PALABRAS: Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author Carlos Harrison Discusses 'The Ghosts of Hero Street' and the Roots of Civil Rights

This article is part of Palabras, the Latin Post Latino Author Series.

Eight brave Mexican-American men from a railroad yard-adjacent, immigrant-populated stretch of dirt road in Silvis, IL, now marked "Hero Street," enrolled themselves in World War II. While each died, the rippling effect of their existence still touches the community. Their memory lingers, and they've become a part of the local folklore.

"The Ghosts of Hero Street," by Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist Carlos Harrison, recounts the important story of these eight men, but more than that, the non-fiction work tells the bigger story; a story that captures the eight central figures, and the many layers that contribute to their complex story: the immigrant experience, civil rights, perseverance, gallant sacrifice, and the twenty-two Mexican-American families from that street who sent fifty-seven to war.

Harrison, the author of the astounding work, was born in Panama to a Panamanian mother and a white American father. He emigrated to America, and moved to La Pequeña Habana, Miami when he was just four years. Just four years later, he developed an interest in writing; he won a contest and his teacher told him he should be a writer.

"Since I was eight years old, I dreamt of becoming a writer. But, I was a poor Hispanic kid from La Pequeña Habana... so I went off to the army to get the GI bill, and I had to work to save money," Harrison said to Latin Post during an interview. "But, when I went to college, as a poor kid with limited experience of the world, I thought, how will I learn? And figured I'd go into journalism."

Through journalism, he was able increase the number of places he'd seen. He visited different continents and worked with different people. According to the author, he was able to meet people at their best, and people at their worst; he was able to see people celebrating and people suffering. With journalism, he wanted to write [right] the wrongs in the world. And it was during his time as a journalist that he was introduced to the story of Hero Street. A former boss introduced the topic for an article, and while the article was never written, he remained intrigued by the story of the eight heroes.

"One of the things that struck me about [their story] is so many of the magazine articles I've found, or people I spoke to, focused on the story of the eight men who died. And while that was a part of it, it struck me as a story that was so much bigger than that," said Harrison. "It was about the immigrant story. It was about coming from other places and contributing to this country no matter how they were treated.

"These people were forced to live on a street that they cut out of the woods themselves, to live [in] box cars with no electricity and no running water because of nothing other than the fact that they were Mexican. They weren't good enough to live among the town's whites. And yet, when the war came, they wanted to do what every other immigrant in this country has done. And that is to say, 'We're part of this. This is our country too, and we're willing to sacrifice.' But, when they came back from the war, those who survived, they weren't allowed to join the local Veterans of Foreign War club because they were Mexican."

The experiences of those men were reflective of what was happening across the country with the civil rights movement. Many believe the civil rights movement started with Martin Luther King Jr. He was certainly a great figure, but it started with many others, according to Harrison. It began with soldiers who came home from war and said, "Hey, we hung our hides out there, and we even saved your son at some point. Thanks to us, he's here. And now, you won't let us go to the same schools, you won't let us attend college and you won't let us have the same jobs."

"This happened to blacks and Latinos. That was the story then, and that's the story that's still happening to this day. People come from all over the world. They come here to live a better life and to contribute, not to take away. And that's the story that I really, really wanted to tell," Harrison said.

The investigation and research that went into creating the book was exhausting. The eight central figures are deceased, as are many of their relatives; the ones who were left are very old. When completing the book, Harrison was lucky enough to speak to two individuals, but from the time he spoke to them and interviewed them to the time the book came out, they had both died, and so did others.

"I was tracking people who were at the end of their lives, and I'm glad that i was able to preserve their stories and their histories," Harrison remarked. "But I realized that it was going to be challenging. Seventy-five percent of all military records and 99 percent of the records of all those from Hero Street were lost in a big fire in St. Louis back in the 70s."

He was forced to pull information from censored letters that were sent home. He searched biographies, military histories and unit histories, tirelessly collecting research for five years. This, of course, was worth it because the author not only triumphantly detailed necessary untold stories, but he was able to give life back to these men for one more day and offer family and friends a view of their beloved in action. He was able to cement their legacy, and he asked questions about the men that no one else had ever bothered to ask.

In many ways, the book also speaks to the suggestion of freedom, opportunity and equal rights in America, particularly as "the difficulty with equal rights is that it seems like [non-whites] are always forced to earn it, rather than it being given." Immigrants arrive to the U.S. to escape drug gangs, but these individual often find that they're met with 18-hour work days for $.48 cents a bushel, where hands are cut in retrieval, yet those in low-income communities are only given cheap tomatoes to eat. The author suggests that those dwelling in America should see the richness of the nation, and be more willing to share the wealth.

"I truly believe we are in a period of great transition, culturally and politically, and in so many other ways," Harrison said. "I think it's a great time for writers to come forward and tell the stories and give the nuances of stories, so the general market might recognize it's part of our cultural landscape. We are a country of Christians, Muslims, Jews, and so much more. Stories must be told, so we can appreciate who we really are."

Harrison's next project focuses on the true story of a man who was paid by the CIA, on two occasions, to assassinate Fidel Castro. Though he failed, the man carries an interesting story. Having formed one of the largest Cuban exile paramilitary groups to ever exist, he was also coincidentally introduced to Lee Harvey Oswald just one month before John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963.

The author is also working on his first novel.