Selected Interview Segments: Patrick Carroll
Patrick Carroll,
Author - Felix Longoria's Wake
Copyright 2007 South Texas Public Broadcasting System, INC.
Q: Explain the story of Private Felix Longoria and how Dr. Hector P. Garcia became involved.
A: Toward the end of the war, Felix Longoria, Jr., a Mexican-American soldier from Three Rivers, Texas, was killed on the island on Luzon by a Japanese sniper. He was interred on that Philippine island and then three years later, in January of 1949, his wife, his widow was contacted and asked if she wanted his body re interred in the United States. She said yes. She decided to have her husband buried in his home town of Three Rivers, Texas.
When she went to Three Rivers, because she had since moved to Corpus Christi to live with her family, and-- who helped her to care for their daughter, Angelita, she approached the only funeral chapel in Three Rivers. And asked, during the arrangements for the burial, if she could use the funeral chapel to wake her husband. The funeral director said, "no". And the reason he gave her for saying no was that it was basically for Anglo use, Anglos wouldn't like it if Mexican-Americans used it so he suggested that she wake her husband from one of the family homes within Three Rivers.
Because she was probably having some mild differences with the family, was a little reluctant to do that. But eventually agreed that she would hold the wake across the street from her in laws in a small bungalow that she and her husband had occupied for a year after their marriage. The house hadn't been occupied for-- lived in, for two years, it was in disrepair. It was small. It wasn't heated. And so, she wasn't please with the arrangement.
She went back to Corpus Christi, talked to her family about it, and they were equally upset with the refusal. She then traveled back to, Three Rivers, asked again. Again was refused for the same reason. At that point, after telling her sister, Sara Moreno Posas, that she had been refused the use of the funeral chapel for the wake. Her sister then contacted a civil rights activist in Corpus Christi, Dr. Hector Garcia, the founder of the G.I. Forum, and asked if he would intervene with the funeral director to see if he could gain access to the funeral chapel.
Dr. Garcia called, had his secretary listen in on an extension phone, asked the funeral director if the soldier could be waked at the funeral home. The funeral director apologized, said that he, himself wasn't prejudiced, but that was the prevailing climate within the community and as a businessman he couldn't compromise, uh, his patrons and so he had to refuse. Dr. Hector pointed out that the young man was a soldier, a decorated soldier, had given his life for his country in World War II, and the funeral director, who, himself was a veteran, said it didn't matter. He couldn't do it as a businessman.
Dr. Hector then contacted a reporter for the Corpus Christi Caller Times and the reported called and asked if it was true that the funeral director was denying use of the funeral chapel because of the young soldier's Mexican origins and the funeral director said, "yes." The reporter cautioned him that this was for the record and that this was liable to be controversial and the funeral director responded, "yes," anyway, thinking that everybody was making a lot to do about nothing, that's just they way things were in South Texas.
Dr. Hector then, once he had the confirmation from the reporter that he had corroborative evidence that he could prove that somebody else had listened to this funeral director say no because the soldier was Mexican, of Mexican origin, he then fired off 17 telegrams ranging from individuals, high public officials like the President of the United States, all the way down to the director of the embalming, state agency within Texas. As well as a number of prominent media officials, Walter Winchell, Drew Pearson, etc. He received responses from virtually all of these officials, most of them just sent their sympathy. The newly elected senator to the U. S. Congress from Texas, Lyndon Johnson said more. He said, "What can I do to help?"
And so, right away, L. B. J. Gets embroiled in the incident. And, that gives, I think, the incident national leverage now that L. B. J.'s involved. Then it has international overtones because it disrupts the Bracero negotiations and the state department gets involved.
