McAllen

By: Voces Staff

By Brigit Benestante

As a high school student in South Texas, José Aguilera participated in a six-week walkout that was ultimately unsuccessful and resulted in him leaving school. Yet he has no regrets: The experience defined him as someone who would stand up to the discrimination he had witnessed and felt.

“[The walkout] defined me as a person. I am really proud of that,” he wrote to the Voces Oral History Project.

By Kim Loop

Sisters Wilhelmina Cooremans Vasquez, 79, and Delfina Cooremans Baladez, 81, have done nearly everything together throughout their lives, including joining the workforce during World War II.

In early 1942, when the United States was mobilizing to join the war in Europe and the Pacific, the two sisters were eager to help.

By Yvonne Lim

Gloria Araguz Alaniz began her role as the family caregiver when her mother passed away, leaving 15-year-old Alaniz to care for her father and eight siblings.

As her mother, Anita Flores Araguz, lay dying from an aneurysm, she asked her teenage daughter to make sure her sickly baby brother, 5-month-old Arturo, get baptized right away.

It was understood that as the oldest girl, young Alaniz would be responsible for her family's care. A cousin stepped in to make arrangements for the baby's baptism and the child was baptized after Anita died June 10, 1942.

By Michael Taylor

During the span of a 27-year military career, Edelmiro Vidaurri has worked on the aircraft used to fight three wars. In the course of those conflicts, he saw change both in the technology of aircraft and the attitudes of his fellow soldiers.