Hero Street, U.S.A.: The Story of Little Mexico’s Fallen Soldiers

Amazon.com Price: $19.95 (as of 02/05/2019 11:32 PST- Details)

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Description

The first book-length account of a story too long overlooked

Claro Solis wanted to win a gold star for his mother. He succeeded―as did seven other sons of “Little Mexico.”

Second Street in Silvis, Illinois, was once a poor neighborhood right through the Great Depression that had change into home to Mexicans fleeing revolution in their fatherland. In 1971 it was once officially renamed “Hero Street” to commemorate its claim to the highest per-capita casualty rate from any neighborhood right through World War II. Marc Wilson now tells the story of this community and the young men it sent to fight for their adopted country.

Hero Street, U.S.A. is the first book to recount a saga too long lost sight of in histories and tv documentaries. Interweaving circle of relatives memories, soldiers’ letters, historical photographs, interviews with relatives, and firsthand combat accounts, Wilson tells the compelling stories of nearly eighty men from three dozen Second Street homes who volunteered to fight for their country in World War II and Korea―and of the eight, including Claro Solis, who never came back.

As debate swirls around the place of Mexican immigrants in latest American society, this book shows the cost of citizenship willingly paid by the sons of earlier refugees. With Hero Street, U.S.A., Marc Wilson not only makes the most important contribution to military and social history but also acknowledges the efforts of the heroes of Second Street to realize the American dream.


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