Chap­ter 8: Ash­es opens with the author con­tem­plat­ing the last­ing effects of the Holo­caust, a tragedy that con­tin­ues to shape glob­al con­scious­ness. The author con­trasts this pro­found his­tor­i­cal event with the mod­ern-day strug­gles of Latin Amer­i­can immi­grants, who endure vio­lent con­di­tions in their pur­suit of a bet­ter life. The edu­ca­tion­al sys­tem today incor­po­rates exten­sive lessons on the Holo­caust, which high­lights a marked con­trast to the author’s own child­hood expe­ri­ences in the 1970s, when such dis­cus­sions were not as preva­lent. The vivid mem­o­ries that the author recalls, often involv­ing graph­ic imagery from films and doc­u­men­taries, were sup­ple­ment­ed by per­son­al inter­ac­tions with Jew­ish fam­i­lies who recount­ed their painful pasts. These per­son­al nar­ra­tives and his­tor­i­cal accounts played a sig­nif­i­cant role in shap­ing the author’s under­stand­ing of geno­cide, par­tic­u­lar­ly the ways in which such atroc­i­ties res­onate through gen­er­a­tions.

The chap­ter delves deep­er into the author’s evolv­ing obses­sion with the his­to­ry of oppres­sion, specif­i­cal­ly regard­ing mar­gin­al­ized groups. This obses­sion grows as the author reflects on the geno­cide of the Jew­ish peo­ple, draw­ing a con­nec­tion between that his­to­ry and the vio­lent con­flicts in Latin Amer­i­ca, par­tic­u­lar­ly the Sal­vado­ran Civ­il War. The author recalls wit­ness­ing the bru­tal­i­ty of the Sal­vado­ran con­flict through a doc­u­men­tary, which spurred a deep, life­long com­mit­ment to uncov­er­ing the untold sto­ries of suf­fer­ing in Latin Amer­i­ca. These sto­ries, often for­got­ten or over­looked, echo the suf­fer­ing expe­ri­enced by past gen­er­a­tions, offer­ing painful reminders of how his­to­ry often repeats itself. By vis­it­ing his­tor­i­cal sites con­nect­ed to vio­lence, such as the loca­tion of Víc­tor Jara’s exe­cu­tion in Chile, the author seeks to under­stand how per­son­al his­to­ries and these trag­ic events are inter­twined. These vis­its allow the author to make a pow­er­ful emo­tion­al con­nec­tion with the vic­tims, learn­ing about the shared and painful his­to­ry that binds these events across dif­fer­ent coun­tries.

The chap­ter also high­lights the role of inher­it­ed trau­ma, sug­gest­ing that the scars left by such vio­lence are often passed down through gen­er­a­tions. In recent stud­ies, there has been grow­ing recog­ni­tion that trau­ma can be inher­it­ed, and this con­cept is explored in the nar­ra­tive to shed light on how the impact of vio­lence extends beyond those direct­ly affect­ed. This idea con­nects to the ongo­ing tragedy at the U.S.-Mexican bor­der, where many migrants per­ish in the harsh desert ter­rain while attempt­ing to reach the Unit­ed States. Despite the immense dan­ger, peo­ple con­tin­ue to embark on this per­ilous jour­ney, dri­ven by hope for a bet­ter future, only to meet trag­ic ends. The author crit­i­cizes U.S. immi­gra­tion poli­cies, which are por­trayed as cre­at­ing an envi­ron­ment that is hos­tile and dead­ly, describ­ing the bor­der as a mod­ern-day killing machine. This metaphor empha­sizes the fail­ure of the U.S. gov­ern­ment to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for the thou­sands of deaths that occur in these des­o­late areas, where the lives lost are often invis­i­ble and ignored by those in pow­er.

The broad­er con­text of vio­lence is explored as the chap­ter moves beyond the Holo­caust, high­light­ing oth­er geno­cides such as the Armen­ian and Native Amer­i­can tragedies. These his­tor­i­cal events are shown to res­onate deeply with­in Lati­no com­mu­ni­ties, where the mem­o­ry of such vio­lence is still fresh. The author draws a com­pelling par­al­lel between these past geno­cides and the ongo­ing vio­lence that immi­grants face today, empha­siz­ing how these mod­ern atroc­i­ties are often over­looked or dis­missed. The chap­ter argues that the suf­fer­ing of today’s immi­grants, par­tic­u­lar­ly at the hands of sys­temic vio­lence and neglect, is a con­tin­u­a­tion of his­tor­i­cal pat­terns that have yet to be ful­ly rec­og­nized or addressed. In weav­ing these sto­ries togeth­er, the author paints a pow­er­ful pic­ture of the ongo­ing strug­gle against sys­temic oppres­sion, urg­ing read­ers to con­front the harsh real­i­ties of the world and rec­og­nize the deep-root­ed injus­tices that con­tin­ue to plague mar­gin­al­ized com­mu­ni­ties. The emo­tion­al res­o­nance of these nar­ra­tives demands recog­ni­tion and action, com­pelling soci­ety to face the moral con­se­quences of allow­ing such hor­rors to per­sist unchecked.