History & nonfiction · Award-winning
Hero Street, U.S.A.
The overlooked story of a Mexican American neighborhood and the young men it sent to war.
- University of Oklahoma Press
- 212 pages · 15 historical illustrations
- 2020 paperback · ISBN 978-0-8061-6734-3
- Best History/Political Book · International Latino Book Awards
- Inspired a Fourth Wall Films documentary series
The story
History from
the other shore.
Second Street in Silvis, Illinois, was a poor neighborhood known as Little Mexico. In 1971, it was renamed Hero Street to honor eight young men from the neighborhood who never returned from World War II and Korea.
Drawing on family memories, soldiers’ letters, historical photographs, interviews, and firsthand combat accounts, Wilson chronicles nearly eighty men from three dozen homes who volunteered to serve their country.