Hero Street defines American patriotism
6/22/2026These newcomers’ stories, like those before them from Europe, Africa or Asia, offer important and timely reminders about the principles proclaimed in 1776 and the vital role immigrants played in building and defending our nation.
Their contributions resonate today — reminding us that debates about immigration and belonging hardly are new in the United States and often are misguided.
These Mexican immigrants, like generations of other newcomers to our nation, came in search of better opportunities for their families and a place to earn a living.
The Quad Cities in the early 1900s had its problems. Housing was so expensive and difficult to find that some of these new families lived in discarded railroad boxcars.
In time, though, when they saved enough for modest houses, these families moved up the hill from along the Rock Island’s mainline tracks and repair shops and established a tight-knit little neighborhood around a stub of a street.
That settlement on a dead-end section of Second Street was only a block and a half long. But today, everyone calls the stub Hero Street.
The name change memorializes the stories written by families with names like Sandoval, Munoz and Gomez. Those stories deserve telling and retelling for generations to come around the Fourth of July.
Eight young men from Silvis’ immigrant neighborhood lost their lives in combat during World War II and the Korean War. A small park next to Hero Street provides a daily reminder of those eight boys: Peter Macias, Tony Pompa, Frank Sandoval, Joe Sandoval, Willie Sandoval, Clark Solis, Johnny Munoz and Joseph Gomez.
The irony of their service and their sacrifice should not be ignored in the Heartland or across the United States.
The parents of the Hero Street boys encountered barriers in housing, employment and civic life when they arrived in America. But that treatment did not poison their sons, who were determined to serve their country and make their families proud.
After the wars, city leaders in Silvis decided to recognize the neighborhood and the sacrifice of so many from so few families. Thus, Second Street officially became Hero Street.
In remembering Hero Street, we can affirm that the American identity is not defined just by lives lived long or through the attainment of material gain. Our national identity includes the immigrants and their descendants who embraced the ideals and values that set the United States apart.
President Ronald Reagan aptly described this in his farewell address in 1989. He said the United States was “a shining city on a hill” that stands as a beacon for freedom-loving people around the world.
