By Maria Torres
Maria Torres was only 12 years old when the war began, yet she was old enough to remember the profound impact it had on her life and family in El Paso, Texas.
“When my brothers left, it just seemed like something that belonged to my parents had been taken, and they didn’t know if they were going to have that something back at home again,” recalled Torres, whose four brothers – Alfonso, Jose, Maurice and Alejandro Holguin – served in the war.
By J. Barrett Williams
Brigadier General Belisario Flores, who served his country for more than 40 years during three wars, retired from the Texas Air National Guard and the United States Air Force in the summer of 1986. Upon his retirement, then-Gov. Mark White gave him a one-rank, honorary promotion, making him a Major General in the Texas National Guard.
Shortly after Marcelino Ramirez Bautista’s mother, Petra Ramirez, died in 1916, Bautista’s father took young Bautista with him when he left Zacatecas, Mexico, for New Mexico in search of work.
When Tiburcio Bautista lost his job in the United States, he and Bautista moved back to Mexico, where Bautista later met and married Anastacia Muñez Robles on June 7, 1930, in Zacatecas.
By Nilka Campos
Growing up during the Great Depression was difficult for Epifanio Salazar and his family. Like most others during the era, Salazar was unable to find work.
“We couldn’t make a living, so we would take whatever we could scratch – chicken, rabbits, deer,” he said.
So Salazar decided to join the Armed Forces and fight alongside thousands of other Americans in World War II. Though his father worried he could be killed, to Salazar, joining the Army was the only way to survive.
By Christina Tran
When he became vice chairman of Houston’s Metropolitan Transit Authority in 1990, Alfonso Matta would recall his closest experience with a railcar, when he was a 14-year-old on a bike.
“The railcar – we had rail then – it turned on Houston Avenue, and I came and bumped up into it, and I fell onto there and hit something, and it stopped the streetcar, and the streetcar driver was like what are you doing there, and get off,” Matta said. “It was electric. I thought the wheels were gonna get me.”
By Melissa Watkins
Carlos Peña's mother, Natividad, used to say the only time Anglos came around their little farm near San Benito, Texas, was when they needed another football player or when there was a war.
The first happened when "Coach McMillan" from a local high school – Peña doesn't remember his first name – approached the family looking for a player. Young Peña's dad, Fermín, thought football was just a bunch of crazy guys beating each other up, but he left the decision to Carlos, the oldest of his six sons. Peña, then 13, said yes.
By Michael Trevino
Following his brothers' example of taking a stand against a foreign power and volunteering for the military, Ezequiel Hernandez enlisted in the Armed Forces as a teenager.
"When I turned 18, none of my brothers were home so I joined," Hernandez said.
By Cheryl Smith Kemp
When Moses “Moe” Alemán’s parents emigrated from Mexico to Austin, Texas, as children, the horse and buggy was one of the most common modes of transportation and Austin-Bergstrom International Airport was a bunch of farmland.
That’s where Arturo Alemán and Antonia Garza first met, in the community encompassing the fields in which their parents both labored.
Alemán, an airport-security consultant in a post-9/11 world, brings this and other sweeping changes up when reflecting upon his life.
By Brittany Wilson
After getting discharged from the Navy in 1948, Wilfred Navarro, Jr. returned to his hometown of Houston. He finished high school and decided he’d like to be a police officer. But first, he and other Latino veterans would have to overcome institutional racism.
Navarro was the third Latino officer hired by the Houston Police Department and would go on to serve for nearly five decades in many capacities, including high-level administration. His wife, influenced by her husband’s example, would later become a police officer.
By Cynthia Agnew
Jesus "Jesse" Reyes, an accomplished shoe repairman, painter and World War II veteran, describes his Army experience as a life-altering phenomenon that helped him become the man he is today. The will to fight for his life when on the front line in Germany taught him that all good things come from hard work and perseverance.
