Essay On Marcario Garcia

MARCARIO GARCIA
JANUARY 20, 1920 ­ DECEMBER 24, 1972
FIRST IMMIGRANT TO RECEIVE MEDAL OF HONOR BORN IN MEXICO ­ ADOPTED TEXAS

Marcario Garcia was not born in Texas; rather his parents carried him across the border from Mexico to Texas as an infant. The family settled in Sugar Land, Texas, where they worked as low­paid farm workers and raised ten children. The land was originally owned by the Mexican government and was part of the land grant to Stephen F. Austin. Very early, sugarcane stalks from Cuba were brought to the area and a sugar mill was built. The last sugarcane crop was harvested in 1928, when Macario was only eight years old. Raw sugar was then imported to the Imperial Sugar Company refinery in Sugar Land. By the 1940s the population

Wearing his military uniform and hungry from his journey, he entered a hamburger restaurant in Sugar Land, Texas. The owner refused him service because he was Hispanic, and when Marcario objected, the owner began to attack the soldier with a baseball bat. The sheriff was called and the Medal of Honor recipient was thrown into jail. Paul Harvey devoted his radio program to the injustice, and this discriminatory act earned Sugar Land the title of Most Racist City. It also opened the nation's eyes to discrimination against Hispanics.

In 1947 Marcario proudly became a citizen of his adopted United States. He earned an education with the help of the G.I. Bill. After graduating, he worked for 25 years as a counselor for the Veterans Administration. He married Alicia Reyes in 1952 and raised three children. In 1968 he volunteered to go to Vietnam to counsel returning veterans on the benefits they could receive when they returned to the states.

Marcario had the honor of greeting and shaking hands with President Kennedy in the Rice Ballroom in Houston on November 21, 1963. That evening the president gave a speech to a diverse crowd of Hispanic WWII veterans, civil rights activists, and future political activists. Then Jacqueline Kennedy addressed the crowd in perfect Spanish. The next day Kennedy was shot dead in Dallas. Marcario and the nation mourned.