♪♪
is brought to you by
(Aircraft noise)
She's one of America's longest
serving and most distinguished
fighting ships sailing through
war and peace for some 47 years.
Now she's in retirement as a
floating museum here
on San Diego's waterfront.
Welcome aboard
the U.S.S. Midway.
I'm Richard Yniguez.
You may recognize me from roles
I've played in movies and on TV.
But the role I'm most proud of
is my service on-board
a U-S Navy aircraft carrier
"Yorktown"
during the Vietnam War.
I'm also the proud son of
Navy veteran Rudy Yniguez.
and Army veteran
Santiaga Carrillo
My parents, along with thousands
of other Mexican-Americans,
answered this country's
call during World War II.
These were men often
neglected in pre-war America,
men who helped save
this country and in many ways,
found a better life
in post-war America.
This is their story, a story
of dedication, sacrifice,
patriotism and  valor.
  Valentia: Mexican
  Americans in World War Two.
♪
(Church Bells)
I was coming out of church,
this church here,
when I heard about it.
And it didn't actually sink in!
Being farm boys, we just....
where the heck is Pearl Harbor?
(Battle Sounds)
My mother thought
I was too young.
My father said,
"He's 18, he's a citizen,
it's his duty."
And I never thought
otherwise that I wouldn't go
or I shouldn't go.
They were relegated to  Mexican
  only neighborhoods, schools,
theatres, and churches.
Yet hundreds of thousands of
Mexican-Americans signed up
to serve in World War II.
If you look at the statistics,
you would have to conclude that
375 to half a million estimate
out of 2.569 million population
is extraordinary, and
remember that you also have
Mexican-American women serving
in the armed forces as well as
Mexican nationals.
I had friends from Connecticut,
Arkansas, California, Arizona,
just all over the states.
That really felt
like I belonged.
I belonged to this family.
Families with names like Correa
and Ramirez sent all their sons
and even their daughters to join
the Army, Navy, Marine Corps,
the Air Corps or do their
part here on the home front,
giving so much, even their
lives, for this country.
For many the armed forces
turned out to be
a great equalizer.
And as you will
see, gave returning veterans
the courage off the battlefield
to fight for equal opportunity.
♪
I was the only officer.
I was the only pilot in
the whole group who was
Mexican-American.
The whole group consisted of
four squadrons, 64 airplanes,
(and) 64 crews.
After more than sixty years,
Gilbert Duran Orrantia
still fits into
his flight jacket.
When World War II broke out,
he was an Arizona
college student
training to be a teacher.
But he dropped out to
join the Army Air Corps
now called the  Air Force .
I just went in,
because I thought that was
the best thing for me
and for the Army.
They needed people who had two
years of college,
and I needed to be in some
place that could challenge me
rather than carry a rifle,
say, across Germany or wherever.
The young
cadet flew a twin-engine bomber.
It was noisy, but the
very first mission I went on,
they blew off a wingtip,
and I thought, is this thing
going to get back?'
Well, it did great!
(Airplane Noise)
While discrimination in the
armed forces was uncommon,
it reared its ugly head on
occasion like the time
Lieutenant Orrantia was asked
to work with a young man named
  Ramirez.
So he reported to me and
he became my radio gunner,
because the other pilots
didn't want him.
They didn't want him
because he was Hispanic,
and Hispanics were not
supposed to be that intelligent.
Well, and the same thing
happened with my crew chief.
No one would take him
because his name was Torres,
and he
was the best crew chief we had.
Another Air Corps volunteer,
Joe Hernandez from San Antonio,
landed in a job,
not for the faint of heart,
as a turret-gunner, flying
bombing missions over Germany.
Another really bad experience
happened to me
on Friday the 13th.
One of our airplanes came up
right in front of us,
and the prop wash, you know,
the propeller flipped us over.
We fell down about 5,000 feet.
We were at about 20,000 at that
time, and (we) went down
to about 14-15,000
when finally the plane
....the pilot
and the co-pilot, pulled it out.
As part of the famed
82nd Airborne Division,
Daniel Ramirez worked
on board C-47s,
planes that towed gliders across
the English Channel during
the harrowing D-Day invasion.
They had 35 paratroopers
in one of those gliders,
and some of those guys
never got out.
They went in and shot them even
before they hit the ground.
D-Day, June 6, 1944 marked the
Allied invasion of Europe,
and John D. Luna from
Ceres, California was there.
Well, when I first
went in, that was bad.
That was very bad.
I saw my buddies fall
to the side of me.
I tried to help them.
They had blood all over.
I just couldn't help that.
The seas were real heavy,
and some of our tanks
just went to the bottom
and didn't come up.
