The Dark Side of the Dream
by Alejandro Grattan Dominguez, Xill Fessenden, Mike Riley, Marsh Cassady
Category: Fiction

Two Mexican brothers, Jose Luis and Francisco Salazar, and their families migrate to the United States shortly after the U.S. entry into World War II. The story depicts their struggles as they come to grips with a new, often hostile environment. Later, the family prominently figures in two of the most tragic, yet stirring incidents in Mexican-American history. The first involves the all-Hispanic rifle company that as part of the Texas Volunteer Division lost its colors at the Battle of the Rapido River in Italy during the Second World War, when 156 badly-mangled Hispanic soldiers were ordered to cross the Rapido River against a known German force of more than 3000 men. Only 23 U.S. soldiers came back, and of those, ten would later die. Yet before the war was over, that unit would win more medals for bravery than almost any other rifle company in all of American history. The second incident came in the early 1950's, when some 300 Mexican-Americans, African-Americans and Filipino migrants went on strike in the harvest fields of South Texas. Though the movement was washed away by the winds of history, within the seeds of that defeat were the victories that came a generation later in the San Joaquin Valley of central California. It is in California that a new generation of Salazars at last succeed in fulfilling the dream of enriching their lives in a soul-satisfying way.