The all-star dreams of Uvalde's biggest José Altuve fan

She threw a yellow softball at the white box that her father painted on the sugar maple tree. The backyard was a bad place to practice in. She had to go back to beneath the awning and push her glasses up the bridge of her sweaty nose every time she missed. You wouldn't like it if you did that routine a few times in the heat of South Texas.

"It's too hot," she said. She went inside, got on her knees and hit a tennis ball against the chimney wall. Her dad, Jerry, yelled, "You're going to break the TV!" After that, it was back outdoors.

She kept throwing even though she hated the tree and the heat. Veronica worried that the position wasn't right for her baby girl when she told her parents she wanted to try it. She would sneak her baby blanket into her backpack. Veronica says that she was afraid that nobody would pick her up.

They couldn't tell her not. She wanted to make the Little League all-star team and so she watched a lot of videos on her iPad to learn the pitching mechanics. At that tree, she worked on them. She kept going because she hit the target. Sometimes the ball hit so well that it almost bounced back to her.

The neighbors in Mata's quiet neighborhood in Uvalde heard the sound of a softball hitting a tree. There's a lot of thump. There's a lot of thump. There's a lot of thump. It was done over and over again. The bark was broken off by the ball. After she was done throwing, Jerry rubbed Biofreeze on her shoulder.

Jerry said he has a video of the first time she pitched in a game for the Bandits. He pulls out his phone and scrolls through the videos. He is wearing a gray shirt with the Bandits logo on it and has stubble on his chin.

Jerry said it was here. He held the phone so I could see the pitcher. There is a lot of flowers, balloons and drawings on his back. There is a tree behind Jerry.

He says that she struck out the batter.

Texas was the ungover frontier for genealogy purposes. Even if it was a part of Spain, France, or Mexico, its boundaries and laws were not defined. It was not the same as what a map said. The Nueces Strip was one of the mostcontested places in Texas.

Texas claimed the Rio Grande as its southern border after it became independent from Mexico in 1836. Mexico claimed the border was further north if it acknowledged Texas' independence. The Nueces Strip was formed between the two bodies of water.

It was a place where people with a stomach for violence could hold a claim. There was a place that seemed to alternate between floods and dry weather. Even attempting to quench your thirst in the heat could be fatal. The area was almost uninhabitable due to the general lawlessness and large and small animals.

The Colt revolver made Texas gain control of the Nueces Strip. Samuel Colt was the first to file a patent for his weapon. For hundreds of years, handguns were the same as a metal tube that used gunpowder to fire projectiles. You reloaded after taking a single shot. It can take up to a minute in bad weather. The time between life and death was often called that. The time it took to reload a gun in the Nueces Strip was less than one minute.

The Colt revolver, which could shoot five shots between reloads, was designed to kill more efficiently, and when Texans got their hands on those revolvers, it changed everything. The gun changed the United States because you don't know how much Texas affects its identity.

The Colt revolver was mass produced in the country. It was a glimpse of what the American industrial revolution could do. If one ever broke a gun, it could be fixed by using its interchangeable parts, compared to when a gunsmith had to fix the whole gun.

Men are equal. Colonel Colt equalized them. The impact of the Colt revolver spread across the country. The gun used to enforce the ideology of the country's western expansion was the Colt.

There is a river in Uvalde County. The town is near the Nueces Strip. It was the same place where preachers used to carry a gun next to their bible. One of Texas' hunting capitals is the same place that it is today.

Vernon and Jerry were thinking about moving. They thought about leaving before Faith started school. They didn't dislike Uvalde. This small town has two parents who were born and raised in it. They lived in Uvalde with their grandparents. Jerry remembers his father talking about the places in town he couldn't go when he drank with his friends. Veronica and Jerry didn't feel unsafe here. The high school sweethearts only considered leaving because they grew up in a small town.

