COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Recruiting: Youth of Color
Security & Terrorism
John C.K. Daly, UPI
February 23, 2006
WASHINGTON,
Feb. 23 (UPI) -- Activists in the U.S. Hispanic community have
intensified their counseling of young people on alternatives to joining
the U.S. military.
The U.S. Army Recruiting Command's "Strategic Partnership Plan for
2002-2007" notes, "The Hispanic population is the fastest growing
demographic in the United States and is projected to become 25 percent
of the U.S. population by the year 2025 ... Priority areas are
designated primarily as the cross section of weak labor opportunities
and college-age population as determined by both general and Hispanic
population."
The Plan's top strategic recruiting areas are Los Angeles and San
Antonio. The Army is eager to exploit this potential pool of recruits;
in 2002 it implemented its Foreign Language Recruitment Initiative to
give recent immigrants a basic working knowledge of English.
Now the organization Oportunidades No-militares para los Jovenes, or
Non-military Opportunities for Youth, also known by its Spanish acronym
YANO, founded in 1984, is stepping up its efforts to inform Hispanic
potential recruits about the reality of life in the military and their
other options.
Argenpress news agency interviewed Professor and YANO activist Jorge
Mariscal about the organization. Mariscal teaches in the Department of
Chicano and Latin Studies at the University of California in San Diego.
Mariscal said, "The immense majority of Hispanic young people in the
United States have the possibility of three doors opening towards their
future. One is labor with low wages, where they will face continuous
discrimination. The second door that can open is a prison one. The last
one takes them to the recruiter. They fill in forms while they are
promised the Earth in terms of opportunities. They must only 'defend
the mother country' in Iraq."
According to their Web site, "Project YANO is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit
community organization that provides young people with an alternative
point of view about military enlistment.
"Many of our members are armed forces veterans who believe that high
school students are getting a distorted picture of the military and war
from recruiting ads and marketing. In particular, we are concerned that
many low-income students and students of color are being diverted away
from higher education and into the military, where they are found in
disproportionate numbers," the organization says.
This archive consists of a topically organized selection of
articles culled by members of the Counter-Recruitment List Serve from printed
publications and web sites. The archive is not complete. We have chosen
material relevant to the work of