5 24 165 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/30cb63a01e6addba8972f2d1b7130dcf.pdf 8532ac07605ae66986da98dea49ab3ec PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Carlos Munoz Interviewer: Jose Jimenez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 5/19/2013 Runtime: 01:05:02 Biography and Description Oral history of Carlos Munoz, interviewed by Jose “Cha-Cha” Jimenez on May 19, 2013 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, Carlos. If you can give me your name and where you were born, and where you work. CARLOS MUÑOZ JR.: Okay. Right. My name is Carlos Muñoz, Jr. I was born in El Paso, Texas in 1939. The particular day, it is August 25, 1939. I am the son of poor Mexican working-class immigrants, undocumented at the time. And my father was from Chihuahua, Mexico, my mother from Durango, Mexico. They came during the Mexican Revolution of 1910 as children. And the revolutionaries at that time would drop off their kids at the border there in El Paso so -- to keep them safe from the violence of the revolution. My mother’s father, my grandfather, was one of Pancho Villa’s generals [00:01:00] and he was assassinated the year my mother was born, actually so -JJ: (inaudible)? CM: His name is [Calixto Contreras?], General Calixto Contreras. And so that was my maternal grandfather. And I was born in El Paso and when I was 12 years old, we moved to East LA, East Los Angeles, California where I was raised. And I’ve been in California ever since, since 1952 when I was 12 years old. JJ: Can you describe or what do you remember from that experience in East LA? CMJ: Yeah. When I was in East LA, we lived in all the barrios there were -- there were different gangs in the streets. Since my mother died when I was three [00:02:00] and my father remarried, my stepmother and I didn’t get along so I wasn’t home too much. And I became part of gang life. And I’m lucky to be alive today, 1 �actually. The kids that I grew up in East LA with either wound up in prison or dead. JJ: What do you mean? CMJ: Well, there was various gangs. The one that I was the most-time member of was the Olive Street Gang in a barrio called Bunker Hill. That was right in the boundary East LA/downtown LA area and that’s the one that I was really the longest and the one that I walked away from. At the age of 15, I got tired of fighting and decided that I was going to do something different with my life. And I decided to play baseball instead of hanging out in the streets. So then I started in high school. [00:03:00] I became an athlete and a pretty good student. And then I graduated with honors from high school. I was the only quote, “vato loco,” end quote, that graduated with honors. “Vato loco” at that time for us was a reference to those of us that were products of the barrio, products of gang life in the barrio, which is now known more like homeboys. That was the vato loco designation at that time. JJ: Was the barrio always that Chicano, Mexicano or...? CMJ: Yeah. Where -- in East LA at that time, I got there in the East LA area in general, it was predominantly Mexican, I would say, 95 percent Mexican. And there was a clear demarcation, East LA and downtown LA were all Mexican, 95 percent, in terms of ethnic/racial groups. And then southern -- South Central LA [00:04:00] at that time was all Black, Hollywood/West LA was all white. It was kind of like you know, that kind of a demarcation. Nowadays, you go to LA and man, it’s a mixture of Central American and Mexican. It’s no longer just Mexican. This is a 2 �result of the civil wars and revolutions that were fought in Central America in the late ’70s and early ’80s. A lot of political refugees came over and they would taste (laughs) East LA, too, or South Central LA. But now, it’s been a whole different ball game, a whole different landscape in terms of racial and ethnicity and backgrounds of people in LA. JJ: But you said the first place you came to was in Texas, in Tejas, in Texas. CMJ: The first place, when we got to East LA? JJ: Before East LA. CMJ: Oh, before East LA. In El Paso where I was born, in El Paso, yeah. I was born in El Segundo Barrio in El Paso. JJ: What was that like? CMJ: And at that time in El Paso, [00:05:00] talking about segregation, it was all segregated. Mexicanos or Mexican Americans, we all lived on the side of the city that was close to the bridge to Juárez, Mexico and that was El Segundo Barrio. And then the downtown LA was kind of like the boundary. When you passed downtown LA, it was all white. JJ: In El Paso, Texas. CMJ: In El Paso, Texas, it was all white. And below the downtown center, it was Segundo Barrio, and that’s the way El Paso was when I -- between the ages of 1 and 12 when I was born, so it was... And when I went to East LA, it was kind of similar but not quite as segregated. JJ: So how many brothers and sisters? Were they born here or...? CMJ: I’m the only one. I was a real weirdo growing up because all my friends had 3 �brothers and sisters. As you know, Mexicanos, Boricuas, and all of us have a lot of big, extended families. [00:06:00] And my mother died when I was three so my stepmother couldn’t have kids so I don’t even have brothers or sisters that are half. So I was -- I grew up by myself, yeah. So I was the only one that had that background that I knew about. (laughs) JJ: Okay, so then, okay. So now, you’re in East LA and you’re starting -- you’re in school? You’re... CMJ: Yeah. I went to Belmont High School in downtown LA that it was the first time in my life that I experienced an environment that was mixed. You know, kids from different walks of life and races. We were the only school in the whole city at that time that had foreign students. So consequently, in the student body was kids from all over the world there. Mexicans, Asians, Europeans even, Africans, Hawaiians, Polynesians, and [00:07:00] so it was -- it was a good experience. Because I realized, “Wow, you know what? There’s other people in the world that I can relate to.” So my best friend, actually, was a Japanese American that was a part of the only gang in LA that was a Japanese American gang. [Baby Black Ones?] they called themselves. So he and I kind of grew up together in high school and I learned Japanese from his parents and he learned Spanish from me. (laughs) Which came in handy when I went in the military when I volunteered draft after high school. Mm-hmm. Oh, let me give a story about high school that I just thought about. It’s important to capture the historic moment that I was growing up. During the 1950s when I was in high school, segregation and racism was pretty bolder. Even though the school that I went to was mixed, 4 �[00:08:00] if you were Mexican or Black, you automatically -- if you were a guy, you automatically got put into the Industrial Arts major. Woodshop, you know? That kind of thing. Not the academic major. And so I was asked when I was making the transition from junior high or middle school to high school, I was asked by my white counselor what does your father do? And I said my father works with his hands. Cheap labor. Construction. And she told me, “Okay, well, that’s a very honorable profession. You should follow in your father’s footsteps.” So anyhow, I go home that day, “Pa, pa, guess what? I’m going to follow in your footsteps,” and he got very angry. I was going to say another word but I guess I better keep it clean with the language. He got very angry and he told me, “Mijo, you go and tell that SOB that I don’t want you following in my footsteps. I want you to work with a pencil.” My father only got about a fourth-grade education. So to him in his mind, working with a pencil or not having to [00:09:00] work with a pick and shovel was a major improvement. It was, to him, success. He wanted me to finish high school and become a person that worked with a pencil. So I went back and told this counselor, “Yeah, you know, my father doesn’t want me to follow in his footsteps,” I said. “So he wants me to work with a pencil.” So she says, “Hm, work with a pencil.” So she says, “Okay, we’re going to put you in a business major and that way, you can become a used car salesman or something like that.” “Okay, sounds cool.” So I go to my first class. It was a typing class and all girls, right? All the girls had the typing class. And so I was really happy because I’m the only guy and all these girls, right? And I learn how to type. And I didn’t realize that at the time but it saved my life later on when I 5 �was in the military because it got me out of the combat zone and I got to work in an office typing. And so I was able to get a high school diploma in [00:10:00] a business major which did not give me the courses I needed for college. I never took chemistry, algebra, science, those courses that are needed to go into college, so have to go to a community college to make those courses up. So I was trying to -- when I graduated, I went to community college and I picked -- I couldn’t find an algebra class so I took a class that was called geometry. I didn’t know what geometry was. But it sounded like algebra and so I became part of that class. For the first time in my life, I was beginning to flunk a class because I had always gotten good grades. Even though I was a street kid, I still like school and I was doing good in school. And so but then it kind of hit me. “Maybe these white people, maybe they’re right. Maybe we Mexicans don’t have what it takes. Maybe we are intellectually inferior,” you know? So I began to question my ability intellectually. So I dropped out of college and I volunteered draft. [00:11:00] This is just before Vietnam broke out. So because I learned how to -JJ: So you volunteered? CMJ: Yeah, I went to a draft. Yeah, there was no war. JJ: Oh, it was a draft. Okay. CMJ: Draft, volunteer draft. Yeah. And in those days, it was mandatory that you served in the army. There was a draft, right? So you’d have to sign up for the draft. But I decided, “You know, I don’t want to wait. I want to go and get it over with,” so this place called volunteer draft means that you let the draft board know, “Hey, I want to go now. I don’t want to wait until I’m called.” So I decided to go in 6 �and get it out of the way. I didn’t know what was going to be happening down the road. So because I knew how to type, to make a long story short, I would up in army intelligence in the G-2 section typing stuff like that. That was no big deal. I’m in intelligence and I didn’t even know what it meant. But that was just -- it was a typing job so I was pretty happy there. And they sent me to South [00:12:00] Korea. And in South Korea, I began to get you might say a sense of something was wrong. Because even though I was a poor kid from the barrio, I was programmed to be very patriotic, I was programmed to believe the myth of democracy, that we had a democratic society, that we represented the best in the world. JJ: I was going to ask you that. So you were -- at that time when you joined, you were very patriotic. CMJ: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I just want to serve my country, right? But in spite of the fact we were victimized by racism and all of the other stuff. But growing up, you don’t think about those things. You just assume things are the way they are. So I didn’t question anything like none of us really do at that age. So I went in the volunteer draft to serve my country. So anyway, to make a long story short, I wind up -- I was trying to be a killer like all soldiers, combat-ready and everything else. But because I knew how to type, they put me in army intelligence. So I wound up going to South Korea and become part of the Korean Military Advisory Group. [00:13:00] So when I was there, it was a coup d’etat in 1961. And I started thinking, “Wait a minute. If I’m an “American soldier” defending democracy, why am I being ordered not to try to stop this coup d’etat because it’s 7 �a democratic government?” So here we were as an army, as another -- as a democracy supposedly putting into power a military dictatorship. It didn’t make sense to me. Because something is rotten somewhere and I didn’t -JJ: This is South Korea? CMJ: It’s South Korea. So that began -- I began to question what I was doing there and begin to think something was wrong. Oh, I was 20 years old. What did I know, really? I wasn’t that political yet. But it was my first time in my life that I began to think politically in a way. This to me is a contradiction. I’m here to protect democracy in this potential country, an ally [00:14:00] of ours, and at the same time, I’m allowing a military dictatorship to take power and not do anything about it. So it didn’t make sense to me. So then, at the time Vietnam started happening, it was a secret war in 1962. And so I -- they wanted me to volunteer to go to Vietnam to become one of the first military advisors, set up a Vietnam Military Advisory Group since I was in the Korean Military Advisory Group. And by that time, I started questioning because I was getting -- my job in the intelligence office was to gather all the reports from the CIA coming in, documenting them and then passing them to the general’s office. But I started reading this stuff, you know? So something -- man, we’re going into this country. And again, another democracy supposedly. And where do we go in -- we’re going to go in there and become part of a war there. It doesn’t make sense [00:15:00] to me, you know? So I refused to go to Vietnam. Instead, I was quote -- I wasn’t court martialed because they couldn’t court martial me because there was no public war going on so they could not accuse me of being a disloyal 8 �soldier. Instead, I got two weeks of prison and let’s say kind of a insubordination kind of a charge. Article 15 they called it which doesn’t go on your record when you get discharged. So I got discharged with an honorable discharge which later on qualified me for the GI Bill to go to college. So I got out of the army and the first thing I did when I got out, I joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War organization and I became an activist against the war as a veterano, as a veteran. And so that was my real transition to being [00:16:00] an activist and beginning to get very political. And then my next -- after that -JJ: Who was leading it at that time? What was -- CMJ: John Kerry. JJ: Oh, John Kerry? CMJ: Senator John Kerry. JJ: Vietnam Veterans Against the War? CMJ: Yeah, yeah. Matter of fact, John Kerry was one of those Vietnam veterans who got a medal of honor, actually, in Vietnam when the combat started really heavy. He was wounded and then he, when he served his duty, he became part of the anti-war movement because like me, he didn’t agree with what we were doing over there. A lot of us; Not just him and me, but you know, a whole bunch of veterans beginning to question what we were doing there. And so all these veterans together begun to get organized so we got to speak out against the war. And although I didn’t serve in Vietnam because I refused to go, I still got classified as the Vietnam War-era veteran meaning that I was in a combat [00:17:00] zone so at that time, we all qualified for the GI Bill so I got to know these guys. And so when John Kerry and others organized the 9 �movement against the war, I joined up. So John Kerry was one of the Vietnam vets that took all their medals off and threw them over there in a protest action in the steps of the White House. In the 19- -- it must’ve been in 19- what, 1966, ’67, around there. And so he was a real hero to me because this guy, this is damn courageous what he’s doing. Of course, later on he became a politician and nowadays, he’s part of the ruling class apparatus, right? But for that moment, he was a good radical, a good anti-war activist. So that got me going. And I haven’t stopped since. I’ve been an activist. I’ve been out there speaking out against the war, speaking out against racism, [00:18:00] sexism, you name it. I’ve been doing it and I’m still doing it. Right now, I’m involved with -- I’m a member of Veterans for Peace and we represent the anti-war movement in this country. And I’m also a part of the immigrant rights movement. I’m a member of the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights in Oakland. So I’ve been an activist ever since. But to go back after I got out of the military is that when I got back, then I went back to school with the GI Bill. And at that time, there were very few of us Mexicans in the area going to school. So we decided -- I started looking around to see if I bumped into any other students that were Mexicans or Latinos and I couldn’t find any. But eventually, little by little, people started coming out of the closet. People got, “Okay, I’m not -- [00:19:00] I’m not Spanish American, I’m not Spanish, I’m Mexican. Órale.” You know, “Friday, let’s get together. Let’s get organized.” JJ: This is recently. CMJ: This is in 1960 -- late ’60s. JJ: Late ’60s, okay. CMJ: So in ’67, we founded the United Mexican American Student organization and I 10 �became a president of that organization. And so then we started thinking about, “Well, you know what?” By that time, by the way, the farm worker movement had started so Dr. King, of course, and the Civil Rights Movement was going strong. So we were being inspired by Dr. King and by Cesar Chavez. And on top of that, there was all kinds of revolutions happening in the world. So we were all connected to all that and we were all being inspired by all the action going on out there against US imperialism and colo- -- anti-colonialist movements as well as here at home civil rights and farm worker rights and so forth. [00:20:00] So we decided to do something that had not been done yet. We looked at each other and said, “You know? We’re supporting all these revolutions, we’re supporting the civil rights movement, we’re supporting the farm working movement. What about our own backyard, the urban barrios? What are we doing there? We’re not doing anything. We got to do something. So we got to start our own movement.” So we started to organize and say, “Well, what can we do to organize a movement? We can start with the schools.” Because all of us, we looked at each other, we all had a hassle to try to get what we got. We were not put into academic tracks, we were -- we had to deal with that vulgar tracking system, a racist system that kept us out of the universities. So we decided to organize a movement against racism in public schools in East LA. So we did that in 1968. JJ: Was that the walkouts? CMJ: Yeah. So then in 1968, we started doing that and we had an organizing committee that I was a part of. [00:21:00] To make a long story short, we pulled it 11 �off. We had -- it became -- there’s a document in my book. We had the -JJ: Can we see the book for a second. CMJ: Yeah. This is the book here. It’s called Youth, Identity, Power: The Chicano Movement and I document all this history I’m talking about right now that -- okay? And I became part of this organizing effort and we -- our concern was to make demands to the school board that we wanted -- we didn’t want racist teachers anymore. That we wanted to get our own teachers in there. That we wanted the classes that need to be taught about Mexican culture and Mexican history and about the role that we played as a people about developing the United States of America society, right? So all of that took place. It was a segregated schooling situation [00:22:00] so it was also anti-racist and anti-segregation. So we pulled it off. Thousands of kids walked out of the schools in East LA. JJ: But I mean how did you go about (inaudible)? How did you organize the -- how did you lead that? CMJ: Yeah. Well, what we did -- yeah, how we organized it was okay, we went out into the community and talked to parents. Talked to the people in the labor movement out there, in unions. Talked to them about what we thought was important for them to support us in trying to do this. To put the demand -- oh, we were asking for nothing revolutionary, really. But really, what we wanted to do is to have -- is to make a change in the educational system so that Chicano kids and Mexican kids could have access to a college, to be prepared for a college. You know, very reformist kind of thing. JJ: Did you have a petition or I mean how did you...? 12 �CMJ: We had petitions signed and all that. [00:23:00] And yeah, we did that. And but more importantly, we had parents join in our organizing efforts and say -- so they talked to other parents. The high school kids talked to other high school kids. So we had a different -- a whole network going on throughout East LA and other parts of LA city, as well. And so then, we -- during the month of March, we pulled it off. We started saying we were going to have a walkout, we were going to call it the blowouts to get everybody out of the school, to march to the school board, make these demands which we did. So we had all of these kids coming out. We didn’t expect it to be that great. We thought if we could get a handful of kids out, maybe some pickets and all that, we won’t be -- but man, oh, just about all the kids walked out. And in that whole week’s time, it took -- we stopped -- we brought the school system to a stop. Kids were walking out every day and over 10,000 kids walking out every day. [00:24:00] It was a very historic moment that we didn’t realize it at the time, mind you. Nobody had written a book like this yet? (laughs) We didn’t know that what we were doing was historical. It was just something that we had to do to start the struggle, to make sure that we were going to be org-, organized throughout the Southwest. So we pulled it off and sure enough, walkouts in East LA became our Selma, Alabama in a sense. They started the Civil Rights Movement in the South, we started the Civil Rights Movement in the Southwest. And that we called it the Chicano Movement. Pretty excited that we could talk about Chicano power, Chicano meaning to us a reconnection to our Indigenous past. Chicano, we defined it as a label, a name that came from Mexica. Mexica culture in Mexico, the original, you know, the 13 �Aztec, known as the Aztecs. So out of the Mexica came [00:25:00] Mexicano, Mexico. So that’s Mexico today, right? The name, the word Mexico. So we said, “Okay, so we’re going to be Mexicano.” Well, we’re not Mexican so we’re Chicano. You just cut out the M-e. We were born in US, okay, we can’t be Mexicanos because we’re not Mexican, we’re Mexican Americans. So we’re going to cut it short, Mexi, we’re going to cut that part out and it’s Chicano only, right? So we went through a lot of discussions about this but we decided that Chicano would become our new identity. That represented rejection of assimilation and basically, it represented the decolonizing of our people. Because we learned about the history, the true history, of how we got colonized. How the Southwest used to be Mexico and there was this war that was fought that the US made against Mexico to take over half of the Mexican [00:26:00] nation and territory. So we sort of begun to redefine ourselves as colonized people as opposed to “Americans,” right? So that’s what we did. Now, what happened after that, after the walkouts, about a few weeks later, 13 of us unbeknownst to us through secret grand juries and also through the freedom -the COINTELPRO. The FBI counterintelligence program that we did not know at the time was involved with these secret proceedings of indictment. I learned that later on after I became a scholar and I did the research. Based on the Freedom of Information Act, I was able to get all these documents about how the FBI had been spying on me and others -- those of us that were organizers. And so we got arrested, we got put into [00:27:00] prison for -- on the charges of conspiracy to disrupt the school system of LA city, of Los Angeles. And -- 14 �JJ: Right after the walkouts? CMJ: Right after the walkouts. A few weeks after the walkouts. JJ: You said 13 people or... CMJ: Thirteen of us, 13 activists. And I was -- there were two of us, we were leaders of UMAS. I was one of them, the other was Moctesuma Esparza from UCLA and myself from East -- from Cal State LA. And then Sal Castro, a high school teacher, may he rest in peace. He just passed away a couple of weeks ago. A dear friend of mine and comrade. And so 13 of us were indicted for conspiracy. And so we were put into prison for a few -- about a week or so. And then we went out on bail. In my case, the American Civil Liberties Union [00:28:00] bailed me out and then everybody else had other lawyers. So we were all facing 66 years in prison for the crime of organizing the walkouts. So after that, that added fuel to the fire. JJ: Sixty-six years. CMJ: Sixty-six years. Looking at it, you -- listening to it now, you say, “That is ridiculous. (laughs) That’s absurd.” But back then, it’s like a [mash?]. It’s a long time. JJ: And these were people that had no previous records or... CMJ: No previous record. We’re all activists, you know? But again, it was part of the COINTELPRO, a program that they decided that they would go after us before we -- in other words, at that moment in history, the FBI had its hands full with the Black Power movement and Civil Rights Movement, white radicalism, anti-war and all that. So they didn’t want to have a Brown front emerge, you know? And - 15 �JJ: They had the Young Lords. (laughs) CMJ: Yeah, they had the Young Lords in Chicago and [00:29:00] the Young Lords in New York eventually. So they didn’t want to have what happened in ’69 a year later, the unification of the Young Lords with the Chicano Movement that took place in Denver, Colorado in ’69. They wanted to prevent that but we still did it eventually. But our indictment representing was adding fuel to the fire because a lot of people out there who thought we were being too radical by having these walkouts. Then we got busted and they learned about -- that’s unjust because we were not -- we were not doing anything revolutionary or communist-inspired like the FBI said. So people got angry and became quite supportive so the movement was built all over the Southwest. A year later in ’69, in Denver, Colorado, there were walkouts. In 1970 in South Texas, Crystal City, Texas, walkouts. So walkout became the means to generate the movement. [00:30:00] I mean, the people asked because that was the big issue of education that everybody could relate to, you know what I’m saying? That we just want to a better school for -- better schools for our kids. You know, we deserve that. We deserve that, all of our generations, my father’s generation, World War II, we fought in wars, we fought in wars for this country, and we still came back and we’re still not first-class citizens. “Ya basta,” we said. We got to do something different. So that’s what happened. That’s what made me a revolutionary for life, really. JJ: And then your father was born in Mexico. You were born here. And now, you’re 16 �a Chicano and he’s a Mexicano. But when you describe it, it’s really the same people. Some people are kind of confused about that. CMJ: Yeah, yeah. Right. JJ: So how -- when did that begin for you to feel that you were separate or (inaudible)? CMJ: Yeah. Yes and no, yes and no. What happened was, [00:31:00] okay, the question is what happened after we proclaimed ourselves Chicano? How did our parents who were Mexicans relate to that? Well, they couldn’t relate to that. We would have arguments with our families. And I was told, “Well, you’re Mexican, man. You’re not Chicano. What is Chicano, anyway?” So I tried to explain it to them and basically what we said to them was and what I said to my parents was being Chicano is being proud of our Mexican heritage. That’s what it means. The only difference is that because we were not born in Mexico, we wanted to make clear that even though we were not born in Mexico, that being Chicano meant that we were proud of our Mexican ancestors. And specifically, our Indigenous ancestors. We wanted to reconnect and that was a way we wanted to reconnect. We no longer wanted to be Mexican American, hyphenated Americans. At that time, it was hyphenated. I explain that in my book. We wanted to be just [00:32:00] Chicano or Chicana in case of women. So -- but there was a time when there was no understanding but eventually, they caught on eventually. Okay, now we understand. But initially, it was no -- it was kind of a problem. (laughs) But eventually, it was cleared up. But even it was hard to do that. So anyway, after the out on bail -- we’re out on bail, see? And it took two 17 �years in the courts. There’s a book entitled Racial Injustice and that deals with our case. It was written by a law professor at the law school. Racial Injustice. JJ: But I mean, who wrote the book? CMJ: I’m trying to remember -- I can’t remember the guy’s name right now. It’s in here. JJ: (inaudible) Racial Injustice. CMJ: Racial Injustice, yeah. [00:33:00] And so that documents our whole case. What happened, what we went through in terms of the indictments for conspiracy and all that. JJ: Can you give us a little (inaudible). CMJ: What was that? JJ: A little bit of what took place with the kids. CMJ: A little bit of what took place when we were indicted? JJ: Yeah, it’s in the book but if you can give us an idea of what -- CMJ: What happened was in other words, it begun -- the court proceedings started so preliminary to trial. And our lawyers collectively made us little legal strategies to prevent us from going to trial right away instead to try to get to the supreme court. The state supreme court, not the national supreme court. So they put all kinds of legal maneuvers. So eventually, it got to the state appellate court which is the one below the supreme court and it took two years for that to happen. And so when that happened, then basically, we were found [00:34:00] innocent by virtue of the First Amendment to the US Constitution freedom of speech. So like I always tell people, I guess the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, didn’t realize that Mexicans were also covered by the First Amendment. So that’s what happened. 18 �But in those two years that we’re talking about our legal case going on forward, there was also a lot of other stuff going on. We organized -- well, actually, the party -JJ: Can you explain how that came about? CMJ: Okay, so then in the 1969 Denver conference -JJ: You said we. Who were the players? CMJ: The players are the Crusade for Justice led by Corky Gonzales, United Mexican American Students that I was a part of, MAYO, Mexican American Youth Organization from Texas, were the main players here. Brown Berets from -became the main players. Brown Berets became main players during the walkouts because they were part of the organizing [00:35:00] effort. It was basically the organization that we decided in the walkouts that would be our -- the security. There would be -- in the case the cops attacked us, the -- we needed the Brown Berets to be there to defend the kids from getting hurt by the cops. And they said, oh. So the Brown Berets became in the image of the public one of the most militant groups at that time. So that ’69 conference, they were also a part of that. They were key players, as well. JJ: Who were the leaders at the time of the Brown Berets? CMJ: David Sanchez at the time was the Prime Minister of Brown at that time. Now, by that time, I was already teaching. I started teaching at night. After I got out of prison on bail, I started teaching (laughs). I was a first-year graduate student and we didn’t have -- at that time, we didn’t have any Mexican Americans, not that many Mexican American scholars. There were only five in the social sciences, 19 �for example. And they [00:36:00] were older guys and they didn’t know anything about Chicanos. They didn’t want to be part of our Chicano studies plans. So we had to, out of our own ranks of students, we had to come up with a faculty so I was one of those guys. Since I had been a leader at UMAS, I was asked to be the guy to build the Department of Chicano Studies, the first one in the nation. So this is happening in two years. JJ: You were asked to build the first one in the nation, the Department of Chicano Studies? CMJ: Yeah, right. JJ: So that was the first version (inaudible). CMJ: Yeah, yeah. JJ: This was in -- CMJ: At Cal State Los Angeles in 1968. JJ: But you formed it, you made it. CMJ: Yeah. JJ: And then others followed after that or...? CMJ: Yeah, after that, there were others that came up. They followed. By 1969, there were three things -JJ: Who asked you? Who asked you? CMJ: UMAS. JJ: UMAS. CMJ: See, in other words, as students UMAS, we made demands to the administration that we wanted to have a Chicano Studies Department, okay? And Black 20 �students did the same thing. [00:37:00] So it was a Black/Brown kind of unity thing going on and so we gave them these demands. And so the administration, “Okay, okay, we’ll do it, we’ll do it.” Because we had -- it was right after the walkouts. There was a lot of mass movement going on out there so they didn’t want to say no (laughs) for obvious reasons. So we got the department but then with no faculty. So in order to staff the department, you need faculty. So I was picked, two of us were picked, to be the first “teachers” or faculty in the department part-time. We were full-time grad students and part-time faculty (laughs) because we didn’t have our own faculty. So the first thing I did as “department chair” was to recruit -- try to find throughout the country Mexican American scholars that had PhDs. So it was kind of hard to find. But anyway, so to go on, this is all happening in a two-year period, from ’68 to ’70, right? (laughs) All this stuff going on. Sixty-nine, the following year, the Denver [00:38:00] conference and then at the Denver conference, Plan de Aztlán was produced. JJ: What was that? CMJ: Plan de Aztlán was a manifesto. JJ: And who produced that? CMJ: Well, it came out of that conference. It came out of the Crusade for Justice Conference. And so that manifesto called for x number of things that we in the Chicano Movement are committing ourselves to finding this revolutionary struggle to create not only better schools but our own schools, our own political institutions, our own economic institutions, et cetera. So the political institution 21 �thing, we thought about -- well, at that time, we didn’t think about a party, per se. But after the Plan de Aztlán was put out, then we started talking about, “Well, you know what? We can’t do all of these things we’re demanding or calling for. Let’s take one at a time. Let’s take the more important one.” We need -- we were at that time in history, we were not representing a political process. [00:39:00] We were all underrepresented. We didn’t have our own elected officials and that kind of thing so we decided to create our own political party. So we called it La Raza Unida party. JJ: Before we go onto La Raza Unida party, can you describe -- because this is where the Young Lords came to Denver for the first time. So can you describe how that conference was organized and what took place during those days? CMJ: Yeah. The conference was organized basically by the Crusade for Justice, okay? And the Crusade for Justice under the leadership of Corky Gonzales were the folks that put it in play. They’re the ones that kind of -- the logistics and stuff like that. And then UMAS, the Brown -JJ: And why did they (inaudible)? CMJ: Because they had the facilities. It was the only -- the Crusade for Justice was the first civil rights organization to be created in the US. Okay? JJ: Of Chicanos. CMJ: Of Chicanos. That was in 19- -- [00:40:00] I think in 1965, Corky Gonzales founded it. So they had funds and they had their own building, okay? So they the ones that says, “Okay, look. We got this building, we got these funds, let’s have it here in Denver. We’d be happy to host it.” You know what I mean? So 22 �that’s how it came about. And so then, the word started putting out all over the place and the Young Lords were invited. We wanted to have a Latino unity thing, as well, to start moving forward to come up with this plan of action that will result -- not only with the building of the Chicano Movement but also with establishing an alliance with other Latino organizations like the Young Lords. So the Young Lords attended and were represented. And so from that moment on, we were connected in terms of political actions that were there. So whatever the Young Lords did in Chicago and New York, eventually, we were in solidarity with. [00:41:00] We were publicly -- were publicly supported and vice-a versa. Whatever we did over here in the Southwest, the Young Lords would also support it. And eventually, the Black Panthers and other militant people of color organizations. That was the thing that we wanted to build. But in the meantime, the main thing is to build in our own backyard and get our own folks involved in organizing. So the party was the way that we thought at that time we should do it. So La Raza Unida party was in a way a culmination of the Chicano Movement. So we went from con- -- we went from the walkouts to other walkouts to the conferences at Plan de Aztlán, and also to another conference in Santa Barbara after the Plan de Aztlán that I was also a part of called Plan de Santa Bárbara where we put together a manifesto demanding access to higher education for Chicano kids. [00:42:00] And to open up the doors to these institutions that historically had been closed to us. So this is where I decided that my future work was going to be to build Chicano studies in the university which I’ve devoted my life to doing so far. And so when we were “released” from being 23 �indicted and all that, then that’s what happened. So okay, so here I am. I got my PhD, I got my -- I was out on bail and got my (laughs) PhD when I was out on bail. And so then I became one of the handful of PhDs in the country so I -JJ: One of the what? CMJ: One of -- a handful of PhDs that we had. One of the first ones to get a PhD and therefore, I was able to do the work that I’ve been doing. JJ: Now, the -- so it started in Los Angeles, the Chicano Studies Department. CMJ: Right. JJ: Now, did you move to other states or cities? CMJ: Yeah. So there were -JJ: Were there funds [00:43:00] connected to do that or...? CMJ: Yeah, well, basically for the most part, it was California, Chicano studies. California was the first place where Chicano studies grew pretty fast. And then in Colorado, it started in Colorado, and then New Mexico and then Texas. But the Plan de Aztlán -JJ: Because I think after then is when we have the Puerto Rican Studies. CMJ: Yeah, right, exactly. JJ: So it was -- I think it’s right around the same time. CMJ: Exactly. So that was -JJ: It was kind of born. CMJ: Right on. So there was also this interaction going on with the Puerto Rican students, Puerto Rican student groups. So yeah, eventually, it became a nationwide thing so it’s still going on. It’s not as radical as it was when we started 24 �it. Because as I write about in my book, there were -JJ: Why has it changed? Why do you think it’s changed? CMJ: The change happened because it -- becoming part of the university [00:44:00] -see, our plan, my vision -- I keep talking about myself. My vision was I wanted to develop a paradigm that was in opposition to the dominant paradigm, you know what I mean? The dominant theories, the dominant methodologies, the dominant history. I wanted to play a role in developing within the university our own paradigm that dealt -- that was com- -- that competed against the other one. We wanted to decolonize the study of our people. In the context that we took it in our own hands, we’re going to write the authentic, the true history. And not the racist history that was being done at that time. Okay? So that’s what we did. And so then, but it differed in terms of degrees of political involvement. It wasn’t -across [00:45:00] the Southwest wasn’t exactly the same. There were differences here and there in terms of how they defined Chicano studies. But for the most part, there was common ground at that time. But now, even now in the 21st century, things have changed completely. And those who have become professors were not products of the Chicano Movement or the Boricua Movement like we were. They were products of a system. We didn’t have enough faculty to take over a whole university, (laughs) right? So consequently, people that are now teaching are more interested in career as opposed to community engagement, for example, community involvement. JJ: Career for themselves? CMJ: Yeah. 25 �JJ: Or for -- not for the student. CMJ: No, for themselves, yeah. There is a careerist kind of process that goes on in higher education. In other words, people are concerned about becoming experts and all that and they’re not concerned about what we were, my [00:46:00] generation, is concerned about is -JJ: What were we concerned about as this -- CMJ: What we were concerned then was to become organic intellectuals. What I mean by organic intellectuals is that organically connected to our communities. In other words, where we saw our research being the kind of research needed by our communities to empower our communities. You see what I mean? As opposed to what’s happened now for the most part is doing the research to publish books about our experience which is okay. JJ: So what is -- what -- that’s a good point. So the research is the research to empower the community. Can you kind of define that a little bit? CMJ: Yeah. Okay. What I mean by that is okay, research, for example, the issues that our communities face. Take one that is happening -- continues to happen today. Police harassment, you know? [00:47:00] How the system of injustice -- in other words, redefine the system of justice as a system of injustice. And begin to understand that what’s going on in terms of police community relations has not been good for our communities. So what they’re really finding in terms of community control of the police or how can we empower our communities to take on the police in a way that sort of redefines the relationship between cop and street youth. But it continues to be the case that we were not able to succeed in 26 �that way. How are you going to produce cops that are going to be sympathetic to a community when you have an institution of the police that’s a military institution, really? It’s a militarized institution. So that means you got to take on the whole societal [00:48:00] thing so make a revolution out of that. So that’s what we wanted to do but it’s easier said than done. Because those of us doing the kind of research like that could not get our books published, for one, at that time. My book, for example, was rejected by every single publisher. I had to go to England to get it published. Verso Press is a left wing publisher in London. So this is where this was published because it was too radical, it was too -JJ: What was that book, the book again or...? CMJ: My book? Youth, Identity, Power. JJ: Youth, Identity -- hold on a second. Okay, Youth, Identity, Power: The Chicano Movement? CMJ: Right. JJ: Okay. CMJ: So I was told, for example, by publishers this is not something that a political scientists writes because my PhD is in political science. So it’s not something that a political scientist writes. [00:49:00] And so it’s not -JJ: Your teaching is in political science. CMJ: Yeah -- no, no, Chicano studies. JJ: Chicano studies. CMJ: Yeah, right. I never taught in the political science Department. I didn’t want to. I wanted to create something new. Something that would be corresponding to 27 �what the needs of the community were. JJ: And today, the professors are lapse of that understanding. CMJ: Yeah, so today, we have people in the Political Science Department -JJ: (inaudible) they were putting in every teacher they got. (laughter) CMJ: Yeah, right. JJ: So the professors today are not engaged in the way that -- CMJ: Yeah, they have different -- they’re more theoretical now, for one. To be “respected” as a scholar nowadays, people think they have to be theoretical. And I don’t have anything against revolutionary theory but (laughter) or other theories but I don’t have any sympathy for it. But the point that I’m getting at is that it’s the nature of the institution to perpetuate the status quo. [00:50:00] Ando so there is very little room allowed for a revolutionary scholar to publish her work or his work as readily as others. There’s more opportunity now because not only do we have left wing presses. At that time when I got my book, it was -- Verso Press was it. And now they got different -- there’s other -- plus we have our own publishing houses now, too, Chicano. Arte Publico is one and I think there’s another one. I can’t remember off-hand. So now, we’re able to get more books published because -- but in those days, it was not possible. So basically, the important thing is that the name of the game has changed. The society has gotten more conservative, reactionary, and consequently, it’s been difficult to have a left perspective or a radical perspective pronounced or be visible as much as it was back in the ’60s. [00:51:00] And this’ll be -- I guess that’s what’s going on. 28 �JJ: Now, you’re not teaching now. You said you’re retired, semi-retired? CMJ: I’m semi-retired. I’m still teach -JJ: Where do you teach at? CMJ: I teach part-time. JJ: Where? CMJ: At UC Berkeley. JJ: UC Berkely. CMJ: Where I’ve taught at before (laughs) so yeah. JJ: For how long? CMJ: Well, I started teaching at the University of California in 1970. So I’ve been teaching since 1970 for the University of California and Berkeley since 1976. So my first job was at UC Irvine from 1970 to 1976. Then I went to the University of California Berkeley in 1976. So I’ve been there ever since til now. JJ: Immigrant rights you’re saying is part of the (inaudible) we got right now so that’s all. CMJ: Well, there has been, and ever since the ’60s, a growing population [00:52:00] of workers without papers in our society, so-called “illegal aliens.” And as the society has moved to the right, there’s been more and more anti-immigrant, racist hysteria. Historically speaking, every time there’s an economic crisis in the society, immigrants are scapegoated. They are -- the right wing, even the liberals, they say, “These illegal aliens are taking away jobs from American workers, are putting American workers out of work.” Which explains the crises, right? (laughs) Which is not true. It’s never been true. But that’s the stereotypic 29 �racist explanation for it. So it’s gotten worse and worse and worse. Under the Bush administration -- no, I take it back. Under the Clinton administration, actually, liberal [00:53:00] Democrat, they militarized the border. Clinton militarized the border. They started -- I mean, when I was a kid going -- crossing the border from El Paso to Juarez, the Border Patrol didn’t wear guns. So now, the Border Patrol has become like a military group, like an army. And it’s been -under President Clinton, that border was militarized. They built a wall, making it difficult for people to cross, and so it’s been getting worse ever since. So now, there’s been over time different kinds of congressional efforts to reform immigration policy. And right now, we’re in the middle -- as a matter of fact, any day now, we’re supposed to find out what’s happening with the latest effort to reform immigration policy. [00:54:00] And I’ve done an analysis of that and I also include that in my last chapter. About the fact that what’s going on now is basically policy that is going to be in the interest of corporations and not in the interest of the working class. They’re going to make it difficult for a undocumented worker to get citizenship. That person is going to have to pay a fine of 2,000 dollars or more, has to go back to Mexico and wait x number of years before she or he can apply for citizenship or apply for a visa to come back to work legally. So to me, that’s not good policy. Plus also, under the Bush administration, they created the -- they reorganized the [00:55:00] immigration system. Now it’s called the Homeland Security -- Department of Homeland Security. And Homeland Security, the arm of enforcement, immigration enforcement, has been called ICE, the ICE agency. And it’s called -- it’s what -- 30 �what does it stand for? Immigration Customs Enforcement, ICE. And what I call that is a terrorist arm of the US government because every day, ICE terrorizes (coughs) families. JJ: Do you need water? CMJ: Yeah, yeah, (inaudible). (coughs) (break in audio) CMJ: So ICE, again, the -- means Immigration Enforcement Agency. Customs -Immigration Customs, ICE, customs agency. [00:56:00] These guys, when they go into somebody’s home, they got -- they’re all battle -- it’s sort of like a soldier. They look like soldiers going in with guns, bullet vests, helmets, you know? And here you got a family of undocumented -JJ: Right. They’re watching TV. CMJ: They’re watching TV, the mom’s cooking or whatever, the kids and these guys just break in. “Okay, you’re under arrest.” What the hell? Because you have no papers. So basically, what that means is that today is worse than ever in the history of this country in terms of how it deals with immigrants because what they’ve done is they have criminalized the undocumented immigrant as opposed to just dealing with that person in terms of, “Okay, well, you got to get papers and bla bla bla. We got to deport you. Sorry, but...” And now they go in there. And then, they get imprisoned. [00:57:00] They don’t get deported right away like they used to. Now they send them to private prisons that have become very, very profit-making institutions. So this is why I have rephrased what President Eisenhower said once. When he came -- when he start -- when he stepped 31 �down from the presidency, he warned the American people about the dangers of the military industrial complex. Remember that? It’s always quoted. It’s very, you know. What I say now is the danger comes from the corporate military prison complex, okay? Because I see this -- they’re interconnected more than ever. JJ: So they’re making a profit -- CMJ: They’re making a profit. JJ: (inaudible) was working as a pastor and they said that they were deporting some people and they -- but then they waited to collect [00:58:00] the money first. CMJ: No, no, see, they -JJ: For a traffic fine, they put them in court. CMJ: Yeah, right. JJ: Maybe I’m misunderstanding. CMJ: No, no, no. The example of profit-making, what I mean by profit-making is instead of going to a jail, a regular jail, okay? Where people go who get arrested and then they call their lawyer and all that. Instead of doing that, what they’ve set up private -- different private systems, I mean private prisons that are like fenced in and everything else. It’s not a jail, per se, but it’s kind of like fenced in and everything. JJ: Concentration. CMJ: Concentration camp. That’s what it looks like when you see one of those. So they send people there to wait for how long, sometimes days and weeks before they get processed for deportation. [00:59:00] What that means is that this 32 �private prison is charging the government x number of millions of dollars to house people that are being -- they call it detained, detained. Not imprisoned, but they’re being detained for processing. You follow me? But it’s the same. But the consequence is the same. It’s a terrifying experience for families, you know what I mean? And -JJ: The business is making money for the government. CMJ: Exactly. That’s what I mean by profit-making so it’s very lucrative now. Okay, so that’s what’s happening now. So the point is that the immigrant rights movement is comprised of organization like the one I’m part of that are organizing to put pressure on the government for a human rights comprehensive immigration reform. Human rights meaning that we demand immediate legalization of [01:00:00] undocumented workers. They should have a right to work, period. And yeah, they -- some of them become citizens if there’s a path for citizenship. But they shouldn’t be penalized by having to pay thousands of dollars and going back to Mexico before they can become citizens. And also more importantly, that the militarization of the border stop. That we want to see the border become like it used to be. We don’t want to see any militarized things going on there like weaponry. And now, President Obama has sent in drones -- now they’re sending in drones, too, that can kill anybody they want to kill over there in the border. They determine terrorists that can -- to guard against terrorism. So all of this is going on and so the movement [01:01:00] is trying to put a stop to that, as well. So basically, we want to say -- we’re saying as an immigrant mass movement, we want to say, “Look, these people are human beings. They deserve the right 33 �to work if, in fact, there is work for them that Americans don’t want.” American workers don’t want to work in the places where they’re being hired. This is why they are in demand by those businesses that can’t hire American workers because they need cheap labor. So basically, that’s what’s going on right now. But it’s a long uphill fight because President Obama has not been a friend of Latinos in the context of pushing for human rights and immigration reform. Which is a shame because as you know, if it were not for the Latino vote, he never would’ve been elected President. I mean, Obama had the Black vote, but he needed the Latino vote [01:02:00] to get elected and reelected. And so he’s gotten that on the promises that he’s made that he would be pushing a reform of immigration policy that was going to be human rights-based, but he has not kept his promise. JJ: So suddenly, human rights-based demands or issues are -- it has to do -- it has to do with the border, demilitarizing it? CMJ: Demilitarize the border, right. And de-terrorize -JJ: De-terrorize the border, de-terrorize the border. CMJ: Yeah, right. (laughs) No more terrorism. We don’t want any -- we don’t want ICE to operate anymore. We want ICE to come in, yeah. JJ: So it has to do with ICE. CMJ: Yeah, yeah, we don’t want -JJ: And it has to do with these private corporations. CMJ: Right. Get rid of those private prisons, right. JJ: What other issues related to that, ICE? 34 �CMJ: And then the right to stay here and work without having to be criminalized. No more criminalization of the workers. JJ: There’s clearly a clash between what [01:03:00] the rest of the American electorate wants. CMJ: Well, yes and no. I think actually -JJ: Or at least what they’re saying that they want. CMJ: Yeah, it’s a clash with the right wing Tea Party people, what they want. And as opposed to the American people because there’s been polls made recently where it comes out that the majority of Americans now are sympathetic to immigrants more now. So the majority, I think the majority now are saying yeah, they’re -- they should have the right to work and not getting -- not get criminalized. Yeah. JJ: Any final thoughts? CMJ: Yeah. Well, final thoughts is as I get older and I’ve learned two things. The first one is that life is struggle and struggle is life. [01:04:00] You never get to a point in time in your life when you say, “Oh my God, we’ve got it made. We’ve succeeded in everything that we’ve tried to undertake.” But I also learned that victory is in the struggle. That as long as we’re fighting the good fight, fighting for human rights, fighting for an authentic, multi-racial democracy, we’re winning. Because the time’s coming where we’re going to be the majority in this country, people of color. And I think it can happen. So it might not happen in my lifetime. I won’t be around to see it. My children should be able to see it, my grandchildren will see it. The kinds of seeds that those of us from the Young 35 �Lords party and Chicano Movement, (inaudible) party envision. Our vision will come to realization eventually. It’s going to happen. I’m convinced of that. And I’m going to keep on fighting until I die. JJ: [01:05:00] Thank you very much. END OF VIDEO FILE 36 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/510939e3483735a79fe624a7c46e8b7b.mp4 8e912c03802f5a5b7424147fa72e1d9c 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 Carlos Munoz vídeo entrevista y biografía Descripción Spanish language Description entry La historia oral de Carlos Munoz, entrevistado por Jose 'Cha-Cha' Jimenez el 5/9/2013 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_Munoz_Carlos Title A name given to the resource Carlos Munoz video interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Munoz, Carlos Description An account of the resource Oral history of Carlos Munoz, interviewed by Jose 'Cha-Cha' Jimenez, on 5/9/2013 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 2013-05-09 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/1fc57ca7e485cf48c5d247a2e59dfb5c.pdf 5894cb33c5e2f0af0ed0054e254b1abf PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: David Mojica Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 1/22/2012 Biography and Description David Mojica is a very important, unsung hero in the history of Puerto Ricans in Chicago. He has never received honors nor has never been paid for the work that he continues to do daily for the common folk. Yet for many years, he has volunteered his services in Humboldt Park. Mr. Mojica has been the head of the Cocineros union for many years, helping to provide jobs and distributing Puerto Rican pride flags and shirts, and good tasting fast food to the entire community. The Cocineros de Humbolt Park have sponsored their own events that include live bands, speakers, and other entertainment. Mr. Mojica has also been able to keep the Cocineros together while protecting their rights to sell in the park. Mr. Mojica’s activism extends back to the 1960s. Right after the Division Street Riots in 1966, he was active with several community groups in Humboldt Park with whom the Young Lords collaborated. Mr. Mojica was also one of the primary Puerto Rican community workers that helped to elect Harold Washington, during his first bid for mayor. He volunteered every day at the Fullerton Ave. near Western Ave. in the “Washington for Mayor” office. Mr. Mojica’s work included distributing flyers and posters, identifying registered voters, phone canvassing, and “Get out the Vote” work at the precinct level. Mr. Mojica was also a Young Lord who helped to organize the first Hispano rally for Harold Washington at North West Hall in 1982, and the victory rally at Humboldt Park during the first official Mayor’s Neighborhood Festival where over 100,000 Puerto Ricans attended. �Transcript JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay, (Spanish) [00:00:00 - 00:00:03]. What’s your name? DAVID MOJICA: David Mojica. JJ: David Mojica. DM: Yeah. JJ: (Spanish) [00:00:07 - 00:00:10] -- well, what kind of work do you do? DM: I’m working for the Cocineros Unidos of Humboldt Park. JJ: Cocineros Unidos, the kitchen -- what do you call them? DM: It’s the group of concessionaires and they are located at Humboldt Park. JJ: Okay, and what do you do there? DM: I administrate them. I make sure that everything is in place and we’re under the contract with the park district. JJ: (Spanish) [00:00:47]? DM: Usually, we sell (Spanish) [00:00:53 - 00:00:58]. (laughs) It’s a Puerto Rican kitchen, I could say. And I’ve been working with them for at least for 10 years. I used to -- JJ: (Spanish) [00:01:13 - 00:01:17]? DM: Well, we have a concessionaire that sells concess-souvenirs. And some others, they have places in different places of the park and they sell Puerto Rican food. Also, there’s a concessionaire of tacos, hot dogs, street corn. Everything, a little of everything. 1 �JJ: What is your connection? I mean, how did -- to the -- let’s say to the Young Lords, I mean? What is your connection to that? DM: [00:02:00] Well, I was working with the Harold Washington campaign and I met José Jiménez and we got -- we get a -- we start a friendship. And to now, we’ve been working for the community. JJ: Okay. (Spanish) [00:02:27]. DM: (Spanish) [00:00:29]. JJ: (Spanish) [00:00:30]. So you were in Jersey City? DM: Jersey City. I stood in Jersey City for -- to 1960- ’63. I came back in ’63 to Chicago. And then I started -- I came with my family. I had a wife and we start from there. (break in audio) M: [00:03:00] JJ: Okay. David Mojica, can you -- (Spanish) [00:03:07 - 00:03:15]? DM: (Spanish) [00:03:16] -- JJ: The names (Spanish) [00:03:20] in there. DM: Oh. It is about my father. He couldn’t find a job over there and it was a bad situation. That’s why we came to New Jersey and Jersey City, in Jersey City. And he start working there as a chef. And I used to work with him in there and at the, you know, (Spanish) [00:03:49] -- JJ: (Spanish) [00:03:51] -- DM: -- in dish washers (laughs) is what we call them (Spanish) [00:03:57]. It sound like we [00:04:00] are recording records. So I stayed there for quite a while but I 2 �got married, you know, or I got together with my wife. And I came to Pue- -- to Chicago in six-- in 1963 to the -- to Wicker Park area. And I met a lot of people, a lot of Puerto Rican. There was so many that the -- Wicker Park is so, it was all Puerto Rican, mostly. And we had everything: bodega, grocery stores, restaurants, everything in the Richard Street in the area of Le Moyne. Not Le Moyne, Hoyne and Division. All this area, there was a theater called [00:05:00] San Juan Theater which is gone because it changed, the neighborhood changed. And I saw a lot of people, a lot of young people, getting involved in gangs like the Young Sinner [sic], Latin Kings, you name it. (laughs) But they got together -they used to get together with us and we used to tell them that they was not -- it was not good to get involved in gangs or anything, you know? So I think that most of the guys that were involved later, they changed their mind and start working for the community, for the people in the community. (coughs) JJ: And what do you think [00:06:00] was the reason that they were getting -- (break in audio) JJ: Why do you think? Why do you think they -- before we -- (break in audio) DM: There was nothing else to do. There was not -- they were not giving jobs to -- for youth. And I think there was nothing else to do so they would like to start hanging out and fighting. I believe they start fighting with the older -- what do you call the -- like the Italians, the European. Because they -- every time they see somebody in the area, they kicked (laughs) somebody’s butt. And they start getting together to go and fight with them but see, the thing is [00:07:00] that they 3 �were not using what they using now. They used to fight with the fists, not the -no -- none of them had guns, you know. And to defend the people that were in the area. JJ: And what places did you work at? I mean, what types of jobs did you work? DM: I worked with (inaudible) machines, punch press machines, bicycle company like Schwinn bicycle. Sani company, I worked for Sani. Roland company was part of the Sani’s company. [00:08:00] I work at the shop at O’Hare field. You know, when they were giving food to the -- for the planes. I worked there. And then, I start -- in ’68, I start working with a -- in a bar and make new friends. And then, I stared getting together with the -- with guys that winning the -- like in ’66. You know, they got involved in the helping, you know, making organization like SACC. And -- JJ: SACC was a -- DM: A community group. A Spanish Action Committee [sic]. JJ: Spanish Action Committee. DM: Yeah, that’s after -- that was formed after the riot in [00:09:00] ’66. JJ: So then -- okay. And what was that -- DM: They were doing -- they were fighting for jobs. They were fighting for jobs because there was nobody -- they would not hire anybody in -- on the government or maybe for a -- for the Cook Country or for the welfare [public aid?]. There was nobody in there. They need Spanish-speaking so we’re fighting. Even though I remember an issue that a policeman had to be 5’9” (laughs) before he can get hired to be a policeman. So we -- there was a lot of 4 �things that was change during those days. And I know I could see a cop, you know, he’s not even five foot and (inaudible) and [00:10:00] he’s doing the work, too. So a lot of thing was change. JJ: So I’m going to ask you, so you were working with SACC. But then, you had a group, too, right? I mean -- DM: Yeah. We form a group in 1967 during a fire on Milwaukee Avenue which there was eight people died including children, I don’t know, four children and other people. And they didn’t have no -- they didn’t have no place, they didn’t have no clothing, they didn’t have no food. So we start working with them then from -while we were organizing the group, we start working with them. And we wanted a -- to do a shelter. It never come true but [00:11:00] we kept the organization working. And later on, we had a -- we met other people like with the [CEDA?] program, we had some slot. That’s when I met José Jiménez and we was -- start working together and working in the community. JJ: And they had some slots from CEDA. DM: CEDA, CEDA, yeah. JJ: CEDA? DM: CEDA, that was the government, the federal government. And they were doing -- (break in audio) JJ: Okay. DM: I heard that they were -- they need somebody at the Harold campaign headquarters on Fullerton [00:12:00] and they need somebody and they want -- 5 �and I need a job. So I got involve and they were put me 100 dollars a week. And I used to work in the office, answer the phone, getting volunteers and then -JJ: So you got involved and what happened? I’m sorry. What did you get involved in? Go ahead. DM: In the campaign. There were some Young Lords working there. That’s when I met a lot of the guys and they were working for the community. They were working the campaign all the way. JJ: What did you do at the campaign? Was the campaign for Harold Washington, the mayor? DM: For Harold, for Harold Washington. For mayor. JJ: What did you do? DM: I used to answer phone. I used to answering the phone [00:13:00] and at night, we used to work canvassing and work precinct every day. (break in audio) DM: Well, one of the reason, I like the guy, I like the guy. So I said, “Well, let’s help him out.” No for the money. I needed money, but it helped me out to do so I can work all the way with the campaign. And we make it. JJ: How did you see Harold Washington helping you? Helping you, you know what I’m saying? Helping what you were doing? Because you were working with the community. How did you -- how did [00:14:00] you see him helping with his campaign? What did it -- what would it do for you? DM: Oh. Well, I got a lot of people -- when they were asking for a resume, I got a lot - lots of people there on, you know, on getting the jobs. And one of those guys 6 �was Luiz Gutiérrez. He got a -- I took the resume even though I told him I need somebody to write down mine. And he say, “Well, I help you out.” Which so we work together in getting those. I took him to downtown and he got the job. He’s doing fine [00:15:00] in Washington now. JJ: he’s a cop? What kind of -- DM: And he work -- he was one of the guys that I was -- I had in Harold campaign. I had six precinct that I work in. One of those precinct was Luiz Gutiérrez. He ran it. JJ: (inaudible) [00:15:30] -- (break in audio) DM: We not do it (laughs). We not communicating now but you know. JJ: What do you want -- what do you think I should talk more about -- okay. Okay. You came in ’63, right? DM: Right. JJ: Okay, so in ’63, the Young Lords started in [00:16:00] 19-- it was a gang in 1959, but as a political group, they started in 1968. So did you know anything about the Young Lords at that time? DM: Oh yeah. I used to talk about the Young Lords. They was-- they were a gang but then, they -- JJ: So what did you know when they were a gang? What did you hear back then? DM: They found a headquarters, a church, they had a church where they did a program there for the people. So they change from gang, they changed to work for the community so -- 7 �JJ: So did you hear about them when they were a gang? DM: I hear when -- they were a gang but I never hear anything, what do you call it, bad about them. I know they was a gang [00:17:00] but everybody had a gang (laughs) just to fight somebody that don’t like them so there was nothing bad about that. I thought maybe they were help -- they were doing some fighting because they couldn’t protect themself. JJ: So then you heard they changed into a community group and then how did you feel as a Puerto Rican? How did you feel with these -- DM: Well, I think was a great move because the community needed help. Because there was so many things that need to be corrected. And like when CEDA workers -- CEDA slots started, they start giving people [00:18:00] jobs working for help groups, police relation, everything. So everybody started working, organizing and get jobs. Get jobs. JJ: When you say you were organizing, what, for example, you mentioned you were working with SACC. What did organizing mean? What did they -- how did they organize? DM: Well, first, they had a training. They had a training of different things. Health, politic relation, education, and they used to train people. We used to train people and they -- a lot of them got together. Even though with the politics, [00:19:00] that a lot of people got involved in politics. Because after the training, they start preaching what they -- what was the training for. So it was good for the community because they learn something and then, they start helping others. JJ: You had a group, too. What was the name of your group? 8 �(break in audio) M3: -- pretend that I just turned on the camera. Go ahead. JJ: You had a group. DM: Yeah. JJ: So what was it called and what did they do? What did they do? DM: People’s Association for Community Action. And we used to have different committees. We -- one -- I was working with the public aid committee. We used to get people together and [00:20:00] find out what was the problem. And we used to call the representative at the public aid office. And we used to tell them what was wrong because a lot of people used -- they used to take them off the program. And a lot of people, they didn’t receive checks and we didn’t know why. But (laughs) there was a lot of things going on so we started working with the -with people inside the office and we form some committees there in different office. And we communicate with the -- every time we had a problem with somebody, we try [00:21:00] to make sure that they help the people and they take care of the problem. And if I -- if there is any people used to come in and ask for help. So we -- the main thing was that we have different committee to work on it. JJ: You had different committees? DM: We had different committee like police relation, (Spanish) [00:21:34]. JJ: How many organizations and did you guys work together? How many different organizations -- DM: Oh, we had, we had -- 9 �JJ: And what were they? What were they? DM: We work with ABC, work with UCA (sic), United for Community Action. We work for -- [00:22:00] we had a organization called United Front. It sound like (laughter) a terrorist group but they were not. And SACCs, Spanish Action Committee. Well, I -- there were so many, I don’t recall right now. JJ: Did these groups ever work with the Young Lords? DM: Yeah, most of them. They used to got together when there was something going on about a march or jobs or whatever. They -- everybody used to get together. JJ: Marching. So then, this was about -- DM: Organizing the community, yeah. JJ: So there were a lot of marches at that time? DM: Oh, you name it. There was a lot of crimes, a lot of killings from different [00:23:00] groups. Like a guy got shot and they don’t know why he was shot, (laughs) -- JJ: Now, who shot him? DM: -- so -- but the -- there was so much police brutality at that time. JJ: Oh, the police were -- DM: Yeah. JJ: Okay. So there was police brutality and these groups were marching or...? DM: Against them. Yeah, against the problem, against, you know. JJ: What other problems besides police brutality were going on at that time? DM: Jobs, welfare, health. There was no clinic. I -- at that time in Wicker Park, there used to be one clinic. That’s all. And the people -- the people had no insurance 10 �or anything. [00:24:00] And at that time, they don’t -- a lot of people don’t know about the Cook County hospital (laughs) so it’s, you know. So when this happened, every -- a lot of people was disoriented. And it need to be that thing was organized. So everybody was organizing. JJ: (coughs) Pardon. DM: I went there to see the project they were doing and my sister used to live a block away on Walton close to Grace. And they -- the general were -- they had different programs there. JJ: [00:25:00] So what kind of programs did they have? Do you remember or...? DM: Wood painting, teaching kids how to paint. Make murals. And they had a -- they had a answering service that people used to go there and then they’d call and they’d write down their -- whatever they need. So they were active at that time. They were really active in the community. JJ: And this was not in Lincoln Park. Where was this at? DM: Uptown. JJ: So they were up -- went from Lincoln Park to Uptown, the Young Lords? DM: Uptown. Yeah, that was in Grace and Walton? JJ: Right. DM: Close to the -- to Wrigley Field. So that’s mainly Lincoln Park, no? JJ: Okay. So [00:26:00] you heard about the Young Lords when they were in Lincoln Park and also in Lake View in Uptown. DM: Right. 11 �JJ: And you knew the Young Lords when they were a gang. So I mean, what -- you mentioned that -- so you -- so what was your feeling? Why did you -- your involvement in the community? What’s the reason that you were involved in the community? DM: Like I say before, I need to help. I need to help the people because I know the struggle they were going through. There was -- they had big families, they don’t have a place where to stay. And whoever will help the community, I was with them. I gave them credit for that. [00:27:00] So I got involved with the -- with them and to see what they really -- what they really need. JJ: And you first started getting involved so how many years have you been involved in the -- DM: Community? Oof. I’ve been in -- since 1966 throughout the ’90s. I was working very, very active in the community. But then, I start getting sick and I couldn’t participate like I wanted to so I had to step out. And -- JJ: And you [00:28:00] lived in what area mostly? DM: Humboldt Park. In the Humboldt Park area. Yeah. JJ: In the Humboldt Park area? And what kind of changes have been going on in that area? Since you came to Chicago in 1963, what kind of changes -- DM: It was bad. JJ: Can you explain what -- the whole changes or...? DM: Well, now they -- JJ: (Spanish) [00:28:19] -- 12 �DM: The Wicker Park, Wicker Park is still there. But you can hardly see Spanish speaking there or Puerto Ricans. They are not -- the neighborhood changed completely. Everybody sold the house, the place. They sold the house for maybe 35-, 15,000 and now, you cannot (laughs) -- it’s almost a million dollar for an apartment. So it’s -- there [00:29:00] are a lot of changes and they -- I -- I don’t see a lot of groups now. Groups, the groups now, what they do is trying to survive with the paying their electricity, pay the bills to the people working in that. So that’s what they make the -- like, to make money for paying the -- just staying there, you know. But they not too involved in training. They not training people like the -- where we used to do. So there’s a lot of changes now. And it’s tough because I think that [00:30:00] in order for you to do a good job in the community, you have to deal with the people. You have to know people, you have to know what they -- their problems are, and work with them. Trying to teach them what you know and how to go about in resolving those problems. (break in audio) JJ: Okay, go ahead. DM: There’s no help for the people that need the shelter. Right now, we need a shelter bad. Some shelter that -- in those shelters, if somebody is in a shelter, at maybe five o’clock in the morning or four o’clock in the morning, they have to leave. [00:31:00] Even though you got family and you have to leave and come back or the same day maybe at six o’clock so you could get a place where to stay. And it’s bad because you need something that could provide some good assistance for the people that needs a place where to stay. 13 �JJ: And why do we need so many shelters? Because before, we didn’t have a need for shelters. DM: We need a big place. We need -- JJ: Before, we didn’t have to. Why do we need shelters now? DM: Because people can’t find no jobs, people cannot afford to pay an apartment. The rent is so high that a lot of people can’t afford it. They get kicked out from one place to another [00:32:00] and we need help. I mean, these people need help. JJ: So how -- why do you think that happened? That there are so many changes going on in Humboldt Park that there’s -- when you first came here, it was all full of Puerto Ricans you said. But now, that community is no longer there, right? So what do you think happened? DM: There was displacement. I mean, there was -- the economic is bad. When they were -- when we were here, a lot of people had to moved out because fires. There were a lot of fires at that time. A lot of people, a lot of people died and [00:33:00] I heard that most of the displacement was for profit. Lots of people had a building and because they could not fix it or anything, the best thing for them was to burn it and they didn’t care who was in there. They just burn it for profit. And you see Wicker Park, there were so many -- there were so many fires that if you go to Wicker Park right now, most of the building that you see are new because most of those lots were empty because there was a fire. And now, the developer came back and built new buildings, right? But none of us [00:34:00] can afford them. Because we didn’t have -- we don’t -- we not -- our kids drop 14 �out. There was a lot of drop out. A lot of people could’ve been professional right now but a lot of people can’t afford it. And they had to move someplace else. Florida, Puerto Rico, different states. And most of these same -- most of the same thing is happening all over the states. If you got money, you can survive but if you don’t got no money, you cannot live. [00:35:00] You cannot stay there. You have to move somewhere where you can afford it. So we -- we like (Spanish) [00:35:12 - 00:35:35]? JJ: (Spanish) [00:35:35 - 00:35:43]? Where are they moving to? DM: (Spanish) [00:35:45], they moving to the ghetto. (laughs) Wherever is a ghetto, there’s a community that is going down. That’s why they went -- [00:36:00] that’s why they went the ghetto to live because they cannot afford to go to a upgraded area because they not -- they not making that much money or receiving money to live there. So wherever there is a ghetto, so (laughs) that’s where they’re living. That’s why they have to go. JJ: And where are the ghettoes located now? DM: Located? JJ: Yeah, where are they at? DM: It’s going down. (laughs) JJ: It’s going where? DM: Down west. JJ: Down west? DM: Down west with the -- at the past Cicero, that’s -- that’s ghetto there. So south, down south, there’s a ghetto there. So (laughs) what can I say? 15 �JJ: Okay. Are there any [00:37:00] in the suburbs or no? DM: Suburbs? If (Spanish) [00:37:01] -- if it is a ghetto there. I mean -- JJ: But they’re going to the ghetto. DM: They go to ghetto, man. JJ: They’re not going to the (inaudible). DM: And then when I say ghetto, it’s an area that is going down. That are people -what the people don’t want, that’s where they go. Because that’s -- they can afford it. I mean, it’s -- you have to find a, I mean, a area that don’t cost too much. That there, you don’t have to pay the landlord 1,500, 2,000 dollars for an apartment? [00:38:00] You know. END OF VIDEO FILE 16 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8402785d5f8a1101e0f3db9d37d796f9.mp4 5df2c2bf3ca5dea9768a3c9168b6f77e 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 Mojica 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--Vida social y costumbres Chicago (Ill.). Alcalde (1983-1987 : Washington) 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_Mojica_David Title A name given to the resource David Mojica video interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mojica, David Description An account of the resource David Mojica is a very important, unsung hero in the history of Puerto Ricans in Chicago. He has volunteered his services in Humboldt Park. Mr. Mojica has been the head of the Cocineros union for many years, helping to provide jobs and distributing Puerto Rican pride flags and shirts, and good tasting fast food to the entire community. Mr. Mojica was also one of the primary Puerto Rican community workers that helped to elect Harold Washington, during his first bid for mayor. He volunteered every day at the Fullerton Ave. near Western Ave. in the “Washington for Mayor” office. Mr. Mojica’s work included distributing flyers and posters, identifying registered voters, and phone canvassing. Mr. Mojica was also a Young Lord who helped to organize the first Hispano rally for Harold Washington at North West Hall in 1982, and the victory rally at Humboldt Park during the first official Mayor’s Neighborhood Festival where over 100,000 Puerto Ricans attended. 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 Chicago (Ill.). Mayor (1983-1987 : Washington) 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 2012-01-22 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/b02f2f8d4f13289fc5d8240628f44058.pdf 16aa50e7d8ed574c0c5293e33310f161 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Diego Mercado Interviewer: Jose Jimenez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 11/21/2012 Runtime: 02:03:03 Biography and Description Oral history of Diego Mercado, interviewed by Jose “Cha-Cha” Jimenez on November 21, 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. � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8259f5aeaaa682e76c4de598aeaab12e.mp4 d3f5816eada65ae6804dd5aa24c3afe9 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 Diego Mercado vídeo entrevista y biografía Descripción Spanish language Description entry La historia oral de Diego Mercado, entrevistado por Jose 'Cha-Cha' Jimenez el 11/21/2012 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_Mercado_Diego Title A name given to the resource Diego Mercado video interview and biography Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mercado, Diego Description An account of the resource Oral history of Diego Mercado, interviewed by Jose 'Cha-Cha' Jimenez, on 11/21/2012 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 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 2012-11-21 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/bbf26c28458ebf95415b53fec7394d18.pdf 3acb9ca46634bf91ebf70eaae6c9b6a6 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Francisca Medina Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 3/2/2012 Biography and Description English Francisca Medina lived for many years in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood. She describes visiting with other Latinas on the streets of Lincoln Park, at laundromats, and in the large variety of Puerto Rican owned shops in the 1950s, a time when the community was thriving and safe. Her memories emphasize how close knit the Puerto Rican community remained in those days. When there was a funeral, wedding, or baptism, Puerto Rican women gathered to pray the rosaries together. Groups of Puerto Ricans went door-to-door singing in parrandas and getting petitions signed to have Spanish mass celebrated at St. Michael’s and at St. Teresa’s, two Catholic churches whose membership was already largely Latino. Ms. Medina recalls her involvement in Council Number 9 at St. Teresa’s, as well as her work with the congregations at St. Vincent De Paul and St. Sebastian. Ms. Medina raised her family in Lincoln Park, moving several times within the neighborhood including homes on Sheffield, Bissell and Fremont Streets. Her experience is representative of the way that many Puerto Rican families moved at that time, pulled slowly, looking for larger and more economical homes that their families could enjoy and live in more comfortably. During the 1960s and 1970s, Puerto Ricans were moving west along North Avenue and Armitage Avenue, from Clark Street to Kedzie, and from �Grand Avenue north to Lawrence. Still, as Ms. Medina recalls, the community stayed connected, separated only by the Chicago River and the I-94 expressway. These memories are essential as they negate attempts by city officials to emphasize geographical neighborhood boundaries and dilute the cohesiveness of Chicago’s Latino community. Spanish Francisca Medina vivió en el vecindario de Lincoln Park en Chicago por muchos años. Describe visitando las calles de Lincoln Park con otras Latinas, las lavanderías, y las tiendas en donde la mayoría de los dueños eran Puertorriqueños en los 1950, un tiempo donde la comunidad era segura. Su memoria aclara que cerca estaba la comunidad puertorriqueña en esos tiempos. Cuando había una funeral, boda, o bautismo la puertorriqueñas se reunían y oraran juntas con sus rosarios. Grupos de Puertorriqueños iban de puerta a puerta cantando en parrandas y adquirían firmas en peticiones para tener una misa en español en las iglesias de St. Michael’s y St. Teresa’s, donde la mayoría de los miembros eran Latinos. Señora Medina recuerdo su parte en Council Number 9 en St. Teresa’s, igual que su trabajo en la congregación en St. Vincent de Paul St. Sabastian. Señora Medina crio su familia en Lincoln Park, se mudo muchas veces dentro del vecindario, incluyendo en Sheffiel, Bissell y Fremont Street. Sus experiencias son representativas de la forma en que familias puertorriqueñas mudaban en ese tiempo, cambiándose a un lugar en que es más grande y donde su familia podía vive más cómodo. Durante los 1960s y los 1970s puertorriqueños so estaban mudando de oeste sobre la calle de North Avenue y Armitage Avenue, de Clark Street hacia Kedzie, y de Grand Avenue hacia el norte a Lawrence. Durante estos cambios la comunidad todavía estaba unida, separad solo por el rio de Chicago y el expressway 1-94. Estas memorias son esencial porque oponen los oficiales de la ciudad que tratan de subrayar fronteras en el vecindario y deshacer la propiedad coherente en la comunidad Latina. � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b3d6ecaaf25ee14d77f4f7e77044e0df.mp4 74e37a1dd4b59b2af64deff261b69a15 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 Francisca Medina vídeo entrevista y biografía, entrevista 1 Descripción Spanish language Description entry Francisca Medina vivió en el vecindario de Lincoln Park en Chicago por muchos años. Describe visitando las calles de Lincoln Park con otras Latinas, las lavanderías, y las tiendas en donde la mayoría de los dueños eran Puertorriqueños en los 1950, un tiempo donde la comunidad era segura. Su memoria aclara que cerca estaba la comunidad puertorriqueña en esos tiempos. Cuando había una funeral, boda, o bautismo la puertorriqueñas se reunían y oraran juntas con sus rosarios. Grupos de Puertorriqueños iban de puerta a puerta cantando en parrandas y adquirían firmas en peticiones para tener una misa en español en las iglesias de St. Michael’s y St. Teresa’s, donde la mayoría de los miembros eran Latinos. Señora Medina recuerdo su parte en Council Number 9 en St. Teresa’s, igual que su trabajo en la congregación en St. Vincent de Paul St. Sabastian. Señora Medina crio su familia en Lincoln Park, se mudo muchas veces dentro del vecindario, incluyendo en Sheffiel, Bissell y Fremont Street. Sus experiencias son representativas de la forma en que familias puertorriqueñas mudaban en ese tiempo, cambiándose a un lugar en que es más grande y donde su familia podía vive más cómodo. Durante los 1960s y los 1970s puertorriqueños so estaban mudando de oeste sobre la calle de North Avenue y Armitage Avenue, de Clark Street hacia Kedzie, y de Grand Avenue hacia el norte a Lawrence. Durante estos cambios la comunidad todavía estaba unida, separad solo por el rio de Chicago y el expressway 1-94. Estas memorias son esencial porque oponen los oficiales de la ciudad que tratan de subrayar fronteras en el vecindario y deshacer la propiedad coherente en la comunidad Latina. 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 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_Medina_Francisca Title A name given to the resource Francisca Medina video interview and biography, interview 1 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Medina, Francisca Description An account of the resource Francisca Medina lived for many years in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood. She describes visiting with other Latinas on the streets of Lincoln Park, at laundromats, and in the large variety of Puerto Rican owned shops in the 1950s, a time when the community was thriving and safe. Ms. Medina recalls her involvement in Council Number 9 at St. Teresa’s, as well as her work with the congregations at St. Vincent De Paul and St. Sebastian. Ms. Medina raised her family in Lincoln Park, moving several times within the neighborhood including homes on Sheffield, Bissell and Fremont 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 Spanish language--Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago 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 2012-03-02 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/33ef2b1e68c85db842e4f8b88ccf1e68.pdf bd745abbdd8273bb0fe03f22ce453166 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Alfredo Matias Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 4/2/2012 Biography and Description Alfredo Matias is the happy son of Doña Carmen García and a Young Lord going back to the mid-1960s. Mr. Matias joined the Young Lords during the Month of Soul Dances at St. Michael’s Church Gymnasium in Lincoln Park. Those neighborhood dances were held for four consecutive Saturdays and the Young Lords purchased 40, 30-minute advertising slots on the radio to announce the dances. The affairs were so well attended they were overfilled each night. Monies from the dances were used by the Young Lords to purchase their club sweaters, which were to be all black with a violet stripe along each shoulder – colors chosen from the film, “West Side Story.” The film had special significance for young Puerto Ricans at the time because it was the only public movie of its day that portrayed Puerto Ricans living in the United States, however problematically. A white, armor shield patch was sewn near one of the side pockets. The letters “YL” in old English font were marked on the patch as well. Mr. Matias lived in Lincoln Park and also in Wicker Park for many years. He saw both communities evict their primarily Puerto Rican residents. For years, one could see Alfredo sitting in the park at Schiller and Damen Ave. or walking along North Avenue, Milwaukee, Damen, and Division Streets. He would always be humble, respectful and friendly, and his favorite past time was not whistling but “throwing flowers or compliments at the ladies.” Mr. Matias has always been dedicated to his heros Don Pedro Albizu Campos and Lolita Lebrón, and has performed his many poems at the nightclub “Weeds” and several �other venues for free. A few of his poems include, “El Coquí,” “ El Grillo y La Luna,” “Sin Titulo,” “Characters of my Poetry,” “Ponle Titulo,” and “Just a Poem.” Mr. Matias says that he was expelled from school at 13 years of age, from Puerto Rico at age 15, and from the U.S. military at 17. He was forced from the military because he refused to accept an order that would have sent him to Cuba to fight alongside other Puerto Ricans in the Bay of Pigs invasion, against the sovereignty of Cuba. He said then “that he was not going to ever fight in a war against a Latino nation.” The expulsion from the military has caused him much suffering, including being denied any veteran’s benefits. Mr. Matias grew up in Sabana Seca, Puerto Rico. SabanaSeca is a barrio of Tao Baja, 14 miles west of San Juan. It used to house primarily a pineapple and grapefruit plantation called the “Stephenson Place,” but the 2250 acres were acquired by the U.S. Navy during World War II. After the war, the property was turned over to the U.S. Army and then back to the U.S. Navy. Since the 1898 military occupation of Puerto Rico by the United States, six military installations have been established in Puerto Rico: one in the offshore island of Culebra, another in the island of Vieques, and four others including Roosevelt Roads, Salinas, Fort Allen, and Fort Buchanon. Today Mr. Matias is home in Puerto Rico, content to be by his mother’s side, and still writing his poetry, “proud to be a Puerto Rican and a Young Lord to the bone.” �Transcript JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay -- ALFREDO MATIAS: My name -JJ: Alfredo Matias, okay. AM: My name is Alfredo Matias. I was born in el barrio Sabana Seca de Toa Baja, Puerto Rico. (Spanish) [00:00:11 - 00:00:25]. JJ: (Spanish) [00:00:25]. AM: Yeah, uh-huh. My name is Alfredo Matias. I am a bilingual, bicultural, but not bisexual Puerto Rican, [today with?] Ricky Martin. You know, the first time I heard Ricky Martin singing that song, “Livin’ la Vida Loca,” I said to myself, “[He’s a maricón?].” As soon as I saw it, I said, you know, he was -- anyway, I’m here in Chicago. I’ve been in Chicago since 1963. I came here ’cause I was -- [Is?] --? (break in video) JJ: Okay, whenever you want to start. AM: Okay, my name [00:01:00] is Alfredo Matias. I am Afro Puerto Rican. I came to Chicago in 1963. Uh, prior to going to Chicago, I was in Puerto Rico, you know, in, uh, uh, my youth. I wa-- I was born and raised in Puerto Rico. Um, when I w- when I came to Chicago, I came to live at [5302 South Michigan?]. From there, I went to the South Side, went back to the West Side. I came to the North Side around 1967 when I met Cha-Cha Jiménez, and they had a little get-together, you know, in some church, and I was playing with a band called the [Afro Souls?]. It was an Afro American band. You know, we had a couple projects, me 1 �and another [Black working?] guy named [Coco?]. We went to play at the St. Michael. We went to play (inaudible), and that was Cha-Cha, and [the guy was there?], you know, and I met him through a guy named [Rafael Fajaldo?], also known as Coco. [00:02:00] First of all, you know, before I go any further, I have to explain that when I was in Puerto Rico, you know, my stepfather was a policeman, and when I was in the eighth grade, this one teacher, you know, a Black Puerto Rican teacher, he had the habit of saying, “Eh?” Like, “Eh, Matias?” You know, (Spanish) [00:02:23]. And I said to him, “(Spanish) [00:02:26]?” And he just kept, you know, going around, giving the class. Then he stood next to me (inaudible), he hit me so hard, man. (mimics slapping face) He hit me like you hit a man, you know? He did it because he was more like a -- he was a [sidekick?] to some [white?] Puerto Rican that (inaudible) [in the town?], and they were using -- they were kind of telling him that I was [big into him?] (inaudible), and I was stronger, so, you know, telling, you know, enticing him into, you know, [going up on?] me. And he [would look for?] -- he used to hit me. Since I knew he was the teacher and I was the student, I would try to be cool, you know, and then one day, [00:03:00] he said to me, “Hey, Matias, (inaudible),” when the guy that was the next to me and the girl, they were talking to each other, and they weren’t talking loud because I didn’t even hear them. But he said to me, “Matias, (Spanish) [00:03:09],” and just kept giving the class, going around. Then when he hit me so -- that was a Friday. That Monday, my stepfather was going to school to talk to him, ’cause he didn’t even know that my father was a policeman. When Monday morning came, you know, I came to school, and when it was time 2 �for me to go into the classroom, you know, came in, I walk in, kind of thinking that my stepfather would be coming there soon, so as soon I walked through the door the teacher grabbed me again by my neck and pulled me out of the classroom, and I went nuts, you know? And, again, we fight. Anyway, then I was expelled from school. Then, in those days, there were no jobs for [grown?] Puerto Ricans in my town; most jobs for a kid, you know? So I was hanging around [my town?] with some friends, and since I didn’t know what to do, one day, you know, they were going to go induct -- [00:04:00] they had inducted into the army. Puerto Rico, you know, we don’t have an army, but the American Army over there, you know. Different -- they went to take the test, and so the lady just asked for the name and address. I told her that same day I was 17, and I wanted to, you know, join the Army. I was only -- I wasn’t even 16 yet, but you know, she told me that I had to have some signature from my parents, you know, like that they agreed I could go into the Army. JJ: Why did you want to join the Army? AM: Because (inaudible), you know, there were no jobs for grown people. Most of the jobs for young people. We were hanging around, you know, [bumming?] up and down the street, you know? So I went with friends just for a ride, and when I saw that the lady just asked them for their name and address, I told that day I was 17, so I went, you know, in two weeks, and they called us to go take the test, and when we went to take the test -- there were six of us -- and the only one that passed the test was me. So the guys (inaudible), they flunked the test, 3 �[00:05:00] and [I was there for a ride?], and I wound up going to the Army. Anyway, when I went to the Army I was only 16 years of age. JJ: And where did you go? Where --? AM: After taking basic training in Buchanan, they sent me to Fort Jackson, South Carolina. In South Carolina, you know, everything was two: two NCO club, two beer garden, two barbershops. Everything was two: Black people go to one; white people go to the other. They sleep in the barrack, but never talk to each other. We just had, like, two different worlds. Anyway, Puerto Rican, you know, for them to be able to go downtown to the Black area, they used me as a key to walk into the Black neighborhood. Every time we would go into the neighborhood they would say, “Oh, here comes (inaudible) Matias,” and he let us through, because I [look?] Puerto Rican; they were with me. I was the only Black Puerto Rican in Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Anyway, when Kennedy wanted to invade Cuba in the Bay of Pigs invasion, they took all the Puerto Ricans aside, (inaudible). They took us, fed us, gave us food, and gave us (inaudible), and then told us that they had [00:06:00] to talk to us, to only Puerto Ricans. There was a number of Puerto Ricans in the Army at that time. They took us aside and then they said they want to volunteer for this mission, to see (inaudible) [discharge?]. They want (inaudible) to see [on the other side?]. And I was the only Black Puerto Rican. Everybody looked at me, because, you know, that’s (inaudible), as a leader or something, so everybody followed my idea. So when they said that, (inaudible) volunteer to [sit on one side?], they wanted to [sit on the other side?], other side looked at me, I got up. I went to the side, the one that 4 �they want to go. Everybody followed me. In the Army, they branded me like I was unloyal. Yeah, I was in the Army for 14 months. I never got to be private first class. In the Army in America, you don’t make private first class within nine months, they’re supposed to give you discharge. I was in the Army 14 months. I never got, you know, to be [00:07:00] private first class. So I was an E1; I came out E1 at 14 months. JJ: So why do you think that was? AM: What? JJ: That you were not private first class. AM: Racism, you know. I never saw -- I only saw two Puerto Rican commissioned officers when I was in the Army, and they were in Puerto Rico. For us, (inaudible) whites [all there?]. Whites, they run the game, you know? It was, you know, two: Black would go to one, and the Black would go to the other, but then Puerto Rican, they had no place to go. So people kind of saw me as a leader, because I was, you know, I was [always?] a bunch of people following me. See, not for me, the United States would have been in Cuba with Puerto Rican soldiers. (inaudible) [social?] leader, you know, they even have a highway named after him, but (inaudible) to make the [00:08:00] [alpha CTC?], and he wanted for us to go with him, you know, into Cuba in the Bay of Pig invasion. See, [it wasn’t?] for me, saying, you know, that I wasn’t going, [and a little political dissention?], we would not be in Cuba. When I came back from the Army to Puerto Rico -- I was only there for three months -- no job, no nothing, so my family -- [I credit it for my?] grandfather (inaudible) Army base, and I used to go there, throw stones at 5 �the soldiers and [share?] with my cousins. When I was in the Army, you know, I wanted (inaudible) to let me be (inaudible) [protocol?]. I didn’t want to go overseas, you know, because (inaudible) from my grandpa, and they have a Naval base, you know. When I came out of South Carolina, I was (inaudible), every time I would see any of the soldiers (inaudible) the base, we’d throw stone on them. I lived right across the street. It was about maybe 90 feet away from my parents, the gate to the Army base. When I came back one night, me and [00:09:00] my [cousin?], we were throwing stones at the soldiers, and I didn’t see my grandma. She was looking through the window. And then, you know, she saw me throwing the stones. She told my mom that they should send me to New York or to Chicago [with one of my friends?] before I got killed. And I think that (inaudible) happened, because, you know, I was [full of hate?], you know. (Spanish) [00:09:18]. Anyway, my family, they gave me a choice to either go to Chicago or to New York. Since I had a couple uncles in Chicago, I came to live with them. I came to live at 5302 South Michigan. It was all Black and Latino around there. There were no whites around. From there, I went to 94th and (inaudible). From there, I went to the West Side, and then when I was in the West Side I got married, and I had the one Puerto Rican friend named Coco. You know, we were both musicians, so we were playing gigs here and there. Anyway, one Friday night Coco told me that they were going to play for some Puerto Rican group called the Youth Lords. I said -- I wasn’t going to play -- “I’ll go with you.” So I [00:10:00] went there, and the first thing I see -- that was when I first met you. Coco said to me, “See that little blonde guy right there, that Cha- 6 �Cha? He’s the president of the organization.” So [they were going to?] introduce us, you know, when I met you. Like, I don’t believe in gangs, you know? To me, when I went (inaudible), I saw, you know, they had a legit grief with the city for the racism and what have you. I got so involved into the scene because, you know, to me, I had gone through the process of the racism in the Army, you know, coming to Chicago. I came to live in a Black neighborhood, and I didn’t know any Latinos until I met Cha-Cha -- I mean Coco and the other, and then he introduced me to you. And then most of the people I knew, they were Black. I didn’t have no white friends at all. JJ: Now, did you ever live in Lincoln Park at all, or --? AM: Yeah. I live on -- I live right across from the church, the funeral home. I live over there. I live on 1945 North Dayton. I live on Fremont and Armitage. I live on [Beso?] -- not Beso -- yeah, Fremont and Armitage, then Beso. Then I live on Burling Street. I live through there, like -- JJ: So how was that neighborhood at that time, I mean, when you were living there? I mean, what do you remember? AM: It was a bunch of Puerto Ricans, you know, helping each other, and the city was using the gang -- you know, other things to scare people here, (inaudible), but [there were many people?] Puerto Rican neighborhood. When I came to live there, that was the biggest population of Puerto Ricans (inaudible). JJ: And about what time was that? What year was that? AM: Oh, 1967, ’68, ’68. 7 �JJ: Sixty-eight. Okay, what were some of the activities that, when you -- you know, after you started hanging around [00:12:00] with the Young Lords, what were some of the activities that you remember? AM: The churches were kind of (inaudible) rundown, so we all got together, started fixing it little by little, and I used to spend most of my time over there. JJ: Okay. And so you were there after the church was taken over? AM: Yeah, I was there for the taking of the church. JJ: And so what happened during those days? AM: The Lincoln Park [Reservation?], Association, whatever, they were (inaudible) this project in the neighborhood, and they were using the kind of tactics like harassing the businessmen, giving them citation for failing to -- it was just to get out people out of the neighborhood. Lincoln Park Association, they had a few people from [Windy City?] (inaudible) [removal?]. [00:13:00] That’s what they were doing. [They were just following?] Puerto Ricans in the neighborhood. And [I said to him?], like, [they didn’t understand?] -- we had to pack our [gang bangers?], our rice and beans, our [Puerto Rican?] men, and take off. Puerto Rican, we are the worst nationality in this country. We don’t have a selfcontrolled monetary system. Like, everybody has a system except us. Any particular country to Puerto Rico, anywhere in the world, bring money from the country, trade it for American money, and what you and I cannot buy, they can buy. I mean, my impression of Luis Gutiérrez, I was one of the first -- you know, when he won the first time, he won by ten votes. I was there with him. [That’s crazy?]. I got locked up, you know, right after he became alderman. But anyway, 8 �in those days, I was going to Northwestern University. I got locked up three times in those years, going to school, bullshit like drugs, you know, for marijuana. Cigarettes [00:14:00] kill more people than the drugs combined, but [didn’t see that?]. Anyway, they used that as an excuse, you know, to keep us down. I have a 3.54 grade point average from Northwestern University. When I was in the school -- really, when I went to jail, I was asking the people at the prison, you know, if I could finish my schooling, and they said yes, and I tried to get from Northwestern my transfer, and they said that when you are six months from getting a degree they will not transfer your transcript to no place. They gave me that kind of hassle, and they were -- all I need is three hours of Earth science, and the English language test, and the Constitution test, and I got a bachelor. But I know so many people that had more hours than me and they don’t have a bachelor, because when Governor Thompson was governor, he passed a law that said for you to [00:15:00] get a degree in Illinois you had to take and pass the English language test and the Constitution test. That [whole system?], they used that to keep minorities, like Latinos, Blacks, Oriental, out of [the degree?] program. (inaudible). I know lots of people that have enough hours to have a bachelor, but they don’t have it because the racist English language test, you know. Me, I have a 3.54 grade point average. What the hell I got to prove somebody that I speak English? If I had that kind of average, that means I can speak enough, so they use only to keep minority out of degree program. JJ: So what is that English language test? I mean, I’ve never heard of that. AM: Well, right now, in Illinois since nineteen seventy -- 9 �JJ: In Illinois [that is?] -- AM: -- seven -- uh-huh. I mean, (inaudible) pass a law that you had to take the English language test, which is a test of your knowledge of the English language. [00:16:00] It’s like a lawyer: you know, for you to become a lawyer you have to take the Bar Association test; otherwise, you’re not a lawyer. That’s essentially used to -- that’s a racist tactic. That’s what it was. JJ: And is that for everyone, or --? AM: Everyone has to take and pass the English language test. See, white people ain’t got a problem, ’cause that’s their language, you know? So that’s just used to keep poor and Latinos out of degree. JJ: Okay, going back to the Young Lords, okay, were you in any of the marches or anything like that? AM: Yeah, yeah. JJ: Can you describe one of the --? Which march were you in? AM: When [Jason?] (inaudible) killed (inaudible) -- JJ: What was that about? What happened there? AM: That day, we was (inaudible) [outside?], remember? JJ: Okay, but what happened? AM: That day, there was a party in either [Rough?] or [Spaghetti Thursday?] in the South Side -- it was in Bridgeport, you know, that real rich neighborhood -- and supposedly sometime [00:17:00] that policeman, he was dressed in plainclothes. He was, you know, painting a building across the street from where the party was, and the party was for Puerto Rican and Latino. It was English-language 10 �music. The cop didn’t like it. They came and knocked on the door and told them to put the music down because it was too loud. He went back across the street and about 20 minutes later the music went up again. He came, opened the door, and started shooting into the building, into the house, and he killed (inaudible) and wounded Spaghetti. JJ: And then what happened? Then what happened after that? Were you there that day or no? AM: No, no, we were here on (inaudible). In fact, what I was saying to you [yesterday?], we were here with the [girl?], which would be up there, you know -- JJ: (inaudible) party? AM: -- with a group, yeah. JJ: So what happened after that, after you heard about that? AM: After that, you know, we had these -- We were able to [launch?], you know, [for us to?] indict that policeman. I don’t think he would have ever got indicted, but we went to protest [00:18:00] to the Chicago Police station. We went from here to there. I don’t know, what was the guy, the Black guy that was in -- that (inaudible)? JJ: The [Culverstones?]? AM: Right, right, right. (inaudible) we got through, and we went to the march, and I have been to a lot of the marches for welfare recipients’ rights, and Latino neighborhood organizations. JJ: So that was a march against police brutality, but your father is a policeman, so -- AM: My stepfather was a policeman in Puerto Rico. 11 �JJ: Okay, so how did you feel about that, that we’re marching against the police? AM: Well, police, [it’s different?]. First of all, [if there’s?] justice and equality, [there’s no need?] for the police, you know? If everybody gets equal treatment, there’s no need for police. Police are -- in the [past?], policemen were to clean, doing all the -- but none of them have the authority to arrest people, [00:19:00] which -- for me, I never had a good relationship with policemen, you know. My stepfather, he was a policeman, you know, but he was a womanizer, and, like, at the time I got into that fight, you know, instead of going to see [how I’m?] (inaudible), he went to see a woman that he had. He didn’t come to school. That’s why I almost got beat up by that [street gang?]. But I didn’t see them as a needed thing, you know? I mean, here, you have to have (inaudible), otherwise people will [lead?] each other, but that come from the injustices that have been, you know, [productive otherwise?]. He had to get test to be a policeman. I took a test to be a case worker, to be a bilingual translator in court. All those jobs were denied to me because when I was in the Army, the Army gave me (inaudible) discharge. I ran that through my U.S. (inaudible) number. It’s a dash, and then the worst, [28B?]. [It was?] 28B; 28B means involved in [frequent?] incident of [disability?] to military and civilian authorities, unloyal soldier. That was the discharge [00:20:00] the Army gave me. And not only me, but a lot of the other soldiers that were there, because they were Black and Latino, they would get less than honorable discharge so that when they come to civilian life they cannot compete with, again, the whites. Simple as that. Racism. Now, going to over to Korea, the bill had they’re going to allow the Germans to reunite, and they’re going to 12 �give them the keys to the Vatican, you know? But we have a German Pope. Out of all the places in the world, the Germans, they had the worst record on civil rights, human rights, (inaudible) [lately?], but now for them to [reunite again?], (inaudible) had done this on purpose, you know. They have allowed them to reunite, being the racist rationality that it was. That was done on purpose to keep the white race together. Korea, North Korea and South Korea is the same country, same people, but they’re still divided, and they don’t have the kind of human rights record that the Germans had, [00:21:00] but they had the key -anyway, whoever gets the key for the Vatican runs the show. For the past [hundred?] years, the Pope was always Italian, from over there, then all of a sudden the first non-Italian Pope was the Polish Pope that just died. The Pope that was before him, he was only Pope for one month because he died. When Popes die and they cannot do an autopsy on them -- that’s against the law. So anyway, that Pope, in one month he made so many changes in the Catholic Church that they say he was a rebel. He was an Italian -- he was against a lot of (inaudible), but anyway, they wipe him off and they put the first non-Italian Pope in power that have [power?] (inaudible). That was done in cahoots with the people of Poland, you know, [Lech Wałęsa?], the Pope, and they got together [00:22:00] with [Reagan?], and they [determined their civil union?]. That was a [workplace job?]. You know, that was [planned for him?]. That Pope, he only went to Cuba when he no other choice but to go visit Castro, and the first thing he went [up there?]. Same way the Pope was [a racist like he was?], this [one?] 13 �is the same way. This Pope -- [Last good?] Pope was the one that died after 21 days, 31 days. JJ: So I take it you’re not too religious? AM: Oh, I don’t believe -- I’m not that religious. You know, I believe in God. I believe in the creator of creation, but [these have?] a white Jesus Christ and a Black devil, and, you know, [nothing?]. If Jesus ever lived, he was Black. If he was born where he was born, he couldn’t have been a white man, you know? Right now you have the white people in Israel claiming to be Israeli Jews. Bullshit. Those are people from Europe that were shipped up there during [00:23:00] Hitler’s raising hell. In 1948, they get the people’s land that was not theirs, and right now they are seen as the true Jews. Here in America, through America and the Navy, the so-called [Indians?], those are the Americans. They (inaudible) come from other places, they come here, and [out of the clear blue?] they call American. I mean, I’m a Puerto Rican. How in the hell can I be Puerto Rican and be American? How can Puerto Rico be a commonwealth, Estado libre asociado? How can you be associated and free at the same time? That’s all bullshit. Religion’s the same way. You know, [they paint?] white Jesus when Jesus was Black; they paint a Black devil when the devil was white. Lucifer, [Bluebeard?] was white. He was a white fellow. He got kicked out of heaven, and then he started -- religion is a way to control people’s feelings [and them?]. But I believe in God, the creator of creation. [00:24:00] In other words, I don’t believe in institutions (break in audio) religions. To me, religion is the same way: 14 �it’s only one God, the God that created creation. There are lesser gods and what have you, but one God. JJ: And, [again?], the Young Lords took over McCormick Theological Seminary. AM: Hmm? JJ: They took over McCormick Theological Seminary. Were you there during the takeover? AM: Yeah. JJ: And what do you remember about that? AM: That day -- it was ten o’clock in the morning -- me and [later?] Louis Chavez, we went to Armitage -- not Armitage -- [North?] (inaudible) to sell a newspaper, but they came and arrested us over there. JJ: To sell what newspaper? AM: The Young Lords paper. JJ: So [North?] (inaudible) [Walls?]? AM: Right. JJ: And so this was the day of the takeover? AM: Right. We were there for about a week (inaudible). JJ: Right. AM: Yeah, [at that old buildout?], [00:25:00] you know, I came back to the place, and it was already, you know, all going. JJ: It was already all going? So when you say it was all going, can you describe what you saw? AM: I mean, you know -- 15 �JJ: What would you see? AM: We went out there on Thursday morning. You know, certain rights that the neighborhood had, they had been taken away from us by that (inaudible) [Bank?], DePaul University, all those. They had a plan of wiping out [the neighborhood?], which they did. They wanted us there, and they used any kind of tactics they could, but they kicked us out. JJ: So how many days were you in the --? It lasted a week, so how many days were you there? AM: I was there [practically all the time?]. JJ: So, okay, what did you see? I mean, what was going on? AM: A lot of -- JJ: (Spanish) [00:25:48] -- AM: Yeah, (inaudible) -- JJ: -- (Spanish) [00:25:51]. AM: (Spanish) [00:25:56 - 00:26:03] -- I couldn’t define, you know, [a certain thing?], but I know I was (inaudible) in the neighborhood, we had to do what we had to do. [But here?], Reverend Bruce Johnson, that was a political murder, you know? They wanted him out of the neighborhood because he was the only white person that was openly there supporting us and giving us everything we need. So you’re not going to go and kill the hen that lays the golden eggs. You know, [to us?], he was a golden egg, and they [were criminals?]. They carried him out of there just to make us lose power, because there were lot of white people coming to help us. When (inaudible) killed, everybody took off, because they 16 �thought we did it, and we were blamed on the [organization?] for the sole purpose of cleaning up the neighborhood, you know? They wanted us out of the neighborhood. JJ: So they blamed the [00:27:00] Young Lords for the killing of Reverend Bruce Johnson. AM: Yes, Bruce Johnson and Eugenia Johnson. JJ: And so how did you feel about that? You were a Young Lord, [I mean, that?] -- AM: But that was -- I knew from the beginning that they found fingerprints, the cup, on the bottle of wine, and his pipe. Why has no one done anything about it? Because they wanted to make it look [unclear?] a case so that people would blame us. That’s how I see it. And the newspaper, it says they found fingerprints in his cup, and the cup of wine, and on his smoking pipe they found some fingerprints. They could have [cleared?] the case. They wanted, you know, to put the blame on the (inaudible), but that was only to get us out of the neighborhood. It was a very powerful little group [with some good?] issues. You know, people don’t understand that we, Puerto Ricans, we are [the poorest?] nationality. That way, we don’t have -- [00:28:00] Like, a white kid, when he [gang?], he get in his car and go right around and come back [and cool off?]