Even as far away as Virginia, Jerry was offered better pay in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and other places. They would stop by. They started looking for a place to live, but it didn't feel right. Jerry was sitting at the kitchen table talking about taking his daughters to a big city. When it was time to make a decision, the comfort of home and living in a small town made the difference.

They stayed to make sure that their two daughters would have the same friends after high school. Veronica would see her young students grow into adults when they lived next to each other. She would teach her students as well. Faith and Tess would play sports with the same teammates and their lives would be tied to that.

She was on the softball field when she was a baby. She used to watch Faith play so much that she would sometimes fall asleep on the grass or stand next to the fields. At first, she didn't want to play. She decided to do gymnastics and soccer instead of softball. Until she changed her mind.

She was playing second base for two reasons. Faith played that position and her favorite player played that position as well.

This is Jose Altuve that. The Houston Astros star was the subject of a lot of discussion. Before she settled on Oliver, she contemplated naming her cat. She asked for a poster and jersey after talking about him a lot. When Veronica and Jerry bought them, they were excited by it.

Jerry said that Altuve proved that anyone can play. He thinks he's related to him because he's tall.

The schools were divided. The majority of Uvalde's population is Latino. Roberto's mother, Genoveva, sued the district in 1970. His house is close to Robb Elementary School and close to the Mexican park. Roberto says they were on this side of town. The gringos made us stay there. They weren't interested in you over there.

The east side of town had a street named after it. The Mexicanos know what the parque is called. There were paved roads and sidewalks in the part of Uvalde where Roberto was growing up. On cold nights, that part of town didn't worry about the gas being turned off to keep the other side warm. There was enough money for the schools in that area. The west side was completely different.

Basic equipment was not enough for the school. There isn't enough sports. There aren't enough Mexican American teachers who understand the culture. There are too many teachers and administrators who helped students with their education. The white students were treated differently than the other students.

Roberto said you weren't supposed to speak Spanish. Students were sent to the principal's office when teachers heard about it. Roberto remembers a man with a wooden paddle. He can remember the soft whistling sound that came after a violent slap against his body because of the holes drilled into the paddle. It will make an entire generation and possibly even the ones after that lose their language.

Roberto is a truck driver who delivers asphalt. He will use Spanish words or phrases in his sentences as if he is showing defiance. It was a subtle reminder that they might have beaten him. Roberto keeps repeating himself. It wasn't good. It turned after the walk out. They began to hire Mexicanos.

Mexican and Mexican American parents and their children walked out of Uvalde schools in 1970. Parents and their children protested near Crystal City. They said the Robb Elementary School principal refused to renew the contract of one of the few Mexican teachers and that the maestros Mexicanos didn't enforce the no-speaking- Spanish rule. There were inequalities between their school and the ones on the east side.

It was the end of decades of school segregation. School administrators and agricultural growers in Texas worried that properly educating students of Mexican heritage would lead to a decline in the state's labor force. There wasn't much incentive to improve schools in Uvalde, a place that recruited Mexican labor during the 1930s. Those of Mexican descent worked in restaurants, the nearby asphalt mine, in the fields, or as sheep shearers. They referred to themselves as Trasquelero. They stayed in Uvalde until there was no more work to do.

The first Mexican school segregation case in Texas took place in Del Rio, about an hour's drive west of Uvalde on the Rio Grande. The district argued that segregating schools was for the benefit of the students, since many of them traveled with their parents to any field that needed help. The district said that they would have their own pace of learning among those just like them. There was a local court ruling against the district. The Mexican and Mexican American fought for civil rights in Texas. It was a continuation of that when the Uvalde school walked out.

Roberto remembers how the Texas Rangers aimed their guns at them as they sang "De Colores", the Mexican folk song that became the anthem of the United Farm Workers. The helicopter hovered above. The fight was far from over even after students returned to class after a six-week boycott.

Genoveva sued the school district. Rumors said that she had been manipulated by the Castros. She was called a communist because of her demands. The district court didn't find anything illegal. The decision was reversed by the 5th circuit court of appeals. More than 20 years after Brown v. Board of Education banned school segregation, Uvalde had it.

