THIS WEEK ON LATINOPIA: REMEMBERING LOS VETERANOS. DON FELIPE DE ORTEGO IN AMERICA’S DEFENSE, VIDEOS ON COLONEL ENRIQUE CERVANTES AND JULIAN GONZALEZ, CHARLEY TRUJILLO ON SOLDADOS;CHICANOS IN VIETNAM AND MYLENE MORENO’S ON TWO FRONTS.
This week we pay homage to Veteran’s Day and in particular the sacrifices made by Latinos in America’s wars. We begin with a reprint of an essay by the late scholar and historian Dr. Felipe de Ortego y Gasca. In his Latinopia blog, In American’s Defense: Mexican And Mexican Americans, he carefully chronicles the contributions made by Mexicans and Mexican Americans in defense of their country. Don Felipe, who passed away in 2018, wrote this piece shortly before his death.
We also repost four videos that reflect the war time experiences of Latinos in two of America’s wars, World War Two and Vietnam. As you will see from the videos, the experience was different for these different generations of Latinos. In World War Two Latino enlisted in great numbers to defend their country against Hitler’s totalitarian regime. We post Latinopia video interviews with two World War Two veterans, Julian Gonzalez, who was part of the D-day invasion of Europe, and Col. Enrique Cervantes, who rose from a childhood of picking crops in the San Joaquin Valley to becoming a distinguished pilot. Both men share mixed views on their experiences as Latinos in the so-called “Good War.” These videos were produced as part of Maggie Rivas Rodriguez’s Voces, Oral History project out of the University of Texas at Austin.
By the late 1960s, many Latinos had second thoughts about the war, particularly when they found out that Latinos were being drafted and dying in disproportionate numbers in Vietnam. This led to massive protest by Mexican Americans against the war. Charley Trujillo was one of those who enlisted but later came to regret his involvement in the war. He later wrote a book about his wartime experiences, Soldados: Chicanos in Vietnam, and made a documentary about it by the same name. Mylene Moreno has produced a landmark documentary, On Two Fronts, which examines, in-depth, Mexican American involvement in the war and the conflictive, often divisive, nature of that war.
Latinopia recognizes and salutes the sacrifice made by all Veterans in America’s many war, irrespective of their background or race. But we also felt it important to highlight the particularly unique and painful experiences that Latinos have had to endure and the price they have had to pay.
We salute all our veterans!
Tia Tenopia