Synopsis:
"Soldados"
shows that in a war that both exposed and exacerbated America's racial
conflicts, Chicanos in the ranks found themselves uniquely caught in the
middle — between whites and blacks, whose clashes dominated the era, and
between U.S. society's contradictory views of them as loyal citizens and
as alien migrants. At the same time, they experienced all the horrors of
a war that tore two nations apart. All the Corcoran men were wounded —
Trujillo lost his right eye — and most were decorated for valor. One, Jose
Barrera, died in battle — a story related movingly by his mother.
Those
who returned came back with a profound awareness of America's unresolved
racial divisions, as well as with unresolved feelings about their own participation
in a war many regarded as itself an expression of American racism. The
veterans and family members in "Soldados" describe the symptoms of Post-Traumatic
Stress Disorder that they share: fits of rage, insomnia, flashbacks, isolation
and emotional numbness.
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