Immigrants among Californians who gave lives for U.S. in Iraq, Afghanistan

Los Angeles Times

At least 58 of the 500 Californians who lost their lives in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were immigrants, according to a Los Angeles Times story based on a detailed analysis.


"At age 7, Victor H. Toledo-Pulido was smuggled from Mexico through rugged mountains into California. He and another soldier were killed in May 2007 when a roadside bomb exploded near their vehicle southeast of Baghdad."

"They judge us, and they say we just come to take their jobs and positions, but we also make sacrifices. Victor worked since he was little, in the fields and in restaurants," his mother, Maria Gaspar, said after the 22-year-old was killed. "He was Mexican, but he thought like an American. And he gave his life for this country."

"Dozens more were the children of immigrants, including Bunny Long, 22, a Marine lance corporal whose parents came from Cambodia, where the Khmer Rouge imprisoned them for four years in a labor camp."

"This is our home," Sim Long said after his son was killed in March 2006 by a suicide car bomber in Fallouja, west of Baghdad. "I'm very proud that Bunny was able to give back to his country. Our country."