. And us, you know, we’re [the poorest?] nationality. That’s why Luis Gutiérrez, instead of helping the Puerto Rican community [with acts?] in the Congress, he could have been there [dealing with?] (inaudible) -- you cannot transfer your SSI to Puerto Rico. [You see what?] like that, we weren’t allowed to do that. Only Puerto Ricans out here living [in the street?], they would be [leaving?] back 17 �home, but [they’re doing things?] because we are the poorest nationality. We need [secondary monetary assistance?], we need [secondary laws?], and [instead?] we have people like Luis Gutiérrez [throwing jabs?] in our face, ’cause that’s what he’s doing. Anytime one of these illegal guys becomes a citizen, or he got [a little?] family, they can send money to the bank, you know, wire, and what you cannot buy, they can buy. That’s why you don’t see people here, too many people in the streets [like that?], the Dominican Republican, Dominican -they all have a way to [00:29:00] make the money work. We have no money, so therefore we are the poorest nationality. That’s why we have all the gangbanging, all these, like -- (Spanish) [00:29:10], which means unity there’s strength. (inaudible) they have nothing to [defend?], they have to, you know -the same thing (inaudible) for day before, when they came out to go this land, [they wiped the Indians away?], but our young kids, you know, they have no other way to make it but just, you know, [you’re now in a gang?] to survive. We’re not gangbanger by nature, you know? In Puerto Rico, when I was a kid, you didn’t like somebody, somebody didn’t like you, you got into it, boom, like two men, [all away?]. Now, you got to go through all this, you know, [gang thing?], because to survive in this world we’ve got to do it. JJ: Now, you made a little poetry or something? How did that start? How did you start on that? AM: Ah, [that’s the one?] about -- I read a lot of poetry since I was about 16, but [00:30:00] I decided to become a poet June 29, 1969, when the astronaut landed on the moon. I was [staying there?] with [Chicano’s?] ID. But anyway, there, 18 �when I took a test to be a policeman, the lady that signed my papers, you know, for the American Legion, for him to change my discharge, her mother became a patient at the -- I was then helping out, when I was there, and when that lady walked in and she saw my face, she couldn’t [forget me?]. [She should remember me?]. And she was bringing her mom there to be a patient. Anyway, June 29th, her mom said to me, [about two o’clock?] in the afternoon, “Young man, can you take me to the balcony so I can see the landing in the moon?” And I thought, sure, yeah. I took her to the balcony. Two or three hours later, she was dead. And that’s when I said, you know, here people dying, you know, [incurable?] disease, and here she wanted to see the landing in the moon. I said, she died peacefully. Anyway, that day I wrote a poem titled “The Rape of the Moon.” [00:31:00] It goes like this: “Once upon a times, the [stars?] start to make love to the moon with [affair?]. Even Jupiter, Pluto, and the rest of the planets try to (inaudible), but the moon was too strong. She (inaudible) until one day the U.S.A. took poor people’s money and sent three men to rape Miss Moon. Now the moon is not a virgin anymore. It’s known all over the world. People (inaudible) in the blue sky, but the moon stood naked in front of three strangers and (inaudible) [take her?] secrets. [You have?] secrets (inaudible). She [cared for the lowest with peace.” I wrote that poem about -- I went through a metamorphosis. I went through a change. That day, after this lady dying, to me, that was [welfare?] (inaudible) to me. Until he died on my birthday, December 27th, ’77, to me, [that’s the world?], because, you know, (inaudible) them (inaudible) [to me?]. When I took a test [00:32:00] to be a policeman, Alderman 19 �[Biggs?], his nephew, (inaudible), he was about to have a meeting with a Puerto Rican at ten o’clock in the morning. We got there about 9:55 or so, and I walk into the office. He look over my shoulder, you know, looking for the Puerto Rican. And (inaudible) [to Mr. Daley?], “This is Alfredo Matias, the Puerto Rican kid that took a test to be a policeman.” And he wasn’t even mumbling. He kept looking. Then Mr. Biggs told him again, “This is Mr. Matias, the Puerto Rican.” He said, “Oh, you’re a Puerto Rican?” First time [ever since I was a kid?] -- you know, like, (inaudible) first and only time (inaudible) was that day. He said, “You’re a Puerto Rican?” And he didn’t know a Black man can be a Puerto Rican. People don’t know that before there was Black slavery in America there was Black slavery in that part of the world. They didn’t know. I mean, he was sitting in a big chair, you know, (inaudible) [looking at the Puerto Rican guy?]. (laughs) You know, man, by nature, [00:33:00] we are a territorial animal. We believe in locks and keys and fences, and this is mine, that’s yours. That’s why I (inaudible) like that. Even [political?], (inaudible) because by nature we are a territorial animal. We believe in my people, you know, who it is. Like, for instance, they think that crack cocaine is, they said, a Black invention or something like that. [No more?] sophisticated than that. Racism is same way. Things like that, where we go to here, we don’t understand. You look like my son. Yeah. JJ: So, okay, we’re going to kind of finish it up, but you’ve been a Young Lord for many years. What is it that keeps you --? You know, ’cause I see that you get angry with different things? 20 �AM: The need for (inaudible) -- when the country got into [00:34:00] Puerto Rico in June 25, 1898, when they came to Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico was a republic. You know, we were just like you are there. We were independent, with our own [monetary?] system. [That’s just?] about the war that they had back in Spain. You know, it began in Havana Harbor. It was a boat called, a shipped called the Maine. When that ship was blown away, apart, it was blown away by Americans. You know, they did that (inaudible) their own boat because the soldiers that they had there in those days, they had a Black Army and a white Army. The Black [unit?], they were called [mate shipmen?]. They were not called soldiers. Anyway, the people that then [is advertising?] Havana Harbor, they were [Afro?] American. They were not Hawaiian, [Negro?], and that was done -- they were getting right to go against Spain, and Spain had no business, you know, in selling, giving us to them. You know, that was bullshit. They came there [00:35:00] just (inaudible) find with guns drawn, and this is a stick-up. Same with here in Iraq, you know, weapons of mass destruction. Unless you consider oil a weapon of mass destruction, they were [selling the?] country. For the past 16 years, then they could make all the oil they wanted. They could [only sell certain amount of oil?], or whatever they were allowed to sell, the rest they were storing, and for 16 years they kept storing oil [back?]. They had the second biggest oil surplus in the world, Iraq had, you know? When (inaudible), they were selling that oil, they were (inaudible) that system, and (inaudible) the country, you want to stick ’em up, you know? Here we are. [Injustice?] American style, you know? JJ: Okay, what’s the -- anything else that you would like to add to this at this point? 21 �AM: (inaudible) -- [00:36:00] Uh -- I guess I would -- JJ: (Spanish) [00:36:04]? AM: (Spanish) [00:36:05]. JJ: (Spanish) [00:36:07]. AM: (Spanish) [00:36:07]. No, no, [Chicago Rican first?]. JJ: Okay. AM: (inaudible) had two titles. The first title is “I Ain’t Got Nothing Against Italians and [Dominican?] or Chicago Rican.” Rican, or Chicago Rican. He’s not a happy American because, you know, he’s not an American; he’s just a Rican. Dominican or Chicago Rican -- (inaudible) -- Dominican or Chicago Rican, he’s not a happy American because he know he’s a Rican, not American but just Rican, as much an immigrant as the rest of the Latin (inaudible) American, but (inaudible) history and experience (inaudible) [very happy?] Rican. You see, [the only character?] (inaudible) that we are allowed to portray is Al Capone. To me, Al Capone [was not a?] Rican. Yeah. [00:37:00] (Spanish) [00:37:02 - 00:37:18]. JJ: (Spanish) [00:37:21]. AM: Uh-huh. (Spanish) [00:37:23 - 00:37:42]. (pause) (Spanish) [00:37:51]. JJ: [Any questions?] -- END OF VIDEO FILE 22 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e91315b64b93feb316f1fbb1a4ba8623.mp4 9cf0338c08ee47bf8a93d7435f280b22 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 Alfredo Matias 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 Veteranos--Relatos personales Artes, Puertorriqueños--Illinois--Chicago Puertorriqueños--Illinois--Chicago--Vida social y costumbres Religión Iglesia Católica Racismo--Estados Unidos 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_Matias_Alfredo Title A name given to the resource Alfredo Matias video interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Matias, Alfredo Description An account of the resource Alfredo Matias is the son of Doña Carmen García and a Young Lord going back to the mid-1960s. Mr. Matias joined the Young Lords during the Month of Soul Dances at St. Michael’s Church Gymnasium in Lincoln Park. Mr. Matias lived in Lincoln Park and also in Wicker Park for many years. He was forced from the military because he refused to accept an order that would have sent him to Cuba to fight alongside other Puerto Ricans in the Bay of Pigs invasion, against the sovereignty of Cuba. Mr. Matias grew up in Sabana Seca, Puerto Rico. Today Mr. Matias is home in Puerto Rico, content to be by his mother’s side, and still writing his poetry. 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 Veterans--Personal narratives Arts, Puerto Rican--Illinois--Chicago Puerto Ricans--Illinois--Chicago--Social life and customs Religion Catholic Church Racism--United States 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 2012-04-02 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/136aebe17b9adbb33362618e32ce9d03.pdf a24d36534d35cff5503f5d9eb3e122cf PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Pedro J. Mateo Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 3/8/2012 Biography and Description English Pedro Mateo is from Salinas, Puerto and now lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He first came to Grand Rapids in the 1950s, but quickly moved to Indiana Harbor to work in the steel mills alongside many other Puerto Rican immigrants of that era. Mr. Mateo describes the steel mill culture and the Puerto Rican community that developed in Indiana Harbor beginning in the 1940s. After a short time in Indiana Harbor, Mr. Mateo moved with his family to Van Buren Street near Ashland Avenue in Chicago, in the barrio area then known to Puerto Ricans as La Madison. La Madison and La Clark were two Puerto Rican barrios carved out of two high density neighborhoods where old, dilapidated hotel rooms were converted into low rent apartments. These areas attracted large numbers of Puerto Rican immigrants because most saw their move to Chicago as temporary, offering the possibility of making higher wages so they could return to the island. In the 1960s, Mr. Mateo moved to Addison Ave. and Wilson Street, next to Wrigley Field. It was here that he first met the Young Lords. Mr. Mateo describes his daily travels by train to La Clark to work at “Las Gomas,” or a rubber factory, by New Orleans and Chicago Avenue. He ultimately returned to Grand Rapids, where his large, extended family plays a prominent role in the city’s Latino community. �Spanish Pedro Matea es de Salinas, Puerto Rico y ahora vive en Grand Rapids, Michigan. El primero vino a Grand Rapids en los 1950s pero decidió mudarse a Indiana Harbor para trabar en la acería con otros inmigrantes Puertorriqueños en esa aria. Aquí Señor Mateo describe como era la cultura de la acería y la comunidad que desarrollo en Indiana Harbor (empezando en 1940). Después do un tiempo en Indian Harbor, Señor Mateo se mudo con su familia a Van Buren Street cerca de Ashland Avenue en Chicago en el barrio que llaman, La Madison. La Madison y La Clark eran dos barrios Puertorriqueños en donde hoteles fueron convertidos ah apartamentos alquilados bajo. Estas arias atrajeron muchos Puertorriqueños porque muchos vieron este mudo a Chicago como temporario y hacia la posibilidad de juntar más dinero para regresar a Puerto Rico. En los 1960s, Señor Mateo se mudo a Addison Ave y Wilson Street, alado de Wrigley Field. Aquí fue donde conoció a los Young Lords. Señor Mateo también habla sobre sus viajes diarios a La Clark por tren para trabajar en “Las Gomas” la factoría por New Orleans y Chicago Avenue. Pedro Mateo finalmente regreso a Grand Rapids donde la mayoría de su familia jugo una parte grande de la comunidad Latina. � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6bb098876e9e13dd4e48be0a77b221d1.mp4 e87f9e4c058c76b2e634cbfed48e75ca 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 Pedro J. Mateo vídeo entrevista y biografía Descripción Spanish language Description entry Pedro Matea es de Salinas, Puerto Rico y ahora vive en Grand Rapids, Michigan. El primero vino a Grand Rapids en los 1950s pero decidió mudarse a Indiana Harbor para trabar en la acería con otros inmigrantes Puertorriqueños en esa aria. Aquí Señor Mateo describe como era la cultura de la acería y la comunidad que desarrollo en Indiana Harbor (empezando en 1940). Después do un tiempo en Indian Harbor, Señor Mateo se mudo con su familia a Van Buren Street cerca de Ashland Avenue en Chicago en el barrio que llaman, La Madison. La Madison y La Clark eran dos barrios Puertorriqueños en donde hoteles fueron convertidos ah apartamentos alquilados bajo. Estas arias atrajeron muchos Puertorriqueños porque muchos vieron este mudo a Chicago como temporario y hacia la posibilidad de juntar más dinero para regresar a Puerto Rico. En los 1960s, Señor Mateo se mudo a Addison Ave y Wilson Street, alado de Wrigley Field. Aquí fue donde conoció a los Young Lords. Señor Mateo también habla sobre sus viajes diarios a La Clark por tren para trabajar en “Las Gomas” la factoría por New Orleans y Chicago Avenue. Pedro Mateo finalmente regreso a Grand Rapids donde la mayoría de su familia jugo una parte grande de la comunidad Latina. 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--Condiciones sociales 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_Mateo_Pedro Title A name given to the resource Pedro J. Mateo video interview and biography Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mateo, Pedro Description An account of the resource Pedro Mateo is from Salinas, Puerto Rico and now lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He first came to Grand Rapids in the 1950s, but quickly moved to Indiana Harbor to work in the steel mills alongside many other Puerto Rican immigrants of that era. Mr. Mateo describes the steel mill culture and the Puerto Rican community that developed in Indiana Harbor beginning in the 1940s. After a short time in Indiana Harbor, Mr. Mateo moved with his family to Van Buren Street near Ashland Avenue in Chicago, in the barrio area then known to Puerto Ricans as La Madison. In the 1960s, Mr. Mateo moved to Addison Ave. and Wilson Street, next to Wrigley Field. It was here that he first met the Young Lords. Mr. Mateo describes his daily travels by train to La Clark to work at “Las Gomas,” or a rubber factory, by New Orleans and Chicago Avenue. He ultimately returned to Grand Rapids, where his large, extended family plays a prominent role in the city’s Latino 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 Spanish language--Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Puerto Ricans--Illinois--Chicago--Social conditions 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 2012-03-08 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/59fed968f91e90c58d1840c561bcd04e.pdf d28eede4383d0dcb3e2448b0cb6df3a8 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Patrick Mateo Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 7/22/2012 Biography and Description Patrick Mateo is a Young Lord who was born in the United States but lived many years in Puerto Rico. His family is from Salinas. But he and his siblings grew up in Chicago starting at Van Buren, the old La Madison barrio, and in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He is currently living in Puerto Rico. Mr. Mateo fixes his own cars and studied carpentry and building maintenance. He can build you a house from scratch. His mother lived in a convent for some time and attends church regularly at St. Joseph’s in Grand Rapids. Mr. Mateo, who also dabbles in music, has played and sung for the church choir. He is a community organizer. Mr. Mateo has also worked on several Young Lords projects including the Latino Support Group that became the first bilingual, bicultural support group in Grand Rapids. The Latino Support Group was a volunteer program that received referrals from the courts and probation departments to assist Latinos with substance abuse issues. Mr. Mateo also helped to organize the KO CLUB, an afterschool neighborhood program to prevent youth from becoming involved with gang violence. And he also helped to organize several Lincoln Park Camps in Michigan, to educate people about the Young Lords and to recruit volunteers who would assist in documenting their history. Each of the camps were self-supported by a donated fee, provided a weekend get-away, and proved positive and memorable events. Mr. Mateo has a large family that looks to him as its leader. The Fernández side is also large and well established in Grand Rapids. They include church pastors, school principals, and businesspersons. �He describes rough times and perseverance. And he remains a role model and pacesetter for others in his community. �Transcript JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay, all right. Patrick, just give me your name, your date of birth, and where you were born. PATRICK MATEO: My name is Patrick Mateo. I was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1957. JJ: Okay. In Grand Rapids, Michigan? PM: Correct. JJ: Okay, now, who was living here at that time with you? PM: Well, we didn’t live in Grand Rapids much. We moved to Chicago, so I lived most of my life, I lived in Chicago. Until my parents got divorced, we lived in Chicago, and from Chicago, we went to Puerto Rico. JJ: When you were here in Grand Rapids at that time, who was here with you? You said “we”. PM: Well, we had a whole family here. I mean, it started as a small group. [00:01:00] It was a small Puerto Rican community, and most of, a lot of the Puerto Rican community, a lot of it was, we had a big family. JJ: Okay. PM: So, I mean -- JJ: So, who was with you, I mean, when you were born? Who lived here? PM: I was living with my uncle. We lived in one of his apartments he was renting. JJ: What’s his name -- what’s his name? 1 �PM: His name was Pio Fernández. Yeah, he was a very well-known person in Grand Rapids, Pio Fernández. JJ: Pio Fernández? PM: Correct. Then later, he’d become owner of a bar. It was one of the first Puerto Rican bar they had here in Grand Rapids, 'cause they really didn’t have that many Latinos in that time. But I don’t remember much. All I remember, when we moved to Chicago, we used to come back and forth, like we’d come on vacation from school. JJ: Okay. Were you with your mother? PM: Mother, yeah, parents, brothers. JJ: What’s your mother’s name? PM: Rosa Perez. JJ: Rosa Perez? PM: [00:02:00] And I have brothers. JJ: Your father’s name? PM: Pedro Jesu Mateo. JJ: Okay, and your brothers? PM: My brothers, there was four of us, four brothers, and two girls. The two girls were born in Chicago. JJ: Okay, so the four brothers were here? PM: Correct. JJ: Three brothers. PM: Three and I. 2 �JJ: Okay, what are the three brothers’ names? PM: I had Pablo Mateo, Jesu Mateo, and Pedro Luz Mateo. JJ: And what about your sisters? PM: My sisters, Olga Mateo and [Elsa?] Mateo. JJ: And they were here too at that time? PM: No, they were born in Chicago. We were living in Chicago. When we were born, we didn’t live here long. JJ: Okay, how long did you live here, about? PM: As far as I remember, probably we moved when -- probably six years old, I was about six years old. JJ: Okay. Do you remember anything at all from six years old? You might remember something. PM: Well, we were coming back and forth. I remember we went to Chicago, and I guess in Chicago, [00:03:00] we had a struggle 'cause it was a whole different environment than Grand Rapids. It was a big city, a lot going on. We had to watch it all the time. When we’d get out of school, we’d get beat up by bigger kids. They’d take our money, our lunch money. (laughs) JJ: What neighborhood was this? PM: This was Van Buren. JJ: You were on Van Buren? PM: Yeah, we were raised on Van Buren. JJ: Do you remember what address? 3 �PM: No. All I remember is playgrounds we used to play. They had holes in the grounds that we used to go, and tunnels. JJ: Holes in the ground, you mean like sewers? PM: Like sewers, we used to go play under the sewers, you know, when we were kids. JJ: You mean like where they used to have like charcoal, or not charcoal, for the heater? PM: Probably that’s what -- yeah, I was small, so this is as much as I remember. JJ: So, they had these sewers, and you would go under the ground? PM: We used to go underground, correct. We used to go underground and play, and my parents’d be looking for me, screaming, “Hey, where are you?” You know, and [00:04:00] when I went home, then (Spanish) [00:04:02]. But yeah, we used to have fun, but it was also a big struggle. JJ: So, (Spanish) [00:04:09] meaning you got beat up by the old man or the mom? PM: We got beat up by the old man, by the kids in the neighborhoods, you know, the prietos. They used to grab us and take -- you know. JJ: It was a Black and Puerto Rican neighborhood? PM: It was a Black and Puerto Rican neighborhood, and [they were no?] blanquitos, but they were like kinda -- JJ: So, (inaudible) White? PM: Yeah, you know, they stuck with us. JJ: So, the Whites and Puerto Ricans were together, and then you guys had fights with the Blacks? 4 �PM: Correct. Then we’d have fights. JJ: Was this gang or just neighborhood kids? PM: Well, I didn’t know. I was too young to know that there were gangs, but, you know, they were like groups, little groups. I didn’t have the understanding of [00:05:00] what were gangs at that time. I was probably nine years old, eight years old, as long as I can remember. JJ: This is all on Van Buren? PM: This is all on Van Buren. I mean, I was, that year -- JJ: Was it by Kedzie, by Halsted? PM: I think it was Van Buren -- JJ: Racine or Ashland? PM: I think between Western and California or something. JJ: Something between Western or California and Van Buren Street? Do you remember, were you going to school? PM: Well, yeah. We went to Catholic school, so (laughs) every time we’d get out of Catholic school, there they were, waiting for us. We had a little radio that our parents would buy us. You know those little radio they used to carry at that time? We had to hide it because they would come to grab it, and then they’d beat you up. JJ: They beat you, and they took the radios. They took your money. PM: They took our money. We couldn’t do anything. We had to keep walking. I mean, there was all the Latinos, and they usually picked more on the [00:06:00] 5 �little kids. They were bigger kids, so, you know, they’d come, and they’d take the stuff from us, and we couldn’t do anything else. JJ: Oh, was it Latinos doing it too? PM: No, just Blacks. JJ: Blacks were doing it? PM: Yeah, it was like the Blacks and Latinos, mixed Black and Latinos, not many Whites. You know, that was the neighborhood that we were staying around. JJ: And they were older Blacks taking the -- PM: Correct. They were like teens, and we were younger, in the nine, eight year. JJ: Do you remember what school you went to? PM: I think it was Saint Patrick’s. JJ: Saint Patrick’s? PM: Yeah, around that area. And I remember the nuns. Also, the nuns used to beat up. If we said something wrong, they used to put soap in our mouth. I mean, now, they didn’t do it to me, but I seen it being done at a time, because at that time, I don't know, they did stuff like that, you know, put soap in your mouth. I don't know. You ever went to a Catholic school? JJ: Yeah. PM: Yeah, a lot of kids. Oh, and then we used to join [00:07:00] the YMCA too, to stay out of trouble. We didn’t want to be in the street. JJ: And still, you were on Van Buren? PM: We were still on Van Buren. JJ: So, where was the YMCA at? 6 �PM: It was around that area. JJ: Right in around there? PM: Yeah. They used to come pick us up, take us, and bring us back, so that kinda kept us outta trouble a little bit. JJ: You were getting into trouble? PM: Well, not us, the neighborhood, yeah. They had like bigger kids trying to get kids to steal for them because, you know, younger kids don’t go to jail because their age, so teenagers around the neighborhood, that’s what was happening at that time. JJ: They wanted you to steal for them? Or what kind of stuff? PM: They’d take you downtown. You know, you’re a kid. You put your money in -- I don’t know if you remember at that time, they had like you’d grab a newspaper, and you’d put the money. JJ: I remember, I used to -- That was my newspaper you went to -- (laughter) They used to have a cigar box, and then people would put the money [00:08:00] for the paper [and things?]. Your guys would take the money? PM: These teenagers or older guys, they’d take you out there, “Hey, let’s go to downtown,” a little group, and that’s what we would do. We’d go around, and they’d go to entertain the guy that was in the stand, and then we’d go up there. We’d put our money in there and grab a whole bunch of change, and then we kept doing it little by little, and then we’d get a whole bunch, you know. And that’s how most of our life went. JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) 7 �PM: Yeah, that’s the type I life we were doing in Chicago, and that’s young, you know, started. And I guess my parents, they found out about it, my dad, and then he sent us to Puerto Rico. JJ: So, you got sent to Puerto Rico at what age? PM: Well, I was about probably 11, 10 years old, and Puerto Rico, you think -- JJ: So, they sent you to Puerto Rico to -- PM: To get us out of the neighborhood in Chicago because we -- JJ: The police ever come to the house or anything like that? PM: Well, yeah, they had me, and police would take me and [00:09:00] interrogated me, you know, to tell on the guy. And I never told on him, and stuff like that, so everything, well, the guy went back home, and they never went to jail. JJ: So, Van Buren was a little rowdy, a little bit. PM: It was a little rowdy. They were killing. I mean, they killed our neighbor. She had like a little restaurant, and I remember when I was a kid, we all loved her in the neighborhood. And one day, somebody came, and they -- JJ: She was Puerto Rican? PM: And they robbed ‘em, and they shot ‘em. No, they were White. JJ: They were White? PM: Yeah. JJ: But somebody robbed ‘em and shot ‘em? They don’t know who it was? PM: No. I don’t think anybody -- you know, they was trying to probably figure out who it was, but I don’t think they’d ever found out. You know, type of information like that, when you’re kid, you don’t know any of that. 8 �JJ: This was your neighbor (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) PM: In the neighborhood, there was a lot of people hanging out, I remember now clearly that I used to go by -- they’d go in the buildings in the basement and get high. [00:10:00] JJ: So, this was in the ’60s, in the early, middle ’60s? PM: Yeah, in the ’60s. I remember they -- high, heroin. They were sniffing. I don't know what they were -- you know, everybody was like sniffing off of like a handkerchief. JJ: (inaudible) bags, the handkerchief? PM: Yeah, they were sniffing. JJ: It wasn’t like a rag? PM: There were some bags. JJ: It was handkerchief, so it was like (inaudible) or something? PM: Yeah, all kind of just sitting there, all high. JJ: So, when you say you remember guys were doing that, you weren’t doing that. PM: Oh, no, no, no. I was in, you know -- JJ: You saw other people doing it. PM: Yeah. That’s all you see around that neighborhood. Van Buren was bad. You know, it was bad. JJ: What do you mean, it was bad? PM: It was bad in the sense that it had a lot of robberies, a lot of killing. People used to come from other neighborhoods, come to our neighborhood and break things, and shootouts and all kinds of stuff like that. 9 �JJ: Shootouts? PM: Yeah. JJ: You mean [00:11:00] other groups would come to shoot at you? PM: No, they’d come shoot at other like little clubs or little groups. JJ: What were some of the groups that were there? Do you remember? PM: My understanding, that’s where the Kings started. JJ: On Van Buren? PM: You know, part of the Kings, they started over at Van Buren, around that neighborhood. You could tell the way they dressed at that time, they were dressed with the suspenders and some pants, you know. You’d say, “Yeah, they’re the Kings,” because they showed theirselves. They have their, como se dice, su marca. JJ: So, su marca, “their mark”? PM: Yeah, the way they looked, and now they use the colors. At that time, I don’t think it was more through colors. No, it was the way they dressed. JJ: The way they dressed, you could tell they were gangbangers? PM: Correct. Yeah. JJ: From that group? So, they would dress like with suspenders? PM: (Spanish) [Suspenders, los pantalones, eso ancho que tenía como --?] [00:11:53] JJ: Oh, Gouster? Those Gouster pants? PM: (Spanish) [Como, tenía como pachuco así --?] [00:11:58], yeah, similar. [00:12:00] JJ: Oh, pachuco. Similar like that? 10 �PM: So, that’s how you identify -- JJ: Any hats? Were they were wearing hats? PM: (Spanish) [La gorrita, también --?] [00:12:04]. I mean, it was pretty -- and then after that, we went to Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico was worse. Over there, you know, you go over there -- JJ: So, you went to Puerto Rico. Where did you go? What part of Puerto Rico? PM: We went to Salinas in the south of Puerto Rico, by Ponce, between Ponce and Guayama and all that area around there. JJ: And so, how was that like? PM: That was bad because over there, there was racism también. JJ: What do you mean, racism? PM: Racism among the Puerto Rican-Puerto Rican and they call us Americanos, the Americanos Puerto Ricans, which they didn’t like at that time. JJ: Oh, so the Puerto Ricans that were raised in Puerto Rico didn’t like the Puerto Ricans from here. PM: Yeah, they called ‘em the Nuyoricans or Americanos. JJ: The Nuyoricans? PM: Or Americanos, they’d call ‘em. JJ: Or the Americans, Americano. PM: Americano, they still do that. Y’know, they call you, “Ah, Americano.” JJ: So, you felt that racism? PM: Oh, yeah. You know, [00:13:00] I fought in school at last three, four times a month. 11 �JJ: You had to fight? PM: I had to fight. I had to because they would force you, you know. At that time, you would tell a teacher, but I mean, at that time, teachers didn’t really get involved in things like that. So, we did what we had to do. JJ: What is it that they didn’t like? PM: They didn’t like you. If they don’t like you, they’ll say, “Hey, meet me at the park at this time,” and that’s it. You know, that’s when I was growing up. There was a couple guys, y’know, so [they wou --?] JJ: But was it from the Puerto Ricans that were coming from here over there or more like from the ones that were there to the ones over here? PM: It was more with the ones from over here going over there. I mean, they had problems with people that were there already, but -- JJ: So, the ones that came from here, from the United States, and went to Puerto Rico, they were badder than the -- PM: I don’t -- they just didn’t like ‘em. [00:14:00] JJ: They didn’t like the Puerto Ricans that were there? PM: They didn’t like Puerto Ricans that -- no, it wasn’t the Puerto Ricans that came from here to there. It was the Puerto Ricans with the Americanos. JJ: Okay, they didn’t like the Americans. PM: They didn’t like the Americans. At that time -- JJ: The American Puerto Ricans. PM: Correct. Americans or American Puerto Ricans. (laughter) 12 �JJ: They didn’t like Americans or Puerto Rican Americans. (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) PM: They didn’t care, whoever it was. JJ: This was in Salinas? PM: Oh, it wasn’t just in Salinas. It was all over. But I mean, I’m telling you about Salinas. JJ: What year was that? PM: This was probably, wow, in early ’70s. JJ: Early ’70s? PM: Yeah. I remember, I think they were still the (Spanish) [estaba acabando la Guerra de --?] [00:14:43] Vietnam. JJ: Oh, okay, so it was in the early ’70s. PM: So, it was in the early ’70s. JJ: So, that’s when -- PM: That was right past the ’69 -- JJ: (inaudible) ’69 and -- PM: Correct. JJ: -- ’70 and stuff like that. Oh, okay, so you can feel that there was a tension there, that there was a tension at that time. PM: Yes. [00:15:00] There was a tension in school. Then I had to get out of school. I joined the Job Corps in Puerto Rico to get out of school so I could get a training and go to work. JJ: Why did you want to get out of school? 13 �PM: Because I was having problems in school, and I was fighting. JJ: Fighting, and the learning in school? PM: And not learning because -- JJ: Was it hard? PM: -- I was worried. I had to go to school every day, and something new was gonna come up. And the only people that I had was my brothers because there were four of us, and we gotta stick together. JJ: So, all four of your brothers were there? PM: Yeah, all four, the whole family, talking about the whole family, correct. JJ: From Van Buren, they went to Puerto Rico? PM: So, it was like our brothers was the little club or the little gang that we had to help each other. JJ: Okay, so you were just in the family. PM: In the family, because we went to the same school, most of us, because we [00:16:00] were close to the same age, so if anything happened, then, you know, one of the guys say, “Hey, your brother, he’s having problems,” so I run over there, and you know, we took care of it. Or he would hear something, and he runs over here, and we would take care of it, and that’s how it went all the time. After we grew up, then we grew up, and everything changed. I guess people got used to the Puerto Ricans going. You know how this works. You know, it’s a new generation and everything. JJ: So, you were there for how many years? PM: I think we stayed -- let me see. 14 �JJ: From ’70s to when? PM: Probably ten years. JJ: Ten more years, until the ’80s? PM: Until I turned old enough, and then I came to United States. JJ: ‘til the 1980s? PM: No, earlier probably. JJ: Before the ’80s? PM: (inaudible) ’78, ’79. JJ: And so, after that, you started getting along with the Puerto Ricans there? [00:17:00] PM: Well, before I left, I know I have problems. I had to come over here. That was one of the problems. JJ: What was one of the problems? What do you mean? PM: Oh, problems with, you know, fighting, and something went outta hand, so, you know, I came. I just wanted to come over here and cool off a little bit, and I stayed with my parents. JJ: Something went on that’s serious, something serious? PM: Well, yeah, something serious, so then after that -- JJ: But you can’t talk about it? PM: I can’t talk about it. JJ: So, you had to leave there. 15 �PM: I had to leave. Then I came. Then I come and live with my dad in Chicago, and I stayed with my dad. And then after that, I was from like Chicago, and here, Chicago and Grand Rapids, and Chicago and Grand Rapids, back and forth. JJ: So, you came back to Chicago to what neighborhood? PM: Okay, let me see. JJ: Now, you only went to school there, right? PM: To Chicago? JJ: When you were in Puerto Rico, did you get to the Job Corps? [00:18:00] PM: Yeah, I went to the Job Corps. The Job Corps, same thing, same thing, same thing, fighting. Oh, God, you couldn’t get outta Job Corps because there was another racist. I mean, Puerto Rico was crazy. I mean, you got stories, like you go to -- what they call that -- Hogar CREA? I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it. JJ: I’ve heard of it. PM: You know, that -- you know. They had racism about them people. JJ: Hogar CREA is a rehab. PM: Correct. They didn’t like the people from Hogar CREA. They didn’t like the people from the Job Corps. It was chaos. JJ: Oh, even in an organization, they didn’t get along either. PM: Correct. JJ: So, people was real divided then. PM: At the time that I was growing up, yes. Now it’s more liberal. JJ: Relaxed. 16 �PM: Yeah. And from then, like I said, I came over here, not here, I came to Chicago. Chicago was pretty good. You know, I like it. We had fun. JJ: So, you went to Chicago to what neighborhood? PM: I went to the neighborhood, [00:19:00] I think it was Clark. JJ: Clark Street? PM: Yeah, it was from Clark. I can’t remember the other street, but it was close to the park. They had railroad tracks; they used to run right over the apartment we used to live at. JJ: By Clark, you mean, over by Chicago Avenue? PM: It was by Clark Street. JJ: At Clark? And they had a railroad track, I’m trying to figure out --. PM: Yeah, I can’t remember that. That’s years ago. I can’t remember the address. JJ: But was it by Chicago Avenue or Grand? PM: No, Grand is the other way, I think. I think it’s over way -- is that west, west (inaudible) when you go to the lake, west of the other side. JJ: Oh, by the lake? PM: No, (Spanish) [pasando para otra para --?] [00:19:53] west, Lake and North, no? JJ: Oh, by Lake Street. PM: No, by the lake, [00:20:00] the lago, there. JJ: By the big main street? PM: Yeah. JJ: So, it was right around there. PM: Around there. 17 �JJ: So, you had the train, but it was underneath. PM: No, no, no. The train go over, over there. Anyways, it was around Clark area, the Clark area. That was where. I can’t remember, but then after that, we moved because (Spanish) [-- también de blanquito --?] [00:20:19]. That was, it was too expensive. We couldn’t afford it. JJ: Oh, that was Lincoln Park, man. You’re talking about Lincoln Park, not Clark, the Lincoln Park neighborhood. PM: But it had that Clark Street around. JJ: Yeah, they had Clark Street, but the train wasn’t on Clark Street. It was more on the -- PM: No, no, it wasn’t on Clark Street, no. Clark Street, it’s a big street. JJ: Okay, so you lived like around Clark? PM: Around that area, yeah. JJ: Around Clark Street? But was it by Hermitage or North Avenue? PM: I can’t tell you. I don't know where that is. JJ: Okay, so you lived around Clark Street. PM: Yeah, I lived around Clark Street, yeah. JJ: Okay, and then how was that neighborhood? PM: The neighborhood (Spanish) [ah blanquito --?] [00:20:55], then we stayed there for a little bit. Then, we moved. Then, we went, we lived to the north side [00:21:00] of town, north Chicago. JJ: Oh, you’re talking about by Wrigley Field. Is that where you’re talking about, by Clark, by Wrigley Field? 18 �PM: El parque. JJ: Yeah, by Addison and Clark and that area by Wrigley Field. PM: (Spanish) [Aha, por allí. Por allí, sí, sí --?] [00:21:14] JJ: So, you went to that neighborhood by Wrigley Field. PM: No, we didn’t live there long. We moved. Then I think dad had a girlfriend, so they kinda break out, so we moved. And then from there -- JJ: The whole family lived up there? PM: No, no, no. It was just my dad and I. Then I think my brother went with us, but he didn’t like it, so he went back. JJ: Your mom stayed where? PM: She stayed in Puerto Rico. There were other family. They got divorced and everything. There were other family. JJ: Okay, so they split up at that time? PM: Correct. JJ: So, did you work at that time? Were you working? PM: I wasn’t working. I think I was too young to work. I’m pretty sure I probably [00:22:00] was too young. I needed like paperwork and stuff like that. But once we moved out of there, I think then we moved to the north side, around Chicago, Damen, that area, or through Wood, all that area through there, and Augusta and all that. Then we moved on there. JJ: So, how long did you live there? 19 �PM: Oh, we lived there for years. We moved just a couple buildings [down?], stuff like that, but we stayed around that area. I’m pretty sure I was probably there about ten years. JJ: About ten years? PM: Yeah. JJ: So, this is like late ’70s, like ’78? PM: It’s like ’70s. JJ: The ’70s and ’80s? PM: And the ’80s. JJ: Okay, so ’70s and ’80s, you were around Chicago Avenue, Wood Street, Damen. PM: Correct. JJ: That area. What was that neighborhood like? PM: That was a good neighborhood. I mean, we used to party. That was the times when we played congas in the street and sing. [00:23:00] JJ: In the street or in the park? PM: In the streets, in the park, you know, all over. JJ: And you got into conga? PM: Yeah, I started playing some conga. JJ: Were you always into music or no? PM: No, I learned in Chicago. I started playing. JJ: Who were you hanging out with? PM: We used to hang around the -- around the [water?] area with the Mighty Grands. My cousin was part of the Mighty Grands. I mean, we were in that. 20 �JJ: I thought the Mighty Grands were like Italians, or were they mixed? PM: No, all the ones I knew were Puerto Ricans. JJ: All the ones you knew, the Mighty Grands, Puerto Ricans at that time? PM: That was around the Wood area. JJ: Okay, but it was mixed too, or wasn’t it? PM: The ones I knew, they were all Puerto Rican. They had the Playboys next to the Mighty Grands. JJ: Oh, okay, maybe that’s who. PM: I think they were Italians. They had a bar that was called the Playboy, and then they had [00:24:00] a little Playboy bar, and they were called all the Playboys. I mean, we used to go by that neighborhood, and then you’d hear shootings. JJ: Okay, so you guys fought with the Playboys at that time. PM: Well, I didn’t fight. I was not (Spanish) [-- natural --?] [00:24:13]. I was never in gangs. You know, I used to be around ‘em. I used to hang around by the Unknowns, the Kings, all these gangs, ‘cause at that time, when I was growing up, they had gangs in every corner. JJ: So, they had the Unknowns, the Kings. What other groups? PM: They had the Mighty Grands. They had the Superior Gangsters, and (Spanish) [00:24:44]. It’s been years. JJ: But you were neutral. PM: I was neutral. I was never interested in gangs. You know, yes, I would hang around with them. We’d drink, get high, stuff like that. JJ: Get high on what? What’d you get high on? 21 �PM: What was that? JJ: What [00:25:00] did you get high on at that time? PM: We used to -- just weed. JJ: Weed and stuff like that. Did you drink beer, wine? PM: Wine, yeah, wine was a big thing in those times. JJ: Richard’s? PM: Yeah, Richard, MD 20/20 in there. (laughs) Yeah, I mean, we used to run around. Oh, no, wait a minute. I remember those times too, they had the acid. I don't know if you ever, you know. You’d be tripping on that acid. They had that angel dust, you know. They had a whole bunch of the stuff, you know, those things. JJ: Did you try all that stuff? PM: Oh, I tried a lot of that stuff, you know, yeah, when growing up. I mean, it was crazy because it was all over. That was that era where everybody was getting high. I mean, there was also -- JJ: This was the early ’70s and late ’80s? PM: Yeah, like in ’76, ’78, around there. JJ: You’d still get high on (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). PM: (Spanish) [Yeah, eso también […] --?] [00:25:55] hippies (Spanish) [00:26:00] JJ: But that was not a hippie neighborhood. PM: No, no, no, this was a Latino neighborhood. I think it was Latinos and White. JJ: Latino meaning Mexican and Puerto Rican? 22 �PM: They had some Mexicans, well, not as much, but they had ‘em, and a couple Blacks. They didn’t have many Blacks. JJ: This is Chicago, Damen, that area, the Wood Street? PM: (inaudible) from downtown, coming all the way to Chicago Avenue, all the way down to Lowell, passing Kedzie and probably around there. JJ: So, Chicago Avenue was the street -- PM: Yeah, that was the main street. JJ: -- that you followed, the Mighty Grand thing. PM: Well, they didn’t run all that area because they had other gangs on the other side, you know, like the Unknowns that were over to the -- by Humboldt Park and that, and the Kings, and then the Kings, the Cobras later and stuff like that, y’know, that came out. Other gangs started coming out. JJ: So, you just hung out on what street? What street are you [00:27:00] hanging out on? PM: I hang out on Wood, right there. They had a little park there. JJ: Wood and Chicago, right there? PM: Yeah, al lado de -- they had a police station, so we’d hang right across the street. They had a little (Spanish) [-- nombre parque de -- que Valle a --?] [00:27:15]. Geez, I forgot, I don’t think it’s Wood Park, right? They don’t have a --? JJ: There’s no Eckhart Park. That’s the other. PM: No. They had a little park there. That’s where we’d hang all night. We’d listen to music, and we’d hang out with our girls, you know, with our oldies on. The oldies, yeah, they had that oldies station. You’d put it on late at night. 23 �JJ: Like WVON, the oldies, the Black station? PM: Yeah, they used to play all those like lowrider music and stuff like that, so we’d hang out with our girls, drink some wine and stuff. JJ: And just kinda party with girls and stuff like that? PM: Yeah, just hang out. And we never -- JJ: Not really into gangs. PM: No, it was like [00:28:00] a neighborhood club, you know. That’s all it was. We weren’t out shooting people or nothing like that. It was just protection for us, and that’s all we did. JJ: And once in a while, you had somebody come from somewhere else. PM: Yeah, but that was rarely. It was very rare. I’d see more action at Humboldt Park when I used to go to Humboldt Park. In those years, at Humboldt Park, I mean, that was chaos. JJ: What was Humboldt Park like? PM: Well, Humboldt Park, well, you know. You was around there, everybody playing the congas, (Spanish) [-- tabaco, “Hey, tabaco!” Tengo -- cómo --?] [00:28:29] -- I don't know how they call it -- they had heroin, everything, anything you wanted, even a woman if you wanted a woman. I was young then, and I was wild. This is like -- JJ: Free open market. PM: Yeah, open market for everything, right at Humboldt Park. I mean, it was good times ‘cause, you know, we were al -- (Spanish)[-- Boricua. No sabe ya --?] [00:28:53]. You didn’t see blancos. You didn’t [00:29:00] see no other (Spanish) 24 �[-- que Boricua.] [00:29:01], and we all hang at Humboldt Park, and we all protected each other. You know, if somebody come messing with you, they come and they protect you. That’s all it was at that time. JJ: So, you liked it because it was more Boricua, more Puerto Rican. PM: Correct, yeah. And it was, everybody was -- JJ: Is that why you went there, just to hang out with -- PM: Well, we’d go there and listen to music, get into the music, sing, you know, play congas and stuff like that. JJ: What did you mean, sing? PM: Well, sing, they make coro. Everybody makes a coro. (Spanish) [poner un cantar y --?] [00:29:31] JJ: And you were more into music? PM: (Spanish) [-- y’know, la canción --?] [00:29:33] JJ: Okay, improvising? PM: Improvise, yeah. (Spanish) [Todo eso. Como tirando y […], tú sabes. (laughs) -y ventando --?] [00:29:38] So, that was great. JJ: So, you did that on the weekends? PM: Yeah, the weekends, that was the paydays. By then, I had a job then. When I moved to that area, I had a job. JJ: Where were you working? PM: Geez, I had a (Spanish) [-- un trabajo aquí --?] [00:29:58], and I’d grab another one next door. [00:30:00] I’d walk from here, and I was working like in (Spanish) [00:30:03], like (inaudible) and stuff like that and making boxes. (inaudible) 25 �(Spanish) [00:30:07], pictures. Then I went to other places. Then I went next door. It was like a little rubber thing, making plastic spoons and bottles and stuff like that. They had a lot of jobs at that time. You couldn’t get a job here, you’d get another job next door. You know, it says, “Help wanted.” It was good. At that time, it was good, so every time payday, we would run. Either we’d go to Fullerton Beach, y’know -JJ: Fullerton? PM: Fullerton Beach, yeah. JJ: What was that like, Fullerton Beach? PM: Well, it’s the same thing. And the rocks, you know, and the rocks in that area? JJ: That’s by Lincoln Park by the rocks. Yeah. That became like a Puerto Rican (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) PM: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, at that time. JJ: That was the Puerto Rican beach, Fullerton Beach. PM: That was también, the same as Humboldt Park. I mean, they didn’t have all that selling and stuff they’re doing in that park. It was all music. You know, [00:31:00] they’re playing over here. Everybody’d come, and they’d join. They’d bring their own instrument and just enjoyed the music. JJ: What year was that? PM: That was in the late ’70s. JJ: In the late ’70s? So, Fullerton Beach was the Puerto Rican beach in the mid’70s. PM: Yes. 26 �JJ: Is that what you’re saying? I’m not putting words in your mouth. PM: No, that was our hangout for the beach. That was when we would go to the beach. JJ: From all over the city? PM: Yes. JJ: From Humboldt Park and -- PM: From Humboldt Park to there. JJ: And everybody went to that beach? PM: And to the neighborhood. JJ: Now, did the gangs fight each other at the beach, or was that neutral? PM: Then that was neutral. JJ: Then that’s kind of a neutral place? Nobody fought? PM: Yeah. The fighting was mainly like in the club at that time. I remember, as long as I can remember, you go to clubs, they have the Martini, we used to call. It used to be, [00:32:00] I don’t remember (inaudible). JJ: The Martini House? PM: Martini was one of them. You go, there was disco at that time. I don't know if you remember, Diana Ross and all that, those canciones de disco. JJ: So, you had a lot of disco clubs. PM: They had a lot of disco clubs. That’s where the gangs used to come in and do the shooting. That’s where the problem was. I mean, that’s where I saw it. I never saw the outside. Yeah, there was shooting, but not around my neighborhood. 27 �JJ: Were there a lot of disco clubs? PM: Oh, yeah, at that time, yeah, they had a lot of disco clubs. They have one at North Avenue, right on North Avenue and I think it was California, and a club, like a little hall upstairs, and they used to throw disco there too, but that was more relaxed because that was from around the neighborhood, (Spanish) [00:32:44], so it wasn’t as bad, and they couldn’t sneak in. Like in the clubs, they used to sneak in and shoot right in the club. And I went to a couple clubs, and they would shoot out right inside a club, so I mean, we had to get outta there, [00:33:00] y’know, collect all our buddies, say, “Hey, let’s get outta here.” (inaudible) Yeah, that wasn’t that bad. Mostly, when I was growing up in Chicago at that time, all the gangs were mainly like at Humboldt Park, the fighting. I’m talking about this was after the Humboldt Park went down. They closed the Humboldt Park. JJ: What do you mean? PM: They closed it. Remember, they closed Humboldt Park so the people don’t go in there, play congas? I don't know if you remember that time. You were probably in Chicago when that -- JJ: I’m not sure. PM: They closed it. They put like a barrier or something so the cars wouldn’t go in, nobody go in. JJ: You mean by the boat house? PM: By the boat house. JJ: So, they closed the boat house? 28 �PM: They sealed it down, and they didn’t want nobody going there. And then that’s when they stopped, and then that’s when they started all the gangbanging. JJ: So, there wasn’t gangbanging before that? PM: When that was happening, yeah. Before that, I didn’t know nothing about it. [00:34:00] We would hear one or two things, but that was if somebody came into the park, and then for protection, then they would have -- JJ: So, why did they close it down? PM: Well, probably because the selling of the drugs, prostitution, heroin. JJ: There was no gangs? PM: I mean, there were gangs, but they weren’t -- JJ: I mean the gang fighting came later, you said. PM: Yeah, more. It escalated. JJ: It escalated maybe because they closed it down? PM: I mean, I don't know if it was because they closed it down. JJ: Was that when they made the beach? Were you there when they made the beach or no? PM: No, I was in Grand Rapids after that. JJ: So, the beach was already there. PM: The beach was there, but they used to call it Mojóne Beach. JJ: Mojóne? PM: (laughs) Yeah. JJ: Mojóne means? PM: Mojóne, you know, the poop, the turd, yeah. 29 �JJ: Like a turd beach? PM: Yeah, the Turd Beach. JJ: As in feces, turd as in feces? PM: Correct, because it was never clean. And then they’d keep it clean, or it looked dirty. You know how the Latinos are. [00:35:00] They put names on everything. JJ: So, that was when the city was doing that, trying to fix an area like for a beach for the Puerto Ricans, but the Puerto Ricans didn’t take care of it, or --? PM: Well, as long as I remember, they still take -- a lot of people go in there. That beach was never fixed. It was just, maybe it was too small for too many people. That’s what I saw. I never went in there. JJ: You went where? Where did you go? PM: I went to the Fullerton Beach. JJ: How come you didn’t go to North Avenue? PM: Well, we walked. Yeah, we’d walk all the way from Fullerton. You can walk all the way to North Avenue because that was the thing. Everybody walks back and forth. JJ: Did you go to Oak Street Beach too? PM: No. I never went there. JJ: Nobody went to the Oak Street? PM: No, at that time, that wasn’t the hangout. You know, we’d follow the rules. Where the people was, y’know, [00:36:00] that’s where we follow. JJ: Okay. I know Montrose was also one of the beaches. 30 �PM: Montrose, correct. I think we went there a couple times, but the one on Fullerton, there were all the Latinos. JJ: What did they do? PM: The Latinos, I guess you’d feel more comfortable. You’d feel like you’re on your own island. You feel more comfortable with the Latinos, at that time. You can go to Chicago right now, and I don’t think you’d see that many Puerto Ricans over there. I went one time, and it’s mainly all Whites. JJ: Fullerton? PM: Correct. JJ: So, there’s no more Latinos? PM: There’s some but not like it used to be, and then there’s cops all over. JJ: At that time, they didn’t have cops? PM: At that time, no, they didn’t have that many cops. There were cops, but, you know, they’d just look and see if everything was cool and kept walking. JJ: And usually, there was no problems? PM: And there was no problems. [00:37:00] JJ: Okay, but now they have a lot of cops and no Latinos? PM: Correct. JJ: So, how do you feel about that, that your beach is not there? PM: Well, I think it’s a big change. In Chicago, everything changes. They move people out and bring others in, and Chicago has always been like that. JJ: Okay. What do you mean? What do you mean, they move people out? 31 �PM: They raise the taxes so the poor leave, and then the rich people move in, and so they’re forced to leave and find another spot. They take your neighborhood from you, and then they force you out. JJ: What do you mean, they take your neighborhood? PM: Well, they’re taking it. I mean, they’re taking it legally. I’m not saying they’re just taking it. Legally, they take it. But [00:38:00] I think Chicago’s always been like that. I mean, that happens here in Grand Rapids too. It’s happening right now. JJ: What’s happening? PM: In Chicago, they’re moving. They’re fixing. They’re growing downtown. It’s coming to the ghetto, so they’re kinda, I mean, in a good way, yeah, they’re fixing, but that’s for now. You don’t see it as bad in Chicago. Chicago, you see it, everything. I mean, I remember I used to hang around Division. Now on Division, you don’t see people playing dominoes in the streets like they used to and hear the music. Now it’s different. JJ: (inaudible) did it improve, or it got worse or better, or what do you mean? PM: In a way, it’s improved, but then they make things, things are expensive, so the people don’t have the money to hang around there. And so, I [00:39:00] mean, it’s good in a way and bad in another way. JJ: Tell me why it’s good, and tell me why it’s bad. PM: It’s bad because la gente can’t afford to be around there, they can’t be around there. It’s not like it used to be. It was more liberal. People sit down, talk to others and stuff like that, and you can’t do that anymore. You can’t just sit there. They’re gonna tell you you have to move. You have to buy something, which, 32 �you know, that’s how restaurants are anyways, but that’s what it is. I don't know much. JJ: That’s the bad part. What’s the good part? PM: The good part? It looks good. The neighborhood looks good, but it looks good but not with our people. JJ: What do you mean? PM: (laughs) JJ: I asked you to tell me what’s good. I didn’t tell you to say [what’s bad?] -- PM: It looks good. The neighborhood looks good, but not with our people. JJ: What do you mean, [00:40:00] not with our people? We’re not there? PM: Boricuas, it’s a Boricua neighborhood, y’know. JJ: But the Boricuas, the Puerto Ricans that moved to -- they’re living in the suburbs. PM: They’re somewhere in the suburbs. JJ: They’re better. PM: You think? JJ: I don't know. I’m asking you. PM: (laughs) You tell me. JJ: We live in the suburbs, right? So, we moved up. PM: Ah -JJ: What do you think? PM: Not everybody wants to live in the suburbs, don’t you think? That’s like moving them out, getting them out of town, you know. I wouldn’t want to live in the suburbs. 33 �JJ: Do they live in better houses in the suburbs or what? PM: I have no idea, they probably do. I love the ghetto, man. I’m a ghetto man, you know, (laughs) 100 percent. JJ: You love the ghetto? PM: Ghetto, you know the ghetto. JJ: You love to be by your people. PM: I like to be by my people. Yeah, that’s what I like. I don’t care. I know for some people, it’s bad. You have to think big and positive, but it’s, [00:41:00] I guess, I just like to be by my people. I don't know. It’s a good thing for me. JJ: So, when did you leave Chicago then? PM: Oh, I left Chicago -- wow, let me see. JJ: I mean, it looks like you didn’t like the job market. Otherwise, you would’ve stayed there. PM: No, well, you know, it’s those things. JJ: Why did you decide to come back here to Grand Rapids? PM: Well, you get older, and you get to that time that you gotta change. You know what I mean? So, I came here. This was a nice -- Grand Rapids is a good place to raise a kid, have a good job. They had jobs here like crazy when I came here. JJ: But I thought you said you liked it, (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) around your people. PM: Yeah, well, they have Puerto Ricans in Grand Rapids too. JJ: So, you figured, come over here? 34 �PM: And I have more family here. I’m very close to my family, [00:42:00] so, I mean, I had all my family here. JJ: When you say all your family, who of your family? PM: Well, family, I have a bunch. I got the Fernández. I got the Hernandez. I got the Perez, the Mateos. JJ: They were all here? PM: And then they’re all mixed with all other Latinos. If I mention ‘em, man, I’ll be here all day. JJ: So, you have a very big family in Grand Rapids. PM: Yes, bigger than Chicago. JJ: Who are some of your uncles and aunts that are here, or cousins? PM: Wow, there’s too many. I can’t even go through all that deatil. There’s so many. I really don’t like mentioning their names. Let’s skip that. JJ: But are they involved in the community or no, some of them? PM: Yeah. There were some. I mean, we had Yolanda. JJ: Yolanda Wilson? PM: Yes. JJ: She was the director of the ex-offender [00:43:00] program? PM: Yes. She went through a couple programs, helping the Latino and the immigrants. And then we have her daughter that she’s following her steps. JJ: Who’s her daughter? PM: Man, you just put me under the -- JJ: Yolanda Wilson’s daughter is working also in the community? 35 �PM: Yes. JJ: Now, don’t you have some cousins or somebody that are teachers or something? PM: Yeah, I got a couple. I got a cousin that’s a teacher also. JJ: But I mean like principal, right, or something like that, a principal? PM: Yeah, she’s a principal over here on Franklin. JJ: Okay, so they’re kind of active. You had the Fernández Bar. PM: They had the Fernández Bar, which that bar ran for years over in Grand Rapids. So, I mean, I came here, I liked it here, I got a job. JJ: So, your family is very much in the community. PM: Yeah. I came here. [00:44:00] I settled down. I got here. What I never did in Chicago, I did it here, and I made a bad decision. I got into heroin, and then that was something, to be hooked on heroin for close to 10 years. JJ: Here in Grand Rapids? PM: Here in Grand Rapids. JJ: So, you didn’t do that in Chicago, but you started -- PM: I never did that in Chicago. JJ: But you saw it. PM: I saw it, and I lived around it, and they would do it in front of me and everything, but it never went through my mind. Just, I would get high on weed and stuff like that and once in a while drop a pill, but when I came here, then my life went downhill. JJ: So, what happened then? Were you just curious, or were you depressed, or were you going through problems? 36 �PM: Probably, yeah, going through problems with my ex and stuff like that, so going through that stage kinda brought me into that, you know. And I tried it, and I tried [00:45:00] stopping. JJ: You found you liked it? PM: Well, you know, (laughs) that’s the bad part, when you try and you like it. So, going through all that, I mean, yeah, I liked it, and it was a great high (inaudible). Plus, it was a cheap high too. JJ: It was a cheap high at that time? PM: But I’ll tell you what, really, I didn’t just try it and go and buy it. I got into selling, y’know. I was selling. I would sell weed. I would make my business like, make some money like that. I would work and sell some weed, and I would sell some heroin. JJ: So, not only did you like it, but you were also making money, so you’re making money too. PM: Correct. JJ: It was giving you a positive -- like a positive reinforcer, would you say? PM: Kinda. To me, it wasn’t costing me anything, and I liked it, so, you know, I kept doing it. JJ: Did you get any problems later or no? PM: Well, you know, yeah, I got addicted to it. [00:46:00] JJ: And then what happened there? PM: So, that’s an addiction and that. JJ: Did that affect your family at all? 37 �PM: Oh, yeah, it affected my family. I got divorced, and then one day, I said, “Hey, you know, I gotta stop.” I decided I have to leave this alone. JJ: Did you ever go to jail for it or no? PM: Not for it. Well, I got caught with, not with any dope on me, you know, marijuana [is still?] dope, [I would cap it?], that was like 75-dollars, 50-dollars fine for a little bag or whatever. I’d go pay it and get out. JJ: So, your problem wasn’t the jail. It was more the family issues, like you got divorced? PM: Kinda, yeah, then. So, that brought me into the drug, and then after that, one day they were looking for me. I don't know. I think I owed some money. They put me in jail. I mean, I had the money in my pocket, and I said, “This is the time for me to quit.” They just said, “Well, [00:47:00] I got you here. You got three months, or you pay 300 dollars.” And then in my mind, I said, “You know what? This is my time to quit.” Boom, I said, “Gimme the three months.” And I had the money, and I went in there, and once they put me in jail, I started doing my three months, and that’s where I started kicking. Lucky I had one of my cousin’s cousins. They were working in a jail as a guard, and he was helping me with aspirins here and there to kinda calm down the chilling and stuff like that, but I went through hell in there. And I went through it and got over it, and I came out. Then, I came out; I started going to church. I did a cursillo, matter of fact. JJ: You went to what church? PM: I went to St. Joseph’s. JJ: St. Joseph’s, a Catholic church? 38 �PM: Catholic church. JJ: You did a cursillo? PM: I did a cursillo, [00:48:00] and after the cursillo, I was in church for a while, for years, for maybe 15 years. JJ: What is a cursillo? What is that? PM: Cursillo is a Christian organization. I think it’s through every church. It’s a spiritual… (Spanish) [¿Cómo la dirías eso --?] [00:48:19]. JJ: Like a retreat? PM: A spiritual retreat, yeah. JJ: So, you went like for a week or a weekend? PM: It’s a weekend. JJ: Okay. And what do you do there? PM: Well, that’s something you can’t talk about it because that’s -- JJ: Just prayers and stuff? PM: There’s prayers, a lot of prayers. You study a lot. It’s a bunch of things that they teach you, go through, and at the end, you come out clean. JJ: Now, did you ever relapse again on the heroin? PM: After that-- not on heroin, no. After that, I never relapsed, but I did turn alcoholic. [00:49:00] JJ: After that? PM: Yeah. I started drinking a lot. JJ: 'Cause sometimes people, they stop the heroin and go to the alcohol. PM: I changed the heroin to alcohol, and I didn’t think it was a problem. 39 �JJ: But you improved, so that was good. PM: You call that improvement? (laughs) JJ: Well, yeah, I mean, it’s better than -- alcohol, you know, I don't know which is worse, but still, it wasn’t heroin. PM: Well, there was times where I would wake up in my car all drunk and stuff like that. JJ: So, you went pretty bad into the alcohol. PM: Yeah, I didn’t think I had a problem, but I did. And then I realized that, and then that’s when I joined Project Rehab. That’s where I met you. I met Jose, Jose “Cha Cha” Jimenez. JJ: I had a bottle too? PM: You had a bottle to hit people in the head with. (laughter) JJ: What was I doing there then? [00:50:00] PM: You was a counselor. You was my counselor. Yeah, then you would help us out. I went in there and did what I had to do. I mean, I wasn’t happy, you know. (laughs) JJ: You didn’t like your counselor? PM: No, it wasn’t the counselor. The thing is, you know, I mean, you go over there voluntary, they say, “Well, you got 30 days,” and then you say, “Wow, I got three more days.” You go, “Three more.” (laughs) JJ: You’re doing time. PM: Yeah, like doing time, “You got three more days to go --” 40 �JJ: [I gotta tell you?] “You can’t go because you’re doing time… You’re not getting into the program.” PM: Yeah. (laughter) JJ: “This guy’s just doing time.” PM: No, but I was getting into it. You know, I mean, I was feeling good. At first, it was kinda hard. JJ: What did you learn in there? Because, you know, it’s not really the concept of change, as you change yourself. PM: Yes. You have to want to. I mean, if you don’t want to, it’s not gonna happen. And I mean, [00:51:00] everybody, you just could see people, just looking at the people and see the behavior already changing, what’s going on and all this, I mean, that made you want to think you don’t want to go back to this. I don’t want to be there again. And that’s every time something like that, I think about it. I said, “No, this ain’t for me,” and thank God, I’ve been doing pretty good. But it was hell in there. (laughs) JJ: What do you mean? PM: Well, it’s got the rules, you know. Especially when you’re an alcoholic, you don’t like nobody telling you what to do and the meetings, and everything is a meeting. You gotta listen. You have to listen to these people, and the same thing over and over and over. In a way, it sticks to you, you know? (laughs) You come outta there, and you’re having like nightmares. JJ: “Oh, not again.” 41 �PM: “Not again. (laughter) This guy, the same thing.” There you go. But yeah, it was pretty good. [00:52:00] But some of the counselors, I mean, I think it’s just me. I just couldn’t deal with a lot of ‘em. JJ: What year was that? PM: In the ’80s. JJ: The ’80s? PM: Yeah. JJ: Okay, so this is (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). PM: What, ’89, wasn’t it? You was there. JJ: Yeah, ’89, ’90. PM: Or ’98? JJ: No, I think I left there around ’95 or something like that, ’96. PM: You left, so it was before that. JJ: Yeah, it was before then. PM: So, yeah, then I came out of there. Then I changed my life. JJ: So, today, you only chipped a few things? PM: I chip what? JJ: You chipped a few things? PM: No, no. (laughter) JJ: Just a couple. PM: Just a few. (laughter) JJ: Oh, just a few. (laughter) But so far, I mean, you’re -- 42 �PM: No, I’m doing good. I’m doing good. I mean, I bought some houses. Once I [00:53:00] got outta there, I got me a job. JJ: You bought some houses? PM: I bought houses. JJ: Where did you learn? You did some (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). PM: I did it on my own. I did some research. Well, thanks to you, you helped me out. We worked together on the support group. We worked together. JJ: After you came out, you were helping me with the Latino Support Group? PM: Latino Support Group. JJ: And what was that? What was the Latino Support Group? PM: That was combined with alcohol. It was more with everything, you know. JJ: Drugs? PM: Emotion and everything, a group combined with drugs. JJ: (inaudible) your culture and all that? PM: Yeah. JJ: It was like a twelve-step program? PM: Yes. JJ: It was for the people when they came out, we’d set that set that up for the graduates, but they didn’t have any support [on the --?] PM: Correct. JJ: So, we set that up. You helped me with it. PM: Yeah, it was you, me. We had a couple people. JJ: Carlos. 43 �PM: You, Carlos, and I were the first ones that started it, [00:54:00] and then we started bringing people in. And it went pretty good. It was a big group. We had a big group. JJ: Actually, it split up into other group. It’s still going. PM: It’s still going, but it split it up. They changed the name, but it’s still there. JJ: Because before, they didn’t have anything in Spanish. PM: Correct. So, we did that, and then we did the Lincoln Park Camp. JJ: Yeah, the Lincoln Park Camp was to talk about the history of the Young Lords and all that and to get people from here to go to a camp. PM: Correct. And then we were working at the Lincoln Park. It was part of the group we had with the church. JJ: The KO Club. PM: The KO Club. JJ: What was the KO Club for? PM: That was to keep kids out of street. JJ: Out of the gangs? PM: Out of the gangs. JJ: So, you helped with that also? PM: We helped with that. I worked a lot of years with that, and then we looked for funds to make funds for the club. So, that went on for a while also, until the funds ran out, I guess. JJ: Yeah, they ran out [00:55:00] in three years. PM: Correct. 44 �JJ: But it’s still going. That’s still going but with a different name. PM: Yeah, that’s still going with a different name, correct. But we got that started too, and the Lincoln Park Camp. It’s still going. JJ: And the Lincoln Park Camp is still going because we’re documenting the history right now. PM: Correct. JJ: I mean, they were trying to document the history right now, so that’s what it was for, right? PM: Yeah. Oh, and then we had the little Young Lord group that we started here. That was a five-person group that we have. JJ: And that group is the one that started that -- PM: That started all the other programs. I was involved, you, Carlos, and some other, two more guys. JJ: Those were the main people, but there were other people involved? PM: They were the main people, correct. JJ: Because the people in the KO Club and all that were involved in all that different. PM: No, they weren’t. They were just with the KO Club. So, [00:56:00] that’s how I met you, and that’s my life. JJ: So, you became like a businessperson. PM: With the houses. JJ: With the houses. PM: Correct. JJ: And so, what did you do with the houses? 45 �PM: I rent ‘em. I rent. I live in one. JJ: You rent ‘em out to people? PM: I rent out to people. I’ve been successful because at that time, I could’ve had more than two houses. And like this house here, I bought for 4,000 dollars, and between Carlos and I, we got in here, and we fixed it. We tore the whole thing. We put new patterning, new floor, new everything. Then once I got fixing, then I borrowed money out. Then I borrowed money on this, fixed some more, and then I bought another house. And then the other house, that’s the [00:57:00] moneymaking house. I got a duplex, so that brings a lot of money, and I’m almost done paying that. I wish I could do more, but that’s good enough for me. JJ: So, you’re not just fixing them to sell ‘em. You’re fixing them to rent them. PM: I fix to rent, yeah, so I can have some retire money when I -- that’s my main goal, the retire money. I wanna see some money when I get old, you know. JJ: And so, that’s one of your business. PM: So I can go to China, you know, Japan. (laughs) I wish I could. JJ: Okay, well, that’s good. PM: Everybody has dreams. You know how that is. JJ: That’s a good inspiration (inaudible) [businesspeople?], but you still are involved with the community and stuff like that too? PM: Sure, I still get involved with the community. I’m more watching on the neighborhood, you know, and stuff like that, around the neighborhood, keep it [00:58:00] clean. And pretty far, it’s been successful around this neighborhood. I mean, still it’s gotten worse, and we have a lot of gangs here now, this area here. 46 �But this area here, since I was a little kid, 'cause I was born in this area, and it’s always been bad. But there’s still shooting. There’s gangs that come out. JJ: And when you say, “this area,” this is the -- PM: This is the Grandville area, Grandville Avenue area in Grand Rapids. JJ: Is that where the Puerto Ricans live? PM: This is where the Hispanic people live. You can’t say Puerto Rican here 'cause it’s Hispanic because it’s not all Puerto Rican. JJ: Who lives here, then? PM: This is mixed. This is Puerto Ricans, Black, White, Mexican, Tejanos, all kind. JJ: But I mean, it’s big? You said it’s all kind, but it’s also the center where the Latinos were, the Hispanics. [00:59:00] PM: Well, now it’s changed. This is more mixed now. The center of the Latinos is on Burton, the Burton area. That’s where all -- JJ: Burton and where? PM: Burton from -- let me see. I will say like from Hall School to 28th Street, on Division all through there. All those houses are all mostly Latinos and Blacks. They’re also mixed because Grand Rapids is all mixed. The system, you know, this is not like Chicago. They got one neighborhood that’s all Puerto Rican, one that’s -- JJ: It’s how it’s been. PM: It’s never been like that, yeah. And then like gangs here, gangs are mixed too. It’s not all Puerto Rican gangs. This is all people that know -- JJ: Is there a gang problem? 47 �PM: There used to be. [01:00:00] I mean, they’re shooting people, but I don't know. You don’t get a lot of information on what’s going on. You know, you hear it, but the cops won’t say much on the paper. But I think, to me, it’s more like drug related or maybe some gang too 'cause most of the gangs are doing the drugs. They’re the ones that’s selling the drugs, so… but I don’t wanna get into that 'cause, you know. JJ: Well, is the neighborhood calm, or is it changing? PM: The neighborhood’s changing. The people, it’s changing. It’s better than Burton. I mean, Burton, they do a lot of shooting. There’s gangs all over. Most of the gangs are on Burton. JJ: So, this is more stable? PM: This is more stable here on this side of town. JJ: But it’s also changing though. Isn’t downtown -- PM: Yeah, downtown kinda moving in. JJ: So, the urban renewal is coming in. But you say that’s good for the money. PM: Well, it’s good in a way, you know, I mean, if [01:01:00] you wanna sell out. (laughs) JJ: Is that what you say (inaudible)? PM: (laughs) No, I [didn’t?] say that. JJ: I’m just joking with you. (laughs) PM: Nope, I say, “You know what? Gimme the house, and we’ll pay for it, and just get out. You know, here’s a couple whatever just to get out.” 48 �JJ: But it’s pretty stable because the people that are living here have kinda been here for a while, right? The renters that you have. PM: The renters, yeah, they’ve been there. I mean, I don’t charge much rent. A lot of people like that, and I got good tenants, so I’m happy. If I can get ‘em to cut the grass and stuff like that, (laughs) that would be great. JJ: That’s part of the agreement? PM: No. (laughs) But pretty much, that’s pretty much it. That’s what we got. JJ: Okay, [01:02:00] any final thoughts? PM: I covered it all. That’s it. END OF VIDEO FILE 49 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f6666aa05ad86c85c6a3fefe18aefc6b.mp4 2fb9f09f6628b16ac3ec8cd92639c52c 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 Patrick Mateo 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_Mateo_Patrick Title A name given to the resource Patrick Mateo video interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mateo, Patrick Description An account of the resource Patrick Mateo is a Young Lord who was born in the United States but lived many years in Puerto Rico. His family is from Salinas. But he and his siblings grew up in Chicago starting at Van Buren, the old La Madison barrio, and in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He is currently living in Puerto Rico. Mr. Mateo fixes his own cars and studied carpentry and building maintenance. He can build you a house from scratch. His mother lived in a convent for some time and attends church regularly at St. Joseph’s in Grand Rapids. Mr. Mateo, who also dabbles in music, has played and sung for the church choir. He is a community organizer. Mr. Mateo has also worked on several Young Lords projects including the Latino Support Group that became the first bilingual, bicultural support group in Grand Rapids. The Latino Support Group was a volunteer program that received referrals from the courts and probation departments to assist Latinos with substance abuse issues. Mr. Mateo also helped to organize the KO CLUB, an afterschool neighborhood program to prevent youth from becoming involved with gang violence. And he also helped to organize several Lincoln Park Camps in Michigan, to educate people about the Young Lords and to recruit volunteers who would assist in documenting their history. Each of the camps were self-supported by a donated fee, provided a weekend get-away, and proved positive and memorable events. Mr. Mateo has a large family that looks to him as its leader. The Fernández side is also large and well established in Grand Rapids. They include church pastors, school principals, and businesspersons. He describes rough times and perseverance. And he remains a role model and pacesetter for others 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.) 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 2012-07-22 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/7dc66b3d01c731e2698ac2cc3a7252a2.pdf b24353e2d50a0345b9f50159b1d6e787 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Charlyne Martínez-Villegas Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 6/5/2012 Biography and Description Charlyne Martínez-Villegas came to Grand Rapids, Michigan from New Jersey where she loved it because there were many Puerto Ricans. In Grand Rapids she was only one of a few. Another reason that she loved New Jersey is that that is where her mother and father were still married. She explains that as soon as their family arrived in Grand Rapids, her parents divorced. Her mother worked hard trying to make ends meet, preparing homemade pasteles that people would order from her ahead of time and then she would have to have them ready at all hours of the day or week. Eventually her mother’s homemade business led to opening up a small restaurant on Grandville Avenue which is always filled with patrons. In Grand Rapids, Ms. Martínez-Villegas began to get in trouble at school and in the neighborhood on the southeast side of the city, by Garfield Park. She missed her friends back in New Jersey and in school “she just did not fit in…the kids were mostly white, or black.” She explains that she could relate a little better with black children because they shared a lot of things in common. She also missed her father. The Young Lords were passing out flyers door-to-door. But they did not use the name “Young Lords” publicly. Instead they called themselves the “KO CLUB.” And they had a way with words. She explains that they had to read some pledges and phrases and everything began with KO: “Keep Open Your Hearts” or “Keep Standing Up for Yourself” or “Keep Open Your Mind.” Their meetings were held in a United Methodist Church, and the heads of the KO Club were Pastor Marge Berman, who �was of Mexican descent, and Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez. Members of the Club were also shown several videos about the Young Lords.The young people who participated in the Club and the small congregation were supportive. But there were a few within the church who did not like the Young Lords, who had taken over Methodist Churches in New York and Chicago. Those same individuals also did not like Pastor Berman, who was new and wanted more interaction with the community. Pastor Berman had read a newspaper article about the Young Lords while Mr. Jiménez was working as a substance abuse counselor for Project Rehab. She contacted him by phone. And when they met for the first time, Pastor Berman told him that he was sent by God. To which Mr. Jiménez replied, “Did God send any money? Because I have bills.” Mr. Jiménez did want to organize and help youth, but he wanted to do so around issues related to the Young Lords. Pastor Berman just wanted to save souls. It was a good understanding, but Mr. Jiménez would have to work incognito because using the name Young Lords name would be like saying the word “gang” in Grand Rapids. The KO Club worked well because it was not an after school program. It was an “in the neighborhood program.” It was focused on youth like Ms. Martínez-Villegas who did not want anything to do with school. And while others were saying to all youth who got in trouble, “Lock them up and throw away the key.” the KO Club had their own public slogan: “Support Youth For A Change.” Parents had to get involved, because the KO Club would visit them in their home and let them know that they were not babysitters. Once a month parents would attend amateur night where the KO CLUB members would perform for them and the rest of the community. Organizing was constantly being done door-to-door. KO CLUB was like a good gang and everyone was a member. Their colors were black and purple, but their symbol was a heart with KO in the middle and a cross above the heart. Once a year there was an annual dinner with the community where many members of the United Methodist Church attended including the Bishop. It was cost effective as it was run more like support groups divided by age: pee wee, juniors, and seniors. They would all have a chance to express themselves in a variety of ways, including discussion, with music, or in sports. The only problem came from the adults. Some wanted to make it more ecumenical to include the community at large and others wanted the organization to be more faith-based. Still others wanted control. And Pastor Berman was moved to a church in Los Angeles, California. Mr. Jiménez was left alone, fighting church elders who were paranoid that Mr. Jiménez might want to speak for the church. Mr. Jiménez understood their fears and resigned in an amicable way. The youth program continues today and it is being run more privately within the church. Ms. Martínez-Villegas says that it is what she needed then with the loss of her father, and that participating in the KO Club turned her life around. �Transcript JOSE JIMENEZ: If you can give me your name, your date of birth, and where you were born. CHARLYNE VILLEGAS-MARTINEZ: Charlyne Martínez-Villegas, 7/23/87 in Caguas, Puerto Rico. JJ: Seven -- 7/23/87 in Caguas, Puerto Rico. CMV: Yes. JJ: Oh, that’s pretty good. You know, I’m from Caguas, too. CMV: Oh, (Spanish) [00:00:19 - 00:00:22] probably if you were born in the same one, it doesn’t exist anymore. JJ: So you were born in the city? CMV: I really don’t know because after being three months old, Mom moved us to New Jersey. JJ: But you said Villegas. You said -- CMV: Mm-hmm, yeah. JJ: Okay. And so what year did you come? You said after three years old, you moved to -- CMV: No, three months. JJ: Oh, three months. CMV: So in ’87, we moved to Newark. JJ: To Newark, New Jersey? CMV: Mm-hmm. 1 �JJ: And what do you remember of Newark? I mean, what -- how long were you -how long were you there? CMV: It was craziness. I was [00:01:00] there till I was like six years old, six or seven years old. JJ: Oh, okay. You said it was freezing? CMV: No, it was crazy. JJ: Oh, really? CMV: It was crazy. Of course, you’re not going to remember that much when you was a little kid. But where we would live or whatnot, we lived on Mount Prospect in Newark, we lived in South Orange and stuff. And it was fun because we had the family around and everything. But at the same time, it’s like after a certain time, we couldn’t go out of the house. JJ: Okay, so you had the family around but there were a lot more fam- -- there were a lot more family living there in that area? CMV: Mm-hmm. JJ: In that area? CMV: Yeah. JJ: And was it a Puerto Rican neighborhood or...? CMV: Yeah, it was. On Mount Prospect, I remember -- oh my goodness. It was always a whole bunch of Puerto Ricans. Like in the apartments that we lived at, almost [00:02:00] every single window had a Puerto Rican flag. So it’s -- the whole neighborhood was full of Puerto Ricans. I think now, if I pass by Mount Prospect, there, you hardly see the flags hanging up on the windows or anything like that. 2 �It’s more of a multicultural neighborhood now, but the Puerto Ricans that were there before aren’t there now. JJ: And what happened to them? CMV: To be honest with you, I’m not really sure what exactly happened to them. But as far as I’m concerned, either they moved to different parts of Newark or they moved to a different neighborhood or something like that. JJ: Okay. Did they move to like the suburbs or something or maybe they improved or no? CMV: They probably did improve because a lot of them were starting off on their own businesses and stuff so they probably moved [00:03:00] to the suburbs to better neighborhoods than to just living at a -- at that specific area. Got their own houses and stuff like that. JJ: Was that area downtown or near the lake or near the ocean or...? CMV: No, nothing like that. It was actually close to 2nd Ave so to get to downtown, it was probably like 10 minutes or so. JJ: Okay, so it was 10 minutes to downtown? CMV: Yeah, it was like 10 minutes to downtown depending in the traffic. JJ: So then, the rents must’ve went up or something like that, no? CMV: Probably. I was too little to even know how much Mami and Papi were even paying on their rent. JJ: Okay. Okay, so you lived there till you said you were like six years old? CMV: Mm-hmm. JJ: So about five years or something like that? 3 �CMV: Yeah, like around five, six years, something like that, yeah. JJ: Five or six years. Okay, and then [00:04:00] what’s your brothers’ and sisters’ names? I mean, did you -- CMV: I’m the youngest of three so my brother’s the oldest. His name is [Brian?] Martínez, and then my sister, she’s the middle child and her name is [Jocelyn Martínez Espindola?]. She got married. JJ: What’s the last name? CMV: Espindola. JJ: Espindola. Okay. Okay, and then so you came -- how did you get here to Grand Rapids? CMV: Car. JJ: You just drove in the car? CMV: Yeah, we just drove in the car. JJ: You didn’t take the train (inaudible)? CMV: No, no trains, no airplanes, nothing. JJ: All right. Did you know people here or...? CMV: My mom, the reason that she moved over here is because of her sister. She’s the one who moved my mom over here and told her that Grand Rapids was more of a better place to raise your child, to start a family, the rent’s better and all that stuff so that’s why my mom moved over here. JJ: So the rent’s better? What do you mean, the rent over there was too high or something? 4 �CMV: Most likely, [00:05:00] that’s what my mom tells me is that the rent was too expensive. And when she came over here, she was surprised at the rent, how cheap it was. JJ: And were the houses bigger here or...? CMV: Yeah. JJ: So the houses were bigger and the rent was cheaper here. CMV: Exactly. JJ: So that -- okay. So what other reason did she move besides that? Or was that the main reason? CMV: That was one of the main reasons. The other reason -- the main reason would be that the houses were bigger, more space for your money. And then also, it was quiet, it was tranquil. It wasn’t -JJ: It had less crime? CMV: Exactly. The crime was not as high. JJ: There was a lot of crime there. CMV: Too much. JJ: In the Puerto Rican neighborhood, there was a lot of crime. CMV: Yeah. Mm-hmm. JJ: Okay. Drugs or gangs? CMV: Drugs, gangs, fights, killings. You name it, it was there. JJ: Okay. [00:06:00] And so you came to Grand Rapids around what year? Do you remember or...? 5 �CMV: We came to Grand Rapids probably like around ’94, ’95, somewhere around there. JJ: And where did you move to? CMV: When we moved over here, we started living at my aunt’s house, Aunt Eola, and what street is that? JJ: How do you spell the name of...? CMV: (inaudible) E-O-L-A. JJ: Oh, Eo-- Eola lived over there on -- CMV: Yeah, over there on -- off of 28th Street and, oh my goodness, I want to say Madison? JJ: Okay, Madison? CMV: Yeah. I think it was Madison and on 28th Street right behind the BP gas station that’s there. JJ: Okay, I think I understand. I think I know where it’s at. It’s only like one block behind half a block, half a block from 28th Street there. CMV: Yeah, yeah. JJ: Okay. So okay, and your sister lived there? You say your aunt (inaudible)? CMV: My mom’s sister, yeah. She lived there with her [00:07:00] husband and her three kids. And so -JJ: So you moved in the same house with them? CMV: Yeah, we moved into the same house. They had the upstairs and we had the basement. JJ: Okay, they had the house, they handled the house. It was their house or...? 6 �CMV: It was their house. We used to have so much fun when we were growing up in there. We used to have barbeques almost every single weekend, we would -they would be in the garage roasting the pig, a la Varita like all Puerto Ricans do. It was fun. Those were the good old days. JJ: Those were the good old days up there? Okay, so you say you used to roast a pig? Not in the house. You didn’t kill the pig in the house, did you? CMV: I think they did. JJ: (laughs) They did. CMV: Yeah, they -- yeah, I’m telling you. When it comes to my -- back in the day, my dad getting together with my aunt’s husband, it was -- I’m telling you. [00:08:00] They could -- they would go into the garage, they would kill the rabbits so they could be able to do the stew later on. I never ate that; That’s disgusting to me. (laughs) They would roast the pork completely, they would make their own little fire pit and they would roast the pork out in the backyard. So it was fun; We had a lot of fun. JJ: Why wouldn’t they just go buy it at the store? I mean... CMV: Because that’s not the Puerto Rican tradition. It’s not the Puerto Rican tradition. Yeah, now, a lot of them, they just go to the store and get whatever part of the pork they like. But I was always told that the Puerto Rican tradition, if they want to have something traditional like they do it down at the island is get the pork, kill it yourself, do morcillas with the pig intestines and stuff, and roast the pig. JJ: So morcilla -- okay, all right. So they did morcilla, okay. Morcilla is like blood sausage or...? 7 �CMV: Yeah, blood sausage. They’re good, too. JJ: [00:09:00] Okay. Okay, so you’re living there at Eola and 28th and then you move out or -- from there? CMV: Yeah. After that, we moved to, oh my goodness, we moved to Union and Elliott off of Burton. And we lived there from like ’96 and on. JJ: Now, I didn’t get your father and mother’s names. What are their names? CMV: My dad’s name José Martínez is and my mom’s name is Glenda Villegas. JJ: Glenda -- CMV: Villegas. JJ: Villegas. Okay. And then what kind of work did they do? CMV: My dad was a mechanic and my mom at that time when we first moved over here to Grand Rapids was a stay-at-home mom for the time being, yeah. JJ: (inaudible) Okay. Now, didn’t she used to do some things? Did she sell bread, some pasteles or something for a while, right? CMV: She started selling the pasteles after [00:10:00] 2000. Before that, once she did get a job, she started working for the central kitchen for D&W. And then the one that would actually do the selling of something out of the house was her sister. She would sell cakes out of her own home and that’s how she started her business. And my mom would just do the pasteles and whatever on the side whenever she had time. JJ: And that would get her like just to supplement her income, too, I bet. 8 �CMV: Yeah. Something, just like a little -- like if she needed -- like if we needed something or she knew that there were, her and my dad, they knew that they were going to be short for the month, she would do the little bit extra. JJ: Okay. Now, was that pretty good business or...? CMV: It really was, yeah. JJ: It was? CMV: Yeah. JJ: I mean, it did pay [00:11:00] the bills or pay...? CMV: Yeah. It always paid the bills, it always put food on the table, gave us what we needed and stuff. I’m not going to say that it was a fancy life or anything like that but it did what it had to do every single month. (break in audio) JJ: Okay, okay. So you came from New Jersey over here and you were talking about the pasteles and that. But I mean, there was like a change, I mean, right? CMV: A huge change. JJ: A huge change? CMV: It was a huge change. The way that the neighborhood was and still is in Jersey is the houses are right next to each other, there’s a bunch of buildings, it’s always loud and everything. And then coming over here was so not that. There was actual yards, there was spaces between [00:12:00] the houses and even the apartments and stuff. And it wasn’t loud, it was quiet. It was something that, seriously, we needed to get used to. JJ: Okay. So were you going -- where were you going to school at? 9 �CMV: When we moved over here, I started going to -- well, we actually ended up going to three different elementary schools. We went to Burton Elementary, Buchanan Elementary, and then we ended up staying at Alger Elementary. JJ: Why did you go in three different elementary schools? CMV: Because of the district. Because of the district. That’s why we had to move from different schools. JJ: Because you moved from one -- CMV: From one place to the other. JJ: Even though you didn’t really live that far. But you just happened to be on that dividing line of the school and so you went to the three different schools. CMV: I went to the three different schools. JJ: So how was that change for you in the school? How did that affect you? CMV: [00:13:00] To be honest with you, it really didn’t affect me much because when I was in elementary school, I really wasn’t a person that -- the person that I am now. I wasn’t that person when I was a little kid. JJ: Why are you -- what do you mean the person that you are now? CMV: The person that I am now is like very talkative. I talk to a lot of people or whatnot just to get to know them or whatever. But when I was a little kid, you had to talk to me first. If you wanted to talk to me or whatever, you had to come talk to me. I wouldn’t go to you and start talking. JJ: And why was that? Any -- why do you think that? CMV: I was more shy when I was a little kid. I wasn’t really outgoing, didn’t really have a lot of friends in elementary school. 10 �JJ: You’re talking about in Jersey, [00:14:00] you were shy. CMV: No, I’m talking about here. JJ: Here in Michigan. Why were you shy? Did you go out and play a lot or whatever? CMV: Not really. I would always keep to myself. Which that was -- it was weird for me because at Roberto Clemente over there in Newark, we -- I have so many different friends and stuff of different cultures. I had Dominicans, I had Cubans, white, Blacks, all different types of cultures, I had friends. And always talking, playing with each other and stuff like that at school. And when I came over here, it was like completely different. Weird looks from the little kids and stuff like that and -JJ: You get -- your what? Your look? CMV: Weird looks. JJ: From the little kids or...? CMV: Yeah, from the classmates and stuff. So that’s -- I think that’s where I -JJ: What were the classmates? What nationalities were they? CMV: American. JJ: [00:15:00] White American or...? CMV: White American. JJ: And you got weird looks from them? CMV: I would always get weird looks from them or whatnot. And the Hispanics, the little bit of Hispanics that were even in my class when I was school or whatnot, they were the same way that I was. They kept to themselves, they were quiet or 11 �whatnot. But if I would, like with my mom, if I would go out or something like that to the store or something, I would see the same little kids and they were playing with their own little friends with -- with friends of their own neighborhoods, of their own culture. And it was different. They had their friends from their neighborhood that they played with that they would laugh with and everything like that. But when you would see them in school, it was like they kept to themselves, shy, completely blocking everybody out [00:16:00] because of the looks that we were getting when we were little kids. JJ: In the classrooms. CMV: In the classroom, yeah. JJ: In the school. So it didn’t happen in the neighborhood because you were among other -- CMV: Other people of our same culture of -- or even Blacks, African American Blacks. That they would be in the neighborhood or whatnot. They would share the same kind of culture as us because they would want to know more. You know, new persons, new culture let’s learn more, let’s become friends and stuff like that. So growing up, I was raised more around Hispanics and African Americans. JJ: And you get along fine at home. CMV: Mm-hmm. We get along perfectly fine at home. JJ: Okay. So -- but in school, there was -- you can feel it. You can feel the (inaudible) -- CMV: Yeah, you could feel that it -- that tension between [00:17:00] classmates or whatnot. 12 �JJ: Okay, so now, what school are -- so now, you’re still living there, don’t you? How long did you live there? CMV: Where? JJ: In this -- where you were -- was in Union that you mentioned near Burton? CMV: Oh, on Union and Elliott. We lived there for -- since like ’90 -- I want to say like ’96, ’97. And we actually moved out of there in ’99. My mom and -- my mom moved my brother, my sister, and myself to the neighborhood of Francis and Griggs in ’98, ’99. JJ: In ’98, ’99? CMV: Yeah, my mom and my dad, they separated. Since the house was underneath my dad’s name, my mom went, she got her own house. JJ: What was some of the reasons they gave for separation? Do you know or...? CMV: My mom cheated on my dad. JJ: Oh, your mom cheated. CMV: Yeah, my mom cheated on my dad. (laughs) JJ: [00:18:00] It’s just plain -- CMV: Plain and simple, you know? And it was kind of difficult for me to understand, me being the youngest. My brother didn’t care. He had his friends. He would be out going out in the middle of the night and stuff like that. My sister, she had her own little friends or whatnot that she made herself. And but me, it was kind of difficult for me because I’m the youngest and I wasn’t understanding it, right? With my dad would come to visit or whatnot. If he would see my mom’s boyfriend or whatever, he would start arguing with him or whatnot and it was real difficult for 13 �me to understand and it tore me apart. And there was alternating weekends that I would stay [00:19:00] with my dad and then stay with my mom. And jumping back and forth -JJ: Now, what tore you apart, the divorce or what ha- -- the cheating part? CMV: The cheating part, to be honest with you. JJ: Why would that tear you apart? CMV: That tore me apart because we were perfectly fine in Jersey to be honest with you. If we would’ve stated in New Jersey, we would’ve -- I still believe that my mom and my dad would still be together because we were around family and friends that believed that family should stick together. And it was kind of weird that after moving over here to Michigan a few years later, my mom and my dad separate which to me, it wasn’t even right. JJ: Just in a few years it can just change. CMV: In a few years, in a few years. JJ: Because there were -- you didn’t have any family there or...? CMV: The only family that we had over here was my mom’s sister. That’s it. Everybody else was over there in New Jersey. JJ: [00:20:00] So the moving kind of broke up the family. CMV: Exactly. Yeah. JJ: So the fam- -- by then, there were gains and everything like that. And then there’s -- CMV: There were gains over there and everything. But to be honest with you, as far as I know from stories that my dad would tell me and everything was he knew in the 14 �neighborhood, whatever gang members were in the neighborhood, they were like our protectors. You know, of course, yeah, I don’t even know what gang it was or anything like that, but it was like their territory. Their -- they would protect whoever lived in that area. If you lived on Mount Prospect and there was gang members that lived right among us, they would protect us. They would protect the area, the neighborhood, they protect it. So my dad, he could be outside with his friends and stuff like that [00:21:00] and not have to worry about anything. But they would let us know, look -JJ: What about the group? And they would let us know what? CMV: They would let us know, look, this is what’s going on or whatnot because they would be enough friends and stuff. Everybody knew each other in the neighborhood. JJ: And what about their favorite girls, the women? Would they be able to walk freely or...? CMV: At night time, no. At night time, no. The females, the way that they had them was if you are walking down the street and you are with a guy, the guy should always stand next to the street. He would walk in -- on the right side or the left side depending if you’re going or coming. The female would always be on the inside of the street, never on the outside. I really never understood that or anything, but that’s just the way that it was. The females were always [00:22:00] protected. JJ: Otherwise they would say that the (Spanish) or something. CMV: Yeah. That’s what I understood afterwards. 15 �JJ: Did you ever hear that term? CMV: Yeah, like if the -- if you’re walking down the street with the -- with a guy friend or whatnot and you’re the one walking next to the street or whatever, that means that basically the guy that you’re with is selling you so I understood that afterwards. JJ: But I mean, did they say that? I mean, you understood it. Did they said it? CMV: I understood it afterwards. JJ: When I grew up, that’s what they said (inaudible). CMV: Mm-hmm. Yeah, afterwards is when I understood what that meant. Because I never understood why -- if I was with a cousin of mine or something like that, he would tell me, “No, you’re standing over here. Get on my other side,” when we would walk to the store or something like that. I never understood that. And after I grew up a little bit more is when I understood what that meant. JJ: Now, the American kids, did they do that or that was just the Puerto Rican thing? CMV: It was more of a Hispanic thing. It was more of the [00:23:00] Puerto Ricans and stuff doing that. JJ: It was more Hispanic. CMV: Because the Americans, they didn’t care. It was like, “I’m walking on this side, you’re walking on that side. It doesn’t really matter or anything like that.” JJ: Interesting. Were there any other things like that in the culture that you recall or...? Or off the top of your head. CMV: Off the top of my head, when we were living -- the more memories that I have is more of Mount Prospect in north Newark. And we would have -- even though we 16 �didn’t have a yard, we will still have barbecues. We had a little fenced-in bricks, like cement floor or whatever. It was still fenced in. JJ: In the back or the front? CMV: In the front. And we would have our little grill right there, some chairs, and we would be cooking meat on the grill and everything, people from the neighborhood would come over and we’ll make it into -- it will end up as a block party kind of thing. It’ll start off as a barbecue and it’ll end up like a block party kind of thing. [00:24:00] And that’s the way that it was. When the -- if you -- if the females were outside with their parents and stuff, they always had to be with their parents and stuff. But after it started getting dark, it really didn’t matter as much of the guys being outside because they could protect their own. They could protect themselves. But the females are more vulnerable or whatnot so the females would stay inside. JJ: Now, did your mother tell you that or your father or who told you that? CMV: No, just growing up, you knew about that. JJ: You knew that just (inaudible) -- CMV: Just in the neighborhood, you knew that. JJ: Not to do it. CMV: Mm-hmm. JJ: Okay, so now you’re in Grand Rapids and you’re in Grand Rapids, Michigan and you’re -- now you’re on Francis? CMV: Yeah, Francis and Griggs. Nice neighborhood. JJ: Okay. And so your -- the divorce is taking place? 17 �CMV: Yeah, my mom and my dad. JJ: Did your mother remarry or no? CMV: She [00:25:00] stayed with the guy that she cheated on my dad with. But after that -JJ: Well, he move in or...? Later after -- CMV: Yeah, he did move in for a few months or whatnot and then -JJ: Was he Puerto Rican too or...? CMV: No. He was white, white American. And he stayed there for a few months or probably a year, I can’t remember right. And that’s when we moved into the Francis and Griggs house, that’s when all three of us became rebellious. JJ: Okay. That time that you -- now, why would you become rebellious? From the neighborhood or just from (inaudible)? CMV: Me personally -- no, just because of what was going on at home. I became rebellious, I didn’t want to go to school, I would hang around with kids from the neighborhood or whatnot. If I did go to school, [00:26:00] I really wasn’t paying attention or whatever. I would have breakdowns at school and -JJ: What do you mean breakdowns? CMV: Breakdowns. I would overthink what’s going on in my head. I would overanalyze it. Like if I was having a problem at home or whatever or the stuff that was going on between Mom and Dad, I would overanalyze it and I would just go to a little corner of the coat closet or whatever in class and I wouldn’t let nobody get near me or anything like that. If the kids would start laughing at me, I would cuss them 18 �out. I really didn’t care. I didn’t -- at a very -- at that young age in elementary school, I really didn’t care. I just wanted to leave everything behind. JJ: What do you mean, what do you mean just leave -- CMV: Just leave everything behind. I wanted -JJ: You weren’t thinking about suicide or anything? CMV: No, no, no, no, no, nothing like that. [00:27:00] I wasn’t thinking about taking my life or anything like that but I really wanted to just get my mom, get my dad, get my brother and my sister and say, “You know what? F this, we’re going back to Jersey.” Because the transition of moving from New Jersey to over here, to me at that time and still today when I think about it, that’s the reason why my mom and my dad separated. To me, that’s the reason. They could say, you know, we fell out of love, there wasn’t nothing there tying us up together no more, whatever, whatever. We were little kids. What do you mean there wasn’t nothing holding -- tying it up together anymore? We were a family. JJ: So just the fact that you moved is the reason? CMV: To me, that’s the reason why my mom and my dad separated. JJ: Because you went -- because you moved from where you had a lot of family -- CMV: And friends and stuff, we moved over here. JJ: -- to a place where you didn’t know anyone. CMV: Exactly. JJ: And now, [00:28:00] the whole world just kind of changed? I’m not putting words in your mouth. 19 �CMV: The whole world. No, no, no, no, no. It completely changed. It was something that I wouldn’t even want. JJ: And where -- and you said your sisters were? Or your brother and your sister? CMV: Yeah, my brother, he became rebellious leaving. JJ: Why kind of stuff did he do? CMV: He would leave after school, he would leave. He wouldn’t come back home, he would be hanging out with his friends drinking, partying, stuff like that. He was the oldest so he would -- and since he’s a guy, my mom didn’t really worry about what he was doing. JJ: So now he had friends. Now he had -- CMV: Yeah, he had friends at the time. He had friends and everything. And my mom really didn’t care as much as what he did because since he’s the guy or whatnot of her three kids, she really didn’t care what he did. [00:29:00] But when it came down to my sister and myself, she tried to be more strict. And we found it to be unfair. So my sister, she made friends with some neighbors or whatnot and she did whatever she wanted to do. And then me, I try to be like my sister and my brother. Did whatever I wanted to do and stuff like that, didn’t want to go to school or anything, but -JJ: And so then your mother is telling your brother that he can do whatever he wants because he’s a boy. CMV: Exactly, yeah. JJ: And was that just your mother or was that part of the -- 20 �CMV: No, that was part of the -- the way that we were raised is the females would be at home cooking, cleaning, attending to the father and to if there was any other male family members or whatnot. [00:30:00] And after everything was done in the house, then you could go ahead if there’s time. Then you could go ahead and go play and do whatever. But the things of the house had to be done first. JJ: And you couldn’t stay out late. CMV: Nope. JJ: So Griggs and Francis, is that where you started with the KO Club or...? CMV: Yes. JJ: Okay. It was called the KO Club or Knockout? CMV: Yeah. (laughs) To be honest with you, I thought that was the name of it at first, Knockout Club. (laughs) JJ: (inaudible) Okay, so who was that about? Who was there? And where was it at? CMV: It was on Francis and Burton. It was at a church. JJ: United Methodist Church, the big one? CMV: Yeah, the big one. I never knew the name of that, but thanks for letting me know. I didn’t know. JJ: United Methodist, United Methodist. CMV: Okay. I never knew the name of it. I just knew exactly where I had to go. But it [00:31:00] was -JJ: And how did you find out about it? CMV: Some kids of the neighborhood that actually told us about it. JJ: Just the kids right in the neighborhood knew about it? 21 �CMV: Mm-hmm, yeah. JJ: Okay, because they had gone door to door? CMV: And they, yeah. No, they’ve ac- -- I guess they had gone before or they heard about it or something like that. And then they -- word of mouth got out, basically. JJ: Word of mouth. They got in and they liked it or no? CMV: Yeah, they liked it. There was various different type of cultures going over there. There was Hispanics, there was the African Americans that were going. A few white ones but not as much. But it was still fun. JJ: So when did they do this? What time? What hours? CMV: It was like an after-school program for kids in elementary school, middle school and stuff. I’m telling you, it was fun. JJ: And was it in the school or was it in the church? CMV: No, it was in the church. It was like the [00:32:00] auditorium of the church. JJ: So it was an after-school program but it was done at the church in the neighborhood. So that was the difference. Most after-school programs are done in the schools. CMV: Yeah. This one was more focused on the neighborhood kids. JJ: On the neighborhood kids. Okay. So it was to try to prevent -- CMV: Prevent them from becoming rebellious, stealing, gang banging and stuff like that. It was a program that you would go there so you could be able to meet more people of the community, do more activities. Keep us out of trouble. JJ: Was there trouble in the area before that? 22 �CMV: When we moved over there, we heard from our neighbors or whatnot that it was - that there was a lot of stealing, robbing, breaking and entering, and stuff like that. And when this program emerged, [00:33:00] it was completely different. We -- a lot of the kids from the neighborhoods that were going to this program playing games, shooting basketball, jumping ropes and stuff like that in the auditorium. Talking about their days with each other and whatnot at school, what they learned, different types of things. JJ: So that means they had like little -- it was like a support type of thing or group or something like that? Groups? CMV: Yeah. It was the -- I’m not going to say that in this club, there was little groups or whatnot but -JJ: But they had different ages (inaudible). CMV: Yeah, different ages. But to be honest, there was like little separate groups or whatnot and I just kicked the camera. JJ: (inaudible) CMV: But there was little groups or whatnot because of the ages. But then those would even separate into even more little groups like the girls would go with the girls, the guys would go with the guys or whoever knew [00:34:00] how to play basketball would go with the basketball players and stuff like that. But other than that, it was fun. I loved it. (laughs) JJ: Pretty good. Okay, now there was also -- do you remember any trips that they made or...? 23 �CMV: Oh my goodness! There was one. I remember there was plenty of them but the only one that sticks in my head because it was something that I always wanted to do when I was a little kid was a trip that we did to Camp O’Malley. That was the best for me. JJ: Okay. And you did a (inaudible)? Now, what was that like? CMV: That? It was super fun. At first, I thought -- I was super geeked out, I was super excited. I wanted to go, I wanted to go, I wanted to go. JJ: Actually, that was with the police. The KO Club worked with the police. They ran the camp. CMV: They did? JJ: Yeah, the police ran the camp. CMV: Oh, well then dang. JJ: But the K -- but it was run by the KO Club. The KO Club kind of -- CMV: Gotcha. I was like hold up. (laugher) JJ: [00:35:00] Well, no, no, no. Well, no, no, I mean, the police were volunteers. And they weren’t trying to find -- they weren’t trying to find out any -- CMV: Yeah, they weren’t trying to find no drug dealers or anything. (laughs) JJ: So it was because a lot of new members from the KO Club used to be in the Young Lords. So that’s the -- (laughs) it was the Young Lords (laughs) and the police working together. CMV: God dang, yeah, they was just trying to protect us all. (laughs) JJ: So you didn’t know too much about the Young Lords. CMV: No, I didn’t know nothing about them. 24 �JJ: (inaudible) the KO Club. CMV: Yeah, I knew that it was always called the KO Club. JJ: We did show some films, though, about Chicago and -- CMV: Yeah, you guys did. JJ: Do you recall those films that we showed? CMV: I recall them but since I was so young and stuff like that, the thing -JJ: Do you remember they were films about the Young Lords and stuff like that. CMV: Yeah, there was always films, there was always talk about different activities, different meetings, and stuff like that in our own community and we even went out and did different types of vol- -- of things like that. JJ: [00:36:00] So what you’re trying to say is that there was -- the community changed a little bit because of it. CMV: Yeah, it did. To be honest with you, it changed a lot. JJ: How did it change? CMV: It changed because the kids were occupied after school till probably dinner time or whatnot. JJ: Their behavior, too, right? CMV: Yeah. And there was a lot of different changes in the neighborhood. There wasn’t as much what they like to say crime. There wasn’t that much of it. You didn’t see the kids running around like they were animals or anything like that. Because a lot of them, you would find them at the church. JJ: Because they knew each other now. So that’s -- it became more -- so if you walk down the street now, you know everybody, everybody. 25 �CMV: Exactly. JJ: So everybody kind of looked out for each other. CMV: Exactly. JJ: Am I putting words in your mouth? CMV: No. (laughs) JJ: It just happens. CMV: It actually -- after knowing [00:37:00] the kids in the neighborhoods and the families because we would play at each other’s houses. And after knowing the families or whatever, they actually brought me memories of when I lived at Mount Prospect. That we all knew each other, that we all helped each other, looked out for each other when it came to school or whatnot. The kids, the friends that went to school together or whatever, we would help each other out in school work and stuff so -JJ: So even me saying the -- even me saying the KO Club, and I know you had a long day today. CMV: Who are you kidding? I had a very long day today. JJ: We were in your restaurant. What’s the name of your restaurant? CMV: El Rincón Criollo. JJ: El Rincón Criollo in Grand Rapids, Michigan. CMV: Yes. JJ: This is your mom’s restaurant. CMV: Yes. JJ: Okay. How did this start? 