The War Years of the 1940s ... & Post-War Transformations

Thundering booms echoed across Pearl Harbor as America entered the decade, and the second World War.  It would be costly.  Thirty-five to 60 million died throughout the world.  American citizens of Japanese ancestry were denied their rights an imprisoned in interment camps, some in Texas.  European Jews faced genocide in Hitler’s Germany.

America acted.  Factories manufactured the tools to fight back, like the General Purpose (GP) or Jeep vehicles.  Reported labor shortages lead the U.S. to create the Mexican Farm Labor Program (aka Bracero Program) which opened our southern border to Mexican farmworkers.  Everyone helped during the war.  Pedro C. served as a member of Army Air Force Ground Observer Corps.  WWII transformed nations, society, and in the end, technology as the world entered the atomic age.

Back home the Garmon Theater opened its art deco doors to color motion pictures.  American GIs were starting families, buying cars and moving into new suburbs.  In 1947 Pedro C. was recognized for being the first Magnolia Petroleum Co. dealer in the Rio Grande Valley. 

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America's hospitals were filling with Boomers, and Americans were on the move at the end of the decade.  However, in 1949 George Orwell’s 1984 admonished us to be on alert for totalitarianism under the guise of patriotism.  Was he just a Casandra?