772 24 26018 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9ce0168d961bc0bb41880d703e207897.pdf 01c87c76c276c326585a696beb82ded9 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Helen Shiller Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 7/10/2012 Biography and Description Helen Shiller, a Jewish American born in 1947 in Long Island, New York. Her father had immigrated to the United States from Latvia and her mother from Belarus. She moved to Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood in 1972, living on N. Malden Street. Initially she drove a cab and worked as a waitress. At an early age, she became active in the anti-Vietnam War movement while attending college at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. In Chicago, she helped to organize the Intercommunal Survival Committee with Rev. Walter “Slim” Coleman. The organization functioned as a sort of white support arm of the Black Panther Party and later evolved into the Heart of Uptown Coalition, a group dedicated to providing essential services to the poor. She also edited Keep Strong magazine.In 1978 Ms. Shiller ran for Alderman of Chicago’s 46th ward, building on the organizing work done by the Jiménez for Aldermanic Campaign 1973-1975, and making fair housing and stopping the displacement of Latinos and the poor a centerpiece of her campaign. She was defeated, largely as a result of welldocumented corruption and unfair campaign practices by the opposition. In 1979, she ran again. This time she won the primary but did not have the mandatory 51% minimum of the vote. In a run-off election, she lost by a mere 200 votes to the regular machine candidate. �Again, intimidation, racist threats, and a major fire in her campaign headquarters just three weeks before the election made her campaign especially difficult. Ms. Shiller also worked on the Harold Washington Campaign for mayor of Chicago, operating the print shop, Justice Graphics, and publishing a bilingual newspaper, the All-Chicago City News with Mr. Coleman. In 1987, she again ran for Alderman of the 46th ward. This time she won and served six terms, holding the office until 2011 when she retired. �Transcript JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay. HELEN SHILLER: Okay. JJ: Just, if you want to (inaudible), or if you want to give me your name and your date of birth and where you were born. HS: Okay. So, my name is Hellen Shiller. I was born on November 24, 1947, and I was born in Brooklyn, New York. JJ: Oh, you’re from Brooklyn, New York? HS: Yeah. Came to Chicago in June of 1972. I was living in Racine and came here a couple of times before then, once the winter before, the Christmas of 1971, I think. It was either ’70, ’71 or ’71, ’72. I actually can’t remember. It would have had to have been ’70, ’71. I couldn’t have come here that next year. JJ: How did you get to Racine? [00:01:00] HS: I went there from Madison, Wisconsin where I went to college. JJ: So, you grew up -- HS: I grew up in -- JJ: What part of the Brooklyn? HS: I was born in Brooklyn. We lived in Queens. Then we lived in Long Island. When I was 14, there were some family issues. My parents decided the best way to deal with that was to get me away from them. They didn’t tell me that. (Laughs) So, they sent me away thinking -- me thinking, “Oh, okay. I really screwed up somewhere here.” But they sent me away to school to Vermont. 1 �JJ: (Overlapping dialogue; inaudible). HS: So, they sent me away to school, and I was there for three years. And I graduated. It was a very small school, a hundred students, in Vermont. And I wanted to go to a college that was as far away as I could get, at least far enough away that to visit you had to take a plane from the East Coast -- it was harder to travel in those days -- with enough [00:02:00] people that I could get lost and where I could study history and with a very short application. Those were my four requirements. So, the counselor gave me two schools to apply to. I applied to some smaller schools. Didn’t like it. But then, gave me two schools to apply to. One was Madison, and the other was University of Michigan Ann Arbor. And I got the response from Madison first, so I went there. JJ: Okay, so, you mentioned history there. So, what was the --first of all, are there any other brothers and sisters? Are there siblings -- HS: I’ve got -- I grew up with -- JJ: -- and what are their names? HS: I grew up with three brothers. But I have several others running around, brothers and sisters. But I grew up with three brothers. JJ: What are their names? What are some of their names? HS: Bob, Ed, and Larry. They’re five and six years older than me and six years younger than me. So, I was like right in the middle. [00:03:00] JJ: And what do they do now and where (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? HS: The oldest is no longer with us. The other one has been -- was a journalist for years, and then, he did public relations. He lives in Canada and still does that. 2 �And the youngest one is a math whiz who does something with computers that I don’t quite understand. (Laughter) He’s a consultant apparently. JJ: And no sisters at all? HS: I have two sisters that are Brandon’s age, my son, who is now 41 actually. One of them -- JJ: He’s 41 now? HS: Yeah. So, I had two sisters. I was the only one in the family who actually literally, in either family, other than their parents who knew that they were our siblings until the youngest one was about 17 or 18. [00:04:00] And she figured it out and asked me, and I said yeah. We look pretty much alike. And she, the youngest one, died in childbirth, died a few -- she died a few years ago. The doctor -- she was nine months pregnant. And she lived in rural Pennsylvania. They were a half hour away from the hospital. And the doctor put her on bed rest to do a cesarian because he didn’t want to do it sooner. He gave her a week. The night before she was supposed to -- because she had some issues. The night before she was supposed to go have the cesarean, she stood up and went over to the couch to watch a movie with her husband. And when she stood up, when the movie was over, she had a blood clot. She had an embolism. It went into her lungs and killed her instantly. And by the time they got her to the hospital, the baby couldn’t survive either. So, we lost them both. That was really, really bad. [00:05:00] And then, she had another sister. She was the youngest. Then the next oldest was a girl who -- another sister who just couldn’t deal with the family dynamics. So, I see her very rarely. 3 �JJ: But you didn’t -- so, you didn’t grow up all together? HS: No, I only grew up with -- JJ: (Overlapping dialogue; inaudible). HS: Plus I had another brother and another -- I had an older brother that I never met, but I found out about him even though my mother knew and had told -- my older brother who survived knew. But I never knew that we had any older siblings. But it turns out that we did have an older brother who is 20 years older than me. And his sons, who I guess are my nephews and are just maybe 10 years younger than me, found me a few years back. And that’s how I found out about them. And then, everyone acknowledged it. It’s like weird. I mean, I don’t understand the reason for these family secrets, honestly. So, big deal? (Laughs) I mean, what is the secret that’s someone’s there? So anyway, I discovered all sorts of family members over the years. [00:06:00] And then, I have a younger brother who is California who rides motorcycles. (Laughs) I mean, he does -- he works. He does IT stuff. JJ: He does another job, but (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). HS: That’s his thing. You see him all the time on a motorcycle. He’s about seven years older than -- six or seven years older than Brandon. JJ: So, you grew up with both parents? HS: I grew up with both parents and three brothers. JJ: And what kind of work did they do (inaudible)? HS: My mother was a nurse, and then, she taught health in schools. Actually, her pension was from the state teacher’s pension fund in New York. And my father 4 �was a chemist who made paint [inaudible] and lacquers in the ’40s. He couldn’t - they wouldn’t accept him into the Army because he had lied on his age to come here because he came from Latvia when he was 12 years old alone. He had to pretend he was 16. [00:07:00] And so, he lied about his age. And so, everything had him four years old. JJ: So, he came here in (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). HS: So, here’s my dad’s story. This is actually a very cool story, sort of deep story. He was born in 1908. And sometime -- WWI started in Latvia, in Europe around 1914. I don’t know the exact dates. His father was a tailor in a town called Liepāja, which is on the coast of the Baltic Sea. The capital of Latvia is Riga, which is 240 kilometers -- I don’t know how many miles that is -- northwest of Liepāja. So, it’s sort of like that or the other way around if you’re looking from your direction. (Laughs) And Riga is the capital. They’re both port cities. But Riga is the capital. Liepāja is where they lived. And then, father east, obviously, [00:08:00] is the Russia. This is before the Soviet Union. His father used to go to St. Petersburg in Russia every now and then to get textiles for the tailor shop. In around 1914 -- so, my dad would have been around six -- he went there to get -- five or six, actually -- he went there to get his textiles and on the way back got stuck in Riga because Germany had invaded, and they had occupied most of Latvia, everything to the west. But they were stopped right outside Riga by the Latvian Guard. So, his dad was stuck in Riga and he was in Liepāja with his family. So, in order for the family to survive, my dad, who was the oldest of four, would take things from the tailor shop and sell them on the street. So, he -- that’s 5 �how they survived until the war was over. His dad returned. And an uncle -[00:09:00] after his dad returned -- an uncle from the States sent them some money for one person to come to the states. And usually, that was the father, and then, they’d bring everyone else later. But because his father had been gone for four years, they decided -JJ: His father went -- what? HS: Had been gone for four years. Apparently -- we pieced this together, my brother and I. And it turns out I have a cousin who survived the war, which we didn’t think we had. So, we rediscovered our family there. And between my brother and my cousin -- this is what we figured out. That his family thought they were giving him a reward. They were rewarding him for coming. He thought he was being punished, which is why I went to school -- it resonated with me when I heard this story how people think one thing when actually the reason for it is entirely different, the opposite. And so, he came to the U.S. thinking he had been really sort of disowned by his family and at a time when it was very hard to communicate. This was 1920. [00:10:00] So, he came here. He always talked about going to Chicago and then from Chicago coming back to New York. But I’ve checked the manifests, and his cousin -- his family member who vouched for him was from New York. So, I’m not sure about all that. But I know he was in New York, stayed there, was self-educated, came over on the boat knowing five languages. None of them were English. He was very shy, was embarrassed that he didn’t know English. He started studying it, learned that English is a phonetic language, could not figure out how to spell his name, which was Shimyacha, was 6 �really, really embarrassed by it. So, he picked the name Shiller because he knew that was a poet. That meant that must be someone important. He knew he was famous. JJ: So, what was the last name? HS: Shimyacha. And he -- and they don’t know how to spell it either. I have a census from 1940 from Liepāja where it’s spelled twice two different ways. (Laughs) So, he [00:11:00] took the name Shiller, and he intentionally took the “C” out of the name Shiller because he had learned that English was a phonetic language and he was going to be proper about it. He was coming to America. So, that’s how we got the name. And so, I kept it. I gave it to my son. We’ve kept that name. It’s been our thing. So anyway, he came here. He didn’t communicate with anyone in his family. And then, when the war came to Europe, the Second World War, he knew that they were going to have a problem, and he knew that when the news started coming out about Jews being rounded up, et cetera, he just assumed everyone was killed. At the same time, he tried to sign up to fight in the war because he really wanted to fight fascism. Fascism was a thing for him, always. And they wouldn’t let him because he was too old. But he wasn’t, and he couldn’t tell him because he then would have been totally illegal. So, [00:12:00] he ended up starting his own business. (Laughs) It was a long way around. But the only chemical companies at the time were companies that were supporting the Nazis in Germany, Dow Chemical, DuPont. At least, that’s what he thought. I actually don’t have any facts to that, to back that up. And 7 �consequently, he said, “I can’t work for any of them.” So, he started his own business. JJ: So, he came right out and -- you discussed that? I mean, you brought that out or -- HS: Yeah, he talked about this stuff. JJ: “I can’t support (overlapping dialogue; inaudible).” HS: Well, this was -- I wasn’t born yet. But later on, that’s what he told me. He said he couldn’t work for them. Now, I doubt he could have worked for anyone. (Laughter) I think he liked to work for himself. So, he started his own business. And he made paint [inaudible] and lacquers for adhesive -- I mean, for -- I’m sorry -- for textiles, which I think is -- JJ: Was it a big company? Did it (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? HS: No, it was very small. JJ: Very small? HS: It always was small and made a living. Half the time he was going bankrupt. When they sent me away to school, after I was there for six months, he went bankrupt. [00:13:00] The treasurer was friends with my mom and they gave me a de facto scholarship. They couldn’t pay. The school that I had gone to was -- the high school I went to was -- it was an alternative school sort of, I mean, I guess. The founder was a guy named David Bailey who had married a woman, a white woman from South Africa who was the senior English teacher and the epitome of a witch from my own point of view. (Laughter) But he was very -- by the time I knew him, he was already suffering from cancer. He died about a year after I 8 �graduated, I think a year or two. But he was beloved. He was unique, and he created the school that -- he was like a kid when I knew. [00:14:00] But he created a school that -- I mean, without any accreditation -- that had the ability to get students into virtually any school they wanted to go to, from Harvard on down. It was pretty remarkable. And he had -- it was really the school that, if you were from the East Coast, you were one of the Brahmin class, you know, one of those guys, and your family expectation was that you were going to go to all the best schools and blah, blah, blah, but you’ve been kicked out of every one of the rest of the prep schools that existed, Woodstock was the place you ended up. Or if you were from a progressive family who had been otherwise was blackballed or what have you or had a reputation, you would end up there too. So, when I was at school there, Pete Seeger’s daughter was there, Thorsen Horton -- I mean, Myles Horton’s son Thorsten was there [00:15:00] from Highlander School. Paul Sweezy -- I think it was Sweezy -- who was the editor of Monthly Review -- his son was there. So, there were people that were extremely -- were intellectuals or who were greatly involved in movements of the left at the time that had their children there as well. So, this was this really interesting sort of mix or sort of rebellious -JJ: So, was this the first time that you (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? HS: No, no. My parents were involved in leftwing politics their whole lives. But they weren’t -- they’re different than a lot of the people I know who that was the case with. I mean, they didn’t send their kids to any of those camps or -- you know, there were all these different sort of -- they didn’t necessarily participate in that 9 �social life. Although my mother often in the ’30s and ’40s, [00:16:00] went to -- I know this because I’ve seen the results of it. They used to have coffees, like they used to do for the elections (laughs) but among the left. So, they did it mostly for artists. So, they would do it for artists, and what’s how the artist survive. So, I have that print up there, for instance, from Diego Rivera, that’s signed by him -- it’s a print, but it’s signed by him in pencil -- that she bought from him at one of those coffees when he was in New York in the ’30s just trying to survive. So, he would come to New York, and he did murals and stuff. But he would come to New York with his stuff, and he’d go around to different people, and they’d talk about politics. And then, they’d sell their stuff. We have three -JJ: Did your parents organize it, or did they (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? HS: No, no, no, no. My father rarely went, I think, because he wasn’t much of a sociable guy. JJ: So they’d paint (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) -- HS: This was my mother, my mother would just -- yeah. She had at one point -- but I don’t know what happened to it -- a 78 from Paul Robeson, which is how I found out about these things. She said, “Oh, he just came to one of those things I was at. We were both at the same place at the same time.” But I thought this was really interesting because it’s really how they survived. [00:17:00] Alice Neel, who was a remarkable artist who died in 1986, I think, did portraits for a living. And she’d get $200 a portrait. They now sell for 10 times that, if not more. And she -- my mother was looking to give my father a birthday present. In 1958, he had a heart attack. She wanted to give him a present or something. Anyway, 10 �someone suggested -- reminded her that they’d met Alice and she threw these same things, same sort of events. And so, my mother had her do a picture of my dad, and they became really close friends. She had her do one of my mom and one of each of -- my three brothers and I together and then one of my younger brother after he was born. But they became really, really close friends. So, it was -- I don’t know how to describe it. [00:18:00] My dad got kicked out of the Communist Party because he argued with everyone all the time. And I -JJ: So, he was actually a member of the (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? HS: He was. And I think that I know he was kicked out now in retrospect because he had this conversation with me -- we had a conversation when I was 17 or 18. I think it was 18. We actually had an argument about what I was doing, and I wasn’t doing enough. This might be two conversations, or it was one that had two parts. But he was really upset with me because I wasn’t doing enough with the war in Vietnam. That was part of the conversation. But the other part of the conversation was about what communism was. And his point of view about that was communism doesn’t exist. The notion that anyone is living in communism is crazy. These people are out of their minds. Communism will only exist because communism is the pure notion that people actually have what they need and can enjoy the life and don’t have to worry about whether they have their needs met. [00:19:00] Then they can realize their full potential. So, you can’t do that unless everyone is practicing socialism. So, it’s about socialism. It’s not about communism. (Laughs) But his point was even then, unless you’re really doing it in a manner that allows for people to be able to have what they need in order to 11 �be able to realize their fullest potential and have that kind of energy and excitement in the world everywhere, everywhere, then you could never reach any ideal of that anywhere. And so, that was very impactful to me. That had a huge impact on just -- on everything because it was contradictory to the way everyone always talked about stuff on the left and all the intellectuals to make everything difficult. And it was something that I really -- that I actually could relate to. JJ: And you were about how old in this conversation? HS: I was 17 or 18. JJ: About 17 or 18. So, you were still in that school or (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? HS: No, no, no. It was definitely after. It was definitely [00:20:00] when I was already in college. I went to college when I was 17. But I think it was probably the summer that I was 18. But I’m not really 100 percent sure. JJ: But in the alternative school, you were not exposed to other (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? HS: At Woodstock? Well, yeah, totally Woodstock. I mean, it was a common thing for -- JJ: It was Woodstock? HS: Woodstock Country School in South Woodstock, Vermont. It started out as a cow barn. It’s now a horse barn. It’s all gone. What was I going to tell you? You asked me about -- oh, okay. So, Myles Horton ran the Highlander School, and it was pretty traditional, for at least some of us, every summer, some students every summer, to go for a month, either August or July. And I decided in ’68 that 12 �I was going to go by hook or by crook in August, and I started working on my parents. That’s just what it’s like. [00:21:00] They were very protective of me, (laughter) even though they kept sending me away. They thought they were protecting me. But in -- I think it was -- before the summer even began, the school was burned down by the Klan. So, I never got there. But that whole series of things was very impactful on me. So, I was -- that would have meant that that was -- I’m trying to think if it was before or after Kennedy was killed. I was there when Kennedy was killed. I was there -- my first year there -- I went there for three years -- was during the missile crisis because I remember that. I remember being -- I remember I was up there. I was with students, not with my parents. It was in October, I think, the Cuban Missile Crisis. And so, we -- that ended up being our conversations. And there were [00:22:00] -- I mean, they were extraordinary teachers. They were people that just really believed in education and giving you the -- they believed we (break in audio) so we had these conversations that were pretty remarkable and we were encouraged to have them between ourselves. And the school had a hundred students, but it also had -- well, when I was there, I think there were five of us that were either Jewish or African American. But I think by the time -- when I got there. By the time I left there were five -- I think there were five African American students and five Jewish students. But I can’t actually identify them anymore. So, maybe it was still five and five. But they always -- so, for that time -- this was the ’60s; I graduated in ’65 -- that was pretty extraordinary. And so, it was part of the conversation. I mean, I don’t know what to do. But [00:23:00] there was like any 13 �other high school teenagers -- I mean, they made cruel jokes (laughter) about me because I had this really thick Long Island accent, which I worked really hard to get rid over time because I was so embarrassed by their constant taunts against me. I mean, it was a really elite -- the people who were there came from an elitist environment. And it was -- some of the people there came from an elitist environment, and other people there -JJ: (Overlapping dialogue; inaudible) HS: Well, they were from the eastern, north eastern elite, really. They had money. They expected to succeed. At least this was my impression. Although as I think of individuals that I knew, I don’t know that that’s so true. I mean, I had one friend who grew up with the Rockefellers. But he wasn’t a Rockefeller, (laughs) on the other hand. So, I’m not really sure. [00:24:00] And maybe my impression of that and therefore my characterization over the years hasn’t been entirely accurate. But there were people that knew that they had a future across the board. I don’t mean this -- so, forget all of my assumptions or even sort of negative connotations. And these were just kids. But as I’m thinking, I always assumed that their parents were either very progressive or very reactionary, and somehow we all ended up there. But I’m not so sure now because I have no idea. But a couple of my friends, who I was really close to, surprised me when I left. And one of them was the person who grew up with the Rockefellers. The other one was someone from Woodstock, New York, whose parents just turned out to be -- or who himself turned out to be not very progressive. But I don’t 14 �understand -- I don’t actually -- I never actually knew the parents. So, I just made assumptions. JJ: So, they surprised you because you thought they were progressive? HS: No, I’m just thinking now. It’s surprising me now because I’m not [00:25:00] really -- yeah, the two? Well, when I was 17 or 18 or 19 or even 20 and knew all these -- I mean, when you’re in high school -- when I was in high school, my friends were -- there were only a hundred of us. You had your friends. Everyone was an acquaintance. But if you had a friend, that was a real friend, you’d expect that they stick you with you forever and ever. And so, three, four, five years later, as we grew and led our lives and became whoever we began the journey of becoming whoever we were going to become and we’d talk to each other, I never in my wildest imaginations had ever thought that if you disagreed with what someone was doing, you’d never talk to them again. But two of them disowned me when I decided to go to Cuba. It’s like, “Oh, you’re kidding, right?” (Laughter) And especially because the reason I went, I thought, was really appropriate. There had been -- I’m jumping ahead a minute. But there had been [00:26:00] a trip to Cuba in 1968, early ’68, that five members of the Black Panther Party had taken. And two of them had come from one coast and three of them had come from the other. I don’t know which. And they had gone through Mexico. But when they go to Mexico City, they were kidnapped by some American intelligence agency and sent back to the opposite coast from which they came. So, SDS decided they were going to challenge that, and they decided that they were going to have a trip of 30 students, which ended up being 29 white students 15 �and one Puerto Rican, college students. So, we -- people applied, blah, blah, blah. JJ: What college was this? HS: Pardon? JJ: What college? HS: It was from all over the country. So, everyone from all over the country applied. [00:27:00] JJ: And you were a member of SDS? HS: Actually, no, at that point, in Madison, SDS and -- JJ: You were in Madison. HS: I was in Madison, and we had created -- friends of mine actually had formed the Draft Resistance Union. And there was tension between SDS and the Draft Resistance Union. But SDS -- we built the -- I mean, I came back and spoke for SDS when I ended up on the trip. But I didn’t -- so, it was a fraternal relationship though with the Draft Resistance Union. So, it was friends of mine who recommended that they send me. At that point, I wasn’t really -- I was never one for being that -- I wasn’t into organizational structures. I wasn’t into doing organizational work. I was into being there. So, when we had the first civil disobedience in Madison, I was there. I was one of the people that voted to do it, to sit down as opposed to picket. When the Black students went on strike, I was one of the students who went in teams into classrooms to explain the strike [00:28:00] to other students. But I didn’t sit back and organize stuff. I just did 16 �stuff. Do you know what I mean? I mean, sometimes I did because you had to. But what wasn’t my thing. JJ: But tell me about the trip, and I’ll come back to (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). HS: So, we -- the trip to Cuba? JJ: Yeah. HS: So, they ended up picking 30 students from around the country. There’s a lot of back stories, but I’m not going to go into them. I mean, I could, but this is going - this is not going to be an hour conversation. (Laughter) We’re nowhere near Chicago. So, we can have those -- you can go back if you want. But anyway, we ended up being in Cuba for about eight or nine weeks. It was quite remarkable. It was August of 1968. JJ: What did you do there? HS: We did everything there, I mean, literally. We went all over the country. We talked to people everywhere. We had our tourism. [00:29:00] We went through factories, and they showed us all the development stuff they were doing in every field, I mean, from art to construction. We saw the movies that were being made. We went to different theaters. We literally probably -- we went all over the whole island. I mean, it’s not that big an island, and we were literally there for eight weeks, I think, at least eight weeks because we didn’t come back until October, and we went in the beginning of August. So, it was -- and we did go to (laughs) -we did go to one speech in Havana in the big square, which is either called Revolution Square or Independence Square -- I can’t remember. And Fidel spoke, and he spoke, and he spoke, and he spoke, and he spoke. (Laughter) 17 �Fortunately -- my Spanish isn’t great. But Yvette, who was the only nonwhite [00:30:00] student on the tour, and I became really good friends. And I picked up immediately that her problem was that everybody expected her to translate for them. So, I never asked her to translate for me. So, I had to figure out what people were saying. So, occasionally, she would tell me of her own volition. But it was the only time I get even close to being fluent in Spanish, which of course I thereby immediately lost by not using it when I came back. So, I did understand about 50 percent of what he was saying. JJ: But what was the atmosphere? HS: It was unbelievable. I mean, it was extraordinary. The whole place was full. It was the first time I saw -- I mean, people were engaged back and forth. It was the first time -- I mean, we saw more of that later on during Harold’s election. We saw a little of that -- it was reflective of some -- I mean, I saw it on TV; I wasn’t there -- at the March on Washington, the civil rights march a few years earlier. That was, I guess, four years earlier. [00:31:00] But it was -- yeah, it was very dynamic to me at that point. I don’t know before or after or whatever. This was pre Venceremos Brigade. The Venceremos Brigade came out of that visit. So, anyway -- JJ: And the Venceremos Brigade was -- HS: The Venceremos Brigade was organized the following year. And it was students going to apply to go and work for a month or so in the cane fields in Cuba because cane was their primary economic engine. 18 �JJ: Okay. So now, you came back. You’re in Madison. And now you’re working with the draft resistors (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? HS: The draft resistors were actually my friends. It was formed in ’67. And they were doing their thing. And then, SDS -- I came back -- I was a senior -- I came back and I did some speeches and [00:32:00] stuff for SDS. It was that same year was the year the Black student strike. But the prior year, the summer that I went to Cuba, there were a group of students from -- this was the Draft Resistance Union that organized this. And they organized teams to go to different communities all over Wisconsin. And then, during the -- maybe they started that in ’67. But they were definitely doing it by ’68 over the summer. And then, sometime during that year or at the end of that summer, there were people who -it must have been after that because Dan Sweeney was one of them, and he was there in ’68 -- decided that they were going to go to -- by mid ’69, these communities existed. They decided they were going to go to three different communities and start doing organizing work. So, one was Milwaukee. One was Waukegan, Illinois. And the other was Racine, Wisconsin. So, there were [00:33:00] two people in Racine, and then [Mark Zukin?] joined them. And then, he recruited me later at the end of the year to go there after I recruited him to run around and take people to hospital during miscellaneous activities. JJ: So, you recruited each other? HS: Yeah, he did more recruiting than I did. (Laughter) And that’s what he was very good at. And so, there were people in Racine, and there were people in 19 �Milwaukee, and there were people -- by ’69, when I left Madison, there were people in Racine, Waukegan or north Chicago, and Milwaukee. JJ: You never went back to New York (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? HS: No, no. My plan was actually to go to Sweden and weave. (Laughs) JJ: And weave? HS: Weave. I was a weaver. I use to weave literally. I had a loom. I had a huge loom. I had to get an apartment as a student off campus to house my loom. (Laughs) [00:34:00] This is true. I used to weave things. Susan Rosenbloom still has something I wove. JJ: Has a what? HS: She’s the only person. Susan Rosenbloom still has something I wove. JJ: Oh, really? HS: Yeah. It’s the only thing I wove that still exists. Anyway, I went -- no, so, I ended up -- I chose instead -- then I thought for a minute maybe I should go to Mexico and do weaving. And then, I said, “Oh, come on, this is a joke.” I went to Racine. (Laughs) So, we went to Racine. Mark recruited me, and Steve Gold, who also was at Madison, graduating when I did. JJ: Steve Cole? HS: Gold, not Cole. Steve Gold. Steve Cole went to Milwaukee. JJ: So, you knew him then? HS: Yes. And we recruited him from Milwaukee to come -- JJ: You say “we,” it’s still the draft -- HS: Well, okay -- so, no, no, no, no, no. They’re -- I’m not -- 20 �JJ: Okay, you move on. HS: When I saw “we” at this point, it’s the three of us. It’s me and Steve Gold and Mark -- go to Racine. [00:35:00] And we -- I’m actually not sure when Steve went. He might have come at the end of the summer. I don’t remember him at the beginning of the summer. But we went there and the idea was (inaudible) take these guys (inaudible) [have to work or nothing?] because it was really influenced by Dan Sweeney who still -- the means of production. Now, he’s created a whole school actually today in Chicago that deals with making sure that people are educated to be able to continue to work in manufacturing by having a proper education deal with new technologies. But anyway, this was back then. So, the idea was everybody was supposed to get a factory job. So, we go get factory jobs which lasts maybe three months before we’re all blacklisted. But while it lasted, Mark and I had two different -- we were on two opposite shifts, so we never saw each other. But [00:36:00] I discovered that the way he got through his shifts was literally drinking a pint of gin every day. So, by the end of the summer, I started kind of worrying about him because clearly it was having an impact on his health. And in retrospect, what I learned -- what I know now or I knew several -- 10, 15 years later, which we didn’t know then was that he was working in a foundry where the temperatures were 100, 150 degrees, lifting 100 pound pieces of car parts, doing piecework with someone else who became good friends of ours, Nate, who was bigger and stronger than Mark (laughs) and sort of carried him along. But I am sure that was the trigger for his MS. JJ: Oh, his MS? 21 �HS: I am sure. Yeah, it’s how he died. He died in ’98, and I’m sure that was the trigger. About a year after that, he had -- the first time he collapsed -- and [00:37:00] you know, I didn’t -- it didn’t make any sense when you thought about it later because he never had pain. He would just collapse and he could not move. His back would go out. And that happened twice -- once or twice in Racine. One time I remembered -- I’m sure it was twice, but I can only remember one time. But it was horrible. I mean, I had to call a friend of ours, who was big, to come pick him up because he collapsed on our porch stairs midway outside. So, that was a year and a half after that -- or maybe not even that much. Anyway, the point is we were in the factories at the end of the summer. And we’re like, “This is crazy. You’re drinking every day. We never see each other. We’re not doing any work. I mean, we’re working. We don’t have time to even think of doing any organizing. And this is what we really want to do. And shouldn’t we really be finding the young people?” So, we decided that we wanted to talk to young people [00:38:00] and start working in the high schools. And two people that we were there with, Suzie and Jodie, said, “Oh, no.” Whatever, whatever. So, they decided to move to Detroit and work with workers, and we stayed there. And I think that’s when Steve came, Gold, not Cole. So, we’re doing our thing. We go in -- we do stuff that I think today we’d be arrested for -- but which was -- we would -- I mean, I don’t think you could do it today. We took a group -- we started hanging around the high schools and talking to students and talking about who knows what. And I actually have some -- I do have some of our old -- I think I have some of our literature from Racine. 22 �JJ: (inaudible) HS: So, we took a car full of students who walked out of school, got in our car, and drove with us to Chicago to hear Fred Hampton speak outside the Chicago 7 Trial in September, [00:39:00] that one that we -- JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) HS: Yeah. I’m sure I saw you there, just didn’t know it. So, we did that a few times without anyone’s permission or anything, which is why I think it was probably -whatever. But we were organizing among students. We had a little student newspaper. JJ: These are students from (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? HS: High school, public school in Racine. JJ: In Racine? HS: It was mostly, I think, probably about the war and about -- and we were selling Black Panther papers too. JJ: Because we were organizing with the Panther people here to come -- HS: Here, yeah. JJ: -- to the (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). HS: Yeah, I’m sure we did. (Laughs) So, we sold Black Panther papers. So, Mark and I sort of gravitated towards doing more of that stuff and less of being in the factories. JJ: Now, is this part of the survival committee? Was it all -- HS: Not yet, not yet. So, the summer [00:40:00] that I moved to Racine, the Black Panther Party had in California, National Conference to Combat Fascism, the 23 �first one. The ISCs came out of that. And that was in July, I think. And Mark and I had had a huge fight, and some of my best friends from college were living in San Francisco, my roommates. And I said, “Well, screw all of you guys. I’m going to California for a couple weeks.” (Laughs) So -- no, this wasn’t ’68. This was -- I’m sorry (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) I was actually wrong. No, it wasn’t. JJ: It was before then? HS: Oh, wait a minute. Now I’m confusing two different events. But I know I went out there when I was pregnant. JJ: Well, it could have been ’68 (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). HS: There was something in ’68, and I went out there. But then, I went -- JJ: And we went (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). HS: Yeah. But when I went out there, it was ’70. The second time I went out there, it was ’70. So, I went there again in ’70. But ’68 was the first one. And I remember -- and we had had an argument or something. [00:41:00] And I said, “I’m just -- I’ve got to get away, and I want to go to this conference. So, I’m going to California.” But the second time was -- I know I was just a few months pregnant with Brandon. Maybe it wasn’t the summer. It might have been the fall. But I went out there again. I know there was stuff that I did both times. But in -this was ’68. And then, when we came back, we hooked up with -- there was a chapter of the Black Panther Party in Rockford when I -- because I went alone. When I came back, there was a chapter of the Black Panther Party in Rockford, and there was a something -- branch -- they didn’t call it chapters; t wasn’t quite a 24 �chapter -- let’s for the sake of the conversation call them branches, but I think they had another name -- in Milwaukee. Loretta X was in Milwaukee and Harold Bell and Ray Lewis were in Rockford. And we hooked up with the folks at Milwaukee first because it felt -- they actually -- I’m not sure if they were closer or not, but it felt closer since they were in the same state. I think they might have been closer actually. And we used to go back and forth. [00:42:00] We did -- we just did literature. I don’t know why it sort of came to us, both Mark and I, naturally. And him, the writing, me the laying out. And so, we would do stuff with them, and then, we would do our own stuff and bring it up there and print or something. I think they had the equipment to print and we were able to do layout. And so, we went back and forth. They had a mimeograph. But we were back and forth to Milwaukee all the time and we’d get our papers from them. So, we went up there once a week. And then -JJ: And you weren’t working with SDS. You were working more with the Panthers? HS: In ’68, when I left -- ’69 -- it was ’69 that I went out there because ’69 was when I graduated. In ’69 when I left -- so, ’69 when the National Congress to Combat Fascism was. And then, the next -- yeah, so, I went up ’69 and ’70. In ’69, then I [00:43:00] left -- when I’d first come to Racine -- when I’d graduated and first come to Racine, there was a big SDS conference in Chicago. And that was when there was the split between the Weathermen and the Revolutionary Youth Movement. And I remember that because the folks -- I told Mark, “I feel like we’re just going from one bar mitzvah to another.” Especially -- we went to Lincoln Avenue to the old -- oh, what was that film place called? No, Newsweb -- 25 �no, it wasn’t Newsweb. Anyway, we went place on the second floor on Lincoln Avenue. And there was a -JJ: [Newsroom?]? HS: Yes. And we were invited to some party they were having. And it turned out it was a Weathermen Party. And [Mark Rudd?] was there from Columbia. And he was greeting everybody like just what you do at bar mitzvah. I literally -- when I left I said, “I just feel like I just left a bar mitzvah. So, between him and Travis -what was his name -- and a number of other people, we were really being courted, individually [00:44:00] and collectively. And meanwhile, there was [SLM?] and then on the other side who were sort of talking about the stuff -- JJ: [Walter Collin?]? HS: Yes, Walter Collin -- who were talking about the things that we really -- talking about survival programs and other stuff. So, we were organizing (break in audio). So, we ended up hooking up with the Revolutionary Youth Movement folks, RYM II, as I recall it was called. So, we had -- we did -- JJ: So, the Weathermen Underground was RYM I? HS: No. I don’t know what the -- no, I don’t know what RYM I was. I just remember (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) this was called RYM II. And I can’t remember why. I think it was sort of a second generation. It wasn’t in conflict with RYM I. I think the Revolutionary Youth Movement was something everybody talked about. And then, there was the split. Not really sure. I have some of the stuff. I mean, I could probably figure it out if I went back and read some of the stuff I have. I do have some of these old things. [00:45:00] 26 �JJ: You were RYM II (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). HS: But we were Racine, and we did -- I know we did different things at different times. But basically what we were doing there was -- Mark was organizing the lawyers to do a legal clinic. There were -- the lawyers were all either Jewish -- for the most part, at least the ones we knew were either Jewish or Italian. And we got along just fine with (inaudible) them all and got them all to agree to do something pro bono. And I started hanging out with folks doing welfare defense and decided that we should -- and got into it with them and started talking about, “Well, let’s do some advocacy. Let’s do some welfare defense. Let’s look at it as a defense, not just as advocacy. Let’s look at it as a way to help people understand their rights so they can get what they need.” So, we started doing that more. Because -- and the hardcore folks were really just doing agitation, [00:46:00] which was very helpful. But then, let’s get something for it. So, we were doing that. And later on, when we came to Chicago, it became really models for other stuff we did here. But that’s pretty much what we were doing there except things would come up. So, for instance, I discovered that the way they were dealing with the outbreak of rubella among pregnant women was the public -- Department of Public Health in Racine decided, in their wisdom, that the best way to deal with this would be to inoculate -- require that all women who were pregnant get inoculated for German measles. (Laughs) So, let’s give them the measles in order to prevent them from having it. It was insane. And so, we couldn’t -- we told them, “You’re crazy,” and we tried to bring them some medical evidence and they wouldn’t change. So, we picketed for about week downtown 27 �Racine, which I don’t think they’d ever seen before. And after we did that, they actually changed the policy. [00:47:00] They also passed a law that said that more than two people on the street in downtown -- on Main Street in downtown Racine was loitering. And one day -- we had a book store. We started a book store to theoretically survive. It was a joke. But it was a very progressive book store, great books. And it was Steve and Mark and I were the owners of the book store. And we were standing outside the store one day talking because it was really hot. And we got arrested for loitering. And by the time -- I was like, “You’re kidding, right?” But I was really happy because we were really broke, and we hadn’t eaten all day. And we got to have bologna sandwiches, and I got a nap, which I rarely do. And we got out and they had to change the law because they realized they couldn’t prosecute us (laughs) for being in front of our own store. But they passed that law after we did the demonstrations. So, we did stuff like that. And Mark led -- I remember doing one march he organized that was really based on stuff they were doing [00:48:00] here. It was (inaudible) and big and it was -- it expressed his conflicting -JJ: Based on stuff that who was doing? The (inaudible)? HS: People both -- everybody was doing, everyone. Because in the fall, there was -the Days of Rage came out of a demonstration that was organized around the event. I don’t remember if that was what the event was. Do you? JJ: They were (inaudible) the year before the (inaudible) beaten up in the park and they wanted to show that -- the (inaudible) underground. HS: No, but there was something that both the Weather Underground and -- 28 �JJ: Well, we did (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). HS: -- SDS across the -- no, I remember that, and I went on that march. I remember that march. And we went on that. JJ: So, you were with us on (inaudible)? HS: Yes, I remember that. But there was -- or maybe that’s what I’m thinking of. But I think that there was another march that SDS was doing. [00:49:00] It was an SDS march, but the Weathermen went off and broke a bunch of windows and things. And everybody got blamed for it. JJ: I believe that was at that same time. HS: Okay. JJ: Because we went downtown and -- HS: Yeah, yeah. JJ: -- we marched to Humboldt Park. HS: Okay. And I was -- yeah. So, back in Racine, at some point -- I don’t know if it was related to that or not because we were there actually. I don’t know if it was related to that or not. But there was a march that Mark organized, which I always felt was -- expressed his -- he was torn between the two because he had friends in both. He was just torn between the two because he was so frustrated and angry. He wanted to do stuff, and that’s really where a lot of the Weathermen stuff came from that we knew. But it also came from a sense that -- when is the point where you think you can’t have an impact? Because that was it as well. JJ: What do you mean? [00:50:00] HS: Well, I think that if you better -- 29 �JJ: Because that was the discussion at that time. HS: Yeah, that was -- well, I mean, I think the better example of it really is South Africa. But at some point, you take action. You know, there was a whole discussion because there was what was going on in Ireland, what was going on in South Africa, and then people relating it back here. And some people interpreting the fact that there was no legal recourse. And we hadn’t gone as far as they had gone in terms of legal recourse. But sort of jumping from A to Z instead of going through all the steps. And in the process of going through all the steps, I think it became apparent to some -- I mean, some of us felt that going through those steps meant that you weren’t getting -- didn’t jump ahead, that that was really -- that had to be -- circumstances had to be ripe to be able to do stuff that took on a violent aura to it. It really had to be necessary. It really had to be necessary. [00:51:00] It was really a question of necessity. And was it really necessary yet? And that was the debate, I think, that we were all having. And people made different choices. But for students, it was -- I don’t think we had -honestly, I don’t think we had enough life experience. The energy that we had -- I mean, I think about this all the time, and I’ve often thought about it as an alderman, thinking about what other people were doing and saying, in the end, it’s about where is the material impact. I mean, in my eyes for today, in the end, it’s about the material impact. And are the actions you’re taking going to have a better material impact on people’s lives or a worse material impact on people’s lives? What is the best path to actually have the best outcome? Not in the short or long term, but overall, in the real world. I mean, obviously, sometimes in life 30 �and in history, people have had to -- people have been heroes. I mean, the word -- hero is attached -- the notion of a hero is attached to someone who does what has to be done in order for [00:52:00] other people to have things better. So, yeah, that’s right. But you still have to -- you still have to do your best to make sure that it has the best outcome materially. In other words, in terms of people’s lives, in terms of their ability to grow and develop and realize their most potentially -JJ: In terms of people’s lives? HS: I think. So, it’s -- for me, it’s an ongoing conundrum. I think that the energy of youth is irreplaceable and irrepressible in a very good way. On the other hand, I think -- that doesn’t mean that they always know what’s right, that you always know when you’re that young what’s right because you don’t necessarily have the life experiences necessary or the time to have reflected on what that life experience really means. And the whole point is you’re in a process of growth and development and you’re -- being in the middle of the boiling pot is probably great from the long term [00:53:00] perspective because it’s going to give you so much to be able to figure that out and be more impactful later. But in the process, you’re being impactful and hopefully -- and you’re making choices. And so, what does it take for us to give our youth the foundation they need to make the best choices possible and the ones that will lead us in the most humane direction. JJ: So, what made you decide to move to Chicago as a group? Why’d you move? 31 �HS: Well, we were in Racine for three years. I was in Racine for three years. And personally -- and we were doing a lot of stuff. We had a huge clothing program and food giveaway program. We took very seriously building the lifeline for survival. That was really a concept of the Black Panther Party pending revolution. JJ: So, it was connected -- HS: We really did think there was going to be a revolution. JJ: You were connected with the Black Panther Party at the time? HS: All the time we were in Racine, yeah. Okay, wait. I forgot the most important thing. So, we’re in 1969. I’ve left. I’ve gone out to California. I’m back. Mark and I decide we’re going to leave the factory. We start organizing with students. We come to Chicago. We meet Fred Hampton. I mean, I must -- JJ: Where did you meet Fred Hampton? HS: We must have hooked up with [Slim?] at some point because I remember going over to the west side office with him. JJ: Okay. HS: It was me and Mark and I -- and he was -- JJ: And your impression for him? HS: Well, Fred was just -- oh, I also saw him at a speech in Racine -- I mean, in Madison when I was still at school there actually. He came out there to speak. Fred was just incredibly dynamic and very clear. He was well spoken and cursed a lot, but he really made sense. And he had -- I think -- the only thing I can tell you -- it sounds kind of corny, but his humanity just shone through [00:55:00] in a 32 �way that you rarely experience. You knew he was for real. You knew that he was sincere about what he was talking about, and he had a vision. He saw things pretty clearly in a way that was very attractive. That’s what my impression was. JJ: What was attractive? HS: Well, his clarity and his sense of humanity. You actually thought this could be a better world and you could do something about helping being a part of that. That’s how he made you feel. JJ: So, you saw -- you didn’t see it as a Black nationalist type of philosophy? HS: No. JJ: How did you see that? HS: I -- JJ: And I’m putting words (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). HS: No, no, no, I understand. I was -- the first time I saw Fred I was a student. And he spoke at an assembly hall. It was across the street from where we did our first sit in. Shortly after that, maybe a year after that. [00:56:00] And at that point, I had -- there was a lot of -- there was -- it was a campus. So, it was students. They were mostly middle class. So, it’s not comparable to the real world. But in the context of the campus, there was a lot of repression that people who had organized -- a lot of pressure came down on people who had been organizers (inaudible) some of whom were really good friends of mine. And I had seen them really break or were breaking under that. And -- JJ: Pressure from whom? 33 �HS: The administration of the school. And we were struggling. It was obviously. This was -- I think he -- I don’t remember if he spoke the year [00:57:00] of the Black student strikes. But the Black students were organizing most of the time that I was there, at least the last couple years. And their demands were not unreasonable. They were demanding things I wanted to know about. I was a history major. I wanted to know about history. One of the first books that I actually read as a kid, chapter books, as they called -- was Freedom Road by Howard Fast. And it’s about Reconstruction and the carpetbaggers and the whole deconstruction of Reconstruction (laughs) basically in the South. And so, I wanted that history. I thought we should all know that. I thought that the lack of even history that we have, that we don’t learn the same things -- we don’t learn the history of all of us, and we don’t all learn it makes it really hard for people to understand and live together and be able to [00:58:00] respect each other. So, for me, all of that was just part of the real world. I guess the other story that I didn’t tell you is that my dad always talked about fascism. He always talked about how you have to fight it, no matter what. He said, “I don’t care what you do with your life.” Well, he did. But I mean, in the end. He said, “I do care what you do. Just don’t ever get arrested.” But he said, “I don’t care about a lot of things. But I want you to be able to recognize fascism when you see it and do something about it.” That was so important to him. And I just attributed it to his own history. But it was really embedded in everything from the day I was born. I mean, it was just -- it took me a while to understand that fascism is more than Nazism and to begin to see how it related to racism [00:59:00] and other things. But I was very 34 �aware of that by different things that happened, both in terms of things that my parents did that I thought were racist and/or just -- or were objectively expressing the racism of the society, the inequalities between people and the attitudes that people have about each other. So, all of that was part of what I brought -- more with questions and answers, but what I brought to those years of my life. And so, when Fred Hampton was coming, I was really excited. And I took what he said -you know, I never -- I always -- you know, people yell and they argue and they say stuff. But the real issue is what are they saying. And I was prepared to hear what everybody was saying. And so, he was very respectful. He was a respectful person who was also demanding respect, and I appreciated that. I can relate to that. [01:00:00] JJ: And you were also -- I mean, you had a group that was working directly with the Panthers. HS: Later. This was -- JJ: But this was later. HS: The first time I saw him was when I was in college. When I came to -- that was in ’68 I think, around them. It couldn’t have been ’67 because he was -- I think he came -- he started the party in ’68. So, it was ’68 or ’69. It might have been ’69 because the Black student strike was in ’69. It was January ’69, January or February, at least my calendar -- my internal calendar says so. When I came to Chicago, obviously it would have been in ’69 too. I saw him that one time at the rally when we brought the students. I was here and Slim gave us -- with Mark -- 35 �and Slim gave us a tour. We were doing something with him. And he probably started recruiting us in ’69. I’m sure. He was already trying to recruit us. JJ: (Overlapping dialogue; inaudible) come to Chicago or were brought here or -[01:01:00] from different -- HS: Branches of? JJ: I mean, of the (inaudible) coming in? HS: Oh, yeah. Well, in 1972 -- JJ: Oh, it was ’72. HS: In 1972, I moved to Chicago in January. I came here just with Brandon, my son. He was 15 months old. And we stayed with Linda Turner. And I worked on the clothing program. We were doing a clothing program. And then immediately switched over to beginning to work on the rally we were going to have in October, which was a rally to end police brutality and establish community control. And we were doing that at the Aragon in uptown. And we were going to and did serve -give our 3,000 bags of groceries. And Bobby Rush, who was then the minister of defense of the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party, was going to speak [01:02:00] and did speak. And we were going door to door. So, starting in maybe August or September -- it must have been August -- we started going door to door in uptown. Well, maybe we did that for the clothing (inaudible) maybe we had already started. I came here -- it was the end of December though. And so, for that event, Slim recruited the rest of -- recruited everyone who was in Racine and everyone who was in St. Louis to come here and to work on that. And of those folks, ultimately everybody ended up coming here. A few people from 36 �Racine didn’t come until January, but they came down to help us -- or some of them came down to help us. But some of them stayed. Some of those folks stayed after October. But by January, everybody was here. That was really the catalyst (inaudible). And then, the next -JJ: By January of ’73 or ’72? HS: Oh, January of ’73, yeah. [01:03:00] October of ’73 was the big event. And then, in ’73, we started working with the Black Panter Party here on the conference at U of I, conference on police brutality and establishing community control. Fannie Lou Hamer came and spoke and a few other people. So, that’s all I did for the next six months (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) yeah. And then, in January of ’74, we started working on their campaign. And the first thing I did was the -- I worked with [Angie Lynn?] on the press stuff and then I did all your literature. JJ: Angie Lynn from the Young Lords? HS: Yes. So, in January -- and I have these original -- as well as -- I have the original -- in some cases, layouts -- but the layouts, I think, are mostly (inaudible). I have the [01:04:00] original press release that we did, which of course was done on a typewriter. Remember there was -- someone was being evicted on Wilton Street and that was the first thing we did. Anyway, I think that’s what it was. But I actually have it in my box over there. It’s one of the things I want to give you. And almost immediately, shortly thereafter, you had the announcement that you were running. And I almost immediately then for the next year spent 22 hours a day doing literature, either following you around to take pictures, calling the press, working (inaudible) on the media, or putting together your literature, which 37 �is how I learned how to do typesetting and everything. I mean, I used to -- it was how I learned to do a print shop, which we later started, because I’d get the copy from Slim or you or through [01:05:00] Slim from you or whatever. I would then copy fit it to figure out -- no, I would then go by -- I’d learn what it was that we were trying to do. Then I’d go to the paper place and see what ends they had and how much paper I could get for the -- based on how many I needed that would be appropriate to fit that. And usually they were odd, shaped things that they cut oddly. So, I’d get these weird, shaped pieces of paper that would be appropriate for whatever the purpose was. And then, I would copy fit to that size. (Laughs) And then, I would go to the typesetter, who would then type out -- I don’t know how they did it. It was like they typed in one line at a time. But then, you’d get the copy back and you’d have to fit it, and then, you’d have to figure out the mistakes and go back and either fixed or can they give you lines. So, I had to fit everything in. And anyway, this literally took me [01:06:00] -- and then, I would take it to someone else to have a negative shot and then to somebody else to have the plate made and then someone else to have it printed and then someone else to have it cut or bound. And so, in the -- I mean, literally. And most of the time I was asking people to do it for nothing. One of the things that I found here is your campaign disclosure statements that we submitted. And we didn’t spend any money. And that was me. Really didn’t. I got people to do stuff. I mean, in those days you didn’t have to report the stuff you got for nothing, the (break in audio) oh my gosh. I was just like -- everybody was just -- that’s what I did. But the side effect of that was I learned every aspect of doing printing, which is how 38 �we ended up starting a printing company. And that led us to be able to do fliers later. JJ: You said you did some work with Angie Lynn? HS: Yeah, we did the media stuff. JJ: A lot of work or -- HS: Media stuff, yeah. JJ: So, what do you -- HS: We spent a lot of time that year -- JJ: -- remember about Angie? HS: Oh, Angie was great. Well, she was just very smart. She got along -- she was really good with people. And she [01:07:00] could get the media folks to do almost anything. She got them out there. And we -- it was pretty remarkable actually what we did that year, what you did that year, because -- the whole campaign, because you had a significant showing. And I think -- I looked at the figures -- we spent under 10 grand. I mean, that’s just ridiculous. I don’t even think you spent that much. We just did -- it was just a lot of people just working their butts off and really talking to people. It was pretty remarkable actually, the whole thing.= JJ: And during this time, you were still working with the Panthers (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? HS: Well, this was the -- we were the intercommunal survival committee, which we’ve sort of jumped ahead to -- JJ: (Overlapping dialogue; inaudible). 39 �HS: -- the ’70 -- okay. So, when I came to Chicago -- JJ: Just trying to (inaudible) connection. Just trying to -- HS: I know. JJ: -- show that there was a connection. HS: When I came to Chicago in ’72, I came to work with what had been -- [01:08:00] people who had that people’s -- what was that? I just lost the name. Information center -- it was the People’s Information Center. And that was Slim and Kathy, Roy O’Dell. We then -- JJ: Because that started in Lincoln Park. HS: Yes. JJ: The People’s Information Center. HS: That’s right. And during the course of time, short time or even maybe at that time, it became (inaudible) they established a relationship with the Black Panther Party to become an Intercommunal Survival Committee, otherwise known as ISC. And that’s pretty much what we were until -- pretty much what we were for a long time. We started to create community institutions in the ’70s. So, there was the People’s Community Service Center and the [01:09:00] Uptown People’s Community Learning Center and the Uptown People’s Law Center and the Chicago Area Black Lung Association and then ultimately the Heart of Uptown Coalition which was a really huge mass organization. But these were all organizations that did very specific concrete things, that dealt with people’s survival every day. But the people who put the time into doing it were people who were members of the Intercommunal Survival Committee. That’s sort of the 40 �tie for all this. And we had a relationship with the Black Panther Party, which -we sold their papers. But we also did things. Our goal was always to create an intercommunal society, to create the opportunity for this to be really basically a place where everybody could realize their fullest potential. And to do that, we had to deal with these issues that we have in our real world. JJ: So, an intercommunal survival society said [01:10:00] everybody was able to meet their potential? HS: In my view. (Laughs) JJ: But I mean, this is what -- this was the goal. HS: Well, yeah. The template for the Black Panther Party, I think, laid it all out pretty well and I think, from my perspective, reflected for us as well the -- what was true there would be true for everyone. JJ: Now, who would you be working with? Because at that time there was no Panther folks after Fred Hampton. HS: No, there was. JJ: There was? HS: Bobby Rush became the chairman of the Black Panther Party in Illinois. JJ: After Fred? HS: Yeah, yeah. And was until -- I mean, the party had a life on and off. Bobby got into politics in ’73, I think, or so. But he was in and out. I know he ran for -- JJ: So, he ran for office in -- HS: -- something in ’73. JJ: -- what? In ’73? 41 �HS: The first time he ran for state rep he didn’t win. [01:11:00] JJ: Oh, so, when I was -- HS: It was ’73. JJ: -- running he was also running? HS: Well, that was ’75. So, by then, he -- I mean, I remember we had -- he was still in the party. I remember -- JJ: So, he was running before that. HS: I remember Tom Lindsay who used to do a lot of layout with me, did a mock front page of one of the major city papers, I think one that doesn’t exist anymore, maybe Sun-Times -- I don’t know -- of headlines of Bobby Rush winning for mayor in 1975. So, this was in ’72 or ’73. We were just playing around one day. It was interesting. Something historic, actually when you think about it. I might not have been Bobby. But we never expected a Black man in those days though, right? So, the party really pretty much existed in Chicago, although not in any way, shape, or form in the same level because the health center. I don’t know when the health center closed. [01:12:00] When -- I never finished telling you the most important thing. So, we’re back to ’69. So, it’s Thanksgiving of 1969, and Mark and I are going east to visit our families, his father in New Jersey and my parents in Long Island. And I remember he had a huge fight (laughs) so we ended up disappearing and going our own ways and then coming back on the -came back on the same plane. We were flying back to Milwaukee because everybody was reevaluating -- no, actually, this is what happened. Everybody came to Milwaukee in October for -- I mean, in November -- sometime in 42 �November, for a conference. We were -- the people that were doing this external work who had left Madison and were in one of these three communities and trying to figure out what to do or wanted to go to one of them. So, we had a meeting. And [01:13:00] it was a conference. And it was -- we just -- it was obnoxious. So, we said, “We’re leaving, and we’re going home for Thanksgiving. We’ll be back.” (Laughs) We get back on the evening of December 3rd. And we’ve had this huge blow out. We’re not talking to each other. We go to sleep. We're woken up a six o’clock in the morning. Someone tells us Fred Hampton’s been killed. So, Steve is there, Steve Gold. I think that’s when Steve came. Steve wasn’t in Racine until then. He was there as part of the people that come to the conference. So, Mark and I look at each other and we say, “Well, we have to go back.” Suzie and Jody have already said they’re not going to return. And we said, “Now, we have to work together. We don’t care. We’re not going to live together. We don’t like each other. We don’t care. We’re going to go back. And who wants to come with us?” And Steve said he didn’t. And we’re going to go. We’re going to work under Black leadership. And we’re going to be serious about what we do [01:14:00] because we can’t just walk away from this. And so, we went back to Racine. We were like (inaudible) we hook up with this guy who turns out to be an FBI provocateur, which we don’t find out for six months, which is why then our relationship directly -- because we were going to do that on our own. After that, we hook up more directly with people in Milwaukee and people in Rockford. But that’s how we made those connections because we realize we’d really blown it. And we went to -- we knew the people in Milwaukee. But 43 �we went to Slim and asked him -- when we figured out what was going on, which was at least five or six months later. And he put us in touch with the Rockford folks. So, that’s how he hooked up with them, with all those people. JJ: With the Rockford Panthers? HS: And with Milwaukee. Oh, Milwaukee, we did on our own because we met them during that time. We went to whatever memorials and met people there. JJ: So, that was in ’69 you were with the Rockford Panthers? HS: Yeah, yeah. And then, we went to -- well, after Fred was killed. JJ: And Rockford was a branch of Chicago (inaudible)? HS: Rockford was a branch [01:15:00] of -- JJ: Of (inaudible). HS: Yeah, yeah. And Harold Bell, who was the head of the Rockford chapter, was in the -- and Mark Clock was from the Rockford chapter. JJ: (inaudible) HS: And he and Harold Bell were in the apartment when Fred was killed as was Doc Satchel. And Doc Satchel was -- Ron “Doc” Satchel. Ron was his name. Who was the member of the -- very young member of the Black Panther Party who had ran the free clinic that they had on the west side. And it was a pretty extraordinary place. And they recruited all these doctors and were doing great work. And Doc was his nickname, obviously. Doc was also in that apartment and was one of the people that received quite -- he was shot up pretty badly, never -- I don’t think -- [01:16:00] completely healed. I mean, he was really messed up physically, and obviously that affects your life. I remember -- I got 44 �there because I was trying to remember when the clinic shut down after Fred was killed. And I think it survived for a while. So, he was killed, but the programs continued on some level over a period of time. JJ: Okay, so, now you’re -- we have the (inaudible) campaign (inaudible). HS: Before we get -- maybe it was afterwards. I’m sorry. That was later. JJ: (Overlapping dialogue; inaudible). HS: So, we did the (inaudible) campaign, your campaign. The next year I actually spent -- ’75 -- what did we do in ’75? We stayed in uptown. I’m trying to think of what -- I don’t know. So, the ’70s are [01:17:00] -- there’s the ’70s -- JJ: I went to jail during that time. HS: What’s going on in the ’70s? JJ: There was some negative thing where -- that was going on during that time. So, how did you respond to that? How did the group respond to that? You had done all this work. And all of the sudden -- HS: You mean how did we respond to -- explain to other people or among ourselves? JJ: Among yourselves and then other people. But among yourselves. HS: Well, it is what it is. (Laughter) You know. We are who we are. Shit happens. And it doesn’t change the overall dynamic, which is what everything was about. So, there’s pressures on people that cause different reactions. It’s just part of life. But it’s not about any one of us individually. It’s about what [01:18:00] needs to be done. So, the issue was what needed to be done. And that didn’t change. I mean, when you ran for alderman Lake View -- no, when I first came here which was two years before you ran for alderman, Lake View was 75 percent Puerto 45 �Rican. By the time I ran and won in 1987, Lake View was maybe 15 percent Puerto Rican, maybe. That is a difference of 14 years, 15 -- what, ’73 to ’87, 14 years. That’s huge. And going back to Lincoln Park for a minute, similarly Lincoln Park changed similarly as dramatically, even more so over a longer period of time, a little longer period of time. The interesting thing [01:19:00] and I think what always struck me about Lincoln Park was that even in the ’80s -- and Lincoln Park stuff happened really late ’60s, early ’70s -- in the ’80s, there were people still hanging out there. So, just because people had moved out doesn’t mean they move on. And that’s what I learned from Lincoln Park, and it was repeated in Lake View. And it’s always -- and to a certain extent, repeated in uptown. The difference is that there’s -- because of AIDS and because of the imprisonments -- I mean, the change in drug laws and because of (inaudible) there’s fewer people to hang around. But it hasn’t changed the fact that there’s people hanging around. It’s just not the same people. So, the dynamic is -- and it’s interesting because I think it leads to some of the -- this is actually really interesting. I think -- [01:20:00] and this is anecdotal obviously. But I remember going back and seeing people in Lincoln Park that I knew from Lincoln Park. I remember going back to Lake View and seeing people that I knew from Lake View. Here, people say, “Oh, there are all these people hanging around,” that they don’t like, and they blame me for it because I found them places to stay or whatever. And they say that’s because -- but they’re not necessarily from here. The people who hang around here, the people who come -- and they weren’t necessarily doing anything. They might have been doing some drugs and stuff, 46 �but I don’t think so necessarily. That might have been a side thing, but that wasn’t the main reason they were there. Today what you find people hanging out on the corners is because they’re here to do business and they’ve come from other communities to do the business. So, it’s a totally different dynamic that creates a much higher level of violence. It’s interesting. Now, they connect and know people here and meet them, so it’s not altogether quite as simple as I said. But it’s sort of interesting. It’s a whole other area of study people could do about gentrification. (Laughs) But [01:21:00] the real point is that when you do gentrification, the thing that you go at the heart of -- and this has been true any -it’s even true when they built Robert Taylor and tore down a neighborhood. What was the -- they built something new. What was the neighborhood they tore down? It was a stable Black working class community of people who owned their homes. And they created a future that everybody thought was going to be this great future, new housing. And it was built so poorly and it was organized and designed so poorly and then managed so poorly that it was made -- it became an impossible place for people to live. That was going in one direction. But it’s always -- if you want to do what you want to do with land, it’s always about destabilizing the people who are there. And that’s an acceptable -- sometimes it’s almost Machiavellian. I think it was more Machiavellian when Robert Taylor -because it sounds to me like it was intentional or more intentional or so clearly [01:22:00] out of a total blind spot of racism. The rest of the gentrification comes out of more greed where it’s acceptable that you can profit from the bad acts of someone else that does act to undermine and destroy people’s lives and maybe 47 �equally as Machiavellian but from a greed point of view as opposed from a racially motivated point of view. But it ends up always taking advantage of race because that takes advantage of people who are a disadvantage. And whether you’re poor white or you’re Black or you’re Latino, you’re still reeling from the dynamic of race. JJ: Now you mentioned poor white, poor Black, poor Latino. So, we’re looking at these campaigns during that time and the type of people that were involved in the campaigns. I know there were students and that. [01:23:00] But I mean, the -for example, the Young Lords and -- how did you see the type of people? Were they students? How did you see them? HS: I’m not -- JJ: In other words, what type of -- how did you see the activism? How was -- you’re coming from -- HS: You know, I have to say that we were so focused on what we were doing. We were intentional about not getting engaged in the politics of the organizations, of anyone. And we stayed away from the left too. People sort of thought we were standoffish. But we worked throughout the ’70s and really up until the time -- the early ’80s. Our focus was really just doing the work. It was quantitative change leads to qualitative change. Every day you talk to people. [01:24:00] Every day you educate people. Every day you provide services. Every day you learn what is that is needed, the people need, societally speaking, that people really need. What needs are in their lives? Do they have enough food? Do they have enough clothing? Do they have the medical treatment that they need in order to 48 �be able to grow? Are they receiving a proper education? Do they have access to education? Do they have jobs and access to them? Are they being prepared to be able to actually be full human beings? We realize who they can be. And every day we were doing something that related to that or that we interpreted to do that. And we all did different things. And sometimes someone else told us what to do and sometimes we told someone else what to do. And sometimes we collectively figured -- always we had some sort of a collective discussion about where we were going or what we needed to do. And almost every day, at least for me, had to remind myself [01:25:00] what the context was, what the reason was. So, it was a constant reevaluation of what we were doing and why we were doing it. But we worked so hard. I don’t think (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). JJ: The Young Lords -- because you had an -- HS: Well, I’m talking -- JJ: -- independent (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). HS: Well, what I just said related really to the ISC but also pretty much to anyone that I knew in the Young Lords at the time, pretty much anyone I knew in the Black Panther Party at that time. I mean, where people were committed, that’s what they did. And so, that was always gravitated to. If you were serious, then I would sit and do stuff with you I would do it for -- and this is true to this day, I suppose. But if you’re serious -- if you’ve got a problem that you’re trying to solve and you’re serious about it and it’s something that’s really going to be a positive, not a negative, in terms of humanity or humankind, whatever, then I’m there. If I can 49 �help, I’m there. [01:26:00] You got me. You got me until I can’t help you anymore. JJ: And that was going on with all the groups (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? HS: I think that’s -- I mean, that was my perspective. JJ: That was year. That was year. HS: If George was sitting here, George Atkins, he would say, “Yeah, right, Helen,” (laughter) or, “Maybe you or not all of us or sometimes,” and put a grain of reality to it. But that was always my -- I’m sort of crazy and passionate and don’t know when to stop. (Laughs) JJ: And so, now, we go -- the campaign is over. We did very well. We got about 38 percent, 39 percent of the vote. And now, what’s the plan? But we lost. I mean, we lost -- HS: The election. JJ: -- the election, but not the -- HS: Yes, so, we launched the Heart of Uptown Coalition. We start doing country music Sundays and we’re full-fledged in uptown now. We start doing country music Sundays at the Hull-House. JJ: Because there’s no Latino (inaudible). HS: They still are there, but people are moving. Some people coming uptown. [01:27:00] This is process, so it doesn’t happen overnight. And we’re in uptown and we realize and we’re very clear that in uptown at that point, there are the largest concentration of Native Americans outside of a reservation, an Indian reservation in the U.S., in the country, largest concentration of poor white people 50 �in the country, the only census track in the city where you can actually live and be an integrated couple, some of which you can live more easily than others, one of the few integrated census tracks in the city, the place where [01:28:00] a significant number of Japanese families came to after their internment from the camps in California during the war. And now, they were all the aging population. They were all seniors. But they had some real institutions and cultures here. And we learned that just by canvassing. It was like everybody lived together. But clearly, uptown had been a port of entry. And because there had been some -- the location where they had built during the ’60s -- so, it was still relatively new -- late ’60s and early ’70s -- the -- some of the (break in audio) HUD buildings, which were buildings that were built with low interest rates. That was -- during that period of time, the interest rates were double digit. And so, these were very - two and three percent, I think. And so, they were building -- [01:29:00] they built 10,000 of them in the city. And almost a third of those were built in uptown in Lake View. So, we had -- and who lived in them were people -- they each had their own character. But the ones in Lake View had -- but they were really -- I mean, one building had a lot of people who worked for the state of Illinois and were young professionals, largely African American, but not entirely. There was a building that had a lot of -- there were buildings that had Africans and Asians and Latin Americans. Everybody lived in these buildings. Some of them had more Section 8, some had less. Some had 100 percent, some had 20 percent. Some had in between. All of them had below market rents which meant that they could -- it was the only rent control that existed in the city. They couldn’t raise the rents 51 �without approval of the federal government because in return, they’d given the developers very low interest rates. A few of the developers ended up -- turned out to have been decent managers. Most of them were terrible. [01:30:00] And ultimately, fast forward 20 years later, nationally a significant number of those units that were built with these fines -- this program, actually ended up going back into the -- were foreclosed on by HUD and ended up back into their inventory. But in uptown, in Lake View, it was 50/50 in terms of good and bad management. But there was a huge diversity of people that lived in these buildings as well, which added to the diverse nature of the community. But we started to -- but there were real struggles. The tenants wanted to have a say, and they had a legal right to have a say. So, there were issues everywhere. We were having, in uptown, during that time -- there was -JJ: So, you were looking at neighborhood diversity as a good thing? HS: Yeah, yeah, it was an objective reality too. So, this is ’75, and we have [01:31:00] -- so, that’s sort of a description, a little bit, of the community. Now, there was -- there had been prior -- six years or seven years prior to that, the city had decided to build a college in uptown, which was taken as a very cynical gesture by many people because they initially said where they wanted to put the college would have displaced about 5,000 people. So, it was like, “Okay, so, you want to build a college for people who live in the community. But to build the college, you want to move all the people out of the community. How does that add up?” (Laughter) So, there was a huge deal about that. This was before I came to Chicago. But there were people -- I think the Young Lords might have 52 �been involved a little bit. But that was when the Young Patriots were up here and [01:32:00] the original Rainbow Coalition. At any rate, there was a compromise, which -JJ: (Overlapping dialogue; inaudible) HS: Yeah, that’s exactly right. And so, there was a compromise that wasn’t a very good one. JJ: But Patriots were (inaudible). HS: That’s right. And the compromise was sort of the liberals negotiated a compromise. The reason I said it wasn’t very good was because they didn’t displace 5,000 but they did ultimately displace about 3,600. But the compromise was to build one building initially, to initially build one building and displace 1,200 people. The problem is that the college clearly had an intention of continuing to take land and to build more and more. And so, while they broke ground in ’74 or ’75 on the college, they were still moving on the rest of the housing [01:33:00] and had already destabilized -- you saw it. I mean, I saw all this happening. When I got here, where the main building of the college was completely vacant. But across the street was not on other side. So, there was Sunnyside and there was Racine. And there were people living and flourishing everywhere. And every day there was a fire or somebody no longer had their heat because all of the pipes had been taken out of the building or whatever or there was a new contract buyer in the building or whatever. But one of those things was happening to everyone in the buildings almost every day. And until we got to the point where they had -- people started to have to find ways to resist. And 53 �ultimately, because of the resistance that people had to the college expanding, they had to -- they did get a few of the buildings on Sunnyside, but they stopped. We really finally stopped them when they got to [01:34:00] like one layer of buildings in. And so, if you look at a map today versus a map 30 years ago, what you see is that Sunnyside jogs a little bit because we stopped them. And so, Sunnyside just was remade a little bit farther south. But they did take the other side of Racine. JJ: How were you able to stop them? HS: Well, it was lots of demonstrations. We went down to the college board all the time. In fact, I think that the first speech I ever gave when I was -- I was really shy. I can’t even believe you remember anything from those days. I mean, I was terrified to speak or say anything to anybody except if I was on a mission and I could do it and if it was one on one. But the first time I had to speak in public was at one of their meetings. The city college board was meeting at Truman College. And oh my gosh. Somebody -- I think it was Slim. And somebody stood behind me and literally pushed me to the podium because I was like in shock. [01:35:00] Anyway, stage fright. But we did all of that. But that was later. Continued to always -- then we wanted -- when they finally built it, we wanted them to actually educate somebody. JJ: Because there were several -- HS: But there were a number of public projects that were designed to be built where people lived allegedly for them. So, we had built in uptown, and the same thing happened where building by building by building was speculated on by people 54 �who made money off of the market in different ways, either by doing contract buys over and over and over again -- definitely milking the building. JJ: It was (inaudible). HS: You buy -- you sell your building to somebody else on a contract. You let them collect the -- you still have the insurance on it. You let them collect -- they collect the rents, and they have to pay you your money every month. So, you’re getting money every month. They get whatever they get -- what’s different from that. It’s probably not very much. And that goes on. But that’s how you make sure you get your money. [01:36:00] But it’s not legally your responsibility anymore. But then, when the building finally burns, which it inevitably does, either at your hand or someone else’s, you get the insurance money. And it was a scam that went on until the late ’70s, early ’80s when we -- JJ: What was the scam? I mean -- HS: Oh, there was a ton of people involved in it. And we tried to get 20/20 involved a few times. They finally did get involved. They just blew it. I mean -- what’s his name? Geraldo Rivera. JJ: He did that arson (inaudible). HS: Yeah, but we originally tried to get him out of here a year earlier. He would have saved some lives. And we set him up in an apartment and everything and said, “This is what’s going on. We know. We canvas every single day. We’ve been putting (inaudible) patrols. We know what’s going on. We know they’re going to hit this building. And we’re going to try and stop it. But we’re out there. We don’t think we can stop it. But we can protect people. But we’re there. But you need 55 �to tell the story so we don’t have to keep doing it.” [01:37:00] He said, “Well, I have to tell the bomb and arson squad.” I said, “Well then,” we said, “If you tell the bomb” -- Mark said, “If you tell the bomb and arson squad, then they’re going to be told. They’re clearly in collusion.” They said, “No, no, we have to do it, blah, blah, blah.” So, they did. So, of course, it didn’t happen. JJ: So, (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) collusion with the city (inaudible)? HS: Well, this was -- well, somebody in -- I mean, I wouldn’t say the city. I would say city policy was to encourage building -- city policy created the conditions for opportunists to successfully operate. That’s what I think. JJ: But it was individuals that were doing (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). HS: Took advantage of it. Individual opportunists. But because of the city’s policy. JJ: (Overlapping dialogue; inaudible). HS: Yeah, yeah. No, exactly. But if you’re really looking at solving the problem, from my point of view later on as an alderman, that’s exactly right. And it was really an interesting conversation. [01:38:00] Then you’ve got to look at it from the point of view of the material impact. If you’re looking at it saying, “This stuff is crazy. This is impossible. We’ve got to shake it up.” You’re going to polarize and do whatever you have to do that. For me, the line comes when you do that from the perspective of having a real -- making a policy change that impacts people’s lives for real versus when you do that for egotistical reasons. And as the alderman, it was so clear to me when people were doing one versus the other. And that’s what drove me nuts. And then, when people were doing -- honest people were doing their organizing -- we had the situation in my last term that really -- 56 �JJ: How many terms did you have? HS: Six. JJ: Six terms (inaudible)? HS: Yes. In my last term, there was an organizing effort to [01:39:00] -- around housing, which was a great organizing effort. And the stated goal was to create - this was not the stated goal. In my view, any goal that had to do with housing would create additional resources for affordable housings. That had to be -- that was the reason you do anything. So, the coalition of folks dealing with this came in and said, “We are going to demand that there be a requirement in the city that the city must spend 20 percent of all its resources it gets from TIF funds on affordable housing.” On the face of that, that sounds great, except that’s not how TIF works. And it was impossible, and they could never meet it because most of the TIFs -- not most, but a significant number of the TIFs don’t even have housing included in their purpose. So, you can’t spend money on housing in those TIFs. [01:40:00] And so, you have to create a way -- JJ: But they play it in the media is -- HS: Yes. JJ: -- that it’s geared towards (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). HS: Oh, no one understands it. It’s like so -- and this is in the context of people attacking -- like up here it was in the same time I was doing [Wilson Yard?]. And the folks up here that were opposed to TIFs were opposed to TIFs because they didn’t want it to include affordable housing. So, you have this bizarre dynamic. And they wanted it to be taken down state and have them change the law, not 57 �the way the advocates wanted, but the opposite. But everybody, I thought -- it seemed to me anyway -- was misreading everyone else. So, I said, “Look, let me” -- first of all, they did a study on the TIFs. So, I said, “Let me look at your TIF stuff.” I mean, I have some credibility here because this has been my thing. So, I looked at it, and I got about half way through. And I’m telling Cha-cha, the stuff that I looked at, everybody had access to. It was online. I did it all online. But you had to know how to have access to it. So, I said, “Look.” But it was on the city’s website. [01:41:00] So, I said, “Anyone can do this, and I’ve done half of for you.” I spent 12 hours straight just doing this. I dropped everything else because I want -- but I ran out of time. We had a schedule plan for a meeting. I said, “We’re halfway done. This is what I’ve come up with. If you guys give me some help or do it, we can get the rest of it done. I just can’t do the rest of it because I have a few other things I have to do.” I mean, I was the alderman, right? And they said, “No, we’ve already done our study. We don’t want to redo it. We don’t care. The horse is already out of the barn, and we’re having a rally next week. So, we’re not going to change anything.” And I’m like, “But what you’re talking about doesn’t fit with reality. At least let’s get something that we can really negotiate around material impact with them.” We had a disconnect there somewhere along the decided that everything I was saying I was doing to protect the administration because I had made a deal to get Wilson Yard done. And it was not true. JJ: This is what they were saying? 58 �HS: Yeah. Now, I understand where they felt that way. And it was true that [01:42:00] I was definitely working with the administration to get Wilson Yard done. I think that we influenced each other. And you could argue who had more influence over the other, but I know I had huge influence on this city and on the past administration on affordable housing. But what I really felt was critical of this moment of time was that there were policies that the city had about how you could use TIF money where it could be spent on affordable housing that needed to be changed. And by changing that, you could actually do a lot more with it, because we were limiting what we were allowing people to do with that money, one, and two, there were various areas outside of the TIFs that required change in city policy that would also create a lot more resources for affordable housing. And I was trying to get them on that page to do it. And because of my relationship with the administration, I was able to get everybody in the same room. And we got to an -- [01:43:00] this was over three years -- got to an agreement that had a real material impact, back to the material impact notion. But there were people in the room that had gotten so far out on what this 20 percent requirement that they felt -- I think they felt like it was their personal credibility that was at stake. And my point was that is never going to be agreed to because you’re basically asking them to set the city up -- the city to set itself up to be sued and then we’re going to send money to defend the suit that we should be spending on affordable housing. So, why is that even in your interest to do that? We shouldn’t even be going there. That’s the give because the take is so much bigger. And here's the take. And I listed about 10 things that really 59 �would have materially increased the resources we had for affordable housing. And they wouldn’t go for it. So, six months [01:44:00] later, after the election, the primary election and everyone is shocked at Rahm Emanuel won outright, then they take the original deal, which didn’t include any of improvements and I no longer get them to do it because they laughed at me and said, “Why do we have to do it? We don’t need to do it anymore.” And they voted for something that was a compromise that these guys agreed to. They got nothing and they declared it a victory. And it’s like okay, that’s not good organizing. You did this extraordinary -- I mean, that’s great. You did an incredible job of organizing. You brought all these people together. You brought the city to the table. And instead of taking something that had a material impact on a symbolic thing, you gave it up and you came away with no power. JJ: (Overlapping dialogue; inaudible). HS: It’s a coalition of people all over the city. And they were (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) well, the coalition of groups. It was a coalition of organizations. JJ: Are they still doing that? [01:45:00] HS: Well, the core group is still doing what it does every day because it is sincere on what it does every day, I think, and it deals with people who are homeless. But it does a lot of stuff that does have a material impact incrementally with people’s lives. But ultimately, you’ve got to really create the bricks and mortar. And if you don’t create the bricks and mortar, we’re not going to have the choices. If you don’t have the housing, you’re not going to be able to put people into the housing. 60 �JJ: And your way of -- and you see the (inaudible) what way? I mean, how do you see that? HS: Well, what I’m saying is that they had this extraordinary campaign. They gave us an opportunity -- organizing campaign (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) they gave us the opportunity to actually create the issue that forced some creative thinking and some give and some change in the way stuff was being done that would have created more dollars for bricks and mortar and at a moment in time that it would have been really important because it would have been before a change of administration that would have [01:46:00] meant that the new administration came in looking at the status quo, which would have been a different status quo and moving from that so that you would have only had to have talked to them about maintaining that status quo or improving it. But instead, you’re back here. You’ve gone two steps back instead of two steps forward. Am I clear? No. (Laughter) Okay, so look -- JJ: So, do you think they were going back because they already had a position of strength (inaudible)? HS: Well, no. I think they had a position of strength that could have been used to have a material impact on the issue that they were raising. And instead, they shot for the -- they went for the symbolism instead of the material impact. JJ: Okay. That’s (inaudible). And you were trying to get some kind of -- HS: Yeah, and ironically in this instance -- JJ: -- victory. You were trying to get a (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). 61 �HS: Yeah. And in this instance, the symbolism ended up being interpreted by the mass media as just being anti-TIF. Now, we could argue with TIFs until we’re blue in the face. But the objective reality is that for the last [01:47:00] 15 years at least -- well, last 24 years, since Harold Washington was first elected -- since Reagan was elected actually -- federal dollars in housing, in HUD, have been diminishing either for community development (inaudible) grant funds or for housing. They’ve been diminishing. Direct funds for that have been diminishing over that period of time incrementally. Andin the last 15 years the primary area of growth for resources in the city that’s been available for any kind of affordable housing on any level, from 80 percent of median income all the way down to zero percent of median income, has been through TIF dollars. Fact. And so, to attack TIF dollars without figuring out how to make that continue to be the case or how to improve that is [01:48:00] cutting off your nose to spite your face, I think. JJ: But you were saying though that the TIF dollars -- they were saying one thing, but they really were not -- it wasn’t providing affordable housing. HS: No. JJ: (Overlapping dialogue; inaudible) what I’m saying. HS: Well -- JJ: So, when -- HS: No, no, no. What I’m saying is that TIF was -- JJ: I mean, I don’t want to attack any money (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). HS: No, no, no. Here’s what I’m trying to say though. TIF became the primary tool that the Daley administration had for economic development. And that economic 62 �development subject includes among that affordable housing. The city has some other resources and gifts for affordable housing, primarily access to tax credits, which don’t actually come through HUD, I don’t think. Anyway, tax credits come through the state and the city gets some and the state gets some. And they allow a developer to sell [01:49:00] -- to syndicate the tax credits they have to people who are willing to pay for them up front so they can get their taxes off the IRS later. And so, that money can be used for development. And there are still some -- what they call home dollars, which comes from HUD, which is free cash, which can be used for things under construction of low income housing, and vouchers now -- not Section 8, but not really -- they’re not on -- those really are what CHA has. And although there are some available through CHA for the general market -- but nothing like in the ’70s or ’80s. And there’s still some CDBG, community development, block grant funds, much less than there used to be. And only a small amount of that gets spent on housing. So, we’re much more restricted. There are some loan programs and other things. But it’s much more restricted than it used to be. [01:50:00] So, if there is a funding mechanism that the city has created that is under attack but which also is a funding mechanism that your area of interested, i.e. in this case housing, has been able to benefit from, then I think that you should be careful about how you polarize the situation. And we’ve experienced in the last -- well, we always have experienced a backlash to people -- there’s always been the “not in my backyard” dynamic in Chicago. It's why when Dorothy Gautreaux filed her lawsuit and there was a consent decree in 1968 that said the city could not build a single unit of a public 63 �housing without building a scattered site unit of public housing, that all public housing (break in audio) because nobody would let them build a scattered site housing in their [01:51:00] community. And the scattered site housing couldn’t be built in the Black community, it had to be built into integrated census tracks, of which there are very in the city, or non-Black -- mostly Black, I guess Latinos in there too but it’s -- I don’t know. That got litigated separately. But you couldn’t have more than -- the minority, I think, was both Black and Latino -- more than 40 percent of living in a census track be in that minority -- be a minority. So, that was a response was not in your backyard. So, everything stopped. So, you have dynamic that’s ongoing of not in your backyard. A lot of the people that -when the newspapers or whoever did an expose on the TIFs and said, “Look at all this money that’s sitting there. No one’s using it. It should go back to taxpayers.” The teachers, who had a legitimate issue, [01:52:00] and the housing advocates who had a legitimate issues, i.e., we want education, we want money on housing, said, “Oh, then let’s take all of that and give it to us, and then we can do it.” Only the money -- it was more complicated than that. A, most of the money that the newspapers said was there wasn’t really there because it was committed or hadn’t been collected yet. B, the money that was there was there and each was in an individual district. And you can only spend TIF money in the district or in an adjacent one by the district. C, a lot of that money was already committed to education and the board of ed because they were building new schools. So, it’s a more complicated conversation. The only reason -- the only people that benefit from making it all seem like one thing are people who just 64 �want to get rid of all the stuff that it does. And everybody can jump on a bandwagon and say, “We don’t like this, that, or the other.” But sometimes when you do that, you’re actually benefiting someone who doesn’t like what you like. They might be in that same coalition. [01:53:00] You just don’t know each other. Everybody’s just out there. It’s, I think, part of the dynamic of our day where there’s so much information. It’s too much to get through. You don’t really get it. And it’s part of what’s happening all over the world. And then, things get sorted out. JJ: I see what you’re saying. I see your point of it. What would you -- looking at it -trying to look at your side, which I -- I’m in that kind of a situation too because -you have Latinos that were displaced, for example, and not only Latinos, but poor whites and African Americans from the lakefront and the downtown area. How do we correct it? There’s clear discrimination there. How does that -- but you can’t pinpoint it because of the various TIF and all these other programs that the city council has come up with. So, I mean, how can [01:54:00] we correct that there’s clear discrimination but legal discrimination. What would be your -- since you -- because I know that you’ve been able to do that in uptown. You’ve been able to help poor people stay in uptown. HS: It’s not a simple question. And the core -- JJ: And this is off the top (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). HS: No, I understand. JJ: I’m just trying to get your expertise in that. 65 �HS: I’ve had this conversation a lot with different people, especially in reviewing what we’ve done, the whole story in uptown. And I have to tell you -- this has come up. No one would -- there isn’t an alderman who would ever want -- they might say they’d like to be like me. I’ve heard people say that. There’s no one who ever wants to do what I did. I worked too hard. I didn’t even want to do what I did. [01:55:00] I couldn’t do it anymore. I mean, I couldn’t do it anymore because conditions changed also. But I’ve been going back and looking at the stuff and all the things that we did, especially in my first three or four terms and -I mean, then my next -- last two terms were really different because they were about making sure that stuff actually happened, (laughs) that the results of things happened. And you only have so much control over the world around you. But I had a core commitment when I became alderman. And I think I stuck to that. That core commitment was that at least -- I was going to do the best that I could do to ensure that resources that were available in the city and in the ward for people as a result of there being people with fewer resources were going to spent to the benefit of [01:56:00] people with fewer resources so that if you had money that was coming into a community for a college, you would make sure that the people who needed to go to that college when the money came in were still going to be there when the college was built or for a health center or for a school, all of which were our story up here. And my first year as alderman, I went to -- I started going to the U.S. League of Cities conferences. That is an organization of municipalities all over the country. They are mostly small, but there are also some larger ones. And we all go to it. So, I would go to those. 66 �And they had these workshops for days. So, I’d always go to the development workshops, and I’d always ask the same question because there would always be presenters who would tell you their success stories. So, I was always asking, “Okay, so you did that. Were the same people there [01:57:00] at the end of the development who were there at the beginning of the development? Did they get a chance to benefit from it?” And usually the answer was complete and total silence. You could hear a pin drop in the room. I suppose I asked the question too directly and they knew the answer -- but really, I never got an answer other than no -- sometimes people were honest -- or really mostly it was silence. And I realized that I was probably going to -- that this was like a -- raising the question was -- there were two things I could do that had value. One was raising the question, and the other was doing my best to protect in uptown and my ward, whatever the boundaries were -- mostly uptown, the existing affordable housing and grabbing every possible opportunity that I had to create additional housing. So, the next thing was [01:58:00] -- okay, so how do I make sure I’m able to do that and stay honest? So, I then -- it was my practice to be dealing with survival issues. So, people said always they look at their alderman for services. So, my next thing was -- and I started this actually when Harold was mayor. I’d been doing it since ’83, these workshops in the community about all the different city departments. So, I knew a lot about sewers, and I knew the condition of our sewers. They were in really bad shape. I got into sewers because I figured let’s go where no one else is looking. So, I went underground. So, I got really detailed. We built -- when Harold was here, I was able to take advantage of him, 67 �and I figured sewers are a big deal. I had him set up for me to meet with the city’s chief engineer. I had her teach me about sewers. And then, I proceeded to go about the business of finding out [01:59:00] what was the status of everything that we had and then getting that rebuilt. We had, when I got elected, two collapsed sewers. So, it wasn’t -- I mean, I had an opportunity -- I had to fix them, and they were big, so that was huge. So, I was sort of a step ahead of everybody. But then, over the course of the next three years after Harold died, I had to deal with the fact that I was in the minority. And I just did my work, and I never dealt with the commissioner except at budget time. So, I took the budget, which I considered the most important thing that the city did because -- that the aldermen did because that was the one thing we were elected to actually do, the one legislative responsibility we always had. And it was the one way you would know how the money was spent. And if you wanted to get stuff done, you had to know where the money was. So, I would study the budget every year, and I would study it by asking questions because they don’t really tell you unless you ask. And then, I learned how to ask questions. But I’d get really frustrated and pretty irritated when people didn’t give me answers, and I was still an alderman. So, over the course of time -- [02:00:00] I mean, it took me 20 years to get all my questions answered. But I did get them answered up until the last day I was there. And nobody wanted to not have their questions when I came there. And they also didn’t want to have any outstanding service requests because it became well known -- I mean, I would ask them that in front of everyone else. And there’s ears on the city council during budget. Everybody’s hearing it. And 68 �the one thing that Daley didn’t like was ever any bad stuff in the press. And oh my gosh. Everything I said was going to go to the press if it was negative. And I was not gratuitous with that. You really had to be doing something wrong. I mean, I didn’t just go off. I mean, I think if you do that, then you become a joke and no one pays attention to you. So, I was not -- I didn’t do that. JJ: It just (inaudible) you had to work with him. HS: No, I’m talking about the first 10 years. JJ: And I’m only saying that because we of course opposed the law (inaudible). HS: Yeah. [02:01:00] I’m talking about -- JJ: But symbolic, not (inaudible) personally, but symbolic. HS: Right, right, right. So, I am very critical of the administration, but I need to get stuff done. So, I am studying the budget, and I am asking questions, and I’m developing relationships with all of the secondary level of -- the people who actually do the work in the departments. They don’t make a lot of the policy, but they make enough of the policy that they get the work done. They can decide if they’re going here or going there. They’re the ones that are going to get them done if something doesn’t get done. So, they don’t me complaining about anything. They don’t really want my praise either. So, it’s great. But they really actually end up liking working with me because -- except if you’re in [02:02:00] CDAT, in which case I just have to intimidate people, unless you’re in one of the departments that just was too macho, and then, I’d find other ways to deal with it, but ultimately to get them to deal with my staff, most of whom often were women. So, that was -- so, we’d do a two-step on them. But we learned how to deal with 69 �all of that. But I really developed relationships. And I was pretty -- we were easy to work with. I mean, around budget time I might have gotten a little bit whatever, but if I had to deal with stuff with the commissioner. But we were -- I was very careful -JJ: (Overlapping dialogue; inaudible). HS: I never fronted off anybody. I just needed to get the work done. And that’s how I always did it. It was more instinctive than anything else. It wasn’t like I had a plan. I just knew I had to get the work done. I know how to get stuff done. I know that if you want -- that if I’m the person you’re talking to and I don’t have anything to say about getting it done, then I’m the wrong person you should be talking to. So, if I know that’s true for me, [02:03:00] then I can’t help you if I don’t get to make the policy. I’m just passing it on. So, if I’m talking to somebody and I’m not getting the answer I want, then my first question is, “Who makes this decision? Let me talk to the person who’s actually telling me what you have to tell me?” And I get to someone who can make a policy decision, and then, I would deal with that person. But that would mean that next person who I didn’t yell at who everyone else is yelling at but I was really nice to would then help me out the next time because why get -- you don’t kill the messenger. You don’t need to kill the messenger. You really don’t. Actually, if you don’t, then they can become your messenger too. So, we just worked our butts off. And I had a crew, and we worked. And my staff -- and we worked our butts off and really with the goal of, on a day to day basis, we were going to have a material impact. And then, I would go downtown and ask all these questions and force the issue. Now, 70 �Daley’s point of view, I think, [02:04:00] politically was that -- he took over in a very polarized situation. And he had initially around him this very tightknit group of people who were whatever they were -- I mean, I’m not going to get into that. But really, until they were gone, it was impossible to deal with them. I mean, Yules, Degnan -- Degnan was different. Yules and Degnan were different actually. Yules -- I have nothing good to say about him, so I won’t say anything. But he was -- I’m glad he was forced out of the city. Made a huge difference for everyone. Degnan was really interesting because in 1984 when Harold was mayor, there was a heatwave like we just had and there was a real -- and several people in a nursing home in the west side died. And he immediately -- his whole -- I think [02:05:00] Lonnie Edwards was the commissioner of health. Anyway, we immediately put together a plan to deal with heat that then was used every year after that. We had a few other heat things. And it was a really good plan and it worked. Never had been one before. In 1995, we had another heatwave. And the Daley administration -- it was ironic because it’s all very connected. On Friday had been 90 degrees, over 90 degrees for two days at that point or three days. It was Friday afternoon. So, I called at quarter to five because I wanted to leave a note on my office door. I called the Department of Human Services and said, “Where are your cooling centers,” just assuming they’d have them. They said, “Oh, we’re not opening any cooling centers this weekend.” And I went ballistic on them. I said, “People are going to die. You have to.” They said, “Well, whatever.” The next day at noon, I was at an event called by the Jane Addams Senior Caucus where -- in a church [02:06:00] on Belmont. There were 71 �500 people. The place was packed. And the mayor was there as well. He came to speak to them. And they demanded to know from him -- and I was there too as one of their alderman, and Bernie Hanson was there as alderman on the ward. They wanted to know -- they demanded and got from him at that meeting a commitment to build a senior building. And we ultimately built it. We had (inaudible) when we couldn’t a library there. And I saw him there, and I said, “You know, you really need cooling centers.” And as we left there, the news reports started coming out about all the people that were dying. And on Monday, I met with Degnan and Yules and Victor Reyes and George was with me. And I said, “It is not [02:07:00] in my nature to take advantage of people’s deaths. I’m not going to do it. But you guys have a heat plan that you won’t use because it was Harold Washington’s. And shame on you. And these are the elements.” I gave them 15 points of a heat plan. “And all 15 of these things need to be done by Friday or I will go to the press and I will talk about how you didn’t open up any of the cooling centers and how you did absolutely nothing until people had already died and yet you had the plan you could have used and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But if you do that, that’s it. I won’t make a big deal about it because the issue here is people are dying and we have to stop it. And I will work with you on this. And I will stay in the background. But if you don’t do it, I will blast you.” I saw Degnan on Friday morning. He said, “We did every” -- I’ve never seen the man smile before. He said, very solemn, “We’ve done everything on your list, everything.” [02:08:00] And then, he gave me a smile. “So, I suppose you won’t be going to the press.” And I said, “If you did everything, we’re cool.” 72 �JJ: (Laughs) (inaudible). HS: But I appreciated that because he took me seriously and he did it, maybe because he took me seriously. I guess it’s always good to be taken seriously. And I would have. I mean, I just -- but I would have been in tears because people were dying left and right. It didn’t make any sense. And it was so simple, the stuff they did. And I look now -- I mean, one of the things was that we made them go get those sprinkler caps and put them on the fire hydrants. And so, when they were talking this week about the heat wave last week and the heat wave and how dangerous that was, I’m like -- I debated whether I should call and say, “Dammit, just go get those things out of storage somewhere? They are really okay, and you can go out there with -- use your caps” -- well, we don’t even have caps anymore -- “Use -- you can do that.” [02:09:00] Because that is -heat’s a real thing. That was just one of my (inaudible) things. But the point, I think, about this notion of -- how do you do what you do and how do you get that done? So, I was really focused on housing. And during the ’90s we had a huge problem getting some of the housing stuff done. We really -- I had -- there was property on Winthrop. In the ’90 census, I inherited the 4800 block of Winthrop. And I had engaged the entire block and the entire building of 4848 in a discussion about what to do with that housing and had -- what to do across the street with the empty land and how to create something that would allow for really a mixed income. Now, when I talk about mixed income, I mean -- what really is anywhere from zero to 80 percent of median income in the city, right? I mean, really it’s sort of -- 73 �JJ: But they don’t (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). HS: How do you create stability? JJ: Right. [02:10:00] HS: And that means being able to have people come and live their lives, which is if today you work, tomorrow you don’t or you really do well but then something happens in your family, whatever -- you have to allow for all of that stuff -- or you’re really doing poorly but you’re working every day. Whatever. JJ: So, that’s the -- the mission is try to create stability is what you’re saying (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? HS: Well, yeah, and in the real world so that anybody, regardless of their income, has what they need to be able to have a roof over their head. JJ: But you get into -- how does that (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? HS: Here’s the point. The market takes care of anyone who can afford it. And if the market takes care of everyone really, then I don’t care. I don’t need to mess with the market. The problem with the market is that people aren’t able to interact with it, for one reason or another, or the market is destroying their own stability, which is -- depending on where you are with the cycle of speculation. [02:11:00] People in uptown or in Lincoln Park during periods of gentrification often are destabilized and to no fault of their own because that’s what the market is doing. That’s what the government -- JJ: There was some racism involved in it -- HS: Totally. JJ: -- in Lincoln Park (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). 74 �HS: There’s always -- I mean, that’s part of the dynamic of the status quo. JJ: Whether it was economic or (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). HS: I think that race plays in and out of all of it. I don’t think there’s any question about that. Race is the cutting line in our society. It’s the core of our existence. It’s the core of our foundations as a country. Our constitution, exhibits, in some measure, the history of correcting, improving on the limits of its own founding. And one of those improvements has been, in my view, outlawing discrimination, dealing with issues of racism [02:12:00] objectively in the law. The fact that there’s people today talking about during that back is enough to actually make me catatonic at some moments in time. That’s really a setback that is unimaginable to me but really quite extraordinary. So, it’s an ongoing process because it is part of who we are as a people and is aggravated by any effort or any stronghold individually collectively that we may have that diminishes one group for another’s benefit and then takes advantage of that and has [color of law?] to do so, both personally and economically or in any form of power. I mean, it is what will destroy the country, if it’s not dealt with. I mean, it is what would destroy any society or any culture, whether it’s a small culture -- you’re talking about a small community or one that you’re [02:13:00] talking about a whole government or one that you’re talking about internationally. JJ: Yeah. But I’m saying is that the bottom line is that that’s what happens in those areas (inaudible). HS: Totally. Well, all of them. Well, it’s racism (break in audio) reiterate what I said earlier. I think that -- 75 �JJ: (Overlapping dialogue; inaudible). HS: No, but I think it’s racism that allows a situation (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) it’s racism that allows the situation to occur when it negatively impacts poor people as well, whether they’re -- or any people as well, whether they’re white, Black, or Latino because it is that dynamic, which the core of dehumanization that undermines our growth as people. Sorry. I just think that that’s true. So, yeah, of course. And it’s important to understand and acknowledge the specifics of it at different times, especially when there’s a possibility of changing it or changing [02:14:00] what’s allows. But there’s the legal aspect, and then there’s the practical aspect. JJ: So, is there a possibility of changing that, or is that just going to remain the -- HS: Oh, I think that. JJ: -- the same? HS: Oh, you mean do you think the people are inherently racist? No, I don’t. JJ: No, I’m saying -- I mean, clearly that’s what happened in those areas. I mean, do you agree? HS: I think that there has been historically structural racism in the city of Chicago. JJ: Okay. And then, so what -- I’m just trying to -- I’m -- HS: Okay, so, let me go back to -- JJ: -- have you thought about it? Have you thought about (inaudible)? HS: I always think about the things. I think the -- one of the -- there are two things that Harold did when he became mayor that I think were very insightful. He said that we -- well, there was one thing he said that had two parts to it. He said that 76 �if we’re going to change a city so that it serves everybody, then we’re going to have to deal with institutional racism and institutional corruption. It’s not about individuals. It’s about the institutions that allow people to act in a certain manner and actually encourage them to do so. That’s why changing law is actually important. [02:15:00] Changing laws are all the same thing, different (inaudible). And he said honestly, that takes a long time. And he gave himself 20 years to do it. He didn’t have 20 years. But he put in motion a series of things that really have had a huge impact on the city. And what I was getting to about Daley was that, as a practical politician, he came to a conclusion, which I think was more clear after these guys left, the ones that I was just talking about. But he came to -- or at least he was able to open up his immediate circle to be able to -- whether he thought this before or not, I don’t know -- but clearly a decision he made was that he needed to out-Harold Harold. So, there was a bar [02:16:00] that Harold had set at a moment in time. I think if Harold had been here with us longer, the bar would have continued to rise. But Daley took the bar. He may not have risen it higher, but over the course of the next 15 years, he met that. He actually -maybe even 10 years, no 15. He actually met that. He did a series of things that Harold was very clear about. So, he made sure that we -- he did the affordable housing stuff. I mean, he actually established certain rules and guidelines that the city had to follow. He created -- he worked with the aldermen and make sure we had an ordinance that dealt with minority contracting and did things to protect it and successfully defended it in court. He -- whatever. I mean, there’s a whole list of things. So, that was a smart political move [02:17:00] because he needed 77 �the Black community in order -- he wanted to have the Black community. He wanted to also change his image of who he was. He was doing all those different kinds of stuff. That’s not to say that there’s not a lot of criticism -- I’m just talking about this thing you raised here -- or even that there wasn’t a lot of racism that carries on. But the institutional racism that those things attacked changed, in some measure, the city. The corruptions, it’s clear that -- and everybody protects their situation because they’re protecting themselves, especially when you’re talking about corruption (inaudible) going to jail. If you talk about racism, then you’re just talking about whether -- it might affect someone’s job. But they’re not really -- it’s a little bit -- unless they kill someone. So, the -- plus it’s more -- [02:18:00] I don’t know -- they’re both accepted. That’s the problem. So, with corruption though there’s -- I mean, there’s been so many changes. And the problem with corruption is it’s not just in public life. It’s not just in the city. I mean, it's true with racism as well. But with corruption somehow everyone denies -- people acknowledge racism generally. They may say, “It’s not me,” but they acknowledge it generally. Corruption -- they really like to put it just on the politicians. But the truth is corruption thrives in the political world because it is rampant in the corporate world (laughs) because who else takes advantage of it? I mean, really, who’s always benefiting? So, it gets a little bit more complicated. And to me, the cynicism which is -- what do what we were earlier talking about, about this disconnected or about how viewing things from different perspectives -- which I really liked that conversation. To me, what I was trying to say was -- there’s a line -- and I talked about it as individual versus [02:19:00] 78 �collective. But I think another way to talk about it is cynical versus intentional. So, I don’t have any problem being skeptical. And I certainly have (inaudible) times in my life being paranoid because sometimes there’s a reason to be. If you are assigned an FBI agent, there’s a good reason to be concerned about the FBI. And I’ve had that experience. So, I mean, I know that they’re there. That’s not paranoia. That’s just an actual fact. Whether it makes me be -JJ: Who (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? HS: In Racine we had our own personal FBI agent. We did. We used to talk to him. (Laughs) It was -- I wish (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) remembered his name. I do remember what we looked like. But cynicism is really -- undermines us because there’s nothing positive about cynicism. It saps your energy, and it makes everything bad. And often [02:20:00] when there’s a polarization, which is done for organizing reasons. It’s positive when it’s done in a manner that really has an objective that will create the opportunity for material impact. But then, you have to take that. You’ve got to take the victory and run with it. Do something with it. I think. But if it’s really just about proving something is bad, then it’s just about cynicism, and it does not help make anything better. That’s my problem. All it does is foster anger. And honestly, in the world we live in today, we don’t need any more anger. We’ve got enough of it. JJ: I see. I agree with that. I agree with that. But then, I still see the (laughs) other point. The point is that they’re frustrated too because there’s no -- HS: I totally get that. JJ: -- nothing that -- 79 �HS: Well, and part of why -- JJ: -- has changed in all these years. HS: And part of why we -- well, there have been some changes because I mean -- JJ: No, significant changes because you [02:21:00] have the lakefront that’s really white -- HS: Except in uptown. JJ: Except in uptown? No, like -- that’s (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). HS: But listen, but that’s what’s so frustrating about this. I mean, there’s been a lot of gentrification up here. But we still have been able to make sure -- JJ: Even the word “gentrification” is like -- it’s a nice term to put on what effect on these people’s lives including the youth and the gang and the violence that came from an unstable environment that was created. So, how do we correct it? That’s what I’m saying. HS: And what I was trying to say is that we have -- I have a lot of -- JJ: And I don’t (inaudible). (Laughs) HS: We’ve had a lot of gentrification up here, and we’ve also had a lot of intentional actions to ensure that there continues to be at least some affordability and people [02:22:00] who have fewer resources are able to stay in this community and to be able to -- JJ: I think this is (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). HS: Well, yeah. But I think that’s important to stress that even though we’ve done that, we still have had a lot of gentrification. And we have not -- I don’t think -and one of the side effects of that is you have this hugely volatile group of people 80 �who are so meanspirited and react -- my opposition became incredibly vicious. And they find excuses for the current alderman, because he’s their guy, for the same things they would crucify me for. I mean, the violence hasn’t dissipated up here. It’s worse. It’s not anywhere near other parts of the city, but it’s still here. And they like to blame it on poor people. And when they blame it -- and they like to blame is the point. [02:23:00] They don’t really have anyone to blame it on now so they come up with really crazy things like -- now they’re blaming it on (inaudible) but the point isn’t blame. The point is -- what do we do about solving problems in our world so that we can all do that? And when there’s anyone -- I think this is sort of the bully mentality -- who is a bully in the sense of saying, “No, I know better, and I’m not going to participate with you.” And it’s happening all over. It's happening in politics all over the country. It happens in communities all the same. And the bully gets the most to say. And yet, if you ever had an election, the bully would never get the votes. I mean, even in a closet ballot in a room, forget a big election. But people are intimidated by the bully and therefore either walk away because they don’t want to have anything to do with it or just shut up. And the bully is screaming and yelling and saying, “All this is about these people that I don’t like in my community because they’re there,” and pointing the finger at someone who made [0:24:00] them be there. And that was the dynamic we had here and continue to have here on some level and I think have citywide. And I don’t know the answer. I mean, right now, I don’t know. I don’t know the answer to that. I think that what we did was the right thing to do in terms of the housing. I was going to talk -- I started to talk about what happened 81 �in the ’90s. And unfortunately, I think we lost some opportunities to really -- well, I mean, in ’87 I did and then again in the ’90s. But there were two different times when I tried to create, on multiple properties, owner occupied three flats where we would market the three flats to people who lived at -- basically on teacher salaries -- we were really gearing them toward teachers -- who lived in the community [02:25:00] or wanted to live in the community and who either lived in the community or taught in the community. We were trying to get people who knew the community. If they would own or occupy the three flats and agree to rent the other two units at below market rent -- so, it didn’t have to be low income, but that they would moderate the rents. And they could take in Section 8 or they would moderate the rents. And they would live there and do that. And by doing so, we would create a sort of -- you are orchestrating this. But we would plant that seeds to create opportunities to be the glue between very rich and very poor, which is what we were end up having at some point, and build this kind of sort of -- in building each of these pieces of property, the opportunity for [01:26:00] different levels of people to be living there and different ways for people to be able to organize their lives. And we were focused on teachers because we knew then that they would be focused on their students and on their students’ families. But you didn’t have to go there, but that was the idea that we kind of developed in ’87. We had a whole plan for it, and it was actually killed intentionally during the course of Harold’s funeral. It was the last thing -- the last time I met with him was on the last city council meeting before he died, which was a Wednesday two weeks or three weeks before he died, on the podium. 82 �And he was arranging to meet -- two things we were working on, lights at Wrigley Field and the protection for the neighbors, which is what I wanted, and this housing thing I had, which we were going to go on 17 tax delinquent properties. And to do that, he needed to Dunne to agree. JJ: How was that (inaudible)? HS: We were going to get a hold off 17 properties that had delinquent taxes through a tax reactivation program that the county board had to approve. And he was talking to George Dunn about doing it. And it was supposed to have been a week earlier. And Dunne had -- they had deferred it, and I went ballistic. And he said, “This is all politics. It’s about the city wide politics. It’s about the dream ticket for the February primaries. And give me a few weeks, and I’ll deal with it.” And so, he got me that day and he said, “I’m still working on it. I’ll get back to you. Come in and meet with me. I’ll call you shortly to come in and meet with me.” And then, he called over Rob Meer, and he said, “Meet with Helen. Schedule it now about the protection -- I want you to do all the -- [02:28:00] put in the ordinance for light. We can’t do lights unless we do every protection she wants. Put it in there. Tuesday morning before Thanksgiving -- so, Rob and I agreed to meet Friday after Thanksgiving. Tuesday morning I get a phone call -I’m sorry, Tuesday night -- I get a -- Tuesday -- did he die on Tuesday or Wednesday? The night before he died, I get a phone call, “Come in and meet me tomorrow,” I think it was Tuesday, “Come in and meet,” it was my birthday -- it was Tuesday. “Come in and meet me” -- no, I get a call Monday. “Come in and meet me” -- I don’t know. “Come in and meet me tomorrow at eleven o’clock, 83 �and I got it all worked out.” I said, “Great, fantastic.” So, I get to the office. And I’m on my way upstairs and right on time to walk in at eleven. And Rob Meer jumps in the elevator and is freaking out because he thinks I’m going to go talk to him about his stuff, and we haven’t met yet. And I said, “No, no, no, no, no. Don’t worry about. I’m meeting about the other thing. We’re cool,” get off the elevator. It’s two minutes [02:29:00] after eleven and Harold was dying in his office. First city council meeting we had, Cathy Osterman, who was the alderman of 48th ward, stands up and defers and publishes -- my ordinance to do all this had been passed through finance and was just sitting to go through to city council. It never -- it had been deferred and published to city council, which means you’re going to vote on it. But any two alderman say postpone the vote until after the next city council meeting when the journal is published. So, it had been deferred and published, and we were supposed to vote on it. And she -- no one’s ever done this ever, to my knowledge, before or since. And she puts in a motion to kill my ordinance. Usually they just don’t call it up. But she called it up to defeat it, and they defeated it. [02:30:00] And that was because I voted for Evans instead of Sawyer. So, we lost that opportunity. Then in the ’90s, I brought it back, and I wanted it -- we were going to try and do something similar, new version based on what the city was doing. And the housing commissioner refused to even talk to me about it. Meanwhile, I went and got all the properties assembled. I got a developer to assemble all the properties. And because of something that happened in another part of the city, he then decided he wasn’t going to deal with me. It was taking too long. And he turned around -- even 84 �though I did all the work. But he bought the properties. But I did all the work to make it possible. JJ: Who was this? Who was this? HS: It was Thrush. He turned around and sold all the properties to -- JJ: [Russ?] was the name? HS: Thrush, T-H-R-U-S-H. He turned around and sold -- [02:31:00] we was upset with me about something else in another part of the city. He sold the properties to individual developers for lots of money. So, he made big time money off of it. I mean, I gave him the context that made it possible to acquire it. It was a nursing home and something else. But it was a huge tract of land. So, ultimately what we ended up doing by swapping some city property over the course of time was that I was able to get a developer to build two buildings there. I basically -- I leveraged some city owned property. And he agreed to use two CPAN units, which was a program that I got the city to do which allowed for affordable home ownership. So, we basically built 16 units that sold for $145,000 including parking, to 16 families. And they were all -- there were two -- four of those 16 units were [02:32:00] two bedroom apartments, and the rest were three. So, that was what we got instead of our 17 lots of owner occupied three flats. It took me a long time to do that. And that didn’t happen until this century in 2003 or 2004. But we lost that opportunity in the ’90s. We had a horrible time in the ’90s getting anything done. It was horrible up here. And meanwhile -- just with housing. But I was able to protect the housing we had and get some stuff redone. And then, 85 �we had a little bit done, a few buildings here and there. But mostly -- and then, really protected the health clinic and some of the other infrastructures that -JJ: (Overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? HS: -- poor people used. Yeah. Well, I focused on the entire health system. My goal was to make sure that we continued to have a board of health that [02:33:00] provided service and/or a broader public delivery system, which we had some steps forwards and backwards. When the city was trying to close down Lawndale -- no, not Lawndale -- oh, what’s the community right on the hospital, the University of Chicago Hospital, with a W? JJ: Woodlawn? HS: Woodlawn. Gosh. Woodlawn. I went -- Ruth Rothheimer was at the county. And the alderman was Linda Troutman. And I went to Linda. I said, “Don’t let them close it down. Why don’t you talk to Ruth and see if we can’t just do a partnership with the county.” So, she called Ruth, and Ruth said sure. So, we were able to get that done. But later on, the county gave up the Woodlawn site, so then, I started to get nervous [02:34:00] about it. And so, we started to look at -- because this was -- since the Republicans have been basically withdrawing all public resources, it’s been really a problem to -- you get money like specialized stuff like -- JJ: The Republicans? Where from? HS: Well, nationally -- JJ: Oh, national. 86 �HS: -- the national move to eliminate any funds for local -- so, health wise, the only resources that we -- so, all cities in the whole country in the last couple of years. I mean, I call it a -- we may have a Democratic administration, but we have a Republican shutdown of government. So, (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) over the last years as all of the cities and states have had to come to terms with the loss of federal revenues, which is really the biggest crisis we’ve had -- JJ: Okay, so you’re saying we might have a Democratic administration but the Republicans -- HS: Republicans are shut down -- JJ: -- are shutting down -- HS: Nationally we have a Republican shutdown -- JJ: Oh, okay. HS: Because nothing is happening. [02:35:00] I mean, they’ve shut down Congress. So, one of the impacts (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) so, you have an economic crisis. You have a Republican shutdown. You have private industry beginning to come back. But governments all over the entire country on every level having to lay people off, which is the real source of the (break in audio) in the country actually. And it impacts what people get, which -- service wise, which makes people angry. And it’s all done in the guise of dealing with excess money people are spending, which is crazy. I mean, sure, there’s corruption because there’s corruption everywhere, and we can do things better and some stuff we should have done. But oh my gosh. It actually costs money to do this stuff. And now, the only way they’re really dealing with it is by taking away people’s 87 �pensions. So, it's really kind of freaky, if you ask me. But anyway, that’s not what I was going to talk about. [02:37:00] So, there’s been a loss of a great deal of resources on every level of government, including the city. And when it’s on the state, that’s even additional stuff. Because we got stuff from the feds. We also used to get stuff from the state. So, health is one of the areas that’s affected. And the county has the legal responsibility by the state constitution to do (inaudible) healthcare. And the city for many years, since old man Daley was the mayor and wanted to compete for federal dollars for healthcare, has been doing some health delivery. And we have an infrastructure for public health delivery in the city but only through clinics. But the other area where there are federal dollars that are still there and go into healthcare is in clinics, in federally subsidized health clinics. And those are all not for profits, and they provide public health [02:37:00] essentially. And so, my thought was that there were some people thinking in the health department and others that maybe we should do some partnerships. The city can’t get those federal funds. They’re specific to that entity. So, we can’t use them for our clinics, which operate just like their clinics. So, maybe we should do a partnership, and then, we could take advantage of additional federal funds. So, we did an experiment with that in uptown, and they’re doing that with more clinics now. And I’m ambivalent about it. But my bottom line is that the city keep the infrastructure -- we own the infrastructure that we own -- and that it’s a partnership so, that we’re infusing more resources. It’s medical. You need a medical director no matter what. It’s not a bureaucracy. It’s a medical director. So, that’s a good thing. (Laughs) And 88 �you have a qualified medical director, and then, you have qualified doctors. And you do what you have to do. So, they’re doing [02:38:00] some more of that, and then, they’re going this other stuff with the county. But health is really something to be -- now, who knows what’s going to happen with -- there are some of the health laws -- the new healthcare laws are going to be implemented. And then, we’ll see what happens with the election, whether the rest of it is. So, there are changes, and all those things work with them. But at risk in my view consistently is the public infrastructure. And we’ve gotten used to talking about privatization and characterizing it either as bad or as good, depending on what side of that argument you’re on. But the definition needs some -- I think that what I’ve come to believe is that we need to update the definition because when we talked about the clinics, that was the debate. Are you privatizing them? So, from the point of view of asking me how the staff did -- they said, “They were privatizing it. We’re going to lose our jobs. Therefore, it’s privatized.” And when we did the thing in uptown, my bottom line was [02:39:00] no one can lose their job. You can transfer them to another -- two things, no one can lose their job, one, unless they were already planning on leaving and, two, any extra resources that the city realizes as a result of this needs to stay in the public health department and go into other clinics in the city. So, they agreed to that. I think two jobs were eliminated, but nobody was working in them. And that work is being done because it’s structured differently, and that’s okay in my view. But that’s -- you do that anyway. But apparently in the last year -- and I know this only from reading newspapers -- but it sounds like what happened was that a lot of people did lose 89 �their jobs, when I looked at the stuff from the budget last year. Now, some of that changes. I didn’t know what happened in the final budget. I just know when they were done with the articles. But I have to admit to you that when the city budget came out last year I actually read it -- (Laughs) I couldn’t help myself -- and compared it. But I didn’t keep up with -- I didn’t go [02:40:00] to the hearings, so I don’t know what they changed. So, if they in fact are then just saying, “We’re going to just go have someone else do our delivery,” then you really are -- then I think you’re on the verge of that. And so, I thought we had a really good model. And I guess the best I can say that I did all the time is create models. And I don’t think they’re using that same model. And that’s the kind of demand. But if you just says it’s privatization, then you’re just polarized. “I’m for, I’m against it.” Is you say, “Wait, let’s just talk about what needs to happen and how you can make that happen,” then you have a chance. And I think that’s the problem currently out of the box that happened with the teacher’s union -- I mean, you’re dealing with a mayor whose nature is to polarize, really. He also wants to solve problems. I think that -JJ: This is the new mayor? HS: Yeah. I think he does honestly actually want to solve problems. But it is in his nature to go -- you start a fight, he’ll fight back. [02:41:00] And he usually won’t listen. He won’t let up until he wins. Unfortunately, I think that’s overkill in this situation. And I think that the dynamic could have been entirely different. And I would hope that it would change because I don’t think it’s healthy for anyone, whether you’re talking about education or any of these other areas that really 90 �provide service to people around things that are necessary to survive. I mean, that’s the bottom line for me. That’s where government’s role is, whether it’s in the market, not taking care of people, housing market, medical market, whatever. People need to be able to know that they have the ability to survive. And this new categorization of any of that is socialism -- which who cares if it is or it isn’t -therefore as something that no one should want, which Romney does left and right and drives me absolutely nuts because it’s all rhetoric about what’s at risk [02:42:00] and something that he will never understand because he’s never wanted for anything in his life and never really known anyone who wanted for anything in his life is that the world in which he has governed has -- because of the things that he is so much a part of -- has created and perpetuated these -- so many inequalities and so many negative aspects to it that just don’t take into consideration the real needs that so many people have. And if you’re doing that just to even one person, there’s a problem with what you’re talking about. But when you do it to so many, it’s just -- so, I was reading all these little -- people now through Facebook always are sending out all these factoids. So, I don’t know if this is true. But one of the factoids that came out, which if it’s true -- I have to believe might be -- is really -- actually had me sort of discouraged for at least a day is this -- if you take all the money that was spent [02:43:00] this year alone on -- just on all of the Republican primaries, you could probably improve by 10 fold the quality of living of virtually everybody in the world. JJ: If you take all the money (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? 91 �HS: Well, maybe it wasn’t that. Maybe it was that everybody wouldn’t have to be hungry. JJ: Of the Republican what? HS: Just the money spent on the Republican -- JJ: Primary. HS: -- primaries. You’d have enough money to make it possible -- I think everyone have a place to live, something like that. It’s like, “Oh my god.” And you know (inaudible) socialist or communist. And I just don’t get it. Maryanne Stamps used to say -- she used to demand that -- JJ: Maryanne Stamps was the organizer of the Cabrini-Green (inaudible)? HS: Yeah, tranquility. Her point was -- start off with welfare rights -- her point was if everybody -- if you had a flat amount of income that everybody had to have which was equal to what you needed to have a place to live [02:44:00] and food on your table, healthcare -- of course, in any other country you’d already have healthcare -- if everyone just had that -- you know, if you had a medical card -- if everyone just had that -- and when she was talking about, that was maybe $8,000 or $9,000 a year, and today it might be $20,000. But then you started from that. Then you would actually -- then all things being equal, people would actually have a chance to be able to do something (inaudible) or go to school. They could work and go to school. I mean, they could do stuff that they just can’t do now because they don’t have the time to spend doing it. And when you say, “Well, they’re lazy. They’ll sit around. They’ll do all that,” it’s all self-fulfilling 92 �prophesies because if you don’t actually make a change and redefine the context, then no one is going to act differently. Are we done? JJ: Any final thoughts? [02:45:00] HS: (Laughs) I think I’ve given you quite a few. JJ: And (inaudible) have another (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). HS: Yeah, I saw her. I told you we weren’t going to get done in an hour (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). JJ: Well, thank you. I appreciate it. HS: We actually got to quite a bit. JJ: Any final thoughts (inaudible)? HS: I think that I never have a final thought. (Laughs) JJ: Okay, well, I appreciate that (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). HS: It’s not over -- END OF AUDIO FILE 93 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ffe25a1e564a65cc26a6beb55620f3cc.mp4 dbe0498c53ed7a5e5974825263760158 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives. The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng spa Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 2012-2017 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Título Spanish language Title entry Helen Schiller vídeo entrevista y biografía Sujetos Spanish language Subject terms Young Lords (Organización) Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Narrativas personales Justicia social Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65_Shiller_Helen Title A name given to the resource Helen Shiller video interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Shiller, Helen Description An account of the resource Helen Shiller, a Jewish American born in 1947 in Long Island, New York. Her father had immigrated to the United States from Latvia and her mother from Belarus. She moved to Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood in 1972, living on N. Malden Street. Initially she drove a cab and worked as a waitress. At an early age, she became active in the anti-Vietnam War movement while attending college at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. In Chicago, she helped to organize the Intercommunal Survival Committee with Rev. Walter “Slim” Coleman. The organization functioned as a sort of white support arm of the Black Panther Party and later evolved into the Heart of Uptown Coalition, a group dedicated to providing essential services to the poor. She also edited Keep Strong magazine. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-07-10 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a9449b751a8d8ac753732a30fee1bd86.pdf 100e9de2b1c0dee2ec46663d4b19a2c1 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Steven Sapp Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 7/8/2012 Biography and Description Steven Sapp was born and raised in South Bronx, New York City. He earned his B.A. degree at Bard College and is married to Mildred Ruiz-Sapp of the Universes Theatre Ensemble. Together, Mr. Sapp and Ms. Ruiz-Sapp co-founded THE POINT, a community development corporation (Hunts Point) in 1993 and Universes, a New York-based theatre group that fuses poetry, jazz, hip hop, politics, blues and Spanish boleros to create its own productions which are performed on and off Broadway, nationally and internationally. Mr. Sapp has received numerous awards for his acting and has written, acted in, and directed scores of productions. One of his most recent productions is “Party People” (2012) which is primarily about the Black Panther Party and the Young Lords. �Transcript JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay. If you can give me your name, Steven, and your birth date, and where you were born. STEVEN SAPP: My name is Steven Sapp. Birthday is May 12, 1966, and I was born and raised in the South Bronx, New York City. JJ: The South Bronx. And what was the date again? I’m sorry. I didn’t [hear?]. SS: Steven Sapp. JJ: But the date? SS: May 12, 1966. JJ: Okay. SS: Yeah. JJ: [Seems pretty young?]. Okay. Any brothers and sisters, or --? SS: I got one sister. She’s five years younger than me? Five years younger than me. It’s just the two of us. JJ: [And your?] parents’ names? SS: Same. [Patricia?] Sapp. Steven Sapp. JJ: [The same?]? SS: Yeah. Yeah. JJ: Okay. These are more, like, oral history, so -- SS: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. JJ: -- (inaudible). SS: Yeah. 1 �JJ: So, [00:01:00] what was it like -- just a little, brief background of what it was like growing up in the Bronx and that ’cause I’m not familiar with the Bronx. SS: Yeah. Well, the Bronx in particular that I remember was -- and I’m from the projects of the Bronx, and I remember -- JJ: What projects? SS: Forest projects, the Bronx. And I just really remember there being bombed-out -well, what looked like bombed-out buildings. You can go for blocks, and blocks, and block, and blocks. A lot of the tenement buildings were burnt out, and I’m old enough to remember the ’70s, where landlords, mostly the Jewish landlords, would burn out apartment buildings. They would pretty much come on a Tuesday, and say, “Everyone has to move out of the building by Friday,” for insurance, and burn it. And so, there was stretches of time where you could go for blocks, and it was nothing there. JJ: But, I mean, did they own the projects? SS: No. The projects were different. The projects were separate, but everything around the projects was burnt out, so, when [00:02:00] you left the project, you literally walked through what looked like war. JJ: So, this was around the ’70s? SS: I was born in ’66, and what I remember is, when I’m being four and five, so, like, 1970, ’71, ’72. JJ: So -- 2 �SS: So, I remember when the Panthers, especially in New York, were around, and when the Young Lords, the New York chapter of the Young Lords with the Garbage Offensive -- that’s what we were looking at. JJ: Oh, you saw that? SS: Yeah. JJ: I mean, literally -- SS: I literally saw mounds and mounds of garbage. I remember that that was kinda like -- and then you had rats running through the garbage. So, when we were little kids, playing, and if you were playing near the street, where the garbage was, that’s what you saw. And the projects were the projects. Everybody was stacked on top of each other, and this is before crack, so it wasn’t all crazy in terms of -- but it’s still a project living. You know, we had free cheese. The government’s giving out free cheese, so you stood in line. JJ: [Yeah, I remember that was?] (inaudible). SS: Yup, and you got your block of free cheese. So, my life was pretty much consisted of project living and the tenement buildings. JJ: Okay, so, free cheese -- that meant, you were a family [00:03:00] [on welfare?] -- SS: Yes. JJ: -- at the time? SS: We were on welfare. JJ: That was part of the welfare program. SS: That was part of the -- yeah. And so, that’s -- for me -- JJ: Was it everybody like that on welfare in the projects, or --? 3 �SS: Yeah. It seemed like everybody was on -- and, [literally?], that’s just what it was, and I learned really early on it was -- for me, I figured out that it just seemed like it was just a cycle. Everybody was caught in the same thing and that there was no way out. Like, I saw my aunts, and my uncles, and my father, and everyone was just working-class people, but it was like a ceiling, and nobody was breakin’ out of it. The best thing you could do was get into the projects. You know what I mean? And I remember being young, going, “I don’t want to die here without seeing what’s outside of the projects,” and I was very conscious of that. I got to get out of here just to see something else. I don’t want to die here. JJ: Did you have other relatives that had gotten out of the projects? SS: No. Everybody was kind of -- it was that. So, I was the first person in my entire family [00:04:00] -- family -- to go to college, to go. And nobody knew how to explain it to me. In terms of how to fill out a college application, all that stuff, my guidance counselor did that with me ’cause my -- JJ: (inaudible) get to that point where you’re thinking (inaudible)? What [was it?] growing up, and grammar school, and all that? SS: Well, I will tell you this. I had a teacher in the second grade. His name is [Gary Simon?], and he created the [ABC Schools?], which is like a better change, and it was like they would take inner city kids and bring them to these prep schools, and it was like a -- yeah, it was like in junior high school. You would go to these prep schools. And he signaled out a couple of kids early, like in the first and second grade, to -- he thought that we were smart, and we were in classes that had 35 kids in the class, and he wanted to make sure that these particular kids 4 �who he thought were really smart [00:05:00] can make it. So, I got picked by him in the second grade, and he went to our parents, and it was eight of us, nine of us, and we stayed after school to work. So, we did our regular day in school, and then, at three o’clock, you went to Mr. Simon, and you’re with him to five, six o’clock, and he gave us extra stuff to do, and it was that guy who really put into our heads that -JJ: Mr. Simon. SS: Mr. Simon, that there was something else out -- JJ: Now, was he African American? SS: No, he’s straight white dude. JJ: Straight white dude? SS: And really serious about education and really serious about teaching us. Those who he had, it was serious. So, our reading scores were two years above what the average was. If I was in the sixth grade, my reading score was eighth grade level because of this guy. It was the first person I heard really talk about how to get into college. It was him. Like, you can actually go ’cause you thought, well, you can’t either afford or you’re not smart enough, but Mr. Simon was like, “Uhuh. You guys are just as smart or [00:06:00] smarter than them white kids ’cause you come from here.” JJ: What was his angle? Was he just liberal-minded, or --? SS: He’s just a liberal dude. JJ: So -- 5 �SS: He was a liberal dude who was stuck in a public school as a elementary school teacher, but he had bigger visions, and we were kinda like his guinea pigs in a lot of ways. And, out of the nine of us who got picked, I think seven of us are doing really well. Seven, eight of us. JJ: Now, he picked you into his own program? SS: It was his own program in the school. JJ: He just made it up. SS: He made it up. He gave us extra books to read. He gave us extra assignments to read, who he felt could handle it because the way that the curriculum was in the school, you did what everybody else did, and he was like, “Uh-uh. These kids -- you could do something else.” So, it made you, when I was in the second, third grade, think about life in a bigger way. You know what I mean? Yeah. That’s what I remember [00:07:00] about the Bronx and just loving it ’cause it was communal, and it’s your family. JJ: [You went home?]. I mean, what about the -- any violence or anything? SS: In my house or just in the neighborhood? JJ: In the neighborhood. SS: Oh, yeah. I mean, the regular bang, bang, shoot ’em up. Regular stuff, and you learned -- JJ: Drugs? SS: Yeah. Violence, drugs. And you get desensitized to it, and maybe I think it’s like -- JJ: What do you mean, desensitized? 6 �SS: You think that that’s normal. So, if they’re shooting, you don’t even blink twice ’cause you think that’s normal. If somebody gets shot, you don’t blink twice because you -- I remember being -- think it was, like, eight or nine. I was coming out of a movies. It was a local movie theater, and we were coming out of the theater, and I distinctly remember this. There was a woman walkin’, coming this way, and we got out the movie, and a car pulled up alongside real slow, which you kinda noticed, and the window rolled down, and I saw the shotgun come out. Boom. [00:08:00] In the side of her head. And I saw it -- and drove off -- and I remember being in shock of seeing something like that, and then not being in shock, that it was like that’s where we’re at. Now, if you think logically, you know, this woman just got shot down, gunned down in the street. And so, you became almost desensitized to it, where you learn to accept it, or this is what our natural existence is. This is how we live. And you learn how to navigate your way through it. You know what I mean? You don’t go here. You go here. You don’t talk to So-and-so. You talk to So-and-so. You need to know all the drug dealers and the drugs so nobody messes with you. I learned that quick, to not speak to people. They don’t know you. If you’re not in a gang or rollin’ with them, if they don’t at least know you, they’re gonna get you, so I made sure I spoke to everybody. [00:09:00] “What’s up? What’s up? What’s up?” Everybody knew me. I knew everybody. They don’t bother you. If you got to fight somebody, you hurt ’em so nobody’ll -- ’cause I didn’t want to fight, so I was like, if I got to do it, I got to hurt you so you don’t have to come near me no more. So, it was -- again, it’s normal violence. I mean, [I don’t wanna?] say normal violence. It’s what you 7 �thought as normal. Somebody gettin’ arrested, or somebody gettin’ shot, or somebody gettin’ thrown off the roof, or somebody OD’ing, that’s what it was. JJ: But you, yourself, never got arrested or --? SS: Nah, ’cause my father grew up in Harlem, and he was a take-no-shit type of dude. He still is. So, he told me -- he said, “Let me tell you something. All you got to do is go to school.” He said, “I’ll clothe you. I’ll feed you. You ain’t got to worry about nothin’.” He said, “All you got to do is go to school.” He said, “Now, you don’t go to school me and you [00:10:00] got a problem.” He said, “If I don’t take care of you, if I don’t do this,” he said, “People do stuff because they don’t have no money or whatever, and, you know -- so, I’ll make sure that you won’t need, but if you --” He said, “If you go to jail or you get strung out on drugs, me and you gonna have a problem.” And I was young. I was, like, eight, and I didn’t know what he was talkin’ about, but he -- JJ: [He was serious?]. SS: He was serious about that. So, the only time me and him had any run-in was school because he’s like, “You’re not stupid. You’re smart, so you can do this backwards and frontwards, so, if you don’t do it, me and you gonna have a problem.” And that’s when -- any time I didn’t do well in school. So, in terms of gettin’ in trouble -- JJ: So, he was [verbal, mostly?]? SS: I mean, yeah. He didn’t really -- I mean, if I got hit, I got hit because of school, but he was a serious dude. It wasn’t like, “Oh, let me see.” No, no, no, no, no, no, no. If he said it -- he’s like, “If I got to come out there with you --” So, I 8 �stayed -- [00:11:00] I mean, I knew everybody, and I had friends of mine who did stuff, but, when it got deep, I was like, “I’m not going with y’all ’cause my father’s [not gonna understand?].” I’m like, “I’m not goin’.” And I didn’t. You know what I mean? I would hang out just enough. You hang out. You drink your wine. You smoke your weed. You hang out with -- but, when it was like, “Oh, we’re gonna go do this,” “See y’all. I’m going home ’cause my father’s not gonna have it.” And my mother was there. My mother was in the house, and she was a housewife. JJ: Is it Patricia? SS: Patricia, yeah. She was a housewife. So, I came home from school. My mother was there. She’d help you with your homework. She’d make sure we would look nice, clothes. Even if we didn’t have nothing ’cause I’m old enough now to -- JJ: [It’s just two?]? SS: And it’s just me and my sister. So, she, the everyday -- JJ: Is she older or younger? SS: She’s younger. So, I was the older one. She made sure we always -- so, we didn’t need anything, and, now that I’m older, I realize that we were poor, but you’d have never known it. Neither one of ’em had any addiction, so it was like [00:12:00] the money my father made, he gave it to my mother, and it was in the house, so we had nice furniture. We had nice clothes, but we were poor. I never went to bed hungry ever. So, all those things that people -- and I have cousins who have done jail time [and that?] ’cause their home life wasn’t stable. My home life was. Like, my father would have his moments where he would be very 9 �aloof, or very distant, or angry at the world and didn’t talk very much, but, in terms of him being in the house, he was there, so I had both of them in there, so I never felt like I had to drift off and do something. They allowed me to be my age. I didn’t have to grow up faster than I needed to grow up. JJ: What kind of work did he do? SS: He did a little bit of everything. He was a cook for Nedick’s for a long time, and then he worked for the railroad, just cleaning out the pipes, and the heating, and ventilation in the train stations for Amtrak. He did that for a long [00:13:00] time, and, now, he’s a security guard. Carried a gun and, you know. JJ: Your mom was -- SS: Nothing. She never worked. She never worked. She stayed home, and my father -- JJ: Was that a religious thing, or --? SS: No. I think we’re more old-fashioned. Not that she couldn’t work. JJ: Okay, so more cultural. SS: Yeah. She just stayed home and raised -- you know what? She was a mother. She was like, “I’m a mother. This is my job.” And she went (makes sound) and zoomed in on us, and, to this day, to even my nephews, my sister’s kids, she is that matriarch. “My job is to be home, make sure the house is right.” JJ: But your father was not into the church or anything like that? SS: He is now. He got saved maybe about 10 years ago, he got saved because he got to a point personally where he just -- he was low. You know, he’s a old street dude from Harlem who had [00:14:00] kids when he was 22 but still kinda wanted 10 �to hang out, and he was a good father, but you can always see he was kinda tortured. Like, he would sit in the living room in my house, and he used to drink. So, I would come home, and, if you heard music playin’, I knew he was sitting in the living room. I’d come to the door, and I hear music. I’d be like, “Oh.” And I opened up the door, and he would be sittin’ there. He’d have his vodka, and he’d be drinking, and he’d see me walk by. “Come in.” I’m like, “Oh.” “Sit down.” And then, he’d start talking, and he would talk about -- he would just talk, and, at that -- I don’t know what he was talking about, but he would just talk, and he would just tell me things and then send me away. And so, that’s how I got to know him in terms of what a tortured man working, trying to make it in the world, living in the projects, and raising a family -- he would say it to me, but, at 15, didn’t know what he was talkin’ about. [00:15:00] But he gave that to me. Like, I completely understand it. I completely know exactly what that is. You know what I mean? So, as I got older and became a man, all these things I began to feel, and experience, and not quite understanding, and being angry about, I can equate it with my father, like, oh, I get it. This is what I’m feeling as a Black man, trying to -JJ: Now, you’re (inaudible) you’re not into a church or anything. SS: I’m not. I’m more spiritual than going to church. I’m just like, you be a good person. You have some sense of spirituality. You know, goin’ back and forth to the church thing, it’s nice, and it’s very admirable, I think, but then you start gettin’ around people -- 11 �JJ: Now, was he in the service, your father, or anything? Where did he get his discipline? SS: Himself. He used to sing when he was a kid, like, 13, 14. He was in a little singing group, but I think he was always that type of dude. JJ: [It was a?] singing group? Singing group? SS: Yeah. He didn’t go to the service. [00:16:00] He’s a really strong dude. You know what I mean? And I think he’s so proud now of me and my sister, how we turned out, ’cause we turned out -- you know, we’re good kids. JJ: What was your sister’s name? [Did we get that?]? SS: Her name is [Patria?]. JJ: Patria? SS: Patria, yeah. And she’s an accountant. JJ: You’re Junior. You’re Junior. SS: I’m Steve Jr., yeah. And we turned out good. We didn’t get in trouble. We were almost, in one sense, boring considering some of my cousins were wild. My cousins were just wild, and always in trouble, and getting arrested, and da, da, da. Me and my sister, you know -- not that we were raised middle class ’cause we were far from it, but the way my mother and father -- mostly my mother -- had the house, the feeling of it, it felt middle class in that apartment in the projects, but we was poor as shit. You know what I mean? But you would have never known it. My cousins used to come to my house for Christmas because we used to get so much -- my mother and father used to save [00:17:00] money all year to 12 �buy us Christmas presents. That’s how those two were disciplined in terms of having a family, so that’s how I grew up, so I didn’t -JJ: So, your parents, in order to keep you in line, had to also attack ghetto life. So, did they do that? SS: My mother never acknowledged -- she would always tell me, “Why you always talk about it like this? This is community. You got your friends.” We weren’t living in the ghetto to her. This is where we live, and this is beautiful. We have family, and there’s a community center, and there’s this, and there’s a movie theater. And my father was out there, you know? He was out. But they didn’t bring it home. My father never brought that element into the house. My mother wouldn’t allow that element into the house, so we didn’t grow up -- JJ: So, he was street-savvy (inaudible). SS: He was street, and he [00:18:00] did his dirt -- JJ: But that was outside [the house?]. SS: It was outside. He didn’t bring it into the house. Only thing he would bring in, he would drink. He would be drunk in the house, but he didn’t bring [dumbness?] into -- he wouldn’t have it. The house was almost his sanctuary. And I appreciated that, that we didn’t have to deal with -- there’s a lot of stuff I know people deal with. I didn’t deal with it in my house. When you go outside, you deal with stuff, but, in terms of when I went home as a kid -- JJ: Now, did you ever see it outside? SS: Oh, yeah. JJ: (inaudible). 13 �SS: My friends. My family. My cousins. They grew up hard. JJ: So, you never saw your father in a negative -- SS: One time, maybe nine or ten, he used to always go to Harlem ’cause he grew up in Harlem, so he would hang out in Harlem, and I was in the barbershop. JJ: You don’t have to answer. I was just -- SS: No, no, no. If it, you know -- and I’m sitting in a barber chair, and I was watching television, and everybody from the barbershop was runnin’ outside. “Where’s everybody runnin’?” [00:19:00] So, I kinda went outside, and there was a big circle, and he was beatin’ this guy half to death in the street, and I remember being so shocked at the violence of it, of where, mentally, he was and how violent it was. It really surprised me. Like, oh -- and how aggressive it was. You know, as a kid, you’re enamored, but I was also very, like, I don’t even know who that is, and it still sticks to me to this day. I don’t know who that was. And I think it bothered him that I saw him like that ’cause I remember him turning and seeing me standing there, and then him -- “I got to go home.” And his hand was, like, this big. It swole up. And he had to take me home, and my mother asked him, “What happened to you?” And him like, “I go into a fight.” “Oh, my God. You got into a fight? [00:20:00] (inaudible).” But he tried to keep that stuff from us, which I appreciate. He never went to jail. None of that stuff. [He’d?] go to the bar, and hang out, and get drunk, and stay out all night long. That’s him. JJ: Okay, so, you got into the -- [what is?] your political thinking (inaudible)? SS: It’s funny you say that. Some cop shot somebody, and it was on the news, and it was in the Bronx, and everybody was up in arms, and this guy stood up, and he 14 �had dreadlocks, and I remember going -- he just looked different, and it said his name. I don’t remember what his name was, but, underneath it, it said “Activist” on it, and the way he spoke -- I was like, “I want to be that.” JJ: Some guy got shot --? SS: Some guy got shot, and [00:21:00] people were protesting, and this guy got on the news, and had the camera in his face, and it had his name, and he had dread-- and it said “Activist,” and I was like, “I don’t know what job that is, but I want to do that,” because he was with the people, and I was just really paying attention to that guy ’cause he wasn’t -- it was something I didn’t know what it was. You know what a teacher is. You know what a cop is. But what’s an activist? ’Cause that’s what it said on the news. And I remember that distinctly, and then I remember paying attention to what was -- I knew shit around where we lived wasn’t right, and that the cops [kept rollin’ us?] wrong, and how we were livin’ was wrong, and rats and roaches is wrong. It’s like I knew it. And so, I would pay attention to the rallies, and I would -- I didn’t necessarily always go, but I would pay attention to -- listening to people talk. My father had this Louis Farrakhan record, and I don’t even know where he got it from, [00:22:00] and I used to play it over and over and just really kind of -- listening to this fervor of people fighting against injustice. And my mother and father wasn’t into it at all, but, to me, I was looking around, going, “If I have to live here or people that I know and love have to live here, it don’t need to be like this.” And you look at TV. It’s like that neighborhood doesn’t look like this, and [how?] -- JJ: And your friends were also political. [I mean?] (inaudible) -- 15 �SS: No. None of them was. That’s just with me. It was just in my head. They really weren’t. I just felt it. I mean, it’s like I grew up, and it was Blacks and Puerto Ricans. That’s what’s in the neighborhood. So, to me, it’s like we’re all in this together, and why is it not -- why are we struggling in here together? And I’m very conscious that there’s only Black and Puerto Ricans here. There’s no white people here. [00:23:00] You know, it’s just Black and Puerto Rican, and we’re smashed on top of each other, and the elevator’s broken, and you got to walk up 14 flights of stairs, and So-and-so got robbed, or somebody got shot, and the ambulance -- takes them five hours to show up. I just knew that shit wasn’t right. JJ: [So, people were?] talking about that. SS: Mm-hmm. I didn’t know how to get involved. JJ: But you were hearing it. SS: Yeah. You were around. I mean, you did see Panther papers. You did see Young L-- you did see it. And we were young, so you would go and look, but, since my mother and father wasn’t into it, I didn’t have enough guts to just -- I’m gonna go by myself and go to this thing. I didn’t do that, but it stuck that there’s something wrong, and there’s people fighting for justice of these conditions that we’re in, and then trying to learn, how do you change it? You know what I mean? There’s congressmen, and [00:24:00] the aldermans, and everybody that you saw around, but it’s like, they’re not really kinda changing things. But that guy who I saw on television, who was an activist -- JJ: You were in high school or grammar school? 16 �SS: Maybe junior high school going into high school when that -- so, when I went into college, it really was real evident. They’re distant, the two different worlds that existed. JJ: As you got into college, are you getting more nationalistic also, or no? (inaudible)? SS: No, no, no. What happened with college was I realized I was a minority. I didn’t realize that when I was in -- when you grow up in the hood, you’re around your folk. You don’t feel like a minority. You hear the word, but it’s like, we’re the majority here. The second I sat in college, it was five black men in the entire campus. I knew what the word was, and it scared me because your first [00:25:00] instinct’s, “I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be around people don’t want me around.” I’m talking to people that -- they’ve never been around person of color before. They don’t know how to act, but I also know I’m supposed to be here, and I got to figure this out, and I got real angry because I can see the two worlds. I can be in college, Upstate New York, and trees, and da, da, da, da, da, and then get on a train, and ride down two hours, and instantly be back in the projects. In the same day, your world would be like, [flip?]. I’ll tell you something. It was one time I came home from college, and a friend of mine was sittin’ outside who I hung out with, Puerto Rican guy. And he was like, “Yo, come on. Hang out with --” You know, I’m like, “Aw, man, I just got home.” He’s like, “No, come on. Come on. Come on.” So, I’m like, “All right.” Go upstairs. Literally go, “Mom.” I put my bags down. “I’m goin’ out.” She’s like, “Oh.” So, he takes me to Spanish Harlem, where we used to hang out, and [there?] was 17 �this guy named [Mikey?]. Now, [00:26:00] Mikey used to run a lot of cocaine, all that stuff, for all of Spanish Harlem, and he owned this tenement building, and he had an apartment on the top, and all the other apartments -- you can rent a room for a girl while you smoke or -- so, we’d kinda go, and smoke, and hang out, and drink wine. And so, this particular time, everyone was hangin’ out in Mikey’s house, which you really didn’t do. So, I come, [and I sit down, and?] he knew me. Like, “What’s up? What’s up?” We’re drinking. We’re smoking. And he comes in the room, and he’s like, “Well, you know --” Looks at me. He goes, “The shipment’s comin’ in. You cool with that?” And I’m like, yeah, cool. I’m trying to be like, “Yeah.” And they’re bringing -- so, I’m sitting there, going, “Oh, shit.” ’Cause, two hours ago, I was just in Upstate New York. So, I’m sittin’ there, and I’m watchin’ all this kinda go on. I’m trying to be cool. So, about halfway through the night, I can see Mikey [00:27:00] lookin’ at me from across the room, not really sayin’ nothing, and I’m like, “Uh.” So, finally, after about an hour of him literally staring at me, I said, “What’s up, man?” He goes, “Come here for a second.” He’s like, “What you doin’ in here?” I’m like, “What? I’m hangin’ out.” He’s like, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no. The fuck are you doin’ in here?” I’m like, “Mikey, what’s the matter? I’m just hangin’ out.” He goes, “Don’t you go to college?” I’m like, “Yeah.” He’s like, “You in college?” I’m like, “Yeah.” He goes, “I’m not sayin’ you better than us, but you ain’t got no business in here. Real shit happens in here. You understand?” I’m like, “Yeah.” He goes, “I don’t want to see you in here no more. Don’t come in here no more.” I’m like, “What? I’m hanging out.” He’s like, “Don’t come here no more. You come up in here, if 18 �you come in my building, we’re gonna have problems.” Like, “Okay.” And I always respected that. I got it, [00:28:00] what he meant. And then -JJ: He was (inaudible). SS: I mean, he was a older dude, and we didn’t -- that’s the first time he ever talked to me directly, and I got it, and, for some reason, it bothered him that -- he knew I was in college, and that -- my friend who took me there, had to cut him off, and it hurt me to my heart, and, to this day, my mother’s like, “I can’t believe you’re not friends with him.” Because he was my good friend, and he was slidin’ into that world, and, you know, when you got your friend, you gonna be slidin’ right there with him. If he’d got into some trouble and something would have happened, he would have called me, and I would have went, and I was like, “I can’t. I can’t roll like that. I can’t do it.” I got in college as a chance to do something else. I can’t roll with you. He’s -- “Come on, man. We --” And crack had just came out, and I was like, “I can’t. I can’t.” He offered me a chance. He goes, “You could be the runner. All you [00:29:00] do is just pick up the money. That’s all you got to do. We’ll pay you.” For a second, I was like, “Well, you know, I’m in college. I could use the extra money.” He goes, “Yeah, but you got to carry this nine millimeter ’cause, you know.” I was like, “(inaudible).” He said, “Why won’t you carry it?” I said, “Because I will shoot somebody.” You know what I mean? It’s like you’re gonna shoot somebody. So, I had to leave all them alone and really focus on -got a opportunity. I’m in school, you know? I don’t know what the hell I’m gonna do with myself, but I’m in school. It’s a chance to do somethin’, and I’m gonna do that. 19 �JJ: (inaudible) your studies, and you’re in theatre, or --? SS: Yeah. I studied theatre and writing, yeah. JJ: Why did you get into that? SS: Writing was -- I always did it when I was a kid, and I was in college, and they asked me -- [the dean was?] like, “Why don’t you take a acting class?” All right. And I liked it, and I wanted perform, but you just don’t -- that doesn’t relate to where we’re from. [00:30:00] So, in one sense, I was doing it because I enjoyed it, thinking I’ll eventually have to stop and figure somethin’ else out so I can get a job, and I just never stopped, you know? And my mother would tell people that I was studying journalism to be a writer for the newspaper ’cause she didn’t want to tell people that, “My son’s studying to be a writer, and he’s doing theatre.” You can’t get a job doing that, but that’s what I liked. JJ: So, she didn’t want you in theatre? SS: No, ’cause where are you gonna work? Where are you gonna work? Who do you know that does theatre? Nobody. How you gonna make a living? Her whole big thing was, “You need to come home, and you’re gonna get a city job.” They had all these jobs opening up for the railroad, for transit. She said, “When you get out of college, you’re gonna take the transit test. You’re in college, so you’re gonna have a college degree. You can be runnin’ the trains. You can be a supervisor ’cause you have a college degree, and you’ll be set.” [00:31:00] And she had already had that picked in her mind for me, that that’s what I was gonna do, and I was like, “I can’t do that.” So, I didn’t come back. I stayed Upstate. 