THE MEMORY OF MURDER: 40 YEARS SINCE THE SAN YSIDRO MASSACRE
This summer is the 40th anniversary of the worst mass murder in the history of the state of California.
On July 18, 1984, at about 4 in the afternoon, a man carrying an Uzi and a bolt-action rifle walked into a McDonald’s in San Ysidro California and murdered 21 people, employees and customers, senior citizens and kids, a 6 month old child.
That McDonald’s was torn down a month later and community of San Ysidro raised the money themselves for the building of a memorial at the corner of San Ysidro Blvd + Averil Rd, where the tragedy happened. To this day, the memorial is adorned with flowers, candles of photographs of the murdered every July 18th and every Day of the Dead, so that the community may never forget them.
I have thought about this tragedy since I read about it in a Newsweek magazine at age 11. This is the most serious subject I have ever had the honor of writing about, here, in an essay called The Memory of Murder, about how we remember terrible things, how we must, and how it is never enough.