A federal judge ordered Texas to desegregate its schools. 36 parked buses that would have taken black students to the white schools were destroyed by two men in East Texas.

School desegregation in Uvalde took a long time. The district had to submit an annual report every April 15 because it was so slow. For a long time that happened. Roberto says the district's first job was to meet with his mother and ask her to drop the lawsuit, which took nearly 50 years to resolve. "I owe a lot to Genoveva," says Dr. Jeanette Ball, who served as Uvalde's Supt. It made it possible for a Hispanic girl like me to become a school principal. The junior high school was renamed after Genoveva.

Robb Elementary School is still located on the Mexican side of Uvalde, where most of the students are Latinx, and a quarter are in a bilingual program. The school is still classified as economically disadvantaged. The community gathered to teach the students at the school, trying to make sure they didn't fall behind.

Genoveva is 93 years old There is a chapter in the book about her. Roberto has a copy in his house. Roberto said that God has been good to him. Regardless of what we've gone through.

Jerry says that it's been quiet recently. He has a soft but raspy voice with a Mexican Texan accent. He sits at his kitchen table in his home in a neighborhood that used to be mostly white. The house used to be filled with some sort of sound, most of it coming from the same person.

It was the sound of a bag of Takis being sneaked out of the kitchen before dinner that caused it. When she was playing with Oliver, she made those meows. The sound of her plays. When she heard that song on the radio, she would have Jerry sing it with her.

Veronica and Jerry sat next to each other at the kitchen table. It was impossible to be upset with her even when she did something wrong. They told her not to wear a quinceaera dress because it was too much for a picture day. "Alright," said the woman. When the school pictures arrived a few weeks later, Veronica and Jerry got a picture of datememe datememe, datememe is a datememe. She hid the dress in her backpack and wore it for the photo.

There is a picture of a school in the Mata's living room. When they see it, they are happy. They laugh when they hear the story. They are having a hard time getting used to the things that are not there. Trying to get used to not being able to hear the thump-thump-thump when she practiced her pitches.

She knew she was supposed to pitch after her first strikeout, but she would get angry if she didn't strike out a batter. Jerry hired a pitching coach so that he could work with them during the summer.

Jerry said that that didn't happen.

His voice can be heard cracking in the house.

You can draw a straight line between Texas' independence from Mexico in 1836, the United States' annexation of Texas in 1845, the United States-Mexico War in 1846, and the Civil War in 1860. The spread of the Colt revolver can be traced along each of these events.

The gun that was used in Texas was patented. Texans carried Colts with them when they decided to get parts from New Mexico. After being stopped at Santa Fe, they were forced to march to a Mexico City prison. The Colt Walker was developed from the Colt Paterson. Samuel H. Walker wrote letters to Colt and praised the value of his weapon out in the Texas frontier. The Texas Ranger was founded in 1823 to protect the 600 white families and their slaves who were coming to Texas. Suggestions were made to improve the revolver in his letters to Colt. Colt decided to add a chamber. The six-shooter was born in the middle of the Mexican war.

The Texas Rangers used those Colts to make people of Mexican descent disappear. It happened so often that family members of the missing knew where to look for the bodies.

Many Texans know about the brutality of the Texas Rangers. They've seen it suppressed and celebrated in popular culture. A professor at the University of Texas and a recipient of the genius grant, was born and raised in Uvalde. She described it as a complicated town where she made wonderful memories.

Parents walked out of Robb Elementary School when she was a child. She wrote a book about anti-Mexican violence on the Texas- Mexico border. Parts of the history of Mexican communities in Texas have been erased or altered. They thanked her for listening to their painful history after they shared their files and boxes.

"There are a lot of dark parts of Texas history, and I get hate mail for that," she said. I chose to be inspired by the people who have persisted for generations to call for justice.

