Title: Celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month with 5 Stories of Hispanic American Military Heroes · United Service Organizations
Headings: Celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month with 5 Stories of Hispanic American Military Heroes
Celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month with 5 Stories of Hispanic American Military Heroes
By Danielle DeSimone
1. Marcelino Serna
2. Joe P. Martínez
3. Carmen Contreras-Bozak
4. Angel Mendez
5. Richard Edward Cavazos

Content: Carmen Contreras-Bozak
Carmen Conteras Bozak, the first Hispanic American to serve in the Women’s Army Corps. | Photo credit The University of Texas in Austin
As the U.S. prepared to enter World War II, the government put out a call for women to take on new roles beyond the home. Today, we know these working women in World War II as Rosie the Riveters, WAVES, SPARs and others. These new roles were a big change for women in American society, especially among the Hispanic American population. Back in the 1940s, Hispanic women were often discouraged within their own communities to take on roles outside of domestic life. But for Carmen Contreras-Bozak, a Puerto Rican from New York City, the call to duty was more important than a traditional, domestic lifestyle. Inspired by the War Department and her own sense of patriotism, Contreras-Bozak decided to enlist in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps; she was the first Hispanic American to serve in what would later be known as the Women’s Army Corps. During WWII, the Army specifically recruited bilingual Hispanic women to work in cryptology, communications and interpretation. Contreras-Bozak volunteered to go to North Africa with one of these companies despite the extreme risk (at the beginning of the U.S. involvement in the war, service women were not treated the same as servicemen and did not have the same protections under international law as male soldiers if captured).