Many ethnic Mexicans in the borderlands fell victim to the state-sanctioned violence during the period of La Matanza, or “the Killings,” of the early 20th century.
The Texas Rangers were involved in the killing of fifteen men and boys in Porvenir in 1918. State lawmaker J.T. Canales later held hearings on the massacre to investigate the Rangers’ conduct.
This period of racialized violence serves as backdrop for a fictional Mexican American superhero in the book, El Rinche: Matanza.
The main character, Ascensión Ruiz de la Plata, takes on the moniker of El Rinche to bring justice to the Texas-Mexico borderlands.
Christopher Carmona, director of the Center for Mexican American Studies and Research at Our Lady of the Lake University, is the author of the four-part young adult series.
Carmona discussed what drove him to write the books.
“It provides the history that I grew up with, with my grandparents’ stories,” he said. “It also gives a superhero, a Latino superhero, which we sorely lack in a lot of popular culture at this time.”
Carmona is a member of Refusing to Forget, a group of historians that shines light on the undertold history of violence against ethnic Mexicans.
He said the series is a way to share this undertold chapter of history for younger audiences.
“Even though it is fictionalized, it includes a lot of real stories and real history, historical events that took place,” he said. “ A lot of the stories I gathered were from descendants.”
