to "comunidad del valle." i am damian trujillo, and today, we're honoring our latino veterans on your "comunidad del valle." ♪♪♪ damian: we begin with the monthly visit by the consulate of mexico in san francisco. with me, again on "comunidad del valle" is ambassador remedios gomez arnau, the consul general of mexico in san francisco. consul, welcome back to the show. remedios gomez arnau: thank you. i'm so glad to be with you and your audience. damian: thank you. do you know, a while back, maybe ten years ago, i went to mexico city to this colonia called sante fe, and i saw--the sun microsystems back then had a campus and it was like a small silicon valley in mexico city.

you're interchanging ideas right now between mexico and those companies in silicon valley and the bay area. remedios: yes, yes, indeed. actually, we just had, this past week, a visit from three different states of mexico: the state of mexico, the state of jalisco, the state of puebla, all of them coordinated by the foreign office ministry of mexico, and they came here to see how we can join efforts in order to improve the technology and how we can work together. i mean, there are many assets here in this bay area and silicon valley, not only people but also what companies are doing and we think that we can engage from mexico. we are also working on technology and digital services and the trade agreement between mexico, united states, and canada has a new chapter about digital trade, for example.

so they came here looking for businesses and i'm sure we will be doing more together, bay area and mexico. damian: and it's not just the mexico states receiving information and ideas from here, right? the united states is getting ideas from mexico as well because there's a lot of smart people south of the border. remedios: oh, yes, of course. and the people are here. i mean, every month i interview mexican people that are innovators and entrepreneurs. and they are working here with a network of different incubators, accelerators, and venture capitalists that are trying to advance new technologies, new items that can be useful for health, for connecting people, through working together. so yes, it's not only that we come here to learn but we're also providing ideas and assets.

damian: all right, well, and speaking of ideas, you had a great idea to collaborate now with chesa boudin, the district attorney for san francisco. remedios: oh, yes, thank you. yeah, i had--i was lucky enough to have a live interview with the district attorney of san francisco, chesa boudin, who told us about what he's doing in his office. he wants to engage better with the community and he wants that the community knows that he's trying to help the people, no matter what their migratory status is and also he's someone with a background that helps him to be more sensitive about the problems of the people that have been victims of crimes, but also trying to help the criminals themselves to go back to the society and be helpful and positive for the rest of the society. damian: because i wanna talk about victims of crime. a lot of these victims of crime don't want to say that they're

victims of crime because, i don't know, may immigration status, but they were afraid of authority, afraid of police, traditionally. remedios: yes, so he invited them to go forward and just tell if they have been victims. there's a team of spanish-speaking people there and he reiterated everyone that they shouldn't be afraid, no matter if they are whatever, undocumented immigrants or, for example, we had a group of people from the lgbtq community that sometimes are also afraid of showing up before authorities for whatever reason. so he reiterated everyone that they can go to the district attorney office and they will be helped if they have been victims of crimes, and also he has a very important initiative, or actually a program, that if a family has lost a beloved one because of excessive use of force, they will be able to get

some kind--of course, they cannot get back the life of someone they love, but some kind of compensation for that. damian: oh, very interesting. we have about one minute left, consul, and you still have la semana financiera, financial wellness week, health awareness week, binational, so a lot of things still happening at the consulado. remedios: yes, yes. it's always a--right now, i just inaugurated binational health week. that is not only binational, it's multinational. we have the presence of the consulates of peru and colombia and also it's not only a week, it's the rest of the month and we invite the people to be connected to our facebook page. there are many live activities about health. we just discover after the pandemic how important health is. damian: absolutely. consul, thank you so much and we'll see you once again next month here on "comunidad del valle." gracias. remedios: thank you. damian: all right, the consulate of mexico in san francisco, it's on folsom street and we do have the web address for more information. you can learn more about the chesa boudin collaboration with

the consulado and also this partnership with the mexican--we'll be back and talk about honoring our latino veterans. stay with us.

