After FDR gave his “Four Freedoms” speech, a young Mexican American journalist/writer/musician from Brownsville TX wrote his response:

Paredes was born the same year that Texas Rangers and Anglos vigilantes ser about killing hundreds of ethnic Mexicans in a campaign of state sponsored violence in the US in south Texas.

By the 1930s, most ethnic Mexicans families had lost their land and operated under a similar system of Jim Crow.

Paredes was—as the poem suggests—ambivalent that the lofty ideals would be more than words for Mexican Americans

Yet, he still went on to serve in WWII, covering the war for Stars and Stripes and the Mexico City newspaper El Universal.

All this to say that patriotism and service are complicated for many communities of color. For many, military service would be the way to prove their belonging and prove the patriotic bonafides so their complaints about discrimination would be considered.

Here’s another example from Vietnam highlighting the complicate nature of patriotism and military service.