26 �CMV: This start -- it’s been a passion of my mom for years [00:38:00] since she was a - in her teenage years. It’s always been a passion of hers to own a restaurant, to cook and stuff like that and it finally came true for her back in September of 2009. JJ: And what sort of food do you serve there? CMV: Authentic Puerto Rican food. JJ: And what does that mean? CMV: It’s not food that’s -- that all you see around here is all Mexican food or Chinese food or the dreaded fast food. Here, whatever you order from the menu, you have -- you ha- -- depending on what you order is depending on how much time you’re going to wait. But the seasonings and stuff like that that my mom has is of course, yeah, is from Goya but is ingredients that she used growing up with learning how to cook [00:39:00] with her mom and her dad and stuff. So it’s not food that you’re going to come here once and never come here again because the seasoning sucked. No. It’s actually food that a lot of Puerto Ricans, they come here and or even Cubans, Dominicans, or whatnot. They come here and it’s like it takes them back home back to their island. And it’s something -- it brings a smile to my face every day. JJ: And she does the cooking and you do the cooking or (inaudible) together? CMV: She is actually the one who taught me how to cook so it’s actually kind of exciting. She cooks the rices, she cooks all the food or whatnot, but there’s a lot of the things that she cooks that I know how to cook already. Sometimes I put my own little twist to it but that’s when she’s not here. 27 �JJ: See, I remember her because I used to buy pasteles from her. And so she’s did the pasteles for a while first. So it was like a stepping stone? CMV: Yes, it was. JJ: [00:40:00] But this is her first restaurant? CMV: This is her first restaurant. It’s her pride and joy. JJ: And it’s going pretty well (inaudible). CMV: Yes, it is. JJ: Okay. So okay. So I don’t know what else to say. Now, tell me about Camp O’Malley again. CMV: Camp O’Malley, it was the best. We got there, there was all these kids running around and I wanted to run around and everything and -JJ: This was by Alaska, Michigan it was called. CMV: Yeah, by Alaska Lake and over there somewhere around over there. Yeah. JJ: Alaska Lake in Michigan. Okay, and 68th Street. CMV: Yeah, there you go. JJ: But it’s in the country. CMV: Oh, it’s more country than what East Coast people call this country. They call it -they call this country, but they haven’t seen the country-country that we know that’s country. JJ: Right. Right. And so you went there on a weekend, like on a Friday or something? CMV: Yeah, it was like a weekend that we came over here or that we went over there to [00:41:00] Camp O’Malley. It was exciting, though. We -- 28 �JJ: Were you there for a week or for a weekend? CMV: I think I was there for a week. JJ: You were there for a week. CMV: Yeah. I wanted to stay more but Mami wanted me home. JJ: Did a bunch of people go or I mean, what was that like? CMV: No, from the KO Club as far as I know, the trip that I took to go over there, there was like, probably like five of us that went in the van to go over there. JJ: Right, there are only so many tables, yeah. CMV: Mm-hmm. JJ: But then we had some other who stayed(inaudible). CMV: Yeah. After we were there for a week, then another group came and then it was like that. JJ: Okay, so what was they -- how did it run? How did they run it? CMV: Oh my goodness. It was so much fun. As soon as we would get up in the morning times, of course, we’d have to fix the bed or whatnot. We would have breakfast and they have all different types of activities planned for us. They had the obstacle course for us, we would go swimming, hiking, all these different types of things and that’s what excited me. [00:42:00] Oh my goodness, the cabins. They would play practical jokes on each other. The guys, I remember this, the guys, there was one time that the person that the camp person that was in our room, she allowed us to go into one of the guy’s bunk cabin or whatnot. And we searched for all their underwears and we just threw them everywhere. We put them on the ceiling fan, on all their beds and everything like that so at the 29 �end of the day, they were searching around to see whose underwears were whose. (laughs) But then they got back at us. We had went out to do the obstacle course and to go swimming and stuff. And when we came back at night time, we found our bras and our underwears just spread everywhere. And it was fun; It was something that I would love to go back. JJ: Did you go canoeing or none of that stuff? CMV: No, we didn’t get [00:43:00] to go canoeing or anything. JJ: But I remember there was a little river. CMV: Yeah, there was but we didn’t get to go canoeing or anything. We did the obstacle course and the obstacle course, they had this -- oh my goodness, what is it called? I think it was called the high ropes. Yeah. They tried to get me on those. I was like, “Uh-uh. I’m scared of heights, I’m not going up there. I don’t care what you guys tell me. (laughs) I’m not going.” But it was fun, it was fun. I had a lot of fun at Camp O’Malley. JJ: Were they trying -- what were they trying to teach you? Do you know or...? CMV: They -- them there, they were trying to teach us about the different cultures. The different cultures to interact with one another. If you guys didn’t get along, they would try to figure out a way for you guys to get along. It was something that taught us a lot about the different cultures and stuff like that. JJ: [00:44:00] Okay. Now that -- you mentioned the neighborhood and the KO Club because it was a neighborhood group, a neighborhood after-school program. CMV: Yes. 30 �JJ: So it was modeled after the group the Young Lords. Do you know what (inaudible)? CMV: I’m going to look them up when I -- as soon as I (laughs) -JJ: (inaudible). CMV: I’m going to look them up. I want to learn more. JJ: There was a [KO Club?]. Okay, what -- any final thoughts that you want to -- that you want to talk about especially while you’re here? CMV: Final thoughts? Thanks to the KO Club is who I am now. Yeah, I went through a big rebellious stage of not listening, stealing and stuff like that. But -JJ: Stealing? Like -- CMV: Oh yeah, stealing. I -- yeah. I’m a bad girl. I’ve -- I’ve stolen from [00:45:00] my own family members, I’ve stolen from stores and stuff like that. Got put on probation. Yeah, it’s on my record and stuff like that but it’s things that I learned from. It’s things that I learned from or whatnot. But the experience that I learned at the KO Club, I wouldn’t trade that for the world. JJ: So what experience? I don’t understand. What did you learn there? CMV: The experience that I learned there was being around friends and family, people that support you, that are there for you. If you ever need to talk to somebody, they’re there and stuff. I think the reason that I did so good in the KO Club in school while I was in the program was because I had that support group there for me. After I -JJ: In fact, that’s what the KO Club was: support. A bunch of support. Because that’s what we were trying, yeah. 31 �CMV: Yeah, it was. Yeah. It was [00:46:00] a complete support group for the neighborhood kids. That’s why I felt so comfortable being there. Not just because that was kids from the neighborhood or anything but because of it being a support group. JJ: And those people were -- it was run by -- wasn’t it run by the members themselves or...? CMV: As far as I’m concerned, there were so many people there, but the only person that I remember was you. (laughter) There was a lot of people there, a lot of -JJ: Okay. A lot of support. CMV: Yeah, a lot of support. If you ever needed to talk to somebody either it being from drugs or it being from gangs or it being from stealing, robbing, and all that different types of stuff, there was somebody there that you could actually talk to and that was actually the good thing about it. You could talk to somebody and you felt comfortable talking to this person because the person was so (Spanish) that they wouldn’t -JJ: Trust. CMV: Trust. That they -- that whatever you tell me, I’m a tombstone. [00:47:00] I’m not going to tell nobody. So that’s what made a lot of the kids very comfortable. JJ: And there were people from their own culture there also that can help you there. Anything else that you would like to -- your mom got involved in the church, though, does she or...? (inaudible) CMV: Yeah, my mom’s at -- she goes to -- if I get this wrong, she’s going to kill me. (laughter) She went to -- she goes to Manantial De Vida. 32 �JJ: Manantial De Vida. CMV: On Grandville and Franklin. And -JJ: Is it a kind of homeschool church or...? CMV: It’s a Pentecostal church. I actually grew up in the church. I left the church -JJ: In the Pentecostal Church? CMV: Yeah. I left the church or whatnot when I started making my own decisions and everything. I have gone back to church but I always believe that there’s [00:48:00] a time that He’s going to have us go to church or whatnot. But thanks to the church, my mom’s restaurant’s been booming with the catering and the food here and everything so it’s kind of cool. JJ: Okay, but did you have any children or anything like that or...? CMV: Yes, I have one baby girl. She’s four years old. JJ: What’s her name? CMV: [Kelina?]. JJ: Kelina. (inaudible) CMV: Yeah. JJ: (inaudible) CMV: If you see this, Mami loves you. (laughter) Yeah, she -- that’s my pride and joy. She keeps me on my toes when she’s with me. She’s going to be five now in November 25th and yeah, that’s -- that’s my baby girl. I love that little girl. Thanks to her, I have calmed down because before her, I was clubbing every single weekend not caring about nothing in the world. JJ: What sort of clubs were your tribe? 33 �CMV: I would go to [00:49:00] to Toscano which is a Latin club and Azucar before they put it down. JJ: Okay. They put it down? CMV: Yeah. They put it down. They closed it down for -- because there was too many fights breaking out. I guess a few people done got killed over there. So they had to -- the city closed it down. The city wouldn’t give them back their liquor license or their beer license so what the heck is a club without you being able to buy a Long Island iced tea or a Corona? You know, so... JJ: Now, have you seen the Puerto Rican community grow here at all or how -- have you seen their (inaudible)? CMV: To be honest with you, the only Hispanic community that you’re ever going to find (laughs) in Grand Rapids is actually Grandville Avenue. And it’s been growing a lot. JJ: This is where the restaurant (inaudible). CMV: Yes. It’s -- there’s actually right up the street [00:50:00] from here on Hall and Grandville across the street from Hall Elementary School is the Hispanic Center. And every single year, they do the march for César Chávez and it’s like in this area, what you call Grandville Avenue, you’re going to find a whole bunch of Hispanics. Not only Puerto Ricans but Dominicans, Cubans, Mexicans, Guatemalans, Hondurians [sic], of all parts of Latin America. Mexico, South America, Center, you know, the islands and stuff. You’re going to find a whole bunch of us. It’s kind of weird that by a street, an avenue is -- that it has -- that’s where you can find the Hispanics but that’s how it is. 34 �JJ: Okay. The neighborhood is kind of growing you said? CMV: It is, it’s growing a lot. Before, [00:51:00] it wasn’t booming like it is now. Before, there wasn’t so many, how can you say, restaurants and Hispanic stores or anything like that. And now there’s at least, let me see, one, two, three, four, five, six, like around six or seven different restaurants just on Grandville. There’s a huge bakery right across the street from this restaurant. There’s a Guatemalan store right next to us, there’s one, two, three, four, five barber shops. And out of those five, one, two, three are beauty salons, as well, mixed together with the barber shop. And it’s something that before, there -- it wasn’t like that. And it’s been growing a lot. JJ: [00:52:00] Okay. Do you have any final thoughts? CMV: Final thoughts is if you guys want some real good food, authentic Puerto Rican food, caterings for any kind of occasions and stuff like that, I suggest you guys come to Rincón Criollo located at 1523 Grandville Avenue, telephone number 616-241-5591. JJ: All right. That’s good. END OF VIDEO FILE 35 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ba5ddc01fb42fc0c9e0a5807d2e22bc4.mp4 1f1c89e8fef4bf4cecd1b956396ac77f 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 Charlyne Martínez-Villegas 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_Martinez-Villegas_Charlene Title A name given to the resource Charlyne Martínez-Villegas video interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Martínez-Villegas, Charlyne Description An account of the resource Charlyne Martínez-Villegas came to Grand Rapids, Michigan from New Jersey where she loved it because there were many Puerto Ricans. In Grand Rapids she was only one of a few. Another reason that she loved New Jersey is that that is where her mother and father were still married. She explains that as soon as their family arrived in Grand Rapids, her parents divorced. Her mother worked hard trying to make ends meet, preparing homemade pasteles that people would order from her ahead of time and then she would have to have them ready at all hours of the day or week. Eventually her mother’s homemade business led to opening up a small restaurant on Grandville Avenue which is always filled with patrons. In Grand Rapids, Ms. Martínez-Villegas began to get in trouble at school and in the neighborhood on the southeast side of the city, by Garfield Park. She missed her friends back in New Jersey and in school “she just did not fit in…the kids were mostly white, or black.” She explains that she could relate a little better with black children because they shared a lot of things in common. She also missed her father. The Young Lords were passing out flyers door-to-door. But they did not use the name “Young Lords” publicly. Instead they called themselves the “KO CLUB.” And they had a way with words. She explains that they had to read some pledges and phrases and everything began with KO: “Keep Open Your Hearts” or “Keep Standing Up for Yourself” or “Keep Open Your Mind.” Their meetings were held in a United Methodist Church, and the heads of the KO Club were Pastor Marge Berman, who was of Mexican descent, and Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez. Members of the Club were also shown several videos about the Young Lords.The young people who participated in the Club and the small congregation were supportive. But there were a few within the church who did not like the Young Lords, who had taken over Methodist Churches in New York and Chicago. Those same individuals also did not like Pastor Berman, who was new and wanted more interaction with the community. Pastor Berman had read a newspaper article about the Young Lords while Mr. Jiménez was working as a substance abuse counselor for Project Rehab. She contacted him by phone. And when they met for the first time, Pastor Berman told him that he was sent by God. To which Mr. Jiménez replied, “Did God send any money? Because I have bills.” Mr. Jiménez did want to organize and help youth, but he wanted to do so around issues related to the Young Lords. Pastor Berman just wanted to save souls. It was a good understanding, but Mr. Jiménez would have to work incognito because using the name Young Lords name would be like saying the word “gang” in Grand Rapids. The KO Club worked well because it was not an after school program. It was an “in the neighborhood program.” It was focused on youth like Ms. Martínez-Villegas who did not want anything to do with school. And while others were saying to all youth who got in trouble, “Lock them up and throw away the key.” the KO Club had their own public slogan: “Support Youth For A Change.” Parents had to get involved, because the KO Club would visit them in their home and let them know that they were not babysitters. Once a month parents would attend amateur night where the KO CLUB members would perform for them and the rest of the community. Organizing was constantly being done door-to-door. KO CLUB was like a good gang and everyone was a member. Their colors were black and purple, but their symbol was a heart with KO in the middle and a cross above the heart. Once a year there was an annual dinner with the community where many members of the United Methodist Church attended including the Bishop. It was cost effective as it was run more like support groups divided by age: pee wee, juniors, and seniors. They would all have a chance to express themselves in a variety of ways, including discussion, with music, or in sports. The only problem came from the adults. Some wanted to make it more ecumenical to include the community at large and others wanted the organization to be more faith-based. Still others wanted control. And Pastor Berman was moved to a church in Los Angeles, California. Mr. Jiménez was left alone, fighting church elders who were paranoid that Mr. Jiménez might want to speak for the church. Mr. Jiménez understood their fears and resigned in an amicable way. The youth program continues today and it is being run more privately within the church. Ms. Martínez-Villegas says that it is what she needed then with the loss of her father, and that participating in the KO Club turned her life around. 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 2012-06-05 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/d4fe53cfe2fca7e5123187d7c8d8c50c.pdf 0c248ef4b11e0c7f652b170db4a63bf6 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Guillermo Martínez Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 3/2/2012 Biography and Description English Guillermo Martínez was born in Puerto Rico. In the 1950s he moved to Chicago, settling in the most northern and western edge of Lincoln Park, near Diversey Parkway and Ashland Avenue. He is a homeowner and because he was not close to the lake, the area where he lived was not affected by high taxes and building inspectors until later than other areas of Lincoln Park. Mr. Martínez describes his memories of Lincoln Park, including the Puerto Rican youth groups of the area, local taverns, and social clubs. He also discusses his membership in the Hermanos de Dios or Brothers of God and his desire to eventually sell his home and move back to Puerto Rico to retire. Even within the Puerto Rican community of Lincoln Park, there was debate about the effects of urban renewal. Mr. Martínez provides insight into these differing perspectives, including his belief that the Puerto Rican community of Lincoln Park was not forced out, but moved by choice. As someone who benefitted financially by having the neighborhood transition raise his property value, he describes what he sees as the positive aspects of urban renewal and its long-term effects on Lincoln Park and Chicago. �Spanish Guillermo Martínez nació en Puerto Rico. En los 1950s se mudó a chicago, en la parte más norte y oeste de Lincoln Park, cerca de Diversary Parkway y Ashland Avenue. Dueño de su propia casa y porque no vive cerca del lago, su vecindario no fue afectado por el aumento de impuestos y inspectores de construcción hasta más tarde que muchos de los otras partes de Lincoln Park. Señor Martínez describe sus memorias de Lincoln Park, incluyendo la jóvenes puertorriqueños en la aria, los tabernas, y grupos sociales. También habla sobre sus membrecía en los Hermanos De Dios y su deseo de vender su casa y retirarse a Puerto Rico. Hasta por dentro de la comunidad Puertorriqueña de Lincoln Park, había discusiones de los efectos de la nueva construcción. Señor Martínez suministra una idea de las diferentes perspectivas en la comunidad Puertorriqueña de Lincoln Park que él piensa que no fueron eliminado, sino hicieron la decisión de cambiarlas. Como alguien quien beneficio financiamiento por cambio del vecindario, el describe los cambios positivos que vio por la reconstrucción y los efectos de una duración larga tiene en Lincoln Park y Chicago. �Transcript JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay, if you can tell me what your name is and how you got here. GUILLERMO MARTINEZ: Oh, mi nombre es Guillermo Martinez. (Spanish) [00:00:09 00:00:24] JJ: When you came here? GM: Yeah, when I came here. (laughs) JJ: No, es tamb-- it doesn’t matter. Nineteen years old? GM: I barely was 19 years old when I came. JJ: When you arrived, okay? GM: Yeah, when I came here. JJ: So you grew up in Puerto Rico, then? GM: I was born in Puerto Rico. JJ: In what town? GM: Arecibo, Puerto Rico. Barrio Sabana Hoyos. JJ: Barrio Sabana Hoyos, okay. And did you go -- so you went to grammar school there? GM: Yes, I went to grammar schools over in Puerto Rico. JJ: Until eighth grade? GM: That’s all I had, grammar school. JJ: Until the eighth grade, though? GM: Yes. 1 �JJ: So a lot of people don’t understand -- I mean, what was it [00:01:00] like going to school there, in Puerto Rico? What school did you go to? GM: What was the question again? JJ: What school did you go to and what was it like? What was it like? GM: Barrio Sabana Hoyos, Segunda Unidad, Barrio Sabana Hoyos. JJ: (Spanish) [00:01:14] And how do you describe the school? What was school like? GM: Well, they had grades from first grade to first year high. That’s what they -- then from there you go to the high school in Arecibo. Then, so they had from first to eighth grade. JJ: Okay, I mean, did you have to wear uniforms or anything? GM: No, not exactly. I didn’t -- I wear my own clothes and I had to walk about five, maybe five, eight miles to get to school. JJ: Oh, you had to walk? No buses? GM: Walk. Whenever I got to ride by a horse or -- there goes -- a car goes by, a truck load of sugar cane, [00:02:00] I just hang on to it until I get to school. JJ: So there was sugar cane in the area? GM: Yes, there was all sugar cane. JJ: So this was in the country? GM: Yeah, I lived way out. JJ: Way out in the country? GM: Yeah, way out. JJ: And so you would -- sometimes you would hit your ride on a sugar cane -- 2 �GM: Yes. Hanging on a piece of sugar cane. JJ: Hanging by sugar cane, but with a horse? Was the horse driving it or a car? GM: No, a truck. JJ: A truck? GM: Yeah. Semi. Semi. JJ: Semi, okay, full of sugar cane. So that means you went to a different barrio to the school, right? GM: Well, if Arecibo -- Barrio Sabana Hoyos, Arecibo, it’s a big barrio. JJ: It’s a big barrio? GM: I think it’s one of the biggest in the island. JJ: Was it? GM: Of the town of Arecibo, but in the island too. [00:03:00] So it was quite a way from where I was living, Barrio Jobales. It’s a little town, a little barrio. Then I go to Sabana Hoyos, which, it was -- that’s where you had highway number two. JJ: Highway number two? That’s the (inaudible)? GM: Yeah. JJ: And so you’re in a different neighborhood, different barrio. GM: Yes. JJ: Did that create any problems with the other kids? GM: Kids’ problems, that always happened. When I left my town, my barrio, I met other kids. And yes, there was gangs there. They hide screwdrivers or ice pick in boxes of -- candy boxes, like [Coconettos?], (laughs) and then they start 3 �problems. And then [00:04:00] they hide those ice picks in there, and we had to defend ourselves too. JJ: When you say we, you mean other people from where you were? GM: Me and my cousins and all those that come from the little barrio, who were about six or eight. So they don’t like us because they didn’t see us. I guess they were just trying to be friendly, or see how we react by seeing other kids. So you had to fight. JJ: So your family, what did they do? Did they work on the sugar cane, or what did they -- what kind of work did they do? GM: My father had a farm, 50 acres of, you know, rocky land, but we had bananas and yautias. And, you know, we grow all the stuff and we sell it to -- in town, that’s how we -- [00:05:00] but most of the stuff that we consume in the house were grown in the farm. And we raised animals like pigs and goats and chickens. And all that, that’s -- until I got 18 years old. JJ: So the chickens were just to eat, they weren’t to sell. You weren’t selling those. GM: No, were for consuming. JJ: Consuming. And ate the eggs and stuff like that. But the vegetables and fruits you took to the town? GM: Yeah, we sell bananas, platanos, guineo, yautia, calabaza. JJ: And so did you have to work too, in the farm? Did you work with your --? GM: Of course. After school, I had to go feed the horses, las yeguitas. We had to feed the horses and also we had -- we didn’t have no [00:06:00] running water by 4 �the house, we had to go get it at the -- how do you call it, at the spring to bring the water so we could drink and cook. JJ: So no pipes, just spring? GM: Right. You just get it. JJ: Get it right from the ground and that’s the water you drink. GM: Yeah, carry it. Uh-huh. JJ: Okay. (Spanish) [00:06:20] GM: (Spanish) [00:06:21] (laughs) JJ: Okay. So how many brothers and sisters? GM: Well, actually, my mom, she had about -- she lost five, miscarriage, and ten of us survived. Ten of us. JJ: So there were -- GM: Four sisters and six brothers. JJ: Four sisters and six brothers. Okay, were you the oldest? GM: Well, actually, I think that was my sister, which was -- [00:07:00] [Leonora?] was the first one, and my brother, Luis, second one. In between that, Luis and I, I think two kids died. I’m supposed to be about the fifth child. JJ: Okay. GM: Now I’m the oldest. JJ: Now, I’ve heard a lot about these miscarriages. Why were -- what was the reason why there were miscarriages? GM: Well, you know, them days, the women didn’t go to doctor. JJ: To the doctor, right. Prenatal -- 5 �GM: You just get pregnant and have the baby. JJ: At the house they would have it? GM: At the house. And all the kids were born by a comadrona. She’s a midwife. JJ: A midwife? Okay. GM: Which was my mother’s sister. JJ: Okay. Did they train for that? GM: Yeah, they do have training. They do -- JJ: I mean, at that time, did they have training? GM: Yeah, the clinica. [00:08:00] JJ: La clinica would train them how to do it? And so they would get paid to do that? GM: They have to go once a month, and they have more like a -- what they call that? A suitcase or whatever, a bag. And they supply them with all the stuff that they need. JJ: Oh, supplies. GM: Uh-huh. But they are up to date. JJ: So then at that time they were trained? GM: At that time, yeah. JJ: Because they didn’t have clinics in the country? GM: No. JJ: No hospital, no clinic? GM: No, not for -- you had to go to the hospital. And then days, by the time you bring the woman to the hospital, [it might have been horses,] I mean, she’s going to have the baby half the way. (laughs) 6 �JJ: Right, right, right. GM: You’re talking about thirty-something -- JJ: So were you born like that? GM: I was born in 1934. JJ: Comadrona? GM: Yeah, my aunt. JJ: It was your aunt, okay. GM: Yeah, all of us. JJ: Okay. Now, what church? Did you go to church in that area, [00:09:00] or no? GM: My parents were -- they weren’t Catholic. JJ: They were not. Okay. GM: No. But -- JJ: What religion were they? GM: -- we had the grace to be -- they baptized in the Catholic Church. JJ: So they baptized you, but they were not Catholic. GM: Yeah, all of us. But they weren’t Catholic. JJ: But why did they baptize you? GM: What was that? JJ: If they were not Catholic, why did you get baptized? GM: Why did they baptize us in the Catholic Church? They’re not around to ask them that question. (laughs) JJ: Oh, they’re not -- okay. 7 �GM: I never did -- you know, we never asked them why were that way. Why did they do. But that’s what they practiced. JJ: That was the practice. GM: Even though if they were Catholic, you know, they wouldn’t have been able to go to church because -- so far. JJ: Oh, the church was far? GM: Oh, yeah. The first one was Sabana Hoyos. JJ: In Sabana Hoyos, [00:10:00] okay. GM: And sometimes the priest was not there. Yeah. JJ: Were there Spanish priests at that time? GM: Yeah. Spaniards. JJ: Spaniard, but not Puerto Rican. GM: If they were, I wouldn’t know. I mean, you’re talking about a long time ago. JJ: What year are we talking? GM: But you know -- JJ: What year are we talking? GM: What was that? JJ: About what year was this? When you were baptized? GM: I was baptized -- it’s in the record in the church. I found out of the (inaudible). I was a year old. JJ: Oh, you were a year old? GM: They say that I was a year old. JJ: Do you know what year? 8 �GM: Well, I was born in ’34, it would be ’35. JJ: 1935. Okay. ’34, ’35. That’s -- so you knew what the ’40s and -- what were the ’40s like in Puerto Rico? Because a lot of people came in ’45, after ’45, but what were the ’40s like? [00:11:00] GM: During the war, I was reading a book on that, [manochevos?]. During the war, the opening of the war in Germany, so that’s -- things started getting better, the economy, the island started getting better. And there was money, but there was no food. Because all the boat, the barge, you know, the ships were sunk. They never got there. JJ: Oh, you mean during the war you were sinking ships, so the food wasn’t getting to Puerto Rico? GM: What was that? JJ: During the war, they were sinking -- GM: Yeah, so the food don’t get there. JJ: Okay, all right. GM: So people have the money but there’s no food. I mean, you’re lucky if you had the farm; always grow something. JJ: Was there television and radio and all that in Puerto Rico? GM: Well, you know, TV came, television came in [00:12:00] 1948. JJ: Oh, ’48? GM: Yeah. JJ: So what did you do before that? GM: For entertainment? 9 �JJ: Yeah. GM: (laughs) Just invent your own, you know, with the family, with the kids, and visit family. JJ: Okay, visiting. No music or anything? GM: Huh? JJ: Oh, the radio was working. Did you have a radio? GM: The radio -- we had battery. It was battery operated. No electricity at that time. JJ: No electricity at that time. Okay. And no running water? GM: Not in my -- JJ: No water, no electricity? GM: No, we had no running water. JJ: So when it was dark, it was dark. GM: Exactly. It was the moon. JJ: The moon? GM: Yeah. (laughs) I have to remember those days. You know, they were good days. JJ: They were good days? GM: We were raised in a good family. JJ: Everybody went to sleep [00:13:00] early though, right? GM: Oh, you hit the sack early. JJ: Okay. So now -- you came here, you said, in 1953? And was there anyone else from your family here before you? GM: Yes, uncle. An uncle. 10 �JJ: And when did he come? GM: I think he came -- it was in ’49, something like that. JJ: 1949? GM: Yeah, he came about ’48, ’4. It was already three or four years over here. JJ: Did he live here or did he live in another part? GM: He lived right where DePaul is right now. 1136 -- no, 2337 Seminary. JJ: Really? In 1949? GM: Huh? JJ: In 1949? GM: Yeah. JJ: He was living in Lincoln Park in 1949. GM: He was, Lincoln Park. JJ: And were there other Puerto Ricans at that time in Lincoln Park? [00:14:00] GM: I didn’t see too many of them, which is hardly anybody there. They were Mexicans. JJ: Okay, Mexicans, okay. GM: As a matter of fact, the building where he lived, because he lived in the basement, it was owned by a Mexican family. JJ: Okay. And this was in 1949? GM: Yeah. JJ: Okay. You came and -- your reason for coming, why did you come? GM: The reason why I wanted to be -- I came here -- JJ: You came when you were 19, right? 11 �GM: Yeah, 19. JJ: So why did you come? Why did you come here? GM: Oh, looking for a better life. I was in San Juan, I was working at the airport, not the one we got now, the other one. JJ: Okay, another one, okay. GM: What was the other one called? Isla Verde. JJ: Isla Verde, okay. GM: And I see all the [01:15:00] airplanes leave every night. I was right at the airport. I said, I’m going to give it a try. So I wrote my uncle, and he said, “Okay.” He said, “Don’t come in January because there’s no jobs.” So then I waited to July. I think it was July 30, 1953, and I flew here. And then he found me -- I went to look for a job making candy in a factory right here in the neighborhood, which now is gone. JJ: What’s the name of it? GM: Peerless Confection Company. JJ: Peerless Confection Company? GM: Peerless. And then -- JJ: Did he work there? Was he working there? GM: No, but -- JJ: Where did he work? Where did he work? GM: My uncle? JJ: Yeah. 12 �GM: By then, he worked in a factory. He was more kind of a [00:16:00] supervisor already. And they called it [super vet?] JJ: Super vet? GM: Yeah. I think they were making -- I don’t know what kind of machine. It was not food. So he took me there. And two weeks later, I came to (inaudible) in August 12, 1953. I remember that. I started a job. JJ: Okay, now you came when you were 19 years old, a teenager. GM: Mm-hmm. JJ: So did you have a girlfriend in Puerto Rico that you left behind or no? GM: No. JJ: No, you just came. You weren’t. (Spanish) [00:16:36]. GM: (Spanish) [00:16:37]. JJ: Okay, okay. So you didn’t have to worry about -- GM: No. JJ: You just figured, I’m gonna just go and -- GM: Just look for a -- JJ: -- an adventure, like adventure? GM: Uh-huh. JJ: Aventurero? GM: Aventurero. JJ: Okay. And so you started working at -- GM: At Peerless Confection. JJ: Peerless Confection, and where did you live at? 13 �GM: Where did I live at? [00:17:00] 918 West Fullerton, right by the El. JJ: Right by the El, Fullerton and Sheffield. GM: Yeah. JJ: Right over by DePaul? Right over there? GM: Yeah. JJ: Okay, okay. And this was 1953? GM: 1953. JJ: And were there any Puerto Ricans living there, in that area? GM: Yeah, there were a few there, lived right across the street. From San Lorenzo. JJ: From San Lorenzo? GM: I met them and other people -- which, you know, we didn’t -- we didn’t have a club, and say, you see them, you know -- of Puerto Ricans, some are dark, some are light. Look at you, you’ve got blue eyes. So you don’t know if they’re Puerto Rican or they were not. So, but then I knew about five or ten of them. Over in Fullerton area. JJ: [00:18:00] And did they --and you hung around together? GM: No. JJ: You just kind of knew each other. GM: No, you were just -- on the weekends, we -- sometimes we get together, but not all the time. Most of the time I was with my family, visiting family, my uncle. JJ: But in the weekends you got together? Where did you go? GM: I’d go to the Biograph Theater. JJ: Oh, to the Biograph Theater you used to go? In 1953? 14 �GM: Yeah, on [the crest?]. Where I crossed. JJ: Right across the street? GM: Across the street from the Biograph. JJ: And all you guys went over there, all the few Puerto Ricans went over there? GM: No, I was very independent. JJ: Oh, you were very independent, okay. GM: Very independent. JJ: So you just saw them in the neighborhood and said hello. GM: Yeah, some of them I’d talk, but never -- JJ: Were they your age? GM: Sometimes we go to their apartment and have a couple of beers, play some (inaudible), you know, music. JJ: What kind of music? GM: Puerto Rican music. JJ: But what kind, what kind? Who were the singers, do you remember? [00:19:00] GM: Um, Felipe Rodriguez? JJ: Felipe Rodriguez. (Spanish) [00:19:05]? GM: Oh, [La última copa?]. (laughter) JJ: Oh, [La última copa?] (Spanish) [00:19:10]. So [La última copa?] was a good one. But Felipe Rodriguez, any other singers at that time? GM: Popular singers? JJ: I mean, that you got, that you -- 15 �GM: Oh, yeah, I think [Roberto Salaman?], (Spanish) [00:19:27] [Savio?], (Spanish) [00:19:30] [Cajito Delares?], (Spanish) [00:19:36]. JJ: Cajito Delares, so you like [majibara?], musica jibara? GM: (Spanish) [00:19:41]. As a matter of fact, I always listen to country music. JJ: From Puerto Rico? GM: Yeah, because I hang around here. I used to hang around more with [00:20:00] hillbillies. (laughs) JJ: Oh, okay. GM: Southerners. JJ: No, no, there’s always Southerners -- GM: Yeah. I used to hang around. I hung around -- before I got here, I hung around with them. JJ: So you like hillbilly music, too, from here? GM: Because the country music, it reminds you of the -- JJ: Of country music in Puerto Rico? GM: Yeah. It got the same, you know -- JJ: The same beats -- GM: Mountain sound. JJ: Mountain sound. GM: Yeah. So I used to like, I still like country music. My favorite, my favorite was Charlie Price. JJ: Okay, Charlie Price. Okay. Charlie Price. GM: Yeah. To name a few, Eddie Arnold. 16 �JJ: Okay, so you really were into it, into country music. Because it reminds you of the country in Puerto Rico, and your family was from the country. GM: Yeah. You want to feel at home. And that’s how you pass the time. Besides that, you just work. Get up early in the morning, and twelve o’clock [00:21:00] come home and have something to eat. JJ: So you get up in the morning and you listen to the radio to wake you up. GM: In the morning? JJ: Or no? GM: No. JJ: How did you wake up? GM: I just, I get up a half hour before and I walk from, from the El down here to Lakewood. That’s what the factory was. JJ: Okay, and you just walked there? GM: Not even 10 minutes walk. JJ: But you’d take the El and then just walk over here? GM: No, just walk. JJ: Just walk from Fullerton? GM: Yeah, walk from -- JJ: Fullerton, you were at Fullerton and -- GM: Yeah, Fullerton and Sheffield. JJ: Okay, so not that far, so you’d just walk. So a good walk, is that right. GM: Then, until then; later on I got a car, and -- JJ: So were there more Puerto Ricans working in the candy factory there? 17 �GM: Yes, I started there when I was 19. JJ: But there were more more Puerto Ricans working there? GM: Well, I guess, yeah, there were a few, but if I can remember, it -- were about 40 [00:22:00] of my family worked there. JJ: How many? GM: About 40 of them. JJ: Forty? GM: Yeah, they -- I’ll tell you, one time they were passing around the checks: “Martinez, Martinez, Martinez, Martinez,” the guy said, “You might as well take the rest of them.” (laughter) JJ: Those were your family that worked there. GM: Yeah. JJ: So did they all come from Puerto Rico together? GM: Well, you know. JJ: Right after each other, one right -- GM: Yeah. They’d arrive looking for a job, and take him there. JJ: Is that the way people used to come? I mean, they come with their whole family? GM: Well, if they are single, they come single. Sometimes they come, they get married here. JJ: But, I mean, other relatives were -- GM: And they make family bigger. (laughs) JJ: But the relatives would follow them? GM: Oh, yeah, they’d bring their brothers and sisters. 18 �JJ: And then helped set them up and all that? GM: Yeah. JJ: Okay. Okay. So now you’re here and you’re a teenager, did you get in any [00:23:00] problems? You know, teenagers get in trouble. GM: No. JJ: Not trouble, just a working person. GM: No-trouble lifestyle. JJ: Was there a lot of trouble? GM: (inaudible) JJ: No, no, that’s good. I mean, would anybody else get in trouble? Any of your friends that you saw. GM: No, no. But I know, I knew what was all going around. JJ: What was going around, what was going around. So you knew what was going around, but you didn’t get in trouble? GM: No. JJ: So what was going around? GM: Oh, gangs. JJ: Puerto Rican gangs, or --? GM: Puerto Rican gangs, yeah. JJ: What sort of gangs, do you remember them? GM: It really, I -- name some of them? JJ: Yeah, did you know any of the names or --? GM: Yeah, I can remember the Young Lords. 19 �JJ: This is when they were a gang. GM: Huh? JJ: This is when they were a gang, you remember. Because, you know, the Young Lords became political later, but this was when they were a gang. GM: Uh-huh. And the Black Eagles -- JJ: The Black Eagles? GM: The Black Eagles, the [Ambrose?]. JJ: The Ambrose, okay. [00:24:00] GM: I’d see other sides, the (inaudible), but I think they’re from the South Side. JJ: Yeah, on the South Side. Yeah. But you -- GM: And they -- they did some damage to my property. (laughs) JJ: Oh, they did damage to your property. GM: Yeah. JJ: So you didn’t like them. (laughter) You didn’t like them. GM: Yeah, no, I usually have -- JJ: I’m not defending them, I’m not defending them. GM: I own a house here. And they’ll screw it up, break the windows. But you know. JJ: But I mean, this -- because I’m talking back when you were younger and then. So when you were 19 and that, all you did was just work, you didn’t -- GM: Yeah, work. JJ: Go to the Biograph -- GM: Right, and send some money to my parents. JJ: -- have a couple beers, and then send some money. 20 �GM: I sent some of money to my parents so he could finish the house back in Puerto Rico. Because he had all these -- I mean, eight kids were underage when I came here. Because right now I’m 77. And the [00:25:00] youngest, I think, is 60, so I was 16 years older than the youngest. JJ: So is that what people did, they helped their mother and father to make a house for the rest of the family? GM: Yeah, my parents were there. JJ: So you work -- GM: I provide. JJ: -- and you provide some money to help the house because that was going to be for your family. GM: Exactly. JJ: And that’s what everybody did at that time? GM: Yeah. JJ: Most other families did the same thing. GM: Mm-hmm. JJ: Okay. Now, you said they were Protestant. Your family was Protestant, but here you became Catholic? GM: Well, I didn’t know what they -- they were, they read a book they call La Conexion. And I think it’s more like -- what is that? I don’t -- [00:26:00] Espiritistas? JJ: Oh, Espiritistas? Oh, okay. So, (Spanish) [00:26:02]. GM: Seemed to be, yeah. 21 �JJ: And that’s part of the -- and it’s called Conexion? GM: That’s -- I think that’s the book they have. Kind of a -- Catholics, they have the Bible. JJ: (Spanish) [00:26:18] It’s part of the culture. GM: Sí. JJ: So it’s not really a religion, it’s more -- GM: Like a cult. JJ: Like a cult, something like that. GM: Yeah. So did they try to do, like, promises and -- GM: They never did teach us anything. JJ: They didn’t teach you anything? GM: Never, never, never tell us. Everything was quiet. They did what they did, just my father and my mother. And us, we’re baptized. JJ: You guys were Catholic, but they -- GM: Yeah. As we -- JJ: And your parents were Espiritista, both of them? GM: Yeah. (Spanish) [00:26:52] JJ: Both your father and mother? GM: Hmm? JJ: Both your father and mother were spiritual? GM: Yeah, but they used to sit together and read [00:27:00] the thing. JJ: Did people used to come to get prayers read for them? GM: Yeah, they have -- 22 �JJ: I mean, my mother believed in the same thing, similar. GM: Yeah, group of the spirit, they get together, and they believe that the spirit comes to them, take -- JJ: And takes control of them. GM: Speaks through them. Yeah. JJ: And speak to them, okay. GM: Yeah, yeah. JJ: (inaudible) GM: Mm-hmm. But my father never had them in our house. They’d go somebody, someplace else. JJ: Oh, they went somewhere else. GM: Yeah. So we never were -- really were exposed to that environment. JJ: And how did you -- you know, you became a Catholic later. GM: Here in Chicago. Since I already was baptized -- JJ: So how did you feel about the spiritualists? GM: About Catholic? JJ: About Espiritista, how did you feel? GM: Oh! JJ: Because you’re Catholic. GM: Well, I am a [00:28:00] person that -- respect all faith. JJ: Oh, okay. Okay. 23 �GM: I respect all faith, because who am I to say you are on the wrong track? So I say, if you believe in it, you stick with it. If you need any advice or something, I’ll give it to you. But I’m only going to give it to you if you, you know, ask for it. JJ: Yeah. But you respect it because there’s a lot of people that practice that, right? GM: No, the reason is, I’d say, I respect all faith. JJ: I understand, but there’s a lot of -- a lot of Puerto Ricans believe in spiritualism. GM: I think so. I think so. JJ: Or no, I don’t know. GM: Right now on the island is lot of Protestants. JJ: A lot of Protestants? GM: A great majority of -- JJ: But what about, not Protestant, but spiritual, Espiritista? [00:29:00] GM: Oh, the Espiritista? JJ: Mucho Espiritista? GM: I don’t know since I’ve been gone for so long, you know? JJ: But (Spanish) [00:29:09]? GM: But they did, among -- JJ: At that time, were there some? GM: At that time, yeah. JJ: So a lot of people lived. And that comes more like from the Indian, do you think so? Or no, or from the African? GM: I read someplace that Santeria, Espiritista, they’re since 1898, when the United States took over Puerto Rico. So before that the Spaniards had the priests, 24 �Spanish priests over there. And they were more like owners. They had the properties and everything. And the United States stopped that. The United States stopped that. And then they didn’t like it. So they went back to Spain. [00:30:00] So then all this little group started wanting to keep the faith with whatever they had. They got all different kinds of cults and -JJ: All different cults. GM: But the Spanish brought the Catholics in Puerto Rico. JJ: Okay, but -- because the Spanish brought the Catholicism. GM: Yeah. But the United States came, they don’t like the way it was operated, you know. Owned. JJ: The priests were owning it. GM: They broke all that up. JJ: They broke all that up because the priests were owning it. GM: That’s not allowed. JJ: So the spiritualists were against the priests? No? GM: Espiritismo? JJ: I mean, it was, like, against the Catholic Church, no? Or no? GM: You find people that, they sympathize with the Catholic. JJ: Oh, they sympathize? GM: Or they would say anything. They’re not -- I don’t think they are bothering anybody. [00:31:00] JJ: They don’t bother anybody. GM: Yeah. 25 �JJ: Okay, so, you were more Catholic. You became Catholic here. About what year was that? GM: Before-- ’54. JJ: Fifty-four, as soon as you got here. And how did that happen? GM: Well, my brother-in-law and I, we worked together. He’s the brother of my wife. He passed away. We worked -- I told him, “Hey, let’s go. Let’s go take dancing lessons.” So I cut out a piece of paper, and it was [that was his group?] downtown. They teach salsa and cha-cha, you know, that stuff. JJ: [00:32:00] In 1954? GM: In ’54. JJ: Downtown? Okay. GM: So that was a Cuban school. So we took a few lessons, and then we usually stopped at State and Chicago avenue. And we got off there because he lived around there. And I stayed a while, then I’d go back up to Fullerton. JJ: They used to call there ‘La Clark.’ Or ‘la Clark’-- or, yeah. GM: Yeah, Clark. Clark State. And then there was a church right there, Holy Name Cathedral. JJ: Holy Name Cathedral, yeah. GM: And they said, “Hey, there is a social hour today. I think --” He said, “I think they dance over there.” JJ: So there were Puerto Ricans at Holy Name Cathedral? GM: Yeah. JJ: In 1954? 26 �GM: In the basement. JJ: In 1954, in the basement? GM: Nineteen fifty-four, that’s correct. That’s where they formed the Caballeros de San Juan Numero Dos. JJ: Numero dos was at Holy Name Cathedral? GM: Mm-hmm. And I went in there and there was no dancing. JJ: [00:33:00] Okay, so numero uno was on 63rd Street. GM: Yeah. JJ: And then numero dos was Holy Name Cathedral. And numero tres was St. Michael’s. GM: St. Michael, yeah. JJ: And was there one up here? (Spanish) [00:33:13] GM: Numero tres was St. Michael, yeah. I used to go there for dancing, too. JJ: Okay, but let’s -- Holy Name Cathedral. GM: Numero dos. JJ: So you went to that social hour in the basement. Okay. GM: Yeah. And from there on, and the guys say, “Hey, how ’bout --” JJ: Who was there when you went in there? Can you describe that? GM: Huh? JJ: When you went into the dance, who was -- were there a lot of Puerto Ricans there? GM: There was no dance at all. I thought it was dancing, but they were just teaching Bible classes and gathering. Then they invited us. 27 �JJ: But were there Spanish people there? GM: Yeah, all Puerto Ricans. JJ: All Puerto Ricans? GM: Yeah. JJ: Okay, at that time. Were they from that neighborhood, or where? Did they live in that area? GM: As I know, [00:34:00] most of them from that area, but I guess they were coming from -- because they had, here they had two separate -- they had San -- the host street was the church San Francisco, St. Francis. They were mostly Mexicans. JJ: Francis on the South -- on 12th Street and Halsted. GM: Yeah. Right. And we concentrate on the North Side, on the Holy Name Cathedral. JJ: Okay, so those were the two churches at that time. GM: Uh-huh. JJ: Yeah, I remember my mother used to go there. GM: Then we had St. Joseph, which was on Orleans. JJ: So those were two Spanish Masses? GM: Uh-huh. JJ: So there was one Spanish Mass at St. Francis. GM: At that time. JJ: And then one Spanish Mass at Holy Name Cathedral. Did Holy Name Cathedral have a Spanish Mass? GM: In the basement. 28 �JJ: In the basement, they didn’t have it in the big church? GM: Oh, no. They don’t nobody up there. JJ: What do you mean? GM: Oh, we had -- well, keep in with the Caballero de San Juan. [00:35:00] JJ: No, but I mean, can you explain? They didn’t want anybody in the big church? GM: Yeah. JJ: Who didn’t want? GM: That’s why the Puerto Ricans, they formed that Caballeros de San Juan. And from there on, Dos Hermanos. That’s still going. JJ: I mean, they didn’t want people in there, in the Holy Name Cathedral in the big church. I’m not trying to -- or the Puerto Ricans wanted their own church, how was it? GM: No, they don’t want us upstairs. JJ: Did they say that? GM: In the basement. JJ: They said that. GM: They had a fight to it. They had to pay ten cents a seat, if you wanted a seat. JJ: Oh, so there was a -- so a little discrimination there. GM: A little? A big one. JJ: A big one? GM: No, we’ve been coming a long way. JJ: Okay. So now the Puerto Ricans are downstairs and they’re organizing. GM: Uh-huh. Then later on -- 29 �JJ: And the Caballeros de San Juan -- well, what sort of -- what kind of things did the Caballeros do? At St. An -- [00:36:00] GM: What did they do, their activities? JJ: At Holy Name, at Holy Name. GM: Well, they hold meetings every Sunday after Mass, a committee to organize themselves. JJ: Do you remember some of the leaders at that time? GM: I know one of them was [Cheveres?] Miguel Cheveres. JJ: At Holy Name? GM: Uh-huh. No, Miguel Cheveres was -- no. JJ: At St. Michael’s, St. Michael’s. GM: St. Michael’s. JJ: Yeah, okay. And Cheveres and -- what was the other one -- [Rivera?], (inaudible). (Spanish) [00:36:39] And Jesus Rodriguez, what was he? GM: Jesus Rodriguez, like I say, he was -- he came from Los Hermanos Cheos. JJ: In Puerto Rico? GM: In Puerto Rico. And then he was at St. Michael’s. He held -- [00:37:00] a good preacher, he held retreats in Villamaria. JJ: Villamaria was where? GM: That was in Wisconsin. JJ: In Wisconsin? Okay. GM: And then he became a leader of Comite de Cardinal, which was at Wabash. JJ: Cardinals Committee, okay. 30 �GM: And they picked Father [Mer, M-E-R?] and -- JJ: Headley? GM: Father Headley. He’s still with us. JJ: Oh, he’s still with you? I’ve got to talk to him, I want to interview him. GM: I just, that’s what I -- JJ: I want to interview him. We’ll talk about that later because we’re doing your interview. GM: What was that? JJ: We’ll talk about it later because we’re doing your interview. GM: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, and he used to collect clothes at 13 South Wabash for the people that were poor. [00:38:00] They’re gonna get their jacket or whatever. Yeah, he was very, very good humanitarian, Jesus Rodriguez. JJ: Jesus Rodriguez, okay. GM: That’s what I – humanitarian. JJ: So, but Holy Name Cathedral, how many -- did you keep going there? GM: No, from there, we moved to Orleans, St. Joseph. JJ: St. Joseph, Okay. Why did you move from there to Orleans? GM: Because we were tired of being in the basement. Orleans was on the main floor. (laughs) JJ: Oh, Orleans gave you the regular chapel, the regular church. At St. Joseph’s. GM: Yeah, we have Father -- Father [Fidelis?]. The Spaniard, the father -- two Spanish, three guys, Father Domingo. Yeah, they used to serve us. St. Joseph. [00:39:00] Right back Cabrini-Green there. 31 �JJ: Right, right, Cabrini-Green, yeah. And so, did it have anything to do with the neighborhood changing at all? Maybe the neighborhood was changing or people moving out? GM: You know -- JJ: I mean, I don’t know. I’m asking. GM: Puerto Ricans move fast, keep moving and moving from community, keep going west, west. And I think I’ve been to all these churches. (laughs) JJ: Okay, so they kept moving west, the Puerto Ricans? GM: Yeah. JJ: So they started in downtown, but they kept moving west? GM: Uh-huh. Then they were here in St. Vincent. JJ: So they moved west, like on Chicago Avenue they moved west. GM: Yeah, we’re coming this way. JJ: So they went north and west. GM: Yeah. Yes. JJ: North and West. And they spread out like that. But they started around downtown? GM: Mm-hmm. They came to - JJ: But what about the South Side? What about the 63rd Street? GM: Never been [00:40:00] too much concentration of Puerto Ricans. The only people that I know -- JJ: But you had Council Number One there. Why did you have Council Number One there? 32 �GM: Yeah. JJ: But why? GM: I went there once. JJ: But there was never a real concentration there? GM: Never. Never. JJ: No, it’s just that -- It started there. GM: Yeah, some people they go there, in ’47, because their family brought them there and stayed there. JJ: But it never was a concentration like -- GM: No. JJ: Like on Clark Street? It wasn’t that big? GM: Clark and State, yeah. There were a few. Clark, and State and Superior. A few. But then, once they -- they got married. They were single guys. They got married. JJ: Most of them were single? GM: Mm-hmm. JJ: At Clark and that? GM: Yeah. JJ: So there was more like -- mostly singles and stuff. But there was the [Water Hotel?] and all that. GM: (laughs) Yeah. JJ: You knew about that? The Water Hotel, you never heard of it? GM: What was it? 33 �JJ: Water Hotel. Water Hotel. GM: [00:41:00] Water? JJ: Water. Hotel. GM: Yeah, I know. JJ: Superior and LaSalle. Catholic charities. GM: I know the first Spanish store was right there. Superior and -- JJ: And Clark. GM: Clark, yeah. Spanish-American. JJ: Spanish-American Food. GM: Yeah. JJ: Okay. That was the first Spanish store that you know of? GM: This side, that I can remember of. JJ: And who was the owner? Was it Mario Rivera? GM: Yeah, it was, yeah. Mario Rivera. JJ: But that was the first Spanish store? GM: Yeah, then they kept moving. JJ: And they kept moving -- GM: There was a lot of Spanish stores. Around here, Halsted, you know, but then, all of it’s gone. JJ: All of it’s gone. Okay, so you were on Orleans. So were you living over there? GM: No, I live always in Lakeview. JJ: You always lived in Lakeview? I was living on -- GM: Or by Lakeview, I mean, I mean, right here, in this area. [00:42:00] 34 �GM: I lived by 2308 Lincoln Avenue. JJ: Okay. 2308? GM: Yeah. Right in front of Children’s Memorial Hospital. JJ: Okay, but that’s Lincoln Park. That’s Lincoln Park. GM: Yeah. Lincoln Park. JJ: Okay. So right around there, you always lived around Lincoln Avenue? GM: Yeah. JJ: Because there were some hillbillies over by Lincoln and Sheffield. There was like a hillbilly neighborhood. GM: Uh-huh. JJ: And you said -- so you were always around Lincoln Avenue -- GM: Always. JJ: And Cisco -- there was a guy named [Cisco?]. The rebels, (Spanish) [00:42:35]. But you didn’t know that. GM: No. I heard probably. JJ: Yeah, you heard? Okay. GM: I know a guy that (Spanish) [00:42:44] Dracula. JJ: Dracula. GM: (laughs) I think he’s still around. JJ: Okay. So now you’re with the Caballeros of San Juan at St. Joseph, you had Father Fidelis. [00:43:00] What did they do there? What did the Caballeros do there? Was that a concilio? Was there a concil-- 35 �GM: They do. They had a group, too, that they house to house knocking doors, preaching the gospel, bringing people into the church. And they coordinate retiros, you know, retreats. JJ: What were the retreats like? Did you -- GM: They had their annual picnic at the St. Francis Boys’ Club. JJ: Where was that? GM: Down -- Wisconsin, I think. JJ: In Wisconsin? GM: Yeah, St. Francis Boys’ Club. Libertyville. JJ: Oh, Libertyville? GM: That’s Illinois. Libertyville. Yeah, that was an annual picnic. JJ: Of the Caballeros? GM: Yeah, music and everything. JJ: And when did that start? What year did that start? GM: I would say -- JJ: Was there one in ’54, 1954? GM: Between the ’60s [00:44:00] and ’70s. Yeah. JJ: Right. Between the ’60s and ’70s they were going to Libertyville. GM: Yeah. JJ: For an annual picnic and a lot of people showed up? GM: Yeah, in September. That was like a Labor Day weekend that they had the -- JJ: And a lot of people showed up. GM: (inaudible), yeah. 36 �JJ: Three hundred, four hundred? GM: I would say more. JJ: More than that? Okay, 500 or maybe 1,000? GM: Yeah. JJ: A lot of people in the -- GM: It was a big outing. JJ: But it was just one day or the whole weekend? GM: That was just one day. JJ: One day. GM: I don’t know if it was Saturday. Probably Saturday because Sunday is -- JJ: It was Libertyville, Illinois. Okay. So then from St. Joseph’s -- but St. Joseph participated in the picnic? GM: Yes, and St. Michael. They all -- all the churches. [00:45:00] It was not just one community; all the Spanish churches, they go on the picnic. JJ: Okay. And they went, did they rent a bus, or they’d go in cars? GM: No, every -- well, you know, some people -- they had buses. But I used to drive my own car. JJ: Okay. You’d drive your own car. So yeah, what kind of car did you have? GM: (laughs) Well. By then I was driving a ’56 DeSoto. JJ: Oh, I see, DeSoto. GM: Yeah. Automatic, push button. JJ: Oh, wow. GM: Yeah, by that time. ’56 DeSoto. 37 �JJ: So, okay, so now, when did you go to St. Michael’s? You said you went to St. Michael’s. So from St. Joseph, you went to St. Michael’s? GM: Mm-hmm. JJ: But you never lived in Old Town, though? GM: Old Town there? JJ: Yeah. GM: No. JJ: No, you never lived there. You always lived here. GM: I’d go there. JJ: But you always lived here, but you went there. GM: [00:46:00] Yeah. JJ: So that was like the center? GM: I always stayed here. JJ: But -- you stayed here, but that was like the center for Puerto Ricans? GM: Yeah. Mm-hmm, yeah, the gathering, for the -- JJ: So it started like Holy Name Cathedral, and then it went to St. Joseph’s. GM: Uh-huh. And then St. Michael. JJ: And then St. Michael’s. So you just followed the -- GM: Yeah, then St. Francis. JJ: -- followed the Caballeros. You just follow the Caballeros. GM: Yeah. Mm-hmm. JJ: Because it was the same group of people? GM: Yeah. 38 �JJ: So the Caballeros were -- when the people were moving, the Caballeros followed them. GM: Exactly. JJ: Because they -- first, they were in Holy Name Cathedral. Then they went to St. Joseph -- and if I’m wrong, let me know. Let me know. But then they went to St. Joseph, and then St. Michael’s became like a center? GM: Yes. JJ: Most central. I mean, it became a lot of activity? GM: Oh, yeah. Dances three days of -- in the weekend. JJ: Three days a week? At St. Michael’s? GM: There’s Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday afternoon. JJ: [00:47:00] So you must have had a lot of good dancers. Because you were going to dance school. GM: (laughs) I went for a while. JJ: So there was good dancers? GM: Too tired. Making candy. Making candy -- JJ: I remember going there, but they had pretty good dancers. GM: Yeah, oh yeah, they do. JJ: So they really -- people got into dancing. GM: Oh, yeah. JJ: And I know that one of -- Jesus Rodriguez’s son, Jose -- GM: His kid, his son. JJ: He said Jose was a bad dancer. 39 �GM: He used to go down, pick up a hanky with his teeth. JJ: He used to do what? GM: He used to, you know, like split down. JJ: And pick up a handkerchief with his teeth? I remember him, because -- GM: I don’t know if he died or they had -- JJ: No, he’s still alive. He’s still alive, the other one died. GM: Oh, okay. (Spanish) [00:47:45] JJ: Yeah, (inaudible). But I remember, I remember he would take off his suit coat and have the girl hold his suit coat and flip her around. GM: He was good. JJ: He was a good dancer. GM: He’d put up on the shows then. JJ: He would put on a show, [00:48:00] that was Jose Rodriguez, yeah. That was Jesus Rodriguez’s son. GM: Mm-hmm. JJ: Okay, so that was at St. Michael’s, at the dances there. (Spanish) [00:48:10]. GM: Yeah, they’d sell. JJ: So what did they sell, what kind of food did they sell? GM: I don’t remember. (Spanish) [00:48:19]. Empanadas, and pasteles. Yeah. JJ: So now did they have a -- okay, empanadas, pasteles, and what about who cooked it? GM: Huh? 40 �JJ: Who were the people that cooked it? Who cooked the food? (Spanish) [00:48:38]. GM: Oh, who cooked that? JJ: Yeah. GM: They had a group. (Spanish) [00:48:43] about two years ago, she passed away. Paula. Paula (Spanish) [00:48:58 00:49:25] She passed away. (Spanish) [00:49:30 - 00:49:59] GM: Yeah, [00:50:00] they’d hang out there. JJ: Where’s the Crown Liquor at? GM: Right here on Wrightwood -- Lincoln and Wrightwood. JJ: Lincoln and Wrightwood? They used to hang out there? GM: At that time they called them the Crown Liquor. JJ: The Crown Liquor group? GM: Yeah, they had a billiard and they had -- JJ: But they started on Clark Street. They started in Puerto Rico, but then they were on Clark Street. The Hacha Viejas, the Old Hatchets. GM: Oh yeah, they come from Hacha Vieja, from Puerto Rico. JJ: They came from Puerto Rico, but they were from Aguas Buenas. They came from Aguas Buenas. GM: Aguas Buenas? JJ: Yeah. I think, you know. (Spanish) [00:50:37]. GM: (Spanish) [00:50:38] JJ: So you knew them, you knew them? 41 �GM: Yeah, they played. They’d play pool there. JJ: They’d play pool. GM: Yeah, they -- JJ: So they didn’t really get into -- GM: The only -- JJ: Once in a while. GM: The only way I knew them, because [Leito?] -- (Spanish) [00:51:00 - 00:51:09] JJ: And you went to the Crown Liquor with them? GM: Yeah, I was already -- had children already. JJ: But I mean, you saw them there. Were they -- GM: Yeah, they’d play pool. JJ: Did they bother people? I heard they were a gang. Did they -- GM: No, because they were a bunch of -- if somebody come from the outside, and start trouble, it’s like, forget it. But they knew everybody knew each other. JJ: So they were just friendly. GM: Like I knew Leito, I was his friend. JJ: So everybody was friends. GM: My brother-in-law, that was Diana’s father. He knew all of them, too. JJ: But if somebody from the outside came and started trouble, they were in trouble. GM: Yeah, if anybody come and say the wrong thing, forget it. I never was there when there was trouble, but I was already -- I already had to stop going there. I know a guy, they cut him right here. 42 �JJ: They cut him? GM: [00:52:00] Yeah. JJ: One of the Hacha Viejas -- GM: (inaudible) JJ: -- cut somebody? GM: Oh, yeah. JJ: Cut somebody else? GM: Yeah. JJ: And that was over a girlfriend or a beer or what was that about? GM: No, I think a guy comes and says something to one of the guys that was there. The guy didn’t want to do it, so he (inaudible). You know, like say, “You don’t do that to my friend.” JJ: Oh, because the other guy came in, protected them, the friend. Okay. So they were like a gang. Were they a gang? GM: Actually, no. JJ: Not really? GM: No, because -- JJ: They just stuck together. GM: They just, by coincidence. JJ: But they had a name. GM: They don’t meet there. Because everybody was a working person. Just coming there for a beer and play a couple (inaudible). By accident, they are there, coincidence. From there, everybody just got their own place. 43 �JJ: Okay, but they call themselves the Old Hatchets. GM: They were just like a bunch of friends there. JJ: Bunch of friends, but they had a name. [00:53:00] They had a name. The Old Hatchet, Hacha Vieja. GM: Oh, they were the Hacha Vieja. JJ: Yeah, they had a name. GM: Yeah, they were the Hacha Vieja. JJ: But they were not a gang, you don’t look at them like a gang. GM: Well, they already old. JJ: They were old already? GM: Yeah, (Spanish) [00:53:13] Leito, [Jorge?]. He was the youngest one. (break in audio) JJ: -- other places did they go to? GM: That I don’t know. The only place I know them, but I heard a lot of stories. They used to hang around on Halsted. JJ: Halsted and what? GM: Halsted and Armitage, I think. JJ: Oh, they were on Halsted and Armitage, right around there? GM: Yeah. There was -- on Dickens, there was a hot dog. JJ: By the hot dog stand? GM: I think they were in front of that. JJ: Yeah, there was on Halsted -- yeah. But that was different groups. GM: Mm-hmm. 44 �JJ: On Halsted and Dickens. GM: Yeah. JJ: There was a lot of different groups here. GM: Yeah, corner, hot corner there. JJ: Yeah, hot corner. Yeah, and there. Okay, so now [00:54:00] you’re at St. Michael’s. Did you go to another of the Caballeros -- GM: Then I was married, I had kids. JJ: Okay. GM: Then I went to St. -- I went to St. Vincent. JJ: St. Vincent DePaul? GM: St. Vincent DePaul. JJ: Were the Caballeros of San Juan there? GM: No, I never, I didn’t join it anymore. JJ: Any one? GM: No. JJ: But were there other Spanish people there? At St. Vincent? GM: Oh, yeah, nineteen sixty -- nineteen sixty-five, sixty-six, the church was full of Puerto Ricans. JJ: Nineteen sixty-five, sixty-six? GM: Full of them. JJ: St. Vincent DePaul. GM: Yeah, but I -- since I was not involved into anything. JJ: Not Mexican, mainly Puerto Rican? 45 �GM: Mainly Puerto Rican. JJ: Okay. And I mean it was packed. GM: Sometimes you’d find no place to sit. JJ: The big church? GM: That’s the big church. JJ: This is the big church. There was not -- they didn’t, were not in the basement. GM: Huh? [00:55:00] Oh, no. JJ: They were in the big church. GM: As a matter of fact, years later, years after that, they were trying to sell stuff because -- from the church, like taking the old confession or something. I bought a door. Just to give $20. I still got it with me in the building. (laughs) I’ve still got it, it’s a [relic?] there. Old confessional. All solid oak, I cannot lift it now. I used to but I cannot lift it now. I was there about 25 years. JJ: At St. Vincent? GM: Yeah. JJ: At St. Vincent, you were there 25 years? GM: I got married there, at St. Vincent. JJ: So, but they didn’t have any activities, you said. GM: I never joined. JJ: You never joined. You just went there every Sunday. GM: They had Caballeros de Colón. JJ: Caballeros de Colón. GM: Yeah. Knights of Columbus. 46 �JJ: Knights of Columbus. GM: Yeah. JJ: They were not [00:56:00] Puerto Rican, or --? GM: Puertorriqueños. JJ: Oh, Knights of Columbus were Puerto Ricans. GM: Mm-hmm. And they yo también knocking doors. JJ: So this was not the Caballeros de San Juan, this was the Knights of Columbus. GM: No, the Knights of Columbu-- sí, Caballero Colón. JJ: Caballeros de Colón. GM: Yeah. JJ: So it was like a different branch? They were separate. GM: Yeah. But do the same thing. JJ: The same thing meaning what? They had activities and retreats? GM: Some of the Caballeros de San Juan became Caballeros de Colón. JJ: What about St. Teresa? You didn’t go to St. Teresa’s. GM: No, I never did. JJ: That was a different group. GM: I visited there a couple of times. JJ: But St. Vincent was packed with Puerto Ricans? GM: Yeah. St. Teresa also had a mass. JJ: Yeah, they had also at St. -- because people had kind of moved, they kept moving, stuff like that, you know? And St. Sebastian had something too, right? GM: Oh yeah, that was another big community. 47 �JJ: That was another big community. GM: I never went there, too. [00:57:00] I know a lot of people from there, though. JJ: So that was like the Near North Side Puerto Rican community. So would you say that -- so you lived in a few places in Lincoln Park, did you -- in 1953 were there a lot of Puerto Ricans in Lincoln Park? And when I say Lincoln Park, I mean, like from North Avenue to Diversey, from the park until maybe Racine. Were there a lot of Puerto Ricans living in that area? GM: No. JJ: In 1953? GM: You hardly see any. Then they start coming in. JJ: Then they start coming in. Okay. And then they start leaving again? GM: Yeah, well, people get old, people get married. They lose their jobs. Rent goes high. JJ: The rent goes high? GM: So you start moving west. JJ: Did it have more to do with the rent getting high [00:58:00] or just people getting old? GM: Other people were afraid of gangs. JJ: Okay, people were afraid of gangs? GM: Yeah. Like I have my house where I live now. I came from Wrigleyville, that’s where I lived, had a house over there. And I wanted to buy a house here to be closer to my job right here (inaudible), and the bank won’t give the loan. JJ: The bank won’t give you a loan? 48 �GM: No, they say that’s a red line. They say, I can get you bungalow west but not here. JJ: Who told you that, that it was a red line? GM: Huh? JJ: Who said it was a red line? GM: The banks at that time. JJ: They told you that it was a red line. GM: At that time. JJ: So meaning -- GM: Almost every house at a sign for sale. JJ: Why did they call it red line? GM: They say it because no people were -- they weren’t giving no loans. JJ: No loan for people. GM: For you to buy a house. JJ: [00:59:00] If you were Spanish, or no? GM: No, because they see that the neighborhood was going down. JJ: Okay, so they didn’t want to give you a new loan. GM: Yeah. JJ: Because the neighborhood was going down. GM: So the only way I got the house was because we were the only [to order?]. JJ: But you could afford the pay the loan. GM: Huh? JJ: But you could afford to pay the loan. 49 �GM: Oh, yeah, I had a job. I had a loan with the house that I had. JJ: It was a loan, it was a mortgage. You had a mortgage already. GM: But when I went over here, they told me no. JJ: And they said it was a red line. That means that they’re not going to give money. GM: That’s right. Risky line. JJ: So they called it a red line. GM: Risky line, red line; risky. Yeah. That was in 1970. JJ: But they gave loans to other people. GM: That I don’t know. Because that’s why people were selling, to get it out. JJ: Okay. That’s where they were selling? GM: And it was hard for them to -- I bought the house for $20,000. I took my chances. [01:00:00] Yeah. See, if I would have been another person, then I don’t believe in people. Because I believe in people. Once you know them, just say hi to them, become your friend and everything like that. But some people look at people, to them, just the way they look, they look criminal. You know what I mean? And I don’t believe in that. I told my wife, nobody’s going to get me out of here. I work right there. Because, in case something happened to you, I’ll be right here in a minute. I bought it. They did two things. Broke windows, stole my flowers. They bothered my kids. My boy was in the Boy Scouts. And just because they saw him with a uniform on, the kids on the street grabbed him and showed him a knife. I said, “It’s okay. I’ll take you to Boy Scouts myself.” You know. And I said, “That’s scary,” you know. And, [01:01:00] but I believe that if you work hard and work out with people, you make it. And everybody would do 50 �like I did, then it had to be -- live in the area. And I believe that any place that you go, just because you see different colors or different people, all you have to say is, make a new friend, giving welcome in the area, and there will be no problem. So -- I’m still there, I’m there. JJ: Okay. GM: The gangs were around. In the middle of the day, they were shooting over here. Yeah. Right in front of the factory, the candy factory. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of a guy, heard a guy by the name of [01:02:00] [Jughead?]. JJ: Jughead? Okay. GM: Yeah. They shot him right there. Right by the tracks. JJ: Was he Spanish or no? GM: No, they weren’t. JJ: American? GM: Mm-hmm. JJ: Okay. Okay, so there were different gangs, war gangs and Spanish gangs. GM: Exactly. JJ: And they were fighting each other. Okay, so when they started talking about changing the neighborhood, you wanted them. Because you were a homeowner. So you wanted change in the neighborhood. So you wanted them to come in in urban renewal and fix everything up? GM: Oh, yeah. I put money in my house. And then -- JJ: Because it was going to be worth more money. GM: Oh, yeah. Then the builders start building. 51 �JJ: Okay. So you actually -- it helped you up. GM: Mm-hmm. JJ: Because you owned the building. Okay. GM: Yeah, I know. JJ: What about your friends and your neighbors? [01:03:00] What about the friends and neighbors that were Spanish? How did you feel -- GM: Like I say, we Spanish, we’re changing all the time. All the time. Since we got a home to go to. Say, when you come from a country that -- you got only one-way ticket, you’ve gotta stick at it. But the day we don’t like to be here, we go over to Abuelita, stay with Abuelita. (laughs) Yeah, you know, we have that flexibility. Some people don’t have that flexibility, so they make it. And for a while it was scary, you know, but that’s (inaudible). And -- JJ: But do you think that they took advantage of some people, or no? GM: What was that? JJ: Like, do you think that some of the real estate people took advantage of some people that didn’t [01:04:00] know? Like Spanish people -- GM: I didn’t really bother to investigate. But, like I said -- JJ: I just wanted to know -- GM: Yeah. Almost every house was for sale over here on Racine, that’s why -- JJ: Were they Spanish people’s homes? GM: No. My sister, my sister lost -- sold her house, which is the house next -- oh, that one. See the house? JJ: Yeah, I see that. 52 �GM: It was not like that. That was Martha’s. Martha’s mom. JJ: Oh, okay. GM: Yeah. They sold it. But they made some money; he bought it for 17, sold it for 94. JJ: Oh, that’s pretty nice. That’s pretty good. So they were smart. GM: Yeah. JJ: They were smart. But now, a lot of our people didn’t have -- so that the smart way to do it, just to buy the house -- GM: Yeah. JJ: -- and then sell it for profit, [01:05:00] right? But a lot of our people rented, right? GM: They went to rent? JJ: They didn’t own the houses. GM: I don’t know much about -- I know my -- JJ: You know, mucho Puerto Rican, they were renters. GM: Yeah. JJ: They didn’t own houses. So how do you feel about that? GM: They keep, when the rent start coming up, then they keep moving west. JJ: But how did you feel? You didn’t feel anything? GM: That -- JJ: That they were being pushed out, or no? GM: No, because everybody thinks different. Okay, everybody thinks different. If you know, if I’m going to sell this property here with a fixed income that I have, and they want -- the real estate want $12,000 taxes a year, you know? Then you 53 �say, well, I’m going to go to further west. But I’m a fighter. [01:06:00] I believe that I’m a good place. I’m accessible to all the services that I need, like doctors, and the hospital, and shopping. I can do everything within walking distance. I say, well, I lose one side, but I gain the other side. And some people just because, for a little reason like that, they sell their property because some place else -- A lot of -- many reasons. Right now, only my sister and I are here. But at one time, were all of us. JJ: And it’s worth -- today it’s worth a lot of money. I mean, a property in this area. GM: Yeah, I have [paid for it?]. JJ: Now did they raise the -- because of the property value going up, your taxes go up too, right? GM: Yeah. JJ: How do you feel about that? GM: I don’t think it’s right. I don’t think it’s right because [01:07:00] that the government should take advantage of the opportunity that you have, that your property is worth more. It’s your home, and you make it your living quarter, you know, at least until the day that you die. Why, the government, you have to pay them for the property value? It’s not their property, for them to collect their tax. That’s the way I look at it. Yeah. JJ: Okay, what are you -- today, what are you doing? You said you’re still involved with the Caballeros? GM: What was that? JJ: Today, you said, you’re still involved with the Caballeros today? 54 �GM: Yeah, it is Los Hermanos. JJ: Los Hermanos. (Spanish) [01:07:51] GM: They come from Los Caballeros, Cursillistas, and the Los Hermanos. JJ: Now they’re called Los Hermanos. GM: Huh? JJ: They’re not called [01:08:00] the -- GM: They still have the Cursillista. Caballeros, no, they don’t have that anymore. JJ: They don’t have the Caballeros anymore? GM: But they have the Cursillistas and Los Hermanos. JJ: Okay, so today you still are in Los Hermanos. GM: We get together. Because Los Hermanos is a group. Cursillistas is a movement. JJ: Oh, Cursillistas is a movement. GM: Yeah, it’s a movement that’s all over Puerto Rico. In English, they have it too. (Spanish) [01:08:24] But Los Hermanos, only one. That’s the only group that is registered with the Archdiocese. JJ: And they came from the Caballeros. GM: Yeah. JJ: But they’re called Hermanos. GM: Hermanos, Hermanas, and la Familia de Dios. JJ: Oh, Hermanos, Hermanas -- GM: Yeah, one time when they were the Hermanos, but it was almost -- the Hermanas show up. So they included the -- 55 �JJ: The women. GM: The women. JJ: Because the women [01:09:00] always showed up. So who’s in charge, the women or the men? Who’s in charge, the women or the men? GM: Oh, they’re together. JJ: Oh, they’re all together. Okay, well, we’ll finish it up. GM: (laughs) Let me think a bit. (break in audio) JJ: Okay, so right now, today, you’re working with the Hermanos and the Hermanas. Out of what church? I mean, what church? GM: St. Hedwig. JJ: St. Hedwig? GM: Hedwig. It’s on Hoyne and Webster. JJ: Hoyne and Webster? GM: Mm-hmm. JJ: Is that -- and are there a lot of Hispanics there? GM: A group. A group is from all different communities. We just don’t belong to St. Hedwig, we just pay rent there to have our activities there. JJ: But it’s -- your headquarters are there, the main headquarters? GM: It’s right there. JJ: At St. Hedwig? GM: St. Hedwig. 56 �JJ: And who are the leaders there? [01:10:00] I mean, what are some of the names? GM: The leaders? Like, I am chairman of activities. JJ: You’re the chairman of activities? GM: I am, I think it’s seven. JJ: Who are some of the other leaders then? GM: And I go to St. Aloysius church. The president of the group, he comes from the 47th Street, Puerto Rican too. JJ: Puerto Rican? GM: Yeah, and the vice president, she comes from there. Secretary, come from near Humboldt Park. Sí. JJ: (Spanish) [01:10:38]? Oh, los Hermanos son puertorriqueño? GM: Sí, puertorriqueño. (Spanish) [01:10:44] dos Mexicanas y un Hondurena. JJ: But the majority are Puerto Rican? GM: Sí. Sí, are Puerto Rican. JJ: Because it came from the Caballeros de San Juan. GM: Uh-huh, yeah, yeah. JJ: Okay, and so what about -- you mentioned Father Headley. GM: [01:11:00] Father Headley. JJ: Does he work with you? GM: He’s retired already. JJ: He’s retired. 57 �GM: But when we need him to go, to give us some classes, he comes. Alternating Mondays. JJ: Because he did a lot of work with the Cardinals’ Committee, right? GM: Yeah, oh, yeah. Yeah, they went to Panama. Jesus Rodriguez también. (Spanish) [01:11:24] Panama. JJ: So the Caballeros de San Juan, they have something in Panama, or the Archdiocese? GM: No, they were independent. JJ: Independent. And then they went over there? GM: Yeah, well, Jesus was (inaudible). He’s in a wheelchair now. He’s retired. JJ: Okay. But they were -- I heard they were at St. Mary of the Woods Church, is there where they’re at? GM: Where at? JJ: Father Headley, St. Mary of the Woods? GM: Father Headley? JJ: Yeah. GM: When was that now? JJ: I read something on the internet, on their website. GM: Yeah? I know he’s in [01:12:00] a home, too. JJ: He’s in a home too? GM: Yeah. JJ: (inaudible) GM: Not feeling too good. Yeah, prostate. 58 �JJ: Okay, so you have Spanish mass here, or you have a headquarters there? You have a -- GM: Well, like I said, we go to our own community. We don’t go to mass over there. Which are -- the priest tell us, you guys go over there, and we don’t see too much of you guys. You’re going to have to, you know. JJ: Start going to mass. GM: Yeah. So we try to -- show us up, like when they have activities, go help, stuff like that. JJ: But you pay rent there? That’s your -- GM: Yeah, we pay. We pay all year round rent. Which is not much for a part in the basement. JJ: Oh, for the basement? GM: For the Bible classes. JJ: Bible classes? And you do activities too, you do activities. GM: Yeah, and then our -- GM: What kind of activities do you do? GM: Well, [01:13:00] we -- we’re supposed to visit the sick, visit the prison. The sick, the prison, the hospital, funerals. And [dos, tres things]. Now, some of the family and the members family are -- visit them. Novenas. JJ: Novenas? You do novenas? GM: Novenas. Yeah. JJ: Okay. So novenas? GM: Novenas. 59 �JJ: Okay. So when somebody dies, you do like a novena? GM: Oh, yeah. JJ: Because I remember my mother used to -- GM: Somebody dies, a member of the family, they called them. And we just start calling people, and we do the service, unless they already have someone. JJ: So you do it at somebody’s house, right? GM: Hmm? JJ: Do you do the novena at somebody’s house? GM: Yeah, the [01:14:00] member of the family. JJ: Member of the family. So it’s still the same as the Caballeros de San Juan? That’s what -- they used to do that. GM: Yeah. Same thing. JJ: But it’s called -- now it’s Hermanos. GM: We have about -- we have registered about, I think, fifty-some members, but average show up 20, 22. JJ: Now, what about the credit union? You’re not connected to that credit union, right? The Caballeros Credit Union? GM: Which one? JJ: The Caballeros de San Juan Credit Union, on Fullerton and -- GM: Oh, they still got the building there. JJ: They’ve still got it? GM: Still operating. JJ: But you’re not connected to it? 60 �GM: No, I never did, because -- (laughter) I want to deal with bigger banks. JJ: Okay. GM: Yeah. Yeah, there was so many -- they were so little. JJ: We’re gonna finish this up. What do you -- maybe we forgot something that you need, that you want to tell [01:15:00] people? GM: Like what? JJ: What do you think that’s important that you want to say? GM: Well, I would say that -- you know, to be a good citizen and stuff like that? Well, I would say to people is, then never expect for someone to come to you and do things for you. You should always go and get it yourself. How do you do that? You do that to -- respecting others, working, giving them a nice work day, to use the buses or your -- respect properties. And like for instance, I got [01:16:00] married. I had three children and became a grandfather; I had four grandchildren. I worked 46 years making candy to keep myself busy. (laughs) And I’ve been lucky enough to be around good people. They appreciated my work, my job. They paid me what they thought that I was worth. And I gave them -- but it was honest [love?]. And like I say, always -- when you see things that -- always try to advise the person and guide them to the right way. [01:17:00] And if you do things like that, respect your neighbors. And help as much as you can, always. Belonging to a group, a religious group, is a good thing because that’s what you really find people that -- true friends. And being busy is the best thing that you can do. Take away your mind from thinking bad. And I say, habits -- I used to smoke. I quit that a long time ago. And drink, now, 61 �my health doesn’t permit to have more than one drink a day. You know, it tastes like you want to have more, but if you want to stay healthy, listen to your doctors. Always listen to your kids [01:18:00] whenever they come to you. And help your wife as much as you can. JJ: (Spanish) [01:18:09] GM: Puertorriqueños? (Spanish) [01:18:22 -01:18:41] GM: I say, we are good people. (Spanish) [01:18:45 - 01:19:59] GM: I learned that lesson. (Spanish) [01:20:01 - 01:20:17] GM: You know, you don’t get nothing for nothing. You’ve gotta -- you want something, you work for it. You know, just believe in yourself. And besides that, believe in people. Believe in people. JJ: Okay. [01:20:35] (video repeats) END OF VIDEO FILE 62 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1bcc2945ecec385543eee25f3d5f1579.mp4 ee6366abc65c7d16f5e037d67ed58402 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 Guillermo Martínez vídeo entrevista y biografía Descripción Spanish language Description entry Guillermo Martínez nació en Puerto Rico. En los 1950s se mudó a chicago, en la parte más norte y oeste de Lincoln Park, cerca de Diversary Parkway y Ashland Avenue. Dueño de su propia casa y porque no vive cerca del lago, su vecindario no fue afectado por el aumento de impuestos y inspectores de construcción hasta más tarde que muchos de los otras partes de Lincoln Park. Señor Martínez describe sus memorias de Lincoln Park, incluyendo la jóvenes puertorriqueños en la aria, los tabernas, y grupos sociales. También habla sobre sus membrecía en los Hermanos De Dios y su deseo de vender su casa y retirarse a Puerto Rico. Hasta por dentro de la comunidad Puertorriqueña de Lincoln Park, había discusiones de los efectos de la nueva construcción. Señor Martínez suministra una idea de las diferentes perspectivas en la comunidad Puertorriqueña de Lincoln Park que él piensa que no fueron eliminado, sino hicieron la decisión de cambiarlas. Como alguien quien beneficio financiamiento por cambio del vecindario, el describe los cambios positivos que vio por la reconstrucción y los efectos de una duración larga tiene en Lincoln Park y Chicago. 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 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_Martinez_Guillermo Title A name given to the resource Guillermo Martínez video interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Martínez, Guillermo Description An account of the resource Guillermo Martínez was born in Puerto Rico. In the 1950s he moved to Chicago, settling in the most northern and western edge of Lincoln Park, near Diversey Parkway and Ashland Avenue. Mr. Martínez describes his memories of Lincoln Park, including the Puerto Rican youth groups of the area, local taverns, and social clubs. Even within the Puerto Rican community of Lincoln Park, there was debate about the effects of urban renewal. Mr. Martínez provides insight into these differing perspectives, including his belief that the Puerto Rican community of Lincoln Park was not forced out, but moved by choice. 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 Spanish language--Personal narratives 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 2012-03-02 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/b94b02533027019a3276b8062be578a4.pdf a6658fd69b552b9b8e598eb1ef352c5e PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Father Leo T. Mahon Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 8/21/2012 Biography and Description In the early 1950s, Monsignor Leo T. Mahon, an Irish American priest who was then head of the Hispanic apostolate in the Chicago Diocese, organized the Caballeros de San Juan (Knights of San Juan), as a religiously inspired community action group among Puerto Rican men. The group was tremendously successful and soon became a model that other dioceses strove to replicate around the country, including in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. Monsignor Mahon developed the program based on the idea that religious development takes place best where social stability and self-confidence prevail. The Caballeros provided both for Puerto Rican immigrants in Chicago.In 1963 Msgr. Mahon was sent by the Archdiocese of Chicago to San Miguelitos, Panama. The mission was an experimental parish, based on the practice of liberation theology, organized by the Archdiocese of Chicago in 1962. He remained there until 1975. By 1980, when the project was terminated by the Archdiocese amidst controversy involving questions of theology and liturgy, the mission had assumed control over 53 parishes and base communities. Msgr. Mahon wrote about this experience in his autobiography, Fire Under My Feet: A Memoir of God’s Power in Panama (2007). After returning from Panama, Msgr. Mahon became pastor at St. Victor in Calumet, Indiana. During his tenure at St. Victor, he introduced Jubilee Retreat weekends, College of Ministry, Young Adult Ministry, and Operation Summer, an innovative program for teens in the parish and surrounding area. He also instituted a range of social service projects, instituted an �overhaul of the church sanctuary, as well as a Lay Diaconate program that brought more than 12 men of the parish into direct service within the church. In 1987, Msgr. Mahon left St. Victor and returned to Chicago, where he currently lives in St. Mary’s of the Woods Faith Community. He was made a bishop in 2010. �Transcript JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay, so Father Mahon you said is suffering from what? M: What? JJ: Father Mahone is suffering from what? M: He has a neuropathy which is -- it’s like -- it would be something like ALS but not quite. It’s not the same thing. It’s more it kills the nerve or one at a time and that shuts down the muscles, too. But he’s gradually losing all the movement in his body. I came here 10 years ago. He was still driving his car but he can’t drive it now. And this young man is, the, José, this person who is taking care of him, completely wonderful. Wonderful caregiver. And there’s a -- this young woman is a nurse who’s visiting. But that’s -- Leo just has to be careful. (break in video) LEO MAHON: And after two or three evenings, I discovered that [00:01:00] it was going right over their heads. There was no reaction, no excitement. And I thought to myself of the gospel. “What doesn’t produce them excites them, excites some enthusiasm.” And this is really the good news. So we began all over again and I asked him questions. JJ: Do you remember what year this was that the Puerto Ricans came to you or...? LM: Yes, 1950, early 1950s. JJ: Early 1950? And then went to 63rd Street. Is that...? LM: Yeah. 1 �JJ: Okay. And so [00:02:00] the people you went to did not -- they said they were there to treat the elite? Is that the words that you’re saying? LM: Yeah. JJ: And you had to do it yourself? LM: Yeah. JJ: Okay. And then what happened after that, Father? LM: Well, we built up a system when I would explain some of the articles of faith and if it struck them as being good, exciting, they would tell me. If they say, “No, that won’t work at all,” then I’d skip that. And so a whole [00:03:00] series of instructions began to evolve and it was taken down by a nun and actually published in the book. And then we had an office at 13th and Wabash and our men are all over the communities. The Caballeros were establishing communities where in the 12 different places where Puerto Ricans were living. JJ: Twelve different churches? LM: Yeah. [00:04:00] Well, sometimes they were in church and sometimes, they weren’t. JJ: So sometimes they were like homes or storefronts or...? LM: Yeah. Yes. They always managed to get a clubhouse where they could read. Sometimes, if they were welcome into a church but they weren’t always. There was a prejudice against many Catholic parishes. JJ: You said there was some prejudice, Father? LM: Oh, yes. JJ: Against the Puerto Ricans or...? 2 �LM: Yes. JJ: Okay. But they were able to just work through that or...? LM: In many cases, yes. JJ: Okay. Okay. But in the beginning -- okay, we did talk about the [00:05:00] -that’s in the -- I got a book. I just want to make sure it’s okay. There’s a couple pictures in there. I want to make sure it’s okay by you if I can use those pictures. LM: All right? JJ: Is it okay? LM: Yes. JJ: Okay. I just want to make sure. Okay, any -- do you remember at all like the parade, the first parade that they had or...? LM: Yeah. JJ: In 1953, I believe? LM: Yeah. JJ: What do you remember about that? LM: Well, we brought a lamb into the mayor’s office. JJ: Into (laughs) mayor Daley’s office at that time? LM: Yeah. And -- JJ: What did the lamb represent? LM: Well, the lamb -- JJ: I know it’s a symbol of Puerto Rico, too, the lamb. LM: Yeah. JJ: Is that why they brought that or...? 3 �LM: [00:06:00] Yeah. JJ: And also it’s -- has to do with the church, I think. LM: Yeah. JJ: Okay. LM: And so the mayor responded by allowing the parade. JJ: By allowing the parade to take place? LM: Yeah. JJ: Okay. And this was in 1953 so it’s not -- and do you remember where it was? I think -- was it the Holy Name Cathedral or...? LM: No, I don’t remember. JJ: All right. You don’t remember. Okay, okay. Oh no, well you -- but you did go to - you were in downtown with the mayor so that’s what you recall. LM: Yeah. JJ: Okay. Anything else that you want to -- that you think we should -- [00:07:00] that you want -- that’s important of that time? With the Caballeros that you feel we should take -- of your work because you did a lot of work. LM: Yeah, we formed the Hermanos but I think Father [Don?] told you about that. JJ: Yeah, we were talking about the Hermano. LM: Yeah. JJ: And you also went to Panama, too. LM: Yes. JJ: We were talking about that. LM: Yes, when Cardinal Meyer came in after Cardinal Stritch died. 4 �JJ: That’s Cardinal Strich, okay. LM: He was very interested in the work and he -- at first, he -- [00:08:00] there was a call from the Pope to send help, especially personnel from the established churches in the world, in the Western World. You know, in Europe and in North America, Canada. And at first he said you just knew. At first he said, “I have too much on my plate. I can’t do that.” So we waited and then he went to the council as one of the Council Fathers, second Vatican, [00:09:00] and he came back a very changed man. And he said -- JJ: Can you hold on one second, Father? I’m sorry. (break in video) LM: -- cardinal said. JJ: But the cardinal -- coming back, you were telling me -- okay, we’ll start. LM: From Rome. And saying that even though he thought we needed priests here, there was more need in other places. And that we should sacrifice and send them to Latin America. And then he asked me where I thought we should go and I said, “Well, either [00:10:00] Panama or Puerto Rico itself.” JJ: And why did you choose those locations? LM: Why? JJ: Yeah, why did you choose them? LM: Well, both were close to the Puerto Rican community. Well, the -- Puerto Rico was. And Panama, there was a new, young bishop there who we thought would be very welcoming. And then he came. I said, “Well, you’ll have to see the cardinal. [00:11:00] I can’t begin any mission until you see him.” And the 5 �cardinal asked him to come up and talk to him. And he agreed to send priests there, set three priests aside. And the cardinal had asked me for a plan. And one plan was to just send the priest down to serve in the diocese. The second was to join [Mary Null?] or the [St. James Society?]. And the fourth was to begin [00:12:00] an experimental parish. To try different methods of missionary work especially explaining the way to people. First of all, to accept their own dignity and worth. And then to, as part of the message, that the human being, especially the believer, is a masterpiece of God’s creation and they shouldn’t think -because they always [00:13:00] had this notion of the upper class telling them what to do. And so that was one of their enslavements as you might call it. The other one was their attitude towards women which was really, really poor. Their women were things. And the most sacred things, but never persons. And it was only when we broke that by retreats and [00:14:00] that they decided that they had to include the women with them in a whole new life, a whole new way of doing things. JJ: You started at that time? LM: Yeah. JJ: So with a lot of movement, a lot of people involved, getting involved? Is that what took place or how did -- did you -- or how did you see the developments taking place? LM: Well, first of all, we had no right, direct participation with the men. [00:15:00] There was a division. The women went to church and handled all the church affairs and the men didn’t go at all, didn’t participate. So when the women met 6 �with me, I said to them -- they asked what I -- they could do. And I said, “Could you give me a year or two to work with the men only?” And they were quite amused and they said good luck. But it turned out to be a very [00:16:00] good thing. And the men especially, they had notions of virgin that were very, very anti-clerical. And it was only when we brought some six-packs of beer and met with some of the leaders in the community -- we thought were leaders or could be -- and they asked what we were there for. And I said, “What do you think we’re here for?” “Oh, we’re here -- you’re here to take the kids to catechism.” I said, “I have no intention [00:17:00] of taking kids to that catechism.” “Oh, well, then you’re going to build a church.” I said, “Well, if I build a church, would you come to mass?” “No.” “Well, I’m not going to do it.” “Well, what are you going to do?” I said, “Start a revolution.” And that’s when they got interested. The word meant a lot to them. JJ: The word revolution meant a lot to them? LM: Yeah. Not a -- they didn’t think of it as an arms revolution. JJ: Okay. Spiritual. LM: A spiritual revolution. A whole change of order for them in the social scheme of things. And that [00:18:00] began the movement in Puerto Rico. Father Don -- JJ: You mean in Panama. LM: Panama, yeah. Father Don probably explained more of that to you. JJ: He explained it, he explained it. What about your work here before you left there? I know you left early with the Caballeros and that. But what was some of the work that you were doing then? 7 �LM: I thought I explained that. JJ: Oh, you did. Okay, okay, you did. Okay, but you came back here and did you do any work before you were being sick or...? LM: When I came back? JJ: Yes. LM: (laughs) That’s an interesting story. I was [00:19:00] really overworked and overstressed. I was the vicar episcopal for the whole east part of Panama which meant that I -- or had almost the powers of a bishop to organize communities. And I did that with lay people, of course. But it provoked a lot of problems with the government and with the church hierarchy. So finally, I was tired and I had fought with the government especially. [00:20:00] But they were -- both authorities were glad to see me go. So I wired Cardinal Cody who was in office by that time that I was coming home. And he wired back, “Due to peculiar circumstances here in Chicago, you may not return.” And I answer once again, “I belong in Chicago more than you do and I’m coming home as of this date.” So then when I met with him, it took [00:21:00] two years to get any notice from him at all. And finally, I met with him and he said, “Well, you did a good job.” And I said, “That’s the first kind word you have said about me or about the work in Panama.” “Well, it’s true,” he said. “Now,” he said, “I want you -- you may have any parish in the diocese.” That’s 400 parishes. “You may have any one. Except where there are Spanish-speaking or Blacks.” And I said, “Well, [00:22:00] if that’s your wish, I’ll obey it but I’d like to know the reason.” And he said, “If I -- if you go to one of those parishes, that’ll be your movement to make 8 �you a bishop. And I’m not naming you a bishop. Never, never, never.” So there was a parish open in working people in a steel mill district in Calumet City. And I took that one. I had a wonderful experience. The same methods worked with them. JJ: But this was not Black or Spanish or [00:23:00] Latino. LM: No, no, they were almost all -- JJ: They were all what? LM: Slavik. JJ: Slavik? Okay. LM: Yeah. Mostly Polish. JJ: Mostly Polish, okay. LM: Working in the mills and making very good money. JJ: Okay. LM: And then the steel mill fell apart as you know. JJ: I don’t know. It fell apart? I’m not -- LM: Yeah. JJ: You mean the industry fell apart. LM: Yeah. JJ: Okay. So how long were you there, Father, in Calumet? LM: I was there 12 years. JJ: Twelve years, okay. LM: And then I decided -- it might’ve been 11, but anyway. I decided that [00:24:00] I had done my job there. 9 �JJ: But yeah, before that, Father, you said you had a wonderful experience there. Can you describe what you mean or...? LM: Well, there was a convent there that was occupied by five or six nuns of an order that would -- but they weren’t working in the parish at all. So I asked them to leave and we ended up with a beautiful building, 16 rooms and a chapel. And we put two beds in each room so we could put 32 men or women [00:25:00] on retreat what we called a cursillo. And they were different cursillo from the one that came from Spain. And it ended up with a -- all of them sitting around a table and celebrating the Eucharist together. Even it was an upper-room experience. And they were tremendously moved. And they became the heart of the movement and then we did that, I don’t know, maybe [00:26:00] 30 more of those retreats. So a good num- -- a good percentage of the parish had been instructed in that manner. And then the liturgies changed with music and with preaching and participation of the lady. So people began to come from other parishes and from Indiana which was close. So much so that the bishop of Gary complained to our bishop in Chicago [00:27:00] that we were stealing his people. Which amused the cardinal very much, the archbishop of Chicago. JJ: It amused the archbishop, you said? LM: Yeah. He had no intention. He just said to the bishop there, “Maybe you ought to do what they’re doing if it’s that successful.” So then, I took a year of sabbatical after I left there and I wrote my memoir part of which were published. It amounted to an autobiography [00:28:00] but the publisher said it’s a very good book. But unless you have a name like Eisenhower or something like that, 10 �nobody would buy that book. We can’t sell it. So it was never published and I still have it in manuscript. But a friend of mine showed it to a professor at Columbia College and she said, “Oh, my. We’ve got to publish this.” And I explained the difficulties and she tried with her contacts [00:29:00] to get it published. So no go. So then she took some material out of there, especially the Panamanian experience, and wrote a book or edited the book. It was my writing. JJ: Is that Nancy? Is that that book that I have or...? LM: Yes. JJ: Okay. All right. LM: Yeah, that’s the one. Fire Under My Feet. JJ: Right, right, that’s the one. LM: Yeah. Okay? JJ: Okay. I appreciate very much, Father. LM: You’re very welcome. END OF VIDEO FILE 11 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6bd60ea9e993985bb8a64cc069a3a3c8.mp4 254a5c19779f31e4247e69d231cffa3e 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 Monsignor Leo T. Mahon 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 Iglesia Católica. Arquidiócesis de Chicago (Ill.) 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_Mahon_Leo Title A name given to the resource Monsignor Leo T. Mahon interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mahon, Leo Description An account of the resource In the early 1950s, Monsignor Leo T. Mahon, an Irish American priest who was then head of the Hispanic apostolate in the Chicago Diocese, organized the (Knights of San Juan), as a religiously inspired community action group among Puerto Rican men. The group was tremendously successful and soon became a model that other dioceses strove to replicate around the country, including in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. Monsignor Mahon developed the program based on the idea that religious development takes place best where social stability and self-confidence prevail. 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 Catholic Church. Archdiocese of Chicago (Ill.) 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 2012-08-21 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/8edce519d58f596b13d9af8a31891029.pdf 72060f3a0eee70684a64cf29dc42f6c2 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Ricardo Lugo Interviewer: Jose Jimenez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 12/14/2012 Runtime: 01:36:06 Biography and Description Oral history of Ricardo Lugo, interviewed by Jose “Cha-Cha” Jimenez on December 14, 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: All right, if you can, give me your name again. RICARDO LUGO: Sure. Ricardo Lugo. And do you want me to look at you or the camera, how does it... JJ: Yeah, no, (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). Go ahead and look at me. RL: Okay, okay. JJ: (inaudible) Okay. Ricardo? RL: Mm-hmm. JJ: Okay, Ricardo, if you can give me your full name, when -- you know, when you were born, and where you were born. RL: Okay. My name’s Ricardo Lugo, I was born in Chicago, in 1962. And the Cabrini-Green neighborhood’s where I was raised. JJ: Okay. And where in Cabrini-Green? RL: It was actually at 1230 North Larrabee, number 303. I remember that. JJ: Okay, at that time, and so, who were your parents (inaudible), and what were their names? RL: [Luis?] Lugo and [Marta?] Lugo. They came from Puerto Rico in the ’50s. JJ: Do you know what year, or (inaudible)? RL: I don’t know the exact year, but I remember the story is that they did come with three of my brothers, the first three that were born, and then they came here [00:01:00] and had nine more after that. JJ: Okay, over here, okay. 1 �RL: In Chicago. JJ: But it was, maybe the first part of the ’50s, mid ’50s, late ’50s, or -- you don’t know. Okay. RL: Yeah, I’m not sure. JJ: Where did they come from, what town? RL: Oh, Yauco, Puerto Rico. JJ: Yauco? RL: Yeah. JJ: Okay. Are they there now, or...? RL: My dad retired to Puerto Rico, to Yauco, Puerto Rico, and my mom also stayed with him for many years out there, you know, when he retired. He was a laborer, worked in the factory his whole life, until he retired. JJ: Do you know what factory, or...? RL: It was called Humboldt Manufacturing. JJ: Okay. RL: And ironically, they were located in Humboldt Park area. And so, he would go from Cabrini-Green, drive to work, and this factory in the Humboldt Park area, it was near Armitage and Whipple. Sort of in that area. And for that reason, he happened to see a house that we eventually moved to in Humboldt Park, 1920 North Humboldt. JJ: 1920 North Humboldt? RL: Mm-hmm. JJ: Okay. So you moved -- what year did you move, do you know? 2 �RL: [00:02:00] It was about ’70, 70-71. JJ: Okay. RL: Yeah. JJ: So other than that, you lived in Cabrini-Green (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? RL: Yeah, from 1962 till 71, I lived in Cabrini-Green myself. And, you know, my whole family. JJ: Yeah, and your whole family. Okay, now what about your siblings, what are some of their names? RL: Okay, I have 12 siblings, 8 boys and 4 girls. I’ll start with the boys, and from the oldest down to the youngest, there’s [Antonio?] Lugo, [Raul?] Lugo, [Wilfredo?] Lugo, [William?] Lugo, [David?] Lugo, [Orlando?] Lugo, myself, and my younger brother, [Daniel?] Lugo. As for the women, there’s [Alicia?] Lugo, I don’t have to say their last name but [Lucy?] -- [Lucia?], [Elena?], and Teresa. JJ: And Teresa? Okay. RL: Yeah, yeah. JJ: Okay... Now, they all live in the same house all the time till 1971, or...? RL: I’m trying to thi-- When we moved to Humboldt Park, I think the -- [00:03:00] at least the -- the top three -- the three older brothers, I think, had already moved out at that point. So there may have been about, at least nine of us living in Humboldt Park -- in the house we moved into in Humboldt, 1920 North Humboldt. JJ: But they had moved out before moving to Humboldt Park? RL: Well, we lived in Cabrini. JJ: Okay. 3 �RL: And I’m assuming most of us, maybe except for a brother or two, may have already moved out as I was growing up in ’62 in Cabrini. And I think at that point we only had maybe a three-bedroom apartment. It was public housing. JJ: So where did people sleep, then? RL: Bunk beds were big. I know I slept with my little brother all the way through the house in Humboldt Park. I mean, we still had bunk beds, and I slept with my little brother. JJ: And were there other Puerto Ricans near where you were at, or...? RL: In Cabrini? In Cabrini-Green? Yeah, as a matter of fact, there was one particular family, they grew up with us, and then when we moved to Humboldt Park, they [00:04:00] lived in Cabrini. And so we were great friends. Then we moved to Humboldt Park, they actually lived there -- JJ: [Do you know?] the name of the family? RL: Yeah, the [Perez?] family. JJ: The Perez family? RL: [Clotilde?] Perez was his name. JJ: Okay. RL: And [George?] Perez was one of the sons, and [Gladys?] Perez, [Lolly?] Perez, her name. So it was the Perez family. And the father, Clotilde, he worked at the Palmer House. He still does, even now, like, I don’t know, almost 40 years later. JJ: He’s still working at the Palmer House? RL: Yeah. And he got jobs for my brothers, his sons, at the Palmer House. JJ: Okay. 4 �RL: (inaudible) JJ: So was the Palmer House a place where a lot of people worked at that time, or...? RL: Lotta Puerto Ricans. The Palmer House hotel was a Hilton hotel, it’s downtown, still there, the Palmer House hotel. And a lot of Puerto Ricans worked in the main kitchen, from when I got there, as a teenager. JJ: So you worked there, too. RL: Oh yeah, I worked there as a freshman in high school. And it helped pay for my education, actually. Well, a sophomore in high school, I [00:05:00] think it was. But it helped pay for my education. Yeah. JJ: Okay. What high school was that? RL: Holy Trinity. But actually, I studied at Prosser Vocational High School, and Prosser Vocational High School is located by Grand and Long, near Central Avenue. JJ: Okay. RL: Yeah, on the west side of Chicago. And at that time, when I was there, 1980, that was where, pretty much, for the most part, most of the white gangs were there. As we know, Clemente High School had Latino gangs and things like that, but -- and that was one of the worst schools, Clemente, of course, but Prosser -- JJ: So who was in the gangs, that you (inaudible)? RL: The C-Notes, the Jousters, the Gaylords, Simon City Royals. I mean, like, every white gang in the city who was there. I remember the first day I went there as a freshman, my first day, September, I have a sweater on, you know, no big deal, 5 �right, it’s a little cool outside, with a belt on it. And I’m just standing outside waiting for the bell to ring [00:06:00] so I could start my first day as a high school kid. And a white guy came and grabbed me by my sweater, said, “C’mere.” So I followed him, I mean, he had me, of course, so I had to follow him. And he just took me a short distance and he showed me where my belt was. And, you know, the point was, I knew, had those senses about me, I mean, I grew up in Humboldt Park, I knew how to defend myself and so on, growing up in Humboldt Park. But I also knew I was in territory that was all white gang. And they were -I’m sure they were salivating for, you know, for all of them to jump me if I tried to make a move, so, of course. You know, but that was just the beginning of my high school career. JJ: And this was on what streets? RL: On Long. Long Avenue. JJ: You said Long -- Long Avenue. RL: Yeah. JJ: So that’s pretty west. RL: Yeah, that’s west, almost towards Central. JJ: Okay, but, by North Avenue or by Armitage, or...? RL: It’s on Grand, it’s Armitage, pero, then Armitage turns into Grand. JJ: Exactly. (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) Yeah. RL: As you go west. Yeah. They’re still [00:07:00] there, they’re still there. JJ: You were just there because of the high school, so, because you were living more east of that. 6 �RL: Yeah, I mean, I could have gone to Clemente, but I wanted to go to a decent school, and that was a decent school in the area. Frankly, I know I wanted to go to Weber, which was a couple blocks away from Prosser, but, you know, Catholic school, but I couldn’t afford it, we couldn’t afford it, my family couldn’t afford it, so I went to public school. JJ: Okay, so, ’cause you mentioned there were some gangs in Clemente. RL: Oh yeah, ’cause, you know, growing up in Humboldt Park, I knew the Clemente gang issue too. JJ: So were you in the gang [at all?]? RL: No. Most of the guys in my neighborhood, I mean, they were in gangs, most of the guys in my neighborhood were in gangs. But because of my parents, obviously, I think, it was because of my -- there was a strong foundation from my parents, who were religious and strict. They kept me in, my brother -- none of my siblings were in gangs, per se. You know, and when I say “gangs,” ’cause I know my oldest brother, he was a Young Lord. But the Young Lords were a social organization, not what we consider gangs, you know, [00:08:00] nowadays, where they’re killing each other and things like that. And so, when I grew up, there were gangs, and there were the Ghetto Boys Organization, the Yates Boys Organization, Latin Kings, in my neighborhood, I’m just talking about my specific area. And I knew ’em all, they were all my friends, so I knew ’em all. And... JJ: But you didn’t get into that? RL: No, I used to, you know, hang out with them and things like that. JJ: And your family, the other brothers didn’t get into it? 7 �RL: No, no. None of us were in gangs. JJ: [As you were saying?]. RL: Yeah, I think, growing up with a family of seven brothers, you know, eight with me, it was almost like, you’re supposed to take care of yourself. We didn’t need a gang to protect you. JJ: “We have a group here.” RL: Huh? JJ: Were you saying “We have a group here,” is that what you’re saying? RL: Right, right, we have our own group. I mean, you know, it was almost like, the other brothers would think you’re a punk. JJ: [It wasn’t a?] gang, but you kind of (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). RL: Yeah, it was almost an unwritten rule that you, you know, you should take care, you know, should be able to take care of yourself. JJ: Okay. RL: I mean, I never felt like I could even go to my brothers and ask for [00:09:00] help, because I always felt like, “Hey,” you know, “I had to deal with it,” you know. JJ: Yourself. (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) RL: Myself, right. And I didn’t need a gang, I didn’t need my brothers. JJ: And you didn’t believe in none of that gang philosophy type of...? RL: I mean, I understood it, ’cause I grew up in that environment, so I could see, you know, and understand it. But, in terms of believing in it, I mean, I wish, you know, all of us had opportunity to go to Weber High School, or, you know, places 8 �that other kids had opportunity. A lot of us just didn’t have the opportunity, myself included. Again, I went to Prosser. And my first two years -JJ: What was Prosser? (inaudible) RL: Prosser High School. JJ: Okay. RL: My first two years at that s-- JJ: Where is that located? I’m sorry. RL: I’m sorry? JJ: Where’s that located? RL: Over on the west side, by Grand and Long Street. JJ: Okay, the same thing. The same thing. RL: And remember, I started there, the gangs, white gangs. And I got D’s and F’s my first two years. Okay, D’s and F’s. That’s all I got. Why? Because it was more of a issue of survival than going there for an education. JJ: What do you mean? In [00:10:00] that area? RL: Well, yeah, with the gang members, you know. You know, like -- JJ: Like, you were just trying to figure out how to get to school [and back?]. RL: Right, exactly, exactly. ’Cause even within the school setting, inside the building, there was issues. And there was only a handful of us Latinos. You know, Dominicans, Cubans, Mexicans, myself, Puerto Rican. There was only a handful of us, maybe seven, eight guys and stuff, and other Latinas. But the white gangs would try to pick on us because they just assume, you know, because at that time Latino gangs were big, so, you know, and they were the enemies, so. Not 9 �that I was in a gang, but still, you’re Latino, teenagers, you know how they, machismo, from the white perspective, they think, “Oh,” you know, “good, we got some Latin guys and teenagers in here, so let’s pick on them.” JJ: So even though you weren’t in a gang, they were picking on you. RL: Yeah... JJ: Did they know that you weren’t in a gang? RL: I mean, but pi-- when I say picking on me, I mean they didn’t confront me, you know, by touching me, because that would [00:11:00] equal a fight again, but it was there, the tension was there. JJ: The tension, you felt it. (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) RL: Right, right, a tension was there, and you had, you know, smart enough to watch your back, and, yeah. But it wasn’t -- I mean, school wasn’t the main focus. JJ: Your focus at that time. RL: At that time for me, and I think Chicago public school system. It didn’t really help a lot of inner-city kids, you know, not today, not yesterday. I mean, the story seems to be the same anyway. JJ: Okay. What about grammar school? Did they ever help you in any way? RL: Yeah, it helped me -- JJ: What school did you [attend there?]? RL: Well, in Cabrini-Green, I went to Schiller School. And actually, I started with Head Start. And within our building, on the first floor, the ground floor, there was a classroom, for Head Start. I’m assuming I was four years old at the time -- JJ: Now you’re talking about -- how tall is that building (inaudible)? 10 �RL: 16 floors. JJ: 16 floors. So a downstairs, on the first floor. RL: Yeah, the ground level. The sidewalk level. And [00:12:00] when you bring up that six-- and, you know, there was 16 floors, and you could go to the top floor, and you could look over, and you see the lake. You know, just briefly, you see the blue outline. So you could actually see the l-- JJ: So that was pretty -- did you spend a lot of time up there, or...? RL: No, no, no, no, no, no. That building was dangerous too, you know, and plus I was a little kid -- JJ: What do you mean dangerous? What do you mean? RL: Luckily for me, I was a little kid, and so, when I say little kid, from the age of zero to eight, nine years old is when I grew up there. So I was able to go to the playground and things like that. But once you became a teenager and things like that, then, you know, other kids will start picking on you. For example, my brothers, they were robbed, you know, like, if you go walking down the street to the store, you know, “Hey, give me your money,” you know, that type of things. I mean, they had a -- what was it, Blackstone Rangers, I think at that time? JJ: Clybourn Corrupters, maybe. RL: Yeah, by Cooley High School, Cooley High School [at that park?]. JJ: Oh, Cooley High School was right there. RL: Yeah, and the Black gangs were around there, and, you know, that [00:13:00] area. Cabrini, it was the Black gangs. JJ: Right. 11 �RL: So, yeah, so there was a few of those. And, you know, they had to leave the building to go to high school, farther away. See, I was within the building, studying, so that helped. I mean, even my grade school, when I started first, second grade, wasn’t that far away. A block away, you could see it out the window. Yeah. So it wasn’t too bad, for a kid growing up there, but it was more dangerous for a teenager. You know. ’Cause again, you’re, you know, we’re considered white in Cabrini-Green, even though we’re Puerto Rican, Spanish, but, you know. JJ: Considered by who? By the -- RL: By the Black gang members, you know. Or even some of the people in the building, ’cause maybe they didn’t, you know, all they see is the white skin, or the brown skin, and think of it more as, you know, white people. Yeah. ’Cause I remember growing up, in the hallway going up the stairs one time, we lived in the third floor, and I saw on the wall it says, “The white people in 303 suck!” You know, I remember that [00:14:00] growing up as a kid, so. But it was fun for me, I mean, I got along great with the families, they got along great with us. It’s just, once you leave that building, going down the street, you could get jumped by outsiders. JJ: So the building was fun, you can hang out [in front of?] -- RL: Oh yeah, the building was great. JJ: Front and around the building, and the parking lot, and... RL: Right, exactly, it was great. It was fun. JJ: But once you went to the other [parts?] -- 12 �RL: Once you left the safety of that building, you know, now you engaging with strangers, or people who need some money, so they’re gonna rob you. It was totally different at that point. JJ: So how -- RL: And plus, a lot of people knew you. In the building they just know you, you know. And in those days, you could throw stuff off the -- from the floors, nowadays you - well, Cabrini-Green’s torn down now, but many years ago they did enclose it, so that you couldn’t throw things over the balconies and things like that. So you would throw a body over if you wanted in the old days. JJ: Throw a body over? RL: Yeah, if you wanted to. (laughter) I mean, you know. JJ: People threw bottles and [00:15:00] things like that, or...? RL: Yeah, one time, when I was a little kid, I was waiting, I don’t know why I was waiting outside, you know, and s-- you know, on the first floor, you could be under the building, and you’re protected from any debris or whatever. But for some reason I was on the sidewalk part, and I was waiting for somebody, you know, somebody, in those days, the milk delivery, it was a glass, milk was in glass, not, like, cartons or anything. So a bottle actually came, like, inches from me and just, I don’t know what floor it came from, but the point was, it was coming real fast, and it just splattered. It didn’t even scare me, because it happened so fast. You know, all it did was (sound effect) and it didn’t scare me, but then I just thought to myself, you know, “Dumbass, you shouldn’t even be 13 �there, take your [walk?].” The safety of the vestibule, you know, just be under the building a little bit. JJ: So, what kind of -- what was the school like then? You went to school right around, you said Schiller? What was that -- RL: Yeah, Schiller School, and you know who taught at that time, at that school, as a PE teacher? Jesse [00:16:00] White, secretary of state. JJ: Okay. He taught there? RL: He was actually a teacher at Schiller High School -- Schiller School, I’m sorry. JJ: Did you meet him, or...? RL: No, ’cause I was, you know, I was a little kid, I don’t even know if I crossed paths with him, maybe he might’ve been a PE teacher for the upper, you know, the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth grader. But, yeah, he was from [that area?]