with me on "comunidad del valle" is joel ruiz herrera with the la raza historical society of santa clara valley and also with me is also carlos harrison who is the author of "the ghosts of hero street," a fascinating book on "comunidad del valle." gentlemen, welcome to the show. carlos harrison: thank you very much for having us. joel herrera: thank you, thank you, damian, for having us. damian: thank you. first of all, joel, tell us about la raza historical society and this venture with the authors. joel: sure, thank you. first, again, thank you, damian, for inviting us onto your show. la raza historical society is, you know, generally located right here in san josé and santa clara valley. it's been around for about five years, started off by some local latino chicano activists, and so we created our own historical

society to bring forward and document and preserve not only documents that exist already and photographs but also oral histories. so we have a website that i know that you'll show but please visit the site and learn more about what we do here at santa clara valley. thank you. damian: and joel, on behalf of hispanic heritage month and also veterans day, you have--you're gonna have a virtual ceremony with authors like carlos talking about the contribution of latino veterans. joel: yes, that's correct. on november 10 at 6 o'clock we're gonna have a virtual zoom event in which we're going to have two esteemed and accomplished guests. they're authors of books that--be on our show and one is called "the ghosts of hero street." you'll hear from mr. carlos harrison in a minute. and the other book is called "patriots from the barrio," and it's a story about la raza, the latinos', latinx', involvement

in world war ii, in the korean war. they're books that are available on the market just anywhere: your local bookstore. but, yes, we're gonna have those two authors as guests on november 10. damian: if you look at "patriots from the barrio," i wrote one who david gutierrez was talking about. i mean, he mentioned that personal. you can relate to the characters, the real characters in del rio, texas. so it's a great book. the one that i'm dying to read now is the one--is yours, carlos. tell us what hero street is and why they're the ghosts of hero street. carlos: well, hero street, actually, you know, and i stumbled on this by accident, it's one of these tiny tidbits of history that i felt needed to be told when i heard about it. hero street was originally just called second street in a town called silvis, illinois, which is right across the mississippi river from davenport, iowa. it's about 2½, 3 hours from chicago by highway.

but this was a street that, during the mexican revolution, the railroads were looking for workers because the united states had sent so many of the young working males off to world all of us are looking for in our lives, peace, prosperity, and at better life for ourselves and for our kids. and they brought them up there to be in cold like they had never known before, snow and ice on the river, but to work on the railroads and these people came and they invested themselves to make a new home and new lives for themselves, and it was originally 22 families who, unfortunately, they found good things, the jobs, but they also found discrimination and prejudice, a burgeoning ku klux klan that would burn crosses over their homes, the kids would be called names at school. they weren't allowed to attend the same catholic church that the rest of the people in the city did.

and eventually, they were kicked off of the railroad yards because other people in silvis complained, "well, they aren't paying property taxes." railroad company and they moved and carved out on what became second street just a patch of dirt in the woods between a creek and a hill that they eventually called billy goat hill, and they located these boxcars and for an entire generation most of 'em didn't have electricity, they didn't have indoor plumbing, and they remember snow blowing through the cracks in the boxcars as they built their homes. but when world war ii came around, these families were established, they had their children, they had their jobs, and this was their home. and so they said, "we have to stand up and defend it too." and they sent their children off to fight. and even though the book focuses on the eight who died between

world war ii and korea, and really it was stunning, from a writer's point of view. they were in historic units, in historic battles, the battle of the -- they were among the first paratroopers for this country. they were building burma road, or rebuilding the burma road in asia. and so these were people who were at key and crucial battles and they went off to fight. but the reason it's called hero street is because they realized the 22 families had sent 57 of their children, husbands, and brothers off to fight in wars. and they found out through the department of defense that looked into this, that no other stretch of the country, of just a block and a half long like this, had sent so many people off to defend this country. even though they were mocked at home and they weren't allowed to

go to the same schools and they weren't allowed to go to the same churches, but they stood up and they did what they had to do because that was their responsibility. and that's what fascinated me about this story. but they deserved to be called hero street. damian: boy, it makes me angry and proud at the same time. i don't know which one comes first. but--and it took--they took you to go out and investigate this because, i guess, your boss had heard about it and said--wondered what it-- carlos: my boss--i was working at "people en español" at the time. i was the deputy managing editor, and my boss, a dear friend, asked me if i'd ever heard of a place called hero street and i said, "no." and he says, "you know, we should probably do an article someday." and you know how it is. things get pushed off, something else happens. the years passed. i left the magazine, but i had this bug in my ear about this place called hero street, and so, i flew out there. damian: let's hold off on that. i wanna hear that part of the story on our next segment, if you don't mind, carlos, 'cause i wanna make sure we capture all of it.

