Dancis, Daniel. Americans All by Leon Helguera: Appealing to Hispanics on the Home Front in World War II. National Archives, 2018
Americans All: Let’s Fight for Victory/ Americanos Todos: Luchamos Por La Victoria was created for The Office of War Information by Leon Helguera in an effort to strengtehn the relationship between the United States and Latin America.
While the United States pushed the notion that Mexicans and Americans are "All in this together", Mexican's often had to prove they belonged in the war effort. In the Midwest, many Mexicans, especially women, found it difficult to find work that wasn’t in the domestic field. The defense industry was not hiring an overwhelming amount of people who weren't white. Additionally, the defense industry was constantly asking Mexican women for their citizenship papers to prove their citizenship. Asking Mexican-American or Mexican workers to prove their citizenship is contrasting the notion that we are all in this together. The United States was asking Mexicans to step up and work in horrible conditions but also asking them to prove they belonged there.
Americans All: Let’s Fight for Victory/ Americanos Todos: Luchamos Por La Victoria was created for The Office of War Information by Leon Helguera. The Office of War worked with the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs in an effort to strengthen the United States relationship with Latin America. The support of our Latin American neighbors as well as a strong home front was key to the United States for success against the Axis powers (Dancis). Because of this, the OWI and CIAA focused heavily on Hispanic Americans. While the OWI and CIAA were both already interested in Hispanic Americans, the death of a twenty-two year old Jose Diaz in Los Angeles followed by the arrest of 17 Mexican-American teenagers. The 17 suspects were held in prison without bail on charges for murder regardless of the fact that there was not sufficient evidence, 12 were convicted (Arellano). The Axis powers sensed the racial divide and aimed to take advantage of the situation by swaying public opinion in Latin American with anti-American radio broadcasts. Because of this, the OWI sent a representative to Los Angeles in an effort to come up with ways to improve America’s relationship with Latin America and Hispanic Americans (Dancis). It was after this trip that the poster was commissioned to produce the poster pictured in “Related Materials”. The death of Jose Diaz, also known as the Sleepy Lagoon Murder, is known as a precursor to the Zoot Suit Riots, where white U.S. servicemen and police officers harassed, beat, and detained hundreds of Mexican American youths in a Mexican American neighborhood in East Los Angeles (Zinn Education Project).
Citations:
Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change. This Day in History June 3, 1943: The Zoot Suit Riots. Zinn Education Project, 2023
Arellano, Gustavo. Column: Sleep Lagoon, the Zoot Suit riots and the lonely grave in East L.A. that history has forgotten. Los Angeles Times, 2022
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Did John and the other troops located in Southern California witness the government's attempt to recruit Mexican-American workers for the war effort? Were they supportive of this effort? Could they feel that there was tension in-between races?
Oregon Public Broadcasting. The Braceros. Oregon Experience, 2006.
Labor shortages during the war led to the establishment of the Bracero Program in 1942. The Bracero Program allowed millions of Mexican men to work in the United States on short-term labor contracts as guest workers (UCLA Labor Center). These migrant workers faced extreme abuse from their employers, additionally there was corruption and often costs associated with the program. Because of this, many still sought out illegal work (Immigration History). During the program, the United States increasingly ignored Mexico when it came to these issues within the program. Once the war ended, the United States “passed the burden, financial and otherwise, of recruiting and transporting the guest workers on to the growers” (Palmunen, 2005). As soon as the government turned the responsibility for recruitment over to the employers, guest workers were exploited and abused (Palmunen, 2005). Mexican workers suffered as American growers exploited them for cheap, plentiful, labor (Bracero Archive).
Citations:
UCLA Labor Center. The Bracero Program. UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education, 2014.
Immigration History. Bracero Agreement (1942-1964). A project of the Immigration and Ethnic History Society, 2019.
TexasMexico. 1942: The Bracero Program. The History of the Border 1894 to Present Day. Texas-Mexico Center blog, 2020.
Bracero History Archive. Project of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, George Mason University, the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Brown University, and The Institute of Oral History at the University of Texas at El Paso. Center for History and New Media, 2021.
Palmunen, A. Learning from the mistakes of the past: an analysis of past and current temporary worker policies and their implications for a twenty-first century guest worker program. Kennedy School Review, 6, 10. 2005