EL PASO, TX - Tonight, Beto spoke at the ‘See The Voice, Be The Change’ Vigil, in order to honor the victims of yesterday’s tragic mass shooting in El Paso and the life of Joaquin Oliver. In his remarks, Beto held up the El Paso community as an example of what our country’s future could be, if we choose to overcome our divides. He also called for gun reform (full video).
Beto began his remarks by sharing the story of a woman who he visited in the hospital, who had two other family members who were also shot by the attacker.
“We went up and visited with Rosemary, who had been shot in the chest by this gunman. Both of her lungs were pierced. Yet, she had this big, beautiful, strong, courageous, confident El Paso smile on her face when her son walked in - when she saw all of us - even, as we saw the fluid from her lungs being drained out by a tube that ran along the side of her bed ...That's just one story from this community of nearly three million people joined, not separated, by the Rio Grande River -- offering not just an example to the rest of the country but the best place on planet earth if you ask me.”
Beto then spoke of how El Paso has “bore the brunt” of the country’s increasing anti-immigrant tensions in the country.
“There are so many right now who want to make us afraid of each other. Make us angry, keep us apart - based on our differences, to divide us and keep us from the greatness that should be ours. This community has bore the brunt of it. Those of you who grew up in El Paso and Ciudad Juárez know exactly what I’m talking about. The rest of this country projecting their fears on us - on immigrants, on Mexicans, on those who do not look like the majority of the United States of America. Expressed in militarization, on walls, on thousands of people who have died trying to enter this country in the first place. And yesterday we bore the absolute worst of it. In a community for the last 10 years, which has averaged 18 murders a year, for the entire year, we saw 20 people gunned down in one day. And as you well know, but it bears repeating so the rest of the world knows this, he was not from El Paso ,Texas. He was from half a state away bringing that fear, bringing that anger, bringing that hatred, and bringing that racism.”
Beto concluded by asking America to look to El Paso to see how we can overcome our divides.
“But though we have bore the brunt of this intolerance and this racism and this hatred and this fear, it also so happens that America can look in El Paso, look to this community, to see the answer. We are one of the safest cities in the United States of America not despite but because nearly a quarter of those who live in El Paso were born in another country. People chose us - leaving their family, their community, their nation, sometimes their language - to start a new here and to do better for themselves and their kids, for sure, but also because they also wanted to do better for all of us. And by their very presence they have. We are safe and strong and secure because we are a community of immigrants. We do not just tolerate or respect our differences we embrace them as foundational to our success and to our safety. I am so proud of El Paso at this moment - a community that will not be defined by the murders that we saw yesterday but instead in the way we choose to overcome them. We define ourselves by our love, our courage, our confidence and our strength.”
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