carlos: i'll remember it, don't worry. damian: so it's on november 10 that the la raza historical society is having this virtual welcome with these two authors, david gutierrez and carlos harrison. there's the information on the screen. we'll be back and talk with the author of "the ghosts of hero street." stay with us.

and so, carlos, you were saying that you grabbed your pen and your pad and you said, "let's go find out." carlos: let's go find out, and i was lucky because--in many, many ways, i was lucky that the people were so welcoming and ready to tell their stories. but also lucky in the sense that at that time in our history, people wrote letters home and their brothers and sisters saved these letters. they had duffle bags full of letters. so i had so much rich history available to me, and then obviously they had grown up on the same street so they could tell me about hero street and they could tell me about the good and the bad, about the boys going off to war, about the

bodies coming home. and the battle, the struggle, that they had gone through to be recognized for what they had given, even though they were mocked and they were shunned and everything else, they wanted their place in history and they wanted to do their duty. and so, a man named joe terronez who passed away a couple of years ago, he actually figured out from listening to martin luther king, of all people, that one of the ways to gain recognition is to vote. and he and a buddy went around and they would pay for the people to get their pictures taken to go with their registration, then they would drive them to register to vote. and by doing that, he was able to get himself elected to the city council and then he started pushing for the renaming of the street and he went all the way to the department of the defense, proved that this street in its tiny size had sent more

people off to fight than any other place of similar size and was able to get the street renamed, and eventually to become the mayor of little silvis. but that was actually 1968 was when they finally got it recognized and just one of those little footnotes of history, this street wasn't paved for another seven years. damian: how appropriate. a great story. carlos, thank you for that. and joel, what does it say about the chicano veteran, the latino veteran, and you heard what carlos said. what does it say that in the midst of racism, of chaos, a country does not want you here, yet when it needs you, it asks you to serve or it tells you to serve and, like the patriots that they are, they stood up and served. joel: well, it tells us that we still have work to do. i mean, we had much more work to do back then. we still have work to do. itlos, a story that's in david's book about "patriots of barrio" where our men are in

uniform and in the small town in texas they went to get a hamburger and they were told, "we don't serve mexicans here." fortunately, they went back and told the base commander, and the base commander went and talked to the woman, the owner of the burger joint, and she held their ground. so he went back to the base and he said, "nobody on this base will eat there again." so when the owner heard that, she came and apologized, paid us a fine, according to the general, and they opened up the place again. so those stories exist but, you know, we're here to tell the story of us being present, of us being there, of making sure these stories aren't forgotten. that's part of what we do as la raza historical society. and i'm just--i'm just grateful that my wife supports me. my wife, lina, in all my veterans' interests, and i'm grateful that this, my son david, and my daughter, loncarrie, gave me this book for my birthday in 2014, 'cause

i hadn't read it before. and you know wha in his mailbox, okay? damian: i'll do that. he would love that, yeah. you know, speaking of my suegro and i wanna ask you this, carlos, because it goes to show why we should recognize some of these stories of our latino veterans and, you know, i took my father-in-law and a couple of his vietnam buddies to visit the wall for the 25th anniversary of the vietnam memorial. and it was the first time in 40 years that they heard the words, "welcome home." it's impactful to a lot of these veterans, so that's why it's important for your story--stories like yours to get out. carlos: well, and i felt that myself. i mean, you know, that we are still struggling. i mean, i hear stories still of people who've gone off to serve,

even though they weren't yet seen as citizens. they were still residents of this country and then they're being denied their citizenship afterwards, and their families are being told that they're going to be deported. and i wonder, you know, at what point, how much sacrifice do we have to make to be considered equal? and that's frustrating, it's disturbing, and i would hope that as people hear more stories like this, will remember what i learned in the army, and that was the only color that we recognized was green. and that was our uniforms and i would think that that was what would be what's important. we all bleed the same color and we all wore the same uniform and we all took the same risks and so, to come back and be denied. these guys weren't allowed to join the same veterans of foreign wars club, the vfw club, as others so they had to go start their own.