. JJ: And there was a -- ’cause, around that time there was, like, the Old Town, that was near Old Town, too, right? RL: We weren’t that far away, but we were far away enough -- Division and Larrabee, so yeah. JJ: Enough that there was a separate culture, then (inaudible)? RL: Yeah, or -- yeah, kind of, maybe -- JJ: But there were Puerto Ricans around there, yeah? RL: Yeah, see, but I don’t remember that, ’cause again, I was a kid, so I wasn’t old enough to venture. You know, I was old -- that was my community, that 16-floor building was the extent of it. Unless we went to church, you know, we went to St. 14 �Francis of Assisi, where, at that time, was the first Hispanic mass. Spanish mass. JJ: Oh, you went there, your family went there? RL: Yeah, I was baptized at St. Sylvest-- St. Francis of [00:17:00] Assisi. And Maxwell Street was there, that’s where -- that was, like, the mall. JJ: So you remember that? But, I mean, what do you remember of that? RL: Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, the Polish sausage, and mainly, my dad negotiating, I think I learned my negotiating skills from my dad, ’cause I could w-- I would watch him negotiate with the guy, and literally, you would think they were gonna fight, because they were going back and forth, you know. And then my dad would just leave, “Come on, let’s go.” JJ: Over clothes, [or something?]? RL: Right, anything. Gym shoes, coats, clothes, anything. And then we’d walk up the stairs, the owner, “Come back, come on, come on, I’ll give you the price, give you the price.” So, you know, my dad always seemed to win the arguments. But it was pretty fascinating watching that, because -- JJ: You’re talking about Maxwell Street, that’s [how they negotiated?]. RL: Yeah, Maxwell Street, that’s the way it -- JJ: I remember [that?]. RL: That was the way it worked. And then that Polish sausage place that’s famous now, for Maxwell Street Polish, started there, ’cause that was the lunch. That was the first mall for us Hispanics, anyway. I don’t know if there were malls elsewhere, like I said, ’cause we -- [00:18:00] our own environment is what it is, 15 �you know. You go live in your building, you go to church, and it happened to be St. Francis of Assisi, which is near, you know, Maxwell Street. And then there was another church, too, that we used to go to, St. Joseph, which was near Cooley. Cooley High School. So we’d go there also. JJ: So you remember the [area?]. I remember -- well, not St. Francis, but St. Joseph, I remember [that, yeah?]. But -- so, okay, so you remember St. Francis, that’s interesting. So then, you’re going to Schiller, what was Schiller like, [inside the?] school? RL: Schiller was good, it was a good school. It was walking distance -- JJ: Were there more Puerto Ricans there, or...? RL: No, again, it was still just a lot of African American kids and myself, you know, me and a few kids, Spanish. Yeah. I mean, but, what I remember is the African Americans. I had a great time, actually, as a little kid, meeting the, even the African American [00:19:00] women, you know, the girls, my age, stuff like that. I mean, ’cause you -- there was a laundry room on every floor, too. So sometimes, you know, you go in the laundry room and play. Yeah, I mean, it was interesting. And the laundry room, they had cages in the laundry rooms. So, like, if people washed their clothes, they would hang up their clothes in the laundry room. We didn’t have a dryer, it was an old-fashioned washer. And then, to -- JJ: And then you just hang up your clothes (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? RL: You hang up your clothes and then you lock it in that cage. JJ: And then they would dry (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) -- 16 �RL: It was, like, three cages per -- JJ: -- it would dry? And iron -- RL: Yeah, you just [pick it up?] and it dries. Yeah. JJ: And then, so what about the family, what about the entertainment, what was that like? RL: Yeah, it was great entertainment, ’cause it was all families. Basically, our families would get together, because, you know, they all came from Puerto Rico for the most part, and so, the entertainment was, you know, getting together, ’cause now you’re [00:20:00] working hard during the week, you got your kids, you gotta do all this. But on Sundays, it seemed that we’d go v-- you know, after church especially, we’d go visit families, and, or they’d visit us, and, you know, we’d just interact with the kids. Me being a kid, I interacted with my cousins, and it was fun. JJ: [Okay, was?] -- yeah, your cousins. Where were they living? RL: I had a cousin in particular who lived -- they lived, this family lived in -- the Quinones. Family lived -- my uncle and his wife and children, they lived by Wrigley Field, Wrigley Field, actually, over in that area. And so they had a nice -I remember they had a view of Wrigley Field, practically, you know, like, from far away you could see Wrigley Field. But, yeah, we interact -- JJ: You said Quinones? Were they -- were there Latin in them too, or...? RL: Yeah, well, yeah, because my mom is a Quinones, that’s her maiden name, and the reason why that’s, you know, it’s a good question, ’cause she had 13 -- she had 26 brothers and sisters in Yauco. 17 �JJ: In Yauco. RL: Yeah. JJ: [00:21:00] She’s from Yauco, too, then? RL: Yeah. So what happened was, my grandfather married, had 13 kids, and then she passed away, my grandmother, and so he remarried and had 13 more kids, so now my mom has 26 siblings. And the reason why, because they really [liked?] the Ponderosa, you know, they lived off the land, they had a lot of land, and they even had hired -- they would hire people. So that’s how my dad met my mom, because he was a hired hand also, working on the land and stuff like that. JJ: In Puer-- in Yauco. RL: In Yauco. So there was a lot of -- they had -- it was like the Ponderosa, I guess, you know, but mountainous, of course. JJ: Oh, Ponderosa, you mean it was like a plantation type of -- RL: Yeah, you know, but it’s all mountains and, you know. JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) [border?], yeah. RL: Yeah, I call it the Ponderosa. JJ: So they would hire -- so he would get hired by the other farmers to work on the food? RL: Right, my grandfather hired my dad. JJ: Okay. RL: Yeah, as young teenagers that they are, making some money. JJ: Okay. So he told you about that, [00:22:00] or...? 18 �RL: So -- huh? Yeah, my dad met my mom, of course, and so that’s how that came about. And most of my uncles and aunts, they had a lot of kids themselves, see, so they were used to a big group of people, you know, within their own family, growing up with 26. So my parents had 12, and my aunt had 10, and other family members, you know, uncles and aunts, they had a lotta kids also. JJ: You have kids too, or no? RL: I have one boy, a seven-year-old boy. JJ: What’s his first name? RL: Jake. JJ: Jake, okay. RL: I mean, I -- JJ: And your wife’s name, what’s her name? RL: I’m divorced now, pero, because of this family background I’m describing, I also wanted six kids. [My aunties?] would remind me, “Hey, you always said you wanted six kids,” ’cause yeah, I love being around -- I love kids, ’cause that’s how, you know, you learn that from home and things like that. And ironically, in my case, and I was a good -- let me back up a little bit, I was a good boy, because when I was young as a teenager, people were having kids left and right as teenagers. You know, the gangbangers, and, you know, not even gangbangers, they were just young people who were [00:23:00] havin’ sex, and, you know, they didn’t know -- they weren’t educated in terms of sex education, so all of a sudden, a girl gets pregnant, and so now they have to deal with it. So I saw a lot of that in Humboldt Park. Luckily for me, I didn’t, because I was always 19 �afraid of getting a girl pregnant. Really, that was the key, and plus, my parents, you know, they wouldn’t have been happy, so you keep that in the back of your mind. And I wanted an education anyway, so funny thing is, okay, now I go -- I ended up going to law school and so on and so on, and I married twice. And both women couldn’t have children. So, you know, I did want -- still wanted my six kids, if possible, God willing, but right now I have one child. And, so... And he was born -- I was married to a public defender in Wisconsin. And then I got married and, you know, after Wisconsin, I got divorced, came back to Chicago [00:24:00] in 2000, and the second wife I married, she’s also a lawyer, from Iowa, and she lives here, works here in Chicago. And so, her best friend from third grade, all of a sudden, just told her, “Hey, I’ll carry your kid if you want.” So it was my ex-wife’s egg and my sperm, and, you know, this lady became a carrier for our child, so that’s how I got a seven-year-old boy. JJ: Okay. (inaudible) Jake. RL: Yeah, right? Exactly. JJ: What were you doing in Wisconsin, [I mean --?]? RL: I was a public defender. JJ: In Wisconsin? RL: In Wisconsin, ’cause what happened was -- JJ: You moved out there, I mean --? RL: Yeah, what happened was, I ended up getting a scholarship -- this is my story. When I applied to law school, well, let me back up a little bit more. I went to Illinois Benedictine College... 20 �JJ: Okay. RL: Okay, which is in Lisle, Illinois, not far by Naperville, Downers Grove. And, you know, it took me time to graduate, ’cause it’s a Catholic school, it’s expensive, so I would drop out, [00:25:00] get a job, go back, and live on campus. So, it took me about six years to graduate because I just kept, you know, my goal was to graduate, and I did. But towards the end is when I really, really got serious, and started pushing myself to get excellent grades. And that’s what I was trying to do, just get some excellent grades, and I did. And so I applied to law school. In University of Wi-- At that time, I wanted to just to go to a top 20 law school. That was my goal, that’s it. “Gonna apply to a top 20 law school, if I don’t get accepted, okay, different career choice.” You know. So, I luckily, thank God I got accepted at University of Wisconsin, which was a top 20 law school. And got a full scholarship on top of that. So then I went out there, they also had a good criminal program, which, you know, I, based on where I grew up, with criminals, if you wanna call it that, my buddies, you know, I know that stuff. I became a [00:26:00] public defender. I wanted to help people. Why? Because I saw it, I saw the injustice on the street, I saw police brutality, I saw police do things. And not all -- and, like any profession, there’s good, bad, and ugly. So not all cops are bad, not all teachers are bad, not all lawyers are bad. I mean, I’ve seen some bad lawyers, you know. So in every profession, there’s some great teachers out there who love to do what they do, there’s some bad teachers who don’t care. I mean, so I’ve seen it all, you know. Growing up with 12 kids, growing up in Cabrini, Humboldt Park, you know, there’s a lotta stuff out there 21 �that, luckily for me, I was able to experience. So then I became a public defender after I graduated from law school. And I stayed out there, Racine, Wisconsin, for seven years and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for three years. And I really loved working with juveniles, that was really what, for me, it was almost like a dream come true. You know, here I am, cross-examining a cop, basically beatin’ em up verbally. Basically, [00:27:00] helping my client in a way that, maybe the stop was illegal. Maybe the cops searched him illegally, no rights. People have -- there’s constitutional rights that we all have, most of us don’t know it though, ’cause for whatever reason, they don’t really -- they teach that in some schools, but some schools maybe just don’t, but. I felt good protecting the rights of individuals, especially based on what I saw as a kid. JJ: So you met your wife there, and then... RL: Actually, when I went to go visit that school, I met my wife-to-be. It was like a one-day visit, and she invited me to a party where the other Latino students were having law students, and I said, “No, I gotta go back to Chicago,” so, you know. And then when I did go to law school, she was a third-year law student and I was a first-year. And so we, you know, I could tell there was some connection there, [00:28:00] but my goal was to go to law school and get an education. And I was not gonna get involved in a relationship that may, you know, take my focus off what I came there to do. So, we were great friends, but I never dated her in law school. And ironically, I ended up in Racine as a public defender, where she was working in Racine as a public defender. I tried to go to Kenosha, but they needed me in Racine, so they put me in Racine, ’cause Kenosha was closer to 22 �Chicago and I wanted to be closer to Chicago. So that’s why I ended up in Racine. JJ: Now, what about your other siblings? What kind of work did they get into? RL: Well, starting from the top, my oldest brother, growing up, he worked at Sandburg Super Market, which is over there in Lincoln Park by North Avenue and Clark. And so, based on that experience -- JJ: Actually, by Old Town, it’s more like Old Town, we used to call it La Clark, the neighborhood, La Clark. RL: Right, right, near Old Town, también, exactly. JJ: Right, yeah. RL: So, yeah, ’cause Old Town is just a few blocks [00:29:00] west of there. JJ: Right, (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) [it’s?] the border. RL: Because, yeah, where he was was Clark, and Old Town’s on Wells, just a few blocks to the west. JJ: Okay, so he worked there... RL: So he worked there, and he learned a lot about the supermarket business. And eventually, he ended up buying and opening his own supermarket. I remember he called it -- JJ: What’s the name of it? RL: He called it [Lugo Warehouse Supermarket?]. Yeah. JJ: And was it located (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? RL: It was on the west side, by North Avenue, going towards [Austin?] over there. Yeah, so for many years, he had that. Eventually he opened one up in Elgin, you 23 �know, he closed that one and went to Elgin and opened a bigger supermarket. So he was doing pretty well for himself, invested in property and real estate, so he was doing well for himself. And then there was my -JJ: In Elgin, or in Chicago? RL: In Chicago, in Chicago. Yeah. And then he ended up living in Skokie during those years, that’s where he was living with two boys, you know, my [00:30:00] nephews, and his wife. And then my other brother, Raul, the second oldest, the former Young Lord, he was in the computer -- he worked for a computer company, I forget the name of it. Or was it...? I remember he worked for Continental Can Company for many years first, and ended up doing a lot of computer stuff when computers were still(inaudible) and coming out, and things like that. JJ: Actually, Gladys was a Young Lord, too. His -- RL: Oh, his wife, Gladys. JJ: Yeah, (inaudible) was a Young Lord too. RL: Right. Right, she worked for the federal system for -- till she’s gonna -- she’s still working there. JJ: And her brother [Edwin?] was also a Young Lord. RL: Right, Edwin, I remember. JJ: [Lots of?] Young Lords in that family there. RL: So I knew that family forever, ’cause they actually lived over by Armitage, and Halsted, and that area. JJ: Yeah, so they moved in that area, they were living there, yeah. 24 �RL: Right? I remember visiting them. JJ: Right by the church, right by the church. RL: Right by the church, I used to go there. Yeah. JJ: Now, you were only, like, seven years old, though, and the Young Lords were -had the church and all, you don’t remember any of that? RL: No, I just remember visiting my [00:31:00] brother’s home, just to visit, you know, the family visit. But yeah, the other things, I wouldn’t know anything about, or didn’t notice it because, you know, we didn’t hang out on the street or anything like that, we’d just visit family, and I was a kid. JJ: Do you remember the neighborhood at all, how it was, was it...? RL: Yeah, it was nice, I mean, ’cause I [still?] could picture the train station right there in Armitage, and I used to walk through that area growing up, as a teenager I used to walk in that area también. But I remember it was still -- in those days everything was simple, you know, it wasn’t gentrified, is what I mean, the difference. Right now, you go there, there’s nightlife, and restaurants, and bars, and the noise, you know, and it’s a whole different -- in those days, it was just quiet and simple. You know? People -- just blue-collar people. JJ: Like worker, working people. RL: Yeah, just, yeah, exactly. Yeah, just (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) JJ: Was there a lot of violence there or anything, like a Humboldt Park [gang leader?], or...? 25 �RL: [00:32:00] Not in that area, not in my brother’s area, but there was a lot of violence in my area. Yeah. Growing up, we had the highest homicide rate in the nation. JJ: Right, in that area, in the Cabrini-Green area. RL: No, no, in Humboldt Park. JJ: Oh, in Humboldt Park, oh yeah. RL: Humboldt Park, as a teenager. JJ: Oh, so when you were [growing up?]. RL: And I remember seeing that sometimes, in the newspaper, when I was reading it, ’cause I used to read the paper all the time, ever since I was in third grade, going to St. Sylvester, ’cause -- see, I went to Schiller, and then when we moved to Humboldt Park, my parents, you know, I finished my second grade at Schiller, and then we went to St. Sylvester. The beginning -- JJ: Oh, so you went to school at St. Sylvester, okay. RL: Yeah, the beginning of the school year, we started -- third grade, for me, and then I had a sibling in fourth grade, fifth grade, sixth -- you know, ’cause there was so many of us, so we had every -- everybody was in a different grade at St. Sylvester when we transferred. JJ: And actually, that became a big stronghold, Puerto Rican stronghold, in terms of the church. RL: Oh yeah, St. Sylvester church. JJ: And my uncle was part of that too. RL: Yeah. [00:33:00] Very strong, my parents and other -- you know, their friends -- 26 �JJ: And your friends were there at that [school?]? RL: Yeah, they had a very, very strong Puerto Rican community within the church and -- JJ: Caballeros de San Juan. RL: Caballeros San Juan, my dad was a member of that. JJ: Oh, he was a member? RL: Oh yeah. JJ: At St. Sylvester? RL: It started at St. Francis of Assisi. JJ: Oh, so he started there as a Caballero de San Juan. RL: Oh yeah, yeah, their first wave of I’m assuming, you know, the ’50s is when the big wave of Puerto Ricans came. JJ: Right. RL: And that’s when they started all these organizations, you know, to... JJ: Okay, so your mo-- that’s why you were saying your mother and your father were kinda strict. Did you say that, “strict,” or am I putting that (inaudible)? RL: No, no, “strict,” meaning they’ll whip your ass in a minute with a belt. (laughter) Yeah. (inaudible) clarify, the strict part, not just, “Don’t do that or I’ll get mad,” you know, nah, they don’t even -- you do that, you just, you’re gonna get a belt. JJ: A belt whooping. (laughs) RL: You’re gonna know it in a second, not to do it. Which was very effective, because, you know, it’s hard raising 12 kids, [00:34:00] first of all, but then the elements on the streets. I give ’em credit because, you know, bottom line, I was 27 �wrong. Even though, as a kid, you’re thinking, “What am I doing wrong?” I mean, this is just, kiddie stuff, you know, this is just, teenage stuff, or kid stuff, I mean, “Everybody else is doing it.” But luckily, they kept me on the straight and narrow with that. And I think that was it too, you know, I wasn’t afraid of the streets, I was more afraid of my parents. You know? I mean, not that these guys on the streets couldn’t do, yeah, my parents, you know, that belt, shit, you know. And then after a while, the belt didn’t hurt! I mean, I could get hit with a belt and it wouldn’t hurt me. It got to the point where the ironing cord, you know, the white and black ironing cord, that shit hurts! (laughter) ’Cause, you know, the belt didn’t hurt, and they knew it, and after a while. And then you cry before they even hit you with a belt anyway, and you act like you’re dead before they even touch you, and, [00:35:00] you know, all that stuff didn’t work though. (laughs) So no, I think it really helped, though. It really, really helped. Yeah, because... JJ: They were also religious, or no? RL: Yeah, very religious. We’d go to church every Sunday, and then we’d also pray at night, the rosary. Yeah, they had a little, I don’t know, sanctuary or something? JJ: Altar? RL: Yeah, a little altar at home, you know, made out of wood and stuff like that. And I have a picture of it too, ’cause I got some pictures just recently of the inside of, you know, our apartment. JJ: We probably are gonna call you for some pictures. 28 �RL: Yeah, and I hadn’t seen these until my aunt passed away recently, about June or July, in July she passed away. And I never really saw -- JJ: Is there any way you can put ’em on a disc, or anything, or...? RL: Shoot, I don’t know how to do -- I’m not too electronically inclined, you know, but I’ll see what I can do, ’cause they’re at work too, I coulda brought ’em with me. Yeah. JJ: We have a scanner, but we’re gonna take off tonight (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). RL: Yeah, in the background, I could see the [00:36:00] altar, you know, like, “Wow, check that out.” JJ: Yeah, we had an altar too, but my mother got into that spirit -- (Spanish) [00:36:06]. RL: Oh, santería? JJ: San-- not santería, something similar. RL: Something similar? JJ: [Not real deep?]. RL: Right, right. JJ: But, so I didn’t know what -- was -- “Are we doing the Catholic [name?] things today, or the spiritual?” But yours was all Catholic. RL: Oh yeah, ours was straight up Catholic. JJ: They didn’t -- (Spanish) [00:36:23]? RL: Oh, no, no, no, they wouldn’t. JJ: So it wasn’t [into that?] 29 �RL: They wouldn’t even go there, you know. JJ: So they don’t (inaudible)? RL: Right. So it was all Catholic, we’d say the rosary, and then we had to kneel down, cement floor. You know, during the part of the rosary where you’re supposed to kneel down, I guess, and we’d do it as a family, all of us. We’d fall asleep, but hey, you fall asleep, you -- there’d be times they would take out that belt. “Let’s see who falls asleep now!” (laughter) JJ: That was a thing [at night?], a regular thing. RL: Yeah, it was a regular thing. Yeah. JJ: ’Cause I remember in the ’40s, [they had to do that?] in [00:37:00] Puerto Rico, so (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). RL: Oh, okay. JJ: They just brought the culture here. RL: Yeah, exactly. ’Cause I’m sure it was going on over there, and they just -- yeah, they brought it over here. The rosary, you know, my dad would lead the rosary, and we’d all read Spanish -- everything was in Spanish, to this day I only speak to my parents in Spanish. You know, that’s the only way we spoke to them growing up, in Spanish. JJ: But they spoke English, though. RL: Not necessarily. My dad, of course, ’cause he started working in the factories, so he picked up the language easier. My mom, she was working when she moved back -- 30 �JJ: What kind of work did your mom do? Your father was in a factory (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? RL: Right. And my mom started working when she came back -- when she came from Puerto Rico with the three children, she worked at the Oscar Mayer plant over by Cooley High. The Oscar Mayer plant was there. And I’m sure it was a good job, and things like that, but once she started having more kids, then she had to drop out and not work to stay home and take care of the kids. JJ: Did she -- a lot of years that she worked at Oscar Mayer, or...? RL: See, I wonder how many years... JJ: (inaudible) RL: But she was having kids so fast, so maybe it wasn’t [00:38:00] that many years, but, you know, I’m assuming she might have worked there thr-- four years, or something. Yeah. JJ: [And we were asking?] about the other sibling, what kind of (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? RL: Oh, then Raul, then Wilfredo, my third brother. Oldest brother. He’s a factory worker, blue-collar. Then there’s Alicia, my sister, she clerked for a judge, worked as a court clerk for -- to this day, in the federal court. JJ: In the federal court? RL: In the federal court, downtown. JJ: Is she still -- how many years? I mean, has she worked a lotta years? RL: Yeah, she could retire now. JJ: She’s retired? 31 �RL: She’s already [beyond, yeah?]. She just -- JJ: [This is the?] federal judge, in downtown? RL: Yes. JJ: Okay. RL: Yeah, with the federal judges, right there on Dearborn. And things like that. And then, Dearborn and Jackson. And then, who comes after? William, my brother William. He worked -- he went to the service, and then he ended up with a railroad, one of the railroad companies, and now he’s with United Airlines. [00:39:00] And then David, the brother after him, he worked for the railroad also, still does to this day. And then there was the brother named Orlando, and I’m going in descending order, so, you know, three boys, one girl, then three more boys, and then another girl. So then the third boy out of that order, Orlando, he passed away around eight-- he was around 18. He was sort of the black sheep in the family, he got caught up on the streets a little more than the rest of us, and he ended up owing some guy some money and the guy stabbed him to death. And I remember getting that call as a 16-year-old, you know, they called the house and I remember picking it up and talking to the police officer, asking us to, you know, come identify the body. Yeah, so. JJ: So you got [the call?], they told you to come and identify the body? RL: Yeah, I remember telling my dad, and I went with them, yeah. Yeah, so, I remember that. JJ: So you guys were pretty tight-knit (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? RL: Oh, yeah, yeah. 32 �JJ: Pretty much, or (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? RL: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:40:00] It was a big thing. Yeah. It was... Yeah, we were pretty tight, yeah. And then after Orlando came Lucy, who’s a year older than me. She ended up going to -- well, the first oldest of the girls, I think she was the first one to go to college. She went to Rosary College, which is Dominican University now. And then Lucia -- then our other brothers, well, three of ’em went to the service, and then Lucia, the sister older than me, one year older, she ended up going to Loyola University, and graduating from there. And then there was me. JJ: So what’s she doing now? [I mean, she graduated?]? RL: She works for the U.S. probations department. In the computers -- JJ: Oh, computer? RL: In computers. And she’s been there many, many, many years also. Yeah. So she could retire, I’m sure, soon. And then... Let’s see... Elena, who was one year younger than me, she graduated [00:41:00] from Dominican University, you know, Rosary College. And, where does she work? She works for an insurance company. JJ: Okay. RL: Yeah. And then after her, Teresa, my other sister -- JJ: And I think I met Teresa, she went to Michigan for one of the camps that we had. RL: Oh, really? Oh, okay. JJ: I think, yeah. 33 �RL: She’s more of a businesswoman, so, she had a couple of stores in Oak Park, clothing stores. JJ: Clothing? RL: Uh-huh. JJ: Now one of them had a, was it a beauty salon or something? Was that Lucia or something? (inaudible) RL: Oh, matter of fact, Lucy, she has a restaurant in -- with her husband. They have a restaurant in Oak Park -- JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) Okay, [that’s a restaurant?] -- RL: -- right now, called Hemmingway Bistro. JJ: Hemmingway Bistro... RL: Very good restaurant. They’ve been there over 10 years now. They’re gonna actually open a -- they bought another building in Oak Park, and they’re gonna, I believe, have another restaurant. JJ: Yeah, ’cause I think Teresa left that number for us to call. RL: Oh, okay. JJ: And if we had other events or anything like that. RL: Oh, okay. And then the youngest is [Danny?], he graduated from Rosary College, you know, [00:42:00] Dominican University, they call it now. Yeah, and so I was the only one that went beyond college in terms of graduate studies, which was, in my case, was law school. JJ: And recently, you were involved in, was that the first time you ran for judge? 34 �RL: Yeah, one thing I always knew I was gonna do when I went to Wisconsin, when I even mar-- before I even married my first wife in Wisconsin, I told her, “Hey, I’m going back to Chicago.” You know, so, because she was born and raised in Wisconsin, and so I knew, you know, lotta Wisconsin people don’t really like to come to Chicago, and a lotta Chicago people don’t like to go to Wisconsin. So I told her, I said, “Before I marry you, I gotta let you know, I’m moving back to Chicago at some point in my career, so -- to get involved in politics, so, let me know if you can handle that.” So she, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.” So that was all good. And the reason why I was always intrigued by politics is, first of all, I used to read the paper since third grade. The newspaper, the daily paper here in Chicago. ’Cause there was a store in the neighborhood, you know, [00:43:00] Puerto Rican-owned, regular mom-and-pop place, and the store owner would give me a dime, at that time, for a newspaper, that’s what it was, in the box, the Sun-Times box, or whatever, the newspaper. And I’d take two of ’em, give the store owner one, and take one with me as I walked to school. So I would read the sports, I was more into the sports and stuff like that, and the teachers, when I get to school, they would take the paper, ’cause they wanna read it anyway, so they’d read it and give it back to me. So I was always reading about Chicago history, and the sports, and then I’d read the news, also. But the main thing was, during one particular period was the Harold Washington days. I mean, that was a fascinating time to be in Chicago, if you wanna learn about politics, that was some crazy stuff. Crazy stuff. I mean, it was cold-blooded, it was racial, it was everything that politics shouldn’t be. It was. I mean, it was just cold-blooded. 35 �But, the beauty of it was, it galvanized the people. The [00:44:00] Latinos, the African Americans, people who were disenfranchised, I mean, these people had no-- we really didn’t have nothing going on in our communities, in terms of not only political power, but services. Basic services. We all pay our taxes, we’re supposed to have equal services, our schools were real bad. Basic services were real bad, our neighborhoods were run down. And the way you fight that is, you know, some political juice. I mean, we saw that. We saw it in those days. You go in the north side, go in different parts of the city, where different aldermen have some pull, and they took care of their neighborhoods. Ours were treated like garbage, really, a dump. So then, once Harold Washington came about, which was, in those days, a miracle, for a Black man to run Chicago, we’re talking 25 years ago? And he won, because of the people. The power of the people, it was fascinating. It was cool. It was very nice. Unfortunately, he passed away in his second term, [00:45:00] but his first term wasn’t easy. The first term, you know, all the politicians that were aldermen in those days, a majority were white, they were just pushing back, they were trying to get rid of him, they were trying to discipli-- you know, disrespect him, they were doing whatever they could to retain their power. I mean, Chicago was a power-driven city. And still is. But... Unfortunately, he, you know, had a heart attack, 25 years ago. And in his second term, he was gonna do a lot, because again, the first term, he was being held back a lot. But, the second term, he was gonna do a lot, but he passed away. So anyway, and I was involved, I had cousins who were involved, Luisa Quinones and Noemy Quinones, they were involved in that, and I 36 �had a good buddy, [Oscar Ortiz?], at that time who grew up with me, he was involved in that, so I would watch. You know, I would see that. And one thing I learned, though, by watching all this, was that, if you really wanna be involved [00:46:00] in a more advanced way, I don’t know what the word -- you know, if you wanna really be involved, get a law degree, or be somebody. ’Cause the people -- you know, most of the people that I knew were door-knockers. I didn’t do that, I never knocked on doors, but I saw it, and they were mainly the people who were -- who didn’t have, really, the college degree and things like that, it seemed like those who were more educated had higher positions in the political arena. So if you were a lawyer, if you were, you know, higher education, whatever, master’s, you seemed to have more ability to do things. For the community, especially, too. So my -- what I saw from all that was, I gotta, you know, I gotta educate myself. And then I’ll come back, ’cause I don’t wanna be a door-knocker. I wanna be somebody that, when I sit at the table, we could talk, and they won’t try to treat me as a, you know, [00:47:00] less than they should. Anyway, and we should all be equal, of course, but sometimes the lack of education could hinder that. So. JJ: [So, you were?]... RL: So, going back to your point, yes, I ran for judge. I ran for judge in the March primaries. So, to me, that was a big thing, ’cause I knew that’s what I wanted to do in terms of coming back to Chicago, run for a political office, get involved in a political arena. But what also helped me to get into the political arena was the job I have, and I still can really have, with the Cook County Clerk of Court. When 37 �I got that job, I was very, very happy, because I knew, “Okay good, I could finally get into the political arena. ’Cause I’m gonna work for elected official, and now I could see how,” you know, “the system works from the inside now.” Before, I was an outsider, as a kid. Now I could actually come here, not only as a lawyer, but now I can work with an elected official, and get a bird’s-eye view of what goes on. And, [00:48:00] you know, and hopefully make my move, which was running for judge. And... JJ: So how did that work, I mean, how’d you get that going, and...? RL: You know, and I had my own way of thinking, as to how people should run for office, or how people should do what they have to do to get elected. My thing was, you know, you should knock on people’s doors and get to know people, you should go to train stations and get to know people, you should go to churches, you should go to the community and introduce yourself and let them know what you’re doing and why you wanna do it. And I did, I did it the old-fashioned way. People don’t do that anymore, I did it the old-fashioned way, and it worked. Did I win? No, but did it really, you know, elevate me to a position of awareness? Yeah. Yeah. And then, I think I was doing things that were forgotten traits, you know, the political process, which is to actually get out there, you know. JJ: And [00:49:00] did you build, like, your own organization and work with the Democratic machine, or [no?]? RL: Well, yeah, that’s the way it works, I remember being at St. Sylvester with my petition, you know, you needed 1,000 signatures. I was by myself, with that one sheet of paper, or that one pen and those sheets of paper, collecting signatures. 38 �But I also knew, the reason why I was doing it, too, I also knew that it was gonna be a snowball effect. I knew that it was gonna be a tiny snowball, me by myself, but I knew as things -- people got to know me, and as I was out there doing what I had to do, that that snowball was gonna progress as time went on. And election was in March, I was out there in September, which was unheard of, really, for somebody to be out there in September for a March, six-months-later election. ’Cause they don’t really get out there till way later, you know, in the game. But I was out th-- I knew what -- I knew I had a lotta work to do. I was by myself, [00:50:00] but I -- again, I knew that snowball effect. And it happened that way. People started helping me, getting involved, they got to know me, and volunteers would call, people I didn’t know, you know. Friends -- it’s funny, ’cause I remember sometimes I said, you know, “Friends became strangers and strangers became friends.” Because a lot of people that I didn’t know would help me, people that I thought would help me weren’t helping me. And because I’m the type of guy, I will help anybody, you know, I won’t ask for anything in return. But yet, I saw that some people didn’t help me when I needed them, but that was okay, because that’s how you learn, you continue learning about people and situations. And so, it was all good. It was a lot of work, it was a lot of work, I was up in the morning at the trains, I was at trains at night, I was at church on Sunday, Saturdays I had a group of people knocking on doors, they said, “Judges don’t knock on --” People would respond, “Are you running for judge? Judges don’t come looking for votes.” You know. ’Cause they [00:51:00] don’t, 39 �judges don’t knock on doors. I was doing things the way I thought it should be done. It was pretty exciting, though. JJ: So you had some opponents, or...? RL: Yeah, there were five people running. JJ: Okay. RL: There was four guys, and one female. The female was the Democratic-slated candidate, she was Puerto Rican. This other guy that was running was Puerto Rican, myself, Puerto Rican, and two Anglos were running. And -- JJ: And your area, what was the boundaries? RL: There was 10 wards, which included Humboldt Park -- JJ: There were 10 wards, okay. RL: -- most of the minority wards. Majority -- a lot of the minority wards. You know, Logan Square, Humboldt Park, going all the way west, you know, Chicago, west, almost towards Central, practically, you know, Laramie. It would go as far -- it was a lot, it was 10 wards, which is, I didn’t realize it was gonna be that much work, but hey, I had to do it. And it was great ’cause, the funny thing is, ’cause the three Puerto Ricans, [00:52:00] we all had mutual friends, so it was kinda hard to -- some of your friends won’t support you because they were supporting this person, or they were supporting that person, so it’s kind of an interesting scenario going on there. The Democratic-slated candidate, the Puerto Rican female, she ended up winning. And luckily, her and I -- I went in there with nothing but respect, I did not go in there to engage in dirty politics, ’cause I don’t see a need for that. So I came out looking good in this election because I was -- 40 �the Democratic Party saw that I was just out there doing what I had to do to try to win. I wasn’t trying to step on somebody’s toe to do it, I was just out there to do it, the old-fashioned way. Let the people decide. JJ: So why didn’t you try to get in the Democratic slate at that time? RL: I did. I actually did. Because what you do is, you go in front of the committee, there’s like 10 of ’em, and then they vote and decide. JJ: 10 because there were 10 wards, or...? RL: Exactly. One committee member per ward. JJ: [00:53:00] So you went in front of the committee of the ward? RL: Yeah. So all of us did, there was, like, four or five of us, you know, candidates, who met up, at a restaurant, and then the committee were in a room. So we go in one by one, and basically sell yourself, and explain why you want them to back you and why they should back you and things like that. So they ended up backing the Puerto Rican female. JJ: But then you decided anyway. You were just stubborn, or...? RL: No, because what happened was, at that time, it was just a matter of, you know, deciding what you wanna do as the days went by, and things like that. And I just saw, too, I was working hard, and I didn’t wanna -- remember, it started as a little snowball, now it seemed like a big snowball, and it was hard, not to -- people counting on you. People helping you. People believing in you. [00:54:00] And that’s -- it would’ve been hard to drop out of the race, it would’ve been hard, so, you know. But... JJ: So you went all the way through with (inaudible)? 41 �RL: Yeah, I went all the way through. JJ: And how did you do it? I mean, how... RL: I ended up coming in last place. The guy ahead of me, he had -- the guy ahead of me, the Puerto Rican guy, he had the former judge position, he retired, the former judge backing him, other politicians backing him, and yet he wasn’t even that far ahead of me. I didn’t have anybody backing me, any politicians or anything. Which was amazing. And limited resources, in terms of putting money out into the campaign. I mean, one person who lost in the race, the Anglo guy, one of the Anglo guys, he spent like 200,000. I mean, that’s a lot of money. JJ: Right. RL: And he didn’t win. Again, the Puerto Rican guy, he had all these politicians backing him, and he only had maybe [00:55:00] 400 more votes than me. So, I actually came out looking real good, based on the lack of resources, based on the lack of support. But I had the support of the community, which was very important. JJ: So did you set up an office, or no? RL: No. JJ: You didn’t [at the time?]? RL: No, what we’d do is we’d meet once a week, the committee of us, and we strategized what we’d do that weekend, Saturday, Sunday. So every Wednesday, we’d meet, we had some wine, some food, you know, just relax and think about, “Okay, what’s our next move? Where we gonna go on Saturday and Sunday?” What fundraiser we may have, things like that. 42 �JJ: So you were doing fundraisers and (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? RL: Yeah, that was, you know, so I -- my fundraisers were not typical, “Come and support me.” ’Cause, “Who are you?” Nobody’s gonna come. So I did more of a marketing thing, like, yeah, sure, “Support me,” but [00:56:00] it was more of a party type of thing I was advertising. I mean, it was a party, it was food, it was drinks, dancing, you know, it’s a good cause, so... JJ: And that cause, your main cause, what was your main cause? RL: Me. (laughs) You know what I’m saying? Support my candidacy. JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) Support your candidacy. RL: But that wasn’t the focus, the focus was, “Let’s have fun and do this.” You know? JJ: Okay, all right. So it was civil. RL: And then I know, you know what -- JJ: Like a civic thing. RL: Right, and that was never done that way before. Now, people are starting to do that. I see that now, politicians are out there advertising, almost, similar to the way I did it. You know? The most recent one was last week or two weeks ago, I went to a jazz club for a fundraiser, and it was advertised almost the way I -similar to the way I would do it. JJ: So people [that?] more like party, family, getting together? RL: Yeah, I think -- JJ: Not so much family, but party (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) -- RL: Yeah, ’cause I felt like people are not [00:57:00] gonna come and just give you money -- 43 �JJ: -- civic thing, with fun. RL: Yeah, ’cause even I did something with the word fundraiser. I put F-U-N in parentheses, and called it a FUN-raiser, without the D, I dropped the D, and things like that, I mean, I just went to a different type of -- reaching the people on a different way. You know? JJ: If you won, what did you want accomplish? RL: What I wanted to do would be an active judge. And what I mean by that is, I thought it’d give me more credibility, because I enjoyed talking to children, I enjoyed talking to senior citizens and people in the community. I wanted to go and, as a judge now, and talk to kids and say, “Look it, this is where I came from, and this is where I’m at, and you can do it.” Because I tell kids, I say, “You know what? On the first day of school, what -- if you were to give yourself a grade, what would it be?” A lot of ’em may not [00:58:00] respond, I’ll tell ’em, I say, “It’s an A. ’Cause that first day of school, as you sit there, everybody in this class has an A. Because we’re all on the same page, we all have the capability, we all have an A. The issue is holding onto that A as, by doing homework, by studying, by completing assignments, and as the year progresses, the semester progresses, but right now, you’re an A student. So, how bad do you want it? What do you have to do? Look at me, I grew up in Cabrini-Green, I grew up in Humboldt Park, I grew up with gangbangers, my friends were dying, I have a friend on death row, you know. From Humboldt Park. [Juan Caraballo?], he’s still on death row, in Stateville. And then I have a friend who, in the same neighborhood, kitty-corner from each other, went to Harvard Law School. He 44 �grew up in a family of 13 kids, Anglo family. A family of 13, this kid went to Harvard Law School, doing well now, and is a partner in the law firm. You know. [00:59:00] So, you know, and I have another friend from St. Sylvester who became the first Hispanic judge in Lake County. Jorge Ortiz. And yet we all grew up in that environment, but again, it’s, you know, there’s a lot of things that go on in people’s lives that affect their ability to move forward. You know. But I would love to go and let these kids know, “Yeah, you know, I grew up this way, but it’s possible. You just gotta have a little more focus and not be -- not allow others to drive you this way, or take you that way. You gotta take it.” JJ: So it’s possible -- so what do you think needs to be done for these -- what do these kids need to do to do what you did, [basically?]? RL: Well, the main thing is just to -- I mean, education’s everything. Why? Because my parents, they harped about education all the -- we had to do our [01:00:00] homework, we had to -- even though they only had third grade, fourth grade education, my mom, I think, had an eighth grade education, my dad, third grade education. Yet, they harped about school all the time. Doing your homework, and school was very important, that’s why they sent us to Catholic grade school and things like that, even though, you know, resources were very limited. I mean, I remember getting toys from the church for Christmas because we couldn’t afford a lot of stuff. But, you know, I think with my story, they could see that even with that type of background, because a lot of it is similar to what they’re experiencing, see, and they just gotta hear it. See, we don’t have role models out there, we don’t see ourselves in that position because we don’t see it, 45 �a person of that ability. A Puerto Rican doctor, a Puerto Rican lawyer, a Puerto Rican president, we just don’t see it. Because they don’t come visit us, they don’t come talk to us, they don’t come and show that they are us, they are where I’m at now [01:01:00] as a third grader, fourth grader, sixth grader, high school kid. I mean, those people experienced what I experience. You know, when they hear a speaker. I have good credibility when I speak because, for example, my own clients, as a public defender. I could tell ’em my background, they’ll know we’re on the same page, you know. I remember one time I went to Cook County jail with a friend of mine who’s a lawyer, ’cause he had a client, and as a favor I just went with him to go visit the guy, and the guy -- the defendant, okay, the guy in jail is explaining how the crime occurred. And I’m sitting there listening, and after he finished I told him, “It didn’t happen that way, I’ll tell you how it happened. This is the way it happened.” Why? Because my own background on the streets -- I know how -- so this guy was just bullshitting the lawyer, my friend, but as I’m listening, I know what I know, growing up on the streets of Chicago, I know that’s not how we would do things. [01:02:00] So when I can do that, then they could relax with me, knowing that I could have, that we could communicate now. “Okay, don’t bullshit me, I’m here to help you, so let’s do it. I’ll be for real, you be for real.” So on and so forth. And kids know when you’re for real, especially young people. If I’m going to a school and talk to a kid, and try to sell ’em on going to school and being educated and being successful, you know, I’m not gonna go on there and say, “Yeah, I grew up -- my parents gave me everything in life, and you guys shouldn’t complain.” You know? “You should 46 �-- you just gotta deal with life.” Nah, I tell ’em, “Hey, life is not easy. It was never easy.” That’s the beauty of it, though. That’s the beauty of it, ’cause if it wasn’t, it’d be too boring. You know? JJ: So what are you doing today, I mean, in terms of your -- the lawyer, are you still a public defender, or...? RL: Nah, right now I work for the court system, so I can represent people. I’m a deputy general counsel at the Cook County Clerk of Court’s office. JJ: What -- [01:03:00] [I don’t know -- what do you mean?]? RL: And what they do, the Cook Clerk of Court, they gather all the -- any paper that you file in court, we’re in charge of. We put it in a folder, and we file it, so any document in a court case, any paper in that file, we’re responsible for it. JJ: For any cases, criminal, or...? RL: In any case in any Cook County. Any case in Cook County. So that’s a big -- JJ: Civil or criminal, to both? RL: Criminal, civil, I mean, traffic, anything that comes into the court system -- JJ: Goes through your office. RL: We deal with it. And we’re, like, the second biggest in the nation. Cook Court system. JJ: Court system. RL: Yeah, we’re that busy. So, it’s a interesting, you know, place to be. I enjoyed litigation, when I was a litigator, in court fighting for my clients, because I thought it was good to try to talk to a jury. I don’t know if -- a lot of attorneys aren’t good with juries. 47 �JJ: Litigation means trying (inaudible) attorneys (inaudible)? RL: Huh? JJ: Litigation means trying (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? RL: Yeah, you’re right, [01:04:00] trying a case to a jury of 12 people. JJ: Okay. RL: And I enjoy doing that because I could be for real with the jury. A lot of attorneys don’t know how to relate to people because, for their background, whatever, they just, sometimes they forget that -- ’cause sometimes lawyers think of themselves up here, and then the jury, you know, common folks that we are, down here, and they see that, you gotta come down if you wanna communicate, you gotta make sure you’re at the same eye level, and make sure you could get their point across. JJ: So that’s a pretty good job. Why do you wanna run for the judge thing? RL: Because I wanna - the reason why I wanted to run for judge was to allow me to continue. ’Cause my ultimate goal, and I think it’s important that people have goals in life, because then you’re not gonna get bored, because you’re always trying to work towards something else, you know, and every time you accomplish something, that’s a big thing. But then, does that mean you [01:05:00] stop accomplishing? No, because if you have another goal, then whether it’s education or something that you have to work towards, at least you know, “Okay, that’s what I have to do, I have to work t--” So in my case, being a judge was gonna give me that [instant?] credibility so I could go in the neighborhood, do what I wanted to do in the community. My ultimate goal, I tell people, is to 48 �become the first Hispanic mayor of Chicago. Will that ever happen? I don’t know. But it’s the same as people saying, you know, “Shoot for the moon, and you’re amongst the stars, at the very least.” So it’s the same mindset, you know, I’ve always been inspired by Harold Washington, and things like that, and politicians like that. And so I say that, so I, you know, I consciously work towards that, so I was very satisfied when I ran for judge, because I never, you know -JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) the first election is usually an experience for the experience. RL: Exactly, it is, and you’re right. JJ: [And, so that was good?]. RL: And get your name out there so [01:06:00] people know who you are. You know, you gettin’ off the bench, I respect those that get off the bench than just sit on the bench. I may talk about it, but if I don’t do anything about it, it’s all talk. So. JJ: Now, since Harold Washington, ’cause I think he opened the doors for a lot of Latinos, you know, I mean a lot of people, but I mean Latinos also. Have you seen other Latinos more since that period of time move up the ladder...? RL: Yeah, yeah. And, you know -- JJ: I mean, are they working all over the...? Within the Democratic party, I mean, are they working within...? RL: Yeah, I mean there are some good politicians out there, Hispanic and African American, but are they really helping us as a community? To a certain extent. To a certain extent. Why? Because I’d rather have ’em in there than not have ’em, because I remember how it was when we didn’t have ’em. Some of ’em are 49 �limited and, you know, they limit themselves, I guess, in their ability to [01:07:00] really help the community. I think they could take us farther. JJ: Do they do it intentional, or -- what do you mean they limit themselves? RL: I know, that’s kinda sad, a sad thought, do they do it intentional? Maybe. Maybe some do. JJ: If they do it intentional, they just wanna get the job and that’s it. RL: The prestige, the money, the power. Yeah. ’Cause there’s not enough of us out there, so the few that we have, you know, they’re almost on the -- not the level of God, but they’re up there, the people give ’em that without them actually proving themselves. I mean, I’d rather see you -- you know, I give it to you but, show me, you know, you should deserve it though. JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) the job, they just got put on there. RL: Right. JJ: Without skills, is that what you’re saying, or...? RL: They may have the skills -- JJ: I don’t wanna put -- RL: -- no, they may have the -- JJ: I don’t wanna put words in your mouth. RL: Right, they may have the skills, but it’s the power trip, you know, they’re making their money, they’re making -- [01:08:00] you know, they get complacent. They get complacent. Maybe that was their -- again, maybe that was their goal to be aldermen, and then, “Okay, what’s your next goal? Now you became an alderman, what is it you wanna do with that? Do you wanna just make money 50 �and cut deals and just do minimal for the community, or are you gonna maximize and do everything that you aspired to do when you did run for this office?” You know, there’s a difference between wanting to do something, talking about doing something, and actually doing it. See? So that’s why I think they do have the right attitude and the right heart when they do run, and then they do win, and they love it, they celebrate it with the community, but now what? What are you gonna do with it? I mean, we put you in the driver’s seat, but how far are you gonna take us? JJ: So what do you think holds them down? ’Cause it’s sorta like, they jump, they’re jumping up and then they [01:09:00] stop. So (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) RL: Right, I think they fall into the trap of their peers. And when I say peers I mean, like, the other aldermen who have been there for many years, more the -- it could be other aldermans, whether they’re white, Black, or Spanish, who have been there for many years, and maybe their focus is just to make money, and they’re teaching you the game. You know, “Just keep your mouth shut, or just do it this way, and we could work it together. Now, if we don’t work it together, you’re gonna be an outsider, and you’re gonna be limited. We’re not gonna give you much of the pie. You want a piece of the pie? Work with us, we’ll share with you.” But... JJ: That’s straightforward, [then?]. (laughs) Is that what you’re saying? RL: Yeah. I mean, there are some renegades out there that don’t fall into that trap, that want to do what they can for the whole community, and fight the powers that be to get that [01:10:00] slice of the pie to share with the people, you know. 51 �Evenly. But I mean, the schools are still messed up, I mean, there’s just too much, our people are just screwed. Are we screwing ourselves? I mean, what is our problem? The same issues that I saw when I was a kid, a teenager, you saw in the community that you guys fought for. JJ: What were those issues? That you saw. RL: Lack of education, lack of opportunity, jobs. At the very least, that we were, [if had?] good education, you know... We’re not graduating from high school. We’re not graduating from college. I mean, education’s everything. I mean, it opens your mind to question, you know, and look at things differently, or at least question instead of just allowing somebody to tell you that, “This is blue, so [01:11:00] believe me it’s blue, even if it’s not,” you know. They may have the handkerchief over and say, “Just trust me, there’s something blue under here.” But, you know, education is the bottom line. Why? Because then, that next generation, you’re gonna help educate them too. We can’t just rely on teachers. I help my kid with his homework and things like that ’cause I realize, teachers have a role, but so do parents. You know? You really wanna maximize your kid’s abilities, it takes more than just going to a school. When they’re young like that, I mean, you have to help them and motivate them and make them feel good about going to school and saying, “Yeah, this is good, I wanna go back to school and raise my hand when a teacher has a question and challenge her or him,” and feel like their brain is working, they’re being creative and they’re actually learning, instead of being bored and feeling like “Oh, I’m not as smart as the next [01:12:00] person.” And just allowing yourself to vegetate, really. Come home, 52 �watch movies, and forget about. You know, almost giving up. Almost giving up, even though you got a brain that’s priceless, you know. But... JJ: So what are some of the other issues? I know we did discuss, like, police abuse at that time. And we discussed housing [in that?] -- is that a problem today, too, or no? RL: Well, gangs, gang issues are still a problem. Why? There’s no excuse for that, really. But at the same time, I remember when we grew up, there was boys’ clubs, there was YMCAs, there was all kinds of community organizations and places you could go and be involved, and things like that. Now, there aren’t any. There aren’t any community things going on. There’s no YM-- you won’t find a YMCA or Boys & Girls Club in your neighborhood anymore. They’re replaced [01:13:00] by McDonalds, Burger King, or fast food joints, or businesses. And, you know, the contrast was, if you were in the suburbs, you go to school in those days, you could play sports, you could do this, you could do that, you could do all these things. Over here, yeah, you could say the same thing, but it’s not the same. I mean, I remember I played soccer at Illinois Benedictine for a couple years because they would give me, like, 800 bucks. For me, anything was good, so I could make some money to pay my tuition. I remember we played Lake Forest College. Man, those kids, they all had beautiful duffel bags, they all had the exact same ones and beautiful uniforms, and here we are with our, you know, little garbage bag, practically. I was like, “Wow, that’s pretty cool.” I mean, we don’t have that, but, you know, it’s the school system that buries us, or allows us 53 �-- or we bury ourselves, [01:14:00] too, though. It takes two. You know, it takes two. JJ: And you don’t think the housing was contributing at all, or...? You just think that if we fixed -- I just wanna get clear what you’re saying. So you’re saying that if we just fixed the school system, that would get people more educated and that would improve other services? RL: Right, it would improve our, you know, ourselves a lot, why? Because I think it allows us to -- the next generation to be hopefully, you know, the American Dream’s always that the next generation does better. But if we look at our -- the way things are going, partly because of the school system being as bad as it is, I may not graduate, my son may not graduate, my daughter may not graduate. But if I have a degree and understand the value of it, my son, my daughter may be tutored by me, even at home. People hire tutors out there, and it’s, like, amazing. Which is good, if they can afford it, [01:15:00] but yet, we don’t even come close to doing that. I mean, we don’t even do homework. Not we, 100 percent, but there’s parents out there who are just too busy. Why? They work, they both work, they’re tired, they come home. You know. They forget the most important investment is that child, though, in your own household. I mean, that’s really the biggest investment in your household, and you’re letting it go down the drain. I mean, like, when we educate ourselves, when we have kids, we’re gonna let them know how important education is, and we want them to do better than us. And we want them to be in first grade and not feel behind. Because we’re gonna be, you know, teaching. I remember, in college, between age of 54 �zero and two, a child, reading that their brain is like a sponge. I mean, they just, like, soak up information. So, when my kid was, when he was born, I was always interacting with him. Reading to him, talking to him, whatever, ’cause I knew that was an important window. And then thereafter, I would [01:16:00] take him to the book store with me. Instead of buying him books, I figured, “Hey, let’s just go have dinner, let’s go to a bookstore and relax.” And then he could read three, four, five books. So he understood, you know, there was a lot going on in life, by reading, and things like that. I’d read to him, when I would read I would stutter, because I want him -- because my thing is, when I say stutter, is because I think, if you know the alphabet, you could read. That’s what I say. So when I read to him, I show him the alphabet, so I would repeat the B in the word “butter” a couple of times, U, I would repeat it, so he could see that these are just letters that are put together. And so he’s a very good reader, he’s in a gifted school, Skinner, right now, which is -- you had to apply for. I mean, it’s funny, because nowadays we have gifted schools in this city. We didn’t have that before, we didn’t have any of that. But now that more people are living in the city, moving from the suburbs, we feel the need to have that type of service for them. But we didn’t feel the need to have that type of service for us when we were growing up [01:17:00] in the city. ’Cause I think everybody’s gifted, I mean, we’re all gifted, long as we have a brain, you could do a lot. If you’re brain damaged, I can understand the limitations, but as long as we have a brain and we have somebody that cares, a teacher, a parent, to help us along, you know. I feel bad when I see kids not really being -- don’t know how to read and stuff like that, 55 �because I’m thinking, “Wait a minute, at least that parent has a eighth grade education, so they --” You should be able to teach ’em, and your child, first grade reading, math, whatever, but parents don’t wanna involve themselves that much. You know, across the board, anyway. And so that, remember, there’s that cycle, and that sucks. That sucks. I mean, you wanna educate your kid, you can do it. You don’t have to rely on a teacher. I mean, you are going to, ’cause the child automatically goes, but he needs that tutor at home. He needs to see that the parent cares, that it’s important to the parent too. You know? That their child does well. ’Cause they get a lot of [01:18:00] reinforcement from the parents, too. “Wow, you did great,” you know. “Mira, Jose, you got an A, wow, that’s good, see, I’m glad you did your homework, we did your homework, yeah, we interacted.” Instead of popping a video in there, or a Game Boy, I don’t like Game Boys or whatever the kids do on TV, or. His mother bought him one, you know, my ex, but I’m not a big fan, and now she’s complaining he’s spending a lot of time on it, I say, “Well, what do you expect?” You know, “It’s catch-22, you buy it, he uses it, now you’re complaining? Come on.” (laughs) So, but... JJ: Any final thoughts? RL: Well, you know, and again, it goes back to -- it’s a collective, you know, it’s a collective. And what I see right now is that we’re thirsting for leadership, our community. [And I’ll call it?] Hispanic community, ’cause I see that more, you know, I’ll talk about our people. We’re thirsting for leadership, we don’t have it. We elected people, and we put ’em in positions of [01:19:00] leadership, and we wanted them to lead us. And, you know, they’re like tires in the winter, just 56 �squealing in the snow, you know, slip-sliding away. And we’re like, “Wow,” you know. And now we’re getting -- so it’s almost like we’re frustrating ourselves, you know, we’re getting frustrated and saying ”What the heck?” It’s almost like kids, we’re looking for that leadership, like a kid looking to their parents, and we do that with our leaders as adults. We’re like, “Where’s our leadership? We wanna move forward.” Which was why, when Obama won as president, President Obama, the Blacks of course, the African Americans, very, very happy, of course. But we were all also very happy, because that’s the closest that we could get to a minority person that we think our, you know, is a leader, and is gonna help us, and so on and so on. Imagine if some of us were in high positions, you know, Latinos. ’Cause we do, we do get some satisfaction, and we do get some pride and we, [01:20:00] you know, it kinda wakes us up. And then maybe we can start realizing, “Wait a minute, we can do it.” [John?] and [Jack?] from Humboldt Park, there’s that Young Lord who was doing drugs, and look at him. You know? I mean, we don’t see those stories, because right now we’re just so busy trying to make our money to survive. I mean, I’m just talking about people working, I mean, we’re just busy doing that, and it’s kinda hard on our kids, right, education and stuff, we don’t help them, but it’s hard on us too. That’s why we’re looking for our leaders to pull us a little bit, and we don’t have that. We have gangs, we have schools that are bad, we have just too much -we’re kind of giving up hope in a sense, you know, because, especially Latinos, because we have the church, that we don’t see it as strong as it used to be. We see kids being molested, and then we see the leadership not responding the 57 �way, [01:21:00] you know, the way they should, I guess, right? I mean, I’m not blaming the whole church because, again, in every profession, we have good, bad, and ugly. There’s a lot more good than bad. But the bad is what we have to deal with, and hopefully respond appropriately. So, that’s why I have that in the back of my mind as a goal, to become the first Hispanic mayor, because I saw it in Harold Washington, I saw what he did, and what he was going to do, and then he died. But, I’m sure Chicago would’ve been way different. JJ: And you said you worked on the Harold Washington campaign, what were you doing then? RL: No, my cousins were, my buddy was, and so I would, like, go watch -- go to the -when he won, or I’ll watch it on TV, or I’d read about it in the paper. You know. ’Cause I remember when [01:22:00] Harold -- Epstein or whatever the Republican -- JJ: Epton, yeah. RL: Epton, Epton. Was running, when the commercials showed, like a Black hand voting, and then the tag word was, “Before it’s too late,” you know, “Vote Epton before it’s too late.” I mean, it was so racist, I was like, “Wow! This is amazing, how 19-whatever!” Yeah. And commercials are just straight up racist. JJ: Well, he was being picketed and everything by Epton supporters. They were picketing him at the time. RL: Right? I mean, everything was -- it was just crazy. Even on TV, I remember the Council Wars. The way he was just -- JJ: The Council Wars, can you explain what that is, or...? 58 �RL: Yeah, it was basically the aldermen, for the most part, the white aldermen in Chicago. When Harold won, they ganged up as a group of 28, I believe it was, and Harold Washington, to get a lot of bills passed, or [01:23:00] ordinances, or whatever, laws, he would need them. He would need a majority, you know, at least. But the majority were the whites, so they would block almost everything he would do. So even though he was the mayor, he was like a lame duck mayor, because he wasn’t allowed to really run the city the way he wanted to, the way he thought would be a better -- to make the city better for everybody. But the power, the Council Wars, as they called it, because now, the 28 aldermen versus the mayor, and it was pretty ugly. It was -- you see it on TV, you read about it in the paper, but they didn’t care. I mean, power was the ultimate goal for the 28, they did not wanna lose it, especially to a Black man, especially to the minorities in the community, ’cause he represented -- he was gonna represent the minorities, ’cause we really didn’t have representation until he came along. And not only that, he was [01:24:00] gonna appoint Latinos and African Americans to a position of power in the city departments. Hell, we’re all taxpayers, we should all have equal rights, but you know. JJ: Actually, I think he said that publicly, like when they had the Puerto Rican parade, they had the first neighborhood festival in Humboldt Park. Do you recall it? It was, like, 100,000 people or something like that in Humboldt Park. RL: Wow. JJ: You don’t (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? RL: No, I don’t remember that. 59 �JJ: I think he said that publicly, then. RL: Oh, really good. JJ: About appointing Latinos. And he did (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). RL: Right, right, exactly, oh yeah. Yeah, it was good, it was good stuff. It was a lot of stuff happening in Humboldt Park, I mean, I remember the 1976 riots, Puerto Rican Day parade riots. JJ: The ’66 riots? RL: That was the first. The second one. JJ: Oh, the ’76 --? RL: The second was ’78. JJ: ’78, okay. RL: ’78, the second one, ’cause I was a sophomore and at Prosser. And that was the second riot, it was a two-day riot. A couple people died the first day, and the second day, I think a couple more [01:25:00] people got shot by the police, and businesses were burned, and everything. JJ: [Five people died?] in ’78, I wasn’t aware. RL: Yeah, 1978, the day of the Puerto Rican parade. And what happened was, ’cause I remember being there -- JJ: Oh, I was here, yeah, just saying, I didn’t remember. RL: Yeah, Google, man, that’s a good one. I mean, nowadays, you know. And that’s another thing, when I say Google. A lot of kids think they can’t go to college ’cause they can’t afford it, and I’m thinking, “Wow, all you gotta do is Google for scholarships and,” you know, “just put in some keywords and things’ll pop up, a 60 �little research, you’ll find some money out there.” A lot of people don’t do that, when I was young I had to go to Harold Washington Library downtown, which was at Randolph and Michigan, which is now the cultural center, and I would go in there and ask the librarian, you know, “I’m looking for scholarships, do you have a book on it?” And they’d give me these dusty old books that nobody was looking at and, you know, there was obsole-- half of the scholarship information in there was obsolete, wasn’t even in existence anymore. But I had to, you know, [01:26:00] find a way, I had to take the train and go downtown. Kids nowadays, they could just go on the computer and do some research, and hopefully find some money out there. And it is, there’s money out there. JJ: Now you mentioned your brother, Lugo, and you didn’t know Gladys was part of that too. RL: Right, right. JJ: And Edwin. RL: And Edwin, right. JJ: And Edwin is her -- Gladys’s brother. RL: Brother, exactly. JJ: So, Edwin [Diaz?]. RL: Right, Edwin Diaz. JJ: Now, you said he [talks?] -- you’re hearing some stuff about the Young Lords from him, or...? RL: No, I never really -- I didn’t -- JJ: [He?] never [talked about it, or...?] 61 �RL: No, no. JJ: Was he embarrassed of them, or...? RL: No, it just had -- you know, I was a different generation. JJ: Oh, you were a different generation. RL: Yeah, ’cause he -- I don’t know how old he is, but, what, maybe about 58, I’m guessing. 59. JJ: In terms of age? RL: Yeah, I mean [it was like?] there was a big gap, because he’s the second oldest and I’m one of the young ones, the babies, you know. JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) RL: My crew was different, I was at home. [01:27:00] I was more of a kid, you know, and what they did on the street, they did. You know, I wouldn’t even know. JJ: But you wouldn’t -- he’s not considered someone involved with drugs, or gangs -- RL: No. JJ: -- or anything, but you never saw them do that? RL: No. But you know what, he did influence me in a positive way one time, because when I went to Holy Trinity, I was behind on credits, because again, I got D’s and F’s at Prosser. So I wasn’t gonna graduate on time. So I actually went to a counselor, and he signed me up for a fifth year of high school at Holy Trinity. And then for some reason, well, I was at my brother’s house one day, and I mentioned that to him. We were talking, and he mentioned how he went to colleges, he said, “Why don’t you go to college?” And that kinda surprised me, because nobody ever mentioned colle-- college was never in the picture for me, 62 �okay. I thought if I graduated from high school that was a big, big thing. And nobody ever mentioned it until he did, he said, “You should go to college.” And then [01:28:00] he backed it up by explaining why. He said, “You know what? I went to Berkeley, and Michigan, as a speaker, as a Young Lord.” ’Cause in those days, psychology and sociology were big things, and they’d invite some of the Young Lords to tour their college’s campus, and talk to the students, and stuff like that. So that kind of amazed me, ’cause first of all, I didn’t know anything about college, but second of all, I didn’t know he actually went to these major universities. JJ: I remember when he went to Berkeley, [I remember that?]. RL: Yeah, that kinda tripped me out, so that had a big effect on me. So what I did the next day, it was a Sunday, I was visiting with him at his house. I went to Holy Trinity, I told the counselor, I said, “You know what? I’m going to college. Whatever it is I gotta do to graduate this year, tell me, ’cause I’m not gonna do a fifth year of high school. So tell me what I gotta do.” So, he told me, “Well, take some correspondence courses.” Whatever -- this is what you had to do. And I [01:29:00] did, I took some correspondence courses besides my high school courses, and I was real busy, but I graduated. You know? And then I just, you know, ended up, of course, graduating from college and things like that, but yeah. It was because of him, because of that. Nobody ever said anything -- JJ: I remember, he traveled through the [whole coast?] of California, speaking at different -- RL: Oh, really? 63 �JJ: -- places, yeah, [I remember when?] he did that. RL: So, you know, so I helped his daughters, he had three daughters. All of ’em graduated from University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana. JJ: Lugos? Lugos? Okay. Good. RL: Yeah, uh-huh. And because -- JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) RL: Right, right, exactly. (laughter) So it was [funny?] because he inspired me, you know, I learned everything I learned about applying for school and everything on my own. And so, when the girls were getting to that age of applying for college, I would tell ’em, “Hey,” I was the one to [01:30:00] tell ’em exactly what to do. And they did, because they had a thirst for -- ’cause I could tell kids what to do, if they don’t listen, what good is it, right? I could give ’em the whatever, but if they won’t work it, you could lead ’em to water, if they don’t drink, then they’ll stay thirsty. But his girls, they listened to me, and they applied to -- I would tell ’em after their junior year, the summer of their junior year, you know, after the junior year, I said, “Right now’s the time you guys gotta apply for college. Get the application, start getting ready for those recommendation letters.” And I’d give ’em the process, because once they became seniors -- you know, ’cause I always feel like, you gotta be first in line, when you -- the applications are ready, they tell you, “Send your applications, admission application, beginning September through March.” Well, guess what, if you do it in March, the chances of you getting in are almost zero. But if you were part of the people that sent it in in September, you know, that’s a big [01:31:00] difference. So I told ’em, “You gotta get -- a ton of kids are 64 �gonna ask their teachers for recommendation letters, these teachers are gonna be busy, and they have a personal life, and they’re not gonna have time for 100 personal letters. Get your stuff ready, and do it immediately, and be first in line.” Sure enough, they all graduated, they all did what I told ’em and they did it. I told other siblings, you know, nephews and nieces, I tried to help them, they wouldn’t listen, so of course they didn’t go to college, or they didn’t go to graduate school, or whatever. You know? I try to help people as much as possible. I was on the admissions committee at University of Wisconsin Law School for minorities. And then, what it consisted of was, four law professors, and an African American, Spanish representative, and an American Indian representative. So we were on the committee for minority applicants. JJ: And this was in what city? RL: University of Wisconsin Law School, Madison. JJ: [01:32:00] In Madison, okay. RL: Right. As a law student, I was on the committee. And I brought in the most Latino law students ever. Based on the admission. Why? Because I was proactive. I see their qualifications, we’d vote on it, but more -- that’s one thing, you could send an admission letter, they may not come, they may go elsewhere. But I get on the phone, and I call these people and say, “Hey, you know, I’m soand-so, Ricardo Lugo, I’m at the law school and I saw your application, we would love for you to come visit, we’d love for you to come here.” Or something to sell these students to come here. I’d represent the Latino students, so that’s why I would call, and the African American guy or girl would call the African American 65 �applicants, you know. So I recruited -- and the ones that actually came, we had the highest -- the largest Hispanic law student class, first-year law students, was when -- because of my efforts. You know. ’Cause, you know, I just want everybody to [01:33:00] have that opportunity. I mean, it’s a great school, it’s, whatever it takes. I even had -- one friend of mine in particular, he’s here in Chicago, he went to University of Chicago undergrad, [Morrison the Mejicano?]. I called him, I said, “Hey, come visit, and you can even have my apartment. Come for the weekend, you can have my apartment, I can stay somewhere else, but that way you have a place to stay.” Sure enough, he came to visit, and he’s still a good friend of mine now. The other day I saw him, a couple weeks ago, he said, “You know, I might run for judge myself.” We were just talking. So I like to back up what I say. I don’t like to just talk to talk, you know, I like to back it up. You know, and hopefully if I’m around a group of young people, I tell you, “Hey, I would love to talk to your kids.” I was at a LULAC convention in Puerto Rico, and a woman that worked with the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, a Latina, happened to be from my same town, you know, Yauco, Puerto Rico. She said, “You know what, I’m the diversity [01:34:00] coordinator at the -- on the Air Force base, would you come and speak to us during Hispanic Heritage Month?” I’m like, “Sure, I love doing that stuff.” So then a few months later, she called me and told me, “Hey, yeah, remember we talked? Why don’t you come down?” And she said, “How much do you charge?” And I said, “Nothing.” You know, I enjoy doing that. You know, I don’t charge to talk. And sure enough, I went down there and it was in -- it’s in Dayton, Ohio. And, yeah, so I flew into 66 �Columbus, Ohio, rented a car, went over there and slept on base. They had their own hotel. They gave me -- put up the room and stuff. But yeah, you know, again, I just enjoy doing it. People helped me, so I don’t see any reason why we can’t help each other. The payback is the positive, you know, the seed you may plant in somebody. But it’s up to them to put some water or knowledge, whatever. JJ: So there’s [01:35:00] some elections coming up, are you -- the mayoral thing is [not?] coming up soon, right? (laughter) RL: I’m not -- yeah, I gotta -- I’m working with the party, Democratic Party, to try to get into their good graces. In other words, to have them help me, slate me, you know, in becoming a judge, or becoming an alderman, or whatever, down the road. That’s where I’m at. ’Cause they saw that I did a good job, and they were, I’m sure, surprised, at what I did. But at the same time, impressed with what I did. So, we’ll see. I mean, I was going to senior citizen homes, I was all over the map. Yeah. It was busy, it was nonstop, I -- JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) Busy, yeah. Busy work. RL: I think I put three years of work into six months, man. (laughter) ’Cause I have my job, I have my son, I have the streets, the work, the streets, get that vote. I had to do what I had to do. [01:36:00] So. JJ: Final, final thoughts? RL: That was my final thought, but, yeah. (laughs) JJ: I appreciate it. I appreciate it, Ricardo. RL: Gracias. 67 �JJ: Gracias. END OF VIDEO FILE 68 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c77194b48c57d8669598dcde8bc1b223.mp4 6283a3db050a30ca1656f7be998c961e 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 Lugo vídeo entrevista y biografía Descripción Spanish language Description entry La historia oral de Ricardo Lugo, entrevistado por Jose 'Cha-Cha' Jimenez el 12/14/2012 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_Lugo_Ricardo Title A name given to the resource Ricardo Lugo video interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lugo, Ricardo Description An account of the resource Oral history of Ricardo Lugo, interviewed by Jose 'Cha-Cha' Jimenez, on 12/14/2012 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 2012-12-14 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/fa921b9e57dc68e9605a1f3bc8e11196.pdf e801f1023562e3d18d28ae971964a140 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Felipe Luciano Interviewer: Jose Jimenez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 3/15/2013 Runtime: 01:13:52 Biography and Description Oral history of Felipe Luciano, interviewed by Jose “Cha-Cha” Jimenez on March 15, 2013 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 FELIPE LUCIANO: Okay. My name is Felipe Luciano. I was born in the old Metropolitan Hospital on Welfare Island. It’s now called Roosevelt Island. I was born on November 24th, 1947, two years after the big war. I was born in East Harlem. That’s where we came to, my mother and father, after I was born. And we were a barrio family. JOSE JIMENEZ: FL: Where did you come from? My family comes from Puerto Rico. My mother was born here, so she’s part of that generation we call the pioneros. They were the first Puerto Ricans here, born here. JJ: What’s her name? FL: Her name is Aurora Luciano, my mother’s name. She’s passed two years ago. JJ: Your mom? FL: It still hurts to even think about it. My father was born in Puerta de Tierra, Puerto Rico, which is in San Juan. His father’s from Camuy, Puerto Rico. My maternal grandmother comes from [00:01:00] Cataño, Puerto Rico, which is primarily a Black area. And I’ll start with my grandmother. My grandmother, fleeing Puerto Rico’s poverty and the lack of real jobs for single women, left three of her kids. She had three kids from two gentlemen in Puerto Rico. One was Haitian. She had two with the Haitian, and in those days, by the way, Caribbean people traveled from island to island, and I owe a great deal of gratitude, we all do, to the Haitians because it was the Haitians who made revolution a reality. After 1 �they had their revolution with Toussaint Louverture and Dessalines, they traveled to the other islands, like Puerto Rico, advocating that slaves overthrow their Spanish slave masters. And there were laws [00:02:00] that stated emphatically that they should be killed onsite. But it was Haitians who literally fomented revolution and rebellion in Puerto Rico against the slave masters. My grandmother, having already separated from two of the gentlemen that she had three kids with, decided that her best bet was to come to New York, so she gets on a steamer. In those days, they had re-converted cargo freighters. One of them was called a Marine Tiger. In fact, it was that name, the Marine Tiger, that became a pejorative among Puerto Ricans here in New York because if we called you a marine tiger, it means you came on a ship. And many of them were cane cutters. Some of them were urban people, but most of us come from agricultural families, country folk. Interestingly enough, my father’s mother -- so I’ve dealt with my mother’s mother, Margo, Black, [00:03:00] African, always proud of her African past, had horrible memories of the Spaniards. Her mother, Rosa, went to Spain with a family, and she served as their nanny, and the experiences that she related to my grandmother, who then related it to my mother, who then related it to me, were traumatizing. They were horrible, the way they treated her, the disrespect, the humiliation she had to go through. When she came back, she said, “You can’t trust any of these Spaniards, any of them.” JJ: What do you mean? How did they treat her? 2 �FL: They beat her. They mistreated her. They spoke to her in ways that were inhumane and that were less than civil. By the time she got back to Puerto Rico, she never did it again. She said she would never work for them again. My grandmother tells me that during the time of the invasion, before the invasion, the Spanish troops would come through towns and just rape women whenever they wanted to. [00:04:00] And she said, “You can’t trust a Catalano,” because many of the soldiers from Spain were from Catalan, at least where she was. And she never, ever saw -- JJ: And she was in Cataño? FL: She was in Cataño. And of course, she traveled around also, but she told me that she could never trust a Spaniard again, so my family was versed and immersed in Blackness and Négritude, sometimes negatively. Sometimes they were Black through negativity. That is, “We’re Black, and therefore we’re not this, and we’re not that.” My grandmother with me though, that is, my mother’s mother, having seen what negativity could do the mind of a young man, she always promoted Blackness in me. (Spanish) [00:04:52 - 00:04:58] around her head. She used a bandana [00:05:00] around her head. She used to cook with wood. She would actually put her hand in the fire and take the wood out. She was an incredible woman, and she used to -- the earliest memories I have, the first 10 years of my life, is of her tracing the lines of my nose, the lines of my eyebrows, my lips, and saying, “What a beautiful child you are.” I mean, she would marvel. She would coo at me, so I remember that throughout 10 years, I would lie on her lap, and she would coo. And she used to call me (Spanish) 3 �[00:05:25]. And she used to sing, (sings in Spanish) [00:05:29 - 00:05:38]. And then she would say, “Ay, que frio. Ay, que frio.” And it was a contradiction because she was saying it was hot, but he would say that it was cold so that he could eat it. So, I’d go put all of these Africanisms, (sings in Spanish) [00:05:53 00:06:00]. You would say that to the babies. So, I grew up with this tremendous, tremendous pride in being Black, but I never grew up feeling that Black was ugly or that it was inferior. I grew up, long before James Brown said it, that Black was the most beautiful thing there was. And so, my grandmother would take my nappy hair, and she would put little mounds. She would make little [monitos?], we call it. And I grew up with a tremendous sense of beauty. As I grew older, I realized that many of my African American friends and even some Puerto Ricans had not been brought up in that meilleur. And so, I had many fist fights because they would say, “You know, well, we’re ugly. We’re ashy. We’re this. We’re that.” And I said, “No, man, I’m pretty.” And they would ask me, “Well, who told you pretty?” I said, “My grandmother did. She says I’m a pretty negro.” And they would say, “Well, your grandmother’s lying,” and [00:07:00] to tell me my grandmother was lying was an instant ass-whooping, so I definitely got into some fights over that when I was a kid. So, I never had a problem with my nose, my lips, my hair, my ashiness, never had a problem with that. El Barrio at that time -oh. JJ: You’re talking about -- FL: It was a Black Puerto Rican community. Now I’m going back to my father’s family. Now, my father’s family was an interesting mix. My father’s family were 4 �all revolutionaries. My grandmother, Rosa, another Rosa, was one of the first followers of Albizu Campos. She escaped the masacre de Ponce in 1937. She was one of the few who got away. From what my father tells me, she -JJ: What was her name? FL: Her name was Rosa. JJ: Rosa. FL: Rosa Luciano. Rosa, Rosa, what was her last name? Alvarez is my family name on that side. [00:08:00] And when my father described it to me, he didn’t see any -- she died when he was 13. She had to sell her body from time to time to make money because that’s the way it was in Puerto Rico in her barrio of her class. She couldn’t make money, so she did that. My father was confronted with that several years later by some friends, some people who knew his mother, and he said he almost knocked the guy out, but in fact, it was true. My family’s always been street on that side of it. Her brother, Carmelo, ended up in the same nationalist party with Albizu and spent 10 years in Atlanta Penitentiary as a body guard for Albizu Campos. He stayed with him. His name is Carmelo Alvarez. I looked it up, and he’s there. My father from Vega Baja came to San Juan, stayed with his father, and it was traumatic for him because his father was not used to taking care of a kid. He went through a rough time, never quite learned [00:09:00] what the meaning of family was. Told me that he -- and I realized this as I got older, that he never really experienced what having a family was, certainly having a woman around, and that hurt him later on. So, now you have my paternal grandfather from Camuy, my maternal grandfather from Arecibo, and 5 �then they all come here. My grandmother comes on a boat and lands in Brooklyn, in Williamsburg, because in those days, the first Puerto Rican community was Williamsburg, Brooklyn. They were citizens already in 1917, so those who came, they came on these huge freighters, and they would drop some off in Ellis Island, and the rest would come to Williamsburg because that’s the way you did it. They were already citizens by 1917, the Jones Act. My grandmother came with a little piece of paper, and she looked for her friend or [00:10:00]a friend or a contact, found one, ended up on Front Street in Brooklyn. The building still stands to this day on Front Street. Before my mother died, we took her there, and she -JJ: Is this Williamsburg? No? FL: Williamsburg, yeah. And she, my mother, was so happy to see that building. She said, “That’s where I grew up. That’s where I was raised.” Her father, my grandfather, my maternal grandfather, was named Phillip, and he worked for the mob. And what he did is he did bathtub gin, and they say, this is just a legend, he was the best at it. I think historically, if we look at it culturally, Sicilians were the closest to Puerto Ricans because the language is very much the same. They look like us. They were dark, have curly hair, the works. And since they were in charge of the streets, the only way you could make money if you didn’t speak English and you didn’t have a job was to do the street thing, and so it would be like selling drugs [00:11:00] today, because it was illegal. Tell you a little story. He’s a very standup guy, from what I hear. His character was intact, very rigid, but he had integrity. I was doing a story one time as a reporter, and I had to do a 6 �story on a so-called mob infiltration of the South Street Seaport, which is where they handle the fish and distribute the fish in the city. I couldn’t get headways. The former Mayor Giuliani was asking them to move to the Bronx. They wanted them to relocate, and he was going to investigate them. There were loads of records in a huge warehouse. Those records suddenly spontaneously caught fire, and of course nobody could be indicted because all the records were gone. I’m trying to do a story on this fire, and I couldn’t get headway. And I’m up at six in the morning because I had to do three live shots for Good Day New York. And the six-o’clock [00:12:00] didn’t go so well. The seven-o’clock didn’t go so well. I had one more, the eight-o’clock. Our show ended at nine. And I get a nudge in the back from a young Italian kid with a grappling hook the longshoremen use, and he goes like this. And I figure, uh-oh, we’re in for some trouble.” And he says, “Is your name Felipo?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “My grandfather’s watching you on live TV. He can’t believe that you’re the grandson of Phillip Luciano. You’re the grandson, right?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “He told me to tell you your grandfather was a standup guy.” And he turns around to the guys, and he says, “Whatever he needs, you give him whatever, within reason.” (laughs) So, I got a great story about working-class Italian men and their trials and tribulations. It was a great story. But that’s how my grandfather was viewed by the boys of The Family, as we say in East Harlem. [00:13:00] Well, needless to say, we stayed with Italians mostly. We still have very good relationships with Italian Americans, with Sicilians in particular. And as they moved, we moved. So, Williamsburg got a little tough. We couldn’t afford the rent, according to my mother, so they 7 �moved. My father and my grandfather died, and they were poor. They were broke, so they went where the rents were cheap, and in East Harlem at that time, you could live for three months free because landlords were offering it because they wanted people -- the buildings -- it hadn’t been populated yet by Puerto Ricans. The Italians were slowly leaving. So, since Sicilians were going there and the Irish and the Jewish Americans and some of the Scandinavians, believe it or not, East Harlem used to be a very heavy Scandinavian neighborhood, left, Irish too. My grandmother decided to go to one of these apartments in there. She went, and we followed the Italians there. The earliest memories I have of East Harlem [00:14:00] are both wonderful and horrific, wonderful in that my grandmother, I had my mother, my grandmother. I remember my father, my aunts, and uncles who were just incredible. Each one of them had a personality. Each one of them was a character. So, it was wonderful, in that I felt totally, totally loved. I would get up in the morning, and I would smell the coffee grinds. I would smell the way made coffee in El Barrio. I would hear the music. We played trio music in those days. The Mexican trios were, and still are, considered sacred music to Puerto Ricans, Trio Los Panchos, Trio Los Astros, Ases, [con?] Marco Antonio Muñiz Muñiz, Vegabajeño, Trio Borinquen, all of those old things. And even then, I loved it. Later on, I didn’t want to get close to it because I thought it was hinky music. Now I have all, the entire collection of Trio Los Panchos. And I remember the familiarity, the family [00:15:00] atmosphere was just so much fun being in East Harlem. You always had a loving shoulder, a loving embrace. The men watched out for their kids. Families were together. 8 �There was a work ethic that was beyond description. I remember getting up every morning. When I got up early to go to school, men were going to work. They were going to the factories. Women were going to the factories, in the ’30s, between Sixth and Eighth Avenue, the textile factories. So, I never saw laziness. I never saw what they call poverty or victim behavior. Men stood up for their families. There were house parties. The music was fabulous. I grew up in the ’50s, so I remember Machito and his Afro-Cubans, who lived on 111th Street, and in fact, spans three generations. Before he died, he used to say, “I knew your grandmother; I knew your father, and now I know you.” And he knew my kids. It’s four generations of people that he knew. I grew up with Tito [00:16:00] Puente. I grew up with Tito Rodriguez. JJ: They were in your neighborhood? FL: No, no, Tito was from 110th Street, but he had already left, but Machito was still there. Tito Rodriguez was in Puerto Rico at the time. I loved it. So, A, I grew up with a tremendous sense of Négritude in being an Afro-Boricua. B, I grew up with a really refined ear because while my mother loved Latin music, my father loved jazz, so Billy Eckstine, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Gerald Wilson, Stan Kenton, Basie, Ellington were part of my -- Jimmy Smith, the big baritone horns, Gigi Gryce and Sonny Stitt, these guys were part of my background. Sonny Rollins and the others come later. Coltrane comes later. But that was it, Dizzy Gillespie, Chano Pozo. [00:17:00] In the ’50s, we also had, in the early ’60s, we had Johnny Pacheco with the pachanga. It was just -- Kako, Cortijo y su Combo. It was a tremendous time to be alive in El Barrio. And I don’t remember anything 9 �but love in that matrix. The one horrifying moment for me, traumatizing, is my father left. And I remember exactly when it happened. My mother had caught him with someone else. In those days, men strayed. It was part of the culture, almost institutionalized. You had your wife, and then you had your thing on the side. The difference was, is that my father pushed past the envelope. He had actually come into the community, and he was with her in the community, and people of course came and told my mother. And I remember my mother holding onto my arm and screaming at this woman -- she was a Jamaican woman -screaming at her, calling her -- I couldn’t believe it. My mother was Pentecostal and was holy, and the words that came out of my mother’s mouth. Well, after that, I knew it was over, and [00:18:00] I remember him coming in on an afternoon. It was an afternoon, a Saturday afternoon, and she had my had, and she said, “You’re not gonna come up these stairs. I don’t want you back in this house.” And I knew immediately it was over. I just knew. I knew we were in for a rough time. We were already going through rough times, but I didn’t really notice it because I had a mom and a dad. And I remember when, after they had made love, of course she never wanted this to happen, but I would run into the room because the air was full of love. And I don't know why people deny children the ability to be with them in intimate moments. I loved it. I don’t mean to be with them when they’re doing their thing, but I mean, it was just a lovely feeling. It was like star particles in the air, and I would jump in between my mother and my father, and I would just be in between them. And I couldn’t -- there was nothing -it was heaven, between my mom’s breasts and my father’s cross. He used to 10 �have a big cross. He was a boxer, so he’s pretty well defined, regular-looking guy. My father [00:19:00] always had this sense that I could do things. He never felt that I couldn’t, and I remember even at two, he would bring me a to Highbridge Pool, not too far from where we’re recording this, and he had taught me how to swim a little bit, and so I had to go from the middle of the pool, which is about 25 yards, to the end. And the first time, I choked. The second time, I choked. And then I told him, “Leave me alone, daddy. Leave me alone. Let me do it.” And I don't know how I got to the end, but I did, and he and I both congratulated each other, “Yeah, we did it!” And I didn’t need him to hold me under my stomach. My mother was more protective. I realized later on, my mother was never meant to be alone. She loved him dearly and continued to love him. She never went out with another man. I don’t understand this, but this is a breed of Puerto Rican women that was for one man only, and that was it. From what I hear and what she told me, [00:20:00] she really adored him, and he broke her heart. And she said that on that day, I was on the second-floor landing of the Johnson projects when she told him to leave. She said, “I was waiting for him to go up the stairs and push me out of the way and say, ‘This is my house. These are my kids. You are my woman.’” And she was sad that he didn’t. He was a strong guy. He wouldn’t take too much guff from anybody, but he wasn’t strong enough to do that. JJ: Can we get his name? FL: Jose Luciano. He’s now passed. It was traumatizing for me because I really needed my dad. It was a difficult time. And I knew when my mother was crying, 11 �tears were coming down her eyes, she, “I don’t want you to come up here.” And all he needed to do was, “Hey, it’s my house.” She said she wished that he could do that. She told me later that the reason she admired and respected me -- can you imagine a mother telling you this -- is because I would do stuff like that. I would say, [00:21:00] “I don’t care, mom. You could say what you wanna say. This is what I’m gonna do.” And I’d gently move her out of the way and do what I had to do. She said that’s what she admired most in me, my honesty, and I would never lie to her, whether I stabbed somebody. Whether I was high on drugs, whether I was in a gang fight, whether I had a woman in my room, two women in my room, whatever it was, I would tell her, “Mommy, this is what I’m doing, and this is what I’m happening.” So, my mother and I had a very tight relationship. She was 21 when she had me, so we grew up together basically. The beginning of the end was when he left, and I remember it because my mother lost a lot of confidence. We had to go on welfare. It was difficult. And I began to see what institutionalization can do and how an institution like welfare can destroy a spirit. We always had to struggle for clothes. We always had to struggle for food. I don't remember struggling before my father left. I was three when my father left, [00:22:00] but I remember before that, always eating. After that, eating was optional. Sometimes you had food, and sometimes you didn’t, and it was difficult for my mother. My mother was Pentecostal, so that helped her ease the pain. Evangelistic fervor helped her out, but it was a very repressive Pentecostalism. Women were not supposed to wear earrings, not supposed to wear pants. You couldn’t sit alongside men, very difficult situation for me. I don’t 12 �remember not being interested in sex. I don’t know this period that guys, little guys are supposed to have where they’re not interested. I was always interested in women, always. They were fascinating to me. And since I was always nurtured and loved by them, I became a bit spoiled. My grandmother thought I could do anything, and that, in the end, helped me tremendously, the love that she gave me. And my mother, even though I got whoopings, and I mean [00:23:00] I don't know how other cultures -- I know how other cultures handle punishment. Black folks, Southern in particular, will tell the child, “Go out and take a twig off the tree,” and hit you with the twig. Puerto Ricans are Spanish inquisitors. Theirs is torture. Theirs is you kneel down on a grate, on, you know, the grater you use for the cheese or on rice, and they beat you while you hold the Bible in your hands. It’s some sick stuff. My mother would make me smell the belt. She would say (Spanish) [00:23:32]. She would make me -- (Spanish) [00:23:35]. But before she would do that, she would say, “Take a bath,” because it hurts more on a wet body. I used to tell her, “Mommy, if there were child abuse laws, you’d be under the jail.” So, I got beaten a lot because I always rebelled. I was the oldest child. My mother had two more with my -- my brother and my sister, Margie and Paul, Paul and Margie. And I remember seeing the gangs, and that was where [00:24:00] -- I didn’t have a family. Remember, the family’s gone. I remember admiring these guys with club sweaters, with pompadours, mambo boots, tight pants, snap clothes, collars with thin, skinny ties, and how they protected us and how they seemed to be afraid of nobody. I remember admiring them even then. 13 �JJ: How old were you then? FL: Seven, eight. By the time I was nine or 10, I already knew what time it was. We played with the pump. We knew when to run when the cops came. It was already us and them. We already knew that we were poor. We already knew that cops were not our friends. JJ: This is in Harlem? FL: This is in East Harlem, in El Barrio. My mother made a conscious decision never to deny love, meaning that if -- in those days, Puerto Ricans [00:25:00] were very, very anti-Black. They moved away from anything that would suggest that they were Black or that they acted like Blacks, like American Blacks. My mother did just the opposite. My mother developed some very good friends in the Johnson project, Lorraine Mims, Marion, and she never allowed us to ever think that we were something other than we were. We were Puerto Ricans, and we were Black, not “but” we were Black, “and” we were Black. That was a wonderful thing. Now, the Puerto Rican community at that time would kinda look at her a little differently because she could easily move from talking with her Black friends from Charleston, South Carolina, and then going to speaking to some people from Ponce. She did it effortlessly. I do it to this day. I don’t even know when I’m moving from Spanish to English, from Black English to -- it is effortless for me. It’s the way I was raised. And by the way, I had many Black friends who were raised the same way. My babysitters [00:26:00] after my grandmother moved to California, my babysitters were all Southern Black women who taught me a lot about God, the God of the evangelical Black Southern tradition, and who 14 �gave me a sense of beauty and awe about God. Long story short, my grandmother decides one day -- I’m in the third grade now. My grandmother decides she wants to go to California. She’s tired of the affairs and all of the madness that her sons and daughters are putting her through. She goes to California with her youngest son Phillip. And she says she wants to take me with her. Now, there is a little-known law among Puerto Ricans that the grandmother has the right to take one child, even if you have a mother and father, but particularly if you have no man in your life, the grandmother has the right to take one. Now, in my grandmother’s case, I had an older cousin, but she liked me a lot because she was closer to my mother, [00:27:00] and she adopted me in a sense. So, she said, “And I’m taking Phillip with me,” and so me, my brother, my sister went, ended up in Wilmington, California, and I loved it. Even then, I had wanderlust. Even then, we traveled across the country for five days in a big, beautiful Cadillac, and I was in love. I saw Arizona. I saw deserts. I saw the wheat fields of Kansas. I mean, we went through the entire length of the United States. And we ended up in Wilmington, California, which I love. And for the first time, I was oil wells and palominos, Mexicans and Japanese, sun all the time. It was just a lovely time. I was in the fourth grade. We couldn’t make it, and we had to come back to New York. I was heartbroken. I tried to run away. I wanted to stay with my grandmother, and I definitely wanted to stay in California. Little did I know that my mother felt completely lost without me, she told me later. And I was the oldest boy, a little bright, [00:28:00] very, very precocious, so I had to go back with her. I was very annoyed that my mother wouldn’t let me go. I kept on 15 �saying, “Mommy, you don’t need me.” She said, “No, you don’t need me, but I need you.” And that was a strange set of circumstances. We come back to New York, and we ended up in the Foster projects with my aunt, which is Black and Puerto Rican area. And I started to learn how to fight. I never had to. Now, because I was in an area that was predominantly African American, it was a very different feel, though I was totally at home. We used to fight with our pinkies out like this, and it was guys like Cece and Big Ben and Junebug and Irving and all these cats who taught me to fight with my hands, chin in and my hands up. So, I learned how to fight, and boy -JJ: So, there was no conflict? So, it was just like playing fight? FL: No, yeah, it was playing, and we’d call ‘em champ battles, [00:29:00] but they were preludes to real fights. And the first real fight I had was in the sixth grade, I think. I had some minor scuffles, but the first one was John, over a girl, and he knocked me down, and I fell out. I acted like I was knocked out. Actually, I was too tired to continue fighting. And the guys from my building were watching me, and they say, “You’re never, ever gonna lose like this again.” So, they, for a year -- John Whitaker, his name was, by the way, a very smart brother, whose house I used to go to all the time. For a year, they would hit me suddenly, smack, so that I could always learn to block and block. It was fifth grade. By the time the sixth grade came, I challenged him to a fight outside and whipped him pretty bad, [00:30:00] due to the friends who taught me how to fight, how to block, and how simply not to be afraid. Puerto Ricans are traditionally very elegant, very noble people. They never wanted to confront. Black folk would confront, so I learned 16 �from them how to jump in your face and say, “Yeah, well, let me tell you something,” and not to listen to the words and the passion or the decibels of the scream. It meant nothing. Knock this boy out, and that was it. Harlem in those days, remember, I was much more at home. I remember the Muslims coming to 116th Street, the FOI, the Pompadours. (sneezes) Excuse me. It was a wonderful time to be alive. So, I learned another part of the side. Remember, I have the Puerto Rican side. Now I’m deeply immersed in African American. I remember Sweet Daddy Grace, I remember, who was a mystic or an itinerant preacher. And we had a Dominican gentleman, Black Dominican gentleman in the church that I grew up in, which is the first [00:31:00] Black Puerto Rican church, called Templo [Betel?], that new Billie Holiday, so he was swing. I mean, so I ended up with all of these influences, everything, Sam Cooke, Little Willie John, Johnny Ace, Tito Puente, Johnny Pacheco, Machito, I mean, all of it, and I’m just a sponge. Cracktop, we used to play tops, and skelly and ringalario and Johnny on a pony and all that stuff. Well, that had to end, so my mother decided that she had apply -- we were living with my aunt, and we decided to go to Brownsville. So, we go to Brownsville, and that’s when the gang situation came in. Now, I’m leaving Harlem and East Harlem, familial, close, everybody’s family, knew one another, and I go to Brooklyn. Brooklyn was warrior city. JJ: Why was it warrior city? FL: Brownsville, Brownsville. Because everything in Brooklyn was based on your pecking order, everything, whether you got lunch, whether your sister was going 17 �to be protected, [00:32:00] whether your family. Everything was based on whether you could fight and who you could hurt, and in Brownsville -JJ: Was it always like that? FL: Brownsville has always been like that. I don't know what -- Brownsville is where Murder, Incorporated started, so it’s been like that since Jews and Italians were there. There is something about Brownsville that nurtures crime, that nurtures warrior, that nurtures fighting. I tell people all the time, if you think that Harlem is rough, now you think Black folks from Harlem, try Brownsville. Brownsville is serious. They like that. They fight in the wintertime. I couldn’t stand fighting in the wintertime. My hands were too cold. But their thing was, “Throw your hands up, baby. We’re going at it, and we’ll shoot you to the cross.” So, Brownsville gave me a whole ‘nother patina as a warrior. I hated it. I was inferior a lot of the times, but I had a brother and a sister, and I had to protect them. So, I joined a group called the Frenchmen, and the reason I joined the group is my cousin came to me from Canarsie with a beautiful coat, and we were walking to his house, [00:33:00] and a guy put a knife to his neck. And I saw it almost puncturing his skin, and I ran to get my cousin. I say, “Hey, man, you’re gonna hurt him.” And the other, his friend, put a knife to my throat. I was not scared. For some reason, I was not scared. In my mind, I said, “I hope he kills me, because if he doesn’t, I will hunt this brother down.” I never saw them again, so they must’ve been from another community. They took his coat. After that, I said, “I’ll never let this happen again,” and I joined a gang called the Frenchmen, and I never looked back. I became a gangbanger, and I mean to the best to the 18 �best of my ability, we robbed pigeons. We beat up people, and I just -- all of the anger, all of the frustration in me was translated in gang activity. My mother knew something was wrong but not quite sure. We would walk. People would tell her, “Your son is in that gang, and I’ve seen him beating up people and him fighting all the time.” I said, “Mommy, that’s not true.” I lied. I never lied to my mother. One day, she said, “Something [00:34:00] is wrong here because every time we walk up to Livonia, we walk up to Blake or Sutter, you kinda hug me close,” because we’re walking into enemy territory. In those days, they didn’t hit your mother, so they left me alone. I said, “Ma, yeah, I’m in a gang. I’m in a gang. I have to do it to protect myself,” and so she knew that something was wrong. Simultaneously, I’m also very bright, didn’t know how bright I was. I had a teacher named Ethel Shapiro who literally saved my life. She saw that I was in a gang, saw that I was antisocial, saw that I was constantly moving into destructive behavior, and started nurturing me, and I mean nurturing me. Ethel Shapiro taught me the beauty of the English language. She also taught me Yiddish, taught me Jewish history. I became a Judaism freak. I mean, I learned everything about Judaism there was. She taught me the Shema prayer, “Here, O Israel, the Lord thy God is One. Shema yisrael Adonai eloheinu Adonai echad.” I’ll never forget it. She taught me Yiddish. She taught me how to eat sable. [00:35:00] She taught me how to eat whitefish. She taught me. I mean, she literally raised me as if I were her son. She would take me in the back and go through Torah with me, and the mitzvahs, and I learned words like meshuggeneh. She would say, “He’s meshuggeneh.” And I’d say, “What does that mean?” “It means he’s crazy.” I grew up, I had the 19 �best rabbinical education in the world. I ended up becoming very good friends with the Orthodox on Eastern Parkway, the Lubavitch, and I still have great friends there after all these years. I was a [jitterbug?], but I would go up there to see them. Can you imagine that sort of juxtaposition? Miss Shapiro gave me a sense of the possible, and so I learned that I had a brain, and I learned I could write, and she loved me into that. My mother was starting to get very scared. In fact, Miss Shapiro used to accompany me home all the time. My mother knew something was wrong. Miss Shapiro would hold my hand. I said, “Ethel don’t make me hold your hand. These are all Black men watching me.” She said, “So, you’re afraid of a white lady [00:36:00] holding your hand?” And sure enough, she’d walk me through the things after we did afterschool work. And my mother, fearing for my life, took me to California again. This time, we went to LA, and we lived in East LA, which was all Mexican at that time and all gang ridden. I loved it. I loved it because I was a novelty. Here was a Black guy who spoke Spanish and felt totally at home with Mexicans, totally. I had one fight. Of course, you have to have one fight to find who you are in school, went to Hollenbeck Junior High School, and became vice president of the second-largest school in LA in three months. Now, it’s difficult to explain this, but LA is so huge, that if you’re the second largest, it’s like a second city. It’s like a city. JJ: What was the name? FL: Hollenbeck Junior High. Ken Naganishi was president. The only reason he became president, I really got more votes than him, is because I hadn’t taken a civics course, or else I would’ve become president of the school. So, [00:37:00] 20 �here I am again in paradise. My antisocial behavior, my gang activity, I just dropped it like a bad habit, and I was proud. The gangs in the neighborhood in Aliso Village came to me to join, and I said, “I can’t join.” I said, “I’m not going to join, and I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do. If you guys are ever in real trouble, you can call on me, but for now I can’t because I just came from gangs. It would break my mother’s heart. Just do me a favor. Protect my family. You protect my family and leave my family alone, and I will always be there in extreme situations.” They said okay. I was doing well, shotput, junior shotput. I was running the full 40. They were already thinking of UCLA for me, even in junior high school. They said, “This kid is smart. He’s good.” I was going to go to Roosevelt High, but they wanted me to go to another school because Roosevelt was so gang ridden, blah, blah, blah. Went out with a Japanese girl, Ruth. I was in love. I just was happy. My mother couldn’t make it. Here was the turning point. I had told the guys that they had to protect my family. My cousin, who had been in a gang in Brooklyn, was sent to California. He was still into the gangbanging thing. And he went out with a girl who he was told not to go out with. Now, the way gangs work is there’s certain laws that you have to follow, and if a guy tells you, “Don’t mess with my girl,” you don’t mess with his girl. But he did because he thought he was a tough guy. He’s from New York, and he had an arrogant attitude, and they came up to me, Sparky, I’ll never forget, and said, “Your cousin is going out with my girl, man. I don’t like it, man. Please tell him to stop.” I said, “I’ll tell him, but don’t hurt him.” He said, “Okay, but you gotta tell him.” So, I go up to Jose, and I told him, “You can’t fool around with this girl. I 21 �mean, it’s not good for us. I mean, we’re under the aegis of this gang, and you’re --” “Oh, man, these punks ain’t gonna do it. They’re just California hicks.” Well, [00:39:00] they caught him one day, and they put a hatchet through the window. They almost killed him, and they came running to me. “Your cousin, they’re gonna kill your cousin.” I ran to the backyard. We had backyards in California, two-story houses for projects, if you can believe it. You had your own little house. And I said, “Sparky, you said you were not gonna hurt my cousin.” He said, “I told him, and I told you to tell him.” I said, “But that’s my cousin.” He said, “You told me to protect your brother and sister. That’s your cousin.” I said, “It’s still my family, man. That’s how Puerto Ricans roll. This is all family.” He said, “I don’t care. I’m not Puerto Rican.” And I hit him, bang. The whole group jumped on me. I just got one shot, but I caught him flush, and we were rolling. I put my arms under his armpits, and they were hitting me into him because I put my neck under his chest. And it was real bad. Now, they were trying to hit me with the hatchet, the same hatchet they tried to kill my cousin with. Everybody ran out. My mother ran out. My aunt ran out. Both of them fainted, speaking tongues, all that stuff. My little old grandmother [00:40:00] came out, four foot, I don't know, it was five-foot-one? I don’t know how she separated us. She was talking to Sparky in Spanish, and Sparky was saying, “Yes, ma’am. Yes, ma’am.” I’ll always remember his respect for her, “Yes, ma’am. Yes, ma’am.” But he started him, and she, (Spanish) [00:40:16]. And she was talking to us like that. He said, “Yes, ma’am. Yes, ma’am.” And when she separated a little more, I hit him again, bing, and then she turn around and smacked me. And he liked that 22 �because she was being fair. Then she invited us all in for Kool-Aid, and that was the end of that gang fight. We resolved it. But my grandma said, “I can’t have you guys here,” and she sent us back to New York, sent my mother too. I knew that it was time lights out for me, and I told my mother. I said, “Ma, if we go back to New York, I’m not gonna make it. I’m gonna be back in the gang, and I know it. I can feel it in my bones.” But we came back to New York, and within two years -- I was 14 -- by 16, I was in for murder. Somebody had [00:41:00] messed with my brother, a gang in Bushwick. We had moved to Bushwick, a hovel of a one-bedroom, rats. Oh, it was horrible. Bushwick was, oof. We lived on Granite Street. I met some good friends there, friends I still have, but it was a very difficult situation for me. JJ: You’re wanted for murder. Where did you go to? FL: We hurt this guy, and one of my friends stabbed him. I was the ringleader, so we all went up. I went to Elmira, and then I went to Coxsackie, which is, again, gladiator school, and did two years there, came out, miraculously. And when I came out, I was 18. Some teacher took some [HARYOU act?], sort of [antibody?] program, took a test at me, looked at my marks, and said, “This kid is smart,” and sent me to Queens College. There was a program for ex-cons there, because no other college would take me. CCNY rejected me. Brooklyn rejected me. But Queens College, way out in the sticks, I thought, Kissena Boulevard in Flushing, NY. I went there, [00:42:00] and I became one of the five cons who was in the program. All of us did well, by the way. And I didn’t know this, but I had a propensity for scholarship. I did very well. The first semester, I got an A- 23 �plus in philosophy, in fact, an elective course called Aesthetics run by a guy named John McDermott. Math was hard. I had to take physics for physics majors. I got a D-plus in that, and I was so happy I just got a D-plus. At least I passed. I did well. But I met a guy named Saul Resnick, who was a socialist, and he began to teach me about revolution. And after I read about the French Revolution, after I read about -- what was it -- The Federalist Papers, after I read about all of the major pamphleteers at the time, Franklin, Adams, Madison, the arguments, Rousseau, we were reading Marcuse. We were reading, I mean, just Mumford. I was involved in new thought. I was also reading Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton, Black Power. I started teaching courses. Even though I was still in school, I was teaching Black power courses. So, as soon as I come out, I’m in Queens College, I join a group of poets called The Last Poets, and I become the first Puerto Rican member of that group, and the last, and we start going across the country doing -- we were the spawners. We’re the godfathers of the hip-hop movement. I meet Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael, Field Marshall Donald Cox, Bobby Seale, James Forman. Rap Brown became my main (inaudible), best man at my first wedding, with Iris Morales. And [00:44:00] I was in. Now, eventually, the poetry led me into revolutionary activity. Puerto Ricans would come to The East Wing, which is the loft we had on 125th Street, and would keep on telling me, “Yes, you’re Black, but you’re Puerto Rican, and we need you here.” And I didn’t think Puerto Ricans were ready for armed struggle. I went through cultural nationalism with Amiri Baraka, who I still love and support and befriend to this day. We had a mutual defense pact. If they messed with his 24 �people, I would be there. If they messed with ours, he’d be there. He had a group called Committee for Unified Newark. Just imagine this now. Imagine the poetry. Imagine looking at Albert Ayler, Sun Ra, Leon Thomas, Pharoah Sanders, Nikki Giovanni, Barbara Ann Teer and the National Black Theatre. It was the most incredible time to be alive. At the same time, I was also listening to [00:45:00] Ginsburg down at the Nuyorican Poets Café. I would meet with him all the time. Ezra Pound lived on my block in the East Village. I was going out with different cultures, Ronni Brown, who was Jewish, who helped me run guns at that time, Joan Meinhardt, who was my teacher (laughs) at the time but who I loved dearly, who I left. JJ: What do you mean, “helped you run guns”? FL: Ronni, we needed -- Rap and I were building a cell. Rap was building a cell, and we needed guns. And we had to transport it from one place to another. Rap was never a racist, and he would say, “Well, if that’s your girlfriend, that’s your girlfriend, but we need a car.” And I sat with her, “Ronni, let me drive.” I said, “Let me drive.” I said, “Anything happens, I’ll say I stole it.” She said, “No. If anything’s gonna happen, I’m gonna drive the car because you can’t drive. You don’t have a license. I’ll drive it.” So, this little Jewish girl form Bayside, New York -- may she rest in peace; she died, and I loved her dearly, maybe didn’t show it as much as I should have, but I did -- [00:46:00] helped me transport the guns to Rap. Rap and I were part of an underground cell, along with Sam Melville, one of the finest bombers I’ve ever met, and a few other guys in that cell, and we did what we had to do. I never met a more brave warrior in my life, 25 �bar none, black, brown, white, yellow, polka-dot, red. Rap Brown was, and to me, still is, one of the finest warriors in America and taught me a lot and was the one who told me, “You got to go back into your own community.” And I said, “I’m not -- I’m here. I’m a Black Puerto Rican. I’m helping define cultural nationalism, revolutionary nationalism, socialism.” He said, “Felipe, your job here is done. You put the B in Black nationalism here on 125th Street, you, and Gylan Kain, and Amiri Baraka and Larry Neal and the Braith brothers,” the Braithwaites, I mean. We were doing tremendous jobs, organizing workshops, but he said, “Your job is [00:47:00] to go back to your community and work with it.” So, Mickey Meléndez, David Perez, Denise Oliver, Yoruba would come over, and I wasn’t part of the group yet, came over and got me, recruited me to start a group called La Sociedad de Albizu Campos, and we started there. JJ: What year was this? FL: This was late ’68. JJ: And where was that at? FL: Pardon me? JJ: Where did you start it? FL: Where did we start? JJ: Yeah. FL: In El Barrio. We would have meetings all the time. Little did they know that I had already started a group. I had been trying to work with Victor Hernández Cruz and another guy named George Rivera. I had already gone to Bobby Seale before I met these guys and tried to start a Puerto Rican group. I’d gone to 26 �Bobby and James Forman and a guy named Pennywell, if I’m not mistaken. And I said, “Bobby, I’d like to start --” Thank God, we got a meeting with him. I was in awe. He always very humble, very noble man, and he listened to me patiently. James Forman was looking at me with aspersion, looking at me like I was [00:48:00] not equal to him. Let me just put it to you that way. And he said, “What do you want to do?” I said, “We’re ready for armed struggle.” I had already bought my first rifle. I was ready. I can’t explain to you what it felt like at that time to see the destruction of a community in stages, just started crumbling right underneath you. The Barrio that I came back to after jail was not the Barrio that I had left, warm, familial, music, gangs that protected. This was a Barrio that was riddled with drugs, riddled with materialism, and everyone was looking out for themselves. Nobody was caring for families, older people, young people. I was in shock. I was traumatized, and I knew something had to happen. And I saw cops beating up dope fiends. It was horrible. Families were broken. Families that I knew had mothers and fathers suddenly were by themselves. The women were by themselves. So, I wanted to do something, and [00:49:00] I was caught up in the fact that King had died. King was killed. In fact, I left my teacher, Joan Meinhardt, because I couldn’t live with her. I just couldn’t. I just had to fight. I had to be as Black as I could, and she said, “You’re gonna get killed.” I remember leaving her house on Bank Street with her screaming in the background. It’s a hard image. Anyway, I went with Nikki, and I went with the other Young Lords, not Young Lords at the time, and we started cleaning up the streets. 