The folk heroes who waged war when their land was taken from them are recounted in Mexican songs. From one generation to the next, they are an oral tradition. Some songs refer to the Texas Rangers. They are called Los diablos Tejanos. The devils from Texas crossed the Rio Grande to look for slaves and then burned down a town in Mexico. The ones who shut down Spanish-language newspapers that wrote about lynchings of Mexican and Mexican American people. They were the ones who prevented integration. The Texas Rangers broke farm worker strikes because the land always requires someone to work it.

The military and other law enforcement agencies in the west did little to stop the anti-Mexican mob violence. Mayors, judges and governors were the ones asking for help in seizing control of their regions from people who had been there for a long time. Dispossessing Mexicans of their guns was part of this control.

The majority-white culture used extra-legal violence against Mexicans as a means of asserting its sovereignty over the region. The place that used to be Mexico was the majority of that area. The lynching of Mexicans was a way in which Anglos consolidated their control of the American west.

The lynch mobs carried Colts as well. At the beginning of the Civil War, Samuel Colt sold his guns to both the north and south.

Samuel Coltly was rich because of this. After Mexico abolished slavery, Texas revolted because of it. He had been trying to convince the world that his weapon was useful. Colt's mansion was the second largest in his home state of Connecticut because he was able to make so much money by firing as many shots as quickly as possible. P.T. Barnum had a bigger place to live. When Colt died, his widow built a church in his honor in Connecticut. The company is located in West Hartford.

The Church of the Good Shepherd is on the national register of historic places. The architect incorporated parts of the revolver into the church's design. There are weapons in the archway. There is a gun on the church's porch.

Faith told Veronica that sometimes she feels guilty for not being here enough.

After graduating from high school, Faith wanted to go somewhere else. She was persuaded by her parents to attend Southwest Texas Junior College.

She said, "OK, I suppose." She quietly applied and was accepted to Texas State University two hours away in San Marcos. The old room was taken over by Tess.

Being apart from a family and coming from a small town can be hard to get used to. Jerry and Veronica would send pictures of Faith. There are photos of her with Oliver.

Faith said it was like watching her grow through pictures and not being there for some of the big things that she was going through.

Sissy, as she was known to her sister, was the one who loved to come home. She would be the first one to open the door. The person carrying Faith's bags. The one who cried the most was Tess. They spoke on the phone every day because of that. Faith said that she was her mini-me.

Faith inspired her sister to play softball and second base, as well as learning how to swim. She wanted to celebrate Sissy's college graduation by jumping into the river. The river is always 72 degrees when graduates jump into it.

Faith said that she was teaching herself to swim.

Veronica nodded as Faith talked at the table. Veronica claims that Tess learned how to swim on Saturday.

There are certain things that can happen when there is a shooting.

The media is here for a long time. The slain's family members are also present. People from surrounding towns and even states do the same. The Florists are willing to help. They know the town's florist can't keep up with demand because they're from places that were broken by a mass shooting.

For a long time, hotels are sold out. The streets are crowded because the infrastructure wasn't designed for it. Because of all the questions of why cops waited so long to act at Robb Elementary, and why they waited even longer to give answers, there are SUVs from police departments across Texas here in Uvalde.

You will feel less safe if you live here. There will be no feeling of that happening here. People will change their opinion of guns. They will be embraced by some. They won't want to touch them again. Some will find God like that. Being so close to evil will make others feel lost.

If you're from Uvalde, you know that the west side of town is where most Mexican and Mexican American families live. Things that happened before and after May 24. Whenever you tell someone where you're from, they will remember what happened there. You will fight the urge to cry even after they ask you about it. There will be a wound. One day it won't hurt as much, that's the hope.

You can see the signs of "Uvalde Strong" and "Pray for Uvalde" all over the place. There are fast food restaurants on the windows. On the back of cars, on T-shirts, and on the sidewalks, written in chalk, are places of gathering.

