Decorated Pvt. Felix Longoria Jr., fought and died during World War II against fascism overseas, only for his family
Felix Longoria Jr., was the first Mexican American to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. | Courtesy of the Hector P. Garcia Archives at Texas A&M University
to face segregation and white supremacy at home.
UH and the Center for Mexican American Studies is presenting a preview screening of the documentary “The Longoria Affair” at 6 p.m. Wednesday in room 150 of the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture.
The film is based on Longoria, a soldier who was killed in June 1945 and would eventually become the first Mexican American to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
After the war, while most people came together to welcome the soldiers home and mourn for the dead, Longoria was denied the right to lie in state in a small town in south Texas when his remains were returned in 1949.
The preparation for his funeral is what caused him to become a national symbol of discrimination.
Longoria’s family was denied a wake at the only funeral parlor in his hometown of Three Rivers. The funeral parlor was a “whites only” establishment.
“The whites wouldn’t like it,” is the reason Tom Kennedy, the owner of the funeral parlor, gave Longoria’s widow in denying her request to hold the wake in his parlor.
“Its an incredible thing to believe that a fallen soldier’s family would be denied the use of this facility,” CMAS Assistant Director Lorenzo Cano said. “The screening is an important opportunity for students to see the historical discrimination of people of Mexican descent.”
Cano said that the current anti-immigrant hysteria in the United States is a continuation of those sentiments — and of repression and persecution as well.
This act of discrimination helped thrust the American GI Forum’s civil rights agenda into the national spotlight.
“When most people in this country think of civil rights, they don’t tend to think about the contribution that Mexican-Americans have made towards the equality and freedom of all people,” John J. Valadez, director of the documentary, said. “People should know about that contribution.”
The destinies of Kennedy, Dr. Hector Garcia, who served as the Longoria family’s attorney, and then-U.S. Senator Lyndon B. Johnson were all shaped by the events following Kennedy’s refusal to hold Longoria’s wake.
“The story is about how their lives intersecting would then transform American history in very deep and profound ways,” Valadez said.
Longoria’s daughter, Adela, will be attend the screening, which will be followed by a Q-and-A session with Valadez.
The event is free and open to the public. The film will premiere Nov. 9 on PBS program “Independent Lens.”
Oh just what we needed – a factless, baseless, libelous incitement to racial hatred running on campus.
Take your "Por la Raza Todo, Fuera de la Raza Nada" and SHOVE IT. Racism is not welcome on the UH campus, and this racist crapfest shouldn't be either.
Factless? Baseless? I hope you are not a student there because it seems you are not learning much. It is well documented in our history that Mexican-Americans were discriminated against at every level during the times of war. Perhaps you should try reading some of it before you continue making juvenile accusations.