27 �JJ: Before that, there was a couple other groups. Was it The Pickles or something? FL: Yeah, there was another group with Pickle. JJ: They were Young Lords too? FL: They were part of us. The original Young Lords was me, David Perez from Chicago, Pablo Guzmán, Juan Gonzalez, and Fi Ortiz. Three of us were Black Puerto Ricans, which was interesting because that had never happened before, [00:50:00] big ol’ fros. And we started recruiting. And then we had hooked up -Fi had introduced -- we had hooked up with Pickle. JJ: Yeah, because Fi was with Pickle, right? FL: Right, Fi was with Pickle. Fi was part of a gang thing, and so we had recruited him. JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) was called the Young Lords, the gang? FL: No, it wasn’t called the Young, not that I know of anyway. But these were good guys, and I liked them, and we got along pretty well. And we all came together. Eventually, through attrition, people began to -- because we began to really deal with scholarship, began to deal with reading, began to deal with a refining period, and a lot of street guys either couldn’t or wouldn’t handle it. So, we realized as we were organizing that we’re spending more and more time on the streets than in classroom. We had to make a decision, and it was a difficult decision to make, not for me. I was definitely afraid of exams. I had got a D-plus in physics, so I didn’t want to go through that again. I left college. It was a [00:51:00] tremendous amount of anger in me. JJ: So, you guys were the organizers. 28 �FL: We were the organizers, the primary organizers for us. There were three colleges involved, CCNY, which is where we’re taping this today; Queens College, me; Nikki had gone there for a while; and the University of Old Westbury, which is where we got Denise Oliver, Pablo Guzmán, and David Perez, and [Moon?] too and a few others who had been there. Before I go any further with this, I should add, and this may come as a shock to most people, one-third of the party was African American, all supporting Puerto Rican independence. So, that nonsense that you cannot have people from other cultures supporting your particular ideological aims and vision is not true. The one-third of that group were all Muslim, so think about that. My brother, Lucky, [00:52:00] older brother, was one of the first Puerto Rican Muslims here in New York City. He’s dead now. Now we realize we’ve got to do something. We start with, I had a little group called the Harlem Action Committee, a little anti-poverty program we start. We asked the people, what do they need? And we really meant this. We took a little poll. [And we told the viejitas?], and I thought they were going to say they was tired of our kids being beaten up by police. I thought were going to talk about welfare. I wanted something that was a real target, something that was romantic and bold and violent. They told us, “Could you just pick up the garbage? Could you get the sanitation department to pick up the garbage?” My ego was so deflated. I mean, that just took the wind out of my sails, but that’s what the people wanted. Number-one lesson in revolutionary activity, listen to the people. Listen to their wants, their needs, and their visions. It’s the first thing you gotta do. So, of course, we decided to test it. We 29 �[00:53:00] swept, and we’d put the garbage in plastic bags and put them on the corner very neat. First weekend, nobody came. They would come Tuesday. Now, after a weekend of summer activity, and as you know, we drink a lot of beer, it smelled a lot. So, what we did is we decided to test it to a second week, and we did it again. By the second week, we had had it. JJ: Is that once a week or -- FL: Yeah, it was a once-a-week pickup and particularly on weekends, and they weren’t coming that many times. And if it was a two-time-a-week thing, it wasn’t enough for the garbage that was being produced. JJ: That you swept. FL: Yeah, that we swept. So, there was also community garbage. So, the first thing we needed to do was get brooms, and we went to a garbage station, and we told the guy, “Look, we need brooms.” [00:54:00] I remember this guy, kinda portly, who looked at us with such disdain. I said, “Well, could you give us some brooms? Could you let us borrow ‘em? We’ll bring ‘em right back.” “Who the hell are you?” Now, remember, I’m from jail. I don’t fear anything but God, and He and I have problems. This guy was telling me I couldn’t. I just pushed him, boom, to the side. And I remember the looks on the Lords, because I think they were thinking the revolution was romantic and that you could talk about it, but you can’t do it. But I’m coming from the Brooklyn House of Detention, where cats are getting raped, and we’re talking about [yaku?] and the white man and 66 million years of caveman activity, and Black men should do for self, and I’m coming out of the projects, where everything was about confrontation. This man 30 �was not a problem. We went and took the brooms, and we brought ‘em back. One thing I will add is that every time a leader [00:55:00] makes a moves or makes a move that is out of the ordinary for the group, something happens to the group. They begin to see him a little differently, some envy, some jealousy, just light, and it’s almost unconscious. But the seeds of the destruction of the Lords started right around there. But I’ll give you some other examples, and we gotta go because you gotta get outta here. JJ: Yeah, we’ve got about 15 minutes. FL: Okay. We put the garbage on the streets. Sanitation didn’t come. We put the garbage on the streets, and it stopped traffic. We didn’t know that when you stop traffic, you stop commerce. We did that for several weeks running. It was called The Garbage Offensive. And when the cops started realizing that we were going to do this every Saturday or every Friday evening, they decided to come in squads of sanitation men and police cars and throw the garbage out and put it into the garbage. [00:56:00] So, what we did is we set fire to them, and so they could do it, towering 10 feet of fire. That was the first offensive we had. The second offensive was the church. We started doing breakfast program based on what the Panthers had done. We decided to build a breakfast program. It was enormously successful. We were having a problem delivering food, just didn’t have enough, and when we went to the bodegueros, they would give us a hard time. Sometimes they would give it to us out of, you know, ay bendito stuff. I get a call from a guy, one of the street guys I knew, said, “Felipe, somebody wants to talk to you down the block.” Now, the only guy down the block was the mafia 31 �guy. So, I went down there into his warehouse, and he says, “I like what you guys are doing.” He was half Puerto Rican, half Italian. He said, “I like what you guys are doing. You’re not messing with any of our businesses.” Because I asked him, “Why am I here? Did we do anything? Is there [00:57:00] something we need to resolve?” He said, “Nah, take it easy. Sit down.” And he kept on looking on me. He said, “You need anything?” Now, when the boys ask you, “Do you need anything,” you know there’s going to be a quid pro quo, so I said no. He said, “You sure?” And something in me said, “Tell him.” I said, “We’re having a hard problem getting food.” He said, “Like what?” I said, “Orange juice, milk, bread, eggs, bacon.” Shook his, just going like that with his head. He said, “How much do you need?” I said, “A lot. We serve a lot of kids.” He said, “Tomorrow, you’ll have no problem. Go to any store in East Harlem, no problem.” The same bodegueros who gave us hard times and sometimes would curse us, had the stuff ready for us when we got there, which just shows you the power of power, the nature of power. He had put the word out, “Give these kids anything they want.” Our breakfast program was tremendously successful. Then we went on to a garbage offensive, I’m sorry, to a hospital offensive, and we took over Lincoln Hospital [00:58:00] because so many people were dying. We had found out that a Puerto Rican woman had died from a simple scraping, and we decided to take that hospital over. We took over a TV truck. But going back to the breakfast program, we couldn’t find a place to cook the food. And we went to this one guy, the First Spanish Methodist Church on 111th and Lexington. I remember I used to go to preschool there. And the Cuban minister told us that we were 32 �Castro-ites and that we were not to be even tolerated, threw us out. So, for six weeks, we went there, and on the seventh week, I couldn’t take it anymore. I stood up to talk on testimonial Sunday. I ran to the front of the church. The cops told me, “If you don’t --” He had cops in the church, the minister, made sure that he had cops there. We were shocked because this was supposed to be a sanctuary. We didn’t want to hurt them. Well, he told me, “Well, Mr. Luciano, it’s either here or outside.” I said, “Well, then we’ll do it right here,” and that’s when they began to beat the hell out of me. It’s the second-worst beating I’ve gotten in my life. I almost fainted. [00:59:00] There was a little voice that said, “Go to sleep.” By the way, when the voice tells you, “Go to sleep,” don’t go to sleep. I caught one in the face. I caught another one with my elbow, but I was overwhelmed, and they broke my arm in two places, and they gave me about eight stitches, seven, eight stitches in the head. I was a little in shock because the other Lords were in the back, and they were looking from the pews. I was hoping that I’d get some help. I began to realize the limits of revolutionary fervor. I was a true believer, coming out of a Pentecostal background. Thirteen of us were arrested. That gave us a reputation worldwide. It went around the world. Jane Fonda came to our church. We opened up the church. Oh, what happened is they bust us; they tell us we can’t go back to the church, so the next week after they arrest us and beat us up, we took the church over, and we opened it up for breakfast. JJ: That’s when people got arrested or -- 33 �FL: No. The people got arrested the first time. [01:00:00] After we took over the church, we kept it open for a month or two, and they arrested all of us. JJ: That’s what, about 100 people who were arrested? FL: Yeah, in the second, after we had finished the breakfast program. There was some voices of dissension. We were having some problems. A, we had guys that were -- I believed that certain people should never be allowed to join the party, particularly those who talked a lot but weren’t ready to throw down. One guy came into our office and said, “I could make bombs outta bulbs,” and said just too much. And I told him, “Either you’re an agent or a fool.” His name was Julio Roldan. He got busted on one of the last garbage offensives and couldn’t handle it. [01:01:00] Incarceration is a very strange thing. I’m not putting this on him. I’m just saying that some people can handle this; some people can’t. He hung himself. The Lords lied. I was already out of power. The reason I was out of power, I was demoted, is because I had made love to -- Yoruba and I went to a woman’s house. They were informants. We didn’t know it at the time. And I went to their house, and they started talking to me. Yoruba went into the room with one. I went in, stayed in the living room with another, and she gave me some pot. The pot immediately got me sick and woozy. I did not feel well. I almost felt suicidal. I told her, “The window is too open. Can you close it?” She opened it up even more. I didn’t know it, but I was being drugged by PCP, and I found that a lot of revolutionaries had been drugged like that. And it must’ve been a massive dose because I had only taken two puffs. [01:02:00] Something in me said this woman is an agent, and it’s too late for me. I couldn’t move. And 34 �I said, “You got me up here. You better bring me down.” Somehow, I stayed up 12 hours, and I threw up. Now, after I threw up, for some reason, I wanted to get back at -- I wanted to conquer, and so I made love to her, or whatever you call it. I don’t think it was love. Yoruba walks in, sees me. Pablo sees me. I knew that there was some sort of jealousy maybe, envy, with most of the guys. I saw this in the Central Committee. I was a two-fisted bro, which is what we needed at that time. There were people in the party who told me that the guys who were Central Committee members at the time, while they liked me, they weren’t exactly in love with me. But the liked the fact that I could lead people and that I had a very good touch with folks in the street. [01:03:00] So, Yoruba comes in and sees me on this woman, and he’s in shock, and he goes right back into his room. I get up. It’s all over. As we were going back home, we were supposed to report every 24 hours, and we hadn’t. And as we’re coming out, I said, “Pablo, don’t tell. Don’t go to the party office and say anything. I will tell.” I was married to Iris Morales. I was married to one of our party members. And Yoruba goes right back to the office and tells everybody. So, from a street point of view, he was wrong. From a revolutionary point of view, he may have been right, but I thought we had a relationship. And he should’ve said, “Let Felipe explain it to you. Let the chairman explain what happened. I’m not going to say anything ‘til he comes.” Didn’t happen that way. Well, I was accused of male chauvinism. The party got into my business, the relationship that I had with Iris. JJ: (inaudible) male chauvinism because you were married? 35 �FL: Because I was married, and I went [01:04:00] with this white girl. This is no justification, and there’s no reason to bring this up, but I’ma bring it up. Everybody was doing everybody in the party, even dope fiends. The majority of the defense department were all drug addicts, and they were [screwing with?]. In those days, AIDS was not thought of, so people had boyfriends who were drug addicts. Denise had one. Myrna had one. We had a lot of -- it was okay. It was the way. You know, drug addicts were part of our family. Anyway, I was accused of male chauvinism and unclear politics, and I was demoted. The demotion was so severe to me. I put my lifeblood into this organization. And to make a long story short, Julio Roldan is -- so, I’m demoted, and I feel just such enmity, such venom, vitriol from the people that I helped organize. So, in the interim, the party had decided to [01:05:00] take over the People’s Church again with guns because Julio Roldan had killed himself, and they lied and said that Julio Roldan was killed by police. It was a lie. Yoruba knows it was a lie, will admit to it to this day. And they used that as an organizing tactic. I would’ve never agreed with that. You never lie to the people. They take over the People’s Church with guns, some of the guns that I had bought, and they take over the People’s Church, and people rally to their cry. It was romantic. It was the worst move they could’ve made. When I walked into the People’s Church with the guns, I noticed that kids, that the members, high-ranking members were not supposed to be (inaudible). I said, “Well, who’s here? Who’s gonna fight it out?” There was nobody of any importance. I said, “This is ridiculous.” I got very pissed off at the way it was handled. I thought there was no planning in it. [01:06:00] It may have been 36 �romantic. And I saw a kid, about 12, with a break-over shotgun, a break-gun shotgun, just taking 30-caliber bullets, and it was sliding. He said, “I wonder why this is happening.” I said, “My God.” I remember asking David, “David, how are you gonna escape? Do you have access? Do you have access?” And he goes, “You have an escape plan. Before you think of any battle, you think of strategy, tactics, and possible escape routes.” He said, “We’re gonna drill through the wall into the subway.” I knew he had already developed what we call siege mentality, where you think the impossible is possible. But what really got me mad is nobody in the Central Committee was going to be in there when the cops came, when the shooting was going to start. So, I had called a meeting, Pi and I. I said, “I can’t believe how cowardly you guys are, how ill-planned this is, illconceived. I’ve seen things I would never have believed that you would plan it this way. Are you trying to compensate for me not being here [01:07:00] anymore? Are you trying to tell people you’re tough guys? There’s a way to do this, and this is not the way.” And I took my beret and threw it into the middle of the room. Nobody moved. Pi and I were pretty good with our hands. But they could’ve moved. They didn’t. And I left. Immediately after, about three months after, I hear that Pablo’s going out with -- and I knew this was COINTELPRO. COINTELPRO was working overtime. Yoruba’s now going out with Iris, and in those days, I was a Puerto Rican macho, and I was going to kill him. Thank God I didn’t. I loved his mother; I loved his father, and I love him. I love Iris. I love all of the Young Lords, and while we may have had our differences, I think we were divinely ordained to do what we had to do. So, just to show you how still into the 37 �streets I was, I had a knife. I was ready to stab Yoruba because he was going with Iris. Oh, my God. [01:08:00] Thank God. Here’s the end of my story. As I’m ready to stab him, I was looking for the right spot in his neck to stick the knife into the jugular, and the former defense department that I knew were waiting on a line, three of them, to put me into a car to drive me to safe houses that Mickey Meléndez was supposed to have set up. As I’m ready to stab him, I just happened to look in the sky. Went like that just to get him off focus so that I can - when you go like this and the other person goes like that, and you go bing, and I saw the New York Post, and I swear to you, I said, “YLP destroyed by love triangle,” and I said, “Oh, my God. This is the government.” Even if it were true, first of all, no man has a right to tell a woman who to make love to. If you’re separated from her, that’s it, and no is no. And I remember Iris saying, “You think you’re so tough.” [01:09:00] I remember her, hearing her voice. “He’s softer than you,” or, “He’s not as hard as you.” The voice was slowly -- I said, “You deserve each other,” and I left them both, and I walked away. I am very happy I didn’t kill that boy. He’s a great reporter for CBS. He’s a great writer. It would’ve destroyed his mother and his father, whom I loved dearly. His kids wouldn’t have had a father. Iris has turned out to be a great lawyer. She now runs MNN, the public TV. And everyone turned out fairly well, with the exception of the defense department, all the drug addicts, Bobby Lemus. These are the guys that I feel them; I live with them, Robles, Bobby Lemus, Georgie Littleman, my brother Lucky, GI, Frenchie, [01:10:00] Huracan. These were all of the people who didn’t make it. That is, after the Lords, the subsequent illnesses that develop out of 38 �heroin addiction killed them all. But they’re the ones that I owe a great deal of gratitude for, and they’re the ones I love. And to this day, my mission, as I’m in seminary school right now -- I’m in the last year of my master’s program in Union Theological Seminary -- my mission is to those, the marginalized, the criminal, so-called, the oppressed. I’m not interested in the do-gooders, the nice kids, the predisposed. I want hardcore, men and women who just, it’s like this, who do or die. Those are the ones I love, and those are the ones I’m committed to. JJ: Any final thoughts, or that was it? [01:11:00] FL: My final thoughts are I wish that the Young Lords would get over the past. We continue to hurl accusations at each other that have kept our community from moving forward and us from moving forward. We need to heal old wounds. We need to say, “I’m sorry,” because after my demotion, the Lords ended up in a feeding frenzy. They beat each other up over who spoke Spanish and who didn’t. Many of the Black members left because they felt unwelcome. We went through a cultural nationalism phase. We went to Puerto Rico, which was illconceived, bad. And we began to eat each other up. Remember that when you cut off leadership, I’m not saying it’s just for me, but when you cut the head off and don’t try to nurture leadership, while I may not have been the best, I knew I was good at what I did. They also cut themselves off from community, which was my forte. It’s not that I’m better. Everybody has a gift. [01:12:00] Yoruba’s gift is public relations. Yoruba could get press when anybody could. Juan was a great strategist. David was a fantastic community person. [Jíbaro?] up to the bone and gave us that Puerto Rican edge. And Fi was a great gang person, and of 39 �course I was an orator, so we had a wonderful conglomeration of great people. Eventually, we also had to remember that we didn’t have women, so Iris came in, and Denise came in, and Gloria came in. And of course, they started blaming a woman named Gloria for having engendered all of the problems in the Lords, which are not true. They allowed it to happen. And we ended up killing, hurting each other. COINTELPRO was behind every one of those moves, every one of those moves that helped to destroy the party. My last thoughts are that we’re now in our 60s. If we could just tell each other how much we love each other, Fi, David, Iris, Richie Pérez is now dead, but if we could just get [01:13:00] by this and say, “Look, I forgive you,” as I do, Pablo, as I do, Iris, as I do, Pi, as I do, Huey, as I do all of them. If we could just say, let us now begin to work on a new version and leave a legacy of love, militancy, intelligence, scholarship, and revolutionary activity for our children so that our kids could get to know each other, so that our communities could heal, we need to do that. And so, if I could say anything to whoever’s watching this, and to the Lords who may be watching this, is that let’s get past the past. We are new creatures. Let’s forgive each other. Let’s walk hand-in-hand into that new future. JJ: Thank you very much. END OF VIDEO FILE 40 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1a1ebf1a457114216024c6b0eeb2757a.mp4 b036a1f968ea849b57c6a00533bca272 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 Felipe Luciano vídeo entrevista y biografía Descripción Spanish language Description entry La historia oral de Felipe Luciano, entrevistado por Jose 'Cha-Cha' Jimenez el 3/15/2013 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_Luciano_Felipe Title A name given to the resource Felipe Luciano video interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Luciano, Felipe Description An account of the resource Oral history of Felipe Luciano, interviewed by Jose 'Cha-Cha' Jimenez, on 3/15/2013 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 2013-03-15 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/fef0262e01bf83de9cd06a991af336f7.pdf 5f1e8b808a341d7755c9bcb7376308af PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Higinio Lazano Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 7/12/2012 Biography and Description Higinio Lozano arrived in Chicago and settled in the La Clark neighborhood in 1947. He later moved to North Avenue and Sedgwick in Old Town, right across the street from Lincoln Park, and lived there until the 1980s. Mr. Lozano is considered the official “Grandpa” of the Young Lords because he does not miss any of their events including socials, funerals and weddings. Several of his children were part of the Young Lords including his daughter, Yolanda Lucas, who held a top leadership position within the Young Lords. Ms. Lucas is also the mother of Alejandro “Alex” Jiménez, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez’s only son. Alejandro Jiménez is now an adult who went to Truman College, has sold insurance and other products, and has even worked for the Northwest Community Organization, a neighborhood group known for their grassroots activism, especially around housing concerns.Ms. Lucas and Mr. José Jiménez separated after the Jiménez for Alderman Campaign when pressures contributed to Mr. Jiménez‘s relapse. Circumstances related to divorce, safety, distance, the Young Lords, and repression prevented a more traditional type of family communications. Communication was nearly non-existent and usually done in public places, which became cannon fodder for those without clear understanding, and who loved to be involved in gossip. This contributed even more to the pain of a child. But Mr. Lozano provided needed support to Alex and to the Young Lords group. Ms. Lucas remains very close to the Jiménez family and now there is also a granddaughter, Alessandra.Mr. Lozano is always happy go lucky and the biggest flirt �ever, who will not miss a beat on the dance floor. His son, Albert, was a salsa king at the Rico’s Club that Young Lord Angie Adorno owned, and which many Young Lords and others from Lincoln Park patronized. Mr. Lozano is the typical Puerto Rican joker who will catch your every weakness. And his politics are soft spoken. One does not realize how clear he is on Puerto Rican politics. He knows racism firsthand and what Mayor Daley did to Puerto Ricans; removing them from the lakefront and downtown. He saw it with his own eyes. But he is patient enough to wait until you can see it. � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c51ed84d78f79661ee4462ca3c646aac.mp4 5ede4c2dfd329696b549ef043cf877bc 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 Higinio Lazano 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_Lozano_Higinio Title A name given to the resource Higinio Lazano video interview and biography Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lazano, Higinio Description An account of the resource Higinio Lozano arrived in Chicago and settled in the La Clark neighborhood in 1947. He later moved to North Avenue and Sedgwick in Old Town, right across the street from Lincoln Park, and lived there until the 1980s. Mr. Lozano is considered the official “Grandpa” of the Young Lords because he does not miss any of their events including socials, funerals and weddings. Several of his children were part of the Young Lords including his daughter, Yolanda Lucas, who held a top leadership position within the Young Lords. Ms. Lucas is also the mother of Alejandro “Alex” Jiménez, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez’s only son. Alejandro Jiménez is now an adult who went to Truman College, has sold insurance and other products, and has even worked for the Northwest Community Organization, a neighborhood group known for their grassroots activism, especially around housing concerns.Ms. Lucas and Mr. José Jiménez separated after the Jiménez for Alderman Campaign when pressures contributed to Mr. Jiménez‘s relapse. Circumstances related to divorce, safety, distance, the Young Lords, and repression prevented a more traditional type of family communications. Communication was nearly non-existent and usually done in public places, which became cannon fodder for those without clear understanding, and who loved to be involved in gossip. This contributed even more to the pain of a child. But Mr. Lozano provided needed support to Alex and to the Young Lords group. Ms. Lucas remains very close to the Jiménez family and now there is also a granddaughter, Alessandra.Mr. Lozano is always happy go lucky and the biggest flirt ever, who will not miss a beat on the dance floor. His son, Albert, was a salsa king at the Rico’s Club that Young Lord Angie Adorno owned, and which many Young Lords and others from Lincoln Park patronized. Mr. Lozano is the typical Puerto Rican joker who will catch your every weakness. And his politics are soft spoken. One does not realize how clear he is on Puerto Rican politics. He knows racism firsthand and what Mayor Daley did to Puerto Ricans; removing them from the lakefront and downtown. He saw it with his own eyes. But he is patient enough to wait until you can see it. 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 2012-07-12 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/a446b8f3124852dd3b8d9ca7c8de44a3.pdf 14caa5948a92766b2ce18af8dd9b04c7 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Obed López-Zacarias Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 3/2/2012 Biography and Description English Obed López-Zacarias is founder of the Latin American Defense Organization (LADO) that operated primarily from the late 1960s until the mid-1970s, organizing for a caseworker union and for the dignified treatment of welfare recipients at the Wicker Park Welfare Office of Chicago. LADO was also instrumental in helping to develop the Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center, the longest standing Puerto Rican Cultural Center in the city of Chicago. Mr. López-Zacarias worked closely with the Young Lords, including the protest at Fat Larry’s real estate office at Armitage and Bissell Streets, in various demonstrations at the Wicker Park Welfare Office, and many others. To give one example, Fat Larry’s Bissell Realty was well connected with the local neighborhood Lincoln Park mafia and the old patronage boss system of Paddy Bauer and on at least one occasion, Fat Larry pointed a sub machine gun at a Puerto Rican restaurant tenant who was late on his rent. The Young Lords were informed about the incident and marched in a snowstorm accompanied by members of LADO to picket in front of his office. When some representatives of the picket entered the real estate office, Fat Larry pointed his gun at José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez. Then he ran and locked himself up in a back office until the police arrived. The police arrived and immediately searched Mr. Jiménez for �weapons. Meanwhile, a LADO photographer documented the entire event and published many of those photos in the LADO newspaper the following week. 20,000 copies were circulated widely by the Young Lords in the Latino section of Lincoln Park. Mr. López-Zacarias became the official envoy sent to the Presbyterian Conference in Texas by the Young Lords and the Lincoln Park Poor People’s Coalition, during the McCormick Seminary occupation in 1969. When the occupation was over and all the demands were won, LADO received $25,000 to open up a free community clinic where many of the Latin Kings volunteered. The clinic was located on North Ave. near Western in the Wicker Park neighborhood. Spanish Obed López Zacarias es el que fundió el Latin American Defense Organization (LADO), que empezó desde los 1960s hasta los medio 1970s, organizando para una unión de asistente social y por tratamiento digno con los quien reciben ayuda del Estado en la oficina de Wicker Park Welfare en Chicago. LADO también fue instrumental en el desarrollo del Segundo Ruiz Belvis Centro Cultural, que es el Centro Cultural Puertorriqueño más viejo en chicago. Señor López-Zacarias trabajo cerca con los Young Lords, incluyendo el protesto en la oficina de Fat Larry en Armitage y Bissell Street, igual que otros. Para dar un ejemple, Fat Larry’s Bissell Realty era buen conectada con la mafia de Lincoln Park igual que Paddy Bauer, y por lo menos una ocasión Fat Larry directo un pistola al rentero puertorriqueño porque estaba tarde en pagar la renta. Los Young Lords se informaron de la ocasión y marcharon con miembros de LADO a la oficina de Fat Larry. Cuando un representativo entro a su oficina, Fat Larry directo su pistola a José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez. Luego corrió y se encerró en una parte de su oficina hasta que la policía llego. La policía inmediatamente cacheó a Señor Jiménez por armas. Un fotógrafo capturo todo la ocasión y publico muchas de las fotos en el periódico de LADO la próxima semana. 20,000 copias fueron circuladas por los Young Lords en la sección Latina de Lincoln Park. Señor López-Zacarias fue a la conferencia de Presbyterian en Tejas para ser el ministro público para los Young Lords y la Lincoln Park Poor Peoples Coalition, durante la McCormick Seminary ocupación en 1969. Cuando la ocupación termino y las exigencias ganadas, LADO recibió $25,000 para abrir una clínica que es gratis para la comunidad donde muchos de los Latin Kings volantearon. La clínica fue construida en North Ave, cerca de Western en el vecindario de Wicker Park �Transcript JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay, do you want to give me your name? OBED LOPEZ-ZACARIAS: I am -- in English, right? JJ: In English. (inaudible) OL: Okay, yeah, right, right. I am Obed Lopez-Zacarias. Obed, O-B-E-D, LopezZacarias. Zacarias is my mother’s last name, and Lopez is my father’s name, of course. I was born in San Luis Potosí, which is a state and city in the central part of Mexico. San Luis Potosí, it has a reputation of -- well, has played an important role several times in the history of Mexico. [00:01:00] One of the documents of the revolution is -- the 1910 revolution was called the Plan de San Luis Potosí. San Luis Potosí is a very conservative city. I suppose you could say that Catholicism is the main religion, and it was, again, very conservative. So, for me, it was the first experience of really being in the minority because my parents converted to [00:02:00] Protestantism when they were young, when they got married. So that all of us were raised in a non-Catholic setting. I believe that is one of the things that began to shape my personality because we felt -- we were outsiders. I mean, when there were Fiestas patronales, we were not part of that. (laughs) And I don’t know if it was my imagination or not, but I have a recollection of from time to time our house being the object of stones thrown at us. I don’t know. Maybe it’s my imagination. But that gives you a sense of our feeling of not being part of the culture of San Luis Potosí. JJ: So, how many siblings? Because you said ours, how many siblings? [00:03:00] 1 �OL: I’m sorry? JJ: How many siblings, brothers and sisters? OL: In all, there were eight brothers and sisters, three sisters -- [Omar Naum?], the youngest, and I have another brother called [Asael?], only Biblical names. After Asael came, I came, and then, [Ephraim?], and then our three sisters, [Naomi?], [Prisilla?], and [Deborah?]. My oldest brother was [Hector Javier, Hector Javier?]. Hector was the first one in the family that came to Chicago. [00:04:00] Sometime in, talking to him -- JJ: What year did he come? OL: Actually, it was towards the middle ’40s, I think maybe the end of the ’40s. But he mentioned that, while he loved the university life, the only thing is that, you know, when you’re in the university, there all kinds of cultural activities or social activities. And very soon he realized that, well, that he didn’t have the means to fully participate because even though my father was employed, he was a railroad worker, which at that time was a very -- one of the few jobs that were well paid. JJ: Here, or -- OL: In Mexico, in Mexico. [00:05:00] JJ: And your mom? What did she do? OL: My mother -- she raised us. That was a full time job for her. (laughs) You know, (inaudible). And my mother came from a place called Santa Maria del Rio in San Luis Potosí, and my father from a rancho called San Francisco del Rincón in Guanajuato. So, they met -- my father soon -- I don’t know how, but he got connected with a missionary, [Francisco H. Soltero?], who was the founder of our 2 �denomination in San Luis Potosí. And it was called Iglesia de los Peregrinos. [00:06:00] But then, again, my brother very soon saw that he could not really afford university life. He didn’t have the means to participate in all these things. So, at one point, he and about -- I suppose about 10 other friends of his that were going to the university decided to come to Chicago. And so, that’s how we began. He was in Chicago for several years before my oldest sister, Deborah, joined him. Deborah was a private accountant, contadora privada, privada. [00:07:00] So, she came. When she came to Chicago, she found employment with -- I think he was a Cuban editor of Spanish ancestry. I remember his last name was [Radelat?]. So, that’s how they established themselves in Chicago. Then eventually -JJ: This was in the ’40s? OL: I think it was more in the ’50s, yeah. So, it was finally -- JJ: In what area? Do you know what area of Chicago? OL: They always lived in the North Side, in fact on Humboldt Boulevard. Well, Humboldt Boulevard, as you know, has gone through cycles. They were the first Mexicans that came to live in that area. [00:08:00] JJ: In the Humboldt Park area? OL: Yeah. And the people that rented to them were Lithuanians, also immigrants. I think that’s why they were kind of sympathetic to them. Then they were fortunate. When they came, they came with all their documentation. They didn’t have to go through the pain and suffering of people who have to cross without any documentation. And then, they brought the whole family. I remember that 3 �when I came I must have been about 17 years old. And I was interested in continuing my education. And I remember that one day -- I think I answered some ad for English classes. And a man that was selling whatever method they had came. [00:09:00] And then, Hector said, my oldest brother said he might as well take me to a day school, that happens to be [Wells?] High School. So, he took me there. At that time, the principal was -JJ: This was what year? OL: Probably it was ’57 or ’58. At that time, the principal of the school was a very fine gentleman. I think he lived for many years in Spain, and I think also Puerto Rico. His name was [Dr. Edwin Goodrich?]. He was a very [00:10:00] kind man. And when I came for -- I think I wanted to be in the music class, and they gave me a test on my ability to vocalize, I guess. And the teacher -- also very kind woman -I suppose she was very impressed because she got the principal to come to listen to me. And that led to at least one or two school assemblies I was given the opportunity to sing. So, it was quite a nice experience. Also, I appreciated the fact that being one of the first Mexican students, they gave me an opportunity to [00:11:00] participate, and that gave me a bit of prominence. I really appreciated that. JJ: What type of song? I mean, what were you singing? OL: One of them was (singing in Spanish). And so on and so forth. Ay-Ay-Ay, and then, another song I cannot recall which one it was. But I had very good memories of that experience of going to school. I was already, again, older than most of the students in my class. 4 �JJ: So, did they put you down a grade or anything like that? OL: No, I never had that experience. [00:12:00] Fortunately, I came with a sense of self confidence. I was not intimidated by the new setting. And I think this is due to the fact that from very early age, I had the urge to organize, and that is because we lived in the -- there were three barrios or neighborhoods that were -on the other side of the tracks now they say -- on the other side of the tracks. These were made up of people that were workers in the railroad or some other field. But it was a -- JJ: So [what were they?] organizing for at that time? [00:13:00] This was in San Luis Potosí? OL: Yeah. Well, see, what happened is that -- I remember that at a very early age, I participated in a footrace in the Alameda Central which was contiguous to -- on this other side of the tracks, the good side of the track, so to speak. And from there, I got to say, “Well, if they have these kinds of activities, we should have one ourselves.” So, that was the first time that I decided that I was going to organize a race for the people in our neighborhood. So, I developed the idea of developing what I called “Maratón de los Barrios.” Los barrios mean industry, la colonia San Luis, which is where I lived, la colonia Ferrocarrilera, and la colonia Industrial. [00:14:00] Those were three neighborhoods that I felt I would like to organize something. And they were successful. There was the newspaper at the time, El Heraldo de San Luis Potosí had a good sports writer. And he encouraged me. In fact, he’s the one that, I guess was our padrino because he began to write about these events. So, it was very good, the way in which we 5 �were able to make connections with him. [00:15:00] Then also, I have recollection that when we were in high school -JJ: In Wells? This is in Wells? OL: No, back in San Luis Potosí before I came to Chicago. La Asociación de Estudiantes Normalistas, the Normalista school -- the student association. And that was the first time that I had my first taste of organizing because traditionally the people that are in charge of the association of students would be the people in the professional grades, third, fourth, and -- no, fourth, fifth, and sixth grades. [00:16:00] Those were the ones that were ready to become teachers. But then, the people in high school -- there were three groups of high school for first year and then two more for second year and then one group for third year. So that in terms of numbers, the lower grades were the ones that had the numbers and more students. So, we developed a slate, the slate mainly us, the estudiantes de secundaria. And we had two or three from the professional grades so that we would have a balanced ticket. [00:17:00] And we won. We won those elections. JJ: And this was just passing flyers out or (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? OL: It was mostly mouth to mouth, especially each classroom -- well, we had our groupings. JJ: So, you went classroom to classroom. OL: Yeah. So, we participated in the elections, and we won. Then the secretary of the school, the secretaria de la escuela, whose last name was [Alderete?], his brother was, I think, the secretary of the local branch of the official party, the PRI, Partido Revolucionario Institucional. So, I think he gave us the idea to come and 6 �visit his brother. [00:18:00] And then, his brother, when we met with him, he arranged for us to have a meeting with Don Gonzalo N. Santos who was a former governor but was in fact el cacique. He was the political boss of the state. And he was not only the political boss of the state, but also, he was prominent in the national politics. JJ: He (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) cacique. OL: El cacique, right, Gonzalo N. Santos. So, he arranged for us to go and meet him at his home. He lived in a part of San Luis Potosí called La Huasteca, Huasteca Potosina. La Huasteca was a region, very kind of -- more like [00:19:00] tropical. Huasteca Potosina included the state of San Luis Potosí, the state of Guanajuato, and the state of Veracruz, I think. It’s an extensive region. So, we went. And through is intervention, we were able to secure the use of El Teatro de la Paz. El Teatro de la Paz, that’s only for really big functions. But as students, we were able to use it for our yearly activity. Another time, [00:20:00] another brother of mine, Ephraim, was a part of a group that a teacher had that put in a -performed una zarzuela, a Spanish kind of operetta called “La Marcha de Cádiz.” JJ: La Marcha de Cádiz? OL: La Marcha de Cádiz. JJ: And what does that mean, the Cádiz? OL: Cádiz is a region in Spain. JJ: Of Spain? OL: Right. And so, it was a very unusual year when we were in charge of the association of students because nobody ever had used El Teatro de la Paz for 7 �the activities of the students. And to the best of my understanding, afterwards nothing like that every happened again. So, I think we left somewhat of a mark. When we left our city, San Luis Potosí -JJ: So, the whole family came? [00:21:00] OL: The whole family came, actually. JJ: Including your mother and father? OL: Exactly, yeah. JJ: You said everything was up and up, legal and everything so you didn’t have to (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). OL: Oh, yes, yes, yes. It wasn’t that difficult then. And I think the only thing -- if you were over 18 you had to have a carta de trabajo, a letter of employment. JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) legal channel, legal process. OL: Yeah. So we were able to come, all of the family really, all at once. When we came, my brother and my sister were living at 1829 North Humboldt Boulevard. [00:22:00] It was beautiful. Again, it seemed like we were the only Mexicans. Around the corner from where we lived, there used to be another Mexican family. But the man in the family was a teacher. So, that -- JJ: And even at that time, this was, what around -- in the ’60s or ’50s? OL: Late ’50s. JJ: Okay. So, there were also -- there were Puerto Ricans also at that time? OL: I got to meet some -- there might be one or two families, I think because I remember -- JJ: It was still a Polish community? 8 �OL: Polish, German, I think, and I guess Norwegian too because Norwegian Hospital close by and there were one or two other institutions that had Norwegian [00:23:00] in its title. JJ: Because this was more like on Humboldt Boulevard, like you said, it wasn’t -- you know, Wicker Park, there [was?] Puerto Ricans living there at that time? OL: I believe -- there might have been families, but it was not predominantly Puerto Rican. No, no, no. I think that happened much later. So, that was my recollections of the first years that I was in Chicago. JJ: And how did people get along? You said people got along pretty well because they were immigrants too, new immigrants? OL: Yeah, and I guess also because there were so few of us. I think the overt racism came to the floor when we were crowding in. [00:24:00] And especially -- I mean, the Puerto Ricans were more assertive, could you say, or louder? I don’t know how you would call it. (laughs) But I think Mexicans -- we tended to be subdued and not make any waves. And also because at that time, you’re trying to learn, you’re not trying to assert your identity. You’re trying to learn the language, learn the customs. JJ: So, you were like 19, 17, around there? OL: Well, I came at the age of 17. So, I was 18, 19. JJ: Then you went to Wells High School you said? OL: Right, right. JJ: So, you weren’t working at all? [00:25:00] 9 �OL: No, no. Well, I worked for a few months in a little shop in the South Side of Chicago. They made batteries. And that was when my brother told me to go to school. And then, after that -- I don’t know exactly when, but I found a job. I always liked to dress very well at that age. My suits were always from -- there was a store downtown called [Baskins?]. I didn’t have many suits, but the ones that I bought were really -- now that I think of it, they were very good suits. So, I don’t know exactly how it was [00:26:00] that I went to visit a store. I don’t think that I was responding to an ad. Somehow I went to that store on -- it was Halsted and la doce, 12th, Roosevelt Road, you know. And somehow -- I don’t know how, but I got -- JJ: It was where they had the open market, you mean? OL: No, it was a big store. I think that was one of the two big stores in the area, right. And I don’t know how, but I got employed there. And I think maybe because -- I mean, again, I always liked to dress well. I didn’t know what the sport dudes were -- you know, the [la ropa de descanso?]. So, most of the time, I was wearing a suit. (laughs) So, that’s how I got that job there. I was there for probably two years. [00:27:00] And I think after that, that’s when I got drafted, like everybody else. I was drafted into the Army. And then, I went into the Army and I was there for two years. Those two years were also very, very interesting because of the fact that by that time, I had become -- I don’t know how -- I became involved with the people from the 26th of July Movement. There was a man that was more or less the head person. JJ: What was that movement about? 10 �OL: The 26th of July Movement was the movement of which Fidel Castro was part. [00:28:00] I think the name comes from a time -- I think the time when Fidel Castro was first arrested and spent some time in jail. JJ: The trial, [they had the?] big trial?]. OL: And I think out of that came the 26th of July Movement. And I had a friend -- I think I had a friend -- his last name was [Franklin?]. His father was a Communist, and his father was one of a group of Communists that at one point were jailed. He spent time in jail. So, getting to know him -- it was good, and he was a good - JJ: So, he went to jail here in Chicago, though? OL: Yes, in Chicago. I think that was at the [00:29:00] height of the witch hunt when Communists were, I suppose what they called card-carrying Communists were persecuted, put in jail. So then, I was drafted. And when I was drafted, one of the things that I knew was that you never tried to hide anything in your record. (laughs) So, my list was fairly long because I became associated with people that were part of a local bunch of the 26th of July Movement. The head of that group was a man, [Manuel Sanchez?]. [00:30:00] He lived on Fullerton, by the way, Fullerton close to Humboldt Boulevard, I think. And, let’s see. So, when I was in the Army, I had to fill out all my affiliations, so the 26th of July Movement, all the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. That was a group that -- I don’t know if you recall the name of a man that was the owner of theaters, Spanish theaters. JJ: [Jan Rosen?]. OL: Jan Rosen, yeah. It was through him that I got involved in the -- 11 �JJ: He had fought in Spain, also, the -- OL: Oh, yes, correct, correct. He had fought in the -- with the Republican side in Spain. [00:31:00] That was when Franco came to power, I think. JJ: (inaudible) He owned the 3-Penny Cinema, the Biograph. OL: Exactly, exactly, Teatro de las Americas also. Teatro de las Americas. He was a very good man. He was a very good man. But then, again, when I went into the Army, I had to put all those affiliations. And then, the intelligence service of the Army tried to interview me. But I had found -- when I came into the Army, they put me in what they called flagging action, F-L-A-G-G-I-N-G, a flagging action, which meant that you [00:32:00] -- I guess they put you in a state of suspense. You could not be put in the regular activities of the Army. So, I was put on the flagging action. And while I was there, there was another young guy that was connected to another very good family that I used to know. [Dick Criley?] was his name, C-R-I-L-E-Y, Dick. And his wife was an organizer for U.A., for one of the progressive locals at that time. JJ: Was it against war and fascism? OL: I’m sorry? JJ: Youth Against War and Fascism? OL: No, no, it was -- I cannot recall the name. [00:33:00] But through this couple -well, Mr. Criley was the head of a group called Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights. And so, through them, I met these men who were also in the Army and also was put on that flagging action status. And so, with him, I was able to develop a -- our strategy was based on the fact that before they put you in a 12 �flagging action, the Army has to let you know that they are going to put you in that status [00:34:00] to give you an opportunity to say whatever you need to say. But since they didn’t do that with us before they put us in the flagging action, then every time the intelligence service tried to interrogate me, I said, “Well, I refuse to participate,” on the grounds that they had not followed the Army procedures, and the fact that we had put in a complaint with the Inspector General of the Army against that kind of action on the part of the Army. So, every time they tried to interview me, I would go back to the fact that I considered all this illegal and that I had a complaint with the Inspector General and until such time as that complaint was acted upon, I was not going to participate. [00:35:00] And so, that’s how I avoided being interrogated, because once you open yourself up to interrogation, they can trick you into all kinds of things. So, that’s basically my experience in the Army. So, by the time -- when I came out of the Army, I had to go through these pruebas de fuego, I had been tested. JJ: So, you came out when? What year? OL: In ’64. So, it took two years before the riots. And when the riots came, well -- JJ: So, the riots -- when you say the riots, you mean -- OL: The June of 1966, what is called the [00:36:00] -- JJ: The riot in Division Street. OL: Yeah, the Division Street riots of 1966. JJ: And what was that about? What was that about? OL: Well, my understanding is that at the end of the first Puerto Rican festival, which was in June of ’66, on that Sunday, the day after -- 13 �JJ: You mean the Puerto Rican parade, the first Puerto Rican parade? OL: Right, the first Puerto Rican parade. That Sunday afternoon when people were celebrating in the park, there was an incident where a police officer shot this guy, [Jose Salin?] Cruz was his name. And that led to the people in the park that observed that to begin to [00:37:00] react spontaneously. And they could not quell the riots. Well, they began on Sunday, but then, on the two following days, the riots continued and the police were -- I guess they didn’t know how to handle it. My understanding is that at one point, Monday or Tuesday, the whole police force throughout the city -- they were brought into the area, but still they did not have the ability to put down the demonstrations. JJ: So, all these police cars are on the street? They’re driving through the street and people see that? And that brings more people. [00:38:00] OL: Well, in fact, I think that when it began to happen -- again, the cars would pass by and they would throw stones at them. It wasn’t like the police was in charge of the situation. The people was in the middle of the situation, but they were not in charge. JJ: So, they’re just driving by like targets because they’re getting thrown rocks at them? They’re getting pelted? OL: I guess the idea was to take control of the situation, but there wasn’t, again, something they could do because, again, they were not prepared for that kind of eventuality, not for a riot. I think in the following years they developed -- they were able to do that. JJ: So, it lasted about a week or -- 14 �OL: I think it was two days of actual fighting, Sunday and then Monday and Tuesday, to the best of my recollection. [00:39:00] JJ: How did it stop? OL: I guess -- I wouldn’t say people run out of steam, but I think the police slowly began to assert themselves in the area. JJ: Did any organizations play any role at all? OL: No. Well, at that time, there were no organizations. The first organization that came out of the riots was the Spanish Action Committee. JJ: That came out of the riots? OL: Yeah, Spanish Action Committee. And the head of that group was [Juan Diaz?]. My understanding is that Juan Diaz was on the staff of the Cardinals Committee. I believe the Cardinals Committee had already been activated before the riot. [00:40:00] JJ: Yeah, they were active (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) San Juan. OL: I think it was mostly with the Caballeros de -- JJ: San Juan. OL: De San Juan, right. That was the -- I suppose Caballers de San -- JJ: They organized in the ’50s. They were kind of like -- that was at the point when they were beginning to go downhill and new groups were coming in. OL: Right. Yeah, because first of all, they were controlled by the church. And when the riots happened, the church wasn’t going to endorse the riots. They were part of the people that tried to stop it. JJ: But people were angry, you’re saying. 15 �OL: Oh yeah. JJ: How were they acting (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) besides the riot? [00:41:00] OL: They just began to fight with the police, throw rocks at them. JJ: So, the Spanish Action Committee came out of that. Did LADO come out of that? OL: To the best of my understanding, yeah, the Spanish National Committee came out of that. Now, because of my orientation and also because I was Mexican, I wanted to support the Puerto Rican community and support the group that seemed to be the main group. But even after several months, I know that at [00:42:00] one point in some conversation that Juan Diaz was having -- you know, [just having?] conversation in the street, you know -- that he mentioned divisively, kind of (Spanish), that he said words to the effect that, “Well, Obed Lopez doesn’t know that the reason he’s not admitted to SAC is because he’s a Mexican.” So, I said, “Well, okay.” (laughs) I just assimilated that. So, it was then that I thought, “Well, if I cannot be in SAC because I’m Mexican, I still want to do something.” So, that’s when the idea began to germinate that we had to have a different organization. And by the name -- [00:43:00] I think the name give it quite the definition. It was a Latin organization, Latin American organization. It was a defense organization. It was aggressive in the political sense. And it was an organization. JJ: But it came out of SAC. OL: Well, no, it did not come out of SAC because I wanted to be part of SAC but I couldn’t be part of SAC because I was Mexican. 16 �JJ: It was a reaction to SAC. OL: That’s the best way to put it. It’s a reaction to an organization that was not Latin, open to others but Puerto Ricans. That’s how we came and established the Latin American Defense Organization. JJ: But later on you did work together (audio cuts out). [00:44:00] Did you march (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? OL: There were marches. We also participated -- right. Well, let me see, I think there was -- I don’t know exactly, but I think a few days after the riots, I think there was an attempt to march to city hall. And in fact, the march to city hall took place. But I remember [Father Headley?] and another father -- I can’t remember his name priest. JJ: [Leo T. Mahon?]? Those were the two leaders that (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). OL: Yeah, him. They tried to change the -- to the police station, that [00:45:00] was the first march, to the police station. And they were trying to stop us from going to the police station. So, I’m watching how they wanted to get people back into the Humboldt area. But people just kept going until we ended up at the -- was that 13th district police station, I believe? JJ: Fourteen. OL: Fourteen district police station. JJ: [Wood Street?]? OL: Yeah. So, that was the first march that I recall being part of. I was not in a leadership position. I was just part of the group. 17 �JJ: Okay, so then, LADO forms at that time. OL: So yeah, so it took some time because we were trying to see if we could be part of and supportive of the Puerto Rican organization. [00:46:00] But when that didn’t happen, then we decided to establish the Latin American Defense Organization. JJ: Besides admitting other people, what were some of the main issues that the Latin American Defense Organization were looking at? OL: At the beginning, I wanted to get a hold of some issues. The first issue that I thought I wanted to see if I could get something going was in reference -- the colmados versus National Tea food stores. I remember that there was a National Tea food store on Division and Washington, I believe. [00:47:00] And one day, I went and I asked, “Do you have any” -- I think Puerto Ricans working -- and they didn’t have any employees that were Puerto Ricans. So, I took that as a basis to develop a campaign “Compra al Colmado,” no to national food stores. It was short lived. JJ: Like a boycott. OL: Right. It was short lived because by that time, Jesse Jackson already had “Operation Breadbasket.” And I remember I went at least to one of their meetings. But I said, “This issue is already in the hands of the Black leadership.” [00:48:00] JJ: So, you were moving right away, organizing from the very beginning. OL: Right. That’s right. Exactly, exactly. JJ: (inaudible) But you didn’t come for that reason. You came for school. 18 �OL: Say that again? JJ: When you came from Mexico, you came to go to school? OL: When I came from Mexico, we came to live here. We were immigrants. JJ: And right away, you got involved? OL: No, actually no, because, again, for two years -- we came in ’57, I believe. Fiftyeight and on, we -- I was just adjusting myself to the new JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) OL: Then in 1962, I was drafted into the Army. JJ: Right, the Army. So when you came out of the Army -- OL: So, I came out of the Army in ’64. So, it took two years [00:49:00] between the time that I came out of the Army to the time the riots took place. JJ: But were you dissatisfied within the Army while you were there, or no? OL: I was not dissatisfied. I went because I had to go because I was called. But again, when I went into the Army, when I had to fill out all my information, I had to list all the organizations that I was part of. And that’s where the Fair Play for Cuba came, the 26th of July Movement, especially those two. So, imagine in 1962 to be pro-Cuba and being pro-Castro -- so, that’s already a flagging -- that’s when the red light came up. [00:50:00] They had to initiate an investigation. JJ: So, there was an investigation? OL: Yeah, right. But then they did not follow the Army procedures in the investigation. Again, according to the Army procedures, they had to give me a chance to explain myself, and since they did not do that, that was my basis for not cooperating with them. And then, I put my complaint to the Inspector General. 19 �So, anytime they wanted to interview me, I said, “Well, I decline,” on the basis that the investigation was illegal and that I had a complaint pending with the Inspector General. So, that’s how I protected myself all the time that I was in the Army. [00:51:00] JJ: Okay. And so, now you have LADO, the Latin American Defense Organization, and they’re working on -- what other issues are they working on? OL: Well, when we established LADO -- and again, I think it was maybe around ’68 -- JJ: So, it was after the riot of ’66. OL: Yes, it was after the riot. JJ: So, during the riot of ’66, you were just trying to -- OL: I was simply an observer, like an interested observer. I stayed in the periphery of the action. I recall placing myself in by 11th and -- the corner were the Latin Kings -- JJ: Oh, 11th and Schiller? OL: 11th and Schiller. That was the first time that I observed [00:52:00] -- what’s his name? The head of the Latin Kings. JJ: [Phil Juarbe?]? OL: Phil, yeah. Phil Juarbe. Juarbe. Phil Juarbe. And simply observed -- that was when I became aware of him and I became one of the Latin Kings. I think there were other groups, but the Latin Kings were the ones that -- JJ: The Young Sinners, were there the Young Sinners? Was another group that was there? But the Latin Kings -- that was the (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). So, did you start working with them? 20 �OL: No, because, again, at that point, I wasn’t -- I mean, I wasn’t anybody in a leadership position. [00:53:00] JJ: So, in 1968. OL: But then, I think it was ’67 when there were some -- the political campaign I think either for the election or reelection of Paul Douglas. And that’s what gave us the opportunity to hook up with labor because I don’t recall exactly how we came to know that there was a labor group that needed to work in the elections but needed to hook up with an organization. So, with the organization -- so that’s when we had -- [00:54:00] the first time that we had a place. That was 2322 West North Avenue. That’s the first place. The labor group rented the facility, and then, we came in as the, quote-unquote, the community organization. So, that’s how we began. We had the advantage over any other group that we had a place that we could call our own. And that was when -- I think it was because one of the founders of LADO is [Olga Pedroza?]. Olga Pedroza already was a college graduate. And I think that she began to work as a caseworker. So, it was [00:55:00] through her that we more or less began to see the work in the welfare department and how the Puerto Rican families had to be part of the welfare. They had to receive welfare benefits since the family was not employed. That’s how we established our connection with the first families. JJ: [Community with the family?]. So, that’s how you kind of build the base. OL: Right. It was mostly the women. The women would go to the welfare department. 21 �JJ: So I understand, was there also a union that you were trying to (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? OL: Oh, that’s right. The [00:56:00] welfare employees were trying to form what became, I think, an independent union of public aid employees. So, we had a good working relationship with them, and that was helpful because they were trying to organize their union so the case workers were very cooperative with us. They helped us, in a sense, to be more effective. JJ: Did you have any demonstrations or anything? OL: Well, that was when we began to have demonstrations -- I don’t remember, to be truthful, how we began to -- well, first we would come to the welfare office to help on a day to day basis. [00:57:00] And that’s, I think, how we began to build a nucleus of people on welfare that related to us. Then when the elections for -when the efforts to elect Paul Douglas came, labor needed a group. They had a facility. We became the group, and that’s how we began to really begin to develop a base of members and supporters. JJ: Was it -- one time, I believe, that the Black Panthers and Young Lords were also marching together with LADO? OL: Oh, yeah. I think it was by ’69, I believe. Yeah. We had already been there for some time. [00:58:00] And that was when -- I don’t know exactly how we -maybe you can help me -- how we got to work together. Well, you were in Lincoln Park. We were in -- JJ: Right. I think you started supporting us in Lincoln Park, and we had a coalition, the Rainbow Coalition with the Black Panthers. So, whoever the Black Panthers 22 �supported, we supported, and whoever we supported the Black Panthers supported. And so, you asked the Young Lords if they could support the welfare case workers, so we invited the Panthers. And I believe all three of us were arrested, myself, you, and Fred Hampton. It happened twice (inaudible) because the [00:59:00] -- some of the women took over the welfare office, and so we got arrested at that time. That’s what I remember. But I believe there was even -Chris Cohen was in there. That guy that later on -- I don’t know what his job was, Chris Cohen. OL: Chris Cohen. I remember the name, but I don’t recall exactly. Was he with the welfare department? JJ: I think he was with the welfare department. Later on, he became alderman of the 46th Ward and we ran against him. Now, what about -- do you remember Corky Gonzales and the “Crusade for Justice?” OL: Oh, right. [01:00:00] Well, Corky -- it was had the time when Dr. King was based here in Chicago. And Corky Gonzales -- let me see. Corky Gonzales, at one point, came to Chicago, I don’t know if specifically because he wanted to meet Dr. King or he had something for another event. And then, I took him to meet Dr. King. But the same happened with Reies López Tijerina. He also came to Chicago, and also, he wanted to meet with Dr. King. So, I took him to meet Dr. King. I remember Reies López Tijerina had the issue of the land grants movement. His movement was based on claims that preceded even Mexico because they claimed that the lands that were taken from them were granted to 23 �them by the [01:01:00] Spanish crown. And it was on that historical basis that Reies López Tijerina developed his movement. JJ: And his movement did what? What did they do? OL: Well, again, they were trying to regain control of the territory that was part of the initial land grants. They were not successful, of course. JJ: But I mean, what kind of things did they try to do? OL: What do you mean? JJ: I mean, what kind of actions did they do? OL: Well, I think mostly it was organizing the people that [01:02:00] could have a claim to that. In those years at one point, the wife of Reies López Tijerina burned, as a symbolic act, burned some signs of the -- what is the name of the forest? JJ: Forest Rangers? OL: Yeah, Forest Rangers, [I would suppose?]. That got her in trouble, and I think that she spent some time in jail after. JJ: This was Reies López Tijerina’s wife. And did he do anything or spend any time in jail? OL: Tijerina? JJ: Yes. OL: I mean, he was a leader. The wife is the one [01:03:00] that committed that action that landed her eventually in jail. JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) take over a courthouse or -- 24 �OL: To be truthful, now I remember that incident. But I don’t know if Tijerina himself was involved. Possibly he was. But what the outcome of that, I do not remember. JJ: Okay. But anyway, you started working together with the Young Lords at that time, when the Young Lords were beginning, right at the very beginning. I think there was a thing about Fat Larry or something like that. Do you recall that? OL: (laughs) Oh yeah. I remember. JJ: What do you remember about that? OL: Well, I remember that -- I don’t know if it was directly Fat Larry, the one that told - I think you guys, the [01:04:00] Young Lords words to the effect that that neighborhood had been Italian. It had been German before and they were going to make it that again. They were going to get rid of the Puerto Ricans in the area. And I remember I think one day there was some demonstration that you had against him and he came out with his weapon. JJ: Submachine gun. OL: Submachine, right. And I think it was for [Dolores Valera?], the one that took that -- captured that moment. And that was very -- JJ: How did she capture it? What did she do? OL: I’m sorry? JJ: How did she capture it, [01:05:00] the moment? Was it -- OL: She was with us and she was a photographer. JJ: When we confronted Fat Larry? OL: Yeah, so she was there. 25 �JJ: Taking pictures. OL: Yeah, she took pictures. JJ: And then, we put the pictures in the newspaper? Is that what you’re saying? Is that what I’m saying (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? OL: Yeah. I know that picture was very useful. It was used to make -- so that people could see what it was that you were up against. JJ: Because he represented the local real estate office and the local mafia. He was a local mafia (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). OL: Yeah, exactly. JJ: And actually, the police came in. Didn’t they? At one point, he called the police (audio cuts out) machine gun, but he’s calling the police. [01:06:00] OL: (inaudible) Also, I think he had a phone. JJ: That was (inaudible) picture. He had a phone calling the police. OL: Right. “Come and save me.” (laughter) JJ: Even though he’s got a submachine gun. And so, those were the pictures that Dolores Valera put -- OL: And they would use them in the -- JJ: Where is Dolores now? OL: We don’t know. She went to New Mexico, and the last time that -- [Omar?] has tried to keep in touch with Olga Pedroza who was one of the founders of LADO. I think at one point he asked her if she new -- she was in touch with Dolores, but I think she said [01:07:00] she had lost touch with her. 26 �JJ: But that kind of was one of the pivotal points of the Young Lords in Lincoln Park. We were working together with the Latin Kings. OL: Yeah. And I remember a lot of -- I think the way in which we came to support the Young Lords was that some of the mothers that were involved with LADO were from that area. That’s how we kind of -- JJ: Exactly. The (inaudible) covered that area. Okay, so now, we’re working together, and then, we go to the youth conference? [Do you remember?]? OL: Yes, I think we hired two buses. JJ: We had buses full of Young Lords and (inaudible) and we went there. [01:08:00] OL: That was quite an event, traveling together. JJ: All the way to Denver, Colorado. And this was around ’68, 1968 was the first year. And then, later on the next year there was another one. OL: Yes. JJ: Okay. And what do you remember of that day, up in Denver, at that event? What do you remember? OL: Well, actually that it was an exhilarating event because of the fact that we brought so many people that were activists with us and with the Young Lords. It was something that had never happened. [01:09:00] And I remember that it was very good, because for the local people from LADO to be exposed to a national movement, I think, also opened up their understanding and their perception of themselves, because I think at that point they were able to see it was not just an isolated group, but there was a larger movement that they could identify with. I think that was the -- 27 �JJ: So, it impacted your members? OL: Oh, definitely. JJ: What did they do after that? OL: Well, we kept doing our -- the welfare department had not changed. I think it renewed determination. I think that’s the one thing about it, that people knew they were not [01:10:00] crazy. It wasn’t that they were asking for anything that they were not entitled to receive. So, I think it was a very good influence. It expanded their world, expanded their consciousness. JJ: What other events did the Young Lords and LADO work together? OL: Well, I think basically we were kind of a single issue organization. At one point, we [01:11:00] thought we would get into the things with the stores, with the national chains. But then, again, we saw that Jesse Jackson was covering that field, and we didn’t feel that by getting into that issue we wanted to become just adjunct to the personality of Jesse Jackson. So, we said, “Well, that’s not an issue where we can create our own --” JJ: Now, the Young Lords took over McCormick Seminary, Theological Seminary. And then, you went to the -- as part of that takeover, [01:12:00] you went to San Antonio, Texas. OL: San Antonio -- the Presbyterian National Convention, right, yes. JJ: What happened there? We don’t know what happened there. OL: Well, what happened there was that at one point I was able to address the general assembly. JJ: How did you address -- you just -- 28 �OL: Written. JJ: I mean, you talked to the people that -- and they gave you permission? OL: Oh, yeah, to all the -- JJ: They had to give you permission because their seminary was taken over. (laughter) OL: Kind of. They could not ignore my presence because I was not there by myself. I was there as a representation of people that had taken over -- JJ: A seminary, the administration building. OL: That’s right. Yes. The one thing [01:13:00] that we have learned very late through the meetings that we have been having with clergy is that the takeover also had quite an impact inside the leadership. JJ: Of the clergy? OL: Of the clergy, right. I don’t know how -- JJ: Why do you say that? I mean, why do you say that it had an impact? OL: Because they told us. They told us how within -- I think within the faculty of McCormick -- within the student group, the ones that seemed kind of -effervescence. There was this kind of -- as part of the times, the ’60s, every level of [01:14:00] our communities -- there were -- well, the spirit of the time, so to speak, was present there too so that our addressing the national convention also had within the clergy -- there was also that kind of -- JJ: And how were you received? Were they quiet? Were they bitter at that time? Not now, but I mean, at that time. 29 �OL: At that time? Well, I don’t think they were bitter. It was, again, very unusual [01:15:00] that a convention of clergymen -- that it would have the presence, the visit of people representing a community. I think that we had a positive experience and that they were not -- we never sensed any kind of hostility because it was not like if we were -- we were a miniscule group. Our presence was not overpowering. I think the message that we gave, the message that we conveyed had an impact then and had an impact as they continued their -[01:16:00] JJ: What was the message that you conveyed? OL: Well, that there was a community that held grievances against the power structure and that they were part of the power structure. I think that basically that’s what it was. The way I understand it, they heard it, and it was a new voice. We were a new voice, and I don’t think they resented us because, again, we were nobodies. But the fact that we were coming with a message from my community -- I think that’s what was new. JJ: And we had a list of demands. And you were speaking. OL: Correct. [01:17:00] And basically, as I recall it, I just made a brief introduction and then read the demands and that was it. JJ: And that was it. No more speaking? I mean, that was it? You just said, “This is who I am and I’ve been sent here to tell you that these are the demands we want”? OL: Who I was and who I represented and what kind of grievances we had. And then, I read them. 30 �JJ: Then you walked off the stage? OL: Yeah, basically, yeah. The idea was not to keep hold of the seminario. JJ: Were they quiet, or did they just clap or boo? OL: No, there were no boos. I think they just listened and listened respectfully because there was no [01:18:00] sign of hostility. JJ: Okay. But then you came back from the conference by Sunday. By Sunday, it was over. By Sunday night it was over, we negotiated. OL: Once we finished our presentation, I think that I didn’t stay much longer maybe. JJ: So, were you at the negotiation then with [McKay?] or not at that time? OL: I don’t have a recollection of that. But I think the negotiations -- JJ: They were in his apartment, the night that we negotiated. [01:19:00] OL: I might have been in the negotiations, but I don’t have a recollection of that. JJ: Okay. So then, what happened after that? Because one of the demands was a clinic for LADO and a grant for the Young Lords also. OL: I think eventually we got a grant. JJ: For the Young Lords clinic. OL: That got us going for, I suppose at least a year. It was good because we didn’t have any sources of support. So, that helped us get going until the money ran out. JJ: And basically, what was the clinic? What did you do in your clinic? OL: Well, I think basically it was like [01:20:00] -- I remember one of the services that were very effective for maybe two to three years was the physical examinations that were required for students to be admitted in school. I know that the kind of -- 31 �if they would go to a private doctor, it was -- I don’t remember exactly how much, but it was quite an expense, especially if you had a family with three, four, five kids, a lot of them having to have that examination before they could enter into school. [01:21:00] When we set up ourselves to give the physical examinations, that was a great economic contribution to the families, because I think that even the doctors had to lower -- the private doctors -- they had to lower their fees because we had quite a good number of families that received those services. Then of course, the ones that would get primary care -- we also were able to refer. That was the other important thing. Through the doctors that were part of the faculty of Northwestern, we were able to refer them to specialty services, I think, when they needed more. JJ: At Northwestern? OL: At Northwestern, yes. JJ: And Northwestern was located where? Do you recall? Oh, that’s [01:22:00] Northwestern University. OL: Here on Chicago and [by the lake?]. JJ: So, people came to you and they -- OL: Right. And the ones that needed -- JJ: Did they pay any money? OL: No, no. JJ: So, they didn’t pay any money? OL: No, they didn’t pay any money. 32 �JJ: And then, you also referred them to Northwestern, and there they didn’t pay any money either? OL: Most likely not because I think all of them, even at that time, were eligible to get some form of economic help to cover their services. So, the important thing is that we -- that through the referral system, we were able to get people to receive services in that facility. JJ: And that happened for a year, at least a year. OL: At least three years, I think. JJ: So, a lot of people went to the services. [01:23:00] OL: Oh yes, uh-huh. JJ: So, that was that was a good organizing vehicle, or what -- did look at it like that? OL: The interesting thing is we didn’t see it as an organizing vehicle. We saw that that was a service that we could provide to people that didn’t have it, so we gave it to them. JJ: (inaudible) community. Okay, and then what about after that? How did you feel about the Young Lords? This is another group. OL: Well, we felt, of course, solidarity, a sense of solidarity. I think we admired the fact that -- I mean, you were very young, and you had, in a sense, a big -- even if we didn’t quite understand it yet. But when you went up against [01:24:00] the powerful power structure, local -- when we talk about the Italians and we talk about the mafia. Hey, they were there. The good thing is that we -- you were not intimidated. I mean, it didn’t -- the name of the mafia didn’t instill fear in us, in you. So, that was -- 33 �JJ: So, we were, as a group of people, not just Young Lords, but LADO (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). OL: There were other groups. What was the name? JJ: SAC was marching with us also. We were not afraid of the mafia. OL: I think ABC came one or two years later, right? [01:25:00] JJ: (inaudible) OL: That was a time when -- JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) OL: When there was people felt the need to organize, and they organized in different groups, but they were organized. JJ: So, it was a time of people getting in a lot of different groups. OL: Right. JJ: Some of the groups were more prominent, (inaudible). Okay. Has that happened? What happened that those groups died out? OL: Well, there was a point when we -- I mean, not exactly run out of steam -- but I think we had a sense that things were closing in on us. [01:26:00] JJ: What gave us that sense? OL: I don’t know exactly how to say it. But first of all, I knew that we could not keep the same degree of intensity in organizing. Then also, at one point, we said that we didn’t really have any powerful people backing us up. And then also, at one point, I sensed that we had more -- that there were other forces around us that even we couldn’t quite define them. But we knew that we were not -- it’s not like everybody agreed with us. I think people that were [01:27:00] part of the 34 �structure -- I think they saw that we were harming them. In my perspective, what -- the end of that period of organizing was when -- I don’t know if you recall the takeover of Association House. There were some people that were not part of our group that presented, I think, a kind of more or less following the method of taking over. I mean, we took over McCormick Place. (audio cuts out) People that were not part of our group but that [01:28:00] they also wanted to take over so they took over Association House. JJ: A different group took over Association House? OL: Yeah. That’s where people like [Oscar Lopez?] and brother -- that spent so many years in jail. They were not part of our group, but they saw that there was nothing competition with us. So, they were not part of the McCormick takeover, but they are the ones that, at one point, took over Association House. But it was at the time when already Association House had responded to an earlier demand about participation of the community in the board of directors. So, by the time they took over, it was already when we had a good number of people from LADO in the board of directors so that there was no reason for their demands because we already had -- [01:29:00] we were the only group that responded to the request to submit names to be in the board. So, that’s when we got [Mel Moreno?] and the wife Mrs. Moreno and the daughter. They were on the board as well as other people. So, that’s more or less what happened. (break in video) OL: You, for your initiative to capture moments in our history that [01:30:00] were and are important. I think that’s -- it is because of people with the vision that you 35 �have to capture that that we’ll be able to tell the story to other people that maybe they lived the same period, but they were not involved. This is going to be good for descendants of the activists, that they see how the generation of the parents had to fight the good fight. We didn’t have any representatives in local politics, either at the city or at the county or the state level. Now, there is quite a good number of people that are of Latin origin, not [01:31:00] that it is helping us much, their presence there. But at least they are there. But it is due to the efforts of the generation of the -- I call it generation of the ’66 because the Division Street riots of June ’66 to me marked the beginning of the political power for our communities. In fact, the riots are the ones that gave us the power. The riots are the ones that gave the community the power. It took then some time before people actually began to take representative positions. But it was because of the riots that the doors were opened. That’s how I would like to finish [01:32:00] and again by saying that you are making a great contribution in capturing the remembrances of people. So, I congratulate you and wish you the best. (laughs) JJ: Thank you. END OF VIDEO FILE 36 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5154c94d61585d8a5045b2fa73e5ed14.mp4 6034611065d2b1e1b5267a81329c02c1 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 Obed López-Zacarias vídeo entrevista y biografía Descripción Spanish language Description entry Obed López Zacarias es el que fundió el Latin American Defense Organization (LADO), que empezó desde los 1960s hasta los medio 1970s, organizando para una unión de asistente social y por tratamiento digno con los quien reciben ayuda del Estado en la oficina de Wicker Park Welfare en Chicago. LADO también fue instrumental en el desarrollo del Segundo Ruiz Belvis Centro Cultural, que es el Centro Cultural Puertorriqueño más viejo en chicago. Señor López-Zacarias trabajo cerca con los Young Lords, incluyendo el protesto en la oficina de Fat Larry en Armitage y Bissell Street, igual que otros. Para dar un ejemple, Fat Larry’s Bissell Realty era buen conectada con la mafia de Lincoln Park igual que Paddy Bauer, y por lo menos una ocasión Fat Larry directo un pistola al rentero puertorriqueño porque estaba tarde en pagar la renta. Los Young Lords se informaron de la ocasión y marcharon con miembros de LADO a la oficina de Fat Larry. Cuando un representativo entro a su oficina, Fat Larry directo su pistola a José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez. Luego corrió y se encerró en una parte de su oficina hasta que la policía llego. La policía inmediatamente cacheó a Señor Jiménez por armas. Un fotógrafo capturo todo la ocasión y publico muchas de las fotos en el periódico de LADO la próxima semana. 20,000 copias fueron circuladas por los Young Lords en la sección Latina de Lincoln Park. Señor López-Zacarias fue a la conferencia de Presbyterian en Tejas para ser el ministro público para los Young Lords y la Lincoln Park Poor Peoples Coalition, durante la McCormick Seminary ocupación en 1969. Cuando la ocupación termino y las exigencias ganadas, LADO recibió $25,000 para abrir una clínica que es gratis para la comunidad donde muchos de los Latin Kings volantearon. La clínica fue construida en North Ave, cerca de Western en el vecindario de Wicker Park 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--Vida social y costumbres Pobreza--Illinois--Chicago Discriminación en la vivienda--Illinois--Chicago Housing--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_Lopez-Zacarias_Obed Title A name given to the resource Obed López-Zacarias video interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource López-Zacarias, Obed Description An account of the resource Obed López-Zacarias is founder of the Latin American Defense Organization (LADO), that organized for a caseworker union and for the dignified treatment of welfare recipients at the Wicker Park Welfare Office of Chicago. LADO was also instrumental in helping to develop the Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center, the longest standing Puerto Rican Cultural Center in the city of Chicago. Mr. López-Zacarias worked closely with the Young Lords and became the official envoy to the Presbyterian Conference in Texas by the Young Lords and the Lincoln Park Poor People’s Coalition. When the occupation was over and all the demands were won, LADO opened a free community clinic located in the Wicker Park neighborhood. 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 Poverty--Illinois--Chicago Discrimination in housing--Illinois--Chicago Housing--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 2012-03-02 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/520ceaaaf63b47bb50ed8a7ae835a409.pdf 1a8fd91418fbba0d69f3de3aad9f4a33 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Omar López Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 8/23/2012 Biography and Description English Omar López was Minister of Information for the Young Lords. He was born in Mexico and first came to Chicago in 1958, settling in the Humboldt Park Neighborhood where he has lived ever since. He first met some Young Lords in Lincoln Park when they were hanging out on the streets as a local Puerto Rican street gang. When the Young Lords transformed themselves officially on September 23, 1968 into a human rights movement, he saw them once again. This time those same young men were providing security for José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez and Fred Hampton (of the Black Panther Party) who were speaking together at Loop Jr. College where Omar a student and fighting for student rights and bilingual education. Mr. López joined the Young Lords in 1969. In 1973, he founded the Mexican Teachers Organization.Mr. López continues to work actively on behalf of Latino and immigrant rights. In 2006, he ran as a Green Party candidate for the House of Representatives in Illinois, 4th District. That same year, on March 10, he convened one of the largest mass demonstrations on behalf of working class immigrant rights in U.S. history. �Mr. López continues to be proactive in the Humboldt Park area, with immigrant rights, the Latin American Defense Organization (LADO), and the Young Lords. He is the Executive Director of CALOR, a clinic that especially serves Latinos affected by HIV/AIDS and other diseases. Spanish Omar López era el Ministro de Información para los Young Lords. Nació en México y llego a chicago en 1958, estableándose en el vecindario de Humboldt Park donde sigue viviendo. El primero conoció alguien de los Young Lords en Lincoln Park cuando estaban en las calles como una ganga puertorriqueña. López los vio de nuevo cuando los Young Lords se transformaron, oficialmente en el 23 de Septiembre de 1958, de in ganga a un movimiento de los derechos humanos. Esta vez los jóvenes estaban protegiendo a José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez y Fred Hampton (del Black Panther Party) quien estaban hablando juntos en Loop Jr. College donde López estaba peleando por los derechos de los estudiantes y educación bilingüe. López se hizo parte de los Young Lords en 1969. En 1973 el fundo el Mexican Teachers Organization. Señor López continúa trabajando por los derechos de Latinos y emigrantes. En 2006, el corrió por el Green Party como candidato para la Case de Representantes de Illinois, del 4th distrito. El 10 de Marzo del mismo año el reunió una de la más grandes demonstraciones, de gente que luchaban por los derechos de los inmigrantes de clase obrera, en la historia de los Estados Unidos. López continua siendo proactivo en la aria de Humboldt Park, derechos para inmigrantes, la “Latin American Defense Organization (LADO), y los Young Lords. El es el director ejecutivo de CALOR, una clínica para Latinos que han sido afectados por HIV/AIDS u otras enfermedades. �Transcript JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay, Omar, if you can give me your full name and your date of birth and where you were born. OMAR LOPEZ: Okay. My name is Omar Lopez. I was born in San Luis Potosí, Mexico. I was born on February the second, 1945. JJ: Okay. And then where is San -- OL: San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí, is a central state in the Republic of Mexico. It’s about a four hour drive north of Mexico City, so it’s right in the heart of the Mexican Republic. JJ: What is it? Is it a rural area or? OL: I was born in n San Luis Potosí, so it’s already established city, but it was established because there was a lot of mines during the Spaniards, a lot of mines. So that’s why it was established there. JJ: Gold mines or -- OL: It was silver mines. JJ: Silver mines. OL: Silver mines. [00:01:00] And so that’s how San Luis became a city. That’s where it was the cabecera, the head of the municipality. When I was born, I seem to remember that the population was like three quarters of a million people, but now it’s much, much bigger. But at that time, my family had moved into one of those, they call ’em colonias, the neighborhood that was at the fringe of the city. I mean, I could walk two blocks and I was already out in the open field. And 1 �when I look at it, in retrospect, that was a transition between country and city. People were still farmers, but they were making the transition between becoming farmers and becoming city dwellers. So a lot of the -- I [00:02:00] used to see a lot of wagons being pulled by mules. They had alfalfa and other things. So it was very interesting, very beautiful. As a matter of fact, from what I remember, beautiful transitional neighborhood. It was really nice. My father was a railroad man. JJ: What was his name? OL: My father’s name was Facundo López Martinez. JJ: Okay. And he was a railroad man? OL: He was a railroad man. He worked in the railroad, all of his adult life. I think he started probably about 19 years of age, immediately after the revolution. He was born in 1892. So when the Mexican Revolution started, he was 18. So he was recruited right away and he was recruited by the government. So he was from the state of Guanajuato. And the troops that he was with traveled the way to Acapulco [00:03:00] Guerrero, state of Guerrero, way south. But then at that time, a group of them were not happy. So they all deserted. They deserted from the federal troops and they joined the Zapatistas. JJ: So he deserted? OL: He deserted with -- JJ: And joined the Zapatistas? OL: And they joined the Zapatistas. And he did that. Of course, that group, the objective was to get back into Mexico City. They worked themselves back into 2 �Mexico City. So he saw part of, he participated in the Mexican Revolution, but since a very young age, he became a railroad person. He worked at the railroads until the day he died. That neighborhood again, was also populated by a lot of railroad people because San Luis being right in the center of Mexico, at the time [00:04:00] the whole network of trains, they all practically had to go through that city. So it was a railroad town. And consequently, it was also a labor town. Their union was very strong there, and there was always fights and things. But that was the neighborhood where I grew up. JJ: And your mom, what was her name? OL: My mother’s name was Maria Rosario Zacarias Vida de Lopez. JJ: Vida de Lopez? OL: Well, I mean, she became Vida de when my father passed away. So most of my life I knew her as Vida de Lopez. JJ: They used it -- OL: Yeah, that’s a full, that’s like the official thing when you, but her name was Maria Rosario. She came from a family. Her last name, maiden name was Zacarias. And [00:05:00] Zacarias is kind of strange last name. So when I started asking, it turns out that there probably somewhere way in the back, it was a Lebanese, it’s a Lebanese last name. So then my mother’s father was a-- JJ: His name? OL: My grandfather. My grandfather was a-- JJ: What was his name? 3 �OL: His name was Jesus Zacarias. Jesus Zacarias. He was an administrator for one of the haciendas in San Luis. So my mother grew up in one of those haciendas. JJ: And what is a haciendas? [00:05:30] OL: An hacienda, that was sort of like the unit. It was the property that landowners over the time had. And then they had workers, agricultural workers, and they cultivated, I guess different things. And from what I [00:06:00] understand, the hacienda was called Jesus Maria. They grew a lot of maguey for mezcal and I assume, probably not tequila, but mezcal and other crops. But my grandfather was just the administrator. He was a good administrator. And so my mother grew up in Jesus Maria San Luis Potosi. And then she moved to a little town called Río Laja in the state of Guanajuato, which is right next to San Luis. And it happened that the train that my father used to work on, used to pass by Río Laja. How my father started eyeing my mother, she was, must’ve been about sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, something like that. And that’s how their romance started. So eventually they got married, [00:07:00] and that’s how we got here. I’m the last of eight in the family. There’s three males. JJ: What are some of their names, your siblings? OL: So we’re three males and five females. So the males are Hector Xavier, Efraim, Obed, Hazael, and myself, Omar, my sisters are Deborah, Priscilla, and Noemi. JJ: Are any of them here or any? OL: One of them still lives in Chicago, and two of them never lived in the United States. They stayed in Mexico. And that’s where they are. They’re still living in Mexico. 4 �JJ: And what are they involved in? What type of work do they do? OL: Well, actually they just became housewives. They got married. One of my sisters did live in the United States for a while because my brother-in-law was a doctor, a medical doctor, and came to Maryland to [00:08:00] specialize in neuropsychology, neurosiquiatría, neuropsychiatry. And then he went back. And that’s like in the very early 1960s and ever since then, they stayed in Mexico. The other sister married, my brother-in-law was like an accountant. So he always worked in either banks or what they called seguridad social, social security, in Mexico until he retired. JJ: Okay. And so you came to Chicago what year? OL: I came to Chicago in 1958 to stay. We came in 1957, stayed for six months. We went back, that was in 1957. We came in February, 1957 for the first time, just for vacation. I had my oldest brother and my oldest sister were already here, and they wanted us to come and visit. And since my father was [00:09:00] a railroad man. JJ: And when did they arrive, your oldest brother? OL: Oh, my brother was the first one that came to Chicago in 1949. He was 19 years of age, and he came illegally. JJ: Do you know where he settled? OL: He settled, oh, the address that I remember was the 1500 block south of Harding in Illinois. Now it’s a primarily African-American community. It’s in North Lawndale. It’s in North Lawndale area. That’s the one address I remember. JJ: And you were saying your father was a railroad man? 5 �OL: Yeah, because my father was a railroad man we could travel free. He would get passes, railroad passes. So we used to take the train from San Luis Potosi and we ended up in Chicago. We didn’t even have to get off the train. So well in San Antonio we had to-- JJ: From there to here, it was the same train? OL: Yeah, all we had to do was transfer in San Antonio. But it was -- JJ: [00:10:00] Did you need documentation or anything like that? OL: Oh yeah. But when you cross Laredo, then you had to go through customs. JJ: Okay. And that was set up? OL: Yeah. JJ: Okay. All right. OL: So that was in February of 1957. We went back to Mexico in August of 1957, and we didn’t think we were coming back. But then my father passed away in January of 1958. And when my brothers that were already living in Chicago, for the funeral, they decided that I had to come with them. That I’d be better off if I came with them. So I arrived here in January of 1958. JJ: Okay. OL: Yeah. Ever since then I’ve been here in Chicago. JJ: Where did you live at? OL: When we came, it was the very first time is 1829 North Humboldt Boulevard. JJ: Okay. OL: That was in 1957. JJ: Humboldt Park. 6 �OL: Yeah, Humboldt Park. I’ve always been a Humboldt Park resident [00:11:00] since, ever since I came from Mexico, 1958. JJ: Since 1958. Okay. Now what were you doing just before you got here? What type of work? OL: Before I came to Chicago? JJ: Yeah. OL: I was a student. I was in grammar school. JJ: Okay, you were in grammar school. OL: In grammar school, yeah. JJ: All right, so now you’re living in Humboldt Park at that time. OL: We came to the Humboldt Park. JJ: How was the community? OL: The community in Humboldt Park was all primarily white. We were probably one of two families that were Mexican. There was a lot of Norwegians. As a matter of fact, the building where we came to live was owned by man, I think his last name was [Skomba?], but he was of Norwegian descent. On Humboldt Boulevard, right around the 1600 block there was sort of like the YMCA was Norwegian-American YMCA, but it was just like an association, youth association. [00:12:00] And there was a lot of Ukrainians and Polish people that I remember. JJ: So right around that area. OL: Yeah. JJ: I mean, what about Western and in that area? 7 �OL: All of that was white. JJ: Was white. OL: All of that was white in 1958. JJ: In 1958. OL: In 1958, all of that was white. One day I went to school, there was no bilingual education, so I should have been going to high school when I came from Mexico, but they put me in fifth grade because I didn’t understand English. So see, they used to equate not speaking English with being ignorant. So they said, “Well, this guy doesn’t speak English. He probably belongs in a lower grade,” but in areas such as like math, I was way ahead of all of the students. But the school was all white. There was a couple of students that were-- JJ: What school was [00:13:00] it? OL: Yates. Yates Elementary in Richmond, in Wabansia. I went there and I graduated from there. And since they put me back several grades in 1958, I went to summer school to at Wells High School to get double promoted so I could catch up. And then by the time I got to high school-- JJ: Was that common with people doing that? OL: Well, a lot of the guys that were going to summer school was because they were failing. I was going there because I needed to take additional courses so I could move up. But it is interesting because that’s where I began to have a little more contact with Puerto Ricans when I went to summer school at Wells, and they were coming from other schools. 8 �JJ: So it was a white community, but the summer school was full of Spanish speakers. OL: They had a lot of Spanish speakers, but they were coming from a different area. They were coming from the southeast end [00:14:00] because that’s where the families were around Chicago Avenue, Ashland, Noble. That way. JJ: Okay. That was Chicago Noble in that area, right? OL: Yeah. Okay. That’s where they came from. I mean, I came from the other extreme, which is Humboldt Park, but that’s where I started to have contact with-- JJ: This is in 1958, so they’re coming from Chicago and Noble around 1958. OL: Nineteen-fifty eight, 1959, right, 1960. So that was my first contact with Puerto Ricans. Well, no, actually, there was one student in Yates that was Puerto Rican, but I think he was born in Chicago and didn’t speak a lot of Spanish. They put me in the same room with him because he was supposed to help me translate, but he didn’t speak Spanish very good. So it was not much help, but it was nice to have been with him. His name was [Joe Ortiz?]. [00:15:00] But yes, so summer school was sort of the first contact that I had with Puerto Rican, 1959, 1960, 1961. And of course, when I went to high school the first year, then there was really a lot more Latino Mexicans and Puerto Ricans there. So that was in essence, the group that I started to hang around. JJ: So the neighborhood is changing over now slowly, right, into Latino or because it’s Humboldt Park. I mean, today is like the heart of, or not today, but not so long ago, it was the heart of the -- OL: The Puerto Rican community. 9 �JJ: So it starts to change in the 1960s, is that what? OL: In the 1960s it starts changing because, and the movement was coming from the east, coming West. JJ: So from the [Main?] and that coming west. OL: Right, right. [00:16:00] I think that when they built Carl Sandberg Village, a lot of ’em went to Lincoln Park. A lot of the families that were displaced, and a lot of ’em went towards Humboldt Park and this area. So I think that was that kind of shift, demographic shift going on because of urban renewal. So again, high school was where I began to have a lot more contact with Puerto Ricans. JJ: Now, was there any youth groups among the ethnic groups, the white ethnic communities? OL: There were, especially when I got into high school. Well, when I was in grammar school, we used to get some of this youth groups incursions. I was-- [00:17:00] just came from Mexico. I was brand new. I didn’t understand the concept of a gang, but that’s what it was. Gangs were coming into the neighborhood, and they were mostly from the areas of Western and Chicago Avenue. There was a group that was called Chi-West, and they had cars. So they would come into the neighborhood and harass some of the young guys. And since I was totally alien to the concept of gangs, and I used to tell the guys, “Come on, let’s go at ’em.” And they were afraid. I couldn’t understand why. Even in high school, I wanted to get people together too, because there was, in high school, there were more gangs that were mostly Italian and they were Polish, also. JJ: In Wells? 10 �OL: No, Wells was summer school. When I went to high school at Tuley High School, Tuley High School. And that’s where they were [00:18:00] more youth. They were Italians and they were rough. But because at the time the Puerto Rican youth was just beginning to select structure itself, also in groups. And then that’s where several groups began to grow, at least in my area. In my area, around the early 1960s, we used to have the Latin Angels. That was one of them. And for a while, there was the-- JJ: Latin Angels was a Puerto Rican group. OL: There was a Puerto Rican group, the Latin Angels, Puerto Rican, and then there was the Trojans. They were there. There was one group that came and went there. It was called the [409ers?]