Not in Our Nombre

By Celina R. De Leon, WireTap. Posted March 20, 2006.

Yeah, I'm from Mexico, too. That's where I'm from, and look at me now. You can do this, too. --Oskar Castro

The increased recruitment of young Latinos and Latinas to the armed forces is nothing new. The campaign has been around since President Clinton was in office, when the disproportionately low number of Latinos in the military came to light. But what's new is the rising number of Latino counter-recruitment activists across the country.

"Anti-military activists have been having this conversation for the past 10 years, and we've never seen this type of activity that we're seeing now," said Oskar Castro, counter-recruitment activist with the American Friends Service Committee of Philadelphia, Pa. "I think it's because [Latinos and Latinas are] paying attention more than they ever had. They need to. It's a war, and it's an endless war. It's not just the war in Iraq. It's the so-called war on terror."

Latino counter-recruitment activists have been emerging on both coasts, and in pockets across the country. In big cities like San Diego and Chicago, and in small cities like Hartford, Conn., where Latinos Contra La Guerra (Latinos Against the War), led by Milly Guzman-Young, is mobilizing large numbers of youth.

"Latino activists who haven't necessarily always been involved in this conversation, or as involved as in anti-colonialism, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, and social justice work, have found [counter-recruitment activism] as compelling and important to their work," said Castro.

Oskar Castro recently became involved in the counter-recruitment movement because of his uncle, who passed away last year. He was a Vietnam veteran enlisted in the Marine Corps.

"When I started, there was an impending war, but now we're in that war. And I see a lot of young men and women who are coming back and who are going to be just as challenged, if not more so, than my uncle," said Castro.

"I watched him slowly deteriorate for 37 years, due in large part to his experiences in Vietnam and his association with the military, and all the bad things that happened to him afterwards -- health-related and benefits-related. The benefits administration wasn't there for him, nor was the military," said Castro. "If I could prevent any one person from not becoming my uncle, then I would have done some good work. And so I continue always with him in mind."

Pulling up in bright Humvees at playgrounds, car shows, basketball tournaments, and Latina sorority parties, and appearing in video games such as "America's Army" and bulletin boards and magazines in Latino communities, the military is determined to wow and win the hearts and minds of Latino youth.

"At these basketball courts, they pull up in their Humvees with the recruitment information translated into Spanish. And a lot of young people of all ages approach the Humvees," said Tomas Alejo, a counter-recruitment activist, and one of the founding members of the Watsonville, Calif., Brown Berets. "They come looking very attractive in their best uniforms. It captures the young people's attention. They see the glitter and the machismo."

The Watsonville Brown Berets was founded in 1994, in reaction to the social issues the Chicanos and Central Americans in the area were facing -- poor school conditions, police harassment, lack of political representation in the city council and school boards, student harassment, and the large high-school dropout rate. The founding chapter of the Brown Berets was formed in 1967 in East Los Angeles for the same reasons -- and the Vietnam War.

Watsonville is a rural, migrant, farming community where just about 80 percent of the residents are Mexican and recent immigrants from Central America. It's a working-class community with very impoverished areas and not a lot of resources. Watsonville is also home to many of the United Farm Workers struggles led by Cesar and Helen Chavez, and the Canary Strikes, led by migrant farm workers, including Alejo's parents.

Celina R. De Leon is a contributing writer of WireTap based in Brooklyn, N.Y.

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