El Pasoan afraid border wall project will erase her family’s history

EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) - Arlinda Valencia's family is closely connected to the 1918 massacre in Texas. Her great-grandfather, Longino Flores, was one of the 15 people killed by Texas Rangers in Porvenir.

On January 24, 1918, a group of Texas Rangers went into Porvenir as the families slept and ordered them out of their homes while the officers searched their homes. The families were allowed back into the homes after the search, but three men were arrested. They were released after two days.

Then days later on January 28, four ranchmen from the area were joined by the Texas Rangers and soldiers from the Eighth U.S. Calvary once again went to Porvenir at night and took 15 men and boys into custody.

The group of men and boys were unarmed and executed without any due process, according to the Texas State Historical Association.

After the execution, the families left Porvenir and went to seek shelter in Mexico. The Mexican government started an investigation and the families provided sworn statements at the time of what happened on those two nights in 1918.

The Texas Rangers and the ranchmen also provided written statements in support of the massacre. In those reports they described the residents of Porvenir as thieves, spies and murderers. The residents were actually landowners and farmers.

Investigations conducted by both the Mexican government, the military and State Department determined the group of men and boys died not in a shootout with the Texas Rangers but while they were unarmed in the custody of the rangers.

"They decided the villagers were the ones that were always helping the bandits and so forth but they didn't understand that they helped everybody," Valencia said. "They were kind people and they gave water to anyone who came by. They didn't get involved in politics, they didn't know anything about politics they just wanted to live their life."

The site was given an official historical marker by the TSHA in 2018, a hundred years after the massacre.

Today, the site where ancestors of people like Valencia has made headlines as part of the historical area is at risk of being bulldozed and built over to make room for the Trump administrations border wall.

The wall's construction conflicts with the historical site along U.S. highway 90 in between Marfa and Van Horn, Texas. The project is part of the Trump administration's investment of over $7 billion in border infrastructure and also affects Big Bend National Park.

Valencia has been collecting signatures to keep the memory her ancestors as well as the ancestors of other descendants of the massacre alive by preserving the historical site and the historical marker.

Something Valencia says would erase that chapter of her family's history.

"It's going to make Porvenir disappear off the face of the earth, we will never get it back," Valencia said. "If they bulldoze through there all the artifacts that have been found, all the artifacts that we would like to find, it's going to be gone."

"I feel like if you destroy that land there goes history, and I always have said you wouldn't put a bulldozer in the middle of Gettysburg," Valencia said.

CBP Commissioner, Rodney Scott visited the construction zone himself and posted on his social media platforms that he had "paused all construction activity in the Big Bend National Park" while he conducted a "personal, on-the-ground evaluation".

Scott added he was committed to protecting America's borders but also wanted to ensure protection of it's history and scenery.

"We know the current and predictable national security threats and they are real. Now over the next couple of days, I will join a small team to evaluate the terrain and listen to local leadership, community members and stakeholders to ensure that we secure our borders while simultaneously protecting BBNP for generations to come," he said during his visit.