20 �JJ: Now, you were meeting other people like meeting Mildred at that time? SS: I met Mildred in college. She auditioned for a play of mine. JJ: Oh, she auditioned for a play of yours? SS: Mm-hmm. I was a director, and she -- JJ: So, how did you get to that point? SS: Of what? JJ: To do plays. SS: Well, you know, when you become a senior, they let you create your own -- JJ: Senior? SS: Yeah, when I became a senior in college. Because, since I was one of the only Black men in the theatre department, when they gave me a play to do, I was usually running from something ’cause all the roles for Black people were racist. So, I told them, whatever play y’all pick, I don’t want to do it because I don’t want to be a runnin’ slave. I don’t want to do it. Can I create my own thing? And they were like, well, yeah. You can do whatever you want. So, they left me [00:32:00] alone. So, the play I wrote was about a kid -- JJ: What college was this? SS: Bard College. JJ: Bard, right. SS: Upstate New York. And I wrote a piece about pretty much a character that was myself, who was from the inner city, who goes to a predominantly white school, and the two worlds he has to bounce in between to survive, and I called it Purgatory. You didn’t know which place was heaven, which place was hell. And 21 �Mildred walked in the room. She was a freshman, and I was sittin’ there, and she walked in the room, and I was like, “Okay.” And I leaned over to the guy who was my assistant, and I said, “That girl can [stand?] anything right now, and I’m gonna put her in the show,” and I kinda sat back, and she started singing. I was like, “Okay, cool. Good. She can sing.” But we related to each other ’cause we both came from -- she come from the Lower East Side. I was from the Bronx. We were in a predominantly white school. Both our parents are working class people, and here we are, two people trying to figure it out, and we just gravitated toward each other, and we had a sense of community. We had a sense of [00:33:00] family. Like I said, I grew up with Black and Puerto Ricans, so, you know, she’s Puerto Rican. It was like -- my father speaks Spanish. He learned Spanish on the street, so he speaks Spanish. So, when I met Mildred’s family, it felt like family. You know what I mean? My best friend who was taking me around in Spanish Harlem was Puerto Rican, and I was always at his house. So, my connection to Puerto Rican culture is -- it’s part of me. You know what I mean? JJ: So, [was your best friend in theatre also, or?] --? SS: No. He’s the one that stayed. He stayed back, and -- JJ: Stayed back. SS: And got caught up into drugs, sellin’ stuff, got arrested, and went in and out of jail, and I stayed in college. JJ: [So, now, you have?] all these other friends that are in theatre. 22 �SS: You start to meet people up in college. You’re meetin’ different type of people, and it was kinda, like, who you actually like, and they come from different worlds, and they come from different financial brackets. I mean, I had a friend of mine whose [00:34:00] father was Arthur Rankin, who used to make the claymation cartoons like Frosty the Snowman, and it says “Rankin and Bass.” His stepfather was Rankin. So, he had -- it was like money, money, money, money, money, money, money. It was just a different group of people you’re around, and, once I started meetin’ different people, it’s like, okay. Having access to other worlds is like -- how do you get access to that and still stay true to yourself without changing? You grow up, but I was like, “I’m still Steve from the Bronx, but I want to be Steve from the Bronx --” JJ: So, you always thought about that. [You wanted] to remain true to yourself. SS: Mm-hmm. I was very -- JJ: Not changing -- what didn’t you want to change? SS: I didn’t want to deny the fact that I was from the Bronx. I didn’t want to deny the fact that there was elements of my childhood which was rough, hard, and raw. I didn’t want to deny the fact that -- but I [00:35:00] also learned how to be able to go in a classroom, and talk this way, and be around this, and can go home, and hang out, and be cool with everybody else. How do you take this, the rhythms, the essence of where we’re from, or community, our culture, and bring that with you? You don’t have to leave it there, and go to college, and -- you bring that with you. So, even the work that we do, theatre, I wanted to bring who we were, the people who I know, Ray Barretto and Marvin Gaye, with me to college, not 23 �leave it there. So, I would always say, “I’m Steve from the Bronx,” and whatever your interpretation of the Bronx was, that’s how you took me. If you thought that people from the Bronx were gangsters and them -- all right. Then that’s what you think I am. ’Cause, you know, they would think that. “Oh, have you ever been in a gang before?” They would ask me that in college. “Have you ever been shot?” I was like, “Is that what you think? You watch TV?” It’s like, yeah. I know some people who been in gangs. I’ve seen people get shot. [00:36:00] And? Does that make any difference while we’re both sitting in this college together? You know. JJ: You got your degree in theatre. What was the first play that you [performed?]? (inaudible) [your character?]? SS: Yeah. I mean, I did that in college -- JJ: And after that. SS: And then, after that, I didn’t do theatre for five years. Got a job, but we were workin’ in the community, teachin’ reading and math at this community center, Mildred and I together. And then -- JJ: Now, were you married then? SS: No, we weren’t married. We were living together. We weren’t married. JJ: (inaudible). SS: And that was our job, and -- JJ: So, you had a community center, so -- SS: We didn’t have it. We worked at one. JJ: Oh, you worked at one. 24 �SS: And then, what happened -- JJ: (inaudible) [like an activist?]. SS: Yeah. It wasn’t really -- it was social service. It wasn’t active -- it was more social service. And then, our funding cycle was ending, and it wasn’t being refunded, so we were about to all get laid off, and this other guy [00:37:00] we knew said, “Why don’t we start our own center?” And I was like, “What?” “Start our own center, man.” And I was like, “And get paid how? Like, how we gonna eat?” “We can do this. We can do this. You do theatre. Why don’t we, like, have a theater?” I was like, “In the South Bronx, we gonna have a theater?” He’s like, “Yeah.” So, we were like, “All right.” So, we found this abandoned bagel factory in the Bronx, and the landlord who owned that bagel factory, abandoned bagel factory, owned the same building that we were in, working, so we kinda knew him, so we went to him and was like, “Look. [We want?] to start this theater slash center-type thing.” And he was like, “Uh-huh.” He’s like, “Could you give us, like, a year’s free rent? And we will renovate your space, and, if we don’t get this place up and running in a year, you can have a renovated space.” And he said, “All right. Deal.” So, he gave us a year free rent, and we proceeded to go in that building. We cleaned it all out. People from the community [00:38:00] started giving us screws, and we literally renovated that building in a year. Put a theater in there. We had businesses. We had a restaurant, a barbershop, dance studio, record store, all owned by people from the community. And then, we put in -- it was a social service agency called [Unitas?], and they were the big sort of tenants that we had. They paid the bulk 25 �of the rent, and we ran that building, and, out of that, I started doing theatre again because I had a theater that we built, and we did that for -- we opened in ’93. And it’s funny. Yomo Toro just died. The opening night of the theater, we had all these people come over, and Mildred started singing a song, and Yomo Toro was there, and he walked up on stage and started -- Mildred was singing “[Preciosa?],” and he started playing with her, and I’ll never forget that moment of her turning around and seeing Yomo Toro standing in the South Bronx, [00:39:00] in this building we had just built, playing cuatro behind -- and he was so nice and so cool, and he hung out all night long, and it felt so special because we created our love, which was theatre and art, and brought this back to Bronx, basically, and it was a beautiful thing we had there. It was really beautiful, amazing. We had poetry nights, and Latin jazz nights, and gay men in the Bronx rented a space, and the Ñetas, the Kings, and Zulu Nation came to me to ask me, could they have their meetings in the building? And I was like, “Oh, Jesus Christ.” So, I said, “Well, we got to talk about it.” So, Bam says, “Okay.” So, Bam sets up a meeting, and I go in the theater, and it’s Bam -- it wasn’t King Tone, but it was somebody from the Kings, someone from the Ñetas, all in the building at the same time, talking, discussing whether [00:40:00] Zulu was gonna come to [their?] section of the Bronx, and I walk in the room, and they’re like, “Steve, talk about this.” And there’s like 200 brothers in the room from all different sides, and I just kinda got up and was like, “Look. This is my building. This is our building here. I’m willing to give y’all space, but y’all can’t be up in here acting crazy. I can’t have it. Kids come here during the day. Like, I really 26 �can’t have it.” So, we had that type of environment, and it was amazing. It was a really beautiful thing, to see that mixture of me turning into an activist, which I always remembered, and doing theatre with it in the Bronx, you know. JJ: And who was paying the bills? SS: The first year, we were on unemployment, and I was teachin’, like, poetry classes on the side, but, once it was really up and running, yeah, that was our life. JJ: For a few years, or --? SS: It was our life for seven years, and then it got -- our relationship with [00:41:00] our two partners got real funky, and it’s a longer story, but we left, and we were -the only thing we had was Universes. JJ: So, you had started Universes [in that?] --? SS: We started, and that became a issue to the building. Like, “Oh, you guys are making money on the side.” Like, “We ain’t makin’ no money on the side. We’re doing Universes ’cause it’s fun.” And, to them, it got -- ’cause we started to get a little name for ourselves, but you don’t make any money. Somebody paid us 100 dollars. I was like, it was five of us. We split 100 dollars. But they got really threatened, and it became this whole, big thing. And so -- JJ: So, what was the play that you did then? SS: We did something called The Ride, and it was in this downtown, funky, New York -- JJ: The Rise? SS: The Ride. JJ: The Ride, okay. 27 �SS: R-I-D-E. Some funky play we did. You know, just us kinda just putting stuff together. But what happened was there was a space called PS 122, Performance Space 122, which is really known in the New York Downtown performance scene. The guy who runned it saw us [00:42:00] and booked us. He came up to the POINT, and he saw us -- which is the name of our center, and he saw us before we left and booked Universes that night, and he took us to this performance space. JJ: The center was on what streets? SS: My or --? JJ: This POINT. SS: The POINT was in Hunts Point, Barretto and Manida Street. Hunts Point and Manida. JJ: Hunts Point, okay. SS: And -- JJ: And this is the Bronx. SS: This is the Bronx. And then, this guy came up from Manhattan, saw us, and took us to his space, and that’s how we started getting a bigger name for ourselves, because this guy saw us and thought we were really interesting. And so, when we left the POINT, we just focused all of our energies on making Universes work. JJ: So, you did The Ride, and what other --? SS: We did The Ride, and then our first big hit -- we did this play called Slanguage, which -- that was in 2001. JJ: And what was that about? 28 �SS: That was about the evolution of language in our communities is what it was about. So, how you go from slang to how Puerto Rican and Spanish people learn English -- [00:43:00] it was a sort of just thing -- poetry and music, but it was all about how we learn language, how we use language, how we flip language, how you don’t say autobus. You say guagua. You know, it’s like the way people from the hood take language and flip it, and it was a big hit. The New York Times came, and reviewed our show, and was like, “This is an amazing theatre company,” and, instantly, like that, since the New York Times said it, we became this theatre company. JJ: So, that was, like, your first promotional -- SS: Yeah, and we got a lot of -- JJ: -- [thing was?] the New York Times? SS: Yeah, and we toured for eight years with that show. JJ: Slanguage? SS: Like, we were colleges, performance spaces. We were just everywhere, and we weren’t makin’ a ton of money, but we were touring, and that’s all we did. We didn’t take a job. We did Universes. JJ: Now, did you look up to other groups? I mean, did you have [00:44:00] some -- SS: Well, there’s a group -- JJ: -- [type of?] role models? SS: There’s a group called Culture Clash. JJ: Culture Clash? 29 �SS: Culture Clash. They’re out of LA. They’re Chicano, but they are -- I can’t even -they’re like vaudevillian actors from the neighborhood. You know what I mean? And they were so talented, and we just, like, “Those dudes are it.” But, really, for us, it was like musicians we looked up to, poets, Amiri Baraka, Pedro Pietri out of New York, (inaudible) movement. We came out o’ that. So, that’s like Miguel Algarín, all of those people downtown. Mikey Piñero. That’s where we come from. We were, like, the next generation right after them. So, all of our early stuff [Universes working?], we’re in the poetry scene. We weren’t really doing theatre. We were all in the poetry scene and open mikes. So, that’s where our heroes were. Sandra María Esteves, Willie Perdomo. They really shaped us, criticized [00:45:00] us, pushed us, and we got our -- what we do, our swagger, at the Nuyorican. JJ: And what about before (inaudible)? Were there some other plays? SS: No. It was Slanguage, and then Mildred and I did another play called Eyewitness Blues about a trumpet player, and then we did Ameriville. JJ: And how did that [come about?]? SS: Ameriville came about -- we were tryin’ to write something about the history of fear in America. We were tryin’ to write a play. And, in the middle of trying to write about the history of fear in America, Katrina happened, and, sitting there, looking at how the country responded, just the whole thing around it, it was just like -- so, we wrote this piece, the opening 10-minute piece of Ameriville, about that, and that’s all we were gonna write. And then, our director who we were working with at the time heard that piece and said, “This is your show. You 30 �should write it about what happened in New Orleans and then [00:46:00] open it out to the whole country.” So, we were like, all right. Whatever. We didn’t want to do it, but we opened it out, and it turned into something. He was right. Something really, we thought, smart. So, we did that, and that became a big hit. JJ: Now, what about Party People, (inaudible) that you performed today? SS: Party People was -- Oregon Shakespeare Festival here has a separate slot that they call the American Revolutions cycle, where they commissioned 22 writers to write about moments of change in American history. When we first premiered Ameriville in Louisville, Kentucky, the people who were in charge of American Revolutions came to Kentucky, and saw us, and said, “We want you guys to write one.” So, we were like, “Okay, cool. What do you --?” And he was like, “Could you write about the Bill of Rights? Could you write about the Declaration of Independence?” And we were like, “That’s not really interesting.” They said, “Well, you guys can write about whatever you want.” So, we went, and we [00:47:00] sat and thought about -- if you think about American revolution, what’s American revolution to us? And we were gonna keep it real. We were like, really, the Black Panther and the Young Lords, really. JJ: And that comes from your Bronx -- SS: That comes from my Bronx upbringing, Mildred being in the Lower East Side. We were always around it. JJ: The Young Lords and the Black Panthers. SS: The Young Lords and the Black -- so, we felt like that’s -- JJ: Seeing it personally. 31 �SS: Seeing it personally and being recipients of the programs, of free breakfast -- we saw it -- of the garbage pick-ups, in New York, at least, and Lincoln Hospital. I grew up really close to Lincoln Hospital, so it was like I know -- I saw it. I remember what Lincoln Hospital [was before?], and then I remember it afterwards. So, we were like, “If we’re really gonna write about somethin’, we should do --” And we were gonna be honest to ourselves. [It’s that?]. And we don’t know how we’re gonna do it, but that’s what we should write about, and, when we told them, they were like, “Okay. Go ahead.” And then, that’s when we started trying to find people. That’s how we found you, [00:48:00] ’cause we were like, “Well, we’re just gonna start --” ’Cause we knew that we had access to the New York chapter of the Young Lords, so we were like, “We’re not gonna call them. We need to go to the source.” So, we were like, “We got to go to Chicago, and we have to find Cha-Cha.” That was our main -- was like, “Well, who do we know who knows him?” “I don’t know,” you know. And so, Mildred literally looked and called you, but we knew we had to go -- we went to you, and then we went to Oakland. We didn’t talk to anybody [to?] New York ’til, like, last, really. We said, “We have to go to the sources of both, not here. That’s too easy. We have to know exactly where it comes from.” And you just happened to pick up the phone, and that started that process, and what we learned from that process, hangin’ out with you that first time, and then going to Oakland and getting that -you know what I mean? And then bringin’ that here and then working it into a play. JJ: [00:49:00] So, the play’s about what? Can you kind of describe it a little bit? 32 �SS: It’s about two young -- I will call them -- one is a cub, Panther cub, and the other one is the nephew of a Young Lord who grew up in New York -- and them trying to decipher all of the history and make sense out of it but in their way now. So, it’s a little misguided, and they’re trying to put an event together and invite some Panthers and Lords together for this thing. Now, us doing our research, we’ve discovered -- which I kinda knew -- is certain people can’t be in a room together. There’s history there. So, we were like, “Well, what happens is we put people in a room together?” We saw footage one day when we were doing research -- we were lookin’ online, and we found -- I think it was the fortieth anniversary of the New York chapter, and they were all in this back room, and they said, “And, now, Young Lords.” And the door opened, and [00:50:00] you can see people coming out of the back, but people’s faces -- some people were smiling. Some people weren’t smiling. You can see that something went on in the back, and I remember thinking, what went on in the back? I want to know what that conversation was. And so, when we started to talk to people and see the complexity of what relationships are, and how some shit that got said 25 years ago, people didn’t get over it, or people got history, or were COINTELPRO, and you just don’t know who is who, [to be like?], well, what happens if you throw some people back in the mix together who haven’t seen each other in a while? What comes out in the conversations? Being orchestrated by these two kids who know and totally have no idea what they’re doing, but they’re trying to figure it out. And so, they’re taking what they learned, and they flip it to the elders, and the elders respond, or they get taken to different places, and different things 33 �[flash?]. That’s what the play’s about, but [00:51:00] it’s -- for me, I wanted to show -- I didn’t want to romanticize the ’60s, and what I mean by that is I wanted to talk to or see characters who [comprise the?] Young Lords and Panthers now. Like, I remember when we met you and just what it was like talking to an older gentleman. We weren’t talking to the Cha-Cha in the papers. We were talking to a man who’s already lived a long life and what your perspective was on that life. So, it was like, that’s interesting to me. That’s who the American public needs to know, what they went through, what their sacrifice was for this life. If you romanticize the ’60s in this -- you know, you see Black, and white, and people with berets on, and it looks very sexy, but it’s like, no, you see somebody who’s gone through this, and they’ve had this happen, and this happen, and this happen, and they’re still here, and they’re trying to make sense of all the stuff they’ve gone through. So, you’ve got that complexity with these two kids, trying to figure out [00:52:00] what it is smashed together. That’s what this play’s about. JJ: Okay. And it’s gonna play here for -- SS: It’s gonna play here ’til November 3, and then we’ll see what happens. There’s a lot of theaters comin’ to check it out. New York, Chicago, Berkeley, LA, you know, they’re all coming down, so you hope they like it. So -- JJ: Okay. Any concluding thoughts? SS: I am proud of the work that Universes does as a company. I’m proud of the fact that we’re very honest with ourself about what we wanted to tell in this type of story. I’m proud of the research that we did, that we actually went and talked to 34 �folk, and that we had the guts to bring it to an American stage, and it’s very complicated. It’s not an easy thing to sit and watch. It’s not very celebratory all the time. [00:53:00] Everybody gets sort of exposed in their own way. It’s a very complicated issue, but I’m very proud of the fact that we went for it. You know what I mean? And I hope for the world to see this, to learn who you guys are the way we do as human being that are very complex and very interesting. And what you guys did is a part of American history, period. You know what I mean? American history is not just reserved for -- like, this is a part of American history, an important part of American history that, if you remove it, there’s a lot of things that would not be here if this did not happen, and we laid claim to that, and I’m proud that we did it. JJ: [I’m?] very grateful (inaudible). SS: Thank you. Thank you. END OF AUDIO FILE 35 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c4bf6da83ee69a2bbe9d28dbcbdea55a.mp4 1ed832e4c6e6f3bd1d06f984a8d71aae Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives. The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng spa Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 2012-2017 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Título Spanish language Title entry Steven Sapp vídeo entrevista y biografía Sujetos Spanish language Subject terms Young Lords (Organización) Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Afro-Americanos--Relatos personales Justicia social Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago Partido Pantera Negra Artes, Afro-Americanos--Nueva York (N.Y.) Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65_Sapp_Steven Title A name given to the resource Steven Sapp video interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sapp, Steven Description An account of the resource Steven Sapp was born and raised in South Bronx, New York City. He earned his BA degree at Bard College and is married to Mildred Ruiz-Sapp of the Universes Theatre Ensemble. Together, Mr. Sapp and Ms. Ruiz-Sapp co-founded THE POINT, a community development corporation (Hunts Point) in 1993 and Universes, a New York-based theatre group that fuses poetry, jazz, hip hop, politics, blues and Spanish boleros to create its own productions which are performed on and off Broadway, nationally and internationally. Mr. Sapp has received numerous awards for his acting and has written, acted in, and directed scores of productions. One of his most recent productions is “Party People” (2012) which is primarily about the Black Panther Party and the Young Lords. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) African Americans--Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Black Panther Party Arts, African American--New York (N.Y.) Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-07-08 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d466a6fb7980690e39bb60bc6004ee3c.pdf bff996b217d648f2b5fafd80ad8bf82d PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: William Ruiz Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 7/7/2012 Biography and Description William “Ninja” Ruiz is the brother of Mildred Ruiz-Sapp of Universes and they grew up in New York City on the Lower East Side. He earned his B.A. in Theatre at Bard College where he also studied poetry. Today he makes his home in Santurce, Puerto Rico and is a leading member of the Universes Theatre Ensemble. Universes is a New York-based theatre group that fuses poetry, jazz, hip hop, politics, blues and Spanish boleros to create its own productions which are performed on and off Broadway, nationally and internationally. One of their most recent productions is “Party People” (2012) which is primarily about the Black Panther Party and the Young Lords. �Transcript JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay. Can you give me your name, (inaudible) --? WILLIAM RUIZ: My name is William Ruiz, a.k.a. Ninja. March 24, 1979. I was born in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. JJ: Okay. (break in audio) JJ: Okay, Ninja. If you can give me your name, where you were born, and what year. WR: All right. My name is William Ruiz, a.k.a. Ninja. I was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, March 24, 1979, Bellevue Hospital, and I was raised in the Jacob Riis Projects on FDR Drive and 10th Street, and my father was a janitor at Bellevue Hospital, where I was born, and my mother was a home attendant at Pedro Albizu Campos Plaza. JJ: What’s that? Home attendant, what is that? WR: She’s a home attendant. She used to take care [00:01:00] of an old lady and help her with her daily life. She used to feed her in the morning, make sure she was bathed. She would take her to her doctor’s appointments and all that and just make sure that, you know, the lady was taken care of. I went through the whole public school system. I dropped out in ninth grade and then got back into high school very next semester, so I dropped out for a summer, but I didn’t get a high school diploma. I got a high school equivalency diploma from Satellite Academy on Forsyth Street. And then after I finished that, I graduated and I went 1 �to college at Bard College, which is Upstate New York, and, there, I studied theatre. And then, the year after I graduated, I joined up with the theatre ensemble known as Universes, [00:02:00] and I’ve been touring with them -JJ: What year was that? WR: That was 2005. I got with them and I ran with them on that first show called Slanguage, which was about the evolution of slang in the hood and the way that we speak. Even though it wasn’t an accepted language by society, we accepted it as our way of communicating with each other. To us, it was the accepted language, was to use words that are metaphorically linked to ideas. And then, in 2008, we - Universes, the crew that I joined - were sent out as ambassadors of culture for the United States by the US State Department and Jazz at Lincoln Center, and they sent us to Morocco, Tunisia, Romania, Turkey, Amsterdam, and London, and we [00:03:00] basically went out and performed for predominantly Muslim communities in each of those countries. And then, in 2009, we premiered a play called Ameriville in Louisville, Kentucky, which was about the way America and Americans reacted to Hurricane Katrina, you know, and everybody had mixed reactions to that, and that’s what we documented in that play. And, just today, July 7 -- what is today? 2012, we premiered our new show called Party People, which is about the effects on today’s communities by the Young Lords and the Black Panther Party and the Rainbow Coalition. So, that premiered today, and we’re gonna have a good, long run of it here in Ashland, Oregon, and then, hopefully, it’ll tour [00:04:00] around the country ’cause it’s a message that everybody needs to hear. This is history that’s quickly falling by 2 �the wayside, and not much has changed in our society, so it’s stuff that we need to always know about where we’ve been. That way, we can know where we’re trying to go in the future. JJ: How many brothers and sisters did you have? WR: I grew up in a apartment with three siblings. I had my younger brother, [Emanuel?], my sister, [Jeanie?] -- both of my sisters are older than me. Jeanie and [Mildred?], and both of our parents who worked, and worked, and worked, and finally, two years ago, retired, and they moved back to Puerto Rico. JJ: What town were they from? WR: They were from Lares, Puerto Rico, right? Both of them were from the same barrios. My father was from Callejones. [00:05:00] I’m not really sure where my mother was, but close by, and they didn’t meet each other until -- you know, when their families moved to the Lower East Side. My mother was 12, or 13, or something like that. My father was 15, I think. And then, the Lower East Side, they met at Pitt Pool on Houston Street and Pitt, and they met there, and fell in love, and they’ve been together ever since. And then, they just retired. My father just retired and moved right back to his old town in Callejones, and that’s -we’re all real proud of that, you know, that we made it back. And then, I moved -- JJ: Where was -- I’m sorry. [Go ahead?]. WR: I moved back to Puerto Rico four years ago as a result of gentrification in the Lower East Side. I could no longer afford to live there because NYU is expanding, and Columbia is expanding, [00:06:00] so all those slums that we come from, which wasn’t a good way to live, but that was our home, that kinda 3 �got all -- it all got bought up by NYU, so, now, that’s, like, student housing and places for them to hang out, and it’s all gettin’ renovated so that they could have a place to be, but we are gettin’ pushed out farther and farther. So, I wound up, after I graduated from college, renting a tenement apartment in Brooklyn for 1,050 a month when, four years before that, they was goin’ for, like, 200, 600 dollars a month. Nothing changed. They’re still the slums. They just cost more now. So, I did that for a year. JJ: Now, was this area Spanish, or --? WR: That was Bed-Stuy. JJ: Okay. I’m not -- WR: Bedford-Stuyvesant. JJ: I’m not familiar with (inaudible). WR: Yeah. It’s mixed. It’s Black, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Mexican, and Black is general ’cause there’s Black Puerto Ricans, Black [00:07:00] Dominicans, and Black Mexicans, so, you know, it’s everybody that is fighting for a crumb from the pot but ain’t gettin’ nothin’. That’s what was living there. But we were paying top dollar to live in the slums, and I couldn’t do that anymore, so I moved to Puerto Rico, where I had heard all these stories from my parents while I was growing up, how great it was, how you never starve there. If you’re hungry, you just pick fruits from the trees. We got chickens and everything, and I went there with that mentality of Puerto Rico back in the ’50s, basically, and that’s not what I found there. What I found was hood that was worse than the hood I was from. It was more kill or be killed -- 4 �JJ: [This is where in?] Puerto Rico? WR: Santurce. JJ: Santurce. WR: I live in Santurce, home of the Cangrejeros. JJ: [Oh, the?] Cangrejeros. [Was it a crab?] -- WR: It was a crabbing community way back in the day. Now, you know, you can still eat crabs there, but that’s now what they’re known for. [00:08:00] Now, they’re known for their access to the tourism that goes on in Old San Juan. All the people who work in Old San Juan, can’t afford to live in Old San Juan, live in Santurce or surrounding areas. So, that’s where I’m living now, and life is actually a lot harder. Even though people think of Puerto Rico, they think of a paradise, that’s not necessarily the case for everybody. The income is much smaller than the income earned in the United States. You can get by on less. The apartment that I live in in Puerto Rico is twice the size of any apartment I’ve ever seen in New York. I live four blocks from the beach. It’s beautiful. There’s always foliage on the trees. It’s never winter, but, you know, it’s -- JJ: Why did you choose? What was the reason -- you said because of what your parents were telling you [00:09:00] about Puerto Rico? WR: Yeah. It’s every Nuyorican kid’s dream to go back to Puerto Rico, and the reason it’s our dream is because of the way that our parents talk about it, with the nostalgia, you know, remembering the good old days. They were children back in those days. Anybody who was a kid remembers their childhood days, no matter where you’re from, with nostalgia. My son was born in Puerto Rico, and, 5 �one day, he’s gonna want to move to New York, thinking of the New York that I left behind, and, if he does that, he’s gonna realize it’s not his home, and that’s how I’ve come to realize Puerto Rico is not my home. Even though I live there now, I’ve lived there for the past four years, it’s like growing a cactus in the jungle, man. It’s not right. There’s something not right about it. I don’t click. I don’t -JJ: So, your home -- WR: -- fit in there. JJ: Your home is New York? WR: Nah, man. New York is not my home no more. New York is not the place I [00:10:00] left behind. New York belongs to other people now. I am a vagabond. JJ: That’s because of gentrification? WR: I live all over the place now. JJ: [You mean?] gentrification? WR: It was gentrification. That’s what forced me to move out, and now, when I go back and I visit my old neighborhood, it’s not the same neighborhood I left behind. It’s a lot cleaner, and there’s a lot less of us there. JJ: Okay. Now, you got into play, and acting, and all that, and drama school, and all that -- WR: Well -- JJ: What was shaping your mind to get into that? WR: I didn’t know I was gonna wind up being a actor. I was always a poet and a rapper, but then, when I got to college, I realized -- 6 �JJ: How did you get into that? WR: Well, when I got to college, I realized that I didn’t have enough education to succeed in any of the departments, but I was always a class clown when I was in public school. So, when I got to college, the only way I could use that skill was in the theatre department. To be a class clown was acceptable in the [00:11:00] theatre department. It meant that I wasn’t afraid of gettin’ up, and voicing my opinions, and actin’ a fool in front of everybody. So, I did pretty good in the theatre department. And then, after I graduated, Mildred, and Steve, and Flaco, and Lemon, and Jamal had this thing going with Universes, where they were blending poetry, and theatre, and music and making shows out of that. And so, they asked me to audition, so I did, and they let me run with them, and it was -you know, I do theatre because it is what I’m capable of doing, not because it’s the path that I’ve chosen. JJ: So, you’re a clown in school, and then -- WR: And I couldn’t read. I couldn’t read. JJ: [You couldn’t read?]. WR: I couldn’t do math, and I got accepted into this college because I did a great interview. I impressed them. I was smart. Just because I couldn’t read and I couldn’t do math didn’t mean [00:12:00] I wasn’t smart. I could watch a nature show, and I absorbed it all quickly. I could hear stories and absorb things really fast, so I was able to contribute in conversations. But then, when I realized that I couldn’t do well in my tests in college, I couldn’t read analytically, I couldn’t break down a book -- you know, I would read a book and get stuck on, like, three words 7 �and wouldn’t be able to finish the book. So, then, the next day, when I would get to the class, and the class is discussing the book, I’ll hear what a student is saying, and I jump off of that, off of my own experience, like I had read the book. So, I was -JJ: (inaudible). WR: -- talkin’ like I knew, but I was -- JJ: But what was the reason? I mean, was it something internally, or -- I mean, [or was it?] --? WR: I was doing well in college not because of what I was reading and learning there. I was doing well in college because I had [00:13:00] absorbed so much growing up in New York, and I related that to my professors and to my peers. Peers is a funny word ’cause they weren’t my peers. They were just the same age as me. JJ: Tell me a little bit about New York. I know [you kinda stopped, and we’re gonna get back?]. WR: All right. JJ: What I’m trying to find out is what was it like? I mean, you said you were absorbing stuff. What was it like growing up there? WR: All right. In New York, what I noticed all the way from kindergarten to high school, all my teachers were Jewish. All the students were either Puerto Rican, Dominican, or Black of some sort, so the teachers never related to us and looked down on us. I never had a teacher that could speak Spanish. I never had a teacher that knew what -- JJ: You say they looked down on you. How? 8 �WR: They [00:14:00] didn’t expect us to do well. You know, it was a factory. School was a student factory. That’s what it was. They were just crankin’ us out, givin’ us whatever grades. It didn’t matter. They were just putting us through, saying, ”Okay. We’ve got this many students coming in this year. Get ’em all through.” So, I didn’t learn much. The way the public school system in New York was run wasn’t -- they weren’t trying to ensure that we learned everything we could learn. They were trying to make sure that the numbers were right. Test scores were, on an average, 65 to 75. That’s fine. And the teachers had 30 students. Twenty-five of them made it to the next grade, that’s fine. That’s all that mattered. The teachers weren’t connecting with us. They weren’t teaching us things that were useful to us. They weren’t teaching us how to use our money wisely. They weren’t teaching us how to start a career for ourselves. What they were teaching us [00:15:00] instead was how to work for people. They weren’t teaching us about credit cards, about how to not get into debt, or how to use a credit card and maintain a balanced budget. They weren’t teaching us things that were useful to us. They were teaching us things that kept us as a cog in a machine. You know, they were teaching us how to find a job. Oh, they encouraged us to get jobs in McDonald’s, which makes sense, right? Get a job in McDonald’s. JJ: [Literally, they told you?] -- WR: No. Why not teach a kid how to create something when they’re open --? JJ: They told you to get a job at McDonald’s? WR: Yeah. They told us to start with jobs at McDonald’s. Apply -- 9 �JJ: What was their reasoning? WR: The rationale is that you’re probably gonna get it. You’re probably gonna get the job. Basically, in doing that, they taught us not to aim too high, and that’s what I got out of the public school system. And then, when [00:16:00] you get out of the public school system, what you’re faced with are -- you know, there’s the gangs that you either click with or you don’t. The thing is -- JJ: (inaudible) [schools?]? WR: They were in the schools. They were the people that were all around us. The gangs were made of us. See, the Lower East Side was split into sections, then, depending on what projects you were in. There was the Jacob Riis Projects. Then was Lillian Wald. No, Lillian Wald was up in the hill. There was the Baruch -- I went to PS 34, which is in Jacob Riis Projects. So, that was my elementary school, and, while I was in elementary school, I wasn’t in a gang, but that was my neighborhood. That was from 13th Street to 6th Street, was Jacob Riis projects, and -- JJ: And what was the name of the gang? WR: Dime Street Mobsters -- JJ: (inaudible). WR: -- was 10th Street. That was DSM. JJ: What were some of the other gangs? WR: Well, [00:17:00] there was that gang. There were others all in throughout there, but there were so many gangs. There wasn’t big mob gangs, you know? The gangs consisted of, like, 30 to 50 people, and it was just kids, and it wasn’t even - 10 �- there wasn’t a job to do. It was just your friends. That’s all it was. And then, when I went to junior high school, I went to Junior High School 22, which was in the Baruch Projects, or Baruch, and, there, I clicked with my cousin’s gang, the Delancey Street Boys, and that was all from the seventh grade to the ninth grade. That’s the gang I was with. And then, I went to high school in Seward Park, which was in the hills -JJ: So, what did they do? Delancey Street Boys, what --? WR: What did we do? We smoked weed, and we hung out with our girlfriends, and we listened to music. And then, there was a new wave of a Dominican [00:18:00] migration into the Lower East Side, so the Delancey Street Boys was mostly Puerto Rican and Black, so we started having beef with the Dominicans. JJ: About what year was this? WR: 1993, ’94. Any fights that we was having was with Dominicans at that time because we didn’t understand each other. You know, they had a Caribbean lifestyle, and the Puerto Ricans from New York at that time had a New York lifestyle. We thought that the Dominicans dressed funny because they wore shorts and shoes with no socks, and they had Caribbean-style haircuts. They didn’t speak English. So, we discriminated on them for that, and we abused them. JJ: What do you mean? WR: We fought. You know? They were in the ESL program, which was the English as a second language, [00:19:00] so the school was divided. There was the regular Junior High School 22. Then, there was Vanguard High School, which 11 �was also in our school. It was, like, 15 students were in that high school. And then, there was the English as a second language, which was mostly the Dominicans or kids from the Caribbean. They could have been Puerto Ricans too, but, to us, they were Dominicans, and we didn’t relate. We were very different, and I felt like my neighborhood was being taken over by them, so that’s why I felt like I had to stand guard. I had to fight them. So, whenever Delancey Street Boys would get out into the back of the schoolyard, and then the English as a second language students, they would come out, we would bully them and make fun of them, and I remember, one time, this kid -- we were messin’ around with this kid’s little brother, and then he came out and defended his little brother, and then, [00:20:00] you know, he got hit, and then all the Dominican kids came out to his defense, and then we brawled. And, now, today, I feel bad about that, feel like it was stupid, but we didn’t know any better. We didn’t know to think, like, we should be united. I didn’t think like that back then. I thought of what made sense, and what made sense to me, what everybody was thinking, was we should be fighting them and make them scared enough that they got to leave our neighborhood ’cause we thought it was our neighborhood, when -JJ: (inaudible). WR: -- in fact, it wasn’t our neighborhood. It’s never been our neighborhood. It was just the place where we were. JJ: But, I mean, it was a Puerto Rican neighborhood [before, right?]? 12 �WR: Yeah, but, even before that, it wasn’t a Puerto Rican neighborhood. It was a Jewish neighborhood. You know, it’s never been anybody’s. It belongs to whoever owns it, and we never owned it. JJ: So, before that, the Jews had problems with the Puerto Ricans (inaudible)? WR: [00:21:00] I don’t know. I wasn’t around back then. That was way before my time. JJ: But you definitely had problems with the Dominicans trying to take over your neighborhood. WR: During the early ’90s, yeah. That’s what the beef was, was with the Dominican kids. JJ: Okay. So, it wasn’t, like, urban renewal or anything like that? [They just?] -- WR: We didn’t know about it. JJ: This was a natural -- WR: We didn’t know about it. I think it was 1988 -- JJ: [I don’t wanna put words?] -- WR: Yeah, no, no. I don’t know. I’m not sure, but I think it was 1988 when the police came into Tompkins Square Park and took out all the homeless people. Before, my understanding of the village was that Tompkins Square Park was the village ’cause people had tents set up in there. That’s where all the homeless people were. So, that’s why I understood it to be called the village. I don’t know that that’s right. That was my understanding of it, and, sometime around there, the cops came in and beat everybody out of the [00:22:00] park, and that should have represented the beginning of gentrification right there, but I didn’t know it at 13 �the time. None of us knew it. We just thought they were cleaning up the neighborhood, and cleaning up the neighborhood meant great things. It meant that, now, we could use the park for a couple of years, until all the artists start (inaudible) college students start moving in, and then college students who don’t have to pay the rent, but their parents pay the rent no matter what it costs, so the slum lords are like, ”Oh, so I could charge you 900 dollars for the rent, and you still gonna pay it?” So, they started charging 900, then 1,000, then up to 3,000 dollars. JJ: So, the process, if I’m understanding what you’re saying, is, first, there was a Puerto Rican community. Then, artists came in? WR: Yeah. It was a Puerto Rican community. Then, a bohemian community started getting built -- JJ: Bohemian [meaning?] (inaudible). WR: -- in the gaps. Right. And then, after that, you know, this arts culture gets built, and from that, what happens is scholarly people start coming in and saying, ”I wanna be [00:23:00] part of this artist community. It’s beautiful.” So, they start moving in, and they can afford more than the artists ’cause a artist is broke by nature. If you got money, I don’t know, really, what business you got being a artist. Art comes out of struggle. Art comes out of pain. Anyway, that ain’t gonna make sense to somebody, but it makes sense to me. JJ: Right. So, the rents were a little lower [then?]. WR: Before that Tompkins Square Park riot happened, the rent was low. It was the slums. It was a hard time. Nobody had any money. Then, the cops came in, 14 �and cleaned up Tompkins Square Park, and started beautification of the neighborhood. JJ: The cops started this? WR: No. The cops cleaned it up, and then, from somewhere, somebody decided they were gonna invest money in cleaning up this park, obviously with the goal of raising [00:24:00] the value of the land, which, yeah, that’s great, but can you raise the value of the land for us, who live there? That wasn’t the intention. When they started cleanin’ up the parks in my neighborhood in the projects, we should have seen what was coming next, was that they would clean up the neighborhood and then move us out so they could move a different breed of people in. They didn’t clean it for us. At first, we thought they were cleaning it for us to give us a better place to live in. That was not the plan. JJ: So, you believed that they were fixing it up for the Puerto Rican community at that time? WR: We did. We believed that they were fixing up our neighborhood for us. JJ: Did they say that in meetings, or --? WR: I didn’t go to meetings. I didn’t know -- JJ: Newspapers? WR: I was not an active participant in civics at all. I didn’t think like that. JJ: But you felt that they were [changing the neighborhood?]. WR: I thought they were really changing the neighborhood and fixing [00:25:00] it up for us. I thought it was a new time and things were gonna get better for us. It was during Clinton years, when I started being awake to it. We had so much 15 �money. America was rich, you know? And they were fixing, so I thought they were fixing it because we had this surplus of money. So, it just made sense. Yeah, of course. We got all this money now. Let’s fix everything. Great. Let’s get better education and everything. It wasn’t for us, though. They fixed it so that the land value would go up so that the rent could go up, and, as a result of the rent going up, we could no longer afford to live there anymore. JJ: Now, this was your community. How did you feel about that, that they were doing that, they were making these changes and --? WR: When I realized it, I was in college. It was my first year of college, and I went away, and I was away for three months, and then I came back, and I saw. If I had stayed there, I wouldn’t have seen it ’cause the change is so gradual, [00:26:00] but I was gone for three months, and I came back, and, all of a sudden, there were white kids that looked like football players walkin’ around in my projects, and that was unheard of, and I was really confused. I was like, where’s the crew? Where is everybody? Everybody was in jail because they had built a new precinct on 9th Street, right in front of the projects, and anybody that was hangin’ out, they would find a reason to arrest you. So, basically, our guards weren’t there anymore. Our guards were all in jail, you know, people who would guard against these football jocks walkin’ around in our neighborhood. I know that doesn’t sound like a bad thing to a lot of people, but, to us, it represented a change that we couldn’t fight against. So -- JJ: So, what was your response to that? 16 �WR: My response was I got some of my friends together, and, you know, the response was [00:27:00] violence. If we saw people walking around in our neighborhood that weren’t from our neighborhood, we would harass them to let them know that this was the Lower East Side. You don’t come in here without permission. You don’t come down here without having family in here. And vandalism. We would watch, like, if somebody that wasn’t from the projects would park their car in the projects, we would wait for them to leave and puncture their tires or smash a window. You know, let ’em know that this is not the place to park. JJ: Where did you get this idea to fight ’em? WR: I don’t know that we got the idea to fight them. It was just a instinct, you know? Even though those people weren’t united as a gang, we saw them as the other, so they were the obvious enemy to us. They were the new [00:28:00] Dominicans. White Americans. We were defending our neighborhood. It’s natural. It’s tribal. It’s an instinct to defend your territory, and I thought that was my territory, so I was defending it the best way I knew how. No need for confrontation. I’ll just let you park your car there. Go ahead. Park your car, and then walk away, and then try to drive out at night. Good luck. And then, vandalism was another thing. I felt like they were cleaning it up, and that’s when I started realizing they weren’t cleaning it up for us. They were cleaning it up so that those people could come through here, and that’s when I started really vandalizing and doing a lot of graffiti, which I thought was art anyway. I thought it was great, so to put it up was kind of cool, and I knew it would keep them out 17 �’cause they were scared of it. And, you know, breaking new things that they had put up in the park, or they would plant a tree, and I would break it, and I felt like that was the only [00:29:00] way we could keep our neighborhood, was if I destroyed it, which sucks, you know, that the only way we could keep our things if we kept it dirty, and here they are, trying to fix it, and the older folks don’t understand why we’re destroying everything, but that was the logic to me at the time, was, if you wanna stay here, you got to destroy the good things that they’re bringing in. We didn’t bring those good things in. They brought it in. They’re buying us out, basically, with trash, stuff that we don’t need, really, ’cause -JJ: So, you had this logic, but (inaudible) -- WR: It was confused logic. It wasn’t logic. JJ: I don’t understand where it comes from because, I mean, (inaudible) -- WR: It was rage. JJ: [Why you just didn’t?] let it go? Just let it go like everybody else [that didn’t?] do anything? Why was it so [deep?] with you is what I’m saying. WR: ’Cause -- JJ: [Other people just let it go?]. WR: -- I was -- I couldn’t just let it go. [00:30:00] JJ: Had you read about gentrification [in other areas?]? WR: No, I didn’t know how to read. I didn’t know how to read -- I just knew it was something wrong. I knew that it was our neighborhood, and all these friends that I had growing up with wasn’t around anymore, and I just linked it. It has to be because of them. It has to be because of these people who are here now that 18 �my friends are not here no more, and I had rage, and we didn’t have a leader to direct us and say, ”No, the right thing to do is this.” We didn’t have that. We didn’t have a smart person in my neighborhood. There was nobody telling us how to do it the right way. We were just the crazy kids on the corner who couldn’t be told what to do. We didn’t have respect for our elders. [00:31:00] There was no real reason to. Nobody had ever stood out to us as, you know, a community leader. If there was one -- there probably was one in the Lower East Side. I never knew who he was or she was. They never presented themselves to us. So, me and my boys, we did the opposite of what those people wanted us to do. Those people wanted us to leave all the stuff nice, but they weren’t down with us, so why were we gonna do what they wanted us to do? So, we were like, no. Fuck it. You’re gonna go plant trees in our neighborhood without askin’ us permission? We gonna take ’em out. You know, or you gonna park your nice cars here? Go ahead. You got to buy new tires, though. Don’t ever park here again. JJ: What were your parents thinking? WR: My parents didn’t know I was doing that. JJ: [00:32:00] And did they say anything about (inaudible)? WR: My parents thought I was going to church all the time. My parents were not revolutionary at all. My father was very, you know, just keep your head down. Just do your job. Do your job. He worked as a janitor in Bellevue Hospital, and he went to work almost every day. He did overtime hours. He busted his ass working so that he could keep us fed, and keep the rent paid, and lead us by 19 �being a good example. My mother was in church all the time. She was a Pentecostal, and she believed very much that God was gonna solve our problems, so just pray. When things are wrong, just pray. Don’t get up and do things out of anger. Just pray, and God’ll make a way, and I believed that for a long time, but then I stopped believing that God was gonna make a way, and I stopped believing that keeping your head down and going with the stream was a good idea, [00:33:00] but they didn’t know I was doing that. My mom thought I was going to church all the time. My father thought I was in school all the time, but, really, I was being a teenager. JJ: And this was during high school. WR: During high school, mm-hmm. And then, when I got to college, you know, it was different. I lived Upstate. I was with a bunch of white kids. JJ: You said you dropped out (inaudible). WR: I dropped out of high school for a semester. Actually, I didn’t drop out of high school. I didn’t go to high school, but I was still registered, and then I got left back, so they were gonna make me do the ninth grade again for a third time, so I was like, ”Nah, forget that.” So, that’s when I enrolled in a second chance high school. It was a magnet school called Satellite Academy on Forsyth Street, and that was the first time I had any teachers of color, and that was when I started [00:34:00] learning for the first time, was my -- JJ: Before that, it was all -- WR: -- tenth and eleventh grade. JJ: -- Jewish teachers, or --? 20 �WR: Before, they were people who didn’t understand us. You know, they weren’t from our culture. JJ: You didn’t like them? WR: It wasn’t that I didn’t like them. I mean, I thought it was normal, but they didn’t even know how to speak to us. They couldn’t relate to the students. They couldn’t help us. They weren’t trying to help us. That wasn’t the goal. JJ: You could feel that [there wasn’t?] (inaudible)? WR: Right. No, they weren’t teaching us how to do great things. JJ: Were they angry? Were they --? WR: No, they weren’t angry. They were very nice and passive, but they also didn’t care if we didn’t care. But that was different in high school. In high school, I noticed that those teachers of color, they did care. If we didn’t care, they cared [00:35:00] that we didn’t care, and they went out of their way to make us care, and, you know, they told us why it’s important. That was when I first learned about Taínos. Before that, none of my Jewish teachers could have ever told me about a Taíno. They didn’t know what that was. I don’t know that they could have found Puerto Rico on a map. There was no way they could teach us about ourselves. They didn’t come from us, and it wasn’t until high school, and that was when my rebellious phase was really taking over. That’s when I was all about hanging with the clique, and smashing things, and taggin’ my name up all over places, and seeing where I could climb up higher than anybody else and get my name up higher, you know. JJ: So, (inaudible), [you mean more?] like a gang type of -- 21 �WR: Yeah. JJ: Or just (inaudible). WR: Right. Right. That’s what I mean by rebellious, is just [00:36:00] doing what people didn’t want me to do, you know, doing bad. JJ: And this was in high school. WR: It started in junior high school, when I really liked fighting. JJ: But this was before the teachers, the new teachers. WR: Right. Right. When I got those new teachers in the Satellite Academy, that’s when I started changing, and I think that’s when I started becoming aware of the gentrification, but it was because of those teachers. If we had had teachers from the beginning that could tell us what we were coming from, what we were going through, I think my mind would have developed in a whole different way. I would have been alert to that all, and it wasn’t until my tenth, and eleventh, and twelfth grade that I started finding out about Taínos, finding [00:37:00] about gentrification, about when Puerto Ricans got to New York. You know, stuff that I cared about or stuff that I realized then I cared about. I didn’t know I cared about that. I didn’t know it existed. I didn’t know to think about that, and that would make a big difference if we were actually taught by people from our own culture. That would make a big difference. JJ: So, this is when you begin thinking about the theatre? All of a sudden, you think theatre, or --? WR: No, no. I was afraid to perform, but I was a performer. JJ: Was this high school? 22 �WR: No, it was in college when I started doing theatre. JJ: And you were studying what? What was your major? WR: My first major was photography, but then, in order to be a photography student, you had to be able to afford film. You had to be able to afford a camera. You had to be able to afford all the chemicals to develop your pictures and all that, and that’s when I realized, oh, you can’t be [00:38:00] poor and be a photography major. JJ: Photography why? Why photography? WR: Because my sister and my brother-in-law -- Mildred and Steve started a community center in the Bronx called The POINT, and, in there, they had a program from International Center of Photography, and that’s where I started learning photography. This was while I was still in high school, but I was going to this community center, and I started learning photography, and I used to go around the neighborhood and take pictures about things in the neighborhood, and I liked that, and people from the neighborhood liked to see themselves in pictures. So, you know, I’ll take a picture of some people hangin’ out on the corner, and then, the next day, I develop it and bring it to them, be like, ”Yo, this is y’all,” and they’d like that, and that made people happy and made ’em smile, and I liked that. So, then, when I got to college, I was like, ”I wanna be a photographer, and I wanna go back and take pictures of the neighborhood,” and that’s when I found out that Jacob Riis, whom our projects were named after, was this famous Jewish guy who got famous because he photographed the slum conditions that the Jewish [00:39:00] people were being forced to live in, and I 23 �was like, ”Oh, man, I could be like the next Jacob Riis for Puerto Ricans.” So, that was my dream, but then I realized that you can’t be poor and be a photography major. That was for kids who could afford that or who got grants for that, and I didn’t know how to get a grant. And then, I couldn’t do anything in any other department because I couldn’t read well. I couldn’t do math, but -JJ: What was your problem with reading? (inaudible). WR: The first book I had read was in college, was during my freshman seminar, was this book, Why Elephants Weep. It was about anthropomorphism and how humans give human traits to animals. Like, ”Oh, that dog is happy, or that dog is sad.” We don’t know how a dog feels. We don’t know if a dog feels happy or sadness. I’m sure they do, but [00:40:00] that’s what it was about. So, that was the first book I read, and that was in college. Why hadn’t I read a book before that? I could read ’cause I read comic books, and I read subtitles on movies and stuff like that. JJ: So, you were able to read. You just (inaudible). WR: I could read a little bit, yeah. JJ: [You just didn’t like the other books that?] -- WR: I just couldn’t understand. You give me a book with chapters in it and, like, I wasn’t accustomed to reading a book for a long time. JJ: Right. But comic books was fine? WR: Yeah. It’s short. You read 15 pages, and you’re done, and it’s adventure, and it’s only a few words here and there. It’s pictures. So, yeah, I didn’t -- JJ: Those hard books made you think that you couldn’t do something. 24 �WR: I didn’t think I could read. And then, I started reading plays, and I read this Oscar Wilde play, and it had masks and stuff, and I was like, ”Oh, masks are cool.” JJ: One day, you just took on to reading a play, or --? WR: [00:41:00] Yeah. My boy, [Juan Carlos?], he was in the theatre department. He was Dominican, and he was like, ”Yo, you should come and audition for this play,” and I was like, ”All right.” So, I went and auditioned, and I got the role, and, now, I was like, oh, shit. I got to read? So, I had to read this script, and I read it, and I played the role, and I did well, and I was like, ”I could do this. I could do this.” And I could read. I just had never challenged myself like that. So, I started reading, and then I read Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, and I loved Beckett. I loved absurdists, crazy theatre. I liked that, and then I got really into it, and I was like, ”Oh, this is --” JJ: What do you mean, crazy theatre? ’Cause I’m not -- WR: Like, things that don’t make sense. In this play, I got this character, Primo, right? Who’s basically -- JJ: This is Party People? In Party People? WR: In Party People. I wrote this [00:42:00] character named Primo, who’s basically a warped revolutionary, but you don’t know what side he stands on. You don’t know what he’s fighting for, what’s his cause, and, to me, that’s absurd, is somebody who devotes theirselves 100 percent entirely to something, but you can’t quite tell what that thing is. He fights for this side and that side, and, in doing so, he makes both sides fight against each other. I like writing stuff like that, stuff that confuses the audience and makes them agree with me and 25 �disagree with me at the same time. And I noticed that Beckett was really good at that. And then, you know, I did a couple of plays. I got through my four years. I struggled through it. I had to get by on charisma, but I made it through, and I graduated, and I got a bachelor’s degree, and [00:43:00] 25,000 dollars of debt. JJ: But a bachelor’s degree in what --? WR: In theatre. JJ: In theatre. WR: In theatre, and I minored in archaeology. This was a big thing for me. I wasn’t a good reader, and my archeology professor knew that, but I had a great understanding for timespan and human characteristics in tribal situations. Because of comin’ up in a gang, I understood how the Lenape tribes in New York, which, today, we call the Delawares -- how they related to each other in small groups. So, I had this great understanding for how deep the layers of earth -- what they represented by color change, what timespan each strata represented. So, when I would dig, I understood the wall that I was looking at, but I couldn’t understand the book that explained what I was looking at when I was looking at the wall, and my professor [00:44:00] noticed that in me. He noticed that I could look -- I could dig down and dig a straight wall down into the ground and show the different stratigraphy, and where there used to be rivers, and where somebody threw a bunch of clam and oyster shells -- this is where they were sitting -- or where there was a fire hearth, where they might have sat and made camp for the night while they (inaudible). I understood how to read to ground, and my professor saw that in me, and he made me the crew chief. I was 26 �his crew chief from the time I graduated for four more years after college, and I led his digs, and, you know, there were some students who were great readers, and he had them analyze things in a different way, but me, he would sit me inside of a pit and have me look at a wall and explain to him what happened there for the last 8,000 years, and I could do that by [00:45:00] looking at the layers of dirt, and the angles, and what the dirt was made out of, the [acidity?]. It was all this stuff that went into play, and I could read a wall of dirt, but I couldn’t read a book. It was sad but really cool at the same time. So, I did that, and I don’t know. I think my brain just works in a different way from most people. JJ: Tell me about Party People. I mean, what is it about? [I mean, you did it today?]. WR: All right. Party People -- that’s a deep question. What is Party People about? JJ: And, you know, you can start with how you guys began thinking about it, (inaudible). WR: I think Party People is about -- JJ: And why. WR: It’s about aging, and it’s about passing the baton to the next generation. Nobody ever passed the baton to me or anybody that I knew in my [00:46:00] generation. Nobody that had been through what we were going through in the Lower East Side had passed the baton to us. None of our elders in the Lower East Side told us, ”Oh, yeah, we went through that 10 years ago or 20 years ago. We know what you’re going through right now. You just got to do this and this.” We didn’t get advice from nobody. Nobody ever passed us the baton. And then, they got 27 �older, and older, and older, and either disgruntled, or felt like they failed, or felt sad about the choices that they made, but they never led us. You know, they could have had a giant army of people if they had just stuck with it, and let shit go, and taught us, but there was never anybody from them ever around to teach us, so we had to learn it just the same way they had to learn it, so we never got anywhere. We got about as far as they did, and I think Party People is a reflective [00:47:00] look at what happened to everybody 40 years later. Where are their minds today? Where are their children, and where are their children’s children? What is everybody going through today as a result of all that war that went on back then, the post-traumatic stress that everybody got, the -- you know, some people feel like they failed. Some people feel like they succeeded. Some people gave up, and left it behind, and never turned back towards it again, and some people are still struggling today with it, and still fighting for people’s rights, and fighting for justice, and I think that the main thing that my character is talking about in the play is a feeling of having been left behind to fend for ourselves instead of having been taken under the wing of all those people that fought for us and trained to continue the fight [00:48:00] for the next generations that are coming behind us. I think that’s what my character’s trying to talk about, is that we kinda got left behind instead of fostered. You know, we didn’t have mentors. JJ: But that’s the character Primo. WR: That’s the Primo character. JJ: Okay. And what about the rest of the play, Party People? [What’s that?] --? 28 �WR: The thing is that the play touches on a lot of topics. It depends on who you are, the viewer, when you come into the room. Each person that sees the show is gonna leave with a different message. Some people are gonna leave with the message of, damn, we did give up. Some people are gonna leave with the message of that’s right, we are still fighting. Some people are gonna leave with the message of, you know, this wasn’t all based on hate. The whole revolution was not based on hate. It was based on love for people’s communities. Some people are gonna leave with [00:49:00] all those people just had guns. They were scary. You know, it depends on who you are and what frame of mind you’re in when you come see the show. That is gonna dictate what you leave the show with ’cause we touch on so many different topics, and it was written by three people -- JJ: Like what kind of -- WR: -- but we had so many collaborators. JJ: What kind of topics (inaudible)? What kind of topics? WR: Our topics range from historical events that happened in the ’60s, and ’70s, and ’80s to concepts that were going on in people’s minds at those times, what revolution meant to different people. Not everybody had the same definition of revolution. There’s an FBI character in our play. To him, obviously, revolution is a whole different thing. His concept of revolution [00:50:00] is quelling the people’s struggle, and that restores a safe America to him. Other people see a safe America by feeding the children and making sure that they go to school with a full belly and the vitamins that they need so that they can learn. For some 29 �people, the revolution was about making sure old people were safe and got escorted to cash their social security checks and made sure that they didn’t get robbed on the way back home. For some people, the revolution was about fighting police brutality and making sure that we weren’t being abused by an oppressive system of outsiders that were in our community. For some people, the revolution was about education. For some people, the revolution was about living standards. For some people, the revolution was about working standards. Everybody fought for a different thing, but we all fought together, and that went away at some point. You know, that [00:51:00] wasn’t around when I was a kid. Nobody was fighting for anything when I was a kid. We were fighting for territory. We were fighting for control of drug sales. We weren’t united when I was growing up. We were at war with ourselves, and we didn’t know that, in the ’60s, there were people fighting together for something. We didn’t know about all that history. I didn’t learn about the Black Panthers ’til I got to college. I didn’t learn about the Young Lords ’til about the end of my college. You know, I didn’t know about that stuff. I didn’t know about what y’all did. Nobody ever taught us that. That legend, that cultural history didn’t exist for us. Maybe for some people, but not for me. I didn’t know about any of that. Nobody taught me that. JJ: So, you go to college, and you hear about these groups, the Young Lords -- WR: [00:52:00] Yeah. When I went to college -- JJ: Black Panthers. WR: -- Bobby Seale came and spoke at my college, and I went because all the revolutionary cool kids went to that talk. I didn’t know who Bobby Seale was. I 30 �just thought it was a cool name. One of the Wu-Tang members, one of the members of Wu-Tang Clan, that was his nickname. I was like, ”Oh, that’s hot. Who’s this dude?” Talkin’ about the Black Panthers. ”Oh, I heard about the Black Panthers. What’s that about?” And then, I went, and I heard him talk, and the stuff that he was talkin’ about was about -- you know, it wasn’t about what I thought it was. I thought it was about fighting, and shooting cops, and stuff like that, and it wasn’t about that. It was about making life better for the people who didn’t have that, people who weren’t born with healthcare from their parents, people who had to worry about where their next meal was gonna come from, [00:53:00] people whose houses were deteriorating, who lived in conditions where asbestos was everywhere. I remember we got taken out of our school my eighth grade. All the kids basically got evacuated out of my school for two months because they had to clean out the asbestos, and that was in the eighth grade, so I’m like, ”Damn, how many years of asbestos have I been breathing in?” It was just a little too late, and I think, once I realized that there were people that were fighting for our people at one point, I felt abandoned. I felt like my generation got abandoned, and we didn’t have anybody fightin’ for us, and we were left to fight against each other ’cause we didn’t see that there was a real enemy, and, still, we don’t really know who that real enemy is, but [00:54:00] it just doesn’t make sense that we’re subjected to the conditions of living that we’re subjected to. And I think a lot of my life was just blind fury. I didn’t know why I was fighting. I didn’t know what I was fighting for, but I knew I had to fight because I felt like a sucker if I didn’t. It was blind fury all the way until I got to 31 �college, and then I kind of just gave up. It was too late at that point. I wasn’t even in my community anymore. I was living in the suburbs, you know. It was too late already. JJ: Now, your sister Mildred and -- you said Jamal? WR: It was Mildred, Steve, Jamal, yeah. JJ: So, they were already together at Universes. WR: Yeah. Yeah. JJ: Were they already in theatre? WR: Yes. They were already doin’ it. JJ: So, did they shape your decision also, or --? WR: [00:55:00] No. No. That’s not why I -- not at all. Not at all. I think I was acting up since I was a little kid. You know, I did church plays here and there, but that was -- JJ: Does it run in your family, or were you the first generation? WR: I don’t know. I mean, no. Nobody in my family was theatre. Mildred wasn’t in theatre. She was a lit major, a literature major. JJ: [Literature, okay?]. WR: My mother sang to us. JJ: [She sang professionally?]? WR: But she -- no, she didn’t sing professionally. She was a home attendant. She didn’t have dreams of grandeur. My father was a janitor. JJ: You guys started theatre at the same time, [basically?]? WR: No. Mildred went to Bard in 1988, and she didn’t start doin’ theatre -- 32 �JJ: Bard is a -- WR: Bard College. Bard, Annandale, New York. Dutchess County. [00:56:00] And she didn’t start doing theatre until she got there, and then Steve -- I don’t know. I don’t know when he started. I think he started there, but I was a poet since I was in junior high school. I was a rapper. You know, that was my thing. I loved rapping. I loved telling stories for my neighborhood in the form of rap, and that was my performance. I used to go to the Nuyorican Poets Café, and go down there, and battle. And then, when I got to college, I was like, ”Oh, I can use this.” Oh, matter of fact, in college, my poetry professor was Bob Holman, who was one of the founders of the Nuyorican Poets Café, and he was who made me realize that I was a poet ’cause I didn’t realize I was a poet. I went to his class, and I was like, ”Yeah, nah, I’m actually -- I’m a rapper. I don’t do poems.” And I read him one of my raps, and he was like, ”Oh, yeah, that’s poetry.” And then, he started gettin’ that into my head, that my rhymes were actually poems, [00:57:00] and that’s when I learned how to write poetry. Basically just turn my rhymes into poems. JJ: Okay. So, I guess we’ll kinda wrap it up [if you can?] explain some of the other plays that Universes [has done?]. WR: All right. So, I mean, Steve can tell you this better than I can. JJ: (inaudible). WR: But, yeah, there was -- yeah, I think I’ll let Steve talk to you about the history of Universes. JJ: Okay. 33 �END OF AUDIO FILE 34 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6f49ab8638d30786a01569e04f1fe96a.mp4 bf2d141cf48d595562fafbe88c53af06 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives. The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng spa Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 2012-2017 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Título Spanish language Title entry William Ruiz vídeo entrevista y biografía Sujetos Spanish language Subject terms Young Lords (Organización) Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puertorriqueños--Relatos personales Justicia social Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago Puertorriqueños--Nueva York (N.Y.) Artes, Puertorriqueños--Illinois--Chicago Partido Pantera Negra Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65_Ruiz_William Title A name given to the resource William Ruiz video interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ruiz, William Description An account of the resource William “Ninja” Ruiz is the brother of Mildred Ruiz-Sapp of Universes and they grew up in New York City on the Lower East Side. He earned his BA in Theatre at Bard College where he also studied poetry. Today he makes his home in Santurce, Puerto Rico and is a leading member of the Universes Theatre Ensemble. Universes is a New York-based theatre group that fuses poetry, jazz, hip hop, politics, blues and Spanish boleros to create its own productions which are performed on and off Broadway, nationally and internationally. One of their most recent productions is “Party People” (2012) which is primarily about the Black Panther Party and the Young Lords. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puerto Ricans--Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Puerto Ricans--New York (N.Y.) Arts, Puerto Rican--New York (N.Y.) Black Panther Party Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-07-07 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b100aab37d44120657caadbcdb4f7c7a.pdf 18796c961d4eb166653aacc40e68d660 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Ross, Wanda Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez and Melanie Shell-Weiss Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 8/24/2012 Biography and Description Wanda Ross grew up in Chicago, the granddaughter of migrants from the southern United States. Shortly after she began college, she started attending political education classes taught by “Teach” of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense (BPP). She joined the BPP shortly thereafter. She was chief developer of the BPP’s Breakfast for Children Program. Ms. Ross describes how she started the Chicago program, including how she identified donors who would be willing to give food to the program, picked up those supplies, and organized teams to cook and serve the children who participated in the program. The BPP Breakfast Program was used as a model by other organizations, including the Young Lords and Young Patriots. The program also served as a model for the free breakfast programs currently offered through public schools. Ms. Ross talks about working with representatives of those other groups. She also describes the regular abuse, harassment, and vandalism she experienced from police and other law enforcement operatives while she was working on the Breakfast Program. This includes her experiences with Bill O’Neil, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s COINTELPRO operative who arranged for BPP Chairman Fred Hampton’s assassination in 1971. Ms. Ross remains a community activist in Chicago, putting into practice her reminder that “saving the world” is a lifetime commitment. �Transcript JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay. Wanda, if you can give me your full name, date of birth, and where you were born. WANDA ROSS: My name is Wanda Ross. I was born, Cook County Hospital, Chicago, Illinois. 9/28/50. JJ: 9/28/50? And your parents, were they born here, too? In Chicago? WR: It’s my understanding, I was adopted by people within my family line. And they were born here in Chicago, my auntie and my cousin. JJ: Your auntie and your cousin? WR: Right. My -- JJ: Okay. So, they raised you, then? WR: Yes. Yes. JJ: And what’s their name? WR: That would be [Bernice?] Ross, who was my cousin, and my great-aunt would be [Jessie Circe?] -- Jessie Circe probably was born in Alabama. Bernice Ross was born in Cook County Hospital. JJ: Okay. You have any other siblings, or --? [00:01:00] And their names. WR: There’s three different sets of kids. I happened to be with the second set, but like I said, I was adopted, so I was raised away from them. JJ: From all of them? WR: Right. Well, we have connected over time, but not as a child. JJ: Okay. What about other aunts and uncles, were they around, or --? 1 �WR: I didn’t really interact with a lot of other people, except the folks that raised me. They were old folks. JJ: They were old folks? WR: Right, so I was an old folks’ child. JJ: Okay. So, what’s so different between that and the traditional parents, or? WR: I guess, you know -- Everybody in the household was over 40 but me, so they put me in a lot of activities. I did Girl Scouts, I did whatever activity they could find for me. I did not interact with my brothers and sisters growing up, because I didn’t know ’em that [00:02:00] well. And basically it was a small family, it was a small family unit. JJ: Okay. So, you didn’t -- Did you stay at home, also, or, I mean, sheltered, like, somewhat, or were you outgoing, or were able to -- I know you didn’t interact with other children. WR: Well, I didn’t say “not interact with other children”. But, at the old folks’ home, you have a certain approach to things. I mean, I took dancing, I took -- They had me in activities to keep me from bouncing off the walls. And I went to a Catholic grammar school, Catholic high school. So-- JJ: Okay. What school? What Catholic school? WR: I went to St. Dorothy. JJ: Okay, where was that located? WR: Grammar school, that’s at -- 77th and Vernon, it’s on the South Side of Chicago. JJ: On the South Side, on the South Side. 2 �WR: And then I went to a Catholic high school, which was within walking distance. That was Mercy, I don’t think it’s [00:03:00] there anymore. JJ: So how was the grammar school, any unique things that you did there, or --? WR: I’m not sure what you’re looking for, the uniqueness of a childhood. JJ: Yeah, I’m just trying to find out, you know, growing up, how it was growing up, basically, I’m just trying to describe for people that are not from Chicago or have no concept about that. So that’s basically (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) WR: Well, it’s like a snapshot demographic, everybody’s childhood is different. I went back and forth until I was finally adopted. So, I did stay with my mom, I think up until I was maybe three or four. But I was sickly. I had tuberculosis and had been in a tuberculosis sanatorium for a year. [00:04:00] It just so happened that my cousin and my aunt were more committed, because I was presenting a lot of health issues that my mom didn’t want to deal with. So, I went back and forth for a while. So, for a while I was a sickly kid. Then, when I finally came to live with them at seven, I just stayed -- JJ: Back and forth to where? WR: Huh? JJ: Back and forth to where? I didn’t get -- WR: I lost my train of thought. JJ: I’m sorry. WR: I don’t know where I was. JJ: You were describing about (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). 3 �WR: I stayed with my mom for a minute. Then I was back with my auntie and cousin - JJ: But your mom lives here? WR: Then I went back with my mom. And I got sick again, and I went back with them, and then they kept me. JJ: Okay, (inaudible). WR: So, I mean, you know, as a sickly kid, I guess I didn’t, you know -- Then, when I stayed there, I think I came to stay with them at 7, and at 10, they adopted me. So. JJ: [00:05:00] Okay. But was your mom here, or in Alabama? WR: She was here. But, I think, somewhere in the late ’60s, but I was pretty much an adult, or close to being an adult, she moved down to southern Illinois. Right, so I think she lives around Carbondale, Murphysboro, that kind of stuff. JJ: How would you describe your neighborhood in the South Side, at that time? WR: My neighborhood was one that -- I grew up in Chatham. White folks were just leaving the neighborhood, and Black folks were moving in. And I remember, the only reason I went to Catholic school was ’cause it was down the street. But I think that the nuns were caught up in having to deal with Black children, and it [00:06:00] wasn’t what they were trying to do. Because we had -- We didn’t have big issues, but we still had some racial issues, because, I don’t think they were prepared for the neighborhood to change. Eh. JJ: So, kind of racial issues, are you [talking about?]? 4 �WR: Well, always nuns, with, you know, “you people”. You know, there’s a demeanor. Of, dealing with -- you could tell that they got caught in a changing neighborhood. And there was nothing that they could do about it. You know, they were sisters of Mercy, they had to do what they needed to do. And the younger ones were a lot better, the older ones, they had issues. We didn’t have issues. [Phone rings] JJ: So, you’re describing that your neighborhood was changing at the -- WR: Yeah, I mean, Black folks were moving in, I mean, I’m still a kid. So, you know, there’s a lot of things that I can assess looking back. But when you’re in the middle of it -- [00:07:00] Because I remember the three or four white folks that were left on the block. There was an old couple that was next to us, and my mom used to make me go over there and be nice to them, which was just -- JJ: Didn’t wanna be nice to ’em? WR: Not at all. (laughter) Not at all. They were old folks, they were white -- JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) but you were young. WR: -- and they smelled like pee, which is what old folks smell like. So, you know we made up stories. Somebody was Dracula, somebody was the wife of Dracula, you know, just stuff, and, you know, it took me getting older to be able to see them as just people. Because they were still kind of, you know, when people are outside of your regular, everyday, thing, like I said, they were old folks, they were white, and they smelled like pee. You know? This would never fly. You know? JJ: Yeah. (inaudible) WR: But -- 5 �JJ: But then your mom, or, [00:08:00] I mean (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) WR: Who I called my mom, would’ve been my cousin. There’s just things that I think the neighborhood was more of a neighborhood, like, I think that people across the street were an old married couple, didn’t have kids; she made me go over there to visit with them, so there are just certain things in place, that sense of neighborhood, that -- And there was an old white German guy that was left, he didn’t speak English well. But see, now, he would come out with a pistol and just scare everybody away. You know, if we ran through his yard, or that -- You know, so, I mean, you get bits and pieces of some white folks that were left behind. JJ: So, there were -- WR: -- because they didn’t have resources to move. And then you get other pieces of just, the sense of neighborhood, because we all knew each other. And I think we played within a two- or three-block [00:09:00] radius, something like that. So, you know, on the neighborhood, you had, on the block, you had a teacher, a doctor, a funeral director. I think there was somebody at the end of the block that might have might have dealt drugs. But it was a sense of, professional people plus other people, that all lived together in one situation. So, there was a lot more, maybe, respect, from kids, you know. From kids to old folks. A lot more Black people owned things. Because I don’t remember having to go out of the neighborhood for too many things that I needed. The grocery store was down the street, so-and-so was across the street, you know. So, it was self-sufficient, [00:10:00] in some ways. And, in other ways, I guess I didn’t see the lack until I 6 �got older. You know, as a kid, I’m cool. School was down the street. Mom is here. Somebody else is across the street that’s going to tell anybody if I do something wrong. You know, it’s that sense of neighborhood. But the interesting thing is that we didn’t go east. We didn’t go past Stony Island. I remember getting -- because the neighborhood was still white in a lot of areas. I’m at King Drive, so King Drive is, like, about 400 East. Stony Island is 1600 East. Okay, so you still have a large white clientele that you, you just didn’t go there. You know. I can reme-JJ: Were you afraid to go there, or -- WR: Huh? JJ: Were you afraid to go there, [00:11:00] or --? WR: You know what, I’m not sure if I was afraid. I was just told, “You just don’t go there.” JJ: Okay, just told. WR: You know and I can remember my mom taking me somewhere to get a Brownie outfit at Evergreen Plaza. But they wouldn’t sell to Black folks, and that was at 95th and Western. I mean, you know, there’s little things that you remember as you grow up. I don’t remember anything other than just dirty looks, I mean, you know, nobody -- JJ: So, there were dirty looks (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) WR: Right. Nobody picked me up and threw me down, you know. But -- JJ: Were there, like, gangs or anything like that? Or white gangs, or no? WR: Not that I was familiar with. Not at all. I think the -- 7 �JJ: In Lincoln Park, we’d face white gangs. WR: Right, no, we did. We did. But then again, as a girl, my experience would be different than some of the young men. Because, [00:12:00] I mean, we were still of the age, all the way through high school, if we went to parties, you know, somebody’s mom had to take us there and pick us up. But the guys, a lot of the guys came home on the bus, so there’s certain territories that they might not have crossed. And I’m not sure if it was -- I’m pretty sure it wasn’t white gangs, it was just gang territory. But we pretty much got dropped off and picked up to anything that we did outside of the neighborhood, ’cause, we just thought it was parenting. That’s not to say -- and I’m not sure how deep, you know, the gang situation, I think, was just becoming. You know, it wasn’t at the point that it was unsafe, it was more “beware” than being in an unsafe environment. But just be very wary of the environment that you’re in. JJ: ’Cause I know now there’s a large problem on the South Side, I don’t know if that’s the same [00:13:00] area or-- is that where a lot of the gang activity is now? I hear just bits and pieces in Michigan, so. WR: Well, I think in my lifetime, because I’m probably about the same age as Jeff Fort, or he might be a little older. I’m saying that those gangs were developing. But they were still further -- JJ: Was that (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? WR: No. That was still much further away from me, ’cause I’m in Chatham. JJ: Right, you’re in Chatham. WR: When you start talking about Jeff Fort, the, what were they, Blackstone Rangers- 8 �JJ: Yeah, the Blackstone Rangers. WR: And the Disciples. The Disciples were west of the expressway. And Blackstone Rangers were basically down in what we called the low end, like, around 63rd. So, it was still not an environment. It’s like, we were aware of them, but they were just beginning to form. And most of the time, a lot of the gang interaction was with each [00:14:00] other. You know, they weren’t necessarily picking on people they didn’t know. Now, that developed, and it changed. But, not as I was growing up, no, I wasn’t that aware of it. Not at all. JJ: So, you didn’t experience none of that? WR: I didn’t experience gang stuff until considerably later. JJ: Okay. You experienced looks that you were getting from (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) -- WR: Just white folks, you know, like, “Why are you here?” Or, some people refusing to serve us. You know, but most of the time, you know, our parents would interpret that and just push us out of the way. ’Cause we’re kids. You know, we don’t have to do any business interaction. So -- I took dancing at Mayfair Academy. And the guy there, Tommy [00:15:00] Sutton, he used to take us places for us to dance. We did tap. I remember we were on a Ted Mack hour. And I remember when we went downtown, that it was a big deal about him being able to park in a certain parking lot. But most of the time, grown folks always pushed us out of those issues. And I remember that we were at the studio, we were around all day, just to tape two or three minutes. And whenever anything felt uncomfortable, he always just moved us out of the way, so, you know. We 9 �were always around grown folks that were protecting us from certain things, and this had to have been -- I was 10, so it had to have been 1960. JJ: What got you into dancing? I think you sang also, or no, or --? WR: I do now, but I didn’t then. JJ: You didn’t do it then? But what got you (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) -- WR: Being at an old folks’ house. [00:16:00] I mean, you know, it’s kind of like, “We’re gonna have some activ--” ‘cause everybody worked. So, if everybody gets up and go to work, the last thing they need is me sitting at home unattended. My great-auntie, she did day work. Which meant that she went and cleaned white folks’ houses, that’s what she did. I remember, she had a family, they were leaving, and they stopped by the house to say goodbye, and I remember the little girl saying, “Well, they don’t need you!” And they called her by her first name, and I didn’t even know she had a first name! (laughs) She was my auntie, she was a old lady. How does a little-bitty girl say Jessie? I’m like, “Ooh, who are you?” You know? But, so she did day work. Everybody in the household worked. Because we were moving to a better neighborhood, and everybody had to contribute to this, so that also meant that [00:17:00] I needed to be in some activities. They’re not gonna leave a little kid unattended. You know, shoot. I’d be out just doing mayhem and havoc. JJ: Okay. So now, you’re going to school -- WR: Catholic school. JJ: Catholic school, how was that? Was this high school, or no? WR: Catholic grammar school and high school. 10 �JJ: And high school, okay. What school was that? WR: The grammar school was St. Dorothy. JJ: St. Dorothy? WR: And actually, I was there at the time that there was this big dispute. Father Clements -- JJ: He was [working there?]? WR: -- came there. JJ: Oh, he just came there. WR: Right, but there was a Father Lambert already there, who was the first Black priest ordained in [00:18:00] Chicago. And there was this big fight over whether or not -- the white pastor had died, who was going to be the pastor, and it was supposedly between the two Black guys. Father Lambert, since, I think he went on to -- He ended up being over at University of Chicago. And Father Clements was there at St. Dorothy. JJ: So, Father Clements came there. He was there for a few years, or? WR: He was there for a few years, yeah. JJ: Okay. So, he was pretty -- a little progressive, no, Father Clements, or no? WR: I guess you could say he was progressive. JJ: You don’t agree? (laughs) WR: Well, actually, I liked Father Lambert. But the thing about Father Clements [00:19:00] was I think he was a lot more outgoing. There were more things going on. Civil Rights Movement was actually just picking up then. And you had a lot of people coming and trying to raise money. I remember hearing ministers from 11 �SCLC speak that maybe would not have happened under Father Lambert. But I thought Father Clements wanted to just be in the news, that was just my opinion. But I was a kid. You know, I mean, you make assessments of things, because, you know, I’ve grown up with Father Lambert, and here came Father Clements. But he was pastor there for a while. And I do think -JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) Father Clements in there, you know, because I know of his name. So, what was Father [00:20:00] Lambert, [then?]? WR: Father Lambert eventually ended up being my treasurer when I was with the Panthers. We formed -- I formed a corporation. And I ended up making him the treasurer, so that he had to sign off on stuff. I think I pushed him further than he was willing to go. But he was a good guy. He’s kind of like, “The Panthers?” (laughter) I was sure that I pushed him further than he was willing to go. JJ: But he did it, though. WR: But he did it. But he did it. Matter of fact, when I was in the party, when we had the office raided for the food and I had to find some other place for food -- JJ: ’Cause how many times was it raided, the Panther office? WR: Actually, I only remember two. There were more times than that, but these were the times that [00:21:00] the food was destroyed. So-- JJ: Okay, so, what’d you do then? WR: So, I mean, I can only say about the aftermath. I came in, and all I saw was eggs and meat spread all over the floor. And I think, the roof, there was a slight fire there. So, I had made a deal with the people at St. Dorothy’s, which, there was a white person there by then, that I used to keep the food there. Because they had 12 �coolers. And then just pick it up and drop it off at the breakfast programs until I could find some other place. But I used to store food at St. Dorothy’s, because of that. JJ: Okay. So, I wanna get into how you got the food there, but there was a raid. Was anybody hurt at it, how did that come about? WR: I’m not totally sure -- JJ: The first one (inaudible). WR: The raid that I can [00:22:00] talk about was the one that -- [Terry?] was in. I’m trying to think -- Terry [Mason?]. And actually, Terry Mason went to the same grammar school that I did. I remember it was eight of them, and I don’t remember -- I remember Terry was there, I remember [Shea?] was there. [Big Moody?], I think was there, and I don’t remember who the rest were. My understanding is that the police gained entry, and I’m still not clear about how they gained entry. I can assume that there was no OD on the door at the time. JJ: Now, we’re talking about a second story -- WR: We’re talking about on the second floor. JJ: On the second floor, sorry. And then we’re talking about a steel door (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) so they gained entry -- WR: And I’m not sure whether they gained entry from the door in the front or the door in the back. I don’t know if the door in the back was quite as strong as the door in the front. You know, there’s another [00:23:00] reality that you have to look at from the Panthers, and that is that we didn’t have everything to back up what we said. And, like I said, I don’t think the door in the back was as strong as the door 13 �in the front. Because I’m not sure how they gained entry. But once they did, they decimated the office. They arrested the young men, and they beat them up. Okay, now, we said a lot of things that should be, but we didn’t instigate. So, a lot of times, we ended up being on the tail-end of violence, because we did not instigate it. The point of the matter was, we were there to do the right thing, be the right thing, and show people what the right thing should [00:24:00] be. But we did not instigate a lot of what happened. And in many ways, we were not even in a position to protect ourselves. But that’s a whole nother situation. JJ: Okay. So, they came in and they beat up everybody? (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) WR: Took ’em to jail. Right. Terry was actually in a coma for more than two or three weeks. I’m not even sure how long, because, when he came out of it, we didn’t have any more contact. And I remember Terry from -- we were in the same grade in grammar school. But I think Terry was trying to show everybody else that he wasn’t scared. And they beat him senseless. He was a little guy, a really little guy. [00:25:00] And I think his father was a doctor, or something, a dentist. JJ: So, what did they say, did they (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) fight with him or something, or --? WR: I have no idea if they fought back. That’s something you need to talk to Shea about. Because I wasn’t there, I mean, this is secondhand information. And everybody told me a different story, because Terry was the one beat senseless. I remember Big Moody said, “Everybody just shut up, take it, we will be out of jail 14 �in a little while.” Terry wanted to be Superman, and he was beat senseless. I don’t think I interacted much with him after that. JJ: Okay. That was the first raid. The other one that you were -- WR: That might have been the second raid. JJ: It might have been the second? WR: Right. The first one -- JJ: And you said there were eight of them, these are the two that you -- WR: Oh, I didn’t say there [00:26:00] were eight, I said there were two that I knew of. JJ: Two of them that you knew of. WR: Right, right, I cannot count -- JJ: I stand corrected. (laughter) WR: Please, please, I don’t even know where you got that number from. JJ: I thought I had heard it somewhere. WR: Right, that’s like a rumor. JJ: Okay. (laughter) WR: Right, right, right. And I remember there was another raid that everybody was preparing for that didn’t happen. I remember seeing the movie with one or two people that I knew that are, you know, “We packing up for the raid,” you know, “we getting ready,” you know, everybody’s loading up, I don’t even know if that even happened. But there was another raid. I think that raid was -- I don’t think it did as much damage to the office as the one that I’m talking about. They just took some guys to jail. A lot of times, the situation was [00:27:00] to stop, harass, and jail. As many times as we had Panthers going to jail, it depleted 15 �resources. You know? So, it was more or less, you know, if you see yourself in a situation, best thing to do is shut up. So that it doesn’t become more serious than need be. But a lot of it depleted our resources because those people that were making contributions, they were used to get people out of jail. So that meant that there’s less money that I could do for the breakfasts. Which is another reason that we set the breakfasts up as a corporation, so that there would be other people involved other than Panthers. Although I let everybody know, it was Free Services Incorporated, we had the priest, we had a lawyer, Lucy Montgomery was on the board. JJ: [I remember Lucy, yeah?]. WR: Those are the ones that I can [00:28:00] remember. Jeffrey Haas, the lawyer, -- JJ: -- was on the board? WR: He was on the board, right. Those are the ones that I remember. But most of my interaction with the board people was probably me and the treasurer. Because we got checks made up, set up a bank account so that people could write checks to Free Services. It was incorporated and nonprofit. I didn’t understand the 501 process, and we never got to that, but we were still a nonprofit. Because, as I approached grocery stores, and people that had resources, the first thing they said is, “Who can I write a check to?” Well, you can’t say “The Black Panther Party.” I’m not even sure that we had a bank account at the time. So -- that was why the breakfast was incorp-- JJ: You mean the Panthers? WR: Right, that was why the breakfast was incorporated. 16 �JJ: -- [you were never incorporated?], were there (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? [00:29:00] WR: Huh? I’m not totally sure, [when I talked to Russ?], they very well might have been. JJ: Oh, they could’ve been, yeah. ’Cause (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). WR: Right, they very well could have been. JJ: [Definitely?] well-structured, yeah. MELANIE SHELL-WEISS: I’m going to ask you a question, how did you join the Panthers? Just to back up a bit. WR: I was at Circle. It was my first year at Circle. And, actually it was a perfect storm. 1968. There was a guy running Socialist Party ticket. Young Patriots used to hang out, there in the peer room. Plus, it was right after King had gotten killed in April. So, a lot of the stuff that was going on ’66, ’67, ’68, I was too young to be a part of. [00:30:00] So, when I got to the campus, and saw that there was another step, you know, it’s kind of like, “Okay.” And [Chuckles?] was at Circle. Chuckles was [Christine Amett?]. She was at Circle. Chuckles and I became friends. But the other thing is, while I was at Circle, I also had a dance group. And we had done two or three events. We were asked to do an event -We were on stage with some Panthers, and the other folks that were dancing backed out. And it ended up being me. So, originally -- let me back up, get the continuity straight. The dance kind of got us involved in doing some [00:31:00] more Black stuff. Also, Chuckles is at Circle. And she kind of challenged us to all come by the office, and at least come to one political education class. Once 17 �we came to one political education class, the other folks from the dance group were kind of backing off, but it was so mind-boggling to me, because it was kind of like the next step after [King?]. Because I still have that image in my mind, it would have been my last year in high school, it was ’68 when King got killed and the National Guard were lined straight down Cottage Grove. They were all standing there, weapons at the ready. And the whole image of this, I think riots probably broke out on the [00:32:00] west side. It didn’t on the South Side. But the image of the National Guard standing here with weapons ready to protect property never left me. So, here we are in September. I’m at Circle. I used to be a good student. I wasn’t that great a student at Circle. I had a French class and the instructor didn’t even speak English. And I was getting involved in more extracurricular activity, beside the dancing. There were some Black and white issues, but, actually, at Circle, there were more political issues. Because there was so many political issues being discussed. And I think the perfect storm is, everywhere you went, [00:33:00] everybody was asking you, “What are you doing to save the world?” You know? “Are you just going to school, are you just doing this, are you just doing that?” Until it was the climate. Then, like I said, with Christine Amett, with Chuckles being there, she looked like a little [gem?]. You know, she had the boots and the fatigues and, it’s like, “Oh, okay.” Go to one political education class. I went to a political education class, and the guy teaching it was, his name, we called him “Teach”. I’d never heard anybody so profound. It’s kind of like, “Oh, okay.” So, between Teach, and Chuckles, and disenchantment with -- there was also a priest. A priest on the South Side that 18 �was trying to make Ashland the division line to stop Black [00:34:00] folks from moving past a certain point, because of the white flight from Black neighborhoods. And, there was also an issue with contract buyers, which was actually in my neighborhood, just a little further down. Several Black folks had bought homes on a contract buyers-type thing, where, if you got behind two or three months, they put you out. They take your house. So, you’ve got all of these things, you know, operating, kind of percolating. It’s kind of a perfect storm. Then you have the Vietnam War. I was actually dating a guy at the time that was in -- He used to call me. I can’t think of the name of the co-- He was in Vietnam, but it was a city [00:35:00] in Vietnam, because he used to call me every Sunday. And there were guys that were coming back, that had a lot to say about the issues of Vietnam. Why were they there? And they couldn’t go downtown and eat a hamburger or go to, like, [Ronny’s Steakhouse?]. If you were downtown after a certain time, it’s kind of like, okay, nobody beating you up. But they’re basically letting you know that you’re not welcome. Because Vietnam was my era. So there was a lot of people that we knew between ’66 and ’68 that were going to Vietnam and were coming back thoroughly dissatisfied. Some were coming back drug addicts. Many were coming back missing limbs. And the whole issue was, “What are we fighting for?” So I think all of that [00:36:00] together is kind of like, it comes back to, “Okay, now what are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing?” And Teach put a lot of things in perspective. As we started to read about colonialism and international racism. So, it just seemed like, “My goodness, we can’t even live in this world unless we 19 �change it!” So that was my introduction to the Panthers, and I just kept getting further and further. Does that answer your question? Yeah. JJ: Okay, so -- Teach is doing PE classes, huh? How were they done? I mean, I remember -- was this at the church on the west side, or -- WR: No, this was at the office. JJ: [00:37:00] Oh, this was at the office. So how -- WR: This was at the office. JJ: How was that being done? I mean, what -- WR: Well, if you didn’t do your homework, it wasn’t being done. I mean, he’s kind of like, he’s teaching -- JJ: Okay. So he gave homework, is that what -- WR: Frantz Fanon, it’s like, you’re reading literature to put you up on. It was, Frantz Fanon, [it was?] The Wretched of the Earth, and -- JJ: You had to read it and you’d come back and report, or --? WR: We had to discuss it, we had to listen to him break it down. I would say that he was probably an actual teacher. You know? He was profound in a lot of the conclusions he drew. Talking about the struggle of Shea, talking about Frantz Fanon, talking about Marx and Lenin. Some issues I have with Marx and Lenin, but a lot of the other stuff, it was the reality when you, you know, began to define [00:38:00] classes and how people separate themselves. It was so much more history, and assessment, of world politics, than I’d ever heard. And I was a student. I was studious, I wanted to know. So I think that’s what piqued my interest, so -- And then, even studying the difference between a Marcus Garvey 20 �and a W. E. B. Du Bois. I mean, there’s so, so many struggles, and infighting, which, until you actually focus and become aware, it’s kind of like, you can look at the world and just pass through it, or you can look at the world and see the landscape. And it was kind of like, suddenly there’s a landscape [00:39:00] that I didn’t know existed, and an interpretation of the landscape, because you’re watching all of the other things happen. I don’t know if -- Of course as you get older, you see more in the landscape than you did. Okay? But that’s also looking back. You can always see more looking back. But, to even realize that, you know, you just don’t go through life bumping into stuff, sometimes you have to step back and look at how things are constructed. And see if there’s a way to deconstruct something, because racism -- Racism was so deep that it was a reality in a lot of people’s lives. You know? It’s the same thing as me going for an interview, and, you know, little white lady just putting my resume to the side. Or putting it in the [00:40:00] garbage. She didn’t beat me up. Nobody hung me. But all she did was to stop me from having an opportunity. And it goes down, just that small, to even larger things, but it’s a way of thinking, it’s a way of looking at things, it’s a way of interpreting things, and it’s a way of doing that people don’t even realize that they do. And, it’s like, I guess that’s institutionalized or internalized. And it’s looking at that, saying, “Well, how do you change that?” You’re gonna have to attack institutions, because they’re the ones that are teaching certain things. But it also goes deeper than that. And I guess after looking at all of that, it’s like, “Okay, there’s more. [00:41:00] There’s more to the iceberg than the tip.” So, are you gonna help change it? Are you just 21 �gonna be a part of it? And actually, the way I was raised, I pretty much didn’t have to pay attention to it. Because I think adults try their best to put you in situations where they will take the brunt of it. But at a certain point, everybody needs to step up. That’s just my opinion. JJ: Okay. So, you had all these things for the breakfast program, [where you said?], the office. All these things for the breakfast program, [they were?] -- WR: Used to be. In the office. JJ: Used to be in the office. WR: Uh-huh. JJ: Did you set up the Panther breakfast program? WR: Yes I did. JJ: Okay. And can you explain how you [started?] doing that? WR: It was really all by accident. Actually, [00:42:00] I sang in church. I think that summer, I sang at someone’s funeral. Someone I didn’t know. But she was close to my age. When I joined the Panthers, there was someone else that, we were supposed to be doing it together, [Barbara Sankey?] and I. Barbara wasn’t really that into it, but she could drive and I couldn’t. So, the first person that I met, I went to [AMP?]. It’s like, “Well, we may as well go to somebody that has food,” you know, “we’re not really sure what we should do,” what the approach was. I remember talking to Fred, like, “What am I supposed to do?” You know, “Do we call [the coast?], do they have a manual? I mean, how does this --” Anyway, we didn’t really get any instructions, but I went [00:43:00] to AMP. And, at this time, PUSH had made a big issue about there being -- 22 �JJ: Operation (inaudible) PUSH? WR: Operation P-- JJ: Jesse Jackson. WR: Wait, it wouldn’t have been Operation PUSH, it would’ve been Operation Breadbasket. JJ: Okay, Operation Breadbasket. WR: Had made a big issue about having middle management and corporate America. So, a lot of, like, Sears, and places like that, had community people. People that were supposed to deal with the community. So, the community person that I’d met for AMP, said he wanted to meet me in my office. He was the only person that ever came to the Black Panther office, you know. It turned out that I sang at his daughter’s funeral. I had no idea. You know? So, some things are by happenstance. But it was his daughter that had drowned, and I had sung at [00:44:00] her funeral. So he remembered me, I had no idea who he was. So, we started talking and he was the first one that I had talked to that even took me serious. And we went on his list. And he introduced me to other people. He introduced me to Daryl Grisham at Parker House Sausage. He introduced me to somebody over Pepsi-Cola, that we got him to pay another Sausage person, so that I could just pick up the food. We tried to arrange stuff so that -- I preferred not to take money directly, I would prefer to take the food, so, “You pay for this, let me go pick it up.” And it was [Hyman Johnson?], it was this guy, that actually introduced me to four or five other people that were [00:45:00] peers, and his situation, that actually got me started on, “These are the people I need to 23 �approach, this is what I need to do.” You know, writing a letter, doing whatever I needed to do, it was actually him that put me on to that, so that -- Let me see. The barbecue guy, [he used to even?] call if I was late -- Argia B. Argia B Bar-BQ. Parker House Sausage, Metropolitan Sausage. There was a Star grocery store over on the west side that -- They were just people that he introduced me to, and then I followed up, and just kept doing what I was doing till I got to the point, we were probably picking up, maybe, 4 or 500 dollars a week, worth of food, and then just dropping it off at the breakfast program. You know, [00:46:00] one or two of ’em, we could store it there. Others, like I said, I would pick up, I’d leave it at St. Dorothy’s and then drop it off there. This was the first place we had a breakfast program. JJ: At St. Dorothy’s? WR: No. Here. St. Dorothy’s, I’m saying, we had the stuff. JJ: Here? (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) WR: 1512 South Pulaski, Better Boys Foundation. JJ: Oh, Better Boys Foundation. This (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) WR: This was the first place we had a breakfast program. Yes. JJ: And so, are they doing this every week, they’re doing a donation every week, or how is that -- WR: Every week. I’m begging every week. JJ: You’re begging every week? But is it the same storeowners, or --? WR: Many of them, it was a matter of just managing it, at a certain point. Okay, maybe some every other week, maybe some every week. Later on, there was a 24 �guy that -- [Sauk?]. Mortgage banking. I don’t even remember [00:47:00] where he came from. I remember having a conversation with him, and then going down to his office. I tried not to take money. I took money when money needed to be taken, but he had arranged for me, I’d pick up 90 dozen eggs. And he sent me somewhere to pick up 200 pounds of hamburger. That would be once a month. So it depends on what the donation was -JJ: So you had, like, a schedule from different people. WR: I had a schedule, and I just tried to work it that way, and keep extending it. But I begged everybody. The real reality, that it took me a minute to process, was when I approached Clement Stone. And I never even knew that I was talking to Clement Stone. JJ: Clement Stone? Okay. WR: We had set up a meeting at [00:48:00] [Stone and Brandale?]. I was talking to his guy -- JJ: Who was Clement Stone? Briefly. WR: Clement Stone was a multimillionaire. Little short white guy with a real strange mustache. JJ: McCormick Seminary was named after him, too. So, that seminary we took over. But ahead, (inaudible). WR: I don’t know how he made his money. But I know that it was Stone and [Brale?] - JJ: But you met with him. (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) WR: I met -- well, yeah. Yeah. He was in the room. 25 �JJ: For the -- okay. (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) WR: He was in the room, I was actually talking to his guy (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). And, I think they deepened my commitment to do something for Black folks. Because, when I met with them, I had, you know, I put the corporation together. It was Free Services. And whoever I talked to always said, “This is an arm of the Black Panther Party,” but, you know, blah blah blah blah. And, [00:49:00] we were at a conference table, Clement Stone was sitting at one end, he never said anything. I didn’t even realize it was him, until later, when I saw him on an interview. And I’m like, “He was sitting there that whole time!” Anyway, [Woodward?] said, “Now, we can see funding your program. The problem here is that you are much too political.” Now, we’d been assisting youth groups like the Vice Lords, over on the west side. We gave them 100,000 dollars. JJ: But you were too political. (laughs) WR: We gave them 100,000 dollars. And, at that time, the Vice Lords actually had set up an office and were trying to do some stuff. He said, “Now, if --” JJ: (inaudible) WR: “Now, if you were into more gang activity, [00:50:00] extortion, or things like that, that we could justify rehabilitating, we can fund your program from year to year.” They offered 14 grand to fund the program, and I’m sitting here, like, just dumbfounded. I don’t believe that this white guy just told me that if we go out and extort or kill some Black folks, we can come back and get paid. Because this is, you know, I’m just sitting here, and I said, “Would you say that again?” 26 �You know, and I went and sat out, couldn’t sit in the car ’cause I couldn’t drive, I didn’t have a driver’s license. You know, I’m just dumbfounded, so -- “So, in essence, you will fund my program if we get involved in some illegal activities.” He said, “Yeah!” I was like -- (laughter) And I was just dumbfounded. I was really dumbfounded, because it was such a, you know -- [00:51:00] A lot of times, you know, you get folks blaming everybody for the condition, and, well, you know, “If I had the opportunity,” or, “This guy is stopping me from this, this guy is stopping me from that,” you’re kind of like, “Well, damn!” There’s a certain point where everybody needs to take responsibility for certain things they need to do. But then, you know, you sit back and, okay, he’s creating situations where you got Blackstone Rangers, and then you have the Gangster Disciples. South Side, southwest side. Then you got west side, Vice Lords. Okay, now, when they kill each other, the last man standing gets the money. So now, you have gangs that are fighting over white money. In order to be rehabilitated, [00:52:00] you got to be the baddest gang, you got to be the last one standing. But for him to overtly just say, “You know, if you were involved in more illegal activities --” I’m just sitting here, like, “I don’t believe you just made this offer.” And I think it really pushed me, if I had any doubt. JJ: So he wasn’t being facetious, he -- WR: He wasn’t being facetious. He was being for real. And, for a minute, it almost went over my head. Because that’s the other thing, too, is that, you know, this is my first time being an adult. Okay, I’m out in the world. I’m not that far away from -- I’m only 18! I’m not that far away from, you know, and I still have to go 27 �home and ask my mama for something, or else I won’t have nothing to eat. So this is the real world, this is the real world of how we make money, how we keep money, how we keep money away from other people, [00:53:00] or how we do business. This is the real world that I’ve never experienced. And, to listen to someone just say, you know, “This is our plan. We’ll rehabilitate you, but you got to kill s-- you got to do some bad stuff.” And I’m sitting here like, “You know, you never could have told me.” As other people had said, well, you realize that sometimes white institutions set up situations where Black people can destroy each other. And I went, “Y’all crazy.” But he’s telling me, you know, “You want the money, this what you got to do.” And it brought some things into vision. To see, not only that, but also I understood more with global economics, because there’s some stuff that Teach was saying that was [00:54:00] over my head, about how the British were playing the Indians against each other. And I understood how the British and the Dutch were playing tribal wars against each other. I didn’t understand that before, because nobody had ever said, “Here’s tribal wars, do it.” And, you know, “We’ll pay you off.” So it gave me a whole different perspective of what capitalism is, or, how it survives. Because it has to survive by division. But somebody has to be making money. And I never thought of people seeding money in order to create conflict. So, I mean, that gave me a whole different perspective. All of a sudden, it’s like, you know, it’s one of those moments of epiphany. It’s like, “Oh, okay. This is what the world is fighting over.” Because even, [00:55:00] you know, with so many regimes in Africa, that, even when you threw the Dutch out, or the French, or the English, 28 �you were still fighting over Western concepts. Because now, everybody got a color TV, and a Cadillac. They don’t want to go back to the huts. So now, you’ve got a people that are fighting over keeping this from, you know, and you have natural tribal wars, that, you know, “This my land, this your land, and we’re gonna fight over it till it can be --” But now, you’re fighting over Western values. And the division that has been created, you know, to even think about something like Rwanda. You know, with the Tutsis and the -- To even think about how long that division had been planted. [00:56:00] How many years it took to develop something like that. To think about how vicious the Dutch were. I guess, like I said, it almost went over my head until I just had this epiphany, and I’m sitting here, saying, “This man really said this.” So it created more vision, politically, to even see the politics at work. And what it takes in order to maintain the stability of capitalism, is to create unstability in many other spaces, so. That was my epiphany. JJ: Okay, now -- My understanding -- but you didn’t write any proposals, to get [money?]. WR: No. No. JJ: Did you do that on purpose, or --? I mean, it would’ve been easier just to write some [00:57:00] proposals -- WR: Well, first off, I didn’t know about proposals. Okay, so I didn’t know. I think these were the first people that presented a proposal to me. Now, I did write beg letters. That’s different. I wrote beg letters. “We’re doing this, we’re doing this, this is what we need, tell me where to pick it up.” Proposals, no. 29 �JJ: Okay, the reason I say that, I thought that I -- you know, we had a breakfast program, too, but we were trying to get as many businesses as possible to build a base, also, there. Were you also -- I mean, we were learning from you, so, I mean -- WR: Well, you know, by the time you all came for information, I had more. Because, when I first started, I didn’t even have a concept of what a proposal was. I could’ve written one, but I didn’t know. You know, I just thought you had to do a beg letter, show up, and somebody’d give you food. [00:58:00] So, it was a bitby-bit process, but I’d never got to the proposal stage. JJ: I mean, we didn’t write any proposals either. It was working very well, just going from store to store. Ma-and-pa store to ma-and-pa store, yeah. WR: More community-based. And I guess, like, the other thing was to have a bank account, and to have -- JJ: But you weren’t thinking ma-and-pa stores, you were thinking -- WR: Well, only because of my first introduction, which would have been back to Hyman at AMP. You know, that was an accident in and of itself, that he would be a kind of big shot at AMP and take me to other places like that. That was purely by accident. It wasn’t something that I would have figured out. That I had figured out. I might have figured it out later, but I didn’t figure it out then. So that was basically at his behest, [00:59:00] and the other thing that he would do is that we would go to AMPs in the city. He would go to the back, and just tear some labels off stuff, and say, “This damaged. You need to give this to them. This damaged.” So, how he set me up might have been to get merchandise that was 30 �damaged, or that was beyond its sell date, initially. And then after that, now with the guy at Pepsi-Cola -- and because I never really took money-money, if at all possible, I had them reinforce each other. There was another Black sausage company called Metropolitan. Well, I had the guy at Pepsi-Cola pay them, so that I could go there and pick up food. When we picked up food at any other place, [01:00:00] if the opportunity presents itself, don’t give me anything, give it to them, just let me go get the food. So, how they talked to each other, I don’t know. But I found that it was easier and appeared more legitimate to them for me not to -- I handled money, but I handled as little as possible. As little as possible. Most of the time I was just going to pick up food. There’s a lot that we did not get from neighborhood stores, because they were neighborhood stores, and they were only gonna do so much. And we were picking up [centers?], but, like I said, if it had not been for the very first guy that I talked to, I don’t think I could have gotten on that road so quick. MS: Why did you not want to handle the money? WR: Well, first place, I didn’t want anybody asking me for money. Which would have been folks in the [priory?]. And second off, my imagery is, if you see how far 50 [01:01:00] dollars can go, maybe you need to give up 100. Just let me have product. Product is the most important thing that I can have. And, 50 dollars, God, I remember somebody offered me 50 dollars, like, that’s not gonna do anything, why don’t you give that guy 50 dollars and see how much product I can get from that. Normally I could get more if I let them pay for it. That’s why. Plus, it was easier for nobody to ask me for any money, you know, because 31 �sometimes when I came back to the office, you know, everybody, “You get anything extra?” “I ain’t got no money.” So, we don’t have that issue, and then it made accountability a lot easier, because the priest that I had that was the treasurer, he was always nervous. Like I said, I pushed him beyond where he wanted to be, but he was still a good guy. He was a good guy. JJ: When you were setting up, did you only have [01:02:00] the breakfast program in one location, or --? WR: It started here. 1512 South Pulaski, and then we had one right down the street from the office, at a church. I cannot remember the name of the church. Then we had another one on the North Side, St. Dominic’s. Then we had one on the South Side, that the [Old Troop?] -- there was a group of fellas called the Old Troop, [Oba?], [Ade?], [Little Ide?], [Big Ide?], [Ogum?], and they were from the projects, Ida B. Wells. They set up something at the fieldhouse, where we had a breakfast program there. And then there was a breakfast program at a church, which, I’m not the one that initiated where they were. People from the Party would [01:03:00] go out and talk to folks. There was a church at 64th and Harvard. We had a breakfast program there. And we had a breakfast program -I think the name of the other church might’ve been St. Andrews, I can’t remember. I think there were two more that I can’t remember right this minute, but, at the point that I was backing away because I had gotten pregnant and I was about seven months pregnant, and they said I needed to sit down. I think I was doing about five or six. And it was still just, picking up stuff, dropping ’em off. 32 �JJ: So you [supplied it all?], basically. So that’s why you were trying to get more donations, where -- we just had one main program. Can you describe how the programs ran? WR: [01:04:00] Well, let me see. Get there at five o’clock. Make sure pots and pans are clean. We always had somebody on grits, somebody on meat, somebody on eggs. Drop the stuff off. Spark the kitchen up, by seven o’clock, at that point, the kids are coming in. Generally, the most important thing -- I guess it was two things. The food and the cook. Generally, there was always one person at each site that would actually be in charge of who’s gonna do what. And the kids came, the kids came slowly, but bit by bit. There was one person at each site. I remember [Ace?] was the one at the site over on the South Side. Because this was the first, [01:05:00] we were all there. The duties just got split up of what you had to do. Because, mostly, the men would be the one that would be serving and greeting the kids. And we would be back in the kitchen. Normally, at least three, four people in the kitchen. I still remember, we would get a ride from the South Side. And it was O’Neil. O’Neil would pick up me, and -- JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) the police -- the informant, the informant. WR: Right. Me and [Sam?] -- JJ: The informant that set up the whole thing where -- WR: Fred’s murder. JJ: Fred’s murder, yeah. WR: Right, right. But O’Neil was the one that would pick us up, because we were south, pick us up and take us to one of the breakfast programs. And then I would 33 �be at the breakfast program, and from there, I would go to the office. Find someone to drive me. And then be out in the street the rest of the day. [01:06:00] Picking up, calling, doing whatever I needed to do. I had a South Side place I would call from, and that would be at Sammy Rayner’s office. At the time, he was an alderman. And his office would pretty much be the one I would work from. Making calls, either there or else at the Panther office. JJ: Oh, he let you use your office, Sammy Rayner? WR: Yes. Sammy was a good guy. JJ: Okay. What about the kids? I know in ours, we had songs and [that?]. Did you do any type of education with them, or? (inaudible) [the staff doing that?]? WR: I didn’t interact with the kids a lot. JJ: [Okay. What else?]? WR: But the kids, we didn’t do political education classes with kids. We did sing songs. Okay, we would do like, “The revolution has come,” [01:07:00] you know, they would do that and there was -- JJ: “Time to pick up the gun,” that’s -- WR: There you go. JJ: That’s political. WR: There you go. JJ: Isn’t that political? That’s -- WR: Well -- JJ: (inaudible) our nation, isn’t it? 34 �WR: I think it could be all of the above, but when I say “no political education classes,” the information wasn’t there yet. JJ: Okay. WR: You know, now, we would get, sometimes, the kids’ parents coming to political education class, where you can get information. You know, just doing, singing songs, I mean -- JJ: So the parents were aware that their kids were singing [songs?] WR: Parents were aware. Some parents would walk their kids there. JJ: So they wanted (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) WR: Right. ’Cause I didn’t look at that song any different than I did Motown. You know? It’s kind of like, it’s just a song. (laughter) Okay? Now, at some point, you need some depth. Because most of the kids that came were young kids. I rarely saw big kids. I saw more kids, I’d say, from fourth grade and under. Doesn’t mean that there were [01:08:00] no big kids, but most of the time, they would be young kids. ’Cause, I think a lot of the big kids didn’t want to admit that they didn’t have breakfast at home. And we were in the projects. We were in poor neighborhoods. And also, for the west side, if I had an overflow of product that we didn’t want to sit over the weekend, we would go into Rockwell Gardens and give it away. Like, I remember one time, you know, some donations I didn’t know what to do with. You know, if you get 200 loaves of bread, you just can’t sit on it, for, you know, four or five days. So, whatever overflow we had, we would give that away. 35 �JJ: In some of the projects, I know we did that too. Okay so, there was some song, the parents got involved -- WR: Some parents walked their kids -- there’s a lot of parents that at least came to see who we were and what we did. [01:09:00] Okay? And, for some parents, it made them come because we had a South Side office, who would come and sit in on some classes. The political education classes were, in many ways, particularly if Teach was teaching, they were over a lot of people’s heads. Because I had a lot of people say, “I could care less about who Frantz Fanon is. Or who Marx and Lenin is. But if y’all are doing this to help us out, we want to be a part of it.” So, in some ways, you know, some of the intellectual classes kind of turned people away, because everybody wasn’t there yet. But the actual doing what you do, is entirely different, and I think the party had to move beyond [01:10:00] Teach, and some other folks started teaching classes, maybe, that could relate more to the community, because I remember several people, you know, writing stuff down, some people, “What kind of shit is this? What does this mean? What is lumpenproletariat?” You know, and I’m like, “You don’t know?” (laughter) You know. But that was a profundity to Teach. But he was a true intellectual, and he was a committed intellectual. A lot of the stuff, we ended up getting in our own way, and realizing that we needed to break it down, because we were not a lumpenproletariat. We were the ghetto. It’s the same thing, but nonetheless, somebody needs to understand what you’re saying. I know I had to correct a lot of that. And talk to folks -- JJ: So you called lumpenproletariat the ghetto. 36 �WR: Pretty much. It’s poor folks. JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) Poor folks. WR: [01:11:00] Right, right. JJ: And so -- WR: You know, when you talk about “class struggle,” you know, what is class struggle? Well, in many ways, this is intellectual, but you have an elite that’s trying to be sure that they maintain being an elite. You have working-class. Well, what is working-class? What is middle-class? The things that we considered middle-class really were not in the [realm?]. Making 30,000 dollars a year does not make you middle-class. Making 50,000 dollars a year does not put you in the elite. You know? It’s kind of like you need to define what owning the means of production really means. Do we have factories? Are we producing this? Is this within our grasp? Are we making decisions about embargoes and taxes? I mean, let’s get real with exactly who we are. And it’s interesting, when people call folk petite bourgeoisie, [01:12:00] what does that mean? Why, ’cause you got something at Carson’s? So, there’s terminology that we needed to put in the language of the neighbors. JJ: So why are we discussing this, then? The class struggle and all that, what was the purpose of that? WR: Well, I think that was actually the whole basis of the Party. The Party was still steeped in a Marxist-Leninist type of credo. But I think the basis was -- The basis was racism. But we’re still talking about class. And I think -- JJ: You guys were talking about power, too. You mentioned power. 37 �WR: Well, but that’s what class is. JJ: Was that what -- okay. What do you -- WR: There’s always somebody at the top. JJ: What do you mean, that’s what I’m trying to say. WR: [01:13:00] I guess, I’m thinking of a Spike Lee movie. School Daze. And in the Spike Lee movie, you had the good-hair people, the bad-hair people, the fraternities, the people that were not in the fraternities, you had -- this is all in a college milieu. You had the people from the town, and the people from the college, and all of these people separated themselves. Because the good-hair people thought they were the shit. The bad-hair people thought they were the shit. The light-skinned people, the dark-skinned people. The town people thought that the college people were not speaking to them. The Kappa people [01:14:00] thought the other people had no sense. So here you are, people separating themselves into specific classes. And not looking at the bigger issue, that there is a bigger issue. And there’s a lot of times that Black folks, in and of themselves, create class. Part of it is color. Light skin versus dark skin versus in the middle. Part of it money. You know, when we moved into Chatham, we moved out of a certain neighborhood that was still struggling. But what people didn’t see is those living in Chatham, everybody in my household was working. Two people at the post office, one person doing day work. You know, everybody’s scufflin’. But we are viewing class as in, but we’re not in the projects. We’re one step up. And then the next step up, [01:15:00] maybe a business owner. And then the next step up. But the creation of class, which is 38 �something that Marx talks about, creates the divisions, so that an elite can maintain power. Because by us being divided or suspicious of each other, we never look at, but all the money’s going up. That’s what I look at as class. Everybody always said, “Power to the people,” but I always think it’s more “People to the power”. But that’s what socialism is. JJ: More people to the power? What do you mean? WR: Right. JJ: What do you mean? WR: More people that control those things that define your livelihood. JJ: The power, okay. WR: Right. Okay? Power’s not always money. It’s ownership, it’s [01:16:00] producing goods. Distributing goods. Power is synonymous with being able to control the resources. That basically is what it is, is resources. JJ: So, who controls the resources? WR: You’re asking me? JJ: No, I’m asking you, is that what you’re saying, it’s about who controls the resources? WR: Yes. Yes. JJ: Okay. WR: Yes. JJ: And so, now getting back to the ghetto, and the lumpen, why didn’t you mention ghetto and lumpen before? 39 �WR: I don’t know, it just hadn’t come up. Conversation has to flow. (laughter) I mean, the conversation has to flow! JJ: [I’m starting with the ghetto?] -- WR: Right, it needs to flow, and it just hadn’t come to that point in the river. Maybe it was something that was understood. JJ: Okay. But you did mention that with pride, the ghetto, or something. WR: Yeah. I ain’t got a problem with it, I live in the ghetto. Right. Every day. JJ: [01:17:00] Okay. So you were talking about power to the ghetto, instead of power -- I don’t know what you were saying. (laughter) WR: Now you’re confusing me. JJ: Okay, I’m confused. WR: Yes, sir. JJ: Okay. What are some of the community issues? What did you look at as community issues? That the Panthers in Chicago were working on. Any specific issues, or did you (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? WR: I think the medical clinic is probably one of the most industrious things that the Party ever could’ve done. You know, to take the issue of healthcare out of insurance, and out of those that make money, and just say, “Healthcare should be a right.” The fact that they even brought sickle cell anemia [01:18:00] to the forefront. To say, “This is not just something that happens here, this is something that is worldwide. This is something that is -- and it’s obviously racerelated.” Just the whole issue of healthcare, because, I mean, now, 40, 50 years later, when you look at the issue of healthcare being, you have people that have 40 �lost their homes on being sick. Because they can’t afford to pay. You have insurance companies that are -- I mean, the rate of healthcare is unreal. Healthcare should be a right. That’s my opinion. The thing about the breakfast program, I think, wasn’t quite as up-front as the health clinic, but I think it’s a point to say, [01:19:00] “Why should anybody be starving, in a country that has plenty? Why can’t those resources be allocated so that there is no one that goes hungry, and no one that goes without healthcare?” You know, these things should be rights. The things that public aid instituted just with food stamps, and that kind of stuff, why can’t people just walk in and get something to eat? Why should anyone be hungry, with all of the resources that are available? And that goes not -- you know, see, we can only address the urban issues. But when you go, Appalachia, when you go down to some places in southern Illinois, when you go to small towns, you know, we’re addressing an urban issue that is really a people issue of [01:20:00] not allocating resources to assist those that need them. Or, when you do assist those in need, then you make them feel like they’re a drain on you. When it shouldn’t be. You know, when you go downtown, you go behind restaurants, you see people throwing out food that somebody could have been eating. And it was really -- The first time I went to New York, this is much later, I was working on a paper for school. It was the first time, and that had to have been close to 30 years ago, the first time that I had ever seen homeless people waiting for public buildings to open up. ’Cause I had to go to a library or something, and it was this whole line of homeless folks, which, bit by bit, it’s started to become a reality in a lot of the urban situations, 41 �where they’re waiting for public [01:21:00] facilities to open up, so that they can go in, and wash up, and sit around in the heat, and be there all day. Because they had nothing else to do. And I don’t think anybody can tell me that homeless people prefer to be homeless. You know? I don’t understand, in a land of plenty, why resources are not allocated to say that nobody needs to live on the street. Nobody needs to sub-exist. Nobody needs to not have medical attention if that’s what’s required. So, I think that was one thing. The issue of the Party -JJ: Was it on a national level, or local, too? WR: What? JJ: The health issue. WR: I would say that -- JJ: Were you speaking nationally, or? WR: I would say nationally. JJ: Nationally, okay. WR: Yeah. Yeah. JJ: So at that time, the Panthers were already [01:22:00] talking about a health issue. WR: Well -- JJ: Today, [though?], it’s a big thing. With the presidential campaign and that. But this was [done?] at that time, it was being discussed at that time. WR: Right. JJ: All right, what were you gonna say? [I didn’t?] -- WR: I don’t know. We need to move on. I get old, I forget. 42 �JJ: Okay, so what was the office like, I mean, you went to the Panther office on the west side, or? There was one on the South Side, too, right? WR: Right. Now, I can’t go into depth on the office, because I was out on the street more. JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) MS: Where were the offices? I don’t think we have that on the record yet, so if you could [tell me?] -- WR: 2350 West Madison. I only came in the office to drop off stuff or to make phone calls. JJ: What was the purpose of the office, I mean --? WR: Purpose of the office is, it’s a distribution point of people. Okay? You have political education classes going on, I mean, [01:23:00] it’s where people are meeting, calling, doing whatever they need to do. You have to have a focal point of, where do you meet? Where do you get your marching orders? I mean, the office was the office. You know, for me, all I needed to do was to make phone calls, and then go out and beg some more. The office on the South Side was on 35th Street. It was about, either 223 or 225 East 35th Street. But the office was a focal point to meet, to have classes, to have discussions, to have your marching orders of what you needed to do, central place where the papers came, another reason I didn’t go to the office, stay at the office, is because if they caught me, I’d have to sell newspapers. (laughter) And I’d rather be -- and, you know, when they caught me, I sold newspapers. If you didn’t, you know. [01:24:00] But newspapers was also our only way of survival, ’cause I think you 43 �got a nickel off of each newspaper. So, I mean, it’s still a central point, you know, everybody needs to have a central point to coalesce and define the business of what you needed to do. JJ: What do you mean, “the only way of survival”? Now, you’re still a student, no? WR: No. JJ: Oh, you had dropped out, or you [had?] completed -- WR: Oh, you talking about when I was in the Party? JJ: Yeah, when you were in the Party. WR: When I was in the Party, I dropped out. Right, I think I got through two semesters of Circle, and I dropped out. I went back to school later. But, as far as Circle was concerned, I flunked out. JJ: Did you [finish it?] later, or no? WR: Yes, I did. I went to Loyola. I went to school at night. So I ended up with a master’s from Loyola. But I had a lot of issues there. Nothing like being an exPanther. JJ: What do you mean? WR: When I started working at Loyola, the [01:25:00] FBI came on campus, came to the dean’s office, “Do you know who you have here?” But I put it on my application. I don’t [need that lying on mine?]. JJ: You put, what, Panther, in your -- WR: No, it said, “Have you been involved -- What was your last job?” I was a Black Panther, that’s what I did! (laughter) That’s what I did. JJ: So, [no wonder you’re?] -- 44 �MS: And what year was that? WR: It had to have been 1971, or ’72. It was one of those years. JJ: Yeah, that would make the FBI come. (laughs) WR: Well, I think they were coming anyway, I don’t know. But it’s like, because I was working in a minority program, an EOP program, which, you know, that was something else. It was EAP and EOP programs almost on every college campus right after King got killed. JJ: Briefly, what is [that?]? WR: Educational Opportunity Program. At Circle, it was Educational Assistance Program. JJ: What did that do? WR: It was supposed to take in [01:26:00] inner-city kids that perhaps would not have been able to come through regular admissions, and give them an opportunity to go to school. JJ: Okay, so, you were working doing that? WR: That was my first job, with an EOP program. And the dean’s office was mostly white, but the guy that I was working with was Black. And, the thing about the EOP program was it was supposed to -- we would have classes. I had classes teaching people how to take notes. We’re taking Black kids out of high schools, that all they had was general math. Maybe they don’t know how to write. We had some that even were at a reading level below fifth grade. I have no idea how they got through high school. I have no idea why they aspired to go to college. But it’s not that they’re dumb, they just [01:27:00] have not had all of the 45 �educational tools that’s gonna put them in a situation, “Here we are at Loyola.” I remember showing somebody how to take notes, they didn’t even have a concept, that I’m supposed to listen to somebody and write down what they saying? Why? It wasn’t that important. So, that’s another disaster at many levels, and that is the educational system of moving some kids along that actually could have done more, if they had [ever?] been challenged to be more. There’s a lot of kids that we helped, there’s a lot of kids that we couldn’t save. Because just being on a college campus, at a college level, with other college students, and not being prepared. [01:28:00] You know. Like I said, we had some kids that weren’t even past fifth grade reading level. Which, even if they didn’t get the math, if you can read, you can pretty much get through anything. If you can’t read, you’re at a disadvantage immediately. So, that was an EAP program at Circle, which I was aware of it, and tried to help some of the folks there. Which was another thing that, you know, you’re looking at kids that don’t have a clue. They only have a dream. And there was no supportive stuff in place to help them get through. So, in ’68, there was, like -- (audio cuts) The EAP program there took over 1,000 kids, [01:29:00] because all of the colleges were doing this. King got killed, our kids aren’t getting educated, blah blah blah blah. Within three semesters, there were only 120 left. I flunked out too. And I could have done the work. I can imagine how difficult it was for somebody not to have had enough exposure to be able to do the work. And this was happening in many situations until, by the time I started working at Loyola, I think they had more supplemental classes in place. That they would start assisting and walking the kids through 46 �what they needed to do to survive in school. Because, it wasn’t no joke. You know, you can’t write a paper, saying, “I agree with you. [01:30:00] What else do I need to say?” That’s not a paper. So. JJ: So, some lessons are, the supplemental, I mean, for those kids. You’re saying that the more supplemental programs, they’d assist them, or? WR: Right, right. JJ: [That?] assisted them? WR: This is beyond the Panthers. I mean, this is my life after the Panth-- JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) WR: Right. Supplemental programs, like teaching them how to take notes, vocabulary, reading, that’s basically all that I worked with. Teaching them how to read, teaching them vocabulary, teaching them how to take notes. Like I said, if you get through those, you can almost do anything. If you can’t read, it’s a moot issue. And a lot of the reading issues was vocabulary. JJ: Okay, so what were you studying there? WR: Poli sci and history. JJ: What is that? [01:31:00] Poli -- WR: Political science and history. JJ: Oh, [sorry?], political science and history. And that’s what you got your master’s in? I don’t know. WR: I got a master’s in urban studies. Like, public administration. MS: And what year did you get your master’s? 47 �WR: It’s either ’77 or ’78, I don’t remember what -- I graduated in ’75, so I got the master’s in ’77. JJ: Do you have any more follow-up on that? ’Cause I’m not even familiar with that. (laughs) MS: With urban studies [and public?] administration? JJ: With the master’s, I don’t know what that -- But -- WR: It’s just school. I mean, I liked school, so it was not a bad environment to be in. You know, I liked school. Everybody has some things that, you know, I was good at school. That’s all. [01:32:00] And, I guess in every situation that you’re in, you began to see the politics of it. The elitism of it. You know, those that are here, those that are here. Actually, David Protess was one of my instructors. He’s the one that was at Northwestern with the wrongful conviction. I think it was his class that actually did some, you know -- I had some good instructors, and then, you know, you just have the regular, you know, white guy with a doctorate, just doing what he does. Trying not to go too far out the box. These are the things we teach, and if you don’t know it, it’s not my fault. JJ: Now, you mentioned that the FBI [01:33:00] came to the campus. That’s what they call “repression,” right? So, what kind of repression was the Panthers in Chicago under? Could you describe that a little more? WR: It’s hard to describe it, because it became a natural way that we were functioning. But we were harassed, we were stopped, we were searched. We were constantly being arrested for very simple things. I remember, there was a 48 �guy that was running for alderman on the Gold Coast. His name was John -Can’t think of his last name. MS: Sorry, I’m gonna pause for one se-- (audio cuts) WR: He was running for alderman, and this had to have been the first part of [01:34:00] 1969. It must have been around January or February or something like that. I’ll think of his last name, I just can’t think of it. Anyway, he’s running for alderman on the North Side, which encompasses Cabrini, but also the Gold Coast. John Stevens, that was his name. JJ: Oh, John Stevens, yeah. WR: And he came to us to ask us to be poll watchers. So, you know, everybody put on their, you know, little black beret and our combat boots, and we’d go -- I’d never seen anything like this before. And I’d never really been a part of the socalled “political system,” ’cause I’d just gotten old enough to vote. We were pollwatching. And, here we are in Cabrini. We saw big white guys, Irish guys, getting out [01:35:00] of limousines, coming into the polls, going behind the curtain, telling people how to vote. They actually had a list. I’d never seen anything like this before. I’ve never seen it since. They had a list where they actually had those people that were on welfare, where, you know, “If you don’t vote this way, we don’t know when your check is going to come.” You know, “Blah blah blah blah blah, let me help you vote.” Any protest that was happening, we got arrested, I got arrested twice. They took us out of the poll for interfering with the process of voting. But these guys were coming in, I’m like, “I can’t believe this! They are coming into the polls, going behind the curtain, showing 49 �people how to vote.” And the unfortunate thing is that you had so many people in Cabrini, and this is after the fact, this is 10 or 15 years after the fact, that I actually was reading some anthropology, [01:36:00] some history, and that kind of stuff, where they were actually talking about the next Great Migration of a lot of Black folks from the South into urban areas. Which probably would have picked up a lot of folks from Robert Taylor, from Cabrini, and that kind of stuff. You have a lot of people coming into the city, in an urban environment for the first time. They were told, you know, “You don’t have a job, you need to go get on welfare,” that kind of stuff. So you’ve got this going on, and then you’ve got guys that they actually have a welfare list. And they’re telling these folks, who don’t have any skills, you know, who are coming here trying to figure out, “How am I gonna live, how am I gonna do --” We have you on our list. This is how you need to vote. You couldn’t have told me that this would’ve happened in the city. I thought maybe something like that, you know, maybe King went through that, [01:37:00] maybe that happened in Montgomery. But, to actually, in 1969, to be in Chicago and to see people come in and just say, “You are on the welfare list, you vote wrong, we’re gonna put you off.” And then, when the police came, they took us. Now, there was a big issue over at the church, which I had to -JJ: Were you, like, kind of protesting them directly at that time? WR: We were poll watchers. JJ: Oh, you were poll wa-- WR: We were supposed to say that, “This is inappropriate, you were doing blah blah blah blah blah, we gonna call the police,” we call the police, and the police come 50 �and take us. Okay, we gonna call the Board of Elections. The Board of Elections called the police, and the police come and take us. Over at St. Dominic’s Church, my understanding, is that Fred was over there, and he got in an argument with one of these big guys. And the guy pulled out a pistol. JJ: On Fred Hampton? WR: On Fred. This was the [01:38:00] voting process. And the police came and took Fred away. You know, “You are impeding in the voting process,” you know, what do you call it when you’re creating a ruckus? And -- JJ: Mob action, or something? MS: Disturbing the peace. JJ: Disturbing the peace, yeah. WR: Disturbing the peace, and something else. You know, they might have held Fred long, they didn’t hold us long, they just took us to the police station to take us out of that situation. And then when we came back, it was the same thing, and I, you know, I’m saying I saw limousines drive up! They blocked the street, got out of limousines, came into the voting place, and said, called off names, “You are here, you are here, you are here. If you want to keep your, then you better vote this way.” And I’m like -- JJ: I mean, they said this out loud --? WR: Yes! Yes! JJ: They didn’t say it quietly to them, they said (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) WR: No, ain’t no whispers. Ain’t no whispers. I’d never seen anything like that before. JJ: And then -- 51 �WR: [01:39:00] I’m not sure if it could function -- Well, I guess, you know, like, for the projects, it probably functions well, because you got people in a contained environment, and you can go right there and they just call names down. JJ: And then they can lose their house, their apartment, at the projects. I mean, (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) WR: Well, mostly what I heard was, they might lose their welfare check. Now, I don’t know, that could have been a threat too. That’s not what I heard. What I heard is, “You are on the list and you could lose your welfare check.” JJ: And you got arrested, do you remember what you were charged with, or? WR: We were never charged with anything, we were just pulled out of the situation, taken to the police station, and we have to sit around until somebody said, “Okay, you can go.” And then we went back, and we got arrested again. Until the end of the day, when the voting process was over, and this was the voting process. I’m like, “Oh my goodness!” JJ: Who was the other [01:40:00] candidate, do you remember, or? WR: I do not remember. Obviously, he’s the one who won. JJ: Yeah. (laughter) He’s -- WR: Obviously. JJ: He was with the machine. WR: He’s the one that won, and this was with the old Daley. But it was John Stevens who was running. JJ: Oh, the old Daley. WR: Yeah. 52 �JJ: Yeah. [Old American?]. WR: It was John Stevens that was running. And I think he probably maintained a livelihood as an activist, pretty much, so. But that left an indelible mark, too, about racism, just how deep it goes. And then about classism, and that is what people do to maintain power. And it’s scary. It’s scary that [almost is?], you know, that’s an instance of repression, but I think that we thought, if we were in enough situations where [01:41:00] people would see the contradictions, and the realness of not only what they don’t have, but what they should have, that it would make a difference. At the same time, I think youth got in the way. Because, in many ways, I don’t think we were showing people something they hadn’t seen. Because I think about the many things that my parents might have protected me from. It’s not like -- Racism wasn’t a secret. You know, you live with it. And in many ways, parents would put themselves in front of you as often as possible. So, you know, there’s a thing of youth, that we’re saying, “Well, we just wanna show you how bad it is.” It’s kind of like, “Wait a minute, there’s a lot of folks out here that know how bad it is.” But the next point is, can you stand [01:42:00] up to it? And push it back. And that was the reality, is that we just kept standing. So, at that point, you know, the police had to push back. They had more firepower. They had to push back, because we didn’t step back, as a lot of our parents might have stepped back, we weren’t stepping back. But we weren’t meeting them in firepower, we’re meeting them in moral power. And, you know, the reality is, like I said, I don’t think that we exposed things that our parents were not aware of. I think that that was what they were trying to keep us 53 �from. So. But yes, you know, there was unfairness, there was repression, there was -JJ: What other sorts of repression? [That was a?] -- WR: [01:43:00] I’m not sure we’re getting that, [either?], I mean, repression is to bleed your resources. JJ: Okay. (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) WR: Or to physically abuse you. I don’t know any other type of repression. You know, and -- JJ: I think I missed that. (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) WR: And bleeding our resources is what they were doing. JJ: [And they’re?] misusing their [word, obviously, or?]? WR: [What?]? JJ: (coughing, inaudible) I mean, you know, what I meant was arrest. What other reasons (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) WR: Right, well, and see, arrest, to me, is bleeding your resources. Because -- JJ: Okay. [That’s what you’re?] (inaudible)? WR: Right. That’s what I mean by constantly arresting people. Here we are, calling for money to get out of jail. Okay, they bleed your resources that you could have done something else with. And then, the physical abuse. Although they didn’t beat everybody up, you didn’t have to. You know, a lot of it is just bleeding [your?] resources. JJ: I meant harassment, [I got?] harassment in between [the two?]. So (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) 54 �WR: Yeah. There’s harassment, you know, there’s, “I know who you are, I know what you do, I’m watching you.” I was -- JJ: [01:44:00] That’s what I mean, more like harassment. WR: Right. I was picking up a bunch of food with somebody from the Young Patriots, because Fred told me I needed to ride around with them and show them what I do. We had stuff that we had left in the car. We were on South Chicago. We got out the car to go across the street, we were on our way to Rayner’s office for me to make more calls, [and I get?] pickups. When we came out of the office, they had broken into the car and taken the food out. And, you know, two white guys with their little funny, funny hats on, waved at us as they passed, as we were coming across the street. They’d just busted in the car and taken the food out, and they just waved at us. But those things, we expected, so it was hard to really, it’s like -- [01:45:00] It’s repression, but it was an expectation. Because like I said, we had put ourselves in a situation where we would not back down. And I think in many ways the police were trying to create a situation for us to back down. And the other thing is that, you know, we’re still kids. So, I don’t think that we were realizing that we shouldn’t have been arguing with the police. We were supposed to be arguing with the president of the United States. Not the police. Because they’re only tools. You know, most of them didn’t have the education we had. They didn’t even know what, they were just doing marching orders. And the unfortunate thing is that we didn’t get past that. Because they were the frontline of the ruling class. So, the police began to make it personal when it wasn’t personal, it was political. You know, it’s [01:46:00] the way the 55 �country is run, it’s the system of capitalism. It’s the whole thing of racism, it’s all of these things. But they’re the frontline that are pushing us back. And they weren’t really the enemy. It was so many more things that were the enemy, and somehow we got caught out, so that some police were taking it personal. And some Panthers were taking it personal, and it’s kind of like, you know, these guys are gonna go home to a family and scuffle the same way that we are. But you’ve got somebody that owns a corporation that’s going to cut off 5,000 jobs tomorrow. That’s who the enemy is. You’ve got somebody that owns a corporation, McDonald’s, that is gonna push the issue for the war to continue in Vietnam. [01:47:00] You’ve got somebody that owns a corporation that is global. They’re trying to set up, that’s who the enemy is, and it’s trying -- but the thing about it is that we can’t get to the real deal, because of the little deal. So, you know -JJ: This is your personal opinion, or has that been discussed among some of the Panthers after that? WR: This was a discussion. I mean, this was a discussion, this is all part of colonialism. This is all part of classism. This is all part of the lumpenproletariat versus the elite. This is all part of that picture. But I’m saying it was reaching the point that where it was becoming personal between police and Panthers. And that was not it. What the guy said is, “We were too political.” You know, this is educating ourselves to see [01:48:00] the whole big picture instead of just looking at the bush. But, that’s not to say the police weren’t repressive. And the interesting thing is that the Afro-American Police League. 56 �JJ: Patrolmen’s League, yeah? WR: Huh? JJ: Patrolmen’s League, or Police League, [whatever?]. WR: Right, right. And I have since done a lot of things with Howard Saffold. I didn’t know [Reggie?], Renault, that well, but I’ve since done a lot of things with Howard Saffold over the years. And he was saying that even during the days of the Panthers, that they were trying to refuse being put in situations to run tail on the Panthers. He said, “These are just young brothers meeting trying to figure out, how can we do it better? What else can I say?” Which was part of their [01:49:00] issue too. But the other thing in talking about policemen was that, we were not always defining them by color, we were defining them by mindset. You know, when there’s those that they bought into it, you know, “These are bad people, they are talking against the government, they are talking about socialism.” Or somebody else said, “Well, you know, if socialism means reorganizing the resources, what’s wrong with that?” So. The police were having a lot of internal struggles. Which was interesting, like I said, that time period was a perfect storm of so many other things that were going on at the same time. That it was kind of hard not to be about something. I’m kind of tired of talking. JJ: Just, one more thing. (laughs) And then we’ll do some final thoughts. Just, ’cause you mentioned the Young Patriots, [01:50:00] and Fred, asking you to take ’em along, to show ’em how you do the breakfast program because, is that what you were trying to do, or? 57 �WR: Yeah. JJ: Okay, so, how was the Rainbow Coalition received? WR: I think we all looked at it -- I can’t say “we all”. I looked at it as, “This is the way the world should be.” I was a little tepid about -- JJ: Was it a big thing, or, I mean, how was it? WR: It wasn’t a big thing. It was just the next step. Because, it’s really what all of the stuff at PE classes, that’s all that it was pointing toward. You know, everything was pointing toward, “We’re not looking at color, we’re looking at mindset. We’re not looking at color, we're looking at capitalism. We’re not looking at color, we’re looking at socialism.” So, it was all moving toward that to begin with. So it [01:51:00] really wasn’t a big deal, it was kind of an expectation. I was a little tepid at first, although I only had one or two interactions with the Young Patriots, because I saw the Young Patriots on campus at Circle. And I don’t remember them embracing Black folks. They were young, poor, white kids, Appalachian whites, off the North Side, which I had never even been to the North Side. You know, there’s a lot of times when you grow up that you’re kind of stuck in the neighborhood that you’re in, ’cause that’s all you know. And at Circle, I think -but then I think everybody is kind of clannish, until they get in a situation that they need to interact. So I had remembered seeing them at Circle. But I didn’t meet any until I was in the Party. And then, when we talked, it’s like, “Oh, okay.” You know, it’s that whole thing of, “Okay, [01:52:00] he’s human.” You know. JJ: [Did you see?] any Young Lords or anything, either? WR: Hmm? 58 �JJ: Did you see any Young Lords or anything? WR: I’m saying, when I met them -- JJ: Did you see any Young Lords? WR: I saw you all coming and going, I didn’t interact. I always remember the red [tams?]. JJ: They were purple. Purple, see, you didn’t remember -- WR: I just remember the red tams. JJ: The purple tams. WR: Purple tams, I’m sorry. JJ: Oh, sorry. The red was the Blackstone Rangers, but, eh -- WR: They were purple, okay. JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) purple. WR: I saw you coming and going. Most of the time, you all were meeting, like with central staff, with Fred, with that kind of stuff. I didn’t have any personal interaction, ’cause I was still -- JJ: [But we?] weren’t at the office, we would just come to the office, I mean -- WR: Right. ’Cause I was still getting in and out of the office, I’m trying not to sell no newspapers, if at all possible. (laughter) And that’s the truth, if at all possible. JJ: Okay, but you knew that we had existed with the Rainbow Coalition and that. WR: I knew about that. We discussed it in PE classes. [01:53:00] Fred always talked about the coalitions that he was building. I interacted a few times with Poison and Bob Lee. Okay. And I knew that that was their particular function, was 59 �going out and seeing like-minded people, trying to bring folks together. Bob Lee -JJ: So that was their assignment, [that?] --? WR: That was what they did. That was what they did. You know who I’m talking about. JJ: Oh, yeah, no -- WR: Bob Lee? JJ: -- Poison and Bob Lee, yeah. So, okay, that was their assignment, but -- WR: They were field marshals. JJ: Field marshals, right. Okay. (inaudible) But was that discussed in the Party -- WR: It wasn’t discussed -- JJ: -- the establishing of the Rainbow Coalition, or? WR: It wasn’t discussed blow-by-blow, it was discussed as a natural evolution of, “This is what we need to [01:54:00] do in order to continue doing what we do.” So, like I’m saying, it wasn’t anything unusual, it was a natural progression. That we need to align ourselves with like-minded white folks, with like-minded Puerto Ricans, with like-minded -- Because I didn’t even realize the issue of Puerto Rico, I think, until later. That the issue of them not being a United States territory. But we were aligning ourselves with like-minded people, mostly folks dealing with the socialist platform. Because the whole thing was, we have to move beyond racism and see that the economic system feeds racism in order to maintain divisiveness. So, there we were. It wasn’t a big deal, it was what it should be. 60 �JJ: So there was no -- [01:55:00] ’cause some people said, some people didn’t want it to happen, or something like that, or -- WR: I wasn’t aware of that. JJ: You weren’t aware of it, okay. WR: Right. And that’s not to say that it wasn’t, but it was not the marching order of how we should act. That doesn’t mean, I mean, you know, somebody might have seen you and said, “He’s ugly, I don’t like him.” Okay. That would have been personal. But in regards to the politics, this is where we should be. This is the natural place to be. JJ: Okay, all right. Any final thoughts? [And then we’re gonna?] -- WR: No, I’ve been thinking a lot. (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) JJ: Okay, I appreciate it. Very much, (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) WR: I’ve been thinking a lot. JJ: I appreciate it -- WR: I’m cool. END OF VIDEO FILE 61 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/34d54297ae0c7dbe6820fc6b67c7a868.mp4 f868a4f5e3df252390d0bcd91c11356b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives. The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng spa Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 2012-2017 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Título Spanish language Title entry Wanda Ross vídeo entrevista y biografía Sujetos Spanish language Subject terms Young Lords (Organización) Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Afro-Americanos--Relatos personales Justicia social Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago Partido Pantera Negra. Illinois Capítulo Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65_Ross_Wanda Title A name given to the resource Wanda Ross video interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ross, Wanda Description An account of the resource Wanda Ross grew up in Chicago, the granddaughter of migrants from the southern United States. Shortly after she began college, she started attending political education classes taught by “Teach” of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense (BPP). She joined the BPP shortly thereafter. She was chief developer of the BPP’s Breakfast for Children Program. The BPP Breakfast Program was used as a model by other organizations, including the Young Lords and Young Patriots. Ms. Ross remains a community activist in Chicago, putting into practice her reminder that “saving the world” is a lifetime commitment. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Shell-Weiss, Melanie Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) African Americans--Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Black Panther Party. Illinois Chapter Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-08-24 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/191aaa67419ba89a997e5c95608d4f4b.pdf 9eb6194ae8b0402d79d36c0fe77ad3c0 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Gloria Rosario Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 3/28/2012 Biography and Description Gloria Rosario grew up in Lincoln Park and Wicker Park during the 1960s, as those communities were becoming unstable, and the forced dislocations had already pushed many of the areas Latino pioneers from their homes. Ms. Rosario describes spending time with a neighborhood branch of the Latin Kings, many of whom were the younger brothers and sisters of Young Lords. Like the Lords, they wore Young Lords buttons and supported the community. Ms. Rosario remembers helping out with the Young Lords’ Breakfast for Children Program and the Emeterio Betances Free Health Clinic. She also recalls the proliferation of drugs that were allowed to flow into Lincoln and Wicker Park during the 1960s and 1970s, undermining the activism and well-being of many of the young Puerto Rican men and women who remained in those neighborhoods. �Transcript JOSE JIMENEZ: Your name, your birthday, and where -- GLORIA ROSARIO: Okay. My name is Gloria Rosario. I was born August 18, 1955. My family arrived in Chicago -- I think my dad came in ’49, my mom in ’51. Within those two years, they established -JJ: What town? Where are you from again? GR: They were in Guayama, in Puerto Rico. JJ: In Guayama, Puerto Rico? GR: Puerto Rico, yeah. JJ: Okay. In el barrio in Guayama or -- GR: La Barriada Marin. Yeah. That’s what I remember. JJ: And did you have more family here? Is that why they came here? GR: Yeah. I think this is where my mother’s brother came, her older brother. And my grandmother was here, her mom. And so, that’s where they came from when they came [00:01:00] from Puerto Rico. JJ: And what was the reason that they said that they came? GR: I have no idea. I’m the smallest of the bunch. (laughs) JJ: And you say the bunch. How many siblings? GR: There was supposed to be 15. Nine were passed away. So, six of us were left, my oldest brother Victor, my sister Peggy, [Manci?], [Serreda?], and my smallest brother Frank. JJ: And you said nine -- the reason that they passed away? 1 �GR: They passed on, miscarriages through childbirth, newborn birth. SIDS, most likely. They passed away in their sleep. JJ: So then, your father came here to Chicago, and you were born in Chicago? [00:02:00] GR: I was and my smallest brother. We were the last two out of the bunch. (laughs) JJ: And so, you said Henrotin Hospital, right? GR: At Henrotin. I was born there. JJ: So, where did they first live at when they came here? GR: I believe it was LaSalle Street. What I’ve been told was on LaSalle Street by North Avenue. JJ: LaSalle by North Avenue? And this was back in 1949? GR: Fifty-one, ’52, yeah. JJ: Fifty-one, around ’52. Okay, and when did you start remembering? What was the first memory that you have of Chicago? GR: When I was like maybe a year and a half. (laughs) I remember way back then. Being taken from my house to my grandmother’s where I was babysitted. [00:03:00] I remember going to my mother’s aunt’s house all the time. She was old. She was bedridden. Going to church with my mom to St. Michael’s. JJ: Did you just go to church, or did you attend school there at all? GR: No, I didn’t go to school there. The school I went to was Manierre. JJ: Manierre. Do you know where that -- GR: It’s on Blackhawk and Cleveland. JJ: And so, you went to church. Was it Spanish mass or was it -- 2 �GR: I don’t remember. I really don’t. I just remember going. JJ: But it was at St. Michael’s? GR: It was at St. Michael’s. JJ: And you were going to Manierre school. What was Manierre like? What kind of kids -- what population? GR: Well, I was the only [00:04:00] white (makes quotation gesture) (laughs) in the school in my room. There was two of us, a guy named Michael -- he was a white boy. I remember that because he sent me a real big card for Valentine’s Day. And this was kindergarten and first grade. So, the teacher said she was jealous. I remember her saying that because I got the biggest card. (laughs) But that’s about what I remember from Manierre school. JJ: So, most of the other kids were Black, African American? GR: The majority. JJ: And that was because -- GR: They were African American. I guess the area. JJ: What do you mean the area? What was the area like? GR: Blackhawk and Cleveland, Mohawk and the back of [00:05:00] -- by Blackhawk, North Avenue. At that time there were a lot of Black people living in that area. JJ: Okay, because also you had the Cabrini-Green projects there. GR: They weren’t built, I guess, at the time. That’s why. I don’t think they were built because I had never heard of Cabrini-Green in the ‘60s, late ‘60s, early ‘60s. Never heard of it. JJ: So, you go there at Manierre or you were there for a few years? 3 �GR: At Manierre, I just went to my first grade, and then, we moved from there. Then I went to Newberry. JJ: Where did you move to there? GR: To Orchard, between North Avenue and Willow. JJ: To the Lincoln Park neighborhood, basically. Because the other neighborhood was more like Old Town. Right? Am I correct? GR: The south? Yeah. JJ: Yeah, the south, La Clark, (inaudible) La Clark. [00:06:00] GR: Yeah. JJ: Do you remember them calling it La Clark or no? No? Okay. GR: I have no -- JJ: Recollection. GR: -- recollection of that. JJ: So now, you’re in -- well, they didn’t call it Lincoln Park either. You were just on Orchard and -- GR: Orchard and -- yeah. JJ: Yeah, they didn’t call it by that either. Okay so, now -- are you still going to Manierre, or what’s -- GR: No, I’m going to Newberry School. JJ: To Newberry? GR: Yeah. JJ: And so, you went to Newberry your first grade. Right? GR: Second grade. 4 �JJ: Second grade. Okay. So, how was that, Newberry? What was the difference between that and Manierre? GR: It was different. There was a Boys Club across the street. I can’t remember the name of the Boys Club. JJ: On Orchard? Right on Orchard? (inaudible) GR: Right on Orchard and Willow, yeah, right across the street from the school. JJ: So, [00:07:00] right down the street from your house basically? GR: Yeah, half a block. JJ: So, did you go to the Boys Club? GR: Every day. JJ: Every day? GR: That was what I -- JJ: But I thought it was a Boys Club. GR: -- swimming -- well, it was for boys and girls. So, it wasn’t just boys. JJ: So, there was swimming there? Were you -- anything else that they did there? GR: The arts and crafts after school. They had a small library for books. They had arts and crafts, and they would teach you how to make little things there. They had games, a lot of games. Just regular kid stuff. JJ: But the population, the neighborhood -- how was that? GR: It was more -- it was a mixture there. There was a lot of Hispanics in that area. White, I remember a lot of gypsies living in the neighborhood too. JJ: So, there was a gypsy community there or [00:08:00] -- 5 �GR: Well, not the whole community. But there were some people that were gypsies. More than what I saw before. A lot of white people in that area before that I went to school with. There was a lot of white kids. JJ: Now, at that time, they didn’t have any gangs through, right? Or did they have gangs? Did they have white gangs? GR: They had gangs. But I didn’t see what I see today. You have to have a 38 or a 357 to be in a gang today. (laughs) Before all you needed was two fists. JJ: So, it was just neighborhood? Before it was just like a neighborhood? GR: Yeah. JJ: But did they have white gangs too or just Hispanic gangs? GR: Well, I know they had white gangs because my brother used to talk about them. [00:09:00] JJ: What did he say? GR: How bad they were, their little motorcycles. They used to fight a lot. (break in audio) GR: The only thing that I would see a lot of was the gypsies yelling at their kids not to be talking to us, not to be talking to the other person, not to be -- to me, discrimination was a big word before. Now, it’s so different. That I didn’t take it as that -- I just take it as people that were bad. (laughs) That was it to me. JJ: So, the only other people that you saw at that time when you were young were the gypsies and the Hispanics and the -- GR: The white people. 6 �JJ: -- few whites? And but before [00:10:00] it was a Black community, and now you’re in a different type -- GR: In a mixed, yeah. JJ: -- mixed community in Lincoln Park. So, did you -- how far did you go into Newberry? GR: I think it was the third, fourth grade. Then from there -- no, I went through the sixth grade because the seventh and eighth was the Arnold Upper Grade Center. JJ: Oh, so you went up to the sixth grade and then Arnold as -- GR: Right. JJ: -- like the upper grade center? GR: But I had to change between schools. So, I had left Newberry and I had gone -we had moved. JJ: Where did you move to from there? GR: I think we were on Seminary by St. Theresa Church, right behind there. JJ: Okay. So, you moved up there. GR: And then -- JJ: Over by Armitage and [00:11:00] Seminary up there? GR: Yeah, Clifton. They were across the street from Oscar Mayer School. (laughs) Never went to Oscar Mayer though. I was already out of grade school. JJ: And so, you were already in Arnold and you were going -- GR: No, no, no, Waller. JJ: That was a long walk. Did you walk or take the bus? GR: I used to walk. I walked everywhere. 7 �JJ: So, you’re walking down Armitage or -- GR: Down Armitage -- JJ: And at that time -- GR: -- cutting the streets, Dickens. JJ: -- what kind of people lived on Armitage at that time? GR: There was a big mixture. There was a lot of Polish people living that way. JJ: What year was this about? GR: Sixty-six, ’67, ’68. JJ: Okay. So, there were a lot of Polish people still living there -- GR: Yeah. JJ: -- at Armitage? GR: There still were a lot of -- and we lived on Burling, I remember, in ’61, ’62. That’s where my grandmother died. JJ: Burling and Willow or Burling and Armitage? GR: By Burling and -- in between, right in the middle of the block. [00:12:00] (laughs) Everything’s the middle of the block. JJ: And so, that was on the other side. So, that was still by Orchard. GR: Yeah, it was just two blocks away. JJ: So, who lived there? What type of people lived there? Just trying to get -- GR: Hispanics, yeah. JJ: Mostly Hispanics on Burling at that time? GR: It was a lot of Hispanics. JJ: But that was -- 8 �GR: It was family, put it that way, because all my family lived on the block. JJ: Oh, the whole family? GR: My uncles, my aunts. JJ: So, when you came from Puerto Rico, they started moving in too? GR: They were -- some of them were here already. That’s why my mother came. I think my mother was the only one left in Puerto Rico at the time. JJ: So, would you say when Puerto Ricans came here they came with their families or -- GR: Oh yeah. Just like the other people that migrate. There’s always a family member here already and talks good about the place or that they like it or that there’s work. And they follow. That’s what I believe happened [00:13:00] with my family also. JJ: And they all lived together there on Burling? GR: Just about, if not close to it. JJ: So, otro Guayama? GR: Just about another (inaudible). (laughs) JJ: Okay. So, now you’re going to Arnold School. What was that like? What was Arnold like? GR: I used to have a lot of fun at Arnold. I mean, that’s where I found the other gangs. (laughs) Because I used to associate with everybody. I was never in a gang though personally. JJ: What other gangs did you see? 9 �GR: The Latin Kings and the Latin Queens. The ones they would argue with here the Harrison Gents and stuff like that. JJ: So, what year was this? This had to be later, no? GR: Sixty-seven, ’68. JJ: Sixty-seven, ’68? So, Latin Kings were there and the Harrison Gents. And who did you hang around mostly with at that time? GR: With the Kings. JJ: With the Kings? GR: Because I used to chase my cousins because they were in [00:14:00] gangs, and I used to chase them. (laughs) We were always fighting with them, I was. JJ: With the Kings? GR: I was fighting always with my cousins because of the gangs and stuff that they weren’t supposed to be in those things. JJ: But your cousins were in more gangs? GR: They were in the Kings. JJ: They were in the Kings. But you were fighting with them. So, you were going with the (Spanish) [00:14:18], I guess. GR: Yeah, just about. (laughter) JJ: So, you were like their mom basically (inaudible). GR: Yeah, yeah, I was their favorite cousin, but I was still the one to watch out for at that time. JJ: So, you weren’t in a gang, but you were hanging out with them? GR: No, I would hang out with everybody. 