Raoul Lowery Contreras
April 5, 2003

Before I became a radio talk show host and television news commentator, I was a talk show guest.  Once, while on the top rated San Diego talk show hosted by former San Diego Mayor Roger Hedgecock, he insulted me with a question racist Mexican-haters always ask. It is a question no one asks of Irish or Italian or British Americans.

“If Mexico (the country of my birth) and the United States were fighting each other in a war, which side would you be on,” he smugly asked.  He, who reports indicate, was a long-haired Vietnam war protestor on the streets of San Francisco and avoided military service because he had pimples, didn’t realize that such a question was and is an insult to me and thousands like me who have served and do serve in the American armed forces.

Between Hedgecock, imprisoned racist David Duke, Border guards Glen Spencer and the mighty Mr. Simcox of the Tombstone border militia, we find a commonality of views about Mexicans, illegal aliens from Mexico and points south--they hate them. They hate each and every one of them. They also have another commonality, none of them have ever served in the United States armed forces.

Brave Hedgecock didn’t serve because he had pimples, courageous Spencer didn’t serve because he was a teenaged groom who quickly fathered children.  Simcox, who knows, it looks like he’s too skinny; David Duke was too busy burning crosses as chief head mucky-muck of the Ku Klux Klan.

One of their shared views is that illegals ( and all Hispanic immigrants) come to America to suck off the public trough; to suck up welfare; to steal jobs, and to otherwise simply live off the fat of the land.  Why, they are the first to jump on the fact that Hispanics are “underrepresented” in the armed forces they never served in. 

In a recent report, the Pew Hispanic Center reported that 9.5% of our armed forces is Hispanic. The 2000 Census concluded that 13% of the U.S. population is Hispanic.  Thus, critics howl, Hispanics aren’t carrying their own weight.

That is not true.  First, a huge number of Hispanics are less than 18 years old, thus, the percentage of the general population that military age Hispanics comprise is far lower than 13%.  Moreover, over half are women.

Secondly, Hispanics comprise a huge percentage of the armed forces that are defined as “combat arms,” AKA fighting men.

In fact, Hispanics are 17.7 percent of the personnel who most directly handle  weapons, according to Pew Hispanic report based on 2001 Department of Defense statistics. Hispanics make up 14 percent of the Marine Corps, 10.5 percent of the Navy, 9.7 percent of the Army and 5.6 percent of the Air Force. 

Subtracting out the Air Force and Navy, where few people other than pilots have hands on weapons, the 17.7 percentage mentioned in the report grows to something on the order of 25%.  

These statistics and presence have been brought home to America by the deaths of three young men, all United States Marines, all in Iraq, all foreign-born Hispanic immigrants.  

Jesus Suarez del Solar was born in Tijuana, Mexico and was brought as a child to the United States.  He was legally immigrated.  Jose Angel Garibay was born in Mexico and brought her, legally, as a baby.  Then, there was Guatemala-born Jose Antonio Gutierrez.

Gutierrez came to the United States, an orphan who lived on the streets of Guatemala City, by way of Mexico, by hitchhiking rides and riding Mexican freight trains headed north for almost two years. He came to the United States, alone, illegally, at 16, with no English, no family, no friends, hunted by the Border Patrol and “la migra.”.

Helped by Los Angeles social workers, Gutierez found himself in a foster family that took him in as a son and changed his life forever.  They found a way to make him legal, to finish high school, to enroll in college and, then, to proudly watch him become a United States Marine.

It is said that he joined the Marines to give thanks to the United States of America for what it had permitted him to do, to become a solid contributing human being.

These three immigrant men died for us, regardless of whether or not we support the Iraq war.  They died in combat, they died as Americans.

The father of Suarez del Solar told us his son was an Aztec warrior. 

Marines Garibay and Gutierrez may have died as “green card” immigrants, but they are being buried as American citizens, as United States Marines who gave their lives for this country.  They made the ultimate American sacrifice.

Compare that to a courageous talk show host who never served, to David Duke in federal prison who also never served and to the two Border watchers in Arizona, draft avoider Spencer and big mouth Simcox,  who bravely give out interviews about how they are protecting America from those dirty illegal aliens. Especially illegal immigrant ones like Jose Antonio Gutierrez, United States Marine, born a Guatemalan in1977; died an American in 2003.

E-mail: sdraoul@att.net

Raoul Lowery Contreras'
columns are syndicated by the New York Times Syndicate, New American News service.
 

The New American Majority
Hispanics, Republicans & George W. Bush: Accession to The White House

by CalNews.com's
Raoul Lowery-Contreras

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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