ABSTRACT
The death of Valenzuela in a small town one hour north of the US-Mexico border preceded by three months the death of George Floyd, who died on May 25, 2020, after Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis police officer, pressed his knee on Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes while on-lookers watched in horror. Valenzuela's death was only the latest in a much longer trajectory of police violence, often justified in the eyes of authorities, directed at Latinx populations. Racially, the situation is equally complex: Latinos may be of Indigenous, African, or European heritage, or, as is commonly the case, some combination of any of these groups. One of the most famous border ballads tells the tale of Gregorio Cortez, a Mexican immigrant who through incredible daring and horsemanship in 1901 eluded a posse of Texas Rangers that at its height numbered hundreds of men.
