Steven Rosales. Soldados Razos at War: Chicano Politics, Identity, and Masculinity in the U.S. Military from World War II to Vietnam.

Abstract

As a twenty-eight-year U.S. Navy veteran, Steven Rosales writes from both personal experience and the collective stories of other Mexican American veterans. Similar to the many veterans he interviewed, Rosales believed joining the military would strengthen his claim to American citizenship—even though they were American citizens, they never felt quite accepted by the larger society. Rosales states that the Mexican American community, in its struggle for civil rights, also believed there was a linkage between military service and citizenship. The idea that warfare would lead to being perceived as full citizens led many Mexican Americans to serve in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. Rosales refers to this as a “tradition of martial citizenship” (5) and states it is the basis for his book Soldados Razos at War. He emphasizes that the idea that warfare made them more American is the thread that links Mexican Americans through all three disparate conflicts, covering a span from 1940 to 1975.