Letter from "Buenos Vecinos" to the Office of War Information

The "Buenos Vecinos" (Good Neighbors) club of San Francisco sent this letter to the US Office of War Information (OWI) requesting copies of the poster "Americans All" for their club gatherings. The author attached a miniature version of the poster to the letter. He explained that "this group, numbering about 30, is composed of North American citizens as myself, Mexicans, Guatemalans, Venezuelans, Chileans, etc." and that they meet at the Army-Navy club.

Artist Leon Helguera created the World War II poster "Americanos Todos Luchemos Por La Victoria: Americans All Let's Fight For Victory" for OWI, the World War II agency responsible for wartime propaganda.

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. During the war, 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.