. JJ: So they were beginning to form? OL: Yeah, to form. JJ: Because actually, I believe the Latin Angels were even before the Kings at the-- OL: Oh, yeah, yeah. The Latin Angels were [00:19:00] in the early 1960s. Early 1960s. And I used to know a lot of them because-- JJ: And they were on Division Street. That was their-- OL: Yeah, that’s how I came in contact with ’em, because I got a job at a hot dog stand and that hot dog stand on Division and Maplewood used to be sort of like the focus, even before the Latin Angels, the Puerto Ricans that I began to hang around with were from that corner. And it was like from that hot dog stand that we would take off to go into fights. Either we went to Humboldt--Division and Kedzie or anywhere else, but we used to get together. And after the fight, that’s 11 �where we used to come back right there. So that hot dog stand. So I knew a lot of them. JJ: We used to go there because we were friends with the Latin Angels. OL: [00:20:00] Angels. Okay. Well, I think that also my first contact or my first knowledge of the Young Lords-- JJ: Because actually all the Latino gangs were kind of together at the time. There was a more racial-- OL: Yeah, because I don’t know, you remember that the YMCA used to bring us all together at the Duncan YMCA? JJ: Exactly. OL: All the groups used to come in there. There wasn’t that kind of friction that there is today. But the first contact I had with my knowledge of the Young Lords was also through a hillbilly. Kenny Smith was his name, and Kenny Smith was white. And one time we were driving around Western, I had a 1952 Mercury, four door. Four doors was important because they could come in and out quick. And we’re driving around Western and Rice, [00:21:00] Chopin school, and that’s where the Chi-West people were, Chi-West. And of course, they yelled at us and they chased us. And Kenny Smith was all offended. I says, “Oh man, let’s go get my friends.” He said “Who are your friends?” And I said, “Well, the Young Lords here on,” he wanted me to drive him to Armitage and just east of Halsted, there was a playground burning. That’s where they hanging around. He wanted me to go get ’em. That was sort my first knowledge of the Young Lords. But on this 12 �side, it was the Latin Angels, this where they used that corner. They used to come around that hot dog stand. JJ: And then Levitt and Schiller, you had the Kings, where they started. OL: Well, then later on, the Levitt and Schiller was where the Kings really were born. Levitt and Schiller. It was right next to a school. JJ: Wasn’t there a group called the Young Centers? OL: [00:22:00] They were the Young Sinners. JJ: Was the Young Sinners, right? OL: Yeah, yeah. Kings. Yeah. Then there was Hispanic Lords. JJ: Spanish Lords were further up there. OL: Yeah. JJ: So they kind of all formed around the same time. And they all got along at that time. OL: At the time, yeah. At the time, there was not a problem between gangs. And I think that the fact was that families were moving into those neighborhoods, so they were brand new. And what I always say is that the young people were the ones that were carving out safe spaces for Latino-- for their families to move in, because the adults, the parents, they were busy working, but the youth were the ones that really had the scrimmages with the other ethnic gangs. And that was, I see it as a process of carving out the neighborhoods for [00:23:00] for families. And that was going on everywhere. Everywhere where Latino families were moving in. And you could go back and see it happening around 55th and Emerald. You had the Emerald Knights over there, and you had, there was 13 �another one, the Latin Souls. It happened in Lincoln Park with the Young Lords, the Black Eagles. JJ: Flaming Arrows. OL: Right. Paragons. The (inaudible). JJ: (inaudible) OL: So those were the youth groups that were, in essence, whether they knew it or not, they were once carving out those neighborhoods for the families and on this side, things like the Latin Angels, and then later the Latin Kings and the other groups that organized. JJ: So when you say carving out, [00:24:00] why did they have to carve out? I mean, what? OL: Well, for example, the displacement that was going on around the city through urban renewal was really pushing or really creating a shift in the population. So Latino families were moving into neighborhoods, not because they wanted to, you know, but because they had to. And it usually had to move into neighborhoods that were already an ethnic neighborhood. In the Humboldt Park area, I think it was primarily Polish, Ukrainian, Italian. And those ethnic groups were already established. But when the Latino families, in this case, the Puerto Rican families begin to move in and start pushing, then the friction begins. And so then you will hear a lot of stories from young, well, today will be old people, but when they were young that they had [00:25:00] problems just going to school. They always talk about, “I had to run to school and run back home.” But that’s what was happening. And so even some of the guys that had to run to school 14 �and run back, at one point or another got together and they formed their groups to defend themselves and in that defense that’s when they were beginning to carve out that neighborhood for themselves. JJ: And what about organization wise and businesses, when did they start coming in? OL: Division Street was really hopping in the 1960s. By 1963, 1964, I mean, you had Puerto Ricans living, at least from Damen all the way to California. That was so-[00:26:00] practically all Puerto Rican. And because there was that wave of new Puerto Rican families coming into the city. So they were moving into neighborhoods like Division Street. And so because of that, there was a lot of mercados. There was a lot of grocery stores on the corners, and they were real good businessmen. They really bloomed in terms of business, furniture stores, clothing stores, jewelry--jewelry stores. I mean, you had all of it on Division Street, [carons?], social clubs, so all along Division Street, you had that. And you had people on the street every day, all day, twenty-four hours a day. I mean, it was really a street that was busy and hopping, and a lot of things were going on Division Street. So there was a strong business community, [00:27:00] a strong business community that I began to see. And again, looking at it in retrospect, right around the middle of 1960s, late 1960s, a lot of those businessmen that were successful, they began to go back to Puerto Rico. So then they began to, as they left, they created a vacuum in the community in terms of business. And so the mercados were beginning to disappear and access to food and things was beginning to change. Then you had to go to National, because that was the big 15 �supermarket. Then what we have Jewel today, that was National then. But that was a vacuum then. JJ: So why do you think they left? I mean, at that time? OL: I think that because they were very successful, they were all businessmen, and they knew [00:28:00] how to save. And when they were ready, they moved with everything. A lot of them opened up their businesses in Puerto Rico. JJ: Because that was their intention, basically. OL: Their intention, I think, was, yeah, to come, make money and then go back and they did. A lot of ’em stayed, but Division Street was not the same once all of this group of businessmen began to pick up and go. I think it suffered economically, the community suffered economically because of that. The money wasn’t staying in the community anymore. The money was going up, people had to shop elsewhere. But I think it was very strong economically. There were jobs, Puerto Ricans were working, they were all employed, but at the same time that the adults were moving in and finding jobs and struggling, and [00:29:00] the young people were going to school, what I said, carving out the neighborhood with the scrimmages, with the other ethnic gangs, and saw the relationship between the youth and the police was the one that was really tense. And we adults too, but not adults as much, because they were at work eight hours a day. But the young people were on the streets all the time, and they were getting harassed constantly by the police. I insist that during those days, the police department didn’t have the requirements that they have today to become a policeman. And so a lot, the former gang members from other ethnic groups 16 �became policemen. So they weren’t going to be very nice to Puerto Rican gangs when the friction was still going on between their former gang and the new gangs that were popping up in the neighborhood. So the harassment was really intense [00:30:00] everywhere. Everywhere. It wasn’t just on Division, it was on the South Side. It was in Lincoln Park. So the young people were really developing this very antagonistic relationship with the police department. And then you had the adults, they had their organizations too. JJ: What were some of these groups? OL: You talk about the Los Caballeros de San Juan, [Posta Boricua?], (Spanish), the Catholic Church was pretty active then. So you had the Cardinals Committee for Spanish speaking people. So the adults were working at establishing not legitimate, but acceptable organizations. And they were working at establishing the [00:31:00] community as an acceptable community to the city government, for example. And I think that the adults, all the work that they did, all the organizing that they did paid off. And even they had two factions going at the time. The [Posta Boricua?] was on one side, the Puerto Rican Congress and others were on the other side, but they decided to come together. The Caballeros de San Juan used to have their parade every year, but they came together and they decided to have one parade downtown. And for them, that was a symbol of acceptance and credibility before the eyes of the entire city. So they succeeded. They were successful in that sense. They established that, and they had in 1966, their first Puerto Rican parade [00:32:00] downtown. But it happened that at the same time, the youth were being harassed and all this 17 �friction was building up that when there was an incident between the policeman and a young man that was shot, I think he was shot in the foot or something like that. Everything blew up. And people couldn’t explain that. Why -- I mean, they just had to parade downtown and now they’re having a riot. And it was that because it was two parallel developments in the community; the youth that was being harassed by the police, the youth that was fighting, having scrimmages to, like I said, carving out a safe space for the families, and the adults that were going to work, trying to establish conventional organizations. It was parallel. And the youth, when they exploded, they exploded. They were a lot more impactful in the community. So in 1966, [00:33:00] after a Sunday, I believe it was June 14, the riots began. JJ: The youth got shot you said? OL: He was shot, the police -- JJ: Aracelis or something? OL: Aracelis -- I forgot last name. I’ll remember in a minute. Cruz. Aracelis Cruz. So police began, I mean the people began to protest what had happened there. And since everybody was out because of the Parade and because it was a celebration, there was a lot of people out in the street. And I think the police not being experienced seeing crowds like this, they called in the K-9 unit. So they brought out the dogs, and I think the dogs did bit some people, and [00:34:00] that was the end. I think Puerto Ricans, and I think other Latinos, have some very specific ideas about their self. And I think if a human being strikes you, it’s understandable. There’s another one, you’re fighting and someone hits you, but 18 �when someone with a dog comes and has the dog bite you and attack you, it’s a dog. You’re being attacked by dog. I think that had a lot to do. Bringing the dogs out had a lot to do with how the community understood how they were being seen by the police. And I think that was very offensive. Very offensive to the community. But again, I think it was the youth that kept three days [00:35:00] and three nights of rioting, not the adults. The adults were trying to calm everything down. The established organizations were on the street every day, like the Caballeros San Juan. They were out trying to calm things down. The youth, I mean, this I think was the first time that the youth could strike back at that entity that always harassed them without having to be arrested or without paying the consequences. So the bottles and the stones and the sticks and everything -- that they flew for three days and three nights. And the youth being very mobile, you could see them on Maple and Division now, and two minutes later, they were three blocks away. And so it was that kind of movement. It was obvious that it was the youth. And I think from the [00:36:00] East side, Damen and Division, there was a group there that kept it going. But then on the West side, let’s say from California and Division, there was another group, and I think that was the beginning of the Kings, the Latin Kings, were -- there was a group that kept it going on this side. So that happened three days and three nights. And I think that affected also a lot, affected the businessmen a lot. JJ: How did it affect the business? 19 �OL: Well, I think that they had a very negative reaction. And I don’t know, maybe thinking about it, maybe that’s one thing that helped to make a decision to move back to Puerto Rico because this was 1966. JJ: Because some of their businesses were destroyed. OL: And I think that that was one negative aspect of the riot. Of any riot. Any riot. [00:37:00] You can understand striking at authorities that harass you and oppress you, but then a line is crossed where you begin to loot businesses, break windows and steal from the businesses. And I think that’s the other extreme of the riot. JJ: How did the city respond? Mayor Richard J. Daley was the mayor. OL: Yeah. Well, Mayor Daley, he wasn’t ready -- the city wasn’t ready for a Puerto Rican riot. They were ready for an African-American riot. That’s what they were expecting when the summer came, but this was June, so they weren’t ready. And of course, they did the regular thing of sending police and trying to find the leadership that would calm things down. [00:38:00] There was a lot of meetings going on there between the established leadership and the city. The youth though, was the one that was pushing for changes. And I think that one of the things that came out of it, it’s interesting that the height of -- the height requirement for policemen to be policemen was too high for -- the young kids felt that for Puerto Ricans in this case, or Hispanics, that’s why they said that was the reason why you didn’t have a lot of policemen because they were all too short. So the mayor had to lower the height requirements so that Hispanics could join 20 �the police force. That was one of the demands that came from the community. But the mayor also-JJ: So a group of people got together and wrote a demand? OL: A group of people got together and they [00:39:00] drew up a whole series of demands. JJ: What sort of groups were involved with that? OL: Well, it’s interesting because there was a lot of the representation from the youth groups were there. JJ: So the youth were involved? OL: Yes. And they were the ones that were coming up with some of the demands. But the mayor responded by forming a commission to study the situation in the Puerto Rican community. And of course, they came out with a lot of recommendations they had to do with the youth-- employment, education, housing, health. I mean, in all of them it was falling short, the city was falling short. So recommendations came out to start addressing those problems. Out of the riots came a series of recommendations. For the first time, they opened up [00:40:00] what they used to call the Urban Progress Centers, and they opened the first Urban Progress Center in the Latino community, was on Division and Damen. And the first director was Samuel Betances. And at the time, he was a young man that wanted also to be involved in doing some things. And I think he was already employed by the city at the time. Later on, he went to Boston and went to Harvard and got a PhD. And today he’s an authority on diversity training, and he’s done diversity training all over the world. But that was 21 �the first director of the Urban Progress Center. And there are all the things that came out of it. But the one thing that came out of it that was almost like new to the Latino community was advocacy groups [00:41:00] that demanded things for the community. JJ: What were some of these advocacy groups? OL: Well, then out of the riots came SACC, the Spanish Action Committee of Chicago. There was another group that ABC, The Allies for a Better Community, and also the Latin American Defense Organization, LADO. And I think that of the three, LADO was the more militant group that always, out of the principles of action that they had, this is the last resource is going to be direct action. Well, after they would exhaust all the other means, they always ended up taking actions and picketing, demonstrating, marches. But it was something that the Latino community in Chicago wasn’t used to yet. This kind of activity, I call it advocacy, the demonstrations [00:42:00] and demanding services. So this also came out, I think, out of the riots, this new approach to the problems of the community. That was 1966. JJ: Now, going a little further than 1966, what were you doing after that? OL: Well, by 1966, I already had been married, and I had a daughter. As a matter of fact, my six months in high school, I was already married, and I had my daughter a month after I graduated from high school. So then after high school, I had to go to work. I stopped working at the hot dog stand, got a job. I had to go get a job that would pay me a little more. I had a daughter by that time. So I went to [00:43:00] work at Western Electric. A lot of Puerto Ricans were working at 22 �Western Electric. I met a lot of ’em there. As a matter of fact, my friends that we used to hang around together on Maplewood and Division, they were there. My family, there was three or four of my-- two of my brothers worked there. So Western Electric used to employ a lot of Latinos. So I was working there. JJ: Is this Western Electric South or no? OL: Western Electric was on Cermak and Cicero. JJ: Right, right. OL: Yeah. So that was in 1966. I graduated in 1964, so it was already two years. And it was interesting because my wife and I decided that we were going to continue going to school one way or the other. JJ: What was your wife’s name? OL: My wife at the time was Ada Lopez. Ada Lopez was the daughter of Graciano Lopez, who was the first president of the Puerto Rican Parade Committee. JJ: [00:44:00] That’s right, I remember. OL: But we had decided that we were going to continue school. So we started going to Loop City College, which is now Harold Washington college, part time at night, just taking one class here, one class there. So we still continued going to school, but being very active by (inaudible), we were founding members of LADO. So we were doing a lot of the work also in terms of community organizing. We started doing a lot of that. In LADO also we had people that were draft resistors, for example, we had Sijisfredo Avilés, I think he was the first Puerto Rican draft resistor. He went to jail for it. He served time because he refused to go to the 23 �Army, to serve in the Army. [00:45:00] So there was all this kind of activity going on. JJ: Who were some of the other players in LADO? OL: Well, in LADO, the founding members were, first of all, my brother Obed. There was a young Afro-Puerto Rican that was actually one of the organizers with Martin Luther King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. His name was, [Andres?]--and I don’t remember the last name, but he was part of it. Another young student, Puerto Rican student at Tuley High School was [Miguel?]. Man, I’m forgetting all those names. Miguel. He was also part of it. My ex-wife, Ada, myself, [00:46:00] Olga Pedroza was also, she was a case worker in the welfare department at the time. So those were the first group of people in LADO that started doing community organizing. And of course, at the same time-- JJ: Community organizing around what issues? OL: The issue, the main issue was welfare. Welfare, because again, you were having a lot of displacement of families. And the displacement, there was a lot of needs that families had. Also, when new families were arriving from Puerto Rico, they also needed assistance in settling, and the welfare department was not responding. JJ: And which office were you mainly-- OL: At the time the welfare office was on Milwaukee and Damen, what is now the Flat Iron building. That was where they had -- JJ: What was it called? Wasn’t that Wicker Park? OL: The Wicker [00:47:00] Park Welfare Office. 24 �JJ: Which was the office for Lincoln Park people. OL: They also came from Lincoln Park. JJ: So they had, when they were displaced from there, like you said-- OL: Yeah, they had to come there. JJ: Issues. OL: And so then LADO was taking care of some of that, demanding that they get services demand, that they get the assistance that was due to them. And so LADO became a family-based organization because you were not dealing with, which is one member of the family you were not dealing with. You were dealing with problem solvers of family. So the whole family used to be members of LADO. And so then LADO, that’s what it became. LADO was families. Families that were from the neighborhood. And so then when LADO would have a demonstration, and you had all these mothers and young kids that were [00:48:00] demonstrations in the marches, and the kids at the time, they saw their parents being active, and they became active themselves. JJ: And after that, what did you get involved in after that? OL: Well, because I was going to Loop College, the one thing that we realized in LADO was that students needed to be organized also. So when I was going part time, I decided to start an organization at Loop College, and I talked to some of the other students that were Latino students, Mexicans that would come from 18th Street, and decided that we needed to form a student organization. And so we got a group together and we called it OLAS, the Organization of Latin 25 �American Students. At Loop Junior College. And so the interesting thing about that is-JJ: Which today is Carol Washington. OL: Carol Washington [00:49:00] College. And OLAS still exists today since 1968 until today. They’re still there. The big difference, I think at the time was that first of all, the students were coming from the neighborhoods. And the other one, one of the principles of the organization was, yeah, we’re studying, and we may be getting a degree, but we’re supposed to go back to the neighborhood. We have to return to our barrio. That’s what we needed. We used to criticize students that would go get a degree, and then they move out. I said, “No, the work’s got to be done in the neighborhood.” So we may get trained and we may get a degree, but we have to go back to the neighborhood. So that was a movement also in the student movement to go back and bring back the skills to the neighborhood. So I [00:50:00] think that was unique and that was unique of OLAS. And so then OLAS also got involved with LADO because of that, because the area of activity was in the community. So that was interesting. JJ: So you did work, I mean, you were recruiting students too? OL: Recruiting students. Organizing students. And we would go and talk to students in the high schools and other colleges and universities to get ’em organized. JJ: So you expanded to other-- OL: Yeah, yeah. We were into an expansionist mode. But of course, I don’t know if this is good or bad, but all of my tendencies from when I used to be on Division and Maplewood, I mean, we had ’em, a lot of, still had a lot of street in us, and 26 �our loyalties were still very street. [00:51:00] So for that reason, when I became directly in contact with the Young Lords in 1968. JJ: How did that happen? Do you recall? OL: Well, yeah, I remember that there was a urban training center on Washington and Ashland, and it was part of the Presbyterian Church, but people used to come there and be trained to be organizers, and they had conferences and presentations. And I remember one time that I went there, it was on a Saturday, beautiful Saturday. It probably was late summer. No, yeah, maybe even before. But nevertheless, that’s where I met you and Ralph ‘Spaghetti’ Rivera. [00:52:00] And you were in the process of reorganizing the Young Lords. And we talked, and again, a lot of the students, our loyalty was still very street. So I had no problems relating to you, relating to Ralph and understanding the things that you were doing. So that was the first, the contact, again, from when Kenny Smith told me, “Let’s go get the Young Lords,” to 1968, early 1968, I think that I sort reestablished the communications with the Young Lords. JJ: Yes, summer and fall. OL: So then at the time, Ralph, and you were developing the symbol for the Young Lords, [00:53:00] and you told me what it was, and I helped draw that, the map, the fist, the rifle. That was my contribution to the development of the Young Lord button. And so then we continued working because in the demonstrations that we had against welfare, for example, we had demonstrations that were LADO, OLAS, the Young Lords, and through the Young Lords contacts, the Black Panthers. So the demonstrations that we had were not just one group. It was a 27 �coalition of groups. And as a matter of fact, also from the neighborhood, lot of the-JJ: Actually, Fred Hampton was arrested with myself and your brother. OL: At one of the welfare offices. JJ: A couple times at the Wicker Park Welfare office. OL: At the Welfare, yeah. Yeah. Because the African American community was also being affected by the lack of services from the welfare department. So that [00:54:00] was-- JJ: They had the coalition. OL: The Rainbow Coalition, the Rainbow Coalition was going on, right. So it was a very interesting, the Rainbow Coalition was able to mobilize in that manner. And I don’t know, it is difficult to see that happen again. But nevertheless, that was, again, they continued contact with the Young Lords. So then at one point you asked me to help a little more with the Young Lords. And I think at the time you needed to have someone deal with a lot of the propaganda, the writing releases, things like that. So you asked me to come in as the Minister of Information for the Young Lords. And that was right around the takeover of McCormick Theological Seminary that I came as a Young Lords Minister of Information. JJ: So [00:55:00] what were you doing? I mean, you were writing the releases? OL: Yeah, and of course, we had a lot of contact with the Panthers. A lot of the things that we did, we tried to fashion it to the Panthers, the newspaper, all the things, even the structure. We had chairman ministers, because we saw that they were effective in organizing, especially in organizing street youth. That kind 28 �of structure was effective rather than to have, oh, here you have the president and the secretary. No, it had to be more structured in that way. JJ: But were we organized before that? Because a lot of people think that the Panthers organized this. OL: Oh, no, no, no, no. The Young Lords existed again from the early [00:56:00] 1960s. And then a lot of the work in reorganizing and reorienting the activities of the Young Lords was when you came back into the neighborhood and started to do that. So this was before the Panthers, and I think-- JJ: Before our connection, before our connection. OL: Before the connection of the Panthers. And I think one of the characteristics of the Young Lords in Chicago is that its membership was all neighborhood. It was rooted in the community. You didn’t have people coming in from Indiana and joining. You didn’t have people coming from-- No, it was so a community base, a community rooted organization that decided to take action. And I think that was part of the effectiveness of the Young Lords. You remember that when we called [00:57:00] a march, we didn’t call it a month ahead or two weeks ahead, it would be overnight. He says, “We got a demonstration.” And the word went out and people showed up. It was all neighborhood people. JJ: And were there a few people there, or -- OL: No, overnight you get a thousand people out. Why? Because the network was already there. If one of the Young Lords heard it, he passed the word, and that one passed the word. And there was a network was already set up. So it wasn’t like, it wasn’t an artificial organization that you said, “Okay, now we are going to 29 �call ourselves the Young Lords.” And no, it was something that was homegrown and it grew from the bottom up. So I think that was unique and that’s what made it effective. And then of course, then after yours always come groups that become [00:58:00] organized or they organize, but they don’t have the characteristic of the original Chicago Young Lords, which was that it was rooted in the community. So we were responding to the community, and it becomes obvious that it’s a community based group. Studs Terkel. One time we had a festival, a festival, it was in August of 1969 probably. And of course we played with words, I think we said, “We’re going to Roast the Pigs.” It was a festival in Puerto Rico, you roast pigs, right? But here you tell you were telling people we’re going to roast the pig, well, they thought it was a policeman. So it was an interesting play with concept. But nevertheless, that festival-JJ: [00:59:00] And the festival was in front of the church. OL: The festival was on Dayton and Armitage, in front of the headquarters of the Young Lords. JJ: The Methodist Church, the first block party. OL: It was probably the first one. JJ: After that there were block parties all the time. OL: Everywhere. But here, the interesting thing is Studs Terkel, who’s already very famous in terms of being an excellent interviewer, he came and interviewed people. And with that program that he did-- JJ: It was live. 30 �OL: Well, I don’t remember if it was live, but I know that from that program, he won a prize. JJ: An Emmy or something. OL: Yeah, something. But in that interview that they made of several people, adults, he would ask them, “How do you feel in this neighborhood? Is it secure? Is it more dangerous now with the Young Lords here?” And the response was, “No, I feel safer.” This is where adults talking to [01:00:00] Studs Terkel and saying, “No, I feel safer.” So again, that’s another indication that the Young Lords were really community. And the actions that the Young Lords were taking were not alien to the community. They people, adults related to that. Maybe adults couldn’t participate anymore, but they were not against us. They supported the actions of the Young Lords. So I think that, again-- JJ: You’re saying that the community was safe or was a feeling of security in the community with the Young Lords. OL: With the Young Lords. JJ: Versus what they’re saying, what they had said later. OL: And not only that, they could say that’s a subjective opinion of someone, but do you look at the statistics also? We looked at the statistics, the police at that time and crime went down in Lincoln Park when the Young Lords were there. JJ: You looked at this? OL: The statistics were there. I remember we looked at them, and I’m sure probably [01:01:00] Studs Terkel looked at ’em too. But again, going back to what made the Young Lords unique, I think that was part of it. That was part of it. And the 31 �other thing is that I think the Young Lords embodied a lot of the principles, dreams of a whole wave of activists that came from Puerto Rico to the United States, in this case, to Chicago. And this kind of view of the world and view of the island that was transmitted to the Young Lords from people that came from Puerto Rico had a lot to do. And I’m talking specifically about the decision that the Young Lords take to promote the independence of Puerto Rico, selfdetermination. The concept was self-determination. So self-determination for nations [01:02:00] included Puerto Rico. But I think a lot of that influence came from, again, a wave of adults that had come to the United States that were independentistas and nacionalistas, and they were still in the scene. And I remember that we used to get visits very often from a gentleman by the name of Manuel Ravago. And he was a nationalist. And I remember that he’s the one that, he gave us the nationalist flag, and he gave us a flag of the Lares. He was the one that was feeding us. And at the time, I don’t know how many of us were conscious of who this man was. And it’s not until later that you begin to place him in the history of the nationalist [01:03:00] movement. And Manuel Ravago was very active. I think that, well, no, he was directly connected to the nationalists that came to Congress and shut up Congress, Lolita Lebrón and [Coso?] and others. He was part of that group. So all of that kind of energy and nationalist energy, he deposited all that in the Young Lords. And that was another aspect that gave the Young Lords a lot more body as an organization. We could have stayed a neighborhood organization and fought urban renewal and provide health care, and that will be the end. But when we began to talk 32 �about self-determination, that put the Young Lords [01:04:00] in a different plane. And again, I’m saying that that type of political position that we assumed it was effective and had an impact, not just in Chicago, but all around the United States because of the history of the nationalists that had done all that work since 1952. Manuel Ravago was from Jayuya, and they still had that impetus from the Grito de Jayuya, from the rebellion in 1952 in Jayuya. So all of those things combined made the Young Lords very unique. The fact they were community-based, community rooted in the community, providing services, breakfast for children, clothing, the health clinic, [01:05:00] all of those things we were providing at the community level, but we were also providing the people, the families, with an ideal beyond the basic needs. And that was self-determination. So that made the Lords unique. JJ: They were other, for example, went to Denver, a couple of buses or busload? OL: In 1968, 1969. JJ: Did you go to Denver? OL: Yeah, yeah. In 1968 and 1969, the southwest of the United States was also very active politically. And the Chicano movement was really going at the time. And one of the leaders in the southwest was Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales, who headed the Crusade for Justice in Denver. And [01:06:00] he had a lot of young people too involved. And they decided to have the National Chicano Youth Conference. And because we had communications with the southwest, LADO had communications, OLAS. The Young Lords, I mean all of the groups, progressive groups that we had here with them. They called that conference and we decided 33 �that we needed to go and we needed to take young people. And it was interesting because we weren’t just going with community activists. We decided to take gangs, members of different gangs. And so we had the Young Lords, but the Latin Kings participated. From 18th Street, we had the Latin Counts, Ambrose and Rampant. And for the first time, south side and north side, we were coming together, not fighting, but coming together. And [01:07:00] we rode in the same bus. It was two buses. We rode in the same buses from Chicago to Denver, and they all came back impacted by the Chicano movement and ready to be active. Can we take a little, I’m afraid, talking about the Young Lords all this time. JJ: Okay. OL: Okay, so then going back about the uniqueness of the Young Lords, that’s what it was. So that’s what makes it unique. I think that then after, in the 1960s, because of all the political activity around the nation, so we were invited to the Denver Conference, we took these groups and they had a big impact. It had an impact on other youth groups in Chicago. I think the Latin Kings, at one point, when they came back, they decided to call themselves the Latin King Organization, and they wanted to start doing the very same [01:08:00] actions as the Young Lords. They wanted to have breakfast for children. They wanted to have a health clinic. Of course, I think that what happened probably was the leadership was unable to really steer the Kings in that direction. So they went in an entirely different direction at the time. But I think that’s what makes it unique. All the groups come up after the Young Lords that are effective. They have good 34 �programs, but that are formed. They are organized to do certain things, but nothing like the Young Lords in Chicago. The Young Lords Chicago were community rooted and responding to community needs. We didn’t have to do a paper, a position paper on the needs of the community. [01:09:00] We were living those needs. If it was displacement, we had to go to the real estate offices that were pushing people out. And that’s why the confrontation with Fat Larry, for example. JJ: Who was that, can you describe that? OL: Fat Larry was the head of Bissell Realty, and they were part of the whole displacement of families. So when we find this out, then the Young Lords went and confronted, you were one of the people that came and confronted Fat Larry. And Fat Larry, of course, responded the way that he was used to. And he came out with one gun on one side and a shotgun on the other. And we have pictures that when the police come in, they don’t do anything with Fat Larry with two guns, but they start searching you for weapons, which was strange. But anyway, so we didn’t have to do research on the needs of the community. We were living those needs. So we were responding [01:10:00] to real needs, and that’s what made us effective. We didn’t have to spend three weeks doing research. Not all of our positions were the positions of a progressive organization. We have to admit, we never wrote a paper on the Young Lord’s position on women. We didn’t have that luxury. Even the people that had been trained at the university level that were Young Lords were not academicians. JJ: So there were some people that were trained at the university level? 35 �OL: In the Young Lords, we had people with university training. JJ: Who were some of these people? OL: Well, to begin with, you look at the Minister of Health. [Alberto Chavira?] was a medical student at Northwestern University, then later became a doctor. He was the minister of information for the, he was a doctor and he was community based. [01:11:00] He became a doctor. JJ: Actually, he was a leader of a student, medical students. OL: The medical students at Northwestern. JJ: And they helped form the clinic. OL: They would organize medical students to be part of the free health clinic movement in Chicago. We had, did I run out people that were trained? Well myself, I was still going to school, but I was not an academician. We had our Minister of Education, Tony Baez, who was a university student in Puerto Rico. So we had people that they had academic training, but we were all focused on responding to the needs the community had. We were not responding to academic demands or intellectual [01:12:00] demands of publishing position papers on women, publish position papers on the national question. All those things are exercises for intellectuals. That was not us. That was not us. We were direct action and we were responding to needs that were present in our community. It doesn’t mean that we weren’t-- we studied, we studied. I think Tony Baez, Minister of Education, made sure that we had a module that people had to read about the history of Puerto Rico. I think you could get a seventeenyear-old that was what we call the cadres and they could tell you the whole 36 �history of Puerto Rico in the independence movement, because that was part of the training in the Young Lords. But we read political papers, we read On Contradictions by Mao Zedong, and that [01:13:00] was very helpful in understanding problems and how to solve problems and how to identify the enemy. Because today the problem is that people don’t understand who the enemy is. Or sometimes it’s someone who’s not an enemy and they treat ’em as enemies because they don’t have a way of analyzing problems or what Mao called contradictions. We did, and we were very clear on who our friends were and who our enemies were, and that made us very effective. So it’s not like we were not interested in learning. We were not interested in intellectual exercises. And I think that separated us from other organizations that would look at us as if we were just simply a bunch of [lumpen?] They thought that because we didn’t come out with position papers like that, we were not [01:14:00] following the correct line, the correct political line. As far as I’m concerned, we were following the right political line because we were responding to the needs that our community had. That’s the correct line, because it doesn’t make sense for you to follow correct line when you’re not serving the people. So I think that’s important to understand about the Young Lords in Chicago. I think that if you look at our newspaper, for example. The newspaper that we put out is not work of intellectuals. You read it and it’s not nice. I mean, it’s not really nice. I mean, run on sentences and all kinds of things that you look at like, “What the hell, who wrote this?” Because it was people in the organization that were expressing themselves and we put it in the newspaper because it was important for us to let 37 �people know what our members were thinking. But they didn’t follow all the rules [01:15:00] of a journalist because we were not. Other organizations had that kind of discipline, so they put out real nice newspapers, but we didn’t. But we did deliver the message though. We did deliver the message, and I think that was important. But we had all kinds of people in the organization, not only at different levels of academic training, but different economic levels, different nationalities. The Young Lords, the Young Lords from its beginning was an international group from when it was gang to when it was a political organization. We had Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, African-Americans, whites. So I think that was unique. That was unique. JJ: [01:16:00] You mentioned women, that it wasn’t an intellectual thing about the women. What do you mean? OL: Well, I mean, the Young Lords always had women in the organization, the Lordettes, for example. But there were young women that were part of the Young Lords from the beginning, and they stayed with the Young Lords. And the relationship that between members was not the progressive position, but they were given their place. They were not given their place--they took their place because, for example, one of the women leaders in the group, Angie, she formed the MAO, Mothers And Others because at the time, a lot of the women in the organization were mothers. And so as Mothers And Others, [01:17:00] they made sure that women in the organization had a place. It wasn’t that we gave ’em a place, they took their place. And I think we never fought that. We accepted that. So it wasn’t like we were a male dominated organization, that 38 �whatever we said had to go in terms of women. The women group was there and they made sure that they were respected, but we were not the academic type. We said, “Okay, this is our position on women and this is the history of the women in society.” And we didn’t do that. We responded to the needs at the time, and they were very much part of the organization. JJ: In fact, wasn’t there a daycare center that we were working on together? OL: Yeah. Again, one of the responses of the Young Lords was, “Hey, [01:18:00] there’s kids that need daycare.” And that was one of the ideas of the church when we took over the church, was to put the basement in order so that it could be a daycare center, except the city would not allow us to do that. Remember, we complained that they came out with things like, your ceiling system is way too high, or your floors are too low, so they’re out of compliance. But, and that was of course concerns that the women brought up and we would try to address. JJ: And we also had, you mentioned the clinic already, and the Breakfast for Children Program. OL: Those were programs that they were, the service programs that we had established to respond to very specific needs that the community had. And I think the other part that I think is [01:19:00] important to understand is Chicago was going through a very interesting time, and we had a very interesting mayor. Mayor Daley was not a very tolerant mayor. He’s the one that declared during the riots on the west side, “Shoot to kill,” looters. That was his position. And so we were challenging that structure and in demonstrations that we had, he used the force of the police department to disorganize the Young Lords, to squash the 39 �Young Lords, to drain the resources from the organization by arresting the leadership. And a lot of money would [01:20:00] be tied up in bail money. So we didn’t have a mayor that even accepted that the Young Lords were doing something positive. I think if we look at the New York Lords, they had a mayor that was John Lindsay, who was a liberal that I’m glad that he was there, and I’m glad that they were functioning in those years because they were able to do things that we were unable to do in Chicago. They were able to do, for example, they took over this TV unit and brought it to the barrio, and they were successful, and that was very good because they were able to give services to the barrio, to the community. Had we tried to do that in Chicago, we’d be dead today. So there was a big difference in terms of [01:21:00] actions and in terms of responses that we had to adjust ourselves to. But we did. We did. JJ: And you said we did. What do you mean we did? OL: Well, I mean, we still challenged the structure and we still deliver services. JJ: Wait, what is it we challenged? OL: Well, the police brutality was one of the things. We challenged urban renewal. Then when we took over McCormick Theological Seminary, actually our challenge was to the city structure that was pushing the program, urban renewal, and it was McCormick Theological Seminary because McCormick Theological Seminary was one of the biggest slumlords in the community. Yeah, they were training ministers, but they were also profiting from all these houses they owned that [01:22:00] were substandard. They were slums. So the takeover of McCormick was part of the challenge to the city structure. Opening up a free 40 �health clinic was a challenge to the city structure because they did not do that. It’s the city that was supposed to provide that kind of services, free health services to our community. They didn’t. We did. That was a challenge. Free breakfast. That was a challenge to the city structure because we were telling ’em, “Look, you’re allowing students to go to classes in the mornings without good breakfasts so they can fall asleep because they’re not fed properly.” That’s a challenge. And of course, we were part of a movement, national movement, and I think we saw the results in Chicago. The city of Chicago opened up neighborhood clinics afterwards. [01:23:00] There were several neighborhoods that had City of Chicago Free Health Clinics after the Free Health Clinic movement. All the programs now that the cities, many cities have for free lunches and some breakfasts. JJ: This was also part of the Rainbow Coalition that we were modeling our programs after the Black Panther Party? OL: Yeah, because again, all of this movement on free health and free breakfast and all, it was a national movement. It was not a local movement. And it impacted the government. We didn’t overthrow the government, but we forced them to respond. And so we have some of those services now. The Republicans will probably, we want to get rid of ’em if we have a Republican president. But that was established. JJ: [01:24:00] What about, so Mayor Daley didn’t like this, so there was a little repression going on. What are some of the forms? How did that take shape? 41 �OL: The City of Chicago established the GIU, Gang Intelligence Unit, and that was part of what the mayor called the War on Gangs. So he declared war on gangs, and of course, we fell in that category. The GIU was designed to create problems for gangs, to spy on gangs. And so they were doing that with the Young Lords. They created problems. They followed us. They did surveillance of our members 24 hours a day sometimes, the arrests, and the entire organization was under siege because [01:25:00] of the GIU. So the mayor, that was part of the mayor’s effort to quell whatever progressive youth organization was coming up. JJ: What about Reverend Bruce Johnson and Eugenia Johnson? Can you explain what that was about? OL: Well, Reverend Johnson was the minister of Methodist Church on Armitage and Dayton. That’s the one we took over. And Reverend Johnson was not opposed to working with us, and he made it clear in public that he supported us and he would work with us. There was a Hispanic congregation in that church that was primarily a Cuban congregation, and they had a Cuban minister. And I think [01:26:00] that the friction internally in the church probably developed because of Reverend Johnson’s support of our organization. One of our icons was el Che Guevara, and that really clashed with the Cuban members of that Methodist church. And there was a lot of anger, and there was a lot of discontent, of course, a lot of hate towards the Young Lords, but it’s a lot of anger and discontent with Bruce Johnson because he was, in essence, supporting us. And I think that they probably saw us as a communist organization, which we weren’t. 42 �We read all kinds of communist material, but they probably saw us that way. And I think Bruce Johnson was the target of that kind of hate, [01:27:00] those kinds of negative feelings. And I’m not a detective. I know nothing about criminal justice, but I think Bruce Johnson was probably a victim of that. If you look at the evidence, when he was stabbed to death, they say that it was a very violent death. There was a lot of passion involved in it. This is Bruce Johnson. He’s a preacher. Who is going to hate him that much to the point that even the evidence shows that whoever did it was really angry at him. That’s the evidence. So I think that it cost him his life [01:28:00] having supported the organization. JJ: And his wife. OL: His wife. JJ: Was stabbed too. OL: Was stabbed to death. JJ: We’re not talking about once or twice, they’re talking about fourteen and nineteen times. OL: Oh, yeah. No, that’s why it was very, the police say it was a passionate act. They were angry. Whoever did it was really going at it. JJ: And many people got arrested. Weren’t you arrested at one point? OL: Well, yeah. My arrest was because of what we were confronting the police at People’s Park that it was empty lot on Halsted and Armitage that was going to be used to build a private tennis club. And we were saying, who the hell is going to become a member of a tennis club here? We can hardly play softball in the 43 �corner. We took a stand against that and [01:29:00] the lot that was going to be used for that tennis club. We took it over and we called it Peoples Park. JJ: There were tents set up, right? Tents. OL: Yeah, the whole works. It was tents and we camped out, and even Buck, Mr. Fuller came and visited us, and he donated a geodesic dome for the playground. So the people’s actions were also heard all over the nation, but it was part of the urban renewal. JJ: How did you get arrested or something? OL: Well, we know we were at the park and the police began to harass us, and so we retaliated, and of course the police was not going to be, he called in for reinforcements and they came. We had a confrontation. The charges that I had was [01:30:00] resisting arrest, mob action, of course, resisting arrest, aiding to the escape of a prisoner. JJ: What prisoner? OL: Because they already had one of the guys, they had Orlando and I came at the policeman and he had to let go Orlando. But then they got me, and assaulting a police officer, but that was because of that. JJ: So they were resolved later? OL: I think I was given probation. JJ: At that time. OL: After some time, yeah, after a few years, that was the thing was solved. Yeah. JJ: Any final thoughts that you want to, or anything that you want to add regarding refreshing or anything else? 44 �OL: No. JJ: That’s it. OL: That’s it. JJ: All right. Thank -- END OF VIDEO FILE 45 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d241edacfa84e887b801b1f7d7546f3c.mp4 cef9b53c19f944a818da65c0b41137fe 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 Omar López vídeo entrevista y biografía, entrevista 2 Descripción Spanish language Description entry Omar López era el Ministro de Información para los Young Lords. Nació en México y llego a chicago en 1958, estableándose en el vecindario de Humboldt Park donde sigue viviendo. El primero conoció alguien de los Young Lords en Lincoln Park cuando estaban en las calles como una ganga puertorriqueña. López los vio de nuevo cuando los Young Lords se transformaron, oficialmente en el 23 de Septiembre de 1958, de in ganga a un movimiento de los derechos humanos. Esta vez los jóvenes estaban protegiendo a José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez y Fred Hampton (del Black Panther Party) quien estaban hablando juntos en Loop Jr. College donde López estaba peleando por los derechos de los estudiantes y educación bilingüe. López se hizo parte de los Young Lords en 1969. En 1973 el fundo el Mexican Teachers Organization. Señor López continúa trabajando por los derechos de Latinos y emigrantes. En 2006, el corrió por el Green Party como candidato para la Case de Representantes de Illinois, del 4th distrito. El 10 de Marzo del mismo año el reunió una de la más grandes demonstraciones, de gente que luchaban por los derechos de los inmigrantes de clase obrera, en la historia de los Estados Unidos. López continua siendo proactivo en la aria de Humboldt Park, derechos para inmigrantes, la “Latin American Defense Organization (LADO), y los Young Lords. El es el director ejecutivo de CALOR, una clínica para Latinos que han sido afectados por HIV/AIDS u otras enfermedades. 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 Estudiantes--Derechos Civiles 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_Lopez_Omar_2 Title A name given to the resource Omar López video interview and transcript, interview 2 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource López, Omar Description An account of the resource Omar López was Minister of Information for the Young Lords. He was born in Mexico and first came to Chicago in 1958, settling in the Humboldt Park Neighborhood where he has lived ever since. He first met some Young Lords in Lincoln Park when they were hanging out on the streets as a local Puerto Rican street gang, and later when the Young Lords were providing security for Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez and Fred Hampton (of the Black Panther Party) who were speaking together at Loop Jr. College where Omar was a student and fighting for student rights and bilingual education. Mr. López joined the Young Lords in 1969. In 1973, he founded the Mexican Teachers Organization. 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 Students--Civil rights 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/c85601985276623764c4681434f20edc.pdf 2efb73004b9e1792ce0dd7bcb6102093 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Omar López Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 2/7/2012 Biography and Description English Omar López was Minister of Information for the Young Lords. He was born in Mexico and first came to Chicago in 1958, settling in the Humboldt Park Neighborhood where he has lived ever since. He first met some Young Lords in Lincoln Park when they were hanging out on the streets as a local Puerto Rican street gang. When the Young Lords transformed themselves officially on September 23, 1968 into a human rights movement, he saw them once again. This time those same young men were providing security for José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez and Fred Hampton (of the Black Panther Party) who were speaking together at Loop Jr. College where Omar a student and fighting for student rights and bilingual education. Mr. López joined the Young Lords in 1969. In 1973, he founded the Mexican Teachers Organization.Mr. López continues to work actively on behalf of Latino and immigrant rights. In 2006, he ran as a Green Party candidate for the House of Representatives in Illinois, 4th District. That same year, on March 10, he convened one of the largest mass demonstrations on behalf of working class immigrant rights in U.S. history. �Mr. López continues to be proactive in the Humboldt Park area, with immigrant rights, the Latin American Defense Organization (LADO), and the Young Lords. He is the Executive Director of CALOR, a clinic that especially serves Latinos affected by HIV/AIDS and other diseases. Spanish Omar López era el Ministro de Información para los Young Lords. Nació en México y llego a chicago en 1958, estableándose en el vecindario de Humboldt Park donde sigue viviendo. El primero conoció alguien de los Young Lords en Lincoln Park cuando estaban en las calles como una ganga puertorriqueña. López los vio de nuevo cuando los Young Lords se transformaron, oficialmente en el 23 de Septiembre de 1958, de in ganga a un movimiento de los derechos humanos. Esta vez los jóvenes estaban protegiendo a José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez y Fred Hampton (del Black Panther Party) quien estaban hablando juntos en Loop Jr. College donde López estaba peleando por los derechos de los estudiantes y educación bilingüe. López se hizo parte de los Young Lords en 1969. En 1973 el fundo el Mexican Teachers Organization. Señor López continúa trabajando por los derechos de Latinos y emigrantes. En 2006, el corrió por el Green Party como candidato para la Case de Representantes de Illinois, del 4th distrito. El 10 de Marzo del mismo año el reunió una de la más grandes demonstraciones, de gente que luchaban por los derechos de los inmigrantes de clase obrera, en la historia de los Estados Unidos. López continua siendo proactivo en la aria de Humboldt Park, derechos para inmigrantes, la “Latin American Defense Organization (LADO), y los Young Lords. El es el director ejecutivo de CALOR, una clínica para Latinos que han sido afectados por HIV/AIDS u otras enfermedades. �Transcript JOSE JIMENEZ: If you can begin by telling us when you arrived in Chicago, where you lived at, and where you came from in Mexico. OMAR LOPEZ: Okay. Yeah. Well, I came to Chicago, or I was brought to Chicago at age 13, and from the beginning we came to live in Humboldt Park. I’m talking about 1958. Nineteen-fifty-eight and it wasn’t what it is today or what it has been in the last 30, 40 years. I mean, then the neighborhood wasn’t even beginning the transition yet between white dominant community to then Latino-Puerto Rican community. But that’s where we landed from the beginning. As a teenager, I hung around a lot in Maplewood and Division. There were some of [00:01:00] the young Puerto Ricans and Mexicans, and we used to get together on a hot dog stand that was there. And that’s where I also began to hear, for example, about the different programs like the YMCA’s intervention programs, things like that. And of course, that’s where we used to go from Maplewood and Division, that’s where we used to go out to our little fights in Humboldt Park and other places against the Polish-Italian gangs that were in that particular community. So it was even way back then that I used to have a hillbilly friend. They used to talk to me about the Young Lords too. Kenny Smith was his name, and he used to travel a lot. I mean travel like from Lincoln Park to Humboldt Park, and that’s how we used [00:02:00] to -- that’s when I started hearing about the Young Lords also. He would tell me that -- we used to have a little scrimmages with a group, it was called Chi-West and he’s, “Oh, well, we got to go get the Young Lords we’re 1 �at over there in Armitage, the playground in Armitage.” So that was the first beginning when I started hearing about the Young Lords. So most of my adolescence was in the Humboldt Park community, but already having contact with other communities, Latino communities like Lincoln Park. Interestingly enough, through Kenny Smith was a hillbilly. That’s how I started to be in touch with the Young Lords at the time. JJ: About what year was this? OL: [00:03:00] Oh, I’m talking about beginning between 1961 and 1966, because the other groups were just forming also in the community. We had groups like the Trojans and others that were just beginning in the Humboldt Park community. But then the Young Lords came later. My contact with the Young Lords came later, probably about when Kenny Smith used to come around and talk about it. Maybe it was about 1965, maybe 1966, something like that. That was around the time. JJ: Okay. And you were going to what schools and what schools were you going to? OL: Okay. In grammar school, I went to Yates. Yates Elementary School. And then from there, when I graduated from Yates, then I went to Tuley High School. So I did [00:04:00] all my four years in Tuley. Again, Tuley was primarily Ukrainian, Polish, Italian, and there’s probably about 45 Mexicans and Puerto Ricans altogether. It was just beginning to come into Tuley High School. So again, the life in Tuley High School was also the same. We had to deal with some of those groups that were there, primarily Polish and Italian groups that were in Tuley. But I did four years at Tuley, and then after that I got married. So I didn’t go to 2 �school for a while until I decided that I needed to go to Loop City College to start taking some courses there in Loop College. And that’s what I did [00:05:00] right back in about 1966, 1967, 1968, decided that I needed to go back to school. At Tuley -- at Loop College there was a lot of activity going on already. I was trying to get some of the high school guys that had gone to school with me to go to Loop City College. Some of ’em did, but there was a lot of activity going on. We formed a group at Tuley -- Loop College that was called OLAS, the Organization of Latin American Students, and we called it Latin American because there was a lot of Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Colombians. So we couldn’t call it either Mexican, Puerto Rican or -- so we went for OLAS, Organization of Latin American Students. And we made a lot of good alliances with the [00:06:00] Black Student Union that was also at Loop College. And that’s when we also, we pushed to have a coalition with Black students at the time that we called it The Third World Coalition. And the Third World Coalition, what we did was we were very much in touch also with the Black Panther Party then. We invited Fred Hampton to come and speak to the students, things like that. So we were hooked into a lot of the activity, political activity was going on, but in OLAS, the emphasis was to go back to the neighborhood. Yeah, you’re studying, but you got to go back to the neighborhood. And it was right around that time also that I came in contact with you, Ralph Rivera, Cha-Cha, that you were reorganizing [00:07:00] the Young Lords. And I remember the meeting that we talked a little bit about the reorganization. The first time that I heard you talk about it was at the Urban Training Center. The Presbyterian Church used to have what they 3 �called a, UTC, the Urban Training Center. It was training almost like community organizers, and it was on Ashland and Washington, the Congregational Church, First Congregational Church there. And that’s when we met and started talking about the restructuring. You talked to me about the restructuring. You talked to me about the button with Tengo Puerto Rico En Mi Corazón, all of that. So that was sort of like the first time that we began to talk about the restructuring of the Young Lords. So that was back in 1960-had to be 1968. That’s a long time ago, but I think it was 1968, [00:08:00] maybe around April or so of 1968. So that’s where everything was beginning to brew in terms of the organization. JJ: And then what happened? When did you come to the neighborhood, to the church and then after -- OL: Again, I had had a lot of activity going on with the youth groups on Division Street, because remember in 1966, there was the Puerto Rican riots. And so all of the guys that used to hang around Division and Maplewood were involved in the three days of riots and Division. So there was a lot of big communication within groups, not just between the guys on Division and Maplewood, but Division and Hoyne and around Damon, [00:09:00] the people that were coming from Harrison and Western. JJ: What was the Division Street Riot? What was that about? OL: The Division Street Riot was in June of 1966, and I think that was the culmination of all the repression that the police was carrying on against, especially young people. I mean, it was the youth that were really active in the neighborhood, and they were forming their groups, they were getting involved in different activities, 4 �going to dances at the YMCA. So there was a lot of activity with the youth groups, but of course, there was a lot of street activity too. And the police was always coming down on the young people. Always, always, always. And I think this was sort of like what broke the camel’s back? The straw that broke the camel’s back was when the police [00:10:00] shot this young guy on Division, around Division and Hoyne. It was right after the Puerto Rican, the first Puerto Rican parade in the city. So it was a Sunday, I think it was Sunday, June, I want to say Sunday, June 16th of 1966. And that incident started the young people to really come out on the police. What happened after that people got really angry at these injustices, really. And people started coming out on the street. And the police that were involved in the shooting of this guy, of course, they called in for reinforcements. So the more police came into the area and more people came out from the houses, and there was a lot of confrontation going [00:11:00] on between the police, but it was focused on that Damon/Division area. And what happened was the police began to try to arrest people, and people were beginning to confront the police at the time. And what happened was that there was, on that block between Hoyne and Damon on Division, there used to be a theater. It was called the San Juan Theater. And on top of the door, on the side of the theater, there was a lot of offices. And one of those offices, there was this guy that had a radio program every Sunday. They used to -- he used to call himself [el Boricua Argentino?]. He was from Argentina, but since the market was Puerto Rican, he was catering to the Puerto Rican community. So he had a Sunday program, and he used to broadcast from that office up by the San Juan 5 �Theater. [00:12:00] And what he did was they looked out the window, and when he looked out the window, he saw what was going on between police and the community people, and he started -- was on the air. So he was almost like narrating what he was seeing. And I think that’s what got a lot more people to come out. People used to listen to his program every Sunday. So when he started talking about the injustices that he was seeing from the second floor, he had a bird’s eye view of the activity. A lot more people started coming up, and a lot of the young people were really the ones that were fueling all this activity to the point where in front of the San Juan Theater, I think there was one or two squad cars that were burned. But then that was the Sunday, and then it began to spread, so that in those three days of rioting, it went from Damon and Division all the [00:13:00] way to California and Division. That was a lot. That was a lot like 19 to 26, about a mile stretch. But of course, you see it now and you have the hospital, you have other institutions there. But before that was all apartments all along Division Street, there was all people coming out. And so that kept it going for three days and three nights. That was a key event in the Puerto Rican community, because what that did was it forced Mayor Daley to acknowledge the Puerto Rican community. One of the things that he had to do was open up an Urban Progress Center as a response. And the first director of the Urban Progress Center was Dr. Samuel Betances. But also, they had to -- one of the demands that came from the Puerto Rican community [00:14:00] was we want Hispanic policemen in the force. There was hardly any, maybe one or two, and they couldn’t make it because of the height. So one of the demands that this 6 �committee that was formed as a result of the riots, one of the demands was to lower the height. And Mayor Daley had to do that -- he had to do it for the entire force. So some people says, now you get a lot of midgets in the force because they lowered the height, but that’s how they got a lot of Latino policemen. They started to come in that way. But it was key because I think that was actually the only time in the history of the Latino community in Chicago that the power structure was confronted and challenged the way that the Puerto Rican community did that. I haven’t seen that happen [00:15:00] ever again in the Latino community. And as a result, I think the Puerto Rican community began to make some advancements in politics, in education. We were getting elected officials, things like that. But that three days of rioting, I think that was key in what happened later in the Puerto Rican community. JJ: And what was going on with you from 1966 to when you get involved with these students and young folks? OL: Well, what happened was after the riots, there was a need to organize. I was a student, part-time, but I was still very in touch with the guys in the street. And also my older brother, Obed was in the area, and he was a good organizer. So we decided that we needed to organize and start providing services to the families [00:16:00] in the community. Because that was part of it, the fact that families in the community were not getting the services they needed. Young people were not getting the services they needed. So there was a vacuum in terms of that. So I got involved with my brother, and because I had a pretty nice base with the young guys, so we started organizing. We organized the Latin 7 �American Defense Organization, LADO. Basically what that was doing was helping a lot of the young families that were arriving from Puerto Rico for the first time in Chicago, and they needed to get established and to get established, they had to go to Public Aid. And Public Aid was always giving them a hard time denying them services, denying them assistance, when in fact, they needed to have that, and they were eligible to get [00:17:00] it, but the welfare department was always giving them a hard time. So that was one of the organizing points, the welfare assistance, because that affected the entire family. So that was it. And as a result, LADO formed what they call the Welfare Union. And the Welfare Union had then contact with the African-American community, the white Appalachian community that were in the same situation. They formed the Welfare Coalition also, but that was it. What happened here was that although these young families had, the sons and daughters were the ones that were out in the streets also. So the young people at the time also saw LADO as a model for organizing. [00:18:00] And so when they were thinking of organizing, they used to look at that as a model. And so that was how I started to do a lot of community work too, and community organizing until I started to go to Loop College. Then we started to do some student organizing also. JJ: And what is the connections to LADO and the Young Lords? OL: Okay, once the Young Lords began to function as a community organization, then there was also the communication between LADO and the Young Lords. And there was a natural connection because again, in this case, Lincoln Park was having some of the very same problems that Humboldt Park, West Town, 8 �Wicker Park were having with the Puerto Rican families. [00:19:00] So there was a natural connection. So for example, when LADO would have a demonstration at the welfare offices, for example, the Young Lords participated as security for all these mothers, young mothers, and with their children, they used to come and march. And also the Black Panthers through the Young Lords, then the Black Panthers would also participate in these kinds of demonstrations. So that’s what I’m saying it was sort of like a natural connection. And that’s when the communication between the Latin American Defense Organization, LADO, and the Young Lords began to happen also. And since I had been a lot more active with LADO, which was in the Humboldt Park area, and when the connection with the Young Lords was made, then I also began to get involved in the actions of the Young Lords, [00:20:00] and that’s how I began to get a lot more involved in the organization. JJ: There was a trip to Denver that I believe, can you explain that? OL: There was a lot of activity going on, a lot of political activity going on at the time. And in the southwest of the United States, the activity was centered around the Chicano movement. So there was a lot of activity going on in the southwest from Denver, New Mexico, California, all those places had a lot of actions going on. And again, the organizing tool over there was Chicanismo was a cultural nationalist movement out there. In 1968, the Crusade for Justice, which is headed by Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales hosted, or they organized [00:21:00] the Chicano Youth Conference, national Chicano Youth Conference. And we were invited. Chicago was invited, and we had a lot of meetings. This was very 9 �interesting, the Young Lords were in, because the Young Lords by this time were already developing a political consciousness. So it was no problem for the Young Lords to say we’re going to go, but we were working with other youth groups like 18th Street. We were working with the Latin Counts, Ambrose, and the Rampants, and we wanted them to get involved and also go on the trip to Denver, but on the north side, and sort of like the youth base for LADO was the Latin Kings and they didn’t see eye to eye. But we began to have meetings between [00:22:00] the groups and came to a point where they decided, “Yeah, okay, we’re going to make peace and we’re going to travel to Denver.” So we had two buses full of people that went to Denver. And in them, it was interesting because we had the Young Lords, the Kings, Counts, Ambrose. It was different groups of young people that were out there that were really impacted by the conference. I think the Young Lords were very much impacted. As a matter of fact, this is where we made the contact with Hayward, California, it was a group of young people from Hayward who decided they wanted to found the Young Lords in Hayward. So that was back in 1968. So the idea of expanding the concept of the youth organization, like the Young Lords in Denver started to happen because [00:23:00] the kids from Hayward, they said, “I want to be Young Lords.” So they started to do that. But I think that trip to Denver had a big impact on the Chicago youth. When we came back, I know that the Latin Kings and the Young Lords began to have a lot of good communication about organizing, and the Kings began to call themselves the Latin King organization, 10 �also just like the Young Lords organization. But I think that Denver had a lot of impact in 1968, and then went back in 1969 again. So that was good. JJ: Now you came back and what were some of the activities that were going on? What was your role in the Young Lords, your title? OL: Well, then what happened after Denver, we already had been in touch and talking about the need to organize in Lincoln Park with the [00:24:00] Young Lords. And at that point, it was in early 1968, it was even before we went to Denver. We talked about the fact that you needed someone to handle all of the communications for the Young Lords, and you asked me to be the Minister of Information for the Young Lords. And after I had checked with again, because I was active with LADO, checked with him, and we also said, that’s a natural connection because we’re about the same thing, and there’s a need with the Young Lords. So I went and became the Ministry of Information for the Young Lords. So then we came back from Denver. There was a lot of activity in Chicago. You remember when Manuel Ramos was shot and killed? That was when we had the march on [00:25:00] the police station as a result of the killing of Manuel. That’s when we took over McCormick Theological Seminary and then the church. So 1968 was really a very intense year for the Young Lords of growth, you see, because, and it was growing very fast. And I think that one of the things that happened was that through your leadership, the fact that you were putting it together to be able to have the impact that the Young Lords needed to have with youth, all the young people, I think that was important because otherwise, the Young Lords, with incidents like the Manuel Ramos killing, it 11 �would’ve fallen apart, but it didn’t. I think that with the kind [00:26:00] of organizing and all of the talking that you were doing with the rest of the members, I think that with the killing of Manuel Ramos rather than for the group to fall apart, I think that’s, in my opinion, that’s what brought ’em together. And I think that’s what made a lot of the people in the members of the Young Lords that were not still convinced that it had to be a political organization. I think that incident made them realize that if the Young Lords was to survive and the young people in the Young Lords were to survive, they had to become a political organization. And I think that’s when we got a lot of the people that were rejecting the idea that you always put out. I think that made ’em change. And I think that from there on the activities, so the Young Lords really began to take off. JJ: So you’re saying that [00:27:00] there was some people that were not in favor of making the transition into the Young Lords. What were some of the reasons that that -- OL: I remember that you had the idea -- you went around talking to each of the members, but there were people that were not convinced that the Young Lords were to make that transition. I think they wanted to keep it as it was -- just a group of friends, maybe social, a social type of organization, and they didn’t really want to bother getting political. And there was a good -- I think there was a good strong group that were against the transition. I think from conversations later with some of them, people like Sal, and [00:28:00] he’s open about that, and he didn’t want to change. But I think he also accepts the fact that once the incident of Manuel happened, that also made him think about it. And then he 12 �accepted the idea of making the transition. And I think there were other people that followed him were in the same position. But I think that that incident really made everybody change. JJ: And what was that incident? OL: When Manuel Ramos was shot? JJ: What I mean, what took place? Can you explain what you recall? OL: Well, I wasn’t there. I only got the phone call late at night that there was a party going on with the Young Lords. Someone that lived next door happened to be [00:29:00] an off duty policeman, and he complained that there was too much noise. But it’s interesting because if it’s too much noise, you call the police on you, and you have people quiet it down. But he was taking everything into his own hands. I mean, he came out and he was armed. And when people like Manuel and Ralph and others came out on the porch to find out what was going on with this guy that was out in front of the apartment, he shot him. He was armed. And you can tell it was without provocation because the guys were up on the porch, I mean, they weren’t even down there confronting the guy. So it was obviously that there had to be some racism involved in this. [00:30:00] Because it was obvious that there was a Puerto Rican household, they were having a party, the music was loud, and this guy was -- by the name of James Lamb, off duty policeman -- came out to take action on his own without calling the police. So I think that there was a lot of racism involved in that. And the fact that he was an off duty policeman, I think he felt that he could do that without having to then be responsible and accountable for his actions. And in fact, he never got 13 �convicted for that crime. But that’s what happened that night. And I think, again, once we all got the call and we knew what was going on, I think that that made us really think about it. And it was either fold up or get stronger. And I think that the [00:31:00] majority of the Young Lords decided that it was time to organize. JJ: And how was that shown, for example, at the funeral and other? OL: Well, then again, and it’s unfortunate, but the death of Manuel really brought people together. And you could see it at the wake, at the services at St. Teresa’s. All of the Young Lords came out dressed in black, the purple beret, and very disciplined. And I think that that was the first time that people publicly saw that kind of discipline coming out of a youth group in the Latino community. It was very disciplined. It wasn’t disorganized. It was very -- I guess you can say it was very respectful of what was going on, but also it was very powerful. It was [00:32:00] very powerful. The images were very powerful. And I think that that was a sign of how fast the group began to mature. So after that, then all of the actions of the Young Lords were really focused. They had an objective, and it was very organized from there on, in the sense that there were collective actions that were being taken after that. For example, we called the demonstration on the police station on Chicago Avenue. JJ: Describe that. OL: And that was also as a result of the killing of Manuel. And we went to protest the fact that nothing was going on in terms of the case. And we had [00:33:00] well over a thousand people just marching. And it was overnight, you call people out, and it was overnight they came out and we walked all the way from Lincoln Park 14 �all the way to the police station, that at the time was between -- on Chicago Avenue between LaSalle and Clark. The police station, it’s gone now there, it’s another building there, but that’s where the police station was. And we did that. We had a massive demonstration. And the interesting thing here is that right behind the march, because we went through Cabrini Green, right behind the march, we had the Stones, I think it was the [Cobra?] Stones right behind -JJ: What was the Cabrini Green? OL: Cabrini Green was one of the biggest housing complexes, public housing complexes in Chicago. And [00:34:00] it was home to a lot of the gangs, AfricanAmerican gangs. The Stones were there, and I’m sure the Disciples were there in another section, but we walked right through that project because we had had, the Young Lords already had some communications with youth groups in the projects. So we went through, but then I guess not all, not everybody knew that we were friends. So right behind us were the Stones. So when we got to the demonstration in front of the police station, we found ourselves boxed in. We were in front of the police station on Chicago, but on the east side around Clark, you had this whole line of policemen in riot gear. I mean, just blocking that whole avenue. And then on the LaSalle side, you had all the Stones over here. So we [00:35:00] were blocked in. And again, I think this is where, again, the maturity of the Young Lords’s leadership showed up because people like yourself, Cha-cha, Sal, and others, you had to come out and negotiate, and you had to explain to the Stones, not to the police, they knew, but the reason why we were there and what had happened to one of our members so that they understood why we were 15 �there. So after that, they understood. So that confrontation with them ended. We just had the police on the other side to deal with. But the relationship with the Stones developed as a result of that demonstration. And days later, [00:36:00] when we decided that McCormick Theological Seminary as an institution that was part of the group of institutions that was pushing urban renewal in Lincoln Park, that it had to be taken over. The Stones participated also with the Young Lords and the Poor People’s Coalition that decided to take over McCormick Theological Seminary. So again, talking about the Young Lords developing maturity, I think that was another sign. First, after the Killing, the wake where you begin to, for the first time, you see a very well organized, disciplined group come out public. And then the negotiations on the spot when we had that demonstration in front of the police station, and then the takeover of McCormick Theological Seminary all came. So like [00:37:00] in a string of activities. JJ: What do you call what you recall about the takeover? Describe that. OL: Well, the Young Lords already at that point were identifying urban renewal as the enemy. Urban renewal -- we already had identified urban renewal as the program that was pushing people out of the neighborhood with the help of real estate agencies like Bissell Realty, which was on Bissell and Armitage. And it was run by Fat Larry, we used to call Fat Larry. DePaul University, McCormick Geological Seminary, Grand Hospital, Augustana Hospital, Aetna Bank. I mean, these were the institutions that, in that community that were the ones that were pushing urban renewal. [00:38:00] And so the Young Lords saw that as the 16 �enemies. And out of all of those enemies, we saw that McCormick Theological Seminary not only was one of the institutions, but they were a religious organization, and they were probably one of the biggest slumlords in Lincoln Park. And so other organizations like the, is it Concerned Citizens of Lincoln Park? They already had their eye on them too, for the same reason. So we came together also with the Concerned Citizens to organize the Poor People’s Coalition and take over McCormick Theological Seminary. But McCormick was one of the biggest slumlords in Lincoln Park. And so as a result of the takeover, we presented also a series of demands. One of them was a housing project. [00:39:00] Another one was Legal Defense, Legal Defense office. Another one was a cultural center that we wanted. So out of those demands, we were able to get some seed money to get an architect to do the designs for a whole complex. If I recall, well, it was 72 units that we were proposing. And Howard Alan was the architect, young architect at the time that consulted with community as to the design of the apartments and talked to ladies and mothers about how they envision an apartment for themselves. And he put it together. So now remember the organization that was making [00:40:00] the decisions on urban renewal, what houses were torn down and what projects went through was the, let me see if I remember. The Lincoln Park Urban Conservation -JJ: Community Conservation Council. OL: Yeah, that one. JJ: Lincoln Park Community Conservation Council. 17 �OL: Lincoln Park Community Conservation Council. They used to be sort of like the agent of the urban renewal, and they used to pass on projects. And so they were the ones that were making decisions as to what areas of the community were coming down and what families were being pushed out, really. So the Young Lords also knew that they identified them as the ones making decisions. And you remember one of the big actions was to take over one of their buildings, one of their meetings too, [00:41:00] and not allow them to take any more decisions, make any more decisions for the community. And again, that was another one of the actions of the Young Lords that had a clear purpose and where the young people participated. You always say that we had to rearrange furniture for them. Yeah, I mean, it was a violent intervention because I mean, they were being violent by pushing people out already. So it took another violent action to stop them from making decisions. So that was another action of the Young Lords. So this was the group that we had to go back to also with designs of the housing project, after McCormick Theological Seminary agreed to give us some seed money. I mean, remember the takeover took a week. It was a week that we were in McCormick Theological Seminary until they negotiated. You remember [00:42:00] we were there and they wouldn’t negotiate. In fact, at one point, the president, McKay, threatened to bring in the police and get us all out. And we came back and said, “Okay, well then if you bring the police, then we’re going to move into the library.” And from what I gather, the library has, well, it used to have this collection of rare religious books. I mean, really worth a lot. And McCormick wasn’t ready to lose that because they knew that we were serious. 18 �So then they negotiated. They sat down to negotiate with our committee, and that came out with the seed money for the housing project and money to establish an office for legal assistance to our community, which later became the People’s Law Office, which is still in existence today. [00:43:00] But that came directly from the takeover of McCormick Theological Seminary. The cultural Center never materialized, but that was again, another one of the actions of the Young Lords that -JJ: Why didn’t the police come right in and take them and take people out of McCormick Seminary? OL: Well, I think it was two things. One was because it wasn’t just a little group of people taking over. The coalition that took over McCormick Geological Seminary was headed by the Young Lords. Yeah, but you had a lot of other people. LADO was part of it. The Lincoln Park, the citizens, Concerned Citizens of Lincoln Park were part of it. There were a whole group of community organizations. It wasn’t just one little organization. It was difficult for the police to come in on something like that. The other one was McCormick [00:44:00] would be the one to call them in. And when they threatened to call him in, that’s when we came back also with the threat. And so they wouldn’t come in. JJ: You mentioned LADO was part of it. What role did LADO play? OL: Well, LADO -- it’s interesting because at the same time that the takeover was going on, the Presbyterian church was having its national convention in San Antonio. And so Obed, who was the head of the Latin American Defense Organization, LADO, was sent, we sent him to San Antonio to present the 19 �demands over there in San Antonio. So that was going on. So it was -- the engagement wasn’t just the confrontational engagement in Chicago, but we had someone also participating in their own annual Presbyterian convention. [00:45:00] So they couldn’t get away from not facing what was going on in Chicago because we took it to their own convention. In that sense, LADO was very key in making sure that the negotiations in Chicago happened. JJ: What was taking place inside for a whole week? I mean, what did people do for a whole week inside a seminary that had been taken over? OL: Well, I mean, there were different things. The activities, like I remember people getting together and discussing things because in those days, the kinds of teachings were very in vogue. But the other thing that you have to remember is that a group that participated and was very active in the takeover and was all very active in the organizing of activities inside the McCormick was the seminarians themselves, the students. [00:46:00] The students. And one of the leaders was Tom Logan, who internally also organized students to support us. So they were inside also with us. And they were also very instrumental in developing little groups for discussions. And community groups were -community people were coming in to help. They would get involved. So the whole takeover was not just one action, but what went on, the kind of education educational process that went inside was also very important because people understood why they were there. Of course it was being discussed as we were there. 20 �JJ: And then after that, there was another takeover of the church. Can you explain what was going on with that? OL: Yeah. See, again, [00:47:00] so many things were going on at the same time. JJ: There’s a couple of churches that were taken over. OL: Well, the one church that we put our eyes on was the Dayton Avenue Methodist Church. Again, remember, because the young people in the community needed a place to meet, a place to develop activities. And the Hispanic pastor in the Methodist church was approached so that we could use the basement. Just either to have a daycare or have the guys come in and play softball, I mean, basketball things to keep the youth active. But these people, they used to come in on Sundays only and then close the church for the rest of the week. And what we were saying to them is, “Open it up. Let us use the space.” And he refused. [00:48:00] He refused. JJ: This was, who was that? OL: Sergio Herrera was the minister. Herrera was Cuban, a Cuban American, but at the same time, they had the white congregation and the minister for the white congregation was Bruce Johnson, who was a lot more receptive to us, to the Young Lords and using the building. So when Pastor Herrera rejected our request, we decided that we needed to take over that building too. And we remember we we’re already coming out of the experience of McCormick. And so that’s what happened. One of the Young Lords, Louis Chavez, was given the assignment to sneak in the church, stay in the church, wait till they close, [00:49:00] and after they closed, he opened up the doors for us. That’s what 21 �happened. Once they were gone, Louis was inside. Louis opened the doors. We took over the church and we took over the church because we needed to establish programs also. To begin with, when we approached them, we were talking about daycare center. We talked to ’em about basketball in the basement for the young people. So when we took over the church, we went about the business of establishing programs for the community. One of the very first things we talked about was the daycare center so that mothers could go to work and leave the kids in the daycare center. There was a lot of mothers like that, but we didn’t have the money, the funds to develop the daycare center to do the build out. So you decided that we needed lumber, and there was a lot of construction going on in Lincoln Park because [00:50:00] it was urban renewal. So you picked a spot that had lumber, and you went over there with the truck, you got the lumber, and you brought lumber, right, to the church. JJ: I’m glad we already did the time for that. OL: Yeah. JJ: That was a different case, a lumber case. OL: The lumber case was one, but we needed resources, so we needed to get the resources. JJ: Why was the lumber case since they came out? I mean, what was the reasoning? Just to get lumber? What was the reasoning? OL: No, no, because we needed lumber to do the buildup for rooms in the basement so we could have the daycare center. We didn’t have the resources to go buy it. So then you just decided to go liberate it. And the lumber was brought in and we 22 �did the build outs. There’s got to be some pictures of the nice little rooms that were painted with nice [00:51:00] figures, children’s figures. But that’s what happened. I mean, the lumber case was not because you were just stealing lumber. It was the liberation of some material that some constructor or some developer had in the neighborhood, and we brought it in to make use of it. JJ: So it was called a liberation? OL: It was the liberation of lumber. (laughs) JJ: Okay. Was there any building code violations at that time? OL: Well, when we started to do the build out, then of course the city, the city has it’s code, but it’s crazy. When they came back, they told us we couldn’t have the daycare center because the floor was too low, because then you had to come down to the basement. The floor is too low, and then at the same time, they’re saying the ceiling’s too high. So which is it? It’s [00:52:00] either the floor is too low, or the ceiling’s too high. But they said, no floor’s too low. The ceiling’s too high. It’s a violation. So they were giving us this type of violations and obstacles so as not to open the daycare center, but we said, “No, we’re going to open up a daycare center anyway,” because we were already on a confrontation course with the city on something like that. But that was one of the reasons why we took over the church, to establish programs. Also in the basement, that’s where we started the Breakfast for Children. So in the mornings, the kids would stop by on their way to school, they would fly right into the basement. We had long tables. We used to cook breakfast with them, and they eat breakfast and go to school. So that was our Breakfast for Children. That church also served [00:53:00] as 23 �our health clinic. We established our health clinic, the free health clinic, the Ramon Emeterio Betances Health Clinic in that church. And we were able to get volunteer doctors from Northwestern University. As a matter of fact, our Minister of Health was a medical student, a Chicano medical student at Northwestern Medical School. [Alberto Chavira?] was his name, is his name. And he helped us get the clinic opened up and manned with people from Northwestern Medical School. So we did that. And I think that we tried to also put a dentist services there. We got the chair and everything. But that church, that used to be an empty [00:54:00] space throughout the week, we filled it up with programs and people were coming in. And that’s what we had also our education for cadres. And see, that’s one of the characteristics of the Young Lords, whereas it was all street people, but you were also very, very wise in getting people that came in to join the organization and to develop the programs. And in this case, like an education program for the cadres that was our Minister of Education was Tony Baez, Puerto Rican from Caguas, from the Barrio Borinquén in Caguas. He came in and he developed all the modules for [00:55:00] education, for the cadres, the history of Puerto Rico, a little bit of readings of Mao, things like that. But he’s the one that came in and put that together. So the church was also the place where the young kids would have to come in, they had to read books, and they had to participate in some kind of classes. And you remember a lot of these kids, 16, 17 years old, they began to really become knowledgeable on the history of Puerto Rico and the colonial relationship between the Puerto Rico and the United States. And they could go anywhere. They could go to any high school. 24 �Matter of fact, one of them, you remember Mousey, I remember very well. He must’ve been about 17 years old, and he was part of the health committee, but he knew why we were doing a free health clinic and why healthcare was a right [00:56:00] because he went through the classes. And he would go to Northwestern University to the medical students and talk to them. And he was 17 years old and from the street. So that was going on this kind of education. And we had people that put all these things together for the organization. And I think that’s the unique thing about the Young Lords in Chicago, that from a street group we’re able to develop conscientious, well-informed cadres that we had them in the organization, they could go anywhere and talk about it anywhere. We didn’t have a group of people that would be writing position papers on everything. During that time, because the student movement in the United States was so big, all [00:57:00] these radical students were always coming out with position papers. A position paper on this, a position paper on that. I mean, position papers were coming out of their ears. The Young Lords, we didn’t do that. But we did develop a good philosophy in the organization. We knew which way we were moving. We didn’t have to put it out in a little booklet, but our organization knew which way it was moving. And I think part of the criticism that we got from other leftist groups was that we didn’t come out with position papers. The position paper on women, the position paper on housing position, paper on this, we already knew. And we practiced it rather than intellectualize it. And I think that that was the unique part of the Young Lords in Chicago, that [00:58:00] it was action oriented, but it was action already based on knowledge on a certain 25 �ideology and a certain analysis of why we took over McCormick, why we took over the church, why we confronted the police. I mean, it wasn’t just out of the clear blue sky. It was out of an understanding of the relationship between the organization and the power structure. JJ: Well, one of the things that people usually say about gangs is they don’t respect women. So were there any women involved with the Young Lords? OL: Yeah, and I think, and also they came, again, the uniqueness of the Young Lords in Chicago was that it was an organic organization. It wasn’t a put together organization. And it was an organization that grew in the neighborhood. So the same way that you had male members, you had female [00:59:00] members in the organization. So when it becomes a political organization, you also have the women aspect of the organization. And again, we couldn’t follow a white model of women participation, which was going on like an SDS, Students for Democratic Society. And that -- we couldn’t follow that model because the female members of the Young Lords were not -- they were Puerto Rican, they were Latinos. So a different model had to develop. But I think that good example of how that female participation developed is in the group that developed was called MAO, Mothers And Others. And Mothers and Others was really a reflection of the female participant in the Young Lords. It wasn’t a young, single students that were going to college. [01:00:00] There was young mothers that were part of the Young Lords before, and they stayed in the organization. They participated and they helped and they supported, but they also formed their group, MAO, Mothers And Others. And they travel. The leadership like Angie, 26 �she traveled to China -- no, no, to Canada for this international women’s conference. And they were active, but they were active in their own terms and under a very special model for women participation, which is unique in the organization. JJ: Do you remember any roles, I guess I’m thinking about the Black Party, but any other roles that they played within the organization? [01:00:40] OL: Well, they were very supportive in all of the programs. [01:01:00] The clinic, for example, they were very active in the clinic in taking care of patients. They were trained too. I mean, people would come and train them on doing certain things. So they would come in on the days that the clinic was open and they would participate in that. And the Breakfast with children to the extent that they could, because they also had children. They were active in that. So any of the programs that we had, the presence of the women in the organization was there. Also true, the leadership of the organization was all male, but there was a lot of, well, Angie, but I’m talking about chairman, minister of Defense, minister information. These are all males. But the participation, especially through Angie, [01:02:00] was always there. And it wasn’t like in many other groups, it wasn’t a inferior to the rest of the leadership. It’s just that they were being active in a different manner. JJ: Okay. What about what was going on? How did the city respond to the young girls? OL: Huh? That’s right. I mean, I think it was a shock to the city also to the powers in City Hall to see an organization like the Young Lords become political. I mean, 27 �they had their hands full with the Black Panthers and then comes the Young Lords. And not only that, but then the Young Lords start going around talking to other [01:03:00] gangs about becoming an organization, not just with the Latin Kings, but with the Latin Eagles. I remember we traveled even to South Chicago to talk to the Saints, Harrison, Jens. I mean, we talked to every gang that would listen to us about turning into a political organization. And we already had a reason why an organization like the Young Lords would become a political organization. So that’s what we shared with them. So all of this was not ignored by the police, and I think that they really saw the Young Lords as a real big threat. Big threat to the way they dealt with youth in our community, because then they weren’t going to be dealing with little gangs. They were going to be dealing with organizations. And I think that [01:04:00] they made the decision. When Daley declared war on gangs, mayor Daley, the father, decided that it was going to conduct a war on gangs, but it was really a repression of a political movement among youth street youth. And that’s the way that the city decided to deal with it by repressing it. And in the case of the Young Lords, it was not only through arresting most of the leadership of the Young Lords, you yourself at one point had 39 cases in court. And that was one of the way of dismantling an organization by making sure that whatever funds we had, we had to use bail money, whatever time we had to deal with programs we had to spend in [01:05:00] court. So that was a way of dismantling the organization that weren’t gangs. And they were always after us. I mean, when at the church we had 24 hour a day surveillance. I mean, there was a squad car parked outside the 28 �church for 24 hours a day. And sometimes when we used to walk out at church, maybe at one, two o’clock in the morning, because maybe we were working on the newspaper or working on some, developing some leaflets, we woke out at one, two o’clock in the morning and they would stop and dead of winter, they would stop us and make us put our hands on the hood of the car. When the car, I mean, it was like the below zero. It’s cold. It is cold. I would just put my hand just above the, so, but they would come in and say, no, boom, put him on the hood. So it was that [01:06:00] kind of harassment. It was a constant harassment. It was a constant repression of our group. And as a result, then they were also dealing with the groups that were active with us. They were doing the same thing to them. JJ: Okay, what do you think we should, we’re kind of finalizing it. What do you think? Or do you remember anything about the campaign? We can go to the campaign. When we were underground, what were you doing when the rest of the group was underground? OL: Okay, JJ: Why did the group go underground? OL: Right? When the police, the FBI, the GIU, the gang intelligence units and all those people were successful [01:07:00] in dismantling the organization, then there was a decision that, well, you went on underground, you left, and while you were traveling around the nation, that was your contact, whether if you were in California, I knew that you were there and who you were with. If you were in Boston, I knew what you were doing there. So during that time also, all the 29 �organizations that had been active above ground were rethinking, and I’m talking about everywhere, not just in the United States, but even in Mexico. Organizations like ours were rethinking tactics because whereas we were an open above ground organization and everything that we did was [01:08:00] public and an open, we saw that that was not possible anymore. So one of the things that was decided was those that were still part of the organization, were going to go on the ground and continue developing, studying, working, but developing or at least maintaining the group alive, but not out in the open. So that’s what happened at the time, I stayed in Chicago also, and I was one of the Chicago contacts for that. During that time, what I decided to do was also go back to school, and I became a teacher during that time that the rest of the members were underground. But I was the one that, one of the people that kept also in contact with the school, with a group [01:09:00] in Wisconsin until came time for the group to surface again. And that’s when you decided to turn yourself in and do whatever time you needed to do and then continue again above ground. With the shift here with the Young Lords at the time was going into electoral politics, not as, because we thought that was the solution, but because that gave us, again, a platform to speak from about urban renewal, again, about other things. So it wasn’t like, okay, we’re going to run Cha-Cha for Alderman because he’s going to win. But it was, we’re going to run Cha-Cha for Alderman because that’s going to allow us, again, to talk about the issues like urban renewal. As a matter of fact, when you run for Alderman, the opposition, Chris Cohen then later [01:10:00] became the secretary for Urban Housing and Urban Development. So 30 �I mean, we weren’t too far from the targets that we’ve always had in mind, but that gave us, again, another form of educating communities. And we felt that that was the way to do it. But I think that’s sort of like the next stage that the Young Lords went into, and it was already a transformed group. But during the sixties and early seventies, the uniqueness of the Young Lords in Chicago, the national headquarters in Chicago, we’re unique in the sense that the organization inspire and it gave the youth a model to follow. So I think that the [01:11:00] Young Lords really impacted a whole generation of Latino youth that later on they became active in their own terms. And some of ’em went into health, some went into education, some went into politics, but they went in already with the kind of direction that the Young Lords had established. I think that if the Young Lords had not been there, probably the Latino Puerto Rican community would have developed, but it would have developed in a different direction than it did because I think the Young Lords established the mood and established the direction for the Puerto Rican community to move. And I think that was part of the legacy that the young horse left [01:12:00] for our community. And the other one is a lesson to people that the youth can come together, the youth can organize, because we didn’t have any adult leadership in the Young Lords. But as young people, you can come together, analyze problems, and have an impact on your community. And I think that’s kind of difficult to do that today because of all the factors that are at play in our communities. But we still have the Young Lords as a model to follow. It’s a question of, again, doing what you did back in 1967, ‘68 of going person to person to person and explaining what needs to 31 �happen with the youth, what needs to happen with a structure, like a gang structure. [01:13:00] But it is going to take not just one cha-cha, it’s going to take several cha-cha to do that and revive JJ: Doing OL: The model, what you did, JJ: Administer of information, doing what everybody was doing. That’s what we did. It did take a lot more people. The one thing we didn’t haven’t covered as part of the repression was how was Reverend Bruce Johnson was killed? Can you explain what happened then and what was the impact it had on you and some of the other members group? OL: Yeah. Well, that was one of the things. This was in 2008, 2009, nine 2000 JJ: September. OL: I’m already JJ: Actually, I’m sorry, October of OL: 69. Of 69. October nine, October of 69, that’s when Reverend Bruce Johnson was assassinated. [01:14:00] Him and his wife JJ: Assassinated. What do you mean? OL: Well, assassinated. He was killed. I think he was assassinated because I think he was the, remember I mentioned that he was the one that was very receptive to us in letters, come and come into the church and make use of the space in the church. And when he did that, the Young Lords acquired a base and we rooted ourselves in the community that way. I think that meant a lot to the power structures because we were sort of becoming, let me use the word 32 �institutionalized in the community. We weren’t just a little group running around. It was already a group that had a place. They had programs coming out of there. And I think that there was a lot of opposition to us, not just from the police department. I [01:15:00] think there were some right wing community groups that were against us that didn’t like the things that we were doing. We love America Committee that was right next door to us, and they would go through a lot of garbage and take out little papers and then make a case out of a little diagram that we would throw away groups like that. I think that the fact that we were a leftist organization in terms of ideology, right wing Latino groups in Chicago, didn’t like us either. And the organized right wing at the time in the Latinos, it was not Puerto Rican, it was not Mexican. [01:16:00] It was mostly Cuban. So I think that group didn’t like us either, but they didn’t strike against us. All these groups didn’t come and confront us because it would’ve been different. It would’ve been difficult for them to do that. But I that instead, they took it upon Reverend Johnson and punished him for facilitating what we had. And I think that he was killed because of his involvement with the Young Lords, him and his wife. I mean, were stabbed to death, the way that they were stabbed to death wasn’t like a robbery. I mean, it was a very intense, very, there was a lot of anger in the kind [01:17:00] of wounds that they found in them. So it wasn’t like you come in, you stab ’em and they run away. I mean, it was somebody that was angry at Bruce Johnson and the multiple stab wounds were not, I mean, they were very passionate. Very passionate. It was someone, or some people that were very passionate about what Bruce Johnson represented or what he had 33 �done. That crime was never solved either. But I think that, personally, I think that it was as a result of his involvement with the Young Lords. JJ: Do you recall the Young Lords trying to work with the police to try to solve the case or, OL: I mean, we never away from [01:18:00] contributing to the solution. I think that right after they were killed, the first thing that they would say, well, probably it was Cha-Cha that did it, but you were in jail at the time. That wouldn’t stick that. But then the organization, we wanted a solution. We wanted to find out who had done it, so we’re not going to obstruct that kind of investigation. JJ: Okay. Anything that you want add that hasn’t been tested? OL: No. I think what. JJ: You’re doing today or as a result. OL: Of your work, I think that the fact that today a lot of university students, high school students, [01:19:00] a week ago I spoke to seventh and eighth graders in the grammar school in Pilsen, who are studying the Young Lords. The fact that there’s an interest in the organization today, after how many years? 30, 40, over 40 years that we’re active. It means that the impact that the Young Lords had as an organization in our community is really positive. And people are eager to find out who are these guys? Who are these young people that did this, and how do they do it and why? And is it possible to replicate that? Seventh and eighth graders, when I talked to them, they were talking about, well, how can that be done again? And so they’re thinking, see, and I think that’s a good sign. They’re looking at the model. [01:20:00] There’s a model for them. And so out of those 34 �young kids, one of ’em is going to come out and start organizing at some point, and they will have the Young Lords as a model to follow. So I think that we’ve left a good legacy for other generations. Like right now, the interest is the history, but I think that other people are going to take it as the model to implement again with the young people today. JJ: Okay. That was excellent. Interview the part before. END OF VIDEO FILE 35 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/bf9601271fe6f3b551f6d5ab599eff4d.mp4 c89de508fe7f2ef08446af8a1d327c46 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 Omar López vídeo entrevista y biografía, entrevista 1 Descripción Spanish language Description entry Omar López era el Ministro de Información para los Young Lords. Nació en México y llego a chicago en 1958, estableándose en el vecindario de Humboldt Park donde sigue viviendo. El primero conoció alguien de los Young Lords en Lincoln Park cuando estaban en las calles como una ganga puertorriqueña. López los vio de nuevo cuando los Young Lords se transformaron, oficialmente en el 23 de Septiembre de 1958, de in ganga a un movimiento de los derechos humanos. Esta vez los jóvenes estaban protegiendo a José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez y Fred Hampton (del Black Panther Party) quien estaban hablando juntos en Loop Jr. College donde López estaba peleando por los derechos de los estudiantes y educación bilingüe. López se hizo parte de los Young Lords en 1969. En 1973 el fundo el Mexican Teachers Organization. Señor López continúa trabajando por los derechos de Latinos y emigrantes. En 2006, el corrió por el Green Party como candidato para la Case de Representantes de Illinois, del 4th distrito. El 10 de Marzo del mismo año el reunió una de la más grandes demonstraciones, de gente que luchaban por los derechos de los inmigrantes de clase obrera, en la historia de los Estados Unidos. López continua siendo proactivo en la aria de Humboldt Park, derechos para inmigrantes, la “Latin American Defense Organization (LADO), y los Young Lords. El es el director ejecutivo de CALOR, una clínica para Latinos que han sido afectados por HIV/AIDS u otras enfermedades. 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 Estudiantes--Derechos Civiles 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_Lopez_Omar_1 Title A name given to the resource Omar López video interview and transcript, interview 1 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource López, Omar Description An account of the resource Omar López was Minister of Information for the Young Lords. He was born in Mexico and first came to Chicago in 1958, settling in the Humboldt Park Neighborhood where he has lived ever since. He first met some Young Lords in Lincoln Park when they were hanging out on the streets as a local Puerto Rican street gang, and later when the Young Lords were providing security for Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez and Fred Hampton (of the Black Panther Party) who were speaking together at Loop Jr. College where Omar was a student and fighting for student rights and bilingual education. Mr. López joined the Young Lords in 1969. In 1973, he founded the Mexican Teachers Organization. 