Mourning a Mexican-American tragedy, under the shade of pecan trees

https://www.npr.org/2022/06/09/ [login to see] /mourning-a-mexican-american-tragedy-under-the-shade-of-pecan-trees
Josue "George" Garza could never have predicted that the baby pecan trees he planted on the front lawn of Robb Elementary School would, almost 60 years later, provide shade from the searing Texas sun to thousands of people who would come to mourn an unthinkable tragedy.

And yet it's fitting that it's beneath those trees that mourners have built the sprawling memorial that honors the 19 children and two teachers — almost all Mexican-American — who were gunned down in a classroom steps away.

It's fitting because when he planted them in 1965, George Garza, then a 5th-grade teacher at Robb Elementary, knew the trees would help Mexican-Americans of Uvalde, Texas, feel better connected to their school and to each other.

The saplings had been dug up from the banks of a nearby river. Garza, one of Robb's only Mexican-American teachers, convinced the principal at the time to let him plant them because he wanted Robb to be just as beautiful as the school for white children two miles away. Uvalde, Texas, was a segregated town. Robb Elementary was the school for Mexicans. And it was in bad shape.