By Jaime Stockwell
The sun squinted through the leaves, leaving subtle shadows on the cracked concrete sidewalk. There he stood, with a bag slung over his shoulder and a quarter in his pocket, defiant and determined. Success would be hard earned; he knew that from his father, and all the fathers before. But as he stood there -- glancing left, right, left, right -- he didn't seem to mind.
By Cheryl Smith
Seventy-seven-year-old María Elisa Reyes Rodriguez isn’t shy about opening her mouth when something's not right. As a Mexican American woman and former employee of the United States Civil Service, she has developed strong opinions about her country, discrimination and the relationship between the two.
"We're in America, and everybody has to be treated equally," Reyes Rodriguez said. "But if you don't have the guts to speak out for yourself, nobody's gonna do it for you."
By Andria Infante
Benito L. Rodriguez served 20 years in the service and doesn't regret a single second.
Rodriguez went in willingly, volunteering to serve his country; in the course of his tour of duty, he risked his life and was awarded a Purple Heart.
Speaking from the dining room at his South Austin home, Rodriguez discussed his life before and after the war. His wife, María Elisa Reyes Rodriguez, sat by his side and helped fuel his memory. A well-groomed man, Rodriguez maintained a serious demeanor and kept his answers short and to the point.
By Erika Martinez
When Andres Chavez Rodriguez was 16 years old in a small village in the state of Nuevo Leon, Mexico, his father sent him to live with his uncle in Monterrey.
"From then on, my life changed," Chavez Rodriguez said.
By Sherri Fauver
For a generation that experienced both the Great Depression and the trials of World War II, hardship and sacrifice was a fact of life.
If you add to that, the experience of being a Latino and a woman at a time when neither group was well regarded, you could have the making of a melodrama. Unless, of course, you are talking to Henrietta Lopez Rivas.
By Frank Trejo
A radio signal that happened to bounce all the way north to Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands provided a lifeline for Ramon Martín Rivas during World War II. It was the early stage of the war and Rivas, a 21-year-old young man who had seldom traveled far from his impoverished South Texas community of Charlotte, found himself stationed in a forbidding wintry land 1,000 miles southwest of Alaska.
By Chris Nay
Infantryman Reginald Rios watched helplessly in December of 1944 as two fellow Americans fell to enemy fire while U.S. Sherman tanks faced off against German Panzers in northern France.
His only thought: to survive.
Shooting out of foxholes on the front line every day, ducking into foxholes to avoid bullets every night and praying every minute it would end soon -- such was the life of Rios during World War II, as infantryman were the first to the front line.
"You have to do it," he said. "You either do what you're told or be killed."
By Frank Trejo
Morris Riojas lived through some of the most horrific and brutal fighting of the Pacific during World War II.
In campaigns from the Solomon Islands to the Philippines, he witnessed countless deaths, both Japanese and allied soldiers, and was himself wounded three times.
"I don't know how I got through it," he said, sitting in the kitchen of the East Austin home he built after returning home from his service in World War II. "You just lived from day-to-day and just prayed a lot."
By Matthew Trana
When Tony Reyna arrived at Normandy Beach on June 9, 1944, three days after the D-Day launch, he couldn't believe his eyes.
"It was real rough," Reyna said. "...People cut in half. Some had no head, some had no legs. It was real bad."
By Cliff Despres
Austin resident Mary Resendez remembers exactly where she was on Dec. 7, 1941, the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor: where she usually was on Sunday -- at Mass.
"We heard [about the bombing] on a Sunday at church," said the 74-year-old Resendez, who was 14 when World War II broke out. "We just prayed to God that it (the war) wouldn't come over here. We knew that the country was in war and there was gonna be a lot of changes."