But we managed to make it to
shore, and it was real crowded.
We couldn't get out.
We were closed in for several
weeks, and we were bombarded
day and night.
And people were dying
all around me.
And all I did was pray
and fall to the ground.
That's all,
and it wasn't my turn.
I wanted to pay tribute
to the different divisions
that had
fought throughout America's Wars
Ernesto Pedregon Martinez is
an artist who honors
the armed forces on canvas.
During World War II
his unit liberated
the Nazi concentration
camp at Nordhausen.
We were struggling
to tear down the gate,
and from far away in the
barracks, we started seeing,
like, a little black
cloud moving.
And we almost opened
up on them, you know,
because we thought
they were soldiers.
And as they came close,
it start getting clear
that they were people.
And we thought
it was an insane asylum,
because a lot of them
were almost completely nude.
Eventually I think we liberated
about five thousand prisoners
alive.
How did these young
Mexican-American soldiers,
many of whom had never been
but a few miles from home,
deal with the carnage,
the danger, the loneliness?
Every night that we were in
our camp or in our foxhole,
I always said my rosary.
Faith and friendship: two
pillars of strength among
G-I's like Joe Arambula
from San Antonio.
I said my rosary simply
because I asked God
to watch over me,
and secondly, it kept me awake.
Awake in the foxholes,
he shared with  Amos ,
his buddy from Missouri.
He's a fine man,
just like a brother to me.
Joe had already lost two
of his brothers in battle.
Then Amos died when the truck
he and Joe were riding in
rolled over.
His widow wrote to me
after he got killed,
and I took
it pretty hard because he was
....we looked after each other.
Even as the truck rolled
over, he grabbed me.
He grabbed me.
Then after the first roll,
I got knocked out.
I don't even remember,
but that's where he got killed.
(War sounds)
  It was rough.
Well, the LST I was on.
It was number 13.
And to this day I'll always
believe that thirteen is
a bad number, because
it seemed like we never missed
a storm out in the Pacific.
What was so scary when we
first went aboard
the U.S.S. Saranac,
our Captain's name was
John J. Cross, and the
first thing he told us,
"If you boys are afraid to die,
you don't belong on this ship.
"As North Manila
is cleaned up artillery opens on
South Manila across the river."
In the Pacific, G-Is encountered
World War II's fiercest
and deadliest battles.
An elite fighting force called
  the Bushmasters
rose to the occasion.
We came up with the name
  Bushmaster in Panama  .
They killed great big snakes
that were called
the Bushmaster snake,
and that's how we got our name  .
The Bushmasters were made up
largely of Mexican-American men
recruited from the
Arizona National Guard.
They trained in the jungles
of Panama and New Guinea
in preparation for action
in the South Pacific.
General Douglas MacArthur
called them
the greatest fighting combat
team ever deployed for battle.
Memories of wartime
emerge still fresh and raw
after so many years.
My father was an 18-year-old
from Sacramento when
he went into the Navy
....to Iwo Jima and Guam.
Total, I made about
five invasions.
Getting sailors back in from
the island into the ships,
you're lost out there.
You haven't eaten.
Dark, wet,
you can't find your ship,
because there's
thousands out there.
Small ones, big ones, just
bombarding that place
day and night.
Thousands of people just
floating in the water.
That's hard to take.
 I was thirty-five
 days in the front.
As a front-line doctor
with the little that I had,
to try and
save some lives as best I could.
Antonio Moreno from Austin,
Texas served as a medic,
tending to injured
Marines at Iwo Jima.
I think it was the
fifth day that we landed.
We saw the flag,
first flag on Mount Suribachi.
It was a crude flag that was
planted there with a pipe that
they found there with a
small flag hanging up.
Well, we were really happy.
We thought it was
going to be over soon!
that's what they told us, that
it was going to be no problem
to take that
island but low and behold it got
rougher and rougher.
Toward the end of the war
on the island of Mindanao,
American soldiers were
targets for snipers.
But Julian Gonzalez from
San Antonio was lucky.
He found help from
Filipino police,
because he could speak Spanish.
The commanding officer spoke
Spanish, and I spoke Spanish.
And we got pretty....we became
friends, and then I told him
about our situation.
And first thing he did
was he said,
"Well, you don't have to worry
about it."
He posted a guard,
a twenty-four hour guard,
there to protect us.
Other soldiers
were not so lucky.
They perished in
battle from disease
or were taken prisoner like
a young soldier named
Luz Cisneros.
He, of course, went into a POW
camp, and ultimately
he perished in a Japanese
POW camp from pneumonia in 1943,
but surrounded by his comrades
and supported by them.
