During the early 1980s, Charley Trujillo, a...

During the early 1980s, Charley Trujillo, a former infantry sergeant in Vietnam, read many books about the war.

“I noticed that Chicano soldiers are often glossed over. In fact we hardly exist,” Trujillo writes in the introduction to “Soldados: Chicanos in Viet Nam,” his 1990 book of oral histories, which he believes has filled a gap in Vietnam War literature.

The book is a compilation of brief interviews and recollections of 19 men who give voice to raw, brutal experiences of war. They were cousins, neighbors and brothers who grew up in Trujillo’s hometown, the San Joaquin Valley farm community of Corcoran, which has 6,000 residents.

On Friday, Trujillo, 41, an instructor in intercultural and international studies at De Anza College in Cupertino, will read from the book and sign copies at the Blue Planet Bookstore in Monterey Park.

In the book’s preface, San Francisco poet and writer Victor Martinez says: “The accounts in this book also serve as a corrective reminder to many white North Americans who are, for the most part, kept in a tragic state of unawareness as to how many Chicanos fought in the war.”

Trujillo, who after the war graduated from UC Berkeley and San Jose State University with degrees in Chicano studies, said of the book: “It was just like a little community study, but it’s also so broad as well because it was an international conflict.”

After receiving rejections from more than 40 publishers, Trujillo published the book himself by borrowing $14,000 from friends and using his line of credit on charge cards. The book sells for $9.95. He set up his own publishing company, Chusma House, and now is printing other books on Chicano subjects.

For publishing and editing “Soldados,” Trujillo was honored in June in New York with an award from the Before Columbus Foundation.

The reading is free. Reservations are required and can be made by calling (213) 268-7323. The store is in the Prado Shopping Center, just north of the Pomona Freeway, at 2125 S. Atlantic Ave.