Lessons of War and Gain

Latino historian talks history, fatherhood and what it means to be an American

When I met up with him at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post #2967 in Wilmington, Post Quartermaster Carlos Portillo showed me a document listing medal of honor recipients with Spanish surnames through all of the wars fought in U.S. history dating back to the Civil War.

“There are 61 Latino or Hispanic, or whatever people want to label us, recipients of the Medal of Honor,” Portillo said. “They break it  down by military service … Army, Marines and posthumously.  Forty-one of them were honored in person, out of a total of 61 Medal of Honor recipients.”

Portillo is a second-generation veteran who served in the Vietnam War. His father served in World War II.

Portillo reminded me that the last time I interviewed him, he was still a careerist, working as a facilities specialist while he was curating Hispanics in the American Civil War. That was back in 2005. 

Since then, he joined the VFW and became the quartermaster at the Wilmington Post and is also a part of the San Pedro Battleship American Legion. To date, he’s been entertaining the notion of going back to the Drum Barracks and curating a refresher on Hispanics in the American Civil War exhibition.

Another reason I was intrigued by Portillo was because of my vague recollection that his family was five (now six) generations deep and happened to reside in one of San Pedro’s oldest French colonial style homes (built in 1929).  Portillo made sure I didn’t confuse my vague recollections for facts.

“Well, [you must] remember the original Sepulveda house … real Dodson-Sepulveda house if you look at your history, that’s actually on 13th Street near Richard Dana Junior High School,” Mr. Portillo reminded me.

His wife and daughter turned their French colonial home into an event space, hosting weddings and other special occasions there. Portillo noted that they chose the name “Sepulveda Home,” because it was on Sepulveda Street. The home was featured on the Oprah Winfrey Network in 2016.

For about an hour and 10 minutes, Mr. Portillo and I talked about the pandemic and the good that came from it; and war and the good and the bad that comes from that. We talked about civil rights and the fact that we’re back where we began. But our conversations started with the Californios.

In Portillo’s view, war and the COVID-19 pandemic are just a couple of more processes by which humanity evolves.

Every two months, the grandfather of six publishes a newsletter called Goosetown News. He read from a piece he wrote in the latest publication about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic:

 As we emerge from this pandemic that literally shut down the world, we must pause and give thanks to our creator, to the universe and to the scientists who are figuring out how to slow the destruction of humanity. And we must give thanks to ourselves for having faith, patience and the spirit to weather the storm. Humanity will be experiencing a new renaissance, a rebirth, rejuvenation and evolve into better human beings….

Portillo went on to note that while the pandemic has hurt the country economically and put a lot of people out of work, it has also really helped “homo sapiens” in this country to stop stealing.

“We were bullying ourselves … we were bullying other people … we were bullying the underserved classes,” Portillo said. “It is time that we all own up to it. How can we make this a better world? How can we share the planet? We can’t hide anymore. We need to embrace Americanism. Because it’s all we have going.”

Portillo has three children, all of whom are grown and are parents to their own children. His oldest grandchild has just graduated from high school.

Portillo noted that his grandchildren are just learning how to survive the anxieties of growing up and deal with their hormones during the pandemic. It’s been a major challenge for every child, he said.

“We had to teach our kids this last year how to accept solitude … how to accept boredom … how to entertain yourself one day at a time without going nuts,” he said. “So,  the pandemic has done more than parents can teach their kids.”

 He offers the kind of guidance, support and advice to his children that comes with age and maturity.

“We mellow out as we get older and we share that with our kids,” Portillo said. “Take it easy. Don’t sweat the small stuff; don’t let the large stuff bring you down.”

Portillo said the history as it pertains to California and the American Civil War was part of that evolution.

“These  guys that had land and knew they were going to lose it, embraced Americanism,” he said, bluntly. “They had no choice. You can be on the winning side or be on the losing side; you’re not going to know which side you’re on; you’re going to lose some and hopefully keep some and that’s what happened here. That’s evolution. So do I look back at it and feel negative about it? It’s reality.

“You have to remember, and this probably applies to a lot of Latino-Hispanic families during that era […],” Portillo said. “A lot of these guys probably never heard about the American Civil War.”

Look at some of the photographs from that time, Portillo pointed out.

“These guys were farmers,” Portillo said. “These guys were cowboys, just out there trying to earn a day’s wage. Remember, the Civil War happened 15 years after the Mexican-American War, the war in which [Mexican President] Santa Ana gave away the whole store to save his ass. including Arizona, New Mexico, California and probably a few others on that list. Once the U.S. took over this territory, a lot of the Californios saw what was coming.”

He pointed to the big families — like those of Californio Gov. Pio Pico (who resided in early Los Angeles) and Californio Gen. Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo in Northern California, which consisted of the Bay Area.

“A lot of the big-name families thought they were going to lose everything to the U.S.,” he said. “So, they did what they thought was in their business interest during the Civil War.”

Portillo noted the Californio soldiers participated in the war on the side of the North and the South.

“They formed their own regiments of troops,” Portillo noted.  “Some of these guys came up as lancers because they were cowboys and they basically only had lances. That’s how they came ready for battle. They marched down here, in Wilmington, to the drum barracks, to go East to join the Civil War. The only skirmishes they encountered were Indians in Arizona. But they were ready. They were in uniform and they were sworn in to protect the Union.

“Those in the South fought to save the Confederacy. So you had bands of troops with different titles. Their effort netted the average soldier a couple of meals a day and a fresh horse. For the really wealthy ones, the Californios, they knew they were going to lose everything they had, unless they partook of the war effort. But they lost everything anyway.

“Look at the history here. This was all Rancho San Pedro. The Anglos who came in, married into the families. They did the right things and said ‘Hey, I got a beautiful rich daughter here. But being an American, I already have points here, right? I’m gonna marry her’ and that’s how the Dodsons got in and a lot of other families.”

