Newton

By Katie Woody

Lorenza Terrones Lujano has battled prejudice, assumed a traditionally male role as an athlete and worked diligently to send all four of her children to college, an opportunity she never had.

By Anthony Sobotik

Carmen Gonzalez has shouldered his responsibilities with grace

Gonzalez was milking cows at a neighbor's farm to help support his family by the time he was 12. And during World War II, he did his duty on the battlefield. Last but not least, when the mother of his eight children left the country after they divorced, he did his best to raise them.

By Nathan Wyman

For Ventura Terrones Campa, the gravity and brutality of World War II often seemed distant to her while living in the Kansas heartland of America. Like many thousands of wives left to raise their children while their husbands were fighting on the battlefields of Europe, North Africa and the South Pacific, Campa's goals were to maintain her household, tend to her daughter and wait to see if her husband, Diego Campa, would be one of the lucky ones who’d come home.

By Elizabeth Wilder

Diego Campa wanted nothing more than to live a simple American life while retaining his Mexican heritage.

Campa’s family and friends held lively celebrations of Mexican culture, but outside this cocoon -- even at church -- he faced constant reminders Mexicans weren’t always considered true Americans by mainstream society.

Campa was born Nov. 3, 1922, in Florence, Kan. His parents, Perfecto and Benita Campa, came to America in 1913 from Irapuato, in Guanajuato, Mexico.