Josemaria Vasquez

EDCOUCH, Aug. 22 - Last Friday, I was asked by one of my fellow veterans if I told the media that we have not gotten a veterans hospital in the Rio Grande Valley because we are Mexicans.

Then, I came home and read the article in the Guardian about “anchor babies” and “terror babies” and it really bothered me. So, I felt I had to write this column.

The VA has expanded its clinics in the Valley and is in the process of creating a new regional authority based in Harlingen. However, the VA has steadfastly refused to build a veterans' hospital in the region. The VA has gone so far as to create a new district, titled the South Texas Valley Coastal Bend Health Care System.

All well and good but there are no plans for a veterans hospital in the future for this new district even though every VA district in the nation has a veterans hospital. There are 131 VA districts and 131 vet hospitals in the nation so what is so different about our district from all the other districts?

I want to thank state Rep. Veronica Gonzalez for having the cahones to say it loud and clear with out any regret whatsoever. She told the Guardian: “You never hear about Canadians coming here to have children, living in our country and overstaying their visa. It is always the Mexicans that are stopped and detained and questioned and required to show their birth certificate. And it is because they are brown.”

Rep. Gonzales is not the first to say it because Congressman Chet Edwards said it back in 2005 when he and Congressman Bob Filner came to the Valley to hear the outcry from Valley veterans. At the McAllen Chamber of Commerce he stated, "The reason that the Rio Grande Valley does not have a veterans' hospital is the same reason that Felix Longoria is buried in the Arlington national cemetery." 

Edwards was right. The Anglos of Three Rivers refused to lay him in state at the local funeral home because the funeral home director at the time stated, “the whites would not like it.” That is when Dr. Hector P. Garcia, founder of the American GI Forum of the United States, was fighting for the Americans of Mexican descendent because they were being denied health care services by the Veterans Administration. Garcia stepped in and asked then U.S. Sen. Lyndon Baines Johnson to help with the situation.

In 2009, we, the Valley veterans, walked to San Antonio from Edinburg to again make the nation aware of the dire needs of the South Texas veterans population and in particular the need for a veterans hospital. We passed through Three Rivers and the city was refusing to name the U.S. Post Office after Felix Longoria. Still, the racist bigots refuse to honor an American hero because of his skin color. He was good enough to die for our nation when he was called to give up his life for all the people of Three Rivers, be they white, black or brown!

On Friday, as I mentioned, I was asked if I had said that the only reason that our government refuses to construct a veterans’ hospital in the Rio Grande Valley is because we are Mexicans. To which I responded, no sir, I never said that. Let me clarify. I said that I believe that the reason that the Rio Grande Valley has not gotten a veterans hospital is because of our skin color, brown. I pride myself of being an American by birth and a veteran by choice. That means I was born here in this our United States of America. Thus, I am an American to the hilt and damn proud of my Mexican roots as anyone that knows me will tell you.

Per capita, we of the Rio Grande Valley have contributed more to the defense of our nation than any other part of the United States. At one point when these recent wars were going on we had one percent of our nation’s casualties. The nation had 1,600 KIAs and the Valley had 16 KIAs. For those that do not know what a KIA means, it is our comrades killed in action. In other words, a soldier who was killed in combat so that you and I can continue to live the American way of life.

Yet, we who have contributed the most for our freedom are the ones who get the least. Breadcrumbs, that is what is given to “those down by the river.” Why? Because we are of Mexican descent. Well, we are also American veterans who served our country and everyone in it, not just brown, black, red or white. We served, we fought and some died for New York, Michigan, Washington, D.C., Colorado, and, yes, and even Arizona.

I served in Vietnam for my kids and especially for my grandkids, your kids and grandkids so that they do not have to go through what some of us went through in the past such as signs in the restaurants and theaters that read “No Mexicans or Dogs Allowed.” I served to end the days when one could not cross the railroad tracks unless one was going to work at a gringos house doing yard work or maid work because the railroad tracks were the dividing mark where the gringos and Mexicans lived.

Let's not forget that just last year the law that prohibited Americans of Mexican descendents were not allowed to cross the railroad tracks for any reason. That was still in the city ordinance in Edcouch, Texas. How many other cities in the Valley or Texas still have those laws still in force, I wonder?

I believe it is time that we took our place in this nation of equality. We are the future of this country.

Finally, can I remind everyone that we are all Americans? North America, Central America and South America. We have been here since the Americas began. We are Native Americans.

Josemaria Vasquez is a member of the Brown Berets. An American by birth and a veteran by choice, he lives in Edcouch, Texas.

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