Portillo is a historian and a keeper of this region’s stories. Ask him if he was always this way, a lover of history, he’ll tell you, “Not more than the average.”

Upon further reflection, he said, “You get curious about how your people got here, like, why are we still at the bottom rung?’

“With all of those challenges as you become an adult, you start asking, ‘What can I do as an individual to bring this up a notch or two?’” Portillo said. “What I did … I went to school. I went into the military like my father.”

A day before we hooked up for this interview, Cub Scouts and the Brownies placed 500 flags at the Civil War era cemetery. Portillo was among the war veterans to speak at the Memorial Day ceremony.

He talked about the Vietnam War and war itself.

“As much as I’d like to pray that there’s a  future without war…” Portillo said. “Since the beginning of humanity, we’ve been warring to sustain liberty and democracy and all things that people cherish. It’s taken wars to iron all of that out.”

Looking back in retrospect, he said that even though a lot of what has happened is not so pretty, all of it needed to happen to achieve a new evolution.

What does it mean to be a patriot?

In very basic terms, Portillo explained patriots follow the direction of their government, without regard to personal feelings, whether it’s right or wrong. He said he didn’t care one ounce for the previous president,  and has no problem expressing it. But when he went to the VFW, he always checked his opinions at the door.

“A lot of the wars we’ve been in, the war I was in was a very wrong war, but I was there. I didn’t question…. Like, ‘Why were we in Southeast Asia?’” he said. “Were we fighting for the rubber plantations? Were we fighting for their rice plantations? What were we fighting for? You know, my personal values, [I believed] it was the wrong war [to fight].”

Portillo said there are so many components to what makes an American.

“We are the home of the brave,” he said. “That’s for sure. If you are a true American, then there’s going to be courage in your blood. If it’s not there, then you need to build it up, because being an American, you’re not a coward. You have to fill that shoe, being an American. You don’t have to pretend to be something you’re not. But being an American requires you to live with courage. When you see that red white and blue flag, you’re proud of it.”

Portillo said he tells his kids that the red stripes represent the blood that was shed. He recalled how as a teenager, when he was dating his girlfriend who later became his wife, he took a trip to Catalina Island. At 19, he was a veteran even then.

“I was already back from the military. I was wearing a red, white, blue jersey — problem colors. I guess the culture on the island was different from out here,” Portillo said. “Latinos were really suppressed back on that island. And these white kids, they saw me and they were on a trolley going in a different direction than us, so they could say what they wanted and I would never catch them. They made fun of me because of the jersey I was wearing. It wasn’t about my brown skin, but because of what I was wearing. Not my brown face, but the red, white and blue. So, being an American, means fighting for that flag, and being proud to fly it. And defend it.”

“If I go to Mexico, I’m told, ‘You’re not American.’” Portillo said. “‘Yes I am.’ ‘Well, am I Mexican?’ ‘You’re not a Mexican either.’ So I’m caught in between there. So you have to stand and deliver what you believe in. I’m an American and I’ll fight until the end to defend it. That is a part of being an American.”

Stand and Deliver

Portillo recounted that one of his first jobs was at the Long Beach Naval Shipyard, which he acquired after joining an apprenticeship there.

“They would hire like 125 apprentices every two or three years and put them through good training,” he said. “The 125 positions were spread across several different shops including welding, rigging, pipefitting, electrical and refrigeration and air conditioning among others. Refrigeration and air conditioning was the smallest. There was only one apprenticeship opening for refrigeration and air conditioning. They had plenty of spots in the other trades.

“To get  into this federal apprenticeship you have to take a civil service test and if you were a veteran, you get 5 points. If you were disabled veteran, which I am, you get 10 points,” Portillo said. “I was working down there as a pipefitter’s helper. That’s how I learned about the program. So I studied for the test. I was planning on becoming a pipefitter apprentice. If I get into that … it’s a great job.”

Portillo got picked up as one of the 125. After the administrator and instructors of each apprenticeship from each trade explained the selection process they were sent out on a short coffee break.

“‘When you come back, we’ll have your name on the board based on your score,’” he recalled.

After the coffee break, many of the new apprentices gathered around the refrigeration and air conditioning trade even though there was only one position.

“I kind of stood back, thinking, ‘I don’t have a chance,’” Portilo said. “He calls us up one at a time. He looks at my record and notices that I worked as a pipefitter,  then says, ‘You want to be a pipefitter, don’t you?’”

“I said, ‘Well, sir, I did … but since I’m No. 1 now, I’d like to take that experience and get into the refrigeration air conditioning trade.’ There was an instructor and one other guy. He brought the administrator of the apprenticeship program to discuss this guy, who wants to get into it. Let me tell you, I was the first non-Caucasian to get into that training. But I had to stand and deliver. I had to convince them why. Well, you have experience as a pipefitter. But now that I’m No. 1, that’s what I want and I got in.

“Let me tell you, I had to fight my way through because I broke that ceiling. And there were some really racist guys in that shop,” he recalled. “They made it miserable for me and I could have easily caved in and lost my cool and said, ‘Screw this; it’s not worth it.’ But I fought and I stayed in there. Finally, they approached me one day and I asked, ‘Did you serve in the military?’

“‘No, I didn’t and I don’t have to,’ they said.

 “‘Well, I did. So I can say I’m more American than you because I risked my life for this country. What have you done?’” Portillo recounted. “It hasn’t been an easy journey for me but that’s what being an American means. Especially when you’re the minority … you’re underrepresented … underserved. You have to be tough.”

Portillo says his upright style has often been interpreted as him having a chip on his shoulder.

“Sometimes you have to have that chip on your shoulder to show that you won’t be steamrolled,” Portillo retorted.