10 �JJ: So, were you afraid of them or -- GR: I just didn’t like the fighting stuff, and I didn’t like anything that had to be negative. I wasn’t a negative person. JJ: And who were they fighting with? GR: Gents or somebody that would come down the avenue or Blacks or whites or whoever. [00:15:00] It would be a motorcycle gang. (laughs) It would anybody that was drunk, anybody that was -- it was just anybody. JJ: It was just fighting with anybody? GR: Yeah. JJ: And you said you were having a lot of fun. What kind of fun? GR: Well, I always had a curfew. And if I would go anywhere, it would be to St. Theresa’s Church. They used to have a lot of quarter parties. The Queens used to rent this club and -- it’s at Belmont and Sheffield. I don’t remember the name of the place. But where -- JJ: You mean a hall? GR: The hall. JJ: Viking Hall? GR: That was Viking Hall? JJ: Viking Hall, yeah. GR: Okay. That was on the next block over. Okay, that was it. Yeah. JJ: So, the Queens used to rent that? GR: Yeah, to have parties there. So, either that, or [00:16:00] I would go down there. JJ: So, the women were the organizers of the dance? 11 �GR: It was this one lady that was -- she was a white lady. She was way older. I mean, she was like a grandma already. So, she was old. They used to organize the girls with the -- and I guess she used to be a Queen or something. That’s where the Latin Queens -- JJ: So, her purpose of organizing the dance was for -- GR: It was really just to keep trouble out of the neighborhoods, just to keep something going. JJ: So, she didn’t get paid by the city or anything? GR: No, no, no, no. She didn’t. She just did it on her own because I guess her daughter was a gang member. (laughs) So, I guess she wanted to keep her on her toes. JJ: So, because up there too where the Viking Hall, the Eagles and the Aristocrats -[00:17:00] they used to use that hall too. GR: Yeah, a lot of people used that hall. I guess it was one of the cheapest in that area. (laughs) JJ: The cheapest to rent. So, a lot of the gangs too used it, rented it. GR: I’m pretty sure they didn’t tell them they were in a gang but -- JJ: But they would -- GR: -- used to use their names or whatever. JJ: Were they usually safe? The dances? GR: Yeah, most likely unless somebody brough alcohol in. Then they got drunk and they got stupid. But other than that, they were just good old parties. JJ: Now, did the Queens and Kings come from other parts of the city? 12 �GR: I think so. I think they’re from Belmont and Sheffield and from Armitage and Sheffield. But they were all associated. Everywhere they would have a party, they would all get together. They would come down to [00:18:00] St. Theresa or they would go over to Viking Hall. JJ: Okay. So now, St. Theresa -- did they organize any dances there? GR: Yeah. The basement that they had over there on Fremont. JJ: You said the Queens did that too, right? GR: Yeah. JJ: But what about the other -- the adults. Do you remember them having any parties? GR: Just the people that would rent the hall to use it for a Friday or Saturday. JJ: They would rent it. But there was always a dance there? GR: Yeah. JJ: You said quarter parties. How does that work? GR: Well, you pay a quarter to get in because a lot of people used to go to that because it was cheap. And then, they just would dance all night there. JJ: So, when you say a lot of people, about how many people would be there? GR: At least three hundred. JJ: At least three hundred? GR: At least. JJ: And these were people from different groups? GR: If they were, they weren’t saying, (laughs) that’s for sure. JJ: Thy wouldn’t say what group? 13 �GR: No. [00:19:00] But it used to be mostly the Kings. JJ: Mostly the Kings when they had their dances? GR: Yeah. The Concerned Puerto Rican Youth Center was across the street. JJ: Because there was a youth center across the street. But I thought that was being run by the Paragons at one time. GR: The old Paragons -- JJ: Mingo -- GR: Mingo Ayala. JJ: -- and those people. Is that the one you’re talking about? GR: Yeah. JJ: So, you’re talking about the Concerned Puerto Rican Youth -- GR: Youth Center, yeah. JJ: -- Youth Center. So, they were throwing parties and that. So, they were raising money for their group too, for their organization or -- GR: Well, I don’t know how that went about. I was on the staff, and I would go to the meetings and stuff. I was the youngest one on the staff. But I never knew -- JJ: So, what kind of things would they discuss at the meetings, I mean (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? GR: As far as discussion, the problems that they were having, what things they had to change, [00:20:00] the attitude of some people that were working there -- JJ: Working at the -- GR: -- at the center. JJ: So, it mostly like to keep their orders? 14 �GR: To keep the -- yeah -- and just to keep it established and try and keep it clean and out of trouble in the neighborhood. JJ: Now, there was a lot of changes going on in the neighborhood, people moving out, and did they deal with those things, or they’d talk about -- GR: Not that I remember. They were trying to keep the kids out of -- after school to stay in one place and not be running around the neighborhoods causing trouble and stuff. JJ: So, it was like an after school -- GR: Yeah. JJ: -- gang prevention program, something like that -- GR: Yeah. JJ: -- except they weren’t preventing any gang, but they were preventing the violence. GR: The violence, yeah. They were trying to do things that -- they would take us camping. Projects -- we went to the Chicago Olympics, which was really great because I was the only one out of the bunch [00:21:00] with a medal. (laughs) JJ: What kind of medal? GR: I got a bronze medal for high jumping, four feet, 10 and a half inches. JJ: Okay, alright. Congratulations. GR: Thank you. That was the old -- and my cousin took it from me, and then, he gave it to my aunt and she’s screaming that it was his. So now, it’s gone. (laughter) And she holds tight to that metal like a life. As long as it’s still there -- JJ: Now, what were some of the other staff? Do you recall any of them? 15 �GR: [Ayla Miranda?], Mingo Ayala. Do you know, I can’t even remember the names right now? I just had a stroke, so that’s got to be the reason why I don’t remember names. I remember the faces. I see them. JJ: Nestor Hernandez? Do you remember him? GR: Nestor, yeah. [00:22:00] (inaudible) Mingo, Nestor, I think Wilson or his brother and -- JJ: Now, see, some of these were in the Paragons before -- GR: They -- yeah. JJ: And they also worked at the YMCA before -- because I worked with some of them. That’s why I know them. So, you’re at Arnold school, and you’re going at the dances too at the same time while you’re at Arnold school? GR: Yeah. JJ: No, anything else that you remember about Arnold school? What about Arnold school? GR: I was a joker at Arnold School. JJ: What do you mean? GR: They only passed me because I had (laughs) honor roll grades in my eighth grade because I had missed 86 days of school. JJ: Why were you missing those -- schools? GR: I was going to school every day, and the teachers would call me from the windows. That’s how it was. And I would tell them, “Wait a minute. I’ve got to watch this. They’re going to fight,” [00:23:00] or something like that. And the 16 �whole class would bust out laughing, things like that. But I wasn’t a bad student. I had really -JJ: Were there a lot of fights at Arnold? GR: Just the regular. (laughs) JJ: Every day? The regular every day? GR: Every other day. JJ: Every single day there was a fight? GR: Well, I mean, before, I guess, the Blacks were also against Puerto Rican people. And there was a lot of that fighting. I mean, when Martin Luther King died, I know my sister got beat up because they thought she was a white. JJ: I remember they were chasing people down the street -- GR: All over, yeah. JJ: -- when Martin Luther King died. GR: In front of the school, yeah. My sister came out of the school. She was a senior or junior. And boom, she got beat up bad because they thought she was a white person. JJ: Okay. [00:24:00] GR: And she kept telling them, “No, no, no,” but she looks white. (laughs) Can’t help that. JJ: But she was going to Waller though? GR: Yeah, yeah. JJ: So, you went from -- Arnold was across the street from Waller. GR: Yeah. 17 �JJ: So, you went from Arnold to Waller? And did you finish Waller? GR: No. From there, I went to Wells, and from Wells, I went to Tuley. JJ: What do you remember of Waller, and what was your experience there besides the -- GR: I used to love the music class because I had all honor roll classes, which I didn’t like because there was nobody there I knew. (laughs) JJ: Because they weren’t interested in studying like you were at that time? GR: I guess. They didn’t have the grade qualifications. [00:25:00] JJ: What made you want to study? GR: I wanted to be a doctor since I was real little. At the age of four or five, I was taking doctor books at the library. (laughs) That’s what I wanted to be a doctor? JJ: I just love medicine. I love helping people. I mean, I help people to this day now, as much as I can. If you need a favor, if you’re sick, I’m there, even if I don’t know you, I’m there. (laughs) But that’s how I’ve always been since I was little. I would walk down the street with my mother. You know, sometimes these old men that drink, fall out, and they’re just out unconscious in the street. I used to tell my mother, “Let my hand go,” so that I can go and see if that person was okay. (laughs) She would get so mad at me. “What if that man jumps up and hits you or hurts you or grabs you?” [00:26:00] “Mom, we’ve got to see if he’s alive. That’s the important thing.” That was my concept of telling her to stay still. JJ: So, did you and your mom walk a lot in Lincoln Park? GR: Yeah. Walking was my thing. I used to play baseball at Lincoln Park. I used to walk to Lincoln Park every day. 18 �JJ: Where you on a team or -- GR: A baseball team. JJ: For what school? GR: It wasn’t school. It was for Francisco Marcano. JJ: A league? GR: Yeah, baseball league. JJ: Francisco Marcano? GR: I played for four years. JJ: Did they have women on the team? GR: That was when they started the women’s teams. And most of the girls from there -- JJ: And these were being done in Lincoln Park? GR: Yeah. JJ: Any other parks? GR: Humboldt Park. They had them all over the parks. I guess it was the Chicago Park District that was going to start these leagues. JJ: So, most of these were Spanish people that were coming. GR: Yeah. [00:27:00] There was Blacks on our team though. There was white, Mexicans, all kind of races. JJ: So, you remember going to the park itself, Lincoln Park. And the lake -- where did you go? Where did the Latinos go to? GR: It was across the street from the bridge where you go to North Avenue Beach. 19 �JJ: Okay, the North Avenue Beach used to be -- it’s Spanish or a lot of Spanish speaking used to go? GR: Yeah, it was a lot of Spanish people. There was a lot of whites too at that time. JJ: It was a mix? GR: Yeah. JJ: A mix at that time? GR: There was all kind of races by then that I would see. JJ: Is it like that now? GR: I think it’s a lot more white people going to the beaches now because I don’t go, that’s for sure. (laughs) JJ: Oh, you’re afraid of that? (laughter) (Spanish) [00:27:50] GR: Not at all. No, I’m not scared of anybody or anything. I had that thing that, in life, [00:28:00] since I was little, if something’s going to happen to you, it’s going to happen to you because. JJ: Because of -- what do you mean? GR: Whatever. (laughter) Either you’re in the way or you caused the trouble or something. JJ: But you had good times at the beach. GR: Oh yeah. JJ: You went to the beach. GR: A lot. JJ: Would you go to the beach a lot? 20 �GR: My aunt has a lot of pictures when we were little. And that’s one of my favorite things of doing when I go to her house is to see the pictures. I was a little Shirley Temple. I had the worst curls in life. (laughs) JJ: Shirly Temple was a role model at that time -- GR: Yeah. JJ: -- I mean, for girls or for women? GR: Well, the curls -- I mean, my hair was so curly it wasn’t funny anymore. And from curly to nappy to worse until I put an afro on my head because I couldn’t tolerate it. JJ: So, you’re in [00:29:00] -- you went from Waller to Wells, you said? Why did you do that? GR: I went to where my dad was at because he had been getting sick. So, my mom and dad lived separately. So, I went to his house. JJ: And he lived where? GR: On Chicago Avenue and Throop Street, Elizabeth, Throop. Over there by -what’s the name of that -- JJ: Chicano Noble, that -- GR: Yeah. JJ: -- ho house over there? GR: Eckhart Park. JJ: So, over by Eckhart Park. So now, did he move from the south to Eckhart Park or no? 21 �GR: No, from Mohawk or Burling, one of the two. He was always over there causing a scene. (laughs) JJ: By Eckhart Park, that area? GR: No, by Burling -- JJ: Oh, by Burling. He was causing a scene. GR: -- and Orchard and stuff. JJ: You mean from drink? GR: He was always causing a scene. But he didn’t sleep [00:30:00] there. (laughs) JJ: What causing a scene -- what do you mean? GR: I mean, drinking and just trying to be a tough man that he wasn’t. (laughs) That’s my father. JJ: But now, he’s sick and he’s over by Eckhart Park? GR: He lost his eyesight there. He worked every day of his life. JJ: How did he lose his eyesight? GR: Waiting for the bus one morning on his way to work. He was diabetic, never took care of it. And it will blind you. Diabetes will blind you. JJ: Was it education, the reason that he didn’t want to take care of it or he didn’t have insurance? GR: I think it was out of laziness. JJ: His laziness? GR: Yeah. Just because he had everything he needed. He had his insulin. He had his injections. He had everything he needed to take care of it. So, at one time, I guess, when it started, he was taking care of it. [00:31:00] But then, alky came 22 �by and it’s all messed up. (laughs) I think it was his alcoholism that got him where he -JJ: So, you moved over with him to take care of things? GR: Well then, my brother decided that when he graduated from high school that he was going straight into the military. He didn’t tell my father. JJ: He graduated from Waller? GR: Wells. JJ: Oh, he went to Wells. GR: Yeah, he was a top cadet. JJ: So, he went from Waller to Wells too. GR: No (break in audio) to Wells. JJ: Okay, so he was in with your pop. GR: He stayed with my father, so he was -- basically he went to carpenter school all his life. And then, from there, he went straight to Wells and graduated from Wells. That’s what he did. He was the top cadet for the ROTC. JJ: At Wells? GR: He was the one that got the big sword [00:32:00] at the end of the fourth year. JJ: What was his name? GR: Frank Rosario?. Suez is his real name, like the Suez Canal, a name he hated all his life, so he changed it to Frank. (laughs) JJ: Frank Rosario? Okay. GR: I think it’s a beautiful name, I mean, Suez. JJ: Oh yeah. It’s a beautiful name. 23 �GR: It’s really every bit as -- not everybody has it, period. (laughs) So, it’s an individual -- I like the name. I don’t know why he didn’t like it, but I like it a lot. JJ: So, what do you remember of Wells? I mean, what’s a memory? GR: I remember the lunchroom real well (laughs) to be honest because I went to [00:33:00] a few classes, but I was in the lunchroom. JJ: What was happening at the lunchroom that you’re laughing? GR: Just the food and just to sit there and watch people. I should have been a cop since I was little (laughs) because I was always into that. JJ: Into watching? GR: Watching, learning, why did they do this, why did they do that. JJ: (Spanish) [00:33:23] You were talking about them, everybody that came by? GR: Not talking anything about them. But if they would do something wrong or if they did something out of line or disrespectful or things like that, I would -- JJ: You would correct them, or you would tell them? GR: I would tell them. And if they started to fight with me, (laughs) I would tell the people that needed to hear it. JJ: Okay, okay. So, you keep them in line basically? GR: Tried, at least. JJ: Now, what was the population there, in Wells? [00:34:00] because that came -that was -- GR: It was so different. JJ: It was so different, you said? 24 �GR: Yeah, it was different at Wells, I guess too because I didn’t know too many people there. So, I used to be alone a lot, just observing everybody and everything. Then I went to Tuley. JJ: Okay, so you went from Wells to Tuley? GR: Yeah. I had to leave. JJ: Now, where is Tuley at from Wells? How far is it? GR: Tuley is where Roberto Clemente -- Tuley was the old Roberto Clemente. They changed the name. JJ: Oh, okay. I got it. GR: Roberto Clemente is on Division, and Western right now? JJ: And Wells was on Ashland. GR: And Wells was on Ashland, and Oakley and Hirsch is Tuley. [00:35:00] JJ: So, you went to Tuley. GR: So, I’m in that neighborhood right now. (laughs) JJ: You’re in the Tuley neighborhood. So, that’s the Wicker Park neighborhood, I mean, according to the city name. That’s Wicker Park. But you call it the Tuley neighborhood because everybody used to go by the high school? GR: Yeah, it was Tuley High School. JJ: Now, they go by the name -- GR: By the names and -- JJ: -- of the neighborhood. GR: Yeah. 25 �JJ: But they used to go by -- if you were from Waller, if you were from Tuley, if you were from Wells. So, the high schools -- GR: The schools were the -- JJ: -- were the center. GR: -- basic neighborhood names. (laughs) JJ: They were the center. So now, you’re at Tuley. And what was Tuley like? What type of population -- GR: I used to love going there. JJ: What type of -- GR: It’s a lot of Latinos, a lot of Blacks. JJ: About what percentage of Latino, what percentage of Black? GR: About -- I think it was like an 80 percent Latino at the time, maybe 10 percent Black and 10 percent white. JJ: So, this is Wicker Park neighborhood, and you live here today. GR: I’m staying [00:36:00] here. JJ: And what is it today? Is it 80 percent Latino or -- GR: No, it’s about -- it’s backwards now. It’s 80 percent white. (laughs) JJ: Oh, it’s 80 percent white. GR: And I guess it’s because of the rents around here. They’re so expensive. And because of the -- just a change in the neighborhood. I mean, they were trying to change it period. So, when Mayor Daley started with these urbanization projects that he was doing, he started pushing people out of their neighborhoods into other neighborhoods. You needed money to live. 26 �JJ: But when that was going on, did you notice that it was happening or -- GR: Oh yeah. I noticed that early in life, that they would -- so that they can better a neighborhood, they would just take everybody out and clean it up and rent and sell and do whatever they had to do. [00:37:00] JJ: So, they could better our neighborhood? GR: To better a neighborhood so that other people with money and -- JJ: So now, it’s better, our neighborhood or -- GR: I don’t see it any different. I don’t. I mean, maybe three percent (laughs) from a hundred. JJ: So, when you say you don’t see it any different -- but I mean, there’s a lot of condominiums and everything. GR: Oh yeah. But then, you have to have the money to live it. JJ: So, you’re saying in terms of your neighborhood, you don’t see it much different, in terms of the people from your neighborhood. GR: From where -- JJ: Latinos, the Latinos. GR: -- how I used to live, yeah. JJ: But the rest of the neighborhood is condominiums. GR: Yeah. JJ: So, nothing changed in terms of the Latinos or the Black or -- GR: No. JJ: -- the poor, whatever. GR: No. I mean, there’s less -- 27 �JJ: I’m putting words in your mouth (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). GR: Yeah, I know. Spanish -- there’s a lot less Hispanics living in the neighborhood now because of the rent of course unless they’re living under housing or [00:38:00] Section IIX or something like that, which a lot of people are. JJ: Are you living in Section IIX, or where are you living? GR: No, we pay rent. JJ: Regular rent? Okay. GR: Yeah. I mean, this is a Chicago housing building. But it’s not -- JJ: But you pay rent. GR: They pay rent. Yeah. JJ: They’re not Section IIX. GR: It’s not Section IIX or whatever. JJ: So, how do you feel about that, that they kind of changed the neighborhood around you? GR: Well, it is sad because you’re used to seeing other people. I mean, it’s good because it needed to change in a lot of ways. But then, it’s sad because you don’t see nobody around anymore that you used to see. You don’t know who’s alive or who’s dead or what’s going on with anybody anymore. So, it’s sad in that sense. JJ: Do you think that [00:39:00] affected anybody or -- GR: It affected a lot of people that wanted to stay. A lot of people had to get rid of their houses, a lot of people that bought houses that time -- JJ: They rented their houses? What do you mean? 28 �GR: Some people bought their houses. And then, with the inflation and everything else and -- the change in the neighborhood will inflate everything about your house and everything else. A lot of people had to give their houses up because they couldn’t afford -- (break in audio) GR: When I was growing up, North Avenue was the big avenue. They had the stores there to go shopping, the grocery stores. As far as I can tell you, everybody would walk around like -- there was not the fear that there is in this life today, that everybody’s scared to walk or carry a purse or anything like that. Before, they just -- everybody had their bags, hanging purses and their bands and their big dos and whatever. (laughs) [00:40:00] JJ: So, people were not afraid like today? GR: No, no, no. JJ: Even though it was -- GR: There was no fear before even though it was a Black neighborhood because we always fought back. I mean, I was five, but I remember my sister got into a fight at school because she won the basketball tournament and they wanted her trophies. So six girls jumped on her, the six girls that were playing basketball that day. And she got them all, (laughs) and they all went to jail. That was Peggy. JJ: So, people kind of lived comfortable because, I mean, if they had to fight, they fought. GR: You used to sleep with your doors open before. I mean, it was just -- that’s God’s honest truth. There were a lot of times we didn’t even bother locking the doors at 29 �night because it was that -- until then we started having trouble with my sister, the oldest one, Peggy at school because of the girls that -- she was very athletic. [00:41:00] So, they jumped her from sixth grade to Wells High School, from sixth grade to high school. JJ: From sixth grade to high school? GR: Yeah. JJ: To Wells High School? GR: Yeah. They had to get out of the neighborhood because it was bad for her. (break in audio) JJ: Okay. You were seven? GR: Coming out of second grade. I used to stay 10 minutes after school every day to help my teacher out because she was a very old lady. And I asked for permission to my mom to teach her. And since I lived only half a block down, on the other side of Orchard Street, right in the middle of the block between Willow and North Avenue. I lived right in the middle of the block. JJ: Oh, this was in Lincoln Park then? GR: Yeah. JJ: At the time. GR: The Lincoln Park area. JJ: By Willow and Orchard right there? And so, that was by Newberry School. GR: Right. Coming out of Newberry School. JJ: Oh, coming out of Newberry School? 30 �GR: Yeah. My sister saw me, and that’s what -- and we got some photogenic memories. [00:42:00] I mean, we’ve got some photographic memories and some photogenic memories. We remember everything, I mean, from head to toe. And that’s what caught them the next day. JJ: So, they did catch them? GR: Yes, his car. I was able to identify everything that I remembered in his car, and that’s what got his car picked up. And he had taken out a little Tweety Bird he had on his -- and I said, “The bird’s missing.” I told the officer, “The bird’s missing.” So, they opened up the glove compartment. “There it is.” (laughs) The bird was in there. JJ: So, you were seven years old, you said? GR: Yeah. JJ: So, what year would that be about? GR: Sixty-one, ’62. JJ: Sixty-one, ’62? GR: Sixty, ’61. JJ: Sixty, ’61. So, you had moved at ’60, ’61 to Willow and -- GR: From North Avenue and Mohawk to Orchard. JJ: So, you basically were just following North Avenue or -- GR: Yeah, just about. It was just about -- JJ: And that was the street that people were following -- GR: Because when we went up to Campbell. Yeah. [00:43:00] 31 �JJ: Then you went to Campbell later? Okay. So, you stayed near Willow. You didn’t go up to Armitage? GR: No, I was always up by Armitage because my sisters were in school there, and I would walk with them sometimes that way. But I was small, so I usually -- I was in the house all the time watching my dad because I had to watch him over my mom. (laughs) He used to drink a lot. So, when he would say something to her, “Oh no, you’re not. You get out of here right now.” (laughs) JJ: And he would listen to you? GR: I wouldn’t let him come near my mother. JJ: (Spanish) [00:43:37] GR: (Spanish) [00:43:38] He didn’t know that. But I would pop out and tell him, “No, my mom is always so good to you. Why are you treating her like that? She didn’t saying nothing wrong to you. She hasn’t even talked to you and you’re [00:44:00] already telling her that you’re going to do this and you’re going to do that. That’s not right. That’s not what I’m learning in this house is to be a good person, and you’re not teaching me that.” JJ: Was he hanging around with other people or -- GR: My dad was a loner. My dad used to be alone all the time. But he was always there when my mom and dad were separated. And even then, when he got sick and lost his eyesight for not taking care of his diabetes -- he went blind waiting at a bus stop to go to work, on his way to work. And he lost his eyesight right there waiting for the bus. So, somebody walked him back to the house. And then, 32 �when we called doctors and everything -- but that’s because he never took care of his diabetes. JJ: You mean he never took insulin or -- GR: He was a Type I diabetic, so -- JJ: He needed insulin. GR: Brandy or a little whiskey -- that was his diet, not insulin -- [00:45:00] or cold beer. That was his insulin. JJ: More sugar? GR: Yeah. JJ: So, what was -- can you describe the neighborhood at that time, in 1968, right around that time? What do you remember? You were seven. GR: Yeah, I was seven. But I was always in the Boys Club. I was always -- since the age of three, I used to go to that big pool on Ogden and Larrabee, North Avenue. JJ: The [Aishan?]? GR: The Aishan YMCA, exactly. That’s where I learned how to swim at the age of three. So, I was just -- water was for me all the time, swimming. JJ: What kind of people lived there? GR: A lot of Hispanics. And that was 90 percent Black at that time. JJ: That Aishan YMCA? GR: Yeah. My sisters used to take me because they couldn’t go if they wouldn’t take me. (laughs) And their high school friends -- JJ: There was Spanish and Black? GR: -- Hispanics, yeah, all the old guys [00:46:00] from -- 33 �JJ: And 90 percent Black because they were from Cabrini-Green? GR: They all lived there on North Avenue. JJ: North Avenue. GR: Yeah. On North Avenue, Larrabee, Mohawk, Sedgwick. (break in audio) JJ: So, why did they pass away, your siblings? GR: Some of them were before birth, miscarriages. And some of them were -- I know the oldest one died from SIDS, which was -- she died in her sleep. That’s just when they don’t have an undetermined cause of death and they don’t find no foul play. JJ: What did your mother say? You said that they were miscarriages? What did you mother say they were miscarriages from? GR: She was having a baby every year, so you could imagine that’s why. (laughs) JJ: So, that’s why? GR: Yeah. JJ: So, you came here, and you lived by Mohawk. You remember -- GR: Yeah, definitely. JJ: -- that area? What do you remember about that area? GR: I remember Blackhawk Street. I went to Cleveland. [00:47:00] I remember my grandmother basically. JJ: What was her name? GR: Florence. And I remember her because I used to stay with her when I was two. She used to babysit me during the day while my mom worked because my 34 �brother was smaller, so my other aunt used to take care of him during the day. And I remember her because she had an attic where she would wash her clothes with a little -- what do you call it -- that tin bathtub (laughs) and the (Spanish) [00:47:31]. That’s what it sounded like. So, I used to sit there, and I always used to be mesmerized at how she would sit there. And she’s have her legs like this and washing clothes. And one day I said, “What’s” -- she says, “That’s a spider.” (laughs) You know where I’m going with that. She had her legs open, and she didn’t have no underwear. So, that was so funny. [00:48:00] That was so funny to me that she said she had a spider. (laughs) And I got so scared because I was only two. So, I really didn’t know -- when she said a spider, I didn’t know she was talking about herself. But she was just a beautiful person. She was a loving and caring person. And I lost her when I was five, six. She passed away when I was in first grade. JJ: What happened? GR: Well basically they’ve all died from high blood pressure, heart trouble, thrombosis. JJ: Thrombosis? GR: Yeah. So, everybody in my mom’s side of the family has died at the age of 62 or less, including my father, and he didn’t belong on that side. (laughs) But they were 62. That was the number, 62, in my house. JJ: That’s when they passed away? GR: All of them. [00:49:00] JJ: Now, the other ones that grew up -- they grew up in Chicago too? 35 �GR: Yeah, we were all raised here. JJ: What school -- GR: My sisters. JJ: -- did you go to? GR: I went to Manierre, LaSalle School. I went to Newberry. That’s where I got kidnapped from. And I went to Arnold, Waller. Then I went to Wells, and then, I went to Tuley. JJ: You said you got kidnapped from Manierre? GR: Second grade, coming out of school. JJ: What do you mean, kidnapped? GR: I was kidnapped from a man, a Hispanic man. I was seven years old, and he put me in his car. And he had a big knife next to him. And he let me go two hours later, the same spot. And when I was going to the house -- and since he left me right off at Newberry again, right there on Willow and Orchard, he came back and he said he’d pick me up the next day. He was taking me to the zoo. [00:50:00] That’s what he told me. (laughs) So, when I’m walking home, I see all these policemen, detectives. I said, “Oh, something happened.” I’m all excited because I want to know what -- and it was me, the excitement -- “Oh, there she is?” I said, “Oh my gosh.” Then I got scared. So, it was something I’d never forget. (break in audio) 36 �GR: Hi. I’m Gloria Rosario. I am from Chicago, was born and raised here in Chicago, August 18, 1955. My family is originally from Puerto Rico in the town of Guayama, town of the witches. JJ: And so, what year did they come from Puerto Rico? GR: I think my dad came in ’49 and my mom in ’51. JJ: Do you remember what neighborhood they lived in? GR: On LaSalle Street. That’s where there was a lot of Spanish speaking people when they came from Puerto Rico. [00:51:00] cause I was born here. So, I wasn’t even thought of. (laughs) JJ: And where were you born, what hospital? GR: Henrotin Hospital, which no longer stands. JJ: That was on Oak and LaSalle? GR: On Oak and LaSalle. JJ: They used to call that neighborhood -- GR: Chestnut and Oak. JJ: -- La Clark. That was La Clark. They used to call it -- because the Clark Street was the big street. GR: Yeah, the Clark Street was behind it. Right. JJ: So, your parents were living there. And what neighborhood did you first remember (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? GR: Mohawk Street, that’s where we moved from LaSalle Street. I was still a baby then. But I remember when I was like one and three months, a year and three months old. That’s how far back I can tell you about my life because I had my 37 �first dance with my father, and I’ll never forget that day. It was October 12th, my brother’s birthday. And we had our first dance, and he’s a year older. So, I was two years and two and a half months old. And I had my first dance with my father. JJ: With your dad? [00:52:00] GR: And I’d never forget that. JJ: What was the -- GR: It was on Mohawk Street. JJ: Mohawk and -- GR: Mohawk and North Avenue. JJ: -- and North Avenue right there? GR: Right by the L track, first house by the L track. JJ: So, that’s basically like old town. GR: That’s like old town, yeah. JJ: That’s the old town neighborhood now? So, you lived there? So, you came from LaSalle and that area to old town? GR: Right, from LaSalle, North Avenue area to Mohawk and North Avenue. JJ: And you remember the dance. And then -- GR: That was my brother’s birthday, first birthday. So, I’m a year older. JJ: How many brothers and sisters do you have? GR: There’s six of us. There was 15. Nine died, during birth or before birth. So, there were six of us. JJ: All in Chicago? 38 �GR: My oldest brother died. They were all born in Puerto Rico. I was the only on born in Chicago, plus my little brother. JJ: So, why do you think the other ones died? GR: Well, the first one died -- [00:53:00] I know she had what they called -- that thing - not bed -- what do you call that? I forgot the name of it. (break in audio) JJ: So, 1968, 1969, 1970, the Young Lords were at Dayton and Armitage, at the People’s Church. GR: Right. JJ: Do you remember them changing (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? GR: I always remember them there. That’s the first thing. JJ: Did you know them when they were a gang? GR: Yeah. JJ: And how were they at that time? GR: Well, I didn’t hang out with them a lot, but I used to go through the neighborhood all the time because I had friends living right there on Dayton across the street from the church, from the People’s Church. [00:54:00] And I used to pick my friends up to go to school in the mornings. So, I know they used to have parties there. They used to have a lot of -- what do you call those -- protest type -- JJ: Oh, that was later. That was when they were political. But I’m talking about when they were just a street gang. Just hanging out and -- GR: See, to me -- JJ: -- Halsted and Dickens. Do you remember that area? 39 �GR: Yes, of course. I used to work there at the hot dog stand. (laughs) JJ: Oh, you used to work at the hot dog stand? GR: Both of them. JJ: With George? GR: With George and then across the street. JJ: Well, tell me something about George. What do you know about George if you worked with him? GR: He was a good guy. JJ: I mean, where was he from? GR: He had a good heart. JJ: What country was he from? GR: I don’t -- I think he was Italian or Greek, one or the other. I don’t remember. (laughs) JJ: And you said -- GR: But he was a good person. He had a good heart. Didn’t let nobody mess with nobody in his place [00:55:00] or would just throw them out if they were really nasty people, wouldn’t serve them. Gave free food out to people that were hungry that didn’t have money. I know I saw that with my own eyes. George was a real good person. JJ: You don’t know his last name, do you? GR: [Kowiski?], [Kopinski?], or [Wiski?] (inaudible). (laughs) JJ: So, he was Polish. He was Polish then. GR: I don’t remember. But I know he was -- they moved and -- 40 �JJ: He was there before that neighborhood was Spanish. GR: Right. JJ: And then, the Spanish came in. And then, it was completely Spanish going to that (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). GR: To that area, yeah. JJ: But he would keep the peace? GR: From there, we moved to Halsted and Wrightwood. They opened a new -- and I was the only one asked to go work over there other than the family that was working with him. But I was one of the only people that he asked if I could go work that. [00:56:00] JJ: But you were there when all the gangs used to come after -- GR: After school. JJ: -- school and to the parties. GR: Waller. JJ: Oh, after school they had the rioting and all that (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). GR: Yeah, it was for the Martin Luther King era. JJ: That was kind of a little later, but that’s fine. But you were there then. You were working with George. GR: Yeah, sure was. JJ: And you said he was a nice person? Was he married or did he have any kids? GR: Yeah, he had a family. Who his wife -- I don’t remember none of that right. JJ: But they live in the community? 41 �GR: I know his brother used to work there with him. I don’t even know where they lived. I never asked questions like that. Him being my boss and stuff. JJ: Well, were there like almost 24 hours a day. GR: Yeah, they were there from real early to late at night. JJ: And everybody used to come and hang out at the parking lot. GR: In the parking lot, inside when he changed it because he had that -- just the front to serve people. Then he changed it to an L shape so they could come through the side [00:57:00] and through the front. From there, he moved to Wrightwood and Halsted, in between Wrightwood -- JJ: So, do you remember some of the groups that used to hang out there? GR: Basically just the people from the school. The Kings would be there. The Young Lords. Not the Harrison Gents, but the Paragons. JJ: Flaming Arrows, all these different groups? GR: Yeah. JJ: Imperial Aces, all of the (inaudible). GR: I don’t remember anybody from the Imperial Aces or anything like that. JJ: Well, the Imperial Aces and Queens used to be on Dayton and Armitage before we were -- GR: Before the people -- JJ: -- before the Latin Kings were in. GR: I remember those. JJ: So, George was there for many years. He was -- GR: Oh yeah, because I remember being small and coming to that hot dog stand. 42 �JJ: And then, that whole [00:58:00] side of that street was wiped out. Right? GR: Yeah. JJ: Now, do you remember who used to live on that side of the street, or no? GR: Across the street from George was St. Joseph’s Hospital before they moved it to [Diversica?], to -- what do we call that street now? [Lakeshore Drive?]. JJ: Oh, on the other side, across the street on Dickens. GR: Yeah, on Halsted and Dickens, right across the street from George. JJ: Was St. Joseph’s hospital. Okay. GR: Was St. Joseph’s because that’s where my nephew and my niece were born. And ’61 and ’62 -- that was where the hospital was. So then, they tore down that building after St. Joseph left. It was a big empty lot there. JJ: Some of the women would join the Paragons. There would be women that hung around with them. And the Kings had the Queens that [00:59:00] hung around with them. What was it like for the other women? They still went to the dances, but they -- GR: Yeah. They were like me, “Hey, hey, Queen love and whatever,” just associate. (laughs) JJ: I mean, were they sheltered by their parents? Did the parents try to keep you away? They didn’t shelter you. GR: I was pretty sheltered. JJ: What do you mean? GR: I had a curfew, and if I was a minute late, I wasn’t going out next week, that’s for sure. 43 �JJ: So, you were sheltered. GR: I would call my mom and tell her I was going to be five or 10 minutes. I lived right across the street behind the church, so I didn’t have too far to go. (laughs) JJ: So, you were lucky because you were by the church so you could stay out. GR: I guess basically wherever I would go, I would always make sure that I had a watch or somebody with a watch next to me. (laughs) I mean, it was important [01:00:00] to me to follow my mother’s rules. JJ: So, it was important. So, you did it not out of fear. You did it because of -- GR: More out of respect. I knew she was a hard worker, that she was taking care of us alone, and that she could need me at any moment for anything. JJ: So, it was more out of respect, meaning that you knew it would hurt your mother if you -- GR: Exactly. I would do nothing to try and hurt her. I just loved her that much that it would hurt me -- I didn’t like the way they look at her mean. Some men just were ugly and mean, and they would whistle. And I would tell them, “Don’t be looking at my mother like that.” (laughs) I didn’t know it was just that they were trying to throw a whistle or whatever. JJ: Could that have been because you kind of were more aware of the streets [01:01:00] than she was? GR: I was aware of them. JJ: Or was your mom more aware of the streets? GR: No, I was definitely. 44 �JJ: So, you saw her more like someone that came over from Puerto Rico that didn’t really -- GR: Wasn’t street smart. JJ: -- wasn’t street smart. GR: Right. JJ: And so, you had to protect her? GR: It was basically -- that’s the word. It was more out of protection, just watching her, that nothing would happen to her. I mean, she was my life. JJ: So, were other women doing the same thing, other girls at that time? GR: I don’t know. I don’t because when I used to be with my mom, we would hang out together, whatever, go anywhere together. It was just her and I. But as far as if other girls did whatever they did with their parents, I don’t know. JJ: So, you weren’t a Queen, but you were hanging around the Kings and the Queens? GR: Be with them most of the time, yeah. [01:02:00] JJ: And so, you must have gotten involved in some of the same things they did. GR: I never got into the fights. I didn’t -- JJ: I mean, was any weed smoked or anything like that? GR: I was always away from that lifestyle. I didn’t like it. I knew people that did it, that was their business. I didn’t care for it. I didn’t do drugs at that time. I did use them after a while in life, but I stopped also. JJ: And not during that time? GR: I used to love to drink. 45 �JJ: So, that time was the drinking time (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? GR: Yeah. For me. And I stopped drinking when I was 21. Instead of starting then, I stopped (laughs) on my birthday. Two days after my birthday I stopped drinking. JJ: Okay. So, you started at what age, I mean, drinking? GR: Maybe nine, 10, just trying it out. JJ: And at 21 you stopped? You went backwards? GR: I stopped. Yeah. I was backwards. (laughter) JJ: You were kind of backwards. GR: But thank God I did that because my liver’s still alive (overlapping dialogue). [01:03:00] JJ: Because I know in the neighborhood they got into deep drugs. I got into deep drugs. But not at that time. But later you said? GR: Yeah, later in life, I was -- JJ: So, you were living where, in Wicker Park at the time when it happened? GR: By Humboldt Park. JJ: By Humboldt Park? So, this is after Wicker Park was gone and Lincoln Park. GR: Up until I was 19. JJ: Lincoln Park was gone? GR: Yeah. JJ: Do you think that could have contributed to anything? GR: No, what contributed to it was family. (laughs) They were into it heavily. I didn’t know. And I used to have migraines and they supposedly crushed Tylenol until I 46 �found myself sick one day. I didn’t know. I thought I had the flu. And I was in the big bad habit of heroin, which was supposed to be Tylenol. (laughs) [01:04:00] JJ: So, it wasn’t Tylenol. It was heroin. GR: It wasn’t Tylenol. It was heroin. JJ: They were crushing the heroin. GR: Yeah. JJ: So, what year was that? GR: They would tell me it works faster for the headaches. Seventy, ’71, ’72. JJ: Nineteen seventy-two. And that was over here. That was in the Humboldt Park area? GR: Yeah. Then I went to an intervention. I went to 21 day treatment, cold turkey, and came out and tried to get my sisters in there, one of them. JJ: So, your sisters had the same experience? GR: Yeah. That’s what I was taught. JJ: From your sisters? (laughter) Okay, so your -- GR: From one of them, which I won’t say names -- JJ: Oh, no, no. That’s fine. GR: -- out of disrespect to them. JJ: No, no, no. But I mean, it was happening with family. GR: My oldest brother, yeah. JJ: Now, could it be that it just kind of multiplied all at once like a fad or something? [01:05:00] GR: Well, you know, I -- 47 �JJ: I mean, first people are using that -- GR: -- was really upset because I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to go into medicine. And that just killed it, crushed it because I was a drug addict. (laughs) I couldn’t be a doctor like that to help another person. Are you kidding me? JJ: Now, how did -- GR: That affected me real bad. I think that’s where my depression came from. JJ: From there? GR: Yeah. JJ: What about your mom? Were you worried about her, protecting her? GR: She didn’t know. She knew that my brother used, but she didn’t know about us until later. I mean, she knew I tried some drugs because I would tell her myself. I wouldn’t wait for nobody to come and tell her. (laughs) I would come and tell her myself, “I tried this out, and no good.” JJ: So, why would you tell your mom? Why would you tell her if you didn’t want her to -- [01:06:00] GR: Well, I wanted her to know what I was doing. If anything were to happen to me that she wouldn’t be shocked that this came out in my blood system or that would come out of my blood system and stuff like that. JJ: So, you were trying to break it down to her. GR: Down to her, exactly. JJ: Because she wouldn’t be affected later? GR: Exactly. I didn’t want her to just found out all of the sudden and say, “How the heck did I not notice that my daughter was doing all these things or all those 48 �things or whatever?” So, I would sit and tell her, “Mom, I tried this and that.” I said, “You know how that is. People are in the street and they offer it and you don’t know. And they continue to offer it up until, “Hey, but try it. You’ll like it.” And then, you take it and you throw up and you vomit all your guts out and you say, “No thank you.” (laughs) So, that’s how I broke it down to her. JJ: Now, [01:07:00] you had children? You got married? Or what happened then? GR: No, I had a boyfriend and I got pregnant. I didn’t even know I was pregnant. My boss told me. He said he found me a little bigger. It was my breasts. That’s what he was talking about. JJ: That’s your boyfriend? GR: No, my boss at work. Yeah. He said, “Are you pregnant?” I said, “Pregnant? Why would I be pregnant?” He says, “Because I’ve seen you gain breasts in the last few weeks.” (laughter) JJ: He was checking. GR: He told me just like that. I said, “Oh, so that’s what you’ve been looking at?” JJ: He was evaluating. GR: Yeah. And I went and took a test and sure enough, I was. And that was my daughter. I let her dad know. And I think he got married about four or five months after that to someone else. JJ: Okay. But was he married to you then? GR: No, we weren’t married. JJ: Oh, you weren’t married. GR: Never been married. [01:08:00] 49 �JJ: And then, you have a son too, right? GR: Yeah, Denny. That’s my son, the one that passed away. JJ: Oh, he recently passed away? I’m sorry to hear that. GR: When he was 21, 10 years ago, July 25th. JJ: How did he pass away? GR: A log truck hit him or he hit the log truck. Something happened. And the man was trying to tell him to stop, stop, stop. And he had just left his girlfriend’s house. And he had been telling her that he took his life insurance out on her name. I guess he was in love, and then he was out of it (laughs) or whatever happened. The thing was that she was so mad at him. And I always said that she had something to do with his death. Because my son was a Christian. And he preached since the age of three. And never, never would he fall asleep like the way that they said he was out of it, totally out of it on his [01:09:00] way to the barracks, driving on his way to the barracks. He had left a note on the computer to a friend of mine here telling her, “I’m on my way to the barracks now. I was by so-and-so’s house, and we had a good time and blah, blah, blah.” After so many weeks or months or something, she had invited him over there. And that was it. Before he left, she gave him something to drink, and that’s all I know. JJ: And so, what branch of the service was he in? GR: He was in the Air Force in Montana. And he was burned beyond recognition because his car blew up when he got hit with the log truck. So, what I got was his bones basically. Well, his body was intact, but you couldn’t see anything. He was in cellophane wrap. [01:10:00] Then they put the uniform over the -- I 50 �wouldn’t let nobody see him, not even his father. I didn’t want nobody to go through what I was going through. So, I just remember him like that. JJ: So, you wanted your sisters and that to see this and that. What’s the most important thing you feel that they should know that maybe we’ve forgotten that we haven’t discussed? What sort of things that we haven’t touched upon yet? GR: Whatever we’ve been through in life, we’re sisters. Forgiven and forgotten and we’ve still got to love each other and help each other out. [01:11:00] JJ: So, you relationship with your family is pretty (inaudible)? GR: It is, it is. I mean, I still get yelled at like I was 10 by one of them. But she needs to open her eyes up and see what’s wrong with her. I can’t do that for her. JJ: You’re putting this on the tape. You might want to -- GR: That’s okay. JJ: -- let her know that she needs to open her eyes. GR: That’s okay. I love the hell out of her. That’s all I can say. JJ: Well, I think we’ll finish it up with that, if that’s okay. I appreciate it. GR: I thank you. END OF VIDEO FILE 51 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f5cb85f759a0726c422c671dfd3beaa8.mp4 0c99d7b727a1ba0f0a3e57e1ddabf1e8 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives. The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng spa Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 2012-2017 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Título Spanish language Title entry Gloria Rosario vídeo entrevista y biografía Sujetos Spanish language Subject terms Young Lords (Organización) Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puertorriqueños--Relatos personales Justicia social Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago Puertorriqueños--Illinois--Chicago--Condiciones sociales Latin Kings--Illinois--Chicago Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65_Rosario_Gloria Title A name given to the resource Gloria Rosario video interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rosario, Gloria Description An account of the resource Gloria Rosario grew up in Lincoln Park and Wicker Park during the 1960s, as those communities were becoming unstable, and the forced dislocations had already pushed many of the areas Latino pioneers from their homes. Ms. Rosario describes spending time with a neighborhood branch of the Latin Kings, many of whom were the younger brothers and sisters of Young Lords. Like the Lords, they wore Young Lords buttons and supported the community. Ms. Rosario remembers helping out with the Young Lords Breakfast for Children Program and the Emeterio Betances Free Health Clinic. She also recalls the proliferation of drugs that were allowed to flow into Lincoln and Wicker Park during the 1960s and 1970s, undermining the activism and well-being of many of the young Puerto Rican men and women who remained in those neighborhoods. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puerto Ricans--Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Latin Kings--Illinois--Chicago Puerto Ricans--Illinois--Chicago--Social conditions Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-03-28 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4d181bff49d65c6fe7f5c1b8765b5b28.pdf 4e8a50195754655b1ad1aef4c76799e4 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: María Romero Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 6/2/2012 Biography and Description María Romero first joined the Young Lords on Wilton and Grace Streets. She was recruited by then Angie Lind-Rizzo (later Angie Adorno) and the other Young Lord women members. It was 1973 and the Young Lords were emerging from two long years of being completely underground, or inoperative publicly as a human rights organization. There were no longer remnants of the Young Lords Movement left in the Lincoln Park neighborhood that gave birth to them in 1968. The Lincoln Park neighborhood had been cleaned out of Puerto Ricans and the poor, in just a few years, by city hall and the Lincoln Park Neighborhood Association. A directive was given by the leadership for the Young Lords members to move and to establish themselves as a base of operations in the Lakeview Neighborhood, at Wilton and Grace Streets. Many Young Lords moved there with their families. Prior to that, a group of about 25 Young Lords had moved to a rural, rented farm near Tomah, Wisconsin. The farm camp was called a “Training School,” and their sole purpose for their camp was to train new Young Lord’s leaders who would step in and lead the Young Lords. Repression had hit extremely hard within the Lincoln Park Movement, splitting it in several directions. This was aided by pending trials of several Young Lords leaders and the still unsolved murders of United Methodist Rev. Bruce Johnson and his wife Eugenia, of the Young Lords People’s Church. Rainbow Coalition leader of the Black Panther Party, Fred Hampton, and Mark Clark were also assassinated in a raid organized by the States Attorney. The Lincoln Park �Movement had seized to exist. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, who was then in hiding from the police after being sentenced to one year in Cook County Jail and who had 17 more felony indictments still pending, called for the organizing of a training school in a secluded farm near Tomah, Wisconsin. After members received their training in the farm camp for one and a half years, it was decided that Mr. Jiménez would voluntarily turn himself in, begin serving the year and start to fight the remaining cases which included bond jumping and many trumped up charges of mob actions for demonstrations. The Young Lords would raise his bond, hire attorneys, and then switch their organizing in Lakeview and Uptown where many of the Puerto Ricans of Lincoln Park had moved. They had also moved to Wicker Park and Humboldt Park but the Young Lords wanted to concentrate their forces. If this move was not done, the movement started in Lincoln Park would completely collapse. After serving the year, Mr. Jiménez announced his Aldermanic Campaign for the 46th Ward, as an Independent Democrat. He would use the election not as an electoral revolution but, “as an organizing vehicle for change.” Among other things the campaign would focus on Mayor Daley’s forced displacement of the Puerto Rican Community from the near lakefront and near downtown areas of the city. It not only boldly opposed the banks, the developers, the neighborhood associations but implicated Mayor Richard J. Daley in urban renewal plans that clearly were racist, being utilized to cleanse these areas of lower income minorities. Because of this, María Romero volunteered to serve as Young Lords Office Coordinator. It was Ms. Romero’s job to pass out assignments and to provide support and referrals for services for residents of that Lakeview area of Wilton and Grace. She herself had lived in Lincoln Park but had grown up in Lakeview. There most of the Puerto Ricans knew her family, as her father was a businessman, who for years had owned several Latino botanicas, or stores that sell religious potions and candles of saints, and provide consultation services. Ms. Romero was instrumental in getting a large amount of persons registered to vote. The Jiménez Aldermanic Campaign received 39% of the vote on the first attempt. It was not the 51% needed, but it was still victorious in uniting the community and beginning to expose the prejudice behind displacement. It also opened wide the doors for future Latino political candidates. As Ms. Romero moved west to Humboldt Park she was hired as a community organizer for Bickerdike, a non profit development corporation. She used her Young Lords organizing skills and passion to promote their mission of being, deeply dedicated to preserving the ethnic and cultural character of their neighborhoods, providing quality affordable housing, preserving jobs, advocating for resources and struggling against gentrification and displacement. One of the main issues that Ms. Romero advocated for was the “Chicago Affordable Set Aside.” �Transcript JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay. Let me see if we can start doing. I think so. Okay. María, to start, just give me your full name, date of birth, and where you were born. MARIA ROMERO: My full name is Cruz María Romero and I was born in Río Piedras, Puerto Rico on May 1st, a wonderful day to be born because it’s a very actionfilled and political day, I learned later. There may be a reason for that. JJ: Oh, May 1st, yes. Okay. But Cruz is your first name? MR: Cruz is my first name. JJ: Okay. MR: I just don’t use it because as I was in school, they confused it with a last name, or they can’t, for some reason. Cruz is an easy name to pronounce, but for some reason, they decided to call me María. It must have been easier for the anglos. JJ: So they confused it? What school was that? MR: The first school I went to was McLaren School. JJ: Okay. Where is that at? MR: I don’t know [00:01:00] where it was. That’s where I was in kindergarten. Then after that, I went to Skinner School. I’m thinking both on the West Side because that’s when we lived on Van Buren, I believe. Yes, that’s when we lived on Van Buren Street. JJ: Do you know what address in Van Buren? MR: Thirteen thirty-four Van Buren, West Van Buren. JJ: West Van Buren? Okay. 1 �MR: Yeah, right before the bridge. My dad had a botánica up that way. JJ: Oh, what’s a botánica, (inaudible)? MR: Una botánica is where they sell -- usually the person in charge of it is a santero, and they use natural healing. They also deal with spiritism and things like that. My father was into that. JJ: So your father was into that. MR: Yes, he was. He used to have (Spanish) [00:01:54], I guess they call them, and right before [00:02:00] he went into the nursing home, he used to give classes. Like, toward the end of his life, he would give people classes for that. JJ: So what do you mean, a class? MR: He would teach them what he did, how to mix all the stuff. I really didn’t get into it, and now I wish I had because of the medicinal side of it because they used a lot of natural medicine. But I felt it was the occult and I’m a Christian and scripture says not to mess with that. It doesn’t say it doesn’t exist. It says don’t mess with it. So I would leave it alone. I think my dad was disappointed that none of us followed in his footsteps, but he prepared other people to do it. JJ: Well, let me ask you this. Let me. Okay, your father’s name? Did we get his name? What’s your father -- MR: [Cayetano?]. JJ: Cayetano. MR: Romero. JJ: Romero, okay. And what town is [00:03:00] he from in Puerto Rico? You said you were born here, though, right? 2 �MR: I was born in Río Piedras. JJ: In Río Piedras, okay. MR: My dad’s family is from Carolina and my mother’s family is from Río Piedras. JJ: And your mother’s name? MR: Ana Maria. Ana Maria Santiago Romero. JJ: Santiago Romero, okay. And (Spanish) [00:03:19] your father, Cayetano, (Spanish) [00:03:24], and how about your mother? Did she believe in that? MR: I don’t know. I have an aunt who did who was very involved. My mom was a housewife and she took care of the kids and whoever came by and all of that. But I don’t remember her actively participating. JJ: What about your father’s brothers and sisters? MR: I think they all believed. My dad was one of the oldest brothers and they had a lot of respect for him. They would go to him whenever they needed counseling [00:04:00] or something, yeah. JJ: Okay. And had you seen any of why he was praying or anything like that? How did he do it? MR: No, I was never allowed. JJ: Did he have an altar in the house or no? MR: Yes, he did. That, he did, and he always taught us to pray, and every week we would go in what we called the cuartito, and there he had all his santos and a picture of Jesus, and he taught us all -- JJ: What kind of stuff? What kind of santos? MR: His botánica was always named San Judas, so he always had that santo. 3 �JJ: San Judas Tadeo. MR: Yes. Yes, and I remember the picture of faith, hope, and charity. I remember that. But I remember he always taught us to pray to Jesus. He always taught me to pray to Jesus. JJ: Okay, so he always taught you to pray to Jesus. So it was connected in a way with the Catholic church, but it was also part of the -- MR: Yeah, when we went to church when we were kids, [00:05:00] we went to a Catholic church. JJ: Where did you go? MR: We went to Notre Dame. JJ: Notre Dame in Puerto Rico? MR: No, here, here, on the West Side. JJ: Oh, Notre Dame on the West Side. Okay. MR: And from school, they used to take us to St. Patrick’s. JJ: So you came when you were -- MR: I was a baby. I was nine months old when we came from Puerto Rico. JJ: And what year was that? MR: Fifty-five, 1955, when they came with us. My mother had been in New York. She had lived in New York and worked for a woman as a maid. She brought her from Puerto Rico -- that wasn’t too nice to her, apparently. And her and my father were communicating. He was in Chicago, so they went back to Puerto Rico, met there, and I believe that that’s when they went to Indiana. They owned a restaurant there by the steel mills. Then after that, for whatever reason, they 4 �decided to go back to [00:06:00] Puerto Rico, and that’s when my brother was born and I was born, and then they came to Chicago to the hotel we were talking about. The Water Something Hotel. JJ: The Water Hotel. F1: Water Hotel. JJ: The Water Hotel, okay. Somebody here knows about that. MR: I was a kid. I remember sitting in the window and I remember the trucks with the fruit and the guy yelling, “Watermelon.” And we’d run to the window and my dad would get baskets of tomatoes and fruit and stuff like that. Then I remember that our uncles, his cousins and people like that little by little came. They would come there and then move somewhere else. JJ: So that was like a stopping point for everybody? MR: Yeah. JJ: Was it because the rent was cheap or something? MR: Probably. They had small rooms. I remember the apartment we lived in. I remember it seemed like a really big room [00:07:00] and the kitchen was over to the side. There was the dining table, and then here was the windows and I guess the living area. JJ: Then there was a bedroom? MR: And then there was a bedroom. I don’t know exactly how many bedrooms there were, but there were a lot of apartments. I remember big, giant doors. My sister and a cousin of mine -- my sister, Yolanda -- were playing by one of those doors and it smashed her finger. To this day, one of her thumbs, the nail doesn’t grow 5 �right because of that accident. The door smashed her finger. My brother George was born in that apartment. JJ: It was Chinatown? MR: Yeah. Yeah, they put him in a drawer. The nurses from County Hospital came. When he was born, they put him in a drawer ’cause I guess there wasn’t a crib, and he was cold. JJ: The drawer of a dresser? A dresser drawer? MR: Yeah. Yeah. JJ: The nurses did that? MR: Yeah, the nurses. JJ: Well, was he born in the house? MR: Yeah, he was born in the house. JJ: [00:08:00] At the Water Hotel? MR: Yes. JJ: This is Chinatown? MR: Yes. JJ: Okay. You said he was born in the house. MR: Yes. JJ: I had a sister born in Chinatown. MR: I think he might’ve been the only one. JJ: So what year was that about? MR: Oh, I don’t know. JJ: But he’s younger than you. 6 �MR: Yes. He’s like a year younger than me. JJ: Oh, okay. MR: Fifty-six. JJ: So around ’56, he was born there. MR: Yeah, and I remember they turned on the oven to keep him warm and put him by the oven. JJ: (Spanish) [00:08:28] came? MR: Yeah, midwives, I think they were. JJ: They had them all over. You said they turned, what, the water? MR: The stove. They turned the stove on to warm him when he was born because whatever issues he was having. I believe my youngest sister may have been born in the house too. I’m not sure about that. JJ: But at that time, they had a (Spanish) [00:08:48]. They had that at that time. MR: Yes. JJ: At that time. Okay. So (Spanish) [00:09:00] you were going to school. Did you go to school there? MR: No. JJ: Where did you go to -- MR: I started -- JJ: Church. You said you went to the Catholic church. MR: Yeah, Notre Dame Church, we went to. JJ: Notre Dame. But I mean, do you remember going to church there with your mother or anything? 7 �MR: I remember us going to church. They had a basement that they had the Spanish church, and we would go there or we would go to service with my parents. I had a cousin that was very devoted. I remember one Easter, it was really, really cold. We were supposed to go to church, and it snowed. So my mom didn’t send us, and I was looking through the window, and my poor little cousin was in her Easter outfit, walking across the bridge. So that’s when we lived on Van Buren. And it seemed like you’d move into one place -- and that happened with me too. I’d move into a building and then the rest of my family would end up moving into the same building. But that happened a lot [00:10:00] with our family. JJ: So the family just followed you. MR: Yeah. Yeah. And the Van Buren building was a big courtway building. JJ: What address on Van Buren? MR: Thirteen thirty-four West Van Buren. JJ: You said there was a big building too, like the Water Hotel? MR: It was a big courtway building, something like this. JJ: So a courtway building, okay. MR: And the whole family practically lived in all the courtways. And I’ve met other people throughout. JJ: The Romero family? MR: Yeah, and cousins, and you know. What is the other? [Trejes?]. JJ: Oh, Trejes were also there. That’s [your family?], the Trejes? 8 �MR: That’s one of the last names. But I believe that’s part of the family that lived in New York. There’s a whole group of them which are now in Florida that lived in New York. I have an aunt who raised her kids, like five, six kids there. JJ: Okay. So you were about how old [00:11:00] at Van Buren? How old were you then? MR: I wasn’t in school yet, so maybe four, I’m guessing, ’cause I’m just guessing that’s how far back I can remember. JJ: But you remember that courtway pretty well. MR: Yes. The courtway building, I remember well ’cause that’s when we were in Skinner School. JJ: So what do you remember about the things that (inaudible)? MR: That wasn’t Skinner School. JJ: It wasn’t? MR: Mm-mm. Now I’m not remembering well. It was so long ago. Memory’s foggy. JJ: I’m just trying to figure out what kind of memories do you have of that time when you were at Van Buren. The neighborhood, were there a lot of Puerto Ricans? MR: Yes, there were, and my family had rented a hall -- JJ: In the courtway building? In the courtway building? MR: Yes, there were a lot of Puerto Ricans. The area was mostly Afro American, and I guess there were groups of Puerto Ricans. JJ: Different sections. And your father rented a home, you said? MR: My uncles, [00:12:00] my dad, had a hall, and that’s where we would celebrate because the family was really big. All the cousins and everyone lived in the 9 �building. They would play domino and things like that on the weekend. Then I remember Christmas holidays. JJ: Where were they playing dominoes at? MR: At the hall. Yeah, my father was pretty good at it. He had all kinds of trophies. I think one of my sisters has his trophies still from playing domino. JJ: So he would rent a hall and people would pay? MR: They rented the hall, yeah. JJ: Together, they would rent the hall. MR: Yeah. JJ: So did he have a social club? MR: Yeah. I guess that’s what it was. I don’t remember the name of it. They didn’t have a specific name. But neighbors would always be there, and on the weekend, they’d drink and they’d sell liquor, and that’s probably how they paid the rent. Then on holidays, the kids would put on performances. JJ: Was this a big hall or a storefront? MR: No, I remember just, like, something like Casa Puertorriqueña. It looked [00:13:00] something like that. And they had a little bar and my uncles would mix drinks. JJ: So it was like a social -- MR: Yeah. Yeah. JJ: Okay. But you don’t remember who was (inaudible) after the Río Piedras, or --? MR: No, I don’t remember what it was named. JJ: Okay. So you used to go to that home? 10 �MR: Yeah, on holidays, we’d go. JJ: And your family and stuff like that? MR: Yeah. Whenever there was a party, the ladies would all cook. My mother would cook and the food would go there. Everyone would celebrate holidays there. And it was on Van Buren because it was right next to the building. JJ: Okay. And then what else do you remember on Van Buren, that area? Because I know there was a street called Madison nearby. MR: Yeah. I know we lived on Harrison. JJ: You lived on Harrison? MR: Yes. And when we were in Skinner School, it was on Throop, so I guess that was when we lived on Van Buren because I remember the back was a big -[00:14:00] I remember getting robbed on my way to school with my cousins because we all used to go to school in a pack. When we got older, they let us go by ourselves, and I remember a couple of tall Black guys stopped us and they took my purse. My brothers weren’t with us. I remember one time that my brother had a fight and I was coming out of school. Then I got into it and I got in trouble because I got into the fight. I got in to help my brother and tore this guy’s shirt. The mother came to our house and she was making stuff up about what I had done. So I spoke up to defend myself and my mother smacked me because I yelled at an adult. But then she told the lady, “No, I’m not paying for your shirt. This is my daughter and that was your son.” She defended me, but she taught me that you don’t raise your voice to elders. [00:15:00] I remember that real clearly. 11 �JJ: Okay. What other things did your mom teach you? MR: How to be a mom. JJ: What do you mean by that? MR: How to treat my kids, how to -- JJ: How did she tell you to treat your kids? MR: Well -- JJ: I’m trying to find out what moms used to teach the women at that time. MR: Well, my mom taught me how to cook. I’m a great cook. It’s hard for me because I still miss her. She’s been gone almost three years and she just showed me what unconditional love was. You know, regardless to what mistakes we made, she still loved us, and she still accepted us. She taught us that. She taught us to be like that with our children. JJ: Want me to stop this for a little bit? MR: Yeah. (break in audio) JJ: Okay. Can you tell me something about Van Buren? MR: Okay. I remember the summers there. I remember playing in the courtway with the other kids [00:16:00] in the building. The majority of the people that lived there were Puerto Rican. I had an aunt who sold bolita, and I remember taking the numbers to her. JJ: What is bolita? MR: Numbers. The numbers. It was like lottery, illegal lottery. JJ: It was illegal? 12 �MR: Yeah. JJ: Why was it illegal? MR: I don’t know why it was illegal. I just know it was illegal. JJ: (inaudible) Your aunt, you said? MR: Yeah, I had an aunt. JJ: And she sold it? MR: Yeah. JJ: So the women and the men were selling that. MR: Yeah, in our family. JJ: Now, that one wasn’t from [lo chino?], right? There was a bolita they called [los chinos?]. MR: I don’t know. I think there were two. I think that there was another one. JJ: There was another one too? MR: I’m not sure, but I used to love going to her house because she had a real pretty house and real pretty apartment. JJ: This is on Van Buren? MR: Yes, in one of the courtway buildings. I remember taking the numbers to her. I also remember my dad. He had a [00:17:00] botánica then, and he got caught. JJ: What do you mean? MR: He got caught selling numbers and they had him handcuffed to one of his vitrinas. What’s a vitrina in English? JJ: Vitrina? I don’t know. 13 �MR: Display thing or whatever. I remember us being all upset because my father had gotten arrested and my uncles didn’t seem worried about it. They went and got him out of jail. As far as we knew, it was over with. But I remember that pretty clearly. I remember playing in the fire hydrant, or watching -- JJ: Was that the first time he got arrested for that, or no? MR: As far as I knew. That’s one time that I knew. Who knows? Because they didn’t tell you too much when you were a kid. JJ: But your uncles were not worried about it? MR: They didn’t seem worried about it. They just went and got him. JJ: Had they sold bolita too? MR: Huh? JJ: Did some of them sell bolita or no? MR: I don’t think so. JJ: It was just your father. MR: My father and then my aunt. My aunt, [00:18:00] she was the -- JJ: What was the botánica called? MR: San Judas. His botánica was always called San Judas wherever. He had one on Halsted too, on Halsted and Broadway. JJ: So it’s a business. I mean, from (inaudible). MR: Yeah, because he worked -- JJ: Halsted and what? MR: Broadway. On the North Side, he had it. Wherever we lived, he had a botánica. It was always named San Judas. That was his patron saint. 14 �JJ: So he sold different -- he must’ve had good business, then. MR: Yeah, he did. JJ: A lot of people in the community went over there. MR: He had people coming from out of Chicago from Indiana. JJ: What do people buy? From Indiana? MR: They bought statues. He used to mix stuff, powders and things like that for them. They would buy that. He used to do trabajos for them, you know, spiritual things. JJ: What’s a trabajo? MR: Like a spell. JJ: So you make a spell on somebody. An evil spell? MR: I don’t know. He always said it wasn’t. He always said it wasn’t, and a lot of times, and I don’t know if I should [00:19:00] say this on tape because I don’t know who’s gonna see it. But a lot of times when people would go and ask him to do evil things, he would take their money and say, “Yeah, I’m gonna do it.” And he’d do that so they wouldn’t go to somebody else and get it done. JJ: Right, but he wouldn’t do it. MR: He wouldn’t do things that he felt were evil. JJ: He only did the good things. He would do the good things. MR: Yeah. JJ: Well, okay. MR: My father’s funeral was enormous. His wake here was really packed, so a lot of people knew him through that and other stuff, I guess. Then he had a wake in Puerto Rico and a lot of people came to that. He had two wakes. 15 �JJ: He had a wake here. MR: And then they took his body to Puerto Rico and he had a huge wake there. JJ: So he was well known in Puerto Rico and here for that. That must’ve come down -- you said it might’ve come down from his father too? MR: Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t know [00:20:00] a lot about my grandparents since we grew up here and didn’t go back a lot. I knew my grandfather from pictures. He’s very dark. His name was Simplicio. JJ: Simplicio what? MR: Romero. JJ: Romero. And from the same town and everything? MR: Yes. Yes. JJ: But you don’t know anything about him? MR: Not too much, no. JJ: What did you know about him? MR: All I knew was that he lived to be very old, and this is because my father would complain about the food here. He would say that his father ate whatever he wanted and however he wanted and never got sick with diabetes or anything, and that from coming here, everyone got sick, you know. Him, his brothers, [00:21:00] and all of that. He used to say (Spanish) [00:21:02] in Puerto Rico. And over here, they change his diet completely and he still was diabetic and sick and stuff, even though I don’t think my father followed his diet. And he was a good granddad. JJ: So (inaudible) kind of runs in the culture. 16 �MR: It does, yeah. Yeah. I’m trying to fight it with diet because I don’t wanna take pills. I’m really against taking pills. And I guess I get it from him, and because I know he used to make medicines, so I’m trying to look into -- JJ: Trying to get some of that medicine? MR: Yeah, trying to be able to put that -- without the occult part, because it’s all natural medicine and natural healing. Like for instance, I was diagnosed with arthritis about nine years ago and I had been drinking apple cider vinegar [00:22:00] to help with my appetite. And I researched it further, and if you take organic apple cider vinegar every morning, it helps you with your arthritis. I don’t take any pain medication and it’s been, what, nine years? That’s what I take in the morning. I drink apple cider vinegar in water and I don’t have to take all those medications, and those medications messed up my mom. You know, I saw my parents deteriorate and a lot of it, I think it was because of the medication that they were given here, the pills, because they may fix your pain, but they mess up your stomach. They give you medicine for fungus and it messes up your liver. JJ: Right, right, that’s right. You’ve got to take one pill for another thing. MR: Yeah. Recently I went to the doctor and I -- JJ: It’s business. It’s a big business. MR: Yeah. They’ve been telling me for years that I’m borderline diabetic, so I’ve been trying to control it with diet. [00:23:00] Then the last time I went to the doctor, he tells me that they’ve changed the way they measure it, so now instead of being borderline diabetic, I’m diabetic. I asked him what new medication came out that you need patients for. I’m not taking it. I’m gonna continue with diet and talk to a 17 �nutritionist and see what happens. So we’re there. But my son was diagnosed diabetic and he takes medication every day. I just fight it. JJ: Yeah, take pills, yeah. The diet does work pretty good. And the medicine, I mean, like, people in China, there’s like a billion people. That’s all they use is natural -- MR: Herbal medicines? JJ: Herbal medicines. So that’s a billion people. They must know what they’re talking about. MR: Right. JJ: And it is part of [us?]. So it looks like in later years, you’re kind of [00:24:00] looking into what your father was doing, but at that time, you didn’t believe in it because you were a Catholic? MR: Well, when I started helping him in his botánica, I was older, and by then I had become a Christian. I didn’t believe in the idolatry. I didn’t believe in praying to saints, including the Catholic church. And from when I was little, my father always taught me to pray to Jesus. That may have influenced how I felt. JJ: So you can pray to Jesus, but not to saints. MR: Right. Right. JJ: So you believe that. Okay. MR: Jesus and God, one and the same to me. But you don’t need intermediary to pray to God. JJ: Okay. I see what you’re saying. So the saint would be like a -- MR: Yeah. 18 �JJ: There’s somebody in between. MR: Yeah. Why go through the middle man when you could go straight to the big guy, so to speak? JJ: [00:25:00] Okay. Why go to a retail when you can go -- MR: Exactly. Exactly. JJ: Okay. Van Buren, how long did you live there about? MR: We were there till I was in, like, sixth grade, the beginning of sixth grade. That’s when we moved north. That’s when my brothers and sisters went to Newberry. JJ: Oh, they went to Newberry School in Lincoln Park. MR: Yes, that’s when we moved to Lincoln Park. JJ: About what year was that? MR: Let’s see, sixth grade. Maybe around ’67. JJ: In ’55, you came, right? Oh, sixth grade. MR: But I was in sixth grade. We moved north. JJ: So you lived a lot of years on Van Buren. MR: On Van Buren, on Harrison. It wasn’t just [00:26:00] Van Buren. I remember Van Buren more because we lived there the longest. But we lived on Harrison Street and I don’t know what other places we lived at, but I know that the last school I remember was Skinner School. In kindergarten, I went to McLaren School. I don’t remember where that was. But it’s West Side. I believe it was the West Side of Chicago, all of those. JJ: Okay, so you went to sixth grade in Newberry. 19 �MR: No, I went to Arnold. My brothers and sisters went to Newberry. Then since I was in sixth grade, Arnold was the upper grade center. JJ: Oh, the upper grade center, you have sixth, seventh, and eighth. MR: Right, and then I graduated from there. My brother graduated from there from grade school. We went to Waller. JJ: Okay. When you went to Arnold and your brothers and sisters went to Newberry, where did you live? MR: On Halsted Street. JJ: Halsted and what? Do you remember the address? MR: Eighteen forty-one North Halsted. So it was [00:27:00] almost to the -- what was the Del Farm, almost to North Avenue. Isn’t that where the Del Farm was? JJ: Del Farm was the supermarket? MR: Mm-hmm, or maybe it was an A&P. JJ: Yeah, it was on North Avenue. North Avenue and Halsted, there was one. MR: Exactly. JJ: We lived right behind there. MR: Oh. JJ: We were on North Avenue and Halsted, because then there was (inaudible) and transformers, a factory next to it. That was by the L tracks. Right by the L tracks. Okay. Now, that’s like 1600. That’s not 1800, that’s 1600. North Avenue is 1600. MR: Yeah, but we were a few blocks before that. JJ: Going towards Armitage? 20 �MR: Mm-hmm. JJ: Oh, so you were in 1800 like you said. You said 18 what? MR: Eighteen forty-one. JJ: Eighteen forty-one Halsted. MR: Yeah. JJ: So then you were closer to Wisconsin [00:28:00] and Halsted, I think. MR: Maybe. JJ: I’m not sure. Wisconsin started at 1900, I believe. So you were there just before you get to Wisconsin, between Willow and Wisconsin. MR: Yeah, I remember Willow. JJ: Okay, you remember Willow, okay. Because there was a store there on the corner. MR: Yeah. What was the name of that store? JJ: El Campo. [Remember when we asked for?]. El Campo Foods. MR: I remember that. JJ: Yeah. What do you remember about that? MR: I remember my father used to shop there. I remember my father always used to make the compra, but my mom stopped him because he used to buy a lot of junk. He used to buy a lot of sweets, and then in the middle of the week, there was no meat. JJ: Yeah, (Spanish) [00:28:44] Mario, and he used to -- you know, Clark Street before he was there. So you went from Van Buren to there. How was Arnold? What do you remember about Arnold? 21 �MR: [00:29:00] That’s where I first heard about the Young Lords, in that area. JJ: What did you hear about the Young Lords? MR: I used to get their pamphlets. JJ: So the Young Lords were political. So this was ’69. MR: Yes, that’s the year I graduated from the eighth grade. JJ: Okay. MR: I remember I used to bring there -- JJ: Sixty-nine, you graduated from -- MR: Yes. JJ: So you heard about the Young Lords. So was that a big thing there? MR: It was a big deal to me. It was a big deal to all our family. JJ: To the family? MR: Well, yeah. JJ: People were talking about them? MR: They did. The parents didn’t talk about them real good. I used to have to hide the pamphlets, bring them home and hide them because I’d get in trouble. JJ: Oh, so the parents were against the Young Lords. MR: Yeah. Yeah. It politicized me. I was like, you know, the things they’re talking about, they’re true. JJ: What did the parents say? MR: That they were gangueros. JJ: Okay, gangueros. They were gang members? 22 �MR: I remember, [00:30:00] (Spanish). I remember that. I’d be like, okay, you know. I remember I had a friend, a Native American friend that I knew from school, and she had been at some event and came to my house to visit me, and my parents got really upset. They wanted me to ask her to leave, and so she left. JJ: Because she was Native American? MR: No, because she was involved in that. JJ: With the Young Lords? MR: Yes. And I think she had just been at an event that the Young Lords had had or something like that and was talking to me about it. I was getting really excited and my parents were like, “No, you’re not gonna be involved in this.” JJ: So there was talk in the neighborhood about the Young Lords. MR: Yeah. JJ: Some were for, some were against, but they were talking. Everybody was talking about them. MR: Yeah, because that’s when I first heard about urban renewal. JJ: Because (inaudible) for it. MR: That’s where I heard about urban renewal. I think I learned about Plan 21 [00:31:00] later on. JJ: Okay. How were you feeling? Your parents were against it. MR: It excited me and it attracted me, but my parents were very strict. JJ: What excited you about it? 23 �MR: That they were going against things that were wrong or that I was seeing, that things were really wrong, like the racism and all of that was really true, that it wasn’t imagined. JJ: Okay. How did you see that? I mean, how did you see the racism? MR: Just like how some of the teachers would treat you. The area we lived in were mostly Latinos. We had issues with the Blacks, and sometimes I felt racism like that. But, yeah, a feeling that just things weren’t right. I didn’t understand why we always had to move. [00:32:00] Our landlords were always white fat old men, you know? It just started. Not really, but started to make things clear to me. I saw the Black movement. It gave me pride that we were dealing with things that were wrong as well. It wasn’t all about Black power all the time, even though that was good too. But we were doing something and that gave me pride. JJ: They said, “Well, let us get some of that too,” right? MR: That’s right. That’s right. I remember when they took over the church. I saw it on TV and I was like, yeah, you know? The programs that they were starting and things like that, it gave me a sense of pride and of relief that we weren’t just standing by and taking it, that we were doing something about it. JJ: So now at that time, did you [00:33:00] ever come by the church at all? MR: No, they didn’t let me. JJ: Oh, your parents wouldn’t let you go. MR: Uh-uh. All I could do was get the pamphlets. JJ: Were they worried that you would go there? MR: Yeah. Yeah, they were. 24 �JJ: So they were trying to keep their daughters in the house. Did they say anything to the guys, to the boys, or no? Was it just a daughter thing? MR: My father was strict with all of us. But, yeah, whenever anything happened, the boys always got to go and we were always in the house. I always tried. “Can I go?” “No.” And no, like, you’re crazy, why are you even asking? But that was the issue between my dad and I. JJ: So what were the kids saying, the youth? What were they saying -- MR: In school? JJ: -- at Arnold, yeah. MR: It was mostly going to and coming from school that we’d get pamphlets, that we’d get -- JJ: [00:34:00] What do you mean? The Young Lords were passing pamphlets? MR: Yeah, or whoever. I don’t remember if it was there that I got Pa’lante. I don’t remember real clear. But I know there was when I began to get politically educated, I guess. Then we moved north after that. My uncles moved and their families moved to the West Side, what we called the West Side, which was around here. We moved north. We lived on Elaine Street. JJ: Okay. So some of your family came west and some went north. Was this when they started moving people out? MR: Yeah. JJ: Or was this just because you wanted to move? MR: Well, rent was too high in the area, so they found another neighborhood to move into. That’s when we moved north. 25 �JJ: [00:35:00] Okay. So this was around ’70, something like that? MR: Probably. JJ: Okay. So you moved to? MR: Yes, it was around ’70. I went to Waller for my freshman year. JJ: Okay, so that would’ve been 1970. MR: Then we moved and I was still at Waller. JJ: What was Waller like in 1970? MR: It was fine with me. I remember I participated in the -- remember girls could only wear skirts to school? In my freshman year, we would go to our classes and wear pants and then get kicked out and then go to our next class. I think that was my first experience with organizing and doing any kind of direct action, although I didn’t know about it then. JJ: So they were organizing at Waller at that time in the 1970s, and probably a result of some of the work that the Young Lords and the other groups were doing in the neighborhood. MR: Probably. JJ: Because they were organizing. MR: Mm-hmm. JJ: [00:36:00] Okay. I mean, I don’t wanna put words in your mouth. How did that start, wearing the pants? Who did that? Who was organizing that? MR: I don’t remember. I don’t remember who was organizing it, but I got wind of it and I said, “Oh, yeah.” I remember I didn’t have a lot of pants because they didn’t let me wear pants a lot. I had like maybe two pairs. And just to make sure 26 �that I wore pants every day, I would wash them and dry them at night, then finish ironing them dry just to make sure that I wore pants. I’d tell my mother, “No, we have to wear pants today.” Of course, they believed us, which is why my kids didn’t get away with anything because I knew what I used to tell my parents. So they weren’t able to tell me the same things. I’d be like, yeah, right, I used to do that. But, yeah, and a lot of the teachers supported it and they would just mark us, that we came to class, and kick us out because they had to kick us out. JJ: Oh, so the teachers were supporting the -- MR: A lot of the teachers [00:37:00] were. Some weren’t, but a lot of the teachers supported, yeah. JJ: At Waller High School. MR: Mm-hmm. And then I went to Lakeview for a little bit. JJ: Okay. Now, before we get to Lakeview, at Halsted and Dickens was a restaurant. Were you familiar with that? You weren’t there during that time. MR: Halsted and Dickens? JJ: It’s before the Young Lords got political. There was a hot dog stand there at Halsted and Dickens. Or you didn’t go there? MR: Yes, real good fries. Real good french fries, right? JJ: Right. Puerto Ricans used to hang around there too. MR: Yes. JJ: Okay, so that was from before. MR: I remember that. 27 �JJ: But it still was there for a while. But I think at that time, it was on the other side. I think they moved to the other side. You said Lakeview? Then you went to Lakeview? MR: Yes, I went to Lakeview for the end of my freshman year and part of my sophomore year. Then I left high school. JJ: Then you left high school. So where were you living at when you went to Lakeview? MR: Started at Lakeview, [00:38:00] we lived on Elaine. JJ: So Elaine Place is where. Elaine and what other street? What’s the address? Do you know the address? MR: I don’t remember the address. JJ: Okay, Elaine Place, it was called. MR: And we lived on Roscoe and Clark around that time. JJ: So was Elaine around Roscoe? MR: Yeah, it was near. It was close by. JJ: What do you remember there? Who do you remember there? MR: I remember Latin Kings on Roscoe. On Roscoe and Halsted, I remember. Yeah, and the guys playing football in front. A Puerto Rican community there. There was a restaurant on Clark and Roscoe that was, like, real old school, and they sold fountain drinks and hot dogs the way they used to make them before. We used to go there a lot because it was close to the house. Still, my family was real strict, and that’s when we [00:39:00] used to sneak out of the house. My brothers started sneaking out of the house, and I remember my dad would come 28 �home and sit in the kitchen with his beer. I would stand in his view so that my brother would go out the door, and then I’d go open the window so that he’d come back at night. After a while, I was like, “Yeah, I wanna do that too, so you’ve gotta do it for me.” So we had to switch over. All I would do is go walking around with my friend, looking at the guys or whatever. Then I’d come home, or I’d go to the library a lot. I never made it to the library. I don’t think I knew where the library was. But that’s where I said I’d be going, or to the store. But my parents were real strict. My father particularly was real strict and I guess the way to protect us was to keep us in the house. We weren’t having it, or I Wasn’t having it. JJ: That’s for the guys and the girls. MR: Yeah. Yeah. My older brother [00:40:00] started working, and he worked at Jewel part-time. To get out, he would just always say he was working and they believed him. But he actually wasn’t. He got very involved in the African American movement and was talking a lot about Black power and wore dashikis. JJ: Which? MR: Carmelo. JJ: Carmelo, okay. MR: Yeah. JJ: So he was talking about Black power. MR: Most of his friends were Black, so he was all into that. JJ: But did he keep the closeness to the Puerto Rican community too or no? MR: Not during that time. Not during that time. 29 �JJ: At that time, it was more the Black Americans. MR: Yeah. JJ: Okay, Afro Americans, okay. So he would bring that home. He would try to teach people about that? MR: He would talk about it. JJ: Did he talk about Malcolm X or anybody? MR: Yes. JJ: So he talked about Malcolm X. Okay. MR: Yeah. JJ: Because [00:41:00] there was no Latino movement, Puerto Rican movement. MR: I guess not. JJ: Okay, that he could relate to. MR: Right. JJ: He didn’t relate to the Young Lords. MR: I don’t think so. JJ: Okay. Okay. So now the other brothers, though, Chinatown, there was the other one that used to sneak through the window. MR: Uh-huh. JJ: Was he a member of a youth group? MR: During that time, he may have been. I don’t know who he was affiliated when we lived on Roscoe. It wasn’t until we moved. JJ: But he wasn’t with the Kings. 30 �MR: No. No. When we moved to what they call Wrigleyville now, that’s when he became involved with the Latin Eagles. JJ: With the Latin Eagles. Affiliated with them. Okay, because I know he was pretty well known in the Latin Eagles, one of the main people. MR: And that’s where we met Pops and [00:42:00] [Kooks?] and all the Jiménez and all the other people in the area that we finished growing up with. JJ: Did you live on Sheffield? Is that where you lived? Where did you live? MR: Let me think. I lived on Sheffield when I lived on my own. JJ: Not when you lived alone, but with your family. MR: With my family, we lived on Elaine. Then we lived on Roscoe. Then I believe it was Fremont. JJ: Oh, Fremont. Okay. Fremont. MR: And Grace. JJ: Oh, Fremont and Grace, okay. MR: Close to LeMoyne School. JJ: Okay. MR: My brothers and sisters, I was out of school. We lived on Halsted as well, on Halsted and Broadway in the building where my dad’s botánica was. But during that time, I was in Job Corps. JJ: Halsted, [Bowling?], Grace. MR: Yes. JJ: There was the botánica. So you lived there, okay. 31 �MR: [00:43:00] During that time, I was in Job Corps, so I wasn’t at home. My family lived on Halsted. Then they moved to Fremont and I came back home. Then I moved out, and that’s when I lived on Sheffield. That’s when I got the apartment on Sheffield. [Danny?] was born. JJ: You have one child, Danny. MR: Yeah. Well, I have two more now. JJ: Who are your children now? MR: [Ana?]. She’s in her room. Yeah, she’s in her room. Then I have an older daughter, [Jasmine?]. She’s married. Danny’s between apartments, so he’s here with me now for a few days, hopefully. Yeah, I’m trying to empty my nest. My youngest one still lives with me. She’s at Northeastern. She’s finishing up there. My older daughter went to Kentucky [00:44:00] and studied in a Bible college, and then she got married out there to un güero. Nice guy, though. Now she’s finishing up early childhood development as she works as a nanny. JJ: Okay. So you did some work with Job Corps, you said. MR: I was a -- JJ: Participant. MR: Yes. Yes. They would pay us -- I remember it was 14.22 every two weeks. But I liked Job Corps. I enjoyed it. We led a protest there too. JJ: Fourteen twenty-two, what do you mean? MR: Fourteen dollars and twenty-two cents was our spending money. JJ: Oh, that was your spending money. And they paid for everything? MR: Yeah, they (inaudible). 32 �JJ: What city was this? MR: This was here in Chicago on 15th and Indiana. The building became a work release after that. JJ: Fifteenth and Indiana? MR: Fifteen hundred South Indiana. I was there two years. I studied Allied Health, nurse’s aide medical [00:45:00] assisting. Not medical assisting, dental assisting. I became a medical assistant much later on. But it was a training program. We finished high school there because I got caught cutting while I was at Lakeview. I used to go to all the Cubs games and I’d go Ladies Day on Fridays, and Wednesdays I’d go and be with the [bleacher bums?]. JJ: Ladies Day was free. Ladies Day was free. MR: Yeah. JJ: Okay. MR: And Wednesdays, the bleachers were a dollar, so a friend of mine and I used to cut school and go there. One day my sister, Julie, was home from school, watching, of course, the Cubs game, and she saw me on TV. I came home and - JJ: They [got it?]. MR: Yeah. So then at the same time, I guess it was just the time for me to get caught out. My mother had received a phone call from school about all my cuts because I didn’t like Lakeview. [00:46:00] It was like a culture shock. We were the minority. Blacks and Latinos were basically the minority at Lakeview when I went there. All the teachers were. 33 �JJ: What years did you say? MR: Seventy-one, ’72. There was a handful of African Americans there. That’s what I was accustomed to going to school with, and that’s the people I sought out. Then I discovered how easily I could go to a Cubs game and they didn’t let me go out at home, so I would go out while I was in school. I’d go to Piper’s Alley. JJ: What, in Oldtown, Piper’s Alley? MR: Yes. Yes, and just walking around. I remember we used to walk everywhere downtown because we never had any money, so everywhere we went, we walked. Whatever money we had, we’d use it to eat. But that day. I got caught up [00:47:00] and then my father said I had to quit school and I had to get a job. So we went to the Urban Progress Center. JJ: Where was that at? MR: On Montrose in Newtown. In Newtown? What is it? Is that what we called it? JJ: Yeah, I know which one you’re talking about. It was on Broadway. MR: Broadway and Montrose. JJ: Yeah, around there somewhere. MR: Around Wilson. JJ: Oh, that’s a different one I’m thinking. But on Wilson and around Montrose. MR: Yeah. Yeah. JJ: They both run the same way, but it’s between there on Broadway. MR: Yeah. So he took me there to see if they could help me get a job. A gentleman there talked to me about Job Corps and they said, “Leave home. You would leave home.” I was like, yeah. Then I brought all the paperwork home and I 34 �begged my mother to convince my father [00:48:00] to sign it, so he did. Then I would come home on weekends. That was a good experience. JJ: A good experience? MR: I think so. JJ: Okay. You learned a few things there? MR: Yeah. Then they had a passage the parents had to sign for, and I forged my parents’ names, so I was able to go out. I wasn’t the greatest kid, you know. JJ: I mean, did you graduate from there? MR: Yes, I did. I got a nurse’s aide certificate there and I got a certificate for innovation therapy. I was on the -- what did we call it? It wasn’t student council. It was some kind of supposedly governing body that we had there. Of course, when we started holding teachers and the [00:49:00] the officials accountable, they weren’t real happy with that. JJ: At the Job Corps? MR: At Job Corps. JJ: What do you mean, you held them accountable? MR: Well, they had fired the director of education. Apparently he and a woman, another woman there had an affair, and they fired him for it but didn’t fire her. So we led a protest. They didn’t hire him back. JJ: So you led a protest, meaning what? MR: With the -- uh-uh, Ashley, go -- we led a protest and we wanted him hired back, but what happened was they ended up firing her. (laughter) I remember we led a hunger strike and we had organized some of the teachers. We would go and 35 �leave the food there after they had prepared it. We’d just put it back on the tray [00:50:00] full. Then we’d go back to our rooms and we had people that had brought us sandwiches and soda and things like that. JJ: So they snuck it? MR: Yeah. They would get food to us so we were eating, but we weren’t eating their food. JJ: And they thought you had the hunger strike. MR: Yeah. Yeah. I remember meeting with a group from the Black Panther Party with the gentleman that we were fighting for. At first he told us not to, and then when we saw that we were determined to do something, then we used to go -sometimes we wouldn’t go home. We’d go home with some of the teachers, and one of the teachers supposedly took us home and we went to a meeting. This is where they taught us how to do the hunger strike and who was gonna be giving us food and how to organize. JJ: Oh, so they were like teaching, the Panthers? At that time, they were teaching you how to do the hunger strike? MR: Yeah. Yeah. It was amazing [00:51:00] to me. I enjoyed it, you know. We were successful in getting her out of there too because we just settled for that. If they weren’t gonna hire him back, she had to go as well, and she did. JJ: So this was the Job Corps. Now, also you said you lived on Fremont and Grace. MR: Grace. When I came back from Job Corps, that’s where my family was living. I was in Job Corps two years. JJ: So you came back from Job Corps around ’73. 36 �MR: Yes. JJ: And ’73, that’s when the Young Lords moved in, basically? MR: Seventy-four because I had my son by then. JJ: Seventy-four, 1974. MR: I think Danny was three or four months. JJ: From ’73 to ’74, what did you do? MR: I was with my son’s father. I left home and I had my son and we were together. Then we broke up, and right around that time when we broke up, I was looking for work. I passed by the office and that’s where I met Angie. JJ: [00:52:00] The Young Lords’s office? MR: Uh-huh. JJ: On Wilton and Grace? MR: On Wilton and Grace. JJ: Was it nicely painted? MR: I don’t remember. JJ: What color was the paint? MR: I don’t remember. JJ: You don’t know? There was [a weird opinion?]. Was it purple? MR: Something like that. I don’t remember. I know it was different because it attracted my attention. It was right across the street from Figaro. You remember Figaro, right? The grocery store? JJ: Oh, Figaro was a grocery store on the corner? MR: Right across from the office with [Milta?], the wife and the two daughters. 37 �JJ: No, no, okay. So tell me about them because I’ve seen a picture of them. So his name was Figaro? MR: I don’t think that was his real name. JJ: No, but that’s what they called him, Figaro and his [wife?]. MR: Yeah, and he owned a lot of property. He stayed. JJ: But his wife was Milta and he had two children? MR: Milta, and he had two daughters. JJ: And he had been there for a while? MR: Yes. And I remember that they were trying to get him to move out. They were trying to get him to sell and [00:53:00] he owned several buildings in the area. JJ: What do you mean, they were trying to get him to move out and sell? MR: They were trying to gentrify him, however it was that they were making people sell their housing or whatever. He sold everything in the area but that store and he ended up staying quite a while after that, keeping the store there. Then he moved up this way. But they set his store on fire. They offered him money. He said no, he said he was staying. (Spanish) [00:53:29]. F1: (Spanish) [00:53:32]. MR: Oh, okay. Okay, (Spanish) [00:53:35]. They harassed him quite a bit and he was just a stubborn person. He says, “I ain’t going. I know what they’re doing.” Probably it was through education -- JJ: From the Young Lords. MR: -- from the Young Lords. JJ: Because he was right there. 38 �MR: Exactly. JJ: So he decided he was gonna fight. MR: And he did for a long time. He stayed until he wanted to. But he could afford it, you know. But [00:54:00] they set his store on fire. They did a lot of stuff to him, harassed him quite a bit. JJ: You know that it had to do with trying to get him out of there. And he knew that too? MR: Yeah. He knew it then. I didn’t realize it until I saw it happen in this area. JJ: In this community on the West Side. MR: In this community. I saw people that had paid, like, 45,000 dollars for their homes being pushed out. Aldermen, one in particular, that a person would go to his office to ask for a permit to do some remodeling and he’d say, “No, I’m not gonna give you the permit. I’ll give you 300 grand for your house.” Some people would sell. The ones that didn’t wanna sell all of the sudden would get all kind of building inspectors coming and all kind of fines levied on them and just all different kind of harassment. [00:55:00] So I know. I understand better what they did to people back then, just seeing it happen here. JJ: Because that was a community, right? MR: Exactly. JJ: Where you lived at, I mean. It wasn’t just you that lived. There were other Puerto Ricans that lived there. MR: Right, other Puerto Rican families. It was the Jiménez. It was the Colones. It was all the artists. Camandiera was in that area too. He had been in that area 39 �since Roscoe and Halsted as well, though I didn’t know him then. I got to know him when I was working with the Young Lords and my brother’s relationship to him and their art and when they did the mural. JJ: So it became clear what was going on at that time. MR: Right, I understood it better when I saw it happen here, when I worked on issues here and spoke to -- because here it wasn’t so much rental. It was more homeowners, and still they were pushed out. I remember speaking to people before in this area [00:56:00] and they would say, “No, that’s not gonna happen here.” My uncles would say, “That’s not gonna happen here. We own our property.” And it did. It did. All of Wicker Park, all that area is gone now. JJ: The whole community. Wicker Park as a community. MR: Exactly. JJ: It was primarily Puerto Rican. MR: Exactly. Now the only what you would call -- JJ: Your uncles were living there in Wicker Park? MR: My uncles lived in Humboldt Park. JJ: Okay. But they owned homes and they were -- MR: They owned homes and they were pushed out. JJ: How were they pushed out? MR: I’m really not sure. Not able to get permits to remodel. JJ: And (inaudible) remodel. They had to remodel but they couldn’t get the permits. MR: Right, but they couldn’t get the permits. Some felt they did all right because they sold their homes, and that’s what some of my uncles did. They sold and they 40 �moved to Puerto Rico. Property [00:57:00] taxes are ridiculous in this area, and your home would be paid for, but you couldn’t afford your property taxes. Like I said, there was this one particular alderman which I’m really happy to say that the last I heard of him, he was a used car salesman a few years ago. But Alderman Jesse Grenado. JJ: Jesse Grenado. MR: Yeah, and he just was a jerk. (laughs) That’s the nicest way I could put it. I could say other stuff, but I’m on tape. He was crooked. I have my issues with politicians anyway, but this was a very evil man, and whatever happened to him, he deserved. JJ: Just going back a little bit, so you went through a divorce and then you were on Sheffield, in that area. Then you walked by the Young Lords office. MR: I was looking for work and that was an office that [00:58:00] was just open, so I figured they may need somebody. I walked in there, and that’s when I met Angie. JJ: Angie? MR: Angie Lind. JJ: Lind at that time. She was Angie Lind. MR: Yes. That’s when I met her and I met Faith. JJ: You met Faith. Who else? Faith Schumaker. MR: Yes. JJ: Okay. Who else? MR: And [Cosmo?. JJ: Jose Cosmo Torres. 41 �MR: Yes. And you and Yoli. JJ: Okay, and Yolanda Lucas. MR: That’s when I started -- JJ: Which was my wife then at that time. MR: Yes, and that’s when I began going to the meetings. JJ: What kind of meetings? I mean, what do you mean, you went to the meetings? MR: I had meetings with Angie. I started talking with Faith. Faith, I talked a lot to. JJ: Because Angie kind of ran the office at that time. MR: Yes. I found out it was volunteer, so I had my reservations because I felt I needed to make some money. JJ: But you volunteered a lot, didn’t you? MR: Yeah. And then [00:59:00] I ended up just working at the office every day all the time. JJ: You were volunteering all day, not getting paid or anything like that. MR: No. Even now I’ve learned to respect how the Young Lords worked because we, having dealt with different organizations and seeing how they work and how they owe a certain politician, you know, because they’ve gotten money from this group of people so they can’t step on toes, whereas the Young Lords would get their money -- I remember collecting food stamps from people. People would do pledges, and that’s how they supported themselves so they didn’t owe big politicians any money. They could step on whoever’s toes they wanted because they didn’t owe anybody anything, which was something that was really hard to deal -- which I didn’t get for a long time, working with all these other 42 �organizations (Spanish) [00:59:51] and you don’t step on their toes. You don’t bite the hand that feeds you. [01:00:00] And I learned to appreciate that better, like this, you know, where you couldn’t really organize. You had to organize on what they wanted you to organize on. JJ: Because it wasn’t really a job. With the Young Lords. MR: Right, with the Young Lords, it was something I believed in. That’s when I learned more detailed about Plan 21 and urban renewal and people being pushed out and how we’re being pushed to the suburbs. JJ: So there was an education component. MR: Yes, politically educated, and understanding what a monster our wonderful mayor was. Yes, the Daddy, right? It was still the Daddy, yeah. And consecutive mayors, we’ve had till this day. JJ: Right, (inaudible). MR: And I understood too, I learned that when you saw changes in the community, like when I lived in Logan [01:01:00] Square, by then I knew that when you start seeing -- when a library comes, when a new church comes, when there’s a bank -- not a library, a bank -- a new church -- I educated my kids. I’d see these new little gardens and I’d be like, “Oh, the yuppies are coming. We’re gonna have to move. This is what happened.” And my kids understood it. As a matter of fact, my kids, if my kids have to move, we can pack up a house in an evening. We can take all this and pack it in an evening as long as we have all the supplies, because we moved so much. In Logan Square, on one street, we lived on every block from Kedzie and Albany to Albany and Belden. I can count about maybe 43 �eight buildings that we lived in until we moved here. [01:02:00] This is an affordable housing development, and that’s one of the only ways that people have been able to stay in this community. It’s been fought. We had to fight hard to get this building from people, the homeowners that are I guess brainwashed, that they don’t understand because they always say that Bickerdike is gonna bring prostitutes and drug dealers and all kind of unsavory characters to the neighborhood when to begin with, this is our neighborhood anyway. We were here. JJ: And Bickerdike is the organization that gets -- MR: A housing organization, and they do affordable housing. They have Section 8 project-based housing, which are the townhouses. They have a couple in Wicker Park. They’ve had to attend -- like a tenant organizer would have to attend the CAPS meetings just to keep people [01:03:00] from making our tenants the villains, you know. If we weren’t there, then after a while -- JJ: Have they ever made the tenants the villains? MR: Yeah, because developers would tell people when they move in, “Oh, don’t worry about them.” “What about that housing over there?” “Don’t worry about them. They’ll be gone.” And that’s not true. Bickerdike owns their housing and they’re not going anywhere, and it’s gonna be for low-income families always. Of course, they don’t like that. They want to turn the neighborhood white and, you know, people of color -- any color except white -- is not acceptable to them, even though they’re not from here. These people were here before they were. 44 �JJ: But it is mostly white people that are moving in. But what I’m saying, do you think they also wanna get rid of the poor? MR: Of course. It’s rich white, I should say, or whites with money. JJ: You can say it any way you want. MR: Or whites [01:04:00] that think they got money. Some of them are part of the 99 percent anyway but they don’t know that. They may be realizing that now. But at that time, some of them are living off their parents’ credit cards and just got out of college or whatever. I think a lot of them have had rude awakenings, you know, and a lot of these developers too because I see a lot of the condos that they built are still empty four or five years. JJ: You did some work also with Bickerdike, right? MR: A lot of work with Bickerdike. A lot of tenant organizing. JJ: Okay, so tell me about what kind of work did you do? How was your work? MR: I started with Bickerdike as a VISTA volunteer. I worked with the Chicago Alliance for Neighborhood Safety and I worked on dealing with issues of safety in the community. JJ: Meaning what, issues of safety? [01:05:00] What do you mean? MR: Concerns that tenants at Bickerdike had, particularly. JJ: Like stoplights? MR: Yes. Quality of life things, like putting in stoplights, but also attending the CAPS meetings, having -- JJ: So attending a CAPS meeting, what does that mean? 45 �MR: Generally I would attend with leaders, with people from the community, so they could participate more because as a community was gentrifying, we were trying to show that our people were not the enemy. We worked together with cops sometimes successfully. JJ: Is that what they told you to say, that our people are not the enemy? I mean, is that the goal? Was that the goal? MR: The goal was to get people to live together more harmoniously and to show that we were [01:06:00] not the prostitutes, gang bangers, or whatever that they said we were, that decent people did live in public housing or -- JJ: So the city and these developers were scaring people, or telling them that we wanna get rid of the drug dealers, the gang members, and all that. And that was just a tool they were using. MR: Exactly. JJ: Am I putting words in your mouth? MR: No. No, but you’re saying it exactly as I would say it. Yeah, it was a tool to further gentrify the community, and because our tenants were there and they were there to stay, they would try to find reasons to move people out. True, everyone who lives at Bickerdike -- JJ: So how would you change it? How would you explain to people? MR: By showing them by participating in safety events or having safety events. By participating in CAPS meetings. By building block clubs [01:07:00] and including people that, newcomers -- is what we used to call them -- and people from the community -- 46 �JJ: Together. MR: Yes. I had two block clubs, and they were pretty successful. JJ: So how did you start the block club? How did you get it organized? MR: I’d go door knocking. I’d talk to people about whatever safety issues they had. JJ: You would ask them? You would do like a survey or something? MR: Yeah. Yeah, pretty much. A lot of times, you have to get to know people first, and they tell you what’s going on. JJ: You knock on the door. MR: Say, “Hi, I’m María. I work with Bickerdike, and can I speak to you for a little while?” Then I’d ask them about their safety concerns in the area. Sometimes it would be something that property management would fix. Sometimes it would be police harassment because they’d assume -- well, the cops, [01:08:00] somebody would call the police, and then they’d come and knock on the door and say, “Did you call the police?” That would make them a target, so it would discourage people from calling the police if something was going -- if there was a lot of drug dealing or people hanging out in front of our building, because they weren’t supposed to. You ask them to leave, they don’t listen. Then you call the cops. I always think of calling the cops as a last resort, but others didn’t. But anyway, I’d ask them what particular safety issues they were worried about. Sometimes it’d be -- JJ: I mean, they’d pay taxes. They got a right to protection from the police. 47 �MR: Sometimes they’d want a stoplight by the school or more police presence in the area and things like that. I also led or facilitated a garden committee. Bickerdike has two gardens. I had a committee, really [01:09:00] diverse -- JJ: What does the garden do? MR: We grew vegetables and flowers and things like that. But it was in areas that were kind of hot, and while we were there, because we were occupying public space, they wouldn’t come around. I think we got -- JJ: So these were hot areas, meaning for drugs and all that? MR: For drugs and gang banging. JJ: Because you were there all the time, they kinda stopped that. MR: Yeah. JJ: The gangs and the drugs stopped. In fact, didn’t that happen one time with the Young Lords on Wilton and Grace? Didn’t they clean up that area? MR: Yes, we did. JJ: Okay. I mean, at Wilton, just kind of go back there a little bit. So that used to be a drug corner, Wilton and Grace. MR: Oh, yeah, definitely, it was big time. JJ: Big time, until the Young Lords got there. MR: That’s true. JJ: And it got cleaned up. MR: And that corner got cleaned up, that’s true. JJ: So the Young Lords were able to clean up a drug hot spot, and what did they do? How did they do that? 48 �MR: [01:10:00] Just by being there. JJ: Just by being there, talking to the people. MR: Exactly. JJ: You were doing it with Bickerdike, (inaudible). MR: Yes, and a friend of mine, a coworker of mine and I had a block club on Rockwell and LeMoyne, between Rockwell and LeMoyne, Rockwell and North Avenue. We decided to have a big block party, so we went and we spoke to the guys in the area because regardless to what, they have a lot of control in the community. The gangs do have a lot of control in the community. They’re one of the powers that you have to deal with a lot of times, one of the first. So we went and we spoke to them and we asked them -- JJ: The gang members. MR: Yeah, we met with them, and -- JJ: So like the same work you were doing with the Young Lords. MR: Yeah. Yeah. JJ: Yeah, ’cause we had block parties too. MR: Oh, I remember. I remember. [01:11:00] So we had a big block party on the weekend of the Puerto Rican parade. The guys even cooked. I mean, you know, I was happy to get them not to -- we asked no violence, no dealing on that day, and this guy tells me, “Yeah, well, people are bringing food. I’ll make some macaroni and cheese.” And I said, “You don’t know how to make macaroni and cheese.” Dude brought a pan like this and said, “Here.” I tasted it. It was good. Kids played and rode their bikes. We had organizations with information there 49 �about community resources and it was a really nice block party. We heard about it even from the cops for months, for years. JJ: What was the name of this gang? Do you remember? MR: The Ds. The Disciples. JJ: These were the Disciples? Okay. Okay. So the Disciples were doing macaroni and cheese and everything? They were pretty good? MR: Yeah, and they were all out there with their kids and their family. It was just a great [01:12:00] time. Years later, still even the cops talked about it at the CAPS meeting. JJ: Meaning it was good? MR: Yeah. Yeah. There were no problems and no issues. Whatever happened the next couple of days -- JJ: And so that was just kind of showing a little respect for them because they lived in that neighborhood. MR: Exactly. JJ: So that was another factor you had to deal with. You didn’t call it a factor. You called it something else, another component, or something. MR: Yeah. One of the powers in the community. JJ: One of the powers of the community. MR: Yeah, we went to them first, and then we went -- we even had -- JJ: So you went to the gangs first. MR: And the people that lived in the area. Everything else was a lot easier. 50 �JJ: Because they were really controlling that area anyway, so it was like going to another country and saying, “Here. You’re the leaders. We’re gonna respect you.” MR: Right. JJ: And that’s some of the stuff that the Young Lords -- met with the Eagles, the Latin Eagles. MR: And I believe that’s where I learned that, you know. JJ: From the Young [01:13:00] Lords? Okay. MR: That that’s what you had to do. I knew where to go first, and they were the first ones we had to talk to. JJ: Okay. All right. MR: Then we did a lot on housing. I think this one has a lot of the actions. This was our first action. JJ: Okay, you wanna show that to the camera? Show the camera. MR: Okay. JJ: Show that. I want to make copies of the pictures. MR: Yeah. This was our first action when I worked with the -- JJ: I think you have to lift it up. MR: Maybe I’ll just show you the pictures. JJ: Just show one. MR: Yeah. This was my first action when I worked with the Affordable Housing Committee on Bickerdike. JJ: Hold on, hold on, hold on. Okay, no leave it right there. 51 �MR: Okay. And my oldest daughter came on this action with me. She’s in some of the pictures, Jasmine. JJ: Okay. All right. MR: And then -- [01:14:00] good to see some of my leaders here. I have pictures -- JJ: We’ll show more. MR: Okay, of this? Okay, I’ll show you my daughter, and then you’ll get copies of it. JJ: Okay. Hold on, hold on, hold on. MR: My daughter’s the one on the bottom. JJ: On the right? Okay. MR: Right here, yeah. JJ: Right here. That’s your daughter? MR: Uh-huh, that’s my oldest daughter. JJ: Okay. All right. MR: I also did a fundraiser. We had a group that is called the Residents Council and we had a family holiday dinner, an event called a family holiday dinner. I have pictures of that as well. To raise funds for the holiday dinner or for family day, we would have a Mother’s Day [Dusty?] Dance. JJ: A Mother’s Day Dusty? MR: Yes. JJ: We don’t call that oldies but goodies. We call them dusties. MR: No, dusty dance. Rusty dusty sometimes. I was able to get this [01:15:00] guy that I knew from the North Side. [Nando?] is his name. He was a DJ. And since he started DJing, he DJed most of the events for Bickerdike after that. So I 52 �thought that was a good thing, at least for him. But we would dress up, and of course, we’d say ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, but people come in anything, really crazy outfits. One time we had a bachelor auction and that was fun, interesting. What happened afterwards too, but I won’t go into that. (laughter) Some interesting -JJ: I mean, you can say generally. MR: Oh, no, I can’t say generally. JJ: You’ve got me (inaudible). MR: Yeah, when we turn off the camera. But, yeah, that was a lot of fun and pretty successful. JJ: What, you raised a lot of money? [01:16:00] Like a dollar each or two dollars? MR: No, tickets were maybe like five dollars, so we’d sell the tickets cheap. We were able to have an agreement with the liquor store, so we got high-end liquor, and the drinks were cheap. You had to pay for everything but it was really cheap. So we made a lot of money because people knew [we were here?]. JJ: And then you were able to return the bottles you didn’t use or something? MR: Yeah, we did that, and we just got deals on the liquor. JJ: And in the halls. MR: And donations. We had it at that hall that’s on Belmont and California. It’s not there anymore. I think they closed. Michelle’s Ballroom. We had several there. Really nice place. We had some at a couple other places, this place on North Avenue. JJ: No fights, none of that? MR: Huh? 53 �JJ: No fights? MR: No, never on any of our Dusty Dance, never. Nope, everyone came in peace to have a good time. They’d leave wasted, and after a few [01:17:00] of them, we’d have coffee to try and wake them up because we were concerned about people who were driving home and couldn’t even walk. So some people, we kept keys or drove them home. We’d stop selling liquor at a certain time so they could sober up, but a lot of fun. Mother’s Day Dusty Dance was a lot of fun. JJ: And are you working with Bickerdike now? MR: No, no, I’m not. But I had 10 years with them. It was good work. A lot of leaders. I still have relationships with a lot of leaders in some organizations that I worked with. It was for the most part a very good experience. I learned a lot there. JJ: The only thing I haven’t asked you was the alderman campaign. Were you involved with that at all? MR: With yours? JJ: The Manny alderman campaign? MR: Yes. JJ: What do you remember about that? Because one of the offices was a Young Lords office, right? MR: Yeah. Yeah. I remember that’s when we worked with Slim with the Campaign for Community [01:18:00] Control. JJ: Walter Slim Coleman? 54 �MR: Yes. He’s a minister now, and he’s married to Emma Lozano. He works on immigration issues mostly now. JJ: Right, immigrants rights issue, right. MR: Their church is on Division, I believe. JJ: (inaudible). MR: Exactly, yeah. JJ: The church is there, United Methodist church, yeah. MR: Yes. JJ: Actually he was one of the best men at my wedding. MR: Oh, yeah? (laughter) JJ: So [that was back then?]. Emma came later. MR: Yes. That’s where I learned to work on campaigns. I learned a lot. JJ: With the Young Lords? MR: Yes. Yes, and, you know, canvassing and talking to people about -- JJ: Door to door? MR: Exactly. So when I started working in Bickerdike, that was not a problem with me. I knocked on the door and talking to people. JJ: You weren’t afraid to knock on doors. MR: No. And I remember [01:19:00] some of the places we went to on that campaign. I remember one place in particular that we opened the entrance door and there were bugs falling on us. So this stuff over here was nothing. JJ: Roaches. 55 �MR: Yes. Yes. But we got in and we talked to people. I remember a lot of doorknocking. I remember this group that used to yell at us, Chris Cohen’s people. JJ: Chris Cohen, yeah, the guy we were running against. MR: Yeah, and they would yell at us, and sometimes we’d yell back. We’d try to be good. JJ: Yeah, they used to come with a police squad or something. Do you remember that? MR: No, I don’t remember that. I remember, though, police harassment a lot around the office. I remember they’d come and they’d put handcuffs on some of the guys. Not the Latin Eagles or the gang bangers, but the guys that [01:20:00] were doing the work, I remember that they’d handcuff them and they’d be yelling at them. JJ: So they didn’t go to the Latin Eagles. MR: Mm-mm, no, they were after the organizers, the people who were doing the work. JJ: Working on my campaign. MR: Yes. JJ: So they were putting handcuffs and that? MR: Yeah. I remember one time, they tried to arrest Cosmo, but the community was united at that time, people yelling from buildings. “Let him go,” and all other kind of stuff. I remember my mom yelling at cops during that time. We had a lot of community support. Everybody would come out when the cops would come. JJ: [So you got it from the store?], everybody? MR: Everybody would come out. 56 �JJ: The businessmen, the parents, the neighbors, the residents -- MR: Little kids. JJ: -- anytime they would harass the Young Lords, they would come out, or campaign workers. They were Young Lords and campaign workers. MR: I remember one time, they made a raid on one of the apartments in the building [01:21:00] and I remember -- JJ: Because everybody in the apartments were Young Lords. We had a tenant union because everybody was a Young Lord. MR: Yeah. (laughter) JJ: So the owner was our friend too. MR: I remember the crowd that went to the police station and -- JJ: So what happened? What happened that day? You said that they came. MR: They raided an apartment and they arrested -- I think some of the kids in the neighborhood were at a party. I remember Eddie lived upstairs. JJ: Eddie Ramirez. MR: And he came downstairs and they arrested him, yes. JJ: That’s (inaudible) brother, (inaudible) Ramirez’s brother, Eddie. MR: And they arrested him for no reason. So everyone went to the police station. Everybody’s parents. The place was packed. Everybody’s parents, everybody’s wife, brother, and sister. I learned this with Faith, that you walk into a place like you work there, and people don’t stop you. So I just [01:22:00] walked up the stairs, and from the corner of my eyes, I see this cop hitting my brother and I busted in, screaming and yelling. They just (inaudible). 57 �JJ: (inaudible) was Joyce. MR: I know. I know. I learned a lot about Jews. JJ: You just walk in there like you work here. So that was it. MR: I learned that from her. I learned a lot from Faith, a lot. A lot about Jewish people, but a lot about organizing. Yeah, she taught me a lot. JJ: So she was (inaudible) was a Young Lord?. MR: Yes, she was, and very dedicated. Very dedicated, yeah, she was. JJ: So there was Angie and Faith. MR: Yoli, Yolanda. JJ: [Nona?]. MR: I remember Nona, yeah. JJ: [Hank Jazinsky?]. MR: Yes, I remember them. JJ: Of the woman, and Cosmo, and some of the other guys. MR: Cosmo, Eddie, Gamayell, Lucky. I remember Lucky. JJ: [01:23:00] Chavez, Luis Chavez was there. MR: Yes, I remember him too. I remember working with the immigrant farmers. No grapes or lettuce, remember, and the rally. JJ: The farm workers were working with us, yeah. MR: And the rally, yeah. JJ: (inaudible) farm worker union, yeah. The rally where? MR: What was that? 58 �JJ: The Plaza Theatre, that one? We had another rally on Anderson. There was one too. MR: It was in a theater. JJ: Oh, in a theater. I think it was the Plaza Theatre at that time, up north. MR: I remember I met a gentleman, Chavez. JJ: Plaza International or something like that. MR: I remember telling people, “Don’t buy grapes or lettuce.” And they’re not buying lettuce and grapes, and I didn’t buy lettuce and grapes for a long time. I think just a few years ago, I started. JJ: Yeah, we did some work when we would go to the stores on Saturday mornings and take them out, [01:24:00] based on the store. They would take them out because we would put (inaudible) with the farm workers. So they worked with us. MR: Sesa Chavez. JJ: Sesa Chavez’s group, yeah. That was his group. MR: Yes. But I learned a lot. I believe that’s part of the reason I was hired at Bickerdike when they heard. Well, through [cans?], when I was hired as a VISTA volunteer. They had a lot of respect for the work of the Young Lords. JJ: Bickerdike also worked with the West Town Concerned Citizens Coalition, and we worked with them too. MR: Yeah, I know, before -- JJ: So they learned a lot of stuff from us. We learned from them, back and forth. Back and forth. So that was good. That’s good that you worked with them then. 59 �Okay, to finish it up a little bit, let me just say this. What do you think the most important thing you want people to -- in terms of remembering that you feel is important, remembering [01:25:00] your work. MR: My work? I think people need to realize that they have a voice, that public officials are accountable to us because we put them in office and we should make them do what we need them to do. That’s about it. END OF VIDEO FILE 60 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/edc3e851e94354f81b4fdd0ee3074a76.mp4 20089aaf20ae56ca2e2599a0cd535326 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives. The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng spa Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 2012-2017 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Título Spanish language Title entry María Romero vídeo entrevista y biografía Sujetos Spanish language Subject terms Young Lords (Organización) Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puertorriqueños--Relatos personales Justicia social Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65_Romero_Maria Title A name given to the resource María Romero video interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Romero, María Description An account of the resource María Romero first joined the Young Lords on Wilton and Grace Streets. She was recruited by then Angie Lind-Rizzo (later Angie Adorno) and the other Young Lord women members. It was 1973 and the Young Lords were emerging from two long years of being completely underground, or inoperative publicly as a human rights organization. There were no longer remnants of the Young Lords Movement left in the Lincoln Park neighborhood that gave birth to them in 1968. The Lincoln Park neighborhood had been cleaned out of Puerto Ricans and the poor, in just a few years, by city hall and the Lincoln Park Neighborhood Association. A directive was given by the leadership for the Young Lords members to move and to establish themselves as a base of operations in the Lakeview Neighborhood, at Wilton and Grace Streets. Many Young Lords moved there with their families. Prior to that, a group of about 25 Young Lords had moved to a rural, rented farm near Tomah, Wisconsin. The farm camp was called a “Training School,” and their sole purpose for their camp was to train new Young Lord’s leaders who would step in and lead the Young Lords. Repression had hit extremely hard within the Lincoln Park Movement, splitting it in several directions. This was aided by pending trials of several Young Lords leaders and the still unsolved murders of United Methodist Rev. Bruce Johnson and his wife Eugenia, of the Young Lords People’s Church. Rainbow Coalition leader of the Black Panther Party, Fred Hampton, and Mark Clark were also assassinated in a raid organized by the States Attorney. The Lincoln Park Movement had seized to exist. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, who was then in hiding from the police after being sentenced to one year in Cook County Jail and who had 17 more felony indictments still pending, called for the organizing of a training school in a secluded farm near Tomah, Wisconsin. After members received their training in the farm camp for one and a half years, it was decided that Mr. Jiménez would voluntarily turn himself in, begin serving the year and start to fight the remaining cases which included bond jumping and many trumped up charges of mob actions for demonstrations. The Young Lords would raise his bond, hire attorneys, and then switch their organizing in Lakeview and Uptown where many of the Puerto Ricans of Lincoln Park had moved. They had also moved to Wicker Park and Humboldt Park but the Young Lords wanted to concentrate their forces. If this move was not done, the movement started in Lincoln Park would completely collapse. After serving the year, Mr. Jiménez announced his Aldermanic Campaign for the 46th Ward, as an Independent Democrat. He would use the election not as an electoral revolution but, “as an organizing vehicle for change.” Among other things the campaign would focus on Mayor Daley’s forced displacement of the Puerto Rican Community from the near lakefront and near downtown areas of the city. It not only boldly opposed the banks, the developers, the neighborhood associations but implicated Mayor Richard J. Daley in urban renewal plans that clearly were racist, being utilized to cleanse these areas of lower income minorities. Because of this, María Romero volunteered to serve as Young Lords Office Coordinator. It was Ms. Romero’s job to pass out assignments and to provide support and referrals for services for residents of that Lakeview area of Wilton and Grace. She herself had lived in Lincoln Park but had grown up in Lakeview. There most of the Puerto Ricans knew her family, as her father was a businessman, who for years had owned several Latino botanicas, or stores that sell religious potions and candles of saints, and provide consultation services. Ms. Romero was instrumental in getting a large amount of persons registered to vote. The Jiménez Aldermanic Campaign received 39% of the vote on the first attempt. It was not the 51% needed, but it was still victorious in uniting the community and beginning to expose the prejudice behind displacement. It also opened wide the doors for future Latino political candidates. As Ms. Romero moved west to Humboldt Park she was hired as a community organizer for Bickerdike, a non - profit development corporation. She used her Young Lords organizing skills and passion to promote their mission of being, deeply dedicated to preserving the ethnic and cultural character of their neighborhoods, providing quality affordable housing, preserving jobs, advocating for resources and struggling against gentrification and displacement. One of the main issues that Ms. Romero advocated for was the “Chicago Affordable Set Aside.” Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-06-02 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/cefbedaec8c20f4a1634c00d44aab4fa.pdf 8d236e146bb661f3492d87eb64aabbc9 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Carmelo Romero Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 8/23/2012 Biography and Description Carmelo Romero grew up in Lakeview and today lives in Logan Square. His family also lived in the Lincoln Park neighborhood and knew of the Young Lords. But it was not until the Young Lords set up their neighborhood storefront office that Mr. Romero took notice of them. He holds a Master Degree and appreciates the contributions to civil and human rights of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcom X, and loves to study African history, especially the Moors who took over Spain for 800 years and influenced Latino nations in many ways. Mr. Romero explains how the Moors even contributed to jibaro music in their sounds and song chants. Maria Romero, his sister, remains a full-fledged member of the Young Lords in her heart. In the 1970s she ran the office at Wilton and Grace Streets. Mr. Romero would often stop by and, as the Jiménez for Alderman Campaign took hold, he volunteered to help. But he was more involved with school then. Today, Mr. Romero is a promising writer and has published several short stories. He also works for a housing development organization that is providing affordable housing in Logan Square. �Transcript JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay, Carmelo, if you can give me -- and we’re rolling now. There’s no trick questions or nothing. Just relax. It’s not a (inaudible). But if you can give me your full name and your date of birth and where you were born. CARMELO ROMERO: Okay. Full name, Carmelo Romero. I was born in Río Piedras, Puerto Rico, and I was born March 5, 1954. JJ: Okay, Río Piedras. And your parents, who were they? CR: Well, Ana Maria Santiago Coto and Cayetamo Romero. JJ: Cayetamo Romero. Okay, what about your brothers and sisters? CR: Brothers, George, Julie -- I think her full name is Julietta -- and Yolanda [00:01:00] and Maria, Cruz Maria. JJ: Okay. And what type of work did your parents do? CR: Well, my mom basically took care of us and nannied children, you know? And my father worked at Northwestern Hospital in the maintenance department, and then he also had his own business. He was a trained masseuse. JJ: He was a trained masseuse? CR: Yeah, and he also through reading and everything like that trained himself in Eastern arts of healing. So he had often two or three botánicas. JJ: Okay. Oh, botánicas, huh? CR: Right. He also was, like many people are just natural herbalists. My sister Maria is like that. And that’s what he was, so [00:02:00] he knew plants by the feel. He knew what could heal and what could hurt and all that. So he was able to put 1 �things together like that and treat people, help people. Basically, you know what’s incredible about it is that I could put a store like that over on Damen and North Avenue, and man, I’m making money because it’s like everybody that comes in there, they have the money to spend (laughs) on these types of selfcures. JJ: And they’re into that, I mean. CR: Oh, yeah, that’s become -- JJ: -- part of the culture. CR: Yeah. Yeah, and that’s something that, again, reaches back to -- JJ: Actually, my mother’s into that. I mean, she didn’t have a botánica, but she’s into spiritualism. CR: Yeah, and so many people -- JJ: And (inaudible) a little bit. She says she [00:03:00] doesn’t, but she (inaudible). CR: Well, some of it is natural. JJ: But he had businesses. He had a couple businesses. CR: Yeah. And his whole thing was, you know, he was very politically aware and everything like that. JJ: What do you mean by that? What do you mean by that? CR: Well, he was a very proud -- JJ: I mean, was he Republican, Democrat? CR: Oh, no, definitely Democrat. He’s as far left of a Democrat as you could make. JJ: Oh, he was far-left? 2 �CR: Yeah. You know, that was his whole reasoning and everything like that. The weird thing about it is that he would make a great occupier. JJ: Okay, you mean the occupy movement? CR: Yeah, that would be his -- JJ: Well, did he talk to you about that? CR: He talked about it. He wouldn’t [00:04:00] talk to us about it, but he would just -like, guys would come into the store and he’d discuss things with them and I had big ears. I would hear all this stuff, and Maria too. Even as young kids, we realized there’s just something out there that deals with this politics stuff that controls things, you know? He was very much aware of all of that. He was very much aware of how the game is played and all that. JJ: The game’s played, what do you mean? CR: Well, you know, a politician comes to you and he says, “You’re a store owner, all right? I want you to do this, I want you to do that. Can you put this --” “What are you going to do for me?” You know, and the politician would say [00:05:00] this and that. But at that time, all these store owners would also say, “Well, you know, I’ve got this friend here and I’ve got this friend there, and I’ve got a cousin here, and they all need help too.” Which I think is missing in people today, that it’s what’s the largest amount -- and I don’t blame people for this -- what’s the largest amount you can offer me? And there’s no mention of the other people, you know, no mention of the cousin, the familia there, and all that. It’s just, “What can you do for me?” And then it goes on from there. That’s one thing that’s missing from us, that we don’t think like that anymore, you know? It’s like 3 �[00:06:00] at that time, people were still coming over, all right, and we knew people that were still coming over. JJ: Were still coming over from Puerto Rico? CR: Yeah. Right now, nobody knows anybody that’s coming over. They just know people that go back and forth. Everybody’s just entrenched here. There’s another difference. It’s like I said, everybody’s just entrenched here, but they’re not a part of the culture, you know? I spent a few months in New York, and God, I love that city. Everything, every ethnic group in New York is entrenched in New York. It’s like you will never see [00:07:00] a Polish guy drive by and say, “Oh, yeah, Mami,” all right? But you would see that in New York because Puerto Rican culture is a deep part of New York. All these fascinating things in New York -- it was just like part of the thing, you know? It’s like salsa dancing was (inaudible) yeah, all right, we do that at the bar. What’s the big deal, you know? But then here, that just wasn’t the case. It was like we’re just so separate from all of that. Then as I studied further, I came to the realization that’s all Chicago, all right? Yeah, I dated an Italian girl who lived on Taylor Street, and you would swear -- JJ: She lived on Taylor or you lived on Taylor? CR: She lived on Taylor. I lived [00:08:00] around, you know, Wilton and Grace, there around Sheffield, I think it was, or Fremont, one of those two streets. And it was like that area, which I used to call Little Italy, that’s where it was, you know? Then I had friends who lived in Bridgeport, and that’s where that was. It’s like nobody in this city -- and I couldn’t understand it because it’s hell getting around 4 �in New York. But here, it was so easy back then. You could get anywhere you wanted to all the way from where the Baháʼí Temple is, from Wilmette all the way down to Blue Island, and damn close to Gary in this city. It doesn’t take more than 45 minutes. [00:09:00] I used to do that, get on that train and do that, and though my feelings were deeply Pan-African, I still love -JJ: What is that? What is Pan-African? CR: That so many people of color in North America who are here now, particularly people in the islands and here, have root ties to Africa because of the slavery. But then later on, I learned we also have deep root ties to the Mediterranean, you know? That was the coolest thing when I went. I was working for this photo agency like around 1989 and they sent me to Europe, and particularly the Mediterranean. I was doing fashion photography there and I was going from -- I lived a quarter of the year in Barcelona, [00:10:00] a quarter of the year in SaintAntoine in France, and then I spent time in Turkey and Morocco, and damn, the Mediterranean is like -- and then I come back here and I’m like, we’re so much closer to each other. Why can’t we have that here, you know? As I say, it’s not always gonna be harmonious, of course. You have conflict within families. Just go to a Puerto Rican or an Italian wedding. They all end the same, all right? Puerto Rican and Italian weddings, the girls outside pulling their hairs out and guys just drinking beer, watching them. JJ: Fights, you mean? CR: Hmm? JJ: You mean like fights? 5 �CR: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don’t know what it is that weddings bring out in all of us, but [00:11:00] that’s like a connection. I would say to people, “Well, yeah, that’s that connection. That’s because the historical blood line connection from the island Puerto Rico to the Mediterranean,” you know? JJ: So you’re saying there’s some historic line there? CR: Oh, yeah, it’s a historic genetic line, especially from Puerto Rico to Spain, France, and Morocco, all right? There’s folk music from Morocco that you would swear, if you heard it, jibaros in Puerto Rico would be singing. But that’s the connection because, see, the Spanish and the Portuguese were unlike the Northern Europeans. They brought everybody over. JJ: I know that Spain, [00:12:00] Arab countries who ruled Spain for 800 years. So you’re saying in Morocco, they do jibaro music? CR: Yeah. It’s got the same -- well, they have a different type of stringed instrument, but it’s like the same way. A little bongos, someone playing the stringed instrument, and this chanting back and forth, and with a constant “Lo-le-lo-li.” JJ: Lo-le-lo-li? CR: Right. Then later on, you hear that in Spanish flamenco. What’s called French Apache dance, you can hear that in there too. JJ: Now, you said you got into the Pan-Africanism. What got you into that? CR: I used to read a lot and read weird stuff, right? And I found this guy [00:13:00] named Frantz Fanon. I read his two books. JJ: Actually, the Young Lords met Frantz Fanon. 6 �CR: Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, that’s where I got -- there was a poet who worked with the Young Lords, Felipe Luciano. JJ: Oh, that’s right, yeah. CR: I met him at this party somewhere and he mentioned Frantz Fanon. JJ: In New York? He’s from New York. CR: Right. But he was here in Chicago. JJ: Okay, at that time. CR: It was somewhere in Hyde Park, something like that. It’s probably on the University of Chicago campus. So he mentioned that, so I dug them out and read them. Well, it was a weird concept to me because like everybody else at that time, I just thought about this country, the United States. [00:14:00] Yeah, I know they brought slaves over. But then his thought process was that there’s an African diaspora out there, you know? And the thing about it is that later on, like practically everything in the world, it became corrupted for political purposes. But the idea behind it, that you don’t have to go out of your way to be African or anything like that, but just enjoy that it’s there. Then later on when I got a chance to go to Spain and the Mediterranean, I realized that it’s everywhere, you know, because it sprung from the Moors culture, mixing in [00:15:00] with the Roman culture. JJ: That’s what I was thinking of, the Moors. They were in Spain for 800 years. Now, the Moors, I don’t understand, are they Morocco? CR: Yeah, they came out of Morocco. Morocco was their center of operations. They came out of Morocco and their whole thing was to spread Islam, you know, 7 �throughout Eastern Europe. Well, they got as far as the British Isles and really dominated for a long time. JJ: I really like jibaro music. I mean, my family played that and all that. So you mentioned that and I (inaudible). So we might’ve gotten it from the Moors, then. CR: Oh, but, see, everything over here, we got from somewhere else because even [00:16:00] what they call the Native Americans, well, there was once a land bridge on the Siberian Strait and they came, basically immigrated from that part of Siberia to here. So everything here came from the Old World, and then, you know, there was also the theory of supercontinent where all the continents at one time were one. Of course, that stuff splashes all over the place. JJ: Now, that, I had heard of that in some college class that I took. So where did you go to school? CR: I started out at Malcolm X College. JJ: In grammar school. CR: Oh, grammar school, wow. The ones I can remember were King School when I was a little kid, McLaren School later. JJ: On the North Side by Lakeview? CR: No, these were on the West Side. JJ: [00:17:00] West Side where? CR: In the area which is pretty much now the medical center, the University of Illinois Medical Center. JJ: Oh, okay. Around Van Buren? CR: Yeah, we lived on Van Buren. 8 �JJ: We used to call that La Madison. CR: Right. JJ: Do you remember that? CR: Yeah, I remember that. I remember them calling it -- now, Sundays right now, I have a booth over at Maxwell Street Market. You know, we sell stuff. But I remember back then, Maxwell Street being [La Halsted?]. You would go to Terry’s and go through there. I remember -- this is the greatest memory, because I needed a suit for my eighth grade graduation -- my mom taking me to this place called Morry’s. JJ: Right, yeah, I went there. CR: Yeah, and she’s just the [bickering?] [00:18:00] and went back and forth between her and the guy. He’s like, “Lady, I’ve gotta have lunch. I haven’t had lunch and (inaudible).” And finally I’m getting the suit. The smell of the fabric, you know? It was so cool. Then you go out and then from there, we went straight over to the Polish places, you know, and got a Polish -- the weird thing about that is, like I said, I’m working on Maxwell Street now, and the morning job that I have, we service basically those restaurants, Maxwell Street restaurants and stuff like that. JJ: So Maxwell Street, can you describe what it was, I mean, at that time? CR: Well, back at that time, it was like this whole market of all kinds of stuff. Whatever you [00:19:00] wanted, you could find at Maxwell Street. In addition to that, you had musicians, you had artists, you had entertainment. Sometimes some guy would get caught trying to steal from somebody and all the vendors in 9 �that area would just beat the crap out of him. They don’t call the police or anything like that. It’s just get him out. Get out. Don’t come back. JJ: It was like an open market? CR: Oh, yeah, yeah, open. You had guys selling fruits. JJ: You can barter. CR: That was the whole thing. It’s like people bartering back and forth. What sticks in my mind about that, again, the center relationship, it’s like when I was in Morocco, I saw markets like that. That was the whole thing is bartering. This guy was explaining it to me, “Well, no price here is set.” JJ: [00:20:00] You negotiate, whatever. CR: Right, so you have to know how to negotiate, barter, but you have to be entertaining. You can’t be rude or the seller will just cut you off. If you’re rude, cuts you off. JJ: But a lot of Puerto Rican families used to go there? CR: Puerto Rican, Mexican, Black. Most vendors were Jewish. JJ: You’re talking about Pan-Africanism. Did you feel Puerto Rican or African? Or maybe I’m saying that in a wrong -- CR: No, no, no, you’re saying it pretty much the right way. I felt that nationalities didn’t count. Back during that time, I didn’t call myself Puerto Rican. I didn’t call myself American. What counted was what you, the individual, were made of. I looked at myself as someone who is deeply African with [00:21:00] sprinkles of Spain and France in there because whenever I would see that -- I just knew that was in there, you know? But I didn’t know exactly how it was in there until I went 10 �there. So back then, anyone would tell you, who knew me back then, I’d just never call myself Puerto Rican. I also never called myself American, despite the fact that when I was in high school, I was in ROTC. But most guys, that’s so you don’t have to swim naked in gym. That’s the reason why guys get into ROTC. Well, back in those days. JJ: What high school was that? CR: Waller. Robert A. Waller. Now it’s Lincoln -- JJ: You went to Waller High School? [I went there?]. CR: Whom? JJ: So how did you go to Waller High School? You were living up north. CR: We moved out here. When we moved -- JJ: You [00:22:00] lived on Van Buren. CR: Right. Then from Van Buren, we moved to (inaudible). Back then? To me, it was cool. JJ: Okay, what do you mean? CR: I just mean I was in contact with Black kids, white kids, or what every other Puerto Rican called [los hilbilos?]. JJ: [Los hilbilos?]? CR: Yeah, there were a lot of kids, a lot of families in that area -- JJ: Hillbillies? Los hilbilos, los hilbilos. CR: Yeah, right. But Southern -- JJ: (inaudible). CR: Yeah, a lot of Southern immigrants there -- 11 �JJ: At Van Buren (inaudible). CR: Yeah, and there were Puerto Ricans, there were Mexicans, there were Blacks. So my feeling was, you know, this is kind of cool. Everybody seemed to get along, so as I grew older, [00:23:00] I was always fascinated by the news and stuff like that on television. JJ: So now you’ve moved from Van Buren. You guys move into the Lincoln Park neighborhood. CR: Not yet. We moved, but still on the West Side. The weirdest place, all right? I can’t even tell you where it was. All I can remember of it is, like, overgrowth. That’s all I could ever see was overgrowth. It was dank and dark. JJ: What do you mean, overgrowth? Grass? CR: Grass, plants. An incredible amount of grasshoppers and crickets, just like they were everywhere. You could smell that tobacco. That was our backyard. I could tell that my mother absolutely hated it, you know, and we were there, like, two months, and she never unpacked [00:24:00] and we were gone from there. Then we ended up in the Lakeview area. JJ: In Lincoln Park. CR: Right, right, Lincoln Park. JJ: Because it had Waller and all that. CR: Right. We were on Halsted and Orchard. JJ: Okay, they run the same, so you mean -- 12 �CR: No, no, Halsted -- actually, Armitage, because I would go -- yeah, Armitage was the street where Waller was on, Orchard and Armitage. Right. So we were on Fremont and Armitage, and between Armitage and -- you know, that area now. JJ: And Wisconsin, yeah. CR: Yeah. No, and North Avenue. JJ: And North Avenue, okay. But then (inaudible). CR: Dickens -- no, not Dickens, but another English author street. Willow. Willow and then North Avenue, okay. And that area back [00:25:00] then was -- JJ: So you moved a couple places in there? CR: No, no, no, we were always on Fremont. JJ: Fremont between Willow and North Avenue? CR: Right. JJ: I got you. CR: No, between Willow and Armitage. JJ: Okay, all right. And what year was that? Because I lived on Fremont. CR: Around ’69. Yeah, around ’69 because it was the year that the Cubs were doing good. JJ: Okay. In ’69, we had the church, the Young Lords church there. You didn’t notice that? CR: No, so that must’ve been -- JJ: Sixty-eight. It must’ve been ’68. CR: Sixty-eight or ’67, yeah. So, you know, we moved around there. You know what? It was around the time of Martin Luther King’s assassination. 13 �JJ: That was ’68. CR: Right, so that’s when it was, because that’s what I remember most about that is that [00:26:00] when we moved there, there was still that mixture that I enjoyed. But then King was assassinated and it just all blew up, you know? It all went to hell. Nobody wanted to associate. And Waller, the weird thing about Waller is that it encompassed -- the Cabrini-Green, but also the Gold Coast where you had bastards that’re just too cheap to send kids to Parker or Latin. They said, “Oh, well, let them go to Waller. It’s free.” So there were a bunch of rich kids there who detested their parents, rich white kids who detested their parents and associated with us. My particular group there was, like, we all wanted [00:27:00] to be artists in one way or another. I wanted to be a writer and a trumpet player, and there was another. There was two other guys that did get to -- man, they actually did get their dreams because they worked with Spike Lee. JJ: [Who were these?]. CR: Yeah, Rob and Gus. JJ: Rob and Gus. Friends of yours? CR: Yeah. And they got to work -- well, hell, they’re in Amsterdam now, you know, just sitting back. JJ: You don’t remember their last names or anything? CR: Rob was Smith and Gus was Stone. JJ: Okay. And these are close friends of yours? CR: Well, they were. JJ: Yeah, but they made it. 14 �CR: Well, they made it, yeah. They made it the way we all said -- because we all wanted to be basically -- you know what’s weird? Because that was, what, 1968. But if you were a person who loved classical music [00:28:00] and jazz, for some reason, there was a gas link to the late ’50s. Real cool jazz, real jazz, inventive jazz was, like, it. You actually heard it on the radio. And it’s all artists, whether you were painters, actors, whatever, gravitated towards that because the improvisation and everything like that. That, Pablo Picasso paintings, you know, Chagall, and all that. You gravitate towards that because of the improvisation. This is creative. This is what I wanna do is create, you know? And before King’s assassination. You really had [00:29:00] that. Then after the assassination, it’s like everybody splintered off, even the Blacks. JJ: There were riots at Waller. I remember those. CR: You’ll have to tell me that. I was standing there watching. I was like, well, I’ve gotta help me. But then that’s what bugged me the most, was there was this one Puerto Rican girl who was, like, the sweetest girl in the world and everybody got along with her. Then there was this Black kid who’s the same way, and on the day of the riots -- I remember them all -- they were good friends, and they’re walking up. He’s walking her home and a bunch of Black kids attack them. [00:30:00] And what I remember about that is -- JJ: Why did they attack them? CR: Because everybody was running around rioting. It was after King had been assassinated. I remember our teacher standing us by the window. Are you parked all right out there? 15 �JJ: Yeah, I’m parked. CR: Okay. They’re saying that the school was closed and all that, and I remember going down and standing around and looking around. I remember a bunch of Black kids pushing a bunch of Latin Kings, chasing down these white kids, and beating the crap out of them. I was wondering, what does this mean? I understand people are mad that this man was dead. I had already started studying politics [00:31:00] back then, so I pretty much knew about that. But, you know, why is this necessary? And it just blew my mind. It sort of led me to wanna find out, all right, these people, why don’t we act like that? I’ve gotta find out about myself, all right? And in trying to find out myself -- JJ: (inaudible) Martin Luther King’s death, you wanted to find out about yourself. CR: Yeah, you know, because it seemed important back then to know where you stand. I didn’t understand. What the hell are you talking about? Is this a cowboy movie? You know, because I used to watch a lot of the old -- well, I still do. All my DVDs are old movies. JJ: Oh, cowboy movies? CR: All old movies. Anything made before [00:32:00] the ’50s was just outstanding. Anything made during the ’50s is really cool, you know, because it’s so camp and dumb. Then you had the ’60s where nothing really happened. Then later on in the ’70s, you had the slasher films appearing, and that’s really cool because there are artistic films where the director and writers are actually trying to say something and there’s just films that go straight to DVD. Trying to figure out which is which is pretty cool. 16 �JJ: Now, you were in Waller. How many years did you go there? CR: Well, I went there five years, all right? I failed one year, but I did it on purpose because there was a girl there [00:33:00] that I was going with that wouldn’t graduate until after I did. So I figured, well, you know -- this is the way my mind works -- I figured, well, when I was in grade school, I went from fifth to seventh grade, so I owe them a year. What the hell? Actually hell is not the word. So I said, I love this girl. I wanna be around her and everything. So, yeah, I’ll just blow a year of high school. JJ: So you went from what year to what year? CR: Now, see, that’s all confused. About ’69 to ’72. JJ: Oh, ’69 to ’72, you went? CR: Yeah, about somewhere around there. JJ: Okay, ’69 to ’72. So you didn’t become familiar with the Young Lords then. CR: Actually, well, yeah, I had heard about everything because I was a student [00:34:00] of politics. I was studying personally. At Waller, this was the thing at Waller. I would present that to my teachers and I had a couple of teachers -- for some reason, the history teachers there were just very, very conservative. “This is garbage.” Then I would present it to my English teachers, the literature teachers, the music teachers, and they said, “Wow, this is cool.” Not exactly that, but you know. I would say, “Okay, I don’t know what’s going on here, but I don’t care.” (laughs) So I hung around for that last year, and then didn’t turn out so good because her father ended up -- well, her mother died, [00:35:00] and then her father turned her into his wife. She ended up committing suicide. 17 �JJ: (inaudible). CR: Yeah. So it was like, wow. I mean, I didn’t think about losing the year. I just thought about, this is nuts. This shouldn’t be happening. This is something I should be writing, not something that should -- JJ: Was this a Puerto Rican girl or no? CR: No, she was Black. JJ: She was Black, okay. CR: Yeah, they lived in Cabrini-Green, and her father was like this storefront minister, you know. I didn’t know the weirdness that was going on there. But, see, that’s the way it is. In a way, that’s why I can’t stand these reality shows, you know? Because all the weirdness is there, [00:36:00] all right? That makes it harder for writers because what the hell? How can we go beyond this? We can’t astonish people anymore. Everything is just out there. But back in those days, all these secrets that were running around -- as a matter of fact, that’s part of a novel that I wrote about a private detective working around that period and the things he -well, you know, that’s basically what a lot of private detective fiction is. You start here and then it gets dirtier and dirtier and dirtier and wealthier and wealthier and wealthier. JJ: Now, you said you’ve had some things published already, right? CR: Yeah, short stories, poems in weird, defunct [00:37:00] magazines. I tend to follow the line of pulp writers, although I consider them the greatest writers ever. JJ: Consider them what? CR: Excuse me? 18 �JJ: The greatest writer what? CR: Ever. I mean, that period of fiction that started with Dickens and then Conan Doyle. And around that same period, even though it didn’t deal with crime, you had Dostoevsky, the Russian writers. There’s just fiction that came out of that that’s here forever because the feelings are there forever. Then as you got into the ’30s, pulp writers were writing these detective stories. Dashiell Hammett. See, that was my thing. [00:38:00] I always wanted to be a combination of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler and Ernest Hemingway. Their writing, you know, it brought you into these worlds. I think that’s very difficult to do now because those worlds are for you to see on cable and even on regular television now. JJ: So what was Waller like, though, I mean, during the time you were there? CR: See, that was weird because, again, before the riots, it seemed like everybody, despite whether you liked each other or not, you got along, all right? Then after the riots, everybody was just mean except for, like, kids who had their little groups and cliques, which we were considered [00:39:00] the uncool, the dorks. But nobody messed with us because we learned [harmony?]. JJ: Uncool, the dorks, because you didn’t belong to a group? CR: Because we weren’t hating each other. It’s like all of these two or three little groups, you had the Puerto Rican kid. With our group, I was the Puerto Rican. Then there were three Black guys. Then there was a Japanese kid and there was a Puerto Rican girl, then I always dated someone Black. We were all interested in art and jazz, so we would end up in places we weren’t supposed to 19 �be while all the other kids [00:40:00] were at sock hops and things like that, you know? Then there was other kids who were in the chess club and things. JJ: Sock hops? You mean -- CR: Dances, stuff like that. JJ: So a lot of dances going on in the neighborhood? CR: Oh, yeah, when I was in ROTC, we ushered for this group that became real, real popular called -- and now I forgot their name. But I remember that they were real, real popular, and we ushered for them at a show. They had all kinds of stuff going on around there. JJ: What about the neighborhood at that time, ’69, ’70? What type of population? CR: Again, it was everything depending on -- every block seemed to change. You would have a block that seemed to be mostly Puerto Rican. Then you would come across a block that was mostly Mexican. [00:41:00] Then there would be really right across the street, the building across the street would have a bunch of white folks in it. Then you would have a business, and whoever the kid was, the business -- there was this -- I think it’s still there on Armitage and Sheffield -there was this cleaners. There was this Japanese kid whose family owned the cleaner. He was the coolest kid in the world. He hung out and everything like that, you know. That’s what you had from block to block to block. Then you would get to North Avenue and then the projects would start, and it was weird because the projects, the white buildings that were on Halsted and North Avenue -- or, no, Halsted and Division [00:42:00] were mostly Puerto Rican. Then you had some whites -- 20 �JJ: You’re talking about the Cabrini-Green. CR: Right. JJ: The white projects there. CR: Right. Then you had some whites there too and it was predominantly -- JJ: Did you know people from there? CR: Oh, yeah, my best friends were from there. My girlfriend was there. JJ: In the white projects? CR: No, no, no, no, at the red projects on Cleveland where they used to -- the beginning of Good Times? JJ: Right. CR: Yeah, right. They would show those, and that’s where most of my friends were. Like I said, we really wanted to be bohemians, you know? I mean, kids would look at us because we’d come to school with black turtlenecks and black berets, and the girls would be wearing the black leotards and black leather skirts with flat [00:43:00] shoes. The kids then would look at us the way they look at the goth kids, you know. It was the same reaction. But there was no violent anything until after the riots. Then after the riots, for a couple of years, it was like nobody wanted to like each other. We hated that because we wanted to like everybody. It was like wherever we went, if we went back home, there were gangs around. They would, you know, they says, “Nah, you’ve gotta represent something. It’s either us or them.” So all of us, especially in Cabrini-Green, because there were like three gangs around there, recruiting -- what they used to call recruiting, you know? And it was weird. [00:44:00] I sort of thought about this last year when I 21 �was watching a film on King, that it’s so weird that so many things just ended after he was assassinated. They haven’t come back yet. I mean, this whole thing that’s going on now, the current election, that’s all about what was going on back then. It’s all hatred. They’re just people in this country, can’t stand to have a Black president, want people of Hispanic descent -- despite the fact we’ve been here longer than them, if you count the fact that Spain was here 600 years ago -they want us out and want to destroy whatever women have gained. I don’t understand [00:45:00] that. It drives me nuts because it’s the same crap I used to hear back then. How could we have not evolved in anything but sports? Back then, I loved soccer and I would never admit I was in the United States because we had a crappy soccer team. Now we’ve got one of the best teams in the world. How come everything else hasn’t evolved like that? Why do we have people running around this country, wanting to turn it into a Christian Iran, you know? And nothing against -- I love Persian people. My girlfriend is Persian. But I’m talking about the theocracy and the government that just takes the life out of people. Why do people in this country wanna do that to this country? I don’t understand it. It drives me nuts. [00:46:00] And more than that, it’s the same crap that was happening then. Why haven’t we advanced? See? This is the potential for a wonderful, beautiful country, you know? Europeans wanna copy it in the Euro zone. They’ll never do it because you’ll never get the Greeks and Italians to agree on anything. I’ve been there, I know. But here, we’re just right here right next to each other. It’s like we could sit down and watch football, but we can’t communicate over our kid’s school. Doesn’t make any sense to me. 22 �JJ: Did you go to college? CR: Yeah, I went to Malcolm X College, and then University of Illinois in [00:47:00] Chicago, which is now Circle Campus. JJ: So Malcolm X College, you went to the first two years? CR: Right. JJ: Then you transferred to the University of Illinois Circle Campus? CR: Right. JJ: And you graduated? CR: Well, not technically. I haven’t paid my bills. JJ: You haven’t paid your bills? CR: Yeah, so I don’t have a degree. But eventually I’ll take care of that. JJ: Only when you pay your bills? CR: Well, no, it’s like, I mean, if somebody clicks in on it, you also get that tag that there’s a problem with it or not accredited. It’s like you’ve got the degree but it hasn’t been accredited. That’s the problem that a lot of college -- well, not all college. JJ: Is that you or is that all the students? CR: Naw, that’s been around forever. JJ: So you pay your bill or you don’t get your -- CR: You’ve got your degree, but if someone called us up, they’d say, “Wow, it’s not accredited. [00:48:00] It was this problem. It was that.” I don’t think that happens anymore because now -- JJ: But you have your diploma, right? 23 �CR: Yeah. JJ: So you can prove that you graduated. CR: Yeah, but, you know, nowadays with online and everything like that, everybody double checks everything. JJ: Okay, and when they double check, they say it’s not accredited? CR: Right. JJ: Okay, so it works. CR: Right, because I still haven’t paid that old bill. But it doesn’t really matter, you know, because the degrees -- see, I made the mistake of getting the degrees in things that eventually just were all right, like in culture. My BA was in what was called communications. That was journalism and all that. It was basically journalism. But [00:49:00] now, a degree in journalism -- JJ: So you have a BA in journalism. CR: Right. JJ: Okay. CR: Then later on, it was in cultural education. JJ: Oh, you have two degrees. CR: Yeah, a BA and a masters, and my masters was in cultural education. Then it just got -- you know, who cares about that? We all know about culture. Even then, though, I don’t know why I wanted degrees in that. Oh, I know why, because they all got me involved with the jazz programs at the school. That’s what I was after. Like I said, my whole thing was to either become a jazz musician or one of those three writers because my mind was just like all in the 24 �’30s, ’40s, ’50s film noir. They call it film noir, [00:50:00] the private detective, the black and white, the fedoras, and all that. Even though it’s contemporary, that’s what most of my writing goes back to. They called it the hardboiled school of writing. And I was fascinated by that. But, see, what I also wanted to do -- and I was able to do this -- I wrote this story and it was published -- damn. I don’t remember where it was published. I believe it was Playboy or whatever. And if you remember, during that time, there was a lot of gang fighting, and there was particularly a big rivalry between the Latin Eagles and the Harrison Gents, all right? So I wrote a story in the ’30s style of writing where there was [00:51:00] the Harrison Gents did something to -- it was very West Side Story. They did something. He raped one of the sisters of one of the Eagles, and then the Eagles just rained down violence and vengeance on them all. My purpose of the story was to show how stupid all of this was, all right? For once in my lifetime, I became a folk hero in that neighborhood because somebody got a hold of this story and they looked at it from the point that, man, we killed off so-and-so. JJ: Wait, I think a family was killed. CR: Yeah, that was back then. JJ: Because I was incarcerated when one of the Harrison Gents -- and then the Eagles were my cousins. So I knew both sides. It was bad because he told me it was his family. They got burnt. [00:52:00] They burned that down. You wrote about it. You wrote about it. CR: Right. But, see -- JJ: Small worlds. 25 �CR: The weird thing about it, again, is, well, you know -- I can’t remember the magazine it was published in, but my whole perception was these folks can’t read. It’ll never end up with them. And somehow, someone showed it to them, and I became a folk hero, you know? They loved the story. I was afraid I was gonna get my ass kicked, but they loved the story and everything. Then I felt cool because, see, that’s what a writer wants to do. One way or the other -- who was it? The writer of one of those gothic novels. Jane Eyre. Whoever wrote Jane Eyre said that you [00:53:00] know what a writer wants to do is for you -maybe she didn’t say this -- but anyway, for the reader to embrace them or give them a good boot in the [beer?]. Either way, you want a reaction. That’s when I felt, wow, I had done that. JJ: Let me ask you, because your writing, you also lived on Wilton and Grace. CR: Right. JJ: Right. Was it right after you graduated that you moved up there? CR: It was just before graduation. JJ: That you moved the family? CR: Yeah, that the family moved around there. JJ: (inaudible) by Sheffield near Grace. CR: Right. JJ: So a lot of families [followed Sheffield up?] from Halsted. CR: Yeah, we went west. You know, go west. That’s what [00:54:00] ended up happening to us. JJ: Was there a reason why you moved? 26 �CR: Yeah, because, you know, rent. That’s always the reason why us or anyone else moved was rent. JJ: What do you mean, the rent? CR: The rent got too high, so you moved to an area where the rent wasn’t as high. JJ: Okay. You mean the neighborhood was changing? The rent was getting high? CR: Yeah, I guess so. JJ: You guess so. But you know that the rent was high. CR: Yeah. Well, I knew when we got ready to move, it was because the rent was too high, you know? JJ: You raise that rent, we’re moving. CR: Right, that was it. JJ: [From here to you?] (inaudible). CR: Right. That’s why we moved where we moved. JJ: So you moved by Wrigley Field, by that neighborhood, the Lakeview neighborhood, from Lincoln Park to Lakeview. CR: No, that is the Lakeview was called the Lakeview. JJ: [00:55:00] It goes up to -- CR: See, I always thought of it as New Town. JJ: New Town is -- CR: The gay part of the North Side. JJ: Yeah, it’s connected to Lakeview. CR: Yeah, because I used to live on Wellington. I had an apartment on Wellington and Broadway. 27 �JJ: Oh, Wellington and Broadway is New Town. CR: Yeah, right. JJ: You didn’t move in with your parents? CR: No, that was after I was out of college. First I was married, and we were married about nine years. Then after we broke up, I moved back to that area, and I had a place around there. JJ: In New Town near Broadway and Clark, in those areas? CR: Yeah, around there. JJ: Then [00:56:00] Lakeview is north of Diversey. CR: Okay. And I guess west of Clark Street. JJ: Yeah. CR: Yeah. Okay, I get that now. Now, see, at that time, there was no Wrigleyville, though. JJ: Right. They didn’t call it Wrigleyville? CR: Yeah. Well, you know that area that’s around the ballpark is basically Wrigleyville. JJ: So you lived right by the [ball park?]. CR: Mm-hmm. JJ: You moved, what, around 1972 or something? CR: Yeah, ’72, because my last year. It was my last year in high school. JJ: So by ’72, Lincoln Park was (inaudible). CR: Oh, no. Yeah, by ’72, Lincoln Park was gone. JJ: It was gone. There were no more Puerto Rican families, poor families. 28 �CR: No. [00:57:00] There are two families living on Orchard, between Armitage. You know, there’s this little hot dog stand right across the street from [one of them?]. JJ: Right now? CR: Right. And right there on Armitage, between Armitage and the next street over -which it’s Willow or whatever it is -- there are two Puerto Rican families who own the buildings who still live there. JJ: Recently you’ve seen? CR: They’re there. I don’t know them personally, but I just know that they’re Puerto Rican. JJ: I mean, how do you know they’re there? CR: Because I see them. JJ: When you go there? CR: I run seven miles in the morning, you know. That’s my workout. Well, yoga first, and then I run seven miles. [00:58:00] Once a week, I run down Armitage, and the grandmothers -- JJ: Is there a reason why you picked Armitage? CR: Habit. Yeah, you know, it’s just a habit, just going over the bridge and then going down towards Armitage, under that underpass where that big factory is. You know, it’s just something about it that’s just -- it’s like an odyssey. I also think, like, for me it’s personal. It’s the only familiar thing that I know. So I do it once a week. JJ: Okay, all the way from [here?], pretty far west. 29 �CR: Yeah, but if you’ve been running all your life, if you’ve gotta run all your life, that doesn’t mean anything. JJ: [00:59:00] Okay. CR: Yeah, you can do it in an hour. JJ: Okay. CR: So it’s like nothing. Well, maybe in the winter. JJ: It might take me three days. CR: Maybe in the winter, a little longer. JJ: Yeah, for me, it might take me three days (inaudible). (laughter) CR: Well, you know, some people aren’t made to. JJ: Okay, so now you’re on Wilton and Grace, and this is ’72. CR: Yeah, around that time. JJ: And what type of neighborhood is it now? CR: See, here’s where the problem comes with me. I didn’t spend a lot of time in the neighborhood. I was off trying to (inaudible). I was going to college and also our main hangout was jazz clubs on Clark Street and thereabout, the Happy Medium and all that. They don’t exist anymore. The only one [01:00:00] left I think is the Jazz Showcase, and he moves from one place to another. You know, but there was the Sardine Club and all of that, and for some reason, I looked old enough for them not to bother me to come in. I was a photographer. I was doing photo [arts?] and all that. So it was like I was so involved in everything, and I was involved in soccer. I love soccer. I just wasn’t around the neighborhood that 30 �much. The most time I spent around the neighborhood, it was like I got involved with the art group [El Taller?]. JJ: Oh, [El Taller?]. With (inaudible). CR: Yeah, (inaudible). We would have meetings a couple of times. But then even -- JJ: Did you draw? CR: No, no, no, no, I was a photographer, photographer and a poet. JJ: Okay, that’s right. CR: [01:01:00] We would have meetings. That was cool. But then I would go home and then I wouldn’t spend that much time. The most time I spent in that neighborhood was when my sister got me involved with your campaign. JJ: The alderman campaign? CR: Right. But you know what? It was kind of pleasant because you did have -again, what I like, people of all kinds all over the place. It started to change after we left. JJ: In what way? CR: Well, now it’s just strictly a yuppie area. JJ: Okay. So all the families moved out? CR: Yeah, there’s basically no families. JJ: But for a little period, what? CR: Yeah, there were families. There were people all over. The coolest thing that I used to love to do is go take pictures of people [01:02:00] in the summer in the swimming pool because that was at Arnold Park, right? They had the swimming 31 �pool there, and everyone from the neighborhood would be there. I took some really great pictures. JJ: Of Arnold Park? CR: Yeah, and the people, and you could see all the colors. I only shot in black and white back then, which I still prefer, you know. But you could still see all the shades, all the colors, all the differences in people’s physique. I remember showing some pictures to some friends of mine who were like, “Aw, she’s Egyptian.” I said, “No, she’s not.” They would all look at this. “Wow, look at this kid here. He’s got no skin tone, but he’s got curly hair, nappy hair.” That was the coolest thing about that area. [01:03:00] Then you know the other thing, there was a lot of weed around back in that area, and there were also musicians around. I used to live west of there. A couple of the guys from Chicago used to hang out. There was a recording studio somewhere on Willow, there around. JJ: At Willow, you mean back in Lincoln Park, right? CR: You know where that DePaul Campus is now, okay, and the seminary? Well, just a little north -- north or south -- just a little south of there, there were like these old turn of the century houses, the wooden houses, and all of them were inhabited by recording artists. Like all these guys, most of them were white, but they didn’t care who came up to their place to mess around with this and that. [01:04:00] There was that community around there now. I don’t know if it exists. I haven’t hung around DePaul in years. But that’s the way that area used to be. You know, now everybody tells me it’s all retail. I know the Goodman Theatre 32 �has a theater there, and I used to go to a Borders over on North Avenue and Halsted. I don’t think it’s there anymore. JJ: What do you remember of the campaign? Anything? CR: Yeah. I remember there was, like, a lot of hard work. I don’t know about anybody else. I didn’t care about winning or losing, just the fact that there was a Puerto Rican out there doing this. That’s the only thing that mattered to me. That was cool. Oh, we might win, we might lose. What the hell? [01:05:00] Just a Puerto Rican out there trying to do this, and that meant a lot to me because, you know, I was a Puerto Rican out there trying to write, trying to play trumpet. So just to see -- because it just seems like with us, man, we just don’t wanna try sometimes. It’s just, uh, I dunno. We say, no, you’ve just gotta try, and just trying, it leads to other things. We do have some cool guys -- well, you know, I don’t think much of politicians, but we do have some guys out there doing stuff. JJ: So that wasn’t like a traditional campaign anyway, though, was it? CR: No. No. There were all these young people. You know, [01:06:00] traditionally a couple of older guys would round guys up, tell them, “All right, you’re voting for David. Get in there.” This was like young people, and young people putting out the word and everything. Our parents, our neighbors looking at us like we were crazy, you know, but there was always this feeling in me that there was a little bit of pride in them for what we were doing. JJ: The adults, you mean? CR: Yeah, because, you know, they’d say, “No, don’t do that. [Soy comunista?].” And all that. 33 �JJ: So they were using it. The machine would spread rumors too, so they were saying [es un comunista?]. CR: Well, yeah, but everybody said that. But, see, [01:07:00] again, all that -- JJ: How was our office? How did that look? Do you remember seeing the office? CR: Yeah, you had, like, you know, the person at the desk and then a couple of classrooms or something. JJ: No, I mean outside. How was it painted? CR: I don’t remember the painting. JJ: You don’t remember the purple? There was a purple. CR: All right, now I do. Now I do. JJ: A weird color. CR: The weird thing about that is that later on when that rock singer Prince became popular, and that purple -- I said, “The hell? There’s this guy -- like, is his father a Young Lord or something?” That was all I could ever think about Prince, other than the fact I saw his first concert ever. Well, I think it was his first concert. [01:08:00] It was at I believe Northern Illinois University, football stadium. It was the Rolling Stones tour and he was opening up for them, right? So his band started up. They did something. Wow, these guys are like Devo. Then he comes out and he’s got this long trenchcoat. He’s dancing around. That sounds cool. Then he takes the trenchcoat off and he’s wearing a g-string and we’re like -- (laughter) My girlfriend at this time, [Iona?] -- this white girl Iona -- she said, “Get that faggot off the stage.” And it might be on YouTube with this can of beer hitting the pianist from Prince’s band. That was my girlfriend throwing that beer, 34 �you know. And people were going nuts. “Get him off,” and everything like that. After about 20 minutes, the Stones [01:09:00] came out and everybody rocked it and everything. But now as an older, more civilized, mature person, I’m thinking, okay, we ran Prince off to bring Mick on, who’s been having affairs with his [basic?]