Simon C. Velasquez Narrator Thomas Saylor Interviewer May 19 & 28, 2003 West St Paul, Minnesota TS: This is an interview for the POW Oral History Project; my name is Thomas Saylor. Today is the 19th of May 2003. This is our interview with Simon C. Velasquez of West St Paul, Minnesota. First, Mr. Velasquez, on the record, thanks very much for speaking with me today. I SV: Thank you. TS: This interview is at the common room of your daughter’s apartment house here in West St. Paul, Minnesota. We’ve been talking for some time, and GenerationI know thatPart you were born in Delores, Texas, 24th of January 1920, and we’ve talked to a lot of people but I think you have the highest number of brothers and sisters. A total of fourteen children. Both of your parents were immigrants from Mexico. Society SV: Yes. Project: TS: You attended schools and graduatedGreatest from high school in Lovell, Wyoming. SV: That’s true. Historical TS: How old were you when the family moved to Lovell? History SV: Ten. TS: You were ten, so itOral was 1930. You finished high school 1940. Lovell High School. How many peopleMinnesota's were in your graduating class in high school? Lovell’s not a big place, is it? SV: Forty-seven. Minnesota TS: Forty-seven people? Okay. Now you had been in the Wyoming National Guard before you actually went to active duty. And you were living in St. Paul for a few months before you actually entered the service, being drafted in January of 1942. Even then, before we began taping you said you wanted to be in the Air Corps as opposed to the Army or the Navy. Why did you want to join the Air Corps? SV: Because I actually didn’t like all that marching and trench fighting. 19 TS: So for you it was a way to get away from that aspect of the Army. What about the Navy? SV: I didn’t want to swim. [Laughs] TS: [Laughing] So that takes care of that. Now you did Basic Training in St. Petersburg, Florida. Right before you went in the service though, the United States became involved in World War II after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor [Naval Base, Hawaii]. I’m wondering if you remember what you were doing when you first heard the news about December 7, 1941? SV: Specifically, I really can’t remember very much about that. I know my younger brother was in the service already and he was on his way to the Pacific at that time. He was in the Marines. He volunteered for the Marines. Then I decided . when my brother volunteered to go into the Marines, we both went to Denver to the recruiting office. And they took him in the Marines because he was taller than I was. They rejected me because I wasn’t tall enough at that time. I TS: So you tried to get into the Marines. This was before Pearl Harbor? SV: I tried to get in the Air Force. At the time I tried to volunteer for the Air Force their height requirement was five foot six, something like that, and I wasn’tGeneration tall Partenough so they rejected me. They said I could go in the Army. I said, “No, I’m going to go finish high school and then I’ll think about it.” That’s why I didn’t join at the time. Society TS: So you tried to join for the first time a year or two before that. You were drafted into the Army then, right? How did you feel about leaving your civilian life behind and going into the service? Project: Greatest SV: I didn’t mind it at all because I knew I had to serve my country, and when I was called to duty I knew I had to go. Historical TS: Now by this time—I’ve also spoken to your brother Guadalupe, and your father had passed away already by this time. It was Historyjust your mother. How did your mother feel about a number of her boys going into the service? SV: She figured we wereOral living here in the U.S. and this was our country, so she thought it was our duty toMinnesota's defend it. TS: Did you feel that she worriedMinnesota about the boys going into the service? SV: Oh, yes. She did. We knew that. At that time she was kind of sickly, but then she said, “If Uncle Sam calls, it’s your duty to go.” TS: Was your mother an American citizen by this time or not? SV: No, she never became. TS: But being born here, of course, you were an American citizen. 20 SV: Yes. TS: You went for basic training to Florida. Was that a new part of the country for you, Florida? SV: Yes. At the time I never went out of Wyoming other than to Minnesota for to visit my other sister. At that time I think . being a farm worker you didn’t do any travel. You stayed in one locale all the time and you didn’t travel from one state to another. TS: The South: a different part of the country. Different culture maybe. How did you adjust to being in the South? Was that a good experience for you? SV: It was a great experience, because even in World War II they were still fighting the Civil War, there in the South. TS: How did you notice this? How did that impact you? That idea about still fightingI the Civil War. SV: We’d just argue about it. We’d all—all of us being in the U.S. Army—we’d always say we always had to stick together because we all had one commonGeneration enemyPart now. The Civil War was way behind so we had to forget about it. But every once in a while we’d get involved in the barracks about it. Because we had a lot of Southerners, especially when I was in St. Petersburg. Society TS: And was there kind of an antagonism between northerners and southerners that you recall? SV: Oh, yes there was. Quite a bit. Project: Greatest TS: Was it that sort of Civil War issue or were there other things that people kind of grated on? SV: I think it was mostly the Civil War issue. Because,Historical as you know, in World War II the colored [African-Americans] were segregated so we didn’t have any colored units with the American units. The colored wereHistory segregated from the whites. TS: So you didn’t see blacks at all really? Oral SV: No. Minnesota's TS: How about this? Let meMinnesota ask you as a Mexican-American. How did you perceive people treating you? SV: I was treated fine. In the Air Force, like I say, you had to have a pretty good I.Q. to be flying to begin with and there weren’t very many Mexican-Americans flying at the time. There were a lot, an awful lot of Mexican-Americans in the regular Army. In fact, down South the majority of the soldiers from down South are Mexican-Americans. But in the Air Force they were few and far between. TS: So you were really one of only a handful . 21 SV: In the squadron. I was the only Mexican in my whole squadron. TS: Wow. How in any way were you discriminated against by certain people because of your last name? Velasquez is clearly a Mexican name. SV: While I was in the U.S. Army I wasn’t discriminated. I was treated equal. In fact, I was in the Air Force, I was in . there were ten of us in a plane. We functioned as a family. So if one of us got into trouble, we all got into trouble. We all helped each other. TS: So it was a close-knit group? SV: Yes, it was. TS: So I hear you saying that although clearly the Army discriminated against blacks, that as a Mexican you didn’t feel this from other men or from the Army as an institution.I SV: No. Like I said, the only trouble I had in the Army was when I first went in here at Fort Snelling. That major said . GenerationPart TS: The guy giving you the exam. Giving you that test, you mean. SV: Other than that, everywhere I went I was treated the same as anybodySociety else. TS: And to recount this on the record, he basically said that because you were Mexican you must have cheated to get such a high score. Project: Greatest SV: Yes, because he said Mexicans weren’t that smart. TS: How did that make you feel when he said somethingHistorical like that? SV: I thought I just had to prove himHistory wrong. But once I got with the rest of the crew I was treated . everybody was treated alike. TS: That’s good to hear.Oral Now being away from home. You had a big family. You grew up with a lot of brothersMinnesota's and sisters. How was it for you being away from home for the first time? SV: The first time I missedMinnesota my sisters because I was close to my sisters all the time. But I used to write to my sisters all the time. At least twice a week. TS: Was there a . Do you remember being homesick at all? SV: No.