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Puerto Rican Soldiers and Second-Class Citizenship This Page Intentionally Left Blank Puerto Rican Soldiers and Second-Class Citizenship Representations in Media Puerto Rican Soldiers and Second-Class Citizenship This page intentionally left blank Puerto Rican Soldiers and Second-Class Citizenship Representations in Media Manuel G. Avilés-Santiago PUERTO RICAN SOLDIERS AND SECOND-CLASS CITIZENSHIP Copyright © Manuel G. Avilés-Santiago, 2014 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-45718-9 All rights reserved. First published in 2014 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States— a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, regis- tered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-49859-8 ISBN 978-1-137-45287-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9781137452870 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data. Avilés Santiago, Manuel Gerardo. Puerto Rican soldiers and second-class citizenship : representations in media / Manuel G. Avilés-Santiago. pages cm Based on the author’s dissertation (doctoral)—University of Texas, Austin. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Puerto Ricans in mass media. 2. Soldiers in mass media. 3. Mass media and minorities—United States. 4. Puerto Ricans—United States—Social conditions—20th century. 5. Puerto Ricans—United States—Ethnic relations. I. Title. P94.5.P842A95 2014 305.868’7295—dc23 2014022635 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by SPi Global. First edition: November 2014 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Dedicated to the young Puerto Rican soldier who went to France and never came back, but left a song to be remembered; who sailed to Korea and never came back, but left behind a letter to be remembered; who flew to Vietnam and never came back, but left a photo album to be remembered; and the young dreamer deployed to Iraq who never came back, but left behind a digital diary to be remembered. This page intentionally left blank Contents List of Figures ix Foreword xi Acknowledgments xiii Introduction 1 1 Saving Pvt. Fulano de Tal: Representations of Puerto Rican Soldiers in Television and Film 27 2 Digital Bodies at War: The Boricua Soldier in Social Networking Sites 69 3 Broadcasting Puerto Ricanness: Mash-up Identities in the User-Generated-Content Zone 103 4 Digital Epitaphs: Web Memorializing Puerto Rican Soldiers in the Twenty-first Century 145 Conclusions 173 Notes 181 References 199 Index 217 This page intentionally left blank List of Figures 0.1 My uncle, Julio Avilés-Pérez, served in the Air Force during the Vietnam War in the year 1968. He was a college student when he was drafted. His experiences in the training camp and, later on, in the battlefield, were captured in a collection of photographs that he took during his tour 2 1.1 Héroes de Otra Patria is Puerto Rico’s own Vietnam War drama. The film, directed by Ivan Dariel Oritz, follows two Puerto Rican soldiers as they attempt to live through their military service in the jungles of Vietnam. During their experience, soldiers Carlos (Jorge Castillo) and Raul (Jimmy Navarro) faced not only the battle against the Viet Cong, but also an ideological battle about which patria (homeland) they were serving 54 1.2 The film was made with a budget of $500,000 and was filmed in Puerto Rico. Given the tropical weather conditions of the island, it was a perfect location to recreate the jungles of Vietnam 56 1.3 The Borinqueneers is a documentary produced by Noemi Figueroa Soulet that captures the story of Puerto Rican service members during the Korean War who are caught between the obligation to fulfill their military duties and the instinct to survive on a suicidal mission 61 3.1 Juan Carlos Cotto, also known as Nuro, composed more than 20 songs while touring the Middle East. This picture was taken during his first tour in Iraq in 2006 126 x LIST OF FIGURES 3.2 Salsa Nights are one of the most common activities among Puerto Rican service members. This is a screen shot from the YouTube video “Dancing Salsa in Tikrit, Iraq.” The video shows a couple dancing salsa in a multi-use barrack in Tikrit. The video, recorded against the light, creates an effect in which the viewer can only see the couple’s silhouette, thus hiding their faces and their identity 138 4.1 The monument dedicated to the 65th Infantry Regiment is located at the intersection of two of the busiest avenues in the city of Río Piedras: Barbosa and 65 de Infantería. The isolated location surrounded by constant traffic not only makes the monument inaccessible, but also affects its visibility 153 Foreword About to commit suicide