ietnamAndIraq
Latino organizing around the war in Iraq and its roots in the Vietnam era
by Simon Fitzgerald
Special Thanks to 
Jorge Mariscal
Beginning on Tuesday May 10th peace advocates will organize rallies around the United States to “Put the Iraq War on Trial.” This National Day of Action for GI Resisters is set to coincide with the beginning of Pablo Paredes' court martial (http://www.defendpablo.org ) in San Diego for his refusal to serve in the Iraq war, and is being organized with two other ex-soldiers, Camilo Mejia and Aidan Delgado. This prominence of Latinos among war resisters is enough to remind Californians and other Americans of the prominent Vietnam-era Chicano anti-war movement. Indeed, the similarities of today’s activism with the Chicano Moratorium movement go much deeper.
While Latinos now comprise a lower percentage of the military than society at large, Latinos suffered a disproportionately large number of casualties and fatalities in the invasion of Iraq. Furthermore, Latinos are more concentrated in the lower ranks of the service (rather than in the officer corps) than any other ethnicity. These Latino soldiers join for numerous reasons: pride, educational opportunities, or a fast track to citizenship in some cases of non-citizens.Unfortunately they are getting a close look at the reality of the Iraq conflict and an intimate understanding of the horrors of war.
The current wave of Latino moral refusers of war such as Paredes, Delgado and Mejia have joined in with the active organizing of Latino Military Families. Lead by Mejia’s mother Maritza Castillo, a Florida group soldiers' relatives called “Latino Military Families” wrote a letter to military and civilian leaders in September 2003 to “fight for the return of our soldiers” in the Florida National Guard whose tour of duty was repeatedly extended. In San Diego itself, Latino networks have sprouted up like the bilingual Proyecto Guerrero Azteca, founded by Fernando Suarez del Solar after the death of his son Jesus in Iraq as a “voice against wars.” This group works closely with Military Families Speak Out and the San Diego Military Counseling Project to offer moral and economic support to the families of soldiers and war fatalities. Another prominent goal is to find alternatives to military service for working class Latino youth.
This cast of characters is very much like the anti-war youth and ex-soldiers that became central to the fight against the war in Vietnam. The language of the May 10 events to “put the war on trial” echoes the sentiments of Chicano draft refusers such as Rosalio Munoz who announced in a Speech Refusing Induction (Chale con el Draft) “I accuse the government of the United States of America …, the draft, the entire social political and economic system of the U.S. of creating a funnel which shoots Mexican youth into Viet Nam to be killed and to kill innocent men, women and children.” Furthermore, the growing movement against recruiters on high school campuses and the language of Proyecto Guerrero Azteca mirrors the Vietnam era rebellion against the draft.
Paredes and the other former soldiers also follow on the heels of a previous generation of Latinos who survived war to produce anti-war poetry, essays, books and plays including Chicanos Charley Trujillo, Ralph Molina and Luis Valdez and Nuyoricans like Pedro Pietri and Archie Martinez. In fact the satirical set of theatrical “trials of the Iraq war” that are central to the May 10 events are very much based on the darkly humorous Soldado Razo which is perhaps the most famous of the Vietnam-era Chicano anti-war literature.
While Paredes credits ex military thinkers like Howard Zinn and Chalmers Johnson in the formation of his political character "men like Luis Valdez are inspiring how I (Pablo) choose to protest. We will soon be putting on a mock trial, … very teatro campesino, Luis Valdez style. "
This mock trial shows the American people realizing the that “Mr. Iraq WarOccupate” is Guilty in the jury of Public Opinion with judge Howard Zein presiding. It is also not the only reincarnation of Teatro Campesino against the Iraq war. Vietnam veteran Ralph Molina has brought the Soldado Razo up to date incorporating characters such as Paul Wolfowitz (Lobowitz), General Rumsfeld, and a recruiter, and featuring the music of anti-war latin rockers Ozomatli. Ralph Molina's version can be found on the UC San Diego site here ),
While it is tempting to overstate the influence of the Vietnam era Chicano literature, much of this literature was lost or buried in archives until the 1999 publication of Aztlan and Vietnam, a collection of this Chicano literature edited by Jorge Mariscal. Furthermore, most anti-war histories written by white Americans almost completely overlook the activists, protests and literature of the Vietnam era Chicano movements, as Jorge Mariscal points out. Indeed, neither Mejia nor Suarez del Solar have been influenced much by Vietnam era literature and even Paredes was more influenced by non-Latino ex-soldiers until after his initial act of refusal.
It seems that the unfortunate circumstances that drove much of the Chicano community to active resistance against the Vietnam War are replaying themselves today to working class communities around the country. The issues being dealt with by soldier support groups such as San Diego Military Counseling Project are very similar phenomena faced by Vietnam veterans and their communities: unnoticed emotional trauma of returning GIs, the pain of military families “pending notification” after the Iraq body count rises, and the thousands of desertions since the beginning of the invasion.
It should not be surprising that much of the same themes, symbolism, archetypes, and actions that arose in the Vietnam era are coming out of Latino anti-war literature. This is not only because of the legacy of work passed on from the previous generation, but because much of the same pain, betrayal, loss, and violence that motivated communities into open resistance against the Vietnam war is being felt because of the invasion of Iraq and its policies of militarism.
The May 10th events will certainly not draw the crowd that National Chicano Moratorium di at the height of the Vietnam War in August of 1970. However, that rally ended with a police attack on the crowd and the assassination of active Los Angeles Times reporter Ruben Salazar as he sought refuge in a local business, almost as if the government were announcing an anti-Chicano offensive as part of the war effort. Hopefully, the National Day of Action for GI Resisters will signal the rapid growth of a unified movement of soldiers and military families working to end the occupation of Iraq by refusing immoral orders to carry it out.
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