After the Blessing: Mexican American Veterans of WWII Tell Their Own Stories

“This lieutenant gets up there and says, ‘American soldiers don’t huddle and put their hands in their pockets on a cold day. They stand at attention.’ . . . [there was a] buzz . . . in Spanish . . . ‘Hey, they called us Americans!’”—Armando Flores, Army Air Corps.
Many Catholic families blessed their children before they left home. After the Blessing tells the stories of many young Mexican Americans who left home to fight for their country. During the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920), many fam...