Monday, October 20, 2014

Nation in uniform: Chicano/Latino war narratives and the construction of nation in the Korean War and Vietnam War


The following are selected quotes from the 4th and 5th chapters of a PhD candidate's dissertation:

Chapter 5
214: How does the
trauma of war affect communities of color that have
endured the trauma of internal colonization in the U.S.? 
215: Novels such as Jose Rodriguez's Oddsplayer (1988), Charlie Trujillo's Dogs from Illusion (1994), Michael W.
Rodriguez's Humidity Moon (1998), and Elena Rodriguez's
Peacetime: Spirit of the Eagle (1997) call into question
the history of discrimination against Latinos in the
U.S. These novels then intertwine that question with
stories of trauma endured while serving in the US armed
services. In this manner, narratives of war expose how
the trauma of discrimination in civilian life affects
how trauma is processed during war; conversely, they
also explore how wartime trauma affects the way Latino
soldiers process traumatic instances of discrimination
as veteran civilians. 
219: The three intertwined stories in the novel work
collectively to express a familiar complaint soldiers of
color often voice regarding their Vietnam experience:
they were drafted to fight against people resisting a
U.S. colonial domination that they personally as
minorities in the U.S. should be resisting.
 
 220: War lasts long after the last bullet is fired, into old
age and death we go carrying a secret knowledge
that no one wants to know about. War is the
opposite of sexual prowess. War is desire stripped
of humanity. -Alfredo Vea 
221: Violence represents a male's rite of passage, a natural
development that turns boys into men— a tool
intentionally used by the State to legitimize its
control over the population. Violence as a tool for
intra-colonization is one of the reasons Mexican
Americans such as Jesse can be turned into "agents" of
the State even after being colonized by it. 
224: The fear had been overwhelming, suffocating,
completely debilitating. The fear had been
bestial. He had been paralyzed by the desperate,
selfish need to survive. Even hours afterward, his
muscles were still quaking spasmodically, coming
down from a deluge of adrenaline. The muscles of
this jaw were swollen from clenching, his teeth
hurt, and his intestines ached from the internal
pressure. [fictional account from Vea's novel] 
229: what Vea seems to suggest is that the
experience of trauma is self-perpetuated when it goes
unrecognized. 
230: According to Freud, a person can escape a horrific event without any visible physical wounds, but the mind
registers the trauma and it remains imprisoned by the
initial shock until released as "traumatic neurosis." In
this manner, the trauma endured in one location
manifests itself in another place and in another time. 
234: America had fully expected to win without
suffering, without loss. The boys on the hill
knewdifferently. The American Dream—the two
bedroom house with a white picket fence—had always
been built on a graveyard. It had always been built
at the expense of the Huron Nation, at the expense
of the bison, and the expense of the Vietnamese. 
238: The shattering of Minnie's world coincides with
what Caruth calls the moment of "realization," when
trauma becomes recognizable, and the assumed reality of the contemporary can no longer co-exist with new
knowledge.26 Minnie can never think of her father in the
same way again—precisely in the same way that citizens,
after the experience of war trauma, cannot think of the
nation in the same manner. 
241: Vea seems to suggest that the nation's history of racial colonization of people of color creates a perverse
inclination to self-destructive behavior even among
those it intends to privilege. 
261: In Charlie Trujillo's Dogs From Illusion the characters work themselves up to such
a pitch because of repetitive trauma that the narrative
transitions into depictions of surreal violence where
trauma itself becomes the norm and peace becomes
abnormal. 
262: Vea's polyphonic text is not content to narrate the
story of an individual in relation to the events of his
or her own past, but moves beyond this to the way in
which individual trauma is always tied up with the
trauma of a nation. 
Chapter 4 
137: But what is one to make of his
emphasis on being remembered not only as a dignified
soldier, but as a dignified male soldier? Why the
emphasis on masculinity? Lt. General Sanchez is a
first-generation Mexican American, and his concern about his male legacy as a soldier has an historical genealogy among many Chicano Veterans and Chicano soldiers. Lt. Gen. Sanchez is a Vietnam War Veteran and his concern over his legacy and masculinity reflects a major theme in the autobiographies of what scholar Ben V. Olguín has dubbed "Mexican-American soldier authors." 