A lot of people in your town are giving away things. A teenager is holding a sign next to a coffee shop on Main Street. A boy is offering free bibles at Town Square, which is across from the courthouse and has a monument saying Uvalde's main street was onceJefferson Davis Highway. There is a sign taped to a light post that says there is free therapy for survivors.

A corrido will be written about the tragedy. Your eyes are swollen from the lack of sleep and the nightmares, but mostly from the crying. The mariachis from San Antonio were sad to hear that they were singing and performing "Amor Eterno." It feels like your soul is being cut apart by a dull knife when you listen to that song.

In the voice of the Brown Beret, who traveled from San Antonio, you can hear the pain and anger. Pharr is a small Texas town located on the Rio Grande. A group of Mexican and Mexican American people are condemning police brutality. A deputy sheriff shot and killed a man during a protest. The cop who pulled the gun didn't have anything to do with it. The man died with his hands in his pockets.

Lopez says it doesn't end.

There will be a memorial when there is a mass shooting. The school is at Robb Elementary. Parents hold their child's hand as they walk towards the school. They look at the victims' photos surrounded by flowers and stuffed animals that have faded from being so long beneath the sun. Before the town manager tells visitors to leave, some try to clean them as best they can.

There is a Happy Meal box in front of the photos of the children. Some balloons have popped because of the heat. They used to fly next to handwritten signs that offered sympathies.

One sign says "I'm sorry we all let you down."

People are trying to catch their breath in a shattered town. You wonder if the person is grieving the death of a loved one. You can smell the burning of wax candles when the sun is setting.

They are not able to.

Faith told Veronica and Jerry to just move. They are sitting in their kitchen with food and water that friends and family have brought them.

Faith would like to move from Uvalde. It's possible to be with her as she finishes college. They might be able to move to the Dallas or Austin area after a few years. Possibly away from Texas. They don't know where everything is so they need to move. A place where people don't know their names or what's left of their possessions.

Veronica said she could not. This is where we brought her back. This is where she was born.

There are things that one would expect from a 10-year-old girl. There is a corkboard filled with photos of the sisters and her friends. I adore you, Faith. The corkboard's wooden frame has a black marker written on it.

She played sports in the room. There is a bag of softballs next to her glove. There are stuffed animals on her bed and a comforter filled with butterflies. There is a closet full of clothes and a bat pack on the floor. She kept the money in the jar. She wanted to go to Disney World again. There is a picture of her with her cousins when she first learned to swim.

The Altuve jersey has been turned into a pillow. From now on, the family will carry it with them wherever they go. The poster of Altuve will stay on her wall, according to them. There is a floral arrangement with Houston Astros colors.

Some things will be given to family and friends. Things that were once hers have been asked for. They can still smell her if they hold their nose and take a deep breath.

The room is as close to how she left it as possible. Faith says that Oliver is the reason she wanted to go to Texas State and become a doctor. He is laying down most of the time. The family thinks Oliver can see her even though it sounds crazy.

Jerry says that their home and small South Texas town is where their heart is at.

Faith doesn't think she can live in this area anymore.

She would like to take her parents with her. Veronica and Jerry do not agree. The rest of the things that are left of Tess are here.

There have been five mass killings in Texas. The country's first modern mass shooting took place at the University of Texas in 1966. The second helped change the state's gun laws. One of the survivors of that shooting, Suzanna Gratia Hupp, traveled the country to tell her story. Her parents died. She left her gun in her car because she was afraid she would lose her license. Had she had her gun, she wouldn't have killed so many people. She was angry at the lawmaker who didn't allow her to defend herself and her family. Hupp was elected to the Texas House of Representatives as an ardent supporter of gun rights.

Texas citizens were allowed to carry concealed handguns after George W. Bush signed a bill. The amendment Bush signed in 1997 removed the prohibition against carrying concealed handguns at churches. Texas gun laws have loosened in the last few years. The law allowing Texans to carry a handgun without a license or training was signed by the governor. He said the bill was the strongest in Texas history. According to the research center, Texas has the most registered guns of any state, with 588,696, and it has the 27th highest rate of residents owning a gun.

