Latinas and World War II

Latina women, or women of Latin-American descent, contributed much to the U.S. war effort during World War II. This period gave Latina women the opportunity to express their own agency and examine their roles as women and Latinas in the context of American society. Through their support of U.S. war efforts both overseas and on the homefront, these women began to question their societal status and call for changes within their culture and country.

In the aftermath of World War I, countries of Europe were left in debt from the war, inflation started to rise, and the United States suffered from a Great Depression. The political and social changes around the world proved volatile. The United States opposed the fascist regimes that were gaining ground around the world, but it was not until December 1941 that the U.S. entered into the War after the December 7 attacks on Pearl Harbor incited public support and Congress declared war on Japan on December 8, 1941. This began U.S. involvement in World War II and set the stage for Latina involvement as well.

While Latinos, men and women of Latin American descent, had served in World War I and promoted the efforts of the United States overseas and on the home front, Latinos in many areas of the country were still suffering from discrimination. Indeed, although many joined the military or worked in the fields in order to continue production, and a large number of Latinos moved to northern states in order to support the industrial sector of the economy, they were often blamed for the economic problems the country was now facing In fact, Herbert Hoover even went so far as to place blame on undocumented Latinos for the economic pitfalls and high unemployment rates during the Great Depression. In order to combat the criticisms of organized labor, Secretary of Labor William Doaks reinvigorated the Immigration and Naturalization Service and advocated for the use of random raids and the use of repatriation trains to send those found to be undocumented or unable to prove their citizenship back to their home country.

This use of fear and political rhetoric to categorize Latinos in the United States as the “other” helped in the creation of stereotypes and contributed to ideas that many Latino Americans were treated as though “they were invisible men and women -- part of the landscape, supporting actors in a drama that purported only to affect them, not to be affected by them. This thought, that Latino Americans simply sat on the sidelines and were not involved in the war efforts and mainstream society during and after World War I was not based on fact, but rather societal stereotypes. Many Latinos found themselves continuing to experience racial discrimination and unfair treatment in much of the United States, with fear and inequality being common threads uniting many of the Latino experiences in the United States during this time period.

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