It’s a question of days for some of us.
Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, marked 536 days since the El Paso massacre, when a gunman drove more than 650 miles to kill Mexicans. It was 1,683 days after the Pulse nightclub killings. And exactly 2,045 days after Donald Trump launched his campaign for the White House by lambasting Mexico for not sending its “best” people to the United States.
These dates are linked, chronologically and arguably in causation, in the recent cultural history of Latinos in the United States. Their theme is opposition to our existence and, in its worst iteration, eliminating us.
Inauguration Day offered a break in that grim count, with symbolic gestures of Latino visibility at the swearing-in ceremony for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Jennifer Lopez recited the final line of the Pledge of Allegiance in jubilant Spanish. And Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the high court’s first Latina, swore in Harris the nation’s first
Joseph Robinette Biden’s swearing in as the 46th president came when the nation needed a unifying message the most. It was also a day of firsts: one wherein flags staked on the National Mall grounds replaced the usual cheering hordes;
Eclectic mix of Texans featured in Biden s inauguration events
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Sister Norma Pimentel, right, of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, leads a Congressional delegation, including Congressman Joaquin Castro, Chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, center across the Rio Grande to view the living conditions the asylum seekers have to deal with in the refugee camp in Matamoros, MX.Bob Owen, STAFF-photographer / Staff photographerShow MoreShow Less
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FILE - In this July 25, 2016, file photo, actress Eva Longoria speaks during the first day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. Longoria and fellow actress America Ferrera are leading a coalition of actors, writers and leaders who penned a public letter of solidarity, Friday, Aug. 16, 2019, to U.S. Latinos in the wake of the El Paso, Texas, shooting and the immigration raid in Mississippi. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)J. Scott Applewhite, STF / APShow MoreShow Less
A steady stream of A-list names has signed on, headlined by Lady Gaga singing the national anthem on the West Front of the Capitol, with Jennifer Lopez and Garth Brooks contributing musical performances. Other top-tier performers will be part of Celebrating America, a 90-minute, multi-network evening broadcast hosted by Tom Hanks that officially takes the place of the usual multiple inaugural balls.
Like so much this past year, the inaugural celebration will be like no other: pared down, distanced, much of it virtual. But for actor Christopher Jackson the original George Washington in Broadway’s ‘Hamilton’ performing in a virtual ball is a way of participating in an essential rite of American democracy.
“I’m glad to play a part in it,” says Jackson, who will perform at the quadrennial ball for the Creative Coalition, a fundraiser for arts education and one of the more prominent unofficial events surrounding Joe Biden’s inauguration. “It’s a great honour, and I’m very grateful that we have allowed our system to continue to work in the way it was intended.”