And then, for the first time I think, there's a connection made between the general public and Hispanic difficulties in the southwest with discrimination. The broader populations sees it as discrimination against a U. S. Soldier, right after the war when patriotic feelings are running high. And so they see it, the national population, as discrimination against a U.S. Soldier who happens to be Mexican-American. Where, individuals in the southwest, whether they are Anglos or Hispanics, see it as discrimination, potential discrimination against a Mexican-American. So, for different reasons, the national public and the regional public connects with-- on this incident and it creates a furor, uh, an uproar in the press, on the radio, both nationally, internationally, locally, state wise, region wise, the southwest, for three months.
I think what it does is catapult the harshness and the hostilities and the conflictiveness of relations between Mexican-Americans and Anglos within the southwest. For the first time this is thrust before the national public in a way they can identify with it. This guy was a soldier. And so I think therein lies the real significance of the Longoria incident. It was something that could connect the Mexican-Americans civil rights regions- struggle in region with the national public and that raised levels of national awareness over this problem that previously had been just seen as a regional problem.
Q: How did we get from the point of L. B. J.'s intervention to actually being able to, uh, bury Longoria in Arlington?
A: Okay. Once this furor is created, enormous pressure is placed on state agencies, on the town of Three Rivers. This Pennsylvania transplant who is the funeral director in three rivers and had only been there for a year, and probably didn't fully understand the social climate of the area when he said "no, the Anglos wouldn't like it". And, so, what he eventually does, after becoming embroiled in a state legislative investigation in to the matter, he backtracks and he says, "okay. I'll discourage use of the funeral chapel, but I won't deny it."
Then the three rivers community, the Anglo community says, "gee, they can bury him anywhere they want to. They can bury him, they wake him in the chapel, they can bury him in the Anglo cemetery if they want to. The mayor says they can bury him in my backyard if they want to." So they're backpedaling because of all the pressure. And then, of course, state officials who are getting national pressure from the state department and everything because of the Bracero program, they're trying to smooth this over because not only is this super bad press for Texas, but on top of that, it jeopardizes Texas' access to this very cheap and pliable Mexican national labor.
And so they're tripping over themselves to try and figure out some way to bury Felix Longoria in Texas and save Texas' state honor and not have the state painted as a state of bigots, etc., by the rest of the nation, by Mexico and everybody else. So they offer the state cemetery in, uh, uh, in San Antonio. Uh, they offer another burial site in, uh, near Sam Houston state university, uh, etc., etc. So everybody is trying to backpedal and offer a site.
So what Dr. Hector does, and this is really ingenious, I think, uh, he calls, uh, a community meeting, a town hall meeting at the Lamar elementary school and by now this incident is national news and locally the Hispanic community is incredibly agitated over the incident. And so they meet at this town meeting. And, of course, Beatrice is there and the Longoria family is there and Dr. Hector, then gets up and he reads telegrams from, uh, Harry Vaughn, who is secretary of the army, on behalf of president Truman, and then he reads a telegram from L. B. J. Offering all of these burial sites. He reads a telegram from the good neighbor commission offering burial sites, uh, within-within the state. And then he notifies the crowd that the funeral director in three rivers has backed down and they can now wake Felix in the funeral chapel.
And so, they've got all these site, L.B.J. and the national government have offered Arlington national cemetery and I don't think I mentioned that, and a hero's burial. The state has offered hero's burial in any one of two or three state burial grounds, and now three rivers has offered any place and any place to wake the, uh, body of the young man that the family wants.
What Dr. Hector, does after reading all this, he turns to Beatrice and says "I think we should take a vote on this. Will you abide by a community vote? So now, everybody in that room, in the Hispanic community, and a number of Anglos too, are invested in this decision. And they chose the hero's burial in Arlington National Cemetery, because what it does is place this incident, Mexican-American civil rights, within a national forum for the first time.
And Dr. Hector had tried with a number of other incidents to do this and been unsuccessful. Because, as I've said before, this incident connected the Hispanic community and the plight of the Hispanic community with the national public. And I think, offered a remarkable opportunity to really educate the American public on exactly what was going on in South Texas, the social conditions.