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 Students--Civil rights 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/7587fdbf9d46cb36f6032ae8956afe20.pdf d9956def951f0c21d75d7f770e234820 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Martha López Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 3/30/2012 Biography and Description English Martha López grew up in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood and recalls the thriving Puerto Rican community there, especially the youth groups, Caballeros de San Juan, and the Young Lords. She also recalls being attacked “from the whites and the blacks” who lived in different parts of Old Town and Lincoln Park. Chicago was a very segregated city in the 1950s and early 1960s and the neighborhood of Lincoln Park was no different. Ms. López recalls that she had to throw a few swings and was not afraid of fighting anyone male or female when she was confronted, but that she was never in a gang. Martha attended Arnold Elementary and Waller High School. Her husband was a decorated military veteran. Spanish Martha López creció en el vecindario de Lincoln Park y recuerda como la comunidad puertorriqueña prospera allí, especialmente en los jóvenes con grupos como Caballeros de San Juan y los Young Lords. También recuerda como fue atacada “por los blancos y morenos” quien vivía en otras partes del “Old Town” en Lincoln Park. Chicago era una ciudad muy segregado en los 1950 y 1960 y Lincoln Park no era diferente. Señora López recuerda que no tenía miedo de pelear con nadie cuando se enfrentaron con �ella, y tuvo que tirar unos golpes. Pero ella nunca fue parte de una ganga. López atendió Arnold Elementary y luego Waller High school. Su esposo es un veterano miliario condecorado. �Transcript JOSE JIMENEZ: Go ahead and give me your name again. MARTHA LOPEZ: Mi nombre es[00:00:02] Martha Lopez. (Spanish) [00:00:04 00:00:08] Martha [Martinez?]. JJ: Okay, Martha Martinez. Martha, when did you first come to Chicago, or were you born there? ML: I came in 1958. JJ: So you were born in Puerto Rico? ML: I was born in Puerto Rico. JJ: Where? What town are you from? ML: Arecibo. JJ: Arecibo? Okay. And you came in 1958. ML: Nineteen fifty-eight. JJ: Where did you live when you first came? ML: I lived at Dickens and Larrabee. JJ: Did you come by yourself, or were your brothers and sisters, your whole family, or how did you come? ML: My mother and my brothers. My father was already here. He came like a year before. JJ: And what was he doing? What kind of work was he doing? ML: He was a candy maker. JJ: Oh, a candy maker? Okay. [00:01:00] And so he saved money and brought the family? 1 �ML: Right. JJ: Now, did your mother come and work, or was she a housewife? ML: She was a housewife for a while. Then she worked at the candy packer called Peerless Confection. JJ: Okay. Okay. You don’t know where that was at? ML: Yeah, right over here on Schubert, Schubert and Lakewood. JJ: And Lakewood? ML: Mm-hmm. JJ: Okay. And so she packed the candy boxes and that? ML: She packed candies, yeah. Boxes, cans, different ornaments that they had. JJ: Okay. Was that -- also your father worked there? Is he the one that got her the job, or...? ML: Her brother. JJ: Her brother worked there. ML: Guillermo, the one you interviewed the other day, he got the job. He was foreman there for many years. JJ: Okay. So that was your mother’s brother? ML: Yes. JJ: Guillermo. Okay, okay. So ’58. [00:02:00] So Guillermo was part of the church. Was your mother part of the church too, or...? ML: No. My mother was from the Church of Christ. Well, my father was. Then my mother converted later. JJ: Okay. From the United Church of Christ? 2 �ML: No, just the Church of Christ. JJ: The Church of Christ, okay. How many other siblings -- how many brothers and sisters did you have? ML: Four brothers. One passed. JJ: One passed. Any sisters, or any other sisters? ML: No sisters. JJ: Okay. So it was five altogether? ML: Five altogether. JJ: And you were the youngest, the oldest, or...? ML: I was the second. Second-oldest. JJ: So you came in 1958, and you came to Diversey, that area? ML: Larrabee and Dickens. JJ: Oh, Larrabee. I’m sorry. Okay. You went right into the Lincoln Park neighborhood. ML: [00:03:00] Right. JJ: So how old were you then? ML: I was nine and a half. JJ: Okay. So you remember pretty good the neighborhood at nine and a half, no? ML: Well, yeah, then. Yeah. I remember. I still remember. It changed a lot, but I remember. JJ: Okay. What was the main population, the main group of people that lived there? ML: The main group? It was all mixed. JJ: It was all mixed? 3 �ML: It was all mixed. JJ: Okay. Were there a lot of Puerto Ricans, or no, or a few, or...? ML: A few. A few Puerto Ricans. JJ: At that time? Okay. ML: Yeah. JJ: How were the Puerto Ricans received? ML: Well, I didn’t notice anything, you know, around the neighborhood, because we were mainly kept inside. You know, everything was new to us, so my father really -- JJ: Even the brothers? Your brothers, too? ML: [00:04:00] My brothers, too. Mm-hmm. We were little kids. JJ: So he kept you inside. Why would he keep you inside if there was no Puerto Ricans outside, so there was no trouble you can get into, right? ML: Well, because we were kids, and we were new here, so we didn’t know, you know. We didn’t know anything about the United States. JJ: So he was worried that you might get lost or something? ML: Get lost and, you know -- my father was really, you know -- he really took care of us. JJ: What do you mean, he took care of you? ML: Well, he was always -- had us in, to keep us out of trouble. You know, they were always taking good care of us, my mom and dad. They never left us alone or anything. We were, what is it, twenty-four seven with them. They really [00:05:00] didn’t let us run around when we got here. Later on, then we got a 4 �little loose and stuff, like playing in the alleys and stuff, baseball. JJ: In the alley, you played baseball? ML: My brothers did, and then I followed. And I roller skated (laughs) in the alley. Learned how to roller skate. JJ: Okay. You mean with aluminum -- those steel roller skates? ML: Yes, mm-hmm. JJ: At that time. So you said you got a little loose. Was the alley a little dangerous, or no? ML: Well, then it wasn’t too dangerous, but, you know, when you’re a kid, you don’t know anything about danger. You just wanna play. And that’s what my brothers did. They played, and I also played. But my mom and dad were the ones that were always keeping an eye on us. They were always -- you know, we had to tell them where we were at all times. JJ: Okay. [00:06:00] Your father was in the Church of Christ. ML: Yes. JJ: So did you all go to the service, or...? ML: Yes, he took us. JJ: What was that like in the service? Were there more Spanish people there, or...? ML: There were a group of about 50 people. JJ: About 50 people? But how about the Spanish? ML: Spanish? Everybody was Spanish. JJ: Oh, at that church? ML: Yeah. They have two groups. They had an English group and a Spanish group. 5 �And there was a American lady that -- she took us. So they taught us the word of God. JJ: Okay. ML: It was pretty good. JJ: Did they have fellowship, like afterwards, or some kind of -- you know, where they get together afterwards, or...? ML: No, we just went home. JJ: Just went home after? ML: Mm-hmm. JJ: Okay. [00:07:00] That’s what he was in Puerto Rico? He was part of that church in Puerto Rico, or...? ML: No, uh-uh. I believe he was a Catholic, but I don’t remember seeing a church in Puerto Rico. JJ: When you were younger, you didn’t go to the Catholic church? ML: No. I don’t remember going to church. JJ: Okay. So you came here. Who were your friends? Did you have any girl friends at that time, at that age, or...? ML: In Puerto Rico? JJ: No, here, when you got here. ML: Here? Girl friends? No, it was mainly family. JJ: It was mainly family? ML: Yeah. JJ: Prima y[00:07:42], people like that, or...? 6 �ML: Prima y Primos, [00:07:45 - 00:07:47]. JJ: Okay, that you can remember. Well, you said something about Puerto Rico, so did you have a lot of friends in Puerto Rico, or no? ML: Puerto Rico? I don’t remember, because I came here when I was nine and a half. JJ: Okay, [00:08:00] so you don’t remember. Okay. ML: So I don’t remember having any close friends. JJ: Okay. So now you’re going to -- what school are you going to then, when you came here? ML: I went to Lincoln School when I came here. JJ: Okay, Lincoln School. ML: On Geneva -- I believe it’s Geneva and Dickens. Not sure if it’s Dickens. But it was on that neighborhood. Orchard? Orchard and Dickens, around there. JJ: Orchard and Dickens, around there, Lincoln School? ML: Orchard, Dickens -- there was Orchard, Dickens, and Geneva. I remember those streets. I think it’s still there. JJ: Yeah, it’s by Grant Hospital. That’s where you’re -- ML: Exactly. Mm-hmm. JJ: Okay. And Lincoln School -- there’s a school somewhere around there, yeah. ML: Yeah, that’s the same one. I think it’s -- I have the picture there. JJ: And what do you remember from there, from that school? ML: What do I remember? Well, I didn’t know any English, that’s for sure, so I had [00:09:00] a battle tryin’ to -- you know, I had to try to learn the language. And 7 �fighting with the kids. JJ: Fighting with the kids? Why? ML: Because being Latina, we didn’t know that we had a language barrier, and I guess they didn’t like us. We got beat up. JJ: What do you mean, you guess -- how can you say that? Why would you say that? ML: Because they ran us home every day, and they used to beat my brothers up. I was always up front waiting for them so we could get home safe. JJ: So your brothers had to run home from school? ML: Just practically every day, we had to run home, and have a little fight in between. JJ: Now, this wasn’t a gang. This was just a -- ML: It wasn’t gangs. Kids beating up kids. JJ: Just kids beating [00:10:00] up kids at that time? ML: Yeah, just like now. Kids beat up kids. JJ: But this was white kids beating up on Spanish kids? ML: Yes. JJ: Mainly at that time? ML: At that time, yes. JJ: Because there were not really any Blacks in that area. ML: No, not really. Only when we lived -- JJ: I’m just -- I’m asking, I don’t know. ML: Only when we lived by Cabrini-Green. When we lived there, then we went to a school named Schiller, yeah. 8 �JJ: So you went first there, and you moved further south to Cabrini-Green? ML: Exactly. JJ: Okay. So you went the other way, going south instead of north. So you went to Schiller. Why would you go south? The [primary?] (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? ML: I don’t -- I think we went different places. Can I see those pictures? Because it’s got different schools there. JJ: Right here? ML: Yeah. The top ones, uh-huh. ’Cause I have -- I think I have both schools here. Nineteen fifty-nine, [00:11:00] I was at Lincoln School. Then 1960, I was at Agassiz. So I came north. JJ: Oh, you went north. ML: North. JJ: A little north. ML: And then from there -- JJ: So you were in Schiller first. ML: No, then from there we went to Schiller. JJ: Okay. So you went north, and then you went back the other way. ’Cause the cheaper housing was the other way. ML: There were brand-new apartments, so that’s why we went there. JJ: Oh, you went to Schiller ’cause they were brand new. ML: Brand new, so we had a -- JJ: Oh, okay. So actually, you were moving up. You were moving -- 9 �ML: We had a decent place to live, so we thought, but it wasn’t that decent. JJ: Why? ML: Because the neighborhood. It was all Blacks, and we didn’t know. It was like a jungle to us. JJ: Okay. What do you mean, it was like a jungle to you? ML: Well, we had to fight in school also. We got ran -- they ran us home. JJ: So first you were being run home by the white groups. ML: Yes. JJ: [00:12:00] And now you’re being run home by the Black groups. ML: Yes. JJ: At that time. Okay. ML: So I had to arm myself with a pair of scissors, and a belt, and a needle, under -with the belt. JJ: Okay. Put the needle in the belt? ML: Right. JJ: Okay. ML: So they wouldn’t pick on me. But then I would laugh, because my girl friends were getting run home, and then I -- I was walking, like, They’re not gonna touch me, because I felt protected. I’m protecting myself, but I felt protected, because I had a little scissors with me and a little needle and a belt. And then they left me alone. JJ: When you pulled it out, they left you alone? ML: I didn’t. I never pulled it out. 10 �JJ: Okay. You just felt stronger, tougher. ML: I felt protected, because I said, If anything happens, I’m not gonna let them get the best of me, because they did beat me up at first. [00:13:00] I took a good beating, and they made, like, a circle. And you would think it was a few kids. It was like hundreds of kids kicking on you and everything, when you’re getting beat up. JJ: And why do you think they were chasing you? ML: I didn’t think -- I think they didn’t like Hispanics. JJ: You think they didn’t like Hispanics? ML: I think it was a racial thing. JJ: Was it racial? ML: Mm-hmm. JJ: Because you were just new -- going back there, it was new, and -- ML: Well, we were the only -- you know, the only Hispanics around, very few. All of them got beat up. I don’t know if it was the difference because of the color or what, but I knew we took a good beating, and my brothers also. JJ: Now, after a while, did that stop or slow down, or it just kept going? ML: No, my father left. He moved back to the neighborhood [00:14:00] on Lincoln Avenue. JJ: He moved back to Lincoln Avenue? ML: Mm-hmm. JJ: So how long were you there in Schiller? ML: About a year. 11 �JJ: Just a year, and then you moved back? ML: Yeah, it was rough. JJ: So that Schiller’s more like Old Town. That was Old Town. ML: Old Town, yeah. JJ: Right. So at that time, there were very few Puerto Ricans in that -- living there. ML: They wouldn’t last. There was a little girl that got killed. They threw, like, a gallon of milk, which was glass, and dropped it from a tall floor right onto her head. They hit her head, ’cause she was hanging by the balcony, and they killed her. JJ: A Spanish girl? ML: A Spanish girl. Young girl, like an eight or nine, ten-year-old. JJ: And they were just playing around and throwing -- other kids playing around and threw it and hit her. ML: Somebody threw it from a top floor and [00:15:00] got her head. Don’t know if it was kids or what. JJ: Okay. But so [a lot of the?] Puerto Ricans were being beat up at that time in that area. That’s what you said. Then you moved back to Lincoln Avenue? ML: Yes. JJ: Now, when you moved back, were there more Spanish people living then? What year was this? ML: Lincoln Avenue? Then we took a fight with the Orientals, with Chinos.(overlapping dialogue) Yeah. JJ: With Orientals? With Chinos? They were living in that area? 12 �ML: They were living across the street from us. And they had a cleaners. Their parents were -- they had a cleaners, Sun Cleaners. That’s the name of the cleaners. Then there was another. I said, Okay. So I had to protect my brothers, so I made up, like, a little -- for protection, I picked up a bunch of bricks, [00:16:00] and I lined them up, because I knew they said that they were gonna beat my brothers up. So I lined them up. I had a bunch of bricks, maybe 10, 12 bricks, and when they came, I said, “You come over here, I’m gonna throw these bricks at you.” You know? “And I’m gonna really give you a fight.” Because my brothers, they didn’t know English, either, that much. But I was learning. Then they didn’t come. I didn’t have to use the bricks. They got scared, I guess. JJ: So you think some of this had to do because they didn’t know English, or...? ML: Could be, because at that time, they didn’t care about the Hispanics learning. I noticed that the Japanese and the Chinese in the school, in the classrooms, they had preference, and they had the best grades, [00:17:00] and they teached them the best -- like French, they didn’t let me take French, because I had a language barrier, so I couldn’t take it. And other classes that I already knew, they didn’t let us take those classes, because they didn’t want us to get further knowledge. And I noticed that they had a lot of preference with Orientals. JJ: So you had that problem with the Orientals that lived across the street? ML: That’s it, just across the street. JJ: And you also felt they had preference in the schools. ML: In school, yes, I noticed that. JJ: So you mentioned whites, and then you mentioned Blacks, then you mentioned 13 �Orientals. ML: (laughs) Yeah. JJ: So was the neighborhood like that, divided by race and...? ML: The neighborhood? JJ: Was it divided at all by race, or no? ML: No. JJ: Or nationalities? ML: It wasn’t. It wasn’t [00:18:00] divided. JJ: Just certain buildings and...? ML: That just happened, yeah. JJ: That just happened. ML: That just happened. JJ: Okay. Okay. But I mean, Cabrini-Green was mainly Black, African American. ML: Oh, yeah. JJ: So that -- so Puerto Ricans living there were not welcome at that time. ML: No. JJ: Although in some -- there was one project that was Latin, right, that was Spanish, or no? ML: It was scattered. Very few Spanish, very few. JJ: Okay, in 1959, around this. ML: Nineteen sixty, ’62 or ’63, around there. JJ: Okay. So at that time, there were not very many Puerto Ricans living there. ML: No. My uncle, they gave my uncle a beating, because he went to play dominoes, 14 �and he didn’t know. I call him my uncle, but he wasn’t really my uncle. But he was in the family. He was an older -- past 60, maybe 70. [00:19:00] And he liked to play dominoes, so he used to go with his little box of dominoes to play at my house. One day, they gave him a beating, and then he didn’t last long after that. JJ: This was by Cabrini-Green? ML: By Cabrini-Green. JJ: So he came to visit you at Cabrini-Green. ML: To visit to play dominoes, because he -- JJ: And they caught him outside? ML: They caught him around -- somewhere around the neighborhood, Larrabee and Division. JJ: Okay. And they beat him up, and they killed him, or...? ML: Well, he didn’t die right away, but he took a beating, and then he didn’t last long after that. I don’t know how long he lasted, but it wasn’t too long. JJ: Was he drinking or something, or that -- ML: No, he didn’t drink. He just -- he liked coffee. JJ: So you think they just beat him up because he was Spanish, and he -- ML: Yeah, in that neighborhood. He didn’t know. He wasn’t aware of his surroundings. Yeah. JJ: Okay. So you had to be aware of your surroundings? ML: In that area? Yeah. That was near Cooley High, all that area. JJ: [00:20:00] What does that mean, to be aware of your surroundings? What does that mean? 15 �ML: Well, to know the neighborhood, to know what kind of difficulties you’re gonna face about crime. You don’t know who’s gonna -- you always gotta watch your back. You don’t know if they’re gonna beat you up or pull a knife, at that time. I don’t think they had guns at that time. But -- or just take a beating. You have to always watch out, at night, especially. JJ: So it has to do with your time of day, and it’s at nighttime? ML: Well, not really the time of day. It could have happened anytime. But mostly at night. That’s when most crimes happen anyway. JJ: And you knew that. You [00:21:00] knew that from experience, or...? ML: Well, yeah, because my father kept us inside. He said, “Don’t you go out.” You know, we were kids anyway, but he wasn’t even -- he didn’t even go outside after dark, because one time, they threw a stone at him, too, and got him by the leg or something, a stone or a rock, whatever, got him by the leg. JJ: So part of your growing up meant being trained how to act outside. ML: It was natural instinct. We didn’t get trained. We just knew. You know? It was fear. Yeah, we didn’t really get any training. JJ: And so you felt that when you walked outside -- ML: We just felt it. Mm-hmm. JJ: You felt that you had to walk around, watch out. Who’s this person and that person? ML: Right. JJ: Okay. So that was part of growing up there in Old Town, in the Old Town. ML: Right. It was just natural instinct, you know. [00:22:00] You were the prey, 16 �period. JJ: Okay. So now you went to Schiller. You went back to by Schiller Street. But then after that, where did you go after that? ML: Came back to Lincoln Avenue. JJ: And where did you go to school there? ML: Agassiz. JJ: So Agassiz. ML: And then I graduated at Agassiz. JJ: May I see that picture [and what’s in it?]? So that picture -- ML: Is that Lincoln or Agassiz? Here’s Agassiz. JJ: Oh, that’s Agassiz right there? Okay. So this picture here is primarily -- it’s mostly -- I see a few Latino faces, but it’s mostly a white school at that time? ML: Yes. Let’s see. JJ: Okay. So how was -- there are at least more -- you know, there’s a few Latinos in there, right, [00:23:00] but it’s mostly white? ML: [Not?] many. You see that? JJ: You had many Latinos? (inaudible) all white. ML: There’s one, two -- there’s only two. JJ: Only two Latinos? ML: Two Latinos. JJ: And what are the rest? What nationality are the rest, do you think? ML: Well, they could be German. There’s a Oriental girl there. German, Irish. Maybe German and Irish and -- 17 �JJ: So it was more mixed. That area was more mixed. ML: Yeah, more Europeans. JJ: More Europeans, but it was more mixed. But how did you feel? ML: In this class? JJ: Yeah. ML: [00:24:00] I felt -- because I was older than these kids, because they lowered my grade. JJ: Oh, they lowered your grade? Why? Why did they do that? ML: Because of the language barrier, they lowered my grade. See the difference? JJ: Did they do that to other people, or...? ML: I was here. What’s -- two-A. Then they raised me -- see the same year? From one year difference? Then they raised me to four-B. JJ: So they raised you. They didn’t lower you. ML: They didn’t lower me, because I was already -- I’m in four, but in Puerto Rico, I was going to study fifth grade already, so they lowered me when I came here to second grade. JJ: Oh, so you went from fifth grade to second grade. ML: To second grade. JJ: And then they moved you back up to fourth? ML: Fourth. So I’m still missing some years. I graduated late. JJ: So you kind of went jumping around different levels. ML: Different levels. So, you know. JJ: How did you feel about [00:25:00] that? 18 �ML: Well, I felt like I didn’t belong there, ’cause I was older than those kids, so -- but I still went. You know? I went to school every day. Then I had to change my name, because they called me Maria instead of Marta. My name is Marta, and they called Maria, and I never said -- I didn’t say present, because they didn’t call my name. So one day, the teacher put a bunch of absentees. She said, “You’ve been absent for this and that and that.” And I said, “What?” I said, “I’ve been here.” She said, “I called your name, Maria, and you never answered.” I said, “Because my name is not Maria. My name is Marta.” So she was gonna fail me for some classes for that, and then I said, Well, only one thing to do. This is me as a kid, [00:26:00] thinking. I’m gonna change my name. So instead of Marta, I put Martha. I added an H. And then from then on, I wasn’t absent anymore. And my name’s been Martha ever since. JJ: Okay. So you still changed your name, because they didn’t -- ML: I changed it myself. JJ: Changed it to English. Okay. But they could relate to Martha, because that was more English. ML: Right. Mm-hmm. JJ: Okay. You had to change your name. Okay. So they put you down in grade. You felt kind of bad, because you were down in the grade. How old were you around that time? Do you remember, or...? ML: How old? JJ: Yeah. Fifth grade, or -- ML: When they lowered? 19 �JJ: Yeah. Well, I mean, when you were in fifth grade, what was -- so -- ML: When I was nine and a half, I was gonna study fifth grade in Puerto Rico, and then I was brought here. JJ: Okay, so that was the same year, basically. ML: Nineteen [00:27:00] fifty-eight. JJ: Nineteen fifty-eight. Okay. So what do you remember of that area at that time, and what was going on in that area? I mean, were you just staying at home, or what were you doing? ML: Where I lived? JJ: Yeah. ML: Or where I went to school? JJ: Where you lived by Agassiz. What was that area like? ML: It was goo-- it was better. JJ: It was better? ML: We stayed home. Walked the streets a little bit. There was a playground. Used to go up to the playground and play, on Wrightwood and Lincoln. It was real -you know, because I didn’t see a lot of conflicts there. It was, like, more free. You were able to walk the streets and be more free. JJ: And your father, how did he feel, your father (inaudible)? ML: Oh, he was happy. Plus it was closer to [00:28:00] work. JJ: For his job? ML: Mm-hmm. JJ: So he was pretty happy, and he felt that you were in a safe area. 20 �ML: Safer area. JJ: So the neighborhood begins to change, right, in ’58 and ’59? That neighborhood starts changing? Or when did it start changing more Puerto Rican? ML: There were more -- a lot more Latinos coming around that time around that area. JJ: So do you stay hanging around the playground, or...? ML: Oh, yeah. JJ: So that became like a center for you, the playground, or no? ML: A little, yeah, for recreation and that, playing baseball and stuff. JJ: Were more Puerto Rican -- where you played baseball? ML: And -- well, my brothers did. JJ: Was it league ball or softball? ML: No, no, just -- JJ: Softball, the big softball? ML: Just among our -- you know, themselves, playing softball. JJ: Because they used to have [00:29:00] the big one, right, the 16-inch? ML: Right. But no league or anything. JJ: But everybody played the 16-inch ball (inaudible) -- ML: Right. JJ: -- all your brothers and that? Were they part of a group or anything, your brothers? ML: No, no. My brothers were not part of anything. JJ: But did they have a team? ML: No team. Just relatives got together and stuff and played. 21 �JJ: And they played right there. Okay. But the neighborhood was white, and now it’s changing more Spanish, no? Did that create any problems? Or it didn’t change? ML: No, it was mixed. It was all mixed. JJ: It was always mixed. Okay. So you didn’t experience any problems with any other races? ML: No. JJ: Except when you were younger, when you first got there. Then everybody got along after -- ML: Right. JJ: Okay. But did it increase in Spanish people, or no? ML: No, it was not too many Hispanics around this area. JJ: Okay. So it was always like that. ML: Yeah, very few. You could [00:30:00] count them. Yep. JJ: Okay. So how long did you stay in Agassiz? ML: I stayed there till I graduated, 1964. JJ: Okay, 1964? And then -- so what grades were you in? Fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth? ML: I went from fourth to, what, was that eighth? Eighth grade. JJ: To eighth. Did you graduate in eighth, or did you go to Arnold -- ML: No, I didn’t go to Arnold. JJ: -- Upper Grade Center? No? So you went from Agassiz to Waller? ML: Right. 22 �JJ: Okay. So, okay. So now there was no problems at school? You got along very well with everybody? ML: At Waller? JJ: In the Agassiz. ML: I got along, but we didn’t really make friends. I didn’t have friends. [00:31:00] My friends were my brothers. JJ: Okay. Why didn’t you make friends with the other girls that were there? ML: Because we didn’t fit in. JJ: I don’t understand, because you were speaking English? ML: Because I’m Spanish. I’m trying to learn English. We’re Spanish. I didn’t have any friends. JJ: Oh, you were trying to learn English then. ML: Right. But I didn’t have any friends. I don’t know if -- JJ: Were you just not friendly, was that you, or...? ML: No, I guess I didn’t fit in. I don’t know, but we didn’t have any -- JJ: Did you have Spanish friends? Well, you had your brothers. ML: My brothers. That’s it. JJ: Okay, you didn’t have -- okay. Because you were kept at home. ML: Right. JJ: I mean, is that -- am I putting words, or -- were you kept at home because you were female, or -- ML: No, my brothers, too. JJ: Oh, they were being kept at home. 23 �ML: Oh, yeah. JJ: So that’s why you were -- because everybody was at home all the time. But you had other relatives, though, that would visit? ML: Oh, yeah. I had uncles. JJ: Okay. So [00:32:00] you were closer to family and your brothers. ML: Right. JJ: Basically, you didn’t really make any outside friends. ML: Not many. JJ: Because your mother and father wanted you in the house. ML: Right. Well, they worked. You know, they labored. We went to bed early. They put us to bed early, around 8:30, 8:00 or 9:00. JJ: Okay. And you babysat each other, right, or did you have a babysitter? ML: Well, my father took care of us. We didn’t babysit each other. He was always there. It was either him or my mother. So, you know. JJ: So there was always somebody there. ML: Yeah. JJ: Okay. And you stayed mostly at your home while you were at Agassiz. Okay. So now you’re in Waller, right? How far did you go to Waller? ML: Well, it was about a mile. JJ: Okay. No, I mean how far in years? ML: Twelfth grade. JJ: You graduated from Waller? Okay. [00:33:00] Okay. Well, tell me about Waller. ML: I don’t have the pictures, though. I don’t know what happened to them. I lost 24 �them. JJ: You know, maybe just tell me what -- ML: Waller? JJ: -- the first day you went to -- ML: Another merry-go-round. (laughter) Then we had a lot of Latinos going in there. I was a freshy. JJ: Now, you had to take the bus to get there, right? ML: Huh? JJ: You had to take the bus? ML: Took the bus, and sometimes I walked. JJ: Okay. But it was a merry-go-round, another merry-go-round? ML: That was another -- then they had the whites, the Blacks, and the Latinos. But then they had the Latinos that were in higher grades, so they would go against the ones that were in lower grades, like the freshies, and throw pennies, and -- JJ: What do you mean, throw pennies? What do you mean? ML: Throw pennies at the freshies. JJ: Oh, just throw them at you. ML: Yeah, because you’re a freshy. JJ: So they hit the freshies with the pennies? ML: Right. [00:34:00] And then they didn’t like them. They didn’t welcome the freshies, because, you know, we were new, and we were dumb, and stuff. We didn’t know what’s going on. So then we had to form our own little group. JJ: So Latinos throwing at other Latinos. 25 �ML: Yeah. JJ: So that means there were a lot of Latinos there -- ML: Yeah. JJ: -- at Waller. Okay. But, I mean, it was a mixed school, but there were a lot of Latinos. ML: Right. JJ: What -- Puerto Rican -- ML: The girls with the different hairdos and stuff. JJ: Puerto Rican, Mexican, what, you know? ML: No, more Puerto Rican. JJ: At that time? Okay. ML: Yeah. JJ: All right. And you said the girls with the what? ML: Different hairdos and stuff. JJ: What kind of hairdos? What kind? What do you mean? ML: Teasing their hair. Teased-up hair. JJ: Beehives? None of that? Is that what they call it? ML: I don’t know what they call them, but -- JJ: When it’s round or something? ML: Yeah, real -- I don’t know. I guess they got teased hair or something. JJ: Teased hair? [00:35:00] Okay. Because this was the sixties, so they were teasing their hair. ML: Yeah, teased their hair. 26 �JJ: Afros, like, or something like that, or...? ML: No, no afros. JJ: Okay, not at that time. You’re talking about what year (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? ML: Oh, that’s ’64. JJ: In ’64, you were in Waller? ML: Mm-hmm. JJ: Okay. ML: So they’d throw pennies at us. And then they had boyfriends. They were after their guy, keeping an eye on their guys and stuff. So anyway -- JJ: And the freshies were after their guys, too. ML: (laughter) I guess so. Anyway, we had to form our own group of friends. JJ: What was your group? ML: No, just friends, because we were freshies, so we’d form our own groups and stuff. JJ: So did you form your group according to the neighborhood you came from, or just -- ML: No, just in the -- that was the first time ever -- JJ: The class, or the classroom you were in? ML: -- I ever started a group. [00:36:00] No, just -- no, we started our little group together, you know, hanging out, friends hanging around. JJ: Who was in your group? Do you remember? ML: Just my friend [Shelley?], [Daisy?], [Gladys?]. We had our own -- [Maria?]. Girls 27 �-- you know, we just got together and we hung around together, because don’t forget, there was the Black girls, too. And they would pull our hairs. They were jealous and stuff, so they’d pull our hairs and start something. JJ: So they had a group, too, then, the Black girls. ML: The Blacks? JJ: Had a group too. ML: Of course. They were together. JJ: So were the groups based on -- were they mostly, like, nationality? Like, they would have Puerto Rican girls, and then they had Black girls, and Irish girls, Italian girls? Was it like that, or...? ML: I don’t know. What I noticed [00:37:00] is that we had our group, and the Blacks, I don’t know what kind of group -- JJ: What was your group? Were they mostly Puerto Rican, you group? ML: Puerto Ricans. JJ: All Puerto Ricans? ML: All Puerto Ricans. JJ: That’s what I mean. So you had all Puerto Ricans and all Blacks. ML: Right. But it wasn’t because we were fighting the Blacks. We were fighting our own nationality. (laughs) JJ: You were fighting your own nationality. ML: Our own nationality. JJ: Other Puerto Rican groups? ML: Other Puerto Ricans, because of the grades, higher grades, lower grades. 28 �JJ: So the freshies were fighting the seniors, and -- ML: Not really fighting. Just, you know. JJ: Harassing? ML: Harassing and stuff, yeah. JJ: And one of the things was throwing pennies. And what else? What (inaudible)? ML: That’s all. Throwing pennies and saying words, like, “You’re a dummy,” and stuff. Nothing really, really bad, you know. JJ: Nothing really bad? Okay. Now -- ML: But I never got into a fight or anything at school [00:38:00] at Waller. JJ: Were there a lot of these little groups, or a few of them, or not that many? ML: I don’t remember if there was any. All I remember is our group. You know, who you hung around with. Like all the other girls, they were, like -- they say the word orgullosa. JJ: Okay, orgullosa. ML: How would you say that? Too much pride? JJ: Proud? Too much pride? ML: Yeah. Orgullosa to go against, you know, the way you were. JJ: Now you were already speaking English pretty good, though, right? ML: Well, somewhat. JJ: Somewhat. Did some people have accents, or did you notice that, or no? ML: Didn’t notice much the accents, because when you’re -- you know, you’re a kid. You pick it up pretty fast, and you start [00:39:00] speaking the language. JJ: Did your parents have accents? 29 �ML: Yeah. JJ: They had accents? Okay. ML: They didn’t speak much. JJ: But they understood. So they didn’t speak much English, but they understood it. ML: Well, I don’t think they understood, either. JJ: They didn’t understand much? (laughter) ML: No, no. They didn’t understand that much. JJ: But they acted like they understood [so they didn’t know?]? ML: No. They knew that they didn’t know the language. They knew. JJ: So you were like their translator, or...? ML: Oh, no. My mother went to school, and she took a couple of classes. I don’t remember my father going, but my mother did. English classes. JJ: Okay, she took some English classes. Okay. So this is 1964. You’re moving up in Waller. How is Waller changing during that time? What do you remember at Waller? [00:40:00] How was your studying and stuff? Did you like it, or what do you remember? ML: I liked it, but like I said, keeping up with the grades and that wasn’t that easy. JJ: Were there just too much things to do, or that people didn’t want to focus on school, or...? ML: Well, I usually cut a lot of classes, because I didn’t feel like I belonged there, either. I used to cut, especially the study periods. That’s what I used to cut. I don’t know if you remember Mr. [Scoltise?]? He used to be there, a teacher. JJ: I remember study group, but I don’t remember -- 30 �ML: Study group. Yeah, we liked that one, because we used to cut, and he didn’t really pay attention to -- [00:41:00] he didn’t take -- JJ: Attendance? ML: -- any -- what do you call? JJ: Attendance? ML: Attendance. So we used to cut. JJ: And so you cut. Where did you go to? ML: Oh, we used to go by Lincoln Park, by the canoes, where they -- those boats, like in the summertime. JJ: By the (inaudible)? ML: Yeah. Get in those boats, and then get out the little boat, and go onto that little island. Yeah. Once in a while. We didn’t do that often. But when it got warm, that’s where we were. JJ: Yeah, ’cause the park is right there. Lincoln Park is right there. Okay. What about -- weren’t there neighborhood groups at that time, in ’64, ’65? Weren’t there, like, the Black Angels and the -- ML: We didn’t see any groups. JJ: -- the (inaudible) [Aces?], or [your Queens?]? You didn’t see any of those? ML: We didn’t see any groups. All I remember is seeing the sweaters. JJ: [00:42:00] Oh, so you did see the sweaters. ML: That they wore. And then it was announced. Whenever there was gonna be a fight or something, it was announced, and I just ran and took the bus home. JJ: What do you mean it was announced? 31 �ML: They announced -- somehow we knew that they were gonna have a gang fight. I don’t know. JJ: Is this kind of word of mouth? ML: Word of mouth. JJ: But everybody knew, all the Latinos. ML: Right. We were aware. JJ: Were Latinos fighting Latinos, or what was --? ML: No, they were not fighting Latinos. I think they were fighting other gangs. JJ: Other gangs that were around at the time? ML: Uh-huh. That came from different areas. JJ: To that school to fight? ML: Mm-hmm. JJ: And you would know it, and right away, you would get on the bus and -- ML: Right. JJ: So there was another reason to cut school, then, no? ML: To cut school? No, not really. JJ: Okay. So you didn’t -- you weren’t -- ML: No. I went to the classes. Just some classes that I cut, you know, [00:43:00] like the study periods. All the other classes I made. JJ: So instead of hanging around after school, when you knew there was a gang fight, you would hurry up and get on the bus. ML: Hurry up and get out. JJ: And get outta there, ’cause -- would people get cut up, or beat up, or -- 32 �ML: Never know. I never really been in between the gang, but I guess there would be blood. JJ: Was there blood? I mean, I’m just -- ML: I’ve never seen it. JJ: Okay. You never saw it. ML: No. JJ: But people didn’t want to be around when there was a gang fight. ML: Oh, no. Who wants to be around when there’s fighting, you know? JJ: Right. ML: We took off. JJ: You said you saw the sweater. What color sweaters? ML: I think I remember like a purple. JJ: A purple? ML: Purple. JJ: Black and purple? That was the Young Lords. ML: Could be. JJ: And then you had black and pink was the (inaudible). ML: Black and pink, yeah. JJ: But you remember the black and purple ones? ML: Mm-hmm. And what el-- black and [00:44:00] pink? JJ: Black and pink was the Imperial Gangsters. Then you had black and white was the Eagles. ML: Eagles. I remember vaguely, vaguely, you know. I remember the sweaters, 33 �though. JJ: Because these people used to throw dances, too. (inaudible) dances? ML: No, I wasn’t allowed. JJ: You weren’t allowed to go to the dance? Did you go to any school dances? ML: Never. My father wouldn’t let us. JJ: You couldn’t ever go to the dance? ML: No. JJ: Well, because of the church he belonged to, right? They didn’t believe in dancing? ML: No, not necessarily. It’s just that he knew that it wasn’t good -- you know, the area wasn’t that good, so we never went. JJ: So what kind of stuff did you do for recreation? ML: Oh, we watched a lot of television, played dominoes. My father had family come over. Just mainly with the family. JJ: Mainly with the family? And was there a lot of family? Did you have a lot of family? ML: Oh, yeah. We had a lot of family. [00:45:00] Uncles -- mainly uncles. Aunts, uncles, but mainly uncles that came over. My mom’s brothers, they usually come over, and she used to cook. I used to help her. They would come and visit and hang out, play a little domino, drink a little cup of coffee or whatever. At that time, nobody drank. It was mainly coffee. JJ: So just mainly coffee then? ML: Yeah. 34 �JJ: Your family didn’t drink? ML: Now you go to somebody’s house, and they ask you, “Do you want a drink?” Well, mainly in the sixties -- I mean, in the seventies, instead of giving you coffee, they started giving you drink. “You want a drink?” You know, liquor. JJ: But before that, it was just coffee. ML: Before, it was, like, coffee. JJ: And stuff like that. ML: Mm-hmm. JJ: Okay. ML: By the seventies we had -- that’s where everybody started, like, [00:46:00] boozing, you know, and drinking. JJ: What do you mean? Why was that? Why did they start boozing at that time in the seventies? ML: Well, I guess everybody -- you know, they were not kids anymore, all the kids that came from Puerto Rico. They were teenagers and stuff, or not teenage. They were almost past teenagers. So they were free to drink, so then they were drinking. And not only that, there was marijuana. They were doing marijuana and booze, and who knows what else. A lot of dope. JJ: A lot of that dope at that time? ML: Yeah, but mainly marijuana. JJ: Because that was the late sixties. You’re talking about the late sixties? ML: Well, and the beginning of the seventies. Seventies. I don’t know if you remember the hippie era. You remember that? 35 �JJ: Right. So that was the hippie era? ML: That was towards the end of [00:47:00] the sixties, about ’67. Sixty-six, ’67, around there. Hippie era. That’s when the hippie era came, and then the whites turned hippie. Then they started drafting people, so they draft the Blacks and they draft the Puerto Ricans, and the whites stayed behind, and they turned hippie. Right? So they had to go -- the Latinos had to go and the Blacks went, and the lower-class whites went, like the hillbillies. But not the ones that -- not the whites. They went hippie. And I remember that era. I don’t know if you ever -- did you ever go to Lincoln Park when that was full of people, full of hippies? JJ: The demonstrations, you mean, that they had? ML: [00:48:00] Yeah. Not only demonstration. Everybody was a hippie, and they have the long hair. I believe they did that to keep from going to the war, which was Vietnam coming up. JJ: To get away from the war? ML: To get away. I think they were told to do stuff like that to keep going from the war, the whites. Mm-hmm. JJ: So that was the era of the hippies, the anti-war -- ML: That’s when they turned hippie. JJ: -- anti-war movement that they had, or -- ML: Right. JJ: Okay. And that affected the neighborhood too? ML: No, it didn’t. Well, no, not really. You know? Just when I was curious and I just went to the -- they were quiet people. They didn’t want to go to the war. That’s 36 �one thing that kept them from going. But they were quiet, and they didn’t bother anybody. I didn’t see any fights or anything. They were kinda [00:49:00] mellow, because they were full of grass, you know? JJ: So there was a lot of grass going around. ML: Oh, in the park, all over. JJ: Did you ever smoke any grass? ML: No. Thank God. Knock on wood. (Spanish) [00:49:15]. JJ: She doesn’t want to admit it, huh? You don’t -- ML: Huh? JJ: You don’t want to admit it? Is that what he’s asking? ML: No, because he’s looking over here. (laughter) No, we didn’t. No. My brothers, they did. I think my brother [Nicky?] got a hold of it. JJ: But a lot of the women that you knew did not -- they weren’t doing that. ML: No. They didn’t smoke that. JJ: But the guys did. ML: I think it was more of a guy thing. JJ: At that time? ML: At that time. My husband, he didn’t like it either. He’d rather drink. I like the way -- (Spanish) [00:49:58] laughing over here, [00:50:00] though. Crack me up. No, because, you know, my father -- we didn’t even drink in our house. JJ: Okay. He didn’t drink either? ML: My father? No. He did that when he was young. JJ: When he was young? Okay. 37 �ML: In Puerto Rico. But it wasn’t for him, so -- JJ: But did he get in trouble with it, or he just decided not to drink? You know, some people they drink a lot, and they quit, and then they never drink again. Was that -- ML: No, he just -- you know, he had five of us to raise, so he came over here, and boozing wasn’t gonna be for him, so that’s when he looked into the religion. But alcohol did not go well with him. He would go, like, crazy when he drank. JJ: Oh, okay. So that’s why -- so that was the reason that he stopped? ML: Right. But he wasn’t even really, really an alcoholic. JJ: He wasn’t an alcoholic. He just said it didn’t go well. ML: It didn’t go well with him. JJ: Okay. [00:51:00] And he told you that that’s why he stopped? ML: No, he just didn’t pick it up anymore. He went to church, took us to church. JJ: He was in the church, so you never really saw him drinking a lot. ML: No. He couldn’t tolerate it. JJ: Okay. But your brothers, they liked it a little bit? ML: Oh, yeah. Especially -- yeah. They all did. They all drank. I drank myself, but I didn’t really care for it either. But, you know, everywhere you went was, “You want a drink? You want this?” You know? A lot of little parties going on. And there was booze. JJ: In people’s houses, or -- the parties? ML: Yeah. JJ: So I mean, like, were you going to the baptisms and the quinceañera? 38 �ML: No, this was, like, teenage -- you know, not -- we were past teenagers, but like my brothers, they had their own apartments, and you’d go over there and hang out. [00:52:00] Bring some friends, hang out, and they’d be drinking and stuff. Little parties at home. They would come to my place. JJ: So this was in the seventies, or...? ML: Seventies, yeah. JJ: Okay. So they would come to your place, and you would have parties in there? ML: Mm-hmm, we had parties there. JJ: So you had to drink a little bit for a little bit. ML: Yeah, I did. JJ: Okay, you did drink? ML: Yeah, and my husband, he loved drinking. JJ: Beer, or...? ML: He liked beer. JJ: Okay. And you drank beer? That was it? ML: A little bit. I couldn’t tolerate it much either. But I did drink for a little while. JJ: But nothing heavy. ML: But then when I saw that it wasn’t for me, and I said, Nah, this is not for me, so I said, Forget it. So I don’t drink. JJ: Okay. So now when did you get married? ML: I got married in 1972. JJ: Okay, so it was early, ’72? So were you finished with high school by then? [00:53:00 You had finished high school already. 39 �ML: Yes. I finished high school in 1968. JJ: And where were you working at? ML: I was working at Saint Joseph Hospital. JJ: Oh, yeah, that’s right. Okay. ML: I worked there for about nine and a half years. JJ: Did you have any children? ML: No children. JJ: No children? Okay. By choice, or -- ML: Couldn’t have any children. No, I couldn’t have them, and then my husband couldn’t have them either, because they sprayed the veterans with that Agent Orange, so couldn’t have ’em, so just stopped trying. JJ: Is that what they told him, that because of the Agent Orange, you -- ML: Oh, no. They never admitted that he was sprayed. But they sprayed the veterans with that chemical. The government never admits to that, but they did. And that really destroyed a lot of soldiers. They’re gettin’ [00:54:00] destroyed right now. They get a lot of different cancers, different forms of diseases, mainly cancers. But my husband got one called scleroderma, and that destroyed him. It destroys the whole immune system. And that’s what he died from. He caught lupus, hypertension of the lungs, a lot of different diseases, diabetes, thyroid problem, everything. Then at the end, it was renal failure. And it’s all due to that spray that they sprayed over there. JJ: That Agent Orange. ML: It’s Agent Orange, but the real word is -- the chemical [00:55:00] word is dioxin. 40 �Plus other stuff that they put these soldiers through that they never say. They get injected and everything [if he didn’t?] fight. That’s why when they come back, they get that shell shock, and they want to kill somebody. So that was another era where I had a struggle with my husband. JJ: What do you mean? ML: Well, because he was -- he used to get, like, posttraumatic from the army, flashbacks. So I had to be aware at all times what was gonna happen, if he was gonna pick up a gun or somethin’, or shoot me, or whatever, which I never did see any guns, but he did mention seven guns that he had in the house or hiding somewhere. But I never saw them. But then towards the end, when he passed, it wasn’t seven guns. It was seven [00:56:00] medals that he had earned from the army, but never a gun. Yeah. It’s sad, but that’s what they did to those poor men. Yep. JJ: So it affected -- the war affected him. But you were married before he went to the war, or...? ML: No. JJ: It was after he came back. ML: He came back 1969. Seventy-two, we got married. JJ: Then in ’72, you got married? Did you know him before he went? ML: No. JJ: Okay. ML: It was a blind date. Met him on a blind date. And what a blind date. (laughter) Oh, yeah. 41 �JJ: [00:57:00] So you stayed married to him for how long? ML: Almost 36 years. JJ: That’s good. Congratulations. ML: Yeah. JJ: So you never were married before or anything like that? ML: No. JJ: Your only marriage was to him. Okay. ML: Yep. JJ: And you said he recently passed away, you said? ML: He passed, what, 2008. Two-oh-eight. That’s when he passed. October 25, 2008. JJ: October 25th? Was his family from Arecibo, too, or no? ML: Yes. JJ: Oh, so even though you didn’t meet before, did your family know their family, or...? ML: No. Different sections. JJ: Of Arecibo. ML: Different barrios, uh-huh. JJ: [00:58:00] Actually, my sister lives in Camuy, which is not too far from there. ML: From Arecibo? JJ: From Camuy, yeah, it’s not too far from Arecibo. I mean, a little further west. ML: I wouldn’t know, because I just went back only a couple of times to Puerto Rico, two or three times. 42 �JJ: Okay. So you were born there, and you came when -- how old were you? Nine, you said? ML: Nine and a half. JJ: And then you went back when? ML: I went back in the eighties for my father and mother. They moved back over there in 1978, I believe. JJ: Okay. And for how long were you there? ML: They were there till about 1995, around there. JJ: Oh, so, like, 10 years. ML: They stayed a long time there. JJ: And you stayed with them? ML: Oh, no. I was living here. JJ: So you came back. You just went with them for -- ML: I just went to visit. JJ: Okay, and then you came back? ML: Came back, and I went back and forth a couple of more times. JJ: [00:59:00] Okay. Each time was like a couple weeks at a time? ML: I took a good vacation for two and a half month to Puerto Rico, and one week to Florida. I went with my grandmother. JJ: Okay. So while your parents were there, you were with your grandmother over here? ML: No, no, I was living with my husband. JJ: Okay. 43 �ML: Yeah. I was living with him. And I took off for two and a half month. JJ: Okay. So you really -- so your community’s more here than over there, or no? I mean, you feel more comfortable here than there, than in Puerto Rico, or how -- ML: Yes, because in Puerto Rico, you know, I don’t know much about Puerto Rico, and I don’t drive over there, so traveling -- you know, getting back and forth would be a little hard. And being a woman isn’t easy either. JJ: No, [01:00:00] [not in Puerto Rico?]. ML: No. So I feel better over here. JJ: You feel better over here? ML: Yeah, more safety. JJ: And this neighborhood hasn’t really changed that much, right? ML: This neighborhood? Yeah. There’s a lot of yuppies. JJ: Now? ML: Okay, that moved over here. JJ: But I mean, it was always mixed. I mean, you know, right? ML: It’s mostly whites. JJ: Mostly whites? ML: Mostly whites. JJ: So I mean, what I’m saying is, you don’t really -- it hasn’t really changed that much for you at that time when it was mixed. ML: Oh, no, it’s the same thing, just about. JJ: So that’s why you feel more at home where you’re living. Do you still live in the area, or no? 44 �ML: Yeah, I live around -- it’s called North Center area, but it’s Lakeview. It’s North Center. Yeah, [01:01:00] I know the areas and stuff. But -- JJ: But these people you grew up with, they’re not around? ML: They’re not around. They’re all gone. JJ: So how do you feel about that? ’Cause that’s, like, your whole community that’s gone. ML: I don’t know, because I was usually on my own anyway. You know? So -- JJ: So it didn’t affect you? ML: It doesn’t affect me. You have to learn to survive and make it on your own. JJ: But okay, it doesn’t affect you personally, but what about -- how do you feel that Puerto Ricans were kicked out of that whole area? ML: I never knew they were kicked out. JJ: Oh, they weren’t kicked out? Okay. ML: I don’t think so. They just moved on. Moved on with their lives. JJ: Okay. Okay. [01:02:00] Okay. I’m putting words (laughs) in your mouth. So they weren’t kicked out. They just moved on. ML: Yeah, I don’t think so. You know? They just went on, you know, different phases of life. You have to face it, you know? I don’t think the Puerto Ricans were ever kicked out. You know? JJ: Yeah, yeah. So why do you think the neighborhood changed? I mean, you just think that they just moved on, or...? ML: Why’d the neighborhood change? I think it changed for the better. You don’t see much -- you know, people fighting around here, so it changed for the better. 45 �JJ: And there was a lot of fighting at that time? ML: Not even around here, no, not too much. Mainly over -- JJ: At Waller? ML: Waller, but not around here. JJ: So it’s good that it changed. Now there’s no more fights at Waller and that? ML: Well, I don’t know if they have fights there, [01:03:00] ’cause I haven’t been there since when? It’s called Lincoln Park School now. JJ: Right, Lincoln Park High. ML: I don’t know if they’re fighting, but who knows what’s going on in school now? JJ: So what you feel is basically that Puerto Ricans have lifted themselves up in Chicago? ML: Yes. JJ: Okay. And how is that? Is that -- how have they done that? ML: Well, they bettered themselves. JJ: I mean, what sort of things did they do to better themselves? ML: Well, the parents work hard, that’s for sure, and then they gave knowledge to their kids. Whatever knowledge they acquired is what helped them move forward. JJ: Okay. So it was the parents that worked hard that had a -- ML: It was the parents that worked hard that put us -- JJ: Okay. ML: To better educate us. JJ: So the Puerto Rican families that you knew were hard workers -- 46 �ML: [01:04:00] Yes. JJ: -- and they pushed their kids, and their kids moved on -- ML: Moved on with their lives -JJ: -- and they improved themselves. ML: -- and got educated. JJ: Okay. There was no discrimination to you whatsoever? ML: Discrimination with --? JJ: Puerto Ricans at all, or other poor people, or no? ML: The only discrimination was that, you know, when we went to school and stuff. JJ: When you were younger, just at school and stuff like that. ML: School. JJ: Okay. So that’s really -- the discrimination was that. ML: That’s it. But there’s always discrimination. There’s a lot of people that, you know, they put the Puerto Ricans down. And one told me, “Oh, Puerto Ricans are drug addicts.” And I stopped him, and I said, “Why do you say that? Drugs come from all over the world. You know?” Then he got a little bit -- and he said, “Where are you from?” [01:05:00] And I said, “I’m from Puerto Rico.” And he said, “Well, if you like it here so much, why don’t you go back?” But then, you know, I got a little bit -- I stopped. I calmed down, and he took off. But I was gonna tell him, “You gotta do some studying, because the Puerto Ricans are American.” They just don’t -- a lot of them don’t want to face it, but we are Americans, and we’re the only ones that didn’t have to pledge the flag. You know? Like take the Constitution or anything? We didn’t have to do that. 47 �JJ: You didn’t have to study for that. ML: We didn’t have to. JJ: Because we were born citizens. ML: We were born citizens. So I said to myself, What’s he talking about? He’s the DP, not me! You know? JJ: DP stands for what? ML: [Deported?]. JJ: [Deported?]. ML: [Deported?]. DP. That’s what they call ’em, DP. Yeah. But [01:06:00] we didn’t have to. So people from Europe and all that, they’re DPs. They’re calling us DPs, but we’re not, because we were automatically citizens. Everybody, like from Latin America, they have to pledge the flag, but we don’t. And I started thinking, [we’re the only ones?] from all the Latinos and all the people from Europe, all over the world, we’re the only ones, if you think about it. But it doesn’t make me any greater, because I love people. I don’t care what nationality they are. And I think that mostly the Puerto Rican people are like that. They like other people. And if you look into -- study, if you look into Puerto Rico, they got Blacks, they got blue eyes, they got tan, mulattos. And not all of them are -- they’re all different nationalities. [01:07:00] They got Irish. They got German. They got Mexican, Cuban. Name it. It’s mixed. So if you’re talking about against a Puerto Rican, you’re talking about practically everybody. You know? ’Cause we’re all mixed, different nationalities, ’cause a lotta people landed there in Puerto Rico from different countries. So don’t talk about a Puerto 48 �Rican, because you’re talking about yourself. We got Italian, Filipino, you name it. Right on. (laughter) You know? If you’re talking about -- this is what I’m thinking. You’re talking about a Puerto Rican, you’re talking about your own self, because that’s how the mixture is. Yeah? JJ: Okay. [01:08:00] What do you think we should add to this that we haven’t talked about that you want to? What’s the main thing you want to make sure that it gets in here? ML: The main thing? JJ: Yeah. ML: Unity. Let’s just unite instead of going against each other. JJ: Okay. So we don’t have any unity now? ML: No. There’s no unity. They’re still going against -- people going against people. You know, they’re not showing that love. You know? JJ: There used to be love, is that what you’re saying? ML: That they have never shown love for each other. JJ: So you’re saying the most important thing is that we gotta let people know about unity? ML: Unity. Unite and show love for each other, [01:09:00] instead of fighting against each other. You know? Or making comments. JJ: Like what? What kind of comments? What are you [talking about?]? ML: Well, the other day, there was one they had about -- it was all over the news about Puerto Rico -- about -- what are they called? About Humboldt Park? JJ: Oh, yeah. What’d they say about Humboldt Park? 49 �ML: Oh, that -- can you refresh me on that? Humboldt Park, about those -- it was a cake? M1: Yeah, the TipsyCake thing? Yeah. JJ: Oh, yeah. Yeah, they -- ML: They called Humboldt Park -- what? There was a word. M1: Humboldt crack (inaudible) cake, and -- ML: Humboldt crack. JJ: Yeah, crack, like crack cocaine or something? ML: Uh-huh. M1: Yeah. ML: So those are fighting words. JJ: They were calling -- saying that Puerto Ricans had crack cocaine, or something, or...? ML: No, they just called Humboldt Park, instead of calling it Humboldt Park, they called it Humboldt crack. JJ: [01:10:00] Humboldt crack? ML: Mm-hmm. JJ: And so why did that upset you? ML: It doesn’t upset me. I think they’re ignorant. I think they should be told. They should be told that we are Americans. We are Americans. Just like they consider themselves Americans, we are Americans. That’s all. And they shouldn’t go against us. Like I said, if they go against us, they’re going against their own people, because Puerto Rican is such a mixed group that -- they don’t 50 �know. And they don’t know this. They’re not educated, or maybe they don’t want to be educated, ’cause we have all colors. JJ: So unity. You want to make sure people know about unity. ML: Unity is important. [01:11:00] Unity and the talents that the Puerto Ricans have. They have a lot of talent. And they have two languages. Two languages is better than one. Two languages, two people. JJ: So we’re mixed, we’ve got two languages, and we need unity. What else do we need? What else do you think should be in here that’s important? ML: Love each other. Love one another. JJ: What do you want people to know about you, basically? ML: About me? JJ: Yeah. What type of person were you -- what type of person are you? Who are you? ML: Me? I love everybody. I love everybody, and I like people to -- [01:12:00] not to feel pain, to heal, because I used to work in the hospitals. So I like to feel empathy with them. Sympathy, yes, but empathy, put myself in their place. Like if they’re hurting, feel their pain, feel what they’re going through. And not putting them down. JJ: ’Cause yeah, you worked in a hospital, and so it [comes from being?] -- ML: Give them comfort, yes. JJ: Give them comfort and -- do you feel like people are put down or something when they are hurting, or...? ML: A lot of people get put down, and they don’t feel good about it. [01:13:00] You 51 �know? It makes you -- just like if you’ve been bullied. You know? A lot of people don’t feel good about it, and a lot of them -- a lot of times, that leads to suicide, or it leads somebody to, instead of quitting drinking, make them drink more, because you put them down. You know, they look for an escape if you put them down. But if you praise them, they feel better, and maybe it makes a change in their life. And also not being judgmental. It’s very important. To judge against people just because they did this, just because they did that, you judge against them and classify them for the rest of their life. No. People make changes. Give them an opportunity. JJ: [01:14:00] Do you feel that Puerto Ricans have been judged wrongly or not received opportunities, or where do you get that from, that you don’t want people to be judged, or give them an opportunity? ML: Well, I get that from even, you know, from -- mainly it’s from the home. It comes from your own home. Like if somebody judges you, call you a bad word, or whatever. So if somebody calls you a bad word, then you live on with that. You know, why am I this? Why do they call me this? And this and that, you know? But it could come from your own home, not necessarily from another human that’s not related to you. But it starts that way. People -- [01:15:00] you know, it starts from when you’re growing up. But if you feed ’em the good stuff, then they’ll, you know. It’s what you feed in their heads. If you tell ’em that they’re good, and they could do better, then that person is gonna do better. You know? Raise themself up. But if you put ’em down and say different things about them, bad things about them, that person is not gonna be loving, you know, have love 52 �in their heart. They’re gonna have hate. JJ: If you had to describe growing up in this area or in Lincoln Park -- you know, we’ll call it Lincoln Park, but -- or Lakeview, Lincoln Park or Lakeview -- if you had to describe it in a few sentences, what was it like living in Lincoln Park for you? In a few sentences. ML: It was -- living here was good. It gave [01:16:00] myself an opportunity to be educated as much as I get. I didn’t accomplish much, but I feel that I accomplished something. And I was able to work, work at good places. I worked at Saint Joseph. And I was given an opportunity. So if I had to do it again, I’d do it again, live in this area. It’s a very good area. It’s a rich area now, since the yuppies moved in, but it’s for the best. It’s not for the worst. Changes are for the best. And if it means cleaning up the streets and getting the bad stuff out, why not? That’s what I think. JJ: [01:17:00] Okay. (Spanish) [01:17:01] ML: (Spanish) [01:17:05] JJ: Okay. (Spanish) [01:17:06] ML: I think I said enough. I’ve been here about two hours. (laughs) JJ: I appreciate it. (break in audio) JJ: Okay. If you could give me your full name? ML: Married name or --? JJ: Married name and your -- you know, your name and your married name. ML: Before and after. 53 �JJ: Before and after, any way you want to do it. ML: (Spanish) [01:17:29] Martha Martinez. (Spanish) [01:17:35] Victor Lopez, (Spanish) [01:17:39] Martha Lopez. JJ: Okay. And (Spanish) [01:17:43] -- where -- we’ll do it bilingual, but you can -probably more in English, but we’ll do it bilingual. ML: Well, I’ll try. JJ: Okay. Whatever way you feel comfortable. But okay. So when did you come to Chicago? ML: I came [01:18:00] in 1958. JJ: Nineteen fifty-eight. And did you come straight from Puerto Rico? ML: Straight from Puerto Rico. JJ: And where did you come from? What town in Puerto Rico? ML: Arecibo, in Sabana Hoyos. JJ: Sabana Hoyos? Is that in the country? ML: (Spanish) [01:18:15 - 01:18:19] JJ: Okay. And so what about your parents? What kind of work did they do at that time over there? ML: (Spanish) [01:18:26 - 01:18:38]. JJ: Okay. So he cut sugarcane and that? Okay. And so what was the reason for you to come -- you came with both of your parents? ML: Well, I was nine and a half, and I came with both my parents and four brothers. JJ: And four brothers? Okay. So you were nine and a half. So did you go [01:19:00] to any school while you were over there? 54 �ML: Over there? Yes. JJ: Okay. What was school like over there? What was it like? Because you went to school here, too, so what was the difference? ML: Well, I went to school up to fifth grade. It was pretty good. We didn’t do any kindergarten, that’s for sure. JJ: There was no kindergarten? ML: No. JJ: So you said it was pretty good. What do you mean? Was there any difference between here and there, or...? ML: Well, we only spoke Spanish. They taught us little words like lápiz, pencil; pluma, pen. That’s about it, you know, little words. But when we came over here, it was total difference, because we had to conquer the language. We didn’t know any English at all. JJ: So you came over here. What school did you go to? ML: [01:20:00] I went to Lincoln School, located on Orchard and Geneva. JJ: On Geneva? Okay. In Lincoln Park? ML: Lincoln Park area, yeah. JJ: What they call the Lincoln Park area. ML: And I went to -- JJ: So what grade did you start there? ML: Gee. Well, they lowered me from fifth grade to second grade. JJ: From fifth grade to second grade. Why did they do that? ML: Yes. Also, my brothers were lowered. 55 �JJ: And why did they do that? ML: Because we had a language barrier. JJ: So it wasn’t because you weren’t at the level. It was just only because you -- ML: The language barrier. JJ: -- because of the language barrier. You couldn’t speak English that well. ML: At all. JJ: And so all your brothers, everybody was lowered, and you were lowered. ML: Every Hispanic -- well, I’m not saying every Hispanic. Everybody that came from Puerto Rico was lowered at that time that didn’t know the language. JJ: Where did you live? [01:21:00] You went to Lincoln. You lived in Lincoln Park, but where? ML: I used to live at Dickens and Larrabee. JJ: Oh, at Dickens and Larrabee? ML: Mm-hmm, right by Grant Hospital. JJ: Okay. What was the -- well, before we go into there, I see that you have some things here from your husband. Can you describe some of them, hold them up and describe them? ML: Oh, my husband was a Vietnam veteran. I married him in -- JJ: What was his name? ML: Victor Lopez. We got married in 1972. And he belonged to the Boricua Post. JJ: Actually, that was an organization that was, what, on North Avenue or something like that? ML: It’s still there. It still exists. 56 �JJ: It still exists there? ML: Yes. I don’t know the right address, but it’s still there. JJ: On North Avenue? ML: I believe so. [01:22:00] I believe so. I’m not really sure, because my husband passed, so I didn’t keep up with them. JJ: Right. Okay. So did you go to some of their activities, or...? ML: Some, and we went to the parade. JJ: What kind of activities did they have? ML: They’d just get together and talk about the war, and sort of reunite with each other so they could share what they went through at the war. JJ: Okay. (Spanish) [01:22:30]? ML: (Spanish) [01:22:33 - 01:22:36]. JJ: (Spanish) [01:22:36]. And it still exists. ML: Still exists. JJ: The Boricua Post 37, they call it? ML: Amvets 37. JJ: Okay. And what are some of the other things that you have? ML: I have some medals here. Second Field -- JJ: Okay. If you can put [01:23:00] them up for the camera so they can see them. ML: Okay. This is the Second Field badge. Those are the medals that he got when he went overseas in Vietnam. Whoops. This is for being in the service in Vietnam. It’s another one. JJ: Now you said recently he passed away, or when did he pass away? 57 �ML: He passed away in 2008, in 2008. It’s kinda hard for me to talk about it, ’cause it’s been recent. JJ: Yeah, it is kind of recent, yeah. ML: [01:24:00] This is for conduct. JJ: Okay, Conduct Medal, okay. ML: Conduct Medal. The ribbon was there, but I don’t know where it is. This is the Bronze Star. Bronze Star. JJ: So he was well decorated. ML: He was really proud of what he did, but except the war stays inside. They never leave the veteran, so they don’t know how to cope with reality when they come back. This is a Vietnam Campaign Medal. (pause) [01:25:00] (inaudible) (pause) National Defender Medal. (pause) Here’s the Purple Heart. JJ: Oh, the Purple Heart. Okay. So he -- ML: Got injured. JJ: He got injured, so he received a Purple Heart. ML: Yeah. He had, like, shrapnel in his body. JJ: Okay, that’s -- Victor [01:26:00] (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). ML: His name is Victor. I lost the other one. And here’s a Silver Star medal. That’s a little picture of him when he was over there. JJ: Let me see if I can zoom in on that. Okay. There’s that. Okay. ML: And he also went to Waller. JJ: Waller High School, also in Lincoln Park. So he grew up in Lincoln Park also? ML: I believe so, yes. He grew up around this area. 58 �JJ: When did you meet him? ML: I met him in ’72. [01:27:00] I married him in ’72, same year. Ten months. JJ: And you met him at Waller, right, at the school, in Waller? ML: No, it was blind date. JJ: A blind date. (laughter) ML: No, I didn’t know him at school. I think he didn’t go all the way through school. Uh-huh. JJ: Okay. So you came in ’58, and you went to Lincoln School. And you lived on -what street did you say? ML: Dickens. JJ: Dickens and Larrabee. ML: And Larrabee. JJ: Right. Okay. And can you -- in 1958, can you describe the makeup of the neighborhood? Who lived there? What type of nationalities lived there? ML: In that neighborhood? JJ: In that area where you lived. ML: In that area, there was a lot of Hispanics lived around that area, but young kids, and not teenagers. [01:28:00] Mostly little kids, because that’s when everybody started coming from Puerto Rico around that time. JJ: Around ’58? ML: In the fifties they started coming. JJ: You know, ’cause they came in different waves, so there was a big wave around ’58 when you came? 59 �ML: Right, because our parents didn’t have jobs, so they’d come over to look for a better life for us. JJ: Were there people recruiting people in Puerto Rico, or no, you just came -everybody just sort of came? ML: Everybody just came, because we are -- automatically, we’re citizens, so nobody has to recruit us, you know. At least that’s one of the freedoms that we have, privileges. So no, we just came. My uncle [Willie?], he helped my father a lot, and his sister. [01:29:00] They came before my father did. JJ: So they were here already? ML: They were here already. JJ: Did they live in that same area, or...? ML: I believe so, yes, around this area. JJ: Do you remember visiting them? ML: More or less, yeah. I don’t remember exactly, but more or less. JJ: Because you were already like nine years old, so you kind of remember a lot of things at that time when you came. What was it like, the first day school? How did you -- how was that [for you?]? ML: Gee, I don’t remember the first day of school, but I remember going to school. And because I was Hispanic, we used to get beat up. JJ: What do you mean? ML: They used to beat us up, like -- every day, we had to run. We had to run home. JJ: Who would beat you up? ML: The other kids. 60 �JJ: Were they in a gang, or were they just -- ML: No, just kids going against us because we were -- I guess because we were Latinos. JJ: Do you know what nationality they were? [01:30:00] Just American? ML: Just American. Mm-hmm. JJ: And they just beat you up for no other reason, not because you were in a gang or -- ML: No. Oh, no. JJ: Just because you were Latinos. ML: Latinos. So I used to wait and -- JJ: And you actually never went into a gang, right? ML: No. No, no. JJ: Okay. Okay. ML: No, because my father was real strict. We actually didn’t know anything about gangs at that time. We were kids. JJ: So there were no real Spanish gangs or anything like that. ML: No, not around that area. JJ: Not around that time. ML: No. No. JJ: They came later, though. ML: Gangs came later when I went to Waller. That’s when I went. They’d have -- I don’t know if it’s Eagles or something? The Eagles? JJ: Yeah, yeah, the Latin Eagles, yeah. 61 �ML: There was always fights, but I used to go straight home. Whenever there was a fight, somebody would find out about it, and we would know. [01:31:00] Somehow we knew, and then we just went straight home, because they were gonna fight. JJ: And usually it was a fight between the Spanish gang -- ML: And the Blacks. JJ: And the Blacks, and the --? ML: Mainly the Blacks around that -- JJ: At that time they were fighting, Blacks and Spanish were fighting? ML: Mm-hmm. JJ: Okay. ML: In that area, yeah. JJ: Okay. Now, Larrabee and Dickens. So you were kind of -- your parents kept you in the house. And so what did you do, if you were in the house? I mean, (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? ML: Oh, I would help my mother cook, and watch American Bandstands. JJ: That was a favorite show at that time. ML: Yeah, yeah. JJ: Okay. ML: The Mashed Potato and all that. Remember that? JJ: Okay, right. Mashed potatoes and -- ML: Do that dance. JJ: What were some of the other songs that were on at that time? 62 �ML: Gee, it’s been so long. JJ: But you were mashing potatoes. (laughs) ML: The Beatles came along. The Beatles. A lot of -- [01:32:00] The Beatles, um, the Shangri-Las, the -- I don’t remember most of the names, but there’s a lot of -the Temptations were around that time. And we just kept up with the songs, trying to learn the language. JJ: So you were sheltered, kind of, at home, but I mean, in school, did you have a lot of friends, or...? ML: In school? No, we didn’t have that many friends. Like I said, we had to run home, because we were afraid that we were gonna get beat up. JJ: Okay. So you -- ML: So I just went out to rescue my brothers. And I always had books in my hands, so I could beat them up with the books. JJ: Okay. Your brothers were younger, so you would protect them? ML: One was older, [Nicky?], [Nieves?], he’s older. And then three others were younger. JJ: So that [01:33:00] kept you tight as a family or something, protecting each other? ML: Sure, because we -- you know, to us, it was something different. It was like a jungle. You know? Something different. We had a language barrier, so we didn’t know. JJ: But you were Americans, so how did you feel that you’re an American and you’re being -- other Americans are -- ML: Well, when you’re a kid, you don’t know the difference. You don’t know if you’re 63 �American or not. You just know that you’re a kid. You know? JJ: And they’re gonna chase you, because you’re Spanish. ML: Right. But we didn’t even know it was because of that, but we just figured it out, that it was that. JJ: Okay. So you’re just walking to school, and all of a sudden, somebody starts chasing you? ML: Chasing us, beating us, or they’ll say, “I’m gonna get you when you go outside.” This white girl told me -- she was taller than me, and I looked at her, and she said, “I’m gonna get you.” And I said, “Okay.” So I went. [01:34:00] I confronted her. But I beat her up. And I was younger. Because when we grew up in Puerto Rico, we used to climb trees and all that, so we were fast, and run up and down the mountains. JJ: In Puerto Rico? ML: Yeah. The little hills and stuff. So we knew how to climb and run fast. So she thought she was picking, you know, on somebody that didn’t know, but that’s one thing. I was really, really fast running. So I beat her up, and then I took off. That was the end of that. She never bothered me anymore. JJ: Now, what about -- did you go to the show or anything like that, or the theater? What was the show? Did you go to -- any other, like, neighborhood activities, or (inaudible) your parents (inaudible) -- ML: My father used to take us [01:35:00] to the Lincoln Park area, to the Lincoln Park, and we used to go inside that little fountain by the flower area. JJ: By the flower house? By the flower house there? Okay. 64 �ML: Yeah, we used to get -- go inside the water and swim in there. But then they said, No more swimming, so we had to get out. Yeah. JJ: I think, actually, I swam there too. A lot of people swam there. ML: You did. I know you did. A lot of people did. Then they had those little ponies. JJ: Yeah, basically all it is, is a fountain, but it’s deep enough to swim if you’re a little kid. What were you saying about the ponies? ML: And they had little ponies, so they took pictures. My father used to take pictures. Yeah. It was all different for us, because, you know, we didn’t -- in Puerto Rico, we didn’t have that kind of activity, but we didn’t need it, because we were free. You know? We did whatever we wanted. JJ: In Puerto Rico, you’re saying? ML: Yeah. It was free. You didn’t [01:36:00] have to close the doors or anything. JJ: And here you had to close doors? ML: And here you had to close doors and everything. JJ: But why did you have to close doors? What -- ML: Over here, when you -- when we lived in an apartment here, we had to keep the doors closed and that. In Puerto Rico, you didn’t have to. It was free. Everybody was -- everybody knew each other, and it was friendly. We were not afraid of anybody or anything. JJ: But your father was more afraid when you came to the United States? ML: Over here? Well, he had to protect us. JJ: But he didn’t have to do that in Puerto Rico. ML: No. 65 �JJ: And the reason for protect-- did he give any reasons why he felt he had to protect you, or...? ML: No, he didn’t give us any reason, but we caught on fast. JJ: What was that? ML: We caught on that it was dangerous outside, and [01:37:00] there was a lot of different types of nationalities, so we caught on. JJ: And it was a big city too. ML: And it was a big city. So we caught on that there was danger out there, period. That was it. Because were pretty bright kids, although we didn’t know the language. We looked after each other. JJ: Now, did you have other family in Chicago? ML: At that time, yeah. Uncle Willie. JJ: You mentioned your uncle. ML: Uncle Willie was here, and my father’s sister, and let’s see. I believe two sisters. Two sisters. JJ: Do you know -- what are their names? ML: [Carmen Martinez?] and [Isabel Martinez?]. She has two daughters. Carmen didn’t have any kids. JJ: So what about for, like, holidays? [01:38:00] What holidays did you celebrate with your family? ML: Holidays we got together and cooked. My mother cooked arroz con gandules with lechon asado. Thanksgiving was pavo. And basically, arroz con gandules always goes with Spanish food. 66 �JJ: And so you’d visit each other and (inaudible)? ML: Yeah. JJ: Okay. ML: (removes glasses) Eyes are bothering me. JJ: Okay, that’s fine. And what about -- well, you mentioned you went to these activities at the Amvets place, but what about any birthdays parties or anything that you recall? Usually when you’re young, you like to go to parties. ML: Just the family. Little birthdays with the family. My uncle, [Rafael?], he had kids, so we went. That’s about it. Not too many parties. [01:39:00] My father was a religious person, so he kept us kind of inside mostly. JJ: When you say religious, what do you mean? Was he a -- what church? ML: He went to the Church of Christ. So he kept us straight. You know? He was a very good man. Can’t find another father like that for myself. And he really kept us straight. Not strict. He was lovable, but he was very, very straight on everything. He let us know. He explained everything, what was going on. JJ: So he took time and explained things. ML: Oh, yeah. JJ: Now, did he go to school at all? ML: Did he go back to school? JJ: How far did he go to school? ML: Oh, no. My father had like a second grade or so. JJ: Oh, second, that’s all? ML: Yeah. He was orphaned at eight [01:40:00] from his mother, and then his father 67 �took a different road, and so my grandfather raised -- helped raise my father, my mother’s father, because they’re cousins. So he helped raise my father. And there were like eight other kids. He helped raise some of them, not all of them, because they were scattered to different family. JJ: Do you remember the church that he went to here, where that was? ML: Yeah, the Church of Christ. JJ: United Church of Christ, or...? ML: It’s called the Church of Christ. JJ: The Church of Christ? ML: Mm-hmm. JJ: Okay. And that was located in Lincoln Park, or...? ML: No, that was located on Long and Division. JJ: Long and Division? So he went all the way there? ML: Right. The location now, [01:41:00] I don’t know where it is. JJ: Okay. What was -- inside Waller, we didn’t go too much into that, because -- ML: Inside Waller? JJ: Because now there’s more Spanish people moving in in the neighborhood, or no? This is ’58, or -- when you studied, there was very few Spanish people, right? ML: At Waller, there was a lot of Hispanic people. JJ: There were a lot of Hispanic? ML: I have the pictures there. Those were all Hispanics that graduated there. JJ: Okay. So 19--? 68 �ML: Sixty-eight. That’s when I graduated. JJ: Okay. So there was a lot of Hispanics. By 1968, there was a lot. ML: Oh, yeah. JJ: So was Lincoln Park -- were there a lot of Puerto Ricans in Lincoln Park at that time, or...? ML: Yes. This area had a lot of Hispanics. Uh-huh. JJ: Okay. But when you first arrived in ’58, were there a lot of Hispanics? ML: There were, but we didn’t go around -- you know, because my father was always taking care of us, so we didn’t [01:42:00] go around meeting them or anything. But there were a lot of Hispanics coming in, arriving. JJ: So how did you feel later when they started coming, when more Hispanics came in? Were you still afraid, or were you still sheltered? Was your father still sheltering you? ML: No, we still stayed sheltered, and we didn’t communicate or anything. We just kept living our life, our normal life. I wasn’t hanging around with this kid or that kid. No. We just went to school and came home, did our homework or whatever. JJ: What was the highest grade that you went to? Did you graduate from college, or...? ML: I went to fourth -- what is it, fourth grade high school -- it’s 12th grade. Then I went to Truman College for a nursing assistant. Basically, what I did was, I worked [01:43:00] throughout the hospitals. I worked at Saint Joseph Hospital for about nine and a half years. Thorek, I did about six months, took a training there for nursing. Never got the diploma, but I took the training there. And then 69 �Walther Memorial also, I did about eight and a half years there, physical therapy. At that time, we didn’t need any papers to do that job. Now you do. JJ: Certified papers, you mean? ML: Yeah, for physical therapy aide. So that was basically what I did. JJ: So you went right from Waller to the nursing. ML: Yes. JJ: Now, was that normal? Were other kids -- I thought there was a big, high dropout rate, or something like that. ML: Pardon me again? JJ: I thought there was a dropout rate, a high dropout -- people dropping out of school? ML: There was a high dropout. My husband happened to be one of them, because his father was [01:44:00] sick, so he had to go and find a job. So he dropped out. JJ: So what was the difference between you and them, because they dropped out and you didn’t drop out? ML: Because my mother and father, they both had jobs. They used to work at the candy factory where my uncle Willie, he was the foreman there. JJ: What candy factory was that? ML: Peerless Confection. Yep. It’s right around the -- was around the corner on Schubert. Schubert -- I believe it’s Schubert. Yeah. JJ: Okay. Is that south of Diversey or north of Diversey? ML: It’s Schubert and Lakewood, so it’s, what -- JJ: Probably north of Diversey, right? I’m not sure where Schubert is. 70 �ML: Diversey? South. South of Diversey. JJ: So it’s still in Lincoln Park or something like that? ML: Yeah, it’s right around the corner, but I don’t remember the correct address. Yeah, it’s in the Lincoln -- was. They sold it a couple years ago. JJ: [01:45:00] Oh, okay. So it was in the Lincoln Park neighborhood too. ML: Right. JJ: Okay. How many years did he work there? ML: My father? JJ: Yeah. ML: I believe he worked about 20 years. JJ: Twenty years there? And he was a -- just a laborer? ML: Candy maker. JJ: Candy maker. Okay. That was his title? ML: Mm-hmm. JJ: Okay. ML: And my mother was the candy packer. JJ: Now, did you ever go to -- oh, so she worked there too. She was at Peerless? ML: Yes. JJ: Okay. And how long did she work there. ML: Gee, I don’t really know how long, but maybe 8. Maybe 8 or 10 years, roughly. JJ: Okay. And that was the -- did your brothers and sisters -- I don’t recall. Did you say [01:46:00] you had -- how many brothers and sisters did you have? ML: Four brothers, no sisters. 71 �JJ: And one was older than you? ML: Nieves Martinez, changed his name to Nicky, because he didn’t like Nieves. He also went to Waller. JJ: He went to Waller too? ML: Yeah. He went to Waller. Then he went to college. And he became a teacher. JJ: Oh, he’s a teacher? ML: Yes. But he didn’t like it, so he went into selling insurance. JJ: Okay. And he didn’t like Nieves? Why wouldn’t he like to be that name? ML: Why he didn’t like that name? JJ: They call me Joe, too, so, I mean, it’s not -- (laughs) I’m just trying to find out why. ML: I don’t know. Maybe because people wouldn’t remember how to say the name or something. I don’t know [at all?]. All of a sudden, his name was changed to Nicky, and we kept that name. JJ: Okay, so he did it [01:47:00] more for other people, to make it easier on them -- ML: I believe so. JJ: -- to pronounce than -- yeah. ML: Right. JJ: Okay. That’s sort of why I used Joe, too, for a little while. ML: Okay, makes sense. JJ: Yeah, because people couldn’t say José. They couldn’t say José, yeah. ML: Well, I had to change my name, too. My name is Marta, and I had to put an H on my name, because they used to call me Maria, and they would always say that I 72 �was absent. JJ: At school? ML: At school. Yeah. One time they counted like eight absentees. “I called you. Where you been?” I said, “I’ve been here.” And she said, “No, Maria.” I said, “I’m not Maria. I’m Marta. You’re pronouncing my name wrong. I’m with a T, not a I.” So I said, Okay, this is not going to change anything by I telling the teacher. They’re not gonna change it. So I said, Well -- I got smart, and I put an H. So ever since, I put an H on [01:48:00] my name. But I’m really Marta. But I’m under -- my birth certificate’s under that, under Martha now. JJ: Now, did you have any children at all, or (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? ML: No children. JJ: No children? Okay. Okay. The neighborhood was changing, in 1958, and then it started to change, like they started fixing up the houses and stuff like that. Do you remember --? ML: It didn’t change that fast. JJ: It didn’t change that fast? Okay. ML: No, it stayed like that for -- JJ: While you were growing up, it didn’t change. ML: No. Changes came after, like -- JJ: Any big things that were going on when you were growing up that you remember? Any big things that happened in the neighborhood or that you remember, memorable things for you? ML: Not to me. [01:49:00] I didn’t really see any -- you know, I didn’t see the 73 �changes, because I was always inside. So no, they kept us in. But I remember Lincoln Park area -- Lincoln area, where the Biograph is, that -- now there they made a big change. They started putting new buildings up and stuff in the Lincoln area. JJ: The Biograph, was that a local theater or something? ML: That was the local theater, and across the street was the Crest. JJ: Did you go there too? ML: Yes. Mm-hmm. JJ: So you would go to that theater. That was like the neighborhood theater? ML: More or less. And across the street was the Crest. They called it 3 Penny Cinema, also. JJ: Yeah, they called it later, yeah, 3 Penny Cinema. ML: Yeah, that’s where all the young kids used to meet, at the Biograph. I don’t know if you remember. JJ: Yeah, [01:50:00] I remember. I remember that theater. ML: A lot of -- that’s where they met, the teenagers. JJ: From Waller and that? ML: Yeah. They had dates, and they went there. JJ: And so you would go there with your date to -- ML: No, mainly I didn’t date much. We just went to -- you know, just watch a good movie or whatever. Also, my father would take us sometimes, so... JJ: So you would go there too. ML: Right. 74 �JJ: (inaudible) And what were the stores? Where did you shop at? You know, because you said arroz con gandules. Where would you go buy that stuff? ML: My father used to go buy at the Spanish store, but I don’t remember the Spanish stores then. But I remember they had a -- one called [El Grito?] on Wrightwood. El Grito. Wrightwood and Lill? Around there. Was it Wrightwood? No. [01:51:00] Halsted. On Halsted. JJ: On Halsted by Wrightwood? ML: Right around there. They had a Spanish store called El Grito. We would shop there. Then there was another one, a Cuban store, on Sheffield. What’s the name of that? I forgot the name of that one. I think my aunt knows, but she’s not here now. But anyway, that’s where he basically shopped. We used to live in Cabrini-Green. JJ: Okay. Tell me about it. ML: Yeah. Back in the sixties, maybe ’63 or so. JJ: Oh, so from Larrabee and Dickens -- ML: Sixty-three, ’64. JJ: -- you went to Cabrini-Green? ML: I believe so. JJ: Was that the Cabrini-Green that was at Halsted and Division -- ML: Yes. JJ: -- right near the -- they called it the white project (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) -- ML: Yeah. 75 �JJ: -- by the color of the building. ML: The white projects. JJ: And what do you remember about that? ML: I went to Schiller [01:52:00] School. JJ: Schiller School? ML: Yeah. They used to run us home also. JJ: That was by Old Town, right, Schiller School? ML: Right. JJ: And they used to -- who used to run you there? ML: The kids. JJ: Now, these were not white kids, because they (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) -- ML: No, Black kids. Very -- JJ: This is the projects. This is the projects. ML: Right. JJ: So first you were being run home by white kids, and then you were being run home by Black kids. ML: Right. JJ: Okay. Because you lived in Cabrini-Green, in the project that was -- I recall it was mainly a lot of Puerto Ricans used to live there, there in the white project. So you got chased. But what other things do you remember there? I mean, that must have been -- were you on a top floor, or...? ML: We were on the eighth floor. The elevator stunk, so -- like they used to urinate in them. Who knows? Maybe they did a bowel movement too, but I don’t 76 �remember [01:53:00] that. But I know it stunk. So we had to run up the stairs to the eighth floor, and run down, because we were afraid to take the elevator. You don’t know who you were gonna meet, so we ran fast up and down, every time. It was a jungle there. And then I remember my father. Somebody threw -- some kid or somebody threw a rock and got him on the head. My brother went to Cooley High, and they set his hair on fire, my brother Nick, Nieves. JJ: Why did they set his hair on fire? I mean, was it -- ML: Maybe the guys were jealous because the girls liked him, the Black girls liked him. Who knows? I know they used to like him, so it could have been that. JJ: But there was trouble there -- ML: It’s a racial thing. JJ: It was a racial thing? ML: [01:54:00] Uh-huh. JJ: But that building, didn’t you feel at all comfortable? Did they have a lot more Spanish people in that building, or...? ML: Yeah, there was a lady named [Julia?]. We used to go visit her there. But we didn’t like it, because there was a little girl that got killed there. They threw -- you know when they have the milk gallons, the gallons of milk that are glass? And from way up on -- I think it was the 11th or 12th floor, they threw a gallon of milk, empty gallon, and they threw it on top of her head, and it killed her. So we didn’t like it there at all. JJ: So why did you live there? I mean, because you went from -- ML: Because it was -- I guess my father was looking for a bigger place. It was brand 77 �new. But he didn’t know. He didn’t know anything about the area. JJ: So at that time, it was brand new. ML: [01:55:00] Brand new. JJ: But it was part of the government housing. ML: Right. JJ: So you signed an application for the government housing? ML: I believe so. Then, yeah. JJ: And then they gave him that. ML: But he got off -- we lasted there like a year. That was it. JJ: And where did you go -- and so how long did you live there? ML: Like a year. JJ: A year? Okay. And then you moved -- ML: Came back to Lincoln Park area. JJ: Where? ML: We lived by Webster and Lincoln. JJ: Webster and Lincoln? Okay. ML: Then we lived by Lincoln and Wrightwood. JJ: Okay, right there. And then just -- you stayed, kind of, on Lincoln Avenue. ML: Right. Then my father bought a building right over here on this street, on Magnolia, 2633. That was his building. So he started progressing, working hard but [01:56:00] progressing a little bit. JJ: What year was that? ML: That he bought the building? 78 �JJ: Broken iron? Did you say broken iron? ML: No, working. JJ: Working hard. Working hard. Okay. In the candy factory (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). ML: In the candy factory. JJ: And he was able to buy the house. ML: Right. JJ: And that, kind of, borders Lakeview and Lincoln Park, right, the two neighborhoods? ML: Yes, it does. JJ: It’s, like, right at the edge of the -- ML: Right at the edge. I don’t know if this is -- they call it Lakeview now or Lincoln Park. I have no idea. JJ: I think this is probably Lakeview here, ’cause it’s -- well, no, no, no. It’s south of University, so it’s still Lincoln Park. ML: It’s still Lincoln Park? JJ: It’s still Lincoln Park, yeah, south of University. University’s the dividing line. ML: So I live in Lakeview area, North Center. JJ: Oh, this is Lincoln Park. You were living here. ML: No, I live now at North Center, Lakeview area. JJ: Oh, okay, you live now in Lakeview. Okay. All right. So he bought the house, and -- ML: Nineteen sixty-seven. 79 �JJ: But [01:57:00] you don’t know how much he paid for it then? ML: Eighteen thousand. JJ: Eighteen thousand. Okay. For two stories, or...? ML: Two stories and a English basement. JJ: English basement? Okay. ML: Mm-hmm, half and half. JJ: Okay. And you lived there most of your life after that, or...? ML: I lived there till 1972, when I got married. JJ: Okay. But he stayed living there? ML: Yeah, he stayed there till ’78. Then they left for Puerto Rico, 1978. JJ: So you didn’t see the changes, because you were away from the lake and away from downtown, so you didn’t see the changes in the rest of Lincoln Park. Like Halsted and Armitage was changing, but you didn’t see that, ’cause Halsted and Armitage, wasn’t that a center, or Halsted and Dickens, [01:58:00] or something like that? Was that not a center for the -- what was the center for -- ML: I seen the -- yeah, when they started building buildings, I started seeing new buildings coming up. When I went to Waller, I remember it was all a lot of old houses, old buildings. We used to go, and they had Spanish little shops. JJ: A lot of Spanish stores? ML: Yeah. Little restaurants. There was a little Spanish restaurant we used to go to by Halsted. JJ: Halsted and Armitage? ML: And Armitage, yeah, and the little hotdog stand. Remember that? 80 �JJ: Right, on Halsted and Dickens. ML: Yeah. Those people left. They’re in Florida. JJ: Oh, they’re in Florida? ML: We made it -- yeah. One time we went to visit, and we saw them. We bought some hot dogs there. They were good, weren’t they? (laughs) JJ: Oh, yeah. (inaudible) Okay. [01:59:00] So there was a bunch of little Spanish stores around there, because I remember -- well, you know, there was a lot of tall buildings right there in Halsted and Armitage, around that part, where the bank is now. There’s a lot of [stuff like that?]. Okay, now, 1972. Did you hear at all about the Young Lords at all, or no? ML: I heard about the Young Lords at the -- on the news. On the news. And I heard that they helped a lot of people. JJ: At that time? I mean, at first it was -- because, you know, it was a gang before. So how did you think about them when they came out in the news? What did you think about it, as being a Puerto Rican immigrant and everything (inaudible)? ML: See, we didn’t -- JJ: (Spanish) [01:59:52]. ML: We didn’t keep up with the gangs or anything. All I know -- what I know is that [02:00:00] gangs was, like, territorial. JJ: Okay. At that time? ML: At that time. And I don’t know if it still is. JJ: Well, at that time, they were territorial. What do you mean by territorial? ML: Well, you know, they couldn’t cross each other. That’s what I think. 81 �JJ: So they had certain territory. ML: Right. JJ: And you couldn’t go past that territory, and if you did, you could get beat up if -you know, (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). ML: Beat up, and -- but at that time, they didn’t use guns. JJ: Right. It was more sticks, bottles, and knives, [and things?]. ML: Right. So we were not afraid, because at least we had somebody fighting for us. You know? Because -- JJ: Even the gang, you were not afraid of? ML: No, because they were helping us in a sense, because they were territorial. You know? We didn’t hang around with them, but -- JJ: But you knew they weren’t going to attack you. ML: They were not going to attack us. JJ: Because they were Puerto Rican, that gang. ML: Right. JJ: [02:01:00] So they weren’t going to attack you. And at that time, they did protect Puerto Ricans (inaudible)? ML: Right. JJ: Okay. Later on, of course, they got into the drugs, so they attacked Puerto Ricans too. ML: Yeah, that was the Division area or something. I think that’s where the drugs came in. JJ: But in Lincoln Park, the gangs were territorial at that time? 82 �ML: Right. Mm-hmm. JJ: And so even though you weren’t in a gang, (inaudible) you’re saying? ML: Yeah, we -- JJ: I don’t want to put words in your mouth. (laughs) ML: We were not in the gangs, but we were not afraid. You know? JJ: Even though you were a woman? ML: Right. JJ: You were not afraid that they were going to attack you (inaudible)? ML: No, because definitely they were not gonna attack us. We had some kind of protection, you know? JJ: Right, right. And you knew some of these people from Waller, too, right? ML: From the gangs? JJ: Yeah. Did you know some of them? ML: Yeah, some of the guys. JJ: So they weren’t really any -- ML: They had sweaters. JJ: They all had sweaters? ML: They had sweaters made. JJ: What kind of sweater? How did they look? ML: [02:02:00] With the name, the gang name. JJ: Okay. So all the different gangs had sweaters? ML: Uh-huh. JJ: Okay. Black sweaters with stripes, is that what you’re saying? 83 �ML: Yeah, or purple, purple with black. JJ: Purple and black? That was the Young Lords. ML: The Young Lords. Yeah, that’s how we knew. END OF VIDEO FILE 84 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c06dca92da0ee02a07f001d45bb5b2a1.mp4 25ccb37bda49e949c387184741fbcc2f 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 Martha López vídeo entrevista y biografía Descripción Spanish language Description entry Martha López creció en el vecindario de Lincoln Park y recuerda como la comunidad puertorriqueña prospera allí, especialmente en los jóvenes con grupos como Caballeros de San Juan y los Young Lords. También recuerda como fue atacada “por los blancos y morenos” quien vivía en otras partes del “Old Town” en Lincoln Park. Chicago era una ciudad muy segregado en los 1950 y 1960 y Lincoln Park no era diferente. Señora López recuerda que no tenía miedo de pelear con nadie cuando se enfrentaron con ella, y tuvo que tirar unos golpes. Pero ella nunca fue parte de una ganga. López atendió Arnold Elementary y luego Waller High school. Su esposo es un veterano miliario condecorado. 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 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_Lopez_Martha Title A name given to the resource Martha López video interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource López, Martha Description An account of the resource Martha López grew up in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood and recalls the thriving Puerto Rican community there, especially the youth groups, Caballeros de San Juan, and the Young Lords. She also recalls being attacked “from the whites and the blacks” who lived in different parts of the segregated Old Town and Lincoln Park 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 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 2012-03-30 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/1ed01bfbe605891a68ad1aeba90b1145.pdf 1eafe5c58de7853c47e1e983bc757f0d PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Antonio López Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 7/11/2012 Biography and Description Antonio López grew up in the Logan Square Neighborhood of Chicago and heard about the Young Lords early in life, as his parents are activists. Mr. López is also active in various projects and community organizations. He is of Mexican descent and Logan Square is currently a prime real estate target for developers, who continue to prey on Latinos and the poor, and are supported by city hall and their housing Master Plan. In fact it is not hard to locate many of these developers who readily finance machine loyalists and who have sat and still sit on the many city boards. Mr. López ‘s parents were connected to the land grant struggles in New Mexico that were being led by Reis López Tijerina. Mr. Tijerina was born on September 21, 1926 near Falls City, Texas. He is preacher who founded the Alianza Federal de Pueblos Libres (Federal Alliance of Land Grants) in New Mexico. He is widely credited as launching the early Chicano Civil Rights Movement, although Mr. Tijerina prefers the term “Indo Hispano Movement” because the word “Chicano” can also divide Mexicans. At the time of this oral history, Mr. López was completing his doctoral studies in the Department of History at the University of Texas, El Paso. His doctoral dissertation focuses on the Rainbow Coalition, which originally began with Chairman Fred Hampton and included the Young Patriots and Young Lords. Mr. López has voluntarily assisted the Young Lords on various projects beyond his dissertation. �Transcript JOSE JIMENEZ: Antonio, if you can tell me your name and date of birth. ANTONIO LOPEZ: So, my name is Antonio Reyes Lopez. I was born on July 21, 1980. I was actually born in Gary, Indiana and then raised in Chicago, Illinois. JJ: In 1980? AL: Yeah, I was born in 1980. My folks were steelworkers. Actually, my family is from New Mexico. JJ: They were steelworkers there? AL: Well, they weren’t steelworkers in New Mexico. My dad was actually a migrant worker, a student. My mom was a farm worker too. They came from rural families in New Mexico. And then, like a lot of people, looked for work in the steel mills at that time and migrated from New Mexico to Gary in the late ’70s and then worked in the steel mills together. JJ: Did a lot of people migrated at that time to the steel mills? AL: Yeah, there was a lot of people that -- well, I don’t know if too many people from New Mexico, but I think in general for years and years and decades, [00:01:00] the steel mills and the jobs here in Chicago have attracted a lot of people. But also the politics of steelworkers at that time was really hot. So my folks are actually movement people, very much activists. And so, to be there in the steel mills was kind of a place to be. So, they went and worked there, of course, until that industry kind of collapsed in the mid ’80s and that’s when my family moved to Chicago. 1 �JJ: Okay, but did they go there to organize, or did they just go there to work? AL: I think they went there to organize. JJ: But they were involved in -- AL: Yeah, they were involved in some of the politics of that era. So, as you know, a lot of the politics was like -- a lot of people had done the community work. But that got kind of repressed. So, there was a lot of movement towards going back to the point of production and doing work, really the working class organizing at the point of production. [00:02:00] So, during the late ’70s, really steelworkers were very much at the forefront of a lot of that kind of politics, a lot of that militant revolutionary politics particularly across race, coming together in the class struggles. JJ: So, were there union organizers? Were they union? AL: Yeah, they became part of the union, but I think they were more -- JJ: What union? AL: I think they were with the -- what is it, the -- oh man, I’m going to forget right now. JJ: Some kind of steel. AL: U.S. Steel. It was the U.S. Steelworkers. Yeah, they were working at U.S. Steel and they were involved with the union. And also, Gary’s a Black community, so they were really involved in kind of doing that work. So, part of it was also implicated in the history of my family being -- my dad particularly being pretty much a revolutionary in New Mexico and then having to get out of New Mexico because shit got crazy. 2 �JJ: Let’s talk a little bit about New Mexico. So, who’s the revolutionary there? Was that connected to [00:03:00] Reies López? AL: Yeah. I mean, Reies was very active a little bit earlier than my dad. My dad’s a little younger than Reies. But definitely involved with the Chicano movement. My dad was very much at the forefront. He actually founded Chicano Studies at the University of New Mexico in the ’60s. JJ: What was your dad’s name? AL: My dad’s name is [Ezequiel Lopez, Ezequiel Antonio Lopez?]. My father was from -- JJ: And your mom’s name? AL: My mom’s name is [Esther Lopez?]. My father comes from the villages, though, that Reies was organizing in the ’50s. So, my dad is from a village called Sena, New Mexico, and Sena, New Mexico is a rural mountain community. I mean, these are really poor people who lost the land back really when the U.S. came in and conquered New Mexico. So, there’s a history of colonialism, history of conquest that goes way back with my family. JJ: So, was that the land grants? Was that (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)? AL: Yes, that’s all of that struggle [00:04:00] that Reies then went into and entered into that struggle in the ’50s basically. That’s where my dad’s side of the family is from. JJ: I’m just kind of going back a little bit. (break in recording) 3 �AL: -- against not only the capitalists and the owning class here in Chicago, but it was also struggling against over political organizations at the community level who were saying we should follow a race program, we should follow a racial program. So, it’s kind of in the middle of that. It’s struggling against -- that’s the way I see it. I see it as saying, look, that’s important. It’s important that we have pride. It’s important that we love our people. But we’ve got to get to the class struggle, and that’s why the community service programs were so important because they were educating people on how important the politics was, that you have a state that doesn’t meet the needs, that actually thrives on poverty, thrives on despair in the city of Chicago. JJ: So, you said we’ve got to get to the class struggle. [00:05:00] Can you explain? AL: Yeah. One of the concepts I try to introduce in my project is called a flexible hybridity is what I call it. That’s like an academic term. See, I don’t think the Black Panthers and the Young Lords -- you can correct me if I’m wrong. But it wasn’t about saying, “We’re going to form this alliance. And all the sudden now we’re going to dissolve being Puerto Rican or dissolve being Black or dissolve being Southern white.” So, it wasn’t like this coalition where you come and now you’re this artificial new unit. It was saying, “No,” it was saying “We still love being Puerto Rican, Mexicano, Black. We’re Brown and proud. We’re Black and proud. We’re Southern white and proud. White power, Black power, Red power. Power to everybody.” Right? But it was also saying at a certain point we’ve got to come together as a working class in a class struggle. So, that flexibility to be able to say we can come together and defend Puerto Rican independence and 4 �defend the Chicano movement and Aztlán, defend Black power, defend [00:06:00] Black people but yet come together in a class struggle. That flexibility, I think, is very important. It makes the original Rainbow Coalition different. A lot of people think you form a coalition, it’s just like a new thing and all the sudden you’re a new -- it wasn’t about being a new organization. That’s what I think people don’t understand. That’s why I try to highlight that there wasn’t a headquarters, there wasn’t a Rainbow Coalition headquarters. It was basically like you’ve told me you handle your business and your neighborhood and your people. We’re handling ours, you’re handling yours, and we come together on the class politics, on the revolutionary politics. And I think that’s a really important lesson that people have not really grasped yet. JJ: So, you’re trying to get into class politics [being?] common interest. AL: Yeah. And you build in your community the class struggle in your community. You know what I mean? You engage the -- because we’ve got a -- JJ: Is that what you’re (inaudible)? AL: Yeah. What I’m saying is I think that’s just a different vision of solidarity than what people have right now. When they think of solidarity, it’s like, “Oh, let me go to Mexico and go do work over there.” No, do work in your neighborhood. [00:07:00] Do work in your community. You know what I mean? Build a class consciousness in your space, wherever you’re at. JJ: What is class consciousness? What does it mean to you? What does it mean to you? 5 �AL: Yeah. So, what I talk a lot about a lot -- and this is really what the project or the main research question is -- how do people develop a political consciousness of class struggle? Where does it come from? Where do you develop that? Do you develop it from leaders telling you that this is what you’ve got to think? Do you develop it from reading Mao or reading Frantz Fanon? What I write about -- what I try to argue is that actually a class consciousness or a political consciousness comes from what you experience and what you live and what you understand in the city of Chicago, right? So, a class consciousness particularly is an understanding that there is a political struggle between the working class and the owning class. There is an antagonistic -- that struggle cannot be reconciled. You can’t have [00:08:00] an amicable relationship between business owners and workers. And it’s because one side is trying to exploit, rob, make as much money off they can from people from exploiting their production, and the other side are the workers who are being exploited. And so, any time you have an exploiter and exploited contradiction, you can’t reconcile that contradiction. So, how do you develop a consciousness of that? Now, that’s a class struggle. But we know that people aren’t just workers and owners. They’re Puerto Ricans. They’re Mexicanos. They’re Black folks. They’re Southern whites. They’re whoever they are, people from the Middle East, wherever they come from. So, how do you come from that position of saying, “I’m a Chicano,” and having a real hardcore identity about that -- say, “I love my people” -- to then say, “But you know what? There’s an important class struggle at play that affects everybody.” Not only does it affect everybody in Chicago, it’s everybody in the world. It’s a global 6 �struggle because imperialism went around the world. They went global. [00:09:00] They went global, right? The capitalists had to go global in order to save capitalism some time ago. So, when you embrace that class struggle aspect, you connect with everybody around the world. You connect globally because that struggle is in play everywhere. So, how do you develop that consciousness? How do you develop the consciousness for class struggle? JJ: So, are you saying that you’re connecting to struggles that are involved all over the world? AL: Yeah, you can understand it. Once you embrace -- and like I said, it doesn’t mean you have to relinquish who you are and what you -- your love and your pride for your people or where you’re from. But when you embrace a class consciousness, you’re able to understand what the politics is in other places of the world because there’s business owners and workers everywhere. And so, you can understand what -- it gives you the key into understanding the dynamics of oppression in other places in the world. And therefore, you can connect as oppressed peoples. [00:10:00] JJ: So, as oppressed peoples -- so, you’re saying like in Mexico there’s the struggle between the rich and the poor and in Puerto Rico there’s the same struggle. AL: Yeah, there’s a struggle between the rich and the poor. JJ: And so, you’re saying that these people who are poor are connecting with the poor in each country. AL: Yeah, so what happens is that -- JJ: But they also have their own countries. 7 �AL: So, there’s an issue where you can connect. But what I’m more interested in and what I think the original Rainbow Coalition is important is because if you only say, “Man, I’m Mexican, so I only think about Mexicans,” that race, that idea, that border -- it blocks you from recognizing that you have something in common and a shared experience with a Puerto Rican. We have all these divisions between Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in Chicago, which is a false antagonistic relationship. JJ: What was this called? At that time, we had the Rainbow of Coalition. Do you remember (inaudible)? [00:11:00] AL: Yeah. I think one of the things that I try to -- JJ: I mean, some of it’s just nationalistic. AL: Yeah, it was called pork chop nationalism. It was called cultural nationalism. That’s what you’re looking at. If you’re really nationalistic, you’re not able to get to the internationalism. So, I think the original Rainbow Coalition -- JJ: (inaudible) a term that came out of that when (inaudible). AL: And that’s why I think if you look at -- you can look at a lot of people. JJ: The difference between progressive nationalism and cultural nationalism. AL: Exactly, cultural nationalism versus revolutionary nationalism. It’s an important distinction to make. But I think the thing is -- we have a lot of (inaudible) particularly young people my age -- JJ: It was being made by the Rainbow Coalition. AL: That’s right. JJ: It’s part of the concept that (inaudible). 8 �AL: That was one of the main -- why it’s so politically significant because it was introducing -- and that’s what I’m saying [how flexible?]