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

1. The Paradox of War: Mexican American Patriotism, Racism, and Memory

1 The Paradox of War Mexican American Patriotism, Racism, and Memory r i c h a r d g r i s w o l d d e l c a s t i l l o One of the themes running through the more than six hundred interviews gathered by the U.S. Latino & Latina World War II Oral History Project at the University of Texas at Austin is that of struggle against poverty, discrimination , and the perception of Mexican Americans as foreigners and outsiders during the Great Depression and World War II. Largely because of this experience, many Mexican Americans developed a life philosophy that enabled them to cope with harsh realities. World War II also afforded them the opportunity to put that philosophy to the test: they were called upon to sacrifice for their country, a nation that increasingly came to represent freedom , tolerance, and human dignity for them. This conflicted consciousness of being a patriotic American while experiencing second-class citizenship led to the formation of a tough and resilient worldview, one that would make Mexican Americans a backbone of what came to be called middle America. This chapter explores the ways in which Mexican American men and women remembered their youthful experience with racism and discrimination while molding an American identity, one that incorporated patriotism and an abiding belief in the American dream. It also suggests that the U.S. Latino & Latina World War II Oral History Project archive deserves closer examination by scholars who seek to explain what has been termed “the Mexican American generation.”1 RI CHARD GRI SWOLD DEL CASTILLO· 12 · When the United States entered World War II, about three and a half million people of Mexican descent lived in the United States. They represented a diversity of backgrounds, ranging from families who had lived within the present-day United States for centuries to those who had recently crossed the border to find new and promising jobs in the factories and fields of their adopted country. According to the 1940 count of the U.S. Bureau of the Census, a majority of them were U.S.-born for the first time in their history. Most were sons and daughters of the immigrants who crossed the border during the period between 1910 and 1930, the years of the great migration from Mexico.2 Despite their status as citizens and the internal differences that they exhibited in appearance, status, and regional affiliation, most were classified as “Mexican” by the U.S. Census and by public opinion. Moreover, their Spanish language, skin color (typically brown) and working-class status— resulting from a century of economic and political submersion—made them visible and subject to continued discrimination and segregation. Suspected of being disloyal to the United States, in part because they were perceived as foreigners, most Mexican Americans lived in the shadows of their barrios, or segregated communities, and in forgotten rural enclaves, hardly noticed except when needed for low-wage work or subject to the prejudiced watch of law enforcement officials. During the 1920s and 1930s they grew up expecting hard work, poverty, hunger, and rejection, but they learned to survive.3 The life stories that follow, taken from the U.S. Latino & Latina World WarIIOralHistoryProject,illustratehowMexicanAmericanyouthemerged from the hard times of the Great Depression and used their sense of patriotic sacrifice, born out of the war emergency of the 1940s, to redefine themselves as men and women who expected fair treatment and impartial justice. Antonio Campos is a case in point. He was raised in Houston, Texas, during the 1930s. Campos vividly recalled the discrimination that Mexican Americans faced in restaurants: “If you wanted to get fed you had to go in the back. Mexicans and dogs were in the back. You had to get a sandwich and go home.”4 As a child, he joined a segregated Boy Scouts troop with secondhand uniforms , and he joined a Mexican high school band after being rejected by the all-Anglo band. Campos volunteered for the U.S. Army and served as a paratrooper in France. After the war, he received his undergraduate education with the help of the GI Bill of Rights and later attended Baylor Law School. When he finished law school, Campos organized an English-teaching campaign for U.S.- and foreign-born Mexican youth. He also ran for mayor and THE PA RADO X OF WAR· 13 · for a...