Editor’s note: A longer version of this article appears in the National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ palabra.
Nicole Chavez found herself in disturbingly familiar circumstances when she rushed to cover the murders of 19 students and teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The shootings by an 18-year-old armed with a military-style rifle triggered traumatic memories of covering the murders of 23 people in her hometown of El Paso almost three years ago.
That 2019 “act of terrorism against Mexicans and the Hispanic community,” as Chavez wrote then, happened at the Walmart where she grew up shopping; her dad and sister could have been there on that day. It was an act “against her people and those she considers family.” Back then, she told palabra that “it was [her] duty” to volunteer to report the story.
