LATIMES.COM TUESDAY, AUGUST 6, 2019A
teddy bear with the word “prin-
cess” sewn across the front. Plastic
stars the girls had stuck on the
ceiling that lighted up at night.
Several pairs of Keyla’s head-
phones that she used while
making YouTube videos and ani-
mations on her computer and
iPad.
“The sisters were so united.
Keyla would draw there, and she
[Lyann] would draw here,” Fabes,
58, said, pointing to opposite sides
of the lower bunk.
On Saturday, six days after the
shooting in Gilroy, Calif., a gun-
man opened fire near a shopping
mall in El Paso, killing 22 people
and wounding more than two
dozen others. It was the same day
that Keyla’s family and communi-
ty honored her at a vigil at Latino
College Preparatory Academy, the
school that she was set to attend
this fall.
The 21-year-old gunman ar-
rested in the El Paso massacre is
believed to have written a hate-
filled manifesto disparaging Lat-
ino immigrants.
Law enforcement officials said
they have not uncovered any evi-
dence that the Gilroy gunman
targeted a particular race. But
before the shooting, he posted a
photo on Instagram with a caption
that read, in part: “Why overcrowd
towns and pave more open space
to make room for hordes of mesti-
zos ...?”
b
As in Gilroy, many of the El
Paso victims were Latinos. “At this
point we are really traumatized.
We feel like we can’t go to the gro-
cery store because we feel like
something is going to happen,”
said Keyla’s aunt, Katiuska Pi-
mentel, 24. “We feel their pain.”
In their grief, Keyla’s relatives
remembered the girl who loved
animals and drawing and telling
stories through animation. She
had autism, which caused her to
struggle in school and made it
difficult to communicate with her
peers. Still, she persevered and
graduated in June from middle
school. Perched on a shelf in the
living room is a certificate from
Keyla’s school naming her Most
Artistic.
“She was so happy to graduate
because she had to work really
hard to get her grades,” Pimentel
said.
Her favorite animated charac-
ter was “Stitch,” the frantic blue
creature from the Disney movie
“Lilo & Stitch.” At least three
Stitch stuffed animals lay around
her home, sitting on the living
room couches and in Keyla’s bed-
room.
Her grandmother clutched to
her chest a Stitch sweatshirt
Keyla’s family bought her on a
recent trip to Disneyland. The last
picture the family has of Keyla is
from that trip. She’s wearing a red
shirt, smiling. The photo, along
with others of Keyla, was dis-
played among an abundance of
white roses and lilies at an altar in
the living room.
A steady stream of visitors has
stopped by the home in recent
days, offering condolences, food,
flowers, hugs and tears. The days
were busy and mournful — a wel-
come distraction, but also a con-
stant reminder of their loss.
Every time an uncle called and
another teacher came to sit on the
family’s couch, Keyla’s mother,
Lorena Pimentel de Salazar, 35,
found herself reliving the minutes
of the shooting.
When her cousin knocked at
the metal white door on Friday
afternoon, he embraced her.
“I can’t sleep, I can’t sleep,” she
told her cousin, Hans Bludau, in
Spanish. She pointed to her head.
“I have the dreams right here
every night ... I saw when he was
shooting.”
When they first heard the
shots, Pimentel de Salazar started
running with her other two daugh-
ters, Lyann and 4-year-old Dasha,
while her partner stayed behind
with Keyla, who was unable to run
because of medical problems.
She saw her daughter fall to the
ground.“She looked at me, and she
could no longer speak,” Pimentel
de Salazar said. “She took my
hand and looked up at the sky.”
Then Keyla closed her eyes.
“In that moment I knew that
she was up above us.”b
Keyla was from an immigrant
family — her mother is from Peru,
her father from Mexico.
Pimentel de Salazar said she
came to the United States almost
20 years ago, and her daughters all
were born here. Keyla’s grand-
mother, Vargas Fabes, joined the
family in the U.S. about two years
ago.
“We love the United States,”
Vargas Fabes said. A former
schoolteacher, Vargas Fabes said
Peru’s education system could not
offer the opportunities her grand-
daughters had here.
On Friday, Vargas Fabes was
eager to show visitors the drawing
the family had recently found on
Keyla’s iPad. But some images
took the family by surprise.
“This one made us cry,” she
said, pulling up one sketch. It
showed two characters dressed in
different shades of pink, with what
looked like cat ears and fox tails,laughing. Above them, Keyla had
written the word “Bullys.”
On the other side of the screen,
she wrote “Me!” An arrow pointed
to another animal-like character,
whom she labeled “Frosty.” Blue
tears streamed down Frosty’s face.
“She suffered from bullying at
school because of her disability,”
Keyla’s mother said.
