COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Service: People of Color
Does America Only Need Latinos During Wartime?
Jorge Mariscal, Statesman
July 5, 2005
A recent edition of the New York Times reported that Secretary of DefenseDonald Rumsfeld hopes to promote Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez to four-star
status and head of the Southern Command.
Despite the fact that Sanchez was the highest-ranking officer in Iraq during
the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, an internal Army inquiry exonerated him from
any wrongdoing. According to the Times article, a key factor in the decision
to promote Sanchez would be his ability to attract more young Latinos to the
military.
Citing sources inside the Pentagon, the article reports that "Sanchez's
promotion would showcase the nation's highest-ranking Hispanic officer and
his compelling personal story of growing up poor in southern Texas and using
the military as an escalator out of poverty, at a time when the Army is
struggling to meet its recruiting quotas."
The Times also quotes a senior Army officer as saying, "General Sanchez, as
a role model, is extremely important. The Army sells growth, opportunity and
development. We cannot ignore what our population makeup is."
The "population" in this instance is the rapidly growing number of Latinos
of military age trapped in inferior public schools, with high drop-out rates
and minimal access to higher education. They are the long-term target of the
Pentagon's multi-billion dollar military recruiting campaign.
History teaches us that the war record of Mexican Americans is distinguished
and beyond reproach. The invasion and occupation of Iraq will extend that
record into the future. But the dark side of this community's wartime
experience illuminates the contradictions at the heart of U.S. society's
treatment of its own citizens of Mexican descent.
Early in the summer of 1943, with thousands of Mexican Americans fighting
and dying in Europe and the Pacific, sailors attacked Mexican American
youths in the streets of Los Angeles and other Southern California cities.
While police stood by and conservative newspapers fed the anti-Mexican
hysteria, servicemen assaulted young men and women, ostensibly for wearing
zoot suits, and then widened their attack to the general population.
In East Los Angeles, one young Mexican American wrote: "This is supposed to
be a free country. We don't go around beating up people just because we
don't like the clothes they wear. Whose side is the Navy on anyway?"
In the summer of 1970, with thousands of Mexican Americans fighting and
dying in Southeast Asia, Chicano antiwar protestors gathered in East Los
Angeles to denounce the war's impact on local communities. The 25,000 men,
women, and children had just arrived in Laguna Park when L.A. County
sheriffs and police tear-gassed and attacked the crowd, clubbing men and
women to the ground and eventually killing three.
Writing to a local newspaper, one G.I. in Vietnam said: "We, the Chicano
soldiers, have something to say to our brothers in East Los Angeles. We were
proud when we heard of the East Los Angeles demonstrations. But why did you
stop there? We sit here impatiently waiting to get home."
In the summer of 2005, with thousands of Mexican Americans (as well as
thousands of non-U.S. citizen Mexican nationals) fighting in Iraq, the
so-called Minutemen hunt Mexican workers along the border and harass them in
locations as diverse as Southern California and eastern Tennessee. Hiding
behind the issue of illegal immigration, and tacitly supported by
politicians such as Arnold Schwartzenegger, the Minutemen join the long line
of racist bullies who pockmark U.S. history.
As Chicano Vietnam vet Charley Trujillo puts it: "They call us Americans
when they need us for a war. The rest of the time we're just dirty
Mexicans."
How ironic if Sanchez, whose mother picked cotton in South Texas, were to
become the poster boy for transforming young Latinos and Latinas into fodder
for a misguided foreign policy at the same time that vigilante groups
intimidate and threaten poor Mexican workers here at home.
Given the painful history of Mexican Americans in times of war, Spanish
speakers across the nation cannot ignore the paradox of Sanchez becoming a
pitchman so that their sons and daughters might bring "freedom" to Iraq
while nativist vigilantes terrorize Mexican communities at home.
As history repeats itself yet again, young and old alike will ask themselves
whether those who enlist to serve the agenda of the Bush adminsitration do
so por patriota, o por pendejo - because they are patriots, or fools.
Mariscal served with the U.S. Army in Vietnam in 1969. He now teaches at the
University of California, San Diego. He can be reached at:
gmariscal@ucsd.edu
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