Historian takes new look at Chicana WWII workers

“Every historian seizes on a moment in time on which to build a niche. For historian Marianne Bueno, a self-described military brat, her own experience in a military family spurred her choice to study “the militarization of Chicanos and Chicanas.”

Focusing on the women whose lives were changed by their work at Kelly AFB was another step. How the military came to be placed in San Antonio was yet another.

The 31-year-old Bueno is part of a new breed of historian exploring relatively uncharted slices of history outside traditional, nationalistic confines. Specifically, her research begins in 1941, as the United States enters World War II, and ends in 1972, with the ending of the military draft. She examines the lives of so-called “Kelly Katies,” those Mexican American women who, like their black and white counterparts, worked as mechanics, riveters and manual laborers during the war. They kept planes flying while men fought on battlefields.”

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