. Again, well, I mean, at that time, it was insanity fueled by reefer, Johnny Walker, and -- what were we snorting? Coke, I guess it was. No, it wasn’t. Hash. We all wanted to be Jim Morrison back then. But, see, then that’s another thing that I think the music was so much better back then, all right? I’m glad to see Hispanic artists from Mexico, Ecuador, South America becoming mainstream because that means money for them. But damn, [01:10:00] they’re losing the music. I liked it better when there was a separation between art and what’s popular. But I feel good for them because they’re making money. JJ: So what do you think about -- you were in Lincoln Park, and you also were in Wilton and Grace. Both these communities had Puerto Ricans in it and other minorities. CR: Right, right. JJ: But they left. Did they leave or were they pushed out? CR: Everybody left. JJ: Okay. They just wanna leave? CR: No, again, the rent was too high. And so everybody got moved west, and I mean everybody. That was a big immigrant area, even [01:11:00] immigrants from the South. There were a lot of people there from Kentucky, New Orleans, well, Louisiana. You know, everybody got moved west. 35 �JJ: They [get moved?]. CR: Oh, no, no, it was got moved. I’m convinced there’s no way in the world this could’ve happened accidentally, that there was a plan to just move people out and take advantage -- JJ: What convinced us? CR: Because it doesn’t make any other sense otherwise, and because I’ve gained -- I love golf, you know, and I go to trade shows where I find deals and I sell deals to people. What I found is that these types of things in cities, businesses like a Walmart [01:12:00] or something like that, they target an area. Then they get political, and through the politician, they get zones changed or whatever, and rent becomes a little higher. Then people, friends of the investors, brothers and sisters and all that, they go in there and buy. That’s how Wrigley Field became Wrigleyville. Before it was all Puerto Ricans, Greeks, poor people, and a lot of bohemian artists who were also poor people. JJ: Wrigleyville by the Cubs, right? CR: Right. That’s like one guy said to another guy -- JJ: This was Puerto Ricans and poor people. CR: No, I’m talking about primarily restaurant and bar guys, the restaurant industry. JJ: No, no, but I’m saying before that. CR: Oh, yeah, before that. They said, [01:13:00] “All right, the Cubs are there. You got that ballpark there. It draws. All right, let’s clean it up. Let’s clean up the area.” JJ: Let’s clean it up? 36 �CR: Yeah, let’s clean it. Let’s clean up -- JJ: So cleaning it up means getting rid of -- CR: Right, because you can buy the buildings -- JJ: Am I putting words in your mouth? CR: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You buy the buildings cheap, you get rid of the people that are there, you renovate ’em, and you sell them high. That’s how Wrigleyville became Wrigleyville because that’s what they did in that whole area. You know, bought the buildings cheap, they got rid of the people. I don’t know if there was a westward move then. People just scattered. Some people went to the South Side. Some people came back here to the West Side. [01:14:00] Then other people -- wow, I know of Puerto Ricans who went back to the island and are doing very well, you know. But people just disappeared. You know what? You’ve got me interested now. In some way or another, in one of my runs, I’m gonna stop and talk to those two women, you know, find out how they were able to hold on, because it’s fascinating to me. I once ran by there on Thanksgiving and their whole families on either side were there with the traditional foods and everything. I bring them up because that area now, you know what the rent is? The ownership tax, just owning property in that area right now, is incredible because of the tax that you have to pay, because that to me shows [01:15:00] a certain amount of success and survival. Well, that’s what it is, success and survival. JJ: What do you mean? 37 �CR: Everybody else got beaten out. They rode everything through to the point that now when that area is at its most valuable, they’re still there, you know? They weren’t beaten out. And that’s something that -- JJ: Who wasn’t beaten out? CR: Those two Puerto Rican families. JJ: Okay, those Puerto Rican families on Orchard. CR: Yeah, because as you go down, you no longer have Cabrini-Green there anymore, so it’s like, wow, if you wanna get poetic, those buildings were destroyed. But these two families still thrive, you know, because when I went by there last year, I could see someone coming in with a baby. I was like, wow, that’s awfully cool. [01:16:00] So one of these days, I’m gonna stop off and say, “Man, I’d like to write about you people.” You know what I mean. JJ: It’s getting late. Any final thoughts? CR: Well, the only final thoughts I have is that, you know, the ugliest thing in me is this whole election. I want it over and done with. I respect the president. I think he and his family have gone through this with the greatest grace, and so have we. I think ethnic people, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Black, we’ve gone through this with just the greatest restraint and calm because [01:17:00] I’m sure most of us -- well, I don’t know. I won’t say most. I feel that his four years have been an assault on me, all right? JJ: What do you mean? He assaulted you, you mean? CR: No, not him. JJ: But his four years? 38 �CR: His four years have been an assault on him. JJ: Everybody has assaulted him. CR: Right. All right, in particular, Tea Party, all right? I just got into a thing with someone earlier today. It’s like, stop with all the crap. That’s what I say to Tea Party. Well, maybe that’s what I should say. Tea Party people, stop with all the crap, all right? Because none of this is about the Constitution or anything like that. When you’re young, running around young about give us our country [01:18:00] back and all this -- you’ve heard of the gorilla in the living room, right? The gorilla in the room, all right? Well, there are three right here that these people just can’t stand. Number one, they can’t stand a Black president. Number two, they can’t stand hearing what the Tribune published not too long ago, that we Hispanics are gonna become the number one ethnic group in this country. It’s driving them insane. Last but not least, they wanna destroy all the rights that individual women have accumulated. And all that thing about anti-gay marriage, anti-abortion, it’s all about those three things. I don’t wanna hear it anymore. You know, when people say that Romney’s an idiot because -- and I’m like, he’s a politician. Politicians are not idiots. [01:19:00] They just know that when they’re talking to idiots, they have to talk like an idiot, you know? That’s why that guy said that incredibly stupid, anti-biological stuff last week about rape. Well, I’m not quitting -- yeah, I’m not quitting the race. Why should he? He’s five points ahead even after having said that stuff. What does that tell you? He’s talking to the stupid, you know? And we intelligent people have to realize that there are a lot of stupid out there, and we’re never gonna educate them. So we 39 �just have to just go out there and occupy. Occupy the voting booth. I know who I’m gonna vote for. You vote for who you want to, but do it because you really feel that’s [01:20:00] the right person. JJ: What fascinates you about the Occupy movement? CR: That there’s no leader. It’s like something Mozart wrote, you know? There’s a movement. It moves to something else. There’s a crescendo. There’s a long -but there’s no leadership in it. Someone hears about it and they go there. We’re occupying this building. The cops may come out and kick our asses. Yeah, but I like what you’re saying. I’m gonna occupy. There’s no leader to it. Now, the Tea Party claims the same thing, but that’s crap, all right? They do have a leader. It’s Ronald Reagan. That’s their whole philosophy, and by the way, [01:21:00] the original political Tea Party was founded like in 1962, dedicated to make sure that John F. Kennedy did not get voted in. JJ: In 1962? CR: Yeah. They’re not even original. There was a Tea Party in 1962. It was in Dallas, Texas, right? And they didn’t want John F. Kennedy president, and that was their whole thing. What are you people talking -- you copied from that. There’s nothing original about this. And it’s totally organized, you know. And that’s different from the Occupy, which isn’t organized. It’s like someone will beep you on your phone and they’re saying, “We’re occupying here, we’re occupying there for this, for that. Are you in?” If you’re in, you go there. [01:22:00] You take time off from work or whatever. That’s what I love about the Occupy movement, that it’s of the people. Now, the problem with it is that 40 �because it is of the people, and the people have made their statements, it can’t be co-opted because -- no, man, I’ve gotta get to work. (laughs) You know? JJ: I appreciate it. END OF VIDEO FILE 41 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b60d40e121ffe3ba96035fd98d4e96c8.mp4 a91132c3410f57b6d1ba73c98a7a8cbb Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives. The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng spa Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 2012-2017 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Título Spanish language Title entry Carmelo Romero vídeo entrevista y biografía Sujetos Spanish language Subject terms Young Lords (Organización) Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Mexicano-Americanos--Relatos personales Justicia social Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65_Romero_Carmelo Title A name given to the resource Carmelo Romero interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Romero, Carmelo Description An account of the resource Carmelo Romero grew up in Lakeview and today lives in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago. His family lived in Lincoln Park and knew of the Young Lords. Mr. Romero volunteered to help with the Jiménez campaign for Alderman. Maria Romero, his sister, remains a full-fledged member of the Young Lords; in the 1970s she ran the office at Wilton and Grace Streets. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puerto Ricans--Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-08-23 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0b310ba23a098d97783c4112a49cc19e.pdf 782c4c3ef5938949032674a6c5406c1d PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Román Rodríguez Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 5/12/2012 Biography and Description Román Rodríguez served in the U.S. army during World War II and moved to Chicago’s La Clark neighborhood in 1953. For many years, his wife, Clautilde Jiménez, taught in the Chicago public school system. They also lived in Lincoln Park and were both active members in the Damas de María and Caballeros de San Juan of Council Number Three. A powerful and eloquent orator, Mr. Rodríguez has been a frequent speaker at Caballeros de San Juan functions across a variety of parishes. He also became a deacon and participated in the mass at St. Silvesters in Humbolt Park/Logan Square, where he helped to solidify the growing community of Puerto Ricans who were being forced out of Lincoln Park.In his oral history, Mr. Rodríguez reflects on the changes he has seen over the years in Chicago and the displacement of Puerto Rican families from Lincoln Park. He expresses his inability to understand why Puerto Ricans were experiencing discrimination especially after they had served in the U.S. military and given their lives for United States. He describes in rich detail, a community of hard working and religious people, dedicated to their families and their faith. In Puerto Rico in the 1940s, Mr. Rodríguez would entertain his siblings by improvising jibaro music after working a hard day in the fields. Like other Puerto Rican pioneers in Chicago, he brought his love of music with him to the city and continued this tradition there. � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3d687c00e29080f03f4b376faa9c732f.mp4 0c08c94a94bc2d0f5709ab8ec5381fb8 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives. The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng spa Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 2012-2017 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Título Spanish language Title entry Román Rodríguez vídeo entrevista y biografía Sujetos Spanish language Subject terms Young Lords (Organización) Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Narrativas personales Justicia social Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago Puertorriqueños--Illinois--Chicago--Vida social y costumbres Renovación urbana--Illinois--Chicago Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65_Rodriguez_Roman Title A name given to the resource Román Rodríguez inerview and biography Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rodríguez, Román Description An account of the resource Román Rodríguez served in the U.S. army during World War II and moved to Chicago’s La Clark neighborhood in 1953. For many years, his wife, Clautilde Jiménez, taught in the Chicago public school system. They also lived in Lincoln Park and were both active members in the Damas de María and Caballeros de San Juan of Council Number Three. A powerful and eloquent orator, Mr. Rodríguez has been a frequent speaker at Caballeros de San Juan functions across a variety of parishes. He also became a deacon and participated in the mass at St. Silvesters in Humbolt Park/Logan Square, where he helped to solidify the growing community of Puerto Ricans who were being forced out of Lincoln Park. In his oral history, Mr. Rodríguez reflects on the changes he has seen over the years in Chicago and the displacement of Puerto Rican families from Lincoln Park. He expresses his inability to understand why Puerto Ricans were experiencing discrimination especially after they had served in the U.S. military and given their lives for United States. He describes in rich detail, a community of hard working and religious people, dedicated to their families and their faith. In Puerto Rico in the 1940s, Mr. Rodríguez would entertain his siblings by improvising jibaro music after working a hard day in the fields. Like other Puerto Rican pioneers in Chicago, he brought his love of music with him to the city and continued this tradition there. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puerto Ricans--Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Puerto Ricans--Illinois--Chicago--Social life and customs Urban renewal--Illinois--Chicago Language A language of the resource spa Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-05-12 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/63f5d217662a92cb662f62b00c68c577.pdf d5e9828b9896510aa390dc9887577df6 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Ramon Rodriguez Interviewers: Jose “Cha Cha” Jimenez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 6/23/2012 Biography and Description Ramón Rodríguez is a semi-retired school teacher who lives in the Lao Frío section of San Salvador, overlooking the home of his father Dimas Rodríguez Flores. He first met his cousin, José “Cha- Cha” Jiménez in 1963 when Mr. Jiménez was forcibly deported to Puerto Rico. Mr. Jiménez, who was 14years-old at that time, pleaded with his parents to send him to Sheraton, a juvenile prison where he would have remained until the age of 21, instead of being sent to Puerto Rico where he was born but had no understanding of life there. In Puerto Rico, Mr. Rodríguez and his older brother Juan became close to Mr. Jiménez. They also tried to dissuade Mr. Jiménez from forming a branch of the Young Lords in Puerto Rico because Mr. Rodríguez and his brothers were already leaders and did not want anything to do with a Chicago type gang in the barrio of San Salvador. Mr. Rodríguez recalls what San Salvador was like in those days. This was a stable area and family influence and networks were strong. Drugs did not start to enter -- not even in rural areas of Puerto Rico – until much later. The only thing that closely resembled a gang was the Titeres de La Plaza. These young men sat on the many boulders near the banana leaves, across from the store of Don Félix García, and got into petty mischief. Ultimately Mr. Rodríguez and others compromised and agree to call their group, Jovenes Nobles. Of course Mr. Jiménez remained a Titere because that bunch included many other cousins, and they were located in La Plaza, closer to where he was living with his grandparents, Tino and Don Goyo. The Jovenes Nobles set up a �recreation clubhouse for their young members. They began fundraising and someone donated a baby pig to raffle. The members traveled from house-to-house and hilltop-to-hilltop in the tropical sun to sell the tickets. On the day of the raffle, Mr. Rodríguez’s mother won the ticket. The Jovenes Nobles had to endure the gossip, but they kept the money and they ate the pig.Mr. Rodríguez also describes his move from San Salvador to Aurora, Illinois. In this interview, he bravely talks about the brief substance abuse problem he battled and the ways he hopes young people today might learn from his experiences. Today he once again lives in San Salvador. He remains a strong family person and is a well-respected leader. � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/aae856fffa8a07b8fa5897177e1603b0.mp4 1776b48f96c2c86d0d6571524066af58 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives. The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng spa Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 2012-2017 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Título Spanish language Title entry Ramón Rodriguez vídeo entrevista y biografía Sujetos Spanish language Subject terms Young Lords (Organización) Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Idioma español--Relatos personales Justicia social Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago Puertorriqueños--Vida social y costumbres Juventud--Puerto Rico Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65_Rodriguez_Ramon Title A name given to the resource Ramón Rodriguez video interview and biography Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rodriguez, Ramón Description An account of the resource Ramón Rodríguez is a semi-retired school teacher who lives in the Lao Frío section of San Salvador, overlooking the home of his father Dimas Rodríguez Flores. He first met his cousin, José “Cha- Cha” Jiménez in 1963 when Mr. Jiménez was forcibly deported to Puerto Rico. Mr. Jiménez, who was 14- years-old at that time, pleaded with his parents to send him to Sheraton, a juvenile prison where he would have remained until the age of 21, instead of being sent to Puerto Rico where he was born but had no understanding of life there. In Puerto Rico, Mr. Rodríguez and his older brother Juan became close to Mr. Jiménez. They also tried to dissuade Mr. Jiménez from forming a branch of the Young Lords in Puerto Rico because Mr. Rodríguez and his brothers were already leaders and did not want anything to do with a Chicago type gang in the barrio of San Salvador. Mr. Rodríguez recalls what San Salvador was like in those days. This was a stable area and family influence and networks were strong. Drugs did not start to enter -- not even in rural areas of Puerto Rico – until much later. The only thing that closely resembled a gang was the Titeres de La Plaza. These young men sat on the many boulders near the banana leaves, across from the store of Don Félix García, and got into petty mischief. Ultimately Mr. Rodríguez and others compromised and agree to call their group, Jovenes Nobles. Of course Mr. Jiménez remained a Titere because that bunch included many other cousins, and they were located in La Plaza, closer to where he was living with his grandparents, Tino and Don Goyo. The Jovenes Nobles set up a recreation clubhouse for their young members. They began fundraising and someone donated a baby pig to raffle. The members traveled from house-to-house and hilltop-to-hilltop in the tropical sun to sell the tickets. On the day of the raffle, Mr. Rodríguez’s mother won the ticket. The Jovenes Nobles had to endure the gossip, but they kept the money and they ate the pig.Mr. Rodríguez also describes his move from San Salvador to Aurora, Illinois. In this interview, he bravely talks about the brief substance abuse problem he battled and the ways he hopes young people today might learn from his experiences. Today he once again lives in San Salvador. He remains a strong family person and is a well-respected leader. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puerto Ricans--Personal narratives Spanish language--Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Puerto Ricans--Social life and customs Youth--Puerto Rico Language A language of the resource spa Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-06-23 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0125a847a00ab6d74a31dcc382cf6b8f.pdf bd1861b8d3551aecdd15d6043723187f PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Juan Rodríguez Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 6/21/2012 Biography and Description Juan Rodríguez is an excellent organizer and community leader. He was a member and leader of the Jovenes Nobles social club in San Salvador, Puerto Rico, where he was born and raised. Mr. Rodríguez recalls how they grew from just some initial conversations and worked together to raise funds to open and a weight-lifting and social club for barrio youth. It was a wonderful experience he says, learning via hard knocks to go door-to-door. The Jovenes would also travel to other parts of Puerto Rico, going to parties, dances, and other events. Mr. Rodríguez explains that for many years, many people used the donated clubhouse and the weight lifting equipment, which they supported through fundraisers and membership dues. Mr. Rodríguez later followed other family members to Aurora, Illinois where he worked for many years at the Caterpillar Plant on Montgomery Road. There he used his acquired organizing skills to help Don Teo Arroyo, also of San Salvador, to recruit local business people to organize the annual dinner/dance and the coronation of a queen for the first Puerto Rican parades held in Aurora. He also worked for several mayors and other elected officials, using the parade as leverage to get needed programs to benefit the Puerto Rican community there. Mr. Rodríguez says that he never had a problem convincing politicians of this need because the Puerto Rican community controlled the votes. Later, Mr. Rodríguez heard about the organizing work of the Young Lords in Chicago’s Lincoln Park. By that time his relatives from the Jiménez family had also come to Aurora, moving from Lincoln �Park and Wicker Park, Chicago. They moved because “the rents were too high,” as Mr. Rodríguez recalls. In Aurora, the Jiménez family was able to rent a large home which they needed since it was always filled with relatives and friends. Mr. Rodríguez and his brother Ramón would visit their home regularly, and assisted with organizing the parades. � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0e798749c1c7155932f06736c8b28de6.mp4 299beee8f2809a7ac60d677d1c237d38 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives. The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng spa Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 2012-2017 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Título Spanish language Title entry Juan Rodríguez vídeo entrevista y biografía Sujetos Spanish language Subject terms Young Lords (Organización) Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puertorriqueños--Relatos personales Idioma español--Relatos personales Justicia social Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago Chicago (Ill.)--Política y gobierno--1951- Puertorriqueños--Illinois--Chicago--Vida social y costumbres Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65_Rodriguez_Juan Title A name given to the resource Juan Rodríguez video interview and biography Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rodríguez, Juan Description An account of the resource Juan Rodríguez was a member and leader of the Jovenes Nobles social club in San Salvador, Puerto Rico, where he was born and raised. Mr. Rodríguez later followed other family members to Aurora, Illinois where he worked for many years at the Caterpillar Plant on Montgomery Road. Later, Mr. Rodríguez heard about the organizing work of the Young Lords in Chicago’s Lincoln Park. By that time his relatives from the Jiménez family had also come to Aurora, moving from Lincoln Park and Wicker Park. Mr. Rodríguez and his brother Ramón would visit their home regularly, and assisted with organizing the parades. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puerto Ricans--Personal narratives Spanish language--Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Chicago (Ill.)--Politics and government--1951- Puerto Ricans--Illinois--Chicago--Social life and customs Language A language of the resource spa Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-06-21 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/26cca9fb5d943a205fe567fde895677f.pdf 55ed627c6306e61d87538a8d55f22b41 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Eugenia Rodríguez Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 5/10/2012 Biography and Description Eugenia Rodríguez is the mother of José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez. She is the youngest of 13 children and was born in San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico to Juan Rodríguez and Victoria Flores. They then moved to the Morena section of the barrio of San Salvador, Caguas, Puerto Rico. When she was just a child her mother became sick and so Ms. Rodríguez sent to be raised by her older sister, Toribia. But Toribia also had her own family to raise, so Ms. Rodríguez’s father decided to send her to live in a Catholic orphanage until she was 15-years-old. She never attended formal school but did learn how to read and write. The orphanage provided some discipline but she mostly did cleaning and other mundane work and was offered few opportunities to study. When Ms. Rodríguez left the orphanage, she returned to live with Toribia. There she met Antonio Jiménez, the younger brother of Toribia’s husband, who would become her husband. Mr. Jiménez was working as a hired field hand, farming the land for a portion of the yield. He soon proposed. They were married at the only church in the area at that time, and went to live in a one room, simple home in San Salvador.In many ways their life mirrored that of other poor families in the Puerto Rican countryside during the mid-1940s. Ms. Rodríguez helped with the chickens and the few cows and washed clothes on the rocks of the quebra. Mr. Jiménez became a seasonal tomatero, or tomato picker, for Andy Boy Farms in Minot, Massachusetts. After the death of their first daughter at just one year of age, Mr. Jiménez worked especially hard to bring Ms. Rodríguez to join him in the United States. In 1949, �Ms. Rodríguez traveled to New York then boarded a Greyhound bus bound for Boston. Her daughter, Juana (Jenny), was born there. In early 1951 the family moved to La Clark in Chicago to be closer to the rest of Mr. Jiménez’s family who were already living there. At the migrant camp in Massachusetts, Doña Genia, as she was called, washed and ironed clothes for a profit. In Chicago things were not much different. She cooked and sold food to help her husband with the bills. Like many women, she further supplemented their income by setting up a lotería, or Spanish bingo games, in her home. It was not long after they arrived in Chicago that Ms. Rodríguez, like scores of other Puerto Rican families who occupied the homes in the prime real estate areas close to the downtown and the lake, received a notice that she would have to leave her home. They moved to Lincoln Park. Ms. Rodríguez began holding catechism classes in the living room of her home and joined the Caballeros de an Juan and the Damas de María in setting up Spanish masses and other services for the Catholic church. In later years, Ms. Rodríguez and Mr. Jiménez moved to Wicker Park, then to Aurora, Illinois, before finally returning to Puerto Rico where Mr. Jiménez built his dream home. He died just three months later. � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/19c19278d20b4d7ad550210156e1eff1.mp4 c2a04d23027a05bf315e481b4ad96e93 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives. The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng spa Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 2012-2017 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Título Spanish language Title entry Eugenia Rodríguez vídeo entrevista y biografía, entrevista 4 Sujetos Spanish language Subject terms Young Lords (Organización) Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puertorriqueños--Relatos personales Idioma español--Relatos personales Justicia social Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago Puertorriqueños--Illinois--Chicago--Vida social y costumbres Renovación urbana--Illinois--Chicago Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65_Rodriguez_Eugenia_4 Title A name given to the resource Eugenia Rodríguez video interview and biography, interview 4 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rodríguez, Eugenia Description An account of the resource Eugenia Rodríguez is the mother of José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez. She is the youngest of 13 children and was born in San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico to Juan Rodríguez and Victoria Flores. They then moved to the Morena section of the barrio of San Salvador, Caguas, Puerto Rico. When she was just a child her mother became sick and so Ms. Rodríguez was sent to be raised by her older sister, Toribia. But Toribia also had her own family to raise, so her father decided to send her to live in a Catholic orphanage until she was 15-years-old. She never attended formal school but did learn how to read and write. When Ms. Rodríguez left the orphanage, she returned to live with Toribia. There she met Antonio Jiménez, the younger brother of Toribia’s husband, who would become her husband. In 1949, Ms. Rodríguez traveled to New York and then to Boston. In early 1951 the family moved to La Clark in Chicago. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puerto Ricans--Personal narratives Spanish language--Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Puerto Ricans--Illinois--Chicago--Social life and customs Urban renewal--Illinois--Chicago Language A language of the resource spa Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-05-10 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e2f8bbc4677a9b94267d78201f0ee2c1.pdf 84dff72082f095ab240bc41570784a86 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Eugenia Rodriguez Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 6/24/2012 Biography and Description Eugenia Rodríguez is the mother of José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez. She is the youngest of 13 children and was born in San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico to Juan Rodríguez and Victoria Flores. They then moved to the Morena section of the barrio of San Salvador, Caguas, Puerto Rico. When she was just a child her mother became sick and so Ms. Rodríguez sent to be raised by her older sister, Toribia. But Toribia also had her own family to raise, so Ms. Rodríguez’s father decided to send her to live in a Catholic orphanage until she was 15-years-old. She never attended formal school but did learn how to read and write. The orphanage provided some discipline but she mostly did cleaning and other mundane work and was offered few opportunities to study. When Ms. Rodríguez left the orphanage, she returned to live with Toribia. There she met Antonio Jiménez, the younger brother of Toribia’s husband, who would become her husband. Mr. Jiménez was working as a hired field hand, farming the land for a portion of the yield. He soon proposed. They were married at the only church in the area at that time, and went to live in a one room, simple home in San Salvador.In many ways their life mirrored that of other poor families in the Puerto Rican countryside during the mid-1940s. Ms. Rodríguez helped with the chickens and the few cows and washed clothes on the rocks of the quebra. Mr. Jiménez became a seasonal tomatero, or tomato picker, for Andy Boy Farms in Minot, Massachusetts. After the death of their first daughter at just one year of age, Mr. Jiménez worked especially hard to bring Ms. Rodríguez to join him in the United States. In 1949, �Ms. Rodríguez traveled to New York then boarded a Greyhound bus bound for Boston. Her daughter, Juana (Jenny), was born there. In early 1951 the family moved to La Clark in Chicago to be closer to the rest of Mr. Jiménez’s family who were already living there. At the migrant camp in Massachusetts, Doña Genia, as she was called, washed and ironed clothes for a profit. In Chicago things were not much different. She cooked and sold food to help her husband with the bills. Like many women, she further supplemented their income by setting up a lotería, or Spanish bingo games, in her home. It was not long after they arrived in Chicago that Ms. Rodríguez, like scores of other Puerto Rican families who occupied the homes in the prime real estate areas close to the downtown and the lake, received a notice that she would have to leave her home. They moved to Lincoln Park. Ms. Rodríguez began holding catechism classes in the living room of her home and joined the Caballeros de an Juan and the Damas de María in setting up Spanish masses and other services for the Catholic church. In later years, Ms. Rodríguez and Mr. Jiménez moved to Wicker Park, then to Aurora, Illinois, before finally returning to Puerto Rico where Mr. Jiménez built his dream home. He died just three months later. � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5203f6732b3a01f8dc0573f66b6dfae2.mp4 f98a1d578ea9b50f17cdaaa351bff6c5 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives. The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng spa Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 2012-2017 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Título Spanish language Title entry Eugenia Rodríguez vídeo entrevista y biografía, entrevista 3 Sujetos Spanish language Subject terms Young Lords (Organización) Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puertorriqueños--Relatos personales Idioma español--Relatos personales Justicia social Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago Puertorriqueños--Illinois--Chicago--Vida social y costumbres Renovación urbana--Illinois--Chicago Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65_Rodriguez_Eugenia_3 Title A name given to the resource Eugenia Rodríguez video interview and biography, interview 3 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rodríguez, Eugenia Description An account of the resource Eugenia Rodríguez is the mother of José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez. She is the youngest of 13 children and was born in San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico to Juan Rodríguez and Victoria Flores. They then moved to the Morena section of the barrio of San Salvador, Caguas, Puerto Rico. When she was just a child her mother became sick and so Ms. Rodríguez was sent to be raised by her older sister, Toribia. But Toribia also had her own family to raise, so Ms. Rodríguez’s father decided to send her to live in a Catholic orphanage until she was 15-years-old. She never attended formal school but did learn how to read and write. When Ms. Rodríguez left the orphanage, she returned to live with Toribia. There she met Antonio Jiménez, the younger brother of Toribia’s husband, who would become her husband. In 1949, Ms. Rodríguez traveled to New York and then to Boston. In early 1951 the family moved to La Clark in Chicago. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puerto Ricans--Personal narratives Spanish language--Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Puerto Ricans--Illinois--Chicago--Social life and customs Urban renewal--Illinois--Chicago Language A language of the resource spa Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-06-24 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b8769865b5b3bcd7c159afd88c4f312d.pdf a5ff3777911b8f5afdd815ecfd3d271f PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Eugenia Rodriguez Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 5/30/2012 Biography and Description Eugenia Rodríguez is the mother of José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez. She is the youngest of 13 children and was born in San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico to Juan Rodríguez and Victoria Flores. They then moved to the Morena section of the barrio of San Salvador, Caguas, Puerto Rico. When she was just a child her mother became sick and so Ms. Rodríguez sent to be raised by her older sister, Toribia. But Toribia also had her own family to raise, so Ms. Rodríguez’s father decided to send her to live in a Catholic orphanage until she was 15-years-old. She never attended formal school but did learn how to read and write. The orphanage provided some discipline but she mostly did cleaning and other mundane work and was offered few opportunities to study. When Ms. Rodríguez left the orphanage, she returned to live with Toribia. There she met Antonio Jiménez, the younger brother of Toribia’s husband, who would become her husband. Mr. Jiménez was working as a hired field hand, farming the land for a portion of the yield. He soon proposed. They were married at the only church in the area at that time, and went to live in a one room, simple home in San Salvador.In many ways their life mirrored that of other poor families in the Puerto Rican countryside during the mid-1940s. Ms. Rodríguez helped with the chickens and the few cows and washed clothes on the rocks of the quebra. Mr. Jiménez became a seasonal tomatero, or tomato picker, for Andy Boy Farms in Minot, Massachusetts. After the death of their first daughter at just one year of age, Mr. Jiménez worked especially hard to bring Ms. Rodríguez to join him in the United States. In 1949, �Ms. Rodríguez traveled to New York then boarded a Greyhound bus bound for Boston. Her daughter, Juana (Jenny), was born there. In early 1951 the family moved to La Clark in Chicago to be closer to the rest of Mr. Jiménez’s family who were already living there. At the migrant camp in Massachusetts, Doña Genia, as she was called, washed and ironed clothes for a profit. In Chicago things were not much different. She cooked and sold food to help her husband with the bills. Like many women, she further supplemented their income by setting up a lotería, or Spanish bingo games, in her home. It was not long after they arrived in Chicago that Ms. Rodríguez, like scores of other Puerto Rican families who occupied the homes in the prime real estate areas close to the downtown and the lake, received a notice that she would have to leave her home. They moved to Lincoln Park. Ms. Rodríguez began holding catechism classes in the living room of her home and joined the Caballeros de an Juan and the Damas de María in setting up Spanish masses and other services for the Catholic church. In later years, Ms. Rodríguez and Mr. Jiménez moved to Wicker Park, then to Aurora, Illinois, before finally returning to Puerto Rico where Mr. Jiménez built his dream home. He died just three months later. � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e83503c89a17357c0bf06674b45bb2b4.mp4 a75c1df8bb96d9416589652be14ae4f4 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives. The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng spa Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 2012-2017 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Título Spanish language Title entry Eugenia Rodríguez vídeo entrevista y biografía, entrevista 2 Sujetos Spanish language Subject terms Young Lords (Organización) Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puertorriqueños--Relatos personales Idioma español--Relatos personales Justicia social Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago Puertorriqueños--Illinois--Chicago--Vida social y costumbres Renovación urbana--Illinois--Chicago Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65_Rodriguez_Eugenia_2 Title A name given to the resource Eugenia Rodríguez video interview and biography, interview 2 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rodríguez, Eugenia Description An account of the resource Eugenia Rodríguez is the mother of José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez. She is the youngest of 13 children and was born in San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico to Juan Rodríguez and Victoria Flores. They then moved to the Morena section of the barrio of San Salvador, Caguas, Puerto Rico. When she was just a child her mother became sick and so Ms. Rodríguez was sent to be raised by her older sister, Toribia. But Toribia also had her own family to raise, so Ms. Rodríguez’s father decided to send her to live in a Catholic orphanage until she was 15-years-old. She never attended formal school but did learn how to read and write. When Ms. Rodríguez left the orphanage, she returned to live with Toribia. There she met Antonio Jiménez, the younger brother of Toribia’s husband, who would become her husband. In 1949, Ms. Rodríguez traveled to New York and then to Boston. In early 1951 the family moved to La Clark in Chicago. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puerto Ricans--Personal narratives Spanish language--Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Puerto Ricans--Illinois--Chicago--Social life and customs Urban renewal--Illinois--Chicago Language A language of the resource spa Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-05-30 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/23b1eecade9be0f40c3cfc236fb7f6fb.pdf 91d9b71955c98bef5f22976442c506e0 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Eugenia Rodriguez Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 6/4/2012 Biography and Description Eugenia Rodríguez is the mother of José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez. She is the youngest of 13 children and was born in San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico to Juan Rodríguez and Victoria Flores. They then moved to the Morena section of the barrio of San Salvador, Caguas, Puerto Rico. When she was just a child her mother became sick and so Ms. Rodríguez sent to be raised by her older sister, Toribia. But Toribia also had her own family to raise, so Ms. Rodríguez’s father decided to send her to live in a Catholic orphanage until she was 15-years-old. She never attended formal school but did learn how to read and write. The orphanage provided some discipline but she mostly did cleaning and other mundane work and was offered few opportunities to study. When Ms. Rodríguez left the orphanage, she returned to live with Toribia. There she met Antonio Jiménez, the younger brother of Toribia’s husband, who would become her husband. Mr. Jiménez was working as a hired field hand, farming the land for a portion of the yield. He soon proposed. They were married at the only church in the area at that time, and went to live in a one room, simple home in San Salvador.In many ways their life mirrored that of other poor families in the Puerto Rican countryside during the mid-1940s. Ms. Rodríguez helped with the chickens and the few cows and washed clothes on the rocks of the quebra. Mr. Jiménez became a seasonal tomatero, or tomato picker, for Andy Boy Farms in Minot, Massachusetts. After the death of their first daughter at just one year of age, Mr. Jiménez worked especially hard to bring Ms. Rodríguez to join him in the United States. In 1949, �Ms. Rodríguez traveled to New York then boarded a Greyhound bus bound for Boston. Her daughter, Juana (Jenny), was born there. In early 1951 the family moved to La Clark in Chicago to be closer to the rest of Mr. Jiménez’s family who were already living there. At the migrant camp in Massachusetts, Doña Genia, as she was called, washed and ironed clothes for a profit. In Chicago things were not much different. She cooked and sold food to help her husband with the bills. Like many women, she further supplemented their income by setting up a lotería, or Spanish bingo games, in her home. It was not long after they arrived in Chicago that Ms. Rodríguez, like scores of other Puerto Rican families who occupied the homes in the prime real estate areas close to the downtown and the lake, received a notice that she would have to leave her home. They moved to Lincoln Park. Ms. Rodríguez began holding catechism classes in the living room of her home and joined the Caballeros de an Juan and the Damas de María in setting up Spanish masses and other services for the Catholic church. In later years, Ms. Rodríguez and Mr. Jiménez moved to Wicker Park, then to Aurora, Illinois, before finally returning to Puerto Rico where Mr. Jiménez built his dream home. He died just three months later. Transcription JOSÉ: Que se, se me puede a su nombre. EUGENIA: ¿Mi nombre? JOSÉ: Sí, otra vez. EUGENIA: Eugenia Rodriguez Flores. JOSÉ: Okay. ¿Y naciste donde? EUGENIA: En San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico. JOSÉ: Okay. ¿A qué año? ¿A qué fecho? EUGENIA: 1929, 6 de septiembre. JOSÉ: ¿1929? EUGENIA: Mhm. JOSÉ: Okay. ¿En qué puente de San Lorenzo? :26 EUGENIA: Barrio Pino. JOSÉ: Barrio Pino, okay. ¿El otro lado de San Salvador de Caigua? EUGENIA: Mhmm. JOSÉ: ¿Por Morena? EUGENIA: Sí. JOSÉ: Okay entonces…(pausa) Okay, se me puede… Okay, hoy vamos oral de catecismo que tú hiciste en la, en la Dayton en Chicago, en el área, en el área de Lincoln Park. :55/:55 EUGENIA: Mhm �JOSÉ: Entonces, ¿de qué, de qué te vino esta idea de hacer por los muchachos de barrio en Chicago? EUGENIA: Por la necesidad que no conocían bien a Jesucristo. 1:09 JOSÉ: ¿No conocieron bien a Jesucristo? EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: Pero entonces… Estabas… ¿en su familia hablaban de Jesucristo? EUGENIA: Sí, porque como yo nací en la religión católica. 1:23 Pues la religión católica pues, hay catecismo. JOSÉ: Okay. EUGENIA: Y hay, sea era una religión antigua. JOSÉ: ¿Antigua? EUGENIA: uh huh JOSÉ: Okay, entonces pero 1:38 así tiene la religión católica, pero ¿solo practicabas en tu familia, en tu casa? EUGENIA: Claro que sí. Daban catecismo en mi propia casa de mi papá. JOSÉ: ¿De tu papá? 1:48 ¿Y quien daba catecismo? EUGENIA: Daba catecismo…uh. Mi hermana, uh, Monotolibria. 1:56 JOSÉ: Okay, ¿Qué estaba cuidando cuando murió tu mamá, Victoria? EUGENIA: Uh huh. JOSÉ: Okay entonces ¿ya daba el catecismo? EUGENIA: Si, y mi papá también. JOSÉ: ¿Y tu papá? EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: Entonces, ¿pero tenía un actale en la casa también? 2:08 EUGENIA: Seguro que sí. JOSÉ: ¿Cómo parecía la actedesi? 2:11 EUGENIA: Pues era como pegado la pared en la sala y entonces allí había uno santo y una cosa la imagen. JOSÉ: Pues, eh, Juan, Don Juan … (interrumpido) EUGENIA: Él tenía eso. JOSÉ: ¿Y es un actale en la pared? 2:28 �EUGENIA: Uh huh. JOSÉ: No era mesa, era en la pared. EUGENIA: En la pared. JOSÉ: Okay. Y entonces ¿qué santo tenía él? EUGENIA: Tenía el sagrado corazón de Jesús. JOSÉ: mkay. EUGENIA: La virgen del Carmen. JOSÉ: ¿La virgen del Carmen? EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: ¿En este tiempo la virgen del Carmen en Puerto Rico era…? EUGENIA: famosa JOSÉ: ¿famosa en este tiempo? EUGENIA: Sí. JOSÉ: Yo creo que era cerca de San Lorenzo y en San Lorenzo apareció la… EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: apareció la virgen del Carmen. EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: Como por mil veinte por 26 o 27… EUGENIA: Bueno, yo parece el 29. Yo solo me contaron.. 3:08 JOSÉ: Pero ¿tenía la, un, un, un, un imagen de la virgen, un estatua? EUGENIA: Sí. JOSÉ: ¿Estatua o imagen? EUGENIA: Imagen. JOSÉ: ¿Tuvo la diferencia de un retrato? 3:16 EUGENIA: Un retrato. JOSÉ: ¿De la Virgen de Carmen? EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: Okay, entonces, tu papá daba catecismo… ¿Cómo, que decía él? EUGENIA: (pausa) Pues enseñaba la cosa, los mandamientos.. 3:34 �JOSÉ: ¿Los mandamientos? EUGENIA: Y los sacramentos. JOSÉ: Pero ¿Cómo, a cuándo lo hacía? ¿Por la tarde, por la mañana o…? EUGENIA: Uh, gracias siempre lo hacía por el día. JOSÉ: ¿Por el día? EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: ¿Por qué no trabajaba la gente nueva en la recuerda? 3:47 EUGENIA: Porque así los sábados y los domingos. JOSÉ: ¿Y entonces viene todo el mundo? EUGENIA: Claro. JOSÉ: ¿Todo los hermanos? EUGENIA: Hermanos, primos, (pausa) gente vecinos, conocidos.. JOSÉ: ¿Viene a tu casa? EUGENIA: uh huh JOSÉ: Y, y, y ¿Don Juan daba catecismo? EUGENIA: Hice catecismo en mi casa. 4:14 JOSÉ: ¿Cruzaba Don Juan o dorible a veces? EUGENIA: Lo daba mi hermana. JOSÉ: Turilia, Julia. 4:20 EUGENIA: Y… uh huh. Y allí todo el mundo… JOSÉ: ¿Don Juan no le daba? EUGENIA: No. Mi papá no. Mi papá enseñaba a rezar, a rezar el rosario. JOSÉ: ¿Cómo le ensenaba rezar el rosario? EUGENIA: Pues, corriendo un rosario y rezando la cuenta. (risa) 4:38 JOSÉ: Rezando la cuenta de lo nuestro padre nuestro y lo … EUGENIA: Sí, lo padre nuestro y la JOSÉ Y EUGENIA JUNTOS: ave maría. JOSÉ: Okay, como… Rezando rosario… EUGENIA: mhm �JOSÉ: Entonces te… perdona momento. 4:51 JOSÉ: Entonces Don Juan Rodriguez Flores. No, Don Juan… EUGENIA: Cos JOSÉ: Cos. Don Juan Coderia Cos. Él le te… enseñaba el rosario. Pero él… entonces ¿reza este rosario con toda esa gente que viene a los sábados y eso? EUGENIA: Toda la tarde, todo la tarde 5:12. JOSÉ: Toda la tarde también rezarlo. EUGENIA: con nosotros JOSÉ: ¿Toda la tarde rezaba ______? 5:16 EUGENIA: Con la familia. JOSÉ: ¿Desde pequeña hasta vieja? 5:21 EUGENIA: Sí. JOSÉ: Rezaba una clase con Don Juan. 5:25 EUGENIA: Reuní, reuní a toda la familia… en la sala… para que todo el mundo rezar el santo rosario. Entonces, él guiaba el rosario, lo misterio, todo. Y por una vez era un muchacho también, mi hermano. Pues rezaba el rosario o ponía a que aprendieron. 5:56 JOSÉ: Porque era su turno. EUGENIA: uh huh JOSÉ: Así le enseñaba. EUGENIA: Sí. JOSÉ: Pero ese durante la semana, entonces a fin de semana, los fines semana… los sábados o domingos. 6:08 EUGENIA: Mhm, los domingos. JOSÉ: Los domingos ¿por la tarde o por la mañana? Porque llevan por la mañana de la iglesia ¿no? EUGENIA: Pues sí, entonces… (interrumpida) JOSÉ: ¿Todo el mundo va a iglesia? 6:18 EUGENIA: Sí, todo el mundo. Lo echaba el antecatedral. JOSÉ: Pertenece a la iglesia allí.. EUGENIA: obligat…. JOSÉ: allí de San Salvador. �EUGENIA: uh huh JOSÉ: (ambos hablan pero José es más fuerte) Porque ya en ese tiempo, vivían en San Salvador, ¿verdad? EUGENIA: Sí porque no había otro (interrumpida) JOSÉ: ¿encagua? EUGENIA: …otra enseñanza sí, solamente… 6:36 JOSÉ: ¿Solamente hay única iglesia que iba allí? EUGENIA: mhm. Una capilla, se llama capilla, no ante… JOSÉ: ¿No te recuerdas el nombre? EUGENIA: (pausa) Juan Bautista o algo, no sé, no me recuerdo. JOSÉ: ¿No recuerdas? EUGENIA: No recuerdo. JOSÉ: Entonces, ¿pero todo el mundo iba e vivían de lo Monte Dores? 6:59 (ríe) EUGENIA: Las personas que vivían en el barrio iban a mi casa al catecismo a la enseñanza religiosa. JOSÉ: O, entonces ¿van a tu casa y no van a casa de otra gente? EUGENIA: Iban también pero donde se rezaba y se enseñaba era en mi casa. JOSÉ: Sugieren bien conocido allí en la capilla. EUGENIA: Uh huh JOSÉ: Rodriguez allí. EUGENIA: Claro que sí. 7:29 JOSÉ: ¿Y los Jiménez no eran conocidos en la capilla? EUGENIA: No, no había un Jiménez. JOSÉ: (ríe) ¿Por qué tú dices que no había un Jiménez? EUGENIA: Porque no había. ____________ los Jiménez. 7:37 JOSÉ: ¿Por qué no iban a iglesia era? EUGENIA: Yo no sé pero los Jiménez eran a, lo, eh… 7:43 JOSÉ: Tiene que alguien, alguien tiene que ir a la iglesia de los Jiménez. EUGENIA: Sí, pero era en otro, en otro barrio. Barrio San Salvador pero Barrio San Salvador tiene mucho… JOSÉ: Entrada. 7:55 �EUGENIA: Uh huh, ochenta… JOSÉ: ¿Por qué era una capilla allí? EUGENIA: ¿Huh? JOSÉ: ¿Por qué era una capilla? EUGENIA: en la plaza de San Salvador… JOSÉ: Y tú que, ¿tú quieres decir que entonces los Jiménez no iban allá? 8:06 EUGENIA: Pues iban también pero yo no me recuerdo. JOSÉ: Pero ¿no se me entaba? 8:10 EUGENIA: ¿huh? JOSÉ: ¿No se me entaba mucho? EUGENIA: No me… (interrumpida) JOSÉ: En la iglesia… EUGENIA: Oh. JOSÉ: En la iglesia. (pausa) Okay. Ahora entiendo. Porque no hubiera la iglesia. 8:19 EUGENIA: Una capilla. JOSÉ: Una capilla. Ere sí, que sí los Jiménez por lo mental, era que no iba mucho. EUGENIA: Sí, yo iba mucho. Yo iba mucho. 8:27 JOSÉ: (ríe) Entonces okay. Pues está bien. Este… Solo Rodríguez y la gente vaya y daba catecismo. Entonces quien, ¿herman dima? (pausa) ¿Chom? 8:42 EUGENIA: Compadre______ estaba pequeño. JOSÉ: ¿Tal pequeño? EUGENIA: Medio lleva tres años. 8:48 JOSÉ: Okay. Por tal pequeño. EUGENIA: Mhm. JOSÉ: Pero entonces… (interrumpido) EUGENIA: Estaba Margaro. JOSÉ: ¿Margaro? 8:55 EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: ¿Ayudada a, a, a Don Juan? ¿ya Turilia? 9:01 �EUGENIA: Al catecismo. JOSÉ: Con catecismo. EUGENIA: No… JOSÉ: ¿Quién daba lo catecismo? 9:04 EUGENIA: Daba catecismo con Altolibria mi papá. Uh… y ___________ lo compadre de lo.. JOSÉ: ¿Danielle, (otros nombres no entiendo) 9:17 EUGENIA: Danielle. JOSÉ: ¿Y Danielle también? EUGENIA: Seguro. JOSÉ: Okay entonces ¿Iban a los que daban a eso? EUGENIA: Seguro. 9:26 JOSÉ: Ignacia. EUGENIA: Ignacia tuvo una muchacha. JOSÉ: ¿Una muchacha ya? EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: Okay. ¿Ya no daba el catecismo? EUGENIA: No. JOSÉ: ¿Prohibida a la iglesia? EUGENIA: Claro. Igual cataba en el catecismo estaba en mi casa. 9:40 JOSÉ: O, ¿lleva al catecismo? ¿Estaba allí? EUGENIA: Seguro. JOSÉ: Entonces ¿se llenaba la casa entonces? EUGENIA: Pues claro porque todo el mundo iba a mi casa, la casa de mi papá. JOSÉ: ¿De puede la iglesia? EUGENIA: Uh, de, sería como una segunda iglesia porque era reunían. 9:54 JOSÉ: ¿Y puede la iglesia se lleva a tu casa? EUGENIA: Uh huh. JOSÉ: ¿Y se hace algo de comer o algo o qué? EUGENIA: Sí, cocinaban… �JOSÉ: Todo el mundo, ¿todo el mundo traen cosa? EUGENIA: No, solo mi papá lleva. JOSÉ: Lo _________. 10:09 EUGENIA: Un poco anteria finca. JOSÉ: El tener una finca. ¿Grande? ¿Era necesita? EUGENIA: Sí. Tenía cinco cuerdas. JOSÉ: Cinco cuerdas. Era su modo de daba comida y eso.10:18 EUGENIA: Si, porque empleaba arroz y achuwela… JOSÉ: Entonces el pa, el sacerdote igual de la casa, ¿no? EUGENIA: El sacerdote va a casa confesal… JOSÉ: ¿Confesa la gente (Eugenia tosió) en su casa? EUGENIA: Uh huh, confesaba la gente en mi casa. JOSÉ: ¿Y en la iglesia no? EUGENIA: También pero cuando iba a… JOSÉ: ¿La gente pidió confesión? EUGENIA: Cuando iban para antes de comulgar pues confesaban lo que querían confesar. 10:44 JOSÉ: En la iglesia. EUGENIA: En la, uh huh. JOSÉ: Fue también pasaba y daba la vuelta para confesar ama. EUGENIA: Uh huh. JOSÉ: Okay entonces, te… a su… este gente confesaba para otra semana, entonces… Tienen que… EUGENIA: Le confesaban a eso para… antes de comulgar. Antes de comulgar… 11:03 JOSÉ: (interrumpe a Eugenia) Soltaba allí… pero como… si el padre, si el sacerdote confesar en la iglesia, ¿cómo va a confesar en la casa tuya también? EUGENIA: Pues confesaba lo que no podía ir a la iglesia porque viene enfermo y entonces a los enfermos confesaban en la casa. 11:21 JOSÉ: Oh ¿En la casa de ellos? EUGENIA: Seguro. JOSÉ: ¿Se daba la vuelta y regrese? EUGENIA: Seguro. �JOSÉ: ¿Iban los enfermos a tu casa? EUGENIA: Uh huh. Entonces llevo la comunión a los… JOSÉ: ¿a los enfermos y eso? EUGENIA: a los enfermos… sí. JOSÉ: ¿Y en este tiempo vea la carretera es cemento? 11:35 EUGENIA: No… camino. JOSÉ: ¿Camino? EUGENIA: (tos) uh huh JOSÉ: ¿Pero viene el padre con un caballo o auto? 11:43 EUGENIA: A caballo. JOSÉ: A caballo viene la… okay. Por allí en este tiempo. Y tiene JEEP también, ¿no? ¿Después? EUGENIA: Después, eso fue después, que yo me recuerdo bien. JOSÉ: Sí, pero en ese tiempo ¿no le recuerdas los sacerdotes de este tiempo? ¿El sacerdote? EUGENIA: Padre Otelio. Otelio. JOSÉ: Padre Otelio 12:04 EUGENIA: Otelio. (pausa) JOSÉ: Entonces, ¿él era puertorriqueño o americano? EUGENIA: Americano. Casi no sabía en hablar español. JOSÉ: (ríe) ¿Y la gente lo respetaba como quiera? EUGENIA: Pues claro. No llevan nada. JOSÉ: Pero era todo americano… EUGENIA: Todo americano. No había nada de que fueron… de puedes fue que… que aprendieron alguno puertorriqueño. Él salvieron así sacerdote y esa cosa tuvieron porque su tiene que tener un estudio y entonces como era un pobre, no podía… no podía ir a los sitios donde era el estudio por San Juan o por eso sitio. JOSÉ: Mm okay. Y entonces ¿allí aprendiste como, como esa cosa, aprendiste de catecismo? 12:58 EUGENIA: Pues aprendí en mi casa, se hablaba de catecismo… y se rezaba. Y catecismo era para aprender los mandamientos, los sacramentos, los siete sacramentos y los mandamientos de la iglesia. JOSÉ: Okay bueno, pero entonces fue también aprendiste… porque tú también hacía este… se le sobaba la gente con aceite y eso ¿de verdad? �EUGENIA: uh… JOSÉ y EUGENIA hablan a la misma vez. 13:25 JOSÉ: a mí sobaba .. EUGENIA: Solo me aprendí JOSÉ: _____ de aceite. 13:29 EUGENIA: Con mi papá. JOSÉ: (ríe) ¿Con tu papá también lo hacía? EUGENIA: Seguro. JOSÉ: ¿Juan? 13:33 EUGENIA: Seguro que sí. JOSÉ: ¿Estás seguro no era bien católico patólico? EUGENIA: Pero eso, eso es una cosa que es cates… eh ¿católico? Daba una soba a una persona. Él como yo ahora como __________ y eso no tiene nada que ver. 13:51 JOSÉ: Soba a una pero cuando se, cuando le mete aceite. EUGENIA: Voy a aceite, la aceite a para que revelar la mano… puedo corregir los músculos de la mano y desde lugar. JOSÉ: O, el aceite… el aceite… (interrumpido) EUGENIA: Tapa para que… la vena. JOSÉ: Revale la, la, la mano y eso. 14:14 EUGENIA: Seguro que sí. JOSÉ: Entonces, pero entonces, pero también rezaba a los santos… la… EUGENIA: Pues todo el tiempo los católicos rezan a los santos. JOSÉ: Okay. EUGENIA: Porque todo el tiempo se les rezan… Porque ¿a quién más rezan? JOSÉ: ¿A qué santo le rezaba en este tiempo? 14:32 EUGENIA: A la Virgen María. Porque la virgen María pues (interrumpida) JOSÉ: ¿La virgen de Carmen? ¿La virgen de Carmen? EUGENIA: La virgen de Carmen, la virgen de… La virgen María la principal. JOSÉ: Sí, okay. 14:44 �EUGENIA: Entonces, después eso eh… se le pone el nombre según el lugar donde estaba o donde apareció. 14:53. JOSÉ: Okay. EUGENIA: Sí el monte Carbarrio, el monte, el monte Carmelo usa, se dice la virgen de Carmen. JOSÉ: ¿Porque había un monte Carmelo? EUGENIA: Eh.. JOSÉ: ¿En San Lorenzo? EUGENIA: Monte Carbarrio, seguro. JOSÉ: ¿En San Lorenzo había un monte Carmelo? 15:09 EUGENIA: uh huh JOSÉ: Entonces ¿se puso la virgen de Carmen? EUGENIA: __________ según el pueblito, según la fecha que aparece. 15:18 JOSÉ: Sí. Entonces se rezan a la virgen pero entonces ¿rezan a la virgen de, de otro sitio? EUGENIA: Seguro. JOSÉ: La aparición otro sitio. 15:28 EUGENIA: La Guadalupe, como en México. JOSÉ: Como México la Guadalupe, sí. EUGENIA: Mhm. JOSÉ: Okay ahora entiendo. Entonces te (pausa) pero (pausa) pero a veces una ejercito para pagarse en la lotería también, ¿no? 15:43 EUGENIA: Alguna gente, alguna gente… JOSÉ: Mhm. EUGENIA: …que no entiende lo que son las cosas de Dios. Pues le pide en eso y tal aprenden bella. JOSÉ: Depende… (Hablan a la misma vez.) ¿Aprenden bella también? EUGENIA: Para que Gonzela. 15:57 JOSÉ: ya EUGENIA: Cuando no le dice una promesa de tal, de vestirme de sac. JOSÉ: Mhm 16:05 EUGENIA: Si me dame esto. Ella no puede darse dio no le da. JOSÉ: Pero… �EUGENIA: Pero la ignorancia, ¿verdad? JOSÉ: Entonces ¿tú debes vestirte de sac o una vez también de otro bese por allí en Chicago? EUGENIA: Cinco que… Seguro… eh… porque lo que vale él el penitencia y y y como la gente se ríe y uno lo cuelga de broma ¿verdad? Tiene que uno cuelgo de broma porque la gente no sabe, no sabe de eso. JOSÉ: ¿Cómo yo no hablo de eso? 16:33 EUGENIA: Entienden. JOSÉ: Yo sé, yo no sé. pero tú con ________________ respetua 16:42 EUGENIA: uh huh JOSÉ: Okay, yo sé que te vestiste de, como saco de, de (interrumpido) EUGENIA: Hmm, había un hábito. JOSÉ: Un, un hábito EUGENIA: Sí JOSÉ: Un hábito. Y entonces ¿por qué forque de vestirte de esta manera? 16:53 EUGENIA: Yo no… (interrumpida) JOSÉ: ¿En Chicago en la Dayton? EUGENIA: Yo no me recuerdo bien pero fue por al, por al, por algo que (pausa) que yo quería recibir. Y la única forma era ser una penitencia. Pero no me recuerdo, no me recuerdo… JOSÉ: ¿Nada que ver conmigo, con papi, nada eso? 17:16 EUGENIA: Bueno sí porque casi siempre era por tu papá. (risa pequeña) JOSÉ: Pero ¿por qué era de mi papá? ¿De Antonio? EUGENIA: Para que dejar el vicio toman… JOSÉ: ¿Tiene un vicio tomare? 17:25 EUGENIA: mhm. JOSÉ: Y entonces… okay ¿él quiere dejar el vicio o quería dejar el vicio? EUGENIA: El no quería dejarlo porque se daba con todos los primos y todo. 17:37 JOSÉ: _______ vieja EUGENIA: esachua vieja 17:39 JOSÉ: ¿Y tú quieres dejar a eso? EUGENIA: Yo quería dejar todo eso. Pero no dejaba. 17:46 �JOSÉ: Entonces no lo hecho por un año. Vestiste de un saco. EUGENIA: Vestido de hábito también fue… JOSÉ: Le digo eso porque la gente en la comunidad te veían. 17:59 EUGENIA: uh huh JOSÉ: Y dice, “que le pasa esa señora.” Y … ¿y cómo quiera seguir con, con la promesa? EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: ¿Por qué era penitencia? EUGENIA: Era una penitencia. JOSÉ: Okay. Y y que… ¿yo te parece lleva así? EUGENIA: ¿Cómo? 18:10 JOSÉ: Igual ______________ ¿Por qué era una penitencia, okay? EUGENIA: Un sacrificio __________ un sacrificio _________deseo que tu tenga ropa bonita y todo y no te puedes poner por cierto tiempo. (pausa) ¿Por qué? Porque mandate la promesa vestirte de esa forma. Y él no puede _______ otra ropa sino la ropa que tú dijiste que te vas a poner. JOSÉ: ¿Por un año? EUGENIA: Sí, por un año. JOSÉ: Por un año (hablan a la misma vez) EUGENIA: año, dos años JOSÉ: Okay, ¿pero por un año andate? 18:45 EUGENIA: ¿huh? JOSÉ: Por un año andante por la Dayton. EUGENIA: uh huh JOSÉ: En un saco que de San Francis de Assisi. EUGENIA: uh huh JOSÉ: ¿Parecido a eso? EUGENIA: Seguro JOSÉ: Con el colon por el lado. EUGENIA: ____________ 18:57 JOSÉ: Eso se le pone en la, en la.. EUGENIA y JOSÉ JUNTOS: la cabeza �JOSÉ: y todo eso EUGENIA: Sí. JOSÉ: Se parecía el saco de San Francia de Assisi. 19:05 EUGENIA: Pues claro tiene que ser la… (interrumpida) JOSÉ: Eso fue… ¿Eso fue por Antonio Jiménez para que dejarle la vida? EUGENIA: Dejarle la vida. JOSÉ: ¿Entonces no la dejó? EUGENIA: La dejó un tiempo como seis meses y_____ volvió otra vez. 19:18 JOSÉ: ¿Por qué… (interrumpido) EUGENIA: Pero no tanto. JOSÉ: Pero ¿tú le estaba diciendo implicando que era por eso? EUGENIA: uh huh JOSÉ: Porque te preguntaba que _______ era así 19:26 Tú le diste __________ vivida. EUGENIA: JOSÉ: Yo no decía _______ promesa dice que dijera. 19:33 Un promesa que hiciste menos sabía. EUGENIA: menos sabía___________ 19:38 JOSÉ: So entonces (pausa) ¿Fue en este tiempo que existe el catecismo? ¿Con los muchachos de la, del barrio hay de Lincoln Park? EUGENIA: (pausa) um… (pausa) JOSÉ: Organizado como un grupo de un muchacho. ¿Recuerdas eso o no? EUGENIA: Más o menos para eso tiempo. (pausa) Igual como yo estaba… en el grupo de las Damas de María, entre las Damas de María. 20:12 JOSÉ: ¿En San Miguel? EUGENIA: uh huh JOSÉ: St. Michael’s church allá. ¿Con el padre…? EUGENIA: ¿He, Hedling? JOSÉ: Hedling. Father Hedling. EUGENIA: Hedling. JOSÉ: Era de la Dama de María para el padre Catherine. ¿Quién era él? EUGENIA: ¿Padre Cartel? �JOSÉ: También. EUGENIA: Padre Hedling, los dos. 20:29 JOSÉ: Okay. ¿En la iglesia de San Miguel? EUGENIA: En la iglesia San Miguel. JOSÉ: Okay en la Cleveland y Eugene por allí, ¿no? en Chicago EUGENIA: Sí. 20:36 JOSÉ: Okay entonces, eh, okay entonces (pausa) Porque estabas en la Dama de Mared, ¿cómo era las Damas de María? EUGENIA: Pues eso (interrumpida) JOSÉ: ¿Qué es eso? EUGENIA: El nombre de dama de María. JOSÉ: ¿Y quién estaba contigo? EUGENIA: Había un grupo tanto grande. JOSÉ: ¿Pero quién estaba? EUGENIA: Yo no me recuerdo ahora. 21:00 JOSÉ: Estaba Glo, ¿Glotilde? EUGENIA: ¡No! Ya no _______ JOSÉ: ¿Esa no? 21:04 EUGENIA: No. JOSÉ: ¿Estaba Marta? EUGENIA: ¿________ Marta? Yo no creo, no recuerdo tampoco. 21:10 JOSÉ: ¿Estaba Calito? ¿Cómo se llama? EUGENIA: Uh huh. JOSÉ: ¿Ina? EUGENIA: ________ JOSÉ: ¿Cómo se llama? ¿Ina o algo así? EUGENIA: ¿Cómo? 21:19 JOSÉ: ¿Cómo Ina o ella? Calito ____________ posa. EUGENIA: mmm �JOSÉ: ¿Quién estaba _____ ahora? EUGENIA: (grande pausa) Yo digo estaba Patria. JOSÉ: Patria, okay. EUGENIA: Estaba… hmm… (risa) No me recuerdo. JOSÉ: Pero estaba Patria contigo. EUGENIA: Sí, Patria estaba, yo sé. Ese me recuerdo pero no me recuerdo bien. JOSÉ: ¿Y y Nini no estaba? EUGENIA: ¿Quién? JOSÉ: ¿Cristina Nini? 21:51 EUGENIA: No _____________ JOSÉ y EUGENIA hablan a la misma vez. EUGENIA: Nunca ______. JOSÉ: Okay entonces pero yo creo que Glota estaba allí en la San Miguel. Pues estaba allí… yo sé que estaba allí en, en el número nueve. 22:03 EUGENIA: No, pero sí Glota todavía no estaba. JOSÉ: Ooh, Monin. Monin estaba. EUGENIA: Monin Jiménez, sí. JOSÉ: Monin Jiménez estaba en la, en la San Miguel. EUGENIA: uh huh JOSÉ: Y entonces la hija de, la esposa de Medego ¿Cómo se llamó? 22:18 EUGENIA: uh… JOSÉ: ¿Ella estaba? EUGENIA: ¿eh? JOSÉ: ¿Ella estaba? EUGENIA: Sí. (pausa) Ay, se me olvidó. Era como madre mía. Se me olvidó. JOSÉ: Okay. EUGENIA: (pausa) No me recuerdo. JOSÉ: Pero era de Merdego. EUGENIA: Sí. (interrumpida) �JOSÉ: ¿Y no era caldito? ¿Era caldito? EUGENIA: ¿huh? JOSÉ: ¿Él era caldito? ¿Moreno? EUGENIA: Él era caldicho. JOSÉ: ¿Sí? EUGENIA: Y había otro santiti 22:47 JOSÉ: Oh Titi Francisco, eso Francisco. EUGENIA: Francisco. JOSÉ: Entonces ¿le puso estaba él? ¿Allí en la dama? 22:52 EUGENIA: Sí porque la, la, la esposa… JOSÉ: Porque ¿Titi estaba no echaría también? 22:59 EUGENIA: uh huh JOSÉ: (risa) ¿So la, la esposa de estaba en la dama de María? 23:03 EUGENIA: Sí. JOSÉ: Creo que Titi estaba Francisco. 23:05 EUGENIA: Sí. JOSÉ: Sí… EUGENIA: (pausa) Eh que, son tantos los años que uno… JOSÉ: Sí. Yo entiendo. Pero había un grupito allí y entonces ¿qué hacía ____________ la dama de María allí en San Miguel? 23:17 EUGENIA: Pues, hacía no actividades. JOSÉ: ¿De qué, qué clase? EUGENIA: Y nos dio comida. JOSÉ: ¿Dieron comida? EUGENIA: mhm. JOSÉ: ¿Arroz chuela? 23:26 EUGENIA: Lo que apareciera. (risa) JOSÉ: ¿Lo que apareciera a pa de? ¿Pader y todo eso? 23:31 EUGENIA: Todo _____________ �JOSÉ: ¿Y donde lo vendían? EUGENIA: Ellos me lo ___________ el hall. JOSÉ: ¿En el hall? O ¿había un hall? 23:39 EUGENIA: Sí, entonces está locura con ella. JOSÉ: ¿Con ella? EUGENIA: (está riendo) 23:43 JOSÉ: Pero entonces ¿La misa estaba en el hall o en la capilla? EUGENIA: En el hall. JOSÉ: ¿En el hall? EUGENIA: En un salón en la mesa. 23:52 JOSÉ: Con el, oh cuatro treinta tres de la Eugene, era el hall. Yo creo que apuntes eso bien. EUGENIA: hm JOSÉ: Yo creo que fue corto __________ de los Eugenes. Bueno. ¿Allí cerca de la Cleveland al lado de la iglesia? 24:08 EUGENIA: Mhm. JOSÉ: So entonces, ¿por qué se reunió en el hall y no en la capilla? EUGENIA: Porque eso era, uh, porque era un poquito. JOSÉ: Okay. 24:22 EUGENIA: Y entonces pues… Como era un poquito, eh.. JOSÉ: ¿Pero el hall se llenaba? 24:32 EUGENIA: ¿Huh? JOSÉ: Era poquito pero ¿el hall se llenaba? Había como dosci… (interrumpido) EUGENIA: Sí, se llenaba y pues, entonces pasa por la iglesia. JOSÉ: ¿Pudo pasar a la iglesia después? EUGENIA: Sí. 24:42 JOSÉ: Empezaron en el hall. EUGENIA: Uh huh, empezamos en el hall. Y como les daba tu sabes propina a la Baroque. 24:51 JOSÉ: ¿Se daba propina también? EUGENIA: Seguro. �JOSÉ: (risa) ¿Sí? (risa) EUGENIA: Porque darle uno a eso. JOSÉ: Okay. Porque de _________ 25:03 EUGENIA: (risa) JOSÉ: ¿Qué no querían era o qué? EUGENIA: No porque como eso era desconocido. Eso le dar (pausa) esa clase así eso era algo desconocido para ellos para Baroque. Pero cuando vieron como los, los puertorriqueños, o sea las Damas de María y los caballeros de San Juan. Esas cosas se trabajaba en conjunto. Para el sacerdote se pusieron muy contento. 25:32 JOSÉ: Al principio no entendían. EUGENIA: No entendían. JOSÉ: Le da miedo. Le da miedo. EUGENIA: No era miedo, era algo como desconocido para ellos que no entendían. El porqué la eso. 25:45 JOSÉ: _____________ EUGENIA: Cuando, cuando vieron, el churro Rodriguez era encargado. 25:51 JOSÉ: ¿Eso Rodriguez? ¿Pudo encargado allí? EUGENIA: uh, él, él, él… le fue diciendo __________ Pablo entonces. 26:01 JOSÉ: Otro edad. EUGENIA: Seguro. JOSÉ: Okay. EUGENIA: Entonces (interrumpida) 26:05 JOSÉ: ¿So Pablo tiene el importante allí? EUGENIA: To, todo lo, todo ese grupo, los caballeros de San Juan… JOSÉ: Los caballeros de San Juan, okay. EUGENIA: Eran importante ya. 26:14 JOSÉ: Miguel Chebre EUGENIA: Sí. JOSÉ: Y Cesario… Rivera o algo así. Cesario Rivera. EUGENIA: mhm �JOSÉ: César, César. EUGENIA: César JOSÉ: de revueldo es César. 26:23 EUGENIA: Más o menos yo veo ya no me recuerdo. (risa) JOSÉ: Okay. Pero Pablo tiene edad se esa Miguel Chebre EUGENIA: y… No cuanto… 26:37 JOSÉ: Roman… tu hermano Roman también era importante, ¿no? Era conocido, ¿eh? EUGENIA: Después, sí. JOSÉ: ¿Él predicaba? 26:45 EUGENIA: Seguro porque, que… No siguieron conociendo. Y la Baroque hace el sacerdote… Se dieron cuenta la necesidad que había poca porque había niño, había… sabe… era un grupo grande. Entonces se dieron cuenta que había… Y entonces se dieron. Pero cuales, se empezó en un hall y pues cambiaron a la iglesia. JOSÉ: Okay ¿dijeron que había un grupo grande y se llenó esta iglesia? 27:22 EUGENIA: Sí. JOSÉ: ¿Se llenó la iglesia entonces? EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: Entonces ¿pero su fue el primer año que luciera hiciera __________? 27:31 EUGENIA: Como dos años. JOSÉ: Fue dos años la misa en la capilla. EUGENIA: Mhm. JOSÉ: Entonces allí… Entonces tú… durante este tiempo, porque empieza allí en la San Miguel con la dama y eso. Entonces ¿decidiste tu misma hacer el grupo de catecismo? ¿O te mandaron hacerlo? 27:53 EUGENIA: Porque ya, yo creo que este Chur Rodrigo o algo había empezado y como sabían que yo sabía también. Pues yo seguí haciendo el grupo de Damas de María. 28:10 JOSÉ: La Dama de María, ¿trabajaste en eso? EUGENIA: Yo trabajé en eso. JOSÉ: ¿En Dama de María en San Miguel, en San Miguel? EUGENIA: En San Miguel. JOSÉ: Pero entonces… pero entonces te hablan… pero… entonces ¿fue… ______ mucha allí voluntaria en la Dama de María? �EUGENIA: Claro que sí. JOSÉ: ¿En San Miguel? 28:30 EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: Pero ¿Quién era la líder? ¿Quién era? EUGENIA: ¿Cómo? JOSÉ: De las mujeres, ¿quién era, había una líder, quién era la presidente? ¿Eso no sabe? EUGENIA: No me recuerdo. JOSÉ: Okay. ¿Pero tú no eras la presenta? EUGENIA: No. JOSÉ: ¿Tú trabajabas voluntaria? EUGENIA: Yo trabajaba voluntaria. JOSÉ: Okay entonces… (pausa) ¿Cómo decidiste hacer el grupo de catecismo en la Dayton? ¿Y vuelvo en la Dayton? ______se queda la vuelvo. 28:56 EUGENIA: Porque ya echurro Rodriguez lo formó. Entonces pues codieron la persona que podría ser dando catecismo. 29:06 JOSÉ: O, ¿él formó lo grupo de catecismo? EUGENIA: Uh huh. JOSÉ: Entonces ¿tú fuiste, tú decidiste hacerlo en otra casa? EUGENIA: Seguro. JOSÉ: ____Se reunió con la gente ______ pasarle el grupo de catecismo. EUGENIA: Seguro que sí. 29:17 JOSÉ: Entonces ¿que mataban catecismo este tiempo? EUGENIA: No me recuerdo. JOSÉ: ¿Pero habían man mujeres? EUGENIA: mam mujeres o … JOSÉ: ¿O y hombre? ¿Daba catecismo en la casa? 29:29 EUGENIA: Pues no, no, no, _________ lo cambiaron a, cuando los caballeros de San Juan… JOSÉ: No estoy hablando de la misa, estoy hablando de… tú recuerdas (interrumpido) EUGENIA: Pero el caballero de San Juan empezaron por el… viendo por la casa tocándolo la gente. 29:48 JOSÉ: ¿Cómo viendo, tocaba en la puerta? �EUGENIA: Pues seguro. Donde quiere _________ cuando era puertorriqueño, pues habían hablaban de la religión. JOSÉ: ¿Y le tocaban la puerta? EUGENIA: Entonces, pues claro tocaba la puerta porque donde cuando vineron puertorriqueño. 30:04 JOSÉ: Allí (interrumpido) EUGENIA: Querían venir a la misa, querían iglesia, no sabe. 30:08 JOSÉ: Y entonces ¿allí viene a la misa? EUGENIA: Pues claro que sí. JOSÉ: ¿Y entonces pero se daba el rosario en la casa y eso también? 30:14 EUGENIA: Bueno, por regular haya que persona que, que rezaba el santo rosario por rezaba el rosario. Y alguna persona que quiere unirse pues unía a rosario si no pues… Uno deseo que uno rezaba. 30:32 JOSÉ: Entonces ¿tú rezabas en casa como así? EUGENIA: Claro. Yo rezaba en casa. JOSÉ: Okay, entonces los caballeros San Juan y eso así, ¿qué clase de actividades hicieron allí en San Miguel? Que tú te recuerdas. EUGENIA: Bueno… (pausa) Lo más era se vendía comida. 30:51 JOSÉ: ¿Comida? EUGENIA: A la misma gente. 30:53 JOSÉ: ¿Le puede la misa? EUGENIA: Le puede la misa… JOSÉ: ¿En el gimnasio? EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: ¿Había un gimnasio grande? EUGENIA: En el hall. JOSÉ: ¿En el hall? O ¿vendía comida allí en el hall? 31:04 EUGENIA: Pues claro. Así cocinaba, cocinaba y vendían la comida a la gente. Jugaba el Bingo. 31:12 JOSÉ: ¿Después de la misa? EUGENIA: Seguro. No enternía no hay. 31:19 JOSÉ: Pero ¿Bingo en inglés o Bingo en español? EUGENIA: En Español. �JOSÉ: ¿Se pueden jugar lotería en español? 31:22 EUGENIA: Pues claro. No era malo. JOSÉ: Pero ¿no era por dinero? EUGENIA: ____Eso para condigo____ 31:30 (Ríen juntos) Echaba el bosillo así, yo calleito. JOSÉ: (ríe) Siguiendo la lotería así en la sala. EUGENIA: Seguro. JOSÉ: ¿A las condiciones… (interrumpido) EUGENIA: Cuando la persona se ganaba _______ dos, tres, lo que fuera. Pues, todos miraban y miraban ________________y pasaban el dinero. 31:50 JOSÉ: ¿Allá en la memhall o en la memiglesia también? EUGENIA: En la iglesia, no es posible en el hall. 31:55 JOSÉ: ¿En el hall? (ambos ríen) ¿So era después de la misa? 32:05 EUGENIA: Pues, antes de la misa para que cosa era. JOSÉ: Sí. Habla de… (interrumpido) EUGENIA: Había un día para eso. Había un día para eso. JOSÉ: Y entonces ¿la gente lo hace en galleito? 32:11 EUGENIA: Pues claro. JOSÉ: ¿Sí? (ríe) EUGENIA: No es algo publicar 32:15 JOSÉ: Sí. ¿No se publicaban en la iglesia y tampoco no se publicado en __hijeria también _______________. 32:22 (interrumpido) EUGENIA: Sí, así. JOSÉ: ¿Publicaba en el número en el ______ también? EUGENIA: Uh huh. No, yo creo que no, yo no sé. JOSÉ: Yo, yo oí que decían este… hay hay hay pantalones sin cuenta, hay camisa. EUGENIA: Más o menos, más o menos. 32:40 JOSÉ: Así en el ejaria, ¿no? 32:41 EUGENIA: Uh huh. JOSÉ: ¿Solo ______cholocatón______? EUGENIA: Seguro. 32:41 �JOSÉ: (ríe) Yo me recuerdo eso. EUGENIA: Uh huh. JOSÉ: Porque yo me recuerdo de eso porque _______ estaba que tiene la ganga esta semana. 32:52 (ríen) El número ____________ EUGENIA: Número nueve JOSÉ: ________________ EUGENIA: Pero yo no me recuerdo. 32:58 JOSÉ: Entonces, okay… Okay entonces este (pausa) Okay. So hacían eso, jugaban lotería. Y entonces, esta… (pausa) jugaban lotería… y entonces… ¿No había un baile, no tiraban un baile? 33:18 EUGENIA: Sí, hacían baile. JOSÉ: ¿A dónde tienen un baile? EUGENIA: (pausa) En el hall. 33:30 JOSÉ: ¿Gimnasio? ¿Era un gimnasio? EUGENIA: Sí. JOSÉ: ¿Grande? Entonces ¿llamaré como también traen comida al gimnasio? EUGENIA: Pues claro. Era el propósito de hacer el baile para vender comida. JOSÉ: Okay. 33:39 EUGENIA: Entonces _____________ se pagaba el hall y se pagaba el hall y (interrumpida) JOSÉ: ¿O, tiene que pagar el hall? 33:44 EUGENIA: Claro. JOSÉ: (pausa) Este… (pausa) Entonces te (pausa) Okay, entonces tiraban el baile y eso y entonces ¿Qué otra actividades haciendo los caballeros de San Juan y las Damas de María? EUGENIA: Hacían el baile. JOSÉ: Okay. EUGENIA: Que yo me recuerdo el baile. JOSÉ: (hablan a la misma vez) Pero iban, ¿iban mucha gente al baile? 34:14 EUGENIA: Sí, iban mucho. JOSÉ: Pero entonces ¿la gente bailaban bien o eran cosas sencillas que no era _________? EUGENIA: Yo no recuerdo bien eso. Bailaban. 34:23 JOSÉ: Pero ¿todo el mundo baila como chachacha o el salsa? �EUGENIA: Era otra cosa. Igueleros 34:28 JOSÉ: ¿Igueleros y otra cosa? EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: Y entonces pero ¿llevan gente que bailaban bien? Me conocido de Churro o de José bailaban… EUGENIA: Bailaban todo ellos. 34:44 JOSÉ: Chacha. ¿Bailaban todos ellos bien? EUGENIA: Sí bailaban bien por lo comienzo (ríe) bien pero… JOSÉ: Sí. 34:46 EUGENIA: Bailaban, bailaban. JOSÉ: ¿Pero todo el mundo se llenaba el gimnasio? 34:49 EUGENIA: Seguro que sí. Habí, uh, iba mucho. JOSÉ: Y la música. ¿Era de radio o qué? 34:55 EUGENIA: A veces…tocaban cuatro guitarras. JOSÉ: ¿Sí, tocaban a eso? 35:02 EUGENIA: Y acordeón. JOSÉ: ¿Y acordeón y eso? EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: ¿Y banda de conjunto y eso? EUGENIA: No me recuerdo hace muchos años. Ya no me recuerdo. 35:13 JOSÉ: Entonces ¿las damas iban y cocinaban en la cocina? EUGENIA: Nosotros nos tocaban la tarea de cocinar. JOSÉ: ¿Damas, las mujeres, las damas? EUGENIA: Ah huh. JOSÉ: Entonces pero ¿los caballeros trabajaban también, no? EUGENIA: Pues claro. (interrumpida) 35:25 JOSÉ: ¿Qué hacían los caballeros? Las mujeres cocinaban… ¿Qué hacían los hombres? EUGENIA: Pues… llevaban las cosas porque nosotras cocinaban. JOSÉ: ¿Los cargaron y eso? EUGENIA: mhm �JOSÉ: ¿Y limpiaban y eso? EUGENIA: Todo el mundo limpiaba. Los hombres, mujeres, todos. Había que dejar el lugar limpio. 35:47. JOSÉ: Okay, entonces ¿tener que pagar la renta también de la iglesia? EUGENIA: Claro que sí. Claro que sí. JOSÉ: ¿Es una grátin? ¿Tiene que _______ a la iglesia? 35:56 EUGENIA: mhm. Era para la iglesia. JOSÉ: Bueno para la iglesia pero también para los caballeros, ¿no? 36:03 EUGENIA: Mhm. JOSÉ: So era ___participa__________ 36:06 EUGENIA: Para los caballeros para seguir adelante, entonces para seguir compando aquí por cosa de… 36:15 JOSÉ: ¿Cómo equipo? EUGENIA: Pues… (pausa) Si necesitaban una guitarra, un patro o algo. JOSÉ: ¿De lo compraban de su mismo? 36:25 EUGENIA: Mhm. JOSÉ: Entonces, ___se daba presto________ dieron. EUGENIA: No sé. 36:31 JOSÉ: Okay. EUGENIA: La cosa que era así así para… para ayudar a la iglesia. JOSÉ: Okay. ¿De San Miguel? EUGENIA: Y para que ellos no se dejaron esta actividad. JOSÉ: Okay. EUGENIA: Eso era como pagando a la Baroque para que dejara… JOSÉ: ¿Para que dejara hacerlo? EUGENIA: Ah huh. 36:50 JOSÉ: Porque lo pagaban no podían hacer si no tenían dinero. EUGENIA: Seguro. JOSÉ: No lo podían hacer. EUGENIA: Pues no se podían. 36:56 �JOSÉ: ¿Tienen pagar genta? EUGENIA: Mhm. JOSÉ: Entonces no había, bueno, hay dinero. Entonces, ¿no se hace, no de la misa tampoco? EUGENIA: No, la misa siempre la esa misa ________ estaba ofrenda. JOSÉ: Sí. 37:13 EUGENIA: Entonces se ofrenda para los sacerdotes. JOSÉ: Entonces este… ¿Habían otros actividades, también, verdad? EUGENIA: Sí, después siguieron hacer actividades… JOSÉ: ¿Qué tip…? ¿Pero qué otro tipo de actividades? 37:30 EUGENIA: No me recuerdo. JOSÉ: ¿No había _______ y eso? EUGENIA: Sí, ha ______ retiro. JOSÉ: ¿Cómo era esa de _________? De que tú recuerdas de eso. EUGENIA: Pues iban…. que predicaban … _________ retiro y predicaban. JOSÉ: Me dijeron que ¿iban en corbata y todo eso? 37:53 ¿Y trae? ¿A predicá y eso? ¿Se vistieron bien? EUGENIA: Sí, claro, seguro que sí. JOSÉ: La gente viene bien como la iglesia … en el domingo. EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: ¿Con corbata y todo eso? ¿Y zapato limpio? 38:12 EUGENIA: Claro. Pues claro ________________________ 38:11 Seguro, un día de que llevar zapato y todo. JOSÉ: Okay. ¿Y había bastante gente entonces ya? ¿Se llenó eso? 38:22 EUGENIA: Sí. JOSÉ: Bien, había estado una misa en español me dijeron en la capilla, ¿no? EUGENIA: ¿Cómo? JOSÉ: ¿Habían dos misas en español en la capilla? EUGENIA: Sí, después… según fuera porque los puertorriqueños, los latinos, todo, americanos también, todos. Cubanos, todos, iban solo los católicos. Iban los católicos. (pausa) Pues, dar misa español solo lo que quería. Entonces los iban. Se llenaba la iglesia. 38:58 JOSÉ: Okay entonces, ¿también había una para muerte y pasión de Jesucristo? ¿Qué hacia? �EUGENIA: También se hacía eso. JOSÉ: ¿Qué hacía? 39:11 EUGENIA: Pues, todos predicaban. JOSÉ: ¿Predicaban? Pero también ¿había un teatro o algo así que había? ¿Una obra, se dice? 39:25 EUGENIA: Había una obra pero había tantos los años que no me recuerda ni como era. JOSÉ: ¿La misma gente no participaba en la obra? EUGENIA: Escogían persona que va a poner… si daba la vuelta pasión tiene que escoger unas mujeres que lloraban la muerte de Cristo. Entonces cosa. Y una hacía una cosa y una hacía otra. 39:53 JOSÉ: ¿Y algún eran soldados? EUGENIA: Todo, habían que ______ según una, según plaza la muerte de pasión de Jesucristo. _______ así. JOSÉ: ¿Y cómo se veía eso? ¿Bien organizado o cómo? 40:06 EUGENIA: Primero había bien organizado y __________ tienen que hacerlo. JOSÉ: ¿Tiene que hacer actuar? EUGENIA: Actuar, uh huh. JOSÉ: Okay. ¿Entonces invitan de igual?… ¿Se parece como una película? EUGENIA: Como más o menos. Estaba tal bien, bien hecho. 40:24 JOSÉ: ¿Y venía mucha gente? EUGENIA: Claro. JOSÉ: ¿A verlo? EUGENIA: Claro. JOSÉ: ¿Era en el gimnasio? (gran pausa) Yo me recuerdo que estaba eso. EUGENIA: Mhm JOSÉ: Entonces ¿__________________ mataron a Jesucristo? EUGENIA: Todo soltaban, soltaban. JOSÉ: ¿A saltaban a Jesucristo? EUGENIA: Así a soltaban y se veía como soltando pero no le daban. 40:47 JOSÉ: ¿Cómo tu sentía? EUGENIA: ¿Huh? JOSÉ: ¿Cuando veía eso, todos saltando a Jesucristo? �EUGENIA: Que una, que haya una persona que… (Pausa) ¿Cómo se dice? que recuerda todo lo que Cristo sufrió por nosotros _____ duele. Le duele la verdad. 41:10 JOSÉ: ¿Lo sentiste? EUGENIA: No siente eso y por eso no … uno sienta JOSÉ: Con más fe. 41:21 EUGENIA: ¿Huh? JOSÉ: ¿Con más fe? EUGENIA: Porque uno tenga más fe. JOSÉ: Porque hay gente que iba a la iglesia pero en este tiempo no solo iba a la iglesia. Tenía esa obra… También la gente vuelta en las bailes. EUGENIA: En todo. 41:40 JOSÉ: ¿Había ________ o para levantar la gente mano? EUGENIA: Seguro que sí. JOSÉ: ¿Soltaba como la comunidad completa la vuelta? EUGENIA: Como una comunidad, una comunidad… JOSÉ: ¿Iban puerta por puerta? ____________ EUGENIA: Sí, avisaban y… y… todos íbanos se llevaban papelitos y se ponían… (interrumpida) JOSÉ: O, a suelta. Le daba en la casa. 42:02 EUGENIA: Claro que sí. JOSÉ: ¿Todo el mundo puede ir a la misa, iba a hacer eso? EUGENIA: Uh huh. JOSÉ: ¿Invitan más gente para la iglesia? EUGENIA: Pues claro que sí. JOSÉ: ¿So era como hacen lo, lo… a bendita iba por casa a casa y eso? EUGENIA: Sí, porque ir casa por casa rizando porque eso era nuevo. Eso no era… que hacía antes. Entonces cuando uno iba… JOSÉ: ¿Para llenar la iglesia? 42:31 EUGENIA: Para llenar la iglesia. JOSÉ: ¿Llenar el hall para que...? (interrumpido) EUGENIA: Pues llenaba a la iglesia, se llenaba... �JOSÉ: ¿Entonces había muchos puertorriqueños en este tiempo? 42:41 EUGENIA: Sí, no allí iban también mexicanos y cubanos. Todos los latinos, los latinos. JOSÉ: Okay. (pausa) ¿Y se llenaba la iglesia de San Miguel? EUGENIA: Uh huh. Y a los americanos, los americanos que estaban asociados a los puertorriqueños, tú sabes que conocían y _______ como los puertorriqueños. Pues también iban. 43:04 JOSÉ: ¿Con los puertorriqueños? EUGENIA: Mhm, claro. JOSÉ: So ¿entonces así fue que se logró la misa? 43:10 EUGENIA: Así fue. JOSÉ: (Se aclaró su voz) Entonces eso fue como... ¿No te recuerdas los años? ¿58, 59? EUGENIA: mm JOSÉ: ¿61, por ahí? (pausa) EUGENIA: No sé. JOSÉ: ¿55? (pausa) Bueno, okay, eso tiene que ser como 58 por eso 59. 43:33 EUGENIA: Algo así. JOSÉ: ¿Algo así? ¿57 por ahí? (pausa) Okay yo me recuerdo fue después que... yo sé que fue después 56 porque Papi tiene un carro en este tiempo. 43:44 Creo que un 55 Chevy (risa) que se lo quitaron. ¿Te recuerdas eso? EUGENIA: mm JOSÉ: Okay yo estaba buscando información sobre eso y me dijeron que no habían… ah… cuando yo me _____ a San Miguel me dijeron que no sabían nada de los puertorriqueños en este tiempo. EUGENIA: (risita) JOSÉ: Que no era, que no había… EUGENIA: Que, que no guardaron nada. JOSÉ: ¿Qué no guardaron nada de los puertorriqueños en este tiempo? EUGENIA: Pues ese que sí. 44:20 JOSÉ: Entonces te… pero la manera en que me dijeron que no sabían de eso y que no… que yo estaba loco. No me dijeron eso pero ______ como yo estaba loco pensando que habían puertorriqueños ________ porque ahora la iglesia de St. Michael’s de Oldtown. Cómo que de Oldtown, tú sabes. Que es el área que hacía Oldtown… ¿Qué dicen los americanos que estén allí no recuerdan los puertorriqueños y dicen que no habían puertorriqueños allí… en este área? ¿Qué tú piensas de eso? �EUGENIA: (pausa) Bueno, que no miraron, que no negaron. (pausa) Pero nosotros le levantamos y le ayudamos. Así que (pausa) pero… (pausa) No sé que, que… (pausa) JOSÉ: Pero ellos dicen que no eran puertorriqueños y ¿tú crees que habían puertorriqueños en este tiempo o no? ¿O había ba… yo… (hablan a la misma vez) ¿Eran bastante? (pausa) No quiero poner palabras en la boca. ¿En este tiempo habían muchos puertorriqueños o no? 45:49 EUGENIA: Habían bastante puertorriqueños, habían no bastante. Iban a la iglesia bastante también. Lo que pasa que nunca quisieron reconocen con nosotros al hall o al trabajo que hacían. Es la única forma que quieren _______. Pero la iglesia San Miguel creció para arriba con los puertorriqueños. 46:22 (pausa) Bastante dinero que recibieron de los puertorriqueños. Así que… JOSÉ: ¿Y fue por el barrio año, fue por un año, nada más? 46:37 EUGENIA: No, seguro, eso fue por mucho. JOSÉ: ¿Por muchos años? EUGENIA: Seguro. JOSÉ: Eso fue le dijo una persona mayor no digo todo el mundo. Eso fue me dijo una persona una. 46:51 Allí fue un monaguillo, yo fui monaguillo también. ¿Tú recuerdas eso? ¿Cuándo fui monaguillo allí? EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: Cuando empezando la misa… EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: Yo estaba en la, la… ya era monaguillo en Santa Teresa entonces como estaba de eso ______ mesa _______ un monaguillo. Entonces yo fui para allá. So yo me recuerdo estaba lleno 250 personas allí. 47:20 EUGENIA: Más o menos. JOSÉ: ¿Más o menos? ¿Estaba bastante en el hall? ¿Eso ponía en el hall? Puedes son, no sé. Después siguieron viendo mass, puertorriqueño monaguillo de otros partes también. 47:32 EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: Este… Pero este no me recuerdo veía mucha gente que paga esa señora se mesa a mí. A mí no lo veo. (risa) A mí huele Pero yo no me ____ cosa… Este… Okay, so quiero hablar ahora… Tú estabas teniendo el clase de catecismo, en la casa… en la sala que lo tenía la silla, ¿verdad? 48:04 ¿Te recuerdas eso? EUGENIA: Claro. JOSÉ: Y… y ¿Cómo fue? ¿Cómo tú dabas catecismo? EUGENIA: Bueno, que yo lo sabía y leía en la Biblia y enseñaba que yo sabía. JOSÉ: ¿Leía mucho? ¿Por qué tú _________, no? 48:25 �EUGENIA: Yo leía y yo enseñó a mi hermano. JOSÉ: ¿Altolibria? ¿A leer? 48:32 EUGENIA: Claro. JOSÉ: Entonces, en la casa. ¿Enseñó en la casa de él? EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: ¿Entonces tú leíste, leíste la, la, la Biblia a los muchachos? EUGENIA: La memoria también tú sabes… como eso yo lo sé que estaba niña. JOSÉ: Uh huh. EUGENIA: Pues yo… JOSÉ: ¿Tú enseñabas a ella? EUGENIA: Enseñaba… 48:51 JOSÉ: __________ ¿Represente de memoria? EUGENIA: Yo le decía y yo lo repetía. JOSÉ: Y si no le repiten, ¿qué pasaba? EUGENIA: Nada a ellos. JOSÉ: ¿A ello? EUGENIA: (risa) JOSÉ: Yo digo que decía. 49:03 EUGENIA: Yo decía que ______ Ellos contestaban muy bien. Muy bien. JOSÉ: Entonces ¿Cuántos muchachos venían, como 15, 20, o como cuanto viene andazo? 49:11 EUGENIA: Más o menos como 15. JOSÉ: ¿Como 15? ______________ EUGENIA: Uh huh. 49:17 JOSÉ: Entonces, tú, ¿tú les enseñaba una cosa y ellos tienen que repetir, “No, señora” o “Sí, señora”? EUGENIA: Sí, uh huh, más o menos. JOSÉ: ¿Pero todo les enseñó de eso? 49:27 EUGENIA: Pues seguro. JOSÉ: ¿Diciendo “No, señora, sí, señora”? EUGENIA: Uh huh. �JOSÉ: Entonces ______ contestar EUGENIA: Pues claro, entonces yo enseñaba el padre nuestro y que repitieron según yo iba diciéndolo que yo dijeron detrás de lo que decía. 49:42 JOSÉ: Okay. A memoria. EUGENIA: Enseñaba. JOSÉ: Solo les enseñaba a memoria. EUGENIA: Uh huh. 49:47 JOSÉ: Y entonces cuando era cabecido, ¿que lo decía? EUGENIA: __________ estaba poniendo en rodillas (ambos ríen) JOSÉ: ________ Era una maestra (ríen) Allá enseña abuso, enseña abuso. EUGENIA: Enseña abuso. 50:04 JOSÉ: A medio ___________Lo rodellaba allí. __ EUGENIA: Uh, yo rodilla JOSÉ: ¿Cabecido duro? EUGENIA: Pero casi nunca yo lo puse. JOSÉ: Okay, sí. EUGENIA: Siempre yo… lo consideraba. JOSÉ: Pero yo lo hacía porque EUGENIA: A yo respetaban. JOSÉ: Respetaba. A los latinos respetan. ¿La mayoría latino? EUGENIA: Pues todo. JOSÉ: Todo… (interrumpido) EUGENIA: No sabían inglés. JOSÉ: ¿Todos no saben inglés? So tenían que decir en español… EUGENIA: Y aprendérselo en inglés. JOSÉ: ¿Y repetirlo? EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: ¿Repetirlo? EUGENIA: Repetirlo. �JOSÉ: ¿Y dicen, “Sí, señora, no señora”? EUGENIA: Uh huh. (José ríe y Eugenia empieza a reír también) JOSÉ: Okay, entonces, ¿qué pasó cuando se graduaban como ya tú decías? Entonces, ¿tú tienes un librito conseguía? EUGENIA: Pues yo le conseguí, le conseguí a el… JOSÉ: ¿El librito? EUGENIA: El librito. JOSÉ: ¿Y a donde lo conseguiste? EUGENIA: Un padre me lo daba. JOSÉ: ¿Cuál padre? EUGENIA: Padre Rodan y Padre… 51:13 JOSÉ: ¿Padre Rodan allí del catedral? ¿Iba allí también? EUGENIA: Mhm JOSÉ: O, ¿padre de la catedral? EUGENIA: De la catedral. JOSÉ: ¿Pero ese fue en San Miguel e iba también o ya estaba sin volvió allí? 51:26 EUGENIA: Porque San Miguel… que yo no me acuerdo. Que yo no me recuerdo. JOSÉ: Okay. Porque allí estaba Padre Catherine. EUGENIA: ¿Catarín? JOSÉ: Catarín. EUGENIA: Fue Catalino. JOSÉ: Catalino… Padre Catherine. Padre Catherine. Pero entonces no trabajo está allí. Era de la __________ 51:44 EUGENIA: En, en, en el otro lado. JOSÉ: Era la catedral de allá. EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: Okay todo conocía a él de la catedral. EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: Entonces okay _________ de lo grande. 51:53 EUGENIA: Mhm �JOSÉ: De ya de la Wabush. ¿Tú ibas a Wabush también? EUGENIA: Pues ya era no iba. 52:01 JOSÉ: ¿A la Wabush también ibas? EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: A la, no, Wabush por al lado de la catedral. ¿Tú ibas ya? EUGENIA: Pues claro. JOSÉ: ¿A que ibas ya? EUGENIA: Pues, para la iglesia. JOSÉ: O, ¿a un tiempo fue de la catedral? EUGENIA: Sí. JOSÉ: Okay. EUGENIA: Y después de esto… (interrumpida) JOSÉ: ¿Pero en este tiempo estaba en la San Miguel? ¿Con Padre Catherine? 52:29 EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: Y cuando se graduaba, ¿entonces eso que _______, entonces eso? EUGENIA: Pues estaba Padre Rodan. 52:38 JOSÉ: Okay. EUGENIA: Y… Catherine. JOSÉ: ¿Catherine? ¿Trabajan juntos? EUGENIA: No me recuerdo. Que no me recuerdo pero yo sé que trabajaron que yo estaba. JOSÉ: Uh huh. EUGENIA: Yo no recuerdo. Son tantos años que ya… JOSÉ: Yo sé. Entonces te… (pausa) Solta… tiene el catecismo. Y, y, y está graduando un muchacho. EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: ¿Quién vino a ver uh… ¿Cómo se graduaban? Tenía que venir el padre, ¿no? 53:17 EUGENIA: Claro. JOSÉ: ¿Cuál padre vino? EUGENIA: No me recuerdo tampoco. JOSÉ: ¿Catherine? ¿Padre Catherine? Yo me recuerdo. �EUGENIA: Padre Catherine, Padre Rodan. JOSÉ: Porque Rodan era hispano. 53:32 EUGENIA: Pues hispano, era hispano que él… JOSÉ: ¿El que venía? ¿Pero también vino el Padre Catherine que hablaba español? EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: ¿So entonces él le preguntaba a ellos la pregunta de…? 53:45 EUGENIA: Uh huh, a ver si sabían. JOSÉ: ¿Qué le pregunta? EUGENIA: Pues los mandamientos. JOSÉ: ¿Les preguntaba los mandamientos? EUGENIA: JOSÉ: ¿Y los muchachos los contestaban? EUGENIA: Sí. JOSÉ: ¿Dicen, “Sí, señor”? (ríen) ¿Ya todo les entrenías? EUGENIA: Uh huh. JOSÉ: ¿Dicen, “Sí, señor” y dicen los mandamientos? EUGENIA: Uh huh. 54:04 JOSÉ: ¿Y eso? Entonces… (interrumpido) EUGENIA: Tienen que decir y cerrarlos, los, los sacramentos eran los mandamientos de la ley de Dios y hicieron los mandamientos de la iglesia. JOSÉ: Okay. EUGENIA: Pues dan los sacramentos, dan los mandamientos de la ley de Dios y también están los mandamientos de la iglesia. Que todos son de la iglesia pero se dividen en esa forma. 54:31 JOSÉ: Mm. ¿Y esto estaba en el librito que tú tenías? EUGENIA: Pues claro. JOSÉ: ¿Qué te dio el padre? EUGENIA: Uh huh. La Biblia también. JOSÉ: ¿_______ la Biblia también? EUGENIA: Mhm JOSÉ: Y eso… (interrumpido) �EUGENIA: A lo que yo sabía que yo no tenía que leerlo porque ya lo supieron. 54:52 JOSÉ: Y entonces se graduaba allí ___________ tan preparado EUGENIA: Están preparado por el __________. JOSÉ: ¿Recibieron la primera comunión? EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: ¿So todos estos muchachos no iban a la iglesia católica, entonces? EUGENIA: No… (interrumpida) 55:08 JOSÉ: ¿En la escuela pública? EUGENIA: Estaba una escuela pública. Algunos iban después de la iglesia católica. JOSÉ: ¿Fueron al público en este tiempo o no? 55:16 EUGENIA: En este tiempo… (interrumpida) JOSÉ: Porque no tienen dinero para ir la iglesia católica. EUGENIA: Así era. JOSÉ: ¿Así era? EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: So entonces… pero ya se hace tan graduando para recibir la primera comunión. Entonces, ¿fueron a donde daban la primera comunión, en San Miguel? EUGENIA: En el hall. JOSÉ: ¿O en el hall? ¿No en la capilla? EUGENIA: No. Primero empezó cuando eran poquitos en el hall. Después siguieron creciendo entonces le dieron en la misa… (interrumpido) JOSÉ: ¿Pero entonces tú seguiste dando clase de catecismo? EUGENIA: Yo seguí dando clases de catecismo. JOSÉ: Entonces pues ¿se graduaron algunos en la capilla? EUGENIA: Uh huh. JOSÉ: Entonces ¿cómo iba victi hoy? 55:59 EUGENIA: No me recuerdo… Bueno, la nena estaba vestida en blanco. JOSÉ: ¿De blanco? EUGENIA: Y los muchachos pantalones y camisa blanco y pantalones negros. JOSÉ: ¿Pantalones negros? ¿Y un corban? �EUGENIA: No, corban, no. JOSÉ: ¿Pero tienen que tener un corbata? 56:17 EUGENIA: Unasito. JOSÉ: Unasito, pantalones negros… EUGENIA: y la camisa JOSÉ: Y la camisa. Pero algunos tenían un gabán también, ¿no? EUGENIA: Bueno, que por el frío, también, si estaba haciendo el frío. JOSÉ: Pero ¿tuviera la camisa estaba bien? EUGENIA: Uh huh 56:35 JOSÉ: ¿Que eran pobre _________ de eso? EUGENIA: Sí. JOSÉ: Pero algunos de ellos eran de familia chalatani? 56:43 EUGENIA: Cuando no (ambos ríen) JOSÉ: Porque eran de barrio, ¿no? EUGENIA: Uh huh. JOSÉ: No estamos hablando de niños de clase alta. Estoy hablando de ______________ 56:58 EUGENIA: Pues claro. JOSÉ: So, pero entonces estabas enseñando disciplina también, ¿no? EUGENIA: Pues claro que sí. JOSÉ: _________ EUGENIA: No no no no no. ________________ haciéndome la pregunta es cierto. JOSÉ: hmm. EUGENIA: Todo es cierto. JOSÉ: ¿Qué es cierto? EUGENIA: De que, de que (pausa) Ellos… ya se me olvidó de lo que estábamos hablando. JOSÉ: Yo dijera que era chalatan a los padres. ¿Tú sabes que quiero decir de eso? EUGENIA: No, no. JOSÉ: Que dice algunos de los padres estaban en problema o algo tomaba o… EUGENIA: Tomar, casi todos tomaban. 57:40 (ríen) �JOSÉ: ¿Eso todos eran casi tomaban? EUGENIA: _________ de los sacerdotes no, papá de los muchachos. JOSÉ: Sí. 57:47 EUGENIA: Seguro. JOSÉ: ¿Todos recochinearon el __________ del barrio? EUGENIA: Pues seguro. Yo iba casa por casa donde queda había a lo último sacerdote como sabía que yo era daba el catecismo ________ enviaba para la casa 58:02 JOSÉ: ¿Enviaba ya? EUGENIA: Seguro. JOSÉ: ¿Pero tú empezabas viendo casa por casa? EUGENIA: Seguro. Viendo casa por casa por la necesidad que había de que nos enseñaba la religión de los muchachos puertorriqueños. Y entonces había una de falta de conocimiento de Dios. Entonces yo empecé en eso. JOSÉ: Entonces tú hiciste el paquete te trabajo 58:29 EUGENIA: No no no, yo lo hice por amor a Dios. JOSÉ: Oh, oh. EUGENIA: Seguro. JOSÉ: ¿Por amor _____? (interrumpido) EUGENIA: Por la necesidad que esos muchachos estaban conocer madio. 58:40 JOSÉ: ¿Porque tú pensabas que tenían que conocer a Dios? EUGENIA: Porque no les enseñaban y se iban a salvan los bandoleros por la calle. JOSÉ: Oh, entonces ibas _____________ de los __________ 58:43 EUGENIA: Yo quería sacarlos de los sitios donde no aprendían cosas de Dios. Creo que aprenden pelean. (ríen) JOSÉ: ¿Y donde era este sitio? ¿En la calle donde se quita? EUGENIA: Seguro. JOSÉ: ¿Estaban peleando siempre? ¿En este tiempo eran pandía? EUGENIA: ¡Uh! JOSÉ: ¿Qué hay era?59:18 EUGENIA: Siempre habían pandías. Que yo sé que hubieron pandías. �JOSÉ: ¿_________ Callejera? ¿Callejera? EUGENIA: Callejera. JOSÉ: Pero al principio de tú llega allí a esta área este pandía americana, ¿no? EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: Entonces (interrumpido) EUGENIA: Si odiaban a los puertorriqueños. JOSÉ: ¿La pandía americana? ¿Odiaba a los puertorriqueños? EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: ¿Cae encima de los puertorriqueños? EUGENIA: Peleaban todos. JOSÉ: ¿Se peleaban? Pero yo sé en la quinda, había una quinda americana ¿no? ¿La pandía americana? enfrente de la tienda, EUGENIA: No me recuerdo, no me recuerdo. JOSÉ: No recuerdas. EUGENIA: Son muchos años. JOSÉ: ¿Pero había una pandía americana? EUGENIA: Sí. No querían los sábados los puertorriqueños. JOSÉ: ¿Los odiaban? EUGENIA: No, odiaban a todos 1:00:12 JOSÉ: Los odiaban. No era, no era, no era que era de pandía u otro pandía (hablan a la misma vez) EUGENIA: No no no no. JOSÉ: Odiaban a los puertorriqueños. EUGENIA: Le preciaban. JOSÉ: ¿A los puertorriqueños? EUGENIA: Claro. 1:00:22 JOSÉ: ¿Importaban joven o viejo? EUGENIA: A todos, a todos les preciaban. JOSÉ: ¿A todos los puertorriqueños preciaban? 1:00:29 EUGENIA: Era como si tuviera quitándoles algo de ellos. Más o menos. �JOSÉ: ¿Cómo quitándoles algo de ellos? (hablan a la misma vez) EUGENIA: Lo más es como tú tienes tu casa, tu grupo y entonces yo vengo y me hago amistad como con este grupo. Y entonces tú dices, “¿a tú estás quitando esto? Esto es mío.” Más o menos. 1:01:10 JOSÉ: So yo pensaba _____ quitando la casa por ellos o… EUGENIA: Uh huh. JOSÉ: ¿o el grupito? ¿El grupo de ellos? ¿A ellos controlaban a eso primero? 1:01:20 EUGENIA: Ellos controlaban. JOSÉ: Entonces (interrumpido) EUGENIA: _______Controlaban. Ese es la palabra JOSÉ: Controlaban. ¿Esa es la palabra correcta? Ellos controlaban. EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: Entonces, este… ¿nosotros estabamos entrando allí? EUGENIA: Entonces nosotros éramos como… la palabra que nosotros los puertorriqueños siempre usamos “metiches.” JOSÉ: ¿Metiches? EUGENIA: (risa) __________ no importa (ríe mucho) JOSÉ: Entonces eran metiches. ¿Metiches? EUGENIA: Metiches. JOSÉ: Cuando entraban a esa área, que se llama a Lincoln Park, ahora. EUGENIA: Uh huh JOSÉ: ¿eran los metiches? EUGENIA: Uh huh. (ambos ríen) JOSÉ: Entonces EUGENIA: Más o menos. JOSÉ: Para ellos. 1:02:07 EUGENIA: Para ellos. JOSÉ Y EUGENIA: Los metiches. JOSÉ: ¿Por eso les caen encima de todo? EUGENIA: Claro. JOSÉ: Yo me recuerdo que caen encima de echarvia. 1:02:17 �EUGENIA: _____________________ JOSÉ: ¿También? ¿Iberia patral? EUGENIA: Claro, yo no sabía andar. JOSÉ: ______ en otro grupo. EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: So entonces echanvia empezaba a pelear con otro grupo EUGENIA: Entonces (interrumpida) JOSÉ: Porque ¿había grupo italiano y eso? EUGENIA: Algo Jiménez, Rodríguez y… JOSÉ: ¿Y todo el mundo? Y hacía _________ americano. 1:02:44 EUGENIA: Pues claro. JOSÉ: ¿Hiciera la cosa? EUGENIA: Hiciera la cosa. JOSÉ: Y entonces te… siempre hacía la pandía puertorriqueña, porque antes era una pandía puertorriqueña, ¿no? EUGENIA: Era puertorriqueña esta pandía. JOSÉ: Llegaron los puertorriqueños… EUGENIA: Y se quedaron. (risa) JOSÉ: ¿Echaría y organizara en seguida? ¿A pelear con los americanos? EUGENIA: A pelear. JOSÉ: ¿Hacer la cosa? EUGENIA: Pues pasa ciudadanos americanos. No podían depreciar a nosotros. Nosotros somos ciudadanos y no… hablaba sino somos ciudadanos. JOSÉ: (amos ríen) Para que lo sepan. Así así era. 1:03:26 EUGENIA: Para que lo sepan. (ríe) JOSÉ: Entonces este… somos ciudadanos, y entonces aquí ¿_________ igual? EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: ¿Pensaba, o como tú pensabas? EUGENIA: Entonces yo decía pasiva solo yo dio …________. como somos ciudadanos porque no ______________. �JOSÉ: ¿Y lo tiraban? EUGENIA: Sí. Seguro. No depreciaban. JOSÉ: Como, pero ¿de qué manera? ¿Cómo … EUGENIA: Pues era de no depreciaba en forma que no llegaban a nosotros y se iban por este calle, la tercera. Cruzaban a otro lado. JOSÉ: ¿Eso te pasa a ti? 1:04:10 EUGENIA: Yo sé a veces. JOSÉ: ¿A ti? EUGENIA: Claro. JOSÉ: ¿Como ellos andaban en la calle te veían y cruzaban la calle? EUGENIA: Cruzaban por otro lado. Cambió la cara, no miraban. JOSÉ: ¿Y no te miraban? Tú lo _____________ 1:04:24 EUGENIA: No, seguro. JOSÉ: Te meten la palabra en la boca. EUGENIA: Siempre yo le decía a “Good morning” o “Goodbye” o algo. Las palabritas que sabía yo decía. JOSÉ: ¿Tú ____ en seguida? EUGENIA: Seguro. 1:04:41 JOSÉ: ¿Y entonces que decían allí? ¿Dicen nada? EUGENIA: Nada. Algunos decían, “Thank you”o algo. JOSÉ: Algunos. ¿Pero otros no? EUGENIA: Otros no. Otros cambiaban. JOSÉ: ¿So veía en la cara que no querían? EUGENIA: mhm. (pausa) Al principio, cuando los puertorriqueños llegaron a Estados Unidos, no valían nada. JOSÉ: ¿Tú crees? EUGENIA: Claro. 1:05:10 JOSÉ: ¿Por qué tú decías eso? Pues eran ciudadanos. EUGENIA: Eran ciudadanos pero ellos no pero los americanos no querían. Esto reconocerlo. Todavía esto no reconocerlos… tantos puertorriqueños que hay. Así. Somos extraños. JOSÉ: ¿Y en este tiempo __________? 1:05:33 �EUGENIA: Sí. Ahora que tú sabes que de donde quiera y que uno lo ayudada a ellos a subir. O que cuantos puertorriqueños no han trabajado para los americanos. (pausa) Y les pagan renta a los americanos. Así que yo creo que si no reconocen a los puertorriqueños, como que somos ciudadanos _________.Entonces van a esperar a cuando. JOSÉ: So entonces allí trabajaste con la San Miguel hiciste otro catecismo, ¿verdad? ¿O tres o cuatro u otro, algo así? EUGENIA: Sí. 1:06:24 Yo… catecismo a grupo de muchachos… JOSÉ: ¿Grupo de muchachos? ¿Otro grupo de muchachos allí en la Dayton? EUGENIA: Seguro. Lo que… JOSÉ: ¿Se graduaban? EUGENIA: Se graduaban. Pues seguían, ______ a la iglesia y… JOSÉ: ¿Quedaban a la iglesia? EUGENIA: Pues claro. JOSÉ: ¿Eso fue parte de las Damas de María? EUGENIA: Pues claro. Era catecismo, una enseñanza religiosa. 1:06:50 JOSÉ: Okay. EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: Y entonces… ¿después eso lo cambiamos por la Santa Teresa? Porque ya ese estaba primer grado en Santa Teresa. EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: Jenny estaba en Santa Teresa y yo estuve en el seis grado, grado seis… en Santa Teresa. Claro, seis, siete, ocho. EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: ¿Cómo nosotros fuimos a Santa Teresa? Como, lo _____ decir eso. 1:07:20 EUGENIA: No me recuerdo ya. JOSÉ: ¿Pero tú conocías a padre en Santa Teresa? EUGENIA: Pues claro porque uno va a conociendo, conociendo según ________ de la JOSÉ: Porque nosotros no tenían dinero. ¿Cómo entramos a esta iglesia? EUGENIA: Iban a la misa. JOSÉ: ¿Era una misa? EUGENIA: Pues claro. �JOSÉ: ¿De Santa Teresa? EUGENIA: Y la misa todo el sacerdote no pueden sacar a nadie de la iglesia. JOSÉ: ¿Pero reciben a la misa…? ¿Pero tú trabajaste también, en la Santa Teresa? EUGENIA: Pues claro. Yo iba a la misa que daba en inglés que en español. JOSÉ: ¿Se empieza darles a la misa en inglés? EUGENIA: uh huh JOSÉ: Entonces como… ¿habían muchos puertorriqueños viendo a la misa en inglés? EUGENIA: Había no bastante. JOSÉ: ¿En la misa de inglés? EUGENIA: mhm. Chur Rodríguez y eso. JOSÉ: ¿En Santa Teresa? Estoy hablando de Santa Teresa ahora, no de San Miguel. De Santa Teresa en el Quemal y la armitage. __________ rompo. ________ la Santa Teresa y entonces yo me metí allí se metió ____ Jenny y _______ y Mina también, yo creo. EUGENIA: mhm 1:08:40 JOSÉ: Entonces, ¿en la Santa Teresa no hay misa hispana allí? ¿So como empezó la cosa eso? ¿De la misa allí? EUGENIA: ¿Cómo empecé a la misa? JOSÉ: Sí, ¿Cómo empieza la misa hispana allí en Santa Teresa? ¿Cómo empezó? 1:09:00 EUGENIA: Yo sé que estaba uno _____ Fransisco Rodríguez o algo que también Echavía. JOSÉ: Okay. ¿Titi? EUGENIA: Titi. Pues, y Chu. JOSÉ: Okay. EUGENIA: Todos obraron y siguiendo introduciendo. Seguimos entrando unos a nosotros nos avisábamos ataque al sacerdote vio que queda mucho bastante en _______ dio la misa hispana. JOSÉ: Pero entonces tuvieron que buscar una petición me dijeron. EUGENIA: Sí. JOSÉ: Para que llenar a papel para que dar una misa en español. 1:09:42 EUGENIA: Eso ___ decir. De papel, de cosa no te _____ decir. JOSÉ: Okay. EUGENIA: Yo sé que dijeron una vez en español. �JOSÉ: Okay. Entonces pero… no iba gente… yo me recuerdo que tú fuiste con Chu una vez. En vez de Chu… a una casa para predicar y diera el rosario. ¿Y él tenía que ver con la misa también? 1:10:08 EUGENIA: Era que íbamos porque si pedían que se llevara a un rosario o algo y a predican. JOSÉ: Okay. EUGENIA: Pues siempre predicaban algo. Siempre Chu predicaba. JOSÉ: Y tú le invitaba a él porque era todo conocía de San Miguel. EUGENIA: No, invitaba a mí. JOSÉ: ¿invitaba a ti? EUGENIA: Pues claro. Chu Rodríguez porque estábamos todos juntos. 1:10:35 JOSÉ: ¿Todos estaban juntos, los Caballeros y las Damas? EUGENIA: Pues, seguro, las Damas de María y los Caballeros de San Juan. JOSÉ: Pero te invitaba a ti porque fuera para dar palabra de rosario. EUGENIA: Para ayudar. JOSÉ: ¿Pero tú rezaba el rosario? EUGENIA: Pues claro. 1:10:47 JOSÉ: ¿Pero ti como cien como rezar el rosario? EUGENIA: Pues yo rezaba el rosario. JOSÉ: Okay. EUGENIA: Y el rosario pues siempre algunos dicen una palabrita, otra cosa. 1:10:58 JOSÉ: Entonces… y ¿Chu predicaba? EUGENIA: Chu predicaba. JOSÉ: ¿Pues tú rezabas el rosario y Chu predicaba? EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: ¿Había otra gente allí? EUGENIA: Claro. Había los Calistos. JOSÉ: ¿Los Calistos también allí eso? ¿En Santa Teresa también? Esto consideraban número nueve. Oh, era porque Monín allí era y estaba Glota, yo creo. EUGENIA: Compaña Montego JOSÉ: ¿Montego allí? ¿Estaba Glota también? �EUGENIA: Lo último, Carmela la última ___ llega de nosotros JOSÉ: ¿Carmela también vino jueves después? ¿Qué era lo último? Porque yo era todavía en la San Miguel. EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: Yo estaba allá. Entonces ¿ya estaba San Miguel y estaba Santa Terea también subiendo? EUGENIA: Los hispanos iban a donde quieren para participa a _____________. JOSÉ: Ya de eso. Yo me recuerdo que allí en el área de Lincoln Park, iba puerta por puerta cada la gente, ¿no? EUGENIA: Pues claro, avisaban que se daba una misa o algo. 1:12:10 JOSÉ: ¿Iban por San Miguel? EUGENIA: Claro que sí. Se avisaban. Se llevaron un papel o algo. JOSÉ: Entonces (interrumpido) EUGENIA: Invitaban. JOSÉ: Invitaban. Entonces allí también empezaron a daba la misa en el hall, ¿no? ¿En Santa Teresa? EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: ¿No fue en la capilla? Fue en el hall. 1:12:29 EUGENIA: No, primero era en el hall y cuando creció el grupo entonces lo daban en la iglesia. JOSÉ: Eso era le dio a los Caballeros. ¿Así metían a ellos? EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: Me daban el hall porque en la, en la catedral también lo daban un un primont. (ríe) En la catedral era en un _______, en la San Miguel lo daba en el hall de Dao. EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: Que es el cuatro cuarenta tres de la Eugeni. EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: Y en la Santa Teresa era la Quemar, en la hall de la Quemar. EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: Y entonces y después fue que te dejaron misa en español en la iglesia. EUGENIA: Claro. 1:13:09 JOSÉ: Okay. Entonces este… Pero hay… ¿sería también que era alguna de la gente que no quería entrar los puertorriqueños todavía? �EUGENIA: Como adentro (interrumpida) JOSÉ: ¿Cómo algunos de los americanos no querían que entrada? EUGENIA: Pues sí, algunos americanos (interrumpida) JOSÉ: No quiero poner las palabras en la boca. EUGENIA: No no no los americanos… eran desconocidos. JOSÉ: Okay. EUGENIA: Los puertorriqueños eran desconocidos entonces como no los conocían, pues no van a abrirte la iglesia para que metiera. 1:13:42 JOSÉ: Okay. EUGENIA: Entonces había que lleva un grupo grande porque como van a adaptar luya todos persona. Pero cuando el sacerdote vio queda un grupo grande que había una necesidad de dando la misa, pues mira. Como la misa en Latín. Pues uno le entiende. La predicación como era en inglés sabe porque casi él que no sabía inglés pues no le entendía. Pero ya más o menos uno la misa los sábados. 1:14:22 JOSÉ: Porque era Latín y eso tiene en… EUGENIA: Claro que sí. JOSÉ: ¿común todo el mundo? EUGENIA: uh huh JOSÉ: Y entonces también los americanos también se sentían como parte. EUGENIA: Pues claro que sí (hablan a la misma vez) había un grupo de los americanos… JOSÉ: Después porque es un, es un… que hubiera estaba creciendo… EUGENIA: Seguro, seguro compartían como todo. 1:14:39 JOSÉ: Compartían y eso. A último se unió al principio. EUGENIA: Claro que sí. Al principio no. JOSÉ: Al principio porque eran como desconocidos. EUGENIA: uh huh JOSÉ: Pero entonces vieron que los… 1:14:50 EUGENIA: Claro. JOSÉ: ¿Tú crees que los sacerdotes te ayudaron en eso para aplicar a los americanos? EUGENIA: Seguro. Seguro que sí. 1:14:58 JOSÉ: Que había… que dejara la… �EUGENIA: Padre Rodán, y Padre… JOSÉ: ¿Hablaban y eso? EUGENIA: Pues claro. Pues yo (interrumpida) JOSÉ: ¿Ellos saben como que había un problema allí? EUGENIA: Que había que ayudaño. JOSÉ: Okay, ¿le ______aron que ayudaron a los latinos o los hispanos? EUGENIA: Claro que sí. 1:15:14 JOSÉ: Pues pero había como ¿ medio conflicto que calleito? EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: ¿Un conflicto, un conflicto callado? EUGENIA: Callado. JOSÉ: No quiero poner palabras en la boca. EUGENIA: No no, hay es exactamente eso que tú estás diciendo así era. JOSÉ: ¿Qué era? EUGENIA: Que era conflicto o sea algo, como era algo desconocido pues no querían. Pero cuando vieron que el importante uno que nosotros daban dinero y __________ dinero también. JOSÉ: Pero no era por el dinero, era por tú. EUGENIA: Era… JOSÉ: yo por el dinero EUGENIA: No no no. Claro, por el dinero también pero de todas las maneras ellos vieron una necesidad que queda muchos puertorriqueños, muchos latinos. Y entonces necesitaban que nos dieron la misa. 1:16:14 JOSÉ: Y entonces ¿también en la área de Lincoln Park se está convirtiendo en muchos puertorriqueños ahora? EUGENIA: Uh huh. JOSÉ: ¿Y muchos latinos? EUGENIA: Claro. JOSÉ: ¿Hay más gente viviendo allí en este área? EUGENIA: Ahora sí, ahora está lleno. JOSÉ: ¿Está lleno de gente? �EUGENIA: Claro. Pero nosotros cuando yo fui a pesar no había nada puertorriqueño. JOSÉ: ¿No había? Pero entonces se llenó de hispanos y ¿todavía estaban no lo que dando misa en el hall? EUGENIA: No. JOSÉ: ¿Ya cuando se llenó de hispanos y tuviera que hacerlo? 1:16:46 ¿Cuándo se llenó Lincoln Park, el área de hispanos, entonces por que dieron la misa en español? EUGENIA: Uh huh. JOSÉ: Porque había mucho, muchos latinos, ¿verdad? EUGENIA: Claro. JOSÉ: So entonces, okay. Entonces se tiraban un baile también, ¿no? ¿En la Santa Teresa? EUGENIA: Seguro. JOSÉ: ¿Tenía una oficina, Uds.? EUGENIA: ¿Una qué? JOSÉ: O sea, ahora aparte de la iglesia también ¿había los caballeros de San Juan tenían un apartamento? ¿Un club? ¿Tenían un club _____ todo eso? EUGENIA: Para todo eso. JOSÉ: ¿Aparte? 1:17:19 EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: A mí máquina, yo me recuerdo. ______ también allí a nosotros ¿________ las Damas o los Caballeros de San Juan? EUGENIA: Ah, no reunían todos. JOSÉ: ¿El hall era solamente para el baile grande y para la misa? Pero ¿entonces los Caballeros de San Juan y las Damas de María tenían su propio hall en ____ de Quemal? ¿Y la armitage en la norte u oeste de la de la Quemal y armitage Quemal? EUGENIA: Así era. 1:17:59 JOSÉ: Y entonces allí se hacían actividades porque yo me recuerdo Monín viendo Monín hace eso. ¿Qué actividades hacían hay? EUGENIA: Habían bailes. JOSÉ: ¿Bailes? Pero entonces empezaron trabajado en el hall también. ¿Uds. verdad? ¿Sacálo de pandilla? EUGENIA: Ha sacado la pandilla traerlo para la iglesia. 1:18:23 �JOSÉ: Pues yo recuerdo que había parijuana, pari (ríe) ¿Había un pandilla pari? ¿________ que no había problema? ¿Pero todo el mundo iba a _____? (ríe) Yo me recuerdo iban los Young Lords y los, ¿los blackie? ¿Habían los Flaming Arrow? ____________________ Todo el mundo allí. Los rebels, los Trojans. ____________ ¿De los Latin Kings? EUGENIA: Iban todo. 1:19:05 JOSÉ: ¿Iban todo así? Eso se llenaba todo. Y los Paragons. ¿Había un grupo se llamado los Paragons también? ¿Los Flaming Arrows? ¿Pure esis y Queens? ¿Iban todos esos? EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: Este. (pausa) Y que y ¿Uds. llevaban bien? Era… porque era ____molestaba_ de ello. Y era pandilla. EUGENIA: No… JOSÉ: ¿Te dan miedo de la pandilla? EUGENIA: Bueno, no le tenía. JOSÉ: ¿Tú tenía miedo? EUGENIA: Eso era mi amigo. JOSÉ: ¿Tu amigo? (Eugenia ríe) ¿la pandilla? Bueno, a mi tú mencionas ____ porque estaba fundamento se arigo. ¿Tú te recuerdas eso? EUGENIA: No, no me recuerdo. JOSÉ: (ríe) A mí me sacó de eso. A ocho nade. EUGENIA: No me recuerdo. JOSÉ: ¿No recuerdas eso? EUGENIA: No me recuerdo. JOSÉ: También cosinante algo _____________ ¿Tú no recuerdas eso de consinante? EUGENIA: Yo solo metía en la cocina ayudando. JOSÉ: No pero yo digo para jóvenes. (hablan a la misma vez) Digo _____consinante_____________ EUGENIA: Seguro que sí. JOSÉ: Tú eres… señora mexicana que se llama Mrs. Eragon. Como mexicana ________________________ después. Pero ya cocinaba mucho tú también ¿cocinabas para Young Lords y ella también? EUGENIA: mhm 1:20:30 JOSÉ: Que fui a pecar otra vez_____ ¿Tú no recuerdas de eso? EUGENIA: No me recuerdo que hace tantos los años. �JOSÉ: Está olvidándole. EUGENIA: Estoy durmiendo, ¿eh? 1:20:42 JOSÉ: ¿Tienes sueño? EUGENIA: Tengo sueño. JOSÉ: Okay, cinco minutos más. EUGENIA: Es mucho, cinco minutos. JOSÉ: (ríen) EUGENIA: Muchacho... Solo once y media. JOSÉ: Okay entonces… entonces te… perdona un momento… Okay, entonces este… Cuando tú estabas en la Santa Teresa…Nosotros estábamos en la Santa Teresa viviendo en el veintiuno diecisiete del piso. El piso de Dickens. 1:21:18 EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: ¿Entonces vivía allí muchos años? Entonces de allí, entonces… para la Clairmont y porque… ¿Qué te recuerdas de eso y entonces porque mudamos? ¿Qué estaba pasando en el área porque mudamos? EUGENIA: Era que tu papá quería mudarse. JOSÉ: ¿El quería mudarse? EUGENIA: El quería mudarse donde eran más latinos. JOSÉ: Pero, okay. 1:21:53 EUGENIA: Eso era todo. Se mudaba de esa forma. JOSÉ: Pero ¿entonces ya no era latinos allí? EUGENIA: Habían latinos pero él quería conocer más. JOSÉ: ¿Conocer más? EUGENIA: Uh huh. JOSÉ: Y entonces este… ¿Y no subieran renta o nada eso? EUGENIA: No, eso subiera la renta o alguno cuando uno votaba a una subiera la renta. JOSÉ: ¿Cómo eso? EUGENIA: Cuando quiera mudara, subir la renta. JOSÉ: So allí pagaba como, yo creo, como ochenta peso. EUGENIA: No sé. �JOSÉ: Pero entonces ¿subieron como 4, 7 o algo _______ a otro? EUGENIA: No sé. JOSÉ: ¿Era que hacía? ¿No sabes? _____________ EUGENIA: No recuerdo. JOSÉ: Pero ¿subieron la renta? EUGENIA: Subiera la renta entonces por unos estaban buscando porque estaban más baratos. Eso era. JOSÉ: ¿Los puertorriqueños buscan los más baratos? EUGENIA: Los más baratos. Siempre buscaban lo más baratos. Y buscaban cuando eran más puertorriqueños para estar los latinos juntos. 1:22:52 JOSÉ: ¿So siempre los puertorriqueños buscan donde viven más puertorriqueños? EUGENIA: Uh huh, se buscaban uno a los otros. JOSÉ: ¿Siguieron mudándose cada cuadra detrás de otros? EUGENIA: Uh huh. Se mudaban uno, “Mira renta de aquella apartamento” todo junto ___________todos estaban buscando unidad puertorriqueña. JOSÉ: ¿Como unidad puertorriqueña? 1:23:23 EUGENIA: Pues _________ tú tienes una familia… y lo puertorriqueña era no como una familia. JOSÉ: ¿La clase puertorriqueña? EUGENIA: Pues claro. 1:23:35 JOSÉ: ¿Por eso se buscaban? EUGENIA: Pues buscaban uno a otros. JOSÉ: ¿Cuándo empezaba a subir la renta, una, eso se mudaba? EUGENIA: mhm, sí JOSÉ: Y entonces ¿los demás lo seguían? EUGENIA: Pues los demás lo seguían porque, porque… JOSÉ: Porque estaba subiendo la renta. EUGENIA: Porque estaba subiendo la renta. JOSÉ: ______________________ una myra no mucho 1:23:57 EUGENIA: Era todo. La renta subiera a todo. JOSÉ: ¿Por qué subiera la renta? EUGENIA: Porque tienen que pagar más. �JOSÉ: ¿Por qué tienen que pagar más? EUGENIA: porque le subían. Tiene que pagar tanto. Y entonces si no, tiene que irte. 1:24:15 JOSÉ: Pero eso para, ¿no era para limpiar el barrio? EUGENIA: Ahora yo no sé. JOSÉ: Para limpiar el barrio, ¿no? 1:24:24 EUGENIA: Uh huh. Así que yo no sé. No yo recuerdo ya. JOSÉ: ¿Pero que tú sabes que estaba subiendo la renta y entonces…? EUGENIA: Sí, se conseguía más barato en otros sitios y en el hall… más cómodo. Cuando unos se cambiaron para allá. Además, los puertorriqueños buscaban uno a los otros para estar juntos. Eso era la, lo que buscaban. JOSÉ: Pero ¿unos no sienten mal que tienen que dejarlo lo que tenían, el barrio que tenía? EUGENIA: No se sienten nada. JOSÉ: ¿No se sienten nada? _________ 1:25:03 EUGENIA: No. JOSÉ: ¿Porque no tenía conexión al barrio? ¿Se notaba conectado a Chicago? ¿Estaba conectado a Puerto Rico? ¿O como era? EUGENIA: ______ todo eso. ________ conectado a Puerto Rico. JOSÉ: ¿Conectados unos mismo? EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: ¿A los puertorriqueños de allí? EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: ¿So era como una planeta nueva para los puertorriqueños. 1:25:45 EUGENIA: Pues claro. Pues era como… suponen esto… tú tienes una casa… y tú tienes la silla. Entonces yo voy y me mudó por este apartamento, un cuarto o que sea. Entonces yo tengo gente que conozco y la casa vacía, pues yo digo, yo vivo, hay apartamentos más sencillos. La gente se iba. Y hiciera menos dinero de lo que ellos pagaban a donde estaba. ______ se iba. JOSÉ: ___________________ más barato. EUGENIA: Pues claro. JOSÉ: ¿Más barato entonces? EUGENIA: Claro que sí. Entonces los puertorriqueños no buscaban a esta manera. 1:26:27 JOSÉ: Pues ¿tú crees que no les afectaba a los niños que tienen que mudar tanto? ¿En la cuela? �EUGENIA: Uno no piensa eso. Uno lo que piensa este salir de este lugar porque no le gusta uno a otro. Uno no piensa, no piensa esto que se puede afectar a los niños y nada. Quieren mudarse. JOSÉ: ¿Y la mayor parte no le gusta porque subieron la renta? EUGENIA: Porque sube la renta. JOSÉ: ¿No era por la cucaracha ni nada eso? 1:27:02 EUGENIA: Quizás esto también. (ríen) JOSÉ: Porque no había mucho cucaracha también, ¿no? EUGENIA: No, donde yo vivía _____ según uno tenga un apartamento limpio o algo. Había tanto cucaracha. Había porque eso era donde queda. Y si uno le daba alimiento _________ JOSÉ: So no era, ¿so lo mudamos no por la cucaracha ni nada eso? EUGENIA: No, mudamos porque buscábamos el ambiente mejor. JOSÉ: Yo recuerdo que en el piso de los Dickens que el ambiente era bueno. Estaba mejor ambiente que yo me recuerdo. ¿Y mudamos allí porque sería? EUGENIA: No recuerdo tampoco yo. JOSÉ: ¿Y la cuadra completa de los puertorriqueños? ¿Entre la Dickens y la Webster en la biso? ¿Eso era los puertorriqueños por dos lados de la calle? EUGENIA: mhm JOSÉ: ¿Ya era no se venían ningún puertorriqueño allí? EUGENIA: No. JOSÉ: ¿No se ve? EUGENIA: Yo no sé. JOSÉ: Bueno estaba frente de _______ San Miguel. ¿Te recuerdas? ¿En vez de San Miguel y no había puertorriqueño? ___ el hall ______apartamiento, ¿no? EUGENIA: No sé. JOSÉ: Okay. No quiero poner palabras en la boca. Okay. Vamos a _____. � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e0afadde1ca08112672d4481c49583dc.mp4 10b704743ae0d0378d3fd66b6c7f8e19 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives. The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng spa Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 2012-2017 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Título Spanish language Title entry Eugenia Rodríguez vídeo entrevista y biografía, entrevista 1 Sujetos Spanish language Subject terms Young Lords (Organización) Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puertorriqueños--Relatos personales Idioma español--Relatos personales Justicia social Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago Puertorriqueños--Illinois--Chicago--Vida social y costumbres Renovación urbana--Illinois--Chicago Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65_Rodriguez_Eugenia_1 Title A name given to the resource Eugenia Rodríguez video interview and biography, interview 1 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rodríguez, Eugenia Description An account of the resource Eugenia Rodríguez is the mother of José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez. She is the youngest of 13 children and was born in San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico to Juan Rodríguez and Victoria Flores. They then moved to the Morena section of the barrio of San Salvador, Caguas, Puerto Rico. When she was just a child her mother became sick and so Ms. Rodríguez was sent to be raised by her older sister, Toribia. But Toribia also had her own family to raise, so Ms. Rodríguez’s father decided to send her to live in a Catholic orphanage until she was 15-years-old. She never attended formal school but did learn how to read and write. When Ms. Rodríguez left the orphanage, she returned to live with Toribia. There she met Antonio Jiménez, the younger brother of Toribia’s husband, who would become her husband. In 1949, Ms. Rodríguez traveled to New York and then to Boston. In early 1951 the family moved to La Clark in Chicago. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puerto Ricans--Personal narratives Spanish language--Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Puerto Ricans--Illinois--Chicago--Social life and customs Urban renewal--Illinois--Chicago Language A language of the resource spa Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-06-04 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e44c2adbc465e8ed45f8948b23f5d2a4.pdf 8d8544dc68d89fcc71d4f0920fa40390 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: David Rodriguez Interviewer: Jose Jimenez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 5/15/2012 Runtime: 01:19:32 Biography and Description Oral history of David Rodriguez, interviewed by “Cha-Cha” Jimenez on May 15, 2012 about the Young Lords in Lincoln Park. "The Young Lords in Lincoln Park" collection grows out of decades of work to more fully document the history of Chicago's Puerto Rican community which gave birth to the Young Lords Organization and later, the Young Lords Party. Founded by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, the Young Lords became one of the premier struggles for international human rights. Where thriving church congregations, social and �political clubs, restaurants, groceries, and family residences once flourished, successive waves of urban renewal and gentrification forcibly displaced most of those Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, working-class and impoverished families, and their children in the 1950s and 1960s. Today these same families and activists also risk losing their history. �Transcript JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay, if you can start with your name, where you were born, and what year -- you know, what’s the -DAVID RODRIGUEZ: Okay, my name’s David Rodriguez. I was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1956 on Chicago Avenue in Henrotin Hospital, okay? JJ: Henrotin Hospital? DR: Henrotin Hospital, I remember. Can’t get too much more Chicago-er than that. JJ: Oh, yeah, that’s Henrotin Hospital by LaSalle. DR: That’s right, LaSalle, on LaSalle. JJ: I thought it was on Oak Street. DR: Well, now it is. JJ: Yeah, it’s on Oak Street. DR: Yeah, so that’s where I -- JJ: It’s right between Chicago, Illinois. DR: Exactly. And after that, I don’t remember too much until I get older, okay? (laughs) JJ: Okay. No, that’s fine. DR: So -- JJ: Who’s your mother and father? DR: My mom and dad are Roman Rodriguez and Clotidle Rodriguez Flores, and if I’m not wrong, it was 1953 [00:01:00] when they got to Chicago. And they went there like all the other families that were going at that time from Puerto Rico. 1 �They went there looking for work, okay? I have other aunts. Their mom was part of the (Spanish) [00:01:16]. They went to different parts of the States too, Atlanta and parts like that, looking for work. They worked in the fields picking tomatoes JJ: Picking tomatoes? DR: -- okay? And actually, my dad got involved with the community through the churches, and my mom and dad worked with the churches in the communities. They worked with the priests, and they started creating new organizations and groups in the church. And they would have their own parties and stuff like that, and that was basically it. In those days, there were not that many Puerto Ricans in Chicago, okay? We were, I think, one of the first 40 or 50 families that were there, [00:02:00] and you were there. And you should know that too because you were part of the family, you know? And basically, we all went to school in the same area. We grew up together. Our family was really tight. We were always at parties together; you know, family reunions and things like that every year. I mean, basically, we saw each other all the time, okay? It was not a once a year thing, so we knew each other well, okay? It was more like one big family with sisters and cousins and brothers and stuff like that, you know? We watched out for each other, you know. JJ: So what do you mean? How did we see each other often in -- DR: Oh, we went all the time to the family parties, to the family reunions, to the church parties that were going on, the organizations they had going on. I would go all the time over where you were hanging out with the Young Lords, and I 2 �remember you used to get on the mic -- “That’s my little cousin going by me,” at the church on Dayton. I remember all of that stuff -JJ: Yeah, that [was fun?]. DR: -- and [00:03:00] then I remember there was a problem, okay? I was still kinda young. I remember one of the Ramos boys was shot or something like that. JJ: Manuel Ramos. DR: Manuel Ramos. JJ: Did you know the whole family, or...? DR: Well, Billy Ramos was one of the first musicians I worked with. JJ: Who? DR: Billy Ramos, William, his -- JJ: Oh, you did? DR: -- younger brother, and we went to school at the same school. JJ: I didn’t know that. So William Ramos was Manuel Ramos and Tyron Ramos’ brother? DR: Right. JJ: And what did he play? DR: He played timbales. JJ: He plays timables? DR: He’s a timbalero, yeah. JJ: Okay, so he was the little one. DR: He was the youngest that I remember. JJ: William Ramos? 3 �DR: Yeah, Willy Ramos. JJ: And then he played timbales for what band? DR: It was with -- JJ: I’m sorry. I have to -- (break in audio) DR: Yeah, Willy ran with -- JJ: Willy Ramos. DR: -- [Defunto’s?] brother, right. And basically, Billy was a timbalero, [00:04:00] went to school with us at -- JJ: What school? DR: Wasn’t that called -- what was that school? I can’t -- JJ: Franklin. You remember Franklin? DR: No, it was the Catholic school. JJ: Immaculate Conception? DR: No, it was by Sheffield and Armitage, the one over there. JJ: St. Teresa’s? DR: St. Teresa’s, okay. JJ: So he was going to St. Teresa’s with you? DR: Yeah, we went to St. Teresa’s. JJ: You went to St. Teresa’s? DR: Yeah, I went to St. Teresa’s. I went to also Immaculate Conception. He was also there with us too -- JJ: I remember that. 4 �DR: -- okay? And the first band he played with was a band that we called Latin Explosion. That was the first band that we played together in, but as far as bands go, that was not the first orchestra I heard. Oh, yeah, he also played in the very first kids band we ever had, which was in Immaculate Conception. JJ: You might have to repeat it for me. So this was Manuel Ramos from the Young Lords? DR: [00:05:00] Manuel Ramos from the Young Lords’ little brother, Billy Ramos. JJ: The one that got killed by the police? DR: Exactly. I remember it like today, the march and everything down there. JJ: What do you remember of the march? DR: What do I remember from the march? JJ: I mean, how did it -- DR: I remember it -- JJ: -- occur to you? DR: -- looked like an army coming down the street. I mean, I was a kid, you know. This is what we saw as kids. We saw this huge army coming in full gear, you know, coming down the streets, and we were like, “Wow, what’s going on here?” Carrying a coffin with the flag and all this stuff -- and I remember people screaming and crying. Really a shame, you know? Those were rough days. JJ: There were a lot of people? DR: There was thousands and thousands and thousands of people. I mean, it was -- JJ: Yeah, it was a lot. 5 �DR: -- thousands of people, yeah. There was definitely a lot of people. It looked like, I said, a sea of people. It looked like an army was marching through the city, you know what I mean? And those are the fresh memories that I have. JJ: Now, how did you feel? Because most of these were Puerto Ricans. DR: Well, you got to remember I was [00:06:00] young. I can tell you we took it like, “Okay, wow, that’s our community,” and we were proud, you know. But I didn’t realize exactly what was going on, you know? We looked at it more like, “Wow, Puerto Rican power! That’s [amazing?],” you know. But we weren’t really into the movement or anything, or looking into what was happening or anything. We just were riding with the crowd. The people that were feeling it, though -- later as I grew up, I thought about those things, and I remembered what I saw. And then I said, “Wow, that was really a sad situation,” you know? Those were turbulent times, you know, in Chicago. JJ: Turbulent times at that time? DR: That’s what it was, turbulent times. JJ: But how did the parents feel about it? DR: The parents? Well, you know the community in Chicago. Some of the family members were fine with it. Some weren’t. You know, some looked at it like, “If you are talking bad about the government and the United States, oh, they’re going to blacklist the whole family. Everybody’s in trouble,” this and that. [00:07:00] And they didn’t realize that there was just a movement going on, not only with the Puerto Rican community. It was going on in the Black community and even in the white community. It was going on in all the communities at that 6 �time. In the ’60s, there were just movements because people were fed up with politics as usual, and they just wanted to change things. Thus, Obama, (laughter) okay? JJ: Yeah. What was St. Teresa’s like? What type of population was there? DR: St. Teresa’s? Remember, it’s a Catholic school. Now, in the Puerto Rican community, their religion is real important. In those days, you couldn’t get smart with a nun. You couldn’t get smart with a priest. You wouldn’t think about saying anything wrong to any one of them. Okay, an example: if you were in a Catholic school like I was, in those days, the teachers had the right to spank you. They didn’t beat you up or anything, but they would take a ruler [00:08:00] and give you a quick thwack. And if you said something to one of these teachers, or if you went back to your parents and said, “The nun hit me --” “Oh, the nun hit you?” Bam, you get hit again because -- JJ: You get hit again. DR: -- yeah, you did something in front of them. If a nun hit you when you did something, you’re a bad boy, (laughs) you know? So that’s the way it was. So actually, I -- JJ: So what grades did you go? DR: All the way to eighth grade. JJ: So first to eighth grade? DR: From first to eighth grade. JJ: I was going to say I only went sixth, seventh, and eighth. 7 �DR: Oh, yeah, you’re lucky you went through those grades. No, I went from first to eighth, and after that, then I was thrown to the dogs at Tuley High School the first time I was ever in a public school. Shock treatment. It’s like, you know -- JJ: So where were you living at when you went to St. Teresa’s? DR: We were living on Armitage and Sheffield right in the heart of -- JJ: Right by Lincoln Park? DR: -- Lincoln Park. JJ: Armitage and Sheffield? DR: Armitage and Sheffield. JJ: And do you remember the address? DR: Nineteen Twenty, something [00:09:00] like that, Sheffield. JJ: Sheffield? DR: Yeah. JJ: Okay. And so what years are we talking about? DR: We’re talking about there 1968, ’69. JJ: Okay, that’s when the Young Lords were there. DR: Right, when the Young Lords were there. You guys were all over Dayton and -- JJ: We were all over Dayton? And what -- DR: The People’s Park had just been finished. JJ: So people knew about the People’s Park? DR: Yeah, everybody knew about the People’s Park. It was -- JJ: The whole community? 8 �DR: The whole community. I mean, all the kids after it was built -- that’s where they went, and everybody knew about the Young Lords. We also knew that the Young Lords were the only group that was really helping the community in those days. They started the lunch program for the kids. A lot of kids would go to school hungry in those days until that -- I remember the first day it started at our school, even. We were like, “Wow, free lunch today,” (laughs) and it was pretty good. JJ: (inaudible) DR: Exactly, you know, so they started that. And I remember they would come, and they would give shots to the kids at the church and [00:10:00] stuff like that. And they’d distribute out food to the -- I remember they worked with a lot of the poor women and the women that had children that didn’t have fathers. JJ: The daycare center. DR: The daycare center, exactly, and I remember all of that stuff. JJ: So the whole community was kind of involved in that whole thing? DR: The whole community was involved with it; basically the whole community. JJ: You’re talking about a big area? DR: No, we’re talking about a huge area. We’re talking about where all of the major population of the Puerto Ricans was in Chicago at that time. JJ: It was at -- DR: This was at Lincoln Park. JJ: -- Lincoln Park. 9 �DR: And the Division in Armitage of what they call the barrio now existed, but it was nothing like Lincoln Park. Lincoln Park was the area. That’s where the Young Lords were. That’s where the music was. That’s where the community leaders were. That’s where the organizations were. Everything was coming out of there. JJ: Out of Lincoln Park? DR: Out of the Lincoln Park area. JJ: And you mentioned the music. What kind of music were you hearing? DR: Well, okay, now the music is what I am. I’m a musician. JJ: You’re a musician. DR: [00:11:00] I’m a musician. I’ve been a musician all my life. You should know that. Basically, in those days or a little bit before that, the Puerto Ricans -- when they first got here, there was no salsa bands or no big, Latin jazz bands or any other kind of bands like that in Chicago. There was little combitos, and you know, whatever came from the island. JJ: You mean combos? DR: Little combos, you know, and trios and things like that, stuff that came from the island. A few guys got together here and there, and they made a little group or a little trio, or a little group -- JJ: Who were some of the trios that you remember? DR: Calpio y su Trio. JJ: Which one? DR: Calpio. JJ: Calpio? 10 �DR: [Luis Catala?], okay, and then the combitos were [Heberto?] y su Combo, [Carlito?] y Su Combo, Felipe y Su Combo, Vitin Santiago. Tony Quintana y Su Quinteto. You know, those were the little things, and that -- JJ: And these were in Chicago? DR: These were in Chicago, but they weren’t popular. [00:12:00] You know, that’s what they had, and so -- JJ: Because I remember Tony Quintana. DR: Well, Tony Quintana also had-- what do you call that? -- sold airline tickets in agencies. And plus, he had the TV show -- JJ: That’s right. That’s what I remember. DR: -- so that’s where he used to sell all his tickets. (laughs) Great guy, Tony; I love him. But anyway, so those guys were basically -- that’s what that was. They weren’t the best at what they did, but that’s what we had. And so whenever there was a party, that’s what came on. And people were happy to see it because they didn’t have anything else. All the sudden, the kids that were being born, me, us in general, and all the kids that were young at that time, didn’t get into Latin music immediately. We started playing rock and roll, and blues and soul music, and rhythm and blues, Santana music, and stuff like that. And they were all over us. “No, you guys can’t do that! No, [00:13:00] we need Latin bands!” I remember it at home constantly. “What are you doing? You’re playing this stuff. No, don’t you play any Jíbaro music?” “No, Pop, that’s for Jíbaros, you know.” We thought that was a saying that was like a hick, Jíbaro from the mountains, and we didn’t realize that we were laughing at our own culture. We were young. 11 �We weren’t born in Puerto Rico. We were born in Chicago and raised in Chicago. We had a conflict going on at home. We were being taught the Puerto Rican culture. And we would get on the streets, and then we were being taught the American culture. So it’s like, we had to mix ’em both together. JJ: I mean, what were some of the differences? DR: Some of the differences? The language, mainly. You would go out on the street all day. You’d be at school in English. Everything with your friends was in English. And now all the sudden, you came home, and you had to talk Spanish, I mean, because your parents didn’t talk English. They had just gotten here, gotten off the boat, you know what I’m saying? And they were still learning the language. A few broken words -- they knew [00:14:00] enough to get along on their jobs. JJ: What about their style versus what you were seeing at school, even the way they dressed and everything like that? I mean, what -- DR: Oh, yeah, that was different. JJ: Were you ever embarrassed? DR: We were greasers. (laughs) JJ: You were greasers? DR: We had greased back hair and everything. JJ: And dirty hair and everything like that. DR: Yeah, I mean, they dressed -- JJ: And it was really curly. DR: You know, exactly. 12 �JJ: Dry, curly hair. DR: Dry, curly hair. JJ: (inaudible) DR: Exactly, and we were greasers, man. You know, our mothers would come and iron our hair. (laughter) Remember that? JJ: I remember that, yeah. DR: And that was unbelievable, you know? “What are you doing to my hair? I have good hair,” you know? JJ: And that’s where your bad hair comes from. DR: Yeah, [it was like?], “Jesus.” That’s where it came from. That’s why they did that. Everybody was mixed like that, but that’s basically what it was like. JJ: And were you ever at all embarrassed of their style? DR: No, I can’t say I was ever -- actually, I was always [00:15:00] proud of my parents, and I was kinda proud of my whole family. I was proud of you. Many, many times, I would throw your name out. “Oh, my cousin’s Cha-Cha Jiménez.” (laughter) I was a young kid. You were Cha-Cha, you know, so many times, I put you out there. I put you on the line, man. And my parents both worked with the community and the churches and stuff, so I was really proud of them too. JJ: So they were working with the community? DR: Yeah. Actually, that’s what made me -- JJ: So what was your father’s involvement? DR: My father was involved with the Caballeros de San Juan, with the (Spanish) [00:15:32] with the Hermanos de la Familia de Dios. You know, they’d do 13 �dances for the community, and they hired bands from out of town. And they would come in, and they would play, I mean, big dances. One time, they brought Tito Rodríguez, and that was huge for the Puerto Rican community. And El Gran Combo, another time, they brung. The first time Gran Combo came, the Caballeros de San Juan brung him. JJ: Oh, the Caballeros de San Juan brung him at that time? DR: Now, [00:16:00] in those days, there was one Latin band. (laughs) JJ: One Latin band? DR: One salsa band, I’m going to say, not Latin. JJ: In Chicago? DR: One salsa band, and the salsa movement was starting up in the ’60s too. And all the sudden, that band started up, which was La Conquistadora -- JJ: La Conquistadora. DR: -- which was (Spanish) [00:16:18] our family members too. JJ: They were part of it? DR: Yeah, they were our family members. JJ: (Spanish) [00:16:24]? DR: Jesus Rodriguez. JJ: And Jesus Rodriguez was also from the Caballeros de San Juan? DR: Exactly, our cousins. JJ: So they were...? DR: They had a band called La Conquistadora, and -- JJ: That was the only band? 14 �DR: That was the only band, and they would play all the dances for the Caballeros de San Juan, unless they were bringing somebody else from out of town. That’s what actually got me started into salsa music because I went to one of the rehearsals, and I saw them rehearsing. And I said, “Geez, these are my cousins. This is something I never heard before.” I was playing rock and roll, and Ricky was playing rock and roll. [00:17:00] He had a band too. JJ: Ricky, our cousin? DR: Ricky, our other cousin. He had a band of his own, and they were all playing rock and roll, and Beatles stuff and stuff like this. And all the sudden, I heard our other cousins that came from the island were playing this. And then I said, “Wait, what’s this?” JJ: And so -- DR As far as I was concerned, Latin music was cuatros, you know, jibaro music, trio music, and bolero music, you know what I mean? JJ: But you played the bass. DR: Right, so as far as I’m concerned, that’s basically what I thought Puerto Ricans had until I was awakened. And I said, “Wait a minute, these people have big bands. I want to know a little bit more about my culture.” And then so actually, that was part of our family (inaudible) too because -- JJ: So here, we had a family in Puerto Rico that’s playing one type of music, and a family in Chicago playing it differently? DR: Completely. JJ: Completely different? 15 �DR: Completely different. JJ: But then -- DR: And then when they came to Chicago -- JJ: So when this was awakened in your eyes, it was like you had to learn both cultures? DR: I had to learn both, [00:18:00] exactly. That’s why -- JJ: Because that was really Puerto Rican. They were both Puerto Rican. DR: Exactly, that’s the way it was. Both cultures needed to be learned. JJ: And so which -- DR: And not only that because don’t forget that by that time, we were getting older. Our parents were starting to take us out to the parties. You know, we were 12, 13 years old by then, 14, and so they wanted music for the kids too, for the teenagers. So they would hire a band that could play Latin music and American music. Thus, Ricky makes a little bust in La Conquistadora. Then finally, in about 1968, ’69, completely everything changes. I heard some stuff from a guy out of New York called Willie Colón, and it was being played in all the bars. And Willie Colón and Héctor Lavoe got really big in Chicago, and they were the ones that you could say [00:19:00] basically got all the bands to switch over from rock and blues and jazz to start playing salsa, okay? When Willie Colón hit the scene, all the bands in Chicago wanted to play that stuff. Back then, they weren’t -- JJ: So what are some of the bands at this time that you can -- DR: There was a band called the Soul Medallions. I don’t know if you remember the Soul Medallions. 16 �JJ: [I can’t say that I do?]. DR: They were the hottest band. They were everywhere. JJ: What type of music did they play? DR: They played salsa. They played Joe Cuba stuff because they had vibes, so they played a lot of Joe Cuba stuff with Cheo Feliciano singing and stuff like that. Great stuff. And then came La Justicia. And when La Justicia came out, they were actually a band called The Mystics, but they were rhythm and blues and soul music. And they broke up, and they knew -- JJ: They were The Mystics first, and they played rhythm and soul? Because I remember those type of bands too. DR: Right, they were The Mystics. JJ: The Mystics. DR: [00:20:00] They switched from being a rhythm and soul band, they switched completely over to a salsa band -- JJ: A salsa band. DR: -- okay? And La Solución was originally a Santana band, but before that, you had -- JJ: You were in La Solución. DR: I had La Solución, but before that, there was, like I said, the Soul Medallions, La Justicia, La Confidencia, Oportunidad, La Unión, La Solución, La Humanidad, La Liberación, Latin Explosion, Heberto y Sus Estrellas -- Jesus, there’s so many bands and -- JJ: This was in the ’60s? 17 �DR: This was during the ’60s, yeah. JJ: The middle or late ’60s? DR: No, these were from about ’68 to about ’77, ’78. JJ: And they were playing in what neighborhoods? DR: They were playing in all the Puerto Rican neighborhoods, in all the American neighborhoods. We had all the neighborhoods. JJ: So they were making money? DR: Yes, definitely, and we were in the Black neighborhoods. We were in the American neighborhoods. We were in the Italian neighborhoods. What happened was when that music hit the scene, [00:21:00] all the people in Chicago, all the promoters -- and I’m not talking about just Latino promoters. The American promoters were freaking out because all of the sudden, they were having all of these kinds of people showing up at, say, the Aragon Ballroom. You know, usually, they would have to hire an act from out of town or from Europe or from some other place to fill the Aragon Ballroom. This is the largest dancing ballroom in Chicago. It’s a huge venue, and so they would have to call people up there to fill this place, you know? Now, all the sudden, you had a bunch of local bands. Any one of ’em could fill the Aragon by itself, and it was a local band. And they were from the Puerto Rican community, which was a limited population, so they were like, “What the heck is going on here?” We actually went to play at Waller High School one time, [00:22:00] and that’s when we realized what we were doing and what was happening. The girls started throwing things at us, their underclothes. (laughs) We were like, “Wow, like we’re The Beatles or 18 �something?” So when we were trying to leave, they caused a huge riot. They had to call the police and everything. The police show up at Waller High School. “It’s a regular workday. What’s going on?” They show up and go, “Oh, man, you kids. We’ve heard about you guys. Yeah, no, you guys can’t play anymore unless you have a police escort.” So for about three months there at a certain point, because we’re -JJ: And what band was this? DR: La Solución. JJ: La Solución, okay. DR: For about three months there, we actually had to tell ’em where we were going to play so that they would know that we were in the area. And they would have a little bit more police in the area because it was just unbelievable. You did something yourself, which I always remember. [00:23:00] After Hector and Willie broke up, Héctor Lavoe and Willie Colón, you were the guy that finally got ’em together to do one show before they finally -- they never did anything else after that together. It was -- JJ: Oh, they didn’t do it after that? DR: No, and that was at Humboldt Park when you brung them in. I think that was -- JJ: That was in ’83. DR: In ’83, yeah. JJ: June of ’83. DR: Exactly, and -- JJ: That’s when we -- 19 �DR: -- that came out in the paper. Over 100,000 Puerto Ricans showed up for that concert. JJ: You played that, didn’t you? DR: My band, definitely. (laughs) JJ: I remember you were cheering for me. DR: Oh, definitely, yeah. But besides that, we had many orchestras. I had many -- JJ: Now, can you describe that day? Because that’s kind of important in our history. DR: That day was big. JJ: And how was your -- DR: Oh, no, you know, everybody was waiting for it. Everybody said first, when it was announced, “Willie Colón and Héctor Lavoe? They broke up. They hate each other.” (laughs) I mean, they hated each other. And I don’t know what you did, but the buzz was for about four weeks -- JJ: It’s called money. We paid them money. DR: Money. (laughter) Okay, [00:24:00] that’s probably what it is, money. JJ: We had money then. DR: Yeah, well, they showed up, and the people just wanted to go crazy. I mean, that was a big thing for Chicago. Even New York has to remember, and Puerto Rico has to. I mean, they have to bow to that. JJ: And you said it was a big thing for Chicago. What do you mean? DR: Well, it was the most important venue Willie Colón and Héctor Lavoe that I could say ever played because they literally drove 100,000 people by themselves -- JJ: To that event. 20 �DR: -- to that event, and it was done in Chicago. JJ: And the Young Lords had something to do with it. In fact, I was the -- DR: You were the only one, exactly. JJ: -- only one onstage. DR: Cha-Cha Jiménez. JJ: Yeah, so that was (inaudible). DR: So those were the days, and I remember also many of the musicians. I have to mention a few of these musicians -- they were good musicians -- like Ella Martinez, Jesús Soto; Edwin Rodriguez, my own brother; Hector del Valle. These are cats that -- they’re still playing, and they’re still out there [00:25:00] making good money. And they’re playing with big people and big stars. And they weren’t given as much credit as they should’ve gotten because there was so much trouble and static going on in the community at those times, you know? A lot of headhunting went on with the bands in those days too. JJ: What do you mean, headhunting? DR: Well, “My band’s better than your band.” They would go out there and actually try to take your gig. They’d show up with their whole band at your dance and try to take your gig. “Oh, let me play two sets there for free, and I’ll show you how good my band is,” (laughs) and they tried to take your work. JJ: You had competition, eh? DR: A lot of competition, which was bad because we didn’t need that in Chicago. It wasn’t as big as New York, and the population wasn’t as big as New York or Puerto Rico, so they were basically cutting each other’s throats. And we were 21 �seeing these people every day. We were seeing each other’s faces every day, and we’re cutting each other’s throats every day. It wasn’t good. It’s not like, you know, we saw this guy once in a [00:26:00] while. The community was so strong that we saw them all the time, so it’s like, “I know what you did.” So there was a lot of static that happened because of that. It was a different scene than New York or Puerto Rico. Chicago was different. JJ: What do you mean? DR: Well, remember, Chicago is an industrial city. People, when they moved there, they went to work. Parties in Chicago are basically Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, okay? It’s not a tourist city like New York or Miami or Puerto Rico or San Juan. You know, they live off the tourism label. How many millions and millions of people go to New York every year, the Big Apple, or Miami or Puerto Rico for their vacations, stuff like that? And so there’s a lot of parties, and a bigger venue for orchestras and for musicians. In Chicago, no. Chicago’s completely different. It’s a working class city, [00:27:00] okay? It’s an industrial city, and you work all week long. And Friday, Saturday, and Sunday is when you go out and party with your wife or with your girlfriend or whatever, and that’s when you go and see the musicians. And most of the musicians out there hold steady jobs, and I ain’t talking about musicians that, when they leave, play with the best bands in the world and they don’t have to work again in a factory. They just stay there because they have a job. You know, once you have a job, and you’re raising a family, you’re not going to be jumping from place to place or doing things like that. So the way I see it -- the settling of the Puerto Rican 22 �community in Chicago was done by the sons and daughters, not really the fathers and mothers, because a lot of the fathers and mothers packed up and left. And they’re still packing up and leaving, most of ’em, but their sons and daughters were raised there and born there. That’s what they know, so they’re staying there now, that first generation. Chicago is [00:28:00] actually, in my opinion, being built now. JJ: It’s being built now? DR: It’s being built now, in my opinion, by the kids that were left behind, by the first and second generation of Puerto Ricans that are starting to get into their fifties and their forties and that now. And they’re the ones making community movements and doing stuff with the community, and working with the new kids. And their kids are being born now, and their kids are starting to become teenagers and things like that. So yeah, in my opinion, now Chicago is actually being built as far as the community. That’s the way I see it. JJ: And you -- DR: But it couldn’t have been done without any of the struggles that were dealt. I mean, it just wouldn’t exist at all without what happened in the ’60s and the ’70s there. JJ: Which ones? DR: I mean, you have to realize there was a machine called the Daley Machine in Chicago. He was doing everything possible to clear out all the Latinos there in Chicago, okay? JJ: He didn’t like Latinos, [00:29:00] or he just didn’t like their neighborhood? 23 �DR: He just didn’t like their neighborhood, I think. It wasn’t so much a personal thing. I think it was more like, “We were here first,” that kind of a thing. He was Irish, then you had the Italian community add on next to it. So the Irish are coming down on us, you had the Italians, and they were their first. You had the mob and the Italianos. You’ve got the Irish mob, which is the police in Chicago, and you got, I mean, Daley’s gestapo. That’s what we used to call them, the Daley gestapo, the Irish cops, and then you had the Italian real mob. And then all of the sudden, you’re seeing these Puerto Ricans who aren’t scared of anything, (laughter) and they’re fighting with everybody. “We don’t care. No, get out of here!” “No, you make us move.” JJ: So what was -- DR: That was our attitude. JJ: So this is a physical thing? DR: Well, there was a physical thing going on, yeah. JJ: There was a physical thing? DR: There [00:30:00] was a physical thing, of course. I mean, you couldn’t walk through that neighborhood without being -- you had to run through the neighborhood. (laughter) Otherwise, you weren’t going to get out of their neighborhood, okay? That’s the way it was. JJ: Yeah, we had a motorcycle. DR: Yeah, the little motor. JJ: We came through the park. 24 �DR: Yeah, you just couldn’t get out of those neighborhoods, so it was bad. I remember one of our bass players from one of our bands was on the way over to rehearsal one time. He finally showed up at the rehearsal all beat up; broken nose, broken arm, this and that. Oh, the whole band ran out. “What happened?” “The Gaylords.” (laughter) Remember the Gaylords? They were basically American greasers, a hillbilly gang. JJ: So you’re talking about some of the gangs. The band had to fight the gangs? DR: Actually, most of the bands in Chicago were ex-gangbangers. (laughs) JJ: So they came out of the gangs, then? DR: Yeah, because if you weren’t in one, you had few probabilities of surviving. JJ: So you had to be in the gang at the time? Is that what you’re saying? DR: [00:31:00] Not so much be in it, but associated with it. JJ: Associated with it. DR: Yeah, you had to be associated. You didn’t have to really be in it. But if you associated with them, and trouble happened and you didn’t show your face, then you were also in trouble -- JJ: Also in trouble? DR: -- okay? So without coming out all the time and saying, “Yeah, I’m this,” or, “I’m that;” you know, just by saying, “Oh, I live here,” and, “That’s where I’m at.” JJ: So wherever you lived, you were part of the gang? DR: That’s basically it. JJ: That’s what it was. DR: If you wanted to live there in peace, that’s what it was. 25 �JJ: Now, to change the subject, I just wanted to make sure that -- there was the Puerto Rican Congress, and there was also Caribe Ruiz? DR: No, all in one. The Puerto Rican Congress was owned by Carlos “Caribe” Ruiz. That’s where all the bands were, and that’s -- JJ: That started on Larabee and North Avenue? DR: They started on Larabee and North Avenue. JJ: Were you there on Larabee and North Avenue? DR: No, I was not. I show up on the scene on 11th and North Avenue. JJ: So 11th and North Avenue? DR: That’s where [00:32:00] it became, really, the Congress; where they painted the murals and everything. JJ: So that was the Puerto Rican Congress there? DR: That was the Puerto Rican Congress. JJ: They moved to there? DR: They moved to there. JJ: So they used to be on Larabee and North Avenue? DR: They had the club on Larabee and North Avenue. That was the first Puerto Rican club. JJ: So it kind of moved west? DR: Right. That’s where all you guys went when you -- JJ: Right. When we were young, we used to go there. DR: That’s where you guys went. The first Puerto Ricans that got there -- that’s where they went. 26 �JJ: Because that’s where the Puerto Rican Parade was. DR: Exactly, that’s where the first Puerto Rican Parade -- which was Caribe that did it. JJ: Caribe Ruiz was part of it? DR: Caribe Ruiz was in the -- JJ: And the Caballeros de San Juan. DR: And the Caballeros de San Juan, and then he got into working with the kids in the community. That’s when all the bands were created. All those bands -- JJ: So what year was that? That’s what I’m trying to see. Can you explain a little bit about him, or...? DR: Caribe? JJ: Yeah, about Caribe. DR: Okay, so I can go as far as La Justicia with Caribe. Caribe started the bands; that’s where I come in. I can tell you Caribe really started the orchestras in Chicago. I’m not [00:33:00] saying he started the bands. The bands started themselves, but he took over them and he pushed ’em. And he was the one that gave them their names. He was the one that promoted ’em, and without him, none of those bands would’ve had any recognition at all. I mean, I have to be honest about that. A lot of people throw (Spanish) [00:33:16] on Caribe. They didn’t like him because he did so much. It was basically because they were just jealous. For me, they just didn’t like him because they were jealous. I couldn’t find any other reason. They would say this about him, and they would say that about him when it all came down to this. They were unhappy because he was getting money for the bands, and he had seven, eight bands. He had the 27 �majority of the bands, and they were all the best bands. He started ’em himself. You know, he pushed these bands. He bought them equipment. He got every band a brand new PA, every band new amps, every band new personal instruments, everybody band brand new uniforms. Every band was recording, [00:34:00] you know, and Caribe did this. Before that, there was nothing coming out of Chicago. JJ: So he was managing. He was making money, but he was using that money to promote the bands. DR: He was reinvesting it. He was always reinvesting -- JJ: Reinvesting it. DR: -- the money. And usually, 90 percent of the musicians would come to him during the week. “Hey, Caribe, I need 20 or 30 bucks.” He was like a little piggy bank. Every day, 20 or 30 musicians would say, “Give me some money,” and he was just passing -- he never said no. Never, so we never had to really -- and plus, we got paid at our gigs. (laughs) JJ: For a change, yeah. DR: For a change. JJ: He made sure that, you know -- but there’s no free beer here. You had to play for it. DR: Exactly, so that’s basically what was going on with Caribe. Caribe also was involved with a lot of community organizations. The Trina Davila Center -- he worked with you guys -- JJ: Yeah, with the Young Lords. 28 �DR: -- the Young Lords, many times, and he also gave music for you for whatever kind of occasion you guys needed. We did a [00:35:00] lot of work with the community organizations, a lot of it, and that was another good thing that the bands did. That helps the community. JJ: So he promoted the salsa in Chicago and Hispanic music. DR: All of it. He definitely promoted all the salsa in Chicago, all of it. JJ: Because like you said, there was some bands before that were playing, but they had some -- DR: They never really did anything. None of those bands that I mentioned before ever really made any noise, how do you say. They broke up. The bands after that, though, that Caribe handled, they all had a name. They were all recognized through all Latin -- I mean, everywhere you went, they knew about the bands in Chicago. JJ: Some of them, I remember. I’m just trying to find those other bands who came back from Lincoln Park, any salsa bands. DR: Well, definitely, I’ll tell you what -- JJ: Well, the Puerto Rican Congress was the -- DR: -- La León, La Solución, most of the guys from La Justicia, most of the guys from La Confidencia -- JJ: Were from Lincoln Park? DR: They were all from Lincoln Park too, [00:36:00] yeah. JJ: They were all from Lincoln Park, okay. DR: That’s where they were born. You know, they took -- 29 �JJ: Okay, [now even?] before that summer, some of the guys were -- wherever they lived, they had to be part of the gang. So when you lived there, what was the gang there? DR: (laughter) There was a gang there. JJ: Weren’t you part of a group, or no? DR: I was recognized as part of a group. JJ: Okay, what was that group? You weren’t in the group? DR: My brothers and I -- no, I was never in the group. I was just recognized as part of the group, okay? The Latin Kings. JJ: The Latin Kings? Okay. DR: Lived there all of my life on Sheffield and Armitage, Armitage and Richmond. I always lived in Latin Kings territory. Actually, I was one of the original Pee Wees from Dayton and Armitage. (laughs) JJ: You were one [00:37:00] of the Pee Wees from where? DR: Dayton and Armitage. JJ: And then the -- DR: Piso, Wiso, Baby, me -- we had Frankie, a bunch of guys. JJ: In the Latin Kings? Okay, because that was turned into the Medinas -- were they part of that group? DR: Yeah, they were part of that group. JJ: So they were part of that group. DR: They were all part of that group, but that’s something today I won’t dwell on. You know, those are -- 30 �JJ: Because when you’re growing up, you do -- DR: Growing up, exactly. You grow up, and it’s a life experience. JJ: Because you said you were in that part of Chicago. DR: And actually, when we got into the music thing, I would go and play in all those rival gang territories. And they recognized me all the time. And, you know, I told ’em, “Listen, I’m a musician, man.” “We know, man. Don’t worry about it.” JJ: But didn’t you tell me some stories about -- you had to duck a few times? DR: Well, yeah, we had to duck quite a few times, you know? JJ: So give me an example. DR: Okay, here’s a good example. We went to play at a place up on the northside in [00:38:00] the Lake View area. (laughter) And we get to this place. It was a house party, and the band was playing. And some of the guys recognized the guys in the band, and they said, “Man, half that band is Latin Kings.” It was a house party for another gang, so finally, they realized. And I had to go to the guy, and I said, “Listen, you know, your buddies want to tear us apart, man. I mean, we’re going to have to defend ourselves here in a few seconds, you know. What are you going to do? I mean, you hired us to play here. You knew that this was going to --” “No, don’t worry. I’ll take care of the situation.” This is the way they take care of that situation: they line up seven guys in front of the orchestra with bats and knives. (laughter) And they say, “The first one that dares touch any one of these guys has to cross this line.” And we played the rest of the night with seven guys in front of [00:39:00] the band. JJ: That’s the way it was. 31 �DR: I’m not kidding. This actually happened. God, Jimmy, I hope you remember that. (laughter) Actually, when we left, though -- the protection ends at the door. JJ: When you had to leave? DR: The protection ends at the door. Once you load that car, and that last guy walks out that door, jump in the car and run as fast as you can because -- “Bananas! Bananas!” And they start throwing everything they can. JJ: That’s what they used to call the Kings back then? DR: Bananas -- JJ: Because of their colors? DR: -- because of their colors, yeah, so that’s basically what happened there. I can name you bad times with the bands. When the bands were first starting in Chicago, a lot of them didn’t sound that great, okay? They were young kids, remember, that were learning. JJ: So you -- DR: And all the old folks wanted to see their kids playing, so they were hiring these kids to play with -- JJ: It’s a learning [00:40:00] process. DR: -- exorbitant amounts of money, okay? They were paying money for these kids that were learning, okay? And so we went to play at this place in Gary, Indiana one time, La Solución Orchestra, and I remember being on stage. And the band had only been together about three or four months, and it wasn’t a band yet, okay? It was a bunch of noise still, but they hired us. And they hired La Justicia Orchestra, thank God. Those guys were always La Solución’s best friends, 32 �okay? And people booed us off the stage. They booed the band literally. Some of the guys started crying. Remember, we had guys in the band who were 13 years old. Some were as young as 12, 14, 15. I was one of the older ones at 16, and a few of the other guys started crying. They had nerves back then. They started just crying. A lot of them wanted to stop playing music permanently, and I remember the manager and the guys [00:41:00] from La Justicia coming up and saying, “Listen, man, don’t worry about it. One day, they’re going to wish they can get your band in there.” And, you know, about four or five years later when La Solución really hottest thing there was, there was -- we had just come back from Puerto Rico. We were traveling. We had our records out. We were the band, and we had gone back to Indiana many times but for other people. And we were making them pay the price. (laughter) We remembered all the time what had happened in Indiana, so every time they mentioned Indiana, you know, if it was a regular 2,000 dollars, we’d go, “No, 4,000 dollars. You want us to move? That’s it.” So I walked into the Congress one time; Caribe was there. I went to get Caribe to give me some money. (laughs) I walk in, and Caribe goes, “Hey, Dave, how you doin’? You need some money?” And I go, “Yeah, I need some money.” He goes, “Sit [00:42:00] down. Hey, you know who this man is here?” I’m looking at the guy going, “Actually, no.” And Caribe goes, “This is the bass player from La Solución.” The guy gets up and -- “Oh, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” and this and that. “Oh, yeah, sure. Nice to meet you,” and this and that. And Caribe goes, “Remember that time we played in Indiana, that they booed you guys off the stage, and the owner of the dance came up and said, 33 �‘Don’t ever bring me these kids again’? He wants to hire the band now.” (laughter) It was him. And I looked at the guy, and I go, “Really?” And the guy goes, “Yeah, but you know, you guys were young.” And I go, “Yeah, but you didn’t want to give us a break. Look what we are now.” You know, I told him just like that, but we gave him a break coming down to three or four hundred dollars’ difference. We still screwed him. (laughs) Is that allowed to be said? JJ: (laughs) Yeah, you can say that. So where are you at today? You’re living in Puerto Rico, and -- DR: I live in Arroyo, Puerto Rico. I’ve been living here [00:43:00] now 12 years, and I play -- JJ: Why did you decide to come down here? DR: I had some back surgery done. I won some money in a lawsuit, and I always wanted to move to Puerto Rico because of the music. I just wanted to move here, you know? I wanted to try something else in Latin music because Chicago had run out of its boundaries for me. It wasn’t doing what I wanted to hear, so I came here to try some different stuff. Actually, I’ve gone good so far, so... JJ: And [what do you play?]? DR: Well, I play with the Puerto Rico Latin Xpress Orchestra. That’s my orchestra with Tino Sanchez, one of the best known bass players in Latin music. And I play with some of the best musicians in Latin music, and they’re part of my orchestra. We got Monty Montgomery. He also plays with Víctor Manuelle, Fania All-Stars and everybody. And [Willy Trompeta?], William Santiago played with (inaudible) and with [Marina Dión?], many of the [00:44:00] big bands too. I 34 �have, on the piano, Ricky Rodríguez. He directs Lalo Rodríguez’s orchestra. Singing, I have -- on this CD, the new one, it’s Ito Rivera. He used to sing with the Puerto Rican Power, and his brother is Jerry Rivera, the singer that’s out there. JJ: He’s in the band right now? DR: But Ito was famous before Jerry, trust me. Make sure you say that. (laughs) JJ: Yeah, he’s been around. DR: Yeah, Ito was with the Puerto Rican Power. JJ: But Jerry’s his brother? DR: His brother Jerry, yeah. And I have musicians like Milo Orta, Choco Orta’s brother, and I also have musicians like Lester [Ojeda?]. And he used to play with Impacto Crea. I also have Pablo Cardenas. [00:45:00] He’s a master progressionist and altoist. The guys I’m mentioning, these are very, very good musicians. It’s a different style. You know, in Chicago, you play with good musicians locally, but when I came here, I was offered the chance to play with some of the top talents. That’s what I’m working with, some of the top talent here and -- JJ: What are some of the places you’re playing now? DR: Oh, we play everywhere, all around the island. For example, right now, I have something going on with American Health Medicare where I do some stuff during the day so that I’m at different venues all over the island. Next month, for example, I’ll be in Guayama, Salinas. I’ll be in Fajardo, I’ll be in Orocovis, and then Mayagüez. Those are daytime venues. Most of the weekends, I’m at the 35 �Gran Melia Hotel in Rio Grande with a small Latin jazz ensemble. That’s Monty’s group, and I play with them. [00:46:00] And plus, I play with everybody who calls me. I just recorded one tune on Tito Rojas’ new CD. Cut number five is dedicated to his father. He called me to do a bit, so... JJ: And so it was always your ambition to get into music? I mean, why did you start thinking about music? I mean -- DR: I don’t know. (laughs) That’s a good question. I mean, as far as I can remember, I always -- JJ: Because what is the music instrument that you play? DR: I play the tres, but I didn’t start on the tres. I started off on an accordion. The first instrument I ever picked up in my life was an accordion. JJ: And how did you get with that? DR: We lived on Bissell and Armitage, and Don Lulu’s? daughters were taking accordion -- JJ: Don Lulu? DR: Don Lulu. JJ: Lulu? DR: Lulu; that was the owner of the building. His daughters were taking accordion lessons, and [00:47:00] they were teenagers. I was a kid. Now, every time they came home with their accordions, I would start making noise. And then they freaked out because I started playing something, [on the accordian?] I guess. And my dad made me take accordion lessons. My friends would be outside 36 �playing, and I’d be in the kitchen sitting with my dad cooking. “You did it wrong! (laughter) Play it again.” JJ: He was your teacher, or...? DR: Well, he was -- JJ: Your coach. DR: My coach, yeah. He was the one with the whip, (laughter) so that’s what was going on there. Then after that, I had some family members like Ricky and Paolo, my uncle and my cousin. They played guitars and a cuatro, and every time we went to their house, I would grab their instruments. And Ricky had a Mustang. JJ: So when would you go to their house at this -- DR: Every day, almost. JJ: Oh, because I didn’t -- DR: Almost every day, you know. JJ: I was going to say -- DR: Yeah, no, we were raised together [00:48:00] basically. You know, if it wasn’t every day, it was every week. We saw each other three or four times a week. You know, that’s the kind of thing it was, and I would go to his house and grab his instrument. And I mean, they would make me play on the bed because they didn’t want me to drop it. Ricky had a proud, white guitar; a Fender Mustang. It was one of the first ones they had of that white guitar, you know, that Fender Mustang, and he was really proud of that guitar. And I would go grab it. (laughs) I’m banging on that thing, so he decided to teach me a couple chords. And they 37 �taught me a couple chords, and from there on, I went by myself. My brother Edwin, who ended up playing trombone, he taught me a couple chords. He won a contest for something somewhere. JJ: Edwin? DR: Edwin. And the contest winner was going to get some free guitar lessons, so I made him go to class. He didn’t want to go. (laughter) I would make him go to class and then [00:49:00] come home and teach me, “Or I’ll beat you up.” That’s what went on, and he taught me the chords. And that’s exactly what happened. JJ: Okay, your brother Edwin -- DR: Yeah, he’ll remind you of it too if you talk to him. JJ: “Oh, he would beat up everybody back then.” DR: Yeah, he’ll remind you of it too. “Oh, yeah, he used to beat me up if I didn’t teach him the chords.” That’s the way he was, but that’s exactly how I learned how to play. I wanted to learn so bad that I would do whatever it took to learn. JJ: So there’s Edwin and how many else in your family? DR: Everybody at home was musicians. Everybody did something as far as musically. It’s me, Ruth -- JJ: What did Ruth do? DR: Ruth sang. JJ: She sang? DR: Ruth sang, and Junior sings. And -- JJ: You said Ruth with a T, or...? DR: Ruth. 38 �JJ: How would you spell that? DR: R-U-T-H. JJ: T-H, Ruth. DR: Like the Bible stories. JJ: And she sang? What kind of music did she -- DR: (laughs) Ruth used to love Donnie and Marie Osmond. JJ: Really? DR: I’m looking at [00:50:00] you, girl. (laughter) Donnie and Marie Osmond. I mean, really, really big fans of “One Bad Apple.” And my brother, Junior -- Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. How far can you get from Puerto Rico? (laughter) Nah, he’s a crooner. He’s won karaoke contests singing Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. JJ: Did he? DR: Yeah, he’s a crooner, man. He’s definitely a crooner. He sounds like Dean Martin. JJ: Does he? Wow. DR: Really good. And me and Edwin and Jesse were the musician-musicians that played. Edwin and Jesse both play trombones. JJ: Edwin and Jesse? DR: Jesse’s still playing. Edwin retired a while ago, but Jesse’s still playing, and I play the tres. JJ: The tres? Okay, but why did you pick the tres? Was that -- 39 �DR: Actually, I had started off on the guitar, and like I said, I started playing many instruments. I played accordion. I played [00:51:00] drums. I played guitar. I played bass. I even tried a little bit of marimba. JJ: Because isn’t the tres Cuban? DR: Yeah, the tres is Cuban, and I tried cuatro -- JJ: So cuatro went bad for you (inaudible)? DR: No, it wasn’t nothing like that. What happened was that when I got into Latin music, salsa, I was hearing an instrument in the background of some of the salsa bands. And I was saying, “But that’s not a cuatro,” because I knew the sound of the cuatro. I said, “Well, what instrument is that,” you know? And Caribe was saying, “No, that’s a cuatro.” I said, “No, that is not a cuatro. That’s something else.” Finally, Albert Martinez, La Justicia Alfie, says, “No, that’s a thing called a tres. It’s a Cuban instrument, and they play it with the salsa bands and stuff like that.” I go, “Yeah? I want to learn how to play that,” because I really liked it. And Caribe gave me one on my 18th birthday, and it was a gift that he had given to someone else that didn’t [00:52:00] do anything with it. So he took it from him and gave it to me. A week later, I was playing all the songs in the band on it. I learned all that literally in one week. I learned all the songs in the band. I wasn’t quote, unquote, “a monster” on the tres, but I was playing the tres in all the songs in the band in one week. It’s something that other musicians couldn’t -- after two years, they’d give it up because they’d get one wrong. I don’t know. It was an instrument that I caught right away, and I understood it immediately. I could tell I knew exactly what it was, and I knew how to play it. I felt it, and that’s why I 40 �ended up on the tres, and thank God. I made a lot of money playing the tres. (laughs) Hang on one second. JJ: Can you remind me -- yeah, let’s wait a second. DR: Yeah, wait one second. Yeah, I -- (break in audio) JJ: And you said in Lincoln Park, that the Young Lords hung out? DR: Lincoln Park. JJ: We’re ready to go, right? M1: [00:53:00] Go ahead. JJ: Okay, if you can tell me -- we were talking about the Young Lords and when the FBI was coming to your house. Can you explain that? DR: Okay, that was in about ’65, ’66, ’67, those years. JJ: This was probably later in ’68 after the Young Lords had the -- DR: Right, after their whole thing -- JJ: It was the -- DR: -- okay? Yeah, man, ’67 or ’68 around there. You’re right. JJ: Yeah, with the -- DR: Okay, what happened was -- I remember getting up to go to school in the mornings, and there were black cars parked in front of the house. The FBI was sitting there in front of the house. The story I had from my folks was that at that time, they were looking for you, the FBI. JJ: For Cha-Cha Jiménez? 41 �DR: For Cha-Cha Jiménez because of the Young Lords thing. They were considering you guys a militant group and all this stuff. You know, you were anti-American for them. They didn’t know that all you were looking for was just to help the [00:54:00] community, so you were screaming that you were anti-American, you know? That’s the way it was in those days, so what happened was -- JJ: But why were they at your house? DR: -- that they knew that you were our family. And my dad offered to let you stay there a few times while you were dodging all -- they knew this, and they called my dad and my mom. They said, “You know, you have one daughter,” my sister Ruth. “It’d be a shame if anything happened to her because Cha-Cha’s living in your house.” JJ: So they were threatening her? DR: Oh, it was a direct threat. It’s -- JJ: I mean, your father tells you this? DR: Yeah, sure, my parents told us that. That was a threat from the FBI. They basically told ’em, “Get him out, or else something might happen to your kids.” That’s basically what they threatened. And I remember we’d go to school and -- JJ: The reason for that -- I was staying there at the time? DR: Exactly. JJ: So they said, you know, “Get him out, or something might happen.” DR: “Get him out, or something bad could happen to your daughter,” and that was [00:55:00] my dad’s pride and joy, Ruth, his only daughter, okay? That was his baby, period. He didn’t have four sons. He had one daughter. (laughter) That’s 42 �what he had, all right? So basically, like I said, we would go to school in the mornings, and they’d be there. When we’d come back, they’d be there. We’d go out to play? They’d be there. We’d leave someplace with the family? They’d follow us. That’s the way it was. We’d get on the bus, and they’d follow the bus. And we’re looking out the back. “There they come.” (laughs) JJ: So you remember seeing them? DR: Yah, all the time. JJ: And you said that -- DR: Oh, I would get in trouble because I was always looking at them. And my mom -“Quit looking,” you know, that kinda stuff, so I would get in trouble constantly. I was always reminded not to look at them. JJ: So this was something that you talked about in your family? DR: Oh, yeah. Well, we didn’t talk about it all the time. We kept it quiet. We talked about it when it had to be talked about when they’d mention it once [00:56:00] in a while, but most of the time, it was like, “Shh!” JJ: But you did talk about it? DR: We did talk about it, yeah. JJ: And so the whole family was aware? DR: Oh, the whole family was aware, yeah. JJ: And they knew this was FBI? DR: The whole family was aware that this was FBI -- JJ: And they knew this was (inaudible)? DR: No, it was nothing. There was no -- 43 �JJ: And how did you know it was FBI? DR: Because they told us it was the FBI. JJ: They said they were FBI? DR: Yeah, and -- JJ: [So that’s not?] -- DR: -- we knew who they were. It said “G-man” on the car; (laughs) government plates, man. “FBI,” so I mean, it was as clear as day that’s what they were there for. JJ: So then what did your parents feel about this? DR: They felt a lot of resentment. They weren’t happy about it. They were angry with you sometimes. JJ: They were angry with me because I gave them that. I was bringing heat. DR: You were bringing heat to the family. JJ: To the family, so -- DR: But at the same time, they didn’t want any beef with you because they knew what you were doing, that you were actually trying to help the community. [00:57:00] And they didn’t agree in some of the ways you went around doing it. (laughs) JJ: So they didn’t agree in the methods, but they agreed in the reasoning. DR: They agreed in the reasoning. Oh, definitely, the reasoning was always fine. Just the methods, they always -- JJ: They knew that there was discrimination. DR: Oh, they knew that. JJ: And -- 44 �DR: I mean, my dad fought for the same reasons. That’s where the differences in the ideologies come in. You went in the political ideology. You went for the neck. You went after aldermen, and you went after this in communities and forced the community in, “Let’s make a big march.” And they went about it quietly trying to bring change through the churches, telling the people, “Do this. Don’t say this. Say that. When you go to a meeting, talk to them like this. Talk to them like that. Represent yourselves in a different form. Maybe we’ll gain their respect.” You were like, “No, we’re going to earn their respect over the other like, ‘No, you’re going to give me your respect!’” They were saying, “We’ll earn [00:58:00] their respect,” and you said, “No, you’re going to give me your respect!” That’s the kind of stuff -- JJ: That was the difference. DR: That was the difference. JJ: There were different tactics, but they were both for -- so the Caballeros de San Juan were also trying to uplift the community? DR: All those organizations, Caballeros de San Juan, Dos Hermanos de la Familia de Dio -- JJ: The Puerto Rican Congress. DR: The Puerto Rican Congress. Let me see. The Trina Davila Center -- there was just so many of ’em. There were a lot of organizations. JJ: They were all trying to uplift the community -- DR: All of ’em. JJ: -- but in their different ways. 45 �DR: In different ways, exactly. JJ: So it was -- DR: They all had their own leaders, they all had their own ideology, but it was basically the same thing: do for the community. JJ: In other words, they knew the community was down. “How can we improve the community?” DR: Exactly. And I remember in the ’60s that they had gotten a lot of the priests -- I remember there was one priest. I’m going to mention his name. He’s not a priest anymore. His name was Father Raymond -- JJ: [00:59:00] Father Raymond? DR: -- and he was one of the first ones that really, really, really wanted to help the Puerto Rican community. I remember him going out in the snow with you guys taking out food to the poor Hispanic families in the community. You’d take boxes and boxes of food, and toys and everything for the kids, because they just didn’t have money. You know, and I remember him doing all that with the Puerto Rican leaders, with the Young Lords, with the Caballeros de San Juan. I remember the dances they’d do in the church. I remember the first gang was not the Young Lords. JJ: What was it? DR: There was one called the Rebels. (laughs) JJ: Oh, the Rebels. That’s right, with Ricky. DR: With Ricky -- JJ: Yeah, Ricky. 46 �DR: -- and that was the first gang that I can remember in Chicago. JJ: That was down by Immaculate Conception. DR: By Immaculate Conception. The first gang that I can remember from the Puerto Rican community was the Rebels in Chicago. A lot of guys are going to say Latin Kings [01:00:00] or the Disciples. No, the Rebels, the Young Lords, Latin Kings, Disciples, and then -- JJ: Because the Rebels were in Lincoln Park, but the Latin Kings were later up at Sheffield, which was kind of -- DR: The Latin Kings, from what I heard, were just a lot of ex-Young Lord members that weren’t happy with you. (laughs) JJ: Oh, really? Later, some of them -- DR: Yeah, and they formed the Latin Kings. That’s what happened there, but basically, that’s what it was. You know, they said you were too communityminded. (laughter) Let’s put it that way. They didn’t want that much heat on them, so that was what’s going on. JJ: Yeah, that was from the neighborhood [that I came back to?]