Celebrating Tuskegee Airmen of Hispanic and Latino heritage
The famed Tuskegee Airmen are known for their military achievements and battling segregation. But within the Word War II service members’ celebrated history are stories that reach beyond the continental United States: narratives of members born in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Panama who helped define the Tuskegee Airmen’s legacy. They include:
Second Lt. Esteban Hotesse of the Dominican Republic was arrested in the Freeman Field Mutiny, a mass act of defiance against Jim Crow restrictions on Black officers.
Puerto Rican service members Pablo Diaz Albortt and Eugene Calderon navigated the peculiar status of being considered a “third color” under Alabama’s segregation laws and were forced to live apart from both Black and White personnel.
And Wilfred R. DeFour, who emigrated from Panama as a child, helped cement Tuskegee Airmen’s enduring identity by suggesting their aircraft tails be painted red — a decision that gave rise to the “Red Tails” nickname.
These Tuskegee Airmen’s stories, long under-told, are being highlighted during Hispanic Heritage Month, which celebrates the cultures and contributions of people in the Hispanic and Latino community.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Esteban Hotesse
Esteban Hotesse was born on Feb. 11, 1919, in the town of Moca, Dominican Republic. He moved to New York with his mother and sister when he was 4 years old. Hotesse would become the only Dominican-born member of the famed Tuskegee Airmen and one of the few people born in a Spanish-speaking nation to serve as a Tuskegee Airman during World War II.
He attained the rank of second lieutenant in the 619th Bombardment Squadron of the 477th Bombardment Group and was among 101 Tuskegee Airmen officers arrested on April 5, 1945, in what became known as the Freeman Field Mutiny for refusing to obey the Jim Crow system. His arrest took place after a series of incidents involving Black officers challenging de facto segregation by entering clubs reserved for White officers only and demanding service at the Freeman Army Airfield, a U.S. Army Air Forces base near Seymour, Indiana.
In an attempt to enforce segregation, the base's White commanding officer, Col. Robert B. Selway, issued an order that classified all Black officers as "trainees," which barred them from entering any facilities for White officers and directed all officers to sign a statement verifying that they read, understood and accepted the order.
Hotesse, along with another 100 officers, were arrested for refusing to sign the statement. The maximum penalty for their alleged crimes during time of war was death.
On April 19, 1945, the armed forces chief of staff ordered the 101 released. But administrative reprimands were placed in each of their records. In August 1995, the Air Force began to remove, upon request, letters of reprimand from the permanent files of the officers charged at Freeman Field.
In announcing the reversal of the actions taken against these men in 1945, Air Force Assistant Secretary Rodney Coleman said: “The 104 officers involved in the so-called ‘mutiny’ have lived the last 50 years knowing they were right in what they did — yet feeling the stigma of an unfair stain on their records because they were American fighting men, too – and wanted to be treated as such.”
Tragically, Hotesse died at age 26 on July 8, 1945, during a military exercise when the B-25J Mitchell bomber he was co-piloting crashed in the Ohio River between Indiana and Kentucky. For decades, his story remained largely unknown, with only a brief Spanish-language obituary in the Dominican Republic identifying him simply as an aviator.
Hotesse’s legacy is a reminder that Latinos were not only part of America’s military story but also part of its early civil rights battles.
PUERTO RICO: Eugene Calderon and Pablo Diaz Albortt
According to research from the Air Force and Tuskegee Airmen, Inc., in 1944, Puerto Rican aviators went to the Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama to train the famed 99th Fighter Squadron of the Tuskegee Airmen. By the end of World War II, Puerto Ricans had served in various capacities within the Tuskegee Airmen program, including noncommissioned officers in charge of special service offices and as aviation students.
Tech. Sgt. Pablo Diaz Albortt and Eugene Calderon were part of the Tuskegee Airmen program and experienced the complexities of segregation.
CAF Rise Above, an educational outreach program focused on the history and legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen and Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), documents Albortt as a noncommissioned officer in charge of the Special Service Office and Calderon as an aviation student with Class 441, who was subsequently eliminated from the program.
Albortt’s promotion to technical sergeant is listed in the August 1943 edition of Hawk’s Cry, a weekly newsletter published by Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama.
According to CAF Rise Above, when Diaz and Calderon arrived for duty, they found “themselves in a peculiar situation because of Alabama's stringent segregation laws at the time. Because they were Hispanic, they were considered a 'third' color and forced to live on their own, separated from other races.
“Experiences like these were an important reason for the eventual desegregation of the armed services in 1948, but were too late for the service men and women who endured uncomfortable racial divides during the war.”
PANAMA: Wilfred R. DeFour
Farther south, in Colón, Panama, Wilfred R. DeFour was born in 1918 to Trinidadian parents. When his family emigrated to Harlem, New York, DeFour became part of the Great Migration story, one that blended Caribbean identity with American ambition.
Drafted into the segregated U.S. Army in 1942, DeFour was assigned to the 366th Air Service Squadron and 96th Air Service Group at Tuskegee Army Air Field.
After completing administration training at Atlanta University, he was promoted to staff sergeant and deployed to Italy in 1944. Working at Ramitelli Airfield in Italy, DeFour was credited with initiating the decision to paint aircraft tails red, earning the unit its famous "Red Tails" nickname.
This innovation became symbolic of the Tuskegee Airmen's legacy and inspired the 2012 film "Red Tails." After his military service, DeFour earned a business degree and operated a real estate company while working for the Department of Veterans Affairs and U.S. Postal Service.
He retired in 1982 as superintendent of special delivery and parcel post. DeFour died at age 100 on Dec. 8, 2018, at his home in Harlem.
A legacy without borders
As Hispanic American Heritage Month unfolds, these Tuskegee Airmen’s stories are being highlighted, not as footnotes but as part of the broader narrative of America’s World War II history.
SOURCES: Boricuastemstories; CAFRiseabove.org; sayvillealumni.org; Washington Post; blackhistory.mit.edu; St. Louis Daily Dispatch; Tuskegee Airmen, Inc.; https://65thcgm.weebly.com/more-history.html; U.S. Air Force.
