United States

By Natalie England

Martin Vega knows what discrimination is. He saw it in his everyday life.

He even saw that everyday discrimination culminate in murder.

Vega was born in Nuevo Leon, Mexico. His family immigrated to Taylor, Texas, 36 miles northeast of Austin, in 1921, where his father worked in the cotton fields. Times weren’t easy for Mexican Americans in Texas.

"I had two cousins murdered by the police," Vega said.

During a visit in 1945, his cousins, out drinking in Taylor, got into a scuffle. According to Vega, the police fired.

By Callie Jenschke

Unlike many other Latino World War II veterans who often found themselves in a minority during their military service, Roberto Vazquez says he seldom felt the brunt of discrimination as a soldier in his division, where he was one of 7,000 Hispanics fighting shoulder to shoulder against the German army.

By Lynn Maguire

José Urías volunteered for tasks other men were loathe to do: combing the beaches of Normandy, littered with human remains; uncovering mines; going door-to-door in France in search of German soldiers hiding in private homes; and blowing up part of a castle that was a nest of enemy snipers.

Although Urías’ performance would earn him a Silver Star Medal and the admiration of his commanding officer and men, Urías says he was merely doing his job.

By Elizabeth Robertson

Despite the terror surrounding him on the mountainous Japanese island of Okinawa during World War II, Marine Cpl. Antonio Trujillo always found himself volunteering for missions that no one else wanted.

He’d been told repeatedly by fellow soldiers to hold back and not volunteer for dangerous assignments. But for Trujillo, volunteering was a matter of pride.

By Melissa Watkins

Arthur "Chavalito" Tenorio spent Dec. 6, 1941, at a hotel in Honolulu playing craps with a fellow sailor. He lost the game, but a hotel employee warned the pair it didn't matter, because after tomorrow, they wouldn't be around. Tenorio awoke aboard the USS New Orleans the next morning, a day that will live in infamy.

Baptized Arturo, Tenorio was born June 5, 1924, in Las Vegas, N.M., to Merenciano Tenorio and Ophelia Lucero, who Tenorio describes as a tough street fighter and spoiled rich girl.

Tenorio was small for his age.

By Noelle Pareja

Eighty-one-year old Houston resident Andrew Tamayo clearly remembers the day World War II broke out. And the day after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the 19-year-old Mexican American proudly enlisted in the Army.

Even though he volunteered to serve, Tamayo eventually harbored some doubts about his purpose as a Mexican American in the military. It was during a battle in Sicily in 1943 that he became most conflicted about his status as a Latino.

By Elizabeth Egeland

Paul Solis and his two brothers all served in World War II. He was in the China- Burma-India Theater; his older brother, Raymond, worked on dry docks in the Pacific; and his younger brother, August, served on the USS Farragut (DD 348). All returned safely.

For Solis, the war would be his chance to break away from his life in Houston, to hitchhike across America and see parts of the world he probably never would have had the chance to visit. It made him appreciate what he had back home.

By Brandon Rawe

It was a time in America's history when communities were racially segregated and shunning minorities was accepted.

But none of that mattered during World War II to Henry Sillik, who served on a naval ship in the middle of the China-Burma-India Theater, the first racially equal setting in which he says he ever lived.

Sillik grew up in Buckeye, Ariz., a segregated town of about 600 outside of Phoenix. Sillik, who is of Anglo and Latino parentage, noticed the different standard of living for Hispanics.

By Jason McDaniel

Luis Sena was only 6 years old on Black Thursday, the day the stock market crashed and sent the American economy spiraling into the Great Depression. His father had died four years earlier, in 1925, leaving Luis' mother, Maria Sanchez Sena, to care for him and his seven siblings.

Those two events set the tone for what would be a difficult childhood for the Senas in Golondrinas, a small town in Mora County, New Mexico.

"There were days when I had to eat gravy, just made out of water and a little flour, with no bread, just a spoon," Sena said.

By Brent Wistrom

Jose Sena remembers how his best friends suckered him into enlisting in the U.S. Army at the start of World War II.

As a 17-year-old, Sena was hanging around with his twin brother and some of his friends one day when they began talking about how good soldiers looked in their uniforms.

After bantering about the redeeming qualities of wearing a soldier's uniform, Sena and his friends convinced each other that they would volunteer for military service the next day.