Editor’s note: La Voz will run a three-part series examining different facets of our veterans. Follow the series as we honor our veterans.
Though it no longer gets the attention that once came automatically, Dec. 7, 1941 remains an epic day in modern American history. Early that Sunday morning nearly seventy years ago, Japanese airplanes came out of the clouds and laid waste to a significant portion of the fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. More than 2,400 young men, mostly sailors, would be dead before the sun would set. Two thirds of that number would die within the first fifteen minutes of the attack with the deadly bombings of the U.S.S. Arizona, Utah and Oklahoma.
As the headlines of the attack glared back at newspaper readers across the nation, lines were already forming with young and not so young men, many Latino, ready to sign up and join the fight. But the patriotic fervor that burned so deeply across the land was not restricted to just young men. Plenty of young women including a good number of young Latinas were also ready to take the oath and serve their nation.
Records from World War II are vague, said Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, of the U.S. Latino/Latina World War II Oral History Project. “The range of numbers is unreliable and is the reason we could never nail this number down,” said Rivas-Rodriguez from her Austin, Texas office. “The military didn’t (officially) count Latinos,” said Rivas-Rodriguez.
On the discharge papers of many Latinos/Latinas the government identified Latinos as white or n/a (not applicable) making an accurate count nearly impossible. “I’m working with a demographer who is going to help us,” she said. Still, estimates range from 400,000 to 750,000 Latinos who served in the war.
But in the West and Southwest, Mexican-Americans, many from the smallest hamlets that dot the map, found their way to recruiting offices to sign up for service. One family, “the De los Santos, had eight siblings serving at the same time,” said Rivas-Rodriguez. One by one, the brothers left their Eastland County home and joined the service. One fought under General Patton, two others fought in the Pacific, two others served aboard ships. A wall in the family’s home was covered in a world map with a marker designating where each son was serving. Only one, Charlie, never came home. He was killed storming Omaha Beach. He is buried, ...