From Sugar Fields to Rice Fields: An Oral History of Puerto Ricans From the Vietnam War Generation

This article utilized oral histories to trace a historical and cultural map of the generation of Puerto Rican draftees and volunteers who served in Vietnam. The project was based on oral histories gathered during interviews conducted in December 2011 in Aguada, Puerto Rico, as part of the Proyecto de Historia Oral: Voces at the University of Texas at Austin. These interviews chronicled the experiences of Julio Avilés-Pérez, Germán Abadía-Olmeda, and Miguel Figueroa-Mejía, three Puerto Ricans who served in the Vietnam War between 1965 and 1975. The methodological approach draws upon the concept of shared authorship, as coined by Maggie Rivas-Rodríguez and Emilio Zamora in their book Beyond the Latino World War Hero (2009). Within this framework, narrators and interpreters engage in a dialogue, reshaping the past from a contemporary perspective, thereby cocreating a narrative that emerges at the intersection of personal experiences and the prevailing historical narrative. Through this analytical lens, the article examined three life stories, situating them within a context of colonial subjectivity and a broader narrative of modernization, industrialization, and sociocultural revolution in Puerto Rico.