A Legacy Greater Than Words: Stories of U.S. Latinos and Latinas of the WWII Generation

About this book

Since 1999 the U.S. Latino & Latina WWII Oral History Project at the University of Texas at Austin has captured the untold stories of this WWII generation. Altogether the project videotaped more than five hundred interviews throughout the country and in Puerto Rico and Mexico. This volume features summaries of the interviews and photographs of the individuals. Among the people included are Mexican American civil rights leaders such as Pete Tijerina and Albert Armendariz of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) and Virgilio Roel of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC). Others are community leaders such as Pete and Elena Gallego of Alpine Texas and military leaders such as Colonel Hank Cervantes and flying ace Richard Candelaria. Women who served in the military are also included. There are academic trailblazers too such as Frank Bonilla who became a major figure in Puerto Rican studies. And there are a few Latinos who describe serving in segregated "colored" units during the war as their physical features placed them in African American communities. Overall the vast majority of the men and women interviewed in A Legacy Greater Than Words led private lives and their stories chronicle the everyday existence of Latinos in the 1930s and 1940sstories that generally have been omitted from historical accounts of either the Great Depression or World War II.