Mexican America in a Post-Vietnam War Era

Framing the emergence of the United States as a global hegemon, the Cold War is perhaps the definitive story of the 20th century United States. The set of policies, programs, rhetorics, and ideologies it promoted, however,... [ view full abstract ]

Framing the emergence of the United States as a global hegemon, the Cold War is perhaps the definitive story of the 20th century United States. The set of policies, programs, rhetorics, and ideologies it promoted, however, did more than shape the lives of people within the nation. Through war and other mechanisms, U.S. activities as part of the Cold War affected people around the world. Indicative of its importance, the forces undergirding the Cold War continue to have lingering effects even a generation beyond its “end.” This panel presents four papers utilizing interdisciplinary methods to situate U.S. Latinas and Latinos as part of the larger narratives of the Cold War.

In “Mexican America in a Post-Vietnam War Era,” oral histories and demographic analyses frame Summers Sandoval’s examination of the ways the war enabled the integration of Mexican American veterans and their families into larger patterns of U.S. life in the late 20th-century, an integration that came with formidable costs.