Thread: Latino Vets to help IA "Border Brothers" .....

Joe Rodriguez: Ex-paratrooper jumps to Latino group's aid
By Joe Rodriguez
Mercury News
Article Launched: 07/24/2008 01:32:46 AM PDT

Click photo to enlarge
Copy of family photo of Charlie Lostaunau, in Tehran, Iran in 1962. Taken by... ( Josie Lepe )


Charlie Lostaunau, who once parachuted over Tehran to impress the Shah and into Vietnam to fight Ho Chi Minh, is proof that some old soldiers don't fade away.

In recent months he took charge of the board of the proud but downtrodden American GI Forum in San Jose. It may sound like just another club for aging veterans, but shortly after World War II, the group marched boldly at the front of the Latino movement for civil rights.

"Even a lot of young Latino veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq don't know us," says Lostaunau, whose salt-and-pepper hair and goatee make him look more like a retired professor than a Purple Heart recipient. "But we can change that and we will."

The work of the Forum flowed from a policy during World War II that would not allow Texas Mexican-Americans who had been killed in action to be buried in that state's - whites only - military cemeteries.

A group of returning Tejano vets sued in federal court and won - but they didn't stop there. Forming the American GI Forum in 1948, they took on discrimination against Latino vets in military benefits, education, housing, banking and medical care. Their movement spread across the country. In 1959 California's first chapter formed in San Jose.

Lostaunau by then was a restless, "macho" teenager in Bakersfield who dropped out of high school. He joined the Army and became a paratrooper. When the United States was courting the Shah of Iran in 1960, Lostaunau jumped over Tehran in a display
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of American strength.

He also remembers Sept. 25, 1965, quite well. President Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam buildup hadn't quite crested and it seemed everywhere he and the 101st Airborne Division went, "we were outnumbered by NVA and Viet Cong."

On patrol at Anke Pass, he or a soldier near him tripped a mine. The explosion sent Lostaunau to a field hospitable with shrapnel wounds. But the next day? He returned to battle.

Chicano movement

After the military he enrolled at San Jose State University and met a host of young, radical Chicano students and an inspirational professor: Jose Carrasco.

"Chicano vets like Charlie didn't have a lot waiting for them," Carrasco said. "They came to State and began to search for identity, how to make their way. The Chicano movement then wasn't rigid, so the young veterans like Charlie, who were still patriotic, could still fit in."

Unlike mainstream veterans groups, Carrasco explained, the GI Forum and anti-war Chicanos did not clash politically because the group had earned its civil rights stripes and "had its own history of being excluded."

Lostaunau joined the Forum in 1977, then graduated soon after with a degree in sociology. He took a job with the U.S. Postal Service in 1987 and a break from the GI Forum. When he rejoined, it was a very different organization in 2003.

Off course

It's hard to pinpoint when and how the San Jose GI Forum went wrong.

It endured years of negative public relations from the violence and drinking problems flowing from its Cinco de Mayo festivals. There were also organizational troubles with its community center and a rehabilitation center for veterans. A lot of members blamed its entrenched governing board led by the combative Abel Cota. Members started drifting away from the group.

Even when Lostaunau returned in 2003 as just a member, he demanded more openness in the group's financial reporting. Then in May, his slate ran against the former board and when it was over Lostaunau was the new board chairman. Now the Forum has a new interim executive director - Leticia Rodriguez - and the membership - at 240 - is growing again.

Lostaunau's agenda is long and ambitious: Clean up the books, introduce regular audits and other professional practices, recruit young veterans of the wars in the Mideast, form alliances with other veterans organizations, tap into funding from foundations, buy another commercial building and more.

But as far as civil rights go, what's a Latino veterans group to do in the early 21st century? Lostaunau is quick to answer.

"We need to help our border brothers," he says, using a term of endearment for illegal immigrants from Mexico. "These are our people, not too removed from ourselves, who are traveling the same territory for the same reason as we and our parents and grandparents did."

That's a position sure to rattle the anti-illegal-immigrant lobby, but as Lostaunau says, this is a group that truly knows how to wage righteous battles.

Do you have a story idea for East Side/West Side? Contact Joe Rodriguez at jrodriguez@mercurynews.com or (40 920-5767.

The word "treason" comes to mind. According to the dictionary, the definition is: betrayal of one's nation.

I am constantly amazed by the stupidity of some people.

Is he going to be helping latinos or illegal aliens? The two are NOT the same.

Link please?

Originally Posted by miguelina

I am constantly amazed by the stupidity of some people.

Is he going to be helping latinos or illegal aliens? The two are NOT the same.

Exactly!... so WHO is making this a RACE issue?

"We need to help our border brothers," he says, using a term of endearment for illegal immigrants from Mexico. "These are our people, not too removed from ourselves, who are traveling the same territory for the same reason as we and our parents and grandparents did."

Dug up the link:
www.mercurynews.com

legalatina, if you need help posting source links please feel free to pm me or another moderator for help ok?

No insult meant, miguelina. But the way of today's political speak is everyone, legal or illegal, is an "immigrant." Have to apologize for getting caught up in that quagmire.

THIS SIDE OR THAT SIDE, IT IS EASY TO CHOOSE

NOW, IF YOU CHOOSE TO SUPPORT ILLEGAL CRIMINAL ALIENS THAT IS FINE BUT YOU WILL HAVE TO PAY AN ADDITIONAL TAX OF 10 PERCENT ON YOUR EARNINGS BECAUSE THE OPPOSING SIDE CANNOT PAY ANOTHER RED PENNY TO HELP YOUR CAUSE ANYMORE....DO YOU UNDERSTAND IN ENGLISH, MY FRIEND - TRAITOR - AMIGO

NO MORE TAXPAYER MONEY TO THE ILLEGAL CRIMINAL ALIENS OR ANCHOR BABIES - DEPORT YOURSELVES; AMERICANS COULD ONLY BE SO LUCKY

It is simple--I am an American. I support America.
Lostanau:
""We need to help our border brothers," he says, using a term of endearment for illegal immigrants from Mexico. "These are our people, not too removed from ourselves, who are traveling the same territory for the same reason as we and our parents and grandparents did."

Lostaunau is an Hispanic who, somehow, has American citizenship. I do not care how he got it. I do not care if he risked his life to get. I DO care that he is selling out his country to people from another country.

He is a Latino Benedict Arnold.

Is he going to be helping latinos or illegal aliens? The two are NOT the same.

Not to them it's not. Not to mention I thought you were an American Vet..........not a Chicano Vet. Whatever that is.