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Editor's Letter:
Latinos defend our homeland

Editorial

Our nation’s historical records document that Latinos have fought in every war since the Revolutionary War, with distinction and with pride.

In this edition of Latino Perspectives, writer Angela Rabago-Mussi connects generations of Arizona warriors in her article about the Bushmasters of yesterday and today. The story describes soldiers past and present who are as sentimental as they are brave.

In almost all Latino families someone has served in the military. Most of us can recall sentimental moments shared with grandfathers, fathers and other relatives as they dusted off faded photos from times of military service.

There’s one particular photo I remember of my father, Ruben senior, and his five brothers proudly posing in Army uniforms as they prepared to depart from the tiny mining town of Clifton, Arizona. Group family portraits like this were snapped millions of times as Latino youth eagerly transformed into fighting men at the outbreak of WWII and left their hometowns across America.

The memory also comes of me as a kid tenderly touching jagged shrapnel scars the color of chile colorado on the bare brown back of my Tío Pablo. Pablo was wounded on the European front and taken prisoner by the German army. I was awed that his mangled flesh was the price he was willing to pay for loving his country enough to risk death to protect our homeland.

“I’d do it again if they needed me, Mijo,” he told me, his eyes shiny with a mist of nostalgia.

Today, Latino Americans continue to defend the United States as combatants in a war against terrorism in Afghanistan, Iraq and other outposts on the planet. Hundreds of thousands more serve in coast guard and homeland military reserves units that are increasingly being activated and deployed.

While traditionally it has been Latino men who have stepped forward to become soldiers, in these modern times Latinas are catching up to the percentage of Hispanic males in some branches of the military.

Current and future generations of Latino children will widen their eyes in wonder as Nana or Tia or Hermana pulls out and passes around treasured photos of themselves in combat fatigues. 

“…despite the traditionally masculine culture of the military and of Hispanics, the Hispanic share of military women has been increasing faster than the Hispanic share of military men,” says a recent report.  (See LP Journal in this issue.)

These Latinas join in a tradition stretching back as long as there has been a United States – and even when it was fighting for its right to exist.

During the Revolutionary War, soldiers from Spain, Mexico and the Caribbean, along with Latinos living in the battlefield region, were instrumental in defeating British forces along the Gulf of Mexico from Pensacola to Mobile.

Thousands of Hispanics sided with the Texans and later with the Americans during the war for Texas independence and the Mexican War that followed. Yes, there were even Latinos defending the doomed Alamo.

During the Civil War, Hispanics fought heroically for both the Union and Confederate armies. The best-known Hispanic during the war was Admiral David Farragut, most often remembered for his battle cry, “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!”

The trend of Latinas in the military disproves the notion that Latinos have historically excelled as soldiers because they are más macho than other cultures. If we are going to throw around Spanish words to describe our fighting men and women, we have to use words like patriota, orgulloso, and valiente.

In any language, being Latino translates to having – as the Mexican song says – mucho, mucho corazón.