Last month I watched ON TWO FRONTS: LATINOS & VIETNAM on my local PBS station KLRN. There was so much that I didn’t know about the Mexican-Americans who served in Vietnam. Here are a few quotes that I posted on Facebook as I watched the documentary:
“Why did predominantly Mexican-American populated schools receive visits from recruiters from all forces of the military and not one visit from a college recruiter?”
“We were sending the children of the working families to die in the war. The children of the privileged families were being saved.”
“I began challenging the inferiority complex that we Mexican-Americans had to prove ourselves by dying for this country.”
“‘The end of the war.’ There’s no such thing to a Vietnam Vet.”
“Whether or not you are pro or anti war, Chicanos served in Vietnam War. Some came back. What did that do to our community?”
“They came out of the service with the same problem they had when they went in. They couldn’t find a job.”
These were a few of the statements and questions from the documentary that stood out to me. At the end, I had my own questions ‘How had not ever heard any of these stories or asked any of these questions?’.
Thanks to an initiative led by KLRN, we can continue the conversation with an online screening of GREENLEE COUNTY, a follow-up to ON TWO FRONTS: LATINOS & VIETNAM as an expanded look at the impacts of the Vietnam war in the communities of Greenlee County, Arizona. The film’s producer/director Mylène Moreno will join the online conversation.
This online screening is open to the public and it’s a part of the KLRN Virtual Classroom line-up. Register and WATCH GREENLEE COUNTY. The screening begins at 12 pm CST, November 11, 2015.
Let’s honor all of our Veterans together during this online screening. I’ll see you there.
SAN ANTONIO Screening of ON TWO FRONTS: LATINOS AND VIETNAM
EDUCATORS! You can find additional resources for this documentary on OnTwoFrontsMovie.com
