A report from the field Latina/o youth, JROTC and ethnographic practice

Abstract

In late March 2007, nearly 30 people boarded a chartered bus in Lorain, Ohio, to travel to Washington, DC to attend the annual Silver Helmet Awards sponsored by the American Veterans or AMVETS, a national organization dedicated to a variety of activities and services for veterans and their families.1 At this year's annual event, the AMVETS organizers invited Fairview High School's Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps Program (JROTC) Honor Guard to perform a solemn tribute in honor of POW/MIA during the Silver Helmet Awards ceremony, a tribute they had performed on several occasions for veterans groups throughout northeast Ohio.2 The ceremony consistently elicited powerful emotions from observers, who often cried and thanked the young cadets for their service and praised them for their hard work and dedication. Since beginning my research on Latina/o youth and JROTC in 2002, I have struggled to understand my role as an ethnographer working with remarkably generous people whose thoughts about the military and military programs are different from my own.\n You know ... what the Army to them was, what it meant to them and stuff like that.

Publisher

Palgrave Macmillan

Publication Date

7-7-2015

Publication Title

Latino Studies

Department

Comparative American Studies

Document Type

Article

DOI

https://dx.doi.org/10.1057/lst.2015.14

Notes

Supplement Special Issue: Latinos, Militarism, and Militarization

Keywords

Students, Immigration, Young adults, Militarism, Ethnoography

Language

English

Format

text

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