. DR: And I can remember then -- JJ: And then the -- DR: -- back with the Young Lords too in the Sheffield and Armitage area, the church on Dayton and Armitage. JJ: You said it was -- DR: [01:01:00] You had a music room there in the church, and I used to go there with a couple of my buddies. Billy Ramos -- 47 �JJ: Billy Ramos went there? DR: -- and I would go in there, and my brother Edwin, and we would bang on the instruments, man. We would practice, we would learn, and nobody chased us out because, “That’s Cha-Cha’s cousin.” (laughs) JJ: But not only that. One of the reasons that we took over the church was so we could open it up for the neighborhood, so you guys were going -- DR: And on top of that, we got free lunch every day because you guys were giving out free lunches in the summer to all the kids in -- JJ: Free breakfast and that. DR: And I would get like four or five free lunches a day.(laughs) JJ: But like you said, you guys played music with our [instruments?] everywhere? DR: Everywhere. JJ: Everybody didn’t like you there, but they were -- DR: They had a little nurses thing. They’d check the kids out once in a while. I remember that. JJ: At the clinic? DR: At the clinic. I think they came once a year or twice a year. I remember all of those things like that. Those were very important to the Puerto Rican community -- JJ: But then -- DR: -- especially when you guys would give out the shots. Those shots costed money. A lot of [01:02:00] those folks didn’t have the money, and they had to send their kids -- and then that’s when they were starting with these flu shots and 48 �the polio shots and all this stuff. And so the kids had to get the shots before they went to school. They made a new rule -JJ: When you say that -- DR: -- when the Puerto Ricans started going to school. Everybody needed shots. (laughter) I have no idea why. They didn’t need ’em before, but that’s what went on. JJ: And they got us to -- DR: That’s the kind of stuff that we dealt with, and we struggled hard. JJ: Now, part of the music that you used to do for Christmastime and things like that -- DR: Oh, that’s where, actually, we really got started with music. That’s what the folks who started us -- that was our introduction to Jíbaro music, but it wasn’t the families or the Puerto Ricans near me. The families would get together in the holidays, and [01:03:00] they’d go house to house doing a parranda. A parranda is playing typical music from the mountains here in Puerto Rico or from the island, and that’s Aguinaldo, “Mapeye”, things like that. Different styles of Jíbaro music that they were used to hearing almost every day here, but when they went over, they didn’t hear it anymore. And they only heard it once a year when they would get together with the families to -- a parranda is basically a big family party. They all get together. There’s music, and they celebrate together. And then they go all together to the next house and they do the same party there, and then all the members from that family and the other family go to another house. And before the end of the night, you don’t want to receive them because we’re 49 �talking 70, 80 people and a bunch coming into your house. And if you don’t have food, you’re in trouble because [01:04:00] the first thing they ask for is soup, and they’ve been drinking all night. (laughter) And a big thing in the Puerto Rican community is that they give you soup when you’re drinking. I don’t know why. I guess you can’t [beat?] soup and booze, so -JJ: So that’s all the family participating in the -- DR: The whole family; the kids -- JJ: And so -- DR: -- the grandmothers, the grandfathers, the aunts, the uncles, the cousins. Everybody, and you’re waiting for it. And it’s a big thing because they plan it through the whole year. They plan, “Oh, this year, we’re going to have these guys. Oh, who’s going to make the pasteles? Who’s going to buy the lechón? Who’s going to do this,” you know, a big thing. Then they want to have a little gift for all the little kids, you know. The big kids? Water. (laughs) That’s the way it is. JJ: But I mean, the instruments and that -- you’d send them back to -- DR: Well, no. JJ: What about improvising? What is that? DR: Well, you’re talking about trovadores [01:05:00] JJ: (inaudible) DR: (Spanish) [01:05:02] We had plenty of -- JJ: You had that? DR: Oh, yeah, we had that. JJ: You had (Spanish) [01:05:05]? 50 �DR: First of all, our trovadores [01:05:07] was Pablo, Ricky’s father, okay? He was our musician as far as the typical music in the family. Everybody says, “Me,” but that was way back. Pablo was the man. (laughs) JJ: (inaudible) DR: Pablo was the boy. And basically, him and his son, Ricky, on the guitar -- and what happened was my dad, my uncle [Woosler?] -- JJ: Woosler? DR: Then there was Andre. These were all trovadores. They sang, okay? Pablo sang, and what they sang -- there was an older man that was a close friend of the family, Don Tomas. JJ: Tomas, yeah. DR: Remember Don Tomas? JJ: I remember him. DR: And [Cornejo?] and Luis Perez. These are the guys that [01:06:00] sang to you about the mountains. What trova is -- they’re singing about their life when they grew up in the countryside in Puerto Rico growing up on a farm, okay? That’s basically what it was, and they talked about their days. And they’ve brung all their -- what they were missing, what they were crying for, they were singing about it in their lyrics in the city. So people would listen because there was real emotional to them. JJ: And they would improvise it? DR: And they would improvise right there. That’s called trovas. And they have, right there -- 51 �JJ: They’d sing a written -- DR: -- nothing written down; improvised right there. JJ: And they sang (Spanish) [01:06:35]. DR: That’s right. JJ: I’d give [my life to hear?] -- DR: They would take a Bible, and they would sing the Bible in trovas from the creation to the exodus. (laughter) Singing the Bible. Try that one. JJ: And then -- DR: This is my family, and not to say there weren’t other Puerto Rican families doing the same thing. [01:07:00] All the Puerto Rican families that were there they were doing the same thing. Everybody was doing the same thing. That’s the way that they remembered their homeland, which is actually a sad situation. Right now, I want to make a comment. That tradition has been lost almost completely in Chicago. Now, it’s almost lost here too in Puerto Rico, but now times are different. Musics are different, but that music lasted for hundreds of years. And all the sudden, we lost it within 30, 40, 50 years. It’s really a shame because, I mean, it lasted for hundreds and hundreds of years. And to have it just disappear in 30, 40 years because of other musics coming out -- I don’t find that right. JJ: So when we were kinda growing up, we were kinda keeping that alive. We were kind of in between our parents and -- DR: Actually, La Solución Orchestra was based on Jíbaro music. It was a salsa band -- 52 �JJ: So [01:08:00] it was salsa. DR: -- but we would turn Jíbaro music into salsa, and that’s what made our band so popular with the people. Everybody was trying to copy salsa bands from Puerto Rico or from New York. La Solución wasn’t trying to do none of that. We did our own thing, and it was basically a typical sound. We invented our own style, and people accepted it immediately. Our arrangements were all originals done by ourselves. We didn’t hire other musicians to come and do our arrangements. We did ’em ourselves. We thought of our own lyrics. We did our own recordings. We did everything. And when we sang, we sang about the community. Our first album was Mi Barrio Se Quemo. In the ’70s, there was a lot of gangbanging going on with the Latin Kings and the Disciples and the Clovers fighting. And they were burning neighborhoods, and there was a lot of fires going on and stuff. And so we dedicated the first album to [01:09:00] my barrio in the city. Mi Barrio Se Quemo-- My town caught fire, so that was dedicated to that situation at that time. JJ: And now that you’re talking about Mi Barrio Se Quemo, there was a lot of arson going on also in the community, but I mean -- DR: That was being done. A lot of people were saying that -- sorry to cut you off -that was being paid for by certain aldermen and the mayor and stuff because they were still trying to push the Puerto Rican community out of the Humboldt Park and Wicker Park area. That’s too close to downtown for them. And if you look at it really on the map, it’s basically part of downtown right now, and that was big money. That’s real estate. 53 �JJ: That was prime real estate. DR: Prime real estate. I’ll give you an example. I kept telling my folks not to sell their home on Richmond and Armitage for the price they asked. When they bought [01:10:00] the house, they paid, I think, 30,000 dollars for this home back in early 1970 or ’71. When they resold the house 12, 14 years later, they sold it for -- I think it was 60,000 dollars. It was a very small profit, but I knew that there were people out there repairing and remodeling all these homes, and selling one apartment for 100,000 dollars. They have a three-story building here, and they sold it for that amount of money. Later on, the person that bought that building one year later sold it for 200,000 dollars. And I’ve heard they’ve sold it quite a few times for quite a bit more, and this is a frame house. And the reason being is because it’s prime real estate. This is, I mean, a hop, skip, and a jump from Downtown Chicago, and that’s why they want -- [01:11:00] it wasn’t personal. I can always tell you this. I can guarantee you Daley was not against the community. He just wanted ’em in a different part of the state as far away as possible, (laughs) but he got no problem with us. JJ: So why would he tell ’em that that -- DR: Why would he do that? JJ: Why did he do it? It doesn’t have to be [the Wicker area?]. DR: Money. It’s all about the greenback. This is the United States of America, and everything here revolves around the greenback. People talk about racism and they talk about this, and you talk about -- this is my personal opinion. JJ: What’s your opinion? 54 �DR: My personal opinion? It’s all about the greenback. I’ll give you the biggest communists in the world and the biggest socialists in the world. I’ll throw a couple million in front of ’em. They are going to be American citizens all the way. (laughter) “Karl who? Karl what?” [01:12:00] This is about money. JJ: “Karl what?” DR: Yeah, this is what it’s all about. I mean, and the reason they fight and they’re arguing with you is because, you know, there’s one less group and more money for you. Remember, most of these organizations are funded by the government. The government gives them a certain amount of money to keep that organization going, so they want to keep it going as long as they can. Why? Because they’re receiving that check. That’s their earnings. That’s what they’re receiving, and I’m going to give you an example of something I don’t like here in Puerto Rico. We have students in Universidad de Puerto Rico en Río Piedras who have been studying for 25 and 30 years. They’ve never held a job. They’re getting a check from the government for the past 25, 30 years monthly to study, and then they finish a course and they take another course. They take another course. Now, they’ve been studying for 25 to 30 years. These are [01:13:00] people who started in college in their twenties. Now, they’re close to 60 years old, and they’re still studying. They’ve never had a job, but they’ve gotten money all their lives through the government to study. JJ: Are you talking about me? DR: No, (laughter) I’m talking about -- JJ: Hey, mister, are you telling me about life? No, I’m just -- 55 �DR: But this is what goes on, and those are things that -- I’m trying to explain it’s about the greenback. JJ: So [through careers?] too? DR: It’s not that they’re doing something for this. The ones that really are doing something -- no, not you. JJ: That’s what I -- DR: You’ve been at this before there was money. (laughs) I can befriend you, but I’m talking about others that came after you, and they’re just there for the money. They’re not doing anything for the community. What are they doing? Tell me one thing they’re doing. JJ: And then they’re really there for a career for themselves? DR: Exactly. That’s not for the -- JJ: And then -- DR: Before, it was for the people, remember? The People’s Park, the people’s power. The People’s this-- [01:14:00] Now, it’s the -- JJ: But what about the students? [It must be kids that are?] -- DR: I got kids. I got a wife and family, you know. JJ: That’s how you see it? DR: That’s the way they see it. They’re not going to jeopardize their job anymore. (laughs) JJ: But you think that Daley saw it as a money thing? DR: Daley did it because of money. That’s the only reason he did it because -- JJ: I thought -- 56 �DR: -- that area was being asked for by the big shots. The old money wanted to rebuild that area, which is what they’re doing actually right now. They just rebuilt that whole area. It’s being all rebuilt, and they’re making that into lofts. And you know what they get for one of those lofts? Four hundred grand. I mean, the factory where my dad used to work -- this was an old factory building. JJ: Which one was this? DR: JB Electronics on Armitage close to Westin. It was an old factory building. Old. They stripped this building down; tore, I mean, the floors and the roof, everything. All they left was the four [01:15:00] walls. And they remodeled it, put new floors - lots. Each one of ’em sold for almost 500,000 dollars. This was an old factory building that they were going to demolish. And they want that area, why? Because they’re five minutes from downtown. They don’t even have to take their cars. You get on the bus, and you’re in Downtown in 10 minutes. You get on the train, you’re probably downtown in five minutes. JJ: You’re on the lake. DR: You’re on the lake, you know, and that is prime real estate. The Puerto Ricans knew where they wanted to move. (laughs) They like the park and they like the beach, and they picked that area. And at that time when they came in, it was ghetto. When the Puerto Ricans first moved there, that was ghetto. The downtown area was the downtown area. The Americans at that time didn’t think they were going to expand, right? JJ: Actually, it was skid row at that time -- DR: That was skid row. 57 �JJ: -- on Madison Square. DR: Jewtown over there on Holliston and Madison. [01:16:00] You know, and the Americans basically failed to realize that they were going to expand. The city was growing. They were shocked when they all the sudden had over 100,000 Puerto Ricans. Plus, the Black population was getting big, and they were all in a small area. And they’re going, “Oh, my God, wait a minute. That’s in a certain area, and all that area’s worth a lot of money.” They saw all this money coming out of there in rents and stuff like that, and all these people were getting rich off the populations that were moving into these old buildings. And then all the sudden, the city started expanding, opening up, getting bigger. Downtown started expanding, and they needed prime territory, and we were right in the middle of it. And that’s what happened, Cha-Cha, and you know it. (laughs) And now if you want to find Puerto Ricans in Chicago, they’re there, but not like before. Most of ’em now are in the suburbs. JJ: What are any final thoughts? DR: Any final thoughts? I can tell you I’m glad you did this. [01:17:00] I’m glad that I was able to say something. There’s a lot of things I would have liked to have said, but -- JJ: Go ahead. DR: No, there’s just not enough time. (laughs) We would need a year. There’s a lot of things that really should be said, you know, but basically, as far as our family, I can tell a lot of people that we have a lot to be proud of. We were one of the first Latino families there -- well, Puerto Rican families, because the Mexicans were 58 �there before us. But one of the first Puerto Rican families there, and we could probably say that we worked with all the major organizations that helped build that community there. We can also probably say that we worked with the best music thing there. We were involved in almost every aspect of the growing of that city and every community action, or musically or school-wise. In any form you want to mention, our family was directly involved in it, so [01:18:00] I can veritably say to you now I’m glad somebody’s going to say something because otherwise, it would’ve been a story that would have never been told. And it needed to be told. And there’s other families, not only ours, that need their story told too. So I’ll mention all of those families like the Ortizes, the Sotos, the Riveras, the Ochoas; you know, the Jiménezes. You know, all of them had complete -- they were the ones that built the city. They were the ones that built the reputations we’re living down now, and for good or worse, that’s what there was. And I don’t think Chicago turned out too bad. Chicago has a lot of stuff to be proud of. Whether they like it or not, (laughter) me whether they like it or not, and a [01:19:00] few other guys whether they like it or not. And believe me, there’s some that like it, and some don’t. But you can see nicely that a lot of people respect us and that they liked us. They also realized and they know who we are, and they’ve never beaten around the bush by saying no. When they talk about us, they know, “That was one of the first families.” They know, “Those guys were involved in everything,” so thanks, Cha-Cha. JJ: No, thank you. DR: Nice meeting you, man. 59 �M1: (inaudible) END OF VIDEO FILE 60 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/bf7cb595f6c96a3a4025299c9b695a8b.mp4 7167caaec6273b10c0efa55fdc223462 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives. The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng spa Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 2012-2017 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Título Spanish language Title entry David Rodriguez vídeo entrevista y biografía Descripción Spanish language Description entry La historia oral de David Rodriguez, entrevistado por Jose 'Cha-Cha' Jimenez el 5/12/2012 acerca de los Young Lords en Lincoln Park. Sujetos Spanish language Subject terms Young Lords (Organización) Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Mexicano-Americanos--Relatos personales Justicia social Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago Mexico-Americanos--Illinois--Chicago--Condiciones sociales Relaciones raciales Conflicto social Identitad cultural Partido Pantera Negra. Illinois Capí­tulo Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65_Rodriguez_David Title A name given to the resource David Rodriguez video interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rodriguez, David Description An account of the resource Oral history of David Rodriguez, interviewed by Jose 'Cha-Cha' Jimenez, on 5/12/2012 about the Young Lords in Lincoln Park. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jimenez, Jose, 1948- Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Mexican Americans--Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Mexican Americans--Illinois--Chicago--Social conditions Race relations Social conflict Cultural identity Black Panther Party. Illinois Chapter Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-05-12 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/da992deaaef65ddf71e39ad0762d27f0.pdf bdbebc471b4a958d13a1b7a85eb24575 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Antonio (Maloco)” Jiménez Rodríguez Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 6/25/2012 Biography and Description Antonio (Maloco) Jiménez Rodríguez has no qualms about admitting that he was the Vice-President of the notorious Hacha Viejas, or Old Hatchets, of the 1950s and 1960s in Chicago, which some believe was the city’s first Puerto Rican gang. It definitely is the most well-known group of that era. The leader, Juan Hacha Vieja, came from Barrio Mula in Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico. He was a World War II veteran with a lot of heart. Several witnesses describe one time in 1982 when a Puerto Rican landlord in Wicker Park pulled out a .32 Colt automatic pistol and pointed it directly at Juan “Hacha Vieja”’s face as Hacha Vieja was walking in a small passageway between two garages, approaching his building. The landlord wanted to embarrass Hacha Vieja and make him run, or at least get scared. But Hacha Vieja just stood there and pulled a .38 snub nose revolver from his pocket and, even while the .32 automatic was being pointed to his face, started loading bullets into his gun. Mr. Jiménez Rodríguez also recalls that the Hacha Viejas had no gang colors. In fact, they had no real gang name and bore little resemblance to the groups of today who sell drugs or hang out on street corners. The Hachas Viejas drank mainly beer or rum at the saloons or at the homes of members in places like the Water Hotel or the social clubs that their own members owned. Juan “Hacha Vieja” had been given that nickname when he was just a boy in Barrio Mula of Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico. At the time he was working for Tio Gabriel Jiménez as a farmhand in a mountain farm that also produced coffee. The name was given to him because “he was �very good with the machete at the farm.” When times were bad economically, he and Tio Gabriel’s sons would move from farming to construction or to other farms, doing odds and ends to survive. Hacha Vieja became close friends with Mr. Jiménez Rodríguez and his other brothers and cousins. After World War II, many of them moved to Chicago, mostly to the La Clark and Lincoln Park areas. The more they located meat packing, factory and restaurant and hotel jobs near Wells Street and Chicago Avenue and around downtown, or at the steel mills south towards Indiana, the more they contacted their friends and family from Aguas Buenas and Caguas. Other Puerto Rican families did the same and pulled entire families from their cities and towns, setting them up in Chicago. Juan “Hacha Vieja” was loved, feared and respected all at once. If he liked you he would turn your last name into “Hacha Vieja” -- Pablo became Pablo Hacha Vieja and José would be José Hacha Vieja. On the weekends when they drank at the Clark Street saloons or by Halsted Street and along Madison. Often they would usually get into a brawl and spend the night in jail for disorderly conduct or loitering. By Monday, they would all be back to work. Mr. Jiménez Rodríguez recalls wanting to get along with everyone, but there were other minority gangs that hated the Puerto Ricans with a passion. They had to get their respect or they would be pushed around and slapped or beaten up. He explains that they had no other choice but to fight, and carve out territory; the police did not defend them. And many times the police would join these other gangs against the Puerto Ricans. By the early 1960s there were three taverns that were owned by the Hacha Viejas: one at La Clark close to Grand Avenue, another on Western, about one or two blocks north of Division, and the third by the Hotel Lincoln on Armitage Avenue and Clark Street. One day Mr. Jiménez Rodríguez remembers coming from the west side club on Western Avenue to the Armitage Avenue and Clark Street Tavern. The Italians and Irish were hiding, waiting for he and his friends. A mob converged on the Hachas Viejas and started beating them with chains and bats. He, Hacha Vieja and some others got cut very badly ending up in the hospital for a couple of months. Still on another battle, they also got cut up by a Mexican gang from Taylor Street near Halsted .It also put them in a hospital. But Mr. Jiménez Rodríguez explains that this is how they learned their lessons, the hard way for not paying attention. They needed to be prepared at all times. As time went on they did less fighting and could just socialize and enjoy a good time. It was no longer just them; more Puerto Ricans were moving in. � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/df27a23641e7119349dc545ab010bf46.mp4 8dd30633e1da51f1b7a2fa3973818e9e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives. The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng spa Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 2012-2017 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Título Spanish language Title entry Antonio “Maloco” Jiménez Rodríguez vídeo entrevista y biografía Sujetos Spanish language Subject terms Young Lords (Organización) Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puertorriqueños--Relatos personales Idioma español--Relatos personales Justicia social Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago Pandillas--Illinois--Chicago Puertorriqueños--Illinois--Chicago--Vida social y costumbres Veteranos--Relatos personales Pandillas--Illinois--Chicago Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65_Rodriguez_Antonio Title A name given to the resource Antonio “Maloco” Jiménez Rodríguez video interview and biography Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rodríguez, Antonio Description An account of the resource Antonio “Maloco” Jiménez Rodríguez has no qualms about admitting that he was the Vice-President of the notorious Hacha Viejas, or Old Hatchets, of the 1950s and 1960s in Chicago. He was a World War II veteran with a lot of heart. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puerto Ricans--Personal narratives Spanish language--Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Gangs--Illinois--Chicago Puerto Ricans--Illinois--Chicago--Social life and customs Veterans--personal narratives Gangs--Illinois--Chicago Language A language of the resource spa Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-06-25 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/398132f23a4d0abd7bef4a0a6362ec28.pdf b138cb5c3e547a544f43470d5d52a8dd PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Angel “Sal” del Rivero Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 7/12/2012 Biography and Description Angel “Sal” Del Rivero was born in Mexico. In the late 1950s and early 1960s he lived in Lincoln Park on Dayton Street. Later his family moved to the Lakeview Neighborhood near Wrigley Field, but he never left Lincoln Park as he traveled to it daily. Mr. Rivero became one of the original members of the Young Lords in 1959. The other original members of the Young Lords were all Puerto Rican, including Santos Guzman who moved to Lincoln Park from Philadelphia, Benny Pérez who lived on Halsted, Fermin Pérez (no relation to Benny), and David “Chicken Killer” Rivera whose regular job later was at a meat market. Mr. Rivero’s father was the neighborhood barber who cut hair from their home on Fremont and Bissell Streets, which then crossed each other where they both ended. Mr. Rivero’s brothers improvised a roller coaster ride made from wooden fruit crates that slid down the railing of their back porch stairway, racing down into the backyard until the crates finally hit ground on the cement pavement would glide it on their own. It was exhilarating until the ride ended at the fence. All the neighborhood kids enjoyed it and the Rivero kids made a mint from the nickles they charged for the rides.The first president of the Young Lords was Joe Vicente, who had Italian features. Mr. Jiménez became the last president of several because he was always in and out of jail. Mr. Vicente also lived in the Italian section of Lincoln Park, by De Paul University, on Sheffield and Belden. His cousin, Johnny Trinidad had moved from New York, to Indiana Harbor’s Steel Mill area, and then moved onto 95th and Halsted Streets. Mr. Trinidad always �was free with his opinions, especially before, after, and when he briefly popped into meetings to watch, but he rarely attended any full meeting, saying that he could not because he lived out of the neighborhood. Mr. Rivero recalls these early days, noting that the fact that ethnic youth groups lived in segregated blocks in these early days also played a big difference in their organizing. In 1959, Puerto Ricans were still scattered throughout Lincoln Park and so the Young Lords did not begin from a concentrated hangout but were spread out, trying to carve out their own place within Lincoln Park. For many this meant being targeted by white ethnic youth because they had darker skin, were Puerto Rican, or spoke Spanish. Mr. Rivero recalls the numerous stands the Young Lords made in their early days. As more Latinos and African Americans moved into Lincoln Park, Humbolt Park, Wicker Park, and parts of Lakeview through the 1950s and 1960s, youth began to unite more around national origins. Mr. Rivero describes an encounter where the Young Lords, Latin Eagles, and a whole range of northside Puerto Ricans gangs became involved. The Aristocrats were an established white gang that was led by their only Puerto Rican member, Dulio. They had argued with a Puerto Rican family and had entered into a primarily Puerto Rican housing project called California Terrace, located by Halsted and Barry near Clark Streets and threw bricks through all the windows. A war involving about 400 people began and the white Town Hall policemen hid from view. It lasted an entire week. On one of the days, the Puerto Ricans walked down Barry Street and broke out all the car windows, from Halsted to Sheffield looking for and challenging the Aristocrats in their own territory. On another occasion, a stuffed figure of a person hung by the neck from electrical wires high up in the middle of the street, resembling a lynching. The war ended when both groups met on their own and agreed to stop fighting, to avoid being arrested by the police. Mr. Rivero recalls being one of the war counselors with Mr. Jiménez and helping to resolve the conflict. While the Young Lords were transforming themselves into a human rights movement, Mr. Rivero was serving in the U.S. military. When he came out most Young Lords were opposed to the Vietnam War, although many Young Lords also served on the front lines in that war. Mr. Rivero at first resented those who opposed the war. But after Young Lord Manuel Ramos was killed by an off duty policeman, the entire Young Lords group reunited themselves for human rights. �Transcript ANGEL DEL RIVERO: In a day or two then they decided to send us to Korea. So when I went to Korea, I got sent to a missile site. That prompted-- what I understand is that while I was gone, Orlando was the one that wrote me a letter saying that a colonel had visited the YMCA, the group, inquiring about me. The reason the inquiry was being made is I was being sent to a missile site, so I needed to have a clearance, and when they did, they were doing a background check on me and everything else. And so Orlando was like, I didn’t know what it was about, but when I found out about it, I realized what that was about. They made the inquiry and anyway, the point is that I got, because I was being sent to missile site, I got what they call a confidential clearance. At any rate, I spent 13 months [00:01:00] in Korea. The significance of the period that I was in there that I almost got killed. I had a Jeep fall on me. That’s when I busted my back, my ribs on a Jeep accident, right towards the end of my tour of duty. From that coming back, I came back on leave, but my parents decided that I should go to, spend about a couple of weeks in Mexico for vacation. Came back, got sent to the statesides in Washington and from Washington, the state of Washington, and went to Vietnam. Then that’s when I came back and it ended my tour duty in Vietnam. I came back to the stateside, but [00:02:00] Cha-Cha, you’re falling asleep, man. Hey, you want to end the interview because you’re falling asleep? The main reason was because we could not be part of the other groups mean either the Paragons or the Eagles, is that if you’re referring to the area of the gang activity. 1 �JOSE JIMENEZ: Right. So that’s the only main reason. ADR: The main reason mean, obviously I would’ve to say that was the main reason why the Young Lords came into being. JJ: So we wanted to fit in. But what about, okay, so you’re saying that the main reason that we wanted to, from your perspective, become a Young Lord’s gang was because we wanted to fit in with the older guys, but they wouldn’t let us fit in. ADR: Right. JJ: We were too young. But did it also have to do with us getting beaten up by the white gangs? ADR: No, I don’t think because we were getting [00:03:00] jumped or anything like that, no. That would’ve been--no, I don’t see that as a factor at all. As individuals we didn’t-- I think the more strongly purpose, the reason would’ve been the one to fit in with the older groups, we certainly that had no fear of the white groups that existed in the area. I mean, common sense-- common sense dictates, I mean, the difference between other people or groups where gangs evolve or get started and the variables that exist and how that comes to about. But as a group, not really. I think without realizing-- [00:04:00] it’s sort of creating a team. Sometimes teams come into being -- Or I was trying to make another explanation. My perspective, for us, it was like a team that was created much, I mean, I’m making an analogy. Any team that becomes successful and a team becomes successful, obviously you don’t hear it about the ones that don’t become successful. So the analogy that I’m trying to make out of this particular situation is as far as the Young Lords and what later on is represented, was 2 �much in the analogy that I’m talking about that I’m thinking is sort of like with the Bulls, for example. Obviously without Michael Jordan [00:05:00] and other, but it wasn’t just Michael Jordan. The other players that played, that was made up in there with the coach and everything else made through a unique team that ended up winning a lot of titles for the Chicago. I mean, it is the Bulls as they won, and when they broke away, it hasn’t been in Chicago, it hasn’t been duplicated. And so I think that it does when certain things, elements that come into being a can create that kind of environment. So not every team, not everybody’s going to succeed at those particular levels. So, so far as the gang activity, this is what I mean, what the Young Lords represented. The innovations, we didn’t know we were doing anything-- referring to the weapons, for example-- lessons learned. It wasn’t like we sat down and that we needed to continue to carry weapons. When we got caught the first [00:06:00] time with the blackjacks and with the knives in that particular gang fight at Arnold Upper Grade Center, we quickly learned this is not a smart thing to do, to be carrying weapons around so we changed our tactics and improved on it. That made it a lot easier that we could walk around. Somebody stopped the searches. I mean, a police officer pulling us over won’t find any weapon, no reason to be picked up, no reason to be thrown in jail. We didn’t give them the excuse. We didn’t know what we were doing. I mean, the effect, the impact that we were having and we were creating. The other area that I already spoken about is about the ability to, the tactics and learning how to fight, how to take a punch. We didn’t know we were training ourselves for fights. We even thought as that we thought it was a game to play 3 �among each other. Obviously, when we look back on that, for me it makes me realize why is, I mean that when we were fighting, we didn’t think about when we were fighting that we took a punch or not. It was sort [00:07:00] of like second nature to us. We took a punch, like so what, the guy hit me big deal, or that it stung or that it hurt. But because we were already used to that, that was the part without realizing that we were training ourselves, we didn’t know if we were doing that. Years later, we came to realize, I mean, in my part, I came to realize, wait a minute, we trained ourselves to take a hit to be able to attack. We were fighting-the little things that we did. And again, in that particular area of fighting how somebody throws a punch, how to receive the punch. Because when we’re fighting, again, I have to emphasize that in there, that how we learned it wasn’t just taking the hit, but when you’re seeing it, where you going to get it, where you want that impact to hit, you’re not going to avoid the hit, and it had to become second nature. So that we would, in fighting how when somebody would hit and how we get hit sometimes where we leaned, how we moved, all of these things was part of that particular thing that made us, [00:08:00] later on, I mean, it started to make us famous and obviously the thing that we wanted to prove to the Paragons and to the Eagles, that we were just as good as they were. So we wanted to do more damage. And again, all of those little things that were being done in that time helped us to gain that reputation. But the cornerstone, not the-wrong word. The turning point was the fight that I mentioned that, as I said, when Orlando had to fight with the Paragons over the issue, that they wanted to jump the [Black...?] 4 �JJ: Okay, and which, yeah, that was the corner, the turning point at that time. So I think you made a very important point here. You said that a lot of it had to do with fitting in more than in protection. In other words, that we were not afraid of the white gangs. ADR: Or [00:09:00] the Black gangs for that matter? JJ: Or the Black gangs or anybody. It was more like we wanted to fit in and we couldn’t fit in the Black Eagles. They were older or the Paragons. So we had to have our own group, and now we’ve got to show them that we’re even better than they are. So that’s a very important point. ADR: Well, obviously we-JJ: From my perspective, I am going by the routine saying that it was for protection. But actually I agree with you. I think now that you’ve mentioned that, that was more like we wanted our own thing, our own-- ADR: Well, the other area, I mean in the fighting we did-- as far as the fighting, again, how we conducted ourselves. One of the other which has been touched, and I’m retouching the particular area, is the area that we were not constantly [00:10:00] together. That also was a plus side, because it is, as I said internally, there were groups that individuals, individuals that came in thinking we can take over or we can run it, and always coming up against a solid wall of, no, you’re not going to do it. JJ: So how did that work that we were not together all the time? You mean the whole group wasn’t together. ADR: It’s just the way we-- 5 �JJ: But they had little groups. We had little cliques. ADR: It was our lifestyles. I mean, more than anything else, for whatever reasons. For example, obviously, well, not for whatever reasons. I mean, if you take a look at Benny and Fermin, they tended to be in school together. They’re always doing things together. So it was natural for them to go in a particular way. JJ: Okay, so you had one group. That was one group, and then there was-- ADR: The other group. I mean, there were other, a mix of groups [00:11:00] because one of the things I have mentioned earlier, they were not, when I’m talking, not that it’s difficult to remember, but there were a lot of other people. You got other people involved in part of the Young Lords that came in and ended up believing or that throughout the period of time that things were going on. JJ: There were different generations. Again-- ADR: Not so much that there were generations. I would’ve to say that there were individuals, how would I put it? The reflection for me, I mean among ourselves, is that we tended to have a certain people that followed us as a group. So for example, me and Orlando tended to be together, but it wasn’t just me and Orlando. There were other fringes from the newer members that would hang around with us just as much as when you drifted, you drifted with you. We spent time with you, but not as much as, in other words, you tended to drift away from us with other individuals, but [00:12:00] we weren’t-JJ: Everybody went, there were different cliques and everybody-- ADR: Exactly. Different areas and things that were going on. JJ: So that gives me, other people were drifting around too to the different groups. 6 �ADR: And it wasn’t that we didn’t get along or anything. It’s just the way for me, even-JJ: One day, somebody hung around here and another day in another location. ADR: I’m trying to think of it. There was a lot of individuals that had a certain amount of impact. For example, you had Shorty, a Mexican guy. It also had to do with the girlfriends and individuals the way who was with whom and that kind of stuff. The only thing I can explain, I mean if you’re talking from my perspective, is that I just happened to be-- spend more time with Orlando than I did with anybody else because we just tended to naturally drift together. I know I taught him how to drive a car, which was kind of funny so far as, because we had to go steal a car, steal cars in order [00:13:00] to teach him because he wanted to learn how to drive. Remember, I was the only one at the beginning. I was the only one that knew how to drive. The only reason I knew how to drive because my father wanted to wash his car every day or every other day on it that forced me to learn how to drive. My father loved cars and I didn’t, I mean, I didn’t really care for them, but I was the very first one that knew-- out of that whole group that knew how to drive. You had to learn, and you learn actually more quicker than Orlando. Orlando’s wrecked. I don’t have any vehicles. JJ: I learned in a stolen car. We all learned in a stolen car. ADR: He busted up a couple of cars in the process of learning how to drive. JJ: I ate it from (inaudible) too. ADR: And you had an easier time learning how to drive than he did. As I recall, okay. 7 �JJ: So people were drifting from one group to the other group and all over the neighborhood. So [00:14:00] they were in different parts of the neighborhood. Some went to, what is it, the Adams playground? ADR: And also, yeah, but you got to remember how we went home when we went home and things like that. The things. But it was just sort of a, I don’t think that we were any different in terms of that socializing than any other group. And I believe that any other group, there’s a tendency for certain people to hang around together. Within a given group, you have your inner circle of certain individuals hanging together or spending more time with each other than other individuals. And so that’s the way it worked. So there were a lot more gang-- I mean, there was a lot more for me, because I have deference, because when you talk about the fighting that existed at the beginning, what made us, I mean [00:15:00] becoming more noble was for another reason that we drifted out of the neighborhood. So when you’re referring to other areas, we weren’t just hanging around Armitage and Halsted. We’re going up north. We went to that, which now I believe is part of the Latin school where they had the private school that existed back then that we had. I mean, we went-- things to come back to mind that were a lot of different places. The guy that actually got us with the idea to help out that came in, I can only remember his nationality. He was actually a Spaniard, Spanish kid. He was in high school with us that became part of the Young Lords, and they had asked him for help because they knew some of the people that were, which turned out to be the Cuban, I referred to as the Cuban clan, if you will. The individuals that, as I said, that first wave of immigrants that 8 �came to the United States, that the Castro had ousted, Batista, and we had that came here. There was like 10,000, [00:16:00] I believe, that came into the Chicago area at that time, or maybe exactly what the number. But these were well to do people. The children were attending-JJ: We actually had a branch of them up north. ADR: Well, that’s because we helped them. How we ended up going is that they had a fight actually with some Japanese kids, that karate bullshit and all that other stuff we’re going to be, who gives a fuck about karate. We went and beat the crap out of ’em. They were endeared to us because we helped them out on the fight. We went in there and did what we did and beat the shit out of these guys, and then invited us to go up north where they lived. They lived up in Evanston. JJ: They had nice girlfriends. ADR: Beautiful women. So that was part of the, and obviously for girls, I mean, the thing about it is that obviously we were the Young Lords, so we attracted a certain amount of-- women are women, I mean, even back [00:17:00] then, no reality that we had is then we were the Young Lords. So it wasn’t because it was Sal, or it was Cha Cha, I’m going on with a Young Lord, we had the reputation. JJ: What about Young Lordettes? ADR: Huh? JJ: Weren’t there Young Lordettes, ADR: These were pissed off-- The Lordettes was a part of a group of women that were part of us. But you would have to ask, I mean, and this kind of thing. That’s the question that they would need to answer. Obviously they knew-- I can’t believe 9 �that did not aware of what we were doing. And certainly that must have pissed him off at times because we really, at least for my part, and even Orlando, I think, but we didn’t have steady girlfriends, and I don’t think we did it as something that was in our minds. I think it was part of our mentality is that because we were meeting girls all over the place. I mean, when we used to go down Lincoln, [00:18:00] Evanston, the South Side, other areas, we were always constantly meeting women. So it was not like we wanted to be tied down to a particular girl. And me in my particular, I tended to stay away. And then I think it was true for the rest of us. Though, I got to say, you reminded me something about you. You tended to fall in love. You tended to fall in it, and you fell hard. It was like, I got to be with a woman. And it’s like, what the fuck is wrong with Cha-Cha, man? I got all these other damn broads. And then he’s out there-- you used to get heartbroken when you were out with a girl. You wanted to be with her sometimes. Now you’re making me remember certain things. It not that you didn’t want to spend time with us, it’s that you fell in love with the damn broad and you had to be with her all the goddamn time. Like what the fuck is wrong? Leave them alone. Interested. JJ: Why would I want to be in a gang? ADR: The funny part about it, you ended up, how many times? Well, I mean, I’m not trying to get personal, but-JJ: How many divorces, right? ADR: Right. [00:19:00] I don’t-- I mean, I used to not be tied down or anything. JJ: You’re still married to the same woman. 10 �ADR: Exactly. JJ: How long have you been married to the same-- ADR: I don’t-- 43 years. JJ: Forty-three years to the same woman. ADR: That’s the opposite of you. You know what I mean. I don’t understand that. JJ: You made your point. You can rest your truth. ADR: But you did. I mean, you are reminded of certain things where sometimes certain things are missing. It’s coming in there and you’re making me realize that you had something that, I mean, I am kind of, I’m not dwelling on it. I’m just trying to point out that kind of fits a little bit of the puzzle of that why sometimes you weren’t hanging around with me and Orlando or some of the other guys because you did get taken aback when you were with a woman. JJ: You think that could have been because I was going to jail a lot or --? ADR: No, you keep saying it. Jail. It [00:20:00] wasn’t jail. JJ: It wasn’t jail. ADR: You didn’t spend, I mean, you did certain things. It had to do with the women. That’s where you, the thing about that was going on with you. You did. I mean, there’s no doubt that you got picked up more often than the rest of us. Okay. We hardly got, I mean, quite honestly, we hardly got picked up and actually you spent more time with a woman than you did with us because you used to-- if I’m putting, I’m not sure. Did you fell hard for that or you couldn’t? In other words-JJ: I don’t remember. ADR: You were pussy-whipped. I’m sorry. The women. 11 �JJ: No. Probably that I don’t know, but I-- ADR: Okay. JJ: Because I can’t-- I do remember that I would be with one. ADR: Yeah, then you just like had to be with a woman all the time. JJ: (inaudible) woman had a man. And then when they split up. (inaudible) ADR: I recall, I mean, I really can’t be certain, but even I think at the age of 16, you almost got [00:21:00] married. JJ: I know I went to jail for a stabbing over a woman. I did that. Stabbed somebody over a woman. Yeah, I did that. ADR: But remember the fight. You remind me about the fight, about the stabbing that I wasn’t there. That happened up in the north side. JJ: Same high school. ADR: That had to do with a woman. Right. JJ: And I went to jail for it. Yeah, I did six months. ADR: That had to do with a woman. JJ: They wanted to give me seven years. I was lucky. I got six months. ADR: So that’s what I’m referring to. You fell hard for a woman. JJ: I stabbed a guy by five times or something, I got crazy. I was drunk too. Okay. ADR: Yeah. You were jealous. (inaudible) the rest of us. I mean, I reaction. We were going out with somebody and making out. She went out and made out with another guy. Hey-JJ: I wasn’t the only one that was going around in the neighborhood too. Other people were going through that. 12 �ADR: The thing is, we weren’t, I mean, and in particular, I mean what I learned from those things, and not all of us were [00:22:00] the same way. When I had that situation come up with a woman, I just simply would walk away from her. I would not like, “Hey, do you want to go out?” That’s your business. I’m not. And Orlando did the same thing. So later on he could be persuaded by a woman-falling for a woman. JJ: He did that too. I remember he did that too. He fell in love a lot too. ADR: Yeah, he did. Later on. He did. JJ: Later on, later on. You’re right. ADR: Later on when he did-JJ: So we were dealing with issues, different issues. We were dealing with different issues, including with women and women. ADR: Right. The area, there’s a lot more, I mean, at the moment, and you’re calling is that, I’m not remembering, but obviously in so far as the gang fights. JJ: But what about the Young Lordettes, because I want ’em to get it. ADR: The Young Lordettes. I mean, you’re talking about Lynn-JJ: But there was one group, Lynn and Margaret and Sheila [00:23:00] and Edna. ADR: Sheila, right. JJ: And Vita and all those people. What’s her name? Marta or [Ynez?]-- what other women? What about Little Cha-Cha was involved? ADR: I think what it was, you forget. JJ: A little Cha-Cha too, a Mexican girl from the, because we had a group of Mexican women too. 13 �ADR: Right. But the rest of us, some of the people in the group I here, that’s what we differ. We didn’t make a big deal out of it, but we did differ. I know that Orlando and myself, I can’t speak for you, but we didn’t care, in other words, about the Lordettes. Like I said, because of what we were doing and going to different places, but I know that some people in the gang wanted to have the Lordettes. You were one of those individuals. You pushed for that. You wanted to have them. That wasn’t something the rest of, not [00:24:00] some of us that we wanted, we didn’t to us, because remember, we weren’t going out with them. JJ: We were expanding. I wanted to expand. I wanted always to expand. ADR: As a group we appreciated, and it doesn’t mean we didn’t appreciate ’em. We appreciated them, but with the exception, well, we didn’t have the love interest with them. I mean, for some of us, so to us it was in give or take type situation, whether it matter or not. JJ: Now, were these women, were they mostly into gang banging? ADR: No. Not at all. JJ: Not into gang banging at all, right? ADR: No. JJ: So they were more into parties. ADR: They were more into the dances and things, the socializing activity and that. JJ: That’s important because a lot of people think that they’re gang bangers. They’re into drugs and prostitution and all. None of that. ADR: No, no. With us, [00:25:00] it wasn’t anywhere near anything that had to do with anything like that at all. 14 �JJ: So what did it have to do then? ADR: Just the socializing aspects of the dances, activities that we had and that kind of thing. Obviously on their part-JJ: Because later on that became like a stigma for them. As people got to know more about the Young Lords, they thought that the women, the Young Lordettes were prostitutes or whatever. That’s what they thought, and a lot of ’em shied away. ADR: Why would they, when you’re saying something like that, why would they, again, a question. Why would they? JJ: I’m saying that that could have been, it could have been. I don’t have proof. I don’t have that. ADR: I think remember the Black Eagles, though? I can’t recall whether in effect, even the Black Eagles, the women, and the Black Eagles, here’s the difference between us and the Paragons. In the Paragons and the Black Eagles, the women, [00:26:00] I don’t know if they basically had also, they had in other words, a group of women. JJ: They did. They did. ADR: Okay. The difference between them and us, it is obvious and in fact, that some of those, the women ended up being couples, ended up getting married to each other. I would say that in larger, in other words, more members married their own, in other words, club members in both groups. Both the Paragons and the Eagles. JJ: And the Black Eagles. 15 �ADR: Where we in the Young Lords, I really can’t make any connection. JJ: Well, one or two. There’s one or two. ADR: Because even Angie with Poncho, they came together. JJ: (inaudible) and Mary Gladys-- ADR: Was not part of the group. JJ: That was later. She came later. ADR: Yeah. She was not part of the group at all. JJ: Of the Young Lordettes. ADR: Gladys was, what’s his name? Wayne-- Edwin’s sister. JJ: Yeah. That was later. You’re right. ADR: Yeah. Much [00:27:00] later. They had nothing to do. JJ: But what about Ruben Aviles and (inaudible)? That was later, too? ADR: That was later, too. JJ: Okay. That was later too. ADR: There was no, absolutely no. JJ: I mean, they were both Young Lords, but-- ADR: She became later because he was-JJ: But they got together later. They got married later. ADR: Was not, it’s a gang. JJ: Right? It’s a gang. ADR: None of that existed. Not anybody in the group ever married anybody that was part of the Lordettes. 16 �JJ: Well, I had a girl named Cuba. I had a girlfriend named Cuba. We had some girlfriends, though. We did have-- ADR: As girlfriends, as girlfriends to some of us, yes, but not married. Not in a very lasting way. JJ: And do you remember some of the leaders? I remember there was a girl named Vita Beatrice who some of the leaders of the Young Lordettes, Beatrice, Margaret Trinidad, and [00:28:00] Edie, Manuel Ramos’ sister. ADR: Edie-- that was later. But see, that came later. JJ: But I’m saying those were three leaders of the women. Do you know any other ones? Do you know any other women leaders or no? ADR: The what now? JJ: Those were three leaders of the Young Lordettes. There were a couple Young Lordettes groups. There was one-- ADR: Well, actually, you can’t, you have to correct yourself on that. JJ: Halsted and Armitage. There was-- ADR: You can’t, when we became a party, no, I’m not trying to argue with you. From my perspective, from the point that we became a political organization, that’s when Nita came in. That’s when other women that became, they became prominent, but they became prominent as part of being Young Lords, not become Lordettes. JJ: Okay. Now, they were called Young Lords then, but Edie was the leader of the Young Lordettes for a while, and so was Margaret. ADR: It might’ve been during the period I was in the service. 17 �JJ: Yeah, [00:29:00] no, maybe when you were in the service. ADR: Yeah. JJ: They were leaders in Old Town, Edie and Margaret, and then Beatrice was the leader from Halsted and Dickens. We had a group of Young Lordettes there. ADR: Okay. That would’ve been, like I said, during the period that I was out of the country. JJ: Yeah, I remember I was going out with Yoruba. She was a Young Lordette from Halsted and Armitage. ADR: Well, you reminded me of something too, right now as far as the women. There was one real, I don’t remember her name. She was really good looking Puerto Rican girl, and everybody was after her. JJ: That was Beatrice. I think that was Beatrice. ADR: But she was not a Lordette. JJ: No, she was not a Lordette. ADR: She was more to the right, and I think to the, but her brother was one of the guys [00:30:00] that belonged, actually was part of the Paragons. The reason I’m mentioning this is that the brother ended up committing inadvertently-JJ: Oh, Chino. Chino. ADR: The one, Chino killed himself, right. JJ: His sisters were Paragons. Yeah. His sisters were Paragons. ADR: Right. JJ: Yeah. That’s not who I’m talking about. ADR: No, that’s the one I’m talking about. It was after-- 18 �JJ: He was a Young Lords, and his sisters were Paragons. Okay. ADR: But that’s particular, the one, you making me reminded because at that point he made the stupidity to play in the Russian roulette. That’s how he killed himself. And I remember sitting down one time one night and I thought that was real stupid because, and where I sat down one time when they were playing the game, obviously nothing, nobody got killed when I was there, but I know that he ended up doing it again and he killed himself. JJ: Himself. Yeah. ADR: The bullet and ended up killing himself, which messed up the sister, [00:31:00] and that just came to my mind when we were talking about the thing that I just thought about. But as a group, I, during the era, those things we did, we didn’t know what we were doing, that it was playing those particular roles that were setting us up for certain things that ended up, I think helping as far as our interaction into the political process. JJ: I mean, we trusted each other. How did that happen? How do you think that happened? ADR: I think because we started out at a very young age, so that in doing all the activities, we never second guessed each other and what we did, and even [00:32:00] to that point, it’s like with the challenges that were made to people in the group and how we ended up defending each other. JJ: What kind of challenges? ADR: Well, as I said, again, people, for any number of reasons that came into being, I guess you’d have to look at it. I can think of two ways right now, but also to 19 �involve other, might’ve been more than two, but I’m referring to, which I have mentioned a number of times about people trying to take over the group and we’re not successful because we would come together. And the other one would be as individuals when we would end up having fights. For my part, I can remember one time where we took more, you and me would take more processing to some of the things that we did, and as I recall and I have mentioned is we tended [00:33:00] what we had the title because we negotiated the fighting process that when a gang fight would take place, when we would have sit downs with the opposing inside, and we call ourselves the warlords. In other words, we gave ourselves a title that we would sit down with the enemy to make out how we were going to have to fight. Kind of silly, but we used that word and it was usually tended to fall to you and me when we did those things. JJ: So that meant that there had to be a lot of trust. ADR: Well, I’m getting to that about the trust and things that happened. I remember Santos Guzman, one time I had proposed something that I wanted to do. I remember the recalling Orlando and myself were ones that basically were, if you want to call, started the Young [00:34:00] Lords, they were instrumental in creating what came the Young Lords. Santos wanted to be the leader. I mean, I’m moving kind of fast forward to make-JJ: That’s your perspective, because there was other people that-- ADR: Yes, there were, but I’m refer to in clarifying part seven people originated. Well, I’m not trying to take credit in the way that you’re implying. JJ: I’m saying that’s your perspective in this one. 20 �ADR: No, well, I mean, I’m trying to do this. My perspective, what I would say is that if there hadn’t had been-- hadn’t been an Orlando. JJ: Oh, definitely. ADR: No Young Lords would’ve existed in their self. JJ: Orlando. Orlando founded the gang. ADR: Huh? JJ: Orlando founded the gang, the Young Lords. I mean, Orlando to me is the one that started the Young Lords. That’s the way I look at it. ADR: No. JJ: And then he got us all together, and I agree that you and him. ADR: Me and Orlando were the ones that got together. JJ: You and him did hang around together a lot. You and him did hang around together. ADR: It was me and Orlando, then (inaudible). JJ: But I hung around together with him too. I mean, he lived [00:35:00] right. ADR: If his brother, we put it to this way, there wouldn’t have been any Young Lords. If his brother hadn’t gone into a fight and I hadn’t been there to defend him, that would’ve meant that me and Orlando would’ve never become friends. Now, what would’ve happened, we can speculate all you want, but the creation of the Young Lords, when me and Orlando got together that we needed to have a group of our own. That was our idea. Orlando could tell you the same as much as I’m telling. If me and Orlando had not become friends and sat down, we have to have our own group. 21 �JJ: Me and Orlando were getting ready to fight each other at one point. Me and Orlando, this guy was going to give a watermelon to whoever won to fight between me and Orlando. That’s how me and him met. That’s how I met Orlando. We were supposed to fight over a watermelon. ADR: [00:36:00] Over the what? JJ: This older guy didn’t like me and didn’t like Orlando, and he wanted us fighting, and he said, he offered to buy us a watermelon, whoever won, this was on right there on Dayton and Willow. This is when I first met Orlando. ADR: Orlando was hanging around. JJ: But I’m saying he was like that with different people. He would fight different people and then he would respect them after they fought. So that’s how I’m saying. That’s how me and him met. That doesn’t mean that we decided on the Young Lords then he called me to a meeting. He’s the one that called me. ADR: Well, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. Look. JJ: What I’m saying, Orlando was hanging was a leader and everybody had a relationship with him. ADR: No, you got it wrong. I’m telling you, your interpretation of facts is-- On Freeman, there was a club at the corner, and basically [00:37:00] everybody was considered to be part of that particular club that went and signed in. As I said, Orlando during the, I’m talking referring to the evening, Orlando used to go around the area and the same thing as me. I mean, as far as I remember, and the end there, you were not around in the initial process. I’m talking the initial process before the, we even had the Egyptian Lords before there was any 22 �creation of that. The reason that came about it, it wasn’t like we sat down immediately and decided to do this is what I’m trying to point out to you. What happened was that when I had the fight and Orlando had come over, when he found out about it, he started hanging in the corner. The following day he said we need to have this around. He started hanging around on Fremont because he didn’t live there. We were going to the same school at that point, it wasn’t like, hold on. We had friends, the group of kids, those that lived on Bissell and Freeman, the congregation, [00:38:00] we had a group, a gang we called ourselves the Dayton Boys, you’re forgetting about that. They were the ones that I meant that I talking about where I ended up having a fight with one of ’em was trying to take my bike. The Dayton Boys hung around Dayton and Armitage. That was their corner at that time. JJ: That’s correct. ADR: It was an Italian place that used to-JJ: That’s where he broke his arm. ADR: Right. I’m breaking it down. So they’re over here on that corner where they hung around. The younger kids, we were the younger ones, much younger. They were hanging around at the end of Fremont, and what would be, whatever the name of that side street that led into the tunnel that you would go to go to when we went to Mulligan School in the morning, to the elementary school. But on Bissell, not on Bissell, on Fremont there was that storefront that was considered our (inaudible). There was also a candy store that was typical in that area of having your nickel and dime family owned businesses. [00:39:00] There 23 �were actually two. There were three businesses. The club, another small storefront from a house that was being run by typically older people, and one immediately across from there. We used to have gangs. We used to play with the girls. We always wanted to make out. I mean big (inaudible) as we were growing up and liking girls, you reminded me of something because we always wanted to make out. The big thing with, I mean, it wasn’t like we got the Playboy magazine or we had all these pornography or things that you see today. And you’re forgetting that at that time, I would remind people, girls used to wear scarfs all the time, and I actually started a stupid little game with one of the girls that we liked, the girls who we wanted to kiss, used to have the sleepover sometimes, the pajama parties. Orlando was hanging around at that point after the fight, he was hanging around with me because we knew the same people. It wasn’t because he was hanging around with me, but we were hanging around within the same group. Mineo, Sal Mineo became [00:40:00] kind of drifted into our group. For whatever reason, he was the much older, but he drifted into this particular group. From that was what led into the creation of wanting to have the gang. So that’s what I’m saying. If Orlando and myself had never gotten together, you would not have had, I don’t believe that there would’ve been some kind of a gang, maybe, I don’t know what would’ve happened, but this is what occurred. And we used to have a game that he’ll remind you, I’m going into the gang. I took one of the girls, some of us would kind of pair off into some of the girls, and I still remember her name, Billie May. Okay, Billie May, like I said, they had those guys, and one of the games we used to play around, because either 24 �we used to play the bottle, we roll in the bottle, so we get to kiss the girl, which is a big deal when we were kids. I ended up taking one of the scarfs away from Billie that she had said on her scarf, and she says, I want give it back. I said, yeah, but you got [00:41:00] to have to give me a kiss. So one of those things, she says, okay, and then we started and it became again, all the girls always said, ready. We started playing that game every day that we would go around trying to take the scarfs away from ’em, and then in order to give ’em back, they had to give us a kiss. So it became a game that in a natural process. All of that was what we were getting along. You asked me that. I wasn’t able to answer what I’m talking about, that we didn’t feel that we fit it in, and that’s where somehow because of maybe things that were taking place, we really didn’t felt remember close because the Dayton Boys were the older brothers of some of the individuals that we were hanging around with. I remember one guy named Jack, there’s another one that was the son of the father that owned the, on Armitage and Halsted that owned the hotdog stand. And I remember getting one time because of the curfew getting picked up [00:42:00] and comments that were made where they did took me home saying kids in there, but with the parents that maybe my kid ought to be hanging with somebody else because too many Hispanics are coming in into the neighborhood and that kind of thing. Me and Orlando, not in great detail, we kind of briefly kind of discussed that. We didn’t feel that-- in part because Orlando, you got to remember, you’re forgetting so about Orlando, but two characteristics that we both had and we still have. We were not afraid to fight. We reacted. If somebody challenged us, we jumped on 25 �it. We didn’t think about it. It was second nature to us. We would immediately go into a fight. Maybe you might call us quick tempered, but we had [00:43:00] that characteristic that we would fight back. He didn’t care who it was or how big the guy was. We didn’t allow ourselves to be pushed around. Now, I have to admit, sometimes that’s not good to quickly react in this kind of a situation, but that what led into the idea along with Mineo that we discussed with Sal Mineo that we discussed with him about having our own group. That led to further things. Now how you got involved-JJ: One way was that I had met Orlando before. ADR: You might have, I’m not denying that. JJ: Orlando, Orlando went to my mother’s catechism classes. My mother had catechism classes right in her house, the neighborhood kids, the loco, the crazy ones, would go there to these catechism classes. They were public school kids and she had ’em make their first communion. Orlando was one of those people, [00:44:00] and so I met him there. I met him there at that time. So that’s one. The other thing you mentioned, Mineo. Me and Mineo had been in the same gang at Franklin School over by Cabrini Green, the housing project. I had met him there before he moved more into Lincoln Park. So I had met him there like two or three years before he moved into Lincoln Park. Now you’re telling me he drifted with you guys. I agree, because I think the first fight was the Dayton Street Boys and I wasn’t there for that first fight because Orlando-- ADR: Well, it wasn’t a fight, wasn’t, as I said, nobody was hanging around. We weren’t hanging around together. What happened is that I pointed it out to you, maybe 26 �I’m not explaining correctly. You guys was at school. The fight got started during, in the, probably at lunchtime. JJ: so you guys did have fights because that was still at Saint Teresa’s. ADR: Right. JJ: So I came into, at the end of the day, I came into the Young Lords when they [00:45:00] had the first meeting. ADR: Right. JJ: But I was still-- ADR: But that fight. JJ: But you guys had a couple of fights before I got into it. ADR: Well, what I’m trying to say is that the way the thing occurred, revisiting that particular thing. Lupe, get whatever argument or however it came out to be, it starts at noon, and in order not to get into any trouble with school or anything else, it’s like, we’ll meet after school for the fight. Okay. I know that a fight’s going to take place. Lupe’s going to fight this guy. All right, so then I’m there. JJ: How old were you then? ADR: Ten, 12 years old, or 12, probably 12 years old. Probably 12 years old. So I’m there and there were other (inaudible), the other kids from school, knowing that from the class, I mean, people were asking from the school itself if there’s going to be a fight, but you’re forgetting something that I-- not that you’re forgetting. [00:46:00] I need (inaudible) that, remember Orlando came from a large family of brothers and sisters, actually more on the brother’s side. So Lupe among the boys was the youngest one at that time. I don’t know if the family ended up 27 �having any other boys, but at that point, Lupe was the youngest. Then came Orlando. So Lupe and Orlando, are like one year apart, and then it was Hector. Hector ended up dying a couple of years later of a heart attack. Now, I actually got along better during the period that I ended, because Hector was at school and he was older, I don’t know, maybe two years older. I’m not sure I can recall that. It was probably two years older, or I would’ve to say probably two years older than Orlando. And I actually got along better with him than I did with Orlando. As I said, my initial contact with Orlando is we didn’t get along at all. And maybe, like I said, it’s got something to do with our character [00:47:00] that we were prone to react to each other immediately and not taking it, whatever. So when the fight, as I said, Lupe’s going to have the fight, so we went out there. We were out there. I know Hector came and Hector now, if I’m correctly recalling, and I was already fighting because what happened, Hector showed up. Orlando had not shown up at that point because he didn’t know his brother was going to have a fight that somebody must have ran or something in and said, your brother’s having a fight. So what happened is I said, the guy had either knocked down Lupe, which at that point, or push him or he was losing the fight. At that point, I jumped in. I knew that Lupe was going to get his ass kicked, and I wasn’t going to let that happen. At that point, my reaction, no, not because I wanted him to do this, was my friend. Okay, this was my best buddy and I wasn’t about to let him get his ass kicked. So my reaction was I took it immediately, jumped in and [00:48:00] started hitting the other guy and went on with, we continued to have a-- I ended up beating the crap out of the guy, maybe 28 �because I took him by surprise. I’m not going to try to take credit as a badass or anything because as I said, I did jump in. He wasn’t expecting that. And maybe I have the initial initiative and being able to start hitting him quicker than he could withstand. So I mean, sometimes that happens in the fight, not because we happen to be badasses. It’s just the surprise attack that things occurred. But when Orlando showed up, the fight was over already. And when Orlando’s there, I know that Hector was there, and then he came with Lupe what had happened, Orlando took a different attitude towards me. He came and said, thank you for basically saying, thanks for helping my brother. And it was not no big deal, nothing. No big deal was made out of that or anything other than that. But then the gradualness, remember I don’t know timetable of what happened. [00:49:00] I know that then he started hanging around in the area that I was, and again, not because of me, I think he started hanging around there because in drifting, wherever you claim that he was at, I don’t know, but I know that in the area it was just down the block. When we were in there, he was no more different than I was from my house, from Fremont, which I was closer to. JJ: Where were you living at? What address were you living in? What address were you living in? ADR: Well, the house still stands, I don’t know. I’m forgetting the number right now. JJ: I lived at 1909 Fremont. ADR: Fremont and Armitage, I was probably a quarter. JJ: So where did you live? I lived at 1909 Fremont and 1604 or something, 1600 Dayton. We lived near North Avenue and Dayton. Then we lived near Dayton 29 �and Willow, and then we moved to 1909 Freemont. [00:50:00] And then we went to 2117 Bissell. ADR: Well, on Fremont when I lived. JJ: So where did you live? Where did you live? ADR: I lived over at that time, the period of time we didn’t tend to move around. I was on Fremont, which is a couple of houses down, a red Victorian home. JJ: By Wisconsin? By Wisconsin? ADR: No, near Armitage. JJ: Okay. So that was right there. ADR: Armitage almost closer. JJ: I was half a block down? We were on the same block. ADR: Less than a half a block. Okay, okay. Okay. Orlando was on Bissell. JJ: Bissell, yeah. ADR: Okay. And he was almost all the way down. Almost all the way down. So the distance for him, like me to walk down to the corner, if you said that, this is Wisconsin, that street-JJ: I lived near Wisconsin. I lived near Wisconsin. He lived near Willow-- ADR: Well, the point I’m trying to make is that-JJ: Before that I lived at Dayton and Willow. So we all lived there. We were all from that same area. ADR: But again, what I’m pointing out to you is when we were met [00:51:00] at that age in time, all we did is we would go to that corner. I mean, if I came down from 30 �my house after eating and he would leave this house as I’m eating, and when we came in, the group of people-JJ: I didn’t hang around with Orlando at that time. ADR: I know, I know that. That’s what I’m talking. JJ: I think you were hanging around with him. ADR: Right, we congregated. And what I’m trying to point out to you, we congregated and this-JJ: We were all in the same area. We just-- ADR: You lived, but you guys were not, and as I said, we’re only half block away. We not, well, I’m trying to be more specific because now-- Fermin and Benny. JJ: Where did they live? ADR: They lived, they both lived on Bissell. JJ: They lived on Bissell too? No, on Halsted. ADR: No, no, no, no. Wait a minute, wait a minute. Benny lived on Bissell, closer, almost parallel to me. But he was on Bissell, closer to Armitage on Bissell. JJ: Okay. I know later on they lived on Halsted. ADR: And actually we might’ve been living back to back because he lived in the building. [00:52:00] JJ: So we’re only like a half a block away. ADR: I can pinpoint it. I’m going to say Benny lived on Bissell, it would’ve been the east side of Bissell Street, close to Armitage. I lived on Fremont, but on the west side of Fremont. Again, close to Armitage. JJ: I didn’t even know that. I didn’t know that. 31 �ADR: Fermin, okay, Fermin lived on Clifton. JJ: I thought you always lived near Lakeview in (inaudible). That’s good. I didn’t know that. ADR: So, and Fermin was in Clifton. JJ: Okay. Oh yeah. Fermin was further. ADR: But the friendship that developed between from the very beginning was that Benny and Benny and Fermin hung around together. So all I know is that when we hung around together, Orlando and myself, within the group that I’m talking over here, Benny was not around. Okay. Neither was Fermin. [00:53:00] But we knew each other from school. In other words, the attending classes in there, that’s where we tended to know each other. JJ: David Rivera lived on Fremont. ADR: David Rivera comes much later. JJ: I know, but David Rivera is Orlando’s cousin. ADR: Correct. Well, I mean, might be-JJ: His cousin. ADR: But he comes later. He comes later. JJ: I know, but what I’m saying is these are the Young Lords original founders. ADR: Yes. JJ: And we’re all living in the same area. ADR: Right. He comes in part later on. But the original, in other words, at the very beginning-JJ: You were hanging early with Orlando. You were hanging. 32 �ADR: Before that (inaudible) it was, and he comes later. JJ: Stipulate today, I’ll stipulate today. ADR: Well, the point I’m trying to make, you’re an attorney. So when you’re telling me who started the Young Lords, I mean that’s what we always said. The two guys that started the Young Lords was Orlando. JJ: I won’t stipulate to that completely. ADR: Okay. JJ: I won’t stipulate to that completely. But I say that you hung around with Orlando. I [00:54:00] think that the meeting took place in Arnold’s with the seven founders and I think the Young Lords came (inaudible) at least he’s the one that recruited me. ADR: Well, let me put it this way. You can’t have-JJ: He recruited me. You might’ve been together. But what I’m saying, he recruited me. So I looked at him as the founder. But if you and him were together, that’s fine. That’s fine. I think we were all the original founders. ADR: Wait, I ask you something, see what you’re forgetting. Are we forgetting another individual? JJ: Are you saying that you founded the -- ADR: Who was the first again, who was the first president of the Young Lords? JJ: We said there was the first person because Orlando didn’t want it. I was voting for Orlando, but he didn’t want it. 33 �ADR: So there was never any doubt about Vicentes becoming, let me, I’m going to put you on the spot on this one. I’m going to put you on the spot on. Where did the name the Young Lords evolve from? Who suggested the name? JJ: I [00:55:00] know that we were talking there and there was some group in New York called the Majestic Lords, and then they were also the Vice Lords. ADR: The one that suggested was Vicentes’ cousin and one of the little-JJ: He had come, he had lived in New York. Okay. ADR: He’s the one that suggested. JJ: But am I correct about the Majestic Lords? ADR: Okay. But this is much later. I mean, when I’m setting in the timetable, this takes place later. Not at the point. I’m not going back in there. I’m not-JJ: I wasn’t voting (inaudible). That’s that. I agree with everything. Well, I was agreeing with-- ADR: What I’m trying to tell in here. You can’t have one thing without the other that would’ve ended up producing what it produced. Okay. That’s all I’m trying to point out. Okay. JJ: He was Joey-- ADR: Which (inaudible) which, wait a, hold on. JJ: He was our first president, right? ADR: Wait a minute. JJ: Where did the meeting take place? [00:56:00] Now I ask you. ADR: At the Arnold Upper Grade Center. JJ: That’s where the meeting took place. 34 �ADR: That’s where we had the meeting. So that’s where, not at the YMCA. We did not have no meeting. JJ: Arnold Upper Grade Center is where we selected the name Young Lords. ADR: Yes. JJ: And that’s where we became Young Lords. ADR: Yes. JJ: And that’s where we had the seven original members. ADR: That’s where we had the initial meeting. We had the meeting and all that under. JJ: What date was that? Was that fall, summer? ADR: I can’t, I mean, I know it had to have been warm weather. JJ: Spring probably. Probably the spring. Was it the school or after? ADR: Right. But the point is that that leads to the point that you asked the other question much later. Remember among the group, I’m the only Mexican like, and Guzman, at that time, at the very beginning, no, Vicentes is the leader. We’d chosen him as the leader. JJ: And I think we chose him because looked Italian. But he was-- ADR: [00:57:00] Wait a minute, we chose him. We chose Vicentes as the leader. We then basically, not basically, as we started to grow there were other suggestions. You had made some certain suggestions. I don’t recall what it was. JJ: They didn’t listen to me anyway. ADR: No, no. Listen, wait, had no, you’re forgetting about something that occurred. You weren’t there because as I said you were in another school. JJ: Okay. 35 �ADR: What happened was that I had suggested something at that point, just like the other feelings I had. Remember I’m the Mexican, I didn’t feel, this is like at the beginning because Guzman was-JJ: Were we making a big issue that you were Mexican? ADR: No, no. Let me finish. JJ: You were all gang bangers. ADR: No, no. Let me finish. Let me finish. JJ: Alright. Okay. ADR: I had made a suggestion on something. So Orlando, well, his attitude was, [00:58:00] if that’s what you want, fine. So I had gotten into an [inferment?] at that point he suggested, in other words, in other words, there was some question as to what I wanted. I can’t recall what the issue was. But really what it came down is to the trust that evolved, that ended up evolving from ourselves. So at that point, Orlando didn’t give one way or other, he didn’t give a shit. And he said, well, that’s what you want, whatever. I mean, the attitude that he took in so many ways that responded to it, I felt kind of out place at that point. So really this is when I was going to me, in my mind, I was going to quit. Okay? So the next day in school, Fermin and Benny and then Orlando, he said, you know what? In other words, I think what they did that they talked among themselves and said, if this is what you want, [00:59:00] you’re going to have it. Because it is like, we’re brothers. So Guzman was opposing what I wanted to do. And then he comes back, he was all fucking pissed off because the group, in other words, went against him. And the fact that I was Mexican played a role because he would 36 �say, “He’s a fucking Mexican. I’m Puerto Rican. Why are you guys backing a Mexican?” JJ: Because he came-- ADR: Wait, hold on, I’m not finished. JJ: --he came from Philadelphia. ADR: So then as we were in school, remember Guzman had dropped a grade below. He was actually a year older but because when he came from wherever he came from-JJ: (inaudible) ADR: He did, he then-JJ: But nobody paid attention to him. ADR: --he dropped me. I was in the bathroom and he made a remark to me about, “You’re going to get your fucking way,” whatever. And I walked away from him. I mean fuck it, whatever. And I made the mistake when we were in the, we had come out of the gym and I went into the bathroom and I had [01:00:00] going down to wash my face and motherfucker came, and yeah, on the back, I hit me in the neck and then hit my head. JJ: And you’re still worried about that? ADR: Well, I turned around and I-JJ: You still feel guilty about that? So what? ADR: No, let me finish. So I turned around and started fighting him. So when the teachers walked in, I mean, we were considered to be going into battle. JJ: So you fought him. You fought him. Right. So what. 37 �ADR: What I did is I turned around and I squeezed-- because the only thing I could do was squeeze his fucking balls. JJ: I won’t forget him. ADR: No, you asked the question. You got to finish this. So then no, John had me in a headlock in there, and the teachers walk in and they heard that what had happened. I mean, they come in there and obviously they broke us apart. And then I’m walking around but because he hit me, I hit this outside of, my face was red. (inaudible) Everybody -- (inaudible). So then at that point I’m like, I’m not fucking, because we were going to have a fight. So [01:01:00] then we went out and I mean, it must have been like the whole school (inaudible) going to have it out. So we go across the street into the alley before this is when they turned around and I said, “Fair is fair,” in my mind, the son of a bitch. I guess you don’t want me to swear, but I’m thinking this motherfucker jumping from behind. Right. JJ: He, he stole on you. Right. ADR: So what I did, as he got near me, I kicked him on the balls as hard as I could. JJ: Paralyze him. ADR: And then I went at him and all he could do, because he was (inaudible), he grabbed me and he could hurt me. Man, I’m pounding the shit out of him on the face, because I had my other hand free. And I mean, it was a big, big deal. But he made a technical mistake because in the terms of the (inaudible) as fighters, I was not Orlando. So then he had to live up in [01:02:00] there that Sal almost beat the shit out of you. And he could complain. But the mother-- that I kicked him on the balls because the point is you dropped me from-- you started, you 38 �broke the rule. So there was nothing for me to honor to treat you differently giving you a fair fight. When he jumped me on the back, he broke the rules. JJ: He jumped a Young Lord. ADR: And he gave me the right. JJ: He jumped a Young Lord, which he wasn’t supposed-- ADR: Well, not so much I was a Young Lord but that broke the, that to me was, that solidified our friendship as the original Young Lords that somehow perhaps I think was that we would stick together. No matter what happened to any of us, we would stick for each other because then afterwards, anything that would happen to any of the among ourselves, we always reacted. We reacted to what happened. As soon as, like I said, I can go back. The thing with the Paragons, all I can tell you what I saw and what I knew, what happened that night. I know that I keep emphasizing, took four of the Paragons down. You mentioned [01:03:00] there was another fight. I don’t, I mean not. But I know damn well that night. And he took, knocked down Crazy Johnny twice, knocked him out practically. I’m not saying he put him out unconscious or anything like that, but knocked him down with the punches. The punches took Crazy Johnny down. And just as much as that kind of thing, Santos, his reputation of being the baddest son of a bitch no longer worked. Years later, wait a minute, years later, I had another fight with Santos. Same thing. We were this, when we used to hang around on Armitage, what they call from the song, that restaurant that was owned by a Mexican couple, Sugar Shack. JJ: Oh, the Sugar Shack. Yeah. 39 �ADR: You remember the Sugar Shack? Okay. The Sugar Shack. We were in there. That’s where we crazy-- met Irish. JJ: Where was the Sugar Shack at? Where was the Sugar Shack at? That was more-- ADR: Close to across the street from where the [01:04:00] fire station’s at Larrabee, it would’ve been on Armitage west of, almost immediately west of Larrabee. JJ: Okay, okay. ADR: But again, some other week, whatever it was, I had it out again with Santos. Now, the funny thing about this fight now was, remember by that time we used to have the Cuban with the color Cuban high heel, they have boot that we were wearing at that time. So I go out. At that point it was like, okay, let’s take it outside. The fight got started with an argument I had with Santos, and let’s take it outside. We went outside and started fighting, and this time it was a fist fight. But I remember that in throwing a punch at him, or I ended up, because I was wearing, the shoes that I was wearing wasn’t conductive for a fight. It wasn’t very smart of me. But anyway, the point is that I slipped and I fell, and before Santos could react [01:05:00] to come at me, Orlando jumped in and then took over and it started pounding on Santos. So Santos was forced to fight Orlando because Orlando basically, no, he’s not going to, and he took him out and beat the shit out of Santos. After that, Santos completely drifted away from us because we had totally embarrassed his ass. He had wanted to be, I don’t know what reason they didn’t let him become, because he was maybe too boisterous or whatever. He originally wanted to be part of the Black Eagles. They didn’t let 40 �him. That’s why he became part of us. And he thought, well, I’m going to run the gang because I’m the older guy here and all this and that. It didn’t work. So at the very beginning in the takeover, we would’ve, to give the credit to Santos would’ve been the first person that ever tried to take the Young Lords, control of the Young Lords that didn’t succeed. Then later on, as I said, as we started growing in reputation and things, we talked. JJ: [01:06:00] So you’re saying the original seven kind kept the group together. So the original seven always kept the group together. ADR: Right. JJ: Is that what you’re saying? ADR: I mean, I think that what I’m reflecting on is when you asked the question about the trust. JJ: The trust, right. ADR: Okay. You used the word trust. I’m not sure that that’s the correct, I’m not debating the word. I’m just, we’re using, but I think the trust in there, what brought us together to create that individual-- I’m not arguing the word, the word trust, but I think there might be another word that gave us that cohesiveness, that if anybody challenged that particular group in it. That group was expanded to include Ralph and some of the individuals that became part of, in other words, they became part, in other words, the initial group expanded not by large numbers, but by small numbers expanded beyond the seven. JJ: Right, right, right. 41 �ADR: Okay. In other words, the challenge [01:07:00] though, it can be debated because in talking to Orlando in the future, I mean what happened later on is to how that trust was created. All I can say is that in the years, there were times that Orlando would ask me, I need you here, and I would react. I didn’t have to ask twice, what it was about or what it involved. I simply was there. JJ: That’s what I’m saying. That’s what we did. We did do that with the trust. ADR: Okay. That’s what I mean. I mean, the point is that the thing with New York, not that we were pissed off at you or anything. You were out there and it’s like, Orlando, Sal, you got to stop Andre. JJ: Right. ADR: He said, I got to go. He said, because I was going to go to the meeting, I was going to go there. And he said, no. He said, because he tell me, I don’t examine the exact words, but he says, no, you got to deal with Andre because Andre wants to do something. [01:08:00] And he says, I’ll take the meeting. I says, I’ll deal with what’s got to be dealt over there. But he said, you got to get him out of this mentality. Basically what he told me. So I didn’t debate the issue. I just said, okay, that’s what we need to do. This is how we’re going to handle it. JJ: You’re talking about the split between the Chicago Young Lords and the New York Young Lords. ADR: The what now? JJ: The split between the Chicago Young Lords and the New York Young Lords. Andre wanted to do something. ADR: What do I remember about the split? 42 �JJ: No, no, I’m saying, are you telling-- I’m just saying this is what you’re talking about, right? You’re talking about the split. ADR: Yeah. JJ: And then Andre wanted to do something. ADR: Yes. JJ: Okay. ADR: Exactly. JJ: He didn’t agree with it so he wanted to do something but Orlando and you stopped it. That’s what you’re saying. ADR: Well, what happened was, what actually happened is that Andre had approached Orlando on what he [01:09:00] wanted to do. JJ: Okay. ADR: Okay. Orlando immediately realized that that wasn’t a good idea. JJ: Right because we were respecting, Orlando knew that I was meeting with them and we were respecting, they were our guests. They were Young Lords too. I look at ’em as Young Lords. ADR: Well, there were certain things that we already were-- at the point the thing-- the way it came down, they were already aware of certain things that were taking place, and quite honestly, not all of us. JJ: And that was not a gang fight. We were not gangbanging. ADR: It was not gang fight. Nobody at that point, quite honestly-JJ: We were political. We’re not-- 43 �ADR: It was political, but we were concerned about you giving in to what they wanted to do. Okay? JJ: Right. ADR: So in essence, I can’t find, in other words, we didn’t, I don’t want to use the word trust. I’m being [01:10:00] cordial here. The point is that we were-- there were doubts as to what you were going to do. In other words, we weren’t sure that you were going to act in our best interest. And so the point was, the reason Orlando wanted to make sure he was at the meeting was because he wanted to control you. Make sure that you won’t do anything-- in other words, concede anything or give anything into New York. That was really why he, instead of him, he could have said, I’ll go deal with Andre. You go take in. If he would’ve, in other words, more confidence in what the outcome would’ve been. JJ: He wanted stay in the meeting. ADR: So Orlando wanted to make sure that what you did or what didn’t do with something that, in other words, that you wouldn’t do anything stupid. I mean, that’s not a right word. That’s not right. In other words, we didn’t know-- the reaction is we weren’t sure how you were going to react. Orlando felt he could better deal with you, dealing with you on that issue by being there. That’s the reason nobody’s ever asked, “Why didn’t Orlando [01:11:00] go and deal with Andre?” JJ: All right. ADR: Okay. Andre, I mean, Orlando, was concerned about you, how you were going to deal with that issue. So my job felt that you got to take care of Andre, that he 44 �doesn’t do what he wants to do. Okay? In other words, you got to stop him. Okay? That’s how that occurred that night. JJ: And basically what we agreed is that they were revolutionary compañeros. ADR: Have I agreed to what now? JJ: Basically what I said that they were revolutionary compañeros, that they were our guests and we were not going to attack them. ADR: Well, personally, we didn’t think, me and Orlando, I mean, I have to say, because Orlando, we didn’t think much of New York. We didn’t think much of New York. JJ: Okay. I agree with you. ADR: I mean, the point is you were more, what we saw is an issue, not a problem. That word would be issue. The issue we saw [01:12:00] with you is that you were [nine slaps?]. Okay? Remember, you’re forgetting that Orlando had slapped not once, but had slapped them twice on different occasions, the guy from New York, when he mouthed off to Orlando. JJ: Oh, you’re talking about Yoruba. ADR: Yoruba, exactly. JJ: Okay. Alright. ADR: So we never-JJ: I thought they was angry then. I was out of town when that happened. ADR: The point is, if you would’ve been there, you would’ve criticized. You had a tendency to criticize-- you did it to me-- and you’re (inaudible). In other words, you took the feud-- I’m not criticizing in the sense that, do not understand why that was done. Okay. 45 �JJ: Okay, what view would I have, what view? ADR: Well, your logic was proper, but on the issue involved was impractical. That’s the best way I can, you would’ve said, well, we, Latinos, we should not be fighting each other. We agree with you. I mean, I’m very willing. But when you’re dealing with somebody that’s, in other words, [01:13:00] harming the group, you weren’t willing to take, in other words, be forcible. And the issue of how it had to be dealt with. That’s what I’m saying about, he always wanted to play the nice, nice role. You didn’t take the responsibility for having to do the hard things that ended up getting the results of what the things we needed to do. And that is a criticism that not only me, but I can take Orlando, would have the same criticism that he had about you is that you want always be, you want everybody like to us, it was like you want everybody to like you. And we didn’t agree with you on that particular issue. So Yoruba, Yoruba had challenged a lot. JJ: I’ll agree 60 percent. Sixty-three percent. I’ll agree 60 percent. But that’s your perspective. That’s fine. ADR: Well, Yoruba made the mistake of mouthing off in a bad way to Orlando. And that’s why he told him, in other words, to pay him back. He went and with his open hand, slapped him, [01:14:00] humiliated him and telling him, he says, “You’re not good enough for me to punch you because you’re a fucking pussy.” Basically. JJ: Well, how did this start? I mean, what was it? How did it start? ADR: Well, because remember, the New York guys had this thing that they didn’t even throw it out openly. “We’re the educated ones.” You used to throw out, these 46 �guys are in college and big deal. You know what I mean? The practicality, what I think you were forgetting. JJ: But they had people from the streets too. ADR: Fine. They didn’t have the balls. JJ: No. The people, they had balls themselves. ADR: Okay, fine. They had balls. Okay. JJ: We grew up in a different way than they did. So because of that, we looked at them differently. I mean, we grew up differently than they did because they grew up in New York and we grew up in Chicago, and they looked at us differently too. I [01:15:00] mean, vice versa. And I tried to, even before-- that wasn’t the first time that I was a mediator because even in the gang, I had to be mediator. To me, we were all Young Lords to me, and I’m trying to find a way to keep us as Young Lords. ADR: But you’re forgetting. You’re forgetting. You’re forgetting. Even at that time. JJ: And it wasn’t easy. It wasn’t easy because I was-- ADR: Yeah, but see, what you’re forgetting is that these people did not have for us, some did not have the interest of the organization. JJ: There was individuals, there was individuals within them and individuals within us. The majority of the group wanted to stay together, but there were individuals on both sides that had problems. ADR: That might have been so. JJ: That happens in any organization. 47 �ADR: But see, when they broke away, they proved the point. I mean, the point is what we, I mean from the perspective of, and [01:16:00] again, some of the individuals, and we opposed a particular idea. I mean, believe me, even immediately, we’re finding out that you allowed ’em to keep the name, the younger, your justification was, well become more recognizable name. The rest of us. I can’t speak for everybody, but I can’t speak for number of individuals, we thought you screwed up. JJ: Okay. Speaking for yourself, how did you feel about it? ADR: I think that was a big mistake. And I’m not the only one, but I’m speaking for myself. I thought that was dumb because you gave them, (inaudible) they never had, they did not do-- A lot of the stuff that was done that they took credit for were was done under the Young Lords, it was done by us. The takeovers, the fights, the issues with the police, the other things we had, all of those things, the creation of the programs that we had-- breakfast program, the healthcare, other things we had, we had all these things. And you pissed us. [01:17:00] I’m saying not only myself, but you pissed some of us off. What the hell are you doing letting them keep the goddamn name? They didn’t contribute shit to the name. They didn’t go through the struggle. I mean, you mentioned in of doing the things we done when the police, whenever they would’ve, people getting hurt and getting killed, where were they? How many Young Lords got killed? Okay. And one of our guys, how many times ended up in jail for being Young Lords and got locked up and got shot at? So when you gave the name, we thought, and I said, I’m using the word we because I was not the only one. Okay? We thought you 48 �screwed up. Totally screwed up because you gave them a platform they did not have, that would not have had, if that name would’ve been taken away from them. Okay? That’s what you don’t realize the mistake you made, you created that problem, okay? Inadvertently [01:18:00] you created. You thought you were doing something good that came back to bite your ass because the Young Lords party would’ve never existed. Where they wouldn’t go, where it go. If we would’ve said, no, you can’t use the goddamn name, what are they going to do? Maybe we would’ve forced ’em to become something better, and that would’ve been good, but you didn’t give ’em that opportunity. You allowed them to, they copied everything. I mean, all the great things that what the Young Lords, they were being copied. You allowed that to happen. Nobody. I mean, this is something you have to take that, I mean, as a criticism, that you have to take the blame for that because you’re the one that created that problem, not the rest of us. And honestly, and as a friend, you did a disservice to the people that went to jail. Did a disservice to the people that got shot. Because everything in the paper over the years, what have I been complaining about over the years? I mean, when asked being involved and stuff, I said, I keep (inaudible) this is all fucking bullshit. [01:19:00] Fucking lies that has been written about what happened, how it happened, how it occurred, and you keep telling me it’s going to get straightened out. Where does it getting straightened that New York done that and all this other crap and all so-called experts, they knew about the activity when they never fucking participated in any of the goddamn-- hardcore issues that we had to deal with. All the speakers that I seen and things that go on, 49 �secondary or third meaning come from secondhand information, not from the participants. None of the things that I’ve seen in there were actual participants to say, “Here I did that. I got shot, or I went to jail for this, or this happened over here, or I had to take this guy down because of that.” Where was the guy there that can sit there and do that? None of the actual participants that did the things that were done are ended up participating in this situation. They all talk [01:20:00] about how badasses they were, but nothing -- where the fuck are they? What were they doing? Hiding behind the fucking end of back of the line when we were fighting, who went to the fights that had to be dealt with when somebody got attacked. In the beginning, all of a sudden it was Orlando, myself, Andre, when you say you’re right, I mean, I mentioned because it always comes from (inaudible), but Andre, the rest of us that we were Richie, Popo, some of the other guys, we were the ones that were dealing with the fucking bullshit. Much of what happens in life. They ain’t got the other ones, the speakers. Well, I represent, I do this, I do that, or this is going on, and what the fuck? Where were you motherfucker when you were there, when we needed to, really needed you to do the things that that needed to be had? Why did you coin the word of the rally Young Lords? Where did that come from, Cha-Cha, if not from the fucking fact that the only thing when we were holding a rally, when the party was had, [01:21:00] instead of having the actual participants benefit from the goddamn things that were done. Did they ever benefit from that? Maybe with a lockup in jail? What happened to, I reminded we forget about-- look at Carlos. Look how he ended up, he ended up in goddamn jail doing 20 to life. 50 �JJ: Which Carlos? ADR: Carlos Perez. Did you know he was in jail? JJ: Oh, no, no, no, no. This Carlos? ADR: Andres, no, I mean Raymond’s brother. JJ: Oh, Carlos Montanes. Oh, he’s in jail? ADR: Yeah. JJ: Oh, no, I didn’t know that. ADR: There was some of the other guys that ended up doing time. The point is we’re asking is the kind of end-- I’m juggling in here and not may even making any sense of what I’m saying. JJ: No, no. You’re making sense. ADR: But the point is that this thing-- [01:22:00] JJ: I’m listening to what you’re saying. You’re making sense. Again, I see there’s side two. I see a different side too. But I definitely feel what you’re saying. I mean, you’re making sense. I think you’re correct in a lot of things there. I think a lot of repression, a lot of problems that took place here were not given the recognition that they deserve, that we deserve here, that the people in Chicago deserve. But then again, I think that they were contributing in a different light in New York in a different-- ADR: I’m not a, when you say the contribution--I’m not saying-JJ: I don’t blame the cadre in New York for that, because there was several branches of Young Lords in New York that came together. There was some street people like Pickles that was from the streets that when I went there, he 51 �was complaining that the students are not [01:23:00] listening to what I’m saying. And so I can relate to him from the street because I said, well, you know what they have to listen to you because this is the people’s movement. It’s for people from the streets. But Pickles joined with them. In fact, (inaudible) came out of that, and he was under central committee. So I mean, there was some mistakes made on all parts and people were trying to divide us up, infiltrating, but we also made mistakes too. I mean, like you said, we’re Young Lords. We can’t be slapping other Young Lords. You understand what I’m saying? Do you believe that we should, me and you have argued many, many, many times and we never slapped each other. ADR: Look, it wasn’t-JJ: Have me and you ever slapped each other? ADR: No, I’m trying to make, I’m mentioning that. I think we’ve argued. All right. Was it on the face value? Was it a good thing? No. Okay. [01:24:00] I can agree with that. But at the same time, the question, the follow up question, was it necessary? Answer is yes. All right. Because in certain situations, this is again in the study of the Young Lords. JJ: (inaudible) beat up another human being. ADR: No, no. Lemme make my point. Because as we’re saying in there, when you look at the Young Lords. JJ: We broke out of that. We said, we don’t want to deal with gangbanging stuff. ADR: Right. No, I am getting to that. I mean, what I’m trying to say from here, listen, what I think, what I’m referring to that those particular issues, what point I’m 52 �trying to make out of that is an explanation. When I say in the question of what I’m asking, was it a justifiable thing to do? I mean, was it a good thing? The answer is no. That’s what I said, but there has to be a follow-up question that answers that it was something that was necessary to do. And I say the answer to that is yes. Now I have to explain that. In order to explain that-JJ: [01:25:00] And then he was our guest. ADR: --well, here’s what I’m trying to-- bear with me, and in the moment, you’re making me forget the point that I’m trying to make here. But the thing I’m trying to say is that our group was no different from other groups in terms of what I was referring to. Somebody was to come and actually study us, say why did these things occur as they would find out? I mean, this is what about laying out on the table and those issues is too, in other words, somebody saying, I mean, maybe a hundred years from now when there has been a contradiction on the part of the youngers that in other words, a member slaps another member in that kind of a situation and study. In other words, in other words, when there’ve been studies to why this was done, you’re going to find many groups that these interactions that take place in order for the group to succeed. This is what I’m saying, where it becomes necessary to do the things, or you become too placent, in other words, in certain areas, that makes the strength [01:26:00] of the organization. So what I’m trying to get at, I’m going to make a statement that’s not going to make any sense to you whatsoever, but I want you from time to time to come back and ask myself to explain whether it’s here or any other time into the future. And my statement is this, educated people are stupid people. I want you to keep 53 �that in mind, and I’ll repeat it again. Educated people are stupid people. Because if you look at that and just in life, they’re going to find how the puzzle comes together when you can put that puzzle when you’re looking at things, because it has to do right now with the economy, when I’m referring to that, is all the educated people that came in there, they came in up with all the economists. I mean, if you look at the economy, and I’m not going to get into it, but I’m making, again, it’s an example, an analogy that all troubles of the United States [01:27:00] that we end up having right now is based on what the economists and what they were trying to do and giving us the (inaudible) pictures that existed, obviously. And anybody that’s listening to what I’m saying is going to say, well, this guy’s full of shit. What is he talking about? But what I’m trying to say is that the economists a lot had a lot of fault and giving us the rosy picture, but a system, how it works, not realize it. Because in the end, because they’re educated, you can’t tell ’em. This is what I’m referring to, all the stupidity of the things that the educated people, this is what got us in fucking trouble right now. It wasn’t the average person. I mean, and we’re struggling to get out of this hole we find ourselves in today because they’re too stupid to understand that the middle class, in other words, the average worker needs to make money in order to survive. You’re forgetting, and I’m not asking, I’m going to ask the question, but I’m answering the question. Why the idea of what to have. Why was it that somebody came up with the idea that here in the United States, for example, that in having a welfare system, you had to give money to the [01:28:00] poor person and others didn’t have a job, didn’t have anything. Why was that person given 54 �money? I said, I’m asking the question, but I’m also answering. The reason that the money was given food stamps, in order, and a check, not a lot of money, but a check that was given to them at the end of the month was so they could go and continue to be productive in society by buying goods instead of begging for the damn goods. Because if somebody buys a can of food, that means there’s going to be a factory worker doing that soup, putting it together, the raw material that has to be produced in order to make the can, in order to put the label on it as much as putting the food on it and putting people to work. Because if the poor people keep increasing and they can’t buy anything, they don’t have anything, what’s going to happen? We’re going to become a third rate nation. Well, that’s what I’m referring about smart people being, I mean, educated people. Correct myself, educated people being stupid. What are they doing? Outsourcing all that goddamn jobs out of the country. [01:29:00] Is the Chinese buying our goods? I mean, the Chinese got, I mean, getting philosophical, but the import, it’s over a billion persons in China. They represent basically one third of the world population, Cha-Cha. And you think with all the goods in there that they’re going to be able to, where are we seeing the production when everything’s been sent to be built by these people? Every product, every material, everything that’s being done, labor. That’s why labor put a label. We want to know where the damn product is being made and everything that’s been made in China. But what is China buying? Educated person is going to say, “Hey, China’s buying shitload of stuff from the United States.” You know what? You’re right. But you know you’re an idiot because they’re buying the fucking companies. They’re 55 �buying the goddamn product. What happens in the book, if we go, their cash flow goes back to China, it doesn’t stay here in the United States. They own the companies. [01:30:00] They own the land. They own land in the United States. JJ: The Chinese. ADR: Oh, the goods. Yeah. I mean, I’m not saying they buying whole (inaudible), but they own land. So the buying their goods, the buying is going back to China. I don’t mean to get on China, on China, make some against the Chinese or anything. But the point is the logic of the educated person without going back with the Young Lords. And what I’m referring to correlation here is to me, the educated person was the Young Lords from New York, and they were stupid. JJ: Some were educated. Again. So when I went there-- ADR: Fine. I mean, I make it, I’m generalizing. JJ: You’re generalizing. Okay. And what I’m saying is when I went there and saw the Young Lords in New York, they were just like we were I, they were just like we were, the people in the leadership were, yes, a lot of ’em were [01:31:00] students, but the cadre were just like we were. And we also had students here too. I mean Omar or other people were students. We had students with us. [Victor Chavarria?] was a student, [Marta Chavarria?], (inaudible), (inaudible), all the doctors, the attorneys they were working with. ADR: But the people we had in there rose to their levels. If you’re going to talk about, for example. JJ: My job as the head of the group was to try to keep the group together. I’m coming from my job, which is, and today you’re a union organizer. You organize 56 �unions, and so your job is to keep the union together. So I was doing the same thing at that time. I’m saying, I see that we got a bad problem here. Somebody got slapped and now we’re going to divide a movement [01:32:00] that was for self-determination for Latinos. So I’m looking-ADR: Cha-Cha, they didn’t have, no -JJ: I’m looking at our ideology. I’m looking at our belief system and it is going to be torn apart. And what are we going to do about this? And I have to take a position knowing that I come from this group here, the Young Lords, but at the same time, these other Young Lords are Young Lords too. And so I’m just saying, I’m not saying it was right or wrong. ADR: Trying to justify. JJ: This is oral history. ADR: You’re trying to justify it. Look, the point is New York has nothing without us. New York had never had anything without us. JJ: What you said, explain my part. I’m trying to explain my part. I won’t justify it because this is your-- ADR: Go ahead. Go ahead. JJ: So my position was how can we keep us together? And that’s what I was trying to do. And I know that there was going to be a coup d’état happening and [01:33:00] I had to deal with it. But that was my role at that time. I had to do my role. And I believe that Felipe came here. Felipe Luciano, his role was to defend. They was sending to defend me York, and that’s what he was doing. So I respected him for that. He’s our guest. We don’t want to attack nobody here. 57 �We can’t attack our guests. And plus these are our brothers no matter what. It’s just like when Andre and (inaudible) and Orlando, and who was the other one? Orlando and somebody else. Orlando. ADR: Louie was there. JJ: Orlando was sticking up for Ralph for (inaudible). ADR: Ralph. JJ: And Andre was sticking up for (inaudible). I had to be in the middle. I had to be in the middle then, because I couldn’t allow the group to fall apart. I was just doing my role. I’m just saying. I know you’re angry about it. ADR: Well, the point is, the point of what you’re saying-JJ: I want to explain. ADR: Okay, I understand. [01:34:00] But you bring it up. It has to be answered. I mean, at the point when you’re bringing it up in here. Look, number one is just as much as I’ve learned and you’re forgetting either, well, let me put it to this way. If you see somebody that’s sitting in front of you sharpening a knife, what are you going to do? JJ: I’m going to get me a shield or something quickly. ADR: You were blind. Okay. Evidently you were blind because you didn’t see what the rest of us saw. Okay? You were blind. New York already-- your instincts, your street instincts left you at that point. That the best thing I’m putting it to you, nice. You let your street instincts get the best of you. I mean, I get away from you because you should have known what was going to take place. And it wasn’t difficult for the rest of us to say he fucked up. You forgot, and this is what I’m 58 �saying about the nice-nice, I don’t mean to be [01:35:00] sarcastic or anything in there, in this thing in it. We didn’t need New York. We had the rest of the goddamn nation. We didn’t even have the time to organize other chapters that wanted to be organized. So what was, and again, in the platform now, that’s quarterbacking now, meaning the Monday night, in other words, now reflecting on things that could have taken place, which is not fair. But what I’m trying to say is that then in New York, obviously didn’t take advantage of something they had in their ability to do. They could have taken the other chapters, created other chapters across the nation and overtake us in popularity by, but they didn’t do it because they weren’t smart. Educated, but stupid. I don’t mean to imply that every member that you’re trying to point out to me, I’m talking the leadership and the things in it. Because if I would’ve been there and I got the name the Young Lords party, now I’m going to go to Detroit, I’m going to go to Philadelphia, I’m going to go to Los Angeles, [01:36:00] I’m going to go to Houston, I’m going to go to Dallas. I’m going to go to Louisiana, wherever I can open up different chapters. That’s what the good thing is, that they didn’t take advantage of that. That’s quarterbacking. I mean, not quarterback, whatever. I’m the analogy about I’m going something and it’s not fair. But what I’m trying to point in there that the other side of it, what really took place is now they had (inaudible), but they’re not imaginative individuals to come up with new ideas, to do things. We might not have had the education, but we were not stupid. JJ: We were thinking in different levels. ADR: But look, the thing is then-- 59 �JJ: Because I’m not thinking then at that point, I’m not thinking just that I’m just a Young Lord. I’m thinking that we’re representing a movement of Latinos. ADR: The movement. JJ: But you’re still the only thinking and I respect that, that we’re just Young Lords. And so [01:37:00] these people here want to factionalize and want to being Young Lords. ADR: Cha-Cha, if you’re saying that. JJ: No, I’m just saying-- ADR: Wait a minute, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. JJ: An issue like that, not saying which is correct-- ADR: You’re forgetting what was happening here in Chicago. I mean, if you were so concerned about the movement, why were you not involved with the issue of when we were dealing with the Latin Eagles, the Latin Kings and the other groups trying to kill each other? JJ: We were dealing with that. We had meetings about it. We had truces and everything like that with the different gangs. We were dealing with that. ADR: May I remind you of something. What did we say we were going to do that never happened. Okay. And I say that because you were one of the proponents at the time in the (inaudible). You made it a point in the earlier parts of the political organization about what had happened in Libya, the country. [01:38:00] JJ: Okay. 60 �ADR: Okay. Do you recall now what I’m referring to? What did Libya do in its independence from the French? What did the Libyans do at the beginning? You remind me. JJ: No, no. Remind me. I don’t know (inaudible). ADR: Okay. They got rid of the drug dealers. They killed them. JJ: Exactly. ADR: Why? What would’ve been the reason for the revolutionaries, of Libyan revolutionaries to kill the drug dealers? JJ: They couldn’t be rehabilitated. They couldn’t be rehabilitated, I am thinking. I don’t know. I don’t remember. ADR: Who’s the, what destroys the community. I mean, I’m asking questions, what I’m trying to say, but I’m going to get to the point. JJ: Okay. ADR: The point was that they did that because that was the one that contributed to the breakdown of the families and everything else because of the drug addiction, [01:39:00] the bad things that come with those particular issues. So they basically told ’em, either straighten yourselves up or something’s going to happen to you. And so they started, obviously they didn’t listen, in order to get rid of that problem or to unite the people, they had to get rid of it. We discussed that. We discussed that in the neighborhood, that we had to go to the drug dealers to stop your fucking bullshit because you’re destroying the neighborhood. Unfortunately, that was one of the threats that we never carried through, and I think for other obvious reasons why that didn’t happen. But the point was that we 61 �did discuss it about doing because of what had happened to Libya. In order to liberate the people, in order to change the mentality, what was taking their unity they created, they needed to deal with a problem. This is where I go back to the point as, and I’m not justifying it. I’m not trying, just trying to justify, I’m just trying to paint the similarities that exists. Yoruba getting slapped-- [01:40:00] The practicability of why that had to be done. So I’m trying to justify what Orlando did. It needed to be done. Just as much as the Libyans did. And I know it’s an extreme example. It’s an extreme example. JJ: Why did it need to be done? ADR: Because you got to remember that New York tended to think-- the impression they gave me. JJ: But Yoruba was not representing all of New York. ADR: It doesn’t matter. JJ: In fact, I didn’t give a damn about New York. I didn’t give a damn about Chicago. ADR: If you gave a damn, why did you allow ’em to keep the name? JJ: I first-- ADR: But why did you allow ’em to keep the name? I mean, I’m asking questions that should have been asked you. JJ: That’s what got us in trouble thinking that here’s Chicago, here’s New York. To me, I’m a Latino first. That’s number one. ADR: But you forgot -- 62 �JJ: We became political. When we became political. We said, we don’t even care about the gang anymore. To us it’s not about a gang. It is about building a movement. ADR: [01:41:00] Nobody at that point, nobody thought of ourselves and we never thought of ourselves. Let’s correct something here. JJ: Because at that time (inaudible). ADR: At that point, there was nothing mentality about the gang, it was you’re (inaudible). I mean, I’m pointing out something to you. Okay? I don’t mean it to be, take it for what it is. At that point, no one thought or none of us within the internal, what other people labeled us, none of us thought of ourselves as a gang in any form, which way or form, when we bridged the gap of becoming political. In other words, that would’ve been and be precise in the date. That would’ve been from the point that when Manuel got killed, that we, in other words, because there’s a story behind how that came about and that particular issue, how that occurred. JJ: Manuel Ramos. ADR: But at the very beginning, and we then nobody thought about it. So your point about this thing got labeled, internally, we never believed, we never applied it to ourselves. We never believed in that. And we had left that long ago, had let that go. [01:42:00] So why are you bringing that up? That had nothing to do. It was taking place on a political process that was taking place that had nothing to do with gang activity. 63 �JJ: That moment it appeared that we were still, even though we gave up the gang, some of our thinking was still there. Would you agree or no? ADR: No, because look, the issue with New York. The issue with New York was the name. Their justification, I mean, if you’re trying to analyze why they came, they were supposedly that they needed to take you back to New York. Okay? They wanted you to go to New York. JJ: I remember that. I remember, okay. ADR: That was the whole thing was about, so why are you bringing this stigma about the-JJ: They wanted me to go to New York and make them the national headquarters. They wanted New York to be the national headquarters. That’s what they wanted. ADR: Exactly. Exactly. JJ: I remember that now. ADR: But I think that’s my point. JJ: But [01:43:00] I think they were being facetious because they knew I was not going to do that. ADR: Well, my point was, and maybe that’s where Orlando, I would ask, why did you but let that particular, because like I said, our concern was you, so I wasn’t there at the meeting. Obviously I was taking care of the other issue. But the point is that, and I couldn’t understand why maybe you blindsided our side without really say, why is New York going to be allowed to keep the name? Okay. And in the aftermath, we just said that. We weren’t thinking what did New York had to in 64 �exchange what was New York or there was nothing. And without, again, I emphasize without the name, if they would’ve been told, look, you guys don’t want it. You want to go ahead, fine. You want to break away from us, fine. But now you’re not going to use the name. [01:44:00] That’s it. So what you should have done, again, it’s not fair to you, but what should have done at that point shouldn’t have let it happen. Is that-- no, we’re going to, well now we’re going to dictate, and you know what? We’re going to replace you guys as leaders. We’re going to send a couple of Young Lords to assess the value and pick other leaders to run the organization. That’s what should have happened. I mean, it’s not fair to you at this point as many years that going back. But what should have been done is it should have been told, okay, this is what you want. Because this is what I’m saying, how we reacted to the-- that’s where you-JJ: No, no, no. I think you have a good point, good point there that we didn’t think it out that well, we should have thought it out better. I’ll accept that feedback. That’s good feedback. We should have been, had we thought it out better, we might have been able to avoid some of this. So that is my responsibility as the head of the group at that time, to I’ll accept that criticism. That’s good criticism. [01:45:00] We should have analyzed the situation a little bit better and knew-because we knew they were coming to meet with us and we should have been able to have some kind of answer to them that they could take back with ’em. And perhaps we wouldn’t have been split up. Perhaps we would’ve been able to work things out. ADR: I mean, if they were to split up-- 65 �JJ: That is my fault. That is my fault, I’ll accept that. ADR: That is your fault. (inaudible) JJ: I accept that. And that created confusion among the Young Lord members in Chicago and New York. So I’ll take that responsibility. But again, my other responsibility was to try to keep us together, not for us, our sake as Young Lords, but for the movement’s sake as Latinos at that time. And that might sound softy. ADR: Stop it-- wait a minute, wait a minute, wait. I’m not going to-JJ: Our job was to build a movement at that time. That’s why we started in Chicago, to build a movement and it spread New York and it spread to other cities. And that’s all I [01:46:00] was trying to do-- ADR: If you were so concerned. JJ: But I’m not justifying, I’m saying-- ADR: No, I’m not saying you’re justifying. JJ: I’ll accept (inaudible). ADR: But look, that should be left at that. Because the point is that if you were concerned about the movement, I’m trying to answer the question. If you were concerned about-JJ: I would’ve analyzed it. ADR: The (inaudible) Patriots. The Panthers, did they dictated policy to us? JJ: No, they didn’t. ADR: So then if they wanted to do something else, would you have been able to stop ’em? JJ: No, they didn’t (inaudible)-- 66 �ADR: How are you going to split the goddamn movement? JJ: No, no, no. I’m saying that we had a movement together in New York and Chicago. ADR: Well, you mentioned the thing that your idea was New York. JJ: New York was for Puerto Rican independence. New York is-- the biggest population of Puerto Ricans is in New York. Chicago is-- ADR: How much full-JJ: -- is Mexican and Puerto Rican. But New York at that time was mainly Puerto Rican, and we were a group here of Mexican [01:47:00] and Puerto Rican, of all Latinos. That’s what we were, that’s the thing. ADR: Okay. Well, you’re opening yourself from my part to criticism for me. Okay. Because your analysis is faulty. JJ: Okay. ADR: You talk about a movement among Hispanics, New York was the least of the goddamn problems because I could ask you what was happening at the other side of the coast. in the west coast, and if you really wanted to talk about keeping a movement together. I’m trying to get to the point in here. JJ: No, I’m talking about the Young Lords. ADR: Exactly. And I’m talking about the Young Lords-- no, what you’re referring to, the movement was the movement, the Young Lords, I mean-JJ: No, no, no. ADR: No. The movement. Alright, stop right there. JJ: We were part of the movement. 67 �ADR: Well, my point is this what I’m trying to say what-JJ: I didn’t want lose all those chapters. ADR: Cha-Cha, if Hispanic movement in order to truly exist and a microscopic already existed with the Young Lords, okay, you’re forgetting [01:48:00] something that, and this is the problem that I’ve always said over all these years in the aftermath of the Young Lords, all right, you’re forgetting (inaudible), how it worked well and you are applying when you talk about it. That’s why I’m criticizing you on this particular issue because you’re forgetting that it wasn’t Puerto Ricans that did it by themselves. They did it with Mexicans and we did it some Cubans and some other nationalities within the Hispanic movement. And right now you’re talking just about the Puerto Ricans. And somehow this is, no, wait a minute. I didn’t say, well, that impression, you’re giving that impression. JJ: I said at that point, no, I didn’t. ADR: Wait a minute. But you’re giving that impression. I said the movement in order to succeed among the Hispanics. We have to have a coalition, which it existed much like that. Mexicans and Puerto Ricans already learned how to lift it, especially in the city here in Illinois works very well. That lesson is not being applied by New York and it ain’t being applied by the goddamn thing, everything that’s written about the Young Lords as being a Puerto Rican group, and you really want to make an impact on the people, [01:49:00] how it started, and name the men who contributed to the movement more than anybody else. I will make this statement. Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in Chicago. Fuck New York because they were all fucking Puerto Rican, we’re fucking in there and then 68 �contributing it. And if you want to make a movement between the people, you got to stop forgetting about the fuck New York. You’ve got to start remembering that the Mexicans had a lot to do with the movement here in Chicago as part of the Young Lords, as a broader picture of what took place. It wasn’t done by the Puerto Ricans by themselves. You’re forgetting that sometimes or not that you do it intentionally. Okay? That’s why in New York, I could give a fuck less about New York. I don’t mean to sound vulgar or start swearing or things like that, but it pisses me off to sit there and somehow this fucking movement of the Young Lords dealt with this issue of fucking Puerto Ricans. Where were the fucking Mexicans [01:50:00] who took the (inaudible) together? We did it together. You want to show the younger youth, you got to show ’em that we have lived, we know how to live together, how to get along together, how to work together. Where the fuck are they going to learn that if you’re not telling them the real story. Your story ain’t about fucking New York. Fuck the Young Lords party. They didn’t do shit. They didn’t contribute a fucking thing to the movement other than the fucking name, the big (inaudible) mouths. What else did they do? Tell me because they were shooting there when I was leading the fucking marches. They weren’t there when I took over the goddamn seminary. They weren’t there when I took over the fucking church and they weren’t there when I was fucking facing the cops, that I was the front person in front of everybody in there ready to take, possibly taking a fucking shot from the fucking cops. They weren’t there. When I went to the Carina alone with other people that were there, I was there by 69 �myself. But when I was there, when I was in front of the line going to the Carina projects [01:51:00] and get into the issues that had to be dealt with. ADR: Those are the things I didn’t do it-- I’m not saying that I was there by myself. I had other people, Puerto Ricans and Mexicans together when we did these things. So where are the Mexicans? I mean are we fucking blind or what? I mean our skin so dark that we’re not there because there’s certainly nothing’s ever mentioned about the contribution of the Mexicans into the Puerto Rican movement. None. Okay, none whatsoever. All these goddamn years, all this stuff in there talking about blah, blah, blah, and I was like, bullshit. Where’s the contribution when somebody said, we have had contribution from the Mexicans, they’re our brothers that have helped us. We’re all together. Where-- give me one statement that it shows anywhere in motherfucking right or neither. Show me one fucking sentence when you got that. JJ: I did make a button that said “Tengo Aztlán, Tengo Aztlán En Mi Corazón.” [01:52:00] I made that button. So I have to differ with you a little bit, but I definitely respect the pride that you have for the Mexican community and definitely for example, Luis Chavez took over the People’s Church. He led the People’s Church (inaudible) with the heads of our clinic, (inaudible) health clinic, Puerto Rican patriot. It was named after the Puerto Rican compatriot, but yet it was Mexicans that were running in the leadership of our clinic, Mexican Young Lords, that were doing that. So I definitely respect, definitely respect that. And you’re correct that we did not give enough attention to the Mexican Young Lords. And I’m not giving a but to New York. One of our main issues though, that 70 �including Mexicans and Puerto Ricans were fighting for at that time [01:53:00] was self-determination for Puerto Rico. ADR: The what now? JJ: The main issue that when we started was self-determination for Puerto Rico. Our first button said, our first button said, “Tengo Puerto Rico En Mi Corazon” and then we made the button “Tengo Aztlán En Mi Corazón” to recognize the contribution of the Mexican people within our group. ADR: But my point, okay, you’re bringing something up. The thing, okay. (inaudible) No, no. I’m point out something of what you said in there that people are not aware. All right? When that was done, and many times during the period when we used to have debates, they lasted all night and (inaudible), and I can remember hours we spent arguing some of these points. You were arguing when the button was being created. Not all of us were sitting there were in agreement about the button, but do you recall what you said? Were you convinced those of us that were Mexican [01:54:00] to go with the idea with the button, the way it was being written the way you wanted? “I got Puerto Rico En Mi Corazon.” How did that come about? JJ: I’m not sure. ADR: You don’t remember? JJ: I don’t remember. I don’t remember. ADR: Okay, as a brother, sometimes critical-- you forget important points of what took place. The argument we were having with you that night is that because those of us that were different nationalities weren’t created by (inaudible). Why are we 71 �doing this? There were issues. The (inaudible) even Puerto Rican siding with some of us that saying, that makes sense. We’re not all, not everybody here is Puerto Rican. We kept arguing the whole night about (inaudible). You kept fighting that we needed to have that blah, blah, blah, whatever. But you made one point that finally convinced when we said we agreed to it, and then sometimes it becomes a regrettable agreement. What I’m trying to say because of the issue that the way I just out spoke and then letting certain things out that you don’t realize the consequences of the way this has been taken. [01:55:00] ADR: The way New York abuses it in terms of the presentation by so-called Puerto Rican movement, that they were not really that goddamn movement. You said to us, “You guys, the Mexicans, the Argentineans, you went to a number, you all have your flags. Y’all have your countries. Puerto Rico’s not a free country. It’s a possession of the United States.” And we realized the (inaudible) because like I said, it was a long discussion that night, an argument, but we realized that we conceded to you that you were right in the sense that if Puerto Rico was to become a free nation, we needed to support that. And that was the idea of why we allowed that we said we got Puerto Rico mi Corazon. That’s how that came about. And whether you did or not, the point the credit, the only credit, the credit I’m giving you is the fact that they made up an accurate report in saying Puerto Rico is not a free country [01:56:00] or otherwise that would not have taken place. ADR: And that’s the same thing I’m taking there, that you’re not giving credit. This is sometimes, quite honestly, sometimes-- I don’t get angry. But I mean, I’m 72 �disappointed in you that all these years things has been said in there that not enough has been mentioned that this thing about much like what you’re doing with New York about saying, well, just looking back about having the name that again, playing nice-nice, you, in other words, you allowed another, a bigger harm to take place and you don’t see the consequences of that. The consequence I’m pointing out to you, if I’m going to go sell a point of why the unity between the not here in Chicago so much in Chicago, Chicago is different than probably than New York and other places because here the unity of among Hispanics is probably much stronger than any other part of the country. But if I’m going to go to New York or other places where you got a mix or Florida Cubans and Mexicans and which are minority [01:57:00] over there, the Cubans, the Puerto Ricans and numbers in there, my point to them in there, in order to sell ’em in there, take a look at what this group did. They did it with different nationalities, but how am I going to sell something when everybody, every time they read it, well, the Young Lords were fucking Puerto Rican. How did they allow Mexican to get in there? Don’t you think I’m going to hear something like that being said? I didn’t know fucking-- where do you get that? The Mexicans started to help start the gang of the young roots. They were a fucking Puerto Rican group. They were a Puerto Rican gang. They don’t know the truth. They don’t know what took place. Why? Because you got people lying. Perpetrating lies about the movement. You got second sources trying to speak for the first sources. That’s a harm Cha-Cha, a big one. You want to get people on your side. You want to impact the youth. This is what I refer when I’m talking [01:58:00] about the truth. 73 �The truth speaks for itself. I’m not going to say we were perfect, that we were goddamn saints. But what they’ll see, what I mention is that the unity that existed, the trust, you talked about all these things, this is why the (inaudible) gets put together, the trust we had with each other that we didn’t second guess with each other didn’t matter that you were goddamn Puerto Rican and I’m goddamn Mexican. If Sal said he wanted to do that, well fucking do it. He knows what he’s doing. Or if Cha-Cha said something, do it. What I’m trying to say in that trust, that’s how we build. You talked about the trust. The trust came from the ability to trust each other unconditionally because we didn’t feel that we were going to get stabbed in the back or anything. I don’t have to worry that you were going to be doing or anything like that. That’s if you want to teach, educate, this is what I’m referring. Everything else is-- that’s all fucking bullshit. I mean, Carlos can hear me and I would say it to his face, fucking, [01:59:00] what are you talking to an expert on the Young Lords? You didn’t know shit. You were a fucking rally Young Lord and almost all the other goddamn speakers there, they were all rally Young Lords. They weren’t there participating, doing any of the heavy work that needed to be done, negotiating the things that, all the different things we did, contributions. I mean, it wasn’t just me and seven people or seven people and me. It was a contribution of the community. Remember you asked me to give a perspective. So I’m unfortunately, I find myself using the word I perhaps too much. Alright? But you’re asking about what there is, where I fit and how these issues came to be, but it was a contribution of different, it just Mexican and Puerto Ricans. We had whites helping us. They were part of the 74 �Young Lords. With the women that participated and did the damn things. We even had Blacks in our organization. Where is that Cha-Cha? Where is that being? [02:00:00] Where does it show up? How you want to impact a Black to say you need to be part of the movement or you need to vote for me or you need to help me out when you’re talking about the Young Lords, and then they say the fucking Young Lords are Puerto Rican, what do I got to do with the Puerto Ricans? How do you impact the woman that you’re trying to bring her into the group? Well, what do I want to do with a bunch of fucking Puerto Rican male children, as fucking pigs, right? JJ: They agree on that. They agree. ADR: You understand what I’m saying? I don’t mean to maybe I’m going to the extreme of criticizing you, but the thing is, this is the failure that what I all these-JJ: You’re making good points. You heard me, right? ADR: Okay, so the movements that we’re going to move will come back in there if we don’t correct. This is what of all these years, but I’ve been trying to refer to you what needed to be done. [02:01:00] Okay? You just never really wanted-perhaps you didn’t want to listen to me. I don’t take it in a, but all these things. This is what I referred about telling the truth, putting the facts on the table. Because if people look at what was done and how that came to be, it’s not the bad they’re going to look at. They’re going to look at the cohesiveness, the trust, the things that made the things work. We learned from the women. (audio cuts out) Perfect. Take one. I can recall without hearing again, the occurrence, they had to set us down and said, you guys are fucking up. A couple of times that 75 �they in there. You guys are doing this. You’re not supposed to be doing it. I mean, even on the women, they rolled up and stood up to us saying, we don’t like the way you guys are going. Remember that? They had the guts to tell us off and we listened. And sometimes the males would being males, maybe some of us smirked at them, [02:02:00] but we had to listen and we had to listen to what they had to tell us, and obviously they might’ve been a part because of the greater movement with the woman’s movement that was coming into existence. But-- and because of that, more than likely they realized that, wait a minute, these guys are treating us like shit. We got to change them. How are you going to reach people? I mean, when you talk about the movement, that’s when I heard you say this thing about I didn’t want to split the movement. You bewildered the shit out of me. How the fuck are you talking about movement when you’re talking-- well, nobody’s, maybe nobody’s going to fucking listen to you if you keep talking about a group and correlate to what exists that nobody else has any interest unless you happen to be a Puerto Rican that, in other words, other than that, nobody, believe me, nobody’s going to want to listen to you because it doesn’t connect. It doesn’t-- you know this is what I’m saying about reaching the audience, reaching the-- [02:03:00] The thing is, I mean, there’s a lot to be thought from what happened and it just not because we, some were super-duper or whatever this, yes, we were lucky. It is like sometimes somebody winning the lottery or we were in a certain time and place. We reacted in a certain way. We didn’t plan it. The events that occurred in the way they occurred just sort of fitted in place and that was it. Now we can take it to the 76 �other level, use that as a vehicle to help organize a larger movement and in other words, to the Hispanic populations that continue to increase in the United States, and make it useful. Like voters. Why do we want to have, when the Hispanics don’t want to vote right now for many number of reasons, but they can study us. Here’s why you should vote. Here’s what can’t be accomplished when people get together. [02:04:00] Now, we might just be one example out of many, but still one example is one more that didn’t exist. And other things in terms of organizing and things that occur, that has to be the lessons that learned that I talked about yesterday. The things that we learned. I mean, I looked at perspective from my point dealing with the YMCA, how they did things, and I think they had enough brains to see that ain’t working and I know why it ain’t working. I got a better way of doing it. Doesn’t make me super smart or anything else. It’s just that I was lucky enough to see it differently and then apply that to something else. Then I go back to the statement, educated people are stupid people. I know some people that are listening to what I’m saying may not make no goddamn sense at all, but if they really think right higher, they know what I’m talking about. [02:04:59] As far as the Young Lords, all of us, not all of us, that stand corrected, quite a few of us became successful. I like to think that I became successful, but there wasn’t just being by myself. There were other guys that went on to do a lot more things in life and contributing not only to society. JJ: How were you successful? How were you successful? 77 �ADR: Well, if you take a look at who we were, it’s like saying how many heartbeats away was I away from being in jail? To that add the only individual that I can kind thank again comes to Orlando and I need to explain something about Orlando, why in the later years, I became more as a friend, more endeared. Not that I, sometimes it’s been years that sometimes that I don’t go beyond seeing him. [02:06:00] And then the things that we haven’t discussed that had to deal with the issues like with drugs. It was part of the movement of those things that happened. I think Orlando, me personally, saved me from becoming in any way, becoming in any way addicted to drugs, and I got him to thank for that because he put it in a perspective in such a way that it made me think that I could never do that. And I got him to thank. As a friend, when I came back from Vietnam at the end of 1968 as far as the Young Lords, to me, it was a non-existent thing. I mean, it is not like I came, “Hey guys, I’m back.” I didn’t do that. Interestingly enough, Orlando knew I was coming out because he would ask my sister from time to time when is Sal coming back. So as soon as when he knew when I was coming back, he came to see me. [02:07:00] Out of all the guys, Orlando was the-- he came and said, how you doing? And I went out and we started hanging out together, which kind of surprised me because it was the least thing I expected was for him to come looking for me. So then we started hanging out together. I remember seeing you, not under the best of circumstances when you were living in Wrightwood with an Hispanic girl, but that was not under the best circumstances. JJ: Meaning what? I was using drugs at that time? 78 �ADR: Yes. Kind of shook me, shocked me. I wasn’t expecting that at all. You’re in a goddamn suit, the whole bit and-JJ: High as a kite. ADR: Huh? JJ: And high as a kite. In a suit, but high as a kite. [02:08:00] But while you were gone, there was a drug epidemic in the neighborhood. ADR: The what now? JJ: While you were gone in Vietnam, there was a drug epidemic in the neighborhood. The country was hippies, the country was hippies, and we were following that. ADR: Well, there might’ve been a drug epidemic in the area and (inaudible) but not as big as what came later. JJ: Oh yeah. It came later. Later it what, got worse? Yeah, got worse. ADR: I mean, in your time-JJ: Because later it spreads more to minority groups, so-called minorities. ADR: The time you’re talking with-JJ: First it was the hippie movement, and then some of us got into that hippie movement, but then it spread to the barrios. ADR: Remember, Gorilla? Gorilla was a Paragons. JJ: Okay. Right. I remember. Oh yeah, I know who you’re talking about. ADR: What I remember, because as I said, I wasn’t [02:09:00] getting-- my recollection of when I had come back, there were very few people, and I don’t know how 79 �much usage you were doing. I mean, as compared to what happened later. What I’m saying is in comparison to when I first got back. JJ: I became addicted, I became addicted. ADR: To me, it seems like you were. JJ: I was addicted. I was on the corner every day. ADR: Okay. I mean, I don’t know about that. I mean-JJ: One day I was in a suit and tie and the next day I was like a bum. So I mean, I was addicted. ADR: Okay. The thing was that there weren’t that many people that were addicted at the time when I came back. JJ: Right. ADR: But you were in the minority, you guys were in the minority. I’m mentioning Gorilla because Gorilla was the one that one of the suppliers at the time. And as I said, when Orlando came back, I had come back and hanging around, [02:10:00] being single and what have you not, I used to go down to Rush Street a lot, and sometimes with Orlando and things like that. We ran into Gorilla one time and were knowing each other and everything else, I was kind of surprised to see him down on Rush Street. But I quickly caught onto why he was down on Rush Street. Obviously sell some of his wares that he had. But he wasn’t the kind of guy at that point that-- even then he was not a user. He was in the business. He was making money. He always had money in his pocket, obviously from the sales. But what I recall in that area, the particular area that started happening is that the group at the very beginning, when I’m saying I’m 80 �coming back, the issue of drugs [02:11:00] was not something that was heavily within our group at all. You were the exception and you kept that under control. But as time passed, the gradualness of the individual is like the guys we all knew who was doing drugs. It wasn’t hard to figure out, it wasn’t a secret or anything, but the group was in a minority and it started to increase as time passed. So if there were two, three guys doing it, we knew what they were doing. And this is one of the reasons that we had discussed, but what we were going, the Young Lords came into being and the political aspects of it. In other words, the political aspects of the Young Lords came into being, the discussion of the drug dealing came into focus, but nothing was really ever done along the lines of what the discussions that have been had about that. But the group started increasing [02:12:00] in numbers. In other words, people doing the drugs became increasing to the point that they became the majority rather than the minority within certain given time. That happened in other neighborhoods. The, go ahead. If you’re going to-JJ: Go ahead. Go ahead. ADR: So the issue of the drugs and that particular issue, the epidemic for me, the way my perspective came much later, the epidemic, that a neighborhood that basically had a minority of drug users, the neighborhood changed to completely of having a majority of drug use. A lot of guys will deny, I mean, I’m not the only exception you got, Fermin never did drugs, myself. Maybe there’s a couple of other guys. I can’t think right off the camera, but we were really the minority. We never did any drugs because everybody else did. [02:13:00] And for us, it was 81 �the transition. When we used to go down to Rush Street and there’d be five, six of us going down to Rush Street and every weekend, and then maybe once with Ralph and once in a while the guys all were doing is getting high once a month, but then once a month became once a week, and then once a week it became every day. Okay. I mean, that was the effect. JJ: Everybody would say it was just once a month. Yeah. ADR: Right. So that issue, I mean, I think the thing with drugs, it was something that we-JJ: Well, the good thing about Fermin and (inaudible) and people like that, the reason they didn’t get into drugs was they were the sports. We had teams, sports teams. Remember you mentioned about the YMCA. So they played basketball, they played softball, and they were very good at it. [02:14:01] I mean, I got good at it too sometimes, but I didn’t stay with it. But they stayed with it. They were athletic and they represented the Young Lords, and we won a lot of games. So we had our own basketball teams, our own baseball teams and everything else. But I was in the boxing team I remember. I did win a trophy one day, but even though everybody booed me because I was kicking the guy after he was (inaudible). But at least we, but see, but what I’m saying is we were in tournaments as Young Lords because the YMCA was trying to get us out of the gang. And like you said, that was a mistake because-- ADR: But you’re talking about the time also. JJ: That’s why he didn’t get into drugs. That’s why Fermin and then never get into hard drugs. 82 �ADR: And Benny didn’t do it until much later on. JJ: No, he did it later. He did it later. Yeah. ADR: Huh? JJ: He did it later. ADR: Right. [02:15:00] That’s what I’m (inaudible). JJ: Yeah. ADR: He did it when we became political that he got drunk. That’s what I was referring to earlier. The process of when the majority became into drug addiction was during the political process that took place with the Young Lords. But prior to that, it was basically non-existence. I don’t say if you can call it success, but obviously for me, I referred to it in my own mentality, I had sort of a triangle, meaning that I had a daytime job, which I applied myself because I had a family from the very beginning. I, having gotten married almost immediately after coming out of the service. And in the process, I went back to school, along with Louie. Louie was the one-- this issue. I don’t take credit for certain things. Louie convinced me to go back to school, college. [02:16:00] I really hadn’t thought about doing that. And then part of that, because I originally coming out of the service, as I said, I was leaving everything behind with exception when Orlando, as I said, came around and brought me back into the group. Because of my hearing problem that I started developing, when I left the service that I realized that I had a hearing problem and the disability was recognized by the immediate, because it happened right after I left the service. I discovered that I had the problem, a hearing problem at that point was because I wanted to become a 83 �pilot, I mean a commercial pilot, but not flying the big planes, the smaller planes. And I was going to go to school for that, and I had to leave it because of my hearing. So I felt like I was going to sort of quagmire as to what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. And at that point, I really didn’t know what I wanted to do. [02:17:00] Then the issue of the Young Lords started coming into play and the political processes that things were evolving. So there were a couple of years where I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was young enough to realize I got enough time to plan my future. I just wanted to kind of settle in. So the bottom line is that Louie convinced me and said, you need figure out when you go back to school. Because my plan was if I’m going back to school, use the GI Bill, I want to make sure what I’m going to and how to, what am I going to use it? But he said, leave that alone. Don’t worry about it. Get back and you got four years to figure out what you want to do. He convinced me to go back to school, and in doing so, I started taking courses that I felt comfortable with. I’ve always loved reading, and I always had an interest in law. So I started taking criminal courses and for work, work-wise [02:18:00] engineering courses to enhance my position as an operator. So the years started to roll by more quickly, and I found school to become very easily. So I ended up going, attending junior college, got my two year degree. Then I transferred to Northeastern and got my, and I actually I, which is kind of surprised me because I was a lousy student, I really wasn’t a lousy student at all. But I ended up graduating with honors from Northeastern. I got my degree and I graduated with honors, and I also started studying law. Then quickly, moving up, I got accepted into law school, but I got sideswiped. I 84 �use the word sideswiped because, and I got into organizing it with the union. We had a change of power and I was asked-JJ: What union, what union? ADR: That’s the Operating [02:19:00] Engineers with Local 150. But the point was-JJ: Also part of the Latin American-- ADR: Right. But I’m trying to say about the triangle. The education, the radical movement and the conservative movement that exists within the construction industry gave me a different perspective of how I viewed things. I had the knowledge of radicalism, firsthand, conservative, working with the mentality, the conservative movement. So not that the construction workers are conservative, but I mean, in other words, a completely contrast mentality of how things are viewed, the political process and everything else, how the system works that comes from the construction industry. But there’s a lot to learn, really because they can educate you in a lot of different things and not just about being a worker or an operator [02:20:00] or a carpenter or an electrician. It’s a society of workers that do things to benefit their own groups and do things that, in other words, to enhance their positions and workplace and things that come with that. And obviously then the other one, what I got from education. The numbers, the statistics, the studies of different groups and all these other things, that all kind of helped me see things in perspective and making me realize what the Young Lords have represented. Some of the things that you’re hearing me talk of what I said, why things and how the American system really works. And sometimes I say things and I realize at the moment that I don’t always explain that it needs to 85 �be explained. And sometimes I’m guilty of explaining too much, and at other times, I’m also guilty of not explaining everything enough of what I’m talking about. But what I’m trying to [02:21:00] say is that the system within the movement is the certain amount of not, realistic, not where it would be. In looking at the movement, I realized that the movement made a lot of mistakes that didn’t live up to what the way things should have been brought. They were blind. Because I think that’s why I always looked at, I mean, in reaching something, a decision or a conclusion, the best way to do it is to see all the options that are on the table. Law school teaches you that, okay. It teaches you to see different views so that you can come to a conclusion to a certain (inaudible). It’s ideal. It doesn’t always work sometimes, but that’s the essence of looking at things. So for me, looking at things over the years, I think it helped me become a good organizer business agent with the local. It made me, [02:22:00] one thing, one of the rules I learned, I call it a rule like certain things, is that I always kept in mind is that not to be judgmental, okay? Because you have to, in representing people or organizing, you can’t be a judge. I mean, you can’t be taking sides and things. You have to listen to what people are saying from both sides in order to help you reach a conclusion as to how to solve a particular issue, or sometimes you have to hear from more than one point of view or two different points of view or three different points of view, what I’m referring to. Other things helped me evolve. And obviously-JJ: So the Young Lords helped you get into the union, the Young Lords helped you go forward with the union, is that what you’re saying? 86 �ADR: Yeah. It helped me because in organizing, there were certain things that-- labor movements organization abilities are [02:23:00] where I can say they’re great (inaudible). But again, the issues with the Young Lords is the ability to, there’s correlations, what I’m trying to say with what happened with the Young Lords just as much with other groups or things in the labor movement, it is really, there’s a lot of things that are related to each other. And to me, it’s like reading a history book and it’s not learning about that history when you got, in other words, there’s particular saying that you don’t have to jump off the roof, in other words, to feel how it hurt you. And that’s what I’m referring to in history, that there are certain number of things that, in other words, the same being is that if you can’t learn from history, you’re [02:24:00] bound to repeat the same mistakes. I agree with that. JJ: How long have you been a union organizer? How many years? ADR: Actually with our local, from the point we come in, we carry a two title that’s being business agent/organizer. So how the whole time for me, I would’ve to say the whole time, more than 20 years that I was a business agent. Business agent/organizer. JJ: Okay. So you’ve been working with the union more than 20 years now, and it helped you with the Young Lords. ADR: Right, because it would’ve been in 1980. JJ: Yeah. ADR: Yeah. JJ: Okay. 87 �ADR: More than 20 years. JJ: And you also worked in the, I know we only get a few more minutes. You worked all the way with the Young Lords, even with the Harold Washington campaign? ADR: Right. That was another thing that we never discussed, but that needs to be discussed as to how the political process that came that we haven’t really discussed [02:25:00] those political, this is the aftermath of the Young Lords, because the only thing I would say, we might want do some more interview on this. I’m the one, and not for anything that I’m trying to take, not the point of trying to take credit, having learned that the experience that we have had, I’m the one that approached Omar because I was working from the union. I was a worker back then-- I wasn’t. We were helping Jane Byrne on her reelection campaign, knowing what previously from the Young Lords experiences of the Young Lords, I had the idea. I knew that all Omar was working for [Callie?], I knew that you were working for Washington and some of the other people. So I went to Omar and I said, why don’t we get in touch with all the interest at different parties that belong to different organizations and let’s have a talk. And I told him my idea. JJ: So then the Young Lords were working in different campaigns? ADR: [02:26:00] Yes. JJ: Okay. But I was working with Washington. ADR: You were with Washington. Omar was with Callie. I was with Jane Byrne and with some other people. Not only, but when I told Omar, I said, I don’t want to restrict it. 88 �JJ: We were not in existence as-- ADR: Exactly. And my point to, right, but my point to Omar was, I don’t want to just deal with, so get as many people as we can that are working for the different candidates. Let’s bring ’em together. I said I want to have a meeting and I told ’em what I wanted to do. I said, well, my idea is that whoever wins the, because I knew whoever wins the primaries was the next mayor from the Democratic side, and that was the deal that we had agreed. When we sat down in there, that’s what, whether Omar said it or that was done, I was the one that came up with it. Our position is that whoever wins the primary, the rest of us have to join up with that group [02:27:00] and help ’em in order to enhance the positions, the capabilities of what we’re going to go with this. In this instance, your candidate won. That’s where we went and said, okay, I want to work with you now. That’s how in the aftermath of the political process, we came to Washington. At that time, I was already in law school. I was attending already law school. And so we (inaudible), and that’s how we went to the point of enhancing the positions and other things that came with that, which you mentioned about, I think. But the task force, as I recall, not for any other reason, I can’t think of the guys. He was married to, a Jewish woman at -JJ: You’re saying the Latino Task Force, that that was created, we created that. We created basically with other groups, with other coalitions. ADR: The idea came from, as I call it, was from that name, B-- god, it starts with a b, I believe, [02:28:00] the congressman from New York that came to help Washington. 89 �JJ: (inaudible) me and you took him around. ADR: He was good. JJ: Me and you took him around. ADR: He knew his shit. Lemme tell you something. JJ: He gave us an idea of setting up. ADR: Exactly. Exactly. With subpoena powers. JJ: Latino task force with subpoena powers. And then we took that to our members, to our group that we were working with Washington at that time, Harold Washington, and then Harold Washington agreed with us. And we got together with other groups and formed that coalition. ADR: Which obviously had to do. JJ: Still exists today. DA still has it. It still exists today, right? Under Mary. It doesn’t exist anymore. ADR: (shakes head no) Daley killed it. JJ: Oh, Daley killed it. Daley, Junior killed it. I told you about that guy. You can’t support that guy. Okay. ADR: [02:29:00] Well, the point, the thing was-JJ: Let’s wrap it up, let’s wrap it up. ADR: The point of all that isn’t that no one was really listening to, and I said this earlier, or if I didn’t, by then, what I’m trying to say is that really listening to what is being said, they’re here, but they’re really not listening to what’s being said. But then you in creating the task force emphasized the fact that we had to have subpoena powers. Okay. Which then happened because, and again, I blame, I’m not 90 �blaming you on that particular level, and I’m trying to say, but some of the other people that had the education that, oh, we can’t, I fought you to the point, because you didn’t want to embarrass Washington. When Washington himself had told us sitting down and you’re not hearing what the guy’s saying. You got to give him an excuse he needs an excuse to justify what he’s going to give us. Because if you just goes around and said, I’m going to create, in other words, he would’ve gone [02:30:00] on the floor and said, tomorrow I’m going to create a Latino task force that has subpoena power. All this goddamn members say, what the fuck is wrong with you? Okay, let it go. We can do another interview. I mean, my point on that, what I’m trying to say, he was saying, in other words, justify, go out and protest. I mean, I was mention, I can’t remember the guy’s name that came in there. He sits there protesting in front of the goddamn city hall and oh man, man can be, everybody’s bitching. Oh, he can’t be doing that. He’s embarrassing the Hispanics, because they’re protesting in Washington. We help Washington. What did Washington do then? Help him one goddamn bit, didn’t do shit for Washington. We all know that. Washington says you guys got to put him in the tax force. Remember that? He sat on the original task force. So my point is that, okay, (inaudible) well, what I’m saying is what I said that Washington, they had to tell us. The rest of them were in there. [02:31:00] Why are you putting that guy in there? Because he’s out there protesting. I got to put him in a goddamn thing, now me to stop them doing this, I had to put ’em in a taxi. 91 �JJ: Okay, now we’re going to start talking about you’re in the service now, right? So are you in the army, navy, or what? ADR: The Army. JJ: And where were you stationed there? ADR: What now? JJ: Where did you go to? Where were you stationed? ADR: Well, one thing before we get into the Army that we were mentioning about the fights, the gang fights, the major fights that was never mentioned. Make me think you’re forgetting. We fought against 18th Street and you’re forgetting it was Mama’s group that we fought against and we had gang fights with them. JJ: Oh, oh, with Mama Velasquez? ADR: Yeah. JJ: Oh, Arturo Velasquez, who ran for Alderman later? ADR: Not Arturo. Yeah. JJ: He ran for Alderman later. ADR: [02:32:00] Yeah. JJ: What in the hell-- ADR: We fought against him. JJ: What was the name of their group? ADR: I don’t remember. JJ: Did you fight against him at that time? That’s how we met each other. ADR: No, we fought against them. JJ: And what was that fight? What was the reasoning for that fight? 92 �ADR: Those are fights that we used to come in when, as I said before, sometimes we were asked to become as an alliance to another group when they were fighting a fight. That was one of where alliances were made, we’re fighting. We fought against their group. There are other ones, I mean, I’m sure they’re going to come to me, but there were other, in that end of the years, there were other, a lot more fights. Typically, we had fights almost, I’m not saying exactly, but almost on a daily basis. That was unique to ourselves. Not to the Paragons, not to the Latin Eagles, I mean the Black Eagles. We were unique in that. [02:33:00] And we ventured one of the things in this many times in there that we were mobile, we weren’t, other than probably the longest period of time, was that we stayed in one particular place would’ve been Old Town. But we tended to be mobile during those years. And one of the things that really in expanding the group, but how we operated was the fact that what I mentioned earlier, that we were not always together as a group. I mean, people didn’t realize it was a cohesive group that existed within the Young Lords. So as I said, if you take a look at the [Division Pete?], you look at it. What’s his name? Oh God, I’m forgetting his name. [02:34:00] Her husband that got killed. I tend to forget names. JJ: Angie? ADR: Who? JJ: Angie or --? ADR: Angie’s husband? JJ: Poncho. Poncho. ADR: Poncho. Tried to challenge us. Got his ass kicked. 93 �JJ: What do you mean he tried to challenge? What do you mean because he was-- ADR: Pancho tried to take over the group. JJ: Okay. What do you mean he tried to take over? You mentioned that a couple of people tried to take over the group. ADR: You had, as I said, Division Pete, Poncho. Almost every guy that came into the group, they brought in a couple of guys. There were other guys that wanted to become leaders. Now, we didn’t know that immediately. I mean, if things would come up in there that it would become apparent, as I stated before, when we would’ve meetings that who was going to be the next president or that wanted to be somebody else, a president that came into place. So what I’m trying to tell you that, for example, when Division Pete, [02:35:00] he did it along with a couple, it wasn’t just by himself. He was doing with a couple of other guys from the area Old Town, because as I said, they didn’t see us all together. I know that when we had the meeting, and often the case, the one that was our in trying to describe, I have to go back to Orlando. He was like the gladiator. He was always the one that would take him on. They ended up kicking Division Pete’s ass when he had made the challenge and fighting him. And like I said, there were other people. You were asking about fights. I remember one time with Orlando when as many fights that might seem-JJ: There was always a struggle within the Young Lords of different people that wanted to take the leadership role. ADR: And Orlando was always at the forefront of defending the group. JJ: Right. 94 �ADR: I remember one night when he got drunk. [02:36:00] Now, to my credit, as I said, the friendship I had with him, I mean obviously repeated it many times. He was drunk one night as many times when we used to get drunk every weekend, we used to go try to get drunk, try it, because we thought that was a cool thing to do or we wanted to do it. But you remember the fight when he took on, he fought about 11 different fights in one night? He was fighting everybody? Among the group and everything that he had gotten, know what he was doing. Orlando. JJ: When he fought Andre or whatever, I remember one time I had to get in the middle of is that, and both sides wanted to kick my butt. Both sides. ADR: Well, that night he ended up the only one he-JJ: He told me he was going to kill me and Andre. ADR: He started a fight with everybody within the group. He was drunk, he was drunk. And obviously, [02:37:00] Orlando’s Orlando but we didn’t, the rest of the guys didn’t give a shit. They-- we weren’t going to take his crap. But I mean, he fought about 11 of us one night, except me. He’s the only one that, in other words, recognized me. He never tried but he was fighting with everybody else, including yourself. Fermin, Carlos, I mean all the other guys because he was drunk. He had drank, he was completely fucked up. But that was Orlando. That was his thing about explaining. But-JJ: I remember Division Pete and Andre were together. ADR: Andre was another one that tried to-JJ: And then Orlando was defending Ralph. ADR: Who? 95 �JJ: He was defending Ralph. ADR: Right. You’re right. JJ: And that’s the time that I had to get in the middle because they were going to destroy the group. And so I had to get in the middle. [02:38:00] And one time Orlando was winning-- no, Andre was winning over Orlando because the ones that started the fight was Division Pete and Spaghetti and Ralph. But then the ones that did the fighting, those were the ones that started the fight. Division Pete and Ralph, the ones that did the fighting was Orlando and Andre. See, even though the other ones started the fight, it became a fight between Orlando and Andre. And then Andre had Orlando for a while and I grabbed Andre. He had him stuck and he was getting ready to do damage. And I came from behind and grabbed, I grabbed Andre, and Andre told me, I’m going to kill you. You let me go whatever. I said, well, let him get out of the fence so he could fight you fair. Let him get out. So then I did that for him. [02:39:00] So then later on, it was the other way around, it was Andre that was on the ground and Orlando was ready to get him. And that’s when I grabbed Orlando and he told me the same thing, I’m going to kill you son of a gun. So I said, okay, whatever, later on, but let Andre get up. So I kept the fight balanced because I didn’t want the group to destroy because there was a split between the group that hung around on Wheeling and the old Lords, the core group like Orlando and Spaghetti and yourself and other people that was a core group was I had to get in the middle and play mediator. Do you recall that or no? ADR: Who? 96 �JJ: I had to get in the middle to keep it fair. ADR: Right. JJ: Do you remember that at all or no? How do you remember that? ADR: [02:40:00] You’re talking about a different fight. JJ: Oh, it’s a different fight? Okay. ADR: That was a different fight. JJ: Okay. Alright. ADR: The one I’m talking is where Orlando got drunk. It had nothing to do with no-- it had nothing to do with that. The one, I realize what you’re talking, but you’re talking about a completely different fight. JJ: Okay. But you had heard about that one. ADR: Right. JJ: Okay. So that was the other one. ADR: But the other one I’m referring to is when he just started going at the guys, it got to the point that he didn’t recognize-- the only-- he ended up, for some reason, that recognized me was me. I’m the only one that he didn’t pick a fight with in that was drunk is what my point I’m trying to make. But you reminded me about the fights. All these guys that came in that ended up being friends, you’re forgetting one guy that would not mention that I haven’t mentioned hardly at all. Carlos. Carlos, Raymond’s brother was very much part of it, but he was a quiet [02:41:00] one. But he was in the thick of a lot of the fighting, a lot of the things that we did, he was always there and we hardly ever mentioned him, but he was, 97 �all the fighting we did, he was always there fighting with us alongside of us. But we hardly ever mentioned him because we-JJ: He lived over by Halsted and Woodwright. There was a Spanish store underneath and he lived in that building that was a big multi dwelling like you said. ADR: But he tended to be very quiet. JJ: Right, right. ADR: Never really said anything much or anything else, but he was always there fighting with us. JJ: Okay, now you’re in the service. Right? And you’re there from 1965 to 1968, 1966, 1967, 1968. ADR: Right. That would’ve been, you can’t really count when you’re saying 1965-really that was November when I left at the end of November. JJ: Okay. ADR: So you got one month [02:42:00] December and that was it from the month of 1965. So it-JJ: So it was 1964? ADR: So you’re really looking, I was going away from 1960- in other words, the three years from 1966, 1967, 1968. I came back in November of 1968. JJ: Okay. Alright. ADR: After the convention when I returned. JJ: After the Democrat convention. So now how-- ADR: When I went in, I was 17 years old. 98 �JJ: Right. ADR: Alright. And I wanted to be a paratrooper, but it turns out that this is how I ended up, for whatever reasons, sometimes things happen, one doesn’t realize the impact that it has on you. So I’m thinking that when you’re going to be a soldier, you’re a soldier and that’s it, there was nothing other than you’re prepared for war or you’re firing weapons and that kind. I’m 17 years old. But when I got in and actually I left when I learned another important lesson [02:43:00] in life. That particular night I got jumped. You remember that? Cha-Cha? You’re falling asleep. JJ: Oh, I’m sorry. No, go ahead. Okay. No, we’re in the service. We’re in the service. ADR: Okay. JJ: And you wanted to be a paratrooper, you said? ADR: That was from the Continentals. That’s why I have no dear love against your cousin. JJ: My cousin Danny Rodriguez. ADR: Yeah, Danny. What happened that night. JJ: President of the Continentals. ADR: Danny, well, he got, in some ways, when you think in life some people get paid back and it works both ways. But what happened that night was that, going back to my younger years, well remember I met you when I was a Patrol Boy. When I had been a Patrol Boy, it said the captain of the Patrol Boys, one of the Continentals was one of my patrol boys. And [02:44:00] there was a girl-- we 99 �used to have the tunnel that went underneath the El tracks on the street and the station was right there in the morning. He was trying to make out with one of the girls, forcibly trying to kiss her. And obviously she didn’t want anything to do with him. And I made the mistake-- I happened to see what had happened and I said, leave her alone. He said something to me, again, you’re young, 12 years old, whatever age I was at that point, whether I was 12 or 10, I clipped him, I hit him, knocked him out. He tried to get up and fight me and beat the crap out him and it was the end of it. Then I had him removed. I took away like I said the guy was in charge, I had me charged and I kicked him out. Never did anything. Years went by. But your cousin [02:45:00] was an asshole. He instigated him because I found out about that later and the night when they found out that I was leaving in the morning I was leaving, that I was going to go into the service. Danny instigated the guy to get even with me. So as I was going down to Old Town, remember that’s at the time we still hung out in Old Town. So that was the last night. And I was on my way down to Old Town. I was walking down on Armitage, passing Waller High School. He came from behind me and dropped me, took me by surprise and dropped me. And I know (inaudible) when I turned around, I started fighting him. And the Continentals, your cousin came up and I said, this is bullshit. [02:46:00] So it was kind of, I never forgot that, but like I said, and I never forgave him for that either. Kind of was laughing about it. I said, it’s going to be paid back on this one. So when I got back up in there, Ralph found out of him what happened that I had gotten jumped. We came back and they were gone and we went looking for him because I was going into the 100 �service. Ralph said, don’t worry about it, Sal, I’m going to going get these guys. And I was leaving that night. But the lesson I learned about that comes from this is that if you’re fighting somebody, and that’s what I had done and reflecting on that particular situation, is I humiliated the kid in my younger years. And that’s something I learned is that if you’re fighting somebody [02:47:00] and you beat ’em, there’s a choice to be made at that point. You can either allow the guy to get up gracefully and perhaps have a friend for life or you can beat the shit out of him and have an enemy for sure for life. And that’s what I had done with that guy when I knocked him the first punch when I had hit him. I mean, I found him and knocked him that, but I ended up humiliating him because I kept letting him in there humiliated in front of the girl, not realizing that he liked the girl. So in beating the shit out him, keeping his ass further, I had humiliated him something obviously he didn’t, never forgot. And your cousin fed that particular thing them in place against our group. I mean, particularly to myself, because I think it was [02:48:00] as much just like anything else, the Young Lords, I mean. Let me ask a question that has to (inaudible) because it’s inside of your family. Was there any (inaudible) that your cousin had about the Young Lords? JJ: Andy? ADR: Yeah. JJ: Well, between me and him, because we were cousins, we already had a history together. And so he didn’t show that to me. I mean, he more or less, he had his group and then we had our group. 