Latino veterans reflect on service, sacrifice and being overlooked

• "Every time I would go to meetings and somebody said a word that I didn't understand, I would write it down," he says. "Then when I would go back to the barracks. I would look it up in the dictionary, and I would incorporate it into my vocabulary."
• But as hard as he tried, he had a feeling that "'if you can't talk like us, then you'll never be totally like us,'" he says.
• Aleman says it's not easy for veterans to revisit the trauma of war or the exclusion they faced after. Still, he's recording his story in a personal book for his family. He says he'd feel real satisfaction seeing more Latino stories preserved in official archives.

Mike Lopez

Lopez, 78, and now living in a Twin Cities suburb after a career in higher education focused on Chicano studies, joined the Air Force after attending San Antonio College, citing financial hardship. In the late 1960s, he became the only Latino in a squadron of about 200 people tasked with intercepting and interpreting Russian communications over the Baltic Sea.

• "People were surprised I did it so well. They were surprised to see a Chicano being that good — better than, quite frankly — the white kids in the squadron."

• Lopez says portrayals of Latinos in media often fail to reflect their real roles and contributions — especially in military and intelligence work.
• "We've been part of the American story — not just a side current, but a major force," he says. "We've been here. We've always been here, and we always will be here."