His legacy lives on at Fort
Bliss in El Paso, Texas.
Building 1013, which is a
barracks for the Third Battalion
6th Defense Artillery,
is a training barracks for
advanced individual trainees.
It's named Cisneros
Barracks in recognition of
Private Cisneros's
contribution to World War II.
♪
Dawn to dusk and
back to dawn again
- three eight-hour
shifts in one day.
So much can be done in a day
if Americans keep their sleeves
rolled up.
♪
Not only men were called to roll
up their sleeves in war time,
but women, mothers,
wives, sisters, and daughters,
their work largely confined
to the home front,
in defense factories,
and civil defense.
Henrietta Lopez Rivas lived
near a strategic air base:
Kelly Field in
San Antonio, Texas.
She spoke both English and
Spanish (and) was snapped up
by the Civil Defense corps.
They asked, "How many
languages do you speak?
Do you speak fluently,
and do you read and write,
and so on."
And I said, "Of course I do."
So the next thing I knew I
was called to be an interpreter.
Like many young
Mexican-American women,
Henrietta didn't stop there.
She displayed a certain
mechanical acumen
that earned her a good-paying
job at the local air base.
They sent me to school.
I think it was over
three months, and I qualified
for instrument repair, which
is very delicate you know.
You have to work with
microscopes and tiny,
tiny screws.
♪
I remember the victory gardens
we used to have,
and I remember
the rationing of the food,
sugar, meat and gasoline.
In World War II everyone pulled
together with a sense of pride
and shared sacrifice.
People who had never picked
up a shovel began growing
some of their own food
in  victory gardens .
They sold war bonds to raise
money for military operations.
Even children did their part.
Little Rosa Ramirez Guerrero,
who says she was  born dancing ,
entertained soldiers
in El Paso, Texas.
We were like the Mexican
American Bob Hope show.
We would bring up the
morale of our troops.
El Paso and Fort Bliss had the
largest military base
in the world here
in the Second World War.
People don't remember that,
but I do.
And I remember all
the soldiers coming downtown,
and all you could
see is khaki-khaki.
And on Saturday
nights, this big bus,
an army-colored bus, would pick
us up, and it was a thrill
for us to go dance for them.
Here she is,
selling poppies....
Mothers and wives of servicemen
did the lion's share
of boosting troop morale.
In Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona
 La Asociacion Hispano-Americana
  de Madres y Esposas published
a newsletter called  Chisme
or  Chatter that kept GI's
up to date on news from home.
And they sold
bonds - lots of them.
They raised over a million
dollars in war bonds.
This was in Tucson.
And this is $1
million dollars in the 1940's.
That's a lot of money
for the war effort.
Local churches stepped up
to the plate
- the collection plate -
raising money for the troops
and holding prayer vigils
for their safe return.
In Sacramento, California,
a mother from Mexico named
Enriqueta Andazola
with several sons
and a son-in-law in uniform,
recruited women to support
servicemen
from the central valley.
She started
an organization called
  The Mexican War Mothers.
They tended to wounded
soldiers in local hospitals,
sent  care packages overseas,
and gave visiting GI's
a welcome taste of home.
I remember going with my mother
and my grandmother to
the USO here in Sacramento.
And they would actually
cook Mexican meals there at
the USO so the men
could have good Mexican food.
But the greatest legacy of the
Mexican War Mothers is this:
a silent sentinel modeled after
a soldier, Diana's Uncle Joe,
standing guard near the
capitol in downtown Sacramento.
The statue really does
honor the boys that died,
the Mexican soldiers that died.
That's really the
significance of the statue.
To honor the Mexican young men
that died in
the Second World War.
♪
  "Welcome home!
  Well done"
More than sixty decades have
passed since World War Two ended
and soldiers returned home.
But the bonds forged by these
bands of brothers have been
impossible to break.
In dwindling numbers
they gather at reunions,
dusting off their
memories and mementoes:
♪TAPS♪
They faithfully attend events
at American Legion Post 41 in
Phoenix, established by
Mexican-Americans after the war.
  , "Aim, fire!
  Aim, fire!
The combat, the hardships, the
ultimate sacrifice made by these
men and women were not in vain  .
Veterans took advantage of
the GI Bill
to advance their educations.
They eliminated the so-called
"poll tax" collected at the
voting booth.
  " If you didn't pay the
  poll tax, you didn't vote.
  And we had
  a big campaign on the poll tax
  and it helped elect the
  first Hispanic mayor of
  El Paso, Raymond Tellez."
Emboldened by their
brothers-in-arms,
Mexican Americans continued
to fight for equality in jobs,
housing, and education.
