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Despite his recruiter’s promise, Juan was called into active duty shortly after boot camp. Juan’s father went to speak with his son’s recruiter, who told him that since Juan had already signed a contract, there was nothing he could do.

In July 2004 Army Spc. Juan Torres, 25, died in Afghanistan of non-combat related injuries.

“I didn’t sign anything, and my wife didn’t sign anything, and now my son is dead,” Torres said. Today he honors his son’s memory as an anti-militarization activist in Chicago. He shared his story Feb. 17 at a rally in Pilsen, a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood in Chicago.

Hispanic youth such as Torres increasingly are being recruited for U.S. Army service; at the same time, their representation in the Army is on the rise, according to Army data. Chicago counter-recruitment groups say the number of local Hispanics in the Army is increasing because Chicago recruiters mislead potential Hispanic recruits and their families. But local Army representatives say Hispanic enlistment numbers are rising as recruiters strive to build an Army that mirrors the demographics of Chicago.

The Hispanic population in Cook County was 22.2 percent in 2004; in the same year, 20 percent of Cook County Army enlistees were Hispanic, according to the National Priorities Project, an education advocacy group based in Massachusetts.

“Over the last four years, we have seen an increase in the number of (local) Hispanic enlistments in the Army to the point where they essentially represent a 1-1 ratio of all 17-to-24-year-old Hispanics in the Chicago area,” said Bill Kelo, chief of advertising and public affairs for the U.S. Army Chicago Recruiting Battalion. “The percent of Hispanics from the greater Chicago area has kept pace with the demographic changes in the Chicago area.”

Since 1998, the number of Hispanics in the Army has grown at almost twice the rate of their increase in the national population (see “Hispanics in the Army”).

According to the Office of Army Demographics, Hispanics make up about 10.5 percent of the Army’s forces and 5.2 percent of Army officers. (see “Army fights to attract Hispanics to officer corps”). They made up about 12 percent of 2005 enlistments (see “2005 Army Accessions by Race/Ethnicity”).

The U.S. Hispanic population has nearly tripled in the last 25 years, exploding from 14.6 million in 1980 to an estimated 40.5 million in 2004, according to the U.S. Census.
As the Hispanic civilian population grows, Hispanics have helped offset dwindling Army enlistment numbers. The number of active-duty soldiers dropped 37 percent from 1983 to 2005, while the number of Hispanics in the Army increased 75 percent in that time frame, according to the Office of Army Demographics.

Hispanics and other minorities are joining the armed forces to take advantage of economic opportunities that other jobs do not provide, said Betty Maxfield, chief of the Office of Army Demographics. Also, since Hispanics may face discrimination from employers in other sectors of the workforce, the equal treatment they receive in the military is an added bonus to enlist, she said.

Sgt. Edwin Torres, a bilingual recruiter from the Evanston Army Recruiting Station, agrees.

“In the Hispanic community there are a lot of jobs and franchises that are abusing the Hispanic people because they are a low minority,” Torres said, adding that in the civilian work world, Hispanics are often paid much less for the same work. “In the Army, it’s equal opportunity; everybody has an equal chance.”

According to U.S. census figures, 22.5 percent of Hispanics in 2003 were below the poverty line, compared to 8.2 percent of non-Hispanic whites. The high school graduation rate of Hispanics 25 years and older is 58.4 percent, compared to 90 percent for non-Hispanic whites. The numbers for college degrees are analogous, with 12.1 percent of Hispanics 25 years and older holding degrees versus 30.6 percent of non-Hispanic whites.