Hector P. Garcia - Founding of The American G.I. Forum

Founding of The American G.I. Forum

After being discharged from the hospital, he began helping other Mexican American veterans file claims with the Veteran's Administration. He helped veterans to obtain services from the VA since the administration was slow to respond to the Hispanic American veterans' needs. In 1948 he began an investigation of conditions for migrant laborers in Mathis, Texas. He found the impoverished workers to be ill-clothed, malnourished, and diseased from lack of basic sanitation. On March 26 of the same year, he called a meeting to address the concerns of Mexican American veterans. This meeting developed into the American G.I. Forum, which soon had chapters in 40 Texas cities and became the primary vehicle by which Mexican American veterans expressed their discontent with the official discrimination against them and asserted their right to equality. The name was chosen to emphasize the fact that the Forum's participants were American citizens entitled to their Constitutional rights. Later, the Forum's patriotism would exempt them from FBI infiltration at a time when many Mexican American organizations were accused of having Marxist sympathies.