"Recuperating Histories of Violence in the Americas: Vernacular History-Making on the US-Mexico Border"

"Recuperating Histories of Violence in the Americas: Vernacular History-Making on the US-Mexico Border"

In this article Monica Martinez examines racial violence against ethnic Mexicans in early 20th-century Texas, specifically the 1915 murder of Jesús Bazán and Antonio Longoria. The piece explores how local and family narratives challenge official histories that often erased or justified such violence. Martinez highlights how historical memory, storytelling, and activism play a role in confronting past injustices and shaping public understanding of state-sanctioned racial terror.

While the state-backed violence against Mexican Americans and Mexican migrants living around the Texas border wasn't explicitly encouraged by the Texas Rangers, the lack of guardrails and legal consequences against the Rangers gave the organization free-range to do and act like they pleased. The low number of documented sources reporting on the murders of Mexicans at the time is similar to other cases of state-sanctioned violence toward black Americans around Texas and other states in the US south.

Monica Muñoz Martinez, "Recuperating Histories of Violence in the Americas: Vernacular History-Making on the US-Mexico Border" American Quarterly, Vol. 66, No. 3, Special Issue: Las Américas Quarterly (September 2014): pp. 661-689