Sometimes, kids would pull a
chair out from under her when she
tried to sit down, or make fun of
her height, because she was taller
than most her age.
It never seemed to bring her
down too much, the family said,
but the image on the iPad — which
they were seeing for the first time
— suggested a profound inner
hurt.
“She was happy regardless of
everything she had to go through,”
said Keyla’s aunt.
That afternoon, Pimentel de
Salazar had gone to pick up Dasha
from day care. Dasha, too, had
seen her sister get shot, and the
caretaker suggested she needed
therapy. Dasha had been telling
the other children that a “bad
man” could come get them.
But after she was brought
home, Dasha ran into the house
happily sucking a lollipop and
holding a stuffed rainbow-colored
unicorn, while her mother fol-lowed, the bags under her eyes
deeper than they were the day
before.
At a fundraiser that Friday
evening, dozens packed into what
looked like an old garage con-
verted into a dance studio near
Roosevelt Park in San Jose.
Pimentel de Salazar’s Zumba
teacher, Roberto Roman, 32, had
organized a fundraiser for Keyla’s
family with several other Zumba
teachers in the neighborhood.
Those in attendance joined
hands and recited the Padre Nue-
stro, or “Our Father.” Then they
danced.
“We are with Lorena!” Roman,
32, bellowed in Spanish from the
stage, referring to Keyla’s mother,
as he pumped a fist into the air.
The audience clapped and
cheered.
A short time later, the music
was lowered and people began to
whisper, “llegó la mama.” “The
mother has arrived.”
Dressed in black, Pimentel de
Salazar walked in accompanied by
six family members. The crowd
parted and the music stopped.
Vargas Fabes held her grieving
daughter’s arms to help her stand
as both of them made their way to
the stage. The mother’s voice was
shaky, her eyes teary as she lifted
the microphone.
“I want to thank you with all my
heart,” she told the crowd. “I don’t
have adequate words for every-
thing that you are all doing.”
Her few words were met with a
burst of applause and a chant: “Te
queremos, Lore, te queremos.” “We
love you, Lore, we love you.”
The next day, Pimentel de
Salazar and her family attended a
vigil for Keyla. Dasha comforted
her mother and grandmother as
singers performed in Keyla’s hon-
or.
Pictures and images from the
family home were brought out
onto tables overlooking the high
school lawn. Keyla’s stepfather
remained a quiet observer, occa-
sionally embracing Dasha behind
the crowd, his arm still bandaged
from the bullet that grazed him six
days earlier.
As the sun set, volunteers
handed out candles as they sur-
rounded Keyla’s mother.
Then came a moment of silence
for Keyla, for the other Gilroy
victims, and for the people killed
the same day in El Paso.
On Sunday, Keyla’s living room
altar radiated with color. White
roses and lilies were replaced with
bright pink, orange and red dai-
sies.
That day marked one week
since the shooting. It also was
Keyla’s 14th birthday.
As the family gathered in San
Jose’s Emma Prusch Farm Park,
they placed framed copies of her
iPad drawings of Frosty and the
bullies on the tables.
There were pinatas and cake,
chorizo and asada tacos. Dozens
of people attended, and the little
kids played.
“She’ll be 14, but she’s not here
with us,” Pimentel told the crowd.
On the day of her death, Keyla
had written a note to her family
asking for a golden retriever puppy
for Lyann. Keyla already had her
Chihuahua, Lucky, and she
thought her sister deserved a pet
too.
At the birthday party, San Jose
Mayor Sam Liccardo presented
Keyla’s family a certificate to pick
up a golden retriever puppy, with
care paid for.
As a mariachi band played “Las
Mañanitas,” a Mexican birthday
song, Keyla’s mother occasionally
looked up at them, sometimes
pulling up her phone to take vide-
os, sometimes crying.
Despierta, mi bien, despierta,
the mariachis sang.
Wake up, my dear, wake up.ZUMBAinstructor Rocio Caetano leads a fundraiser for Keyla’s family in San Jose. Normally about 20 people participate in the class; this one drew more than 100.
Photographs by Francine OrrLos Angeles TimesELENA GUERRERO, standing, comforts Keyla’s mother, Lorena Pimentel de Salazar, 35, at a
vigil honoring the girl. A steady stream of visitors has stopped by the family home in recent days.KEYLA’S grandmother, Betzabe Vargas Fabes, holds a sweatshirt featuring Stitch, from the
Disney movie “Lilo & Stitch,” next to an altar. The animated character was Keyla’s favorite.A SKETCHby Keyla on her
iPad depicts her inner hurt
over being bullied at school.Memories of shooting plague mother
[Keyla,from A1]