In the chap­ter titled “Ash­es,” the author reflects deeply on the Holo­caust and its last­ing impact, con­trast­ing it with con­tem­po­rary issues of vio­lence against Latin Amer­i­can immi­grants in the U.S. edu­ca­tion­al cur­ric­u­la today include lessons on the Holo­caust, a stark con­trast to the author’s child­hood in the 1970s. Mem­o­ries evoke the haunt­ing images from films depict­ing atroc­i­ties, as well as per­son­al expe­ri­ences with Jew­ish fam­i­lies recount­ing their loss­es dur­ing this time. The author recalls watch­ing pow­er­ful doc­u­men­taries and read­ing mem­oirs that shaped their under­stand­ing of geno­cide.

An obses­sion with the his­tor­i­cal oppres­sion of mar­gin­al­ized groups emerges. The nar­ra­tive links the Holo­caust to mod­ern-day vio­lence, notably the Sal­vado­ran Civ­il War, which the author wit­nessed through a doc­u­men­tary. This sparked a life­long com­mit­ment to uncov­er­ing the sto­ries of those who have suf­fered in Latin Amer­i­ca, reveal­ing par­al­lels between past and present atroc­i­ties. By vis­it­ing loca­tions tied to his­tor­i­cal vio­lence, such as the site of Víc­tor Jara’s exe­cu­tion in Chile, the author seeks to under­stand the inter­con­nect­ed­ness of these tragedies, reveal­ing their famil­ial ties and per­son­al his­to­ries.

Recent find­ings on trau­ma sug­gest this obses­sion may root itself in inher­it­ed mem­o­ries of vio­lence. The chap­ter dis­cuss­es the ongo­ing deaths at the Mex­i­can bor­der, where count­less migrants per­ish in the desert while seek­ing a bet­ter life. The U.S. gov­ern­men­t’s immi­gra­tion poli­cies cre­ate a treach­er­ous land­scape, lead­ing to thou­sands of undoc­u­ment­ed deaths, often hid­den from view. The author high­lights how the fed­er­al approach to bor­der con­trol effec­tive­ly acts as a “killing machine,” deny­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly enact­ing bru­tal­i­ty.

More­over, the text broad­ens its scope beyond the Holo­caust, con­nect­ing his­tor­i­cal geno­cides, such as the Armen­ian and Native Amer­i­can tragedies, empha­siz­ing their emo­tion­al res­o­nance with­in Lati­no com­mu­ni­ties today. The author posits that the vio­lence per­pe­trat­ed against immi­grants echoes his­tor­i­cal atroc­i­ties, demand­ing recog­ni­tion of their shared genealog­i­cal suf­fer­ing. By artic­u­lat­ing these themes, the chap­ter weaves a tapes­try of vio­lence, neglect, and an ongo­ing strug­gle against sys­temic oppres­sion, prob­ing the moral impli­ca­tions of a soci­ety that allows such hor­rors to per­sist in silence.