Name: Xavier Menos
Thesis Advisor: Deanna Kamiel
Abstract: Maria Durán, Martha Clark, and Maria Disla are three mothers from New York. They are the "Golden Mothers" for the NY Military Youth Cadet. All of them have two things in common: they have each lost a son in the Iraq War, and each of them are Hispanic. Soldados is a documentary that gives voice to these mothers who are fighting to overcome the pain produced by the loss of their sons. Soldados includes archive footage provided by Telemundo, pictures of the soldiers, and interviews with these three mothers. According to the 2000 US Census, 12.5 percent of the population of North America is Hispanic. In 2001, 104,487 Hispanics were enlisted in the U.S. military. The Hispanic representation in the armed services is unbalanced: while 13.99 percent are Marine Corps, only 5.57 percent percent are in the Air Force. As the Pew Hispanic Center report "Hipanics in the Military" (May 2003), Latinos are overrepresented in the most dangerous positions such as the infantry, gun crews, and seamanship (making up 17.74 percent of this category). And that data has a dangerous characteristic: 13 percent of the Hispanic soldiers have been harmed in that conflict. Soldados explains in first person the personal stories of three Hispanic families that lost one of their members in a war fighting under a flag (the American) that sometimes has not recognized them (the Hispanics) as an important part of their country.