101 �ADR: I think he had an (inaudible) against the group because we were, remember they came after we, at whatever point-JJ: We were more fighters than they were. They more hung around at Newbury’s playground. And so we were more fighters than they were. They were not really that much into fighting. [02:49:00] ADR: As a group-JJ: One day we went to the police station because we were just playing games with ’em, just joking around with ’em. And they took us all to the police station and we had to all stay until the parents came in and got everybody. But that’s the only time that I know that they went to jail or that they fought. And we were just playing games with ’em. ADR: Oh, there was another gang fight. I mean, you’re talking, when we had a fight. JJ: I mean individuals came all the time, but I mean. ADR: Do you remember the fight where they lined us up, the police, they had lined us up. JJ: It was in the-- ADR: Who were we fighting that night? JJ: We were fighting them, but it was playing games. We weren’t really fighting. Then the police arrested us all and then lined us up inside the police station, made us do pushups, turned it into a festival (inaudible). [02:50:00] We were having a good time. ADR: But I mean, my point of what I’m trying to get you to reflect on something else. I know that there was a mock fight, if you want to call it that, but the mock fight in 102 �itself-- I’m reflecting on something, on somebody that in later years underhandedly-- that’s not a nice word. And it’s not what I’m really mean, but I use the word (inaudible) because I can’t really describe anything what the Young Lords ended up representing. And my point is that was there (inaudible) part of your cousin in so far as the issue with the young Lord is we had become more popular. We were better well known. And obviously we were much better fighters than they were. They couldn’t even, you know. JJ: No, they weren’t into fighting. They weren’t into fighting. There were some groups that were not into fighting. Like you said, [02:51:00] even the older ones, the Black Eagles and Paragons, they didn’t even want to fight anymore. They had lived through that and they didn’t want, in fact, the fighting was gone by 1968. There was no fighting. I mean, people were just, that’s when drugs came into the neighborhood. ADR: Well, for me, when I was gone first, like I said, what changed that number? What changed? Now, one of the things when I got inducted in and when I went in, I didn’t know that I was going to have to have a job in the Army, whether it was going to be a cook, a driver, whatever. For some reason hadn’t, when I went in, I hadn’t picked what I wanted to do because it was supposed to. I thought I was miss, I just want to jump out of airplanes. I want to be a paratroop. And the sergeant, when I was being inducted in kind of laughed. He said you’re not going to be jumping planes every day. He says, you got to do some work. He says, cook, things like that. Driver, what? [02:52:00] So at that point I’m thinking, what the fuck am I supposed to do? I don’t even know. My mind is blank. What the 103 �fuck am I going to be? So he chose it for me. He looked at me and he said, you know what? He says, you look like the kind of guy that likes to drive big machines. So he marked me down as a heavy equipment operator and that’s how I ended up becoming a heavy equipment operator. ADR: So when I went in, after going to the training and all that, that I was trained and originally I was going to be sent to Vietnam. The period, and a lot of to be said about what things that I learned in the service, but I was 17 years old instead of going to Vietnam at the point that when too many 17 year olds were dying, getting killed in Vietnam, and obviously mothers were complaining to [02:53:00] Johnson. Johnson decided to stop sending the 17 year olds. And it just so happens when we were graduating out of our training, basic training in what they call a AIT, advanced training into your particular occupation. So all the 17-yearold kids out of the class where we had been taught basic said to, they stopped us and separated us from the rest of the older guys and said, you guys, they held us back. END OF VIDEO FILE 104 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c596581aa9b694020f577d4710517808.mp4 c372141b7cc234e8c25f46b8865008cc Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives. The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng spa Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 2012-2017 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Título Spanish language Title entry Angel “Sal” del Rivero vídeo entrevista y biografía, entrevista 2 Sujetos Spanish language Subject terms Young Lords (Organización) Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Mexicano-Americanos--Relatos personales Justicia social Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago Mexicano-Americanos--Illinois--Chicago--Vida social y costumbres Veteranos--Relatos Personales Pandillas--Illinois--Chicago Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65_Rivero_Angel_del_2 Title A name given to the resource Angel “Sal” del Rivero video interview and transcript, interview 2 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rivero, Angel del Description An account of the resource Angel “Sal” del Rivero was born in Mexico. In the late 1950s and early 1960s he lived in Lincoln Park on Dayton Street. Later his family moved to the Lakeview Neighborhood near Wrigley Field. Mr. Rivero became one of the original members of the Young Lords in 1959. While the Young Lords were transforming themselves into a human rights movement, Mr. Rivero was serving in the U.S. military. When he came out most Young Lords were opposed to the Vietnam War, although many Young Lords also served on the front lines in that war. Mr. Rivero at first resented those who opposed the war. But after Young Lord Manuel Ramos was killed by an off duty policeman, the entire Young Lords group reunited themselves for human rights. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Mexican Americans--Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Mexican Americans--Illinois--Chicago--Social life and customs Veterans--Personal narratives Gangs--Illinois--Chicago Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-07-12 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7539201754518feac03e3764db193467.pdf 516a6a11a0bfcd218d7b1e9b8310e41d PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Angel “Sal” del Rivero Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 7/11/2012 Biography and Description Angel “Sal” Del Rivero was born in Mexico. In the late 1950s and early 1960s he lived in Lincoln Park on Dayton Street. Later his family moved to the Lakeview Neighborhood near Wrigley Field, but he never left Lincoln Park as he traveled to it daily. Mr. Rivero became one of the original members of the Young Lords in 1959. The other original members of the Young Lords were all Puerto Rican, including Santos Guzman who moved to Lincoln Park from Philadelphia, Benny Pérez who lived on Halsted, Fermin Pérez (no relation to Benny), and David “Chicken Killer” Rivera whose regular job later was at a meat market. Mr. Rivero’s father was the neighborhood barber who cut hair from their home on Fremont and Bissell Streets, which then crossed each other where they both ended. Mr. Rivero’s brothers improvised a roller coaster ride made from wooden fruit crates that slid down the railing of their back porch stairway, racing down into the backyard until the crates finally hit ground on the cement pavement would glide it on their own. It was exhilarating until the ride ended at the fence. All the neighborhood kids enjoyed it and the Rivero kids made a mint from the nickles they charged for the rides.The first president of the Young Lords was Joe Vicente, who had Italian features. Mr. Jiménez became the last president of several because he was always in and out of jail. Mr. Vicente also lived in the Italian section of Lincoln Park, by De Paul University, on Sheffield and Belden. His cousin, Johnny Trinidad had moved from New York, to Indiana Harbor’s Steel Mill area, and then moved onto 95th and Halsted Streets. Mr. Trinidad always �was free with his opinions, especially before, after, and when he briefly popped into meetings to watch, but he rarely attended any full meeting, saying that he could not because he lived out of the neighborhood. Mr. Rivero recalls these early days, noting that the fact that ethnic youth groups lived in segregated blocks in these early days also played a big difference in their organizing. In 1959, Puerto Ricans were still scattered throughout Lincoln Park and so the Young Lords did not begin from a concentrated hangout but were spread out, trying to carve out their own place within Lincoln Park. For many this meant being targeted by white ethnic youth because they had darker skin, were Puerto Rican, or spoke Spanish. Mr. Rivero recalls the numerous stands the Young Lords made in their early days. As more Latinos and African Americans moved into Lincoln Park, Humbolt Park, Wicker Park, and parts of Lakeview through the 1950s and 1960s, youth began to unite more around national origins. Mr. Rivero describes an encounter where the Young Lords, Latin Eagles, and a whole range of northside Puerto Ricans gangs became involved. The Aristocrats were an established white gang that was led by their only Puerto Rican member, Dulio. They had argued with a Puerto Rican family and had entered into a primarily Puerto Rican housing project called California Terrace, located by Halsted and Barry near Clark Streets and threw bricks through all the windows. A war involving about 400 people began and the white Town Hall policemen hid from view. It lasted an entire week. On one of the days, the Puerto Ricans walked down Barry Street and broke out all the car windows, from Halsted to Sheffield looking for and challenging the Aristocrats in their own territory. On another occasion, a stuffed figure of a person hung by the neck from electrical wires high up in the middle of the street, resembling a lynching. The war ended when both groups met on their own and agreed to stop fighting, to avoid being arrested by the police. Mr. Rivero recalls being one of the war counselors with Mr. Jiménez and helping to resolve the conflict. While the Young Lords were transforming themselves into a human rights movement, Mr. Rivero was serving in the U.S. military. When he came out most Young Lords were opposed to the Vietnam War, although many Young Lords also served on the front lines in that war. Mr. Rivero at first resented those who opposed the war. But after Young Lord Manuel Ramos was killed by an off duty policeman, the entire Young Lords group reunited themselves for human rights. �Transcript JOSE JIMENEZ: -- you were born? ANGEL DEL RIVERO: JJ: My name is Angel. (inaudible) [professional]. ADR: Angel del Rivero. JJ: Angel del Rivero. Okay. ADR: I was born on June 9, 1948. JJ: Like everybody else, right? Everybody’s from 1948. Okay. If you can (inaudible) sound, give me your name, your date of birth, and where you were born. ADR: Okay. I was born on June the ninth, 1948. I was born in Mexico City, but I was brought to the United States as a baby, basically as a young child. JJ: Any certain part of Mexico City or is that any barrio? ADR: What part of Mexico City? The capital. JJ: Was there a neighborhood or something or --? ADR: I believe it was a place called, the translation would be the three-star [00:01:00] suburb. JJ: The three-star suburb. Okay. ADR: Which was near the famous, that place where the Indian with the Mexican Revolution that got--Hidalgo. This is where the Indian, supposedly the appearance of the Virgin Mary that came up on his cape. That wasn’t really, I don’t know, it wasn’t really that far from that particular community, which is not 1 �like a main boulevard. It goes down to that particular church. The only significance about that was that it was near where I was born. JJ: Okay. Now is your -- what was your father’s name and mother’s name? ADR: What was what now? JJ: Your father and mother’s name? What are their names? ADR: What are they? My father was [00:02:00] by trade, he had become a cabinet maker and he was working. My understanding is that he was one of the, at that time, a foreman working for Zenith Corporation and the people from the Zenith supposedly liked his work that he did and asked him to come to the United States. So he came by himself first, then sent for the rest of the family. JJ: So what year did he come? ADR: Excuse me? JJ: What year did he come? ADR: Geez, that would’ve been 1949 to 1950. JJ: About 1950. Now his name is Angel also? Is his name the same as yours? ADR: No, [00:03:00] his name is Carlos, was Carlos. He passed away. JJ: Okay. And your mom? ADR: Susanna. JJ: Anna? ADR: Excuse me? JJ: Susanna. ADR: Susanna. JJ: Susanna. Okay. And what about siblings? How many brothers and sisters? 2 �ADR: Well, I have-- my father, prior to being married to my mother, had been previously married-- must have gotten a divorce or I don’t know what occurred. I have a stepsister from that marriage. And then when he married my mother, two children were born of her: myself, and my sister. My mother had also been married. Her husband was killed. He was a doctor, [00:04:00] from what I understand, and there was also a daughter that was born to her. So, I have two stepsisters older than myself. One from my mother’s side and one from my father’s side. JJ: Do you know their names? ADR: Huh? JJ: Do you know their names or? ADR: Yeah, from my father’s side, Yolanda, still alive, lives in Mexico, and from my mother’s side, Aida, which she lives here in the United States, presently lives in the Belvidere, Illinois area. And my sister married. JJ: You grew up with her? ADR: Yeah. JJ: Okay. ADR: From my mother’s side, my sister stayed, was part of our family, my stepsister was, part of the family. We grew up together. Yolanda stayed with her mother, so she came to be part, when she was older, [00:05:00] she came to the United States to be with us as part of the family, but she really didn’t like living here, so she went back to Mexico. So that was many, many years ago. She has family. JJ: Did you mention Rosa or --? 3 �ADR: Huh? JJ: Did you mention Rosa? Is there a Rosa or did you have another sister or no? ADR: I said I have three sisters. JJ: Okay. Did you mention, I believe-- ADR: One from my father, one from my mother, and well, for my mother, two girls, because my younger sister, Mary. JJ: Was one of them called Rosa? ADR: Rosa? JJ: Yeah. ADR: (shakes head no) JJ: You don’t have a sister. Okay. ADR: I don’t know. JJ: There’s no Rosa. ADR: Okay. The three of them are Yolanda from my father’s side. Aida from my mother’s side, and again, from my mother, Mary, and myself. JJ: Okay. Thank you. All right. [00:06:00] Okay. So now you came at, what year did you come? ADR: That would’ve been, oh God, I’m not sure. Either it was 1957, I think. JJ: Mid-fifties? ADR: Yeah. I mean, it would’ve been around, but I’m not quite. JJ: Now, when you came, what was the first place that you lived at? ADR: Okay, the first place I lived at was at the Lincoln Park, what is now known as the Lincoln Park area, on Fullerton Avenue close to Clark. 4 �JJ: Oh, Fullerton by Clark. You lived there? ADR: Geneva Terrace is the street. Not Fullerton. Geneva Terrace. JJ: Oh, Geneva Terrace. I’m familiar with that. ADR: Right next to, right off of Fullerton Avenue. JJ: And your parents were living there? [00:07:00] ADR: Yes. JJ: At that time? ADR: Then we moved for some time. We moved over to an area again, I like want to say Arlington Street near Pulaski. We weren’t there too long and my father had moved over there. And then we moved into, I don’t know how long that lasted. I don’t think that lasted too long. And then we moved into the Halsted area, Halsted-Armitage area on Fremont. JJ: On Fremont. ADR: And that’s basically where the area that I ended up going was when we lived on Fremont as a young kid. JJ: Okay. Now, when you lived on Fremont, is that when you went to Mulligan or --? ADR: The what now? JJ: You were going to Mulligan School at that time? ADR: Right, that would have been grammar that I was attending at that point. I mean attending [00:08:00] Mulligan. JJ: Okay. So, was this south of Armitage or north of Armitage? ADR: South of Armitage on Fremont. JJ: On Fremont. Okay. 5 �ADR: It was 19-- I still remember the address going back. It was 1928. The address, the house is still standing. It’s a red, Victorian type house. JJ: Okay, 1928 Fremont. ADR: Right. It’s still standing there. JJ: Okay. And so that’s when you first came from Mexico, you moved there. ADR: Right when we were attending Mulligan. JJ: Now how old were you then? ADR: Must have been around eight, nine years old, or I would’ve to be, no, 10 years old. JJ: About 10 years old. ADR: Yeah. JJ: So, what do you remember of that neighborhood then? ADR: Well, the area was mostly, predominantly it was a white area with few [00:09:00] Hispanics of mix. I mean, the majority I would’ve said at that time, larger group would’ve been Puerto Ricans in that neighborhood, was a little bit larger group than the Mexicans. We really, not that many Mexicans around that area. Predominantly was white, Irish and Italian. Some Italians around the neighborhood. JJ: And this was around 1957, 1956. ADR: Right. That was a time that almost every corner you had just about every corner, there was always some kind of a candy shop or candy store. Specific to the area that I recall from that era would’ve been that the neighborhood community, you 6 �had the Boys Clubs that you tended to have [00:10:00] a storefront place and almost-JJ: You had a Boys Club? ADR: -- just about every corner. JJ: Around Fremont? Oh, you had a little-- ADR: Well, some were in Fremont. They were located within the neighborhood. I remember there was a Boys Club on Fremont, south of where we lived. I mean, it would’ve been about a block south of Armitage. JJ: This was a Boys Club or a --? ADR: Boy’s Club. JJ: I mean like the type that we have now, or you mean a club of kids? This was a Boys Club, a regular athletic organization? ADR: In part, it was an athletic type thing, but also for socializing. This was the time and period where there was a lot of, that came from the area of, I want to say [00:11:00] part of a movement, and it’s not the right word to in describing the type, but not so much like a movement as it’s just traditionally known. But more of, there was a lot of people in terms of creating careers that were becoming social workers. So, it was kind of creating a social services. You had the YMCA, you had the Boys Club, you had that type of thing with the idea of helping out -not helping (inaudible)-- to interact with the youths of the area. I know, and I’ve been going (inaudible) what I’ve come to learn is the idea of the existence that (inaudible)existed in Chicago, but it was sugarcoated that gangs existed during that time. So, the social programs that existed with the idea to overcome 7 �[00:12:00] the bad results from what they would’ve considered gang activity. And so that by having baseball games, basketball, a place where kids could go was supposedly to overcome creating a hardcore gang members. JJ: So, you’re saying there was a large gang population in the area? Is that what you-- ADR: Well, there always has, I mean, they always existed. They didn’t call them -instead of recognize them as what they were, that they were gangs, they would refer to as clubs. JJ: So, this is what you mean that there were Boys Clubs everywhere? ADR: Huh? JJ: This is what you mean that there were Boys Clubs because they had clubhouses, or --? ADR: Let me explain this way. The biggest, getting down to it, I mean, in growing older [00:13:00] learning things, your biggest supporter of gang activity, not because they wanted to, they thought they were doing something good -- not a good example -- I mean, what was occurring during that time was the YMCA. YMCA allowed the gangs to call themselves clubs, either provided to the extent that each so-called club would’ve had a social worker working with them, sort of like a counselor. And in reality, the counselor was there to keep an eye on the activities of that particular group, and allowing this outlet, and instead of being called a gang, again, repeating that they were called clubs, and it in fact never did away with any of the gang activity that existed during those times because of the way they implemented the programs. Part of the problem [00:14:00] that 8 �existed from doing the implementation of those particular programs was that they’re thinking that they could suppress the fights. (telephone interruption) I was saying the problem with their mentality was that by having these tournaments between the clubs. JJ: You’re talking about the YMCA? ADR: Exactly. I’m referring to coming back to the YMCA. Actually was a bad thing because instead of calming down the rivalry between the clubs or the gangs, it intensified the hatred between the groups. Because if you had a basketball tournament, for example, it would be like Young Lords against the Playboys. Well, you’re having a game, you’re going to lose. I mean, somebody’s got to lose, whether it was the Playboys [00:15:00] or it was the Young. So obviously if the Young lost, we’re pissed off at the Playboys because we lost to the Playboys. I mean, and in the pretense to geting into a fight it created that animosity and got even bigger. So instead of bringing them together, it wasn’t bringing groups together. It was just making the animosity grow much stronger between the different gangs that existed at the time. JJ: So, the YMCA was-- ADR: It was feeding into the fighting. So, the fighting never really, the gang fights never really stopped in any way because of the way they did it. I mean. JJ: So, what you’re saying is before that there were gang fights? ADR: Right, well, regardless what I’m saying is YMCA and its mentality and its wisdom of the way they were looking at things, the way they see them. This is an era that they were looking at the social programs, sociologists [00:16:00] and all 9 �these studies that were being done. I mean, I can look back that I can’t think of all the names of all the people that did some of these studies, and I might be even confused right now on one name that comes to mind is Skinner. And I’m not sure Skinner is the one that did this was whether on prisons or on the area of gangs or the socialized, the socializing of the societies or the groups, the socializing of the different groups, how they interacted with each other. The point is that the YMCA thought it was doing something good. They thought by, okay, we’re going to provide a place where they can meet. They want to have a counselor, in other words, a sponsor with each group to help them overcome the issues. We’re going to provide them tournaments for basketball, for baseball, thinking that all these things were great. When in effect, it was feeding into the animosity between [00:17:00] the different groups. They even provided a newspaper at that time where the clubs would write articles about each other from the members saying things. But all of these things, instead of doing what they thought they were getting accomplished, only intensified the hatred between the groups much stronger. JJ: So what way would you have done it? ADR: Huh? JJ: What way would you have done it? Because-- ADR: What would I have done different? JJ: Yeah, what you would’ve done? ADR: What I would’ve done and what I come from that lesson, I mean have in fact I used that is instead of separating them into their own branches, is to mix them 10 �and mixing them together within groups and bringing different people from different-- in other words, if we were going to have a tournament is break the Young Lords group. In other words, create new teams. That way, the identity of the Young Lords, the identity of the Playboys, the identity of the Gaylords is obscured. Now you had a team in there now the difference becomes the rival [00:18:00] is nonexistent. It’s between different groups. So, the co-mixing-- the breaking them up and co-mixing them-- you take all that away and in fact you end up creating new friendships that evolve out of that, would’ve evolved differently had they done that in that particular way. JJ: So, this new team would have a new name also? The new team would’ve had a new name? ADR: You remember, I got a hearing problem. JJ: Yeah. So, you’re mixing them up. ADR: By mixing them up. JJ: Would you also give them a new name? Would you give the team a new name too? ADR: I’m having-JJ: Okay, you got the Playboys and the Young Lords, you mix them up. ADR: Right. JJ: For a ball team. ADR: Right. JJ: Do you give the name a new name to the ball team? 11 �ADR: That would be-- that’s something that would’ve been to the choosing of the group. I mean, in doing that, you don’t have to be so precise to honor it. In other words, if instead [00:19:00] by simply when you mix the groups up, it really doesn’t matter. I mean, if you could say to them, call yourselves whatever you want to call yourselves. It really doesn’t matter. It gives them a new identity. I mean, sure, that they’re going to pick more than the end result is that it could be a mix of two. I mean, in some instances, some group is going to insist, we want to be called this, or someone says, we don’t give a damn, you know, name us whatever it is. The bottom line is that the ones that takes place, (audio cuts out) the point is that whatever the group wanted, whether they wanted to be called it or not, the end result is that when you have that kind of in there, the interaction becomes differently. Because a team is a team. So, in that sense, it creates a-[00:20:00] One of the things it does, it takes away the identity of the gangs. I mean, that’s a given. So, it’s very difficult for that rivalry to continue to exist between the gangs. And as I said, it creates new friendship. It becomes more difficult for fights to get started. And moving fast forward, knowing that a good example is what I did with the Young Lords when, for example, the Black Eagles from the north side dealing with the Latin Kings from Armitage and Halsted. This is where I used it successfully by bringing them together, instead of having them in there to the point that there were a number of instances where the Latin Kings from Armitage and Halsted found themselves protecting the Latin Eagles in places where they were been invited [00:21:00] by the Halsted Latin Kings to 12 �events. That would’ve been Saint Andrew’s -- I don’t-- I forgot Saint Teresa -- the school you attended St. Teresa’s? JJ: Saint Teresa. Yeah. ADR: All right, I remember being at a dance and there were other Latin Kings from other branches from the city, and they knew who I was, obviously as from the Young Lords and shit like that. JJ: So, one of your jobs in the Young Lords, was to work with the gang? ADR: Well, what I’m saying is that in particular, there were other instances. One of them that at this moment that I’m remembering is the one in St. Teresa. There was a party, a dance, and as I said, the Latin Eagles had been invited to come to the particular, then they showed up and they were talking. There was no (inaudible), but the other branches, other members from other branches from the Latin Kings were there and they wanted to, obviously as soon as they found out that the Latin Eagles were there, wanted to jump them. [00:22:00] And the ones from Halsted, if you recall, oh God, I can’t, one of Andre’s brothers-JJ: Richie? ADR: --was there. JJ: Richie? ADR: Richie. But there were others too. The one that used to be the leader, I can’t remember at the moment-JJ: (inaudible) [Papo?] ADR: (inaudible) Papo. The point was that they stopped him and one of the other leaders from the Latin Eagles, Watusi, got pissed off and they basically told him, 13 �you’re not touching them. That didn’t set well with Watusi, that’s why I never got along well with that asshole. But that proved my point. When you bring people together, it creates a friendship and even [transcended?]. It was like, no, we’re not going to let that happen. One of the things that we’re trying to teach is that the fighting among ourselves had to stop. And that was, [00:23:00] I mean, to me, I took that lesson from how the YMCA had operated and twisted it around, in other words, did the opposite of what they were doing. And it works. And I used it in other, in my experience, I have used it that in order to get people, that’s how you get it. It helps also done it in organizing activities where ironically enough, sometimes you find people coming from different areas that come into a centralized point. I mean, in the labor movement, you might have workers coming from-JJ: You’re a labor organizer today. ADR: Right. And those were in that kind of a situation of bringing people together because people always want to be with their own groups, regardless of even within the particular nationality. I mean, if you got [00:24:00] Irish people coming and you got from a particular town and you got other Irish from another town, on the surface, we might think they’re Irish, okay? To us, they’re not going to be (inaudible). But in fact, there might be rivalry between the groups we are not aware of. Same thing with Hispanics. I mean, if you bring Mexicans from the state of Jalisco and you got another place, Madero and different areas, they don’t get along. In part, if you take a look at it, again, sports plays a big deal on that. They got the sports teams and everything else. So, if one state beat the other 14 �state, they’re going to hate each other. I mean, take a look at football, you stop and think, I’m carrying it to another level. Internationally, people have been killed when they’re playing soccer games because they’re so emotional about whether the French beat the Germans or the Germans beat the English. You heard about that rivalry that existed, that they go into riots sometimes in some [00:25:00] of these games. And there has been at times people that have been bystanders that have been killed. So, my point of that is that you avoid that kind of a thing by co-mixing the groups. JJ: And you learned this because there was a gang problem in Lincoln Park in the late 1950s – ADR: Yes. JJ: -- and the YMCA detached worker program was working heavily in Lincoln Park. ADR: Right. They were heavily into that. JJ: Lincoln Park was flooded with gangs. ADR: Yes, it was filled with different-JJ: What were some of the gangs? ADR: As I said, they didn’t call them gangs. They called them clubs. JJ: Okay. What were some of the clubs in Lincoln Park? ADR: But they were gangs. JJ: Okay. What were some of the clubs called? ADR: You had the Black Eagles, the Paragons, you had the Flamingos, you had the -- I take that Flamingos back. I take that back. The Flaming Arrows. The Flaming Arrows were the ones. [00:26:00] The Flaming Arrows were the ones, which at 15 �that time we call the Hispanic Collegians because they dressed sort of like the collegian style, as I remember. They’re your Collegians. Your Black Eagles were the one that we all inspired to depart-JJ: Like college. Like college. ADR: The what? JJ: Collegians, you mean like college kids? ADR: Sort of like they dress like college students. JJ: This was the Flaming Arrows. ADR: Right. And we refer to them as such. We kind of, in other words, in other were to describe the Flaming Eagles were your preppies. JJ: Okay. Oh, because they were more like preppies. So, what about the Paragons? How did they dress? ADR: Paragons and the Black Eagles were the rivals. Obviously, the Black Eagles were there first. Paragons came in second. So, there was a rivalry between both groups. So, they commingled with each other. There was a definite rivalry between [00:27:00] both groups. JJ: So how did this rivalry play out? ADR: The rivalry was not to the point that they would, I mean, not in an open warfare between them, but certainly there were fights among the members themselves. But they conducted in at that time with the mentality in the fairness. In other words, if a member fought in, nobody would jumped in. And if your member lost, in other words, get somebody else to take, to pick up on a fight. In other words, if a Paragon and an Eagle got into a fight, and let’s say that the Paragon won the 16 �fight, all right, the only thing the Eagles could do is put up another member to fight that particular Paragon. They would not jump the guy. They would not do anything what we would consider ungentlemanly kind of thing. Another point is there was no point we’re going to jump that guy, get him by himself or whatever. They never did that. So, they accepted a defeat as such. And then they said the only way they could conquer that [00:28:00] by getting another member to come back and take the place of the member that had been defeated. JJ: So, there’s a different style of fighting then. ADR: Right. JJ: (inaudible). ADR: It was more-JJ: There was a different style of gang-- ADR: More of an honor type thing that recognized. JJ: And this was because they were mostly of the same nationality? ADR: In part because they were the same nationality. Predominantly Puerto Rican, though both the Black Eagles and the Paragons had a couple of Mexican guys that existed on them, but they were predominantly Puerto Rican. The majority of the people -- when I say people I’m referring to the males -- wanted to become Black Eagles. But in the end, such as ourselves, the Young Lords were created because of the same mentality about gang activity that existed. The Black Eagles were not about to have younger members. [00:29:00] They didn’t believe in that. You had to be of certain age to be part. In other words, you had to be, as I recall, 16 or 17 years old to be part of the group otherwise you would not be 17 �accepted. If you’re younger than that, you were out. You were not allowed to come in. So that led to some degree, that helped (inaudible), it helped the creation of how the Young Lords came to be in part. But if you asked, going back to the particular -JJ: The Young Lords were younger than the Black Eagles, right? ADR: Were younger than both in age. All of them were younger in age than the Black Eagles or the Paragons. But the creation of the Young Lords came from myself and Orlando. In telling the story is that I was, [00:30:00] my best buddy was really Orlando’s younger brother, Lupe. And I was the captain of all the patrol boys in Malaga. So obviously Lupe, he had this little titles. I was the captain of the patrol boys, and I had two lieutenants, one for what we call the north side of the school and one for the south side of the school. Obviously, I had Lupe being my best friend, I had him as one of my lieutenants. But what so happens is that he got into, somebody had gotten into a fight with one of the other guys enforcing the rules that we had. And being young kids we sometimes took things a little bit further than needed to be. I mean, we used physical force when we did things. Somehow Lupe had gotten into argument with one of the other patrol boys and not following what he was supposed to be doing, [00:31:00] and the guy wanted to jump Lupe. So, what I did at that point, when this came in, I jumped into the fight and ended up beating the crap out of the other guy. My other patrol boy. That led to Orlando saying -- me and Orlando did not get along. People were not part of this. Okay. Matter of fact, I had a fight. JJ: He fought a lot of other people too. 18 �ADR: Yeah, I fought Orlando. When I first met him we had a fight. Sometimes I think that happens -JJ: I think everybody fought. ADR: Huh? JJ: I think everybody fought Orlando. ADR: I did. JJ: That’s the way-- ADR: First time within meeting him. JJ: To be his friend, you had to fight him. Would you agree or no? What do you think? ADR: Well, I’m not following your-JJ: Okay. To be Orlando’s friend, that you had to fight him for him to-- ADR: When I first met him. JJ: To trust you. For him to trust you. ADR: The very [00:32:00] first meeting I had with him, or when I got to know him, I can’t remember. I mean, you’re asking (inaudible), but it was a week or a month. I had a fight with him. That’s all I can tell you. I mean, going back in time. So, we didn’t talk to each other. In other words, in whatever period, whether it was months or whatever occurred, (inaudible) because of the dynamics that-- it’s stupid, dynamics being the situation that existed, Orlando would go his way. I would go my way. But Lupe is one of those natural things that happen when you’re growing up. You end up, we became immediate friends. I mean, we liked each other. We seem to have a lot of things in common. And to that degree, to 19 �me, that’s why I said we became best of buddies. That had nothing to do with Orlando. JJ: Now, where did they live at? Where did Lupe and Orlando live? What street? ADR: Well, at that time, Orlando, we got to remember something. Orlando, we were in the same grade. But you got to remember, during [00:33:00] that time, the public school system, you attended Catholic school system. JJ: I attended later. I started on the public. ADR: On the public school system, it existed what they call, they had midyear. In other words, in the first grade, second grade, whatever was two parts to the grade. So, if you came in the odd part of the year, you would, stay on the B section, let’s say, because it was the first six months, B was the second following six months. So, if you came in, in the fall, you were part of the B group. If you started out in the spring, in other words, when you enter the public school system, you’re part of the A group, you went into it. They decided to eliminate, around that time during that area, they decided to eliminate that particular system that they had. They also had started creating the upper grade centers that existed. So, I know that [00:34:00] upper grade center, Arnold Upper Grade Center, which was located on Halsted, I mean on Armitage, well, actually on Burling Street, east of Halsted and right in front of Waller, what was known then as Waller High School, which is now called Lincoln Park School. During that time, they had rebuilt the school that had burned down. I can’t recall how it had happened, but Arnold Upper Grade Center, at one point during that would’ve been the early 1960s, it burned down. They came in, built this great new school, Upper Grade Center 20 �that only served the seventh and eighth grade. Now, Orlando was in the different group. When we had our class, we were all part of the same class, but there was a distinction between, and the grade as we were going in, Orlando was in the, as I would recall, would’ve been in the A group. And when they moved, they transferred [00:35:00] him to Arnold Upper Grade Center six months before I got- before me and Lupe went in where me and Lupe were on the group behind his, just to explain how things existed at that time. The point though, coming back in here is that when we had the significance was this particular fight where I had found myself defending Lupe and jumping in because I had to let Lupe do the fighting. When he got into the fight, they were going to fight with the kids, all the boys, we were all there standing. And he started fighting and I noticed immediately that he was losing the fight. And I jumped in without any hesitations and started. That’s when I started beating the crap out of the other guy. Orlando, when he found out about it, had come over to see what had happened. And when he found out what I had done, his whole (inaudible), in other words, whatever [00:36:00] rivalry existed between us sort of ended right at that point because I had defended his brother, his younger brother, and we started hanging around together. And very rapidly, because we hung around the Armitage area, we’re hanging around with a whole bunch of, I want to say with want of a better word, the white kids in the neighborhood. JJ: So, you and Orlando were hanging out. ADR: Right, I mean Orlando. And there was another guy named Sal [Mineo?] that was hanging around the area. He’s the one that kind of, we began to feel sort of with 21 �the white kids, that we felt awkward with them. We really didn’t have-- I mean, we had a lot of things in common with him. And then there was a lot of things that we did not have in common. In other words, we felt a little bit of the prejudice that existed, sometimes unspoken. But [00:37:00] we knew it was there. And unlike, I don’t know about other Hispanics what I mean when I look back at those things certainly because we were more-JJ: Was it prejudice or what would you call it? ADR: The what now? JJ: Was it a prejudice thing or was it just different nationality? ADR: Mostly I would have to say they were mostly Irish. JJ: No, I’m saying, was it, you said you felt awkward. What made you feel awkward? ADR: It’s a good question. Sometimes you just know, you feel things, what they call the gut feeling. Okay. They didn’t have, let me put it this way. Orlando, [00:38:00] myself, I mean, growing up, we were not the timid type individuals. I mean, we were challenged or something would occur. Obviously, we weren’t afraid to, whoever confronted us to fight back. JJ: Was Mineo the same way or --? ADR: The what now? JJ: Mineo, how was he-- ADR: Mineo hung around with him. And Mineo was more knowledgeable at that point, obviously about gangs. When I say that, it’s a nice way of saying, I mean that he was prone to be doing things, whatever those things meant. 22 �JJ: Because actually, I first met Mineo at Franklin school over by Sedgwick and by Cabrini-Green. And he had a Puerto Rican gang there. So, he was already in a gang there. And then I saw him [00:39:00] on Maud, he had another gang there before he got together with the Young Lords. ADR: Right, but in hanging out in here-JJ: Is that what you mean? That he had-- ADR: Well, kind of a mix in that there were other older, a couple other individuals. We came, what started the whole thing when we decided to create the group along with the help of Sal Mineo, was that I got into a fight with one of the older white kids in the neighborhood. And it was a situation where I had come up with my bike and I’ve been riding it, and I stopped on it, and the guy was like, “Get the fuck off the back of my ride.” And I said, “No, you’re not.” And obviously the guy was older than me, and that led into a fight. Mineo jumped in, [00:40:00] kind of saving my ass from getting my ass kicked pretty. I mean, I was fighting an older guy. I wasn’t going to win the fight, obviously. But he jumped in. Orlando was there too. So that kind of made us think, and as I said, it was a gut feeling that we had. It wasn’t something that was openly said, but it was like we felt that we didn’t belong there. So, we talked about it and we said we wanted to start a group of our own. Knowing what you’re telling but it made sense that Mineo provided the means to create the group. And then we got in touch with -- there was Fermin. I mean, from school you had Fermin, Benny, some of the other guys that we had gotten together and said, “Yeah, we need,” -- I know that you came in later prior to the group. 23 �JJ: I actually came in, I was at the first meeting. ADR: Okay. [00:41:00] But what I mean, when we got, prior to having the first meeting, the ones where we had gone together. JJ: Oh yeah. You guys were in school together. ADR: We had gotten together. JJ: At that time, I was at St. Teresa’s ADR: And gotten together. We were talking about it when they came in there. So initially when we had gotten together with Mineo was-JJ: I remember you guys-- ADR: Fermin, Benny, because we were in the same school we were in. JJ: You used to come to St. Teresa’s, which was right next door. St. Teresa’s was a block away from Mulligan. ADR: Well, yeah. JJ: You guys used to come to St. Teresa’s. ADR: What now? JJ: Do you remember coming to St. Teresa’s and waving at the window? ADR: I’ll talk about that in a minute. (laughs) But we, that’s when I said, we’re all in public school. You were attending Catholic school at that time. So that’s what I’m saying. Benny, Fermin, myself, Orlando -- Benny as I recall, was not in school. JJ: David Rivera was there and there was his cousin, Orlando. ADR: I don’t [00:42:00] recall. And then he’s the one that brought Gilbert. JJ: I remember Gilbert. 24 �ADR: Gilbert was an older guy. He hung around with a lot of the Blacks from the Cabrini projects, and he’s the one that brought a guy over. JJ: He and Mineo were friends. They were from the same gang, right? That’s what it was. They were connected. ADR: Right. And around that time, when you had come in as part of, during that time, we used to go out there and taunt you because we used to go in front of the school when you were in school, and we would be calling you out when you were at St. Teresa’s because of the way the glass is, when we’d go down to the school to try to get you out. I don’t know if that got you in trouble or not, but I know that we used to do that to you when you were in school. So, from that, Gilbert set up a meeting with some Blacks. [00:43:00] They turned out to be the Cobras. During that meeting, that particular representative came and told us about socalled facts of life about, because we created, we called ourselves at the very beginning, we called ourselves the Egyptian Cobras. JJ: Egyptian Lords, the Egyptian Lords. ADR: The Egyptian Lords. JJ: Yeah, because you had the Egyptian Cobras and the Vice Lords. ADR: Okay, JJ: So, we tried to unite both. ADR: You’re right. I stand corrected on that -- the Egyptian Lords, because we like the word Lords, and we were, so we create… Now, he told us that once we became part of the gang, we were part of the Cobras, one of their branches, were bound to serve, supposedly for life. This is the Black mentality during that era. And that 25 �was that there were only three ways. The three reasons that you left to [00:44:00] stop being a part of the Cobras or any of the branches was that if you went into the service, you were up. If you’re married. And the third way is, if you die and you got killed. Now looking back, it was obvious why they chose those two things. The guy was married, having a family or whatever reasons. It was no longer considered, in other words, to be part of a gang member, though they did have, if the women submitted themselves to the group, the same rules applied to them. But it was a total different, I think we were too young to understand certain things at that point of what that meant to me. I realized now, if you look back, there would’ve been prostitution because anybody, any of the women that would’ve been coming in would basically to serve the needs of the males and whatever means and enterprises that they would’ve had about making money. [00:45:00] Now, I do know that when we created that, Gilbert, the one that informed us that the Cobras was basically, for all purposes that was done with, that wasn’t functioning anymore. I found out in the service, when I went into the Army, what really had happened. And that was because in the service, as a matter of fact, when I went in, there was the number of, a couple of Playboys. I mean, I realized the guys that were coming into the service, those particular from Chicago, were part of gangs. And in my -JJ: Most of, (inaudible) oh, so if you were -- ADR: Yeah. And in my group -- yeah, in my squad -JJ: They were a gang problem in Chicago, right? That’s what you’re saying. 26 �ADR: Yes. I mean, the people that when I enlisted all, and I’ll get into that, but I mean, the point is that, going back to connect the two things that I learned. [00:46:00] When I went in my platoon, there were a number of Blacks, not just a couple. There were a number of Blacks, but there was two or three from the south side, and that had been part of the Cobra gang. JJ: Part of the Egyptian Cobras. ADR: Right. And one of the guys told me what had occurred that I didn’t know it at the time, what had occurred at the prior years when we had become part of the Cobras. All he knew was that I was a Young Lord. When he found out that I had -- from the north side, they tended to look at us different -- but he’s the one that told me that the Vice Lords were the ones that had basically destroyed the Cobras. What had happened was that he said that, and it would’ve been in the early 1960s when I was think our time, maybe 1960, [00:47:00] I don’t know if it was 1961, 1962 or somewhere around that area. Anyway, in the south side around 63rd Street, on a Saturday, and one of the boulevards or the street, wherever this had occurred, the Vicers at that time was the younger group, aggressive. That was growing up, challenging the Cobras in their territory and the fighting that was going on. The Cobras were the older, that were into prostitution, whatever illegal enterprises that they had, but primarily would’ve been prostitution. And I don’t think so much because at that time, drugs was not that, I mean, it existed, but not as heavily as it would become later. JJ: So they were into-- ADR: But they were into drugs, whereas the Vicers were not at that time. 27 �JJ: But they were into an enterprise. ADR: Cobras were already into drugs. JJ: No, but I’m saying they had an enterprise. They weren’t-- ADR: They had what? JJ: They weren’t just fighting for protection. [00:48:00] They were trying to run the prostitution game. ADR: Right. JJ: Okay. ADR: All right. And whatever. And as I said, I don’t think the drug trades were that big, but it existed probably the nickel and dime type business, type of business. They were at the very level. JJ: So, what was the purpose of the Young Lords? Why did-- ADR: Well, the point is that when the Vice Lords in the area, I’m just trying to explain the situation, the way it was created. The Vicers were at that time were not into drugs. They were, I mean, obviously they wanted to be in, the thing is that they killed three or four guys, three of the leaders, four of the leaders in daylight, which was a big deal for that time that they shot them down and killed them on the streets. Instead of waiting in the dark or finding some other place. They did this in broad daylight, took down, [00:49:00] which put, obviously created a shock for the Cobras when they got down like that. I also found out interestingly enough, that the leader of the Cobras was actually a Puerto Rican guy. Black Puerto Rican. I didn’t know. Yeah, that’s what he was-- I was told by the Black guys. He said the guy, we known that he was a Puerto Rican. Actually, he was 28 �Puerto Rican, Black Puerto Rican, which you can remember Gilbert was the same thing. We used to, at the beginning we all identified Gilbert as being Black. But in fact, Gilbert was a Black Puerto Rican, and I don’t think, if you recall, Gilbert didn’t see himself as Hispanic. He saw himself as a Black, if you recall. JJ: Right. ADR: All right. So regardless of that, I mean, those are the things that existed during that time. So we went, when we did (inaudible), knowing that we were no longer part of the Cobras, we didn’t [00:50:00] know what happened. We weren’t aware of what happened. All we know is that Cobras were no longer in existence or the branch, whatever came down. We then decided to go on our own because we know we could not be part of the Paragons. We could not be part of the Black Eagles. Because they didn’t want us. That forced us to create what we said, where we find ourselves to create our own group. And we had a meeting about that as to what we were going to call ourselves. You were part of that along with the Orlando, Fermin, and the rest of us. Now, the original, what you refer to as the original Young Lords, we’re all the same age. You had also, remember, you have Carlos, Raymond’s brother. [00:50:40] JJ: Okay. ADR: Part of the, some of the other guys. But there were basically seven of us that created the group, and we were all born on the same year. We’re months apart from each other. JJ: Nineteen forty-- ADR: Nineteen forty-eight. 29 �JJ: Nineteen forty-eight. [00:51:00] ADR: The eight year-- we’re all in, born in 1948. JJ: We should have called ourselves the 48ers. (laughter) I’m just kidding. ADR: Well, anyway, we did it up around Gray Center at night with one of the social workers where we were, that we had met, and we decided on our name. We came up with the name, the Young Lords. JJ: Who was the social worker? ADR: Huh? JJ: Who was the, do you remember the social worker? ADR: Who? JJ: Do you remember who the social worker was that met us there? ADR: All we know is that we all wanted to marry her. JJ: Oh, it was a woman. ADR: A woman. A girl. She was in her early twenties. JJ: I thought you were going to say John [Tardy?]. ADR: Not the guy that was in the room we met in. She-- we were all, we used to go there just to go to look at her. Remember? JJ: I remember that now. ADR: Remember the election of 1963 when Kennedy visited that school? JJ: Oh, I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that. ADR: He did. JJ: Okay, so that was the Arnold Upper Grade Center. ADR: And it was in Chicago he had visited. 30 �JJ: The Arnold Upper Grade Center. ADR: Right. He [00:52:00] had visited the school. I’m not sure if it was actually him or the brother, but I know it was one of the, whether it was Robert or Kennedy himself that visited, but it was one of the -- that I know he visited the school. JJ: One of the Kennedys? ADR: Yeah. At nighttime. Not at daytime. It was during nighttime that he attended the-JJ: Now how did we get from, I’m going to get back to this, but how did we get -- the neighborhood is all white, mostly white, right? How do we get all of a sudden all these Puerto Ricans and Mexicans in there? ADR: We were mixed. We lived in the neighborhood. JJ: We were mixed. ADR: Yeah. We lived in the neighborhood with them. JJ: We were spread apart. We weren’t together. ADR: I mean, different houses. It’s not like we were all together. I mean, Orlando, as I recall, was in the same block that I lived, but he was further south of-JJ: You were on Fremont. He was in Bissell. You were in Fremont. [00:53:00] He was in Bissell. I was on Dayton. ADR: Correct. I’m trying to think if he was in Fremont. Yeah, correct. I stand corrected. You’re right. Okay. Benny was also in Bissell, but he was closer to-he lived closer to Armitage. Okay. Where Orlando had a house-JJ: Where was Fermin? Where did Fermin live? ADR: Fermin lived on Clifton, which I -- where later, which is West. 31 �JJ: Okay. And Carlos [Montañez?] lived on Halsted. Halsted and Willow. ADR: Where? JJ: Halsted and Willow. Okay. Carlos Montañez. So, we had all the streets covered. We had-- ADR: Well, I mean, the point is that almost all the guys that lived within the neighborhood, they lived in different, I mean, it was a mixed group with nobody in there, but we were still very much the minority in that time. JJ: Well, because I remember a lot of them, because I mean, my mother [00:54:00] was doing catechism classes for the-- ADR: Wait, what I’m trying to say, you didn’t have a flight, as opposed to when Blacks moved into a neighborhood during that era. If Blacks came into a particular area, you’d have the whites immediate leaving and masses quickly dispersing some of the neighborhood. Armitage and Halsted, it’s a matter of fact, if you look at the statistically, yes, it became heavily -- not heavily -- it became Hispanic, but not predominantly Hispanic. And actually then the trend reversed itself, and then it became white again. JJ: Okay. But all of a sudden it started flooding though, right? Or no, because I remember Halsted and Dickens, that restaurant, it used to be all whites. ADR: Correct. JJ: And then overnight it was all Hispanic. ADR: No, it took years. It wasn’t really the-JJ: It took years. [00:55:00] It took years. But it cleaned up. It became-- 32 �ADR: Right. It changed. It changed gradually, and then it went back. It reversed itself and went back. But the reality, you’re thinking about that the neighborhood never really, now it went through a rough period, but that rough period, you have to recognize it. What the-JJ: Well, I think at nighttime you didn’t see too many whites in the street. ADR: Look, I think what messed up the neighborhood. JJ: I mean, I remember walking through there night, I didn’t see too many, too many whites. ADR: What messed up the neighborhood was drugs. JJ: Okay. ADR: Okay. That’s what brought-JJ: When did that come in? When did the drugs come in? ADR: That would’ve been in the early, the early 1970s. JJ: Early 1970s. ADR: Okay. JJ: But we’re jumping from 1950 to 1970, so I’m trying to-- ADR: There [00:56:00] was no, that’s what I’m saying. JJ: In the 1960s, what was going on in the 1960s? What type of population? From 1960 to 1969. ADR: By 1968, we’re going to go back a little bit. JJ: Okay. ADR: In 1968, the area was more-- there were a lot more Hispanics, but there was certainly no flight of whites in the area. 33 �JJ: Not 1968, right? ADR: There was no flight. They were there. JJ: Okay. ADR: They were there. The [voting?] majority, I mean, you have to look at the whole, you can’t just look at-JJ: Do you not remember on Dayton and Willow and those areas? ADR: See, you’re looking at small enclaves, if I’m using the right terminology, small areas that existed. Because if you take a look at who ran, who was the-- not for any other reason, but what was the color of the skin of the ward alderman? JJ: The alderman, McCutcheon? ADR: Okay. JJ: Yeah. He was white. I mean, all of ’em were white before it was [00:57:00] (inaudible). ADR: All right, but the population, how do you think they were in there? And [Patty?] was-JJ: Only white, one of your corrupt whites. ADR: Fine. JJ: Criminals. ADR: I’m not going to dispute that they were the corrupt whites or not. But the point is that no-JJ: It was a white community, that’s what I’m saying. When we moved in, it was an entirely, completely white community. ADR: Well, I’m not trying to argue with you. I’m just trying to show systematically. 34 �JJ: I don’t want to argue. ADR: No, no, no. JJ: This is your story. ADR: Look, one of the things that did occur, obviously what you refer to as the urban removal of the Hispanics is that Daley succeeded, where you did have the, I’m using the word enclaves, if I’m using it properly, that existed where those buildings were turned down, torn down, torn. You think that happened-- that would’ve been [00:58:00] the area of example. There were like two, three blocks on Sheffield as you reach Lincoln Avenue. That would’ve been south of Lincoln and Wrightwood. In other words, where you got Wrightwood, you got Sheffield that became a park. My question to you is what buildings were there? All buildings, housing buildings with multiple units, predominantly Hispanics, Puerto Ricans, living on that. I take it to Halsted, which is the land where we ended up in. Halsted the same thing, where housing buildings came down. If you take a look at all the areas with a building, if you go back and take a look at those places, all those buildings that were in there, where you would’ve had what you considered to be a major -- I’m looking at back in terms of looking backwards. I can see what occurred. And so the areas that got torn down, that [00:59:00] became parks that became different, they were completely obliviated were areas where you have predominantly a lot of Puerto Ricans or Hispanics where they got rid of them. They didn’t get rid of anything else. If you go around in there, you didn’t see masses of homes being torn down. Why? JJ: They didn’t tear them down. 35 �ADR: Because the whites were living in those houses. JJ: Right, right. ADR: Oh, no, no. JJ: There were always whites there. No, I give you that. ADR: They were the whites. They, Daley was not about the mass with the whites, with the voters. How much is the other one? JJ: Puerto Ricans were not the only ones living there, but they did have a large concentration. ADR: Look, the point I’m trying to make is that they came in there during that time. If a Hispanic lived in a house on a flat, in other words, the houses were what we call flat, rental of a flat, your home is not going to get torn down. JJ: But I’m saying from Dayton and North Avenue to Dayton [01:00:00] and Willow. ADR: That was different. JJ: That was all Puerto Rican. The whole-- ADR: Look, they needed the Boulevard, the extension of the-- my point is that if you go back where they made the move, in other words here, you have-JJ: You had gypsies on Burling. It was kind of each neighborhood. They had a little grouping of people for a while. And then the whole neighborhood there were Puerto Ricans, like everywhere, all around, all through the neighborhood. But they were not the only ones. ADR: You had more Puerto Ricans living on buildings. JJ: They increased. 36 �ADR: With these multiple units. It might’ve been like, let’s say 30, 40 apartments, three, four story. No higher than four floors in most of these buildings. But there were multiple units in there. So roughly in a four building that was large, might’ve been 30, 40 units in it. And if you go back and [01:01:00] you look back, that’s why I said, if you look at Halsted, okay, other rows would’ve been east of on Halsted street between Armitage and Dickens, where we had the hotdog stand. You would recall there was nothing but buildings, multiple unit buildings there. That went down back of, take a look at the-JJ: You’re talking about the whole block. ADR: The whole block got knocked down with multiple units. JJ: Multiple units of Puerto Ricans. ADR: Take it back up further north. JJ: That was where People’s Park. ADR: There were multiple units-JJ: Later, People’s Park later-- it became People’s Park later. ADR: Okay. And not only that, but you take a look at in the back of the other one that got where they had a lot of more buildings also. And then the whole area that got taken down would’ve been by Lincoln. Lincoln over there near the hospital. That would’ve been almost directly south of Waller High School. But there was another area where you had that, I’m trying to [01:02:00] remember. That’s all-it’s like a park now there that had all been knocked down. JJ: So, wait a minute. Are you telling me that there was selectively picking certain buildings? 37 �ADR: Yeah, he selectively was able to target the areas where you have more, if you take a look at and recall, man, use your memory because you need to help me out with this. Remember, let’s go back to Sheffield. Wrightwood. And you got Lincoln Avenue. That’s a park now. That whole section, remember that all being, all those multiple unit buildings that were there? JJ: Exactly. I remember. ADR: I don’t how many blocks, three or four blocks. JJ: Puerto Ricans. ADR: All Puerto Ricans. JJ: And there were some Hillbilly in there too, because Cisco-- ADR: It doesn’t matter. But the point is that went down. JJ: It was [poor, yeah, it was poor?]. ADR: Okay. If you take a look at those multiple units and all the places that existed, they’re all gone. The only thing that never went [01:03:00] down, I mean, I’m not saying they didn’t touch the house in certain areas, predominantly. He never went after areas where you had houses built. I’m not saying he didn’t knock that down on the north side. Very minimal. Okay. Very minimal that that was done. It wasn’t done in masses. It wasn’t done--whole blocks were never, and you can’t recall. You can’t even pinpoint to me where you would’ve had all the owners of a particular block that had your, they had houses that got knocked down. It didn’t exist. Didn’t happen. JJ: No, no. You’re correct. Because in Lincoln Park there was a lot of rehabilitation of the houses versus trying to knock ’em down. They didn’t want to knock down 38 �that many units. But now what you’re saying that’s significant is that the units that they were knocking down were Hispanic units. ADR: Right. JJ: Is that what you’re saying? I’m not putting words in your mouth. ADR: No, no, that’s correct. That’s exactly what I’m saying. [01:04:00] The ones that went down were predominantly Hispanic units in there. And the urban renewal when it was done. JJ: Where I lived at in Dickens, they didn’t go down. They remodeled it, but they raised our rents and we had to move. So, it was the same thing too. But I know what you’re saying. ADR: Well, with the multiple units, I mean, what are the costs of the buildings when they went back up? JJ: Right? ADR: I mean, couldn’t (inaudible). JJ: They couldn’t. No, but they did knock those down is what I’m saying. ADR: They weren’t, and I would correct you on that, they’re not really multiple units using today’s terminology would’ve been a townhouse or a condominium is what it ends up being. Big difference from what you consider to be a multiple unit. Big, big, big difference between the two. So, you can, I mean, to me is you’re using wrong terminology if you’re referring to these areas that were rebuilt with, units [01:05:00] were not the kind of units that existed prior to. JJ: What type of units existed? 39 �ADR: They were minimized. And as I said, they were using today’s terminology, it would’ve been what we call now condominiums or townhouses that were put back in their places where they did this. JJ: They made condominiums and townhouses. But I mean, what were they before? What were they before they were townhouses? What type of structures? ADR: Well, we never had, remember there was no-JJ: What type of buildings were they before they became townhouses and condominiums, you said they were multiple units? ADR: Multiple units on a building. It’s like the house, like the building next door to me. Okay. I don’t know how many units, it’s got to be -- it’s three, four, three or four floors. You’re got an apartment where maybe one bedroom type. So, I would not be surprised if there’s 40, 50 units. [01:06:00] And that’s what I’m saying, what it existed in the area ended where you had 40, 60 units in a building. JJ: Right. ADR: And all those places got knocked down. JJ: And those where the Hispanics or Latinos were. ADR: Exactly. JJ: Okay. Okay. So now did you have to move out at all or no? ADR: What now? JJ: Did you have to move out at all, or no? ADR: Did I? JJ: Did you have to move out of Lincoln Park? Were you forced out or no? ADR: No. 40 �JJ: Okay. You moved out. ADR: No, I moved out because of the problems we got into. One of my parents-- I wasn’t aware that what ended up-- now you’re moving forward into what occurred in later years. JJ: Okay. No, go ahead. ADR: Why I ended up (inaudible)? What happened was we used to steal cars. You know that. [01:07:00] And while we weren’t aware, there was an Italian kid that used to hang around, an older guy. We used to steal the cars for joy rides if for no other reason. At that time, most of the time we had not grown apart at all. We were in a different kind of a situation as what we were now then as the Young Lords. Orlando and myself tended to drift together, always being together. You sometimes would be with us, Fermin and Benny would always be together. The point was that if somebody, and planning the dynamics of our, I hate that word. I don’t explain it, but what I’m trying to say is that if somebody saw us, they thought that we were not together. And it occurred too many times throughout those early years because they thought [01:08:00] they didn’t see us together other than when we had a meeting or something that we would attend the meeting. We’d be there at the meetings, we would meet at the YMCA or other areas where we needed to meet when we were there. But I can recall as many times, I mean I didn’t remember Division [Pete?] trying to challenge us and there’s other people, almost all the ones that ended up becoming our friends later in life thought that they could take over the Young Lords because they thought we were separate and they would come to-- 41 �JJ: They actually had a branch of the Young Lords (inaudible). ADR: Right, I mean, because they wanted to take over becoming the president (inaudible). And then so we, the seven of us and I always refer to this (inaudible), but we were the ones that dictated without realizing I’m not looking back and anything that we would say this is the way it’s going to be, but they never saw us together. We were not hanging around together with each other. As I said, we tended to differ apart from each other doing whatever we were doing on a daily basis. [01:09:00] That type of thing to me led to believe that people that came in and said, “I got an opportunity. These guys ain’t together. I’m going to take over.” Thinking they could do that. To their surprise, any time they would try to do that, it’s basically, “What the hell are you doing? You’re not taking over. We’re running things. And that’s the way it is.” That meant that most of the time, I’m not looking for any other reason, but is that Orlando ended up beating the shit out of the guys. I mean, those things would occur when the fight get started. Before we could say anything. Orlando didn’t hesitate, he was like a rabbit, he’d fucking jump and beat the crap out of, you know, and that would end the whole -- things like that, that would occur. So anyway, the thing was that the referring to this thing about the cars in which you were talking with the service that he had this Italian kid that was hanging around with [01:10:00] us, older guy, and the only reason, obviously he was hanging around with us because he knows we were using cars for joyrides. I mention that because we used to go up to Evanston. We used to drive, I mean, we would take out a car from the Lincoln area, we’d steal a car, go up north and then steal another car 42 �and bring it back. We never came back and said it’s not like-- we knew better than to ride a car. We would never drive a car for more than a day. Not even a day. I mean, if we went one destination, we would dump that car. We’re not stupid enough because we knew the police and somebody in there that would know about it, they might have. Even the technology that exists today didn’t exist then, we weren’t stupid enough to take a chance that the plates of somebody else, that the police would know about it, that there was a stolen vehicle. So, what we would do is we would steal a shitload of vehicles. So, on a typical day for joyriding, we might end up stealing two, three cars. JJ: [01:11:00] And this was a fad that was going on, right? This was like a fad. How long did it last? This taking of cars for joyriding? ADR: Well, remember I’m jumping into the future from going back from the early end. When we were a little older, we ended up, we used to go to Evanston because we ended up meeting people that we helped out on a fight, which I get later on. JJ: We had a branch later on, we had a branch. ADR: You call it a branch, it really wasn’t branch, but people we had gotten to know, they become part of the Young Lords and we didn’t really-- we went out there because we liked the girls from the north side. JJ: I was going to say-- ADR: That was our motive. Our motive was the women. So, we went up there and so we didn’t have money, not even to get on the train. We used to know how to sneak into the train, but we didn’t want to go on trains. So, we would steal a car, go up north, be out there with them, and on return back we would steal [01:12:00] 43 �another car and bring it back over to the neighborhood. All right. What we didn’t know was that that guy that sometimes used to hang around wanted to know when we were dumping the cars, they were taking those vehicles that we had stolen and taking them into what is not what I would call it, a shop where they would strip them and just did whatever they did with their parts. They got caught and it would’ve been whatever it was. I know one thing I’m precise is about the date because of when it occurred would’ve been in late February or the very beginning of March. I take it back when that happened, because I know the date when it occurred, because it’s something that’s a significant date, was on Friday, the 13th when it occurred, March the 13th. And I never forgot that date. When the guy had been picked up and [01:13:00] obviously with the day before, we don’t know. I don’t remember when he had ended. We know that he gets picked up. We know they come after us on the 13th, we had a gang fight that night, as a matter of fact, with some other guys in the back of Waller. It was going to be a gang fight. But we already had stolen a vehicle that sometimes we used to use in gang fights to ram the other vehicles from our posts inside. And at any rate, I got the message and somebody in there that we already knew and the word had gone out quickly. So that time that the cops had been asking, they were looking for us. And when I called home, my mother got on the phone and told me the police had been over here. And obviously my father was going to be stupid enough, was pissed off at me and said, because they already told him that they were looking for us we were stealing cars. I wasn’t about to go home. [01:14:00] I knew better. I mean at that point. So, Orlando, myself and the Irish guy we 44 �called, that was part of our group back then, Jerry, we call him Mad Irish. We decided not to at that point. We said, nobody’s going home. We’re going to get a big, we weren’t worrying about the goddamn police, we were worrying about goddamn parents beating the shit out of us. So, we didn’t go home. And the bottom line was that at that point, Orlando, the girl that he liked, talked him out of it from the north side, talked him out of going with us. When we took off the mentioning the group, these were the Cubans part of the Cuban group that had come over the first wave of immigrants that came from Cuba when Castro had taken over. To us, to our surprise, you got to remember these were white skinned Cubans. [01:15:00] You couldn’t tell the blonde blue eye and all that kind of shit. My thing here is this, they had told us that when we ran away, we went over there to stay over there with them, that we could go to Miami with their family down there. We told them what had happened, blah, blah, and that bullshit. So, Orlando got talked out of it by the girl and me and Jerry decided we’re not going. We took off. We ended up in-- we did make it all the way into Miami. We did spend a couple of days in jail in Georgia, and that’s another story I don’t want to at the moment, but we ended up getting picked up in Dublin, Georgia. At the time we were minors, we were put in jail and then they let us go. Anyway, all that was over. JJ: So, we were going jail all over the country. I went to jail in Saint Louis. [01:16:00] ADR: You want me to tell you about that? 45 �JJ: Oh, you know about the St. Louis one too, huh? What about Saint Louis? No, no. I want you to tell me about that. I’m sorry. We were going to jail all over the country because I went to jail in Saint Louis, that’s what I’m saying. ADR: You want to know about Georgia? JJ: Yeah. Tell me about Georgia. ADR: Okay. What happened was that, all right, we stole a car here and we took that vehicle. We’d had no money, really, nothing to speak of really. But like I said, because we were trying to make it into Miami and staying with the relatives from the people from the north side. And we ran out of money with the vehicle that we had stolen. So, we would try to sell the tire, the spare tire and all that. We had no money whatsoever. So, we had to dump the car. I would have to say near Dublin, Georgia. All I know is that the town is just something that [01:17:00] stayed in-- the name stayed with me. The town exists: Dublin, Georgia. We were hitchhiking at that point. We started hitchhiking and we got picked up. They saw us hitch, I mean you got to think back then we were what, 16 years old or yeah, 16 years old. We got leather jackets and in Georgia we stood out. In town we had these shoes with the boots like boots, shoes that we used to have that. They used to be the style back then. Yeah. JJ: Boots, shoes, I remember. Yeah. ADR: And we stood out. So, the cops picked us up. JJ: Half a boot. ADR: Exactly. We get picked up and by the police in Georgia, in Dublin, Georgia. And they took us in. And so, the story was that when they put us [01:18:00] in, they 46 �wanted to know who we were, blah, blah, blah. And me and Jerry concocted this story. I mean, it was funny now that I looked at it. It wasn’t funny back then, but we said we were cousins. You looking at a Latino and you’re looking at a white where the co-mix in the races wasn’t that back in those areas, particularly in those times. So, they’re trying to figure out how in the hell can you be cousins? We said, “Well, our mothers are sisters. One of ’em married a Hispanic and the other one married a white.” That’s why obviously that was believable. And what we did is when they picked us up, we got rid of our wallets immediately. Okay. We dumped them into the backseat of the underneath, not just with the (inaudible) underneath the vehicle. We had the bad luck that they were changing vehicles, they were getting vehicles at that [01:19:00] time. They picked us up during the day, they didn’t pick us up, it wasn’t at night. It was during the day they picked us up. So, they take us in to question us. They want to know who we are, and they’re trying to find out. So, we’re not giving them any information. We’re making a bogus -- we were settled on the name. We weren’t using our real names. And as I said, when we tell them, so they’re trying to find who we are. They don’t know. No identification, no nothing. But because they were changing vehicles or maybe one of the police officers got wise enough, might’ve decided to go back. What they told us is that they found, they found our wallets because they were changing the vehicles and they took the seats out and anyway, they found the wallet. So obviously they got two different names. They know now we’re not related to each other. When they called Chicago, obviously they were told those two guys are wanted by the police in Chicago. And they 47 �made the check. Obviously they would’ve called the Chicago Police Department, wanted to find out who [01:20:00] we were. So, they find out we were wanted out of that grand theft. They had us for grand theft. Remember they claim at that point we had stolen 300 vehicles and chased us down. So, the police now, and me, I always had a smart-JJ: You’d taken 300 vehicles? ADR: What? JJ: Had you taken 300 vehicles? Or were they trying to clean the records? ADR: They had us that in the given period of time that we have been doing this, that’s not me. And I’m not making, I’m just using the number. Whether it was exaggerated or not, I can’t account. I think to some degree it was exaggerated. I know that we were stealing on an average two vehicles a day, sometimes three. Very unlikely that we end up stealing four vehicles in one day. But on average, we were stealing two vehicles because everywhere we go, we would always take-JJ: How did you take ’em? How did you take the vehicle? How did you take the vehicles? [01:21:00] ADR: Well, we usually picked the Chevys because they were easy to break into. JJ: The Chevys. ADR: They had the small window. There was a little panel window that at that time, the design of the vehicle that we would use a screwdriver that would flip when we stick the screwdriver, flip it. That was your job. We used to have you-JJ: I had a job? 48 �ADR: Yeah. That was a job to break the panel because you were white. It was in there. JJ: [laughter] ADR: Yeah. You’re forget what we used to have, you were white, you were in there. You’d go out there, get near the vehicle, walk like you were walking, stick it in and you would pop it. You would keep walking. You would not -- yeah, exactly. Then either me-JJ: So, I would pop the door and ignition-- ADR: --and have the door open. But you would do it very quickly. You would pop it and make sure that the door was open and keep walking. I mean, you would not stand there. You would walk away from the vehicle. Once we know that the vehicle, I mean, at that point it was open, [01:22:00] either Orlando or me would come in. I had the screwdriver as much as Orlando, but said we would go in and we would pop the ignition and start the vehicle immediately. Because at the time, all you had to do was break the cylinder for the ignition and all we do is use and twist it and that would make the connections to get the, that was whatever the mal-- it wasn’t a malfunction. That’s the way that designed because it made it the easiest. JJ: I remember popping ignitions too. ADR: Right.(inaudible) That was easy. JJ: But that was done with the Chevys and Buicks you could do that. ADR: Well, that thing ended when we would stick the thing in there, we had to break it. All we had to do was stick it in and break it. Sometimes you would have to knock 49 �off the whole thing, that cylinder for the ignition. Sometimes you had to be knocked out, all of it out. But if it was broken and it didn’t make the contact, we would know that we would knock off immediately the cylinder and then stick the screwdriver where [01:23:00] it would make some kind of, always made a contact where you could get the vehicle started. JJ: But anyway, it was-- ADR: That was done within three minutes. JJ: And they were like two a day average. Two every day average. ADR: Yeah. Because we were never-- we never wanted to, one of the things that we were different and we were not stupid. What I’m trying to say is that-JJ: But why so many? Why so many? Why so many vehicles? Why so many vehicles? ADR: Because we were not stupid. That’s what I’m trying to say. We were not stupid to think that we would have a vehicle and that it was a smart thing to drive that vehicle all day long. We knew better. So, we didn’t give a shit about how many vehicles we stole. It didn’t matter to us. We were just using it, we were not using it. JJ: How old were we? How old were we? ADR: We had to be around sixteen years old. Fifteen, sixteen years old when we were doing that. But as I said, the important thing-JJ: [01:24:00] Did we ever drive these vehicles to a party-- ADR: I was the driver. 50 �JJ: --or something like that, or anything. Well, I remember taking them to the dances. We used to go, everybody used to show off their car at the dance. Do you remember that or no? ADR: Give me that again. JJ: I remember going to Saint Teresa’s to their dances with a stolen car. I remember that. ADR: We did that. We didn’t do that too often. JJ: Okay, all right. ADR: There was never any need because as I said, it was a lot easier. See, one of the things that I want to emphasize that we were, that’s what we were never picked up by the police. I mean, we had close calls with actually getting away from the police. Sometimes it was this where we were shot at a number of times, trying to get away from the police in a stolen vehicle. But coming back, one of the reasons we knew better than to drive a vehicle too long is that we did not want to get spotted by the police and take a chance on being picked up with a stolen vehicle. [01:25:00] So that’s why we ended up stealing so many vehicles. Not because we were out there to break records or anything, but because we didn’t want to get picked up by the police. JJ: What other things did the Young Lords do? ADR: The what now? JJ: What other things did they do as a gang? ADR: Well, at that time, I think we learned from mistakes that we made. In other words, we didn’t like repeating the same mistake. If I’m correctly hearing your 51 �question, I mean, what other, one of the other things was the idea. For example, when we were all picked up, not you, because again, you were in a Catholic school. We had a gang fight at the [White Front?]. There was an Italian place, the pizzeria that was from the, what we called the White Front, further down the block on Halsted. JJ: The White Front we hung out at night, at nighttime. ADR: No, that was during daytime, we had this fight. This was during [01:26:00] school. And a fight -- however it got started, I know that the Black Eagles were involved and-JJ: They hung out. They hung out at the White Front, the Black Eagles. Everybody had their restaurant and the Black Eagles had the White Front. ADR: The Black Eagles hung around the White Front. JJ: Right. ADR: Then the whites went to the-JJ: Benny’s Pizzeria. ADR: The pizzeria, whatever the name was. I don’t remember at the moment. I don’t recall. I don’t know how the fight had gotten started, but we had gotten into the fight and beat the crap-JJ: But the Young Lords went into Benny’s Pizzeria. ADR: Yeah, we had gotten into the fight. We beat the crap out of the group inside the place. I mean, we-JJ: Inside their own restaurant? 52 �ADR: Right. Inside their own restaurant. We had gone in. We went there and beat the crap out of a number of the guys that were in there that were in high school and all that. So [01:27:00] when the police showed up and they were doing an investigation, they didn’t pick any, they weren’t able, because we all got away from at the point that that had occurred, we all had gotten away. So, we went back to school. This happened during lunchtime and lunchtimes were one hour from twelve o’clock to one o’clock. So, when we got back into school, one by one, they started calling the names of individuals where the police was with the principal. So, then they decided to go and open up our lockers, and in the lockers they found weapons. JJ: What kind of weapons? ADR: Blackjacks, things like that. A couple of knives. From that point, we said, “No more weapons.” What we did, the trick we used, and we even then, we didn’t liked it yet, because they found, remember they used to have, [01:28:00] what’s the name of the-- Maxwell Street, they used to sell knives. Remember the long, thin knives that we used to put in here? So, when the police would pet us, they couldn’t feel it because we put it around the grip on the pants. Well, even those, they had found those. So, we learned-JJ: Like switchblades or something. ADR: Right, the switchblades. We stopped-- we stopped using it, but we started using as a weapon and we became very well known for, that was the antenna. JJ: Car antennas. 53 �ADR: That’s when we started using, so we didn’t carry weapons after that it occurred. We got busted. JJ: There was a fight. You were just grabbing an antenna. ADR: Exactly. We had the antennas. We had ’em all over the place. JJ: Cut somebody with it or you could-- ADR: We learned the trick of how to break ’em real quickly with a, I don’t remember, but I know it was like a one or two twist. But we’d be able to break it off completely. Because you can’t just kind of-- remember [01:29:00] we’ve learned how to do that. I mean, just the step of-JJ: But also that was an element of surprise too, right? That was like a surprise to the other person that didn’t expect you to come up with an antenna, right? ADR: Exactly. JJ: Am I correct? ADR: But I mean, it’s a weapon where we needed to have the weapon. JJ: But it shocked the other person. They saw you. ADR: Right. I mean, we had the weapons to fight if we find ourselves. So, we didn’t, in other words, we stopped worrying about having to carry a knife or anything like that when we were confronted with another, when we would’ve a fight, and we also learned a number of things. We knew that if we were fighting the whites, our mentality was to always go for the face. We knew as soon as we drew blood, they would stop the fight. We had that mentality that the whites didn’t want to get their faces messed up. Doesn’t mean that every white was like that. But as a general rule, if we were in a fight, we were fighting the whites, we would always 54 �go for their faces with fists, [01:30:00] whatever, we were fighting them to try to draw blood immediately from them. We knew that they would not be able to stand that. With the Blacks, when we would fight the Blacks, we would go for their balls. We knew that it didn’t matter to them if we busted up their faces, they will continue to fight. So, for them-JJ: Were there a lot of fights with Blacks or not? Were there a lot of fights with Blacks? African Americans. ADR: We didn’t have too many fights with the Blacks, but we did have fights with Blacks. JJ: Right. Okay. ADR: Not as many, because we were not generally — to (inaudible), never ventured up north. Remember that, especially during that time, they stayed in their own turf. So, they were never really a challenge to any of us anything. But that doesn’t mean that we were also in any way that we were afraid of them. We were never afraid of them. And we had fights with them when if the occasion occurred that we had a fight with them, we would fight with them. But generally fight was with the groups within the neighborhood, [01:31:00] the Mohawk guys, the other groups, smaller groups in there, and from other areas in the cities. We started to branch out. But in order to get to that, typically, it wasn’t like you had a gang fight every day. What happened with the Young Lords, what was different about the Young Lords was that because we were the younger group, we were always trying to prove ourselves. So that meant unknown, now looking back, we always 55 �wanted to do the most damage. So, we were more aggressive when we were in a gang fight. JJ: We wanted to do the most damage, and we were all always trying to prove ourselves. What does that mean? What does prove yourself mean? ADR: Prove ourselves that to the Eagles and to the Paragons. JJ: What did we want to prove? What did we want to prove? ADR: I heard your word, but-JJ: Yeah, you said that we wanted to prove ourselves. ADR: Yes. JJ: [01:32:00] What did we want to prove? ADR: We wanted to prove ourselves to the Black Eagles and to the Paragons is what I said. JJ: Yeah, but why? ADR: Because we want to still in some way, maybe in our mentality we wanted to be part of them. JJ: You wanted to be like them. ADR: Exactly. JJ: So, they were our role models. The Paragons and the-- ADR: Correct. They were our role models that we looked up to them. JJ: So, we wanted to show them that we could fight like they could fight? ADR: The what now? JJ: What did we want to show them? That we could fight too, or --? 56 �ADR: That we were as good as they were. We thought that they were better. As you said, we looked up to them and we still wanted to be part of them. Other words, the Young Lords, I don’t think that we saw ourselves that the Young Lords would be a continuation. We didn’t-- never discussed it, never opened it. But I mean, the point is that in proving them once, was that our role model, as you said it in the correct word, were the Paragons and the Black Eagles. So, this [01:33:00] idea of the fighting was always to do the most damage, proving ourselves to them. JJ: What did we like about the Black Eagles? What did we like about it? What did we like about the Black Eagles and the Paragons? What did we like about them? ADR: The way they conducted themselves. JJ: How did they conduct themselves? ADR: That’s a set (inaudible) the fight, that the honor system there were strong physically. Women, I mean obviously because being a Black Eagle and all that, and not only from the Hispanic women, but the other women that were running there. So that was the whole idea as much as that thing with the Paragons. What broke us away from that, you’re bringing into another explanation of the time, of the area of what occurred was, involved you. We had invited, at that time, we were in a piece with [01:34:00] the Mohawk guys, and we had invited them to, at that time, during that area, there used to be dances every Friday. Sometimes those dances were conducted by the Black Eagles. Sometimes the Paragons, sometimes ourselves. We would have the dances at the YMCA and much like the West Side Story and the whites you’d have the one group on one 57 �corner, on one side of the wall, the other group on the other side of the wall. And that was true of the (inaudible) even. Obviously the whites did not show up in our dance. We had the dance typically in Spanish. But if you come into the dance, you would see the different group among Hispanic groups, the Flaming Eagles, I mean the Flaming Arrows hanging together. In other words, the groups would hang within each group’s that they be together. We had invited, during the peace treaty we had with the Mohawk guys, we had invited them. [01:35:00] They showed up to the dance. JJ: Who showed up? ADR: The Flaming-- the Mohawk guys. JJ: Okay. ADR: You weren’t there. That night, you were someplace else. I don’t know where you were. Like I said, we didn’t hang. As a group we never were always together, as I’ve tried to explain before. So, they had shown up to the dance. We had girls from the north side. I mean, we had a whole bunch of people. It was one of our better successful dances. Remember Ma? I forgot her last name. That used to make up-JJ: Mom [Aragon?]. ADR: Mom Aragon, (inaudible) Mom Aragon did the cooking, made the tacos and all that other stuff. JJ: Because her son was a Young Lord. ADR: Exactly. JJ: And then she wanted to-- 58 �ADR: Right. JJ: She wanted to take care of her daughter too, because her daughter was a Paragon or hung around with the Paragons. ADR: Right. And anyway, the thing was that at the dance, they showed up [01:36:00] and Paragons wanted to jump them. And we said no. JJ: Jump the Mohawk? ADR: The Mohawk guys. They wanted to jump the Mohawk guys. JJ: Now, was the Mohawk guys Black or --? ADR: No, when they were there, they didn’t know what was taking place. JJ: What nationality? What nationality was the Mohawk guys? ADR: The what now? JJ: What nationality? ADR: Whites. JJ: Oh, they were whites. ADR: Okay. They were whites. Okay. I can’t pin down their complete nationality. I don’t want to say. JJ: Okay. They were like from Saint Michael’s, that area. ADR: Exactly. Yes. The Saint Michael’s area. The point is that Ralph was there. I mean, I don’t remember people, but I know that when the thing in that we said no, we stopped the Paragons. And that pissed him off when they were told, “No, you’re not going to do that.” And Orlando had basically told [01:37:00] them to get the fuck out. And obviously that pissed him even more. They left. Unknown 59 �to us they returned to the hotdog stand. You show up by yourself, I mean, no big deal like anything else, and they jumped you. JJ: I was president at that time. That was when I was president of the group. ADR: Well, you went in there, you didn’t know what-JJ: I’m saying I was president of the group at that time. ADR: They were what? JJ: I was the president at that time of the group. ADR: I don’t recall that. JJ: Yeah, I was the president. That’s why they wanted to get me at that point. ADR: I don’t remember either. I know you got jumped and-JJ: No, I didn’t get jumped. Well, they wanted to jump me, but again, they were that respectful type. So, it was one person, Toothpick, that [stole?] on me. In other words, [01:38:00] he [stole?]. ADR: It was Crazy Johnny? JJ: Toothpick, he stole on me. In other words, I didn’t know where the puncher was. Well, he stole, stole on me. And then the other people got in the middle of it to stop the fights. They stopped the fights. ADR: But anyway, we heard about it when we were told, I don’t know how. We got told. JJ: But he stole on me. The other people stopped the fight. And then we didn’t fight. And I think that that’s what Orlando got mad about. ADR: Well, what happened was, I don’t know, I mean, is that when we left, we left immediately when we found out what had taken place, we ran back over to, 60 �literally, we were running from all the way from the, because we didn’t have no vehicles. It’s not like we had cars back then. We ran all the way back-JJ: From Isham YMCA and-- ADR: From YMCA over to the hotdog stand. JJ: North Avenue and [Larrabee?] to-- ADR: Right. And when we showed up, we were there. The one that stopped the fight, in my perspective, when the gang fight was about to get started, we showed [01:39:00] up and we were going to start fighting with the Paragons. Raymond Montañez, Carlos’s brother-JJ: Was a Paragons. ADR: --interfered because he was part of the Flaming Arrows. JJ: Was he Flaming Arrows? ADR: Yeah, he was a Flaming Arrow. JJ: Okay. ADR: He stopped it and he said, no. He says, because we all always, this is not good. So, he said, “Why don’t you guys have a fight? One guy from each side. So, Orlando immediately, there was no question he was going to be representing our side. Crazy Johnny--they thought he was going to beat the crap out of Orlando because Crazy Johnny had that name Crazy Johnny. And he was physically built a hell of a lot better than he started fighting Orlando. Don’t ask me how he did it, but within a couple of punches, he actually knocked down Crazy Johnny and he was going to end it there, but [01:40:00] they pulled him back. They said, it’s a fair fight. Johnny gets up again, starts fighting, knocked him down again. 61 �All right. At that point, it was like it ended, so they wanted to put another guy. Another guy was put to fight Orlando. Orlando took out, as I recall, Orlando must have beat the shit out of three or four of the Paragons that night. Never once -- I mean, I’m not saying he didn’t take punches, but in all the fighting in there, he took them down. Okay, when that happened, at that point, and I have perspective, we all realized, it’s like at that precise moment what Orlando had done, we had grown up. That’s when we said, “We don’t need the Black Eagles. We don’t need the Paragons. We’re better than they are.” And that’s when we decided to leave the neighborhood. JJ: And we went to-- ADR: Old Town. JJ: --(inaudible) and North Avenue where we had another branch. We had another branch. But I remember [01:41:00] that I went home that night and in the morning you guys came and picked me up in the morning and took me out of bed. Said hello to my mother, Orlando said hello to my mother because Orlando had been in her catechism class and so he knew my mother very well. Plus we would stay at each other’s houses. We didn’t live that far. And then I could believe you were with him or something like that. My face was all swollen from being stole. And I had told my mother I had fell down, but Orlando said that he wanted to talk to me. So my mother went to the bedroom and then Orlando said, “Let’s go.” In other words, we’re going to fight these people. So, it actually wasn’t at night. It was during the morning that we fought. ADR: The what now? 62 �JJ: It was the next morning that we fought that Orlando fought all those people. ADR: No, it was at nighttime. JJ: At nighttime too? ADR: It was at nighttime. No, it was at nighttime. That fight took place with Orlando. It took that night. It was that night. Oh, it was [01:42:00] night. I’m 100% sure. JJ: It was at night. ADR: It was at nighttime. But at that dance that said, we showed up. JJ: I must have been. I must have-- ADR: That’s what I’m saying, you may not remember you got your butt beaten? JJ: No, no. He picked me up and told me I had a fight. ADR: What I can’t remember-JJ: He told me I had to fight him. And so I went to get ready to fight him. And then he interfered. He went-- ADR: No, it was at night. JJ: No, that was in the morning. ADR: Night. JJ: It happened again. It happened again in the morning then. ADR: Well, if it happened in the morning either, I don’t remember that. I mean, I don’t remember at the moment. JJ: He got me out of bed-- ADR: But I know that that night was at nighttime he took. And actually I thought there was more than four guys. JJ: I don’t remember that. So, it had to be a different thing, a different incident. 63 �ADR: But no, and then I’m positive-JJ: The same incident, but different ending. ADR: Right, because like I said, we were going to, I don’t remember if you were there. I don’t remember. That’s what I’m saying. I don’t remember that you were there when Orlando was fighting, right? We had come in, we were getting ready to fight. We were getting ready-JJ: Was major. It was major. ADR: And [01:43:00] Raymond was the one that stopped us. Raymond basically got between the group. He says, you guys can’t do that. The urge is not to fight. He says, you guys, he said, we can’t do this. And then he said he the one making the suggestion, had one representative from each site. And there was no doubt it was going to, Orlando wasn’t going to let any of us fight. Okay. I mean, whoever it was going to be was going to take him out. And as I said, it was Crazy Johnny, the fact that he beat Crazy Johnny, really, Orlando’s, in terms of a fighter, went way up when he did it twice. He didn’t do it once, he didn’t do it once. He did it twice. Okay. And I can tell you, because I never forgot. I might forget certain things in my life or things like that, but there’s certain things that stay imbedded in your brain that make it difficult. I know that he knocked them down and very rapidly, it wasn’t something that was in the fight. [01:44:00] Within the punches, they started getting thrown out very rapid, Orlando, don’t ask him how he did it. Hit him, hit him square on the jaw, knocked him down. I mean, Johnny went down. And at that point, it was like everybody was surprised. I mean, a lot of people couldn’t believe what had happened. Toothpick wanted to 64 �jump, wanted in. They said no. And anybody’s going back and we said, this is a fair fight. We were prepared, I mean if anybody would’ve broken up, we had a full gang fight right on the spot. Then he allowed Johnny to get up and Johnny was like-- I don’t remember. He made an excuse that he slipped or whatever. It didn’t matter whether he slipped or not. He gets up again, starts to fight Orlando, knocked him down. I’m not talking a punching, I’m talking an actual knockdown. Knocked them down. I don’t know if it was in the same side of the face or the other side of the face, but he knocked them down. Then they put up another guy. He took down four guys, four Paragons. [01:45:00] They all went down. Okay. What I’m saying, I don’t mean physically that he knocked him down, but enough where he was beating the crap out of them, they would’ve to pull the guy out and put another guy out. Okay. My recollection was Johnny was the only one that got knocked down. JJ: All right, so what other battle do you remember? ADR: Orlando’s? JJ: No, no, no. Just a battle in the neighborhood of fights. ADR: There’s a whole bunch of them. Shit-JJ: Give me another one. Give me another one. ADR: Well, that particular, the other one would’ve been the night-- I mean, going back that I was talking about when we found out about the stolen vehicles, we had a stolen vehicle and we were really-JJ: Let’s do a different one. We already talked about stolen vehicles. 65 �ADR: But there was the other one where when we were fighting with the Mohawks, for example. JJ: What about the Aristocrats? What about that? ADR: The Aristocrats would’ve been the one where we, they would’ve been with Rory. [01:46:00] I mean, Rory comes to mind because something had happened. He had moved by the Ogden area where it was predominantly Italian at that time. Near the, what the Kennedy, in other words, the section that comes into Ohio or Grand Avenue. I forgot from the highway where the guy got killed that night. You got picked up that night. You went to jail that night from that gang fight. JJ: Oh, the Gaylords. ADR: But the guy that got shot with the zip gun. JJ: That was the Gaylords, the Gaylords neighborhood. ADR: I don’t, it was the Gaylords, that’s, I don’t remember the name. I know we had a plan. The plan was after the whole thing had occurred that we went, because it involved the Paragons in that fight. The fight got started with Rory. They had to do something with Rory, and we decided we’re going to have a fight. There had been a meeting already ahead of time [01:47:00] that how the fight was going to be conducted. To avoid distraction one of the tactics we use is that it would be a group of us to cross the highway. In other words, you got the (inaudible), I’m trying to think, the Ohio (inaudible), I might be mistaken on the-JJ: That was Grand, by Grand-- ADR: The ramp that comes in to-JJ: Milwaukee. By Milwaukee. 66 �ADR: Yeah, exactly. But it crosses -JJ: Noble and -- ADR: Right. But that’s when you’re coming in the (inaudible) when you’re going into downtown from the north side, the extension that goes in at this-JJ: Milwaukee Avenue. Milwaukee Avenue. Noble Street, Chicago. ADR: No, I’m talking from the highway. JJ: Chicago Avenue. ADR: When it goes straight into the city, the first street, when it comes into the street, it’s going to be Orleans Street. That ramp. JJ: Oh, Congress. Congress. That’s Congress, (inaudible), right around there. ADR: That’s the one we crossed because it was during that. There’s that trend where Ogden Avenue, [01:48:00] you do have Milwaukee and some of those areas. But in that area in there, we wanted them to think that we were going to be attacking them to this particular area, and we wanted to create the commotion with the police and everything else to draw ’em away from the area because we knew where they were actually at and that’s where they were going to get hit. But (inaudible) in other words, we were going to the group with the whole idea, crossing the highway, causing the commotion to attract the group towards that area. The police, they’re thinking, this is where the fight is going on. We was actually taking ’em away from, we intended to jump or where we were going to have the battle with where we knew that, where they were at. Unfortunately, what ended up happening-JJ: What was the battle about? 67 �ADR: It had to do with Rory. It had to do something that occurred with Rory getting jumped or something that whatever, that okay. JJ: He got jumped and then he came and got some people. ADR: Right. And then it grew into a bigger fight. What the groups that were being involved, that was the kind of fight that-JJ: I was in jail that time, [01:49:00] me and Hector, me and some of the Paragons went to, because that time the Paragons and the Young Lords were fighting together on the same side. ADR: Yeah. Well, most of the fighting involved, some of the-JJ: We were on the same side for that one. ADR: Well, yes, most of the time-- what you’re forgetting is that a lot of those fights are always involved more than one group. They were smaller groups. I mean, you’re talking to the north side. You had the-- momentarily forgetting the Red Rooster. We had another group of a couple of groups that existed in there. And there were other smaller groups that said there was a lot of different groups like your corner street guys. Some of ’em would’ve names, some would not. So sometimes when fights would get started, it would involve in the bigger fights. There were alliances. We acted no different from gang activity than matched the way in the, I would want to say the medieval times where different leaders would [01:50:00] come together, monarchs or dukes or lords. And we had their groups come immersed to find a common enemy or that common enemy making alliances with other groups to fight another group. JJ: So, the clubs, clubs were making alliances all the time. 68 �ADR: Sometimes not all the time, depending on what the interests were and how these fights created. That example is like with the Red Rooster guys. They had a name, I forgot the name momentarily, that was dealt by Mineo, or Sal. Sal was Puerto Rican and you had a Mexican guy, forgot his name. And the funny part about it, the Mexican guy led the Puerto Rican group to hang around the same thing. They were more like motorcycle guys, guess in that style, remember? There were actually two groups within that they hung in the Red Rooster. And the funny part about it was that the Mexican guy was leading the Puerto Ricans and the Puerto Rican was leading the Hillbillies. They hung around together. Many became a younger, but many used [01:51:00] to, when they had that fight, they asked our help. That’s how we got involved in that fight. Because they were fighting the guys further up north from the Belmont area. They had hung a [figini?], is that correct word? [figini?] of a Puerto Rican with a noose on the neck, on a pole. You should remember that because it involved you and another story that you’re not too crazy about. JJ: Tell me about it. ADR: But that particular fight, when we went to help them. JJ: So, they had a Puerto Rican with the noose? ADR: Right, and they hung it by school in front of the, on a pole near-- that school is gone. They knocked it down. It’s where the hospital -JJ: So, it was like a caricature. ADR: It was hanging off of a-JJ: A caricature, somebody like one of those-- 69 �ADR: Claiming this is what we’re going to do to the Puerto Ricans. JJ: Okay. And you hung and it was a noose around the neck. ADR: Right. JJ: Tied to the light pole. Is that what it is? ADR: The light post, right. It was hanging the head hanging [01:52:00] there. JJ: And this was on Berry Street. ADR: Guzmán at that time was hanging around-JJ: Berry Street by-- ADR: Berry, right. Okay, got it. Yeah, you’re correct. Guzmán at that time was always trying to play the-JJ: Between Halsted and Sheffield and Berry. ADR: Correct. And Guzmán always wanted to be trying to be the leader of the Young Lords. We never let him be. JJ: Santos Guzmán. ADR: Guzmán. JJ: Santos Guzmán. That was his name. ADR: What? JJ: Santo Guzmán. ADR: Santos Guzmán. Santos. Santos was heavyset wrestler. Big guy. I had a fight with him. JJ: He came from Philadelphia. He moved to Chicago from Philadelphia. ADR: He moved to-JJ: He was from Philadelphia, but he became a Young Lord. 70 �ADR: Well, we became, during that time, he’s the one that-- he was bullshitting. What I’m saying is, I mean in the aftermath okay. JJ: You didn’t get along. [01:53:00] You and him. That’s what you’re saying. You and him didn’t-- ADR: A problem there. JJ: I got along with him. ADR: Well, the thing was that when we had this thing in it, okay, Mineo, I mean Sal, not Sal Mineo the one we know, okay. Sal came over to us and said, we need some help. And we said, okay, we’re going to help you out. We’ll help you out on the fight. We also got involved the Paragons and the Eagles on this particular fight. JJ: But wasn’t the fight--weren’t they threatening the family? ADR: Well, I’m getting to that. What happened was we went to, oh, that’s at the time we had the white guy that was leading. There was another (inaudible). There were two occasions. We had Miller and we had this other white guy that led the Young Lords. The point is that we go on the vehicle to where they were going to show us where the thing was hanging. The [figini?] of the Puerto [01:54:00] Rican hanging from the post. And we had gone in there to kind of survey, see what we were up against and all that. JJ: Who’s we? ADR: So-JJ: Who is we? ADR: Hmm? JJ: Who went in there? 71 �ADR: The what? JJ: Who is we? ADR: There was six of us. You, Orlando, myself, Guzmán, the white guy, Benny. That would’ve been it. There was like six of us. Six, seven guys went, because we weren’t loaded or anything. We went (inaudible). And so when we got there to Berry Street, we came in from Halsted and we walked because we wanted to go what we could find. And we were prepared for a fight. We had picked up some antennas. We had already broken the antennas and some sticks that we had on our hands as we were walking towards the front, whereas we were going in there to try [01:55:00] to find what we could find. That particular night, we knew that that wasn’t going to be the complete gang fight at that time, but we just wanted to see what we were up against. As we came up on the corner, Santos went ahead of us running, like trying to be the badass. He went around the corner and comes back as quickly, turns around and comes back running and he’s yelling, “The police. The police.” At that point, guys started running. You went up on the fence, started climbing. I didn’t know you were doing that, the link fence. You’re climbing a link fence. The only thing I could do at that moment as it had occurred, I didn’t even have time to run or anything. I dropped my weapon to the side of the curb. And for some instance, instinct, I put my hands in my pockets and kept walking towards making ’em think like-- I don’t, [01:56:00] because I’m thinking what’s going to turn around is going to be the police. So, if they see me there with no weapon or nothing, they’re not going to-- quickly, in my mind, they’re not going to do anything to me. But to my great surprise, turn around and 72 �I see all these fucking (inaudible) with chains in their pants on their hands going around. But good thing I had my hands in my pocket. So, they come by me down there. So, I didn’t even have a chance of running or anything. You’re climbing and they’re pulling you down. JJ: I think they hit me with a brick. They hit me with a brick and a tire iron. ADR: Well, this all happened at the same time. Remember, I’m not watching you. JJ: They hit my back and well, I released my hands and fell down. ADR: But you’re yelling. The one thing I never forget. JJ: I was yelling. ADR: You’re yelling. (laughter) I’m a Polack, I’m a Polack. JJ: No, no, because-- ADR: I’m no goddamn Puerto Rican. I’m Polack. JJ: No, no, because what he said was, [01:57:00] “We’re looking for Puerto Ricans,” and you said, “I’m Mexican.” ADR: Right, I mean, that’s what I’m saying. But I’m hearing you what I’m telling you, like you (inaudible). Well, when he sat in there-JJ: I said, well, I’m a Polack then. And you were laughing. But they didn’t say we we’re looking for Mexicans. Yeah, when I said, when you going there we’re looking for Puerto Ricans, and you said, I’m Mexican. And all I could say was, oh, well. And I saw they didn’t do nothing to you. I said, well I’m Polack. ADR: All I remember is when-JJ: I was not going to tell ’em I’m Puerto Rican and they’re looking for Puerto Rican. ADR: You said you were-- remember that? That I do, I remember. 73 �JJ: So, after that, what happened after that? ADR: Well, the point was, when they come up against me, I said, the thing going on, I know that they’re pulling it from the side of my eye. They were pulling. JJ: They were ready to kick my butt. I’m a Polack. ADR: But anyway, the guy, when he said, when he’s looking says they thought [01:58:00] I was Puerto Rican. I said, “No, I’m fucking, I’m Mexican.” The girl, they had a girl with ’em, or maybe two, I don’t remember, but I know they definitely, and she says, “Speak Spanish.” So, I’m like, (Spanish) [01:58:13], you know, I said something in Spanish and right away she says, “Yeah, he’s Mexican.” She recognized my accent. So, they didn’t know what to do with me. They got you but we were smart enough not to say anything to each other. So, they grabbed you and they grabbed me and they said, okay. We didn’t know where they were taking us, but obviously we were now prisoners. JJ: Right. And they took us underneath the sidewalk. ADR: They went into, there was a building next to the -- and they took us into a basement. They had a German Shepherd in the basement. JJ: That’s where they used to keep the coal at that time, they used to heat the coal for heating. ADR: Well, whatever it was. And they put us in there. And then we knew, we kind of sensed that they were watching us. We never spoke [01:59:00] with each other. You’re sitting there and I ignore you. You were ignoring me. We weren’t saying nothing to each other. And after a while, I don’t know if they must’ve kept us, maybe a half hour, 45 minutes, they come back and they said, “Get the fuck out 74 �of here. Go home, whatever.” We left. And to their surprise, when we had what we called the war meeting, we decided the neutral point was the Benny’s Pizzeria. So, then they said, they agreed that through words had gone back, decide how we were going to conduct a fight that we met at Benny’s Pizzeria. To the surprise of the leader. Because I was like, you were not there. I’m the one had to go in there. And the guy fucking, you didn’t want to go. I went in there and he says, “You motherfucker.” He says, I said, “Too bad motherfuckers, too late.” That I had, when we said that we agreed what weapons we were going to use in the gang fight. JJ: [02:00:00] I thought I was there. I thought I was there. The next day. I was there. The next day I did go, because I remember him saying you-- ADR: And when I said, we talked about what weapons, we basically, it was a free for all. The only thing we said, we didn’t want there not to use any slip gun. JJ: You got to remember that. That was when I was president of the group. ADR: No, you weren’t. Not at that point, you were not, Cha-Cha. You were a war-- like I said, me and you never held, we never wanted the position. We were always the warlords. You and me were the warlords. We were never, we were the warlords. JJ: Right. But later on, I became president. That was-- ADR: That would’ve been the only time you took the, when you became chairman. JJ: No, after (inaudible), I became the president. ADR: Never wanted it. Neither one of us. JJ: No, no. Orlando didn’t want it. I was president, so I was the president. 75 �ADR: I know that none of us wanted the leadership. JJ: When it changed [02:01:00] I was the president. ADR: Look, none of us. JJ: Oh, you were in the service. ADR: Orlando didn’t want it. I didn’t want it. JJ: No, no, no. That’s when you were in the service that-- ADR: I was gone. That might have been true. JJ: Yeah. That’s when you were in the service. ADR: But before I left for the service, you were never-JJ: I was president of the gang when we changed over. ADR: That might’ve been after I was gone. JJ: And then you came afterwards. ADR: Right. But not during the time in there, Orlando, because as I know Orlando didn’t want it. I didn’t want it. JJ: You were angry because by that time, we were against the war and all that other stuff, and you had just come out of the service. So, you were angry. ADR: But that’s when you came, during our gang years, you and me were the warlords. JJ: Yeah, exactly. We were the warlords. Yeah. ADR: Okay. We were the ones that would sit down with the opposing side, and we never, I just used the word with theJJ: At that time, the gangs were like, what’s that story? We would sit and meet and decide how we were going to fight and all that other stuff. 76 �ADR: Basically [02:02:00] that really, when you look back, everything was okay. The only thing, the emphasis was not to use guns. JJ: Right. Right. ADR: I used to be the (inaudible) not to use guns. JJ: Knives were okay. ADR: Right. I mean, it’s a lot different and none of that. But at that time, the deal was not, they were agreeing not to use guns. JJ: Correct. Well, there weren’t that many guns used at that time. ADR: Obviously. Okay. So, the plan was, at that point, after we did the negotiate, not negotiations, that we’d settled on what was going to happen. Then the fight was to be conducted that particular night, and the fight was going to get going. So, we all went back to our areas. What we decided to do as a group, I’m not saying nobody took the lead in there, that we would send a group-- from the house (inaudible) there used to be all Hispanics. That building’s still standing, like a drive-in-JJ: On the corner. That’s where -- [02:03:00] ADR: The corner of Halsted. JJ: That’s where the Aristocrats had gone. ADR: Clark. JJ: Right, right, right. ADR: That corner right here. We met there. We had everybody in there and we told the young kids, the younger ones, you will come down, go down Berry, the same street that street Berry Street, and break all the windshields of all the vehicles. 77 �Go run down there, breaking all the windshields. Right. We then, that was a Mineo-JJ: That was a long street. ADR: Right. And they would run, come running to-- on Sheffield we had group, a couple of vehicles to the side waiting to come down. Is that what we’re trying to do is push ’em. In other words, when they would come down, they would think that we were coming from that area by having them make a commotion, breaking windows, making a commotion, making them think that we were all coming down that street, coming down at them. They would turn, we were trying to push them into Sheffield to go and make them go down on Sheffield. We then would cut [02:04:00] them off by that group as the other group would be waiting. They would be coming up on that, coming from that site, coming up, going north as the point that they got started commotion going (inaudible) would come in. We had another group that would be coming from the north. In other words, we wanted to trap them. Nothing’s ever perfect. The police, obviously, when the windshields were being broken down and everything, within a few minutes you could hear the siren because it is a long block. You’re correct in stating that. So, it didn’t take, no, not too long of a period that you hear the siren. Police knew there was going to be a gang fight. They always tended to know when those things occurred. So, the police is coming, they’re coming into Berry and the Hillbillies, they’re coming down in there. As they get in there, they run into our group from the south, getting the beat shit out of them. They getting completely surprised. They start running back north, but we’re waiting for them up in from 78 �the north end. Also, there was a group of us, so they ran into them, so we had them trapped. But [02:05:00] like I said in the trip now they’re running into the street and everything else. There were a few of ’em that got away. Most of ’em were getting their ass kicked. Remember, gang fight doesn’t last a long time, a few minutes, and it seems like it’s a long time. Those that ran, they ran into Belmont, going east on Belmont, by the L tracks. Back then, remember there were taverns there. They were no longer in system. Now you got department stores and other kinds of places, but then there used to be quite a lot of bars on that area. It was more at one point, a little bit more like a skid row area type. Remember Clark, the way it used to be and all that existed, the builders that existed back in those days, the cigar shops, things like that. The point is that those guys, they ran in there. The one of the leaders, they, the head number leaders ran into. We know because I was one of the guys, we chased him inside one of the taverns and he was looking to try to save his butt. [02:06:00] We beat the shit out of him right in the bar and then nobody stopped us. They knew what was going on. They knew we fight. It’s none of their business, so we beat the crap out of him right in the fucking bar and we walked out. We won the fight. I mean obviously-JJ: It lasted, how long did that fight last? ADR: The fight didn’t last. I mean the running would’ve had been from a 10 to 15minute interval of the whole thing. JJ: But I mean wasn’t there a whole week of fight? Wasn’t there a whole week of grouping together? 79 �ADR: Fighting? There was the scrimmages that led to that particular fight. JJ: Okay, so a whole week there was skirmishes. ADR: That whole week. Yes, there was scrimmages going on. JJ: And that’s when we met and decided let’s just fight it. Right, because the police was starting to get to-- ADR: No, they knew the activity was going on. Yes. Remember a couple of our, not us ourselves, but the people from the Red Rooster had gotten jumped and they had gotten ambushed a couple of times during that week, what you’re referring to that week, you’re [02:07:00] correct. On that particular week, on that particular day that ended, that’s when the fight ended. That particular night, what we did that night. JJ: Okay. I don’t know the Red Rooster, but I know that it had to do with a family that they were harassing that lived in that building too. ADR: The point was that after what we did to them that night and the way we beat the shit out of them and within the few minutes it wasn’t in there. JJ: Sal, you were looking at it from the point of view of one gang fighting another gang. I was looking at it from they attacked the Puerto Rican family. You understand what I’m saying? You were looking at it from different perspective. ADR: Well, I’m looking for the angle that how we conducted our system. You’re right. The tactics we used. JJ: Yeah, you wanted-- ADR: If we didn’t use our tactics, we wouldn’t want the scrimmage would’ve kept on going. 80 �JJ: So, you were [strategician?]. ADR: Exactly, and then the strategy ended when we beat the shit out of them. JJ: You were concerned with just fighting and I mean, I’m thinking I’m also getting politicized. I’m thinking [02:08:00] these people didn’t do anything. This is a race thing. ADR: To me, is that whether they were racist or not, whether they were racist or not. When we beat-- the way we beat the crap out of ’em. Okay. It wasn’t like we were nice to ’em or anything else. I mean we beat the fucking crap out of ’em. A couple of those guys, we didn’t kill anybody, but I’m sure some of them wished they would’ve died that night because they had broken bones, broken arms, broken legs or broken ribs, fucked up faces that we met. We might have scarred people out that night. We were not nice about what we did. I playing quickly in a fight. We didn’t have time in there. Try to think of what it is to you. You’re down on the ground and somebody kicks you in your face or-- we did a lot of damage that night. We really beat the crap out them pretty good. Those guys that got their asses, they got the broken arms. They ended up getting broken arms with broken legs, weren’t about to come back and say, I’m going to be competing, fighting these fucking guys are crazy. [02:09:00] They didn’t want to fight us. Then when I’m talking about the damage that we tended to do in a fight, not nice because nobody-- I’m not glamorizing. That’s my point. JJ: We started small, but we ended up with an alliance of all these different groups. So, we became strong. We were a big group then. ADR: No, we weren’t-- 81 �JJ: No, what I’m saying, we were fighting just one gang. It was called the Aristocrats, but we had a lot of gang. We had the Black Eagles, we had the Flaming Arrows, we had the Paragons, we had the Young Lords. This was Halsted and Dickens altogether, I believe even the Latin Eagles from the town hall district police station. ADR: Latin Eagles weren’t in existence yet at all. JJ: They weren’t. ADR: They were not. Okay. They were not in existence. JJ: So, this was the Paragons, the Black Eagles and all these-- ADR: The major groups were right. It was us, the Black [02:10:00] Eagles, the Paragons. JJ: Even the (inaudible) in the-- ADR: Those were the four groups basically that existed. The Red Rooster guys, ourselves, the Paragons, the Black Eagles. In reality, you can’t count the Flaming Arrows were not into fighting, so some of them did participate. Now, that’s not to say that some of them did not participate in the fight about the imperial laces, but as a group. JJ: The Imperial Aces and Queens, what about them? ADR: The what? JJ: It was the Imperial Aces and Imperial Queens. ADR: Imperial Aces? JJ: Or they were with the Flaming Arrows at that time too. They were on Dayton and Armitage at the Church. 82 �ADR: They were not in terms of fighting, they were not-JJ: Into that. ADR: No. I mean either-- one thing you’re also forgetting that again, that was different. Not that you’re forgetting. [02:11:00] I mean it’s, you’re asking what I’m remembering. One of the other things that we had in our advantage was that we started a game among ourselves when we were in school, and it is just something that started off with no apparent reason, but that it turned out to be very beneficial that during lunch and it started-- one of those things, we used to punch each other, fight and somehow this evolved into two of us. It would be different guys every day that would have to fight the rest of the group, and we agreed that we could not hit our faces. So, every day it was the kind of thing where we could we punch each other, you have to defend or whatever. JJ: It seemed like a game, but anybody played it. ADR: It was a game that we played every [02:12:00] day when we were in grammar school, everybody, you were not, remember, you were not-JJ: Everybody used to practice fighting and stuff like that. ADR: Well, the point, what I’m trying to say out of that particular situation-JJ: No, I wasn’t with you guys, but that was a normal thing that was played all over the place. I played it too. I played it in jail. I played other stuff and a lot of times too, even times later, I was in and out of jail a lot, so that was it. ADR: I’m having a hard time hearing. JJ: I said other time, I wasn’t also around because I was in and out of jail a lot. Also, I was going to jail a lot is what I’m saying. 83 �ADR: Well, at that time, I mean we’re talking, what you had working against you in that time is that you were in a Catholic school and during that time we were talking, we were practicing this. Look, as a fighter, nobody doubted that you couldn’t fight or not. That’s not the point I’m trying to make. I’m talking what was beneficial for the Young Lords as a whole, [02:13:00] that when we had this little game, when we practiced, we got used to getting punched. That was the aftermath that I look back on that and in other words, I can remember, look, I can remember I trick-- I remember tricking Orlando one time, is that when we used to fight each other, whatever, and I said, okay. It’s like, okay, I had enough or come down and he dropped the [scarf?], and I went and do nothing. I got him right on the fucking stomach, I home, but it was fair game and obviously he came back at me, but we never, not at a point that we were pissed-- angry at each other like that. The thing I’m trying to show you is that we got used to getting hit so that when we got into a gang fight, when we were getting hit, it didn’t mean shit to us. We were already doing that on a daily basis. We were training our body to take punches is what I’m trying to tell you. That made us more deadly in a fight. JJ: I see you didn’t like the [02:14:00] Catholic Church people. ADR: Huh? JJ: You didn’t like people from the Catholic Church? I see that. I said you didn’t like people from the Catholic Church, but before I went to the Catholic church, the reason I was in the Catholic Church was because I got kicked out of the public school, Newbury. I was in Newbury and I got kicked out of there basically. Not kicked out, but my mother took me out of there to put me in to calm me down a 84 �little bit. By that time, I had changed my thinking. Then I made up for it when I left eighth grade and that one year I think I was in and out of jail every day, I think. ADR: You always had that bad luck. I mean. JJ: You call it bad luck. You didn’t go to jail, so you call it bad luck. ADR: I don’t know, man. I mean look, you had the unfortunate situation. Look, remember the time there used to be a curfew. We’re forgetting about the curfew. JJ: Okay, tell me. [02:15:00] ADR: And we got picked up and we were done. It was 10:30 and the police saw us on the street, took us in the squad car and they were going to take us home to report it to our parents. What the hell is your kid doing after 10:30? Remember that there used to be an ordinance. JJ: A routine? Yes. ADR: Okay. You, for whatever reason, we didn’t pick you to sit in the middle of the squad. I mean, they had us in the back seat, right? You knew perfectly well we were going to jump out. Orlando tell us that yeah. I live over here going down there on Burling Street and it was instincts we had. JJ: This was a cab. ADR: We knew as soon as that squad car, as soon as that squad car was-- okay, we were going to jump out of the vehicle and we did. Me and Orlando got away. JJ: Well, I jumped out late. I jumped out late. I was in the middle. ADR: You got screwed up and you got caught in the head-JJ: And then kicked my butt because-- 85 �ADR: I know, but there were things like that that would happen. Okay. That night with the fight [02:16:00] with the guy that got shot, you got picked up that night in that gang fight. You went in there, they picked you up. I got away. I mean all, we were always getting away and I don’t want to say whether it was bad luck or whatever it was that you had, but it was like you would always get caught. JJ: I mean, once you start getting arrested, the police know you and they didn’t spike you an amount of weight. We’ve seen this guy before. We know who he is. Let’s go check him out. And that’s usually why. So, once you start going to jail, they already know you. They get to know you. And I was going in and out of jail all that time. I mean like you said, I was sheltered in that Catholic school and now I’m not in Catholic school anymore, and now I want to be the best gang banger. I want to catch up to everybody real quick. Right? I think you’re right. I was trying to catch up real quick to [02:17:00] everybody and that summer I went to jail a lot. ADR: But bringing it back to something you asked me, what happened with going back when we really got out of track with these other things. What happened in Dublin, Georgia, bringing you back to that. They find, as I said, they find our identifications. They find that we’re wanted in Chicago, which time we were going back about the stolen vehicles, whether we actually-- When I got back, that’s what I was told by the police. I don’t know anything about how many vehicles we had stolen or not at that point. Okay, we get picked up in Dublin, Georgia. We get in jail, now that they know who we are, that we are wanted for Grand Larceny from the vehicle of the (inaudible), they put us in a locker. I 86 �admitted, started protesting. I’m saying, “Hey, I’m a minor. You can’t put me in jail,” which kind of pissed the police a little bit. So, for some reason, because we were Catholic, some mentality that plays into here that we would tell the truth. So, I remember being [02:18:00] brought into a room where there was six police that were sitting around and I had to walk right through them and I’m like, “They’re going to beat the fucking crap out of me at this point.” I mean, I’m in the south, I’m from the north. I said, I have a right to an attorney and I’m giving this - I always had that never shut up and when I should shut up and I know my rights. I’m a minor. You can’t do this to me, blah, blah, blah. And so, they said, okay. I want to talk to an attorney. And they had a list with names on it. And so, when I went up in there, they said a phone spread. There was a table and then there was a panel with names of lawyers on top. And as I said, I don’t know how big the town, Dublin, Georgia, I always wanted to visit it. One of things, I want to go back to take a look how the town looks like now. But anyway, when I come in, I’m scared to death because I’m thinking they’re going to beat the shit out of me as I’m going through them, but nothing happens to me. I get to the phone. So, I start to [02:19:00] look up and they kind of noticing that I’m calling the first name on the list or I might have mentioned the name and I’m marking dialing the number, I mean with the dial on it. And one of them says, “You don’t want to call him.” I’m like, “Why not?” He said, “He’s too old or something to that effect.” Then I go to the second name and I started dialing, and then he said something about that guy too. I go further down the line and I’m being sarcastic. Is there anything wrong with this guy? Like saying, is there anything wrong with this guy? 87 �And again, I knew, I realized I’m pissing him off, but I dialed the phone and I tell the guy who I am and that I’m a minor they got me in jail. So, they said, well, now we can go to the, I’m going to go down there and see you, blah, blah, all bullshit. So, they put me back in the cell and man, coffee tasted like shit. They got us in lockup and everything. [02:20:00] But the captain came, he became sympathetic towards us, to me and Jerry. So, he says, here’s what I’m going to do. He says, if you agree, because we were ready to prepare, we were going to fight extradition. Like I said, we weren’t stupid. I mean we were young, but we were neither stupid either. And we did, we have a certain amount of knowledge about the law. So, we figured we can fight extradition. We don’t go back to Illinois or Chicago. So, he came and talked to us. He says, “Look, if you guys agree not to fight extradition, he says, we’re going to have to take you in the morning.” He says, “You’re going to have to go in front of a judge and then you’re going to tell him whether you’re going to fight extradition or not. You have to make a plea.” And he said, but if you agree that you won’t fight extradition, he says, “I’m going to give the, he referred to them as the Northerners.” [02:21:00] He says, “I’m going to give them 24 hours. If they’re not here in 24 hours to pick you up,” he says, “I’m letting you out of jail.” I said, “Okay.” So, me and Jerry said, “Yeah, we’ll do it. We go in front of this judge.” I think it had, I don’t know what it was, whatever the judge, but I remember having to look up at the son of a bitch because he sit in like a pillar or maybe because we were younger or shorter, you had to look it up, that it looked. But we went in front of the judge. We had their attorney, the guy that I called, that they allowed me to call to 88 �represent us and said, “We’re not fighting extradition.” And asked us, is this your own free will, blah, blah, blah. Yes it is. And all this other stuff. So, he says, “Okay.” They took us back to jail and he says, 24 hours. Twenty-four hours. Now we’ve got two days. I recall might’ve been two, three days that we were in jail. And believe me, I hated every bit. I wasn’t eating shit [02:22:00] because that food, it was fucking crap. I see these movies about, man, in the south--bad. And anyway, 24 hours are up, comes in there and says, “Okay guys, you’re free.” So, he brought us up and then he already had asked us, he says, when they wanted to find out, we told, we didn’t know anything about the stolen vehicles. We told them that all we knew is that we told ’em the truth. We were joyriding on the vehicles, to go to the place where we were going. And he says, well, he says, you guys are in deep shit trouble. He says to what you guys done, you guys stole a lot of vehicles. So, we weren’t thinking like wouldn’t need a lot of vehicles. We probably stole about, we sent two, maybe three vehicles a day. We didn’t strip ’em, we didn’t do anything. We just abandoned them. And it was somebody was taking and stripping [02:23:00] them, me and Jerry, we didn’t know then. We didn’t know the whole story because-JJ: That white guy that you were saying he was stripping? ADR: You knew him. I can’t remember the guy’s name, but the skinny guy-JJ: McKinney. McKinney. Tall McKinley or McKinley. ADR: Which what? JJ: McKinley. ADR: Okay. And anyway-- 89 �JJ: He’s the one that snitched on me. That’s what I know. He set me up and then he snitched on me. And Orlando used to tell me, don’t hang around with him. ADR: Well. JJ: But that’s a different story. ADR: So, they knew when we asked him, he says, why do we intended to do? Well, we had told him that we wanted to go to California and me and Jerry really couldn’t make up our minds whether we want to go or Miami. So, he told us, he says, I’m taking you to the bus station. I’m going to put you on a bus. He said, we’re paying for it. So, he says, “If you want to go, want to go to California, I’ll put you in the Greyhound to go to California [02:24:00] or Miami.” Me and Jerry decided, because we were closer to Miami, I wonder what would’ve happened if we decided to go to California. I always wonder about that. Okay. We decided that we were closer to Florida that we would to go to Miami, Florida, and he gave us five bucks a piece. JJ: So how did you get back to-- ADR: The cop-JJ: How did you get back to Chicago from Miami? How did you get back to Chicago? ADR: Okay, how they got back. I plan to tell how that happened. Okay, we get to Miami, all right? We come out of the bus, the buses were air conditioned and we step into that humidity, man. Oh God, man, I never forgot – I hated it. I would never visit Florida for up until years-- it took me about 40, 50 years to visit Florida. And [02:25:00] that hit end and we’re coming out, we had the leather 90 �jackets, we had our leather jackets. We hit this fucking wave of humidity. So, we figured we’d live like we did in Chicago. We could live off the streets. Remember they had here, you used to deliver milk in the houses, the bread. I mean, there was always something to eat. You didn’t have to starve. And so, when we’re in Miami, first thing we did is we stole some clothes. We went to a department store, try and double up the clothes and took out the clothes that had changed it. So, we figured we could go to down the beach, and I don’t know why we had this mentality, we’re going to be able to knock off the coconuts from the trees. JJ: Live off the land. ADR: Yeah, so we didn’t know that Miami was two cities. You got Miami City and then you got Miami. So, the point is that, and the interim in there, we get picked up again by the by the Miami police, but because we’re juveniles [02:26:00] this time, they take us to a juvenile home. And because we’re from Chicago, we were the badasses. So immediately when (inaudible) and all the kids found out that we were from Chicago, we immediately became the boss. Me and Jerry became the boss on the whole floor. Because they were afraid of us. We were supposed to be the badasses. And we were there probably anywhere from a week to two weeks that I can remember. We were in there and we were running things. I mean, all these other guys were scared shitless of us, but they had us, the cells that they had us, had us to the bed. Anyway, we were running things in that juvenile home. And for me, all I know is that we’re sitting down one day. Like I said, it was no more than two weeks. And maybe I was there in that 91 �(inaudible) home or juvenile detention center. [02:27:00] Like I said, about two weeks that I was there, all I know is that I’m sitting down eating and one of the officers comes up to me and says, “You’re coming with me.” I’m like, what the fuck’s going on? And he takes me out of there and he says, “You’re going home.” And there was a detective that was waiting, and the detective basically says that you’re being sent back to Illinois right now. And he said-- I didn’t know that my parents that were told had to pay for the flight. Anyway, the point is that they take me, the detective takes me to the airport, and at that point I’m thinking of escaping. I’m not going to get on the plane. So, I’m trying to figure out how to get out of it. So, when he goes in there, [02:28:00] he walks with me to the, they already had everything waiting for me. The plane ticket, they go in there on it. Now, back then, none of the security points checked-JJ: None. So, they extradited-- they send you back to the jail or they let you go home because you were a juvenile. ADR: As I said, when I was there, they were taking me, I didn’t know what was taking place other than I’m going to be put on a plane to come back to Chicago. Okay. That’s all I know. All right. When I get into the airport, I’m thinking all I want to think. I’m trying to thinking how to escape. So, one of the first things I did when I got in there, I said, “I got to go use the bathroom.” Here I get into the bathroom, try to sneak out whatever needed to get away, not for me to board the plane. So, he said, “Okay, you need to go use the bathroom, go use it.” But he follows me and he goes right inside. I mean, he opened up the door [02:29:00] and like, fucking Jack, what the fuck is wrong with you? I got to take a shit and I don’t give 92 �a shit. He says, take your shit. He says, you’re not getting out of my sight. He said, I know what you’re planning on doing. He says, you’re not going to do it. So, I pretend to take a shit, I didn’t really need to take a shit. I pretended and get up. So, he stays with me the whole time. So, when he takes me up to the plane, he actually went inside the plane. He must have told the stewards what was up and then whatever. And he sits me on the plane. And ironically I’m sitting by the door of the plane and I don’t know what kind of event, but was one where the door was it had the seats and then the door was there. So, there were three seats. It was a young couple, I don’t know, because this is the way it heard. It was a young couple that must have just had gotten married and probably returning back home [02:30:00] from their honeymoon I think what it was. As I sat down, as he’s there standing looking at me and I says, aren’t you afraid that I’m going to be jumping out of the plane? The door was right there and he says, “Kid,” says, “you’re not going to do this. There’s no fucking parachutes on this plane,” which is making a joke out of it, right? So, I get on sit. There was not for me to do. I mean, plane takes off and all I could think about is I’m going to get my ass kicked when I get back home. I was worried about that. I was kind of quiet. The whole thing. The girl she had, like I said, she was very young, the early twenties, very, very young. Might have been like 21, 20. And I guess my face was showing that I was kind of in there and she’s trying to feed me. Because back them the flights were longer. They used to serve food and I don’t want [02:31:00] to, I mean to me the least thing. I didn’t want to eat and she’s trying to get me to eat and this and that, and acting motherly I guess. And I really 93 �didn’t want-- give a shit about that. But I’m just waiting until I get home. So, I finally get home. To my surprise, my father and my mother are waiting for me. So, then my mom already had a talk with my father. You’re not going to do anything to him. You’re not going to touch him. I know my father wanted to beat the fucking crap out of me. So took me to the side and said, “We know what happened.” And he said, “We’re going to go home right now.” And he says, “Going to have to go down, we’re going to have to go down to the police station.” I said, “Okay.” Well, we got home, my father didn’t say anything to me. I mean, other than giving me a dirty look. But he didn’t touch me. He didn’t do anything to me. So, we come home and we go down to the police station. [02:32:00] At that point, we were living on this block. JJ: [Lake View?], you were living in [Lake View?]. ADR: Yeah, no, I take that back. We’re still living in Fremont. (inaudible) We went down to the police station down here. I’m thinking, because the police station I came down was the one that was the detective on the north side. JJ: Summerdale? ADR: That was down here off of Lincoln Avenue, just north of Edison Street, (inaudible). JJ: Town Hall, Town Hall. ADR: Town Hall, right. So, I went in there, that’s when the cop tells me, “We know that you were in big blah, blah, blah. Everybody’s admitted it.” He says, “All you have to do is that you were riding on the vehicles, on the vehicles.” I said, “No.” I said, “I never did anything.” And I started arguing [02:33:00] with the cop. The 94 �cop insisted saying, look, you says, dude, we know that you guys stole this amount of vehicles. That number sticks in my mind, like I said, 300. And then he started lowering the number, like saying, “Okay, can you admit that you on 50 vehicles in numbers?” And I still said, “No, I’m not admitting to shit. I didn’t do anything.” I kept arguing with him. He was getting pissed off at me. So, he finally got to the point where he said, look, I mean, the conversation wasn’t that kind of long because my whole point was I’m not going to admit to anything. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t joy ride on anything. I didn’t steal nothing. And he said, “Everybody else has admitted.” He says, “You’re the only one right now that’s not admitted.” I said, “I don’t give a shit, but anybody, I’m not going to admit to anything. I didn’t do anything.” But finally, actually, he was pleading with me. He said, “Look, just admit that you were in one vehicle.” I said, “No, I’m not going to admit to fucking shit.” And so, he got fucking pissed off. So, he realized, he said, “You’re going to Audy Home tonight.” He said, “If you don’t admit to one vehicle, we’re going to lock [02:34:00] you up in Audy Home.” I said, “I don’t care.” I said, “I’m not admitting to anything.” Well, my mother started crying and I said, “Mom,” I says, “I’m not going to admit to anything. I didn’t do anything.” So, they said he’s going in. They took me to Audy Home that night and when I got to Audy Home, knowing how our system works, remember? Audy Home here in Chicago. We got all the Blacks, the other badasses and everything else. So, this came back to haunt me. I go in and first thing I did is try to find, because it was at nighttime, biggest guy I could find. That was when we were in the process in there. It was this guy, bigger than all of us 95 �in that group in there. And I bumped into him on purpose to start a fight. So, he didn’t realize what, as I bump into [02:35:00] him, he turns around and says something to me, and man, I just let out as quickly as I could. I hit him as hard as I could on the face, on the jaw. JJ: In the Audy Home? In the Audy Home. ADR: Inside the Audy Home. JJ: So, you’re fighting inside. ADR: And then I kicked him on the balls as hard as I could, and then I jumped him and obviously the other guards and everybody come in rushing pulling me out, which did exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted them to think I was fucking crazy. So, the next day, nobody wanted to fuck with me because this fucking crazy motherfucker, granted one of the biggest guys that I took him down, the word got out, don’t fuck this fucking Mexican’s crazy. I knew what I wanted, exactly what I wanted, I wanted be left alone. I don’t know how many days I spent in Audy Home but again, my mother got me out and went back and they got me out. So bottom line was when we went, you, I don’t know what happened. [02:36:00] I know that Orlando, we had different court dates or what have you. Eventually, because I never admitted to nothing they assigned a social worker to me, but actually I was never convicted or never charged with anything because I finally, finally (inaudible) justice. Well, the campaign, they had to drop the charges against me. I wasn’t admitting to anything. So out of the group, I’m the only one that never got a record for that because I mean, I’m sure they got into the 96 �participated, but I never got convicted. I don’t know what they did to you or what -- what happened to you on that, Cha-Cha? What happened to you? JJ: What do you mean? ADR: From the charges? From the car? JJ: From this car, from the charges of the car. ADR: Right. What happened? JJ: I don’t-- ADR: You were charged with the auto theft from those vehicles, were you not? JJ: I eventually ended up getting deported to Puerto Rico. [02:37:00] I mean, they put me on a plane in handcuffs and sent me to Puerto Rico, and they tried to charge me with burglaries, with car thefts, with all kinds of stuff. That guy McKinney that I’m telling you about, I did the first burglary with him and I started hanging around with him and he was using me to go inside the window. Again, I was a juvenile, and so actually I was taking the risk because I could have got shot going into the window. And so, I went in there and he was already an expert. I mean, he went, got a pillowcase and started putting jewelry in the pillowcase and all that stuff. The only thing I wanted was a toaster because we needed a toaster at the house. I always wanted to have me some bread, toasted bread. And so that’s the only thing that I took [02:38:00] (inaudible) and another buddy of his, they got all the jewelry, the TVs, the money they found, the cash, whatever. Anyway, all I know is that night, around two or three o’clock in the morning, they knock at my door and my mother lets them in and they come into 97 �the bedroom where I’m at and I get handcuffed when I wake up. I’m handcuffed there. ADR: You got sent to Audy Home, didn’t you up in Saint Charles? JJ: I went to Audy Home about five or six times. ADR: But you went up to Saint Charles? JJ: I also went to Saint Charles and they were going to put me in a juvenile penitentiary. ADR: I remember, hold on, step in there because I remember me and Orlando went to Saint Charles to try to break you out. JJ: Exactly. And remember that too. Yeah. We already had a plan to get me out of jail. You guys were going to break me out. I mean, I remember that. Remember, I’m glad it didn’t take place because I would’ve [02:39:00] been still in jail. But what happened is they were going to send me to Sheridan, which was the juvenile penitentiary, until I was 21 and I was only 14 going on 15. And instead, my mother got her pennies together and got me a lawyer. The lawyer stole the money and the lawyer plea bargained me to go to Puerto Rico until I was 21 instead of going to the penitentiary. And he figured that he did me a favor. So, I got put on the plane. I got taken right out of Audy Home, and I drove in a paddy wagon to the airport and my parents drove behind us and we talked at the airport and right at the gate, as we’re going into the plane, that’s when they took the handcuffs off. And then I got met by my uncle in Puerto Rico, and I stayed there for about a year, a year and a half until my father came to pick me up. So, I didn’t stay until I was 21. And while I was there, I got into [02:40:00] a 98 �little trouble, but I never went to jail. But here I was going in and out of jail every other day, at least once a week. So, basically that’s what happened. I know that they charged me with car theft and stuff like that too, but we also-ADR: I didn’t-JJ: We were trying to go to California with some stolen cars. That’s what we, and we got busted about five Young Lords, about three, or four. ADR: I mean that later on-JJ: What other gang fights? ADR: What? JJ: Any other gang fights that you remember? What about the beach, North Avenue Beach? ADR: There were a lot. We used to fight on a daily basis. JJ: You’re looking at it just a gang fight. And I’m looking at it as a gang fight, but I’m looking at it as a racial thing. When we went to the beach, remember North Avenue Beach in (inaudible)? ADR: That was the last day. That was one of the biggest, that’s when I got [02:41:00] my lip cut. That was the, which I actually had to go with my mother work in the hospital, Henrotin Hospital. JJ: What happened there? ADR: Okay, that was the day when always, there used to be a tradition to everybody would fight each other on the last day of school before summer. And we had, as everybody got out of school, there were fights. We all were going down towards the beach and there were all fights going on. I mean, obviously if the whites saw 99 �a Hispanic they would jump Hispanic or vice versa. I mean that were like, groups are going out. We went up to North Avenue. You were with me. I believe that that was when me and you, we were lagging behind the rest of the group. And it was a white kid that had going in back of us as I recall and he said something after we all had passed. But because me and you were the lag [02:42:00] ones, we turned around and he had made the challenge. At that point, we weren’t aware that there was another group of white guys coming. So, that’s the reason he had gotten both because he had seen the group coming--we hadn’t seen the group. So, as we walked towards him, then we ended up seeing the whole group. So, as a stand, we both stood, we got ourselves, I think what we did is we got ourselves against the wall so that nobody could jump us through the back. And we started fighting with them and we stood our ground in there. I know I got hit. The reason I got my lip cut was because I got, the guy that hit me had a ring and we were getting anything, but we were fighting them in there. And the cut most of been some places you bleed a lot. Not that you got a bad cut, but they in certain places of the face. But anyway, that’s when they had, what they did that day is that they took me to [02:43:00] the hospital, the Henrotin Hospital where my mother worked, where they had to stitch me up and my mother found out that what had happened on the fight. Then they took us to, you and myself, we were taken to jail, 18th Street, and I got out with your mom or somebody came from your family to get you out. I don’t think it was your mother. JJ: My father. My father. ADR: Huh? 100 �JJ: My father. ADR: And we both got out at the same-- they let us out at the same time that we got out. That was the fight on there. But the point of that particular fight, as many guys as we took, two of us against the whole group, they couldn’t do shit. JJ: But my point, what I was trying to say was that at that point, Latinos couldn’t go to North Avenue Beach. ADR: The what now? JJ: The Latinos -- Hispanic -- could not go to North [02:44:00] Avenue Beach. It was a white beach. Do you recall that? It was a beach, North Avenue Beach was for the Italians and the Irish. (inaudible) ADR: Well, I mean the police used to favor the whites and now the fighting, that was the whole thing. I mean, what you’re saying, you’re correct. Maybe perhaps we were kind of used about that. You’re correct in that they should have arrested the point that they only arrested us. They didn’t arrest the whites. Okay. Obviously it was a mutual event and it should have been. JJ: But they didn’t want us at the beach. The whites didn’t want us at the beach. Is that incorrect or no? ADR: The what now? JJ: That beach was mainly white. They didn’t want Spanish people there. North Avenue Beach at that time, or am I incorrect? ADR: Not that you’re incorrect. I think that what I recall [02:45:00] from that, for me it was that it was a standard thing that the last day of school there was always going to be a fight. What I do see is the difference of how the police conducted 101 �themselves at that time. So, the prejudice came from the police, not so much the whites, meaning the guys who were fighting. Point was that they should have been, my point in there is that they should have arrested them as much as us because it wasn’t a one-sided kind of situation. Okay, so where you’re seeing the whites that we were fighting as part of the system, you’re not really looking at the authority of how they should have conducted themselves in that particular situation. In other words, they were taking sides. Had we been white and it had the same situation, it would’ve been a total, like who started it or that kind. There was no [02:46:00] question. I mean, me and you, we were busted. They were not. So that thing, I’m not disagreeing with you. I’m just seeing it a little bit differently. JJ: From a different point of view. ADR: From a different point of view, and then most of the gang fighting, that’s what took place until they started hiring more Hispanics. That has changed over the years, but a lot, there were quite a few other gang fights and the big ones, there were so many of them. You’re talking about the one by the Rush Street. I mean, you’re talking about a gang fight when we fought on the streets on Rush Street. Old Town, I don’t mean how many times we had fights in Old Town -- gang fights, [02:47:00] confrontations on the streets specifically. I mean, when I mentioned Rush Street, I remember the commotions that we used to cause sometimes, and then when we used to get into fights with the whites. The repeated fights sometimes with people we made peace and then we ended up fighting again for any number of reasons. The fights that were sometimes we 102 �started learning that some of our own guys that had become Young Lords would start fights to make themselves look good, and then we would end up having to fight fights that we started learning from that experience that we would not take our own members word when they would talk about a fight. That’s where we started making any new member-- that led us, I don’t know how long it took us to do this, but [02:48:00] in the later years when we started learning that guys would start fights for no reason to make themselves look good and that kind of stuff, we started requiring all new members that would have to go to Benny’s Pizzeria. Romas, not Benny’s, Romas Pizzeria and fight the group by their own. Remember that? JJ: I remember that. ADR: Romas knew us. I mean, they knew who we were and all that other stuff we used to -- when the guy said, I want to be a Young Lords, well, you got to go out there and you got to fight these guys and see, we got to know how you take-how good of a fighter you are or whatever. So those guys that would go in there, Romas got a hold of what we were doing because later that they said, “Well, that fucking guy can’t take shit.” Or because we used to send ’em and they knew what was coming that time. Soon as Hispanic coming in got a new inductee for the initiation. Yeah, remember that? [02:49:00] And it is kind of funny to look back. I wasn’t like those guys, but we used to do that because, but when we did that because we wanted to know if the guy was -- had it in him or not, because we were tired. We were-- 103 �JJ: So how long was this gang fights then? I mean how many years did this proceed from? Because the Young Lords started around what time? Around what year? ADR: Would’ve been roughly close to five years. JJ: Okay. Close to five years that those gang fightings were going on. So, from what year did the gang start, from your recollection? What year did the Young Lords start? ADR: It’s kind of hard for me to pinpoint a bit because I won’t have to say that in the number of years, more likely the years of fighting would’ve been four, but no more than five. I mean, [02:50:00] we don’t have a round table. I think we got started around 1960, 1961. I’m not sure about the 1961-JJ: Around 1961. Okay. ADR: The period. But it would’ve have been around after 1960. After 1960, that we got started. JJ: And then the gang fighting was four or five years going on. ADR: I’m saying for me, the gang fighting years lasted longer. I’m out of the picture by 1965, at the end of 1965. That’s why I’m saying close to five years because I left in November. JJ: Of 1965 to the service? ADR: When I went into the service. JJ: It was November of 1965. ADR: Right. In 1965, November of 1965. That’s why I’m saying when we’re asking that question about number of years fighting, the fighting continued obviously after I was gone, but I was no longer part of that because I was in the service. And the 104 �reason I decided it was part of it was some of the things that at that point, it was already current with us as [02:51:00] a Young Lords, but Orlando, Fermin, Benny, you were completely out of the list immediately. We said we were going to go into the service together because we were tired of the bullshit that was around us, and we had decided that we were going to go to the service and you were the first one that I can remember in my recollection, I don’t know whether that’s correct or not. My recollection is that your mother, immediately when I found out you were gone and said, “No, you’re not going into that. You were not going to go.” JJ: I didn’t get accepted. ADR: Huh? JJ: I didn’t get accepted because I had children and I had a record. That’s the reasoning. ADR: You didn’t have children back then. JJ: I actually volunteered. I think we marched together to the recruiting station that was on Lincoln Avenue and I was saying, “Let’s go march together.” I was persuading everybody to go march and everybody got accepted except me [02:52:00] and I had persuaded everybody. ADR: Right. Maybe you’re right about that. I’m not going to then, okay, you might be right. Okay. Then Fermin was second. I know that. JJ: Fermin was there. Okay. Who was there? ADR: Fermin was-- his mother got freaked out. JJ: We was march— 105 �ADR: Fermin’s mother freaked out about him going to the service. Benny, because he was close to Fermin, then dropped out. Then Orlando dropped out and I was the one that was left and I said, “Fuck it. I’m not backing out.” And I decided to go in. Okay, so out of the group, I’m the one that-JJ: So, you were going from 1965 to when? ADR: To 1968. JJ: To 1968 to-- because that’s when we started here. That’s when it turned political in 1968. ADR: Right when [02:53:00] we come back, you’re talking a whole different thing that had taken place. Ralph was the one that started getting political. When I came back-JJ: Okay, let’s hold it right there. END OF VIDEO FILE 106 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/eb0fbf63b71f6e879499cc73be870422.mp4 746487830d8f11961549600761b6eb6f Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives. The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng spa Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 2012-2017 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Título Spanish language Title entry Angel “Sal” del Rivero vídeo entrevista y biografía, entrevista 1 Sujetos Spanish language Subject terms Young Lords (Organización) Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Mexicano-Americanos--Relatos personales Justicia social Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago Mexicano-Americanos--Illinois--Chicago--Vida social y costumbres Veteranos--Relatos personales Pandillas--Illinois--Chicago Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65_Rivero_Angel_del_1 Title A name given to the resource Angel “Sal” del Rivero video interview and transcript, interview 1 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rivero, Angel del Description An account of the resource Angel “Sal” del Rivero was born in Mexico. In the late 1950s and early 1960s he lived in Lincoln Park on Dayton Street. Later his family moved to the Lakeview Neighborhood near Wrigley Field. Mr. Rivero became one of the original members of the Young Lords in 1959. While the Young Lords were transforming themselves into a human rights movement, Mr. Rivero was serving in the U.S. military. When he came out most Young Lords were opposed to the Vietnam War, although many Young Lords also served on the front lines in that war. Mr. Rivero at first resented those who opposed the war. But after Young Lord Manuel Ramos was killed by an off duty policeman, the entire Young Lords group reunited themselves for human rights. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Mexican Americans--Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Mexican Americans--Illinois--Chicago--Social life and customs Veterans--Personal narratives Gangs--Illinois--Chicago Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-07-11 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c1295b70122642973f9f24fa29d3b38a.pdf ff11d5aff141760754660da714e86d16 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: William Quiles Rivera Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 5/16/2012 Biography and Description English William Quiles is the brother-in-law of José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez and has been married to Juana “Jenny” Jiménez for over 40 years. They live in Camuy, Puerto Rico where they are surrounded by Mr. Quiles’s many brothers and sisters. Prior to moving to Camuy, Mr. Quiles and Ms. Jiménez met in Aurora, Illinois where they lived for many years, raising their four children, Margie, Joey, Danny, and Sandy. Mr. Quiles has long been active in local softball teams and bowling leagues and worked in the factories. He is well know and respected in both the Aurora and Camuy communities. In Puerto Rico, Mr. Quiles works in construction and built his own cement home. For many years he also worked on the cattle farm of a close friend. Several of his brothers have been active with the Puerto Rican Independence Party. Spanish William Quiles es el cuñado de José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez y ha estado casado con Juana “Jenny” Jiménez por más que 40 años. Viven en Camuy, Puerto Rico donde están rodeados con la familia de Quiles. Antes de vivir en Camuy, Señor Quiles y Señora Jiménez se conocieron en Aurora, Illinois donde vivieron por muchos años y criaron a sus hijos, Margie, Joey, Danny y Sandy. Señor Quiles ha sido parte de los juegos de softbol y boliche, y trabaja en una fábrica. Es buen conocido y respectado en la comunidad de Aurora �y Camuy. En Puerto Rico, Señor Quiles trabaja en construcción y construyo su propia casa de cemento. Por muchos años también trabajo en una granja de vacas con un amigo. Unos de sus hermanos han sido activos en el Partido independista Puertorriqueño. � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/66c2a3c239231d41113522c94af80601.mp4 28735972964e34699cd511e2e69f95b3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives. The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng spa Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 2012-2017 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Título Spanish language Title entry William Quiles vídeo entrevista y biografía Descripción Spanish language Description entry William Quiles es el cuñado de José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez y ha estado casado con Juana “Jenny” Jiménez por más que 40 años. Viven en Camuy, Puerto Rico donde están rodeados con la familia de Quiles. Antes de vivir en Camuy, Señor Quiles y Señora Jiménez se conocieron en Aurora, Illinois donde vivieron por muchos años y criaron a sus hijos, Margie, Joey, Danny y Sandy. Señor Quiles ha sido parte de los juegos de softbol y boliche, y trabaja en una fábrica. Es buen conocido y respectado en la comunidad de Aurora y Camuy. En Puerto Rico, Señor Quiles trabaja en construcción y construyo su propia casa de cemento. Por muchos años también trabajo en una granja de vacas con un amigo. Unos de sus hermanos han sido activos en el Partido independista Puertorriqueño. Sujetos Spanish language Subject terms Young Lords (Organización) Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puertorriqueños--Relatos personales Justicia social Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65_Rivera_William Title A name given to the resource William Quiles video interview and biography Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Quiles, William Description An account of the resource William Quiles is the brother-in-law of José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez and has been married to Juana “Jenny” Jiménez for over 40 years. They live in Camuy, Puerto Rico where they are surrounded by Mr. Quiles’s many brothers and sisters. Prior to moving to Camuy, Mr. Quiles and Ms. Jiménez met in Aurora, Illinois where they lived for many years, raising their four children, Margie, Joey, Danny, and Sandy. Mr. Quiles has long been active in local softball teams and bowling leagues and worked in the factories. He is well know and respected in both the Aurora and Camuy communities. In Puerto Rico, Mr. Quiles works in construction and built his own cement home. For many years he also worked on the cattle farm of a close friend. Several of his brothers have been active with the Puerto Rican Independence Party. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puerto Ricans--Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Language A language of the resource spa Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-05-16 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/af74de5c30671affcb16f5b1666858bc.pdf f438cfde2925327d9c1843a529989a94 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Modesto Rivera Interviewers: Jose “Cha Cha” Jimenez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 2/7/2012 Biography and Description English Modesto Rivera is a Young Lord raised in the La Clark neighborhood, Lincoln Park, and with the Hillbillies of Chicago’s Uptown. His father and uncle, Mario Rivera, were among the first Puerto Rican business owners in the city, operating a grocery store at 733 North Clark Street and advertising on the local, Mexican radio station. In this interview, Mr. Rivera recalls how his uncle was especially well-known because he would give credit on a trust basis to Puerto Rican families, who treated him like the mayor. His uncle did not like Mayor Daley because “every time he would settle down, the neighborhood was forced to move and he was forced to move as well.” Mr. Rivera is a strong community organizer and door-to-door precinct worker. He has worked in many political campaigns, including the Jiménez for Alderman Campaign (1973-1975), Helen Schiller’s Aldermanic Campaign, and the Harold Washington Campaign. During the Washington Campaign, Mr. Rivera worked alongside David Mojica and José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and participated in organizing the first Latino rally held by the Young Lords, in support of electing the first African American mayor in Chicago’s history. Mr. Rivera also worked for the City of Chicago and continues to be active in his community. �Spanish Modesto Rivera es un Young Lord que creció en el vecindario de La Clark en Lincoln Park con los Hillbillies de Chicagos Uptown. Su Padre y tío, Mario Rivera, fueron unos de los primeros Puertorriqueños que era dueño de su propio negocio. Su mercado estaba en 733 North Clark Street y tenia anuncios en la estación mexicana del radio. Durante este entrevista Señor Rivera hable sobre su tío quien fue conocido porque daba crédito en el base de confianza de la familias Puertorriqueñas, quien a cambio lo trataban como alcalde. No le gustaba al Alcalde Daley a su tío porque “cada vez que él se mudaba el vecindario tenia que moverse y él también se tenía que mover.” Señor Rivera es un dedicado organizador para la comunidad y camina de puerta a puerta como trabajador de recinto. El trabajo en muchas campañas políticas, incluyendo la de Jiménez para Alderman (1973-1975), la de Helen Schiller Alderman, y la campaña para Harold Washington. Durante la campaña de Washington, Señor Rivera trabajo con David Mojica y Jose “Cha-Cha” Jimenez y tomo parte en organizar la primer concentración de Latinos por los Young Lords, en apoyo de elegir el primer alcalde Afro-Americano en Chicago. Señor Rivera también trabajo por la Cuidad de Chicago y continua trabajando como activista en su comunidad. �Transcript [00:00:00 - 00:01:00] (off-topic conversation; not transcribed) JOSE JIMENEZ: Go ahead and tell me when you were born. MODESTO RIVERA: My name is Modesto Rivera. I was born May 17, 1954 in Henrotin Hospital on LaSalle and Oak, which is part of the Chicago and Clark Avenue neighborhood, Chicago, La Clark. JJ: Okay. When you said it was Chicago, La Clark neighborhood, what do you mean? MR: Well, that’s one of the first Puerto Rican communities in Chicago. And -- JJ: So, where were you living then? And you were born -- MR: On my birth certificate -- my birth certificate says 118 West Chicago, which is actually the address of a restaurant that my father owned, the Vencedor, which he actually bought from his brother that went around -- he went around the corner [00:02:00] and opened up The Newberry Grocery Store at 850 North Clark, next to the Newberry Theater, which was across the street. But we called it Bughouse Square, which is actually Washington Square Park. One of the oldest, if not the oldest city park in the city, is Washington Square Park, Bughouse Square. And then down the street at 733 North Clark, my uncle Mario owned a store called Spanish American Store, and that was the most popular one because he actually was there a little longer and he had some good advertising. And the Vencedor was actually across the street, the Chicago Avenue Police Station, 119 West Chicago. And we used to get a lot of 1 �customers that were police officers. And I believe the Vencedor [00:03:00] was actually one of the original liquor license that was given to a Puerto Rican. My uncle got that license, Ramon Monchito Rivera. JJ: And what was that area like? I mean, what do you recall -- MR: I was a baby. But knowing from my parents’ conversation, it was mixed. It was mixed. It was Puerto Rican, Irish. And I just remember that it was one of the first communities. So, I was very young, but I remember them talking about this until I was in my forties, fifties. They would talk about the Vencedor on Chicago Avenue, not the one on Division, because that was actually -- the waitress that worked for my father, Maria and her husband Miguel, they [00:04:00] bought the restaurant and they took it to Humboldt Park, which is now called La Borinqueña. That was the spot where the Vencedor -- and that’s what I know from that part because Henrotin Hospital was -- I don’t know if you’d call it trauma center at the time, but had a lot of actions on weekends, a lot of stabbings and a lot of shootings, Henrotin. It was definitely a drama hospital. JJ: Okay. You were born there, but I mean, were you also from La Clark, that community, or what community were you at? MR: Well, I was there as a child, only my first four years of my life. Eventually, we went to Uptown. [00:05:00] My father moved us up to Uptown 1959. And what happened was that -- the Vencedor was actually building violators, came and actually closed it out. So, it was just a process of getting rid of us. We were just in their way. And opening a business in that time without any political representation, without the banks, financial -- the banks would never lend us 2 �money. So Puerto Ricans had hard times keeping businesses. You had the city quoting you to death, and you had the banks not lending you any money. So, you was always a target for urban renewal displacement, and you had to move constantly. That’s what -- I remembered my dad [00:06:00] telling me, “Every time, Mayor Daley says urban renewal, I got to pack up not only my suitcases to move my family, but I got to reinvest my business.” And that’s not only him, but all his brothers were in the businesses. I think every brother and a couple nephews owned businesses in every section that had a Puerto Rican community at one time. JJ: For example, what -- MR: An example was, my cousin Hector Torres owned the Barranquitas Food Mart on 63rd in Stony Island. One of the original -- also another Puerto Rican community that goes way back. My cousin Johnny Torres and the other Torres, Teddy Torres, they had Johnny Food Mart in Lakeview on Sheffield and Oakdale. My uncle, [00:07:00] Ramon Monchito had the Newberry Grocery Store through the whole ’60s. Uncle Mario, he had the biggest. He had the Campo Food Mart. He had first Spanish American on 733 North Clark on Chicago, La Clark. Then he had the Campo Food Mart on Halsted and Willow from the early ’60s to probably mid ’60s, ’67, ’68. Then he had another one, Mario’s, on Armitage and Sheffield during the ’60s and ’70s. He had another one on Fremont and Armitage, that was in mid ’70s. And my father, he settled in Uptown. He had stores from 1959 to 1971, and a restaurant. JJ: And how [00:08:00] did he run the businesses? I mean, what do you remember 3 �of, say the store at the Campo Foods or in Halsted and Willow? MR: Well, when I used to go visit my uncle in Halsted and Willow, he had one of the biggest. He had the biggest, and he had the most popular one because there was a very heavy community up there in Halsted and Armitage, Halsted and Willow, Sheffield. And I just remember going there and everybody that was Puerto Rican, non-Puerto Rican, they would shop at my uncle’s store, Marianos. And he had three of them in that area, just in that short area. Not all in the same time, but the one on Halsted and Armitage definitely had the longest. And I remember that the Young Lords’ parents [00:09:00] used to go shop in my uncle’s store. And to this day, I go to block parties throughout the city, especially with my father and my neighborhood, I have families, young people or people come up and say, “If it wasn’t for your father and your uncles --” because don’t forget, they had businesses in every part where there was the Puerto Rican community. A lot of us were in need. So Mario would give you credit. A lot of the Young Lords’ families were getting credit from my uncles and my father in Uptown, my cousins in Lakeview, Hector in 63rd in Stony Island, and Monchito Ramon in Newberry Grocery Store, where he stayed all the way through ’67. JJ: Okay. So you got credit. What else was going on? MR: Oh, you got credit, la bodega. [00:10:00] First of all, they were community leaders. They were highly respected from the community, because a lot of people depended on these grocery stores for credit. A lot of the single men would get their mails there. It was a source of information. Some of the stores were named after the towns they’re from. Like Lares Food Mart. My cousin, 4 �Barranquitas Food Mart -- matter of fact, my father’s family is Rivera, and they all come from Barranquitas, the home of the first Puerto Rican governor, Muñoz Rivera and his son, Muñoz Marín. JJ: Were they related at all, or? MR: Well, the whole town’s Rivera. JJ: The whole town’s Rivera? MR: So, you know, when you go to that cemetery, [00:11:00] all you see is Rivera Colon. And that was my father, Modesto Rivera Colon. So, whether they were related in one side of the mountain, maybe not on the other side, or they were all related. JJ: Okay. So you said you moved to Uptown. Where did you live in Uptown? And when did that happen? MR: In 1959, we lived in a hotel on Winthrop Avenue while my father first started his business on 1114 West Leland. Now, at that time, there was no banks that would finance us. So, he was able to get 8,000 dollars from Frank Chase Cardeno which was actually the milkman, one of the milk distributors on the North Side. And that’s how most of the Puerto Rican bodegas would come up. They were backed up by the milk companies. And he opened the store in 1959, [00:12:00] and he specialized in Caribbean and American food. And we had a kitchen. The kitchen was very important because we would -- you know, you ever go to a pizzeria and see the pizza ovens, they make pizzas, the commercial pizza? Well, we made roast pork out of these big commercial ovens. In Uptown, Puerto Rican community was not like Armitage. It had pockets. You might have 5 �one block Puerto Ricans on Leland and Winthrop, another block on Argyle, another block on Montrose and Hazel. Then they had Sheridan and Irving Park. But they would all go to my father’s store because it was the only store that was specialized in that, in Uptown. [00:13:00] And my father’s family, Lo Rivera, they had a big impact in the Puerto Rican community because each community was represented by one of their businesses, and they became not only business people, but they became leaders. They would sponsor -- you came from the island, you didn’t have an apartment, they would go talk to the landlord and say, “They just came in. I give you my word, they’re good tenants. They’ll be good tenants, and they’ll pay the rent.” And this is one of the things that they would do because they knew more Puerto Ricans in the community, of course, would be more business. And it was always a good relationship to be that way, to make it as -- to help the new guys come from the island. [00:14:00] JJ: Okay. And where did you go to school? And when you were in (inaudible)? MR: Well, I got to tell you something, though. Owning these stores did give us a little vantage than most of the neighborhoods. So, we all went to Catholic schools. Most of my cousins went to Catholic schools. I went to St. Thomas of Canterbury on Lawrence and Kenmore, just about a block away from the Aragon Ballroom. And went there for eight years. And to my other cousins, Raymond, they went to St. Alphonso’s, we had people go to St. Teresa’s, we had -- just can’t remember all of them. But most of the cousins would go to Catholic schools. JJ: Okay. I guess going back a little bit, [00:15:00] because you had mentioned to me about the displacement and the Carl Sandburg Village area, and that you 6 �lived also on Clark in Chicago and that. Do you recall that? I mean, what -MR: Well, I recall when I was four years old. Probably it was the last years that we had the Vencedor. We lived right behind North Avenue and LaSalle. There was a gas station right off Lake Shore Drive. And man, I just remember living there. Oh, we no longer had the Vencedor. My parents worked in a restaurant in Old Town. My mother was a cook, and my father was the cook and a waiter. I was only about four or five years old, but I remember that time. And going to Uptown, is where I actually believe my memory with that, because I think [00:16:00] that’s where we settled for the next 13 years. And Uptown was a strange one. It was mixed. It was a mix of Blacks. We had small Black community right across the street of the store that’s been Black for about 100 years, I mean, since the turn of the century. But that was the only block they had. This was before the Civil Rights Movement. We had Puerto Ricans that came, and we had Appalachian whites where I actually grew up with a lot of the children from coal miners that were displaced during the Depression and after the war, when the coal mines closed down. And we had an American Indian population. We had the largest American Indian population outside the reservation due to another government program [00:17:00] trying to -- during the ’50s and ’60s, the government would place Indians from the reservation to urban life to see if they could live the urban life outside the reservation. So we had a 12-square block area, 8 to 12-square block area of Blacks, Appalachian white, Puerto Ricans, and American Indians. And it was a very poor, poor neighborhood. And to me, I think every one of them had their -- it seems like everybody was sponsored by -- I know the Puerto Rican 7 �through to the Operation Bootstrap that was going on in the island. The Indians, through the displacement of the -- bringing them from the reservation to urban life, the Appalachian whites, being displaced economically through either the closing [00:18:00] of the coal mines, and the Blacks that were always migrating from the South. So those four groups, really was the majority of the Uptown that I knew. JJ: And so they kind of came here, like they migrated here. But you mentioned the word displacement. How does that fit into -- MR: I think they were sponsored by -- either the coal miners were displaced when the companies closed. They had to come to places like Uptown looking for jobs. The American Indians were displaced, brought from the reservation to see, it was a program, if they could live in urban life. That didn’t work out too good. Puerto Ricans, what brought Puerto Rico was the Commonwealth status, the Operation Bootstrap to bring Puerto Rico from agriculture [00:19:00] to industrial. That displaced a lot of Puerto Ricans, to come to the -- but we always felt when you wind out in Uptown, it was displacement. But in Uptown, you definitely were in the bottom of the barrel. It felt that way from each of these different groups. We didn’t? have much choices. JJ: Okay. Now you’re talking about you left La Clark around four years old and went to Old Town. Did you ever live in Lincoln Park at all, or? MR: No, I did not. My family, my uncle Mario, lived in Lincoln Park. He based his whole businesses out of Lincoln Park. The Campo and then the two stores, one on Fremont and Armitage, then one on Sheffield and Armitage. 