Beyond the Latino World War II Hero: The Social and Political Legacy of a Generation

6. The Color of War: Puerto Rican Soldiers and Discrimination during World War II

At the same time that the Allied victory over the Axis powers was being heralded as democracy’s triumph over human bondage, Puerto Rican soldiers in the U.S. armed forces were writing to leaders such as Luis Muñoz Marín, the president of the Puerto Rican Senate, with complaints of race discrimination . Letters from angry soldiers stationed in Hawaii complained that even the Japanese prisoners of war fared better than them.2 In one of those letters, Private Miguel Mateo asked the Senate president to intervene on behalf of hundreds of Puerto Rican soldiers forced to work alongside Japanese prisoners of war in the Honolulu docks and to wash their dirty laundry with the POWs’ clothes.3 Ironically, Mateo’s demand was tinged with overtones of ra6 The Color of War Puerto Rican Soldiers and Discrimination during World War II s i l v i a á l v a r e z c u r b e l o The United States is now fighting for Democracy, not only for American Democracy , but for Democracy as a way of life, in all quarters of the earth. The Puerto Rican negroes, true to their responsibility and conscious of their duty to the nation, are ready and willing to share their blood in the supreme effort to defend our Democratic principles; today more than ever, challenged by the totalitarian demagogues. But the Puerto Rican negro, fully conscious of his ability to defend the Democratic ideal, in the same manner that our white soldiers can, have a right to demand, on the base of the same Democratic ideals which he proposes to defend, identical conditions as the white man. —JULIO ENRIQUE MONAGAS, 19421 THE COLO R OF WAR· 111 · cial thinking, which would be consistent with the anti-Japanese sentiment in American mainstream culture during the war years. Discrimination against Puerto Rican, African American, Mexican American , and other Afro-Latino soldiers was prevalent before, during, and after the conflict. In some instances, it reached tragic proportions. Coming home to South Carolina in 1946, a recently discharged Black sergeant was attacked by a racist who gouged the soldier’s eyes.4 In Texas the family of Félix Longoria , a Mexican American killed in the Philippines at the close of the war, was denied use of the local funeral parlor. After the much publicized intercession of Lyndon B. Johnson, the junior senator from Texas, Longoria was buried with full honors at Arlington Cemetery.5 No other such case attracted as much public attention for Puerto Rican soldiers in the mainland United States or in the European and Pacific war theaters. However, military files and testimonies from veterans demonstrate a distinct pattern of racial profiling and discrimination against Puerto Rican soldiers during World War II. Given the longtime practice of racial segregation in the U.S. armed forces and an accompanying policy that stood until 1954, it is not surprising that Puerto Rican soldiers also experienced discrimination , especially when sent to the mainland or to the war theaters. It is also clear that their experience remains under-researched. This chapter examines how scientific jargon and methodologies validated discriminatory and profiling practices toward Puerto Rican inductees during the Second World War. It also examines these practices in light of the Puerto Rican structure of race relations. More generally, the chapter seeks to contribute to a fuller understanding of the relationship between colonialism and racism in Puerto Rican history. An examination of the early history of Blacks and Puerto Ricans in the U.S. military provides the initial backdrop to this study. The World of Jim Crow In every war in which this country has participated, Negro Americans have had to fight for the right to fight. At the start of each war, military leaders have questioned the Negro’s abilities and finally accepted the Negro participation under the pressure of necessity. Although 920,000 Negroes served in the Army during the Second World War, the Army didn’t take most of them until manpower shortages impelled their assistance, using them for menial jobs wherever possible. These men were treated as inferiors in southern training camps. The great majority was used for arduous, dirty work overseas, but they covered themselves with glory just the same. —THURGOOD MARSHALL , 19516 SI LVI A ÁLVAREZ CURBELO· 112 · At the onset of World War II, the U.S. armed forces were organized under the protocols of racial...