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CHAPTER 1
ChicaNamization
Since the end of the war, the Department of Defense has estimated that 83,000 Latinos served in Vietnam, while other figures show as many as 170,000 (with Mexican Americans making up the great bulk of the figure). It is difficult to give an accurate figure on the number of Mexican Americans who served in the Vietnam War, as most Latinos who served during the war were simply categorized as "White" by the Department of Defense. The term or label "Hispanic" was first introduced in the 1970 Census, and in the military it did not became common until after the war. Determining Latino veterans can become tedious and confusing, especially with those individuals with Caucasian surnames, or with non-Hispanics that have Spanish surnames in the case of veterans of Filipino descent.
What is firmly documented is that Chicanos served with distinction, as ultimately ten Mexican Americans were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for their gallantry, including two nationalized Mexicans, Alfred Velazquez Rascon and Jose Francisco Jimenez. Significantly, Mexican Americans were among the first and last to serve in Vietnam. As early as 1954, a Mexican American airman, Ciro Salas Jr., was with the first group of Americans to be detained and held as prisoners of war by the Vietnamese, while Master Sgt. Juan Valdez was the last American soldier to leave the rooftop of the American Embassy in Saigon when it fell to Communist forces on April 30, 1975.
Despite the vast contributions of Mexican Americans in Southeast Asia, the scholarly historical literature does not accurately reflect their participation. Even the earlier works by Mexican American scholars, which resound with strong Chicano nationalism, completely ignore veteranos. Given the unpopularity of the war amongst Chicano youth and scholars coming of age during that era, it is no surprise that the perspective of Mexican American veterans was overlooked.
Chicano/a antiwar activists during the Vietnam War era became educated on the historic plight of the Vietnamese people, which was comparable to the struggles for equality Chicanos faced in the United States as well as to the broad struggles that oppressed people grappled with globally. To a certain extent, Chicanos were more mindful about Vietnamese history than their government leadership was willing to seriously consider before committing significant troops and capital. The long struggles of the Vietnamese people should have been further evaluated in order to understand what Americans were to be involved in.
Vietnam, and Indochina in general, has had a long history of oppression. First, the Chinese in 111 B.C. conquered and subsequently colonized Vietnam until 939 A.D. For the next nine hundred years, Vietnam had self-rule — until the mid-1800s, when it was then colonized by the French. With the weakening of France during the Second World War, the Vietnamese saw a glimmer of hope for self-autonomy. Yet, Imperial Japan had its own interests. With Japan's expansion in the Pacific, Vietnam would fall to the Japanese, and while some Viet people saw them as liberators, others saw them as their next occupiers.
Stepping into the forefront with the desire for Vietnamese independence was Ho Chi Minh, who in 1941 led the Viet Minh, or League for the Independence of Vietnam. By 1945, Ho and the Viet Minh were backed and supported by the United States, the Soviet Union, and China. In April 1945, the CIA's predecessor, the OSS, met with Ho and trained Viet Minh troops in what would lead to an Allied victory in the Pacific. That same month, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who once declared support for a free Vietnam, also passed away. With Japan's unconditional surrender in August 1945, an elated Ho Chi Minh and Viet Minh felt they had contributed to the Allied victory and, consequently, appealed to President Harry Truman, who succeeded Roosevelt upon his death. Truman, however, was not receptive to Vietnamese independence.
Nevertheless, On September 2, 1945, Ho Chi Minh again attempted to appeal to Americans with the Declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. In his proclamation, Ho began with borrowing almost verbatim from the U.S. Declaration of Independence: "All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." He also appealed to the French, citing the declaration of the French Revolution that "All men are born free and with equal rights, and must always remain free and have equal rights." Neither the American nor the French governments were supportive of the Vietnamese independence movement. Instead, the French decided to restore their control of the colony, and the United States — whose mindset was now obsessed with checking the strength of the Soviet Union — decided that France's recovery and prosperity as an imperial nation was in their own best interest in fighting the Cold War.
The American support of France's imperial influence in Vietnam was such that the use of nuclear weapons was discussed between both countries during France's last stand at the battle of Dien Bien Phu during the French-Indochina War. In a dialogue between President Dwight D. Eisenhower's hawkish U.S. secretary of state John Foster Dulles and French foreign minister Georges Bidault, the words "nuclear bomb" were allegedly uttered. Today, there is confusion about whether the weapons of mass destruction were offered, requested, or merely suggested in regard to what it would take for a French victory at Dien Bien Phu.
