By Ernie Carrido
Jose M. Lopez is one of the 12 Latino World War II veterans to have received the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military accolade. He had a difficult childhood, but maintained a fervent belief in the Virgen de Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico.
Lopez's father died in the Mexican Revolution; his mother eight, years later, when he was eight. Lopez never went to school, but worked in the cotton fields to help support himself.
By Juan de la Cruz
Felix López-Santos's early memories of his native Puerto Rico include watching everything float away from his front porch during the big San Felipe storm of 1928. After his Barrio Ceiba was washed away, his family moved to another town, San Lorenzo, where his mother became ill.
Moving to Connecticut seven years later was difficult for López--Santos, but he adapted to the new environment fairly quickly. He attended a predominantly Anglo school and learned English in his classes, where he was the only Latino student.
By Nicole Dreyer
As a ranch hand, Cresencio Lopez didn't get much news about what was happening overseas in World War II. Some neighbors and his cousin had been drafted, and it was hard to get information from them. Later, when Lopez was serving in the Pacific at the tail end of the war, he’d write often to his mother and wife, letting them know where he was and inquiring about his family.
By Amanda Traphagan
World War II gave Beatrice Amado Kissinger a ticket out of her small-town life in southern Arizona and into the big city adventure of serving as a Navy nurse in San Francisco.
When the United States entered the war, Kissinger was a nursing student at a Catholic school -- and tired of the discipline.
By Joanna Watson
Although Joel Hernandez enlisted in the Army only because he couldn't find a job, he looks back on his military service as a blessing that enabled him to lead a fulfilling life.
The son of Mexican Revolution veteran Candelario Castillo Hernandez and Manuela Mendez Ramirez, Hernandez was born July 27, 1917, in Mackay, Texas, the oldest of seven children.
Looking back, Hernandez says his family was poor, and everyone had to constantly work hard.
By Benjamin Smith
After serving his time in the Army and tasting equality in various parts of the country and world, Alfred J. Hernandez wanted nothing more than to leave the city he’d later change.
By Connor Higgins
Agusti¬n Louis Hernandez's life has been one of service: to his country as an engineer/gunner on a B-24, to his community as a firefighter and lawman for 37 years, and to his family as a husband and father.
And as a retiree in Houston at the age of 81, he still struggles today with what is right and what is wrong in war and how it squares with his religious beliefs.
By Christa Desimone
She remembers the telephone call like it was yesterday. A man had rushed into the office where she was working in May of 1946, yelling to her that she had a phone call waiting for her across the street.
Victoria Partida dashed to the phone and heard the voice of the man from whom she’d been waiting to hear for two long years. It was her fiancé, Luis Guerrero, who’d been at war in the South Pacific. He said the words she’d long wanted to hear.
By Lindsay Graham
Raised in Ybor City, a Cuban neighborhood inside Tampa, Fla., Evelio Grillo attended black segregated schools and grew up with black role models.
"Black Cubans were closer to black Americans and white Cubans were closer to white Americans," Grillo said. "We became culturally African American."
He went on to attend Dunbar High, an all-black high school in Washington, D.C., and attended Xavier University, a college for black students in New Orleans, La. He then was drafted into the Army to serve in a "colored" unit in the China-Burma-India Theater.
By Christine Pev
On Dec. 7, 1941, 20-year-old Pablo Gonzales heard on the radio in his hometown of Sabinal, Texas, that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, and he immediately wanted to enlist in the military to help defend his country.
His mother, Julia Bocanegra Gonzales, wasn’t pleased. The second of 10 children and the oldest son, he was a significant contributor to the family’s income. Ever since Gonzales and his father, Rafael Gonzales, had worked together on a job mending fences and cutting cedar, they’d labored as a team.
