The Hate Crime No One Is Talking About
Aaron Martinez was murdered by a neighbor who didn’t want Latinos in his neighborhood
On April 30, Aaron Martinez celebrated his 35th birthday. A day later he was brutally murdered by his neighbor who had been harassing them for years and saying he didn’t want Latinos in his neighborhood. According to CBS News Texas, when Martinez moved to Forney more than 2 years ago, 30-year-old Trevor McEuan began harassing him immediately.
“He started to follow us...[saying] 'We don't want you Spanish people in the area,'" Aaron’s father Salvador Martinez told CBS News Texas.
While McEwan has been caught after a tense standoff with police and is being held on a $2 million bond for murder, calls are growing for hate crime charges to be filed. The family has told reporters and police that McEuan shot Martinez because he was Latino. Community members have been organizing protests asking prosecutors to include hate crime charges and earlier this week protested during a bond reduction hearing. A request that was rejected by the judge.
Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas also issued a demand on his official website and on social media seeking hate crime charges.
"Three weeks ago, Aaron Martinez was murdered by a neighbor who told him that Hispanics weren't welcome in Kaufman County, TX,” read the caption on Castro’s Instagram post. “If Kaufman County authorities continue to drag their feet on filing hate crimes charges, federal prosecutors need to step in.”
While McEuen’s charges could be elevated to capital murder, the method by which Martinez was murdered is why hate crime charges are being sought. Prosecutors at the bond hearing said McEuen shot Martinez a total of 17 times and after shooting Martinez in the back, McEuen then shot him in the forehead. An investigator also testified that after McEuen killed Martinez, he then stole some of Martinez’s property.
McEuen had given Martinez trouble for years and police were aware as they had been called out to the neighboring properties many times. That people like McEuen choose not to take someone’s life because they were born somewhere else (or look like they were) rather than coexist with them is the result of unfettered hate growing in the United States.
As hate crimes against non-white people continue to rise across the country, attacks on Latinos continue to remain high in light of xenophobic rhetoric being spread through various media platforms. From TikTok to legacy media, white supremacist talking points are being used to justify inhumanity toward migrants of color at the US-Mexico border. The side-effect of that is how it translates into the everyday lives of Latinos whether documented or not.
People who hold xenophobic and racist beliefs don’t care if someone has “papers” when they come after immigrants. They are not interested in whether someone is an “illegal” when their perceived belief is that they are protecting the “white race” from the browning of the United States. Like Euen, they are oftentimes willing to commit violence against Latinos as we so often see when street vendors are attacked in cities across the US and anti-immigrant policies are implemented like those that were recently signed into law in Florida, Kansas, and Texas.
Hate against immigrants is growing and it’s not just in white America. Xenophobia against people from the Global South is spreading in non-white communities too. Latinos who have been here more than a generation or two often show animus toward immigrants of color while saying nothing about white immigrants from Europe. This is a form of ethnonationalism that owes its existence to white supremacists like the Buffalo mass shooter among many others.
When it comes to Latinophobia in the United States, the hate is broad and is often bolstered using white nationalist or “Western Chauvinist” talking points.
Arturo is a writer, journalist, and publisher of The Antagonist Magazine and a regular contributor at Latino Rebels and Unicorn Riot. You can find him on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
The entire American system of government has been rooted in waves of xenophobia since the country's founding. This American experiment won't last long enough to witness the end of humans finding completely irrational reasons to hate and fear other humans because of differences that are incorrectly perceived as relevant when they are not.
We need an education system rooted in rational thinking, critical thinking, and kindness as a default state of observing the world.