8 �JJ: And that was more a larger community than say -- MR: That was the larger Puerto Rican community. That was a lot, that got to [00:20:00] be 60 percent. JJ: Okay, 60 percent. MR: Well, in Uptown there were only like blocks, one block in each little pockets. JJ: And what was it like, I mean, for you living in Uptown then? MR: In Uptown? Well, being you have your grocery store, you did look at life through a fishbowl. You would look at everybody -- it’s not like I was a little kid, and I could hide or they kept me in the home. They kept me out in the community where -- I worked in this grocery store. All of our cousins worked in our grocery. We all grew up in the business. And I just got to meet so many people from all parts of Uptown. But it was true in the ’60s, and it was a melting pot [00:21:00] that I could not -- the experience was just -- I talked to some friends of mine that I’ve known for over 45 years, and you can’t buy the kind of experience that we had in Uptown, being diversified, but poor in that way. And then you had your gangs. But you had all this conflict between the Blacks and the Appalachian whites and the Indians and the Puerto Ricans. It was just a constant -- it was fighting, a lot of fighting going on. But it was poor. But people watched out for each other, in the sense of you were part of that community. You know how my father described it? He lived in New York 25 years before he came to Chicago. He described it like Hell’s Kitchen. New York Hell’s Kitchen. It was mixed, [00:22:00] and it was what it was. But I enjoyed living in Uptown. JJ: Okay. You get involved in a little activism when you were in Uptown, doing 9 �community work. What were you thinking and how did you get involved? MR: I did almost 20 years of activism in Uptown. How I got involved, what brought my consciousness to a political level, was my father had this grocery store. We also had a restaurant. We had two kitchens we operated. But my father had the grocery store, [00:23:00] and this grocery store (inaudible) big wall, which was actually the book section. And then them days, Puerto Rican women would love their novellas, came in little, little paperbacks. The soap operas came in paperbacks in Spanish, with pictures. So they were a popular book. But my father had these two newspapers. We had three, but one came in later. But the two that we had was the Black Panther newspaper and the Young Lords’ newspaper, Palante. JJ: And this was what store? MR: On Leland Avenue in Uptown. JJ: In Uptown. Okay. MR: And reading, when business would be slow, when I have to go in the back, I would take these -- these were my favorite newspapers. Not the Daily News, not the Chicago Suns, it was just Black Panthers’ and Young Lords’, because I was becoming [00:24:00] to be a teenager and we were reading books like the outside -- was it the out-- we’d see movies like Switchblade, West Side Story, because we already knew those gangs, and those gangs’ activity out in Uptown, very high. But these magazines would do something to me when I was in the back of the store, either doing what I have to do, stocking and stuff. I’d take time to read these magazines. I would read them every day. I would read over these 10 �magazines. And that would kind of give me a little idea what was happening with the activism throughout the city. My little world was from school to home and to the store. These two newspapers would take me to a different part of the city. I was still 14, 15 years old, hanging out [00:25:00] in the corner. JJ: What do you mean in different part of the city? You mean like Lincoln Park? MR: Well, take me to Lincoln Park where I always heard about, where I would go visit my uncle and see the Young Lords, but not go out and communicate with them. I would know about the Young Lords through the newspaper. What happened was, we had a group of guys on Leland and Broadway, about 15 of us, 12 to 15 of us. And we were mixed, from Puerto Ricans to Appalachian whites. Most of us were Puerto Ricans. We had one Japanese. And there was gang recruitment going on, gang wars and stuff like that. But somewhere down the line, these newspapers, the Young Lords’ newspaper was like -- the gangs that was happening, the Latin Kings were coming in and they were recruiting. So, we had the Leland Boys. [00:26:00] We weren’t part of the Leland Boys, but they were another group of Puerto Rican kids and Appalachian kids further west of us, a block west. They would hang out. Our gang of boys, a couple, three blocks north of us, they all became Latin Kings. We were the only group that stayed out of any gangs. We just did not-- We had members, individual members who joined gang. But somewhere down the line, we’ve made a choice, because I used to bring the Young Lords newspaper to them. And I had them read what I would read at my father’s store. And we know we didn’t want to join the Latin Kings. So what happened was my political consciousness came from these two 11 �newspapers, [00:27:00] the Black Panther and the Young Lords newspaper, Palante. But what it also did, it kept me from joining a gang, because at that time, when I was already reading about the Young Lords, they already made their transitional from a street gang to a political group. And this is the group that sounded right to me. So, we wanted to join, but we were just a little too young, 14, 15, 16 years old. And we just felt hanging out and staying neutral was our way. And then I went to the Army in 1972, came back in ’75 was when I first started -JJ: Where did you go? You went to the Army? Where -- MR: I was stationed in Germany for two and a half years. But the [00:28:00] impact -the political consciousness was there from what I was getting from these newspapers. And then what the Army did was put an organizational chart in my mind, the chain of command, code of discipline. Code of conduct. So, by the time I got back out, I was kind of ready to organize, but it took me a couple more years to get to the next step. JJ: How did you feel that the Young Lords were, like against the war in Vietnam at that time? MR: Well, I was against the war at first. I was against the war. And we were all greasers. And what happened was you had the Young Lords, the Black Panther, everybody was against the war. [00:29:00] And then you had that Kent State massacre. And what happened was I hanged up my leather jacket and bought me a field jacket at the Army surplus on Broadway next to -- and then came a little bit more consciousness about that. But in 1972, you joined the Army 12 �because it was part of my family’s tradition. All my uncles on my father’s side. My father was a merchant marine, he was from World War II. All my cousins were in Korea, Vietnam. I joined the Army plus economics. And I was on both sides. I was against the war, but I was also a soldier for reasons, tradition. JJ: So, what are some of the things that you did when you got involved? You said you were doing activism. MR: Well, the first campaign I actually worked in was Cha-Cha’s campaign. And that one, I came in a little too late, [00:30:00] but I did get a good week in it. The last week of the campaign, I went out working with Slim Coleman up on Leland Avenue, up in the Leland Hotel, which was my old hangout back in the ’60s. So, it was obvious that I still knew a lot of people. And we were just canvased a few buildings. The Leland Hotel, we canvased Broadway, Leland, Winthrop in Leland, where I grew up when my father had the store. But we no longer had the store. We moved to Puerto Rico in ’71. But I had a week, I canvased with ChaCha and got out to vote on election day, basically, and plug. I wish I would’ve done more, but at that time, I just got out of the Army in November of ’74. The campaign was happening a couple months right after. JJ: And what did you feel about that campaign? I mean, what -- MR: It was great. I think it was great to have a Puerto Rican, especially Cha-Cha, the leader of the Young Lords, the founder, that took this [00:31:00] street gang and made it into this militant activist organization. And then he wants to run at alderman in one of the poorest neighborhoods that I know of, and most diverse. I think that was the hardest part. And the results were 38 percent, was actually 13 �good for one of the first races for a Puerto Rican. I think there was one more on the West Side, I can’t remember. But I think it was Figueroa. I can’t remember. But to get 38 percent in 1975 as a Puerto Rican candidate, that was a victory by itself. I don’t think any other ethnic group in Uptown would’ve done it if you weren’t white or white with money. Had that money. JJ: Okay. So, you worked on the Jimenez campaign [00:32:00] and there was a good campaign for the community. I mean -- MR: A very great. To me, it was a victory, even though we only got 38 percent of the vote. Out of 10,000, 3,800. That was great. That was great. First time around. JJ: Okay. And then, what happened after that with you? MR: Well, I went to college for a couple years, and -- JJ: Where’d you go to college? MR: I went to Truman, Northeastern, couple semesters. But we had some personal family problems, personal problems that I dealt with after the campaign, which is dealing with myself. And I didn’t start getting active again till 1980. JJ: And what happened in 1980? Did you -- MR: Well, in 1980, they were kind of -- Bernard Carey [00:33:00] was our state attorney. He was the state attorney, the Republican state attorney, and Richard Daley wanted to be state attorney. And we just decided that -- another Daley name after what we went through the ’60s and ’70s, and another 20 -- we supported Bernard Carey. And one of the reasons was that Daley wanted to be state attorney, which would’ve been another step to the City Hall. JJ: Wait, why did you support a Republican then? 14 �MR: We did not wanted another Daley name in power. That’s what it was. And this brought out people that were activists from the ’60s that didn’t see each other for a while. And people from Cha-Cha’s campaign, they kind of dropped out of sight and then all of a sudden you got Daley running, [00:34:00] and he kind of woke up the dead again. And said, “No, not another Daley.” So, we went for Republican candidate, just like the Black community elected Bernard Carey in 1972. Why did they do that? Well, they knew that Hanrahan signed the warrants to kill Black Panthers, Fred Hampton and Mark Clark. So the Black community got together in ’72 and put Bernard Carey in Power. So, in 1980, we still backed up Bernard Carey, knowing that Daley was coming. We didn’t want that Daley name under there. So it kind of woke up some of the cobwebs out of us, that Daley was coming back. [00:35:00] That Daley name was coming back. And that started a whole new movement, you know? A whole new movement from what was kind of limbo in the disco era, I believe. (laughs) I got lost with the disco. And I think the 1980, the Reaganomics and knowing that Daley’s coming back, kind of woke me up. JJ: So, this was 1980. And then what happened after that? MR: It was just one campaign after another. I became a VISTA volunteer for two years, 1981. In 1981, I was a VISTA volunteer. I would go to Milwaukee, worked on a campaign in Milwaukee, worked on a campaign in Cairo, Illinois. And I worked in Uptown as a VISTA volunteer. JJ: [00:36:00] Now, in 1983, Harold Washington was running as the first African American mayor for the city, for mayor. Did you do anything during that time? 15 �MR: Well, in 1982 there was a coalition formed with Uptown, South Side with Jesse Jackson, West Side with Cha-Cha Jimenez. And we started spearheading voter registration drive. But the good thing -- the part was that we were meeting back in ’82 already. Go to 18th Street, go to 26th Street, go to Humboldt Park, Wicker Park, and we would take classes at the Operation Rainbow on Saturday mornings about voter registration, [00:37:00] because it was the first time that the voter registration outreach came out, where you actually volunteered to do voter registration, making deputies. At that time, you had to do it at the junctions or the polling places. Now, they did the outreach program. That was the first year. So, they were teaching a lot. And we took that advantage and went with it and made -- I don’t even know the numbers, but it was voter registration. Everybody I knew became a voter registrar. And then in ’83, I hooked up with Cha-Cha in the Logan Square, West Town, Humboldt Park area. We had an office on Fullerton and Western, right? I think about a block and a half from Mell’s ward [00:38:00] office. JJ: Richard -- MR: Richard Mell, 33rd ward. And he was actually spearheading the opposition. He was with Byrne, I believe. JJ: Stone, I think. Bernard Stone. MR: No. Don’t forget we had a primary. We had Daley, Byrne, and Washington. JJ: That’s correct. MR: So, I think Mell went with -- JJ: Daley, I think. 16 �MR: -- Daley. JJ: Yeah. No clue. I’m not sure. But anyway, so you were working out of the Fullerton office? MR: Mm-hmm. With Cha-Cha, some union people. And Cha-Cha had this great idea that I remember we couldn’t use the Young Lords’ name. [00:39:00] But he was working on a project already with this guy, Frank Espada from Washington D.C., the Puerto Rican Diaspora Documentary project. And they gave us permission to kind of use their name. And we had the Puerto Rican Diaspora Coalition. And I actually think there was only two Puerto Rican groups actually or two Hispanic groups, two Puerto Rican groups that literally came out in public to support Harold Washington. We were one of them. Can’t remember who was the other one? Maybe Reverend Morales? Everybody else, like on the -- either backing off or they were between Daley and Byrne. We were the only two Puerto Rican groups that I remember that actually came out publicly, on the literature. [00:40:00] And that was, to me -- JJ: And so, when was the first actions? Was the Northwest? What was one of the first actions? MR: Well, first action was we had the big rally at the Northwest Hall. And Jesus, I remember Cha-Cha, he was telling me, he kept telling me there’d be over 500 people coming to this. I said, “Cha-Cha, you for real? Come on.” We worked down there for almost a month. And I swear to God, when it was that night, there was over 700 people come to that rally. And I remember when Harold Washington came -- because we would discuss the theme song of the Night. 17 �And when Harold Washington walked in, the “Eye of the Tiger” was the theme song for Harold Washington. When he came up the stage, [00:41:00] Cha-Cha gave him a pava, a Puerto Rican jibaro hat. And he wore it saying “Viva Puerto Rico!” That was pretty neat. But I didn’t think we would get the 700, and we got it. And also, we were still doing the campaign in these five wards. I had 15 precincts in the 33rd that I was concentrating on. There was a couple other people. But I remember Cha-Cha was telling us that we would need to -- we had the union people, hell, a lot of union people out there. But we were troubleshooters. I remember now that there’d be a building where some people weren’t comfortable going in. Couple of them across the street at Humboldt Park, one on the Boulevard. And they would send us, Cha-Cha, me and the group. [00:43:00] And we talked to these guys. And what it was, by the end of the day, we had every one-percenter, what we call one-percenter anti-socialbehavior registered and ready to vote for Harold Washington. Otherwise, there was a lot of high crime buildings or maybe narcotics going on. And these people were just terrified. And I remember Cha-Cha, he’d go in these buildings, and he told me, “Modesto, this is --” And that’s what was our job. One of our jobs was troubleshooting trouble buildings. And the trouble buildings was that the people weren’t comfortable with these people. And we came in. I remember a walk, it was the strangest thing. Berrios, Congressman Berrios came to work on the Harold Washington campaign, because Harold Washington was a congressman [00:43:00] and we did a walk -JJ: Herman Badillo. 18 �MR: Herman Badillo. What did I say? JJ: You said Berrios, but -- MR: Okay, Herman, the Congressman from New York, he came and worked on the campaign. He did a walk on Milwaukee Avenue, and we were on Milwaukee and Damen and North Avenue, and Cha-Cha and I were advancing. We had to do advance to kind of pick out good businesses, where we could [initiate?]. And one of the businesses was the Double Door Saloon -- Bar. And we told the congressman, this you should go in. And some of the people that were with the congressman from Chicago, they were advising him, “No, no. You don’t want go there. It’s a trouble bar.” And the congressman told [00:44:00] them, “I’m from the Bronx.” And he walked in the Double Door Saloon, man. Machinecontrolled, hardcore saloon. And this Puerto Rican congressman from New York shook every hand on behalf of this Black congressman. It was great. It was Polish, Ukrainian, Puerto Ricans. And then I knew, for some reason, we knew that they were outreaching. This was really done by really, really -- you know, it was great because Cha-Cha would go up ahead and say, “These are the people you need to talk to, the disenfranchised. Not the established Puerto Ricans here. The ones that no one’s talking to.” And there was another incident where we felt, [00:45:00] that I felt I was in the right movement here where Celia Cruz came to the Aragon, and it was one of -- I think the promoter was [Donny?] Ramos. And we went in as security for Harold Washington. And this one was a definitely allout working-class Puerto Rican community. And the feel -- we did not know how they would set Harold Washington. Because don’t forget, there was only two 19 �groups that supported Harold Washington. And the rest was between Daley and Byrne. But when Celia Cruz, the Queen of Salsa, introduced the next Mayor, mi negrito of the City of Chicago, Harold Washington, [00:46:00] and that 3,000 people just responded. 3,000, mostly Boricua, which I believe was the full house, maybe 5,000, the Aragon. And the response to that, then I knew for some reason, between the Northwest Hall, 700, the Walk on Milwaukee Avenue, going to that Double Door Saloon, that reaction was the -- Polish, Ukrainian, and Puerto Ricans that were in there. And the response of the Aragon Ballroom, when Celia Cruz introduced Harold Washington, I knew then we were winner. For some reason, I knew the Puerto Rican community was going to come out for Harold. And that was a good campaign. That campaign started -- it made [00:47:00] veterans out of us. You never were politically active, you worked that campaign, you were a veteran. You didn’t have to work another one. That was a good campaign. JJ: So, okay. Modesto, if you can tell me, what do you think is the legacy of the Young Lords? MR: The Young Lords in my life, the legacy is -- be perfectly honest with you, when I was in the store, in la bodega de mi papa, and reading the Young Lords’ paper and lifting my mind and thinking about that, and I had a choice. Do I want to be a Young Lord or do I want to be a gangbanger, that was disruptive behavior? What I thought the Young Lords did to me and to my little gang on Leland and Broadway, was to keep us neutral [00:48:00] and keep us away from the criminal gang activity. And it put us into a positive, progressive political future, which 20 �actually most of my friends, wind up working for the cities, because we followed that route. But the ones that followed the other gangs, most of them are dead and went to prison. And to this, the legacy to me is that they made political lead activists out of us, out the ones that were just right behind them. And they were made more political activists of future kids, because the Young Lords’ story will be told throughout the curriculum from now on, because I think it’s just -- the way the economy is and the way world is now, no one’s watching out for the other person. [00:49:00] And I think these issues that the Young Lords -- the struggle has been going on for the last 40 years. We’ve been there, but we’re going to bring this next generation into the web of things, because things are getting worse. And we need another young wave of activism. And I think more young people that read and hear about the Young Lords, then these ideas will pop. Because I’d be perfectly honest with you, I believe the Young Lords -- reading these little papers in my father’s store, saved my life. JJ: Okay. How do you -- saved your life in terms of the crime, or? MR: That I never -- besides my parents, of course, guidance, the Young Lords put a political consciousness in me to do [00:50:00] positive things in the sense of political. My faith in God, I keep. My parents taught me to do well. But the Young Lords lift my political consciousness where I did not get into the trap of other young kids joining gangs and negative gangs. Let’s say if I joined a gang, it was definitely a positive gang like the Young Lords. I always felt like a Young Lord in my heart, because I believe -- what they were doing, I believe in them. So to me, in my heart, I’m a Young Lord, just in the actions that I did. I did not go 21 �gangbanging, but I went and became an activist. That’s it. JJ: Okay. Now, after or later on, you did work within the city. MR: Oh, yes. JJ: So, how did that come about? MR: Well, I worked 23 years with the city. I’m semi-retired. [00:51:00] I’ve been working campaigns ever since. My last good campaign was in 2009 where I worked for Mike Quigley for congressman. I stayed three months in that campaign. And I stayed a month working for Obama in 2008. He’d take me to Iowa, these little bus tours. But we do phone bank and things like that. But the campaigns nowadays are not like the ones that we used to do. It’s more of a human touch. JJ: So, if you actually worked for the Obama campaign, you can kind of extend it all the way to -- MR: Yeah. Well, I’m still active. I’m still active. For some reason, what was taught to us in the ’60s towards the movement and the Young Lords and the Black Panthers, it seems it build a seed, and [00:52:00] something I believe that young people are missing. And I think it’s going to come back. I think it’s going to come back. And I hope. JJ: Any final words that you want to say at this point or that you think maybe we missed or that are important? MR: Well, sometimes when you interview, you get thinking about other things. I wish that the Young Lords would -- because, you know, people come and you have to continue struggling for other people, not just for yourself, [00:53:00] but for the 22 �other people and for the next generation. And when you talk about the Young Lords, people will say, “Oh, I remember the Young Lords. Oh, they’re still around? Oh, the Young Lords.” But all the benefits -- no, not the benefits, but all the social programs and all the things that Latinos are taking for granted in other groups, it was groups like the Young Lords and the Black Panthers and the Young Patriots that started. And of course, they’re still around through the programs, through the things -- through your rights, through Latino rights, you know? That’s how they’re round. And I wish people would not think that the Young Lords died out. The spirit is still there. They’re like legends. And every time Cha-Cha comes to town, I say, “Man, I’m riding with the legend.” (laughs) That’s it. END OF VIDEO FILE 23 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4a83561c6bcd6375ffda20fb860d0a20.mp4 ee4a05ca39216f98be526a306e5a3176 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives. The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng spa Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 2012-2017 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Título Spanish language Title entry Modesto Rivera vídeo entrevista y biografía Descripción Spanish language Description entry Modesto Rivera es un Young Lord que creció en el vecindario de La Clark en Lincoln Park con los Hillbillies de Chicagos Uptown. Su Padre y tío, Mario Rivera, fueron unos de los primeros Puertorriqueños que era dueño de su propio negocio. Su mercado estaba en 733 North Clark Street y tenia anuncios en la estación mexicana del radio. Durante este entrevista Señor Rivera hable sobre su tío quien fue conocido porque daba crédito en el base de confianza de la familias Puertorriqueñas, quien a cambio lo trataban como alcalde. No le gustaba al Alcalde Daley a su tío porque “cada vez que él se mudaba el vecindario tenia que moverse y él también se tenía que mover.” Señor Rivera es un dedicado organizador para la comunidad y camina de puerta a puerta como trabajador de recinto. El trabajo en muchas campañas políticas, incluyendo la de Jiménez para Alderman (1973-1975), la de Helen Schiller Alderman, y la campaña para Harold Washington. Durante la campaña de Washington, Señor Rivera trabajo con David Mojica y Jose “Cha-Cha” Jimenez y tomo parte en organizar la primer concentración de Latinos por los Young Lords, en apoyo de elegir el primer alcalde Afro-Americano en Chicago. Señor Rivera también trabajo por la Cuidad de Chicago y continua trabajando como activista en su comunidad. Sujetos Spanish language Subject terms Young Lords (Organización) Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puertorriqueños--Relatos personales Justicia social Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago Chicago (Ill.)--Política y gobierno--1951- Puertorriqueños--Illinois--Chicago--Vida social y costumbres Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65_Rivera_Modesto Title A name given to the resource Modesto Rivera video interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rivera, Modesto Description An account of the resource Modesto Rivera is a Young Lord raised in the La Clark neighborhood, Lincoln Park, and with the Hillbillies of Chicago’s uptown. Mr. Rivera was a strong community organizer and door-to-door precinct worker. He has worked in many political campaigns, including the Jiménez for Alderman Campaign (1973-1975), Helen Schiller’s Aldermanic Campaign, and the Harold Washington Campaign. During the Washington Campaign, Mr. Rivera worked alongside David Mojica and José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and participated in organizing the first Latino rally held by the Young Lords, in support of electing the first African American mayor in Chicago’s history. Mr. Rivera also worked for the City of Chicago and continues to be active in his community. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puerto Ricans--Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Chicago (Ill.)--Politics and government--1951- Puerto Ricans--Illinois--Chicago--Social life and customs Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-02-07 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3e9d58469f3dbcda7e71bed934653ca6.pdf d809108ab4f732216e5b207afa01290c PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Dylcia Noemi Pagán Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 5/15/2012 Biography and Description English Dylcia Pagán was born to Puerto Rican parents in 1946 at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx, New York City and raised in East Harlem. She became a child star, performing every week on NBC’s “Children’s Hour.” After losing her parents at the age of 20, she became an activist, participating in voter registration drives and working for the Community Development Agency (CDA) evaluating poverty programs throughout the City of New York. In 1969, Ms. Pagán decided to attend Brooklyn College where she co-founded the Puerto Rican Student Union that resulted in the formation of a student-controlled Puerto Rican Studies Department that is still in existence today. She continued a long career in media, becoming the first Puerto Rican woman television producer in New York City. Ms. Pagán has worked as a producer, writer, and filmmaker, developing investigative documentaries and children’s program on nearly every major television network. She also worked as the English editor for the city’s first bilingual daily newspaper, El Tiempo, and authored a popular daily column in that same paper. In 1978, Ms. Pagán was subpoenaed by a Grand Jury to testify in connection with the arrest of her companion, William Morales. At the time, she was three months pregnant with her son, Guillermo, and �she refused to testify. Sometime in 1979 she went underground with her son. She was arrested in 1980, charged with seditious conspiracy for fighting for the independence of Puerto Rico, and was sentenced to 63 years in prison. She was released from prison on September 10, 1999 after a long campaign in the United States, Puerto Rico, and internationally pressured President Bill Clinton to give she and nine of her co-defendants a Presidential Conditional Clemency. She lives and works in Puerto Rico. Spanish Dylcia Pagán nació a padres puertorriqueños en 1946 en Lincoln Hospital en los Bronx de Nueva York y creció en el East Harlem. Se hizo una estrella infantil siendo parte de “Children’s Hour” en NBC. A los 20 años perdió sus padres y se convirtió un activista, trabajando con registraciones de votes y también con la Community Development Agency (CDA) que evalúa programas de pobreza en Nueva York. En 1969, Señora Pagán decidió atender Brookly College donde ayudo a fundir el Puerto Rican Student Union que resulto con la formación de un Departamento de estudias puertorriqueñas que es controlado por los estudiantes (todavía existe hoy). Señora Pagán continuó una carera en la media de comunicación y fue la primera productora puertorriqueña en la ciudad de Nueva York. Trabajo como productora, escritora y cineasta desarrollando documentarias investigas y programas de niños en cada estación mayor de televisión. También trabajo con un editor Ingles para el primer periódico bilingüe en la cuidad, El Tiempo, y también escribió una sección de ese mismo periódico. En 1978 un Gran Jurado dio una citación para que Pagán daría un testifico en conexión con el arresto de su compañero, William Morales. Durante este tiempo estaba tres meses embarazada con su hijo Guillermo y rechazo testificar. En 1979 se escondo con su hijo. La arrestaron en 1980 y la cargaron con sedicioso de conspiración por pelear por la independencia de Puerto Rico y recibió una condona de 63 años encarceladas. Después de una campaña larga en los Estados Unidos, Puerto Rico, e internacional Presidente Bill Clinton le dio el Presidential Conditional Clemency a Pagán y 9 otros, el 10 de Septiembre, 1999. Ahora vive y trabaja en Puerto Rico. �Transcript JOSE JIMENEZ: (inaudible) DYLCIA PAGAN: Sure. My information? Sure. My name is Dylcia Pagán Rivera, ’cause Puerto Ricans can’t forget their mother’s name if they’re not bastards. I reside now in Puerto Rico, I live in Loíza, since I was, let’s see... I was born October 15, 1946. I consider myself not an elder but a wise woman. I’m one of the ex-Puerto Rican political prisoners, former television reporter, producer, writer, artist, holistic healer, and an activist for the independence movement of Puerto Rico. A revolutionary woman. JJ: But you were born in New York, you said? DP: I was born in the former controversial Lincoln Hospital, in the Bronx, but I was raised in East Harlem which is the second community where Puerto Ricans migrated to New York City. So it was -- East Harlem started from 96th Street to 125th Street. So that’s where I was raised, all my -- most of my life. [00:01:00] Yeah, most of my life. JJ: So then, the second community that went there, like, in the late ’40s, or...? DP: I would say -- well, I would say maybe early ’40s because -- JJ: Early ’40s. DP: -- my grandfather was a -- my mother was the one who got my father from Yauco. My father left Yauco when he was 17, [Sebastián Pagán?], he became a plumber but he was a [cadete de don?] Pedro Albizu Campos Nationalist Party. My mother went to Hunter High School -- Hunter College, my grandfather was 1 �one of the first bodegueros, grocery store owners, in East Harlem. It is said that by 1917, my grandfather had seven bodegas through East Harlem. JJ: Through East Harlem, okay. DP: Yeah. JJ: So then -- DP: So that she was raised in New York, but she would fly to Puerto Rico, or come on the boat, because sometimes there were no planes, at that time. But when I was raised, East Harlem was divided -- it was very interesting, because, being the second community where Puerto Ricans migrated to, well, Puerto Ricans did like we always do. We hang out in municipalities [00:02:00] in our area, so like 108 belonged to the people from Yauco, 109th were the people from Juanica, 110th were the people from different parts of the island, so that they had different communities -- I think that sound is affecting us. Guys, we’re taping! Hey! Brothers! Panama, we’re filming! JJ: -- talking about (inaudible). DP: My mother was from Guánica, my father from Yauco. And my grandfather had, 1917, my family always says that he had about seven or eight bodegas, which are Puerto Rican small grocery stores. I consider myself a very privileged child because -- JJ: And this is, you said, East Harlem? DP: East Harlem, el barrio. (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) Even though now they wanna change it to East Harlem -- JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) not too familiar -- 2 �DP: -- no, we’re still East Harlem -- I know, you guys are from Chicago, I’m from el barrio, New York City. So, I was raised in an atmosphere as an only child, I was very privileged. I got to go to private schools, not by choice but by accident I [00:03:00] went to Catholic schools. At five and a half years old, I was on the Children’s Hour on NBC TV, which is a children’s show by the Horn & Hardart. It was very interesting because I started as a singer, and then a producer called the house and asked my mother, my mother said, “Well, you talk to Dylcia and see what she wants to do.” So, she asked me, “Do you think you can learn a script?” I said, “Absolutely.” So one of the little stars of the show, Eileen Mary Parluck, had gotten sick, so I had to take over her role, and there was a guy dressed as a dog called Maribone the Talking Dog. So I became his best friend. JJ: (inaudible) DP: Yeah. So the show opened up with east side, west side, the theme song, Ed Herlihy, which was the voice of Kraft products, was the host of the show. So I had an incredible childhood, because being on television as a dancer and an actress, I got to work out all my fantasies, I think, as a, you know, as an actress, because I’ve been a dog, a cat, [00:04:00] you name it, I’ve done it. But in the same token, when I got chosen, when I was chosen to be one of the opening stars of the show, I’ll never forget what my parents told me at dinner. “Do you want to do this?” And I said, “Oh yes.” They said, “Okay, you’re gonna do this, but remember, you’re gonna go to a different world. It’s a all-white world.” My mother said, and father told me, “And the most important thing about this experience is that they’re not better than you are.” And I said, “How come?” 3 �“Just because you’re Puerto Rican.” And I said, “What does that mean?” “It means because you have a culture, you have a history, you have music. And if the Jews have Hanukkah, you have the Three Kings, [Los Reyes de Mago?].” I have never forgotten that. And I think that’s the most important essence of my life, is because, I really believe now that I’ve gone through what I’ve gone through in life. If you know who you are, you never lose your commitment to yourself and to your country and what you really believe in. [00:05:00] My father being a nationalist always taught me about don Pedro Albizu Campos, who was the -- not the founder but one of the biggest image of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, which I’m honored today to tell you that I am now the new Secretary of Women Affairs of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico, I was just -JJ: Congratulations. DP: Yeah, so it’s a big honor, it’s an honor. Given the reality that our Lolita Lebrón just passed away, and she was one of our -- my biggest loves of my life, well let’s go back to my childhood. So, I grew up in East Harlem. And, at an early age, my parents were always concerned that even though I had a privileged life in many ways... That we would always be involved in the communities. And then at that time, there was every Puerto Rican’s hangout. Well, they had social clubs. JJ: And did you mention your mother’s name (inaudible) DP: My [00:06:00] mother’s name was Delia Lidia Rivera, which is her maiden name, and my father’s name is Sebastián Pagán. Yeah. And he was known as -- 4 �“Delia and Bachán,” everybody always says, “You’re Delia and Bachán’s daughter,” you know? Especially here in Puerto Rico. What is that? (loud environmental noise) (inaudible) The sounds of Loíza are coming down upon us. So that, at an early age, even though it was on television, one of the things that my parents always were involved in, was I would go to perform at all the social clubs. JJ: You said you were on television, what (inaudible)? DP: At NBC, I said that, the Children’s Hour on NBC TV, yes. So I did it live. Not like Saturday Night Live, like real live television, (inaudible) from 1952 till 1959. Every Sunday, I had to go rehearse on Saturdays, and then film, do the show -not film, live, on NBC, on NBC Channel 4. [00:07:00] It was a great experience, I mean, I’ve worked with -- I got to be on the Hit Parade, I got to meet the people from Howdy Doody show, I worked with incredible people in my life so I think it also gives you a broader spectrum of life. But being raised in East Harlem, I was able to live the reality of what it is to live in a community that’s surrounded by poor people, really. My parents were working-class people, we weren’t rich. But we had -- I lived in a private house in the middle of East Harlem, you know. But I was also taught that whatever I had, I had to share. And I think that’s very important. My father passed away when I was 15. At 18 years old, I became the youngest community organizer with the poverty programs in New York City, in East Harlem. I worked for MEND, Massive Economic Neighborhood Development, and became a researcher with them. Then I went to work for the city of New York, I became an evaluator. And that’s where the lightbulb came 5 �out. [00:08:00] I got to evaluate all the property programs. And everybody was “maximal feasible participation of the poor,” and what we found out in evaluating the programs, that there was no participation of the poor. It was very minimal, it wasn’t maximum. That the system was maintaining -- the conditions were improving, but the people weren’t given the power to control their lives. At that period in time, I decided to go to Brooklyn College. Because of my parents’ consciousness, I was involved in a lot of community activities. As an organizer, well, I did a lot of housing work, educational work, youth work, health work, and the Young Lords came to existence in East Harlem. At that time, I was at Brooklyn College organizing the Puerto Rican students, and then while the Lords were doing the second church takeover, in New York, I was organizing the Puerto Rican Student Union. [00:09:00] Their office was, like, a block and a half away from my house, where I grew up, but I lived on 110th Street, so the second church takeover, my house was the central control for all public relations, because I lived around the block. I wasn’t a member of the Young Lords, but I definitely supported them, and to be honest I think that’s something important to talk about. What’s the importance of the Young Lords, and I think that’s... JJ: What is the importance? Yeah. DP: Yes! It’s a very important part of my life, and I think people should know about it. Especially here in Puerto Rico, and anyone who’s studying sociology, anyone that’s studying any aspect of the development of people’s lives. The Lords played a significant role in East Harlem. Why? Because they were all young people. You know? Juan, Felipe, (inaudible) David, were all -- Yoruba, were all 6 �young brothers that were college students, and they created the party because they went to Chicago and met you guys, am I [00:10:00] correct? JJ: That’s correct, yeah. DP: And it’s from your influence, of the young Lords in Chicago, that the Young Lords arise in New York City, in East Harlem. JJ: We kinda influenced each other with (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). DP: I guess, yeah. JJ: We all influence each other. DP: We do, and the truth of the matter, I think we’re all living under the same conditions. That’s how we started the Puerto Rican Student Union, because we had Puerto Rican Studies departments throughout the city of New York and New Jersey, and we all faced the same enemy, we faced the same problems, so we created the union to be able to put together our strategies. So, getting back to the importance of the Lords, I think what the Lords did was they were able to demystify the image of what the people had, of what a revolutionary young man - and women. Because when they first came to East Harlem, they called ’em “lo’ peludo’,” “the kids with the big hair,” you know. And they wore the army jackets. But I also believe that they also taught the community, [00:11:00] when you take it upon yourself to teach people how to survive, and how to defend that which is yours, a level of respect emerges. And I believe when the Lords took over, did the first garbage strike, that they took over the trucks and they burned the fire, the garbage, they knew that they were for real. When they started doing the health services in our community, against lead poisoning of our children, most of 7 �our people didn’t know about lead poisoning, ’cause nobody knew. People were not educated in that field of consciousness. So that the Lords, I always say “[Lo’ Balbu?],” became the teachers to the people. And it was unbelievable, when we took over that church, that next morning, I was there, I did 11 days. JJ: So you went [right?] in the church. DP: Absolutely. I went, that morning, I didn’t go to the first takeover but I went to the second one. I walked in and David Perez tells me, “Hey Dylcia, come on, you’re gonna be security in the basement.” I said, “You got it. [00:12:00] Right on.” I’d spent 11 days, I was then dating a friend of -- a man, who was my boyfriend, who was the deputy commission [on the?] United States Commission on Human Rights. So his federal [call?] would sit in front of the People’s Church. JJ: What was his name? DP: [Bob de León?], [Roberto?] de León. He’s still my friend, we’re still dear friends. So it’s funny. So we took over the church, and I remember, when the pigs were outside and they couldn’t open up, I looked at the guy, I said, “Let’s sing,” so we sang -- what was that song? It was a gospel song, and in the videos that I -- it’ll come to me. But it was wonderful, because for the first time, we saw how these young people, young men, and myself included, showed our community that churches are not there to just have Sunday meetings. The irony is that my mother’s aunt used to come every Sunday from Simpson Street, to go to services there, but that church never [00:13:00] opened up for any services of community, so it had to be taken over. And it was. That next morning, all the welfare mothers, and everybody -- from the windows, they were bringing us bottles of 8 �milk, loaves of bread, you know, and our people’s support -- I had never made so many scrambled eggs in my lifetime. I must’ve made 75 dozen scrambled eggs for the first day. But it was an incredible experience, how the community came inside, and they got to understand not only about the Young Lords but about the question of Puerto Rican independence. About, why was our nation a colony? And we started the breakfast programs, and we started PE classes, educational programs for the children. And we had clothing drives. So that it became -JJ: So how was that educational (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) DP: Well, I think what happened was, to have an open morning program, we had to have a theme. So we taught the children about the theme, you know, Indians, they learned about [00:14:00] who their ancestors was, and when you know that you come from a warrior family, that gives you a self-pride, you know? And I think, even till this day, that’s very relevant in our society. Till this day, our history and our cultural beauty, our essence, needs to be expounded more. Our young people do not know who they really are. And that needs to be done. And that’s something I’m working on, but let’s continue about the Lords. What happened with me and the Lords, because I was with PRSU -- JJ: The Puerto Rican Student Union? DP: The Puerto Rican Student Union, I’m sorry, yes. Eventually the Puerto Rican Student Union became an entity of the Young Lords in New York. I had then left the PRSU because I went to do some independent film work for the first time on cable television, La Voz de la Comunidad was my first program. But I still supported the Lords, and whatever the Lords needed, I was able to provide for 9 �them. [00:15:00] They needed a place to use the phones, they used my house. They needed a place, I mean, two o’clock in the morning, a compañero’s funeral, Roldán, right? JJ: Julio Roldán. DP: Julio Roldán. I got a call from Yoruba, he says, “Listen, we need to put out --” I said, “All right. Let me call the director of the Johns -- James Weldon Johnson,” (inaudible), who then became assistant dean at Hunter College, but he was then the director. I called him, he said, “What do you want?” Took a cab to the Bronx, “Give me the keys.” He went upstairs and we were able to print all the information necessary for the next day. They didn’t have money for the rent, and I then became a producer, of course! What do you do with your money? You help your people. So that’s what I did. The People’s Church, we did the most beautiful New Year’s Eve celebration ever in the history of New York City. I was able to acquire every -- every artist imaginable came to perform, and Pedro Pietri, [00:16:00] our dear -- from the “Puerto Rican Obituary,” that is not the first place he went, people say that, it’s not true. Pedro was my dear friend, Pedro wrote the “Obituary” in my house and read it at Brooklyn College, where I paid him. I didn’t pay him, the [department?] paid him. So he always says, when he was alive, and he’s still alive, ’cause he lives in spirit, he’s alive, he always said, “Dylcia took me out of the closet.” And it was definitely the poetry closet, not the gay or lesbian closet, had to make that very clear because he made it clear here in Puerto Rico after I came out of prison. Okay? So the Lords were... So impactful, and I think what happened was, Felipe and I became very very -- till 10 �this day, my closest friends are part of the members of the men of the central committee. Micky Melendez, Panama, Felipe Luciano, was dear friends, [Lu Garnacosta?], we’re still friends, Tony, [00:17:00] you know, Joe Perez, we’re still friends. And I think that tells you something. And I think -- not I think, I know, it’s not that I think, I know. When you have something that’s part of you, that’s your essence. And I believe that those of us that were involved in the ’70s in our struggle for national liberation and who continue forward, even till this day, in whatever work we’re doing, when you don’t lose that essence of your commitment to struggle, then you are a total human being. ’Cause I think, the true human being is he who has, or she, who has an essence of who they are, but a commitment to life and to their people. And I can say that my comrades, because they are my comrades, ’cause while I was in prison they never forgot me. And in freedom, they’ve never forgotten me. So April 4th, 1980, I was arrested, in Evanston, Illinois. (phone ringing) JJ: Do you wanna get that first, [00:18:00] or? DP: Uh? JJ: I said, do you wanna get that first, or? DP: No, no, I’m -- what? That, I don’t answer that, no no, that’s nonsense. JJ: Yeah. And what day? DP: April 4th, 1980, I was arrested in Evanston, Illinois, with 10 of my other comrades. Prior to that, my son’s father was William -- is William Morales. He was the first member of the FALN, which is the Armed Forces for National Liberation, and I 11 �can say it, it was an honor, it’s an honor to be able to tell people that I was part of a revolutionary movement that took the time to create political military acts for the future of my country Puerto Rico. Some people may not understand that. But I believe if you believe in something that profoundly, you have to do it to the end to whatever -- by any means necessary, as brother Malcolm said. My commitment to struggle, I have no regrets. I did 20 years in prison, for the future of my country. [00:19:00] The biggest sacrifice I had to endure was my separation from my son, who was 13 months. And of course, my career. I gave up what I used to do, but I had a new career inside, which was to create a new level of activities inside the prison, to create not revolutionary consciousness, but human consciousness of kindness, because I think people don’t understand that when people are in prison, most -- the most brilliant people I have shared 20 years with, believe me, I had a theatre company, I did holistic healing programs, an art exhibit for the last 5 years I was in prison, I taught aerobics, I taught art, sculpturing, block printing, you name it. But -JJ: And this was in prison? DP: In prison, yes. I did it because I had to survive, but also it was my way of sharing my talents. So that I could create a sacred place for [00:20:00] me of survival, but also share my knowledge that I walked into the doors with the people that I was sharing my life with. JJ: You had never been in jail before? DP: No, I’d been arrested, but I’d never been in jail. No. JJ: And you got arrested for... 12 �DP: I got arrested at the People’s Church. JJ: At the People’s Church. (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) DP: At the People’s Church, I’ve been arrested at demonstrations since 1967. JJ: All these were demonstrations? DP: Oh yeah, demonstrations, yeah, then of course we were let go. JJ: So, what were you thinking, then? I mean, what was your thinking -- DP: When I got arrested? JJ: I mean, yeah, I mean, how -- DP: Well, I think, when you -- JJ: Were you worried, were you concerned, or...? DP: Well, when one commits themself to the level of commitment of struggle that we were in, two things happen to you. JJ: Which was by any means necessary (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) DP: Yes, we were part of the unarmed guerrilla -- we were part of an urban guerrilla movement in the United States. In the United States. In Puerto Rico, we had the Macheteros, in the United States we had the FALN. [00:21:00] Not that I lived my life in fear, but I think, if you’re an intelligent human being and you know your politics and you know what struggle is about, two things can happen. You get busted, or you die. Those are the two ends. And, when we got busted, I wanted to leave my child? No. JJ: You were clear on that in the beginning. DP: Oh, absolutely, I mean, I wouldn’t -- JJ: Two things can happen, busted or (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) 13 �DP: Exactly. I mean, I didn’t -- people sometimes -- JJ: And everybody was clear on that (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? DP: Oh, absolutely. Let me just say something, I think it’s very important. I do many lectures, in the last 12 years in freedom I’ve lectured all over the United States, I’ve been to Venezuela, Cuba, Spain... But, everybody asks me the question. “How did you -- what happ-- how did you -- what was your --” I’m not Oprah Winfrey, but, “What was your ‘a-ha moment’? Your revolutionary a-ha moment?” And I tell everyone, “Jesus Christ didn’t talk to me in my ear, Che Guevara [00:22:00] didn’t appear, don Pedro Albizu Campos didn’t visit me.” When you are able to see the reality of the life existence of your people and you’re able to see the contradictions of survival, you make a commitment in life. And that was my commitment, I believed in the freedom of my country. And there isn’t a country in the world that has not been involved in some form of armed struggle to get their liberation. And that was a moment -- that was a time in history, we had the examples of Cuba, we had the examples of the Vietnamese struggle, and the victory of Vietnam. We’ve had the Tupamaros, so that when we make a commitment to create -- to be part of this organization, it wasn’t that I wanted -- I don’t believe -- none of us is violent. There is not a person that’s violent, doesn’t exist in a part of myself. I’m a woman of consciousness, and the methodology at that time was doing political military acts, and that’s what we endured. [00:23:00] So that on April 4th at 2:20, we were stopped in a van, and we looked at each other, Carmen Valentín, who is from Chicago, we became comadres. Oh, we’re 14 �the best of friends, and we’ll be for this life and whatever existence comes after. Because I couldn’t see my son. JJ: So you said the methodology of that time was armed struggle, so there was more, like, trying to advance the struggle at the time? DP: Well, at that time, that was the motors -- the strategy to create consciousness was political military acts, armed struggle. I mean, what people have to understand is that, because United States is an urban society, there is no “armed struggle” as people see it on the news or as it happens in, you know, in Iraq, or Afghanistan, it’s not those types of actions, they were acts to erase consciousness so that the targets were not our people, were government agencies that were responsible [00:24:00] for many actions against our people and the colonialization of the Puerto Rican nation, and major corporations. JJ: Oh, so what you were doing this was to -- when you say erase consciousness, you’re trying to open people’s eyes...? (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) DP: No, don Pedro Albizu Campos always said, “If they don’t listen to you, then throw -- use a bullet and throw it to that.” I mean, it’s a metaphor. But it’s also a -- it was a modus operandi of conscious raising. Are there regrets? Absolutely there are regrets. Some people -- fortunately, no one lost their lives. There was an action that occurred, but that’s not for me to discuss. The FBI wants to say that we killed them, they aren’t able to prove that any one of us, 11 of -- members of my comrade that were arrested together, that we were part of those actions, that the organization took responsibility is another thing. And what was I charged with -- 15 �JJ: Right (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) that it was not proven, but [00:25:00] it was not proven. DP: It was never proven, no. JJ: It was never proven, okay. DP: And what our position was, we took the positions of Puerto Rican prisoners of war. Why? JJ: Yeah, can you explain that (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) different --? DP: Of course. Why do we take the position of prisoners of war? We took the position of prisoner of war because according to international law, and the Geneva Convention, if your country is part of a declared or nondeclared war, and you are captured by the enemy, you have the international right to declare yourself a prisoner of war. So we’re not the only ones that took the position, William Morales took it, don Pedro Albizu Campos, Antonio Corretjer, any Puerto Rican that has fought for the future of our country, they’ve all declared themselves prisoners of war. And that, to us, is a position of honor, because even today people are not aware of this reality of colonialization in Puerto Rico. [00:26:00] You know. People see these new commercials that say, “Puerto Rico does it better,” and do people know that 36,000 people just lost their jobs, that this new -- this governor has tried to privatize our nation? They’re trying to make a Spanish-speaking nation that does speak English, but turning it into a completely bilingual, trying to make English -- they weren’t able to do it 50 years ago, and I guarantee you they’re not gonna be able to take our mother tongue from us, even though our mother tongue is really the Taíno language because 16 �Puerto Ricans are -- Taíno Indians, that’s why our real name is Borique, not Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico was when the white folks came, the US -- oh, we have a visitor! (dog appears) This is my little baby, this is [Toda?], who accompanies me all day long. Right, Toda? Toda? You wanna be on the interview? Huh? Yes? Say hello! No? Okay. Véte. Go ahead, véte mama, give mami a kiss, give mami kiss. (kisses) I love you. Véte, go down. Get down. [00:27:00] Toda, stop stealing -- she’s an actress, see? She’s stealing the -- she’s upstaging me. Okay, so we can continue, no mama, no. Go ahead, véte, no! Get down there. I think it’s cute, you can let her go, it’s human. JJ: [It’s human?]. DP: Yeah. I’m not gonna play with you... See? JJ: (inaudible) DP: Well, getting back to -- I mean, Puerto Rico, people don’t even know the reality of this island. And the United States has done an incredible job, because if you go to any -- first of all, we’re the oldest colony in the Western Hemisphere. Second of all, we don’t control our lives. We have elections that are not run by independent parties, they’re run by the United states government. Everything that is done on this beautiful 35-by-100-foot island is run by the US of A. So let us [00:28:00] not deceive ourselves and think, “Oh, this is a paradise.” This is a paradise invaded. And if you visit Puerto Rico, it is an incredible island because we have all the most beautiful fauna and flora, but the irony is that our people -we don’t even have an agricultural society because why? American industrialization changed what would be done in Puerto Rico. What rules in 17 �Puerto Rico is not what our people can survive with, it’s what the United States can earn money from, because they give us money, believe you me, they take 75 percent more than what they give our nation. And what they give us is a mentality -- that’s what colonialization is. I tell people that I would rather be a slave, because slavery is an overt act. Slaves, slavery, people wore chains, you know you were being abused, you know you were being exploited, it was an overt action, but colonialization [00:29:00] is a psychological burden, it’s a psychological game, it’s a psychological plan, that when you visit Puerto Rico, and you live here, you see it every day. We appear as an abundant society, but we’re not, because we don’t control our lives. Everything that we purchase, we pay 75 percent more than anybody in the United States. You know? People have to understand, yeah, we have Walmarts but you know what, to have Walmart, Sam’s, and all these big stores, we no longer have very few (inaudible) the neighborhood businesses, very few exist. I was just in Manatí yesterday at a meeting, and all the wonderful little stores and neighborhood stores were closed. The stores were empty because there aren’t any small businesses in Puerto Rico, because it’s the major corporations that have come here, and everybody wants to go to Costco, and everybody wants to go to Sam, everybody goes [00:30:00] to Walmart, but la bodega doesn’t -- you can’t buy your stuff at the bodega, it’s three times as much than if you went to Walmart. JJ: And so... So, you feel that if there’s independence, there’d be more bodegas, or --? 18 �DP: Well, I think if our nation was independent -- we have all the resources. We’re a technologically developed nation, we’re bilingual, we have engineers, we have lawyers, we have all the professionalism. What we have to do is to create our own industrial, which we can do with our own money, ’cause we do have Puerto Ricans that have money, we do have -- it was quite clear with the last hurricane, the big hurricane, Puerto Ricans raised [29 or 2.5?] million dollars in less than 24 hours. That tells you something. [29 or 2.5?] millions is not a lot, but it tells you that there is an economic base here, and if we owned our land, and if we had the power of our land, then we could [00:31:00] create our own resources in our land. We could -- the mango trees don’t have to be knocked down, you know, the quenepas, we could sell that, we can make an industry, we can create our own bamboo industry. To be honest, with the thousands of bamboo trees that live in this island. JJ: But what are we gonna do about the age, and the wealth, the Social Security, and the...? DP: Well, you know, we’re not gonna die. You think the United States is gonna [?] people? We’ve learned to survive, and we will survive. And then, first of all, the United States will never make us a state, let’s make it abundantly clear. Why? Because we would have more representation in the United States Senate than any state in the United States of America. Two, we run a different culture. It’s not like our Mexicans that come to the United States. Puerto Ricans have a unique culture, and I say it not because I’m ethnocentric, we have this thread -- I believe it’s a [00:32:00] generic line of resistance that exists in us. We have the 19 �power, we’ve created many, many idols across -- in many aspects of life. In musicians, in theatre, in the sports world, you name it, scientists, we have ’em, historians. So that, that’s something that can be negotiated with USA, plus they owe it to us, you know? We’ve been their slaves, we’ve been their colonialist rules for all these years, so that they owe us all of that money. Whatever they give us. JJ: So you’re saying they owe us the Social Security. DP: Yes, absolutely! You work here, you don’t get federal -- you know, you don’t pay federal funds, so that means that your Social Security is diminished, you know. And for everything the United States has taken from us, there’s nothing wrong in getting what’s due to you. There’s restoration, restitution, absolutely. JJ: Okay. I’ll take a break. DP: No, fine. JJ: If you wanna go on a break. DP: Let’s go break. JJ: Okay. DP: I think it’s [00:33:00] important that people understand what is happening today in Puerto Rico, and when I mentioned earlier about the question of the governor, the governor of Puerto Rico today, he supports statehood. Not only does he support statehood, but he’s a Republican. Furthermore, it is, because of who you are one understands how people get elected, and people don’t gonna get elected by the popular vote, let’s be honest, it’s money involved, and that’s what makes politics run. ’Cause to run a campaign, you don’t do it with Scotch tape 20 �and bubblegum, you do it with money. Luis Fortuño was supported by the right -ultra-white aspect of the Bush people, so that’s why he became the governor of Puerto Rico and all he has given us is, he’s attempted to privatize all of our institutions. A month and a half ago, he closed down the only Puerto RicanAfrican museum of our African culture. The essence of our culture. Supposedly, [00:34:00] all the incredible pieces that were there, and I’ve visited that place numerous of times, before I went to prison and after, now I’ve been in freedom 12 years, that’s an insult to the Puerto Rican population, it’s an insult to our culture. So that’s what colonialism is all about, colonialism is about taking what is ours and turning it into something that it doesn’t exist. Puerto Ricans will never assimilate. I’ve always said that the beauty of our people, and I said it again, I’m not ethnocentric, but you go anywhere in the world, and you see a person that looks like a Spanish-speaking person, and they’re Puerto Rican, and you ask them, “What are you?” “Boricua, Puerto Rican.” That has to come from an essence -- I believe in genetic deposition. In genetic deposition, we have an essence of ourselves that even though we’ve been colonized by Spain and the United States, we have always maintained our essence as a people. The reason why people become members of [00:35:00] parties is because we become family. If my mother belonged to the popular party, well then I’m that. If my mother was a statehooder -- I live in Loíza, which is the only municipality that has the essence of our Puerto Rican-African culture. This is a whole-statehood municipality. Why? Because it’s the most marginal municipality in all of the 72 that are here outside of Vieques and Culebra. So what the statehood party did 21 �was, they separated Loíza from Canóvanas and made it a new municipality, even though Loíza originally extended all the way to what today is Isla Verde, from Isla Verde all the way to Fajardo. That was in the olden days when the Borinquén was our nation. And in the transcript of Americanization, this incredible town doesn’t even have an archive about their history. The only thing people know about Loíza out there is that [00:36:00] people make masks out of coconuts and we dance [bomba y plena?] and we have a festival which we haven’t had in many years at the level that we used to have. So, that shows you what colonialization does, colonialization takes away, and it’s a psychological war. It is an undeclared war because if you make your people dependent on what you’re giving them, and here most of the people live on food stamps and welfare, and they have the plan of the government -- and I’m on the plan of the government because of my situation right now financially. But the truth of the matter is people here don’t even know that they’re -- the beauty of their essence, of what Mother Africa has given us Puerto Ricans, so that’s a real example of colonialism is about. And if you visit here, you don’t think that poor people are living here, because the government has done that. They create this facade. I call it ro-“looking at a nation through rose-colored [00:37:00] glasses”. Okay, where do we go now? (laughs) JJ: Okay, well, you were mentioning -- you’ve mentioned a couple of times about jail. And I just wanted to -- ’cause you spent about how many years? DP: Well I was incarcerated almost 20 years. I was arrested April 4th, 1980, and I was released September 10th, 1999. 22 �JJ: So you got arrested where? DP: In Evanston, Illinois. JJ: In Evanston, Illinois, and then you were taken where? DP: To the state prison, well, we went to the county jails. And then we went -- after that we had a state and federal trial. When the state trial finished, then we were sent -- I went to Dwight, the women’s penitentiary -- JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) [the trial?] -- what are some of the highlights of the trial [after?] (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) DP: Well, I’m writing my book, so I’m, you know -- I’ll tell you a little bit, so then I’ll make them -- people have to go out and buy my book, by next year it should be out. I’m only joking. The trial was very simple. We took a position -- a prisoner of war, which I said before, prisoner of war, none of us, 11 of us, were [00:38:00] arrested on that day. We took that international law position of prisoner of war, that means you do not recognize the jurisdiction of the United States courts. So none of us -- we had legal advisors, but we did not participate. Each of us made an opening and closing statement during our trial. And we were sentenced -- at the state level I was sentenced to 8 years and at the federal prison level I was sentenced to 62 years. So I was sentenced to 68 years. JJ: Did you do any time at the state (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? DP: I did three and a half years at the state women’s penitentiary, absolutely. I was maximum security. JJ: Where were you at? 23 �DP: I was in Dwight, Illinois. The only female prison, I believe, in the state of Illinois, yeah. And when we were there -- I heard now that it’s much bigger, and of course, they keep arresting women of color, it doesn’t matter. It’s interesting, the many young white women in prison, at the state prison. And I have to tell you, at the state prison the conditions were a lot better, to me, [00:39:00] than in the feds, because I believe the officers were really interesting human beings. Most of them were, like, farm workers that owned the farms before, and they didn’t have -- so then the only option they had was to be correctional officers. So they treated us with a lot of dignity, with a lot of human kindness, you know? You always find those that wanna be officers, absolutely. But while I was in prison, I’ll tell you an example. The day I left, I owed 82 hours of what they call confinement, of what is [publishing?] confinement, which could be, like, I couldn’t go to recreation, not to be put in segregation, of course I’d been put in segregation many times in the 20 years. And my most biggest offense in the state was, “insolence,” and I used to tell them, the [warden?], “How could I be insolent of something that I’m not a part of?” You know? But -- JJ: I’m not clear what that is. What is that? DP: Insolent? When one is insolent, is that [00:40:00] you’re going against the rules, against the person that’s responsible to give you orders, and [like above?] my position was when I went to prison. JJ: This is where you were put in segregation, or? 24 �DP: Oh, I was put in segregation for other reasons, but this is why I got what they call a “shot”. It’s a disciplinary action, then you have to go before a lieutenant, and the officers, and then they give you punishment. JJ: (inaudible) DP: Yeah. I’ve been to the hole for very other reasons, many other things. Again, it’s significant, but they needed to do it, and they did it. Fine, no problem. JJ: So you come in and they give you the shot, did you said? DP: No no. When I came in, I told the officer, that I’m just -- they wanted my respect, they’d then have to respect me. My name was Dylcia Pagán, and their name was Officer So-and-so, and that’s how we addressed each other. The reason I went to segregation was they assigned me to the kitchen, I have a displaced hip, and I tried to inform them [00:41:00] that I have a medical disorder, and I couldn’t be picking up 60-pound trays, and nobody wanted to listen to me. So, my lawyers came to visit, and I said, “Tuesday morning, I end on my 90 days as my kitchen duty, I’m going to the hole,” as they call it. Segregation, we would call it - [the three words?], the hole. JJ: So you made a decision. DP: I made a decision. And at two o’clock in the -- now when you worked in the kitchen, you worked 24 hours, and you had one day off, of course you had to, you were dead, you know, exhausted. And I had a lot of incidents with my supervisors because I would never -- my parents told me that I didn’t have to take commands from anybody. That if you could talk to people, you could work things out. But I had all these, all the white women that were the kitchen 25 �supervisors, and they insisted, and insisted, I’m pushing your bullet, you know, pushing the horn. And one of the things I can’t stand is to be told what to do, especially by some -- an ignorant human being. So that was where the [00:42:00] insolence came in, either with the staff or the officers. And then, when I went to segregation, the first time was because I refused to work, and it was like four o’clock, 3:30, and they wanted -- “Miss Pagán,” they brought all the lieutenants into my unit, I said, “I’m not changing my position. I finished my 90 days, I’m going to the hole, I’m not going to work anymore.” So they put me in the hole, guess what? In less than 24 hours, a doctor arrived. And I said, “Oh my goodness, did you just get a beeper?” (laughter) “After 90 days?” ’Cause all of a sudden, then I got a note that said that I couldn’t do heavy-duty. But it took 90 days and my own defiance to be able to get my rights. Many things happened in the state, but then I got transferred to the feds. I got transferred, and almost near Christmas, it was a snow storm, and I decided I was gonna go to breakfast to say goodbye to my fellow inmates. And they said, “But you can’t,” I said, “I’m going to breakfast.” And since [00:43:00] I was a guard escort, I had to go at -all my three and a half years, all of us, were guard escort, that meant we couldn’t move anywhere within the premises without a guard with us. And when it was snowing -JJ: All of the people that you got arrested with? DP: My female co-defendants that were with me, yes. JJ: Okay. Everyone had an escort? 26 �DP: We had a badge that we wore. So if we went from one unit to a visiting room, the officer had to come in the car. And then when it was snow, the car would come, but we had to walk in the snow to go to the visiting room. So they always try to break your spirit, and I’ve always said that when you’re in p-- JJ: You’re already in jail, and, you're already been sentenced, and... DP: I was already sentenced, absolutely. JJ: And they’re still trying to break your spirit (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) DP: Oh, of course, that’s part of the game. I said, it’s a psychological game, and they try to do it by any means necessary, of course they will. But like I said, when you know who you are, and you know why you’re there, they can’t break your spirit. ’Cause I had my principles, [00:44:00] and I knew who I was, and I knew what I represented. And also in the state prison, I offered work with the women in prison, you know? I had an aerobic class that even the warden came to my class, half of the staff came to my aerobic class. I taught art. You know? One has to survive, and I wasn’t gonna survive staying in a room, so I created programming. You know? So that I could be creative and my mind could be functioning, and I was at the same time making a contribution to the women that I was living with. So then in ’83 I went to the federal custody. To get there was a fiasco, I mean, I had a car with -- JJ: I [recognize?], yeah (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) DP: Sure. 27 �JJ: I didn’t mean to interrupt (inaudible). So you’re in jail now, you’re going through this demoralization campaign, that they’re trying to do to you. [00:45:00] What are you thinking, are you thinking you’ll ever get out of jail, or? DP: Oh, I always knew I’d be in freedom. I worked on the campaign for the release of a Puerto Rican nationalist, and I said, being raised with an essence of being Puerto Rican, I knew my struggle, I knew the history of our people, and I knew I wasn’t gonna die in jail, absolutely not. Did I like being in jail? Absolutely not. I was separated from my child, my child was 13 months. I chose that my child be not raised in Puerto Rico or New York because of FBI reoccurrence, because we had an example of North American comrades, they took -- the FBI sequestered their children, and to this day, this is almost 30-some-odd years ago, maybe 40, some of the kids that were sequestered by the FBI are still under severe psychological therapy. So I made a decision that my son was raised out of the country, so I didn’t hear from my son for 10 years. What I do know is that Juan Antonio Corretjer [00:46:00] made the arrangement for my son to be raised in Chihuahua, México, and he was raised by the Gomez Gomez family who was just here a couple of weeks ago, I’m honored. And I would say probably it was my parents’ spirit because I’ve been alone, my father died when I was 15, my mother when I was 20, so I’ve been alone since I was 20 years of age. And I really believe it’s their guiding spirit, and of course don Juan Antonio Corretjer’s efforts that brought my son to this incredible revolutionary family that has raised my son. And he’s still part of their lives, absolutely. JJ: And were you not in communication with him at all, or? 28 �DP: Until he was 10 years old. I didn’t see him till he was 10 years old. JJ: You didn’t see him till he was 10 (inaudible) DP: No. I didn’t know of him, where he was, till he was 10. For Christmas, he showed up in the federal prison, yes. And then he’s been in my life ever since, he’s here in Puerto Rico, he married -- JJ: What’s his name? DP: My son’s biological name, birth name, is Guillermo Morales Pagán. At the age of 27 he [00:47:00] asked -- well, he informed me that he wanted to take on his Mexican name, and I had no problems with that. I call him -- I always tell him, he’s a Mexi-Rican. JJ: Mexi-Rican? DP: He’s a Mexi-Rican, absolutely. And he’s very proud of his Mexican heritage, and he should be, because that’s what he was raised. And he also knows his Puerto Rican and he was definitely involved totally in our campaign, ’cause once he became part of my life, at 15 he came to live in San Francisco so he could visit me, and that’s where the documentary, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it, titled the Double Life of Ernesto Gomez Gomez that aired on PBS, it’s won -- JJ: I have heard of it, actually. DP: It’s won about 14 awards nationally, internationally, was done. And basically, it’s his idea, it’s Gary Weimberg and Cathy Ryan, who were basically his padrinos because they ended up adopting him as his godchild, and as a matter of fact he just told me he’s gonna go see Cathy and Gary in June because it’s Gary’s 50th [00:48:00] birthday, so that’s a blessing. You know, when you can’t be with your 29 �child and you find people that can substitute that love and support, that’s -- my son has an extended family, he does. I’m very blessed in that area, absolutely. JJ: So then you’re at a state prison, you (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) DP: At the state prison, and then in 1983 -- JJ: So you completed your state time, or? DP: No. In the state, you do day for day, and of course they wanted to get rid of us anyway, they were dying to get rid of us, you know, “Let’s transfer them outta here,” so that I ended up doing three and a half years of my state -- federal -- JJ: Were you creating problems in there, or? DP: No, no, I was creating programs for them. But anytime our rights were, in any way, abolished or threatened -- JJ: The attorneys would come and -- DP: The attorneys and demonst-- we’ve had many demonstrations in front of that prison. JJ: And these attorneys were [from where?]? DP: Well, from the People’s Law Office of Chicago, our lead attorney, Jan Susler was there, Michael -- at that time it was Michael Deutsch and Jan [00:49:00] Susler. JJ: You [were?] familiar with -- DP: Excuse me? JJ: When we took over McCormick Seminary, the first 25,000 dollars were (inaudible) [law?]. (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) DP: Really? That’s wonderful, they’re incredible people, that’s the whole thing. JJ: The Young Lords helped to create the law. 30 �DP: Wonderful. No, and, the People’s Law Office is a phenomenon, you know. The people -- the offices -- JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) the lawyers definitely got credit. (laughs) They’re the ones that did the work, but -- DP: Well -- JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) DP: In our case, they didn’t do any work, because they were just there to represent us, but they were there to support us 20 years, and that’s work. JJ: In your case because of (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) [trial?]? DP: Exactly. We did not recognize the jurisdictions of the United States courts, so we only did opening, as I said before, and closing statements, but we always had legal representation, and they always visited us, and every prison I was at, everyone said, “My God, your lawyers walk in, and it’s like you all hug and kiss,” and I said, “But they’re a family!” We don’t have a regular client-lawyer relationship, we’re family, and that’s the difference. [00:50:00] You know? Absolutely, yes. JJ: Okay, so you’re in the -- DP: So then I went to federal prison. In ’84, the [Bureau Prison Society?]’s doing what they call -- define as a robin round. A robin round is when they -- it’s a psychological study, so they take you all to different facilities and they don’t tell you when they’re gonna move you. So they took me -- I was at 6 different prisons and 20 different holding places for a year and seven months. I defined myself as the FALN ambassador, ’cause no matter where they went, I fought for 31 �the prisoners, I created programming, and I was Dylcia, who I’ve always been. You know? My role was to create programming, to service the inmates, and that’s what I’ve done. You know? And I’m glad I did. I have a young woman who’s doing her doctorate in California on my life, and an interesting [00:51:00] story is, six years ago I got an email from this gentleman named Enrique Alvarez, and he said, “I don’t know if you remember me, but I was your officer. I worked,” you know, “I was your officer, and you changed my life. The day after you were released, I took your advice, I left the BOP, I have a master’s in counseling, and I’m coming to Puerto Rico. I’d be honored for you to meet my wife and my daughter.” Till this day, he’s my dear friend, and if you visit my website, you will hear his testimony in the establishing of my foundation, the Dylcia Pagán Foundation. So anybody that wants to read that story, and do visit my website, W-W-W dot Dylcia, D-Y-L-C-I-A P-A-G-A-N, dot com. JJ: (inaudible). (laughs) DP: It has my poetries there, you can see some of my artwork. And you can read about the projects that I’m working on. JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) [link that to them, that’d be great?]. DP: Surely. And right now, well -- 20 years in prison, what didn’t [00:52:00] I do? I had a Puerto Rican dinner every year for [ages?], create -- you know, I got the inmates to cook and got them to pay for the food that was necessary to make it a Puerto Rican meal. I did every cultural activity for the Black inmates, the Native Americans, their powwows -- JJ: This is in the --? 32 �DP: In the federal prison, yeah. JJ: In the federal prison, okay. DP: Yeah. I taught aerobics -- JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) [Día de Los Reyes?] -- DP: Of course. [Día de Los Reyes?], I had it every year, 20 years, I did a big dinner for all the prisoners, absolutely. Yes. First one was a [piñón?], and it’s not easy to make a piñón for, like, 860 people but we did it. I organized working with inmates, the children’s center, where we took care of the kids and visitors of the inmates. I did children’s day twice a year, and I was able to acquire 60 staff members to come un-uniformed to work, and we did security for that day when the children were allowed to come to the prison, my last five years I did a [00:53:00] 19-category art exhibit of all the artwork of the prisoners, with a gift shop. I’ll tell you a story. The Native American women did this incredible -- they still do, I’m sure they’re still incarcerated, some of them, they might be still incarcerated. They do incredible beadwork. And then a lot of the North American women did beadwork. So I had just a category for the Native American women. And our Native American sisters are very humble, very humble. One of the sisters came up to me at the exhibit, she said “Ms. Dylcia,” I said, “What?” “My [roseta of Kokopelli?] is gone.” And I said, “Yeah, I know.” She said, “Where did it go?” I said, “This is one of my teachers from the holistic - one of the facilitators. She bought your Kokopelli.” And she looked at me and she said, “I didn’t put a price on it,” I said, “But I did.” I said, “So next week, you’ll have 150 dollars.” And she started to cry, and of course I had to cry, because 33 �she had never been [00:54:00] able to speak to her children, so that, to me, that’s a gift. And to watch the women stand before their work and say, “I won this prize. I am worth -- I’m not a criminal, I’m worth, because I can do things, I’m a creative being.” There’s a lot of pleasure, and it’s not even pleasure, it’s just a feeling of happiness that one experiences when you see women that can stand behind their work and say, “This is mine, I earned this.” You know? And the holistic healing program was phenomenal. We had a weekend of about 15 different workshops, for a whole weekend, 110 women were allowed to participate in this incredible extravaganza. I taught aerobics, I taught handformed clay, block printing -JJ: So you’re teaching (inaudible) DP: I had a theatre company, yes. JJ: I know, but how many [00:55:00] people were -- DP: In my aerobic class? Oh, I had over 200, 300 women, absolutely. Matter of fact, I went to California, my first trip after nine years of freedom, and I was able to have lunch with five of my -- Black -- I hate that -- I don’t like the term “Afro Americans,” my Black sisters, and we had a hell of a day, because it was hysterical, ’cause they were all in my exercise class and they all stood up and they said, “Bend your knees, D!” So it was an excellent experience, because what happens is we believe that people that are in prison are these animals, and they’re not. I have shared rooms with incredible women, I’ve rubbed shoulders with brilliant writers, poets, you know, women who unfortunately, some have lost their children because the system doesn’t provide those kind of internal social 34 �services for our inmates, especially the women, you know. There are many women from all of [00:56:00] Latin America, I met a whole group of sisters from Africa, and was able to negotiate that the BOP give them clothes, because they had no family in this country. So I think, to me, it was a worthy experience, not that I liked being in prison 20 years. Like the saying says, “When you get lemons, make lemonade.” I tried to make lemonade. Did I have difficult time? Absolutely. Did I miss my child? Absolutely. Did I miss my freedom? Yes. But I was on the phone, I knew what everybody was producing, what everybody was doing, I used to talk to [assemblyman José Rivera at least?] once a month, you know, so I was -- to the moment of what was happening outside the world, but I lived inside, and I didn’t live in a fantasy world, like, “Oh, I’m not in prison,” no. I didn’t have a map, a calendar and mark the days, no, but I knew that I would be in freedom, and that whatever day I did inside, I was doing it for my nation, I wasn’t there [00:57:00] serving the United States government, I was serving my nation. JJ: Okay, so you mentioned that there were some pleasurable moments [in there?], and also -- but you said some of these sad -- what were the sad moments? (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) DP: Oh, there were many. I think it’s once you can’t see your child, you know, that was 10 years of difficulty, it was heartbreaking. But in order to heal, I created a children’s center, so that I was able to service the children of my fellow inmates. Carmen Valentín, who was from Chicago, became comadres. I couldn’t see my son, so her son Antonio, we had privileges to visit together. So Antonio was my 35 �child, I worked with -- we made all the decisions of Antonio’s life for those 10 years until my son arrived, you know? He’s still in my life, he’s my godson. Just like my son is in Carmen’s life, and Carina, Oscar López who’s now 31 years, that’s her grandfather. Carmen’s granddaughter’s grandfather. [00:58:00] Yeah. Oscar López, who’s in prison, my co-defendant. And -JJ: What is going on with Oscar (inaudible)? DP: Well, with Oscar, what’s happening is Oscar went to the parole board on his birthday, January, and the parole board basically told him to come back and give him 15 more years. So -- JJ: Give him -- DP: Yeah. Oscar could’ve been home in 2009 but he refused the clemency, because he felt that it didn’t include everybody else that was arrested, and that was his choice. He did a choice of integrity, and that has to be honored, so what we’re doing now is we’re launching a national and international campaign demanding his release. Hopefully -- JJ: And how does that campaign work, (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) or? DP: Well, we have -- his artwork has traveled all over the world right now, matter of fact we’re gonna have a march -- a walkathon, this coming Sunday, in honor of Oscar, ’cause Oscar loves to walk. Matter of fact, he did for Vieques, he did a whole [00:59:00] protest march for Vieques and he had inmates that marched with him, and we marched here, we did a walkathon with Oscar, for Vieques, to get the US Navy out of Vieques. Oscar has become an incredible artist, he paints beautifully, so we have -- his artwork has traveled all over, we have -- all 36 �the universities, I was honored to say that I took -- when Carlos was still inside, Carlos was just released last year. We did the exhibit of their work, “Place Without Space,” I forget -- yeah I think it is. We took it to New York and I’m honored to say that I put it together with Taller Boricua and Julia de Burgos Center. We had over 400 people at the opening. So that’s [what you?] -whenever I speak, I can’t talk about who I am if I don’t talk about Oscar, and I don’t talk about Leonard, ’cause it’s not just Oscar, I mean, Puerto Rican, we have Leonard Peltier, we have our Cuban Five, we have many new African comrades that are still in prison. Many have died [01:00:00] inside. So I think people need to understand that they’re not just Puerto Rican political prisoners, we have Albelino and Norberto Gonzalez Claudio that is now in prison, so it’s Oscar who’s done 31, but Albelino and Norberto are inside also. The struggle continues, but we can’t forget that our people are inside, ’cause the one day you give the enemy is part of your life. But when you give it with integrity and dignity, that’s the difference -- when we were -- I think what happened -- people wouldn’t understand my position. The women would say, “You know, you’re so smart, Ms. Pagán,” and the Black sisters would say, “Don’t ask Ms. Pagán nothing. ’Cause she’s gonna stop you and give you a course in Black history.” But when the documentary about my son and I aired on PBS, everyone -- we had the count changed so that the women could see it, it was a struggle but I [01:01:00] got them to approve it. People were astound. And that’s why I’m a visual artist, because I think you can talk, but until you see the reality of what my son was going through and the reality of our struggle and you see, I mean, the visuals of 37 �the Navy in Vieques, of the real conditions of Puerto Rico, the questions of the sterilization of our women, you know, and you see the reality and you hear people’s voices and people give the testimony about the reality of Puerto Rico, then people’s eyes open, and they say, “Wow, now I understand.” So I think that -- that aired July 30th, we were released September 10th. We had 10 days to choose the conditions or not, we ended up deciding to sign, because there was a big meeting of our people here in Puerto Rico, our leadership in the United States, and they asked us to sign, and so we did. So I’ve been in [01:02:00] freedom, September 10th, 1999, till today. It’s been incredible. You know. Our people received us from all parties in open arms, our people have supported me in many ways. My life is difficult because I’m an independent filmmaker, I’m older now, nobody is gonna give me a job in television so I create my own projects independently. But I’m in freedom. I don’t have to worry about what time they lock me up. If I wanna have a little glass of wine, I do. If I wanna go dance to salsa dances, I do. I wanna visit my friends -- also when we came out we were on parole for six years, so we couldn’t see each other. We were able to -- if we bumped into each other, we could talk for 15, 10 minutes. I got privileged one time -- Carmen was able to spend Christmas with me, one year. JJ: Did you (inaudible)? DP: Yes, absolutely, yes. So my life was curfewed, because I was only allowed to travel three times a year, and I had a lot of [01:03:00] invitations for speaking engagement, but they wouldn’t approve it. JJ: So you did 20 years and [then?] plus another 6 -- 38 �DP: Plus another 6, exactly, yeah. JJ: And that’s what everybody -- other people did the same thing -- DP: Oh yes, absolutely, yeah. JJ: But now you can travel anywhere, or? DP: Oh yes, after 6 years of freedom, so it was ’99, ’99 and 6, 2003, I believe, right? Nine... Eh, around there. They dropped our parole, I’ve been able to go -- I spoke at a conference in Madrid, (inaudible) Madrid and then spent a week and a half with my niece that was living in Spain, I was able to go to Venezuela, I was in Cuba for nine days and had an incredible nine days of experience. I wasn’t able to visit the comandante Fidel because he was ill at that time, but I make masks. I call them “Reinas y cacicas”, why? Because in our culture, Puerto Rican women at the time of our Taíno Indians, we were chieftains of tribes. [01:04:00] We’re the only indigenous country -- nation -- that has women that were heads of tribes. And all the masks in Puerto Rico were faces of men, so I’ve decided, I’ve come out with a new series called “Reinas y casicas” -- “queens and casicas, and chieftains”. And I made him one, I made him his spiritual guide, I made him and I know he received it, I gave it to [Alarcón?] and then, [nobody’s besting, you know, the?] Secretary General of the Parliament of Cuba. And it was a wonderful experience to visit Cuba, to see the Cuban people. They live with dignity and pride, yes, they have food. They may not have all the cars, and God damn in Puerto Rico we have so many cars, like, every time you go out there’s a traffic jam, am I correct, you know? JJ: Mm-hmm. So you were pretty well-received there, did you -- 39 �DP: Oh, I was received by the government, I went with Mickey Melendez from the Young Lords, his wife. Matter of fact, [Cynthia?] and Mickey got [01:05:00] married two Novembers ago, in Cuba, at the Puerto Rican house there. And we went with Joe Perez who’s from the Lords in New York, his wife, and we stayed at the protocol house, so, I mean, we had our own escort. It was talked about -VIP, that was VIP treatment. And then our car was there every morning at seven o’clock to make sure that we went to our trips. So I was able to visit the AIDS center, it was phenomenal, phenomenal. There is not a separate island, it’s just a huge piece of land, where the people that have AIDS, they’ve been rejected in their communities, they can stay there and work and they grow the land. I went to the film school, I gave a whole -- contributed all of my pieces and stuff from my television series that I worked on, (inaudible) we haven’t talked about, which maybe I should talk a little bit about my experience in that. I went to the film school, I went to visit the social workers, we went to the Pedro Albizu Campos high school -- JJ: [01:06:00] In Cuba. DP: In Cuba, yes. And I am the official madrina of the school, that is from kindergarten to eighth grade. And they all knew who I was, and they sang the Borinqueña. It was unbelievable! Beautiful. And the principal is 21 years old, is that incredible? Brilliant, you know? And the people, we went to a concert. We went to visit Che Guevara’s tomb. But with VIP -- I mean, I got to see every aspect of the museum, they got us private viewing of his tomb, what an experience. And then they showed us the film and we were able to sit in the 40 �reception room and sign the book, behind this incredible -- it’s about the size of my wall behind me, of Che. It was an incredible experience, yes. And just to see the people because, you know, I did a lot of television, I did a lot of interviews, so of course they passed the news every morning, Fidel speaks, and I got to speak, so the car passed [01:07:00] by the people waiting for the public buses, they’d wave, you know, we’d say hello, no matter where we went. We were treated with, you know, just dignity and support, and just to see a nation that everybody criticizes because they don’t know what it is, but what an incredible place Cuba is. People dress like we do, believe you me, they know how to jam, because they do jam, baby. That’s what I didn’t get to do, and I told our international head of protocol, I said, “You know, the next time I have to go out and jam, (inaudible) because I love to dance,” you know? But it was incredible, I’ll probably be in Venezuela in July, we have a conference I have to go. And as the secretary of women affairs for the nationalist party I’ll be representing the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. Of Puerto Rico. JJ: Now you mentioned (inaudible)...? DP: Okay, oh, right, that I left my shows, yes. How did I become a TV producer, you’re probably wondering? Oh, okay. Can we take a break? I need to wet my [01:08:00] mouth. JJ: Okay, so then you said you couldn’t attend any funerals but then were gonna go into -- DP: Okay, well one of the things that you had asked me before, were we -- as political prisoners, yes, we were treated differently. An example, one of our family 41 �members -- none of us were ever able to attend any family funerals. Our visiting lists were -- I have two dear friends, Frank Espada, who’s Juan Espada’s father JJ: I know Frank, yeah. DP: That’s my dear friend. And Humberto Cintrón, who was the executive producer of the first television series [so?] I’ll tell you the stories that I worked on. Took a year and a half to get them on my visiting list. Why? Because each one of us had an FBI agent that when we put the list in, that list went to the agent, and when they felt like it, then they would approve it. So, but contrary to all of that, my friends from New York came to visit me. The best thing was that we had a group of young students who visited me [01:09:00] every Sunday for 10 years. Today they’re all professionals, they’re all part of my life, as a matter of fact Ray Pavón and Francis Free Ramos got married, and I married them in [Tuincol?], I did the ceremony, and Carmen and I both did -- but I did the wedding vows, but we did the ceremony together, and then I did the wedding. I married them. They have two incredible children. Ray is a hip hop political performer, he’s now a house dad and Francis is a social worker and they’re incredible. So [Faulisha?] is married, they share a house, Jason has a little boy, he’s married. Khalil and his brother, Khalil’s brother Eli is a person who’s done the best pieces of documentaries on hip hop, he’s just finishing a piece on hip hop in India. Uh, Khalil just got married, so he’s become like his ambassador, and they work together, so that -- it’s incredible. [01:10:00] I had a son, and then I adopted more daughters and sons, and they’re still in my life. They come to Puerto Rico, 42 �they come here. I go to California, I hang out with them, you know? It’s a problem sometimes cause then it’s like, “How many days you gonna stay with me?” “No, D’s gonna stay with me.” “No, I’m gonna D --” So we work it all out so I spend time with all of them, and of course Gary Weimberg and Cathy Ryan, I have to go and spend some time with. They had the courage and valor to do the documentary on our lives, you know. Okay, so you’re probably wondering, I didn’t tell you how I became a TV producer. Again, it wasn’t a miracle. I was on television as a child, after being an organizer and going to Brooklyn College and starting the Puerto Rican Studies department at Brooklyn, still exists, and the union, the union still doesn’t exist, but -JJ: So you started the Puerto Rican Studies? DP: In Brooklyn College, yes. JJ: (inaudible) DP: Yes. I brought Dr. [Luis Ianes Falcón?] who then became our attorney for our political release, I [01:11:00] brought him to be a professor at Brooklyn College with Alfredo Matilla. Yeah. We started the first -- I initiated, at Brooklyn College, I started the Black Studies department, and then organized -- found the Puerto Ricans who were having [dances?] and then was able to organize the Puerto Rican Alliance which still exists today at Brooklyn College. What happened was, I got approached by a friend that said, Manhattan Sterling wanted to do a Puerto Rican show. So I went to Manhattan Sterling, well, the studio was half of this living room, with one camera, and I created a show called La Voz de la Comunidad. It was a talk show, and we had one camera, this young brother was 43 �at Ithaca University, and he was organizing the first Puerto Rican conference, so we called it “el sancocho”, so that was the first show I ever did. Shortly after that, after the [01:12:00] People’s Church, Geraldo Rivera and I became very good friends. My dear friend Bob de León was the person who got him the scholarship to go to Columbia School of Journalism. One day Geraldo calls me and says, “Look, I need --” You know, he was doing Like It Is with Gil Noble who just passed away, what an incredible man, he gave his life of creating real consciousness in American television. Like It Is, Gil Noble. Geraldo asked me, “Who do you use for the show?” I said, “Why don’t you take -- put Pedro Pietri on the show,” you know? “He’s a poet, he’s satirical, and he’s incredible, he talks about the real Puerto Rican experience with his ‘Puerto Rican Obituary’,” which I’m sure you know, they were always on time, well, he wrote that in my home. So that’s why his book is dedicated to me. Alfredo Matilla did the Spanish translation and the second version -- the second publication was dedicated to me. To me, [01:13:00] that’s an honor. I miss my Pedro, you know, he passed away five and a half years ago. But he lives here all the time, he used to knock down rum bottles after he died, all the time. But anyway, so Pedro went on the show, Pedro comes to my house, like he always used to, always did, Pedro Pietri and Papoleto -JJ: (inaudible) DP: Oh, baby, they’d get drunk, and we had a rule. I didn’t want them anywhere running the streets, so if you didn’t have money, you call me and I pay for a cab. Collect calls, mind you, so -- with collect call, I knew who it was from, “Hey, D!” 44 �But he came straight from ABC, and he sat in my living room, and I said “What,” and I said, “Have yous a shot of Jack Daniels and what is it?” And he said, “Well I talked to Charles Watson, who’s the executive producer, and he’s looking for a cohost of Like It Is for Geraldo,” because Geraldo was gonna cohost with Gil Noble and it was Melba Moore. Melba Moore -- was it [01:14:00] Melba Moore? Melba Moore was the actress. I know her last name was Moore. Melba Tolliver, Melba Tolliver and Gil and then Geraldo, so I told him to call you, “Well I had to go to the hospital to have minor, minor surgery done.” So I called Watson, I said, “Listen.” Pedro -- he called me and I said, “Look, I just came from the hospital. And I had -- I’m gonna be at home for about a week and a half.” I said, “Would you like to come to my apartment and you’ll do the interview here, is that cool? And I’ll make you a Puerto Rican meal.” We ended up becoming dear friends, he hired me on board, and he had told me, he says, “I’ve never felt -- this is an interview where I’m the one that’s nervous.” I said, “But why?” He says, “Because I’ve never met a woman like you.” I say, “Well I don’t think I’m that incredible.” But he was just such a sweet man, with a lot of integrity. So I came onboard, and Geraldo had just won the Peabody Award for his piece on the mental health unit, so that’s like the Oscars [01:15:00] of television, and he refused to be on camera with me. So then I got hired as the associate producer of Like It Is, so then I worked with Gil, and ended up -- the funniest thing is that a friend -JJ: [But?] this was before you went to jail, right, or --? DP: No, honey. Before I went to jail, hello, this is 1968! 45 �JJ: So why didn’t he want to --? DP: Because I think he felt that I had much more camera experience than he did. JJ: Oh, I see. DP: Remember, I was on television since I was five years old. I’m not afraid of a camera, as you can see. I know how to talk to the camera, work with the camera, and be with the camera, so. So he did me a favor because I learned how to do production, so I worked for Like It Is for a while, and then Charles came up to me and was very honest, he said, “Dylcia, we love you, come on board.” I did the piece on Adam Clayton Powell, who his son is a very dear friend of mine, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., who’s now an elected official in East Harlem. The fourth, [01:16:00] ’cause he’s Adam Powell IV. But, he said, “The show is gonna go totally Black. And we made a commitment that our staff would be all --” I said, “I have no problems with that.” That’s said and done, but I learned the ropes of what does -- how do networks work, you know, working in what you call... Make-believe television with the little cameras, like, running around with the old video camera that had a big box. This is real, real television. So, we realized, there was a group called, I forget their title but they had just sued the networks demanding Black programming. And we have -- well, we always had a group over in East Harlem that were activists, artists, some of them were elected officials, but they were our people, and then we always were independentistas, we fought for the release of the Puerto Rican nationalists, so we created a group called the Puerto Rican Education Media -- [01:17:00] Education and Action Council. And what we decided to do was sue the 46 �networks. So we got college students and for six months, we studied television. All the networks, every day. What was the image of the Puerto Rican? Well, we concluded that it was not a positive image. First of all, there was no Puerto Rican programming. There was no positive image, all they had was the crime reports and that was it. So, we sued the networks, and at that time we had friends that had a cute nightclub in East Harlem, it was like the hot scene. It was like Studio 54 but for East Harlem. Christopher’s. What we did is we brought the presidents of the networks to negotiate at Christopher’s. Puerto Rican meal, we hit the whole works, Puerto Ricans, that’s how we are, you know that. They were very impressed. And then we had -- it was a two-story facility, so a lot of the big bands would come and play. So that night we invited them to bring their wives after the event ’cause we had a dinner for them, so then the wives would call me, [01:18:00] “Listen is Tom or John there? Can I come over to hang out? Oh, marvelous!” We didn’t do those negotiations so that we could hang out with the wives of the presidents of the networks, we did it to get a program! Nothing happened, everything was left in the [billions?]. All right. One afternoon, we had a meeting and we remembered -- we found out that WNET was having its telethon. So we said, “This is it.” We organized a march in front of WNET’s office, which is on 58th Street right off by Columbus Circle, and then we went to the studio on 55th Street and took over the telethon. In walked in José Rivera, the assemblyman, he was then a union organizer, Jorge Soto, who’s in the other life, painter, myself, Piri Thomas, Frank Espada, Humberto Cintrón. We took over the network, we took over the telethon, and guess what? They didn’t know 47 �what else to do, John Jay Iselin [01:19:00] gave us 1.5 million to start a new series, so we called it “Realidades”. And I really believe that they said, “These Puerto Ricans don’t know what they’re doing,” oh, little did they know. We came to Puerto Rico and got our own -- Puerto Rico had a DGA car, which is Director’s Guild of America, ’cause that’s required. Went to New York City, Pablo Cabrera had done the best entertainment programs and culture here in Puerto Rico. And we hire -- everybody had to be either Latino or Black. And we created our crew, we paid them what everybody pays, and we did the local series, and the 17 shows, of which I produced 11, I went for an interview and ended up being the first Puerto Rican television producer. From there I went to... Where did I go from there? I went to a newspaper, I became the editor of the first bilingual newspaper in East -- in New York City called “El Tiempo”. I got bored doing the columns, I created a gossip column called [01:20:00] Bochinche and had a ball. Herman Badillo was running for mayor, and the nationalists, we were in the middle of the campaign so I intertwined both things. Miriam Colón called me -JJ: [You mean?] Herman [Padillo?] with the [nationalists?]? DP: No, Herman Badillo. JJ: Herman Badillo. DP: Herman, Herman, yeah. Not no nationalist, Herman Badillo was running for mayor of the city of New York. JJ: And you said you interconnected them? DP: I interconnected in my column, Bochinche, Casa. JJ: Okay, Casa. 48 �DP: The campaign for the release of the five nationalists and Herman running for mayor. Two opposite ends. But how do you get consciousness in people? JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) DP: But nobody wanted to be -- no one, Herman, and he just wrote this horrible book three years ago. JJ: I actually (inaudible) helped him get his security [when?] Harold Washington. DP: Oh, really? JJ: He was coming, he was up, [in?] Harold Washington. Sounds like you don’t know (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) DP: No. The book he published two years ago about Puerto Ricans -- JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) [working for?] Harold Washington at that time. (laughs) DP: I don’t ca-- I mean, I’ve known everybody. I’m a good friend of many elected officials, (inaudible). [01:21:00] I know Congressman Serrano very well, I know Nydia Velázquez very well, her, I have a lot of respect, and [Joe?], because they all took, and Gutierrez, they supported our campaign. José Rivera, incredible man. I mean, he’s been -- what didn’t he do for Vieques? He got arrested in Vieques, he’s done films, you know. That’s what I call an elected official, that’s, you know, that’s a big difference than when you write a book that criticizes your people. He could not even speak Spanish, but that’s another interview we’ll do. We’ll do a whole story on all my -- overview of political officials. So, I told the mess-- I sent the message, I said, “Listen, guys, we’re doing a fundraiser in Manhattan Center, and I got 19 bands to perform, from Ray Barretto, to 49 �(inaudible),” you name it, they performed for me to raise money. I got Jerry Masucci from Fania Records to give me a thousand LPs that I auctioned off. I didn’t do it. Julio Pabón, who runs Latino Sports, he belonged to a political organization, they [01:22:00] assigned it to me, he tells everybody, “She made me get on stage and auction albums! That’s how I learned how to do public speaking,” he tells everyone. Well, at ten o’clock, I told him, “At ten o’clock I want --” Herman, that night, was having a fundraiser for his campaign. I said, “At ten o’clock I want everybody at Manhattan Center.” 10:30, guess what, all the Puerto Rican leaders walked in their tuxedos, everybody shelled out their money, and we took 63 buses for the campaign for the release of our five nationalists. That’s how you do journalism, that’s how you create consciousness. You never forget what the importance of our struggle is about. I don’t say it because I think I’m so bad, I think people have to, you know, young people are listening to this. If you’re studying -- whatever you’re studying, you wanna do, do it with integrity, but don’t forget who you are, where you came from. Remember that where you come from, you owe them, and you have to go back and help build, and we have to [01:23:00] learn as Puerto Ricans to build our own institutions. I think that’s the downfall of our nation, that we’ve forgotten that we need to build our own institutions so that we don’t depend on anyone and we can do that. You know? So that’s how my career started, from there I went to Boston to do Infinity Factory, which is a series on math phobia, and I came here. JJ: Math phobia, what is that? DP: Math phobia is when children have problems learning math. 50 �JJ: Oh, math (inaudible) DP: So what we did was we took everyday activities, and we worked with mathematicians from MIT, and the head mathematician was the gentleman who had created the atomic clock, and they would give us the strands and we would do the creative and ethnic... Reality. Plus we had a history section, so I created -- I did all the Puerto Rican history. And then in doing the segments, ’cause we had a segment that was shot upstate New York, and there was a [01:24:00] young woman that was a little girl, she was a little girl, who ended up -- who used to say, who ended up doing fame. She was the little girl in the show. And then the Mexican groups had a group in LA. There was no Puerto Rican segments, so I came to Puerto Rico for 27 days to create Puerto Rican segments and I shot here where I live in Loíza, the festival, which at that time was an extravaganza. Well what I did was, I integrated our master mathsman, because as an artist he uses the concept, a mathematical strand called estimation, but I integrated the festival, so he taught the children of the town how to make the math so they could participate in the fiesta, and then I was able to integrate the whole fiesta. So they got to see the whole aspect within a cultural term. I talked about don Pedro, because when don Pedro Albizu Campos spoke, the Nationalist Party had to figure out how many people would be there, how many flyers did they have, that’s estimation. You know, and measurement, [01:25:00] you have to measure the amount of paper that you have to use and how many pieces you -- how much money you spend. So we had to integrate mathematical strands, but I integrated them within a historical Puerto Rican perspective. Came back to New York and I 51 �worked at CBS, show called “Channel 2 the People”. (inaudible) concert with Felipe Luciano that worked at the same show and ended up having the same phone extension, because when we talked from prison, I told him, I said, “Brother, you know what? I’m calling my own phone number.” And he started laughing. So I did “Channel 2 the People”, and I have to say that my career in the public world, in television, since I’ve worked for all the networks and public television, I can say with a lot of integrity that I’ve never exploited my people, I never did stories that were negative about my people, on the contrary. And before I was arrested, [01:26:00] I had the first film and photography school in East Harlem. I had a school in East Harlem, I had gotten half a million dollars from the Department of Labor, and my idea was to create our own film school. Take that initial money and that, get our own people in the business to become members of the board and help us raise money independently so that we could have our own school. Unfortunately, William Morales was my partner at the time and he got arrested and I was subpoenaed to the grand jury and I was two months pregnant. So I spent my nine months of pregnancy under the pretense of going into prison. But I refused to testify, on the grounds that, you know, you don’t support grand juries. You know, you have integrity, you don’t support a grand jury. Plus grand juries have always been used as a witch hunt for the Puerto Rican independence movement. We have a long trajectory of the history of that. If you go to el centro -- “hunter centro dot org”, open up the FBI [01:27:00] files and you’re able to read the whole history, all the FBI files, we have ’em there at the centro files. What happens then? Well, I get a phone call 52 �that the nationalists are being released, and I’m honored to say that in three days I organized a private reception for them and El Museo del Barrio was receiving Lolita Lebrón, Oscar Collazo, Irvin Flores, and Rafael Cancel Miranda. In New York, in El Museo del Barrio which was then ours, now it’s no longer ours because we’ve lost it, it no longer belongs to the Puerto Rican community. I don’t care what anybody tells me, that’s my position because I’m one of the founders of that museum. JJ: Briefly, if you can -- I -- DP: No, I don’t wanna talk about that. Let’s leave it there. Yeah, no. The Museo del Barrio is the Museo del Barrio but it doesn’t belong to our community like it initially was initiated and how it was worked for, many, [01:28:00] many years -four decades ago. But again, sometimes we make concessions and we can’t concede when it comes to our culture and our art, because that’s ours and we have to learn how to control that. Three days after they were released, I went to clandestinity, and I went with my son, and I was arrested a year, some-odd later, April 4th, 1980. JJ: I didn’t hear, you went into where? DP: I went into clandestinity. Somewhere in the world with a different name and my child. My child was five and a half months old. And that’s history, and now I’m in freedom, and I’m working on creating my home into a project called “Casa Loíza”, which will be a place of having workshops of healing and political consciousness, and since I have a beach and a river, it’s a way of remaking a living, and maybe you wanna come and spend a weekend or a week to write, you 53 �can do it here in my house. I have a foundation, you can visit it on my website, [01:29:00] and if anyone wants to make any donations, they’re more than willing to. I mentioned it before so we’ll put it at the end and people can come and visit. I’m working on a documentary for the last eight years called “Women Mujeres [n?]” on the five Puerto Rican nationalist women, which include Blanca Canales, who headed the revolt in Jayuya, 1950. Isabel Rosado, who’s 104 years old and alive and well. Carmen Perez who passed away five years ago. Doris Torresola, who was the youngest member of the party who’s now in the other existence. And of course our Lolita Lebrón. So I need a little bit more money to finish the last segment to make a trailer, it’s a major project, it’s a two-hour version, ’cause you have to honor five incredible women and I’m not doing it in two minutes, I have to tell the real story, so it has music, dance, poetry. And I write my own poetry and I create my mask, and my sculptures. And in July, here in Carolina, Puerto [01:30:00] Rico in [el Museo del Titecure?], I’m part of the association of plastic artists and I’m having an exhibit of my casica and reinas sculptures. And I’m working on my book so hopefully next year, watch out, it’s coming out! It’s called “Seditious [Love?]”. I’m (inaudible) this year. JJ: (inaudible) DP: Yeah. JJ: You were in jail, and then you had a little... I’ve heard you had a lot of time to think, and so one of the things it looks like you’re doing is the film. Still with the film. But I mean, what -- DP: How did I keep myself busy? I told you. 54 �JJ: Not how did you keep yourself busy, but what do you think that the movement should be doing, in terms of -- you mentioned that the struggle continues, what does that mean? DP: Right now. Oh. JJ: What does (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) DP: Well, the struggle continues, we have to create -- I think with the assassination of Filiberto Ojeda Rios five and a half years ago, I think the United States government thought [01:31:00] that by assassinating him, that our movement would die, on the contrary. That was the most incredible funeral you’ve ever wanted to attend. It took us five and a half hours from San Juan to Hormigueros, which is an hour and a half, two-hour ride. But why? ’Cause the streets were filled with people. Children in the school courtyards were standing up with their fists up. “FBI assassins!” Old people, young people, even govern-- even the police, as the hearse passed, the police would salute him. That’s to tell you something. I remember, many of my interviews that I did while I was incarcerated, they would ask me, “Do the people support armed struggle?” And I said, “Well, in an island 35 by 100, there’s a man called Filiberto Ojeda Rios who’s been in clandestinity for 23 years, and he’s never been captured.” And I think that’s an example of how our people do support real heroes [01:32:00] and heroines in our nation. I think what has to happen here is that the leaders of our movement, they’re all mostly older people, mostly men, I have to be very critical of that, too. And they have to come down from their little levels of powers, their little towers of power even though they’re not that acclaimed, but anyway. We 55 �have to let the young people take over. We can be their facilitators. We can learn -- we can show them the mistakes we’ve made, how we can grow together, but we need their voices to lead our nation. I think when we begin to do that, and we’ve begun it in a small scale, what now the Nationalist Party is doing, we’re rejuvenating the party because for so many years all the party was doing is bringing flowers to our dead heroes and heroines, that’s not how you build a nation. You build a nation by getting involved in your community, by creating consciousness. Learning about their real history, that’s how our people -- that’s how you gain consciousness [01:33:00] because if you know you come from a fighting element, that you have warrior genes, then you’re gonna learn that you can struggle to make change happen. But until you know that, until you know who your essence is, and where is it you come from, and who are the people that really make up your real history, then you have a base, then you have that foundation that says, “[Oh no?], I’m strong, and yes, we can win.” And I believe it’s happening, but it’s gonna take a lot more work ’cause I also think technology has moved us away from our old organizing techniques. People have gotten kinda lazy with technology. You do not organize people by sending them emails. You’ve gotta go door by door and you have to knock. People -- look in your eyes. When you talk to someone, and you can talk in their eyes, and you see them, it’s that human relationship. You can’t help but feeling what that person is sharing with you. And that’s where I think consciousness [01:34:00] gets built and that connection occurs. So I think that’s what we have to do. JJ: Okay. And any final thoughts? Any more final thoughts? 56 �DP: Final thoughts is that I think, I believe that one way we can... There’s a lot of violence in Puerto Rico today, and it doesn’t come from a nature of who we are, it comes from what we’re surrounded with, it comes from a government that has put together, I mean, I keep criticizing, but I have to. How do you make the former head -- two heads of police are former heads of the FBI, and think that you’re gonna create a relationship with the police department that handles -works humanly with the people? We’ve just witnessed what the police did to our students, who were just demonstrating, and they were badass; kicked, they were beaten, they were bruised, they were put in jail. [01:35:00] We have to create a healing process for our nation, and I’m not talking about a prayer circle, I’m not talking a prayer march. I think it’s about creating a new consciousness of struggle, which talks about our human concerns, which reaches out to people like I said earlier. That’s how we create change, that’s how we create a new society for our people. And our young people need to be on it because a lot of these young people are doing great things, you know? Unfortunately they don’t get the news, because everybody wants to hear about all the murders that occur. Crime doesn’t occur by miracle, it creates by the society -- the conditions that society, those that control the society establish. And that’s what we have to do, we have to do it, we have to create an environment where our kids can learn, and institutions that are ours. We have to get young people to love our Earth, to grow, we can grow our own food, ’cause we’re gonna have to, ’cause stuff is getting too -- [01:36:00] it’s worse in prison, I used to pay 50 cents for a tomato, you know, on the black market, and here it’s almost 75! So we have to learn how 57 �to survive as we did before, and put all that other stuff that -- we get bombarded, you know, with all the technology, all the YouTube and the television and all this stuff. We’ve been bombarded to believe that we can have all these things, but that’s not what makes you happy, what makes you happy is having a quality life. With essence, with integrity, and a spirit of winning. And I think that’s what we have to do. We have to really internalize that we’re a nation of warriors, and that we can win, and that we are fighters, both men and women. And gays, you know, I think it’s wonderful that the president came forward, but that doesn’t change the federal laws, but here in Puerto Rico we’ve moved a bit forward, but we haven’t moved where we should be. We have to make a new awareness of AIDS. [01:37:00] There are no public announcements in Puerto Rico about AIDS, very few, and our kids -- people have AIDS, we’ve had difficulty getting medications, we have difficulty AIDS patients surviving, difficulty getting funding for adequate funding for good programs for our people, and they’re not all young people, we’re finding a major percentile of new AIDS patients that are above 40 and 45 years old. So there’s a reality in our society, and only we can make it heal. And we can heal it with commitment, with dignity, and continuity. Viva Puerto Rico libre. END OF VIDEO AUDIO FILE 58 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4759ee8b13d3e3a7738c7db828cd3c3c.mp4 f9e61a12f1f8b86ffb97f8d1ca38b0de Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives. The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng spa Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 2012-2017 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Título Spanish language Title entry Dylcia Noemi Pagán vídeo entrevista y biografía Descripción Spanish language Description entry Dylcia Pagán nació a padres puertorriqueños en 1946 en Lincoln Hospital en los Bronx de Nueva York y creció en el East Harlem. Se hizo una estrella infantil siendo parte de “Children’s Hour” en NBC. A los 20 años perdió sus padres y se convirtió un activista, trabajando con registraciones de votes y también con la Community Development Agency (CDA) que evalúa programas de pobreza en Nueva York. En 1969, Señora Pagán decidió atender Brookly College donde ayudo a fundir el Puerto Rican Student Union que resulto con la formación de un Departamento de estudias puertorriqueñas que es controlado por los estudiantes (todavía existe hoy). Señora Pagán continuó una carera en la media de comunicación y fue la primera productora puertorriqueña en la ciudad de Nueva York. Trabajo como productora, escritora y cineasta desarrollando documentarias investigas y programas de niños en cada estación mayor de televisión. También trabajo con un editor Ingles para el primer periódico bilingüe en la cuidad, El Tiempo, y también escribió una sección de ese mismo periódico. En 1978 un Gran Jurado dio una citación para que Pagán daría un testifico en conexión con el arresto de su compañero, William Morales. Durante este tiempo estaba tres meses embarazada con su hijo Guillermo y rechazo testificar. En 1979 se escondo con su hijo. La arrestaron en 1980 y la cargaron con sedicioso de conspiración por pelear por la independencia de Puerto Rico y recibió una condona de 63 años encarceladas. Después de una campaña larga en los Estados Unidos, Puerto Rico, e internacional Presidente Bill Clinton le dio el Presidential Conditional Clemency a Pagán y 9 otros, el 10 de Septiembre, 1999. Ahora vive y trabaja en Puerto Rico. Sujetos Spanish language Subject terms Young Lords (Organización) Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puertorriqueños--Relatos personales Justicia social Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65_Rivera_Dylcia Title A name given to the resource Dylcia Noemi Pagán interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Pagán, Dylcia Description An account of the resource Dylcia Pagán was born to Puerto Rican parents in 1946 at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx, New York City and raised in East Harlem. She became a child star, performing every week on NBC’s “Children’s Hour.” After losing her parents at the age of 20, she became an activist, participating in voter registration drives and working for the Community Development Agency (CDA) evaluating poverty programs throughout the City of New York. In 1969, Ms. Pagán decided to attend Brooklyn College where she co-founded the Puerto Rican Student Union that resulted in the formation of a student-controlled Puerto Rican Studies Department that is still in existence today. She continued a long career in media, becoming the first Puerto Rican woman television producer in New York City. Ms. Pagán has worked as a producer, writer, and filmmaker, developing investigative documentaries and children’s program on nearly every major television network. She also worked as the English editor for the city’s first bilingual daily newspaper, El Tiempo, and authored a popular daily column in that same paper.In 1978, Ms. Pagán was subpoenaed by a Grand Jury to testify in connection with the arrest of her companion, William Morales. At the time, she was three months pregnant with her son, Guillermo, and she refused to testify. Sometime in 1979 she went underground with her son. She was arrested in 1980, charged with seditious conspiracy for fighting for the independence of Puerto Rico, and was sentenced to 63 years in prison. She was released from prison on September 10, 1999 after a long campaign in the United States, Puerto Rico, and internationally pressured President Bill Clinton to give she and nine of her co-defendants a Presidential Conditional Clemency. She lives and works in Puerto Rico. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-05-15 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8689aa8d6a00ecd4e822c93a096508da.pdf 0f90896d9ccd518c4700c7f85e9ba0bd PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Carmen Tirado Reyes Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 5/12/2012 Biography and Description English Carmen Tirado Reyes is married to Marcelo Jiménez, a proud Hacha Vieja, and uncle of José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez. She is a well -respected and dedicated housewife who grew up in San Salvador, the barrio of Caguas where the Jiménez family is from and still lives strong. The original Hacha Viejas were her husband’s cousins. In the 1940s they moved to Barrio Mula in Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico, where “Tio Gabriel,” as he was called, had purchased a large farm, hired workers, and raised his many children. When work was slow, those children and workers came to Chicago, settling in La Clark in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Ms. Reyes and Mr. Jiménez came to Chicago over this time as well, later moving to Lakeview by Wrigley Field, Wicker Park, Humboldt Park, and finally to Winchester and North Avenue where they purchase a home and remained for many years. One of Ms. Reyes’s sons became a leader of the Latin Kings. Many of the sons and some daughters of these new immigrants became leaders of local social clubs or gangs, such as the Latin Disciples, the Young Latin Organization (YLO), and Latin Eagles. Ms. Reyes now lives in Puerto Rico where she and Mr. Marcelo Jiménez returned to build their home across from la quebra, or mountain stream, that leads from La Plaza straight up toward the mountain section of Maracal. �Spanish Carmen Tirado Reyes estas casada con Marcelo Jiménez, orgullosa de ser una Hacha Vieja, igual que la tía de José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez. Ella es una esposa dedicado y respetada quien creció en San Salvador, el barrio de Caguas en donde la familia Jiménez sigue viviendo fuerte. Los originales Hacha Viejas eran primos de su esposo. En los 1940s so mudaron al Barrio Mula en Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico, donde “Tío Gabriel” compro una granja en donde contrato unos trabajadores y creo sus hijos. En los 1940s y 1950s, cuando el trabajo se fue los trabajadores y niños se fueron a Chicago, ah La Clark. Señora Reyes y Señor Jiménez se mudaron a Chicago durante este tiempo y luego fueron a Lakeview alado de Wrigly Field, Wicker Park, Humboldt Par y finalmente a Winchester y North Avenue, donde compraron so propia casa. Uno de los hijos de Reyes se hico un líder de los Latin Kings. La mayoría de sus hijos e hijas de nuevos inmigrantes se hicieron líderes de grupos sociales igual que bandas como los Latin Disciples, los Young Latin Organization (YLO), y las Latin Eagles. Señora Reyes ahora está en Puerto Rico donde vive in frente de la quebra con su esposo Marcelo. � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d88da7fa27e1e641015f27f4f0b947ee.mp4 6fd81452893dbfe9a0ca4682b5f98b2a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives. The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng spa Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 2012-2017 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Título Spanish language Title entry Carmen Tirado Reyes vídeo entrevista y biografía Descripción Spanish language Description entry Carmen Tirado Reyes estas casada con Marcelo Jiménez, orgullosa de ser una Hacha Vieja, igual que la tía de José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez. Ella es una esposa dedicado y respetada quien creció en San Salvador, el barrio de Caguas en donde la familia Jiménez sigue viviendo fuerte. Los originales Hacha Viejas eran primos de su esposo. En los 1940s so mudaron al Barrio Mula en Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico, donde “Tío Gabriel” compro una granja en donde contrato unos trabajadores y creo sus hijos. En los 1940s y 1950s, cuando el trabajo se fue los trabajadores y niños se fueron a Chicago, ah La Clark. Señora Reyes y Señor Jiménez se mudaron a Chicago durante este tiempo y luego fueron a Lakeview alado de Wrigly Field, Wicker Park, Humboldt Par y finalmente a Winchester y North Avenue, donde compraron so propia casa. Uno de los hijos de Reyes se hico un líder de los Latin Kings. La mayoría de sus hijos e hijas de nuevos inmigrantes se hicieron líderes de grupos sociales igual que bandas como los Latin Disciples, los Young Latin Organization (YLO), y las Latin Eagles. Señora Reyes ahora está en Puerto Rico donde vive in frente de la quebra con su esposo Marcelo. Sujetos Spanish language Subject terms Young Lords (Organización) Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Narrativas personales Puertorriqueños--Vida social y costumbres Puerto Rico--Autonomía y movimientos independentistas Idioma español--Relatos personales Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65_Reyes_Carmen Title A name given to the resource Carmen Tirado Reyes inerview and biography Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Reyes, Carmen Description An account of the resource Carmen Tirado Reyes is married to Marcelo Jiménez, a proud Hacha Vieja, and uncle of José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez. In the 1940s they moved to Barrio Mula in Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico, where “Tio Gabriel,” as he was called, had purchased a large farm, hired workers, and raised his many children. When work was slow, those children and workers came to Chicago, settling in La Clark in the late 1940s and early 1950s. One of Ms. Reyes’s sons became a leader of the Latin Kings. Ms. Reyes now lives in Puerto Rico. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puerto Ricans--Personal narratives Social justice Puerto Ricans--Social life and customs Puerto Rico--Autonomy and independence movements Spanish language--Personal narratives Language A language of the resource spa Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-05-12 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/fc9010d2340eb32c74a98cd6e1aa512a.pdf 23b3d261a1b325bcad7c48ec257c0e73 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Ricardo Rebollar Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 7/11/2012 Biography and Description Ricardo Rebollar is from one of the first Mexican families to live in Lincoln Park, settling around Sheffield and Clybourn Streets and remaining there more than 30 years. After José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez got into trouble at Newberry Elementary School, in the 6th grade he was taken out by his mother and placed into the Catholic St. Teresa School. Mr. Rebollar was of the few Latinos in the school and in his class and they became very close friends. They would talk long hours before and after school in their homes, and together planned to go into the seminary and then into the priesthood because it was a way they felt they could help their People. Mr. Rebollar recalls those years, as well as how they played in softball teams and other sports. He also describes his girlfriend and how her parents had a difficult time accepting him because of his national origin. He recalls the days that Lincoln Park turned more Puerto Rican and Latino and describes how he felt safe when he walked the area of Lincoln Park because the Young Lords and other groups knew that he and Mr. Jiménez were friends. Mr. Rebollar also went to the McCormick Theological Seminary’s Occupation and because he was a student at St. Vincent DePaul High School he supported the DePaul University take-over by the African American students who were being supported by the Young Lords. �Neither Mr. Rebollar nor Mr. Jiménez ever made it to the priesthood. Mr. Rebollar first became a law enforcement officer and says that, “he was a good sharpshooter.” He then later became a teacher for the Chicago school system and currently teaches science at Joliet West High School in Illinois. Spanish Ricardo Rebollar es hijo de una de las primeras familias Mexicanas que vivieron en Lincoln Park, en las calles de Sheffield y Clybourn, por más que 30 años. Después que José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez se encontró en problemas en Newberry Elemntary School, su mama lo saco de la escuela y lo inscribió en escuela Católica de St. Teresa. Señor Rebollar era uno de los pocos latinos en la escuela y porque estaban en la misma clase se hicieron mejores amigos. Se pasaban los días hablando antes y después de la escuela y querían ir al seminario y luego ordenarse sacerdote porque sentían que era la única forma que podían ayudar su gente. Señor Rebollar recuerda que juagaron juntos en equipos de softbol y otros deportes. También recuerda que los padres de su novia tuvieron más tiempo en aceptarlo por su origen nacional. Y como en esos días podía caminar por las calles de Lincoln Park sin temor porque los Young Lords sabían que era amigo de Jiménez. Señor Rebollar atendió McCormick Theoligal Seminary’s Occupation y la escuela de St. Vincet DePaul High School en donde Afro-Americanos (quien eran apoyados por Young Lords) tomaron la escuela. Señor Rebollar y Señor Jiménez no llegaron a ordenarse. Rebollar primero fue un policía y dice que “era un tirador experto.” Ahora es un maestro en la escuela de Joliet West High en Illinois. �Transcript JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay. RICARDO REBOLLAR: Well -So you want me looking this way so you want it looking at me. Yeah, that's good. JJ: And just tell me your name and then your date of birth. RR: Okay. My name is Ricardo Rebollar. Rebollar. It's pronounced I was born on October 29, 1948 in Mexico City, Mexico. JJ: Okay. And okay, so when did you come to the United States? (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) RR: We came to the United States in the 1952. My dad was already here and he had found work or he had thought he had found work in San Jose, California. actually went to live with my uncle. And that’s when we Yeah. But they found out within about six months that there wasn’t any job to be had but he found there was another opportunity here in Chicago. So we came -- I must’ve -- sort of ’52, ’53 was when we arrived in Chicago. [00:01:00] And we first lived down on Sedgwick right across the street from Cabrini-Green except they were just finishing building it. JJ: Okay. Right by Cabrini-Green. RR: Yeah. Yeah. JJ: Okay, over by Franklin School, (inaudible). So I went third grade, I went to -- 1 �RR: Yeah. Edward Jenner is where I actually went, yeah. Third Grade. JJ: So this was ’54? RR: Yeah, ’53, ’54. JJ: In 1954. RR: Yeah. Yeah. And actually, we -- there’s a whole lot of spots, but anyhow, we lived there for a short period of time. We had lived in the DePaul area. JJ: Now, when you lived near Cabrini-Green, is that when -- the point they had a lot of Hispanics or Latinos? RR: No, we had none. JJ: There were no -- RR: We were the only ones there that were Hispanics, yeah. Yeah. Everybody there was Italian or -- JJ: They were Italian. They were not African American. RR: -- right in that little area. No, no, there were no Blacks at all in that [00:02:00] area. JJ: Even near Cabrini-Green? (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) RR: When they started filling up the -- when I -- so the second half of third grade, I remember meeting the first Black kids. In fact, I remember one of the kid’s names. name was Winston. His I thought that was kind of weird but Winston was his name. traded toy soldiers. And he and I got to be buddies. We But about six months later -2 �JJ: So Cabrini-Green was all white at the time, mostly white. RR: The housing, yeah. Not the housing but the -- the houses around there were all white people, yeah. trying to think. Yeah. And then I’m Italian and there was a couple of Germans that I -- we knew but mostly Italians. And then at the end of third grade, half-way through fourth grade, we moved back to the DePaul area. In fact, that’s when we started living at 1808. JJ: So you went to Joiner? Is that what it’s called? School? RR: Jenner. JJ: [00:03:00] Jenner, yeah. RR: Edward Jenner School. JJ: What street was that? RR: Oh God, I don’t know. JJ: But it was Jenner, (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). RR: Because you’d have to walk through the green. I remember -- yeah. Because the building was between -- yeah. JJ: Oh, by Saint Joseph’s. RR: Yeah, Saint Joseph’s was on one side. In fact, I went to Saint Joseph’s for about six months. JJ: Really? I went there. I went to -- RR: You’re kidding. JJ: I did, (inaudible). RR: It’s Saint Joseph’s and then we lived -- and then by the 3 �end, less than a year, we were back at -- anyway. wound up with 1808. And we And we got there because the lady who knew us there recommended us to Mr. Pistoni. JJ: Nineteen oh-eight did you say? RR: Eighteen oh-eight was the address. JJ: Eighteen oh-eight Sheffield? RR: Yeah. That’s where we moved back in there. And we were there for years and years. JJ: Last time, you were saying, in fact, somebody -- I stopped you. You were saying something about it. A lady or something that lived there? RR: There was a lady who lived at -- in [00:04:00] the apartment building where we’re -- near Cabrini-Green on Sedgwick Street. And she knew we were looking for a new place and she recommended us to a Mr. Pistoni. his name. And he was the owner of the 1808 building and that’s how we got 1808. JJ: I remember And -- So that was on the other side of Lincoln Park that he owns some buildings there so -- RR: Yeah. And he was a real nice, little, old Italian guy. I don’t know if he even spoke English but we wound up staying there. JJ: Was he Italian? RR: Italian, yeah. 4 �JJ: Because we landlords who were Italians so they would have definitely let us. RR: Right. And then the lady next to us, [Castelluccio?]. was Italian and she owned the building. flat. She It was a three- And then the building next to it was a lady. I believe her name was -- is [Schmitz?] or [Schultz?], I don’t remember. And there was like -- and then the next building was [00:05:00] all sorts of Germans. Across the street was a guy who was a fireman and I never did know what he was but he wasn’t Hispanic. In fact, the only Hispanic that we knew in ’54, ’55 was the lady we had originally rented from. And I don’t remember the address but it’s right there at Poe and Sheffield. Or Maud -- it’s Maud is the street and Sheffield and we had originally rented when we first came. see her every so often. And that was neat and we would So I wound up at Saint Teresa’s. And Saint Teresa’s in fourth grade, middle of fourth grade. JJ: So you started -- when you moved here, you were in fourth grade. RR: Yeah. JJ: So you went to Jenner for the first four years? RR: No, actually, I went to what was the name? JJ: You went to Saint Joseph or Teresa’s? [00:06:00] (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). 5 �RR: No, actually it started out because the first move was onto the Sheffield street. And there, I went first and second grade to -- oh, what was the name of the school? school that’s right there. It’s the I don’t know if you remember it. JJ: By Saint Teresa’s? RR: No, it’s on Sheffield. JJ: Oh -- RR: God. JJ: -- Mulligan, Mulligan, Mulligan. RR: Mulligan, yes. was Mulligan. It’s a big, old ancient building. Yes, [Mrs. Kelly?] was my teacher. That So I went there first and second grade. JJ: So you went there first and second? RR: And then we had a -- we lived for a short time in an apartment building on North and -- JJ: And then you went back to Saint Joseph’s? RR: And then we went to Sedgwick and then from there, we came back. JJ: You came back. So you went to Sedgwick or Sheffield. was where you lived in that area. That That was in the early ’50s, 1953. RR: Yeah, I would say somewhere between ’53 through [00:07:00] about ’57. JJ: So that area was Italian and German you said? 6 �RR: Yeah, right. There was very few Blacks. The Blacks that we knew lived on Clybourn just north of where Clybourn and Sheffield meet. And there was only like one or two families. JJ: That was like one block. That was African American. RR: Yeah, and everything else was basically Baldwin. JJ: I remember people would brag that there was -- that Blacks were moving -- RR: Be into that area. JJ: -- north of North Avenue. Do you remember that or (inaudible)? RR: Oh, well, I knew that there was -- JJ: There was a barber shop there right there. RR: They used to -- well, we were right next to the Bonge’s Tavern that we’d hear that there. JJ: You would hear it? RR: Yeah, but you know, five houses away were the two houses where the Blacks lived. But there were -- I mean, I never understood what their problem [00:08:00] was. Because we lived next to them and they were kids like us. In fact, most of the problem we had were with the Italians. JJ: What kind of problems? RR: Mostly, it’s like -- it was child things. that’s great. Like, “Oh, yeah, They’re having a birthday party.” “Well, 7 �you can’t come.” “What do you mean you can’t come?” And then there was this hemming and hawing. JJ: Hemming so -- RR: And the kids would tell you. He says, “Well, you’re Mexican.” JJ: And they said it just like little kids. RR: Yeah, you can’t come. JJ: Yeah. Even though you had been playing with them a little bit and after a certain point -RR: Yeah. It was mostly the parents. I don’t think the kids were a really big deal. There was a couple of -- I don’t even remember his name. But there were a couple of Italian kids who were pretty nasty. But -- JJ: But it was mostly the parents that were kind of -- RR: Yeah, they were -- they were standoffish. JJ: Because that happened, too, at my graduation part that -- RR: Yeah. JJ: -- but anyway. [00:09:00] But I was messing up then. I was already in the gang (laughs) so I could blame it on the gang. RR: Oh yeah, blame it on the gang. Yeah, so -- JJ: But it was -- but you’re saying it was the parents that -- RR: Mostly it was the parents. Most of the -- and it was strange because I’m hanging out with kids who were [Glaw?] 8 �and [Camarada?] and there’s a lot of -- And we were fine. The kids I really -- I mean, I don’t remember if you knew John. I mean, [John Glaw?] was the guy who played baseball with me all the time. So when we went to play with you, it was [Landini?], Glaw, and me that mostly were playing. And so when we met you out in the park -JJ: In which park? RR: Lincoln Park. Because we’d walk from there all the way to Lincoln Park to play at the North Avenue playfields. And if you get there early in the morning, you could [00:10:00] save it and play. JJ: And that’s what we used to do. So is that when we met the first time or I don’t even remember. RR: Oh, the first time -- JJ: I don’t remember any -- RR: I really don’t remember when the first time I met you. mean, I was familiar with you from school. I We used to do the debates and stuff and I remember that. JJ: For the school? RR: Yeah, at school. What was it? Do you remember [Sister Hermann Joseph?]? JJ: Yes, I do. RR: Yeah. JJ: Seventh? It -- what grade was she? She was seventh. Okay. [Hermann Muller?] so okay. And sixth was 9 �[Sister Annie?]. RR: Sister Annie I had, yeah. JJ: …was sixth and then Sister Anne was eighth. RR: Yeah. JJ: Oh, now I know -- I got all three of them. RR: And you weren’t there in fifth because that was [Miss Bunster?]. JJ: I just was -- Yeah. Wait, no, I was in the sixth, seventh, and eighth. And so Sister Annie and Sister Hermann Joseph and Sister (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) -RR: Yeah. Sister Hermann Joseph worked our asses -- oops. JJ: (laughs) RR: We used to work because she always thought we could do better than what we were actually doing. So we would get A’s and then we -- she’d say, “No, you don’t deserve an A.” [00:11:00] Then yeah, so it’s probably about the point at which I remember first -- because we used to play ball. Where was it? JJ: We were first playing ball out -- So when we saw each other in Lincoln Park, you already knew me. RR: Yeah, by that time, I already knew you. JJ: So you saw me in the (inaudible) -- RR: Yeah. We had met and it must’ve been at -- it must’ve been in seventh grade. I don’t remember you from sixth at all. 10 �JJ: I think it was seventh grade. RR: So seventh grade is when we started making contact and -- JJ: So who was playing actually ball over there? I just joined your team? RR: Well, what we’d do is get together and see how many guys we could get there and we’d play. We’d set up a game. JJ: Was it softball or hardball or --? RR: Hardball. JJ: Right, right. RR: That was for sissies -- JJ: (laughs) RR: -- because we’d do fast-pitching hardball. We didn’t play softball. get the -- what was it? And we used to There was a ceramics place on Clybourne. JJ: What was it? [00:12:00] Ceramic? Okay. RR: And they would let us play in their parking lot. we’d go, there’d be 10, 20 of us going over there. And so And then we’d set up and we could play and no one would bother us. JJ: What about catcher’s mitts and --? RR: Are you kidding? JJ: You’d scrounge them? RR: Yeah. We’d scrounge those. Or -- My first one was scrounged from I don’t know, a second-hand shop or something. Or somebody didn’t want 11 �theirs -JJ: (inaudible) equipment? RR: Yeah, sort of. balls. We had gloves and we had bats and we had And sometimes, we didn’t have balls. We’d go looking for -- sometimes we could -- And in fact, we played more often than not. We would -- we were just playing. We would play with tennis balls and we could get those almost for free because they had the tennis courts up on Fullerton and Sheffield. And you’d get the old tennis balls that nobody wanted and you’d get ’em either dirt cheap or for free. And [00:13:00] then we’d do fast-pitching and then who’s got a hard ball. JJ: So you were making the thing in the walls or --? RR: Yeah, that’s how we -- yeah. JJ: I remember that. RR: And that’s how we’d practice all the time. And then summertime came and then, we’d have games and say, “Hey, you know, this neighborhood’s got a team and this neighborhood’s --” JJ: Right, they were neighborhood teams -- RR: Yeah, right. JJ: -- because I remember I was a -- that first team I was in was the Leprechauns. RR: Oh, God. 12 �JJ: And it was an Italian manager but the name of the team was Leprechauns. So I guess because there were a lot of Irish in (inaudible) there. RR: Yeah, the big organizer was us was a guy by the name of [Glenn Messa?]. He was Cuban. JJ: Oh, he was a Cuban. RR: Yeah, he was probably- -- and I don’t know when I met Glenn, either. Probably about sixth grade. JJ: Really? RR: Yeah. JJ: He was from Lincoln Park there? RR: Yeah, he was right there. We all lived -- you know they had an apartment building up on Maud and Sheffield? where we lived. That’s And I remember his sister’s name was [00:14:00] [Tootsie?] and I said, “Where did you get a name like that?” That was her -- that was -- she had another name but she always went by Tootsie. And Glenn would say, “Hey, this -- two blocks down, they want to play us. So get Glaw, get --” so we’d get all the guys we needed. [Sulaski?] and all the other guys. Sulaski, that’s right. And we would go and, “Where are we -- where are we meeting them?” And we’d meet them -- one of the places we used to play was on the corner of Racine and Belden. And I think it was -- we called it Os- -- I don’t think it was Oscar 13 �Mayer. JJ: I don’t know -- RR: It was that -- JJ: -- if they had Oscar Mayer, yeah. RR: Yeah, they had a field there. JJ: Racine and Belden, still up there? RR: Yeah. And we’d go up there because it was grass and it was a real field. JJ: I was afraid to go up there. RR: Oh yeah. There was a -- Because once you crossed Armitage, you were running into some people who didn’t like Hispanics, who didn’t like Blacks. JJ: Right, right, right. RR: Yeah. And then once you went even further north, you were [00:15:00] running into [Chuchi’s?] group, whoever they were. “What are you doing in the neighborhood?” “I don’t know, going to play ball.” (laughter) And then we got to walking Saturday mornings. Sometimes we’d walk and sometimes during the week all the way down Lincoln Park past the old Natural History Museum. JJ: By Armitage (inaudible)? RR: Yeah, Armitage, yeah. JJ: You’d just walk. RR: And then you’d just turn a little bit south and you were at 14 �the ball fields. like four fields. And if you got there first, there was And if you got there first, you could hold it until the rest of the guys got and then you could play. JJ: As you walked through that neighborhood, how -- what relations did you see? RR: Oh, God. Early on, there was a -- oh, it was a beer place that it had shut down. that area. And there was a lot of Germans in And that’s down by Larabee. Larabee and -- yeah, about Larabee [00:16:00] and what street would that be? JJ: Yeah. Just south of Armitage. The only reason I’m saying it is I kind of remember or maybe you can let me know -RR: It’s just north of Saint Michael’s. JJ: Right, it was more like segregated or something. RR: Oh, yeah, all the -- yeah. JJ: Am I -- (laughs) am I just -- RR: No, you’re not imagining that. JJ: -- (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). RR: Oh yeah. JJ: (inaudible) -- RR: Oh yeah, it was segregated. Oh, good God. You know, you’d go out with a young lady who happens to be Polish. Well, she lives in a Polish neighborhood -15 �JJ: In a Polish block. RR: -- all Polish people block. JJ: So there were two or three blocks that were Polish? RR: Yeah. People, “What are you doing here? Polish.” JJ: “Okay.” You’re not “Get moving, get moving.” So this was the neighborhood of Lincoln Park, the community. RR: Yeah. JJ: And that was divided by ethnic groups. RR: Right. If you went further east along -- let’s see, what street is that? I can’t remember the street. one [Feimer’s?] was on. But it’s the There was a lot of Germans there for a while and they [00:17:00] started moving out. But north of that, if you went one block north of Wisconsin? JJ: Okay, Wisconsin? RR: Yeah. Between Halsted and it would be about Bissell Street. Or Dayton, right in that area. A bunch of Italians. JJ: Okay. So north of Wisconsin between Halsted and Bissell? RR: Italian -- yeah, heavy Italian. And then back here is the Germans -JJ: So Wisconsin to Armitage, Halsted to Bissell was Italian. RR: Yeah, it was a heavy Italian. JJ: And we’re talking about what year was it? 16 �RR: Oh, we’re talking the years we were in grade school so it would be 1959 through about 1963. JJ: So ’59 to ’63, that was the Italian section. RR: Oh, yeah. JJ: Because that didn’t even run up to by [Roma’s?] because We’d go there and get Italian food some -- Roma’s was over -RR: Oh yeah. Well, Roma’s was a totally different animal. JJ: It was a totally different animal. Why was that? Roma’s was on Webster and Sheffield. RR: Yeah because -- Webster -- yeah, [00:18:00] Webster and Sheffield. JJ: So what do you mean it was a different animal? RR: Those were different people. JJ: A breed of Italian? RR: Yeah, it was a different breed of -- they were really hostile, I thought. JJ: Hostile? RR: Hostile, yeah. I mean -- Yeah. Because the Landinis and those people, we went -- [Paul Landini?] went to my school. JJ: And [Monastero?] was at -- RR: Monastero -- JJ: They were friendly with you guys -- RR: Yeah, we all got along. JJ: Of Armitage, yeah. But once you got north of -- 17 �RR: Yeah. JJ: Or Dickens, really. RR: Yeah, Dickens, right. You’re right. The only place that was really safe was what, the old bakery that we used to be on Sheffield just north of Dickens. JJ: Just north of Dickens? Oh, yeah, right -- RR: Yeah, we’d go there, pick up our stuff and get out. JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible), yeah. RR: Yeah. JJ: Yeah. So that was in the city. So you used to go there and pick a [brick?], too? RR: Yeah, absolutely. I had -- JJ: Just north of Dickens on Sheffield. RR: Yeah. On the west side of the street. Yeah. JJ: Okay. So you said you’d go, you’d walk in and then leave? RR: Oh, yeah. JJ: So what do you mean it wasn’t safe? That was -- You didn’t -- you didn’t feel safe? RR: Well, [00:19:00] there was lots of times you didn’t feel safe. In my own neighborhood, there was times when we were younger, a lot of the older Italian kids would pick on you, you know? And after a while, you kind of earned your spot. Which is like, “Hey, I’m not here to do anything bad. I’m just living here and I don’t mess with you. You don’t mess 18 �with me.” JJ: So there was like a sprinkling of Spanish people like if neither -- because you didn’t really live there but they didn’t really want you there. RR: Want you -- they didn’t want us there, no. JJ: I’m not putting words in your mouth. RR: No, no. That’s a good way of saying no, they didn’t really want us there. I think -- JJ: And you were actually afraid to go to this bakery. RR: You were nervous. You always watched what was around you and who was around. JJ: And how old were you then? RR: Oh God. How old were you then? I can remember that from the time I was sixth, seventh grade. When I got older, you got bigger and you got physically so people didn’t -- and you knew more people. But the [00:20:00] big area I stayed away from was the Roma’s area. There was a girl that I wanted to date that was over on Kenmore and Webster. “What are you doing here? our neighborhood.” And it was like, You got to get the hell out of You know, it’s, like, “Hey.” that point, I was already in high school. And at So it was -- yeah, there was -- it wasn’t all the time but it was often enough to make you stay alert as to who was around you and what the hell they were doing. Because you got followed a 19 �couple of times and it was threatening. A couple of times, we got -- there was a -JJ: And then they had a gang I remember or something and --? RR: There was a group of people there. I didn’t know that it was a gang but apparently there was one there. JJ: But the name of the restaurant was called Roma’s. RR: Yeah, Roma’s, yeah. JJ: So that was kind of nationalistic, right? RR: Oh yeah, that whole area. JJ: (laughs) For the Italians? RR: Except right across the street was [Kelly’s Bar?] so there Roma’s? was [00:21:00] an Irish enclave somewhere in there. JJ: Right, right. RR: That was -- JJ: So right across from Roma’s was Kelly’s. RR: Yeah, Kelly’s was right at the -- JJ: And it was playing actually down the street, there was a hillbilly bar. RR: Oh. JJ: [The Oasis?]. It was called The Oasis on that corner of Houston and Webster. RR: Oh yeah. Okay. JJ: Do you remember that place? RR: Yeah, I do. Darn, I’d forgotten about it. Yeah. 20 �JJ: So this is -- you’re in the same -- you’re in the same -- RR: Now, the most problem I had in that whole neighborhood was with a hillbilly kid. JJ: Oh, it was? RR: Yeah, it was. hillbilly kid. The worst problem I ever had was with a He always caught me just south of Armitage near -- on Sheffield several times. A couple times, I got slugged and finally, I decided to fight back. point, I said, “This is it. And at some was kind of like an outlier. This has got to quit.” But he with two, three other guys. I didn’t see him hanging out He was trying to establish a little turf area [00:22:00] of his own. JJ: But they would select people. I remember -- RR: Oh, hell yeah. JJ: -- (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). I had a problem with them just, “What are you doing here?” And “Bla,” and just -RR: Oh, no. sure. They would grab you and sometimes toss you. Yeah, Yeah. JJ: (inaudible) RR: It wasn’t always that terrible. I mean, because we knew -- you know, you’re talking Monastero Landini, you know, a lot of times, that saved us from hassles. But like I said, too -21 �JJ: How would you describe the neighborhood? softball teams? I mean, they had I mean, hardball teams and -- RR: Yeah. JJ: Was it a tight-knit neighborhood? Were the people normal? Was it pretty stable or unstable? RR: I thought it was pretty stable at the time but if I look back at it, I’d say, “Gee, that’s an unstable neighborhood,” because you -- a lot of people transitioning in and out. Lot of people in their -- JJ: Who would transition there? RR: Oh, I’ll give you an example. Next door, we would have a hillbilly family [00:23:00] living there for two, three months to a year and then they would move out. another family would move in. And then They were working in the -- a lot of the stuff that was along Clybourn. And when they weren’t needed anymore, they went looking some other place for a job. JJ: Because Clybourn was where they had the factories. RR: All the factories, yeah. JJ: So people were moving in because of the factories. RR: Yeah. So you had the boilermakers, you had the -- what do you call it? The dye makers, you had the frame factory, you had the -- Siemens was down a little bit further. had the porcelain place. You There’s all sorts of places up 22 �there. But those started shutting down and as they began to shut down -JJ: What year did they shut down? RR: Oh, God. school. Probably by -- towards the junior year of high So it’d have been about 1960- [00:24:00] -- oh, ’65, ’66. You could already see a change starting to happen. JJ: Factories are shutting down (inaudible) -- RR: Yeah. A lot of the people started moving out. I started seeing more Hispanics then. JJ: So why do you think they were moving out? RR: Mostly economic reasons for the people that I knew. Some of the people who were long time there were I think basically saying, “Ooh, this is a changing neighborhood. Got to get out.” JJ: Changing neighborhood because -- RR: Yeah, they were white people who were moving out because Blacks and the Hispanics were moving in. JJ: And that’s why they were moving out? RR: Oh yeah, for sure. JJ: (inaudible) -- RR: No. JJ: The first is economic. RR: So for the people that I hung out with, it was economic. 23 �For the people who were long-time residents, they saw this as the neighborhood’s going to hell so we got to get out of there. JJ: You had been there for a while so you knew they were longtime residents. RR: Yeah. JJ: And now, these are long-time residents that are moving. RR: They’re moving out. JJ: The Italians and Germans and everything. RR: They’re all moving out, yeah. JJ: They’re moving out. RR: [00:25:00] Because what’s -- the first ones to moves out were probably -- let’s see. ’64. It would’ve been about ’63, That German area moved out. Right about that time, there was -JJ: The whole German community. RR: Yeah, the whole -- just about the whole German community disappeared. JJ: Where were they at and what were the German -- RR: They were the ones down on Dayton and just south of Armitage. JJ: Just south of Armitage? RR: Yeah. JJ: Now, is that where all the Italians were? 24 �RR: The Italians were on the north part of that. were on the south. The Germans That disappeared; the Italians stayed on. JJ: Okay. So the Italians were in the north closer to Armitage -- RR: Right. JJ: -- and the Germans were -- RR: Further back. JJ: -- closer to Willow Street? RR: Yeah, Willow. JJ: So in the same area, just south of the Italians. RR: And we started getting a lot of [00:26:00] Blacks coming up Yeah. along that corridor. JJ: (inaudible) -- RR: Yeah, that area. JJ: Where it turns -- RR: So as that came up, these guys -- because I knew a couple of guys there. west. They moved out to -- they moved way out Some of them moved out to the suburbs. JJ: So you’re saying there, you could see like a line? RR: Yeah, the line’s shifting. JJ: Like the line shifting from one ethnic group to another ethnic group. RR: Yeah, yeah. There were Blacks there. I don’t want to say 25 �gentry but they were. Because when I worked at Feimer’s, we would have -- even in -- well, that would’ve been sixth grade. We had Black people, hard-working Black people, who lived in that area who came in who I knew all the way through the time I started college. And they were good people and they lived somewhere in that area. And they would complain. “Oh my God, the neighborhood’s changing. It’s no longer --” JJ: Who was complaining? RR: The Black. JJ: The (inaudible) -- RR: I remember this Black lady complaining. JJ: We got [00:27:00] Mexicans and Puerto Ricans (inaudible). (laughter) RR: Yeah. No, we -- the Blacks, they were complaining about some of the Blacks. JJ: Oh, some other Blacks. RR: Yeah. JJ: Oh, okay. RR: Well, it was strange because it, like I said, to me I saw They said, “They don’t know how to behave.” That’s kind of a shame to hear that from them. it as stable. JJ: But they were worried, they were worried. As a stigma? RR: Yeah, and then you’d see the changes coming. And as the changes came, people started moving out and people didn’t 26 �take care of their places as much. And people who had been there a long time were complaining. JJ: I was like, “Oh.” But this was not an urban renewal program. This is just people just moving in. RR: No. Just people moving in. JJ: One group moving in -- RR: Yeah. JJ: -- and this had to do with migration after the -- RR: Migrations, yeah. JJ: Because now, you’ve got all these Spanish people coming in Job opportunities. -RR: Oh yeah. JJ: -- out of nowhere. RR: Oh, well, a lot of them were coming from Mexico and from other places. And where are they going to go? [00:28:00] Puerto Ricans were moving in. In fact, the Puerto Ricans tended to move -- do you remember Wisconsin Street? JJ: Right. RR: Wisconsin? Okay. So there was a whole -- there was an apartment building there on Wisconsin and Sheffield. And you had a lot of -JJ: Oh, on Wisconsin and Sheffield? RR: Yeah, right there. And you had Puerto Ricans because we knew some of them there. Most of the Mexicans were moving 27 �in -JJ: Where was the Mexican section? Where were they? RR: The Mexican section was more down between Maud and Willow on Sheffield. JJ: On Sheffield right in there. RR: Yeah. JJ: That was the only Mexican section? RR: Yeah. JJ: But there was a little section. RR: Yeah, there was a little section. JJ: So between -- RR: It was -- several apartment buildings were completely full. They didn’t -- we didn’t get a whole lot of other -- Yeah. JJ: Okay. And this was between Maud and what? RR: Maud and Willow. So you’ve got Clybourne and then Sheffield goes up, Willow cuts in here, Maud. So it’s about a block and a half, two blocks. JJ: And actually, that’s where you live. RR: On the other [00:29:00] side. JJ: Oh, on the other side. RR: Yeah. JJ: So you were living in -- RR: Yeah, just a little bit south. JJ: -- the Mexicans (inaudible). I didn’t know that. I mean, 28 �I had a -RR: I didn’t either until my mom was telling me. JJ: (inaudible) told that to us. RR: Yeah, yeah. JJ: Of course, to me, everybody was a Puerto Rican but (laughs) -- RR: Well, you were a -- you were just north of -- you lived just north of -- JJ: I’m just kidding. RR: -- Armitage in that apartment place. JJ: Right. RR: Yeah, yeah. JJ: So we had planning meetings (inaudible). We had been on Dayton Street near Willow before that. JJ: Dayton near Willow. Okay. JJ: And then we finally made it up to Armitage. RR: So you know that -- what the tavern there on the corner of Willow and Bissell was a tavern? JJ: Yeah, there was a tavern up there. RR: We used to go there all the time and bowl. JJ: Okay. RR: Because they’d charge us nothing, you know? And as long as -- and the German kid and I used to do that all the time. And then after a while, we were banned. 29 �JJ: You were banned from going in there? RR: Yeah. And part of it, I guess, was because [00:30:00] we weren’t of age to drink and we shouldn’t have been in the place. But for years, I mean years, we used to -- Saturdays or whenever we could get the money together, we’d go and bowl. One of the kids that I knew was on Dayton. In fact, it was Dayton and Willow. His name was Traum, [Helmut Traum?]. JJ: Dayton and Willow, there was like a little grocery store there. And we were afraid, talking about being afraid of going to the bread place. We were afraid to go into that grocery store because there was an Italian gang, an Irish and Italian gang -RR: In there. JJ: -- either Irish or Italian. father got pushed around. But I remember I think my They were -- I really don’t remember them having a gang fight with the -- they used to have the (inaudible) made out of tin. So they were using it as a shield and throwing -RR: Sticks and -- JJ: -- throwing glass [00:31:00] and sticks. And I remember they had -- I remember one guy saying, “I’m glad I’m white,” because he had glass in his eye. RR: God. 30 �JJ: And I was just a little kid seeing it. RR: I remember stuff like that particularly -- JJ: That was on Dayton (inaudible) -- RR: And that drifted further north, that sort of thing. Because I know in that area south of DePaul itself, in the alleys, there was a couple of times where there was fights exactly like that. We came in after one and it was a mess. Yeah. JJ: By DePaul? RR: Yeah, yeah. JJ: So that was a -- so after the school or --? RR: This was a -- I think it was like a -- JJ: Are you talking about (inaudible) or --? RR: Yeah. JJ: So there was little gangs up there? RR: Yeah. JJ: But these were Irish? RR: Irish, Italian as far as I knew. Belden, south of Belden and -- Italian? Because you know, again, I didn’t like going up in that area anyway. The only time I do was to go up to the library. JJ: To go to the library. RR: Yeah, up on Fullerton and Sheffield. JJ: Right. RR: And it was like -- again, it was like hurry, hurry through [00:32:00] Yeah. 31 �these two neighborhoods so I can get to mine. could get hassled. Because you “Where are you going?” JJ: So I mean how had we met? RR: Oh, this was from fifth grade all the way through eighth grade. JJ: By the time I was in -- So you’re in Saint Teresa’s school, a Catholic school, and you got to go to the library. You’re not thinking about -- you’re not a gang member. RR: No. JJ: You’re just going to school. RR: Yeah. JJ: But you can’t go to school because of these gangs? RR: Well, you can get hassled. JJ: But it’s not just gangs because these are gangs based on your -- RR: Ethnicity, yeah. JJ: Is that the way the gangs were? RR: Yeah, pretty much so. JJ: So they (inaudible) ethnicity in a gang? RR: Yeah, just about. ethnicity. Or that area. But mostly, it was Because you’re talking about the hillbillies and you’re talking about the Irish, you’re talking about the Italians. JJ: So I mean, we grew up in a neighborhood where we -32 �everybody -- there was a distinction between [00:33:00] ethnicity. RR: Oh yeah. Yeah, there was. JJ: That’s what I meant by segregated or -- RR: To me, it was segregated in - besides the way you just explained it - it was also segregated because there are whole blocks -- JJ: But segregated is not about race -- RR: Well, yeah. JJ: -- when you think about segregation. But this was ethnicity. RR: Ethnicity, right. Because if you went over by Sacred Heart on Augusta near Western, that four square blocks was all Polish and I got chased out of there a couple of times. JJ: What were you doing there? RR: I was dating a chick. JJ: (laughs) RR: We were -- in the ’60s, we were beginning -- it’s okay, you know? You can date somebody who’s not your same ethnicity and -JJ: So you’re saying the city was like that, too, (inaudible) - RR: Oh, the city was absolutely. JJ: The city was ethnically divided. 33 �RR: I’m trying to remember who it was. It was on Wood on North Avenue roughly and we were visiting somebody. This lady comes out and looks at us. She’s like, [00:34:00] “You’re a good-looking Greek kid.” And I -- at that point, I’m smart enough to know, “Let her talk. shut.” Keep your mouth It turns out we were in -- at the edge of a Greek neighborhood or that square block. yeah, well, you’ll be safe here.” I’m not?” And it’s like, “Oh, I’m going, “Oh, you mean (laughs) It was that sort of thing because you got -- if we wanted stuff that was Hispanic, we would go down to 12th Street. Because -- JJ: Twelfth Street? RR: Yeah, 12th Street, Saint Francis. JJ: Oh, Saint Francis. RR: Oh, absolutely. JJ: Why did you go all the way down there? RR: Because no one knew what cilantro was. Yeah. Oh, you remember Saint Francis. That’s -- and -- And then my ma wanted it for some of the food she made so every so often, we would go down there and we would take the Halsted bus all the way down. And then do masa for tortillas or whatever ma wanted to make or and then we’d go. And that’s when you’d wander a little farther [00:35:00] south to our Maxwell Street. JJ: Right. 34 �RR: And that was -- JJ: Because that was a Mexican area. This is -- and you’re talking about Taylor Street and -RR: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Oh Taylor, you got to watch out. Because you go West Taylor -JJ: Taylor, (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). RR: Oh we -- we didn’t even go. JJ: The (inaudible) was the name of the gang (inaudible) -- RR: Yeah. JJ: Taylor Street groups, Taylor Street culture was the name of the gang. We dated girls from there. I knew that because that was -- I was researching gangs then. (laughs) RR: Oh, God. That’s one place we didn’t go into. JJ: (inaudible) town but you’re saying there on 12th Street was Mexicans. RR: Oh, yeah. JJ: Because in fact, that was one of the only places where they had Spanish mass. RR: Mm-hmm, at Saint Francis. JJ: My mother used to go all the way -- we lived near Holy Name Cathedral -- RR: Oh, wow. JJ: -- and we used to go all the way there. We used to go all the way to Saint Francis because that was the only Spanish 35 �mass in the city, I guess. It was a Mexican community. Or they’re not the only one at least (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). RR: It was probably the only one early on. JJ: Apparently, there was one (inaudible) because you used to go to the church. RR: Yeah. [00:36:00] Because -- and that’s in grade school. JJ: All the way (inaudible). RR: Yeah. JJ: Because you say nobody knew where cilantro was? [laughter] RR: I’d go into a place and say like National or whatever and Yeah. And that was mostly for supplies. say, “Hey, my parents want me to get this thing. It’s like parsley but it’s called cilantro,” and I didn’t know what it was in English. And they’d look and say, “Oh, parsley.” “No, no, it’s not parsley. carry it.” You can see.” “Oh, we don’t It’s like it was really strange. So you’d walk down there and even if it was a short area from, oh, about 12th Street down, two blocks, you had the old tortilla makers, masa for tamales, they had the imports so ma would get her mole down there. Because she couldn’t get it any place else so she’d get a bunch of cilantro. It was -- in that sense that you had a little enclave [00:37:00] there. We knew that there was other Hispanic on the South Side but we never went farther than 12th Street. That’s about as far 36 �as we went. JJ: But you said there was some other (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? RR: And there was Greek -- yeah. And we knew Greektown because it was just north of there. JJ: So Greektown was actually there were Greek people living there. RR: Oh yeah, yeah. JJ: It wasn’t like today where there’s just restaurants. RR: Oh no, it was Greektown. Yeah. It is. That was one of the things that was amazing to me early on as I traveled around the city. There was enclaves of people and they were definitely -- Well, Helmut moved to a block north of Armitage and roughly Kildare. And at that time, it was like two square blocks of nothing but German people. The street where that ended on the other side were all Polish and that’s where [Lewandowski?] lived. Let’s see. Wolfgang -- I don’t know if you remember [Wolfgang Holtz?]? JJ: Wolfgang, oh yeah. RR: [00:38:00] Wolfgang Holtz, John (inaudible), Helmut Traum. Traum moved out there. That’s where he met Lewandowski and that’s where I eventually -JJ: Are these -- Wolf, wasn’t he in Saint Teresa’s or --? RR: Yeah, he was at Saint Teresa’s. 37 �JJ: So his name was (inaudible) -- RR: And he moved out. He didn’t graduate with us. wind up at DePaul Academy. “We moved out.” JJ: Okay. But he did And I’d say, “Where you been?” And that was -- He went -- after Saint Joseph’s, he went to DePaul in high school. RR: Yeah, he went to DePaul Academy. my choice. Yeah. Because Waller was It was either Waller or DePaul. I said I’m going -JJ: And I went to Waller. RR: Oh, God. JJ: (laughs) But I actually came from Newberry. problems at Newberry. And I had My mother was working with training the catechism classes and she got me into Saint Teresa’s. RR: How did you get into Saint Michael’s? Because you got into Saint Michael’s thing and I -JJ: No, no, no. Saint Michael’s was [00:39:00] my mother was working with the Caballeros of San Juan -RR: Caballeros San Juan, yeah. JJ: -- and there were a few students that were Spanish -- they were Puerto Rican that used to go to Saint Michael’s but very few. The rest were from public schools. mother was doing catechism classes. And my But she would do it for the Caballeros de San Juan and Damas de Maria. But 38 �they had a big council on the three there. And so I became -- because I was an altar boy at Saint Teresa’s, I went to the first Spanish mass there. Because their whole thing was to give Spanish mass. RR: Right. It can -- JJ: And they were -- they achieved that at Saint Teresa’s and Saint Michael’s. And I became like one of the first altar boys at Saint Michael’s for the Spanish mass. So that was my badge of honor to do that. RR: Yeah, because that’s a part of you I never knew. I knew you were doing [00:40:00] stuff at Saint Michael’s but I’m going, “Why is he going all that far?” with Saint Teresa’s? JJ: That’s because my mother was working there. the catechism classes. She was doing And she would put in the stuff from like the priesthood and put together. RR: Yeah, I know. Remember the priest that took you and me up to [Donaldson, Wisconsin?]? JJ: What do you mean? RR: Oh, God. I don’t remember the whole thing but -- I don’t know. At some point or another, you and I got together when we were talking about what we were going to do about changing the world. JJ: What do you mean? What were we talking about? RR: How things had to change. We can’t keep up with -- it was the time of Vietnam War. It was also the time of Missiles 39 �Remember Anne’s class, we were -- of October. JJ: Was it history in Anne’s -- that’s about the eighth grade. RR: Eighth grade, yeah. JJ: So we were talking political -- RR: Seventh and eighth grade, we were already talking politics about how -- JJ: Are you sure? Are you serious? RR: Oh, I’m dead serious. JJ: I don’t remember it. RR: Oh, I do. JJ: What do you remember? RR: What I remember mostly is we would have -- and this was the I do. other Sister, Hermann Joseph that’s a -- [00:41:00] You were an altar boy, I was an altar boy. We’d always take the early masses because that way, we could (laughs) we wouldn’t have to show up at noon. JJ: What would we do? RR: Yeah. JJ: What could we do if we took the early masses? RR: Well, if you take the early masses, you don’t get assigned the ten and eleven o’clock mass on a Sunday which ruins your Sunday. JJ: Oh, okay. RR: And then also if you got the 6:00, 6:30 during the week, 40 �you didn’t have to go to mass for class. JJ: So you were pretty good at that because I remember I was just following you. RR: Oh, God. That was -- I remember that. Good God. JJ: So you used to take the early masses? RR: Yeah. JJ: But I used to take the early masses because I felt bad that sometimes, the other altar boys wouldn’t show up. RR: Well, that was a big problem and then that’s why Father loved us because you’d take the early masses? are nuts. But I preferred the early masses. These guys I always did. And somewhere along the line, we were -JJ: What was his name? RR: Oh, God. Father what? [Father Brown?] was there for a while. remember Father Brown. later on. I [00:42:00] [Father Obi?] was there There’s one in there I’m missing. remember most of all is [Father Headley?]. The one I He was the Hispanic-speaking priest. JJ: He was there? RR: He was there later, much later. JJ: (inaudible). Because he was involved with the Caballeros, also. RR: Yeah. He was. He -- JJ: I didn’t know he was at Saint Teresa’s, too. 41 �RR: Oh, yeah. And do you know he got kicked out? Or he got kicked into missionary work because they were beginning to think he was a little too radical? JJ: Right. RR: And I thought -- JJ: Oh, they say he was too radical? RR: Oh, yeah. JJ: (inaudible) think he was radical (inaudible) -- RR: Well, he was rad- -- JJ: Oh, he was radical all the time. RR: There was a -- one of the first times I -- when I was I -- I didn’t know that. serving mass for him -JJ: You served mass with him? RR: Oh, yeah. JJ: Well, I might’ve. RR: Oh God. I thought you did, too. So he was -- he came in. He was doing a Sunday mass and I don’t remember if it was the 8:00 or 9:00. was one of those times; I got a later one. It And [00:43:00] he came in and one of the big issues we’d had at some point in school and other places was having to do with some of the civil rights stuff that was going on about whether people were being treated fairly. And since we didn’t have a lot of Blacks, we didn’t have any Blacks almost, we talked about other -- and how things had to change and 42 �stuff. And that’s where we -- you brought up something about, “Oh, yeah,” and I had been talking about the priesthood, too. And there was -- JJ: There was a diagram? RR: Yeah, so you brought the CSSRs, the ones out of Saint Michael’s. And that’s one of the times and I can’t remember if it was in eighth grade -JJ: So it was in there when you sent me the name of the -- RR: The Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. JJ: Okay, I brought that up in the conversation or --? RR: Yeah, as part of somebody you knew and they were looking to see if we were interested in going -- [00:44:00] JJ: To The Redemptorists, okay. RR: To Redemptorists, yeah. And a priest said, “Hey, do you want to come and visit the minor seminary?” And you and I took a ride with him all the way up there. JJ: So you went with me there. RR: Yeah. We went together. I got stung on the knee with a bee. I remember that that morning. JJ: Okay. I remember I took a trip but -- RR: And then The Servites. JJ: Was it -- oh, they were called The Servites? RR: And then there was another -- and The Servite came through -43 �JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) recruited us. RR: They recruited us, yeah. They came to school and talked to us and they were talking about going to minor seminary. You and I got -- “Hey, let’s -- you know, we could pair up. We could have a good time.” JJ: You know, I remember a conversation about because I wanted to be a -- to serve the priesthood. That I remember. it wasn’t -- to me, that wasn’t political. But It was just like we needed to save the Latino (laughs) community or something. RR: Yeah. That eventually became a -- JJ: But that’s what you mean by save the world. RR: Yeah. The world was where we lived and what we knew. The Latino community was you, me, and -JJ: [00:45:00] I was interpreting it differently than I would’ve interpreted it today. RR: Yeah. You, me, and Glenn Messa. And Glenn Messa was Cuban and he thought that Puerto Ricans and Mexicans were below (laughs) his dignity. And he didn’t even speak Spanish. So that was it. JJ: I didn’t know as a kid (inaudible) -- we had all (inaudible). We had a whole connection with it. RR: Yeah. So Father Headley is starting mass. JJ: (inaudible) -- so if Father Headley was there, you served. 44 �I must’ve served, too, because -RR: You did. JJ: -- we were there at the same time. RR: Yeah. JJ: I remember [Father Hoffmann?] (inaudible) because for some Because you and I stopped serving probably -- reason -RR: Oh, Hoffmann, yeah. The guy -- JJ: That’s why -- RR: Yeah. JJ: I had a lot of respect for him. But he had -- he kind of - - later on, it felt like distance when the Young Lords came out. And he didn’t support us. RR: Oh, yeah. I remember -- JJ: Because I remember walking into the church one day and he was talking against me. And I had a -- like get -- trying to raise money for my bond and [00:46:00] I had no way to get bonded out. And I walked in there and he was like, “Are you sure we should trust him getting him out? he doesn’t pay back or --?” I was there. What if So then, he turned around and But I respect that (inaudible). But he did support us (inaudible). RR: Yeah, Headley basically told the people that came in -- JJ: He doesn’t care, either. RR: Yeah, I know. (laughs) Headley came in and he was saying mass and 45 �he had been around. And he -- here’s his -- the eight o’clock mass is where all the -- most of the people came. You got plenty of other people in the other but -- and he gets up and he goes, “I’m ditching today’s sermon,” he says. “I’m looking at you guys. How dare you come into this place of worship when you’re doing --” and he started listing things like being racist, offensive talking, cheating. He says, “You guys come in here.” He says, “Clean that up before [00:47:00] you come in.” “Oh, my God. I’m going, He sounds like you, me, and what we’ve been talking about for so long that needs to change.” JJ: Mm-hmm. This is Headley Father. RR: Yeah, this is Headley. are wide open. Yeah. The people were like mouths I’m like, “Go for it!” (laughs) The one -- Father Brown is the one and I like Father Brown. But we were in the middle of Vietnam War and we -JJ: So when I -- are you saying I was talking like this, too, or --? RR: Yeah, yeah. JJ: We were talking like that. RR: I was talking like that, you were talking like that. JJ: We were both talking like that about changing the world in that sense? RR: Yeah, in sense that we need -46 �JJ: This is pre-Young Lords before I got into the political arena. RR: To me, my dad’s always been a political animal. So even though -JJ: Your dad was a political animal like that? RR: Yeah. JJ: What’s your dad’s name again? RR: [Ricardo?]. JJ: Ricardo (inaudible). RR: [Guadalupe?]