138: Jorge Mariscal, Ramon Saldívar, Ben V. Olguín, Jose Limón, and Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez are the few contemporary scholars exploring issues of race, and
national identity associated with veteran authors 
139: This is unfortunate, as
scholar Jorge Mariscal writes, "during the Vietnam War
Chicanos constituted seven percent of the U.S.
population and twenty percent of fatalities, taking the
highest rate of casualties of any ethnic group," and "in
WWII and Korea, Chicanos were the most highly decorated
group." 
 142: The drive to assimilate through military service is
exacerbated by one of the most pernicious legacies
of Mexican culture: warrior patriotism. The idea
that masculine behavior must include a readiness to
die for "la patria" is powerful in Mexican
nationalist ideology. When transferred to the
Chicano context it is especially dangerous since
the Mexican male's rhetoric claim that he is
willing to die anytime anywhere becomes a fatal
reality once it is linked to U.S. imperialist
projects. 
150: In this manner, Benavidez' autobiography is very
much a Horatio Algier story except that in his case he
does not go from rags to riches, but rather from rags to
manhood. For Benavidez, a successful Mexican American
masculinity is one of visible upward mobility, and the
military makes an ideal institution for such
evaluations. 
150: In one of the more
memorable discussions Benavidez has with Uncle Nicholas,
he is told, "We will not give up our heritage, but we
won't let it hold us back either. We will be judged by
the way we act and by the respect earned in the
community." Such advice seems straightforward: if
Benavidez conducts himself in a manner that is "worthy"
of respect, then he can expose the duplicitousness,
immorality, and flawed social practices of
discrimination. 
157: In this
passage, Benavidez positions himself as the loyal, war
tested soldier—the "epitome" of the type of citizen the
nation wants during war time. He is strong, patriotic,
dutiful and willing to defend his dignity when insulted.
Accusations such as "baby killers" strike at the heart
of soldiering for they remove all honor from duty, and
reduce a soldier's activity to mere plundering. 
163: Even after
being racially insulted by an officer, Benavidez trusts
in the wisdom of the command. His commitment
reverberating in the phrase he repeats throughout the
text: "I am a good soldier. I go where I am ordered."
In war time, especially, unquestioned allegiance to such
a motto ensures a code of conduct for soldiers on the
battlefield. The reversal of the motto, however, may be
one way to understand the sense of emptiness Benavidez
felt before joining the military, the feeling of lacking
a purpose, of being unappreciated, of not belonging.
"Honor, Duty, Country" provides him with a code that if
he succeeds in following will lead him to an externally
validated sense of honor and masculinity. 
170: Much like Roy Benavidez' Medal of Honor, Alvarez'
Chained Eagle is a story of social ascendance through
public displays of masculinity. Both men, for instance,
ascend from farm working boys to nationally recognized
military heroes. Both men envisage the military as an
institution that allows them to prove their masculinity
without having to deal with the "racial barriers" found
in civilian life. Arguably, Alvarez and Benavidez both
feel military service has the potential to legitimize
them "as men" in the eyes of other men and the general
population since military service functions as the
bedrock for a masculine code of conduct that holds
currency both in the military and in a civilian life. 
187: While this is one of the few places in the text where
racism at home is directly addressed, he easily
dismisses it as another person's problem and not as a
ubiquitous social ill that continued to limit him and
other peoples of color during the late '60s. In doing
so, he reduces the racist practices of the 1960s to a
personal issue between individuals and not as part of a
systemic structural problem. 
189: Comparatively, if one thinks of Vietnam POWs and POWs of
other wars such as the Korean War or WWII, the number of
soldiers captured during Vietnam was much smaller but
received the largest amount of media attention. Vietnam
had only 800 American POWs, while American soldiers
captured in Korea amounted to 7,140, and American POWs
in WWII numbered 130,201.

Saturday, October 18, 2014

A cache of Youtube videos

Susie provided the links to the following videos:


Soldados: Chicanos in Vietnam


As Long As I Remember: American Veteranos


The Real Hero (Veterans' Voices) (Latino Voices)


Coming Home: Vietnam Veteran Gerald Polman


What was it like returning home from the Vietnam War? - Oral Histories from NJ Vietnam Veterans


Vietnam Vets Should Have Received This...


Vietnam Veteran's Treatment Coming Home



The Vietnam War and its Detrimental Effects on Chicanos


Big thanks to Susie for providing this source, it is extremely relevant to our production. 

The following are selected quotes, but I urge you to read the entire thing:


3:  As a Chicano I have experienced racial bigotry in my upbringing and I must attest that it is important to discuss 
why the Vietnam War was a failure for many Mexican-Americans who saw the war as an 
opportunity to move upwardly in the American socio-economic pyramid


~


4: The statistics on the number of Chicanos serving in the Vietnam War were a motivating 
factor in conducting this research as Chicanos comprised about six percent of the country’s 
population during the war and accounted for about twenty percent of the casualties in Vietnam.


~


7: The Indigenous heritage 
of Mexican-Americans is also a mixture of tribes from all over the southwestern United States 
and Mexico. Chicanos have a rich cultural amount of capital in that they descend from Aztecs, 
Tarascans, Totonacs, Comanches, Apaches, Navajos, Pimas, and many more tribes.6
 According to a study performed by Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Medicina Génomica most Mexicans and 
Mexican-Americans are about 40 to 60 percent European and about 40 to 60 percent Native 
American.
 This binary of identity becomes even more complex when the dichotomy of being of 
Mexican descent and American-born is factored into the discussion of Chicano identity and 
culture.


~


7: The notion of desiring accommodation into the English dominant American societal 
complex for Chicanos was well exemplified during the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War was for 
many Chicanos seen as an opportunity to fight for America the land of their birth, and an 
opportunity to be warriors for democracy and capitalism the ideals that the United States was 
promoting. For many young Chicanos with no real prospects of obtaining a quality college 
education or a job, the war and joining the military seemed to ostensibly be a route to earn 
money for a more promising future.


~


9: Mexican-Americans became targets of the military in terms of the draft. Unintentionally 
or not Chicanos had very limited arguments and chances of not being conscripted into the 
military or of fleeing the country to avoid the war. Due to the poorer state of public education in 
areas where Hispanics resided, most Chicanos did not enroll into colleges and universities and 
therefore had more limited chances of obtaining a draft deferment. Hispanic young men were 
heavily recruited or drafted after they graduated from high school and were drafted even if they 
dropped out. At predominantly Hispanic schools military recruiters and ROTC programs were 
the answer for escaping the barrio for many Chicanos, and the military was seen by many as a 
way to climb the socio-economic ladder in the United States.


~


10: The barbarous nature of the war left great psychological wounds in many Chicano 
veterans. It can be inferred that the violence against other human beings made it difficult for 
veterans to surpass seeing their own family in a non-hostile manner. Marcello, an Army veteran 
who chose not to give his last name and who served as a First Lieutenant as a Forward Observer, 
stated that the brutality he witnessed injured his ability to feel


~


11:  However because of the anti-war 
movement in the United States many soldiers would write letters home and receive no letters 
back. On several occasions many soldiers would strive to make it out of Vietnam alive to be 
reunited with their girlfriends only to find out that she was no longer interested in dating a 
Vietnam War veteran.


~


12: For some 
Mexican-Americans the history of warrior-hood has survived to the twentieth century and 
beyond. A Chicano lives with his mestizo history of having roots to Aztec, Tarascan, or Apache 
warriors as well as his connection to the Spanish conquistador. The idea of proving oneself 
through participation in combat is a notion that has been passed down through generations.


~


14: Patriotism was an important factor in the culture of many Chicanos that led many to 
enlist into the military during the war. Ralph Garcia a former Marine stated that he decided to 
enlist into the Marine Corps because he saw that they were the toughest, and that if he wanted to 
be as tough as they were he had to prove himself by joining. He also recalled that when he was 
twelve years old he saw a Chicano Marine walking through his barrio in the blue dress uniform 
returning from the Korean War. Garcia saw how patriotic and warrior-like he looked, and he felt 
that in order to be somebody of importance he had to join the Marines.


~

14: Patriotism was an important factor in the culture of many Chicanos that led many to

enlist into the military during the war. Ralph Garcia a former Marine stated that he decided to 
enlist into the Marine Corps because he saw that they were the toughest, and that if he wanted to 
be as tough as they were he had to prove himself by joining. He also recalled that when he was 
twelve years old he saw a Chicano Marine walking through his barrio in the blue dress uniform 
returning from the Korean War. Garcia saw how patriotic and warrior-like he looked, and he felt 
that in order to be somebody of importance he had to join the Marines.


~


15: They believed that if they went 
through with the draft and served in Vietnam that they could be as American as a White person, 
and treated as first-class citizens. For many Mexican-American soldiers who served in Vietnam 
the war was not only about the possibility of economic gain, but it was also about gaining social 
clout.


~


17: Mike Serrano came to embody the confusion that many Mexican-Americans experienced 
during the war. Serrano stated that his naïveté and romanticisms of the war as a great crusade 
against the evils of communism came to a halt. He did not care about saving the Vietnamese 
people anymore; he only cared about making it through his tour of duty alive.


~


17: Many Chicanos returned from the war with 
the same feelings, and they were not necessarily feelings of anti-patriotism. Rather the feelings 
that several Mexican-Americans felt upon their return to America were sentiments that 
government cannot be blindly trusted.


~


19: To some Chicanos communism stood against their beliefs, faith, and culture even though
many of its tenets may have favored working class Mexican-Americans. Many Chicanos saw the
fight against North Vietnam and the communists as a noble act, and wanted to see democracy
established in South Vietnam, but the type of government that was established was not what
many wanted. In the early years of America’s involvement in the war Vietnamese Catholics from
North Vietnam fled by the hundreds of thousands to South Vietnam in the effort to escape
religious persecution by Ho Chi Minh and the communists.


~


20: Ramirez describes feeling nothing like he
thought he would feel during war. Ramirez stated, “the test of manhood was not there, and it
was nothing like the army conquests of John Wayne my childhood hero.”34 Killing people
became a contradiction for many Chicano soldiers who struggled with this confusion. It was
difficult for many Mexican-American soldiers who came from a working-class background to
fight working-class people who it seemed were fighting against tyranny and oppression.


~


21: However he did feel a strong sense of regret
for participating in a war that cost the lives of more than 58,000 military servicemen and women.
Bustamante reminisced with regret at the destruction of Vietnamese lives, children, property, and
land by the military. He claimed that as a Catholic these things that occurred in Vietnam have
been difficult to cope with after the fighting.


~


22: For many Chicano veterans the war in
Vietnam was not truly fighting communism it was instead defending American corporate
interests and protecting an oppressive dictatorship; one that was initially headed by Ngo Dinh
Diem and then replaced by another headed by Nguyen Van Thieu.


~


22: Roediger states that the masses are fooled by the concept of race in order to create a division
between the working classes and this division is clearly exemplified in the Vietnam War. This
exemplification is demonstrated not just in the fact that American soldiers of the working classes
were fighting peasants many of whom wanted a socialist political system of some sort but also in the fact that there existed disparities in the platoons, squadrons, and regiments in the military
between the white soldiers and the minority soldiers.


~


26: Many Chicanos at home became deeply involved in the anti-war movement as they
saw the war becoming too large. Many of them, including war veterans, joined activist
movements that called for an end to the war and a moratorium on the amount of Chicanos that
were being sent to Vietnam. These organizations included the Mexican-American Political
Association, the Mexican-American Youth Organization, the Catolicos por la Raza, and many
more activist organizations that sought an end to Chicano participation in the war.50 By 1968 the
Johnson administration had about 600,000 troops stationed in Vietnam.


~


27: However the issue of racism and racial
tensions was also a factor in the diminishing support for the war among many Chicano soldiers,
and racism affected the identity of many Chicanos after the war. Discrimination was not a new
concept to Mexican-Americans during the war, but it was surprising as many Hispanics did not expect to feel discrimination in the military, instead many believed that the military would make
them be more American and give them the opportunities of upward mobility that they desired.


~


29: school segregation for Chicanos did not end
until a federal appellate court upheld in Mendez v. Westminster in 1947 that Hispanics could not
be discriminated against in public schools and that segregation of Hispanics was
unconstitutional.


~


29: Juan Ramirez discusses his encounters
with racism and talks about his squad leader named Jensen. Jensen was racist and hated minorities. At the time that Ramirez met him Jensen did not have much time left in his tour of
duty, and because of his short time Jensen would send minorities into the most dangerous
missions and areas.56 Towards Jensen’s last few weeks in Vietnam he would send Ramirez and
his squad to patrol areas while he would stay at the command post. Ramirez stated that he
“exploded with rage and told my commanding officer that Jensen was no longer fit for duty, and
that Jensen did not care about us or our safety.


~


33: When many Chicano soldiers returned from the war in Vietnam discrimination towards
them continued at various degrees. Juan Ramirez recalls being pulled over by a police officer
who mocked his military service and accused Ramirez of being a bathroom cleaner in the
military.


~


33: Heroin was used by an estimated 15
to 20 percent of soldiers in the Mekong Delta, and could cost as low as $1 dollar per dose.64 Not
all Chicano soldiers were drug users but there was a significant amount of soldiers from all backgrounds that became heavier drug users and alcohol consumers because of the Vietnam
War.


~


34: When many Mexican-American soldiers returned home from Vietnam the addiction to
drugs and alcohol continued as many Chicanos felt discriminated against in housing,
employment, and in everyday social life.


~


35: The desire to escape the memories of the war became a
common goal for many Hispanic soldiers who felt anxiety about the destruction the war had
caused. Abran F. Montoya claimed that after the war his consumption of alcohol increased in
order to cope with the changes from being in a war zone to being in a more calm area. He would
constantly have flashbacks and nightmares and he admitted that his problem with alcohol
affected his marriage.


~


36: American society helped to create a negative atmosphere for several Chicano veterans
upon their return home. Antonio P. Bustamante described his return to America as hostile,
because protesters and hippies treated them with disdain. Bustamante declared, “upon landing at
the airport protesters demonstrated animosity towards me and other veterans by insulting us and
spitting at us.”70 He noted that even his family and friends were not as compassionate with him
as they should have been.


~


37: The brutality that many Chicano veterans experienced in Vietnam created severe changes
in many of them that influenced their characters, personalities, and emotions. The medical term
for this disorder that was brought back to America by veterans was titled Post-Traumatic Stress
Disorder (PTSD), and its symptoms included upsetting memories, nightmares, flashbacks,
feelings of hopelessness, and survivors’ guilt among many more. PTSD affected many veterans
and their families and was a disorder in which the government did not rapidly create programs to
provide medical treatment for. Many Chicano veterans had a lot of problems associated with
PTSD due to discrimination in VA hospitals and the strong feelings of denial regarding symptoms of the disorder.73 The US Department of Vetarans’Affairs reported that there are more
than 830,000 Vietnam War veterans living with service-related PTSD, and that the percent of
PTSD incidents is higher for Vietnam veterans than veterans of the Gulf War or veterans of the
Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.


~


38: Montano instead of seeking help from a federal
program to battle his PTSD symptoms eventually joined a support group which was started up by
other Vietnam veterans. He stated that relationships with other people were difficult for him
because of his problems associated with PTSD.75 Relationships with family and close friends
were deeply affected by PTSD in several Chicano soldiers who had returned from Vietnam. Juan
Ramirez describes his problems with the disorder as shattering to his relationship with his wife.


~


38: Ramirez recalled one incident in which he had a flashback of the war and had ran to the edge of a cliff. His wife chased him down and he realized that he had problems due to the war and that he
needed to seek help.


~


39: The problem with PTSD for many Chicanos was that their culture of machismo was too
strong to recognize that they were mentally helpless. Older generations of Chicano veterans who
had fought in Korea and in both World Wars had suppressed symptoms of PTSD and covered
them with machismo and alcohol use. However the war in Vietnam was different for many
Chicanos because they did not receive the treatment that older veterans received. In other words
when many Chicanos returned home they returned to a society that looked down upon Vietnam
veterans while veterans from World War I and World War II still experienced racism but
returned to a society where their service was somewhat appreciated.


~


40: As a
result homelessness in the United States rose especially in the veteran category. The National Coalition for Homeless Veterans concluded that 23 percent of all homeless people in America
are veterans, and that of these 47 percent are Vietnam veterans


~


43: The cultural tie that Hispanics share in being emotionally close to
family was distorted by their participation in the war, and this led several Chicanos to be more
withdrawn from family and friends. The cultural tradition that Mexicans and Mexican-
Americans had established as a means to survive amid poverty and struggles with oppressive
governments was rattled by the emotional problems that the Vietnam War caused.


~


44: Chicanos cannot be categorized into one homogenous group as each individual
experience varied; however, from this research it can be concluded that the Vietnam War
produced many problems and issues for many Mexican-American Vietnam War veterans.


~


46: the identity of
many Chicanos in terms of political and social philosophies went from being one of blind
patriotism and more centrist-conservative ideals to one in which many Chicanos became more
aware of the true political arena in the United States in which in order to survive many Chicanos
had to move to a more centrist-liberal position.


~


47: For some Mexican-Americans the war presented itself as an opportunity for a better future,
and that is why many Chicanos were not drafted but voluntarily enlisted into the military. In
effect it is a result of these situations that many veterans who returned and who were able to
overcome PTSD, drug and alcohol abuse became more inclined to favor government programs
that created other alternatives for minority youth to better their futures rather than by joining the military and serving in war.


Latinos' Vietnam Stories: From Fieldworkers to Warriors


Thank you to Susie for providing this article.

The following are selected quotes:

“I was happy to come back but the guilt made me feel trapped. Often I would ask myself and continue to ask myself ‘who’s better, those who, like me, came back, or those who died overseas,’” said Larry Holguin, one of the five Vietnam veterans from Corcoran featured in the documentary.

~

Holguin volunteered himself to the draft in 1967 “because we thought it was the right thing to do,” he said. One of his best friends died in Vietnam. When they brought back his body, his family and friends couldn’t see him. They wouldn’t let them have an open casket. 

~

They learn to live with all the consequences of war. They have friends and then they loose them.“You get to know them but you don’t get to know them,” Holguin said. “You have a friend and then you turn around and he’s gone.”
This is the reality of war.

~

“The military trains you, they program you but they don’t program you to release all that pressure. You never go back to normal,” Holguin said. “The hard part is having people to try to understand you. I cannot tell them about something that I’m not proud of.”

~

At first you suppress everything. You didn’t want to talk about it and people didn’t want to really know,” Delgado said. 
“When we came back we thought that everybody was going to support us but that didn’t happen. Only my immediate family gave me that support. War taught Delgado a lot of things. He has now taught his family to value and support those men who fight in wars, but he also has taught them to hate war.

~

“Me and my family are anti-war. We support our troops 100 percent but not the war. I was a warrior, I was there,” Delgado said.

~


Fighting on Two Fronts: Latinos in the Military


Thank you for the source, Susie

The following are selected quotes from the the essay.

~

Latinos have not only taken tremendous pride in their 
record  of  military  service,  they  have  also 
adroitly used their status as soldiers and veter
ans to advance the equal treatment and inte
gration of Latinos within U.S. society.

255;  In 1862, President Abraham Lin
coln established the Medal of Honor as the na
tion’s  highest  recognition  for  extraordinary 
military service. During the conflict, three Lati
nos were bestowed this honor – the first three 
of the present total of 44.


~

Not until March 1917, 
did  Congress,  through  the  Jones  Act,  make 
Puerto Ricans citizens of the U.S. The same act 
also made more  than 236,000 Puerto Ricans 
immediately eligible for conscription. The fol
lowing month, the U.S. entered World War I.18
Ever since, critics of U.S. policy have found the 
timing  of  the  Jones Act  suspicious, implicitly 
suggesting that the U.S. government’s ulterior 
motive in granting citizenship to Puerto Ricans 
was to increase the number of available fight
ing men on  the eve of war. To  the dismay of 
many islanders, however, nothing could have 
been further from the truth. Puerto Ricans ea
gerly  registered  for  the  draft,  trained  on  the 
island,  and,  ultimately,  18,000  served  in  the 
war


~

Once  the  U.S.  entered 
World War I, officials on the mainland followed 
suit,  allowing lightskinned  Puerto  Ricans  to 
join regular units while shunting darkskinned 
Puerto  Ricans  to  allAfrican  American  units. 
While their status as whites makes retrieving 
information about Puerto Ricans who served in 
regular units difficult, more is known about the 
fate of AfroPuerto Ricans, especially those sol
diers who ended  up  fighting  – and playing  – 
with  the  369th  Infantry Regiment  from Har
lem.


~

Among  those  Mexican  im
migrants who did serve [in WWI], for 
example,  Marcelino  Serna 
stood  out  for  single
handedly capturing 24 German soldiers after a 
German  bullet  had  grazed  his  head.  Perhaps 
even more impressive, Serna prevented anoth
er American soldier from summarily executing 
all  the  captives  in  the  heat  of  the  moment.


~

For his part, Manuel C. Gonzales of San 
Antonio  wondered  whether  Mexican  Ameri
cans after the war would be accepted as citi
zens as they had been ac
cepted  as  soldiers.  “In  a 
time of peace are the good 
people  of  our  country  to 
receive us as Americans,” 
he  asked,  “or  are  we  to 
step back into  the role of 
“an  alien”  until  another 
war is had?” To ensure the 
former  alternative,  in 
1929 Gonzales, Saenz, and 
many  other World War  I 
veterans helped found the 
League  of  United  Latin 
American Citizens (LULAC) to battle segrega
tion directed against Mexican Americans. To
day  it  remains  the  largest  Latino  civil  rights 
advocacy group nationally.


~

massive 
Mexican American participation in World War 
II,  the most  recent estimate  being  that  some 
500,000 Mexican Americans served in the con
flict.25 For many, a novel sensation of belonging 
accompanied the experience.


~

Medal of Honor recipient Silvestre Herrera ex
plained his decision  to enter a minefield and 
singlehandedly attack an enemy stronghold in 
France, a decision that cost him both feet in an 
explosion, “I am a MexicanAmerican and we 
have a  tradition. We’re  supposed  to  be men, 
not sissies.”


~

When told to leave [because of his ethnicity], 
however,  Macario  Garcia, 
another Medal of Honor reci
pient,  refused  to  do  so  and 
instead got into a scuffle with 
the café owner. Although local 
city  officials  charged  Garcia 
with  aggravated  assault,  na
tionally he won in the court of 
public opinion, especially af
ter the radio celebrity Walter 
Winchell decried the injustice 
of  the  incident  on  his  pro
gram. Especially after fighting 
a fascist dictatorship that championed an ide
ology of racial supremacy, the idea that war
time sacrifice merited peacetime equality re
sonated with more Americans than ever


~

While thousands of eth
nic group members had looked upon Korea as 
a necessary Cold War conflict and yet another 
opportunity to serve their country, some came 
to a different conclusion regarding Vietnam. A 
few individual Mexican American young men 
decided  against  serving  in  the  conflict  and 
thousands more, men and women alike, dem
onstrated against the war. In  fact, until 2006 
and  nationwide  demonstrations  on  behalf  of 
immigrants’ rights, the largest Latino demon
stration  ever  had  been  an  antiwar  protest 
march that occurred on August 29, 1970 in Los 
Angeles.  Organized  by  the  National  Chicano 
Moratorium  Committee  Against  the  War  in 
Vietnam,  Chicano  antiwar  activists  kept  the 
civil rights strategy cemented in World War II 
but employed it with a twist. While veterans in 
the postWorld War II era had asked for equali
ty premised on their military service, antiwar 
Chicanos asked why  they should continue  to 
serve in the face of contin
ued  inequality.  They 
pointed to evidence of dis
proportionate  casualty 
rates: a 1967 Ford Founda
tion  study  that  suggested 
that  although  Mexican 
Americans  comprised  just 
13.8 percent of the South
west’s  population,  they 
comprised 19.4 percent of 
all casualties. Antiwar Chi
canos  blamed  the  era’s 
draft  system,  which  origi
nally  had  provided  auto
matic  deferments  for  colleges  students  at  a 
time when roughly half of the Mexicanorigin 
population lacked even an eighth grade educa
tion.42 Ironically, even as Chicano antiwar ac
tivists criticized the country, their protest was 
arguably a sign of assimilation. Just as the rest 
of the nation was deeply divided about the war 
in Vietnam, so too were Mexican Americans


~

In the end, however, 
thousands of Mexican Americans served in the 
Vietnam  War  for  the  same  reason  they  had 
served in previous wars: because their country 
called them.


~

: Looking toward the future, the 
armed forces realize that giv
en  the country’s demograph
ics, successful recruitment for 
all  branches  of  the  military 
depends  upon  the  successful 
recruitment  of  Latinos.  In  fact,  one  of  the 
greatest champions of the long history of Lati
nos in  the U.S. military is  the Department  of 
Defense.

~

According to a 2009 academic article 
entitled, “The Army’s Hispanic 
Future,”  the number 
one reason Latinos join the ar
my is: “to serve my country.”