Home Front

By Cheryl Smith Kemp

When Moses “Moe” Alemán’s parents emigrated from Mexico to Austin, Texas, as children, the horse and buggy was one of the most common modes of transportation and Austin-Bergstrom International Airport was a bunch of farmland.

That’s where Arturo Alemán and Antonia Garza first met, in the community encompassing the fields in which their parents both labored.

Alemán, an airport-security consultant in a post-9/11 world, brings this and other sweeping changes up when reflecting upon his life.

By Allison Banks

Having lived the tough life of a miner, Alberto Millan didn’t want his oldest son, Robert, to follow in his footsteps. So when Robert informed him he wanted to be a miner and a union leader, Millan told him no.

By Lindsay Fitzpatrick

Almost 100 years after her parents immigrated from Zacatecas, Juana Maria Mani Moreno Sierra considers her Mexican heritage a gift.

“God gave me my mom and my dad and their Spanish. It is so beautiful to talk real Spanish,” Sierra said. “And I give thanks to God that my children know both languages.”

Growing up in the New Mexican mining town of Fierro, in the southwest corner of the state, being the child of immigrants wasn’t always easy: discrimination and poverty were prevalent.

By Karina Valenzuela

The Falcon family's military service extends beyond four brothers' time in World War II.

By Alicia Rascón

While scores of Latinos served their country valiantly during World War II, many women did their part on the home front.

Juanita Tapia Montoya vividly remembers wartime rationing back home during these years, when the U.S. government limited the purchasing of items such as sugar, meat and other materials needed for the military. Families had ration-stamp books to use to purchase goods.

By Allison Mokry

While many Latinos served their country and fought for survival overseas, Elvira Sena had her own struggle during World War II: helping her family pull through tough economic times while trying to finish her schooling.

Sena grew up on her family farm in Las Cruces, N.M., the second oldest of seven children: four boys and three girls. Her father, Alberto Trujillo, supported the family by ranching and delivering mail, while her mother, Lucianita Trujillo, was a housewife.

By Stephanie Threinen

Alabama native Nathan Edgar Bossom had never set foot outside of the South before he was drafted into World War II at the age of 20.

Although he’s Anglo, Bossom notes there was camaraderie among the troops of his unit in spite of their different backgrounds. He says he especially remembers Hector Barrera, a fellow soldier with whom he became good friends.

The Other Soldiers

Little-remembered treaty sent 300,000 sons of Mexico to the United States during WWII; their weapons were their labor-hardy bodies

By Violeta Dominguez

The battlefield wasn’t the only place where Mexicans lent their services during World War II.

In spite of the fact that few remember, the North American home front counted on the help of nearly 300,000 servicemen known as “soldiers of the furrows and the railroad,” as well as, simply, laborers, or, in Spanish, braceros.