In the past five years, there have been three mass shootings in Texas, one of which was at a church in Uvalde. The shooter at the Uvalde shooting used an assault rifle. The production rights to that weapon were purchased by Colt. The patent for Colt's model expired in 1977.

Faith and Veronica hold each other's hand as they walk onto the baseball field. Along with Jerry, they have been doing more of that. Trying to figure out how to survive through the day.

They have the Bandits logo on their shirts. They line up next to the other families along the first base line for three weeks and two days after that. The lives of 19 students and two teachers were remembered at an all-star game ceremony. The number is higher if you include the husband who died of a heart attack two days after his wife was murdered. It's even higher if you count those still here.

Veronica says that the day has not stopped. She wears a button with a picture of her on it. There is a happy person. Veronica said that she was happy. She made us feel good.

Uvalde has held 21 funerals in the last 17 days. They were held in the same church. The cemetery is 312 miles away from the baseball fields. The same procession route, the same families, the same worthless attempts to get rid of the bad thoughts.

On the day of the ceremony, the last funeral was held at 10 am. Veronica says that they will get through this. She is wearing sunglasses. She said that she wouldn't want her to cry.

The all-star tournament was considered to be canceled. The league's Facebook page was filled with pictures of children playing in honor of the Robb Elementary students and teachers. There were Uvalde patches on their jerseys. They prayed and observed quiet moments.

Little League is a part of the community in Uvalde. Uvalde officials decided to keep the tournament going. It could bring people together. Kids could run around and play until they fell asleep next to the fields. It was hard to play games in a town that was grieving. The town is broken.

There is no need for a physical reminder of the time when kids called for the police to help them because Robb Elementary has been destroyed.

Would the police have acted differently if the school was on the black side of town?

The main question is that. It doesn't matter if a large percentage of Uvalde police officers are Latino. This place will be haunted by that question because of the painful history. It will be here for a long time. Those who were at the Uvalde civic center that night will always remember the screams of the people who just found out they had lost so much.

Veronica said that she left a lot of things for them. Sometimes she holds a small piece of cloth that has been folded over. The baby blanket that was snuck in and out of her backpack is what is left of it. She kept it because she wanted to give it to her child someday. Veronica says that they can hear her voice on a daily basis.

The account had over 200 drafts of the same person. Along with the selfies she took on Veronica and Jerry's phones, she left them a digital diary that they can look at whenever they miss her.

Jerry is thankful for that. That's helped, according to him. He says they will always have anger about the police and the lack of gun control, but that won't bring them back to life. They are holding each other They laugh and smile when he or Veronica talks about the girl. Sometimes the same memories make them cry, because some moments are harder than others.

Veronica said they wanted to celebrate her.

Since it hasn't rained since Tuesday, the palm trees look dry and the grass is brown, which is why they are here for the ceremony. It's going to be a long, hot summer in Texas, and just over half of the state is currently under an extreme dry spell. The town of Concan has shut off its water from midnight to 6 in the morning in order to save water. Texas' power grid is struggling to meet the energy demand as temperatures climb.

Right now they feel distant. Trying to survive is one of the things that comes after. Uvalde is on this field right now. It's difficult to say that this is a moment of healing. Healing won't come after these games are over. This truth and Uvalde are both familiar to something. I felt it right away. Our shared Spanish language allows me to be closer to the pain that I experienced in El Paso. The past that's never gone, the deep, unsaid fears that your broken home might never recover, and the worry that Texas and this country will eventually rip the hope right out of you are all part of the quiet part.

This had to be different. It feels like that. Not the past, not the present, and not the future. It might have been different. The person was avoided. We didn't have to grow up next to the Nueces River to hear the stories of the violence. However, we did.