On March 13, Gloria Cazares took the 98th Academy Awards stage alongside Joshua Seftel, Conall Jones, and Steve Hartman to accept the Oscar for Best Documentary Short. She’s the mother of Jackie Cazares, one of the children killed at the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in 2022. And while on the Oscar stage, Gloria spoke about her daughter.

“My daughter Jackie was nine years old when she was killed in Uvalde. Since that day, her bedroom has been frozen in time,” she said. “Jackie is more than just a headline. She is our light and our life. Gun violence is now the number one cause of death in kids and teens. We believe that if the world could see their empty bedrooms, we’d be a different America.”

Jackie’s room is among the four bedrooms showcased in the thirty-five-minute Netflix documentary All the Empty Rooms. It follows CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp as they visit the homes of four young children killed in school shootings. The film aims to preserve the memories of school shooting victims while raising awareness about the lack of action to prevent these tragedies.

A considerable win, the Oscar is a bittersweet reminder of the long road still ahead for gun control reform. Yet beyond the award, Gloria Cazares’s speech and appearance in the documentary gave Latinos and the grieving families in Uvalde space in the gun control conversation.

Jackie Cazares’s Empty Bedroom

The colorful LED lights in Jackie Cazeres’s room are still on nearly four years after her murder. Her parents haven’t been able to turn them off.

Her bedroom’s pink and lavender walls serve as a sanctuary for the memory of a joyful 9-year-old. Her family describes her as a fierce animal lover who dreamed of being a veterinarian. That spirit is everywhere. In the two stuffed teddy bears that play clips of her laughter and her voice when squeezed. The giant unicorn mural behind her headboard. In the details of the Eiffel Tower that cover every corner of her room.

In All the Empty Rooms, her mother, sister, and father tell Hartman and Bopp how much the room meant to Jackie.

“Her room played a really big role in her life; that was her safe place,” her mom tells them.

Now, it’s the place where her father pulls up a chair next to her bed to “chat” with her.

Jackie was among the 19 children and two teachers killed in what is ranked as the third deadliest school shooting in American history. Driving through Uvalde in the documentary, the community’s grief coexists with the celebration of life for those lost. Jackie’s face adorns the walls of the small town alongside her classmates and teacher – a permanent reminder that while her room remains empty, her legacy lives on.

Grief Beyond the News Cycle

In the documentary, Jackie’s story goes beyond her room and the news cycle, exposing the fractured foundation of an entire community after tragedy. Uvalde, a small working-class town with a predominantly Latino population, still feels the ripples of the shooting in every fiber.

For some families and community members, the brunt of the tragedy has manifested in coping with mental health struggles like anxiety, clinical depression, and even PTSD for those who were at the elementary school.

Others continue to plead for stricter gun laws before Texas legislators, often meeting stiff political resistance. Even nearly four years after the tragedy, they’re fighting for laws that would protect future generations.

Recently, families issued statements across social media after the acquittal of ex-Uvalde CISD officer Adrian Gonzales, who was previously charged with 29 counts of child endangerment. Policy goals do not fuel these acts – love does. It is the only way they can turn their grief into a cause that honors the children they lost. And perhaps All the Empty Rooms has shown them there is a new path.

Gloria Cazares’s presence on the Oscar stage signaled that there is a space for Latinos and their children in the narrative. It also proved that we can shift the conversation away from the perpetrators and Washington’s political gridlock and back toward our children. Documentaries and films such as these are the undeniable proof that the lives of these children mattered. They carve out a permanent space for Latino voices, ensuring that our specific experiences of loss and demands for change are no longer sidelined.

There Have Been 313 School Shootings Since Uvalde

No amount of golden statues could ever assuage the reality of gun violence in the U.S. Since May 24, 2022, there have been 313 school shootings. Eight of them in 2026. Gun violence is still the leading cause of death for children and teens in the U.S. Each incident adds more names to a list no parent wants to partake in, and more empty rooms to a tally that should come to zero.

All the Empty Rooms and its Oscar win remind us of that. Now it’s our turn to act.