Healing Uvalde requires cultural competence and congressional action

Last week, we witnessed the courageous testimony before Congress of 11-year-old Miah Cerillo, an incredibly brave survivor of the horrific mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, which took the lives of 19 children and two teachers. Miah made it vividly real that while there is no making sense of such events, we must abandon the fiction that we are unable to do anything about them. 

As the nation’s largest Latino civil rights and advocacy organization and the leading integrated safety net provider of mental health services for the Uvalde, Texas community, we are deeply worried — and resolved. 

We are worried about the short and long-term trauma the tragedy at Robb Elementary School inflicted on Miah, other children, and the entire community which suffered the tragic and senseless loss of so many they loved. We are resolved to build what needs building for healing and creating change. 

Nelba Márquez-Greene, the mother of a Sandy Hook victim Ana Grace, tweeted recently, “We need two teams. One for all of the change that needs to happen and another for the immediate and long term comfort and support of the hurting.” 

Preventing future incidents and future trauma in schools and communities should be a top priority. The killings in Uvalde came only 10 days after elderly Black shoppers were murdered in Buffalo, N.Y. We must enact long overdue, common-sense gun safety laws that include, at a minimum, universal background checks, restrictions on assault weapons, and red flag laws, all of which are widely supported by Latino voters.  

Recognizing gun violence as a defining public health issue must be imperative for change. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows that for children and adolescents ages 1 to 18, and ages 1 to 19, firearms were the leading cause of death in 2020. 

Investing in the best, most appropriate tools is also imperative to address the rising mental health consequences of gun violence on our children. We know that providing immediate and sustained support — both within the school system and throughout the community — is of utmost importance and can have positive ripple effects on the ability to heal. As such, we need to prioritize an equally robust effort to provide mental health support to those individuals and communities who need it. 

But our experience has shown, such as in El Paso, Texas in the wake of a mass shooting in 2019, that there has been a severe lack of linguistically and culturally appropriate mental health coverage and care. Serious barriers to mental health care, including cost and language differences, reduce access for Latino children and adults. And among other added challenges to appropriate mental health care are the severe underrepresentation of diverse health care professionals and an inability to benefit from telehealth due to lack of broadband access, as well as the continued high level of uninsured in the Latino community. 

To that end, our organizations are calling for a much greater focus on both short-term and long-term mental and public health investments such as financial and practical support for trauma-trained provider placements and community-based organizations, which are essential to ensuring that those who regularly serve families can identify those who may be in crisis and provide ongoing help. 

It is vital that culturally and linguistically appropriate social service providers and health care providers be adequately resourced and staffed, as they have the trust of families and the ability to identify and reach families in crisis. In addition, efforts should provide funding to meet what will be ongoing needs for additional staffing and trauma-informed training for community-based organizations to assist families and to counter stigmas that can decrease access to affordable and timely mental health support. 

Ultimately, after so much horror and trauma, we must — and can — act to heal the now and change the future. Each of these moments calls upon all of us, and propels us, to do what we can to embrace every community that is suffering. We can start with at least two things we need most: providing the health resources and specific forms of care that will be required for healing, and decisive action by lawmakers to enact a host of sensible gun safety measures that protect our children and offer them and us a safer tomorrow. 

Janet Murguía is CEO and president of UnidosUS and Dr. David Valdez is the chief medical officer at Community Health Development, Inc., Uvalde, Texas’ Community Health Center.