EXHIBITS

A Safe Place

Cache Valley
A view of Cache Valley

Along with the hope of finding employment, Latinx families also moved to Cache Valley because it offered a safer place to raise their children. 16-year-old Yasmeen Pineda noted in her LVP interview that her Mexican-born parents chose to move to Utah from California because “there was a bunch of violence, and they heard that Utah was a quiet place to come and live, and raise a family.” Similarly, Ena Murillo, who grew up in El Salvador during that country’s civil war, observed that there “is peace and security here, you go out and you are not afraid of getting assaulted, robbed, and killed.” 15-year-old Luis Madrigal’s father moved the family from Michoacán, Mexico, to Los Angeles, California, where Luis was born. In LA, his father became concerned about the growing gang activity and moved his family to Cache Valley. These examples provide only a few reasons for the rapid and steady expansion of the Latinx population—especially those from Mexico—in Cache Valley during the last 4 decades.