Texans know all too well the story of what happened – and what failed to happen – at Robb Elementary school in Uvalde on May 24, 2022.
However, a new documentary premiering at South by Southwest brings a personal story that has yet to be told; the perspective and the ongoing struggles of the woman sometimes just referred to in the press as “Uvalde mom.”
That’s the title of the film centering around Angeli Rose Gomez, the woman who ran into Robb Elementary, after being handcuffed by police, to save her sons. The “Uvalde Mom” documentary is directed by Anayansi Prado.
Gomez and Prado spoke with Texas Standard about building the trust between each other and the community so memorably bombarded by press, the ongoing struggles of dealing with such a traumatic event, and the historical systematic failures which, Gomez says, continues to affect Uvalde’s vulnerable community. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: Angeli, there obviously has to be a lot of trust given to someone who wants to help tell your story. You were overwhelmed by media requests after the shooting. I’d love to know about that leap of faith – to say ‘yes” to this documentary.
Angeli Gomez: The leap of faith was just by getting to know Anayansi and just putting my faith and trust into her… And the fact that she wasn’t just focused on that day. She was focused on my whole life experience here in Uvalde.
And Anayansi, the trust from your part as well. Not only did you need to build that with Angeli, but also with her community – a community where many are wary of the cameras and the people behind them after the trauma of what happened in 2022.
Could you talk about that from your perspective a little bit?
Anayansi Prado: Yes. So to me, her story begins with being launched into the public eye for her actions the day of the shooting.
But at the core, the film is really a personal story about her experience of growing up in Uvalde with a system that isn’t necessarily set up for people to succeed and the failures that is had in her life, which then also resonates with the failure that the systems had the day of the shooting, as well as after with lack of accountability.
So for me, I saw the correlation between the history of Uvalde and the failure of the systems and the personal story of Angeli. But her story is just one of many from that really tragic day.
Angeli, can you talk about living in this small town with such division? There’s always been this racial division that Anayansi mentioned, but you actually moved in with your grandmother for a while to get away from some of the negative attention. But you’re like, “Uvalde is my home. This is where I’m going to go through this here.”
Angeli Gomez: Yes. You know, it’s kind of hard because coming out with all this that I’ve done and that me and Anayansi have came up with, of course we’re going to have a lot of critics, but it’s just the fact that I don’t know why we’re so divided when we’re supposed to be so connected.
But like I said, it all involves that there’s just no change – you know, like change in election or different officials and things like that. Like just we need to change, because it hasn’t changed since the walkout. So it just history – just to change history.
Well, those walkouts are part of this film. Anayansi, can you talk about exploring the history of the Uvalde community and the context of that in the aftermath of this tragedy?
Anayansi Prado: Yeah, it was definitely important for me to learn, in a lot of ways, who Uvalde was or who Uvalde is as a character, and learning about the history of the repression of Mexican Americans, who, ironically, are the majority of the population in town and how they have been oppressed for decades.
And then bringing it up to the present time with the tragedy and the uprising from the town at the very beginning. Confronting the authorities for accountability was something that I felt needed the context of the past to understand that this, in a lot of ways, is a fight that’s been going on for decades.
So it was really important for me to understand the full context, and I wanted to go a little bit deeper into that and hear from people from their past living there, as well as people currently, and showcase and document that history and how we got to where Uvalde yesterday.
» VOICES FROM UVALDE: Hear from more whose lives were impacted by the Robb Elementary shooting
Angeli, you’re obviously strong-willed and a fighter. I think we all knew that from those first images that went viral and the interviews of you talking about rushing into the school. I gotta say, though, that it looks like you have a really strong backup system as well – your family, your cousin.
Could you tell me a little bit about that support system and how it gets you through?
Angeli Gomez: After the shooting, I did go through a downfall of depression. And, you know, I started going on the bad rails.
But I am thankful because not only does our family and friends… are there for us, but this experience – I met a lot of people from around the world. I made friends. I met people I was never going to meet, and I’m actually glad that I did give Anayansi the opportunity because I met more people, like some of the fiercest mothers. And now I’m just like, “wow, I have more support from people that are just strangers that don’t even know me.”
Not only do I have the support of my family and my cousin, he’s one of my uplifts. He’s a very uplifting family member, so he gets me through it. And also Anayansi and other people that I met from this film have got me through a lot of struggle… A lot of struggle and a lot of healing process.
