Connecticut School Victims Include Puerto Rico Mayor’s Grandniece

By Tony Castro, Voxxi

Officials release names of Connecticut school victims

The six-year-old Hispanic grandniece of a Puerto Rican political figure was among the Connecticut school victims that were gunned down in the school massacre that has stunned America.

Ana Marquez-Greene is the grandniece of Jorge Marquez, the mayor of the southern Puerto Rico coastal town of Maunabo.

Ana’s brother Isaiah, 9, who also attends Sandy Hook Elementary, was at the school when the shooting began Friday but was not harmed. There were 28 people killed in the shooting, including 20 children.

Ana Marquez-Greene one of 28 Connecticut school victims

Earlier this year Jimmy Green, a noted jazz saxophonist and music teacher, and his wife Nelba Marquez-Greene had moved their family to Newtown where he had taken a teaching position at Western Connecticut State University.

Ana’s grandmother Elba Marquez told The Associated Press that her daughter and son-in-law moved from Canada to Connecticut and enrolled their children at Sandy Hook Elementary School because of its good reputation.

“They looked for the best school for their daughter, the best,” said Marquez, who visited Ana’s family at Thanksgiving. “It was a beautiful place, just beautiful. What happened does not match up with the place where they live.”

Jorge Marquez told reporters that he and his wife had hoped when they first heard that Ana might have been shot that she might be just been wounded but were later informed by his daughter that his grandniece had been killed.

“It’s just devastating – it’s horrible,” said family friend Kris Jensen of Hamden, a saxophone player and former music teacher, of the Connecticut school victims.

“It’s awful. I don’t even know what to say… The poor guy was just getting adjusted to being back.”

Jensen said he had met Ana once when her father brought her with him to class at The Artists’ Collective in Hartford.

Green has posted an acknowledgement of his daughter’s death on his Facebook page.

“Thank you for all of your prayers and kind words of support,” Greene wrote to his friends. “As we work through this nightmare, we’re reminded how much we’re loved and supported on this earth and by our Father in heaven.

“As much as she’s needed here and missed by her mother, brother and me, Ana beat us all to paradise. I love you sweetie girl.”

Ana’s father taught jazz at the University of Manitoba until taking his new position at the Western Connecticut State University where he is the assistant professor of music and assistant coordinator of jazz studies.

“It was with immeasurable sadness that the university community received the news that our friend and colleague Jimmy Greene has suffered this terrible loss,” James Schmotter, president of Western Connecticut State said in a statement.

“Students, faculty and staff at the university will be at his side to do all we can to help him and his family through this unfathomable tragedy.”

Video: Ana Marquez-Greene singing

This article was first published in Voxxi.

Los Angeles based writer Tony Castro is the author of the critically-acclaimed “Chicano Power: The Emergence of Mexican America” and the best-selling “Mickey Mantle: America’s Prodigal Son.”