It's a tricky thing, what makes up an American.
There are Latinos whose families have been on this land since long before the Statue of Liberty greeted newcomers from New York Harbor, before the Civil War and the Declaration of Independence.
In the days since the El Paso massacre, many have found themselves reflecting, wrestling with their place in society and asking questions about how their heritage, their language and their skin color has shaped them and the way other Americans perceive them.
Some say the El Paso shooting, which targeted Mexicans, along with the white supremacist rhetoric that led up to it, has put the entire U.S. Latino population under attack.
In California and Texas, two states where people have continually crossed borders and borders have continually crossed people, many families feel they're living at a time when a painful kind of history is repeating itself.
These are some of their stories.