In 1954, after the Vietnamese victory over the French in the French-Indochina War, the United States and China, at the Geneva Conference, divided the country at the 17th parallel into North Vietnam and South Vietnam instead of granting full Vietnamese independence. Led by Ho Chi Minh, the North was Communist and kept close ties to the Soviet Union and China. Meanwhile, the South, with the support of the United States, embraced a capitalist, open-market state controlled by a quasi-democratic government. The United States backed and installed Ngo Dinh Diem as president in the South under the condition that free elections were to be held between the North and South in 1956.
President Diem, however, never followed through with free elections; thus, in the eyes of the North Vietnamese and anti-imperialist critics, Diem and his government were considered a puppet regime of the United States. The U.S. poured endless amounts of money into support of the Diem regime that was committed to the American agenda of a Communist-free South Vietnam. His disdain towards the Communists allowed Diem free range, as Americans overlooked his brutal practices and transgressions based on his solid commitment to the containment of Communism.
At the end of 1961, the year President John F. Kennedy came into office, the United States with 16,0000 troops was heavily involved militaristically in Vietnam. The growth in troops that year was exponentially higher than the 900 U.S. troops stationed in South Vietnam the previous year under President Eisenhower. Military advisors and Special Forces dedicated to the training of the military in South Vietnam made up the majority of the early military personnel. Journalists referred to the conflict as merely a quagmire in the midst of the Cold War. Committed to the domino theory invoked by President Eisenhower, the United States was dedicated to preserving a Communist-free South Vietnam.
By 1963, it was clear to many in the South that Diem, a Catholic elite (just like Kennedy), did not reflect or share the common interests of the solidly Buddhist nation. The Buddhist Crisis itself sparked international outrage when the situation climaxed with the self-immolation of Buddhist monks that summer. To most South Vietnamese and to the Kennedy administration it was clear that President Diem was impertinent and impotent in leading South Vietnam. In communication with Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., ambassador to South Vietnam, President Kennedy gave the green light for Diem's removal. With the collaboration of the CIA and South Vietnamese operatives, President Diem and his brother were executed on November 2, 1963. Almost three weeks later, on November 22, President Kennedy met a similar fate in Dallas.
Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson would fill the presidency and confront the simmering situation in Vietnam. Without President Diem's iron fist to contest the Viet Cong's attempts to infiltrate and take over South Vietnam, President Johnson would have to commit American troops to do so. Even though Johnson publicly addressed the fears of escalation, American troop levels would soon increase drastically in the attempt to maintain South Vietnam. For American foreign-policy leaders during the Cold War era, the situation in Vietnam was of grave concern as it might lead to another proxy war that could have been avoided. To the Vietnamese, who had been disenfranchised, marginalized, and colonized for far too long, it was more than just a proxy war.
On two separate occasions on August 2 and 4, 1964, the USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy allegedly received enemy fire from North Vietnamese boats off the Gulf of Tonkin in North Vietnam. Today, it is questionable whether the Gulf of Tonkin Incident occurred at all. However, the confrontation provoked Americans, and President Lyndon Johnson quickly informed the nation of the North Vietnamese aggression and ordered military retaliation. Within days, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was overwhelmingly passed and Johnson was granted military authority in Vietnam.
It was within this context that Americans went to war in Vietnam. The American public became enthralled by the first televised war and watched the nightly reports from their living rooms across the country. Notable American journalists and scholars — such as George C. Herring (America's Longest War), Neil Sheehan (A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam), and David Halberstam (The Best and the Brightest) — made significant contributions to the literature on the Vietnam War. However, the early works did not take into account the experiences of Chicanos.
It took the country almost a decade to heal from the discord that lingered from the war. By the 1980s, works and studies on the Vietnam War became more prevalent. Veterans themselves contributed significantly in expanding the literature, and soon almost all perspectives on the war were being covered. Still, the Latino perspective was slighted. Mexican American veterans, fueled by frustration from being snubbed, decided to write themselves into the growing literature. Chicano veterans realized they now had to battle for inclusion in the historical narrative on the Vietnam War. These additions came with the challenge of overcoming the common belief that it was not necessary to have the Latino perspective if all soldiers were treated the same, and since discrimination or segregation during the Vietnam War era did not exist, therefore there was no need for the Latino perspective. The simple response is, if there was not and no longer is any discrimination, what is keeping the experience of Chicano veterans from being told or recorded?