. JJ: So he was a political animal? RR: Yeah. JJ: (inaudible) -- RR: He was very much seeing that the world, the government, And he -- Yeah. And -- [00:48:00] the social things should be different. JJ: Where does that (inaudible)? RR: Oh, God. Him? Dad was a quasi-philosopher and he grew up during the persecution of the Catholic church in Mexico. And he was put in a seminary almost as an orphan for a number of years. And he came out with this kind of philosopher’s bent. Socialist. JJ: Hm. RR: Yeah. He saw things very much as kind of a And he didn’t see the -- (inaudible) Socialist? For socialism? He -- he needs to be an equality of things. And he 47 �always saw that things could be better but it’s not going to get better if we keep doing the dumb things we’re doing. So Dad would preach a lot to us. And -- JJ: [00:49:00] And their siblings are -- what are their names? RR: Oh, my sister is Rosalia. And my next one would be Rebecca, and then there’s Reynaldo, and my littlest one is -- I got to not call her -- her name is Sochi. JJ: So three girls and -- RR: Three. JJ: Same in my family. RR: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And we all -- There was three girls and I so -- Well, it was -- I mean, there’s 11 years’ difference between my little sister and me. And I -- Ma got kind of sick there for a while so I was doing a lot of the familytype stuff because Dad had to go to work. But yeah, yeah, there was always an issue in our family of community service and I became an altar boy at Saint Joe’s. And so I had been so -- [00:50:00] [Sister Hilda?], Sister Hilda, fourth grade is where -- when I started -JJ: You mean at Saint Teresa’s. RR: At Saint Teresa’s, yeah. JJ: You were not an altar boy at Saint Joseph’s. You were there, too? RR: Yeah. JJ: But you were already an altar boy. 48 �RR: Yeah. JJ: So you were already (inaudible). RR: I was ready for anything, yeah. was pretty religious. way. So when we (inaudible) -I would even -- yeah, I I still am today but in a different And so the issues from a political point of view was always that things could be better. And one of the big things that was impacting to me and always did was the idea of racism. Because if we had Black kids in the house or in the yard playing, the neighbors would go nuts. And my mother would say basically, “Look: as long as they behave, they stay here. You can’t keep your mouth shut, you leave because I won’t have any of that.” So Ma was always -- so we had all [00:51:00] sorts of kids. And the German kids if they wanted to come over, the Italian kids could. no racist stuff. But The minute it started, she’d be out there going, “You need to leave. You can’t behave that way.” for me, I had a broader view from the get-go. So And with a dad who was constantly saying, “We need a fair wage. We need to have unions or we need things that --" JJ: He used to talk about workers’ rights. RR: Yeah, workers’. JJ: He was a Socialist. RR: Yeah, exactly. JJ: I didn’t know that. That’s all he ever did. That’s what I understand. But I didn’t know anything about that. 49 �When we were hanging out together, we -RR: It was sports and philosophy most of the -- JJ: Sports and philosophy mostly (inaudible). RR: Yeah, that’s what it was most of the time. JJ: But we were talking about wanting to get into the priesthood. RR: Yeah, because we were going to serve. JJ: I mean, did we talk about -- have those conversations or -? RR: Yeah, we talked about going -- in fact -- JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) -- RR: -- at one point, the most I remember is out of eighth grade because we were -- the question was whether we were going to go. [00:52:00] And which one? Redemptorists or The Servites? Was it going to be The And we were tending toward The Servites because they were going to give us a free ride and neither one of our parents could afford it. of us were service-oriented. what do you want to do?” And both And we talked about, “Well, “Well, first we got to get through this thing.” JJ: What do you mean service-oriented? RR: Service-oriented. We tended to do things for people. We tended to -- you have a thing that I don’t have which is charisma. I don’t -- I’ve never had charisma. I was kind 50 �of different but -JJ: What do you mean I had charisma and you didn’t? RR: When you talked about something, people could stand there and listen to you. got a point.” And they would go, “Oh, yeah, the guy’s can’t talk.” Me, I’d do that and they’d say, “The guy So you had a certain -- when we needed [00:53:00] a baseball team together, you could get one together faster than we could. JJ: But it sounds like a community organizing. RR: Hey, that’s okay. W. Thurman taught me some of that. It took me until I was in high school and college to learn those traits. You had them so -- [Jeff Williams?] is another guy who I learned from and that was in college. But it -- we were more community. We need to change things, we needed to -- and the priesthood seemed like a logical way to go. And what -- the first thing that went to hell was -JJ: I do remember wanting to be like the first priest because that’s what the [Retemptors?] were saying. We don’t have any Latinos priests -RR: Mm-hmm. We don’t have no Latinos, we don’t have anybody who can -JJ: See, I wanted to be the first. Be the first, just you and I. 51 �RR: Yeah. JJ: But I wanted to be the first priest. (inaudible). So my only first that But you were -- wanted the same thing. [00:54:00] RR: Oh yeah. I wanted -- having grown up how I did, I saw the need to change the world. JJ: But I also knew I had to change me first. You can’t jump into it. training. And -- You got to get See, you were more intellectual than I was. I always looked up to you because of your intelligence at that time. And to me, I just -RR: Hey, I’ve gotten stupider. (laughter) As the years have gone on, it’s gotten worse. JJ: I think it’s just part of it. I got to learn from you. RR: Oh, no. JJ: But I had charisma and you had the intelligence, I wish I knew what I -- then what I know now. intellectually. RR: But we were going to go and then I’m not sure what happened was we both applied to The Servites. And we needed to get -- we got signatures from the priest, parish priest, and we needed something from Sister Anne. And [00:55:00] as best as I can remember, Sister Anne and the priest would not sign yours. JJ: Right. 52 �RR: The impression I got and I’m trying -- because I never got the story straight because it ended right there. The way I got it was that your Ma owed Sister Anne or the school some money for your tuition. And since she hadn’t paid it off, Sister withheld her signature. And then the story with the priest and I don’t remember which priest it was at the time. But they wouldn’t send it -- sign it to you because they said that they couldn’t determine that your mother and father were married at the time you were had so they -- you couldn’t be a priest anyway. “That’s wrong.” couldn’t get in. going in.” Because -- and I went, And then it was done. It was like you “Well, if you’re not going in, I ain’t And at [00:56:00] that point, it was the end of eighth grade and I still thought about going. But I figured, “Well, I can always go to the academy, pick up the stuff, and then leave after the academy and go on.” But it didn’t work out that way. JJ: Now, we did owe her some money. RR: Mm-hmm. JJ: That’s true because I -- in fact, I was -- I started selling those candy bars because I felt guilty I hadn’t actually -- RR: Oh, I remember those. JJ: -- switch places selling the candy bars because I felt bad 53 �that we didn’t have the money. RR: Nobody did. JJ: But one of the other reasons that -- the problem was that I started (inaudible), too. It was snowing and we started playing around throwing snowballs at the (inaudible) -RR: Oh, the snowball incident where somebody got hit. JJ: Yeah, and the priest was coming out of the -- he saw that. He was on the bus. So he saw the person get hit or something like that so he knew about -- he heard about the snowball. RR: Oh yeah, I had forgotten about that. JJ: So I guess that was the [00:57:00] broke the camel’s back. The -- RR: But see, to me, that was all wrong and that’s the wrong reason. I mean, you have two eager kids who are willing to go to the edges of hell and you suddenly cut them off? I’m going, “I’m not going by myself here. And We need a team,” you know. JJ: Because we got suspended and we (inaudible) for throwing snowballs at the -- I mean, we apologized (laughs) (inaudible) -- RR: It didn’t do any good. JJ: It didn’t do any good, either. so (inaudible). But we also owed them money But you recall that? 54 �RR: I remember the money thing. And I remember the, now that you bring it up, the snowball thing. God. JJ: So that was the big gossip at the school? RR: No, actually, I got it from my mom. my Ma. I got it mostly from Again, being intellectual, you tend to knock things out that -- so it was sad. JJ: But I didn’t know you quit because I -- RR: No, I had nobody to -- JJ: Because we were pretty tight, we were pretty tight. RR: We were pretty tight there. JJ: [00:58:00] We were tight friends. RR: And it was that summer that we went totally because I had to work full-time and I got a job at UPS. JJ: Oh, really? RR: And then after that didn’t pan out, it was brutal. I worked at Schwinn. And it was like you got to be there at seven o’clock, you get home at 4:00, you’re beat to hell. I mean, working on the assembly line. JJ: So I remember -- RR: And at that point, you were gone. JJ: And then they had a graduation party and I wasn’t invited was another incident. RR: I didn’t go to that, either. (laughs) JJ: You didn’t go to that -- you weren’t invited, either? 55 �RR: (laughs) No, I don’t think so. JJ: So I don’t think you’re -- I don’t think you’re wanted as a Spanish-speaker. walking around. But I found out about it because I’m By that time, I went from wanting to be a priest to wanting to be the best gang member, right? (laughs) Because -- RR: Social organizer, yeah. JJ: That’s why I went into the Young [00:59:00] Lords gang, basically. So I was kind of in between at that point. But the priests, they were not necessarily completely (inaudible). But I think that they were -- they were a little unrepresented. RR: Oh, no. I to this day. But again, here’s what wisdom comes with age. JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) -- but I was changing -I changed. I mean, a few incidents kind of changed me. I mean, during that summer was -- I went to jail two or three times. That summer, I ended up getting deported. RR: Really? JJ: Yeah, I got sent to Puerto Rico on the plane. RR: Oh, God. JJ: Because -- RR: I knew you were in trouble, but I -- we didn’t see each other anymore. 56 �JJ: -- I had some -- (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) it went downhill from there, from that point. RR: And then we went -- at that point, it was like -- JJ: Because I couldn’t afford to go to Catholic high school. I had to go to Waller. RR: Yeah. You know what was paying my Catholic high school was working. Because my dad wasn’t making any money [01:00:00] and Ma was staying home with the kids, so yeah. And then when we were talking before, you were asking why I didn’t get involved with the gang. Because I was too busy trying to make money so that I could go to school. And then also, I was thinking, “What am I going to do when I get out of high school?” JJ: But you know, you mentioned one time before walking through the neighborhood and feeling -- RR: Well, once I knew you and I didn’t care whether you were in a gang or not, and we talked even a couple of times and you already told me you were looking at different -- And I wasn’t quite sure what it was. couple of the guys. And you introduced me to a I don’t even remember their names. mean, it was like a one-, maybe two-time thing. I And then they were all real friendly and it was almost a reassuring thing because I would see some of them every so often and say, “Hey.” And you felt like what we talked about early 57 �on that walking -- first of all, I was older. Second of all, somebody’s got my back. [01:01:00] We had a conversation and I don’t remember when it was. I don’t know if it was the following year or if it was that summer. And you were deciding that this was the route you were going to take and I think you were telling me that that’s what it was. And I kind of said, “Uh,” and you said, “Hey, you need to be a college boy.” And I kind of -- that’s the first time that I heard that term and I have no idea where it came from. need to do.” But it was like, “Yeah, maybe that’s what I And I guess that year was really critical for both of us because at that point, I said, “Okay. going to go that route.” We’re I think if I can be -- it turns out, by the way, I was the first Hispanic to get a master’s degree at DePaul University. JJ: Oh. Congratulations. RR: Well, you know, I didn’t know until two years after I graduated. That’s how -- JJ: [01:02:00] So you went to DePaul University. RR: Yeah. And long, strange story about that one. But anyhow, I got a scholarship and what the scholarship didn’t pay, I could draw from -- and Mom saved all the money I made so some of it went to the household. went to college funds. Some of it -- all it And then I continued to work. So 58 �the reason I can retire and have Medicaid even now is because most of that, not because of this. JJ: But you thought you would walk through the neighborhood and now you feel a little comfortable -- RR: Oh yeah. Because I knew the guys. JJ: And then they got -- there was more Spanish people. RR: There was a lot more Spanish people. JJ: That didn’t even do no good or --? RR: Well, a lot of it did. I didn’t -- I never had problems with any of the Spanish-speaking people. It didn’t matter what they were. Because it was like it was in a way, a familiar face. And another thing is that every so [01:03:00] often, we -- we didn’t do it -- most of the time, we spoke in English. But every so often, we’d go Spanish. There’s something very comforting about speaking Spanish with someone; It’s like a common link. So that it doesn’t matter whether you’re Puerto Rican or whether you’re Guatemalan or Honduran. If you speak the same language, it’s kind of a common bond. That’s the way I felt. Also we were getting more people and then people weren’t making fun of my mom’s pozole because now, everybody was having pozole. And you didn’t have to make fun of me for pasteles because I thought they were cakes. forget that. (laughter) I’ll never That was awesome because we learned from each 59 �other. JJ: When was that? (inaudible) -- RR: You and your mom invited me over. And I said, “Well, should I bring something or something? having for food?” Or what is she “Oh, she’s going to have some pasteles.” [01:04:00] And it didn’t ring on me that it would -pastele in my dialect means cake. And then we got there and I was like, “Those are pasteles?” “You got to open them up and unwrap them and --” “Oh my God, that’s what it is.” It was a wonderful, for me, learning experience. was like, “Wow, that’s what a pastele is.” It And your mom made things -- arroz con habichuelas? RR: Right. JJ: I never heard of that. And it was like, “Hey, that’s good. It has a different taste.” So I got a broader venue and then we had people who were from different parts of Mexico living across the street and they used to trade stuff with my mom. I’m going, “What’s that?” to try it.” She goes, “Oh, you got It would be something new all the time. So in a sense, the link that didn’t exist before started being -we had things in common. had a common language. had some commonality. We were all poor. The second, we Third, we had [01:05:00] foods that And then at that -- right about that time, we started having the first Spanish mass. And then 60 �suddenly, all the Hispanics are coming out of the woodwork and they’re -JJ: So at that time, when you stayed there for Spanish mass at Saint Teresa’s -- RR: Oh God. I’m trying to -- JJ: Is that what you’re talking about? RR: Yeah, exactly. JJ: So I don’t recall that very much. RR: I’m trying to figure out the year. JJ: So you don’t remember the date. RR: It was a big thing because -- JJ: Why was that a big thing? RR: It was a big thing for two reasons. fabulous. That was really surprising. Was it (inaudible)? One, I thought it was Vatican II. Now first of all, because it was an extension of Besides turning the Latin mass into English, now for people like my parents and other people who were mostly Spanish-speaking, it -- now, they could go to church and feel like, “What’d he -- what say?” (laughs) No, no, it’s [01:06:00] in Spanish. JJ: So did they feel like a victory or something or --? RR: Oh, they felt -- JJ: (inaudible) and you felt. RR: I felt it. I did, too. I felt it was a great thing and I wasn’t used to it so initially, it was very uncomfortable. Because I 61 �- even though you can deal with, in the religious sense, it’s a different story. And it was -- it was kind of neat. And it wasn’t too much later that Caballeros de San Juan and las Damas started forming a chapter at Saint Teresa’s and they took off from there. Well, by that time, I was already -- I was off doing my own growing up. JJ: (laughs) So now, now you’re in high school and some of the people from Saint Teresa’s also went to the Saint Vincent, right? RR: Yeah, it’s at DePaul University Academy was the actual name of the place. JJ: It was a high school? RR: It was a high school, yeah. JJ: It was called the DePaul University Academy? RR: Yeah, it was -- JJ: [01:07:00] Who were some of the people that went from Saint Teresa’s? RR: Oh, Landini was there, [Timbo?] was there, I was there. Who else? John Glaw was there, Traum -- JJ: Do you remember [Kuszczak?]? RR: Yeah, I remember Kuszczak. JJ: Do you remember him? RR: Yeah, he was a year ahead of us, wasn’t he? JJ: Yeah, exactly. RR: Yeah, he went there. 62 �JJ: I thought (laughs) he was in a gang or something, I don’t know. (laughs) RR: Yeah. And that was -- JJ: But you recognized him. JJ: I’m trying to think. RR: But he was -- I know he was from Saint Teresa’s. JJ: Who else was there? from Saint Teresa’s. The other people -- Traum used to be Lewandowski was -- others so -- RR: Those are people you grew up with, too. JJ: Yeah, from (inaudible). JJ: So what was high school there like? RR: High school was real interesting. JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) RR: Oh, God. It was almost an instant replay what we’ve just been saying because early on, it was like I’m trying to think. There was [Castillo?], Rebollar, and [01:08:00] one other kid. There was like three Hispanic kids in that class and it would be -JJ: Rebollar was in there, too? RR: Yeah, freshman year in high school. And then the rest of them were Italians and Germans and what’s it called. And the guy that I got shacked up with because we had to share a -JJ: Did you meet [Angie Rizzo?] at that time? Or no? 63 �RR: No, no. JJ: She (inaudible) Rizzo, Angie Rizzo? RR: No. JJ: Oh, it was all boys. RR: Yeah, no girls. JJ: But she went to DePaul or (inaudible)? RR: No. JJ: No? RR: Never did. JJ: Maybe she went to [Grammars?]. RR: Probably Grammars. JJ: (inaudible). RR: Yeah. JJ: Yeah. RR: Yeah. JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) -- RR: -- we had very few Hispanics and initially on, we got a I didn’t have -- it’s an all-boys school. No? That would be out of the Saint Vincent’s school. So anyhow -- little bit abused. [01:09:00] But then again, it was like we were all there to survive and they were pretty tough discipline-wise. So any time it got out of hand, they got in there and then basically disciplined so it didn’t last long. JJ: We also were -- started going -- (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) -- where was this going on? 64 �RR: Dean of Men. JJ: Who? RR: Dean of Men, the priest. JJ: Every time they would come up? RR: Oh, God. JJ: So you mean they came with some (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) -- RR: Oh yeah. They’d walk in there and [Rigacci?] is doing a number on me because I’m a beaner. He’d grab Rigacci and smash him in the mouth and say, “That doesn’t happen here.” And then he’d walk away. JJ: And this is the Dean. RR: Yeah, yeah. JJ: He’ll smack that -- RR: Oh, yeah. JJ: That was his way of screaming? RR: Oh God, yeah. JJ: Because someone was harassing you at that time? RR: Oh, yeah. And he would never -- he never looked at me. He just grabbed him and said, “That doesn’t happen here,” he smashed him, and then left. JJ: It was a racial thing. RR: Oh, yeah. JJ: There was no doubt about it. And then, “Well.” [01:10:00] No doubt about that. 65 �RR: Oh, yeah. JJ: So you met all the other -- people were harassing the other Latinos (inaudible)? RR: Yeah. There was only three, four in my class. JJ: And they were all -- they were all harassed. RR: Yeah, at one point or another. JJ: So this is (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). RR: Three of us got -- oh, yeah. Two of us -- three of us -- So if it got caught -- if they got caught, they got disciplined. can’t remember his name. remember. One guy really -- I I can see his face, but I can’t himself. He took it badly and he absolutely isolated We tried to -- because we were -- and no. would not. through. He He hated everybody and he was going to make it He did, he made it all four years, but he absolutely had nothing to do with any of the students. That was really surprising. But the rest of us, we just -- I mean eventually, we wanted in. I mean, literally, yeah. They weren’t going to tolerate. JJ: So by the end of the first year, you were -- RR: End of the first year I would say, yeah, I would say we were the geeks and then there were the ones that were the jocks. [01:11:00] But everybody -- JJ: What did that mean? Geeks and jocks? RR: Oh God, geeks and jocks. 66 �JJ: You’re (inaudible) -- RR: Oh, we were the ones that studied too much and the jocks were the ones that were -- the guys who played baseball or football. And they had to study because you’d flunk. got one summer to make it up. get thrown out. You If you don’t make it up, you They were really, really tough on academics. JJ: Now, what year was this? Do you remember? RR: Nineteen sixty-three. JJ: You’re talking about 1963. RR: Sixty-three, ’67. JJ: Sixty-seven? RR: Yeah. JJ: And then the neighborhood is still changing, right? RR: Oh yeah. Yeah. Sixty-seven? At this point, it’s now going through more dramatic change. We’re having more Hispanics, more Blacks. A lot of the people that we knew five years, six years before have now moved out. It’s -- JJ: So all of the Italians and Irish and German -- RR: Yeah, a lot of them are gone, [01:12:00] yeah. JJ: -- are moving out. RR: Yeah. JJ: And how did you feel about that (inaudible)? Or were you saying -67 �RR: I’m a high schooler; I could care less. I’m growing up, I’m going through puberty. JJ: Okay. RR: A lot of the times, since we had -- since we were socializing, we’d have to go to Immaculata. Immaculata is up on Irving Park. neighborhood. Now, I mean, that’s a snooty Some, you know -- people let you know that you were -- yeah. And then if we want another one, we might go to Josephinum which was on Oakley and North Avenue roughly. JJ: So you’re socializing with the Catholic (inaudible). RR: Yeah, Catholic, yeah. Because that’s where the major -- you know, and -JJ: And [01:13:00] they got to divide it. This is all over men (sic), this is all under men so -RR: Yeah, right. But the barriers were starting to break down. A lot of the barriers that we, that I saw -- I dated a Black girl. It’s like, “You’re kidding.” “Yeah, why not?” JJ: Who was asking if you’re kidding, your friends? RR: Yeah, your friends. harassed. It was kind of like, “You did that? different?” “Oh.” But it wasn’t like you were being “No, they’re just more tan.” Are they It was like, And then that’s where I dated the Polish girl and I got chased out of the neighborhood. That’s who I’m 68 �thinking of the one girl who lived on Taylor Street where she said, “Do not pick me up.” (laughs) JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) Is this the (inaudible)? RR: Uh-uh, “We’ll meet you there.” JJ: Yeah. RR: So you date a girl and you can never go into her neighborhood because you’re Hispanic. And before, you couldn’t even go into the neighborhood. JJ: But you didn’t -- did you have any problem with that Black girl that you dated? RR: No, not at all. JJ: So you didn’t go in their neighborhood. RR: Well, she lived not too far from Josephinum. Yeah, yeah. [01:14:00] It wasn’t a big deal. RR: So no one gave you (inaudible) -- JJ: No. RR: -- when you dated a Polish? JJ: Polish girl, yeah. RR: Mexican dating Polish. RR: Oh yeah, it really was. So that was a problem. I -- my famous -- one of my famous -JJ: And she knew it. “Don’t pick me up here?” RR: Yeah, that was the Italian girl down on Taylor Street. Oh. She knew that you go down there, not a good place for 69 �Hispan- -JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) races yet. RR: Yeah. I mean today, I sit and I teach these students and they’re -JJ: You’re teaching? Today you’re a teacher? Is that what you’re -RR: Today I’m teaching, a biology teacher. And I teach biology and chemis- -JJ: Mathematics is my worst subject. RR: Uh. JJ: (laughs) Just kidding. RR: But we -- the kids will bring up things like, “There’s all this tension.” kid.” My worst subject. I’m going, “You don’t know what tension is, I mean, you’re sitting next to a Black kid or [01:15:00] you know, but -- You would believe the story I tell is back in about 19- -- must’ve been about ’56 or so. Maybe it was even later -- ’60? My parents decided they were going to Mexico so we took, oh, Route 55 or 66 down and we wound up in Little Rock. And it was during the time they were having some racial issues so they had National Guard driving through. And I remember as a little kid going, “Oh, wow, look at all the trucks with the soldiers and they got guns.” And my dad had to get some gas and stuff at a gasoline station so I got out and I walked 70 �around because I had to go to the bathroom. And I looked at the -- and there’s a sign that says, “Entrance for Blacks.” It didn’t say Black; “Negroes.” Whites.” And I’m looking and [01:16:00] this white guy comes up. He goes, “Whatcha doin’, boy?” reading the signs.” “Yeah.” “Entrance for I said, “I’m He says, “Trying to decide?” I said, I said, “I’m not a Negro but I’m not a white.” And the guy looked at me and says, “You better decide soon,” and he went in. So I said, “Hell, I’m not going in there and I’m not going in there.” bushes. So I went in the (laughter) I mean, I don’t know what these -- my kids today would do if they were faced with that sort of thing. The stuff that you and I dealt with on an everyday basis to them would be absolutely horrific because they can date whoever they want. They will get static but not like we -- you don’t get chased out and have bottles (laughs) thrown at you because you’re in an Italian, Irish, German, or Black neighborhood. JJ: And -- You got chased out or we got chased out and bottles thrown at us? RR: Well, how many times when we walked over to Lincoln Park and we’d take [01:17:00] one of the side streets and didn’t take the main street? We had to literally run through certain neighborhoods because kids would start gathering. 71 �You knew that trouble was coming. You move. don’t know if you remember stuff like that. JJ: You remember it well. RR: Oh, God. I I do. (laughs) And so today, the kids -- I tell them, “You have no idea,” I says. JJ: Yeah. “Things are so more positive.” But then, we got -- or at least I got into the gang when I felt a little -- RR: But you know what was interesting about you getting into the gang? I saw that as an almost a social progression. Because what you’re seeing is you’re seeing the civil rights movement occurring and that was long overdue. But civil rights to me when Martin Luther King was speaking, he was not speaking as a Black man, he was a universal man. When he was talking about the universal rights of people and it doesn’t matter -- it was speaking to the same things you and I had been speaking about for years. That it doesn’t [01:18:00] matter whether you’re Puerto Rican, it doesn’t matter whether you’re Mexican, it doesn’t matter whether you’re Honduran. equal opportunities. It doesn’t -- you need to have And when you’re successful, you should have equal rewards and that wasn’t happening. So to me, I saw that as a momentous occasion as we were heading - and who were we learning from about social community action? Jeff Williams, Saul Alinsky, a Jew, a Black, W. 72 �Thurman, a community leader which is an old grandma who decided she was not going to have things. And we were -- do you remember the lady who was the social worker in our parish at Saint Teresa’s? I’m trying to think of her. can see her face; I can’t think of her name. facilitated when somebody needed something. I But she She facilitated through the parish things that should’ve been easily accessible for them. [01:19:00] So to me, it was -- here's this wonderful coming together of a lot of those things. JJ: So you said it was wonderful. So does that mean now, you don’t have to worry about walking around the neighborhood? RR: We’re at [Blackstone?], what was Fred Hampton? talking about, “We need more clinics. training facilities. He was We need more We need to channel this stuff.” This is the same stuff you were talking about early on that this is what we need. We need to get together as a people, we need to start creating these opportunities so that we can advance. The early stages of that were just absolutely fabulous, but I -JJ: But are you making the decision when we were a gang and it became more political or --? RR: Well to me, after you became a gang, you became political. You were political from the start. You were Puerto Ricans. 73 �JJ: What do you mean by that? RR: Hey, you couldn’t [01:20:00] have been a mixture because nobody was getting along. So you go with your common ethnicity and then you recognize that the ethnicity extends beyond. So you -- what did you guys form? The Rainbow Coalition, didn’t you? JJ: Later on, yeah. RR: Yeah. That was to me like, “Well, maybe this’ll work.” Because you’re looking at Blacks, you’re looking at poor white folk, and you’re looking at the people in between which is the Hispanics, the Brown folk. If we can get together, if we can change what’s going on because there were political issues. JJ: But I mean before that, way before that. I’m talking about when there was the Paragons and there was the Black Eagles and there was the Young Lords and -RR: But the nature of the gang was different. JJ: What do you mean? RR: Okay, so if you’re looking at the Paragons or Romo -- the Romo, they were there to protect their interests in their neighborhood and keep anybody who didn’t belong out. [01:21:00] At some point, that’s where everybody else started. The Blacks started the Patriots, the Young Patriots, and that’s where it all started. But as a civil 74 �rights awareness became, I think there was more -- so and the social background that you had already began to build up yourself began to create the opportunity that formed that coalition that would -- could never had formed if we hadn’t had the things that -JJ: Occurred before. RR: Yeah. JJ: So it was an extension. And I had -So from the gang to the political to the Rainbow Coalition. RR: Because if you’re looking at protecting your neighborhood, after a while, you’ve got to start worrying about, “Joe there doesn’t have any food. fed? How are we going to get him Well, let’s get him a job or let’s get him to do this or let’s get him,” you know. JJ: So that was unnatural. RR: It was unusual but [01:22:00] it was absolutely natural in terms of what had come before. And Fred Hampton was in the same position except that he was in a different neighborhood. (laughs) And I know very little about the Young Patriots except I know that they were on that Wilson area and that was vey transitional. I knew that there was a lot of poor white hillbilly folk out there and I know that they were having the same problems everybody else was having. 75 �JJ: But then we didn’t (inaudible). McCormick, (inaudible). All of a sudden, that’s in the newspaper and you say, “I know they’re celebrating there.” So how did you feel as a Latino at that time when the Young Lords (inaudible) with community presence? RR: Well, I’ll tell you what. “Yeah, finally.” It was like part of it was, And it was two things. One was the recognition of the community needs [01:23:00]. The second was validation of the role that your group was involved in. And finally, because of the eventual cooperation that McCormick actually did, I’m going, “Finally, somebody’s paying attention.” This is Father Headley 10 years down the line saying, “Okay, now we need to do something about this. We can’t just talk about it in the pulpit.” was -- in a way, it was like, “Wow. - I wonder where this is taking us.” this. Neat. So it Where is this - Unfortunately, it did And historically what -- JJ: Unfortunately what, later on (inaudible) -- RR: Yeah, everything fell apart. Part of it should’ve been obvious to me at the time and it wasn’t. It was a political issue and it was a power issue. JJ: Okay. What do you mean a political issue, a power issue? RR: Daily [01:24:00] controls. How does he control the city through the neighborhoods? 76 �JJ: So you could see that we were fighting Daley and that, too? RR: Oh, absolutely. JJ: It was clear. RR: Oh, absolutely. In ’67, it was dead clear to me because by that time, I was already involved in the anti-war movement. JJ: Oh, you got involved in that, too? RR: Yeah. I really heavily because a number of the guys I graduated with were killed in Nam within a year after we graduated. And I’m going -- JJ: And did you go into the military? RR: No. Strangest story. Remember when they went to the lottery system? JJ: Right. RR: I got one- -- I think it was 119, 116 out of what, 225? So they’re going to call everybody up to, “Two twenty-five.” And I’m waiting because I’m registered because I’m going, right? So a couple months go by so I actually went down to -- and I said, “I want to be able to make plans. [01:25:00] I’m 119.” The lady looked at me and says, “You’re not being drafted.” I’m 119.” “What? They’re going to 225, She says, “We don’t need you.” said go back to school. Gave me an A-3, So I didn’t hesitate. Went right back to school. (laughs) We were worried about my brother for the same reason but he got a high number. But 77 �it was -- I saw kids that came back. wonder, “What a waste. And you begin to What a stinking waste.” In ’67 when the Democratic Convention came, I had a couple incidents happen to me that immediately told me that it didn’t make any sense. One of the local -- I think it was a Presbyterian church on Fullerton used to have sunrise services down by that museum. And that weekend -- JJ: Which museum? RR: The one on [01:26:00] Armitage and Clark. Yeah. I went down there and I felt out of place because most of them were older people, you know like we are now. it was just an old, standard crowd. (laughs) And Some kids and maybe about three, four of us that happened to be in there. And we’re sitting there and it’s the middle of services and suddenly, I hear this pop. And cannisters of CS flying over our heads right at us. And a bunch of idiots are coming in. Cops. It turned into a race and the four of us must’ve run that -- it’s about a mile from there to Sheffield, dodging through alleys, through ca- --[01:27:00] these guys were after us. And they were willing to take out all these other people that were innocent. going, “What did we do?” Well, we were young and we were anti-war and that’s all it took. Daley’s orders. And I’m And those were all And we knew it at that point. If I had 78 �any doubts, that convinced me. his Red Squad. Daley’s after us. He’s got He's going to be chasing us all over. And that happened several times to several other people and I just never expected it to happen and it did. “That’s it. And I said, Daley’s going to start -- he’s going to start attacking these people that are --” And sure enough, it -- over time, he used the sheriff’s department and he took and basically take out the leaders. They’ll fight among each other, the thing will collapse. And that’s basically what happened. JJ: So [01:28:00] you got into the anti-war and so you were talking about McCormick Seminary again. And you thought that that was a -RR: Oh, that I thought was a high point. It was extremely promising because what I saw is if you can get the ministry in, if you can get the archdiocese involved, and things will change. JJ: But in the community, how did that (inaudible)? RR: It was very promising but it split the community in half. It -- all right. So you have those people that a lot -- see what’s going on and they’re hoping for some change. And then you have the old timers. old timers. And I don’t want to say People who have been living there and they feel like they’re really invested. And they see that as a 79 �really dangerous thing. of thing. Church doesn’t belong in this sort What’s wrong with our community? [01:29:00] the rabblerousers out of here. That we need And if the Vietnam War wasn’t doing enough splitting, and it split almost inside the lines, pro-war, anti-war. JJ: So it was splitting? So this was a -- so the fact that the Young Lords (inaudible) doesn’t exist. They took over an apartment and it polarized the community more? RR: Oh yeah, it did. JJ: But it was good on blending old versus (inaudible)? RR: Yeah, that’s not the way to get things done. It was that sort of thing. It doesn’t “Well, we tried the old way. work.” JJ: So similar were people were for and they couldn’t oppose it. So they said that’s not the way to do it. RR: Mm-hmm. JJ: So they couldn’t oppose it because there were some -because we were fighting for housing -- RR: Mm-hmm, for affordable housing. JJ: -- for housing we couldn’t afford. It was that. And they said, “That’s not the -- that’s not the right way to do it [01:30:00] taking over a building.” RR: Right. What they were talking about was the old thing. You would go to your Ward committee man and you -- what are 80 �we going to trade for what we need? And that was the old way. JJ: So there was a discussion about that. RR: I’m sure there was. I’m not sure. JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) Okay. there wasn’t. If there wasn’t, But were you saying some people were saying why don’t you work through the community? RR: Yeah, work through the old system. JJ: But the community men were the ones that were evicting people like me (inaudible). RR: Yeah, sure. JJ: So I mean, but there were some discussion at the time. (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) -- RR: Oh yeah, there was. And that occurred at church sometimes. Sometimes, we got -JJ: So, now we take over The Peoples Church. No, before that. Before that, there’s a march for Manuel Ramos. Did you hear about that or --? RR: I remember the name vaguely. JJ: Because that was at Saint Teresa’s, the funeral? RR: [01:31:00] Mm-hmm. JJ: Okay, so that was -- RR: By that time, yeah -- JJ: What else do you remember about the Young Lords? 81 �RR: Well, for me, the one -- JJ: (inaudible) -- RR: -- they seemed to go more political as they started to come down. With you being in jail and Fred Hampton being killed, the Young Patriots pulled up -JJ: Was that being discussed? main group in or --? RR: Was that being discussed in the Or (inaudible)? At this point, I’m not living at home anymore. I’m actually living up on Belmont. JJ: Oh, you didn’t tell me that. RR: Yeah, so it’s -- I’m not hearing as much. hearing is I go home on Sundays. Most of what I’m And so by the time I hit ’67, ’60- -- I was out of the house by I would say September at the latest of ’67. JJ: Oh, so you weren’t living [01:32:00] in that (inaudible) and the Young Lords. RR: Even though I was going to school there, I wasn’t really -- JJ: So what did you hear about that? Did you hear anything (inaudible)? RR: Most of it through school. There was like a -- we’d occasionally meet at a place called [the Coffee House First Step?] and somebody would come in and they’d say, “Did you see this?” The Seed would carry something on that which was that paper out of -82 �JJ: The Seed? RR: -- yeah, out of Old Town. JJ: They distributed the Seed? RR: Yeah. JJ: Okay, so the -- RR: The Seed and there was several -- JJ: -- I remember the Seed was for the people that smoked weed, too, and that. RR: Oh yeah. Yeah. JJ: So were you smoking weed at that time? RR: Oh, no. No. I was too busy trying to stay alive. was -- I never got into that. No, I I never got into that. A little bit of alcohol, yes. JJ: But no other drugs. RR: No, no. No, I never -- some of the guys did. we formed a group that was to help people. get -- you know, you’re in college. drunk [01:33:00] out of his mind. And in fact, Because we’d You’d get a kid who’s One of my buddies got -- his girlfriend left him so he decided to get drunk. got some pure alcohol so he got alcohol poisoning. But he So we decided we’d form a group so we could -- what do you do when somebody has alcohol poisoning, you know? like a research group for the college. Kind of So that they’d -- if they had problems, they’d come in and say, “Hey, I think 83 �this weed is laced.” I’d look at it and say, “Okay. First of all, it’s mostly seeds or it’s mostly stems,” I said. “But it’s got a powder on there. not mold or anything else. It’s been laced. That’s It’s -- that’s something else.” Sometimes, they laced it with PCP, sometimes, it was something else. that.” And you’d tell them, “You don’t want to do The funniest one I ever had was a guy came in and showed it to me and I said, “That’s not even weed.” said, “What do you mean?” lettuce.” it.” He I said, “No, it’s lettuce, dried He says, “You’re kidding. “No, that’s dried lettuce.” I paid so much for Yeah. So you know, kids [01:34:00] that are on bad trips, helping them down. JJ: So your mind is tame by that time. You’re not anti-war and all that. RR: Well, yeah. JJ: And why does it change? RR: In my head? JJ: Yeah RR: Oh, God. What’s going on in your head? I keep remembering Sister Anne and practicing putting our heads underneath it. The famous incident and I think it was Sister Anne’s room where it happened. doing the drill. sirens. We were The Tuesday drill when they’d run the We’d get underneath the tables, you’d put your heads (covers head with arms), and I started laughing for 84 �some reason or chuckling. And she came over and said, “What’s so funny about this?” JJ: They had that at school or --? RR: Yeah, yeah. And I said, “If those bombs go off, those -- this table is not going to protect (laughs) me from anything.” I said, “I’m going to be instant ash.” said, “What’s funny about that?” practicing?” And she I says, “Then why are we So in my own head [01:35:00] even by eighth grade, I realized that a nuclear attack was not something that was survivable in our neighborhood. just -- it’s sad. It was -- it’s That was really, really sad. But at that point, it was -- I didn’t see the rationa- -- I know why we went to war. And I know why sometimes you have to fight because the environment tells you that. But I wasn’t seeing why we were over there fighting these little guys. They’re not going to paddle across in a canoe and attack us. And I had read by the time I was freshman year in college, I had read the Battle of Dien Bien Phu so I was aware of what had happened and how we had gotten our -- And I’m going, “Why are we doing this? Why are we heading --” And what I saw it as a loss of potential. We were losing these bright young men that were coming back [01:36:00] maimed and dead. And what are we gaining out of this? was a little scary. It So as I go up, the idea of service, 85 �the idea of helping the community, the idea of what is the function of government? I mean, is it to serve or service the people or is it to maintain a structure where they can -- those are two different stories there. I’m going, “Well.” But in the end, If they can’t do for me, I’ve got to do something for myself. So I’m doing what I can to help kids who are on drugs because that seemed logical at the time. And I’m also looking at -- I learned about the 110 rule. And that basically if you’re a minority and you’re going to succeed, you got to do 110 percent what anybody else does. [01:37:00] And I was saying, “How was I going to do 110 percent?” JJ: So where’d you get this from? This (inaudible). RR: Oh, I don’t know where I got it from but -- JJ: Was it a school thing or --? RR: I think it was a part. I think part parents, part neighborhood, part a lot of things that we talked about. But as you go in and suddenly, there are things that change your life like you said. One of the things was that towards the end of my senior year in high school, I was dating this wonderful Polish girl and we talked about it. I said, “Listen, I’ve got four years of college and then we can talk about marriage.” She said it was a good idea. So by the time I was in -- the beginning of sophomore year, we 86 �were talking about two years down the line. And her parents actually took her and moved her out of Chicago down to southern Illinois. JJ: Why was that? RR: And her father [01:38:00] and I had this interesting conversation. I’m still an idiot then, okay? JJ: Okay. (laughs) RR: And she -- he says, “She can’t marry you.” I say, “Why?” “Well, Brown babies will have a horrible time in this world.” JJ: This is her father. RR: Her father talking to me. you talking about?” I said, “Brown babies? What are He said, “Well, if you’re going to get married, you’re going to have kids and you’re one of them.” And in my brain, I’m going, “What is he talking about one of them?” He says, “You’re one of them. those Brown people. And if you and my daughter marry, they’re going to have Brown children. succeed. You’re one of They’ll never They’ll have a horrible time in the world.” And I’m going -- and his mother comes out of the kitchen and starts cursing him out. JJ: She heard him say that. RR: Yeah. She says, “This is a good young man. her.” And that was the last conversation we ever had. He’s good for 87 �Basically what he says, “You’re not welcome here.” JJ: Basically, he kicked you out. RR: Yeah, he kicked you out. her name was [Kathy?]. [01:39:00] Yeah. time. So I said -- I said, “Hey, Kathy. to go to college next year. And -- You’re going So go to college, get a little If you need to leave your parents, you got me. can do it together.” Didn’t work. We So at that point in time, I realized that -JJ: How old were you then? RR: Oh gosh, how old was I? JJ: About 20 years old. RR: Twenty years old. JJ: There’s a lot of changes at that age. RR: Oh, yeah. JJ: Life changes. RR: So I -- one of the things was -- JJ: So that affected you strongly. RR: Oh, yeah. Sixty-eight -- about 20 years old. Roughly 20, 21. I’m going -- “I’m going to show you, you son of a bitch.” (laughter) I said, “I’m going to get my degree, and I’m going to do everything that I can be successful, and the hell with you. The world has got to change.” The world was changing and I didn’t even know [01:40:00] it. I mean, I was fighting my own personal battles and the world had already started to change. I mean, Robert F. Kennedy’s 88 �death and Martin Luther King’s death and Fred Hampton’s death. All the people that were dying were changing. Because people were asking why -JJ: You were familiar with Fred Hampton’s death. RR: Oh yeah. JJ: Were you familiar with Reverand Bruce Johnson or Oh yeah. (inaudible)? RR: No. JJ: In the church? RR: No. JJ: They got killed -- RR: No. JJ: -- in the Peoples Church? RR: No. JJ: They were stabbed. RR: No, I didn’t know that. I didn’t know. Did you know? Yeah. See, again, at this point, I’m separating and I’m going -JJ: You’re not in the neighborhood, you’re not (inaudible). RR: I’m not in the neighborhood at all and I’m also -- JJ: How are you familiar with Fred Hampton’s death? RR: It was first made the news. JJ: Well, that one had the trial. RR: Yeah, but even so, the early reports -- and again, [01:41:00] this is the intellectual side of me. I start 89 �reading reports, looking at photographs that they’re showing going, “Uh, that doesn’t jive. all.” It doesn’t jive at And then a lot of the underground newspapers carry information. JJ: Were you reading the Seed? RR: Yeah, well, the Seed was -- there were several other papers, yeah. JJ: But you said you were reading them because you were in the anti-war movement, right? RR: Yeah. And I’m reading about Fred’s death and I’m going, “Holy mackerel. JJ: I didn’t know. This was just basically an assassination.” I was looking for -- I was trying to recruit different people. anti-war movement. RR: Yeah. I didn’t know you were in the It’s like we had been working together. It might’ve been a different world. But at that point, after sophomore year, with the death of Robert F. Kennedy, because I had some hopes politically for this man. JJ: Well, Kennedy was definitely respected by a lot of Latinos. RR: Oh, yeah. JJ: Everybody had little posters. RR: He [01:42:00] seemed to have the energy and the promise I thought he had -- that his brother didn’t have. JJ: Did you ever (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? RR: No. My parents may have; I didn’t. 90 �JJ: No. RR: But when he was gone, I started looking around going, “They’re going to kill everybody who wants this change to come about.” And I said, “Oh, that’s it. problem and that’s to make it.” I got one And I’d already been told that I can’t make it because I’m a Hispanic, I’ve been -I’d watched good people -- I saw you go to jail for the lumber incident. JJ: Oh, so you mean (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) -- RR: Oh yeah. JJ: You didn’t know about the good part, only the -- RR: Well, most of that was passed on because again, you have I -- you didn’t stay out of -- the -JJ: I know but what did you -- what did you -- what was your impression? RR: My impression was there was some lumber that was going to be used for something and it was something minor. It was [01:43:00] like -JJ: It was going to be used for something political or --? RR: Political it was -- I didn’t know what it was. JJ: But it was something to do with the church. RR: Yeah, it -- JJ: Actually, it was for the day cares. RR: So and then they were going to arrest you and throw you in But anyway, so you -- 91 �jail for 20 years for what? Less than a hundred dollars worth of lumber? JJ: So that’s the way the conversation went? RR: Yeah. The conversation came through and again, my mother picks it up because she talks to this other Hispanic lady who talked to this Hispanic lady. JJ: So it was through the grapevine. RR: We got most of that through the grape- -- JJ: Made the way on the grapevine. And then they’ll put him in jail and (inaudible) -RR: Yeah, they threw him in jail and this time, they’re going to throw away the key. geez. They’re going to try him and, “Oh, How’s he going to --” And at this point, I would say -JJ: And how did your mother -- your mother because she knew me? RR: Yeah. She was like, “This is terrible.” She saw a lot of -JJ: She did sound like a mother. She sounded like -- RR: Oh, like a ma, yeah. JJ: That that could be my son. RR: Yeah, it could be. JJ: So she acted -- put that in a positive way. I mean, she was supportive. RR: [01:44:00] Oh, yeah. Absolutely. She was hoping that both 92 �of us would be priests. (laughs) And if not, social workers, you know? JJ: She saw me as a victim. RR: In many ways a victim. JJ: Not an aggressor. RR: No, she never saw you as an aggressor ever. JJ: She never? RR: No, no. She never saw you as an aggressor. She felt that you had picked up some back habits along the way. You were drinking too much or something else and -JJ: May I ask you is it just the wine he drinks sometimes? RR: Oh. So and that’s probably -- and but this other stuff. “The lumber,” she says, “But that’s unjust.” JJ: (inaudible) it was too much drinking. RR: Yeah. It was too much -- yeah. Because -- So it was just -- yeah. So it was -JJ: But we were also trying to prove that -- because this was only a couple 2x4s and piece of plywood. giving us the maximum which is a year. us more than a year. And they’re They couldn’t give But they actually -- they were trying to give us more than a year. RR: Yeah, they were trying to give you a whole lot more. JJ: [01:45:00] They were trying to give us like five years. They were trying to say that it was a burglary. And we 93 �said, “No, it was outside.” In other words, there was no - RR: There was no entry into a residence. JJ: -- (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) building entrance. we actually had to try that case and we won that case. So lost because I pleaded guilty. and everything. We And then I even (inaudible) I felt guilty at the time. RR: I’ll tell ya -- JJ: But we thought at first, it was a liberating move. thought we were revolutionaries. We We were looking at them bringing wood but when we thought about it analyzed, we said, “No, we didn’t have to do that. We could ask for donations.” RR: But again, the whole point was that -- JJ: But she was a supporter. RR: Oh yeah. JJ: The whole point was what? RR: The whole point was this: that we recognized that change Your mom was a supporter. was needed and no one was doing anything about the change. And then that was [01:46:00] -- at that point -JJ: So you recognize the change was needed and the Young Lords were doing change? RR: The Young Lords were doing change, Fred Hampton was doing change, that whole thing was promising. 94 �JJ: So you were sensing -- RR: Oh yeah. And even though I was distant from it, it was like, “Do I leave what I’m doing now and jump in? I fit in?” Where do And I didn’t see fitting in so I saw my battle was going to be at the academic level. JJ: Right so I’m thinking that I’m making change and I don’t realize when other people around me are not changing, too. But you were changing, too. And we were -- RR: Oh, we were all changing. JJ: The whole community was changing. RR: It did. JJ: Because what you’re saying -- I’m not putting words in your mouth. RR: Yeah, the community -- no, no. The outcome. Even though physically, it looked like failure, it changed how people saw things, it changed how people thought about things. It changed -JJ: What changed? What do you mean, what, the actions I was [01:47:00] taking? RR: You going to jail, Fred Hampton being killed. things. All those You discovered -- JJ: Okay. So that was the nature of the change. RR: All those things. The discovery of the Red Squad, the discovery that, in fact, the Red Squad did exist and that 95 �they did tap phones illegally. Those things slowly but surely began to make people think about what was going on. It didn’t change things magically. The things that were going to change it were -- I -- again, this is my point of view. I’m in college. I’m with Black kids who were struggling just as I am and they’re looking at this and I’m -- we suddenly discover both of us the 110 rule. Okay, so we’re going to be the best chemists, biologists, doctors, lawyers that’s possible. And we’re going to show them that a Black man can do just as much of a job or Hispanic can do as much of a job. I wanted to show that Polish guy the way I’m going to be one of the best whatever it is I chose to be and you missed out. missed out on this. point. (laughs) [01:48:00] Your daughter A very heavy driving force at that Also realizing I was going to be one of the first people to get a degree in my family ever. So at that point right about there, ’68, ’69, I split completely from the politics and just went full-hedge into being really good at being a biologist. JJ: Okay, so now you’re ’68, ’69 was a turning point in your life and you said, “Let me go this way. Let me go to the school and be the best biologist ever.” RR: Yeah. So here in real quick succession, I get out of college, I get my degree. I get a chance to get a 96 �master’s. I pick up on my master’s. During the course of finishing my master’s, I run into a guy by the name of Howard Bern from the University of California at Berkeley. [01:49:00] He thinks I’m really good. actually pays my way out there. interview. I invite -- he I go visit, I have an There’s a guy by the name of Talamantes. got a -- a PhD candidate. He’s He invites me to start my PhD. I finish my work in the spring of ’74, I don’t get my degree until ’75, and then I start -- I go back out. am I going to do?” I’m done so I need to get away. “What I do summer camp for kids from the inner city through Catholic Charities. And I’m looking at kids like you and me except 20 years later. And I’m going, “What am I going to do?” And I talked to Howard and he says, “Yeah, you got two years. You decide. Take two years off and come on by.” Well, somewhere in that span of time, I [01:50:00] needed a job so they sent me to Pilsen. And here I am again. Here’s these -JJ: That’s in the heart of the Mexican community. RR: Yeah, yeah, just outside. JJ: Yeah. RR: I got a Puerto Rican boss. Yeah. And you’re saying you’re there and -And he is telling me how you need to teach, courses I need to take, bla bla bla bla. And suddenly, you hit that stride and go, “I’m in the right 97 �place.” I’m going, “I don’t belong in academia. here working with these kids.” 1985. I belong So from ’74, I came back in Pilsen. In 1985, I started teaching, went right back to And I taught from ’85 to ’93 or ’94 in Pilsen. JJ: You were there 10 years? RR: Yeah, I spent 10 years in there. JJ: And you were teaching what? RR: Teaching any science. JJ: Any science. RR: Yeah. And you were teaching science. So I was teaching [01:51:00] everything. you can do it. can do it. And mostly Forget about whether you’re Mexican; You The whole message that I’d grown up with which is, “You’re here. Use the opportunity. you’re not designed to be baby machines. (inaudible).” Don’t -- ladies, You can be So I got involved with DePaul again doing school on Saturdays at college level for kids in Pilsen. And in ’94, I had my -- in ’90, I had my kid and suddenly realized I had to be a father. JJ: So how many children did you have? RR: One. JJ: You had one? RR: Yeah, I was only given one. JJ: How old is he? RR: He’s 22 now. 98 �JJ: He’s 22. RR: He’s 22. In fact, this year, he’s [01:52:00] a senior in college. So at this point, it’s like, “Wow.” JJ: A senior in college. myself right now. RR: (laughs) I should be ashamed of (laughs) Well, I’m retiring in four years and guess what the plan is? I’m going back to college. JJ: Oh, really? RR: Yeah, there’s a couple things that I need to learn before I go much further. But basically, the reason I got back into it is it played back into my social awareness. Now, I can’t change these kids but I can offer them the opportunity to change, to see a different world. and I got to see it later on. That you But they -- yeah, you’re dirt poor, you don’t have anything, and you think you’re dumb. Number one, you’re not dumb. opportunity. Two, you’ve got the It’s not money, it means take whatever chance comes your way and utilize it to get out of -- because you can’t stay where you’re at. Education is your salvation. JJ: [01:53:00] And you, besides teaching, you had other -- RR: Oh, yeah. JJ: I think that’s important that -- RR: All right. (laughs) So this wonderful program that they had in Pilsen works so well that they cancelled it after one year. 99 �So I went and taught in Catholic schools for two years. After two years in Catholic schools, I got an invitation to do education out of doors through Catholic Charities. So I spent the next -- so it’d be ’76 -- the next four years, three years doing outdoor education with -- yeah. So I was up in -JJ: In camp or --? RR: -- in camps, yeah. So I did Henry Horner occasionally. Very rarely, but which is a Boy Scout camp. Catholic Charities had Saint Francis in Libertyville. Villa Marie out in Pistakee Bay [01:54:00] and Holy Family in Saint Joe. So when schools needed someone to teach kids about the out of doors, they would call me -- I was kind of an administrator of the camp -- so and I would go out there. “We’re going to spend a day in the woods. walk through the woods. Here’s how you you do, get in the dirt.” This is what you eat, this is what A lot of these kids were suburban kids but during summers, I would do inner-city kids. And I just love that. That was a lot of fun, lousy pay, and job security was horrible. So that when the funding was eventually cut and this was about 1979, I hadn’t -- didn’t have a job. a biologist.” So I went back to, “Well, I’m I can’t go back to Bern because the offer has long since dried up. So I applied to Illinois State to 100 �work in a forensic lab because I had all the qualifications. [01:55:00] And they said, “You have all the qualifications but you have no law enforcement experience.” So I joined up with the police force so I was a policeman for one year. That was one of the strangest things that ever happened to me. JJ: So you went to the law sort of -- so a police academy or -? RR: Yeah, I went to police training academy. I was number one, number two in my class. JJ: Okay. RR: So it’s -- it doesn’t take a -- JJ: So a pretty good working person or --? RR: Very good. JJ: (inaudible) (laughs) RR: Oh yeah. JJ: Did you get a (inaudible) for a car? RR: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And I don’t know where I got that skill. (laughs) But anyway. So I served one year there and it was -JJ: Now, were you working out of the precinct or --? RR: I was working out of a small town, 10,000 people. JJ: Okay, 10,000 people. RR: It’s sort of like Mayberry, I guess. But it was a good 101 �learning experience. [01:56:00] A lot of stuff I had to relearn. JJ: So you were a regular police officer in a small town. RR: Right. And then I was also an acting detective so I did -- I made robberies and investigations and I guess internal investigations is required. And right at -- right about January of the year after I started, I got a call from the state that says, “We heard,” somebody put me in but anyway, basically what happens. would you like a job?” “We heard you got experience. How And it paid real well so I worked there for four and a half years, five years. I got sick. JJ: This was another place. RR: Yeah, this was the Illinois State Police so I worked for scientific services. And I -- JJ: What was that? What type of work was that? RR: It’s basically, you sit in a lab, you analyze rape kits. Because I hadn’t -- JJ: What? RR: Rape kits, mostly. JJ: [01:57:00] Rape kits. RR: Yeah. Rape kits so you get the little kit. It’s got blood samples in it and then you check to see if it’s got sperm and this and that blood types. all that sort of stuff. And I did hair analysis and But I was -102 �JJ: Now, hair analysis, was that for (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) -- RR: Comparison hairs. No. It’s like -- JJ: It’s related to the rape cases? RR: Yeah, right, or criminal cases. JJ: Criminal cases. RR: So somebody would break into a store and steal something and they left a drop of blood and some hair. got a suspect. So now they Does the hair match the suspect, blood match? JJ: Okay. So you did that four or five years? RR: Yeah, yeah. I wound up doing a lot of crime scenes because having been a cop and having been an evidence tech, I knew how to do that and I got -- but I started out in -- here in Joliet. So I trained for a year and then there, they sent me to Springfield, Illinois. So I was in Springfield [01:58:00] for a number of years. put me in Maywood crime lab. And I came back and they So at that point, I had an operation that put me on medication stuff and knocked me out. So basically, I had to retire and it took me about six months, nine months to recover. And them at point, I said, “Well, I got to go back to what I was doing. to get back to that teaching.” JJ: I got And right. Okay, now, you were at one point, you were supporting the 103 �Young Lords and the Black Panthers and they don’t see police favorably (inaudible). an activist? But how could you stop being Because you were anti-war activist and then at the same time, you were supportive of the Young Lords and the Black Panthers and that. So how did you -- RR: How did I wind up as a cop? JJ: Right, how did you put that in your head, justify [01:59:00] that in your -- RR: Oh, I don’t know. JJ: Did you even think about it or --? RR: Oh, I never thought about it. When you -- as a cop -- JJ: Because a lot of times, that work in the service and cops - RR: Yeah, because what you do is get out there. JJ: -- (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) -- RR: It’s a community service thing. your head in. That’s not my job. I’m not out there to beat My job is if you got a problem -- I don’t know how many drunks I drove home. JJ: Okay. So you looked at it as community service. RR: Oh yeah. Sent couples in marriage counseling. I mean, you know -JJ: Then you’ve been to college so that people understand it’s -- part of it is it’s a job. RR: It’s a job. My life doesn’t depend on it. So the only 104 �time I’m going to be concerned -JJ: I worry about it because I don’t know who’s going -- I’m worried about it now. RR: Yeah, you pull a gun on me, that’s a different story. JJ: Oh, okay. RR: Oh, absolutely. JJ: Because I’m a great shooter. RR: Hey, only one thought is I want to go home tonight. JJ: I would never do that. If I pulled a gun on you, I’m in trouble. (laughs) I would never do that. (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) -RR: [02:00:00] Oh no, it’s a -- When I was teaching, I had a young man who brought a 22 to school. But it was a starter pistol. A counselor called him down and the counselor saw the gun. Called the parent, the parent came in, took the gun from the kid, gave it to this person. comes up and he calls me down. This person She’s knows I’m an ex-cop. She takes the gun and she -- you’re sitting here. She goes like this (extends arm forward) -- she’s got her finger on the trigger and she’s pointing the damn thing at me. looked at it and it was all reflex. hand. I I just about broke her And she goes, “What the hell was that?” I’m saying, “Never, ever -- I don’t care who you are -- point a gun at anybody and particularly, not me,” you know? away.” “Put it And then when I opened it up, I said, “This is a 105 �starter pistol. surprised. It doesn’t (laughs) even --” And she was [02:01:00] But it -- yeah, now it’s -- that’s - - I mean, how many times did you get shot at, José? I mean, think about it. JJ: A few times. RR: Yeah, I got shot at a couple of times. you get real jumpy. You just kind of -- And then when you get trained in what to do, it’s -- but I lost a lot of friends. I mean, there were people that I had been communicating with for years and suddenly, it’s like I write them or I call them and it’s like, “We’re not available. parties.” No, we’re not having any I said, “Look, like what’s going on here?” And then I was back doing biology which was kind of fun. JJ: So you had the (inaudible). RR: It was. JJ: (inaudible) -- RR: One of my best friends Lewandowski was blown away. could you ever become a cop? did all these things.” “How You went through all -- you I said, “I’m not one of those idiots that’s tossing hand -- gas grenades at you and I don’t want to beat your head in. wearing.” I don’t care what you’re I learned that. [02:02:00] That’s what I’m carrying with me so that’s what makes me good at what I do because I have that experience. I’m not going to make the 106 �same mistakes they made. So that was pretty tough; I took that pretty personally. JJ: I like that you said you could see it as a service. Because I mean in socialized countries or communist countries or whatever, they have no police force. have no police. They (inaudible) -- RR: But they’re used as enforcers, aren’t they? JJ: But some of those countries, yeah, (inaudible). RR: So anyway, in the end, I wound up teaching. JJ: They just got to explain because it’s so strange that program. (laughs) Yeah. (laughs) RR: Man, it was -- JJ: (inaudible) -- RR: Yeah, we wound up in the same place, though, didn’t we? And I think one of the things that’s interesting more than anything else is what a roundabout way. because I’m ending my career now. going to do? See, [02:03:00] And it’s like what am I Well, I don’t know but one of the things is I’d like to work with some people. And then I may wind up just volunteering here and working with some of the kids that need the help. JJ: Yeah, it’s kind of hard to retire. RR: It took me a long time to get used to white-bread America. When I came here, there was probably less than 10 percent 107 �Hispanic and probably less than 15 percent Black. And these were -JJ: And you said you’re here in Joliet. RR: Yeah, in Joliet here in Illinois, yeah. JJ: In Joliet in a high school. RR: In a high school on the west side which is the better side of town. And now, we’re more integrated. one third, one third, one third. It’s more like And what I used to think was that I’m trying to save the Hispanics; I’m trying to give them that opportunity. don’t have to do that. And in here, [02:04:00] I It’s really everyone because you got poor white folk, you got poor Hispanics, and you got poor Blacks. JJ: And the message stays exactly the same. So this was -- used to be like a suburb. But now it’s -- the suburbs are filling up with minorities. RR: Oh, yeah. JJ: So far with minorities. There’s that change. In the cities of Chicago, it’s the opposite. RR: Now, you’re starting to have white coming back in. JJ: Right. Yeah. So that they’re running the game thing either way (laughs) from the perspective of the game, right? RR: Well, except that we -- JJ: We moved and went in town, now they’re moving to us. (inaudible) -108 �RR: But we changed the world. JJ: We changed the world. RR: We did. JJ: We’re in the process. RR: Take a look at these kids. Hispanic. They can date Black, White, They don’t run into the problems that we did. They’re now talking about Obamacare as an important issue and life. And we’re still dealing with a lot of the [02:05:00] issues about civil rights. But now, we’re talking about civil rights for everybody. talking about for Blacks. We’re not just I mean Joe, damn. Forty years have changed and we were part of that. You actually had a bigger part than I did but it’s nice. I don’t want to say, “Hey, it’s great. We did it!” No. We’re nowhere near where I’d like to be but it’s a hell of a long walk from where we were. JJ: And you feel that we contributed to it? RR: Absolutely. Absolutely. I don’t -- I mean, think about just the ideas that you put out when the Rainbow Coalition occurred. I always hated the fact that Jesse Jackson stole -JJ: [02:06:00] Stole the leader. RR: Oh yeah, stole the leader. JJ: I think it’s (inaudible) -- Because I tell -- 109 �RR: Oh, it’s cool. But I mean, I’m saying -- JJ: But I don’t think it was the same concept -- RR: No, I don’t think it -- JJ: -- because we actually -- I think he’s trying to go to the Rainbow Coalition but I don’t think he’s been able to get-- RR: He hasn’t gotten the Hispanics in there. JJ: -- the Hispanics in there (inaudible). RR: He hasn’t gotten the poor whites. JJ: But we actually have that. RR: Oh, yeah. JJ: We had a real rainbow coalition. RR: Oh, you did and it was amazing. possible. You did. And the fact that it is The fact that it existed for a while and then went away changed the world. JJ: Yeah. But it was a symbol. really an organization. It was symbolic. It wasn’t It was an alliance of people that were already organized into organizations. And that’s [02:07:00] what was good about it. RR: Yeah, and would we be here today if all those things hadn’t happened? you. I don’t think so and I don’t think it’s just I think it’s all of us contributed a piece. I think -JJ: The whole era (inaudible). RR: Oh yeah. Because if I had gone back to Howard and become a 110 �great biologist, would I have impacted on as many kids? One of these -- last year, I had a wonderful young lady who’s been a real hard worker. many kids have you taught?” about that.” And the question was, “How And I said, “Let me think And it comes out to several thousand. If it’s several thousand, let’s say it’s 5,000, and I only influence one percent, that’s 50 kids. JJ: Right. That’s a lot. RR: It’s a lot. It’s a whole lot. [02:08:00] And that’s one thing that I don’t know how many -- I don’t know how many half-dozen, ten teachers I trained to become teachers. What did I teach them? The first important thing is listen to your students. Where did it come from? to bring them up? It’s not -- you’re either a natural teacher or you’re not. What can you do You were a natural teacher. It took me years to get and learn some of the things that you had. Which was the charisma, the facility with people. I’ve never been terribly people-oriented. JJ: You learn it from the intellectuals. RR: That’s why we made such a great team early on and I think we recognized that. roads to travel. But it was just -- we had different My wife -- I love what she says. on this road for a reason. JJ: (laughs) “You’re You may never know what it is.” What’s your wife’s name? 111 �RR: [Mary Beth?]. JJ: Mary Beth. RR: Good Polish-Italian girl. JJ: Oh, is she? RR: Yeah. JJ: [02:09:00] So you married the neighborhood. RR: Well, yeah. JJ: Congratulations. RR: Yeah. JJ: How many years have you been married? RR: Thirty-one, 32. (laughs) Yeah. Congratulations. oldest. I’m surprised we’re still married because I’m -- Yeah, yeah. John Glaw and I are the John got married when he was 20 -- 20 years old. And he is one year younger than me, so he is 63. So he’s been married 43 years. JJ: Hmm. RR: So it’s -- it’s amazing. JJ: Do you see some of the people from your neighborhood sometimes or --? RR: Very rarely now because a lot of them -- do you remember a girl by the name of [Baldassano, Carolyn?]? JJ: Yeah, I remember her. RR: She just passed away two weeks ago. JJ: Oh. RR: Yeah. Carolyn had a massive heart attack and died and I 112 �hadn’t seen her for a long time -JJ: Does she live in Chicago? RR: She’s out somewhere in the ‘burbs. JJ: In the ‘burbs? RR: Yeah. [02:10:00] There was a girl by the name of [Nancy Roseman?]. Do you remember Nancy? Lived right across the street from school. JJ: I think so. RR: Skinny little thing. (raises hand) Yeah. She and I had been buddies for years and she told me about Carolyn. And she said, “Oh, you got -- you and Carolyn,” because we were in the same class. JJ: She lives in the suburbs, too, now? RR: Yeah, she was -- she moved out there 20 -- JJ: Now, these are people that were later on. You weren’t dating in DePaul because that was a -RR: No, these are all neighborhood people. JJ: You still kept (inaudible) -- RR: Yeah, occasionally through my sister, [Rosie?]. JJ: Oh. RR: Because she still lives there. JJ: She still lives in Lincoln Park? RR: Yeah. JJ: Okay, now, is Rosie the one that’s married to -- She’s on -- what street is that? Seminary. 113 �RR: [Lechaise?]. JJ: Lechaise? RR: Yeah, Lechaise. JJ: Lechaise. RR: Yeah, (inaudible) drug store. JJ: Lechaise. Yeah. And it’s such a crazy (inaudible) interview (inaudible). RR: Oh, God. Good [02:11:00] luck. JJ: (laughs) Good luck. RR: Yeah. JJ: Well, at least -- RR: There’s old -- there’s lots of history. JJ: She can probably give me some -- RR: Oh, yeah. Rosie or [Doug?]? She can probably give you -- she stayed into a lot of -JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) I should interview her more to meet her husband -- RR: Yeah. And then -- what? JJ: But anyways, (inaudible). RR: Yeah, I understand. JJ: -- (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) -- RR: Yeah, so yeah. It doesn’t matter. This is -- Yeah. There’s a lot of -- they can give you a lot more pre-history because they lived there forever. JJ: Right, because they were there -- but I mean, you’re giving 114 �me the same history that I’m trying to find out the people that were there before the Latinos moved in. And then I have to do some of the (inaudible) to just -- to tell us what -- how the community changed as a result of (inaudible). RR: Yeah. JJ: Okay. RR: Thought? JJ: What do you think -- what do you think -- what was really So what -- any final -- important things about Lincoln Park that we need to tell [02:12:00] your students and other students for the future? That they should know of? RR: I mean lessons, I mean lessons. In the end, I think one of the lessons that we could’ve learned -- JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) -- RR: -- and it was that we could’ve had a very diverse community with a lot of contributing people because there was a lot of intelligent, smart, energetic people. were really successful. A lot of them Not in terms of money, necessarily, but in terms of being people and influencing. I don’t think I would have grown up -- if I ever grew up -to be where I’m at if I hadn’t had the opportunity [02:13:00] of growing up in there. important. I think that was really So in terms of a grand statement, it was a good 115 �place to grow up, but not necessarily for the reasons most people would think. It made us deal with stuff that normal people wouldn’t consider normal. But it also made us look at our world in a different way. I mean, you got McCormick Theological Seminary there, you got a university, you’ve got poor folks of the poorest kind, of all kinds there, you got transitionals. the Chinese say? It was an interesting time. “May you grow up in (inaudible)?” Underneath, it says, “This is a curse.” JJ: Oh. RR: Yeah. What do (laughs) (laughs) So I think we grew up in interesting times and it made us who we are. I’d love to see the world change for the better, though. (laughs) END OF VIDEO FILE 116 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f8d1c07d1a01a3ab3b2325ff3994172e.mp4 ee51f0b36d0810da819fcded3f4bba81 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives. The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng spa Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 2012-2017 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Título Spanish language Title entry Ricardo Rebollar vídeo entrevista y biografía Descripción Spanish language Description entry Ricardo Rebollar es hijo de una de las primeras familias Mexicanas que vivieron en Lincoln Park, en las calles de Sheffield y Clybourn, por más que 30 años. Después que José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez se encontró en problemas en Newberry Elemntary School, su mama lo saco de la escuela y lo inscribió en escuela Católica de St. Teresa. Señor Rebollar era uno de los pocos latinos en la escuela y porque estaban en la misma clase se hicieron mejores amigos. Se pasaban los días hablando antes y después de la escuela y querían ir al seminario y luego ordenarse sacerdote porque sentían que era la única forma que podían ayudar su gente. Señor Rebollar recuerda que juagaron juntos en equipos de softbol y otros deportes. También recuerda que los padres de su novia tuvieron más tiempo en aceptarlo por su origen nacional. Y como en esos días podía caminar por las calles de Lincoln Park sin temor porque los Young Lords sabían que era amigo de Jiménez. Señor Rebollar atendió McCormick Theoligal Seminary’s Occupation y la escuela de St. Vincet DePaul High School en donde Afro-Americanos (quien eran apoyados por Young Lords) tomaron la escuela. Señor Rebollar y Señor Jiménez no llegaron a ordenarse. Rebollar primero fue un policía y dice que “era un tirador experto.” Ahora es un maestro en la escuela de Joliet West High en Illinois. Sujetos Spanish language Subject terms Young Lords (Organización) Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Mexicano-Americanos--Relatos personales Justicia social Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago Mexicano-Americanos--Illinois--Chicago--Condiciones sociales Jiménez, José, 1948- Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65_Rebollar_Ricardo Title A name given to the resource Ricardo Rebollar video interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rebollar, Ricardo Description An account of the resource Ricardo Rebollar is from one of the first Mexican families to live in Lincoln Park, settling around Sheffield and Clybourn Streets and remaining there more than 30 years. Mr. Rebollar attended school with Young Lords founder José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez. Mr. Rebollar was of the few Latinos in the school and in his class and they became very close friends. He recalls the days that Lincoln Park turned more Puerto Rican and Latino and describes how he felt safe when he walked the area of Lincoln Park because the Young Lords. Mr. Rebollar first became a law enforcement officer and later became a teacher for the Chicago school system. He currently teaches science at Joliet West High School in Illinois. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Mexican Americans--Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Mexican Americans--Illinois--Chicago--Social conditions Jimenez, Jose, 1948- Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-07-11 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f53ca79a48a41e3dcab3a99127807a75.pdf 8931847ead2676679cd8d1a268a8df54 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Carmen Rance Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 3/30/2012 Biography and Description When Carmen F. Rance’s family first came to Chicago from Puerto Rico, she lived at the Water Hotel then moved to Lincoln Park where she grew up. She joined the Young Lords through the Breakfast for Children Program, waking up early morning after morning and volunteering to cook home-style meals for elementary school children before they attended school in the mornings. Her family owned a large apartment building on the corner of Clifton and Armitage Avenue where many other Puerto Rican families lived. There was a storefront downstairs where bands played and held parties. Her family was active with Council Number 9 of the Caballeros de San Juan and Damas de María, at St. Teresa’s Church. St. Teresa’s had a separate hall that was used by the Caballeros and Damas to throw larger dances, weddings and other events. Ms. Rance recalls how St. Teresa’s became a major focal point for the Puerto Rican community at a time when the community was growing rapidly and spreading beyond the neighborhood dividing line of Ashland Avenue. Groups like the Young Lords, Black Eagles, Paragons, Flaming Arrows, Imperial Aces and Queens, Continentals, Latin Eagles from Addison and Halsted, Latin Angels from Humbolt Park, and the original Latin Kings from Wicker Park would all come to the wellorganized, safe dances run by the Damas and Caballeros at the church. There were few fights but always lots of competition on the dance floor. Today Ms. Rance works as a case manager and has been a lay leader in the San Lucas United Church of Christ for many years. That church also has a long history of �community activism through leaders like Peter Early, Rev. María Lourdes Porrata, and Rev. Jorge Morales. Together, they created the West Town Concerned Citizens’ Coalition, which has rallied against police brutality, hunger, and promoted affordable housing. The church runs various programs including a food pantry. On September 23rd, 2008, the Young Lords celebrated their 40th Anniversary at the church. �Transcript CARMEN RANCE: Because when we -- I was part of the Young Lords, and we did, and we did that and then people sit there and they -(break in audio) JOSE JIMENEZ: CR: Okay. Say what is, you know, your name and -- My name is Carmen Flores Rance and raised in Lincoln Park, you could say. But no, a Chicago resident. Didn’t move too far from the neighborhood. So I don’t know anyone. Ask me question? JJ: Were you born -- you were born here? CR: I was not born here. I was born in Puerto Rico. I came here when I was five years old, and my sister was six years old. And we -- when we first came here from Puerto Rico, we stopped at La Salle and Superior and we lived there at La Salle and Superior. It was a Puerto Rican -- there was quite a few Puerto Ricans around there. And -- JJ: What year was this? CR: This would have been ’56, ’57 that I came [00:01:00] because I was five and my sister was six. And that’s when the fun started. So we were there like maybe five years. JJ: And you were how old at that time? CR: I was -- when we moved out to, you could say Lincoln Park, because I consider Larrabee -- I don’t know what community was that, was Lincoln Park. We moved 1 �from there. We were there for like six years. But we lived in a very small apartment. JJ: Back on La Salle and Superior? CR: On La Salle and Superior. We lived in a third floor -- JJ: So how old were you then when you came to -- CR: Five. But we went straight there. We lived -- JJ: What do you remember there? CR: There was -- the few Puerto Ricans that were there -- I mean, it was Puerto Ricans, but you know, I was small. So I remember my mother and my father and my brother. The Puerto Ricans that lived in the building, there used to be a beauty shop there, it was Clara’s -- I don’t know if anybody remembers Clara Byron. Clara Byron owned [00:02:00] that beauty shop on the first floor. She used to do hair. JJ: You don’t remember the address -- CR: Well, it would have been Superior. Seven -- could have been 700 West and Superior. JJ: Back in the corner was the -- CR: Right on the corner -- no, the beauty shop was in the first floor, we lived on the third floor. So it was the building on that corner on the south and it was on the west side of the street. JJ: Okay. Kitty-corner to where to Catholic Charities is today? CR: Right. And that wasn’t Catholic Charities. That used to be an orphanage. Wasn’t that an orphanage in the late ’50s, early ’60s? 2 �JJ: Yeah I’m not sure -- I’m not sure when. CR: Yeah it used to be an orphanage and then Catholic Charities took it over. For everybody does not remember that there used to be an orphanage there and then across the street from this flower shop. JJ: Because you lived right across the street from the flower shop. It still exists. CR: Yes. So we had to cross [00:03:00] to get to -- on the other side of the street. JJ: Okay and so there was a business there you said? A -- CR: A beautician there, she ran a beauty shop there. JJ: Any other businesses that you remember? CR: That I remember, if you went on Clark Street, Clark and Superior, then you saw some of the Spanish stores. But I was kind of little, so I don’t remember. But I know there was a Spanish store there. There used to be one. There used to be a theater there too. I forgot the name of that theater, but it was on Chicago Avenue between Clark and Superior. It was a neighborhood theater and there used to be a Spanish store. JJ: Did you all go to that theater? CR: I used to go to that theater. I think now it was strip joint. JJ: They saying [el meaito?] -- CR: [El meaito?]. (chuckles) See, [el meaito?]. See I was right I remembered that was. And we used to go there and see the movies. It was a little dinky little place, but it was a -- now it’s a strip joint. It was I think a strip joint. And there was a [00:04:00] Spanish store, and they used to sell Spanish products and stuff. And then a little bit further down was Holy Name Cathedral. And we were part of 3 �-- we could go to catechism there. I remember Las Hijas de Maria. They would teach the catechism class. If you remember Carmen Travieso was my catechism teacher. JJ: Carmen Travieso. CR: Carmen Travieso. And it was a big Puerto Rican church. It was a lot of -- I think that we had mass there, but we were very involved. Las Hijas de Maria y Los Caballeros de San Juan. They were very involved. JJ: And this was ’56? 1956? CR: No it would be ’56, ’57, ’58. Because we went there for a couple of years. Then from there we moved to -- JJ: Okay. Where did you move to? CR: 1714 North Larrabee. JJ: Okay, 1714 Larrabee. By Willow? [00:05:00] CR: Or what was that? Where was Saint Michael’s at? Sedgwick? JJ: I think that was Willow and Wisconsin. CR: Wisconsin. It was Wisconsin. Wisconsin and Larrabee. JJ: Or Menomonee? Was there another street called Menomonee? CR: There was a Menomonee there, but I can’t rem-- Mohawk. I remember Mohawk. But we were on Larrabee. The 1700 block. JJ: So you went from going to mass at the Holy Name Cathedral then you were going to Saint Michaels? 4 �CR: Then we went to Saint Michaels. And there, we had a mass on Sunday. There was a big -- it used to be a big community there. Because people would come from all over to go to church at Saint Michaels. JJ: When you say big community, are you talking about Puerto Ricans? CR: The people -- yeah the Puerto Ricans that lived there plus the Puerto Ricans that came. And I’m gonna say that they came from down North Avenue and probably on North Avenue there was a lot of Puerto Ricans. There was a lot of Puerto Ricans in Cabrini, and I believe that they also went to Saint Michaels. So I don’t remember the crowd, but it was a lot [00:06:00] of Latino, lot of Puerto Rican families there. JJ: So it was a big center at that time, Saint Michael’s. CR: Big center. And I’m trying to remember, Father Headley? Do you remember the Father Headley from -- and other Headley was very (inaudible) to the Puerto Rican, (Spanish), [00:06:16] spoke fluent Spanish. JJ: Father Kathrein. CR: Father Kathrein, that’s right. I forgot about him. He was there too for -- was Father Headley from Saint Teresa’s? JJ: Our Immaculate Conception had mass too, I believe. Immaculate on North Park? Immaculate Conception. CR: Oh yes. I remember Immaculate Conception, but I really didn’t hang out there. My brother did. JJ: I wonder if it was Father [Reem?] or something like that. But I mean, that’s what I remember. I just want to know what you remember in terms of that. So -- 5 �CR: I remember -- JJ: So what was Saint Michael’s like? CR: Do you remember the Continentals from Immaculate Conception? They used to hang out at the Immaculate Conception church. And they would throw parties there. [00:07:00] JJ: Right. I remember that. CR: Vaguely I remember. My mother wouldn’t let us go out. Carlos got to go out but not us. And they used to wear the pink sweaters with the big C. Was it pink or red? JJ: The pink stripe was the Paragons. CR: The Paragons? No, but the Continentals -- JJ: Continentals I think had -- they were red, white, and blue I believe the -- but I think they were light blue, and then (inaudible) was a red stripe or something like that. CR: Okay. But we didn’t go out. We didn’t go out because my mother wouldn’t let us out. JJ: But you -- we were talking about a lot of youth at that time with different color sweaters. Is that what you’re talking about? CR: Yeah. JJ: Or am I putting words in your mouth? CR: No, I’m not. The Paragons. Give me some other names. The Continental. JJ: The Black Eagles. CR: The Black Eagles. 6 �JJ: Flaming Arrows. CR: Yeah. JJ: Imperial Aces and Queens. I don’t even think -- CR: All them people. JJ: Youth. CR: And weren’t they mostly Puerto Ricans? JJ: Right. They were mostly Puerto Rican. Now were these the gangs that you [00:08:00] call gangs today? Or -- CR: What you call gangs today but not with the violence piece. I think they just used to throw parties and hang out. But fighting and doing -- I didn’t see too much of that. It was more like having parties and meeting. That’s what I remember but my mother would not let us out. So I really didn’t know what’s going on. I just used to see them, so. JJ: So but you saw them at mass too, right? CR: They would come to church. I’m not gonna say all of them came to church but their families would come to church. And it was Puerto Rican families. JJ: What families do you remember coming to church? CR: Oh god. I remember the Lugos that lived in Cabrini-Green. What was the -Almestica, Almestica? Rosalia Almestica? Do you remember Rosalia Almestica? Rosalia y Roberto [00:09:00] at the -- who was the other family? There was a Puerto Rican family that lived in the projects. The first projects that were built which was Cabrini which would have been like 1000 North on Larrabee. And there was a Puerto Rican -- was a Black Puerto Rican family and 7 �those people we knew from when we first came from Puerto Rico. They were my father’s friends. And they welcomed us to their house and then they ended up moving into the projects. I mean those were beautiful projects and they lived on - and I never forget they lived on the 16th floor of the projects of the first CabriniGreen projects. And then when the projects started deteriorating. The elevators were broken. People had to walk up and down them stairs. And one day, one of his daughters got raped by thirteen Black boys in the elevator. She ended up having a, pregnant. They didn’t want to give her an abortion. [00:10:00] And the family moved out. That I remember. I remember the [Berrios?]. Joe Berrios family lived in the projects. The Lugos lived in the projects. JJ: When you say the Berrios and Lugos. What is that just one family? Or -- CR: These were different families with a lot of kids. They were Puerto Ricans with a lot of kids. So it was at least six kids in each -- in their family. Almestica, they had six. I’m trying to remember what was the -- Rosalia, Roberto, [Blitson?]. Because Blitson ended up moving with us on Armitage. No, they moved on Halsted and Dickens. They own property on Halsted and Dickens, that family that I was talking about. They ended up moving out of the Cabrini Projects when their daughter was raped. And she had the baby. And her mother did not want that baby. So this [00:11:00] girl was 12, 13 years old and she had a baby. And the baby was never -- they gave it up for adoption. We never found out what happened to that baby to this day. JJ: So now this is a Puerto Rican family. Their daughter gets raped by Black kids. CR: In those projects. 8 �JJ: In those projects. Was there -- did that create any rift between the community and -- CR: No, I think the family moved out. I don’t know what happened after that. And the kids did not get charged because they were minors. And no proof. JJ: So you said it started deteriorating. About what years did the deterioration start? CR: I’m gonna say ’60 -- maybe ’65? I can’t remember when Cabrini was built but ’65, between ’65 and ’69, that’s when we kind of moved -- I think we moved out around ’68 to Armitage. JJ: Oh you were living there too? CR: No, I mean not in [00:12:00] the projects. We were living down the street. JJ: Down the street. CR: Yeah so the pro-- those first projects was like 1100 North on Larrabee, and we were 14 or 1700 North on Larrabee. So we were like on the other side of North Avenue. And there used to be a -- oh the Peñas. I don’t know if you remember Paulina Peña and their family. That was a big family, and we knew them from Puerto Rico, and they lived on North Avenue. 900 West on North Avenue. And they were very close to -- JJ: So they were from Guayama? CR: They were from Arroyo. JJ: From Arroyo. And you knew them from there? CR: And so -- JJ: So what other towns were you representing? 9 �CR: Guayama, Arroyo, Humacao, Mayagüez, Bayamón. So -- and we ended up meeting that family -- the Peñas were a very big family. It was like about seven or eight of them. And their kids are still around, and they live -- they were living there first than we were. [00:13:00] They were living there first then we were. That Puerto Rican family we knew. There used to a Five-and-Ten Cent Store on North Avenue and Menomonee? Or Mohawk? JJ: Near there. It was near Larrabee. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah. CR: Remember that Five-and-Ten Cent Store? JJ: With the counter and everything like that. CR: Yeah that people would come -- Woolworths. There was a Woolworths. JJ: Woolworths, yeah. CR: There used to be counter where people would come there and eat. I remember that. JJ: So you were living right around there. That section near there. And so that’s North Avenue. So how was North Avenue in terms of Latinos at that time? CR: There was lot of Puerto Rican families living there. Especially down North Avenue between I’m gonna say Clark all the way down to past Halsted was all Puerto Rican families. And Larrabee too. All of Larrabee and Mohawk. The Garcias -- Myrna and Gladys Garcia’s family lived there. [00:14:00] My godmother lived there. They lived down Mohawk. JJ: What were her name? 10 �CR: [Masimina?] y Don Pedro. That was my uncle -- I mean my godmother and my godfather. And that was -- that whole building was a Puerto Rican family. And then they ended up moving on Armitage. That’s how I remember that one. JJ: So you had people living from Park and North Avenue all the way to Halsted you said. CR: Right. So there was Puerto Ricans all the way starting I’m going to say Clark, we could say La Salle. There was a lot of Puerto Ricans living around there. And they followed -- everyone followed each other. There was a lot of them living like I said on North Avenue and then Larrabee and then it just kept -- Willow -- Burling -- Halsted. What’s the other street? Dayton, [00:15:00] Orchard. Orchard had -Luis Gutiérrez uncle and aunt lived on Orchard. I lived on Orchard after I got married. Well not get married but after my older days. JJ: And Congressman Luis Gutiérrez. CR: Right. His family lived on Orchard. Believe it was this. And then I remember talking about El Congreso, that was on North Avenue and Larrabee and Caribe. JJ: And what did they -- CR: They used to have dancing. There was dancing and it was the baseball league. El Puerto Boricua I think it was the name. Puerto Boricua. And they used to have really, you know, just family gatherings and -- JJ: So Puerto Boricua was a different organization, or they were connected with the Congreso is that what you’re saying? CR: They -- it was a baseball league. It wasn’t part of the church. It was just a baseball league that they would have dances and people would come there and 11 �meet. I guess all the Puerto Ricans [00:16:00] that came from Puerto Rico, I guess everyone would meet there. And I remember as a little girl going there with my parents to the dances. So -- and it was a lot of Puerto Ricans. JJ: Puerto Boricua is a veteran’s organization or? CR: It was. It did have the veteran’s thing, but I don’t know what it stood for. I can’t remember. JJ: (inaudible) I think it was a VFW. CR: VFW or VFM post. JJ: But it was all Puerto Rican. CR: All Puerto Ricans. Because my father used to be a -- JJ: I forgot where they were located. You don’t remember or? CR: They -- that -- there was -- okay, let me see. It was two of them. There was one, you know what I can’t remember. But it was more than one. One was on Ogden I think, Ogden and -- JJ: Chicago Avenue? CR: Maybe Chicago Avenue? That was number two. So we would exchange [00:17:00] and go to different parties there. And then there was a lot of Puerto Rican families around Milwaukee and Grand and Chicago Avenue, Ashland. JJ: So could this have been like part of the same community but in different like pockets or? Because I know you were talking about La Salle and Superior and now you’re talking about Chicago Avenue and Grand. CR: Right because some of -- a lot of the families started moving more north. 12 �JJ: So they were moving more north. And looks like they were moving more west too. CR: Mm-hmm. JJ: I mean pockets at least. CR: Pockets of them, but you know, couldn’t keep up with them. JJ: Because in between you had -- what were some of the buildings in between? What kind of businesses? CR: There used to be the Spanish store, the bodega, La Bodega, the stores. I can’t -I was kind of small at that time, but I think it was [00:18:00] the stores. The Spanish stores I remember. JJ: What was that a downtown or was it a industrial area or what kind of area was it? CR: It was just buildings. It could have -- just buildings. I don’t think there was an industrial area, no. Just -- JJ: Putting words. (chuckles) CR: No, I’m just trying to remember. Every time you talk, I’m just like remember the houses around there. You know, third floor, fourth floor, fifth floor. I mean walking North Avenue. But we weren’t that far. We were just -- JJ: Oh so they were tall buildings. CR: It was tall buildings. Not, you know, row houses or like that. JJ: Where’d everybody stay? How -- what did it look like -- CR: Oh my god. We lived -- okay, going back to Larrabee, if we were on Superior. Superior and La Salle, it was a three-room house. And it was my father, my mother, me and my sister, my brother. And then, you know, Puerto Ricans tend 13 �to bring their aunts and their uncles to live with them, the sisters and stuff. So it was [00:19:00] my uncle and my aunt. We all lived in a one, two, three room apartment. That was a three room apartment. So my bedroom, me and my sister’s bedroom was in the kitchen. We had bunk beds. And I can’t remember the other rooms. It was a very small apartment, but we all lived there for many years. JJ: And where did you play? Or did you go out or? I mean, I don’t know what those -- CR: I don’t know where we played -- JJ: -- the guys go out. CR: My mother wouldn’t let us out. When we were on Superior and La Salle, we very rarely went out. We would be in the house. And if we did, it would be around the neighborhood, and we would probably hang out in the beauty shop that was downstairs. We would hang out there. But of going out to play, I can’t remember. Just going to school, you know, and I went to Ogden. [00:20:00] JJ: Okay, you went to Ogden. CR: Ogden School. JJ: What do you remember about Ogden? CR: I remember about Ogden was that we did not speak English. So me and my sister were put in the same classroom and my sister had already started school in Puerto Rico. So when she came here, they put both of us in a classroom. I believe we were maybe first grade. And I think they forgot about us. They didn’t know that we were there. Because they never spoke to us. And at that time, 14 �again I would say my name is not Carmen. My name is Camila. They didn’t know how to pronounce my name, so they changed it to Carmen. My sister’s name was Mina. They changed it to Myrna. And then we had to learn Spanish in the -- you know, I mean English in the street. Learn it little by little until you got it. But of them having bilingual education to teach us, none of that. So it was very hard. It was a very -- it was not a good time for us. [00:21:00] And we always wanted to go back to Puerto Rico. Because I believe we came in the middle of winter, and we were not dressed properly for the weather. And it was very cold, I remember that. And we always used to cry and tell our mother that we wanted to go back to Puerto Rico with our family. And we couldn’t. So that was the starting of our life in Chicago. JJ: And actually, your parents, were they planning to come to stay here or? CR: I believe they were. My father came first. And I believe my father came to pick cucumbers and tomatoes in Connecticut. He went to Connecticut, and it was the time of the -- el Muñoz Marín, they had that bootstrap. And I believe the churches were the one that paid his airfare to go and work in those fields. So and I didn’t even know this until years later. My father was a migrant worker. He came here to work. And then I guess he didn’t like it over there in Connecticut and he ended up coming [00:22:00] to Chicago. And I believe some of his friends that he knew in Puerto Rico took him in which I think was the Peñas and the Almestica and the -- I can’t remember the last -- the family. Found a job at Western Electric and that’s where he retired from. Like the next 30 years, he worked at Western Electric. 15 �JJ: That was a pretty good job. CR: At that time. JJ: Did they have other Latinos working? CR: There was a lot of Latinos working there. Blacks too. JJ: Western Electric. CR: Yeah. Western was well known. You had Western Electric, you had -- oh my god what was the factories that were around there? On Clybourn? Remember the factories on Clybourn? There was a lot of Puerto Ricans -- JJ: Seeburg was there. CR: See-- yeah. JJ: OH MetalCraft. CR: MetalCraft was very well known. I remember those. JJ: Midwest Coil and Transformer was another one in Halsted. CR: Okay. JJ: Yeah because that’s -- [00:23:00] I knew there was a lot of factories at that time. CR: Right, but you know Western Electric was like on 35th or something and Cicero? JJ: (inaudible) was south, yeah. CR: It was south. So my father -- I used to remember my father every morning he’d get up at three in the morning. Wait for the bus, take the bus -- and he didn’t have a car, my father did not drive. So he had to depend on the bus to take him and bring him back to work. I remember the blizzard of ’69 that the whole city of Chicago was in a standstill because there was no busses running. The snow was I don’t know how high the snow was. And he couldn’t come home so he was 16 �like stuck out there for like three or four days. I remember that. We were out of school because everything was just totally dead. Nobody moved. JJ: And you were in school in Ogden at that time? CR: At that time, well the snow wasn’t -- when I was on Larrabee but during -- at Ogden, I graduated from Ogden. And I’m sorry [00:24:00] I take that back. It wasn’t Ogden. I ended up -- from Ogden I ended up in La Salle. When we moved to Larrabee, then I went to La Salle. JJ: La Salle was on Sedgwick or? CR: Sedgwick and Menomonee? Or that was -- so Ogden was my first school when I came here from Puerto Rico. Then when we moved to Larrabee, then I started going to La Salle. We did go to Newberry but then for some reason we got transferred out and ended up in La Salle. So I ended up graduating from La Salle. And that was in ’65, 1965. JJ: From eighth grade? CR: From eighth grade. JJ: Okay. And there was just elementary, just kind of routine elementary. CR: Yeah, routine. JJ: Anything exciting at La Salle? CR: Not that I remember. There was a lot of Latinos. I can’t remember the names and when we graduated, everybody took a different path. Some went to Tuley. Some went to Lake View. [00:25:00] Some went -- I don’t know if Wells was around. I can’t remember if Wells was around. Some went to Saint Michael’s. 17 �But we couldn’t afford Saint Michael’s, so we didn’t go to Saint Michael’s. We ended up going Waller. Which is now Lincoln Park. JJ: Lincoln Park High. CR: Lincoln Park High School. JJ: But you went to -- did you go to Saint Joseph’s at all? CR: I went to Saint Joseph for the catechism and just -- but not for school. We couldn’t afford to go to a Catholic school. JJ: Okay. So you went for the catechism? CR: Catechism and maybe -- JJ: And where’d you did your communion? Where did you -- CR: My communion was Saint Michael’s. JJ: Saint Michael’s. CR: Because Saint Joseph I believe was on Orleans, right? And Chicago? JJ: Right, right. So you were at Saint Michael’s, you were going to Spanish mass [00:26:00] in the big chapel and everything. CR: Beautiful. Beautiful church. And then they moved out. They stopped the Spanish churches -- they didn’t stop the service, they just moved it to a smaller -they moved it to the hall. And then from the hall -- it was shrinking. They moved it to the rectory, in the basement of the rectory. Until one day they just stopped. JJ: So they started at the big chapel? CR: They started in the church. And from the church they went to the hall which was Saint Michael’s high school. JJ: So were they advanced -- was that an advancement or? 18 �CR: No I think it was a deterioration of the community changing. JJ: So the community was changing so, less -- CR: The shrinking. Less people so they didn’t need that whole mass. You remember Saint Michael’s. That was a humongous church. JJ: Well I remember a humongous church but when I was looking at some of the documents there was not much record of Spanish people going to -- attending that church. [00:27:00] CR: But there was. JJ: So you’re saying it was a humongous -- CR: It used -- at one time it was a service where half the church was filled. And then as people started moving, it just kept shrinking and shrinking and I guess they justified -- JJ: Half the church was filled of Spanish people? CR: Of Spanish people. Everything was in Spanish. The music was in Spanish. The priest -- JJ: And apparently they didn’t make enough noise because in that there’s no record of that. CR: There’s not? Okay. JJ: I mean I was looking at some -- CR: Probably it was intention. JJ: No, what I’m asking -- I guess what I’m trying to ask is, to you there was a big congregation? 19 �CR: I believe it was a big congregation. And there was weddings there. There was, god let me see if I remember when I was a little girl. They used to have communion there. The -- there was a lot of activities. But I guess it’s not -- JJ: Well what kind of activities? I mean you said weddings and -- CR: Weddings, parties, they would do Mother’s Day party [00:28:00] for Mother’s Day. They would do an Easter party. Christmas. They would do Los Reyes. JJ: Los Reyes? CR: They would do Los Reyes. JJ: You mean the parranda? CR: (Spanish) [00:28:12] JJ: And you said that there was an Easter, right? Were you there that -- there was a play I believe that they used to do. CR: They used to do the plays, but I don’t -- I remember them, but I just wasn’t real involved. But like I said it was an activity where there was a lot of Puerto Ricans there. There was a lot. So there was a lot, you know everybody spoke the same language. The food was eaten. The people got together. JJ: And in fact, the Puerto Rican Congress was not that far away from Saint Michael’s. CR: No it was like two miles. JJ: So that was like a center at that time for Puerto Ricans. CR: Right. The Congress which was on North Avenue there in Larrabee. JJ: And (inaudible) and all that, all the different vans and that. And the [polls?] [00:29:00] you said that (inaudible). 20 �CR: And the baseball leagues. JJ: What do you mean the baseball leagues? CR: You know there used to be baseball played at Lincoln Park. You know that we had a lot of Puerto Rican not -- we did not play in Humboldt Park. We played -or my father had -- he was a manager of the baseball league. He played in Lincoln Park. And the other park -- there was another park. Was it Garfield? JJ: On the southside? CR: On the southside -- the Puerto Ricans played there. And I remember there was a riot. There was a riot that broke out -- a baseball riot. In Garfield Park. JJ: In Garfield Park? CR: Between the -- I don’t know what -- who it was, but I know it was Puerto Ricans and maybe Black or was it White? I can’t remember. But I remember that riot. And then there was Garfield. But not in -- Lincoln Park, we played baseball there. So like North Avenue -- North Avenue and Lincoln Park. [00:30:00] North Avenue and Lincoln Park. JJ: North Avenue and Lincoln Park by the VFW? CR: That you had to go walk over the bridge. They used to play baseball there. JJ: And a lot of people used to show up? CR: Oh my god it was -- and they used to sell food. JJ: What kind of food? CR: Well you know it was so funny because I was talking to my brother and my brother was telling me that there used to be a hotdog stand or a food stand over the bridge to -- you know when you had to go over the bridge, so it was Lake 21 �Shore Drive. So there used to be a little stand there and people would buy ice cream, popcorn, and stuff. So this guy -- this Puerto Rican guy started making sandwiches. And his business got so big, and my brother was telling me that he just recently -- he interviewed him about how the business, how he made the business. And he started making sandwiches. So people would buy sandwiches from this guy, and he would sell it out of the trunk of his car. So that I remember. I don’t remember it too clear, but I remember that we used to buy ice cream and pop and hotdogs there. [00:31:00] But when this guy started making his own sandwiches and people would come and get from him instead of getting it from the park. JJ: And did they raise -- how did they raise money? CR: Well you had the beautiful baseball league, and I guess they had dues, and they used to wear beautiful uniforms. I remember the uniforms. Beautiful outfits. And when they had the leagues, and I believe there was leagues that would come from Puerto Rico to play baseball there. I mean it was very popular. Very popular. JJ: Were these well-organized? CR: Very well organized. Managers and everything. Because you had El Congreso and you had El Puerto Boricua, so it was a big, big baseball leagues. And so they played at Lincoln Park, and they played at Garfield Park. JJ: You don’t recall them playing at Humboldt park at that time? CR: No. That one I don’t remember. I remember Garfield and Lincoln. [00:32:00] 22 �JJ: Now, they had -- did they also have any -- I know Saint Michael’s had an annual fair. And do you recall that at all or? Like an annual fair, you know, with the Ferris wheel and all that? You don’t recall. CR: No, I don’t remember that. JJ: Okay. The Puerto Rican Congress, were they not involved in the first parade or something like that? CR: There was, but I wasn’t really part of it. And it could have been -- I remember the queen. I remember there used to be a queen. There was a queen. I can’t remember who it was, but she was. __: Carmen Cristia. Because (inaudible) and Carmen Cristia there was like a discrepancy as to who was the real Puerto Rican queen. JJ: Carmen Cristia? CR: See I don’t remember that one. I remember -- JJ: I recall the day we had to vote for the queen there at the Puerto Rican Congress. CR: Was it? JJ: Which is right there in Lincoln Park? I mean that’s something that’s kind [00:33:00] of like where the first parades -- because at first there was a Festival de San Juan all the way in 1953 at Holy Name Cathedral. At the (inaudible) at the -- CR: So I wasn’t here, I was still in Puerto Rico. JJ: But then the official Puerto Rican parade I think began through Saint Michael’s and Puerto Rican Congress and some of the other -- CR: Oh really? Okay. 23 �JJ: That’s what I recall, I mean what I remember. But because I agree with you. There was a very big community at -- CR: Oh my god. Yes there was. I mean when you look back at all the, the V, I mean I can name people I just remember -- JJ: What people? Why don’t you tell me about them? CR: Okay. The Vélez, the Peñas, the Lugos, the Almestica, what else? Oh my god. Pantoja, [00:34:00] because that was a big family on Larrabee. Big, big family. JJ: So when you say a big family, you’re not talking about the immediate family, you’re saying the relatives. CR: The whole -- yes, it was relatives. Aunts, uncles, all of them all lived around each other. JJ: So people were coming from Puerto Rico, not just one family but aunts, uncles and everyone. CR: Brothers, sisters. And then the ones that were here would have gotten married and, you know, started their own family. JJ: So is that not like some of the immigrant communities that come except that Puerto Ricans were already citizens but. CR: Yes. JJ: But they were coming like immigrants? CR: Right because you know my family -- my mother took in or brought my uncle, my aunt, two aunts and two uncles came from Puerto Rico when we came. And then my uncle, I remember my uncle joined the service, he was in the army. And he went through a really rough time, very racist. You know, he would tell us stories 24 �of things that happened to him, [00:35:00] and he came to live with us. So my mother brought her two brothers and her two sisters to live with us. So you could picture just all of us. And a cousin. Because I just remembered now, a cousin too. So she brought her cousin, her two brothers and her two sisters to come here. They worked, made money and some of them right now they live in Puerto Rico. But when they were here, they lived with us for many years, and we all lived together. JJ: In the same three room apartment? CR: No, that one was my uncle, my two uncles. But when we moved to Larrabee it was my two aunts and my two uncles. They all lived -- and this one was a little bigger. We had a three bedroom. It was a three bedroom, living room, dining room, kitchen. Six rooms. So it was a lot bigger. So in like in one bedroom it was me and my sister in one bed and my aunt, and my other aunt slept in another bed. Then the room in the back, there was bunk beds, so my uncles lived there with my brothers. [00:36:00] And then my mother and father slept in the front. But that was a bigger apartment. JJ: And everyone -- was there -- did everyone get along pretty well or no? CR: It was a Puerto Rican community. We all got along. It was a beautiful community. We had a rooster that the -- we -- I never forget that we lived next door to this White -- it was a White family. And that rooster would wake up in the morning and just, you know, crow. And they started complaining. We had rabbits, chickens (chuckles) in the backyard. And they started complaining. JJ: No goats. 25 �CR: No goats. It was chickens, it was rabbits. And they were in the back. And we lived in a third floor. It was a third floor. We were living in a third floor. And the Vélez lived on the second floor which I asked you Ricardo and what’s his name? Because they part of -- JJ: Victor. CR: Victor Vélez. [00:37:00] They lived in the second floor. And that was a family of about ten. That was a -- that family, there was ten of them. JJ: This was Larrabee and North Avenue? CR: Larrabee and North Avenue. The Vélez lived in the second floor. We lived on the third floor. JJ: And this was ’65, ’66? CR: It would have been ’65 through ’69 I’m going to say. And who else lived there that I can remember? Oh my god. It’s another Puerto Rican family that lived there. It was a big family. It was a lot of them. They lived on the other side of Willow on Larrabee. They must have -- they must have owned, or not owned, but they lived like in three different buildings. And it was a big family. Fabian, Fabian and it’ll come to me, their last name. They lived there. JJ: So what was the common language or was it mixed or? [00:38:00] CR: No it was Spanish, Puerto Rican. Puerto Rican. And then I remember there used -- a Black -- I remember a Black beauty shop moved like next door to us and they used to you know, Black -- a Black barber shop. It was a barber shop; it wasn’t a beauty shop. And I remember my mother took us there to fix our hair. She put a relaxer on our hair. And the relaxer was very, very strong and messed 26 �up our hair. Because they processed -- it was a process they used this horrible stuff on our hair. And I remember one day our hair fell out. Those were little things that I remember. And then Blacks started moving in. And -JJ: On North Ave? CR: On Larrabee. No, on Larrabee coming down Larrabee because you had the projects there. I guess when those projects started deteriorating, people were starting to move. JJ: Because you’re talking about Larrabee and then there’s Ogden coming in also. [00:39:00] CR: Right but Ogden was -- there was some projects there and there was a school there. Wasn’t there a school? JJ: Because we, you know, so there you had Chicago and Ogden and now there’s North Avenue and Ogden. And now there’s Puerto Ricans there too. At the time. CR: Right. JJ: So there’s kind of like moving west and north at the same time. And then they -North Avenue was like -- would you say that was like a -- people kind of just followed North Avenue, down? CR: Yeah. All of North Avenue like I said between Clark all the way maybe I could say Ashland? That was all Puerto Ricans. JJ: So it didn’t go past Ashland at that time? CR: Well maybe it did, but I didn’t go that far. I didn’t go that far. It could have gone past Damen for all I know. I think there was an Italian there. 27 �JJ: Okay. Because you also had another barrio from Harrison and Halsted and Jackson and that area there was also. CR: I remember that. I heard of families there, but I don’t -- I don’t know those families. [00:40:00] I knew some and my mother and father would go visit them. You know you would have the Puerto Rican parties. JJ: What was that? CR: The Puerto Rican parties where they would have lechón y pitorro. And so when I was little, but I would go to these parties and everybody, you know, just have a good time. Dance, eat, talk about old times. I just remember the women. Good music. Good music. But I was little at that time so I can’t remember. JJ: Records (inaudible). CR: Records. It was records. There was no -- I don’t remember the TV too much. I don’t think there was too much Spanish. But the old records, the 33 and all the songs that would come out. JJ: Spanish songs or? CR: All Spanish songs. JJ: Were there any bands at that time, any Spanish bands that you can -- CR: There was when we would go to the party at Congreso. The bands would come and perform. And it was good music. Good music. [00:41:00] Good liquor. A lot of dancing. People would dance and have a good time. JJ: Live music and -- CR: Live music. Good dancing music. JJ: So now you’re in Saint Michael’s. No you’re in Waller. 28 �CR: I’m -- yeah, so we -- we were going to Waller but then what happened was Urban Renewal took over all of Larrabee. I guess they built the projects and then when it was -- when it was our turn, we had to move. Because Urban Renewal, what they were going to tear down and I don’t know what they were going to do. And at that time my father decided to buy a house -- a building. And he got a building at 1113 West Armitage. It was a three flat building. Three apartments in the back, two in the front, with a storefront. This guy was going to [00:42:00] move to Arizona and he wanted to sell that building. He sold that building to my parents for $35,000. But before that -- before that, me and Carlos, when Carlos first came from -- which is my brother, Carlos came from Puerto Rico. We were outside playing on La Salle and Superior and Carlos had just come from Puerto Rico. And we crossed the street and Carlos got hit by a car and I was there and that was the shock of my life. I actually saw my brother get run -- practically get run over by a car. He did not know any English at all. He suffered so much. They put a cast on him from his chest all the way down to his leg. And we lived in a third floor apartment. So it would take like seven men to bring this boy all the way up to the third floor. And it was a horrible, horrible scene. [00:43:00] And Carlos never came out good from that accident. But the man that hit him set up a trust fund for Carlos, for our family and that’s how my mother and father were able to buy that house on Armitage. Because they took the money out -- they took some of the money out and put a down payment on that house. And that’s where we ended up in Lincoln Park. And we were there like 30 years. Twentyfive, thirty years. 29 �JJ: 1100 that’s like Clifton and -- CR: Between Clifton and Seminary. We were right in the middle. We were in the middle. JJ: And so there were other apartments there. You rented some apartments there? CR: And my parents would -- we would keep the whole third floor and then the second floor was rented, the front and back and the first floor was rented. And then the storefront was rented. So I remember it was a secondhand store one time. [00:44:00] It was a Puerto Rican family bought it for -- they played dominos there. They would play -- it was like a club -- Puerto Ricans would hang out there and stuff. And then I can’t remember what it was afterwards and stuff. And so we ended up (break in audio). My mother used to make ends meet by taking in foster kids. So through our house, we must have had like about 100 foster kids come through our house. Because that’s what she would do. To make ends meet, my mother would wash clothes, would iron clothes, would cook. I remember the teachers that would come -- we would have teachers at Arnold. Remember what Arnold? There used to be some Spanish teachers, and my mother would cook for them. And at lunchtime they would come and eat at my mother’s house and that’s how she would make ends meet. JJ: In the house. Not a restaurant. CR: No they -- my -- they would come to my mother’s house, and they would eat lunch and my mother would cook. And that’s how she makes [00:45:00] ends meet. JJ: Several people used to do that. My mother’s -- 30 �CR: She used to do that too? JJ: Cook in the house. CR: She used to cook in the house. JJ: But at Clark Street. CR: Okay she did it on Clark. My mother did it on Larrabee. And I remember Cruz? What is Milli Santiago’s? -- Juan Cruz? __: Julio Cruz. CR: Julio Cruz was one of the people that would come and eat. Ruben Cruz, the pastor and his sister. These are people that we know after -- JJ: They were teachers at Arnold or? CR: They were teachers and people that worked -- that knew that my mother would cook, and they would come out there and eat. JJ: I remember Ruben Cruz, yeah. CR: Ruben Cruz, remember Ruben? JJ: Had a TV program later. On Channel Seven. CR: Later on. JJ: So now you’re on Armitage. You’re away from Saint Michael’s right? CR: Yes. And we started going to Saint Teresa’s. So Saint Teresa was our church. And we did -- I did catechism. JJ: How did that start? How did that start? CR: That one? There was a Puerto -- there was a mass [00:46:00] there. There was a Spanish mass there and there was Puerto Ricans there. So you had Arroyo’s Liquor Store, which was on the corner of Sheffield and Armitage. You had the 31 �discotheque. They used to sell records next door. Then you had Jay Neal’s. Remember Jay Neal’s? And it was a cleaners. And then it was a store and then you had Saint Teresa’s. And I remember the dances in Saint Teresa’s. JJ: Oh you’re saying, so you’re looking at from Sheffield to Kenmore, those businesses that were there. CR: The businesses that were there but there was families living all the way on Burling, Larrabee. JJ: They were going further -- CR: So we’re going -- I’m going further east. JJ: But you’re more -- now you’re closer to -- CR: But we’re closer to Racine. Racine and Armitage. JJ: So Armitage became a Puerto Rican street at that time. CR: At that time you had -- JJ: Because you had North Avenue but now you get Armitage. CR: You had Armitage, so people were moving in. [00:47:00] JJ: So Puerto Ricans are moving north, as a group. As a -- CR: Sheffield. On Halsted. Jay Neal’s -- no not Jay Neal’s. Shinnick’s. Remember Shinnick’s the drugstore that was under the L Station? That was a German drugstore and his -- his son ended up marrying the -- oh my god what was the Puerto Rican family that moved there? Ivan Medina? The Medina sisters. They ended up marrying one of the sons. And then the other son ended up marrying a Mexican girl. Then you had the flower shop. Then there as a barber -- no barber shop it was a barber shop. It was a -- the Medina, but it was a different Medina. 32 �They owned a barber shop right there on Bissell and Armitage. Remember the barber shop? JJ: On Bissell and Armitage? CR: On Armitage. JJ: Yeah there was a barber shop there [00:48:00] I don’t recall the owner. CR: And on Halsted, do you remember the clinic? The Infant Welfare? That was a Puerto Rican clinic. Everybody that was there went there. JJ: On Halsted? CR: On Halsted. So you had everybody that lived on Willow, on Burling, on Orchard. All the way down past North Avenue, go to that clinic. That was a Puerto Rican -and that clinic did not start there. Remember the meat -- Gepperth’s? What used to be Gepperth’s Meat Market? That was Infant Welfare, and they ended up moving and then the Meat Market came in. I remember that one. So -- and then you had a cleaners on the corner of Armitage and Halsted. It was a Cubanowned cleaners. And then, god all the -- then that’s where you had a lot of Puerto Rican families living between Dickens [00:49:00] all the way past Willow, past North Avenue up to Clybourn. And then that’s not counting Bissell, that’s not counting Sheffield. You had Orchard. You had -- what was the other streets that was around there-- it was all Puerto Ricans. JJ: So what percentage of the community was Puerto Rican what do you think? CR: I’m going to say it was past 50 percent. It was mostly. There was not -- I -- there was more Blacks because you had Manierre School over there on Sheffield and near Armitage. So Manierre or Sexton. I can’t remember -- 33 �JJ: Sexton. CR: It was Sexton. That was a Black -- and there was Blacks there and Puerto Ricans. So I’m going to say 50 percent, or more was a Puerto Rican neighborhood. All the stores were there. There was a Spanish store on [00:50:00] Bissell. I forgot the name of that store. JJ: On Wisconsin you mean? By the bridge? CR: Under the RITA? JJ: By that yeah. Right near there. CR: There used to be -- JJ: That the one you’re talking about? The Spanish one? CR: -- the grocery store. JJ: Right. The grocery store. And you still had Mario’s on Halsted and Willow. (inaudible) CR: Okay. JJ: But now the Puerto Ricans are moving more toward Armitage and closer to Saint Teresa’s. And lower, were there Caballeros de San Juan? CR: Not around there. It was mostly just Puerto Rican family like Clifton. All of Clifton. So it was like from Armitage and Clifton past I’m going to say Fullerton was all Puerto Ricans around there. There was a building on the corner of Clifton and Armitage, that whole building was Puerto Rican. And then there used to be a lemonade store across the street from that [00:51:00] big building. Hedman was next door. There was big factory there, Hedman. Lot of Puerto 34 �Ricans in -- well lot of people. It was a mix. It was a lot of White, Black. It was a factory. JJ: So there were factories around there at that time. CR: Yeah. Because you had the -- on Clybourn there you had that frame place, I’m trying to remember the name of the frame -- they used to make frames, picture frames. Lot of Puerto Ricans worked there. And then you had Hedman. You had, I don’t know what was the -- it was all factories. __: Oscar Mayer wasn’t that around there too? CR: Right. Oscar Mayer was on -- JJ: On Sedgwick, my father went there. CR: The Oscar Mayers, the -- but no Oscar Mayer was -- JJ: It was on Sedgwick. It was more on Sedgwick. CR: It was more on Sedgwick, but that -- yeah, I remember that one too. JJ: My father worked in the area for many years. CR: But then we had Oscar Mayer School that was on Clifton and -- JJ: The Oscar Mayer School, yeah. CR: -- and Dickens. Clifton and -- JJ: Is that what you’re saying Oscar Mayer school? CR: Or the factory. I remember the factory. I don’t remember working there. [00:52:00] I remember that was a big place. But I’m talking about the school, Oscar Mayer. JJ: But that had changed because that wasn’t like that all the time but when you were there it was Puerto Rican. 35 �CR: It was Puerto Rican. JJ: So it had already -- CR: All of Racine, Puerto Rican. JJ: It had already turned Puerto Rican when it had -- before they had -- there were other ethnic minorities that were living there? CR: There was, but we just hung around -- you know, there was Whites, there was Blacks, but it was mostly Puerto Ricans. We knew all the Puerto Ricans. JJ: When you got there. CR: Yes. JJ: To that section. Okay now did Saint Teresa’s have any activities or anything like that? CR: Saint Teresa had a Spanish service. JJ: Like Saint Michael’s had, did Saint Teresa’s do that? CR: Saint Teresa’s had that. There was dances down in the basement. The school, we didn’t get to go to Saint Teresa’s school because we couldn’t afford it so. JJ: Down in the basement was there -- was the mass in the regular chapel or in the - CR: It was a regular church. It was a mass in the -- and then they would have coffee [00:53:00] and donuts in the rector-- not in the rectory, in the hall that was next door to the church. So it would have been Bissell. No, not Bissell. What was that? JJ: Kenmore. Kenmore. CR: Kenmore. 36 �JJ: Okay so now did you have any activities at that -- CR: It was dances and it was weddings, baptismals. JJ: Now I remember -- CR: The clinic. JJ: -- going to dances there. So you had some core -- hardcore youth going there, who were also there. I mean they -- besides the baptisms and the other. They were actually working with the youth at that time. CR: Yeah, yeah. JJ: The Puerto Ricans that were at that church. So they were providing services for the youth at that time. CR: There was a lot of Puerto Ricans. JJ: Or do you recall -- CR: I remember some of the activities, but we did not go to Saint Teresa’s. We just would go to church on Sunday. I did my confirmation [00:54:00] there. JJ: That’s right because you were being sheltered in your house, is that -- CR: Yeah, you know, my mother would not let the girls out. JJ: So what did the girls do -- they’re sheltered in their house? CR: The boys got to go out, but the Puerto Rican mothers would keep their daughters in the house. JJ: So what did the daughters do when they were at the house? CR: We would watch TV, hang out. We could play in front of the house because we lived -- here was our house and it was a big parking lot which was part of Hedman’s parking lot. So it would be like -- I’m gonna say 20 car parking space. 37 �So we would play outside while when the cars were not there. After the cars left we would play outside. So that was it, play. JJ: Okay. CR: It’s a dog. Dog. Dog. I think he’s -- JJ: Oh, okay. [00:55:00] So what -- after -- you moved from there, when did you move from there to Lincoln Park? CR: In the -- I’m going to say, my parents ended up moving but so we were there from ’65 to maybe in the ’80s. JJ: Okay you were there ’65 to the ’80s, so during that time, 1968, ’69, when the Young Lords came there. What did you think about that? CR: Oh my god. I remember the Young Lords. They took over the church on Bissell and Armitage. So I really couldn’t hang out with them. JJ: Dayton and Armitage. CR: Dayton and Armitage. Okay so it was Dayton and Bissell, Halsted. And I just used to hang out with them. But I wasn’t really part of the Young Lords. I just used to do the activities with them. So I remember that they -- you -- the Young Lords took over the church. And I remember going to City Hall [00:56:00] and I remember there was I guess there was some argument or fraction going on in City Hall. And we ended up going back to the church. I remember the pastor there that was killed. JJ: Reverand Bruce Johnson. CR: Bruce. JJ: And what -- what was the community saying at that time when he was killed? 38 �CR: That he was murdered. And they said he was murdered by the CIA. That was the word out there that he was murdered by the police. He was murdered. JJ: They didn’t blame it on the Young Lords? CR: No. He was helping the Young Lords, that’s what I heard. And that’s why they killed him. And then I remember the breakfast. There was a breakfast that we started. I remember the Black Panther party coming down and telling us how to run the programs. Because they were running the programs in California or LA. And we did that. And then we ended up opening up the clinic at Saint Teresa’s. JJ: So you worked in the breakfast for -- CR: I worked in the breakfast. I’m -- JJ: What was that like? CR: That was beautiful. [00:57:00] That was beautiful. We used to make really good breakfast for these kids. They loved it. So we had all the kids in the neighborhood would come there. We even -- and had it set up where the kids got to eat a very good, hearty breakfast. And then we opened up the clinic. And that’s where I met Omar and [Abba?] López and the doctor. There was a doctor that came from Denver. Do you remember the -- there was a guy that was a doctor. JJ: Alberto [Chamino?] was a medical student, but you had Doctor Jack Johns was kind of the director of the -- CR: The clinic. JJ: -- the clinic. CR: Okay so I wasn’t too involved with that. 39 �JJ: And some other, and some other -- CR: Nurses and assistants. JJ: Yeah, they were voluntary -- not volunteer doctors, but volunteer -- CR: So I did mostly the breakfast, not the clinic. JJ: But it was in the same location. Were there people from the community coming in? CR: Well the clinic -- the clinic was at Saint Teresa’s, I remember. The breakfast -[00:58:00] JJ: You were right. They moved later to Saint Teresa’s. CR: Okay. JJ: It started at the church -- CR: It started at the church okay. So I remember going -- JJ: Because (inaudible) years later. CR: And the breakfast was done at the church. I mean not at the church on Bissell. I remember the breakfast so. JJ: And so what other things do you remember? Do you recall -- were you at the church when Manny Ramos -- when we had that funeral or no? CR: No. JJ: Okay. CR: No, I heard about it. But I wasn’t there. And I believe there was some other shootings that took place on Damen? Damen and Division? The riots. And some other stuff that was going on, but I did not participate in that. 40 �JJ: I think the riots were earlier and there was a riot at that time in the [community?] But it was not Young Lord -- CR: No, no, that wasn’t. You just heard about it, you know. As a Puerto Rican community you would hear about all that stuff that was going on. But we were very sheltered. [00:59:00] My mother -- JJ: That was my (inaudible) years. CR: You don’t remember because they didn’t let us go out. We would not go out. She let the boys go out but not the girls. JJ: Did it have an impact, some of the work that was being done -- what I mean, did it affect the community at all? Not everyone was for the Young Lords. CR: No, they weren’t. But everyone knew the Young Lords and I’m not going to lie, some people would say that you know you guys were a bunch of thugs and gangbangers and stuff. And then you had some that did very good work. So it was a mixed reaction, you know? So. JJ: Well because actually the Young Lords were thugs before. They weren’t -- CR: And you guys used to hang out on Sheffield under the L station. And there used to be a liquor store there. JJ: So that didn’t help their image later that everybody was drunk. CR: Everybody used to drink and smoke pot and hang out, right? [01:00:00] That was a good times. Good times. And then, you know, when the Young Lords started organizing then that was a different era there then. JJ: What about McCormick Seminary that had you -- 41 �CR: Now, I remember McCormick Seminary because I knew there was a takeover, and I don’t remember a lot. I know there was a takeover, but I can’t -- I was there but I don’t remember. JJ: You were there in the community. CR: I just -- I was there as a supporter. But like -- JJ: Like inside or outside? CR: We were -- there was a sit-in inside. So they -- JJ: And you went inside? CR: Yeah. JJ: What do you -- do you remember anything? CR: I just remember going with the crowd. That was it. JJ: Okay. Was there a good-sized crowd or? CR: It was a pretty big crowd. It was a pretty big crowd. And I remember some of the leaders if you think back of all the leaders that were there. I cannot remember all of them, but the Young Lords were very instrumental and there were some other people there and [01:01:00] -- but I can’t -- I wasn’t -- I didn’t stay around. I couldn’t. I just was part of -- I think there was a march. I remember the march. And that was about it. JJ: Okay now after that, the neighborhood continued to change. And then what did you get involved with after that? CR: Well, you know, after the neighborhood started changing people started moving out. I remember the one family that lived right next door on Dickens. Remember the Polish -- there used to be a Polish stand there. Oh I remember -- let me tell 42 �you what I remember clearly. When Martin Luther King got killed, we were at Waller. We were at Waller. And we -- there was no Latino representation in that school and so one day we just got together, and all the Puerto Ricans walked out. The Puerto Ricans walked out. This was a school that wasn’t very friendly to the Puerto Ricans [01:02:00] that were there. They never would push the Puerto Ricans to excel. When it was time for college graduation they would tell us, “Go to a city college or get married.” Or a lot of them worked in factories which to this day, these -- a lot of these people retired from these factories that worked -- that used to -- that they started working there when they were in high school. And so I remember walking out because we wanted some constants. We wanted teachers and the whole Puerto Rican -- all the high school kids that were there, we marched out and stood in front of the school. And then I guess they settled the differences and that’s where we started getting some Spanish teachers there. I remember the riots. I remember when Martin Luther King got killed. JJ: So who organized this? CR: This was like a group of us. It was me and I can’t remember. It was some other people. We just -- a group of Puerto Ricans had just got together, and we just wanted some representation there. JJ: And this was in 1968? CR: It would have been ’67, [01:03:00] ’68. And there was a lot of Puerto Ricans there. JJ: So this was before the Young Lords -- 43 �CR: Yes. JJ: -- that you were doing this. So the community actually was already -- there was act-- people that were activists. CR: Right they were active. Because we wanted -- Arnold, Arnold was a Puerto Rican School. I didn’t go to Arnold. I did not end up -- my brother ended up going to Arnold. It was a big graduation but again we were moved into Waller and there was no Latino representation. And the education wasn’t the greatest. And if you did not -- and the kids would hang out. A lot of them would hang out in front of the school. I mean they were good years. They were good years. But when you look back at all the young Latinos that were there, the Puerto Ricans that were there, not a lot of them went to college. Because they never pushed college for us. They would just not recommend college for us. My mother that -my mother only went to school until the second grade. She made sure that we went to college. So me and my sister, we ended up going -- after we [01:04:00] graduated from high school, by ourselves -- we took it upon ourselves, my sister ended up going to Northeastern. I ended up going to Loop College. That time it was Loop College. So there wasn’t anybody there to kind of push us along to attend University of Chicago or anything. JJ: And this was because there were no teachers that were -- CR: There was no representation for us. Even though it was a Puerto Rican community, there was a lot of Latinos there. The representation wasn’t there. So we suffered. There was a lot of suffering going on. The repre-- you know, it’s not like now. So that -- we learned to survive. That was survival in the community. 44 �JJ: And then you said that there was a Martin Luther King got killed and what happened? CR: When Martin Luther King got murdered, the riots that broke out -- all the Black kids, because Waller was a school that was Black, White, Puerto Rican. It was a mixed school. And I never forget, and we had kids from Cooley, [01:05:00] Cooley High. There was kids because when the Cabrini came, they divided. Some of the blocks went to Cooley and some of the blocks went to Waller. So they would have to come down Larrabee to go to Waller. So when this riot took place, I will never forget every Black kid was beating up anything that was White. And I remember me and my brother -- my sister, it was me and my sister. We were trying to defend everyone. No, no, don’t hit her. No don’t hit her. But the riots just spread out past Halsted and Armitage. It went all the way down to Sheffield. Breaking of windows, just Oz Park. You remember Oz Park? That used to be DePaul. DePaul was there. The center. There was a center there. But those were not very good times. JJ: By Webster and -- CR: Yeah, Webster and Dickens? I remember the Young Lords took over that park. Because you guys wanted -- JJ: People’s Park. [01:06:00] CR: And it was People’s Park for a couple of years, right? A year and stuff. So, I don’t -- that one I just remember at that time I started -- JJ: We actually took over the -- they had tore down the buildings that Puerto Ricans used to live on -- between Armitage and Dickens by Halsted next to Oz Park. 45 �CR: Right and left it (break in audio). JJ: About 350 people took it over. CR: See, that one I wasn’t part of, but I heard about it and stuff. JJ: But it was going on in the community and people were I guess talking about it because it was from there. CR: That’s why, you know, to this day I tell people Lincoln Park was a community when the Puerto Ricans were there. We had a community. You know you heard the music, the eating, the getting along with everyone. Now it’s not a community. Maybe to some other people, but when we were there it was a community. Everybody knew each other. Everybody talked to each other. [01:07:00] And it wasn’t like a lot of violence, and you go now there, and you feel so out of place. JJ: But there were a lot of a different clubs -- street clubs but there was not a lot -- a lot of violence? CR: I didn’t think it was that much violence. JJ: No, I agree with you there wasn’t a lot of violence but there were all these street clubs. CR: Right you had -- there used to be a boy’s club. What was the name of that boy’s club on Sheffield? Sheffield? That the school -- the Manierre -- there was a school there on Sheffield. JJ: There was Boy’s Club on Orchard. CR: On Orchard but then there was another club right there on Sheffield before you get to -- JJ: By Armitage what was that? The Puerto Rican Youth Center or something. 46 �CR: It was a youth center. C -- Chicago Youth Center. Then you had -- yeah, there was more places for the kids to hang out. Places -- [01:08:00] JJ: There was all kinds of -- there was several places. At nighttime Arnold wasn’t open -- CR: Right it was open to the community, and you had the field it was open. JJ: So they were like an afterschool programs for the youth so that’s why -- CR: You had DePaul and there was a lot of activities there at DePaul. Where the childcare center -- JJ: (inaudible) for the youth. So there was a lot youth. And that prevented the violence. CR: Now that’s what we need to go back to. But -- and it was a good times, it was good times. You know, there was -- I’m not gonna say there was no violence, but it was not -- it was a clean cut violence. That it wasn’t like now. JJ: So in other words, once the neighborhood was stable and there was a community, the violence dropped. Is that what? Am I putting words in your mouth? CR: I didn’t see -- I mean there was gangs. I’m not gonna say that there wasn’t. There was gangs and you heard of the guys hanging out on Sheffield [01:09:00] and so you knew who the -- do you remember Andre Gonzalez? -- Andre and his brother Richie and that whole family died too. The only one living is his sister. They all ended up dying of AIDS or heroin overdose. The Rodriguez family. They used to hang around there. Johnny and Danny ended up dying of AIDS. JJ: Because actually there was a drug epidemic there. 47 �CR: The heroin. And the Rodriguez, oh my god. There was so many guys that ended up -- JJ: Many Young Lords fell into that. CR: Yep, and then you had the Vietnam War. A lot of them went off to the Vietnam War and came back very messed up. I remember that. I remember all the guys from -- JJ: And then the whole hippie era was around that time too. But it was a -- but then the -- but you’re saying the community -- but the community was different, but it was also beginning to -- people were beginning to be displaced and -- CR: Yes they were because [01:10:00] I remember the family that I talk about that owned this beautiful property on Halsted and Dickens, they ended up losing it because they couldn’t afford it. And all the people down Halsted, a lot of them lost their property. A lot of them stayed but a lot of them lost their property. JJ: How did they lose their property? CR: They couldn’t afford it. Everything was -- JJ: But they were affording it before. CR: They were but for some reason I guess it was a time that the prices were starting to go up and they could not keep up. Something happened that started displacing the families. And then you had DePaul come in. I remember when DePaul came in. JJ: What happened then? CR: DePaul displaced a lot of families. They started buying all the property around the neighborhood and everything started going up, up, up. And it wasn’t the 48 �same. It wasn’t the same. And I didn’t feel that because at that time [01:11:00] I had left that neighborhood, and my parents stayed there. And I ended up moving to -- I was on Leavitt and Armitage. And at that time I got pregnant, and I was living there. So I didn’t get to see but they changed a lot of the Puerto Rican families that owned property -- a few stayed, like you had the Arroyo family. They kept their property. They kept their houses. I remember the Rodriguez family kept their houses. And to this day I believe there’s maybe a couple of Puerto Ricans and Mexicans that own property. I don’t know if they still own it, but they do live there. JJ: Was there any pressure by the city at all, by like building inspectors or anybody like that? CR: It could have been. I wasn’t -- JJ: But you’re not aware. CR: It could have been. And they couldn’t keep up. JJ: Was there a plan to displace people? CR: I believe there was. I believe wasn’t that the Title 20. Was that the name of the plan to displace [01:12:00] all these people? I believe that the plan -- __: Chicago 21? CR: It was Chicago 21 or 20. I remember the plan was build those Cabrini projects. But then let them deteriorate. Because those projects deteriorated very quick. JJ: So they let them deteriorate. CR: They let them deteriorate. JJ: What do you mean? 49 �CR: Elevators would break. They wouldn’t replace them. You started seeing people hanging around. And then I believe that was the scene of the heroin time. And you know people were shooting up and selling drugs and liquor stores started coming up. And that deteriorated. JJ: So you’re saying they let it -- the police and everything -- CR: I believe they did. JJ: Let it deteriorate. Why would they do that? CR: Because probably it was -- were they looking at the plan that that was going to be prime property? I believe they looked into the future. That was only a temporary plan. I mean some of the row houses stayed. I remember Montgomery Ward’s. And what is Mongomery Ward’s now? Condos. Condos. [01:13:00] People live there. That used to be one of the stores that people used to shop there. That was like -- that was Larrabee and Chicago Avenue. The building’s still there, they just restructured it to be very expensive homes. You got a police station there now. What used to be the projects is now a big police station on Division and Larrabee. And then all the projects started going down until people couldn’t live there anymore. Then the floors started -- people only lived like the first eight floor. Everything else was shut down. Crime. Till it just disappeared. JJ: So that police station is the old Chicago Avenue police station? CR: I don’t know if that was the same one. JJ: But they have a police station there. CR: But they have a police station right where -- JJ: Where the Cabrini-Green used to be. And now there’s condominiums there. 50 �CR: No, it’s open land because they tore them down. The last project to be torn [01:14:00] down was the projects that was on Halsted and Division. That was the last family to move out of there, the last family to go. And I believe it was a couple of years ago or last year. JJ: And what was the reasoning to tear down those? CR: I remember somebody said that having people living on top of each other would thus create like rats. If you put them all on top of each other they don’t grow, they don’t thrive. And that was not a good setting. So why build them in the first place? JJ: Concentrated poverty basically. CR: And that’s what happened. JJ: So now where is the poverty concentrated? CR: Where did they go? JJ: Yeah where did they go to now? CR: Well now I guess they were -- you know what, I don’t remember. JJ: Is it concentrated or no that’s not happening? CR: Now we’re scattered back to -- I think we’re scattered in the projects; I mean in the suburbs. You know like scattered site. And then you had Altgeld [01:15:00] projects over there. They started moving people around. And then there was a lot of Blacks that lived in the row houses. And I believe there’s still some row houses left on Chicago and what’s that -- Chicago and -- JJ: Orleans. 51 �CR: Orleans and stuff. There’s still some projects there. But the big ones that were on Larrabee and Division and yeah, Division and Halsted, Division and Larrabee and Chicago and Division and Sedgwick. They’re all torn down. The school, Immaculate -- is it Immaculate Conception? That church is still there. I remember there’s a -- what is the health clinic that’s there? Winfield Moody? Winfield Moody is still there. So that’s some of the new buildings that came up. But there’s no more projects at all. [01:16:00] JJ: So you came out of Lincoln Park. What are you doing today in terms of community? CR: When I left Lincoln Park, my parents were still living there. I ended up moving out and had a rough life. Ended up getting pregnant at 19 and I lived with a -- my baby’s father for I don’t know how long. He was abusive. He was a drug addict. He died of AIDS -- ended up dying of AIDS from shooting up. And I ended up coming back home and I moved back on Armitage in my parent’s building and then I ended up moving to Orchard and North Avenue. And then from there, I just kind of moved out of the neighborhood. And now, I work for the state. I work -- I’ve been working 25 years at the Illinois Department of Human Services. I work with [01:17:00] pregnant teens, I do outreach, whatever. And that’s my job. JJ: But you also do volunteer work and -- CR: I’m currently at San Lucas United Church of Christ which is a Puerto Rican community. Or it is a Puerto Rican -- it’s changing. The same thing I -- I always tell people the same thing that happened -- JJ: Across the street from Humboldt Park. 52 �CR: Across the street from Humboldt Park but I remember at -- the same thing that happened in Lincoln Park, it’s happening here. Because we’re right in the heart of Humboldt Park and you’re seeing gentrification. We were gentrified out of Lincoln Park. Now I can probably say that my parents had brought a building, and I can probably say before that I would say my parents never got on welfare. My mother was a hardworking woman, and my father worked all his life. So, you know, they brought the house because of Carlos’s accident. It was a tragic that the accident happened, but we managed to get this beautiful building. And they ended up buying another building in Wicker Park. So when we moved out [01:18:00] of Armitage, and it wasn’t because I think my father and mother were getting older and we were living in a third floor. And it was harder for them. They were getting -- they couldn’t be going up and down the stairs. They got a good price for that building. They got very good money for that building. And they were not -- they were a typical Puerto Rican family that the families lived there all their life. And all my father wanted was enough to pay the mortgage. So these families lived there 15, 20 years with my par-- you know, in the building there. And then when my parents sold, they ended up moving to Winchester and Division. That was a Puerto Rican neighborhood there. But they moved to a first floor and then they’ve been there ever since. So it wasn’t -- and it was a good life. It was a good life. And they worked very hard to get, you know, to get what they have now. They worked very hard. They struggle but they -- and they raised six kids and a whole bunch of [01:19:00] foster kids were raised in that neighborhood. We had a lot of foster kids just coming out -- in and out, in and 53 �out. Some stayed with us three, four years. The rest of them stayed 15 years with us. They ended up getting married and leaving the house. JJ: Your mother was working for foster -- CR: She just took in emergency foster. We were emergency foster care site. So any foster kid that was pulled out of their home, they would be sent to our house. So that’s why we always had the whole third floor. Because there was always kids in the house. But she made her living taking care of foster kids. So, you know, we were not -- we -- they did a pretty good life. So I’m at San Lucas, I sometimes see some of the people I went to school with. JJ: What’s your role here? What do you mean -- CR: Here I’m the Council President and a member of San Lucas and this is a Puerto Rican church. The founder of this church is the Reverand Jorge Morales. There was a lot of riots going on around here, a lot of fighting going on in the community. [01:20:00] A lot of struggle. And I just happened to walk into all that. And gentrification has taken place in Humboldt Park. It’s sad, but this used to be a Puerto Rican neighborhood also. And I’m not going to say it is anymore. There is still Latinos, but it’s not like it used to be. JJ: Is the church involved in any activities here? What are some of those? CR: We were at one time regarding housing and jobs and there was a lot of -- the first Black mayor did a lot of campaigning here. JJ: You’re talking about Harold Washington. 54 �CR: Harold Washington. The pastor here was very involved in a lot of social justice issues and housing taking place and all that. So I guess it just comes with the territory. JJ: Weren’t you connected also with the -- what was your connection with the West Town Concerned Citizens’ Coalition? CR: You know, that one I really wasn’t. I heard about it [01:21:00] because I had moved in. There was other people that was involved. When I came in here, the pastor that was here and the assistant pastor that was here, they were involved in that. I kind of walked into a lot of stuff. So, I remember. JJ: But some of the programs that you recently were doing or you’re not doing them now, but didn’t you have like a food pantry or something? CR: Oh no here we had Centro Unida Latina which was an afterschool program that was started out of this church which they did. It was after school programming. What they’re doing now, we used to do that years ago. Had the kids here. We had 60 to 80 kids here. Teach them dancing, teach them how to do rumba, plena, arts, crafts. We used to just do a lot of things with the kids. It was a safe haven. This church had a place which was a safe haven for the community kids. JJ: And now I see BUILD, Incorporated. Did they use the facility? CR: This is -- BUILD works here. I mean, they’re housed here so we can have an afterschool program. JJ: A gang prevention program? CR: It’s a gang prevention [01:22:00] but we have an afterschool program. There was some monies that was at one time with all the violence going around, they 55 �opened up funding for teen reach afterschool programming. So there’s a program here that’s from after school until six, seven o’ clock at night to keep the kids off the street. So the program has been here over eight years or longer. So these kids come here. They do homework, life skills, safe haven in the church. JJ: And I believe Carlos or other people are involved in something. CR: Yeah, we have a writing class here. My brother is part of -- JJ: How does that work? CR: That one is people that want to write about their life or their past or their life. There’s a writing class that takes place here on Wednesdays. So they come together, and they share their stories, and they print some of their stories. And we had a food pantry here. We have an emergency food; we have a thrift store. We serve a hot meal. And the community, it’s changing. You’re seeing Blacks, Hispanic, [01:23:00] and immigrant being serviced in this community. So that’s now Humboldt Park. JJ: Any final thoughts? CR: Final thoughts about the Puerto Ricans in Chicago. I never -- I mean I’m just saying that we -- I had some good memories of Armitage. I had good memories - no, I’m not gonna say they were good memories, but they were memorable memories. Because you had -- you know we used to know so many people. Now you look back and it’s -- when we were growing up, it was a community. Now it is not the same. It is not the same. It’s sad, but those were good times when we were more together. We, you know, our battles were fought together. Now everybody’s so dispersed. But at one time the community was great, and 56 �we took care of each other. You know like the saying was it takes a village to raise a child. That used to happen. [01:24:00] Families would take care of each other. Now, no it’s not the same. And it’s sad because a lot of our kids do not know what it is to be in a family like we did. I don’t know. I’m just saying a lot of these kids don’t have the same -- the same opportunities that we had. We had nothing but we were more together. We didn’t have a lot. I’m not gonna say we didn’t have nothing. We didn’t have a lot but there was more family involvement and there was more strength. JJ: Why do you think that that was going on? CR: I don’t know it’s the changing -- I think it’s changing when you see a lot of these young mothers, teen pregnancy has skyrocket. And even if it was teen pregnancy at our time, the girls were not as crazy and wild as they are now. And family structure has just fallen apart. So we don’t have that family structure that we had when we were growing up. We just don’t have it. It’s not there. You know, if you try to reprimand [01:25:00] a family member, right away they’ll call DCFS. At that time, you know, if they saw you doing anything in the street, they’d say, you know what? We would get reprimanded. My mother wouldn’t fight it and say, “You don’t touch my daughter. You don’t do this.” But we would listen, or they’ll go and tell you father or anything. You know it was more family-oriented and the families were more together, and they would protect each other. Now, not now. It’s very sad. It’s not the same. So I have good memories of growing up. We had nothing, but it was good ones. What we didn’t have, you know, was just made up with the surroundings that we were with. 57 �JJ: Okay. CR: Thank you. JJ: You said you lived on La Salle; do you remember what address or on La Salle? CR: Oh my god it was right on the corner building of La Salle and Superior. La Salle and Superior. [01:26:00] The corner there was a -- we were on the third floor. JJ: That wasn’t the Water Hotel wasn’t it or? CR: No it was a three flat. JJ: It was a three flat. CR: It was a three flat building, and we lived in the third floor. And then from there we moved to Armitage and Armitage was 1114 West Armitage. JJ: What do you remember of that building? That three flat? That neighborhood? Do you remember anything? You were like five years old. CR: I was five. JJ: So what do you remember of that? CR: Oh my god. La Salle was a busy street. I don’t know if you remember my brother Carlos Flores, but Carlos came to live with us when Carlos was like 13 and I remember, I will never forget that me and Carlos were crossing the street on Chicago Avenue. No, we were on La Salle and Superior and we crossed this busy intersection and Carlos got hit by a car. And I was there. And I saw the whole incident when that car just smashed into him [01:27:00] and blew him up in the air and brought him back down. And Carlos was in the hospital for about a year. But we did not speak any English, so we suffered a lot. We came in the 58 �middle of winter, and I think Carlos ended up coming in the middle of summer like a couple of years later. JJ: Do you know what year that was about or? CR: Oh god. I’m going to say maybe ’59, ’60? I want to say. Because I was five when I came here so we were living -- JJ: When you were born in ’51 you said. CR: In ’51. JJ: So ’56? CR: ’56, ’57 like that. And then Carlos came maybe like a couple of years later and that’s, you know, and that’s the only thing that I remember. I mean and it was just a bad scene because we didn’t speak English, and it was just horrible. There was no bilingual education in school. We came in the middle of winter. JJ: What school was that? CR: We went to Ogden. First no -- first it was Sexton. Sexton was an all-Black school. [01:28:00] My -- we would get beat up by the Black kids. JJ: Sexton in Lincoln Park? CR: No, Sexton around what Cabrini what used to be Cabrini was Sexton school was on Franklin I think and we were going to school there. And then my mother moved us out of that school and put us in a school called Ogden. And Ogden now is a, you know, big, big school. And that was on Clark, Clark and I can’t remember. It was Clark and Orleans or something? And then from there, then that’s when we ended up moving on Larrabee and I went to a school called La 59 �Salle. And then from that area then we ended up moving to Armitage where I ended up going to Waller which is now Lincoln Park. JJ: Now La Salle was around Willow or something? And Sedgwick? CR: No, no, no. Newberry. We went to Newberry. La Salle was on Sedgwick and -- JJ: And Willow right? CR: And Willow (inaudible). So I know when we got to Lincoln Park, we were -- I was going to Newberry. [01:29:00] JJ: And before you get to Lincoln Park, you’re going to Ogden School, you’re living on Superior and Chicago -- and La Salle. CR: No, Superior and La Salle. JJ: And La Salle, okay. And there was -- do you remember that community there? Were there -- CR: There was a lot of Latinos, a lot of Puerto Ricans. They were starting to come. There was a Puerto Rican beautician downstairs. Her name was Clara. Clara Byron. JJ: Clara Byron? CR: Byron. She lived -- she had a -- a beauty shop on the first floor on the corner. JJ: Where you lived? CR: Where we lived at. JJ: Right on Superior. CR: Superior and La Salle. JJ: And then across the street was the Catholic Charities or? 60 �CR: No, it was -- there was a florist and then it was -- but that time it wasn’t Catholic Charities. It was something else. JJ: I think that florist is still there. CR: That florist is still there? JJ: I think so. I’m not sure. CR: And it used to be -- what used -- across the street was a big building. It’s Cath-it was Catholic Charities, but it wasn’t Catholic Charities at that time. JJ: Then, at that time. CR: I can’t remember what it was. It was a big building. [01:30:00] It was -- JJ: Then you had the Water Hotel where we lived. We lived in the Water Hotel. CR: Where was your Water Hotel? JJ: Right there across from Superior and La Salle. Right there on the other side. We were on the other side. CR: Oh, okay. See I don’t remember. I was only five, six years old then you know. JJ: So you were going to Ogden School and then you went to another school near Cabrini-Green? CR: Right because then my parents ended up moving to 1714 North Larrabee which was Larrabee and Cleveland. And we went to Saint Michael’s church and that was a Puerto Rican neighborhood then, you know, on Larrabee. And we lived in the third floor of a three flat with the storefront in the front. And we went to -- do you remember the boys club that was there? The boys club that was on Willow? Willow and Mohawk? Orchard. Orchard and Willow. And then across the street [01:31:00] was Newberry. 61 �JJ: Newberry School. Kitty-corner to that. Kitty-corner. So what do you remember of the boys club? I know what the guys remember but what did the girls do? CR: Oh the girls just hung out I guess in the boys club. They used to have a swimming pool. We used to do activities there. And I think -- JJ: What kind of activities? CR: Like there was dances and there was arts and crafts. But I know that -- my Carlos was more involved. They used to have a club there. The Continentals. JJ: The Continentals were there. CR: Yeah the Continentals and there but Carlos was part of that. We didn’t. We just hung out. We were just young kids. JJ: So the girls -- the guys had the Continentals and the girls they just went to the -- CR: Like we would go to the dances maybe, hang out. JJ: And who would throw the dances? CR: There was -- there was a group of Latinos. I can’t remember who threw the dances. JJ: But you remember it as a Latino community? CR: Puerto Rican. JJ: A Puerto Rican community [01:32:00] at that time. CR: Yes. JJ: Okay so then you’re there in -- and you also, you said you went to by Franklin? What was on Franklin? CR: No, we went to Sexton School. It was the Black school. And you remember Black kids would beat us up. 62 �JJ: Sexton is on Sheffield. CR: Then it’s got to be -- JJ: So there was Ogden -- CR: Manierre? JJ: Manierre? CR: It could have been Manierre. JJ: It might have been Manierre yeah. CR: Which was near Cabrini. I think Manierre was -- JJ: Where was Franklin School now? Did you go to Franklin school? CR: No, I didn’t go to Franklin school. It was Newberry. No it was Ogden, and I believe it was Manierre. JJ: Okay, I heard of that. CR: Because where did you go? You went to -- JJ: I went to Saint Joseph’s Holy Name Cathedral. CR: See we were -- well, we would go to Holy Name Cathedral for -- remember they used to have Las Hijas de Maria. I did my confirmation or communion there. JJ: At Holy Name Cathedral? CR: At Holy Name because we used to go to church at Holy Name Cathedral. JJ: So there was a -- Las Hijas de Maria at Holy Name Cathedral. CR: And we used to go to [01:33:00] catechism there. JJ: Okay and what year was that, what year was that? CR: That had to be late ’50s, early ’60s, maybe ’61? 63 �JJ: Okay, around ’61. And so then you moved to -- from there, where did you move to? CR: To 1113 -- 1114 North Larrabee. Which was Larrabee and Cleveland. Which, Saint Michael’s was down the street. JJ: And were you at Saint Michael’s Elementary or? CR: No, Carlos got to go to Saint Michael’s. I ended up going to Newberry. JJ: Oh you went to Newberry. CR: Yeah, we went to Newberry. JJ: But you had already made your first communion. CR: And everything. It was the Catholic Church. You know, the Catholic Church was the ones that really brought my parents over here and everything. They -- JJ: What do you mean? CR: You know that they came through like Catholic Charities. It was a charitable thing, and they brought us over here. And then that’s when my father started working here. JJ: What kind of work was your father doing? CR: Factory work. JJ: Factory work. CR: But my father didn’t [01:34:00] come to Chicago. My father came to Connecticut to pick tomatoes and cucumbers. And then from there he migrated to Chicago. JJ: How did he get to go to Connecticut? CR: Because that was the day that they had the bootstrap Muñoz Marín, and they were looking for people to work the fields like they do now where they have the 64 �migrant workers. So they call for people from Puerto Rico. And my father couldn’t support all of us. It was like three of us that he was supporting and so he had to come to the United States and make a living. And then he sent for my parents -- you know, he sent for my -- not my parents. He sent for my mother and his kids. And that’s where we ended up on La Salle and Superior. JJ: Right from Connecticut to La Salle. Okay. Now did you have other family here? Did he have other family? CR: No. Because -- well my father didn’t live there. My father must have lived with some other [01:35:00] Puerto Rican family on Oak Street. Do you remember Oak Street? It was Oak and La Salle. I think he lived with some people there. And then when my mother came with me and my sister and my baby brother which is, now they call him Cougar, the little one. Carlos had not come. Then that’s when we -- he ended up moving to the building there on La Salle and Superior. Which was a third floor. JJ: So he first came to the Oak and La Salle and then to that building. CR: To that building. Because he lived in a -- like it was like a man’s room. Like a -what do you call those? He was like a boarder. So, like a room -- they would rent him a room for the night. But then when my mother came with us, the two daughters and the son, and my brother was just a newborn. JJ: A rooming house or something like that? CR: A rooming house. It was a whole bunch -- I think there was a lot of Puerto Rican guys there. Or a lot of Latinos that lived there. 65 �JJ: So there were like a lot of men [01:36:00] that were working that came here just to work. CR: Just to work. JJ: (Spanish) [01:36:04] CR: So from there, we lived on La Salle and Superior and then we ended up moving on Larrabee. I don’t know why we moved. And then we stayed on Larrabee until HUD came. And at that time they were building Cabrini-Green. Cabrini-Green was starting to get built. JJ: So you came before Cabrini-Green was built. CR: Right. So we saw Cabrini-Green being built. And Cabrini, there was a lot of Latinos inside Cabrini-Green. They were scattered all over. So Larrabee, so we were what 17 -- we were 1714 North Larrabee. Cabrini started 1009 North Larrabee. Then 11-something North Larrabee. So the first projects was in the 1000 block of North Larrabee. That was the projects [01:37:00] that was there on Larrabee and Alston or Clybourn. JJ: Clybourn there. CR: Yeah, that was one of the first projects. And then you had Cooley High. There was a high school there called Cooley High. So we ended up going to Waller and then some -- the Cabrini-Green kids some went to Cooley and some went to Waller. JJ: But before you get to Waller, you went to Newberry also. CR: And graduated from Newberry. JJ: So tell me about Newberry. 66 �CR: Well okay we were going to Newberry. JJ: What was that like? And what the population was. CR: Puerto Rican. Puerto Rican because it was Puerto Ricans living on Halsted, on Willow, on Orchard, on Burling. That was a Puerto Rican neighborhood. So we were going to Newberry and for some reason we ended up moving. They moved us or transferred us to La Salle. So I graduated eighth grade from La Salle. JJ: Oh from Newberry and La Salle is a few blocks east of that. [01:38:00] So why didn’t you transfer to there? CR: I can’t remember what it was. I don’t know if the school was overcrowded or what. But from Newberry we ended up going to La Salle. And then I ended up -we ended up -- me and my sister ended up graduating from La Salle. JJ: Oh so -- okay so you went to Newberry and La Salle were the main schools you went to. But you also went to Manierre and Ogden. CR: Yeah but those were when we were younger. And then La Salle and Newberry were the two schools that we were like seventh, eighth grade. JJ: And what was La Salle like? I mean what was that -- CR: La Salle was on Wisconsin and -- JJ: Yeah, exactly, Wisconsin. Or Willow or something. CR: Willow. JJ: Between Willow and Wisconsin. CR: No, let me see. Newberry was on Willow and Orchard. La Salle was on Menomonee, was a street called Menomonee. JJ: Right, it changed to Menomonee. 67 �CR: And Sedgwick. That’s where La Salle was at. [01:39:00] JJ: I think Willow changed to Menomonee or something. But I don’t know. But it was Menomonee, you’re correct. And so -- CR: So that was ’60, ’65. JJ: ’65 and so they were not changing the school, but you don’t know why. CR: I believe it was overcrowded or maybe they redistrict, and they move some of the people around because we were on Larrabee and La Salle. Even though it could have been the distance, so. JJ: Okay, so what do you remember of school? I mean what was school like kind of? CR: Well school was horrible because we did not speak English. We did not speak English. So I remember being put in a corner for I don’t know how many years. And the teachers -- my name is in Puerto Rico they call me Camila. When I come here, I came here to Chicago, they changed my name to Carmen. My sister’s name was Mina, they changed it to Myrna. [01:40:00] So that’s how we grew up. And then we finally learned English, and we survived the streets. And the life and then from there Waller. And then I was there from -- JJ: And what about Saint Michael’s? You mentioned Saint Michael’s. CR: Saint Michael’s, my brother Carlos got to go to Saint Michael’s. I didn’t go. But Saint Michael’s was like kitty-corner of La Salle. But my mother could not afford to put all of us in a Catholic school, so Carlos I think went for a year, but we never went to a Catholic school. We would go to church at Saint Michael’s. JJ: And when you went to church at Saint Michael’s, how was the church? I mean where -- 68 �CR: It was a Puerto Rican church. They had a Puerto Rican mass. JJ: They had a Puerto Rican mass? CR: It was -- yeah. Father -- I cannot remember. JJ: Kathrine? CR: Father Kathrine was one of them and there was another father there. You know, White guys that spoke fluent Spanish. And they were part of the Catholic charity, you know, of helping the Latino families. La Virgen Maria. [01:41:00] JJ: So when you say you had Spanish mass, did you have it at the -- CR: At the big church. JJ: You had it at the big church. Okay so -- CR: And then when the neighborhood started changing, they moved us down to the rectory, down to the basement. Because then the neighborhood started changing so there wasn’t as many Latino families. JJ: So they moved you to the rectory. But you never celebrated mass in the hall? They had a hall next door to it. CR: No, we celebrated yeah in both. It was moved from the hall across the street which was Saint Michael’s. It was the hall; it was next door to the church. And then they moved us to the rectory which was down more in the basement where the priest lived. JJ: Oh so you started in the hall and then you went to the rectory. CR: We started at the church. Then the -- the hall across the street. And then from that hall it went down to the rectory. And so they totally moved out all the Puerto Ricans that were there. [01:42:00] 69 �JJ: Why do you think that? CR: The neighborhood was changing. The families were not there so they even stopped the Sunday service. It used to be on record that there was a Sunday service and then after that it was just -- JJ: You mean a Sunday service in Spanish. CR: In Spanish. JJ: But they stopped that later in the -- CR: In the years. JJ: Okay because I tried to look at some records and had some histories and they said they don’t find that period of time like it didn’t exist. But maybe just those people didn’t know. CR: They probably don’t know but they -- JJ: They didn’t know. Okay now were your parents involved with like the Caballeros de San Juan or -- Council Number Three was at Saint Michael’s. CR: My father -- my father used to go to the (inaudible) because that was the time that the Puerto Ricans would get together. So you had El Congreso, do you remember Carlos Caribe? The Congress used to be on North Avenue and Larrabee. JJ: And what did -- did you used to go there or? [01:43:00] CR: Yeah, when we were little we would go to parties. They would have parties there. JJ: They would have parties there. CR: Yeah, family gatherings. And then they would have baseball. The baseball league. 70 �JJ: From the Congreso? CR: Yeah. And my father was very active in the baseball league. JJ: What did -- did he play ball? CR: Yeah, he was a manager. JJ: Oh he was a manager. CR: They played baseball in Saint -- at Lincoln Park. JJ: Okay. So he was the manager of that team? CR: Yeah. At El Puerto Boricua. JJ: What was your father’s name again? CR: Charlie -- they used to call him Charlie Flores but Gonzalo Flores. JJ: Gonzalo Flores. And you said Puerto Boricua. CR: It was El Puerto Boricua Post Number I can’t remember. But that post was -- JJ: But did you used to go there to that? What did they do there? CR: They had dances, gatherings. You know, Puerto Ricans would gather there. You know we would be homesick I guess so all the Puerto Ricans would meet there. JJ: At the Puerto Boricua. But you don’t recall where that was located or? CR: It was on North Avenue and Larrabee. [01:44:00] JJ: Right next to the Congreso or? CR: The Congreso was right on the corner of North Avenue and Larrabee. If you look at it now, you would not believe that there was a Congreso there. But it was Larrabee. So it was the -- one side of Larrabee was like Puerto Ricans and then the other side of Larrabee was Cabrini. The other side of North Avenue -- so you had North Avenue dividing the Puerto Rican and the Black. 71 �JJ: Community. It was the dividing line at that time? And it was also like the road? Puerto Ricans kept moving west on North Avenue I guess. CR: There was a lot of Puerto Ricans, yeah. Willow. JJ: Would you see a lot of Puerto Ricans if you went there. CR: Families. Sheffield. JJ: What were some of the families? CR: I don’t remember a lot of the names but you have the Bergel? -- not the Bergels - the Vélez. I remember the Vélez. Do you remember that one of them shot himself? [01:45:00] He used to be part of the Young Lords. JJ: Oh yeah, Chino, Chino they used to call him Chino. CR: Yeah. You had Los Peñas, the Peña family. They lived on North Avenue and Sedgwick. You had the -- JJ: Someone else mentioned the Peñas. CR: The Lugos lived in Cabrini-Green. The Lugos lived in Cabrini-Green. Who else? I’m trying to remember the big families. The (inaudible) JJ: The Pantojas. CR: The Pantojas. JJ: So now you’re at Saint Michael’s and -- CR: Church not the school. JJ: The church, not the school. But there are activities going on there with the Caballeros de San Juan or? CR: Yeah there was a lot of activities, you know, for Puerto Rican families. They would do parties and dances, dinners, banquets. 72 �JJ: At Saint Michael’s? CR: At Saint Michael’s. JJ: And also the Congreso dinner too. So it was like several organizations right where Saint Michael’s was at, [01:46:00] at this point. Okay and did you ever go to any of those retreats that they had? CR: I was young. But I think my mother and father did. JJ: Okay. Okay. So you were young. Did they keep you in the house or as a young Puerto Rican woman -- CR: No, we were like what, 12, 13 on Larrabee. So we played outside. We went to the boys club. We went to Saint Michael’s. JJ: You had a site at the YMCA. Did you go to the YMCA? CR: Okay, where was the YMCA at? JJ: The YMCA was the other side of North Avenue. Action YMCA. They had dances too and they had a swimming pool. But the boys club was on Orchard and Willow. CR: We went more to Orchard and Willow. JJ: More Orchard and Willow. Okay you didn’t go to the Action YMCA at all? CR: I heard of it, but I can’t remember. JJ: Okay. CR: And probably was there just don’t remember it. [01:47:00] JJ: Okay but you went to boys club. And you did -- the girls did -- basically arts and crafts? CR: Arts and crafts. We’d do -- 73 �JJ: Any teams? Any soccer teams? Anything like that or? CR: Could have been, I can’t remember. JJ: Okay, all right. But you graduated from Newberry and then where did you go? CR: No, no. Not Newberry. La Salle. JJ: La Salle. CR: Waller. JJ: You went to Waller. What year was that? CR: ’65. JJ: 1965. CR: June of 1965. JJ: What do you remember -- now you were in high school you should really have a good memory. CR: No, high school was ’65 to ’69. Yeah because I graduated from Waller in ’69. JJ: Okay so now can you describe Waller at that time? Okay and then we’ll stop it there. CR: Okay, Waller was all Puerto Rican. JJ: All Puerto Rican. What does that mean? CR: Puerto Ricans and Blacks. But it was mostly Puerto Ricans. JJ: At that time? [01:48:00] CR: At that time. So you had Puerto Ricans living on Burling and you had Puerto Ricans living on Larrabee. You had Puerto Ricans living on Orchard, Halsted, Dickens. What else? The whole Lincoln Park. That was a Puerto Rican neighborhood. I remember the hot dog stand on Dickens -- Halsted and Dickens. 74 �JJ: Halsted and Dickens, yeah. CR: Used to make the best Polishes. JJ: Yes. Everybody had credit there. I had credit there. Other guys did. Okay. CR: You don’t want to finish this with my father? JJ: Testing, one, two, three. Go ahead testing, one, two, three. CR: Testing one, two, three. JJ: Okay that’s a good sound. All right. So if you could just start with your name and your date of birth and if you were born here or what town where you were born in Puerto Rico or your family’s from. CR: Okay. My name is Carmen Flores Rance. I was Carmen Flores when I was in Lincoln Park. But I was born [01:49:00] in Puerto Rico. July 18, 1951. My parents moved here from Puerto Rico from a town called Guayama in Puerto Rico. And my parents -- my father came first as every Puerto Rican family had to -- when the bootstrap thing was happening in Puerto Rico, my father came here to get a better life. And so then he left my mother and her -- and the kids. But then when he could send for us, I was five. My sister was six. And we came to Chicago to live. So I originally am from La Salle and Chicago Avenue. That was the first Puerto Rican family that I knew, and I was here when I was five. Then from there we were on Larrabee. Larrabee and Cleveland. And then HUD took over and moved us out and my parents ended up buying a home. A three flat building [01:50:00] in Lincoln Park. END OF VIDEO FILE 75 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/434a24532b50f425b5f9ef8456af7aae.mp4 fa04b9a477f6aadb612efc4394848edb Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives. The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng spa Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 2012-2017 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Título Spanish language Title entry Carmen Rance vídeo entrevista y biografía Sujetos Spanish language Subject terms Young Lords (Organización) Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puertorriqueños--Relatos personales Justicia social Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago Renovación urbana--Illinois--Chicago Relaciones raciales Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65_Rance_Carmen Title A name given to the resource Carmen Rance video interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rance, Carmen Description An account of the resource When Carmen F. Rance’s family first came to Chicago from Puerto Rico, she lived at the Water Hotel then moved to Lincoln Park where she grew up. She joined the Young Lords through the Breakfast for Children Program. Her family owned a large apartment building on the corner of Clifton and Armitage Avenue where many other Puerto Rican families lived. Her family was active with Council Number 9 of the Caballeros de San Juan and Damas de María, at St. Teresa’s Church. Today Ms. Rance works as a case manager and has been a lay leader in the San Lucas United Church of Christ for many years. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puerto Ricans--Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Urban renewal--Illinois--Chicago Race relations Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-03-30 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives