thedrifter
05-27-07, 05:55 AM
Latinos have long tradition of service in U.S. military
By: GARY WARTH - Staff Writer
As the nation celebrates Memorial Day, some Latinos say it is time that they, too, are remembered for the sacrifices they made for their country.
"You don't immediately think of Latinos when you talk about World War II," said University of Texas at Austin professor Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, who for the last eight years has headed a Latino and Latina World War II Oral History Project at her school.
Although spotty record-keeping makes actual numbers impossible to know, Rivas-Rodriguez said an estimated 500,000 Latino-Americans served in World War II.
But those Latino troops are all but missing from the most popular World War II films and books, she said. From classic documentaries like "Victory at Sea" to contemporary books like Tom Brokaw's "The Greatest Generation" and Steven Spielberg's film "Saving Private Ryan," Latino names and faces are scarce, if not invisible.
Now comes Ken Burns' epic 14-hour documentary "The War," scheduled to air on PBS in September. Although Rivas-Rodriguez said her project has captured 550 video interviews with Latino-American veterans during eight years, her group was not contacted by Burns.
"Our goal is to be integrated," Rivas-Rodriguez said Thursday during a visit to the KPBS studio in San Diego, where clips of "The War" were shown. They were part of a community forum addressing the controversy that began when she and others, including retired San Diego State University professor Gus Chavez, began calling for a revision of the documentary to include footage of Latinos.
Burns originally was reluctant to re-edit the project, but since has included Latinos in the documentary. How much footage was used and how it was used is not known yet.
UC San Diego professor Jorge Mariscal of Encinitas did not attend the forum, but said it was important for the film to be revised because contributions by Latinos have been overlooked in the past, and it is time to reverse the oversight for the sake of accuracy.
Like Rivas-Rodriguez, he said he sees a more inclusive documentary as valuable to historians and Latino families. He also said that portraying Latinos alongside other Americans in historical events may even help ease some tension within today's diverse population, Mariscal said.
"In the current climate, the culture seems to recognize all Latinos as foreigners because there's so many new arrivals ---- but so many of us are second, third or fourth generations, and our grandfathers and fathers have served in all the U.S. wars since the Civil War on," he said.
Two who fought
With a history deeply rooted in both Latino culture and the military, San Diego County is home to generations of Latinos who have served in the armed forces. In Oceanside, Joe Balderrama Park is named for a Latino soldier who died in Germany during World War II. Throughout the nation, 13 Latinos in World War II earned Medals of Honor, including 11 Mexican-Americans and two Puerto Ricans.
In Escondido, the Valdez family has had three men serve from two generations.
Blair Valdez served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1970 to 1980, and his late brother, Vincent, served in the National Guard.
Their father, Mike Valdez, came home from World War II with two Purple Hearts.
Valdez already had served in the Marines during the 1930s when he was called back to the Corps as a gunnery sergeant after the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. He then was sent to fight on Bougainville, a South Pacific island the Japanese took in 1942. Allied forces liberated it after a 22-month campaign that began with a beach invasion in November 1943.
While on Bougainville, Valdez said, he lost two close friends; he would learn not to get too close to anyone after that. And he received word that his wife had died of an illness back home, where he had two young children.
After Bougainville, Valdez was sent to Tarawa, where more than 1,000 Marines were killed and another 2,200 wounded.
"It was pretty rough," he recalled. "That was really rough. I saw a lot of fighting. It was hard to imagine the stuff we went through."
Valdez next went to Iwo Jima, where 6,800 Americans and 20,700 Japanese were killed. While on the island, he was hit in the leg by shrapnel, still embedded in his flesh in 109 pieces.
"I thought my leg was blown off," he said. "They took me in and they said, 'We're going to have to take it off.' I said, 'No you're not.' I objected, and they put it together."
After two months of recovery, Valdez was sent to Okinawa, where Allied troops landed in March 1945.
"That's where their last stand was," he said of the Japanese awaiting them. "It was kill or be killed. They put up a hell of a fight."
Japan's depleted forces were down to small-caliber firearms by then. Valdez was struck in the hip with what he thinks was a .25 caliber bullet that left a cut but not a serious wound. The war ended while he was recovering in a Hawaiian hospital, and Valdez stayed in the Marines until 1948.
Navy Cross recipient
Oceanside resident Joe Marquez earned a Navy Cross, the second-highest medal issued by the Navy, for his valor in saving injured troops on the island of Peleliu, a small western Pacific coral island, while he was injured.
At 18, he joined the Navy in 1943. Soon, he was attached to the First Marine Division, which he joined on Peleliu, where he was wounded by a hand grenade after a month on the island.
"It seemed like every day there were wounded in our company," he said.
Because he had been newly transferred to the island, Marquez said he didn't know the men he was with very well, which made it a little more bearable when someone was killed or wounded.
"I think that's what kept my sanity up," he said.
One night, sometime between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m., a hand grenade was thrown where he and other men had bunked down.
'It was a little hairy there for a while," he said. "There were eight of us wounded. I couldn't walk, so I had to crawl around and take care of those people."
The most seriously wounded man was a friend, and Marquez tried to give him plasma, but it was too dark. After calling for a flare to be shot over them, Marquez had just enough light to work on him. His friend died the next day after being evacuated, but the other men with him survived, and Marquez was awarded the Navy Cross for heroism.
After recuperating for three months, Marquez was assigned to a ship and sent to Okinawa.
"That was kind of scary, but luckily we didn't have any kamikazes coming to our ship," he said. "But every time we had an air raid, your heart starts pumping a little faster."
Homecoming
Returning from the war, Marquez said he did not experience the discrimination many other Latinos felt at the time. Growing up in the small mining town of Tonopah, Nev., Marquez had been the captain of his high school basketball team and student body president, and said he didn't feel the discrimination.
"No one treated us any different," he said. "I didn't find any animosity toward Latinos. I seemed to fit in with everybody."
Valdez had a different experience.
"Escondido was a very small town, and they were very prejudiced to us," he said about the city his family moved to in 1920. "They discriminated quite a bit."
The discrimination faced by Valdez and other minorities in the post-war era exposed a national hypocrisy: Minorities valiantly fought for the same nation that often treated them like second-class citizens.
For Valdez and his two brothers, however, personal feelings about how they were treated at home came second to their own patriotic feelings for their country. While some local Latino families moved to Mexico when the United States entered the war in 1941, Valdez said he and his brothers wanted to fight for their country as American citizens.
"We stayed," he said. "We figured it was our duty. We lived in this country all this time, so when they called, we went."
Post-war snubs
It's been said that the lives of every person on Earth today were somehow affected by World War II. In some ways, the end of the war also helped spark a new civil rights movement in the United States.
"A lot of these veterans came back and said, 'Look, we just fought this war for democracy, but we're treated as second-class citizens,' " Mariscal said.
"Some of them would walk into restaurants in their full uniforms, and they would be denied services," Rivas-Rodriguez said.
For many Latinos, the post-war snubs were the last straw. Landmark civil rights cases for Latinos began soon after World War II. Among those were the Mendez v. Westminster case in 1946 in Los Angeles, where a court ruled it was unconstitutional to segregate Mexican-American students.
In Texas, then-Sen. Lyndon Johnson intervened to allow the burial of a Latino World War II veteran in a city cemetery.
As a result of such discrimination, the GI Forum was formed in Texas to support rights of Latino veterans, Mariscal said. The nationwide organization still exists to fight for Latino rights.
"They came back and made amazing contributions to our country, both during the war and after the war," Rivas-Rodriguez said about Latino veterans.
Contact staff writer Gary Warth at (760) 740-5410 or gwarth@nctimes.com.
Ellie
By: GARY WARTH - Staff Writer
As the nation celebrates Memorial Day, some Latinos say it is time that they, too, are remembered for the sacrifices they made for their country.
"You don't immediately think of Latinos when you talk about World War II," said University of Texas at Austin professor Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, who for the last eight years has headed a Latino and Latina World War II Oral History Project at her school.
Although spotty record-keeping makes actual numbers impossible to know, Rivas-Rodriguez said an estimated 500,000 Latino-Americans served in World War II.
But those Latino troops are all but missing from the most popular World War II films and books, she said. From classic documentaries like "Victory at Sea" to contemporary books like Tom Brokaw's "The Greatest Generation" and Steven Spielberg's film "Saving Private Ryan," Latino names and faces are scarce, if not invisible.
Now comes Ken Burns' epic 14-hour documentary "The War," scheduled to air on PBS in September. Although Rivas-Rodriguez said her project has captured 550 video interviews with Latino-American veterans during eight years, her group was not contacted by Burns.
"Our goal is to be integrated," Rivas-Rodriguez said Thursday during a visit to the KPBS studio in San Diego, where clips of "The War" were shown. They were part of a community forum addressing the controversy that began when she and others, including retired San Diego State University professor Gus Chavez, began calling for a revision of the documentary to include footage of Latinos.
Burns originally was reluctant to re-edit the project, but since has included Latinos in the documentary. How much footage was used and how it was used is not known yet.
UC San Diego professor Jorge Mariscal of Encinitas did not attend the forum, but said it was important for the film to be revised because contributions by Latinos have been overlooked in the past, and it is time to reverse the oversight for the sake of accuracy.
Like Rivas-Rodriguez, he said he sees a more inclusive documentary as valuable to historians and Latino families. He also said that portraying Latinos alongside other Americans in historical events may even help ease some tension within today's diverse population, Mariscal said.
"In the current climate, the culture seems to recognize all Latinos as foreigners because there's so many new arrivals ---- but so many of us are second, third or fourth generations, and our grandfathers and fathers have served in all the U.S. wars since the Civil War on," he said.
Two who fought
With a history deeply rooted in both Latino culture and the military, San Diego County is home to generations of Latinos who have served in the armed forces. In Oceanside, Joe Balderrama Park is named for a Latino soldier who died in Germany during World War II. Throughout the nation, 13 Latinos in World War II earned Medals of Honor, including 11 Mexican-Americans and two Puerto Ricans.
In Escondido, the Valdez family has had three men serve from two generations.
Blair Valdez served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1970 to 1980, and his late brother, Vincent, served in the National Guard.
Their father, Mike Valdez, came home from World War II with two Purple Hearts.
Valdez already had served in the Marines during the 1930s when he was called back to the Corps as a gunnery sergeant after the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. He then was sent to fight on Bougainville, a South Pacific island the Japanese took in 1942. Allied forces liberated it after a 22-month campaign that began with a beach invasion in November 1943.
While on Bougainville, Valdez said, he lost two close friends; he would learn not to get too close to anyone after that. And he received word that his wife had died of an illness back home, where he had two young children.
After Bougainville, Valdez was sent to Tarawa, where more than 1,000 Marines were killed and another 2,200 wounded.
"It was pretty rough," he recalled. "That was really rough. I saw a lot of fighting. It was hard to imagine the stuff we went through."
Valdez next went to Iwo Jima, where 6,800 Americans and 20,700 Japanese were killed. While on the island, he was hit in the leg by shrapnel, still embedded in his flesh in 109 pieces.
"I thought my leg was blown off," he said. "They took me in and they said, 'We're going to have to take it off.' I said, 'No you're not.' I objected, and they put it together."
After two months of recovery, Valdez was sent to Okinawa, where Allied troops landed in March 1945.
"That's where their last stand was," he said of the Japanese awaiting them. "It was kill or be killed. They put up a hell of a fight."
Japan's depleted forces were down to small-caliber firearms by then. Valdez was struck in the hip with what he thinks was a .25 caliber bullet that left a cut but not a serious wound. The war ended while he was recovering in a Hawaiian hospital, and Valdez stayed in the Marines until 1948.
Navy Cross recipient
Oceanside resident Joe Marquez earned a Navy Cross, the second-highest medal issued by the Navy, for his valor in saving injured troops on the island of Peleliu, a small western Pacific coral island, while he was injured.
At 18, he joined the Navy in 1943. Soon, he was attached to the First Marine Division, which he joined on Peleliu, where he was wounded by a hand grenade after a month on the island.
"It seemed like every day there were wounded in our company," he said.
Because he had been newly transferred to the island, Marquez said he didn't know the men he was with very well, which made it a little more bearable when someone was killed or wounded.
"I think that's what kept my sanity up," he said.
One night, sometime between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m., a hand grenade was thrown where he and other men had bunked down.
'It was a little hairy there for a while," he said. "There were eight of us wounded. I couldn't walk, so I had to crawl around and take care of those people."
The most seriously wounded man was a friend, and Marquez tried to give him plasma, but it was too dark. After calling for a flare to be shot over them, Marquez had just enough light to work on him. His friend died the next day after being evacuated, but the other men with him survived, and Marquez was awarded the Navy Cross for heroism.
After recuperating for three months, Marquez was assigned to a ship and sent to Okinawa.
"That was kind of scary, but luckily we didn't have any kamikazes coming to our ship," he said. "But every time we had an air raid, your heart starts pumping a little faster."
Homecoming
Returning from the war, Marquez said he did not experience the discrimination many other Latinos felt at the time. Growing up in the small mining town of Tonopah, Nev., Marquez had been the captain of his high school basketball team and student body president, and said he didn't feel the discrimination.
"No one treated us any different," he said. "I didn't find any animosity toward Latinos. I seemed to fit in with everybody."
Valdez had a different experience.
"Escondido was a very small town, and they were very prejudiced to us," he said about the city his family moved to in 1920. "They discriminated quite a bit."
The discrimination faced by Valdez and other minorities in the post-war era exposed a national hypocrisy: Minorities valiantly fought for the same nation that often treated them like second-class citizens.
For Valdez and his two brothers, however, personal feelings about how they were treated at home came second to their own patriotic feelings for their country. While some local Latino families moved to Mexico when the United States entered the war in 1941, Valdez said he and his brothers wanted to fight for their country as American citizens.
"We stayed," he said. "We figured it was our duty. We lived in this country all this time, so when they called, we went."
Post-war snubs
It's been said that the lives of every person on Earth today were somehow affected by World War II. In some ways, the end of the war also helped spark a new civil rights movement in the United States.
"A lot of these veterans came back and said, 'Look, we just fought this war for democracy, but we're treated as second-class citizens,' " Mariscal said.
"Some of them would walk into restaurants in their full uniforms, and they would be denied services," Rivas-Rodriguez said.
For many Latinos, the post-war snubs were the last straw. Landmark civil rights cases for Latinos began soon after World War II. Among those were the Mendez v. Westminster case in 1946 in Los Angeles, where a court ruled it was unconstitutional to segregate Mexican-American students.
In Texas, then-Sen. Lyndon Johnson intervened to allow the burial of a Latino World War II veteran in a city cemetery.
As a result of such discrimination, the GI Forum was formed in Texas to support rights of Latino veterans, Mariscal said. The nationwide organization still exists to fight for Latino rights.
"They came back and made amazing contributions to our country, both during the war and after the war," Rivas-Rodriguez said about Latino veterans.
Contact staff writer Gary Warth at (760) 740-5410 or gwarth@nctimes.com.
Ellie