Politics & Power Quote by Joe Baca

Baca is doing a very American kind of argument: belonging proved through blood. By stitching Latino service to the Revolutionary War and Iraq, he’s building a historical receipt that says, We’ve paid into the national project for centuries, so don’t treat us like guests. The move is strategic because it borrows the country’s most culturally protected currency - military sacrifice - and spends it on a contemporary political fight over immigration, citizenship, and legitimacy.

The subtext is defensive, even while it sounds proud. You don’t list wars unless someone is questioning your stake in the nation. “Fought in all of America’s wars” isn’t a trivia fact; it’s a rebuttal to a recurring suspicion that Latinos are recent arrivals with conditional loyalty. Invoking Iraq places the claim in the post-9/11 era, when patriotism was policed aggressively and dissent was often framed as disloyalty. He’s also widening “Latino” beyond a single origin story: the reference to ancestors who fought for freedom in Mexico insists that political courage isn’t uniquely American, and that democratic struggle runs through the hemisphere.

There’s a subtle political bargain embedded here. Baca elevates Latinos by aligning them with the military, an institution that grants instant credibility in U.S. civic storytelling. At the same time, he risks implying that full recognition must be earned through service - a logic that can exclude those whose contributions are quieter or whose politics are anti-war. The line works because it’s both a tribute and a pressure tactic: honor the dead, then answer the implied question of what the living are owed.