in a plush hotel room in New York City, Colonel Frank Blade, Al Pacino’s character in the 1992 film Scent of a Woman, says, “The Puerto Ricans, the best infantry soldiers I have ever met.” In the spring of 2014, both houses of Congress approved bills to grant the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor to the 65th Infantry Regiment, a unit of the US Military, for their bravery during the Korean War. In December 1950, the Borinqueneers, as the segregated Puerto Rican unit was known, saved the First Marine Division from annihilation by the Chinese; they also arguably prevented a surprising defeat for the United Nations forces during the early stages of the Cold War. For more than 60 years, veterans of the 65th, their families, and Puerto Rico have waited for that special roll call. In all that time, war and remem- brance did not fade away. Sadly, many of the soldiers who fought for barren hills and frozen rivers near the Chinese border and withstood not only the elements but also human bigotry and insensibility, have passed away. Nearly 30 years ago, I had the privilege to interview many of them, includ- ing their commander, General William Harris. They were not bitter, but they did not understand why their valor and sacrifice were being ignored. The fact that one in every 42 casualties in the war was a Puerto Rican is still largely ignored by Korean War historiography as the conflict itself is largely ignored and almost forgotten by historians and the general public. How I wish that MSG Nicolás Chiclana could have lived to see the day when his beloved regiment would receive the recognition it so deserved. He was one of the last soldiers to leave the Korean port of Hungham after placing explosive charges in the face of the incoming enemy troops. It was Christmas Day. As he rushed to the evacuating ship, the fuel deposits exploded, reminding him of firecrackers back home on Nochebuena. For one moment, he saw himself singing aguinaldos, the Puerto Rican holiday carols, and eating crisp roasted pork. How I wish, also, that Lt. Col. Carlos Betances-Ramírez could finally wipe away the tears that had lingered for so many years, after unjust accusations during the bloody incidents at Jackson Heights in late 1952. It is altogether fitting that the congressional recognition for the Puerto Rican soldiers—although six decades late—comes as the world xii FOREWORD commemorates the first centennial of the First World War. As the youth of Europe and America, including Puerto Ricans, experienced a new form of warfare between 1914 and 1918, the conflict produced a priceless inven- tory of soldiers’ memories that captured both the glory and the tragedy before their eyes. Death in the battlefield, torture, mental afflictions, lost limbs, emaciation, heroism, survival, and endurance are all expressions of the young soldier’s body, a sacrificial offering that renews life. I propose that war also performs and it is lived as a foundational event, a cultural junction where the longing for a sense of identity achieves fulfillment and meaning through pain and the impossibility to forget. War is always a rite of passage. It is simultaneously a voyage to your inner self but also cata- pults an individual into a particular fellowship; it is the figure of the band of brothers popularized by war films and literary narratives. In his insightful and impeccably researched text, Manuel G. Avilés-Santiago captures the enduring war-zone practices of identity construction as they transit from an analog world to a virtual one. The digitization of the soldiers’ tales have dramatically altered the politics and poetics of wartime testimonials “by shrinking the time lag between the experience of the combat zone and its representation, the Internet has created a certain reflexivity in the combat zone in the lives of the soldiers, who now respond not only to events as they unroll, but also to the representation of these events by their fellow soldiers” and, I may add, to the representations fostered by official voices and the media. However, as Avilés-Santiago argues, technologies may have changed, but the young soldiers longing to affirm their identity kit in the midst of war remain the same. By focusing on Puerto Rican soldiers, Avilés-Santiago contributes to a deeper understanding of the complex processes surrounding the subal- ternized and racialized relationship of Puerto Ricans with the United States. As such, Avilés-Santiago confirms that modern Puerto Rico cannot be fully understood without referencing to twentieth and twenty-first-century US wars, in all of which the Puerto Rican soldiers have participated.
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