evidence visible above his face mask. In between custom- days after a twenty-one-year-old man from
here. On the one hand, one of his claims is ers, we fell into a conversation about local history. the suburbs of Dallas murdered twenty-three
that the Latino vote is not monolithic; on “There are still people pretty animado 4 people at a local Walmart. In an online mani -
the other, he does not always present a about the land grants and all that stuff,” C. J. festo, the shooter said he feared the power
Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. Strictly for use with its products. Not for redistribution.
majority voice from the location he visits. DeYapp told me, speaking in a warm and lilting of the “Hispanic voting bloc” and the “great
Students might debate strengths and New Mexican accent. “It doesn’t turn into a big replacement” of white people. The Walmart
weaknesses, but you might steer them to thing like it did, but they still have that emotion.” reopened three months later. I stood in the
s overall
obar’
fectiveness of T
consider the ef
consider the effectiveness of Tobar’s overall DeYapp, twenty-six, works at the store his family parking lot where the shooter had begun
argument and line of reasoning rather than owns and is the grandson of its founder, the late killing brown-skinned people and watched as
to undermine his article’s stance. Henry Ulibarrí, who was a leader in the commu- a steady stream of shoppers filed through the
nity. “There was a time he was considered the same entrance he had used. Inside, just past
godfather of TA,” DeYapp said of his grandfather. the glass doors where security cameras
He told me that the TA Raiders tried and failed captured him carrying a WASR-10 semiauto-
to persuade his grandfather to join their cause. matic rifle, I found racks of women’s polyester
Tijerina went to prison; the elder Ulibarrí stuck parkas and boxes of doughnuts for sale. The
with his store. . . . light was fluorescent and stark; it seemed to
DeYapp didn’t want to tell me how he had mock the dead. . . .
cast his presidential vote. But when I pressed After the El Paso shooting, the historian
him about the issues that defined the campaign, David Dorado Romo, who lost a friend in the
he expressed concern about Biden’s economic attack, wrote a piece for the Texas Observer
plans. “You look at the taxes part of it, it’ll impact that contextualized the massacre within the
even the store.” DeYapp said he’d heard that state’s long history of racial violence. Romo
Biden wanted to raise the federal minimum suggested that I meet him in the old El Paso
wage “to like seventeen bucks or something.” neighborhood of Duranguito. “This was the
(The figure Biden proposed was $15, but that’s First Ward, the Mexican quarter,” Romo told
still far above the $10.50 New Mexico adopted at me. We stood next to a fenced-off stretch of
the beginning of the year.) “We would have to buildings. Four blocks had been slated for
close. We couldn’t pay out seventeen to every- demolition to make way for a new arena. Crews
body. . . . That’s just too much.” DeYapp didn’t had punched holes in the century-old brick
mention Trump, but it’s clear that some of his walls. “Part of what they’re doing here is
eliminating those roots,” Romo said. “You erase
4 Spanish for animated. — Eds. history, then you can deport bodies.”

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DIFFERENTIATION
Connections to Text
To delve more into the El Paso incident and
racist violence, you might have students read
Romo’s Texas Observer article, “To Under-
stand the El Paso Massacre, Look to the
Long Legacy of Anti-Mexican Violence at the
Border” (August 9, 2019). How does his
article support Tobar’s claims?

276 chapter 4 / Identity

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