Later, after his US return, the fact that he remains poor and dignified is something with all the subtlety of a turn in a punch bowl.
And there is a scene in which as he is tilling a field in the hot sun, a carload of rich lilly-white honkies pile out suddenly and barge in brusquely for a photo with Tonto-the-Hero, whose work is interrupted without warning. And they tip him a nickel, or something before again driving off, just as suddenly...
And the scene is designed to show what meagre gruel his heroism has brought him, and how honkies are insensitive.
AND SORRY, but the movie DOES show black soldiers! It's just that they didn't get suuuuuper PC with the black MIT Ph.D. computer engineer/physicist who sweeps all the Japanese defenders off the rock, that's all.
DO NOT FALL FOR THIS B.S...!!!
What they're pissed about is that the obligatory White Guilt went to a NON-BLACK MINORITY.
I wish I could say I were making it up..!
Oh! Same thing for Jar-Jar Binks, from the Star Wars series...they said Jar-Jar was stealth black, and that because he was RIDICULOUS, well, that makes all blacks ridiculous...
But then later the gay mafia also had to get their dig in, and claim Jar-Jar had been GAY, and a negative image of gays...
HAHAHAH....! You can't make this stuff up..!