and then, when the vfw that the other residents wouldn't let them join, burned down, they said, "oh, we've got room. you can come join us." and they did. damian: that's one of the reasons why the american-- was formed is because of the way the latino veterans were being treated and they continued to serve. again, this book is called "ghosts of hero street." there'll be a virtual event happening on november 10 by la raza historical society. also, david gutierrez, the author of "patriots from the barrio," another fascinating story about all these chicano and latino soldiers who came out of the barrio in, that's what it says, in del rio, texas. and in this one neighborhood, they all put their uniforms on and they all went to defend this country. if you wanna get hold of la raza historical society, we'll get the website for you on the screen. it's on november 10, this virtual event with these two authors. there it is, "honoring latino veterans." we'll be back to wrap it up with our two guests, so stay with us.

ruiz herrera of la raza historical society of santa clara valley and also carlos harrison, the author of the book, "the ghosts of hero street." and, carlos, could you think of a better name for this street than hero street? carlos: you know, i mean, they did so much and, again, i think what's important to realize is that even though the monument that's there and it's very well deserved for the eight men who lost their lives in key battles and really making a difference during world war ii and korea, the reason it's hero street is because they sent so many of their children off to fight. these are 22 families. one family sent seven sons to fight, another sent six. and you think about that and the numbers of people who went out and risked their lives and, you know, luckily most of them came back. but even by the end of vietnam, the number had hit 110 that this

little one-block-and-a-half-long stretch of road had sent people off to fight. and if you go out there today, you can see the memorial. but even more interesting is to walk along the street and you see what look like regular houses, regular single-story houses, and some of 'em two stories. but if you look really closely, you can still see the seam where the railroad boxcars were joined together and then later on they tuck in the windows and later on they put in the gable roof. later on they brought the plumbing inside and later on they had electricity. and later on, much later on, they paved that street, 30 years after the end of world war ii. thirty years after these people had gone off to fight and lost their lives, they finally said, "gosh, you know, maybe we could put down some asphalt." damian: i've been to iowa and nebraska, i've only been to illinois on a layover. you've just put a city on my bucket list, and thank you for doing that.

joel, what would you like the viewer who joins this zoom virtual event with these two great authors, what did you want them to leave with at the end of the night? joel: well, that--just kind of everything that we've just been talking about in terms of the families that were involved and how it was so personal for us and that we represented in whatever we needed for our military services. i have to say that, during that show, we're also gonna say, you know, we wanna arrive to a point where we don't need war, but, you know, we were there. and so in david's book, he talks about an all-mexican american combat unit, the only one, all-mexican american combat unit. and they brought home some accolades. so we just want people to know that we're there right alongside, we're all one, you know, we're all part of the same country, and at the same time we wanna make sure these stories that we wanna share are known, thank you.

damian: all right, pick up those two books, if you will, for me, joel, 'cause i know you have 'em at the ready. there's "patriots from the barrio" by dave gutierrez. that author will be part of this virtual talk. and there is "the ghosts of hero street," a fascinating read. carlos, any final thoughts before we let you go here? carlos: well, i'd have to agree and, actually, the last--i have to agree with joel and, you know, we would hope that we can get to the day where we don't need war, and if you, actually, the last chapter of this book, is called "the bombardier's, the wife," and that is a woman who listened to her husband for decades after the war. he was on a plane with one of the men who died from hero street, and how he would wake up screaming in the night, remembering what had happened. she said, "you've got to tell it so that it doesn't happen again." joel: yes, good point. very good point. damian: i want you gentlemen to know that we were supposed to go only two segments for this part but we could

go the entire show. we had to go three, at least. joel, we have about 30 seconds. any final thoughts? joel: well, i just wanna thank you, damian, again. i want to thank carlos, mr. harrison. i mean, he took a cold call from me and then here he is. i want you to know the other author, david gutierrez, who will be featured on our show on november 10, is actually in the air flying right now or he would be here too. we just wanna get our stories out there. the la raza historical society wants to be of service to our community and not only document but tell stories. thank you. damian: gentlemen, you make this job easy. i appreciate you being on the show. thank you so much. carlos: thank you, damian. and thank you, joel. damian: all right, and again, this will be a virtual event happening on november 10. there's the web address for more information. we thank you once again for sharing a part of your sunday with us here on "comunidad del valle." we'll see you once again here next week with more interesting news. [speaking foreign language] ...

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