EL PASO — The El Paso Del Norte International Bridge, known as the Santa Fe, winds from downtown over the mural-splashed concrete edges of a parched Rio Grande, the liveliest of five arteries connecting this city at the western edge of Texas with Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
Thousands come across the bridge each way, for school or work, to shop, dine, and visit family in a region where the United States and Mexico have historically been as close as relatives. That intimacy was shattered one year ago Monday, when a white supremacist unleashed a terror attack against Latinos in a Walmart in El Paso, killing 23 people in one of the deadliest mass shootings in recent US history.
Many drew a direct line from the violence to the rhetoric of President Trump. During his campaign and presidency, he has vilified Mexicans and rallied supporters with his signature promise of a wall along the US-Mexico border.
But this isn’t a story about a wall. It centers on a bridge — one that is a focal point in a city at the intersection of major crises facing the United States.
Read here.