Rudy Martinez: The first Hispanic to be killed in World War II
As we continue celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month, VOXXI honors the Hispanics that served during World War II: Rudy Martinez was one of those heroes. As…
President Franklin D. Roosevelt Signing the Declaration of War against Japan, 12/08/1941. (Courtesy of National Archives-NARA)
As we continue celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month, VOXXI honors the Hispanics that served during World War II: Rudy Martinez was one of those heroes.
As a Mexican-American, Rudy Martinez officially became the first Hispanic to be killed in World War II according to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). On December 7, 1941, the date that President Franklin D. Roosevelt said would live in infamy, the Imperial Japanese navy launched a surprise attack on the U.S. military base at Pear Harbor, Hawaii.
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Rudy (Rudolph M.) Martinez was a young sailor who had just left his family in San Diego to begin his duties as a sailor in the U.S. Navy in Pearl Harbor. On the morning of the attack, the 21-year-old Navy electrician mate 3rd class was aboard the USS Utah when the battleship was hit by two Japanese torpedoes.
His final letter written home asked for a photo of his mother. Martinezs death marked the beginning of the surge of Latino military service in World War II.
About half a million Latinos served during World War II. Gen. Douglas MacArthur called the Arizona National Guards 158th Infantry Regiment, known as Bushmasters, one of the greatest fighting combat teams ever deployed for battle. The regiment was composed of many Latino soldiers.
Martinez was awarded the Purple Heart and World War II Victory medal posthumously. Since then, more than 400 Latinos have received the Medal of Honor, the nations highest military decoration.
But Martinez was one of many Latinos who had to fight on two fronts.
Naval photograph documenting the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii which initiated US participation in World War II. Navy’s caption: The battleship USS ARIZONA sinking after being hit by Japanese air attack on Dec. 7,1941., 12/07/1941 (US National Archive/Flickr)
As Lorena Oropeza, Associate Professor of History at the University of California at Davis says in her essay Fighting on Two Fronts: Latinos in the Military, “In 2012, even the briefest Internet search reveals an extraordinary number of books, documentaries, and websites devoted to tallying Latino military service. In the words of one early publication, together these accounts send the powerful message that Latinos should be recognized as genuine American heroes. The message matters because of the stubborn misperception, also easy to find on the web in 2012, that Latinos comprise a largely immigrant population fraught with divided loyalties. In fact, according to the 2010 census, Latinos were 62 percent native-born.[4] More important, over the years, countless immigrant Latinos have fought for their adopted country, often in the hope of obtaining U.S. citizenship.”
Latinos have bravely fought in all the wars the US has been fighting. Deaths among Latino soldiers in Iraq ranked the highest compared to other minority groups, reported Spanish-language weekly El Tiempo Latino.
President George W. Bush signed a decree that accelerated the citizenship process for immigrants who serve in the Iraq War. The Hispanic War Veterans of America lobbied for the government to grant citizenship to soldiers before deployment, rather than after they return from war. The group noted cases in which soldiers who were promised citizenship have died in combat before becoming U.S. citizens.
This change means that soldiers families would not face deportation if the soldier were killed while serving in the U.S. military. The Pentagon registered 332 deaths among Latino soldiers compared to 299 African-American and 56 Asian-American deaths. Latinos represent less than nine percent of those enlisted in the army, but made up 11 percent of deaths in the Iraq War.
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In 2013, there were more than 65,000 immigrants on active duty with the Armed Forces, 5 percent of all uniformed military personnel. Approximately 12 percent of all living veterans are immigrants or the children of immigrants.
