Monica Muñoz Martinez Interviewed on NPR: The 'Forgotten' History Of Anti-Latino Violence In The U.S.

The rate of hate crimes against Latinos in the U.S. is at its highest in nearly a decade, according to an annual report by the FBI.

The report revealed 485 hate crimes against Latinos in 2018. That’s 58 more than reported the year before and surpassing those against Muslims and Arab Americans.

The FBI considers a hate crime to be a criminal offense motivated by race, religion, sexual orientation or ethnicity.

The U.S. has a long and largely forgotten history of violence against Latinos, says Monica Muñoz Martinez, an assistant professor of American studies at Brown University and author of “The Injustice Never Leaves You: Anti-Mexican Violence in Texas.”

When we think about violence against ethnic groups in this country, we tend to think about lynchings against African-Americans, Martinez says. But there’s also “a history of forgotten lynchings of Mexican Americans and Mexican nationals,” she says, in addition to state-sanctioned violence.

“So violence at the hands of police, of U.S. soldiers, in some cases people who were collaborating with vigilantes,” Martinez says. “So it's a broader history that is really urgent for us to remember, especially today with the rise of anti-immigrant, anti-Latino sentiment.”