The War For Latinos

The Nation: Pentagon Seeks Higher Numbers; Latinos Fight Back

(The Nation)  On August 29, 2004, Mariscal's organization, the Project on Youth and Non-Military Opportunities (YANO), and dozens of other Latino groups launched a campaign to educate Latino parents and students about military recruitment in schools. A main focus was simply informing people that the No Child Left Behind Act, which allows recruiters access to student contact information, also contains an opt-out provision. The organizers chose to launch the campaign on August 29 because it was the anniversary of the Chicano Moratorium of 1970 -- the largest, most radical Latino antiwar, antirecruitment mobilization in U.S. history. The campaign draws strength from the antimilitaristic traditions of U.S.-born Latinos (especially Mexican-Americans and Puerto Ricans) as well as from the anti-militarismo traditions of more recent Latin American immigrants from such countries as El Salvador and the Dominican Republic.

While the war for young Latino hearts rages in all corners of the country, the strategic theater of battle for Latino bodies remains the Southwest, especially Southern California. A 2001 study by the U.S. Army Recruiting Command (USAREC), for example, defined Los Angeles, the rest of Southern California, Phoenix and Sacramento as its top markets for Latino recruits. But California has also become the de facto heart of the nascent movement among US Latinos. Animating it is Fernando Suarez del Solar, a former student activist in Mexico who now lives in Escondido, California. Del Solar traces his struggle against the military to the moment he witnessed Mexican military personnel "push their bayonets into young men -- and women" during a 1972 protest in the Zocalo, the central square of Mexico City. "That was my first encounter with militarismo."

Three decades later Del Solar took another, sharper turn against militarismo after his son, Jesus, a marine, died in Iraq in 2003. Since then, his denunciation of the "lies and half-truths" recruiters use on kids like Jesus has been unceasing. Because he can't shake images of how his then-13-year-old boy was first "seduced" by the trinkets, posters and ideas given to him by recruiters at a mall in National City, Del Solar works to educate other parents and students about recruitment and war.

Bemoaning the "lack of leadership among Latinos at the national level," Del Solar and others in the Latino counterrecruitment movement complain that national advocacy groups like the League of United Latin American Citizens and the National Council of La Raza are not only silent but complicit in finding fresh Latino bodies to feed the war machine. LULAC and NCLR do accept sponsorships from and provide forums for Pentagon promotion at some of their national conferences and local events. In their determination to meet what recruiting handbooks call "influencers," Marine, Army and other Defense Department personnel can be seen at LULAC and NCLR events either glad-handing or manning the recruitment Hummers, chin-up challenges, inflatable obstacle courses and other props in front of their trinket-stuffed information booths. To fill the void, Del Solar's organization, Guerrero Azteca, and Mariscal's group, YANO, have joined forces. They plan to convene a national meeting of Latino counterrecruitment organizations and leaders to connect the numerous efforts springing up across the country.