Near Houston, Mexican-American
educators developed a program to
teach English to non-English
speaking children
it became
the model for "Head Start".
The American GI Forum, the
"Mexican American Legal Defense
and Educational
Fund" and the "League of United
Latin-American
Citizens" - all successfully
promoted civil
rights and equal opportunity.
  "No more Mexican theatres,
  no more separate YMCAs,
  no more separate
  sections in the church.
  No Mexican section, Anglo
  section in the church.
  "World War II and after their
  service they really did belong
  and
  they had that self-confidence"
Dr. Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez is
one of seven children of defense
worker Henrietta Lopez Rivas
and Ramon Martin Rivas,
who was stationed on
Alaska's Aleutian Islands.
 "The biggest legacy of that was
  that my parents taught us to
  stand up for ourselves and to
 say that something's not right.
  To not be afraid to say
  that this isn't right.
  And, uh, I think that's
  the biggest part.
 I think that comes out of World
  War II because that's the
  effect
  that WWII had on this
  generation of Latinos.
Dr. Rivas-Rodriguez spearheads
the effort to ensure that the
contributions of
Mexican-Americans
will not be forgotten.
She and her staff at the
University of Texas at Austin
have interviewed hundreds of
World War II veterans-with key
parts of their oral histories
published in this book.
 We have this fantastic photo of
  these five brothers
  around
  their little mother on the
  couch
  and
  all of them in their uniform.
  And I think that's been the
  amazing thing...is just to
  realize that...um...you know,
 these families gave so much and
  did so much and put
  up with so much!
  And came out all
  the better for it."
  "It's the adventure
  of your life good or bad..."
Pete Dimas is named
for his father,
a World War Two veteran who
spent time in a German POW camp.
His dad's stories inspired Pete
to produce his own documentary
about Post 41.
  "I fell and finally I was
  looking for my gun, because."
  "When I stepped on the mine,
  it blew both my legs..."
Silvestre Herrera is one of a
(dozen) Latino soldiers awarded
the Congressional Medal of
Honor during World War II.
Their heroism recognized in
the larger community thanks to
Richard Martinez
with the GI Forum.
He travels the country with
photos and documents celebrating
all Latino Medal of
Honor recipients.
  "I have done that for quite
 awhile now and I sit back and I
  watch and I see people take
  out their handkerchiefs and,
  and...especially
  veterans...they
  read the citation and they say
  how could this guy do that?
 Risk his life for his friends?"
  "And it's something
  that we do a lot of,
  out of love for not only our
  friends, fellow veterans,
  but for our country."
 "World War II is a good example
  of this contribution-the
 sacrifices that have been made,
  the struggle that families
 encountered and dealt with, and
  the struggles that they
  overcame
  in spite of the difficulties
  of racism and segregation.
  Beyond that is the larger
  story of 'Americanism'.
  Americans are all of us, and
  Mexican-Americans are also
 Americans and I think sometimes
  that is something that is
  forgotten."
 "Let me get this straight.
 I'm an American.
  I'm proud of it
 and by the grace of God a Texan
  from San Elizario
  so I don't listen
  to that garbage.
  It doesn't affect me;
  it doesn't bother me because
  I am an American.
  We earned it!"
"America the Beautiful"
in the background
Now, at last, veterans and
their fallen comrades are being
honored for all they've given
and  continue to give to all of
us.
  "Because of them
  our lives are free.
  Because of them our
  nation lives..."
A nation's gratitude expressed
in both public and private
ways...
across the generations:
  "This is a little essay
  that my little grandson,
  Michael Thomas Murphy wrote."
 "My grandpa is a proud American
  who served his country
  bravely."
 "He is an American hero because
  he was in World War II
  as an Air Force pilot.
  He was one of the only Mexican
  American pilots in the war."
  "this love of this nation that
  didn't love them for so long
  is just amazing to me.
  It's just amazing...
  So, I know.
  I'm getting all upset.
  But you know, it's true."
  ♪
  "The fathers are
 proud of what their kids did.
 My dad was... he was a man.
  He thanked me.
  He thanked  me for
  what I had done.
  Imagine him thanking me?"
My parents
were typical of that generation.
They returned from the war,
quietly got on with their lives
working and raising families,
asking only for
equal treatment in return.
For me  as a Mexican-American,
I know that without my parents's
service and the sacrifices of
all the other Mexican-Americans
during World War II,
my life and, yes, your life,
would not be what it is today.
Thanks for watching.
I'm Richard Yniguez.
To find
out more about Mexican-Americans
and World War II
Visit our Web site
♪
