Americanos Todos Luchemos Por La Victoria: Americans All Let's Fight For Victory

This poster was created during World War II by artist Leon Helguera. It was created for the Office of War Information (OWI), the World War II agency responsible for wartime propaganda. See the original Helguera's original artwork.

Another wartime agency, the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (CIAA), worked in parallel to OWI, and was responsible for strengthening ties with Latin America. This was part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy, first expressed in his 1933 inauguration speech, when he indicated that the United States would not intervene in the affairs of Latin American countries. By the 1940s, the policy also included the dissemination of positive press, publicity, and propaganda in order to foster amicable relations between the nations. In 1942, with the war in full swing, it was important for the U.S. to have the support and cooperation of its neighbors in the Western Hemisphere against the Axis powers along with a united citizenry on the home front. Both OWI and CIAA, therefore, gave special attention to Hispanic Americans.

Leon Helguera, a New York based commercial artist, was commissioned by OWI’s Foreign Language Division, in January 1943, to create four posters. The posters included patriotic symbols and slogans in Spanish and English, and were meant to appeal to Americans of Mexican descent.

Helguera was born in Chihuahua, Mexico. He attended an American school in Mexico City, and at the age of 17, arrived at the Port of New York with relatives, listing his occupation as “Artist.” In 1918, at the age of 19, he completed his U.S. Army draft registration card. The 1930 U.S. census indicates that he was a naturalized U.S. citizen. He was working as a commercial artist at Fisher-McKenzie, Inc., a Manhattan agency, when, in 1942, he joined with other artists to offer their talents to the U.S. government on behalf of the war effort.