Throughout the research process, several people questioned the basis of this study. "Why are you picking on the Mexicans [Mexican American POWs]?," exclaimed Everett Álvarez. Other people argued that there should not be a differentiation between POWs since they are all Americans. Rosalío Muñoz, cofounder of the Chicano Moratorium, wondered how I came upon such a topic. Mexican American POWs and the Chicano community at large, however, experienced the war quite differently from middle-class White America; thus their perspective is needed to fully comprehend the era. Although the Chicano experience in the United States is comparable to that of impoverished Whites and African Americans, their situations remain different. Regardless of class, there were unique obstacles that ethnic minorities and women confronted daily during the Vietnam War era.
By the mid-1960s, "The Mexican American Generation," as labeled by Mario T. García, addressed social inequality and began working with President Lyndon B. Johnson's administration in attempting to bring improvements to their community. This older guard of Mexican Americans had been active in civil rights dating back to the 1930s and 1940s. However, at the same time, a younger faction within the community, Chicanos, gained attention for embracing a more vocal and demonstrative approach in what too many now saw as war on the home front.
The emerging Chicano activists addressed social, cultural, and racial concerns that had previously encouraged the Mexican American community to assimilate to an American culture and shy away from their rich, diverse heritages. Chicanos thus embraced and defined their identity that was influenced by Indigenous and Spanish roots while at the same time impacted by American culture. By the late 1960s, the efforts of the older Mexican American faction became overshadowed by the changes brought about by this younger group of activists.
During the Vietnam War era, the United States, along with other countries around the world, was shaken by generational frustration, civil disobedience, and social protest, as the youth demonstrated their displeasure with the "Establishment." Throughout the Southwest, where all the Chicano POWs hailed from, several Mexican American groups were at odds with their unequal standing in society. By 1968, Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzalez, leader of the Crusade for Justice, showcased the struggles of Chicano inner-city youth nationwide. While Reies López Tijerina was at the brink of revolution in his quest for land reform in Tierra Amarilla, New Mexico, José Angel Gutiérrez worked to attain more political representation in Texas through the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO) and La Raza Unida Party (RUP). In California and leading a national charge, César Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and the United Farmworkers Union (UFW) organized farmworkers and advocated for their rights while challenging the systemic oppression that existed.
Also in California, Rosalío Muñoz led the Chicano Moratorium, an antiwar group that highlighted the concerns the Chicano community had in relation to the Vietnam War. The escalating war in Vietnam became a great concern for the Chicano community, which incurred significant burdens in the war, and consequently triggered a Chicano antiwar campaign throughout the Southwest. On August 29, 1970, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department responded with brutality when the Chicano Moratorium led an antiwar rally. This incident, which is referred to as Requiem 29, resulted in the death of native El Pasoan Rubén Salazar, who worked as a journalist for the Los Angeles Times and as a reporter for KMEX.
On August 29, twenty thousand antiwar demonstrators were attracted to East Los Angeles. Afterwards, Salazar, who participated in and covered the event, went into the Silver Dollar Cafe/Bar to cool off. Shortly after, Los Angeles sheriff's deputies arrived, claiming they were responding to an allegedly-armed individual. Other accounts suggest that Salazar entered the bar with the intention of "shaking off" a suspicious pair of men who had been following him. Without warning, the sheriff's deputies fired two tear-gas projectiles into the bar, one of which struck Salazar in the head, killing him. L.A. County sheriff's deputy Tom Wilson fired the tear-gas projectile that ended the life of Rubén Salazar.
During the Vietnam era, the Chicano community faced concerns about civil rights, police brutality, political representation, lack of economic opportunity, poor education, social inequality, and the overwhelming number of Chicano casualties in Vietnam. These concerns forced an outlet in the popular presses and music. Salazar, an Army veteran himself, had served the Los Angeles Times as a war correspondent in Saigon and knew firsthand the rising casualties among Mexican Americans. More importantly, Salazar showcased in the "mainstream" media the issues Chicanos faced, and exposed many community concerns. Salazar had previously traveled to Santo Domingo, where he served the Los Angeles Times as a foreign correspondent and covered the U.S. intervention in the Dominican Civil War. He also spent time in Mexico City during the protests over the 1968 Olympics that led to the Tlatelolco Massacre at the Plaza de las Tres Culturas.
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Excerpted from ""I'm Not Gonna Die in this Damn Place""
by .
Copyright © 2018 Juan David Coronado.
Excerpted by permission of Michigan State University Press.
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