. You could have the revolutionary nationalism and the [00:12:00] internationalism, the class struggle aspects of it. JJ: You were saying it was (inaudible) are. AL: Yeah, exactly. It’s all right. But see, a lot of people think nowadays think, “All I got to do is be proud and represent my people and carry a big flag and be down for my people.” And it’s not about that because there are some of your people who are capitalists, who are exploiting you, who are taking advantage of you, and who are creating more oppression. And that’s who we should be in struggle with too. JJ: And divisions, who are creating more divisions for the benefit of capitalism. AL: That’s right. That’s right. That’s right. So, we can look at lot of people, but Fred Hampton always kind of was so good at expressing it. He says you can’t fight fire with fire. You’ve got to fight fire with water. And if you think about racism, you might feel a lot of racial oppression. But you can’t fight racial oppression by saying, “I’m only down for my race.” There aren’t even no races anyway. But you might say, “I’m only down for my people.” You’re fighting fire with fire. What you have to do is fight -- as he said, you have to fight racism with solidarity. You have to fight racism with the class struggle. [00:13:00] You fight capitalism with socialism. And that was the essence really with the Rainbow Coalition. But it was a solidarity that wasn’t about making this new artificial organization or a new people. It was about saying, “Look, do real work, community service work in your 9 �communities. And if you do that and we understand you’re not racist, we understand you’re doing important work and we come together, then we can meet and then we can build.” JJ: So, it wasn’t an organization. What do you think it was? AL: Oh no, I think it was an alliance, a coalition. I think it does -- it meets all the standards of a coalition. It’s like one Panther said, we have each other’s back. And I think that’s what it was. You had each other’s back. The Young Lords supported people. They worked together. They helped each other. They embraced the 10 point platform of the Black Panther Party. The did the community service program. The Young Lords were -- y’all came from the neighborhoods. Who knew Lincoln Park better than the Young Lords? Nobody. [00:14:00] The Black Panthers didn’t know Lincoln Park, but you guys knew. So, I think that was part of the genius of the Panther Party too was to not go in and try to say, “We know your neighborhood more than you know it.” It was to say, “No, you know, organize your neighborhood, man. Let’s get it together. Let me just give you a little bit of this Panther politics.” The way I write about it in my dissertation is that the Young Lords and the Young Patriots were already prepared to embrace that politics. They didn’t need the Panther Party to come in and necessarily teach them too much or manipulate them or -- if you grew up in Lincoln Park, you saw police brutality, you saw poverty, you saw all these kinds of things going on. You come from Puerto Rico, you know what’s going on in Puerto Rico. So, when the Panthers come and say it’s a class struggle, people -the Young Lords say, “Oh, yeah. We see that. I see what you’re saying. Let’s do 10 �this.” That’s what it was. You didn’t need to be -- and I think that’s where the struggle with other academics is who try to kind of represent things in a different light. [00:15:00] JJ: Because it wasn’t clear (inaudible) a lot of members what you’re discussing right now. It was clear among the leadership, but it wasn’t really clear -- you know, we were evolving at that time so to speak. AL: So, I think it’s important to think of the Rainbow Coalition. We can think about it as an alliance, as an coalition. But I think it’s important to think about it as a political tactic. That’s an important thing to think about, to think about it as saying, “We’re going to form this because we have an enemy who thrives off of these racial divisions, who thrives off of our people wanting to be race leaders or have this cultural nationalism.” So, the original Rainbow Coalition was a political tactic to undermine that, to strike against that and to really teach the people that it’s a class struggle. JJ: What it wasn’t for sure was an organization. It was not an organization. [00:16:00] Because there’s confusion today among people. They think it was an organization. It was just like you said. People were already working in their (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). And they came together and it was more of an alliance, or a tactic. AL: And I think when you talk about -- this was really something that developed among the political leadership of each organization is important, because you guys, the rank and file members were busy in the breakfast for children program. They were busy selling newspapers. They were busy fighting with landlords or 11 �fighting with business owners or whatever it is that they’re doing. A lot of times, when you’re doing that work, you don’t have a lot of time -JJ: And just discussing -- there’s a lot of discussion (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) renaissance. AL: Yeah, going to political education meetings. That’s a lot of time you’re putting in. So, a lot of people that -- maybe they didn’t even have a chance to really come together on that level. But they knew that the Young Lords had each other’s back and they knew that -- JJ: It was understood. AL: Yeah, it was understood, it was understood. JJ: It wasn’t clearly articulated, but it was understood. AL: So, and this is where I think we’ve got to deal with these liberal concepts of a coalition and solidarity, because [00:17:00] there’s this liberal notion of, “Oh, people got together and they were like” -- no, it wasn’t like that. People had hard work to do and every day they had to get up early as hell and put in work. It wasn’t -- so, we had to kind of work against that liberal notion of coalitions and solidarity work. JJ: You just mentioned something that was interesting. What about -- because it was also work. The coalition was work. It was about raising people’s consciousness, right? And so, as a lot of people thought that, okay, I’m a Marxist-Leninist, why isn’t everybody in a Marxist-Leninist? What the Rainbow Coalition was saying was everybody is not that. So, everybody doesn’t understand the class consciousness, so we have work to do. 12 �AL: Yeah, I think so. JJ: I mean, is that what you found out? AL: Oh yeah, I think that’s a really important point because -- I would put it like this. [00:18:00] One of the things that -- the way that I write about it is that I think you can think about the Rainbow Coalition alongside thinking about how important the breakfast for children programs were or the health centers or the legal service programs were. It was one of the most effective political tactics. See, the community service programs -- in my mind, it was a tactic to be able to educate people. In other words, if we’re feeding you, there’s somebody who’s not feeding you. If we’re caring for your health and your welfare and your education, it’s because this country, this society, this state is not caring for your health. So, it was a way to educate people. It was a tactic that was allowed -- that provided people the way to interact with the community but also to educate them about what -- who really cares for you. And so, in that -- and so, people -- the Panthers and the Young Lords talk about people learn through what? They learn through observation and participation. So, through the community service programs, people could observe and participate, and that’s how you learn politics. So, there was very much [00:19:00] an educational aspect to the community service program. JJ: And you’re by saying by interacting (inaudible) connecting to the community. AL: Right. Which is why the politicians, the police always were trying to close those institutions down. Because it was a point of interaction. It was a point of education. And also, it was a point -- and this is what I write about in my 13 �dissertation. Those were the most important tactics that brought legitimacy to the Young Lords, the Black Panthers, the Young Patriots, and also the original Rainbow Coalition. When you’re feeding people and caring for the elderly and doing these things, then the people see. “Man, okay, they’re not gangsters and only gang bangers. These are people from our neighborhood who love us, care for us, and are putting our lives on the line for us.” And it teaches them. They see it. They observe it. And then, they’re with it. So, the legitimacy aspect was really important. That’s why all the stuff with the police gets too hard, right, because the police are the police. But once you’re getting that real legitimacy in the communities and building with people in the communities, that gets [00:20:00] dangerous. Because, see, [they always deal with you?] when they’re dealing with you. You’re going to go fight the police, they’ll deal with you all day. But once you get that legitimacy with the community, that’s dangerous. JJ: Who were -- can you give me some of the names of the people that you interviewed for your dissertation? AL: Sure, sure, sure. Yeah, I think this one of the things where I hope the project goes and I can do more interviews with people. I was able to talk with a few of the Panthers, people like Lynn French. I was also able to talk with one of the women who was in the apartment when Chairman Fred Hampton was killed. JJ: So, Lynn French was -- what was her -- AL: Lynn French was part of the -- I think she -- although this wasn’t like clearly defined. But she was, I think, the labor minister at one point. Labor minister, I believe. But that wasn’t -- maybe different. 14 �JJ: Everybody did a whole lot of different things. AL: Yeah, there was a lot of different titles. But she was a very important woman, female Panther. The Black Panthers of Chicago [00:21:00] had a lot of really great women leaders and workers. JJ: And you mentioned some others. AL: At that time, her name was Brenda Harris. She was more of a rank and file member. But she was in the apartment when Fred Hampton was killed, and she was also shot during that incident. So, I was able to -- she was shot by the Chicago police during that incident. I was able to interview her. JJ: It was (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) talk with her. AL: It was amazing to talk with her. It’s amazing to talk to all of these activists. She was really amazing because I think she -- I really felt the spirit of her, of how that consciousness that the Panthers had and how it still survives and it still exists. So, she talked a lot about -- I talked to her about her -- she grew up in Lawndale and went to schools there. So, she talked about how bad the schools were and how they were really racist and how -- JJ: Lawndale is the West Side? AL: Yeah, the West Side. JJ: Where the -- AL: Yeah, she grew up there. JJ: She came from (inaudible). 15 �AL: Yeah, she grew up in that community. [00:22:00] One of the best parts of her interview too -- she used to sell newspapers and she used to talk about how the people -- JJ: She’s still alive? AL: Yeah, she’s still alive. And she talked about how when she was selling newspapers that people recognized her. They liked her. They would feed her. So, she talked a lot about that legitimacy again that was built there and how even at one point there was a raid. The police raided the Panther office. I think it was in June actually of 1969. They had raided it three times, but one of them, they set a fire up in the headquarters. And many of the people there in the community in the West Side had learned to love the Panther Party. They actually ran up there and put the fire out themselves. There was this guy that had a fancy leather jacket and he was even beating the fire with his leather jacket. You don’t do that if you don’t have any love and care for that organization. You know what I mean? So, she really was able to break it down on how there was really this [00:23:00] deep connections that were beginning to be build. I think that’s important. I think we can’t romanticize it. But there were these really profound ties that were beginning to be built in the communities there because they came from there. They came from the communities, and then they did all this service in the communities just like the Young Lords and I think just like the Young Patriots too. JJ: So, who was (inaudible). 16 �AL: I was able to talk to Willie Calvin. He was on the defense committee and stuff like that. JJ: (inaudible) in your dissertation. AL: I draw a lot on his. One of the things I draw on his work was the interview with him was that -- he came out of the Army and then he was -- he got basically organized in Crane High School there on the West Side also. And so, a lot of it was them -- how they encountered the Panthers and they got basically brought into the organization. And so, I more utilized his work to talk about how the Panthers drew from not only -- it was students [00:24:00] and then it was also people from street organizations but also it was ex-military or veterans that kind of came back from the military and then became organized into the Panther Party. There was kind of three -- a lot of people think it was just kind of ex-gang members that became Panthers. And it really wasn’t that. Actually, the Young Lords may have more of a history of that, of actually evolving from a street organization into a political party. The Black Panther Party was not really that. It was a lot of students. Fred Hampton wasn’t a gang member. A lot of other people weren’t. They were civil rights activists and many of them were students. Some of them came from street organizations and some of them came from the military. So, I use him as kind of an example to demonstrate there was people coming from different directions. JJ: Ok what about Young Lords? AL: I was able to talk with [Omar Lopez?]. I was able to talk with you. JJ: What (inaudible)? 17 �AL: Omar was really good because Omar -- he’s a Mexicano and his brother was also pretty much [00:25:00] a very important activist that had been political in LADO and also was even political in Mexico. And so, there was that kind of history of people understanding oppression in Mexico or Puerto Rico or coming to Chicago and already having that kind of background. And then, he’s involved in LADO. I think at some point, he makes a transition into the Young Lords. So, he was able to really break that down. JJ: He was (inaudible) student (inaudible). AL: Yeah, then a circle that I think is a -- JJ: The YMCA or something like that. AL: Yeah. So, he was -- but we talked a lot too about what it meant to be -- because I think he actually grew up in Humboldt Park actually, which was at that time still a predominantly white neighborhood. So, when you talk about -- we were talking a lot about Latino history in terms of what it meant to be -- JJ: Well, he came in 1966 around that time. At that time, it was Puerto Rican neighborhood(inaudible) [00:26:00] because it was a Mexican family in a primarily Puerto Rican area at that time. And they got involved with the Puerto Rican community. AL: One of the things that was interesting about the history was his brother was actually (audio cuts out) to react to the riots and actually try to get people out of jail by selling these records of -- there’s this really famous ballad of the -- that was talking about the history of the Puerto Rican riots. But again, the way that 18 �the cultural nationalism worked that he got involved -- I think it was the Spanish Action Committee or something like that. JJ: Spanish Action Coalition. AL: But they were just -- because they were more nationalistic, they didn’t really want to work with -- kind of across with Mexicans. So, I think because of that, they kind of began LADO, right? So, again, it’s one of these precursors -- JJ: And they became criticized even though they were in a leadership role in (inaudible). AL: Right. So, he ended up having -- because you have, again, these divisions -[00:27:00] JJ: Not by the Young Lords because we definitely respected his leadership. AL: Of course. But the thing about LADO too -- JJ: They played a major role in the Young Lords. AL: The thing about LADO too that’s important is they were very much involved with welfare activism. And they were doing a lot of work with women who were dealing with all these humiliations and problems with the welfare offices that were developing with the war on poverty programs at that time period. And so, I think through that it was always this defense, this community defense. So, LADO was involved with that. I think again, even in the West Side, there’s the West Side organization and even in uptown, which is the Young Patriots, where they come out of -- which was [JOIN?] which was doing this welfare activism. And they were also beginning to do a lot of antiracist work. So, I think when I look at it, there’s these earlier organizations that are beginning to grapple with the solidarity 19 �politics. You can go ahead and come through. No, that’s no problem. That are beginning to grapple with those issues of how do you develop a [00:28:00] movement, a coalition across cultural nationalism or dealing with those issues. But I don’t think it came together as forcefully as it did with the original Rainbow Coalition. But they were beginning to do that. They were doing the community defense work. They were interested in community control. They were doing welfare politics. JJ: We were working together. AL: Yeah, people were working together. It’s not that one starts and the other one (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). JJ: We had a coalition with them with LADO and then we had the coalition with the Panthers. AL: Yeah, I see. JJ: So, we had -- they were involved with everything we did, and we were involved with everything (inaudible). AL: I think that’s a good way to put it because it’s not like they stopped. I mean, at one point join -- JJ: Because the Young Lords had coalitions within the Puerto Rican community and the Mexican community. And the Black Panther Party had coalitions in the African American community. And the Young Patriots had coalitions in uptown and other white organizations. AL: That’s an incredible way to think about it. 20 �JJ: So, when we had the Rainbow Coalition, that put all these organizations together. [00:29:00] AL: That’s a great way to think about it. I mean, when you think about that moment -I mean, this is why at that time period people were -- I think people figure out that you have to build coalitions because you’re dealing with an enemy who doesn’t want you to deal with -- you’re dealing with an enemy as a coalition, a real strong coalition who doesn’t want you to have a similar very strong coalition. See what I mean? So, I think at that point, it’s really important to know your enemy, as they would say. JJ: It’s powerful. It was city wide. And that’s why the (inaudible) came out now. Now, were you able to look at, in your dissertation, at some of the oppression? AL: Yeah, oh yeah. I mean, it’s really -- JJ: Because (inaudible) right? AL: It’s a painful history to look at because I mean -- JJ: Did you discover anything? AL: Yeah, I think probably one of the most -- and maybe people will argue against this. [00:30:00] But I think that when you look at repression, it’s not just that they’re violent towards people. It’s also the way that they use laws and the ways that they introduce -- they criminalize. To criminalize people is also a very important thing. So, if you look at -- the way that my dissertation is -- the way I look at it is like the original Rainbow Coalition develops basically in early 1969, sometime in January or February is as close as I’ve been able to kind of identify when it comes together formally. I mean, people are working -- 21 �JJ: It was January. AL: People are kind of working together previously. JJ: The day after the police -- well, we got connected to Fred. AL: So, people know each other and they’re working together. But I think a more formal thing comes together in January or February. And then, there’s a lot of really important work particularly around the universities and the campuses, organizing work. But if you realty look at -- what I think is if you look at when [Manuel Ramos?] is killed, that’s really an important moment because I think -my interview with you was that there were still some Young Lords who were kind of [00:31:00] maybe not all in yet at that point as far as becoming a political organization. But when Manuel Ramos gets killed by a police officer in May, it really kind of drives home the point that there’s this -- Fred Hampton says we live in a sick society. And so, I think that really galvanizes a lot of people at that point. And there’s really this amazing series of events after Manuel Ramos is killed where the Black Panthers and the Young Patriots and a lot of other people, SDS and other people really kind of come together at that point. Now, in terms of repression, to me, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that after these series of events and protests and marches and agitating -- you guys go to the police station. You go to Bridgeport actually. JJ: (inaudible) AL: Yeah, you went to mayor -- I don’t think it’s a coincidence that after you go to Mayor Daley’s neighborhood -- [00:32:00] JJ: We were like a (inaudible) we didn’t even know it was Mayor Daley’s house. 22 �AL: Yeah, so I don’t think it’s a coincidence that after you went to Mayor Daley’s hood that just days later he declares a war on gangs. It’s just days later that Mayor Daley declares a war on gangs after all of this agitation. JJ: I didn’t know it was a few days after that. AL: Yeah, it was just days later. It’s literally a couple days -- JJ: There was a major (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). AL: And that’s what I call governmentality in my thing is when you have a conscious. JJ: The (inaudible) was right after the Manuel Ramos (inaudible). AL: Right after all the Manuel Ramos agitation and rage and anger about him being killed. There’s all this activism and direct action. And to me, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Mayor Daley declares a war on gangs right after that. Now, people say it was because all these gangs are getting together, and the Blackstone Rangers thing. I don’t think so. I argue against that. [00:33:00] I think it was because there was -- JJ: No, we were already there. AL: Yeah, they were already doing all this stuff. And they didn’t have a revolutionary political consciousness. But I think when all this this comes together with the Panthers, I think that really ties together the Panthers, the Lords, and the Patriots that much more solid with Manuel Ramos. JJ: All (inaudible) Blackstone Rangers, Jesse Jackson was working with the Blackstone Rangers at that time. They developed some red berets. AL: That’s right. 23 �JJ: And so, they were (inaudible) so the city was worried about them too. But you’re right. We had just gone to Mayor Daley’s house to protest in front of his house. AL: That’s my argument. I mean, I’m not saying it’s mine because I’m arguing against other academics who might say it. But I think it’s important. I think that Manuel Ramos -- so, after they declared the war on gangs, you really see a more systemic series of repressions. It kind of makes it okay for the police to run wild on all these organizations. You really see an escalation of surveillance. You see people getting killed. And what I write about -- I have a chapter [00:34:00] that’s called “The Rainbow Summer of 1969” which is really where you have all this heavy -- when you guys take over the church which is not too long after Manuel Ramos is killed -- this heavy politics going on but also this heavy repression. And that’s that relationship. JJ: The McCormick Seminary was taken over right after Manuel Ramos (inaudible). AL: Exactly, right after that. So, I basically -- JJ: We were on the news that whole week. AL: So, I think the death of Manual Ramos kicks off the Rainbow summer of 1969. But you had people getting killed. You had people getting arrested. Fred Hampton goes to jail in early June. It’s just a lot of systemic repression. But I think it’s connected to the war on gangs, which to me was a conscious effort to contain a lot of this coalition building that was taking place. JJ: Do you think it was connected at that time was the war on gangs (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). 24 �AL: Yes, I think it’s a conscious -- that’s why I use the word governmentality to deal with the ways that local agents of government think consciously about power and how you maintain it. [00:35:00] JJ: So, what about Reverend Bruce Johnson was killed? What did you (inaudible)? AL: Yeah, I think that’s part of it. I think what you’re dealing with is that Reverend Bruce Johnson was an important institutional leader in Lincoln Park who had embraced the Young Lords. So, in other words, you have to eliminate that force because Reverend Bruce Johnson provided a lot of legitimacy for the Young Lords because a pastor, someone who’s running a church embraces this organization -- JJ: He’s the United Methodist -- AL: Yeah, he’s the United Methodist minister. JJ: And he was a pastor of the church that was taken over. The congregation opposed us, but he supported us. AL: That’s right. He’s a supporter. He’s an institutional leader. He’s got a lot of legitimacy in the community. And if he’s supporting this organization, then they’re connected, then the Young Lords is legitimate. But if you get rid of that, then it’s like you have the Young Lords is kind of disconnected in a certain way. It’s kind of [00:36:00] cutting a real main lifeline, again, of that interaction between the community, the legitimacy that’s required. JJ: And he was found stabbed 17 times and his wife 19. AL: And we know how it is. You’re dealing with an enemy that will hire some sadistic -- 25 �JJ: So, they tried to even make it look like he was stabbed with a knife, like “Oh a Latino..” That’s what they were trying to say at that time. Like stereotyping. (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). AL: Like a Latino. That’s an interesting point to make. That’s really important. If you think about that -- that shows you how sadistic, how maniacal these people that we’re dealing with, that they would even do that to make it look like that. And that’s who you’re dealing with. And that’s what I try to say. Let’s not underestimate or not think about who we’re dealing with. We’re dealing with some of the most brutal people that have lived on the face of humanity. JJ: So we don’t have any proof, but it could’ve been part of the [oppression?], is that what you’re saying? I don’t want to put words (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). [00:37:00] AL: The way I look at it is that I think the -- one of the aspects of those in power is that it unleashed people to do a lot of crazy shit. You know what I mean? So, nothing is out of bounds. So, even this heinous death of Bruce Johnson -- I mean, they could have hired -- who knows who they were hiring. They could just say, “Hey man, go off this dude.” You’re dealing with some sadistic people. So, I don’t think -- JJ: And in fact, there were a lot of letters being written to the bishops to kick him out of their church. AL: Right. They might have wanted to do it, to get rid of him one way or another. But if he stood in there and said, “No, I’m going to defend this community, I’m going to defend this organization,” then they get violent. That’s the way -- that’s what 26 �you’re dealing with. So, to me, I think it’s deeply connected. I think it’s -- look, we don’t need that. We know. We don’t need the direct records. You know what I mean? Because we know. That’s what we call in academia epistemology. We don’t need an empirical [00:38:00] proof. We don’t need a smoking gun to know that that’s what went down. We know that’s what went down because that’s the importance of politics. That’s what I try to write about in my dissertation. If you don’t understand the politics and then make sense of why this Reverend Bruce Johnson is going to endure that kind of death then it’s going to make sense why Manuel Ramos was shot by an on duty police officer. We don’t need to go through a legal process and do all this because we know the politics of it, the class struggle, the political struggle. That’s what you need to know. That’s what I think is important. JJ: So, what other -- is important that -- you mentioned the class (inaudible) what were some other points there? AL: Yeah, I think the major thing to realize is that in December [00:40:00] there’s all this tremendous repression. The best example -- or the worst example is the assassination of Chairman Fred Hampton, who was one of the most powerful -- a lot of people forget that he was one of the most powerful advocates and one of the most eloquent advocates of the Rainbow Coalition, but also somebody who was really good at blasting these cultural porkchop nationalists. He was one of the best at -- if you read his speeches, you’ll crack up laughing because he’s just that great. And so, he had a speech that was actually called “It’s a Class 27 �Struggle Goddammit.” That was the title of his speech. This was Fred Hampton. So, again, he’s another person that, unfortunately, was -JJ: We used to call him Chairman. AL: Chairman Fred Hampton, for sure. Chairman Fred Hampton was assassinated. [Mark Clark?] was killed and a lot of other people were shot during that raid on the apartment. But Chairman Fred Hampton -- after his death, one of the things that I tried to write about [00:40:00] that I conclude with is that you really see the reintroduction of these racial divisions in Chicago because a lot of people -- when Chairman Fred Hampton was killed -- were of course angry and enraged that this young, incredible leader would be shot up like that at four in the morning. But a lot of people -- because again, there’s not necessarily that revolutionary political consciousness that circulates in the communities -- they might have thought he was killed because he was Black or he was killed because he was a Black leader. But Chairman Fred Hampton was killed because he was a revolutionary leader. He was an internationalist. JJ: We didn’t call him Chairman in (inaudible) was more relaxed. AL: Sure, I understand. JJ: But just out of respect, we knew he was the chairman of the (inaudible). AL: He was a revolutionary internationalist leader. JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) He related very well to the room. When he was in the room, you wouldn’t even know that he was the leader of the (inaudible) you just [00:41:00] -- he wasn’t into titles. 28 �AL: So, if you see what happens -- what I write about in my conclusion is that already -- he’s killed in December. Already in January and February, there’s all these events to commemorate him and there’s all these things. But you already see people going back to that cultural nationalism, going back to that porkchop nationalism right away. JJ: And in fact, that existed in that time of the Panthers and some of the Young Lords and especially in the Young Patriots too. AL: But that becomes really intense. JJ: So, that was part of our work. AL: That was the work. That was the tactic to engage that. But you already get that intensity. The one thing that I think we should think about more is that I think they’re really conscious and understanding that whenever you inflict a lot of pain on people like when they killed Fred Hampton, that oftentimes the first tendency is to react through cultural nationalism and to react through that kind of rage because you can say, “That’s [00:42:00] one of my people and they killed him because he’s Latino or Puerto Rican or Black.” And I think they know that. [aside] Go ahead man, actually I think someone might be in there, but- So, I think they understand that very well, and I think that’s -- and they even [thrived on this?]. One of the things that I try to show, the evidence I try to show is that – JJ: [aside] There’s nobody in there. AL: [aside] Oh sorry about that man. Sorry about that. JJ: That’s alright 29 �AL: So, one of the things that I try to write about is after -- if you look at like what the police are doing -- and again, this is why I study the police, the people that we’re up against. What they’re doing is they’re actually antagonizing Black people in Chicago. They’re tearing down posters of Fred Hampton. They’re shooting up posters of Fred Hampton. They’re staging mock raids of -JJ: Wait, this is -- AL: After Fred Hampton’s killed. They want people to react that way. They want people to react through cultural nationalism and racial consciousness. Instead of class consciousness, they want [00:43:00] racial consciousness. So, they’re antagonizing people to get them even more angry and more thinking that what it was about was because he was a Black leader when in fact, he was a Black leader but he was also a revolutionary internationalist leader. So, it’s a way that you kind of silence that history. And now, all of the sudden, now you get Chairman Fred Hampton is really -- he’s only thought about as like a Black Panther or Black Panther leader or Black leader but in fact, he has the leader of everybody. He was the leader of a lot of people, not just Black folks. So, I think it’s important to see. So, the way that I think about it is you have the original Rainbow Coalition undermines and disrupts what’s going on in Chicago for a brief moment, for a few months, for a year maybe. But then, you have the repression and then it gets kind of recuperated, the racial consciousness. The way power gets recuperated -- and it’s the same thing -- if you look historically -if you look at the Haymarket riots or if you look at when Black people [00:44:00] were resisting militantly during the 1919 race riots, when you look at different 30 �things, things get disrupted and then the class struggle -- the way it operates is they fix it. They get -- we’re dealing with a smart enemy who learns. They observe and participate too, so they learn and they develop new and sophisticated ways to keep their power and make money. That’s what happens after the -- they learned. They saw the original Rainbow Coalition, what it was. The repressed it. If you can’t fix it nonviolently, they’ll fix it violently. And then, they kind of come afterwards and then they develop a new way because they not only want to fix it, they want to fix it for the future. They want to make sure that no other coalition, no other revolutionary work is going to happen in the future. So, they do all kinds of shit to kind of get people stuck in what I call paralysis to keep them kind of politically paralyzed. JJ: That’s very important, what you just said about what they want to do. [00:45:00] Their intentions -- and it’s very important how Fred -- how he opposed their intention and why the Rainbow Coalition was important. You just said that Fred was a leader, not only of Black people, but of all people of (inaudible) and that’s what he was able to do, I mean, with his coalition was to unite more people that were not necessarily from the African American community, like Latinos, like poor whites and that. He was able to do that. And the enemy was doing the opposite. Like you said, they didn’t want this coalition to ever exist again. And they came with the cultural nationalism. So, this is very important what you just said. Fred was a leader of all people. AL: One of the conclusions -- I’m hoping to maybe write about this more in the future, look into it more. [00:46:00] So, it’s not really set in stone. But one of the things 31 �that we’ll come to is I think that we’re dealing with an enemy with an owning class. I think that they know that the best way to undermine class struggle is to attack Black folks or to attack Latinos or any other kind of racialized people, but particularly I think Black people because I think that they know -- like I said, they understand how people react and they know that in those reactions builds a lot of divisions or maintains a lot of divisions. And I think they know that. I really do believe that. I really do believe that. That’s one of the features, that’s one the characteristics of the people that we’re up against. And that’s why to me it’s not coincidence that you have all this kind of heinous violence and oppression that Black people endure in the United States. It all maintains that racial consciousness. And we’re dealing with an enemy that thrives upon people maintaining a racial consciousness exclusively. [00:47:00] And what we’re trying to say and I think what the original Rainbow Coalition tried to say -- it's not a problem just dealing -- you can have a racial consciousness, but add the class consciousness to the racial consciousness. JJ: And that was the beauty of (inaudible) the timing of that (inaudible) was people were proud of who they were, but the people were also relaxed and able to communicate with each other very well during that time. People were learning from each other here just like they were learning internationally from each nation. So, it was like that consciousness of internationalism. But with respect to nationalism (inaudible). I mean, everybody was united because of that. AL: You could see it on a global level. 32 �JJ: But today you can see the differences that racial -- and negative racial (inaudible) and you can see it when you go to meetings. AL: That’s right. And I still think there’s all the -- I think there’s all the ideological struggle that still exists. [00:48:00] People don’t really want to acknowledge it. And that’s the other thing that we’ve got to deal with too because people really -they say they like the Panthers and they like the Young Lords, but really, they’re practicing a different ideological politics than the Black Panthers and the Young Lords. JJ: What do you mean by that? AL: Well, (audio cuts out) really study the Black Panthers and the Young Lords and the ideology. This was ideology. This was ideological struggle. You can’t escape it whether you want to or not. And they were practicing a particular ideological struggle that came from a history of revolutionary activism on a global level applied to Chicago. You see what I mean? And this was against certain ideological tendencies. And we can name them. We can name them in terms of Trotskyism. We can name them in terms of all these other leftist mistakes that people were making, which is why you had SDS going the direction it went, which is why you had all this struggle with all these other organizations. JJ: What do you mean going the direction -- AL: Well, when they factionalized based upon all of these ideological struggles. [00:49:00] They fell apart based on that. JJ: And we did too. 33 �AL: And all the organizations (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) it happened everywhere. JJ: That was a tool (inaudible)? AL: I think so. JJ: Or was it naturally and they (inaudible) took it over. AL: I think the way to think about it maybe is that during that time period there’s a -you have to give people a break. So, people are experimenting with a lot of ideology. And it’s all right to do that. It’s all right to experiment and read books and look at different -- the Cuban revolution, the Chinese revolution, look at things like that. Again, what we know is that you can’t be a mechanical in terms of ideology. You have to really come from what is going on in your particular community, your particular location in build a struggle and build an ideology based on the needs of your people in that particular area, which was [00:50:00] Chicago or Lincoln Park or the West Side. And I think that’s why when the Black Panthers or the Young Lords -- the ideology that y’all were using in driving that and applying and learning from -- because you can make mistakes as long as you learn from them and do it again -- was an ideology that came organically from the conditions of Chicago. And I think when you have all the other people, other activists come in from other areas or other places, whether it’s -- they might be Young Lords but they might be from New York. They might not really understand Chicago. Whenever you have that kind of situation and you try to extrapolate and try to apply it to different places, it’s not going to work. This is why when Dr. Martin Luther King came to Chicago in 1966, he wasn’t able to 34 �really create the kinds of changes he envisioned even though we might like those visions because it wasn’t tailored to the particular conditions that existed in Chicago. And that’s why I think also the original Rainbow Coalition is important because it’s an alliance that developed from the particular conditions of Chicago, which is a segregated racist ass city. And so, when you deal with [00:51:00] ideological struggle, you’re oftentimes dealing with people who don’t have organic knowledge of the city, of the neighborhoods. And we’re trying to apply mechanically ideas of anarchism, Trotskyism, all kinds of shit, which really just confuses the people and takes them in a direction that only our enemy really thrives upon. Now, you don’t need to know -- again, this is one thing I write about. You don’t need to be an expert on Marxism and Maoism to know the class struggle. This is why I like what you all are talking about too. You only have to look around and be really honest and sincere about what conditions are going on in your neighborhood and in your family. All I’ve got to do is look at my family and see what the hell is going on with this sick society. I don’t even need to read a book. And that’s what I think is when we deal with the ideological struggle, which I think people -- we’ve got to be real wary because, yes, we’ve got to build unity, but we can’t be naïve that that ideological struggle [00:52:00] still exists because there’s forces that are still pushing, peddling cultural nationalism, peddling anarchism, peddling all kinds of shit to our people, whether we want to like it or not. That’s another thing I like about this project. I taught me that there’s a lot of things you might want to do, but whether you like it or not, 35 �there are some conditions you’ve got to deal with whether you want to like it or not, you’ve got to deal with it. JJ: What are any final thoughts about your project? AL: Well, I mean, I just think that the thing that we -- one of the things that I try to write about -- I hope it’s not taken in a disrespectful way -- is that there’s one way -- there’s one thing that we’ve got to set the record straight because you talked about a lot. People have misrepresented the history and misrepresented the organizations and really distorted what work people did. So, it’s important that there’s that set [00:53:00] the record straight kind of work that needs to be done. Academics call it -- we need to recover the history and be accurate about it. That’s very important. But that can’t be the only way that we -- the only reason why this history is important. I think it offers political lessons that can be applied to what’s going on today. So, a lot of times I think -- and this is why I think some of the divisions occur in terms of the history because people want to get their story and they want to set the record straight. And it’s really hard because people have different experiences. So, there’s not just one Black Panther experience or one Young Lord experience or one Young Patriot experience. There’s actually a lot of different experiences. If you’re a woman or depending upon what your background is, you’re going to have a different look at it. And then, some people actually maybe weren’t as committed as other people. So, there’s going to be a lot of those. There’s people that claim they were this and claim they were that. [00:54:00] So, you have a lot of things. So, setting the record straight is important. That work has to be done. And I think the 36 �movement people, the activists that were doing stuff back then need to tell their story. And academics need to step out of the way or just be assistants or whatever they can do to help them come forward. But at the same time, I think there’s political lessons that need to be acknowledged and looked at and discussed and then brought forward to today. And so, I hope that we do both of that work. I hope that both of that work is done. In my introduction, I write about this woman who says, “I love that history, but what happened?” And that’s what I’m trying to say. We need to be able to explain what happened and be very clear with the people about what we’re dealing with and who we’re dealing with. So, that’s what I’ll say. All right, Cha-Cha. END OF VIDEO FILE 37 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/41fb868f82a1902cf80ef0b0015fab25.mp4 98d928e98d8ad9912c8c50f0885e2c38 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 López 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 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_Lopez_Antonio Title A name given to the resource Antonio López video interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource López, Antonio Description An account of the resource Antonio López grew up in the Logan Square Neighborhood of Chicago and heard about the Young Lords early in life, as his parents are activists. Mr. López is also active in various projects and community organizations. He is of Mexican descent and Logan Square is currently a prime real estate target for developers, who continue to prey on Latinos and the poor, and are supported by city hall and their housing Master Plan. In fact it is not hard to locate many of these developers who readily finance machine loyalists and who have sat and still sit on the many city boards. Mr. López ‘s parents were connected to the land grant struggles in New Mexico that were being led by Reis López Tijerina. Mr. Tijerina was born on September 21, 1926 near Falls City, Texas. He is preacher who founded the Alianza Federal de Pueblos Libres (Federal Alliance of Land Grants) in New Mexico. He is widely credited as launching the early Chicano Civil Rights Movement, although Mr. Tijerina prefers the term “Indo Hispano Movement” because the word “Chicano” can also divide Mexicans. At the time of this oral history, Mr. López was completing his doctoral studies in the Department of History at the University of Texas, El Paso. His doctoral dissertation focuses on the Rainbow Coalition, which originally began with Chairman Fred Hampton and included the Young Patriots and Young Lords. Mr. López has voluntarily assisted the Young Lords on various projects beyond his dissertation. 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 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 2012-07-15 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/9b5c9f9507c2bd2e0253710ff94cc78f.pdf 26c6ff759e2f5a5f2611870324c24b4e PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Melvin Lewis Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 8/26/2012 Biography and Description Melvin Lewis was born in Chicago but today lives in Fayetteville, North Carolina. His parents live in Maywood, Illinois. This is the same town where Fred Hampton of the Black Panther Party (BPP) grew up. It is also where, at Maywood’s City Hall, there is a recreation center with a swimming pool named after the slain leader of Chicago’s BPP. There is also a street named “Fred Hampton Way” and a bust of Chairman Fred Hampton. Mr. Lewis is a Chicago Black Panther and freelance writer, a master gardener and certified beekeeper. His recent articles include “Out Loud and Into Print” in the May/June 2012 issue of City View (NC). He writes on music and his publications include features on “Hootie and the Blow Fish,” and singer and song writer “Rene Marie in Pluck!” He has written and broadcast twelve vignettes about civil rights for FM Radio stations 107.7 and 91.9 FM and conducted interviews on horticulture, history and art. Mr. Lewis has also won the Significant Illinois Poet Award and is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is currently assisting with the Chicago Black Panther History Project. Their motto is, “ We will tell our story, in our own words; Illinois Panthers speak for themselves.” �Transcript JOSE JIMENEZ: So, okay, if you can give me your name, date of birth, and where you were born? MELVIN EUGENE LEWIS: My name is Melvin [Eugene?] Lewis. I was born in Chicago, Illinois, September 17, 1954. JJ: 1954? ML: In Cook County. And I grew up in Chic-- JJ: Oh, you mean at the hospital? ML: Now, they call it University of Illinois Hospital, but then they used to call it Illinois Research. I have two older brothers. One was born in Selma, Alabama, in Dallas County. And my middle brother was born also in Chicago, but he was born in Cook County Hospital. JJ: Okay, but you weren't born in Cook County Hospital? ML: No, I was born in University of Illinois. Which is now called University of Illinois Hospital. Yeah. Yeah. JJ: And what's your parents name? ML: My father, who's deceased, is [Clifton?] Lewis Senior. I have an older brother that's Clifton Lewis Junior. And my [00:01:00] mother is [Pearl?] Lewis, and they were born in Alabama. My father was born on a farm. His father and all them, since probably when we came in this country, they were farmers. So my grandfather, his name was [William?] Lewis, he was a tenant farmer, which means he rented the land. He didn't own the land and he wasn't a sharecropper. 1 �So he rented the land and he paid a fee. And then, like many farmers, he had other jobs, so he was a barber on Saturdays and I'm told that he hauled wood or he cut wood. And so when you're not farming or the, you know, it's the seasons, you're between seasons and pulling crops. He would cut wood and bring it to the city (inaudible) and sell wood. JJ: So what's a sharecropper? ML: A sharecropper is someone that actually has less money and they share the crop with the owner, which is not as financially good ’cause most sharecroppers never get out of debt ’cause you [00:02:00] don't have the money for the feed, so each year you're continuously going to their bank. It's like credit cards now. You got 28 percent interest. You don't get out of debt. It takes you a whole lot. So the sharecropper, a lot of times if it was a big farmer, they even had them go to get the seeds from them and go to their store, and many farmers had very little education. They knew how to farm, but they may not -- depending upon their educational skills, and then they may not know how to be good with contracts and math. So people tried to avoid being sharecroppers ’cause sharecroppers kept you where, like, you were always dealing with a company store. But if you a tenant farmer, it's like rent. Okay, I rent the land, you charge me x dollars for the year and I probably have a house on there, which also probably comes with that. [00:03:00] And then I pay you that per month or per year. But it's not a good relationship because you can't pass it on. And so something that was [in?] geography, Doctor [James Blout?] talked about how, you know, when you rent the land, you're not necessarily much of a conservationist as if you own it 2 �because if you own it, you're gonna pass it down to your children or try to keep it in the family. So my parents moved from Alabama to Chicago after World War Two because the future wasn't very bright in Dallas County. Dallas County is where they had the Pettus Bridge, where they had the marches with John Lewis and hundreds of people got beat up because they were protesting segregation. So my parents went to an all-Blacks high school. There was two separate schools. One system for Blacks and one for whites and I never knew [00:04:00] what happened to Native Americans. I have to find that out. In the South where if Native Americans -- what school system they went to because in many cases they weren't enough to have three. So they left. Many people left after World War Two. The veterans who went to the war, when they came back, they may come back and pick up their family, and they went to metropolitan area. So my uncles, my maternal grandmother's brothers, came to Chicago. So one worked JJ: Were they veterans, or...? ML: Yeah, they were veterans. And one went to the meat packing, which was unionized, so you got you had a livable wage, and the other one worked at the -- JJ: Oh, you mean the meat pa-- in the back of The Yards? ML: Back of The Yards, over by what used to be -- JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) My father worked there [in town?]. ML: Yeah. Used to be... What do they call this place on 43rd and Halsted? The International -- Not McCormick Place. It was... [00:05:00] JJ: Yeah, I remember. 3 �ML: Yeah, there’s a big place in -- JJ: I remember meat packing’s where my father worked. ML: Yeah. And they had this big place where they had the cattle and all that. There was a whole industry over there, so my dad worked over there. JJ: In the Stock Yards. ML: Stock Yards. Yeah. And they had a show place, like a arena, which part was for the cattle, but also was entertainment over there. And then one of my uncles worked as a longshoreman, like, I guess around where Navy Pier or wherever the ships came in. JJ: But your father wasn't a veteran though? ML: No, my father wasn’t a veteran. My father was too young for that. My father was born in ’31, so he would have been 14 in ’45. And like many people his generation, he didn't finish high school. He dropped out ’cause he could get a job. So, in the summers, he would come to Chicago and work with his uncles, [00:06:00] and then he decided to drop out and get a job. And then he got married, and then my mother came to Chicago. But I got a story about the marriage. My father and his uncle by birth, that's his mother's brother, were leaving in 1947 from Chicago to Alabama. So they took a bus from Chicago down to Birmingham, and it was raining. And so, in the North, the bus is not segregated. In the South, they are. So once they get to Birmingham, they arrived on a Friday, and he's supposed to get married on Saturday afternoon because it's not -- like, now, we think first in, first out. You know, whoever's the first, if the bus is overloaded and they'd put the next people away. They made all 4 �the Black people wait. So my father was supposed to get married on a Saturday, and this is before cell phones and phones at home, and telegraphs were [00:07:00] rare. My uncle and my father didn't get on the bus until Saturday evening. They didn't get to the town that they were in till Sunday morning. So my mother was expectin’ to get married on Saturday. So she's in her dress and her mother's there, and, you know, in those days, people got married at home. And so my father showed up Sunday morning. So his uncle and his uncle's sister, my father's aunt, who was also small town, was married to my mother's uncle. They went to her parents' house and told them what happened. So they got married on a Sunday instead of a Saturday. And subsequent to that, my father never caught public transportation to the South again. Because, you know, you think about, you're getting married, you plan to get married, and my mother talked about she was crying because she felt like my father stood her up. And then her mother was trying to comfort her and her father started drinking and got drunk. You know, then people whispering, [00:08:00] “He stood up, he stood up.” JJ: But it was a segregation thing. ML: Yeah, yeah. So they finally told everybody to go home, you know. Then the next day they got everybody back together and they got married on the Sunday. JJ: Your siblings, your brothers and sisters? ML: I have -- JJ: And what are their names? ML: -- two brothers. I have brother, Clifton Junior. He lives four blocks from here. 5 �We're in Maywood today. He lives in Broadview. And I have a brother named [Jearl?], and he lives out west. JJ: What are they doing? What type of work? ML: Clifton drives a train in train yards. And my brother, Jearl, he's a pilot. He's a commercial pilot, so he flies from Detroit, Atlanta, to Asia. So he flies a big 747. So he got his flight training in the military. He's good with math and science, so he has a degree. And then he went to pilots training, which is like getting a master's degree because you go for, like, [00:09:00] a year, depending upon which planes you're learning. So he, you know, started off with one and go up. He was a major in the military, and then he was -- JJ: He was a major? ML: Yeah. So he was a captain with the airlines. So he left. He left after so many years. He didn't do 20. He did like, I guess, about eight or something like that because he wanted to go with the commercial. So he's a pilot. Yeah. And I have a son, who's a college student now. And his name is [Gahiji Lewis?]. Yeah. JJ: What do you do? ML: I'm a freelance writer, and I write about popular culture, about horticulture. My latest two articles, one of them's on the internet, it's called “The Greening of the Sand Hills”, and it's about [00:10:00] the green movement in southeastern North Carolina. And also, I write short stories and poetry. So there's a book, this is a book called The Black Panther Party Reconsidered. JJ: You wanna lift that up? Yeah. Okay. 6 �ML: Black Panther Party Reconsidered, and I have a long poem in there. JJ: Who wrote that? ML: The editor of this book is Doctor Charles Jones, and I wrote a poem in it called “Once I was a Panther,” which was a reprint from an earlier magazine that was in Indiana. This magazine, I had a poem in there. So they reprint the poem from here into his book, and so that's chapter three. JJ: That’s called the “Black American Literature Forum?” ML: Yeah. Correct. Yeah. Now, they call it “African American Review.” And I write short stories. One of my short stories, this is the book on short stories, this book has short stories from all over the diaspora. JJ: So that’s your book? ML: I have chapter in there. JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) chapter in it? Okay. ML: So I have a chapter, and my short story in there is called “La Línea Negra”, which means the black line. So, like, if [00:11:00] you're having a baby, if you're a woman of color, and when your abdomen starts growing, that's what the medical term is, la línea negra. So if they had to do a C-section. So I don't know why I thought of that. And then if you're a light lady, then they call it la línea blanca. So wherever they gonna have the line if they had to do a C-section when you’re pregnant, or embarazada. JJ: So you speak a little Spanish. ML: Yeah, you know -- JJ: Where did you get that at? 7 �ML: Well, a couple of things. My father, when we were kids, when you got big enough, when you got like 12, 14, he took you to work with him at Christmas time and at summertime to start teaching you how to earn money. So he worked on the North Side. He worked on Chicago and Damen approximately. And so it was very international. You could hear people speaking Russian, Polish, German. [00:12:00] So my father picked up Spanish from work because when you work with people, you pick up what you hear around you. You know, some guy said, (Spanish) or (Spanish) or whatever. JJ: (Spanish), yeah. Yeah. ML: Or cuidado, you know, like, “Watch out.” So you pick those things up. JJ: Because Chicago and Damen was a Spanish area, Puerto Rican area? ML: It was everything, you know. Yeah. JJ: But there were Spanish people working with him? ML: Yeah. So he worked with some Panamanian guys. JJ: Oh, Panamanian. Okay. ML: And then I went to school at Von Steuben on the North Side. And so Von Stueben had people -- JJ: Where's Van [sic] Stueben? ML: Von Steuben's on, I think, 20, Kimball. Kimball on the North Side is the same thing as Homan. So you can say Homan and between Foster and Lawrence. So it's in the 1500 block. And, when I went to school, it was predominantly Jewish. And so [00:13:00] they had a program called permissive transfers. So if you went to a school in Chicago, or your home high school was overcrowded, you 8 �could transfer to a less crowded school, which actually was a slick way for Chicago to get around with the question of integration and building high schools for the population density. So my home school would have been John Marshall, which is on Kedzie, I guess, and Adams, right? And so I chose to go over there because other people were in my neighborhood, when they switched, were supposed to get a better education. But I never realized that I was going to be on the public transportation like an hour and a half each way. So in my memory, I have memorized the Chicago subway system because for four years, every day, I would leave home maybe, say, 6:30 to get to a class at 8:30, eight o'clock. You know, and if it snowed, then you had to get up much earlier like your parents ’cause you gotta be on time. So we caught the subway -- [00:14:00] JJ: But this is a high school or a grammar -- ML: High school? This is a high school. JJ: You caught the subway? ML: I caught the subway. It’s always multiple ways to go, but I would either catch -get on the subway in Chicago at Pulaski on the line that goes down the Eisenhower Expressway. It's changed colors, but it’s still the train to the same... And you take it to either Jackson or Washington at the transfer point. And then you take the line going up north and you get off either Belmont or Fullerton, and then you take the Ravenswood train all the way down to, actually, the end of the line, almost like if you're going to Northeastern University. And then you walk to school or you can catch the bus. It's two blocks. So that was a program called permissive transfer and that's one of the reasons I -- 9 �JJ: Triathlon. (laughs) ML: Huh? JJ: Triathlon. ML: Yeah. Or [00:15:00] you could get the Jackson bus or some bus from where you were to Homan, and then you take the Homan bus 50 blocks, and that's a long time, you know. So we learned different ways. Depends upon the mood and time of day. You know, in the morning, you trying to get to school quickly. And so you learn the subway system because you can't fall asleep, then you might miss your train, then you're late for school. And that's a whole culture being on the subway every day. JJ: That’s a long day then. (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) ML: It's a long day, yeah. And if you've got eight o'clock class, you might leave at 6:30 because if you leave at 7:00, traffic is heavy. It's just like going to work with you're a parent or adult. So you learn it. And Chicago has always had a system where students get a bus pass or something. You pay for a bus pass so it's a reduced fare. But you learn the system and you learn the culture, like you don't go to sleep on the L, on the [00:16:00] bus if you can, you know. JJ: Why are you saying that? ML: Because somebody’ll roll you. Somebody will rob you. And you don't show any wealth, you know? You got to keep your (inaudible) away. So recently I brought my son here and we went over on public transportation University of Chicago and to the Museum of Science. Museum of Science is around the lake, and you can walk from Museum of Science to University of Chicago. So I was trying to teach 10 �him something. He put his headphones on. I said, “You can't do that.” JJ: You’re trying to not teach him, school him. (laughs) ML: School him, because what happens is you get rolled. Can you put that on pause for a second? JJ: Sure. (break in audio) ML: Yeah, my son grew up in North Carolina. I live in North Carolina. I live in the [small market?] Fayetteville, North Carolina. So my son isn’t a city person. He put his headphones on, like for his iPod and listening to music. I said, “You can't do that and walk down the street.” He says, “Why?” I said, “Because you've got to be able to hear [00:17:00] the L, so you know if you've got to run faster to the L. And you got to be able to hear somebody behind you. If they're walking, you can hear their heels, and you got to be able to hear what they're saying. So you got to know, be able to sense threats and non-threats in the environment. And also if you have your headphones and you got an iPod that's open.” My son is small. He's like 5’5”, and he's maybe 130 pounds. So, you know, some guys would say, “Hey, we can take an iPod. iPod a hundred and some dollars. And we take that from you because you're small, you know.” So I was trying to tell him, you can't do this. You have to, you have to learn how to survive in the city. Whether you're in Chicago or New York, the rules are the same. You got to pay attention to your environment. You can't act weak. You got to be able to know when you got to exert force and don't talk. You got to be able, we used to say, “Don't sell wolf cookies.” Because a guy that's talk -- Wolf cookies is when you 11 �talk and you tell somebody, “I'm gonna punch you in your mouth.” That guy might hit you [00:18:00] while you talkin’, you know. (laughter) So they say, if you're not -JJ: Before you finish your sentence, you’ll get hit. ML: That's right. So if you gonna do something, hit him, but you make sure you hit him and knock him down and knock him out, and then he'll leave you alone. But don't sell wolf cookies because if you sell wolf cookies, or you're talking trash, somebody else might hit you in the back of the head with a two by four. So, you know, the issue of urban culture is one of understanding force, and when to use force and when to use respect. Because you gotta be respectful for other people, but you also gotta know you gotta set some boundaries where people don't violate your space and you don't violate theirs. And so if you can do that, you halfway can get along, but you also can't let people punk you out because if they punk you out once, they always gon’ punk you out. So you have to know how to hold your own. So it's just like playing basketball. In basketball, guys come in and they throw elbows and they push. [00:19:00] Well that's part of the game. But there's a limit to it, and if they go beyond that limit, then, you know, that's how you see in sports games that people violate the rules. Like when United States was playing, I think, Argentina and [Carmello?], the guy plays for New York he shot and guy from Argentina came back and gave him a elbow after the shot. Well, that's not part of the game. That was being vicious. So then the other guys say, we got to fight because you can't let somebody do that. Right? So that's what I was trying to teach my son is that you have to understand that, 12 �one, there are predators out here, and you don't want to be the one that they appear to be weak. So there always going to be somebody bigger than you, faster than you. Well, a lot of times they are not going to want to mess with you if they know that you're willing to exert amount of force to defend yourself or protect yourself. JJ: (inaudible) your son’s name? ML: My son's name is Gahiji. It's an African name. JJ: Oh yeah. (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) ML: And his [00:20:00] name is in a lot of Eastern languages. It's in Arabic. It's in Swahili. It's a Bantu, which means Bantu languages or trade languages. They're like languages that were created for one guy is from what is now called Saudi Arabia and somebody else is from Tanzania. They create a language, generally at a port, where everybody can talk. So Swahili has Arabic in it, it has African languages in it. So Swahili’s spoken, I think, in about 15 countries from all over the eastern Africa, where you can say from Tanzania, Mozambique, the Congo, Oman, some Kenya, places on the coast where people come together. So just like Miami. When you go to Miami, you can speak three languages in two miles, you know. You got [00:21:00] Little Haiti and you can speak French or Creole, whichever you learned in school or learned in the community. You can go to Little Havana and speak Spanish and you can speak English, and you can hear Caribbean accents where there’s Caribbean. British speaking English, you know, from Jamaica or Barbados or Bahamas. And you can hear Spanish from different countries, and you can hear generally Haitian, Creole, or could be 13 �Martinique, too. So it's just, you know, people speak the languages in which their parents and grandparents spoke. So my son's name is Gahiji, and I wanted to give him an African name because that's part of his heritage and also to make him aware. One of the legacies of TV in this country is that everything has been Eurocentric where it doesn't really represent a lot of Latinos and African Americans and Asians truly. So you have what we used to call like the Charlie [00:22:00] Chan-ish movies, you know, like, okay, only this one guy is smart, you know. What about all these other guys around here that's Asian? Or, unfortunately, a lot of times in movies in this country, the Hispanic roles were the maid. The lady was always the maid. The lady who was in West Side Story. She probably played maid 50 times. Or Hattie McDaniel, who was a singer. JJ: You’re not thinking about Rita Moreno? ML: Yeah. JJ: She plays a maid? ML: Yeah. Yeah. And Hattie McDaniel played the maid. She used to say, “Well, I'd rather play a maid and be rich and have a maid.” But, you know, it's a question sometimes it's dignity. So one of the things that we really didn't like is the Tarzan movies. Where Tarzan is one guy, he's there, he's Superman. He's smarter than everybody else, and he's running through the jungle, so make the Africans look stupid. And, you know, Tarzan, Jane, [00:23:00] and Boy, you know. It's like, okay. So, you know, that was almost like a slicker way of Birth of a Nation. It's really a racist and imperialist movie. So, you know, we gave him an African name because that's part of his heritage, and that way he’d always know some of 14 �that. So my son's been to Africa. And the reason we took him to Africa -JJ: What’s his mother’s name? ML: His mother name is [Patricia Blackwell?]. And we took him to Zimbabwe because, at that point, Mugabe was president, and we wanted to see Zimbabwe and see what they did. We also saw that Zimbabwe was underdeveloped in some ways. There's two things. One is, it’s one thing to be a guerrilla and another one to be administrator. So you might be a good guerrilla and a good fighter. That does not mean that transcribes or translates to being a good statesman. Right? So kicking out the [00:24:00] British and the white settlers was one struggle, but then how do you form society? And in some ways, Zimbabwe has lost a lot of potential where, how do you organize the farms? How do you organize the transport? How do you keep the roads straight? That's a big issue. That's very complicated. And they were able to have a national flag, but a lot of the wealth in society was not organized properly. And it's a struggle where someone comes from someplace and takes the land from the indigenous people, and they might have it for 100 years, but they never paid for it. And then when one group of people have it, and you've got millions of people who are landless or peasants, and they’re peasants because somebody else has consolidated the land, how do you spread that wealth out? And how do you do that and then keep society going? [00:25:00] How do you keep the farm going, keeping the export and import going, keeping the taxes going? And that didn't go very well in Zimbabwe, but we saw that. And then he also went to Tanzania, and there was a guy named Julius Nyerere who talked about African socialism. And 15 �it's a hard thing to keep all this stuff straight, you know, where you -- One thing he did do extremely well was he decided that we're in Africa, we should speak in African language. Why should we speak English? English is the British language. My grandmother, his grandmother, may not have spoke English well. And so why couldn't you have plays and stories in his grandmother's language? So they decided as a nation to make Swahili the national language. That wasn't very many people's national language, but you gotta choose one. So they made Swahili, and he was [an educator?] and he translated Shakespeare into Swahili. So for commerce or for government, [00:26:00] you had to learn Swahili. So eventually, I took a course in Swahili. So we showed him that. So that way, in his mind, he'll never have the image of, like, the whole Tarzan. Africa is not the South. It's a whole different situation. I mean, whether you talk about South Africa and apartheid and Southern segregation, different situation. So he's also been to South Africa. JJ: What are the differences? ML: The differences are quite different. One is, let's say in South Africa, you had an armed state to 1994, and you had an African majority, but you had a minority that had all the guns and, through the guns and investments, controlled society. And also, [00:27:00] you can devastate a culture because you make it where that culture is not important. So, like, say the question of language. I recently saw a musician named Hugh Masekela, who toured all over the world. He plays the trumpet. He lived in the United States a long time. And he's talked about, you know, a time where his parents like jazz and people all over the world like jazz, 16 �everybody plays jazz. They put their input in it. There's jazz from Argentina, there's jazz from New York, there's jazz from Copenhagen, there’s jazz in South Africa. So everybody hears their own rhythm, and they look at the system, and they put in, so it's a little influence. But he talked about how his parents liked to hear jazz, you know. And so the title of a lot of jazz songs from the United States, of course, are in English, but the music, they listen to the music, and he talked about when they didn't speak English. So people have always spoke [00:28:00] their indigenous or their national languages without speaking the language of, quote, the imperialists or the people who are trying to take over. So in South Africa, even to this day, we have townships that have extreme poverty where people built on hills or mountains. So the word Soweto means Southwest Township. It's a result of bringing people to the city and they had to work in the mines. So for people who are in the metropolitan area, it may take you an hour to get to downtown Johannesburg from Soweto because that's how it's built. So at one point they were trying to make the cities just white and the Blacks and the Coloureds, and that's a whole different thing we're talking about, Coloureds. Where they lived on the surrounding. JJ: Surrounding the city? ML: Surround the city, and you go in to work during the day and then you come back out. JJ: The periphery (inaudible) ML: Right. [00:29:00] Yeah. I don't know if it's the same, the impression that I get, that some urban areas, they want to make it very expensive and very exclusive. 17 �And then the workers just come in, do the work, then they go back out. JJ: Exactly. So in Chicago, that is being done where the poor -- ML: Right. JJ: -- live in the periphery. ML: Right. JJ: They used to live in the central city. ML: Right, they used to live in the center, and it's a reversal. JJ: I'm not saying it's the same, but it's similar to -- ML: Yes, it's similar. And so when you, when you talk to Hugh Masekela and, I mean, a lot of these musicians are like very, very open. They'll talk to you and... Hugh Masekela, I saw him playing. He was playing with a guy from Baltimore who also grew up in Harlem. And they went to school together and somebody got him and some more people together. One of the other students, peers, decided do an album [while there?]. So this guy was from Baltimore, and he was over playing with Hugh Masekela. And Hugh Masekela, I mean, he doesn't carry a entourage, [00:30:00] a manager, bodyguard. So I'm there working as a journalist and he's eating dinner. People stop and interrupt him. And I had this guy from Baltimore because I met him earlier. I said, “You know, he needs somebody, a road manager or something, to tell people, you know, he's trying to eat dinner.” He just stops and talks to ’em, shakes their hand. (laughter) He says, “He's always been like that.” Where a lot of people would say, you know, “I'm trying to eat dinner. I can't talk to you now.” But he's very gracious. But in talking to him and listening to their stories, they'll tell you how, let's say if you were in Chicago, you lived in 18 �Lincoln Park, and they decided, you can't be in Lincoln Park anymore. So they came and bulldozed where Hugh Masekela lived, and they had to go out to some township. Well, I met people in South Africa all over there, and in South Africa they had this thing called Coloureds, which Coloureds means that either you're Indian or you're mixed race. And whenever you put men and women together, somebody gonna like each other. All right? So their concept of [00:31:00] Coloured is your father could be, or mother could be, from Asia. And South Africa has a substantial Asian population. So places like Durban, it has a huge Indian population from India. Where Imma say India because India, one time, was bigger where Pakistan wasn’t separated and all that. So, and Gandhi came there. And Gandhi was an attorney and he was all dressed up, and he had a first-class ticket, and they kicked him off the train. That radicalized him because he was an attorney, and like, hey, I paid my fare. No, you can't get in there even though you speak good British English and you’re an attorney, you know. They kicked him off. So South Africa, all throughout there, you find people who their parents had fertile land and they were taken off. They were removed, and they never get the land back. And so back to Zimbabwe, that's a question of what happens when a community has been [00:32:00] stripped of the land which they had for generations. So they become landless, and in many cases, they become impoverished because land isn’t something that you can create. So South Africa is very different. One, like many people at home, most South Africans spoke another language. They didn't speak English at home. So English was a language for school or for business. So their parents might speak Zulu or Xhosa 19 �or Ndebele. Like President Mandela speaks a lot of languages, but his family's language at home was Xhosa. So they do it, actually, with a [key?]. They had (clicks tongue) Xhosa. And so, yeah, he learned a lot of languages, but that might be the language that your grandmother hollers at you or tell you that dinner’s ready, you know. So there’s a question, because it makes it where they had to decide when they [00:33:00] came to power, when the majority came to power, they have, now, 11 national languages. Where in Tanzania, they said they're going to have one national language, which was Kiswahili, and English was a second language, and then they had regional languages. And as a government, how do you publish reports or stories or textbooks in 11 languages? That's very hard and expensive. And so the legacy of colonialism is awesome. And then people start thinking that their language isn't important because the textbook is in English. So why should I, you know, my language isn't important and nobody writes hardly in my -- So there's a big struggle about national language in South Africa, and then all over the world, because, you know, the impact of the British or even, let's say if you're a mechanic and the instructions are all in English, so you got to learn English to repair this motor because the instructions there as opposed [00:34:00] to instructions in Zulu or Xhosa or Ndebele or something like that. JJ: So that's why you named your son -- ML: Gahiji. JJ: Okay. Well, I mean, that's not the only reason. ML: That’s not the only one. 20 �JJ: You were definitely into studying about your culture. ML: Yeah. I have a degree in African-American studies and political science from University of Illinois. I graduated from there. I was born in Chicago. I am a firstgeneration college student and graduate. So my father and mother didn't graduate from high school. My mother got a GED from, which was now we call it Crane Junior College, which now would be Malcolm X Community College. And my father dropped out, and he never went back. And so going to college was a big thing for my parents, you know. It's a big push because my grandparents, [00:35:00] I would think from talking to them, they spent most of their life working. So probably when you're 10 or 12, you start working on the farm full time. And so you drop out of school maybe in fifth, sixth grade. I don't know. Which means that the issue of higher education, even graduating from high school, for many people up to World War Two or until the ’60s, was a big deal. You know, you graduated from high school. Wow, you might be the first one. So I have an uncle that graduated from high school, went to the military, used his G.I. Bill to go to university. And he was the first one in the family. And I know my family's been in this country 200 years had ever gone to college. And he went to University of Illinois Medical Center, and he was a pharmacist. And he had a pharmacy on the South Side. And a lot of people used the G.I. Bill. G.I. Bill is a bill where you go to the army and part of your salary is saved so that you can go to college, [00:36:00] and you get money when you go to college. You might be able to go four years or something like that. Depends how many years you spent in the military also. So a lot of people used that to advance, whether it's a trade or it's a 21 �university education. So my father didn't have that. So for his kids to go to college, it was a big deal. They want you to go to college to do better. And also many of the plants in Chicago weren't unionized. So the trade union movement in Chicago, if you got with some of the unions, like the carpenters union, the plumbers unions, the electricians union, you had a livable wage, and your children could go to school. You could buy a house. You could live in a safe neighborhood. That's where everybody wants. And the non-union plant -JJ: Safety. Everybody wants safety? ML: Everybody wants safety. Everybody wants to know that if their mother, their girlfriend, or their kids are walking home, nobody's going to shoot at them, nobody's going to steal their purse. [00:37:00] You don't want to see drugs dealing on the corner by your grandmother's house, you know. They don't want to be terrorized. And they also don't want police abuse because the police in Chicago have a big history of being terrorists. Where I've been stopped all over this country, and the policemen will act like gang bangers and throw people up against the wall and search you and harass people and have trumped up charges, make stuff, because even if you win, you lose because you spend so much energy fighting them. So that's a considerable amount of energy where you have to spend thousands of dollars to defend yourself. Well, that money could be going towards good, but they have a in-house attorney. And so, politically, they can keep funding that law department and you're using other monies just to defend yourself. [00:38:00] So that's the police. My experience with the Chicago police has not been good. And it was really interesting when I 22 �went to Cuba and I found police that were humane. I'm like, wow, you know, please play baseball with us. They didn't, you know, try to plant dope on me or... One time the Chicago police took me because I was selling Panther papers in the subway of Chicago, which I wasn't supposed to do. That was against the Panther rules. You know, they said, don't do stuff that’ll get you arrested. JJ: You were a member of the Panthers? ML: I was a member. I was a member of Illinois chapter, Black Panther Party. I was community work, and I sold Panther papers in school and after school, and I sold them on the subway, and the police put me in the berry. So that's part of my point. And we're gonna pause now for a second. (break in audio) ML: I think I started associating with the Panthers, it was like a logical thing. [00:39:00] Paul Coates, who is a publisher, who's a Panther leader in Baltimore, has a book called... He wrote an essay in that. He talks about, he's a librarian by training, he says it was logical. He was a marine. He came back and things weren't better. I mean, he had been overseas fighting or in the service. And so some of the defining acts for me was, I remember when Martin Luther King was assassinated, you know, 1968. And we lived on West Side on Van Buren and Springfield. And people was like, a lot of stuff was burning up. And there was apartment buildings burning up because a lot of cases, businesses on the first floor, and apartment buildings on the top. And my father said, “Man, people are burning up their own neighborhood.” A lot of cases was, it’s never been rebuilt. But there's anger. 23 �JJ: What year was this? ML: This is 1968. You know, and you’s like, well, how do you --- JJ: This is after Martin Luther King? What...? [00:40:00] ML: When he got assassinated in April. JJ: (inaudible) So you're talking about the riots? ML: Right, the riot. And the question is, are you hurting or helping yourself? You know, there's anger, but if you burn up your own community, what do you prove? And also, then there's no place to shop. So when I went to college in ’72, we had a professor named Doctor Beverly, and he made us -- he didn't make us. We took a class called interview techniques. He had us go to the senior citizens homes and the senior citizens homes, you know, he taught us how to talk to people who were 70 or 80 years old, how to dress. You don't put a microphone in their face the first time, but he said -- So I interviewed the lady who was here in the 19-teens, and she talked about after the veterans came back from World War One some of these guys were swimming, and Lake Michigan used to have this imaginary line that [00:41:00] if you were Black, you didn't suppose to cross the line. Right? So then, evidently, somebody's supposed to swim across this line and people brick this Black guy who was a veteran and killed him. Right? Or killed this Black guy. I’m not sure if he was a veteran but he was Black guy. So that started a race riot and people were killed. But she said that what happened is they stopped bringing food in the Black community. And in 1919, the Black community in Chicago was much smaller. Right? Because Chicago is a port city, so people migrated here. Chicago is a city that -- Cities are built. People 24 �just aren’t there forever. Like, you know, even 150 years ago, New York wouldn’t be here. So the Black community, in those days, may have only gone to Racine or something like that. And then on the South Side, maybe to 43rd Street or something. So she said they stopped bringing food in the community. And then we also listened to some tapes from [00:42:00] our professor’s elders, he was from Texas, and listening to his uncles and stuff about what happened in Texas, certain things, you know. So you start learning about power. You know, what’s power? Power isn’t just the vote. Power is economics and control of your environment, and I remembered that. And then my other thing that’s defining, that my brothers used to go to Alabama to the farm to be with the grandparents because that’s very traditional that people would send the kids in the summertime, when they’re small and the parents are trying to work and get established, with the aunts of the grandparents or something. And they would keep them and plus they’d like keeping the kids. And I said, “Well, why didn’t I go to the South, mom, like my big brother?” And my mother said, “’Cause of Emmett Till.” And I didn’t know who Emmett Till was ’cause I was a kid. Right? And then she says, “Other thing, you were born in Chicago, so you don’t know how to act like [00:43:00] around white people.” JJ: Who was Emmett Till? ML: Emmett Till was a 14-year-old African American male, whose father was a veteran and got killed in the war, who went to Mississippi in the ’50s. He had [a lisp?]. He stuttered. Okay? And so a technique that many people do when they stutter, they learned how to kind of whistle. Like one of my uncles had a 25 �pronounced speech impediment. So that’s a technique that therapists use. And so it’s told, and I saw some of his relatives when they did a movie, a guy from Louisiana did a movie with the family, that they goaded him. ’Cause he’s the Chicago, he’s the city boy. But people always talk about the contradictions. So if you’re from the country, the city boy comes home, now he’s in your territory, so he’s dumb and you’re smart. Or reverse if you’re in the city, and you’re from the country. Then you gon’ play jokes on that person. All right. So they’re supposed to have goaded him to [00:44:00] say something to this lady who was an adult and married and managed a store, her and her husband owned the store, or relatives, family owned the store, in Mississippi. I think in Money, Mississippi. And he allegedly said something to her, and they think he whistled at her, which, in the 1950s, whistling at a white woman was, like, forbidden. That was a death sentence. So her husband and his brother, or brother-in-law, came to the cabin, which he was living with his grandfather and uncle, and took him. They came with a loaded .45, like 2 o’clock in the morning. They took him, and he’s 14, and he doesn’t know the rules of the South. He knows the city. And in theory, they’re supposed to scare him, and he was supposed to beg. And he didn’t do that. And they beat him, and they killed him, and then they put a chicken fan -[00:45:00] a gin mill fan around his neck and threw him in the river. And they found him several days later, and the sheriff down there tried to bury him immediately, and his mother said no, and came back. Now, there’s is a funeral home owner called A.A. Rayner. A. A. Rayner buried Fred Hampton. He also buried Emmett Till. So in the ’50s, when he came back, his body just stank so 26 �much because it’s been decomposing in the river, that when they opened it up, his mother, like, fainted, and his face was all disconfigured, and you had all this press about that. A.A. Rayner had the funeral there, and they had people all around the block, you know. And so, as a result, many people stopped sending their kids unescorted to the South because they said if that could happen to somebody else’s kid, they didn’t want that happening. So my mother said that wouldn’t happen. So later, [00:46:00] when I got in high school, I got a book on Emmett Till and I’m like, “Oh, so this is what happened.” So that, you know, those are defining acts. And for the parents, that’s a act of survival ’cause they don’t want their kids to get hurt. So that’s what happened there. And then A.A. Rayner, he also was a person that got the Black Panther Party their first lease. He signed the lease for them. JJ: On Madison? ML: On Madison, yeah. So this guy -- JJ: Madison and Western. ML: Madison and Western. The Panther office was 2350 West Madison. And he was funeral homeowner, and at one point he had at least two locations. So he had one on the West Side and one on the South Side. He signed the lease for them. So the Panthers -- because that’s a way, a lot of people do things in support. They may not make a speech, but in a way, that’s a support where this guy is vouching that, you know, every month this rent is going to be paid and utilities [na na na?]. And so [00:47:00] he did that, and I did not know, until I read a second book, that Fred Hampton’s family knew Emett Till’s family ’cause everybody was 27 �out in the western suburbs. They were in [Lisle?], and, you know, people move back and forth. So those are some of the defining acts. I saw Fred Hampton speak. I never met Fred Hampton. He was a brilliant speaker. They used to have rallies down, which now be would called Grant Park. JJ: So what was your impression? You say was a brilliant...? ML: Oh, yeah. Brilliant, articulate, young, vibrant, energetic, charismatic. And many people are trained, or they horn [sic] their skills in various organizations. So some of them do it through the church, some through the NAACP, some through baseball and football, whatever, you know, some through community groups, Black clubs, you know, associations. So he was [00:48:00] very articulate and very, very well read, and women liked him because he had dimples. He was cute, you know. And we went to his funeral. My mother and I, we went to the funeral. No, my mother did not, she was here when Emmett Till died, but she didn’t go to the funeral if I remember, but everybody saw if you look at the regional and Chicago would be the Chicago Defender, but the regional paper’s where I mean. Even Mayor Daley supported the family because this was a travesty. Mayor Daley was the longtime mayor, the senior Mayor Daley in Chicago, Richard M. Daley. Because, I mean, children, a 14-year-old boy is a 14-year-old boy. That’s ha-- JJ: You’re talking Emmett Till? ML: Emmett Till. JJ: Mayor Daley. ML: Where Mayor Daley supported the family. 28 �JJ: Not Fred Hampton? ML: No, not Fred Hampton. JJ: (laughs) ML: So when Emmett Till’s mother came back, he was supportive. I’m not sure all what he did, but [00:49:00] there’s references in terms of a book, and there’s a video about Emmett Till. There’s a movie that from Emmett Till’s mother, [Mabel?] Till, slash because she got married again. They talked about that, you know, that was just like a travesty. How do you kill him? 14-year-old boy. So those are some defining acts. Also, poverty and a little opportunity, a little education, is a dangerous formula because you see the contradictions, and then you start reading and you know they can be better. So just like, H. Rap Brown had a statement in a speech. He said that white people will make more revolutionaries than he ever could. And he said the reason he said that was in Newark, when they had the urban rebellion, the police was so brutal to people, they would just stop and beat up people. And [00:50:00] that changed people because some people are bystanders. So I’ll give you an example. My oldest brother is not a political person, but he was downtown during the Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1968, and he saw that the police was just beating up young people. So you could be walking from work or going someplace to a coffee shop, and, you know, you watching the demonstrations or something, and they were just randomly hit people whether you had long hair, short hair, you were dark, Black, white, whatever. And that radicalizes people. So the experience of going to Von Steuben -- I went to elementary school at Delano 29 �Elementary School which is on Springfield and Adams, Wilcox. And the school was overcrowded so they start building trailers instead of saying, “Well, we need to build a bigger school.” Right? [00:51:00] And you used to see that some cases people stop people’s growth. And then you go on North Side, and you see the school is clean, the neighborhood is clean. You know? Why can’t I live like this? You know, you start questioning that, and you want to change society. You want to change the world. And I think that’s what a lot of that was about. We wanted to change the world. We didn’t want to become the imperialists. We wanted to everybody have a good life. Everybody should have a clean neighborhood. I was on South Side yesterday and where we were, someone had two guards at the door. And someone got shot two blocks down. That’s why the guy -- we didn’t know it. He said that’s why I got it. So nobody (inaudible) craziness coming in here. But, you know, people shouldn’t have to live like that. That’s a genocide in itself where people are constantly getting shot, [00:52:00] you know. And they’re getting shot because somebody throws up a gang sign or somebody bumps into each other or a drug deal or you got my corner and what you call your territory. So some of that is craziness, and it self-perpetuates. So we wanted to change society and have a new world order, and where everybody woulda had equal share of society. And some things have changed. JJ: Who were some of the people that you were working with in the Panthers? ML: Well, it’s the Panthers, but it’s also a long history. So, for example, when you start reading about the Pullman porters, these guys were talking about, you know, “Hey, we should have some dignity as porters,” or the trade unionists all 30 �over the country, whether they were in Wisconsin or Alabama, New York. You know, “Hey, you know, people should get a livable wage. If you have industrial accidents, [00:53:00] you should get compensated, you shouldn’t get fired.” Those are the kind of things that helped build that, and so the question is, what do you want? So, for example, public housing in Chicago. When I grew up, on the West Side, it was all black. So you start saying, okay. So then I went to New York, our cousin in New York. And public housing in New York, everybody has in. I’m like, wow. (laughter) You know, it’s like, you got Latinos, you got Blacks, you got Asians, you got everybody in public housing because public housing. So politically, somebody starting saying, “Well, where would they have?” But also the infrastructure, because public housing in itself is not bad. It’s the maintenance. If you keep up a building you can keep up a 200-year-old building and it looks good. The White House is how many years old? Hundreds of years old. It’s the maintenance. You keep it up. But some of the dynamics of [00:54:00] the elevators and people and young people and, you know, because urine smells bad. JJ: So that’s interesting. So you’re saying that the city, because they were owned by the city, was not keeping up the maintenance. ML: Nope. The projects on the West Side, I almost got killed in the projects on the West Side ’cause the Panthers came and you were assigned to do what we call community work. So I was passing out leaflets in the projects off of Lake Street and in the 20s. So you go down there, you pass out leaflets talking about different programs. And in the 60s, they had this group called the [Mod?] Squad 31 �and they had these big [Mountain Dew?] hat, the Mod hat. And, you know, Malcolm X, in his book, talked about a rule that you’s never supposed to break. When you break the rules, you get in trouble. You’re always supposed to watch the door. All right? Well, in the projects when I was growing up, they didn’t have [00:55:00] fences all the way up to the top. So in some ways, it wasn’t real safe if you had small kids. So people could throw stuff out. So there’s like a chain-link fence that kind of sits out, and I had my back turned to the building. Someone threw a chair seat, the wood part of a chair seat, down. And I guess the wind wasn’t strong enough and it hit right behind me. Fell right behind me. If the wind was a little further or they had got their angle a little further, and if I don’t know what fall went on, but the impact when it hit the ground now, “Boom!” And everybody, “Oooh.” And you look up, everybody goes back in the project building. I might have been a vegetable, you know. But so the question gets to be, does it make sense having people in 13- and 14-story buildings and 10 apartment buildings, 10 apartments on the same floor, and you don’t have good maintenance? [00:56:00] Now, you had the same almost configuration, but it’s not open, all over Chicago. You got 37 stories and people are paying market rate, and it works, but they get good maintenance. So it’s not necessarily just that -JJ: Because, you know, they kicked a bunch of people out of Cabrini-Green. ML: That’s right. JJ: So what do you think about that? Those were low income (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) 32 �ML: Yeah, I think -- JJ: But there was a drug problem (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) ML: No, definitely. I think maybe three flats, so they’re called row houses may work better than creating a vertical village ’cause in some cases, it’s harder to manage. JJ: So you agree with them kicking them out? ML: I don’t agree with drug lords running public housing. JJ: With who? ML: Drug lords. So, like, for example, in Cabrini-Green at some point, you had [00:57:00] some gangs, like -- I’m not going to mention the gang, but some gangs running the projects. And they had it like a military state where they could go from apartment to apartment. They took wholes of floors out, and, you know, if the police come and they’re going to go to 10A they can move everything down to 15B or something. But also poverty on top of poverty is real hard to break, and sometimes people capitalize on that. And the whole drug business can devastate more people than gentrification because, like, on the West Side there are some open-air drug markets off of Pulaski, and you can see the signals and the guys, you know. What’s going on at twelve, two o’clock in the morning. [00:58:00] You got 14-year-olds, you know, it’s business. All you got to do is sit back and watch. So it scares people away because people don’t want to be around that. JJ: So the drug lords should not run the projects. ML: No, they shouldn’t run the project. 33 �JJ: Because they’re affecting the people that live there. ML: Right, right. JJ: But what happens to the people that live there when the projects close down? ML: They get spread out over the community. JJ: How do you feel about that? ML: They get spread out. JJ: How do you feel about them being spread out? ML: Well, I think that’s a reality of not having control, owning the land. So if you don’t own the land, and you’re in this situation, it’s not working, and they tear down this building that has a hundred units in it, they got to go someplace. So they go to Maywood, and they go to Harvey and East Chicago Heights and Joliet and Aurora and all over, which actually is harder to live in because Chicago has tremendously [00:59:00] well-developed infrastructure for subways. In Chicago, you don’t need a car for most places. You can get on the subway or the bus because you’ve got a network that is world-class so you can -- You got six subway lines or something like that. So if you were going to work in Chicago, you could probably get to work in the city on a subway and a bus. But if you live in Joliet, and you’ve got to come to Chicago, you gotta have a car. So it’s a vicious cycle where -- If you have something that doesn’t work, you gotta change it. So I think the idea of public housing was supposed to be temporary after World War Two, where the veterans coming home supposed to go to public housing while they built houses for them, and then it got transformed. JJ: It was a temporary -- 34 �ML: Temporary. So then it got transformed where it was a permanent thing and people, some cases, multiple generations, [01:00:00] and it didn’t work. And I’m going to get an example for urine. Nobody likes to smell a urine. It stinks. And one person urinates in the elevator, and the elevator is used by 200 people a day, unless you’ve got somebody per shift in maintenance is going to clean that elevator if somebody does that, that affects 200 people that use that or 200 families. So you have to have, you know, really good maintenance. And really, I think that the community needs to own it. You know, you can’t have it where somebody else owns it or controls it, where the maintenance people have to be controlled. And they actually need to be superior when you’ve got more young people who use things and may use it in a rougher environment. You know, young kids, when they’re 16 to 18, using their parents stuff, can be rough on it. But when they get 25 or 30 and they own that car, they’re not so rough on the car. But when it’s dad’s car or mom’s car, [01:01:00] they don’t care. So I think that’s an issue of values and usage. JJ: So where did people go after they left Cabrini-Green? ML: Oh, they went out to Melrose, where they call Roseland, and they got scattered. You just disperse it. You not changing the situation. You’re just taking that concentration and you’re scattering it. So, for example, I’ll give you what I know about. You took kids from Chicago and you transplanted them. Well, if they had bad habits in Chicago, they just took the bad habits to Alabama, Mississippi, or Memphis. You know? Or you take kids from New York, and they go back to where their parents were. So in some cases, when people get in trouble, what 35 �you do? You send ’em to grandma ’cause you say, well, better environment. So that’s why the question is, how do we correct the problem as opposed to transplant, transferring the problem? JJ: What do you suggest [01:02:00] [that would?] correct? ML: I would say how do we correct the problem? JJ: How do we correct the drug lord and -- ML: Well, I think one is you -- JJ: And then, you know, getting people away from that and then investing in them (inaudible) somehow? (inaudible) ML: I think you got to get people where, tap their imaginations, where they do things that excite them, that interest them. And also give them an alternative ’cause gangs give you a structure. People like structure. Church is a structure. Gangs is a structure. Political organizations is a structure. You got a hierarchy, you got a culture, you got some camaraderie and some brotherhood and some cohesiveness. Like, we’re going to do this together. We’re going to support each other. So I think that there’s a lot of opportunity in the Green Movement. I think there’s a lot of opportunity where people can have work, livable skills. JJ: In the Green Movement? ML: Green Movement, solar energy, water. I’ll give you the example. Humboldt Park, Garfield Park, Douglas Park, [01:03:00] they’re all beautiful parks. They got lagoons. They got fieldhouses. They got a lot of land. Most of our churches have land, but it’s just grass. So why couldn’t we have community gardens there? Most of our elders know how to garden. They grew up on farms, and 36 �plus it gives them something to do, and then they can transfer those skills to the youth. But if the youth are going to be motivated to do something, they’re not going to sit at home and watch TV ’cause that’s not interesting. We’re social people. We’re pack animals. So people like being around other people. So they gonna hang out with people similar to them. So we’ve got to be able to tap that energy and that imagination ’cause I know people can figure out how to break in anything, but I also know people who can build anything. So the question is how to tap that imagination and do it so it’s good because one of the things I was seeing this rapper named Jay-Z, who’s married to Beyoncé, who’s saying that he was selling drugs, but he realized that there was only gon’ [01:04:00] be two conclusions to that. He was either gonna die ’cause something was gonna wrong because it’s a tough business or he’s gonna go to jail ’cause eventually if you selling drugs somebody either going to tell on you or the police gon’ stop you or something’s gonna happen. So the question is, how do we prevent that? I mean, historically there’s always been drugs. Alcohol is a drug. People have been drinking booze and wine and beer since immoral [sic]. The question is how to make it where -- Maybe we need to look at what’s penalized, but also, it’s a double-edged sword because I don’t think marijuana should be penalized. But then I think heroin is bad and we shouldn’t have -- heroin has devastated Chicago, New York, and all over. JJ: Well, let me rephrase the question. Okay, so [01:05:00] ’cause you were emphasizing drugs and the war, drug lords and all that at Cabrini-Green. ML: Mm-hmm. 37 �JJ: Do you think that the city, their intentions, was it just to get rid of the drug lords or to get rid of that, those people that lived there? ML: Oh, get rid of the people because drugs aren’t just in Cabrini-Green. JJ: Why do you say that? ML: Well, one is land, proximity, you know, real estate people say location, location, location. If you’re a mile of the lake in almost any city, after a while, it gets to be valuable. At one point, it gets, and it’s no longer fashionable. So at one point, Cabrini-Green, the area west of University of Illinois off of Halsted was not preferred area. It was run down. Now, it’s nice. So they want that area back. Just like most areas right around the harbor at one point. It goes in disrepair. It has all run down [01:06:00] warehouses. So the question is getting that area back and putting it to use because it gets to be fashionable ’cause you can’t make land anymore. You never could make land. But people don’t want to be an hour and a half away to go to work when they could be 15 minutes or 20 minutes away from where they work ’cause the jobs are in the core of the city, many of them are. So I think Cabrini-Green and part of the West Side, Imma talk about the West Side in particular, some of it’s been gentrified because of the location and the people who were there were expendable, and they didn’t upkeep it. Everybody’s gotta do upkeep. It doesn’t matter where you are in the world. If you have a stadium, it’s a soccer stadium, football stadium, you gotta upkeep it. You gotta keep it together. I mean, some chairs are gonna be broken. You gotta replace ’em. You gotta do some paint. You gotta fix some bricks and all that. And once that goes down, and I think that was the failure of some of the public 38 �housing and also some [01:07:00] of the -JJ: So they didn’t upkeep the security for one thing. ML: That’s right. JJ: Because I recall when there weren’t drug lords there. ML: Right, right. JJ: So they didn’t upkeep the security. And maybe that was in their -- ML: Best interest. JJ: Could you say that it might have been in their best interest? ML: Oh yeah, because you can -- JJ: To have those drug lords there? ML: Oh, yeah. JJ: Or what do you -- I don’t want to put words in your mouth. (inaudible) P1: ’Cause those buildings weren’t meant to be permanent, and they became permanent. ML: Is that gon’ bleed in? JJ: Yeah. ML: Okay. JJ: (inaudible) P1: It’s a whole ’nother (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) ML: Well, what happens is -- JJ: Did you wanna stop? Or do you want her -- ML: No, I (inaudible) JJ: -- [to come in?]? 39 �ML: The drug lords -- when you’re distracted, when you nod, and all of us are with sin, so I’m not going to say I’m not -- without sin, you may not be dealing with the issue. Right? And I’ve always said there’s very few people in this country to have pilot [01:08:00] license and big boats to bring stuff in from Colombia. So there’s a market. And so, I mean, there’s almost a scene from the Godfather movie that says, “Well, we’re going to keep this in the dark people’s community.” You know? And in other communities, it’s just hidden. It’s in bars and taverns. So maybe people aren’t on the street and giving gang signals and saying, “You want ones, twos, what do you want?” So, I mean, drugs are all over this country. But if you got people that’s doped up, then they’re not a threat. A good example, David Hilliard, who was the chief of staff of the Black Panther Party, talks about in his book that he got a habit, he got a drug habit. He became addicted to drugs, and one policeman came and saw him all doped up. He said, “You know, one point he, this guy was -- we were afraid of him. We were terrified of him. This guy was like really a powerful guy.” But once he got to be a junkie, you know, he wasn’t a threat anymore. So, [01:09:00] David Hilliard, make sure everybody understand, he fought that. ’Cause addiction is a fight. I mean, you know, it’s just like any other thing whether it’s cigarettes or coffee or food. You got to fight it every day. And so he overcame that. But he admits that, you know, it took a lot for him. He had some bad periods. So the question is, how can we prevent people from doing it so we don’t have those results? And then how can we maintain what we have? Because people need housing, and if it’s torn up when it’s 15 stories, it’s going to be torn up when it’s 3 stories ’cause everybody 40 �got to do maintenance. JJ: So tell me more about your work in the Panthers. ML: Okay. I went to Von Steuben High School, and I played basketball. So I was on the basketball team and the cross-country team. And I got interested in politics. So [01:10:00] having had parents that were transplants, that in itself is a political act. When people decide to move -- or it’s economic act. A lotta times economics ’cause people moved because they get a better way of life. And we would go South. So I didn’t realize until like 18, all the dynamics. I knew some of them, but some of them, your parents mask. So we never stopped. You know, and sometimes your parents just gloss it over. Like we would drive from Chicago to Alabama. It’s 14 hours. And the way that your parents do it is, it’s division of labor. So there’s generally a driver and a manager of the children. My father was a driver and my mother was the manager of the children. So on Fridays, or the day before, my dad would be gettin’ the car together. My mother would be gettin’ the food together and packing the clothes. And [01:11:00] on Friday, my dad would come home from work. So he got off, let’s say, at five o’clock. And my dad worked in a machine shop, a non-unionized machine shop. So he got off around 5:00. He would go to bed early, eight, nine o’clock, and we would get up at three or four o’clock, and we’d get on the road ’cause at many times people didn’t have air-conditioned cars. So we’d go in the summertime, generally. And so it’s 14 hours, so if you leave at four o’clock in the morning, you’re getting there at six o’clock in the evening. And until maybe the ’70s, there was segregation in the South, so you can’t stop every place, and eat every place, or even use the 41 �bathroom. So what we had to do was we always took the road on the interstate. And so you take the interstate to Birmingham. JJ: How old were you when you’re describing now? ML: I was up to 16, 18. JJ: And how did you feel about that segregation? [01:12:00] ML: You didn’t like it. You didn’t like it because what you found is that you’re -- JJ: It was a way of life back then (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) ML: It was a life. But see, it was conflict because in Chicago, you learn you got to talk, speak up for yourself. You don’t lower your head ’cause if you lower your head, that means you’re being meek, and you gotta look people in the eye. Otherwise, one, you can’t see what they’re doing, and two, people think that they’re over you. In the South, people become meek, and they lower their head. And some is an act. JJ: Humble. It’s a humble act. ML: It’s a humble act. Yeah. But it’s a act of survival. JJ: Right. It’s an act of survival, also? ML: Yeah. JJ: I mean, we lowered our head it was showing respect for the other person. ML: Yeah. JJ: But here was a different situation. ML: Yeah, if you lower your head in the city, people figure -- JJ: Yeah. You’re being meek. Yeah. ML: You’re being meek and people would get meek. You know, the church talk about 42 �the meek will inherit the earth. Well, in the city, the meek gets kicked in the butt. JJ: Right (inaudible) ML: So you didn’t like it because you saw, like, when you went to the South you saw, really, [01:13:00] a lot of poverty. You know, our parents used to say they ate better in the South because the food came right off the land, but you saw a lot of housing that was really bad. You saw the segregation in the medical facilities. So you saw the schools where... When we’re watching TV as kids, George Wallace was the governor of Alabama, and he says “Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” Well, the question is, taxes are the same. If you make 10,000 dollars, you fill out your tax forms, you fill out something, or you go to a grocery store and you buy 100 dollars’ worth of groceries, whatever the county and the state taxes, you pay taxes. So why shouldn’t everybody have the same thing? So, you know, you start dealing with that, and you realize it doesn’t have to be this way. And going to Von Steuben, we met students who were Puerto Rican, who were Mexican, who had come from different countries. We met Arabic students. So one of the things that were interesting to us is we met this guy who was [01:14:00] from Egypt. You know, he was a really nice guy, and he was treated like horse manure. We kept saying, “Dad, he just got here. He just got in this country, so why do people dislike him?” We didn’t understand the Arab-Israeli conflict, right? We didn’t really, at that point, initially, understand about Palestinians and being displaced. But we knew that we were in this school, and this guy was a nice guy. He was brown skinned, so in this country, he would be considered a lot of things. You know, ’cause 43 �Arabs, especially on the coast, they’re mixed. Some of ’em look white, some of ’em look Black, some of ’em look brown. In Spanish, they would probably call him moreno. You know? And he was treated bad. And then we had this guy who was Haitian, and he had a French name. Eduardo, I don’t remember his last name. Now he’s a minister on the South Side. We’re like, why are people discriminating against this guy? You know, I mean, he speaks French at home. (laughs) [01:15:00] You know? But we’re here, and we’re supposed to be this really good school. And we also realized that in our situation -JJ: Yeah, who was discriminating? ML: They were discriminating. Yeah. JJ: What do you mean? ML: Well, what happened is you can see who gets assignments and who has access to different things. So, like the importance of holidays. Every culture decides what’s important, and what we realized is like after Martin Luther King was assassinated and they had this big push for the holidays. We remember because we were in a predominantly Jewish (inaudible), the high Jewish holidays, they would be almost official holidays even though they’re not. Most the teachers would be gone, the students would be gone, so the people who weren’t Jewish would be there, and the substitutes wouldn’t really teach. And we like, “Hmm this is interesting. So why don’t we have any holidays for Latinos or for Blacks?” Right? So when they had this big national push for having Martin Luther King’s Day, you know, it got to be interesting. But the defining act for us [01:16:00] in high school was in 1970 when four students were killed at Kent 44 �State, the whole school went out. We all demonstrated in protest. A couple weeks, a couple months later, two students were killed at Jackson State, and the white students didn’t go out. We were, like, really mad. Like hold, wait a second, you need to talk about this. At Kent State you valued that these were students that got killed by the National Guard. Same National Guard, different state, that killed students in Jackson, Mississippi, and you don’t support that. So what’s going on? You know, now people didn’t want to talk about that, but we’s like, “Hey, this is --” I mean, we’re talking about injustice anywhere is wrong, you know. So that was very interesting to us in terms of that broke a lot of alliances because it was it was a very conscious act. Maybe they didn’t know it, and we were all students, but we saw that as betrayal. Yeah. JJ: Sounded like they were a little [01:17:00] political and that sort of -- ML: Yeah, yeah. JJ: Yet, even though they were little political, they still had that prejudice or something? ML: Yeah, because, see, we thought -- JJ: I don’t if that’s the term but... ML: And the issue to us with Kent State was not their color, was the fact that they were students and they were protesting Vietnam War. JJ: Right, they were protesting the Vietnam War. ML: So if you kill people in Kent State, that’s wrong. So the Black students, all the students went out. When Jackson State came, only the Blacks and the Latino students went out. We’re like, “Hey, what’s going on?” You know? And I don’t 45 �remember everybody who was killed in Kent State, but the issue was not about race. We’re all Americans. This was wrong. JJ: Right. ML: You know? JJ: The Vietnam War was wrong. So we were really upset about that. And also the whole emphasis and belief, you know. [01:18:00] Giving your children to people is a very delicate balance. You know? It’s a family issue, but who do you have that teaches your children their values and their language and their skills? I don’t think, if I had to do it again, I would not necessarily go to Von Stueben. The amount of time that I spent on public transportation was awesome, and I’m not sure if that was a supportive environment. I’m not saying that Marshall would have been better. And I don’t know because my brother went to Marshall, and he’s a pilot. So he learned some good skills. But at Marshall, you did have more gangs, there’s more tension. So I don’t know, you know, you made choices. Those are the choices I made, and that’s what I did. And so I’ve learned to make lemonade outta lemons. So, you know, that’s what I did. JJ: What do you mean? What do you mean? ML: Whatever situation you try to build something from it. So, for example, I’m here in my mother’s house and there’s a vacant house next door. I’m gon’ cut all the bushes on her side of the [01:19:00] fence and on the other side of the fence because it’s one community. I could say, “Well, I’m just gon’ cut the bushes on my mother’s side of the fence.” But bushes are bushes. You can’t see into the next yard or they need to be trimmed and maintenance. So I have to maintain, 46 �even though my mother doesn’t live next door, I have to maintain some of that because the house has been in foreclosure probably for five years. And I call every three months, the city. The city cuts the grass and they clean up a little bit. JJ: Next door, you mean? ML: Right. Right. Next door. Otherwise, you would have rats and rodents, and once rats and rodents are there, they’re just going to come in the whole neighborhood. So you gotta do something for everything. JJ: Is there a lot of foreclosures around there? ML: Oh, yeah, a lot of foreclosures ’cause, at one point, in Maywood, they had American Can. That was a big company. JJ: Oh, yeah. ML: People worked there. That closed. And then the question is, can people find jobs to replace that? A lot of times they couldn’t. And then there was some of the auto factories that closed [01:20:00] around here. And also there was a drug problem in Maywood. A friend of mines, two of her sons were killed right ’round the corner. And then one time, one boy was killed ’cause they shot brother A when they were looking for brother B ’cause, you know, that’s what happens with the whole drug business. So Maywood has a problem with foreclosures. They have a problem with drugs, violence, and I assume some of it, lotta drugs is organized, so you have a structure. You know, you have the dealers, and you also have the enforcement. You gotta have control ’cause it’s business. So it’s a difficult thing. In a perfect world, we wouldn’t have this drug situation, but we got it. Now we gotta deal with it. So my concept is try to give young people things to 47 �do that’s constructive, and they can avoid some of that. I mean, are they gon’ get high? Yeah, they still gon’ get high [01:21:00] ’cause people been gettin’ high for eternity. The question is where it does not overcome the community. So, you know, if you can have community programs, literacy programs, athletic programs, industrial programs, learning how to make film, photography, soccer leagues, baseball leagues, you know, all things that people can have a whole 360 degrees environment. Like, for example, when I grew up in Garfield Park, we never went in the park after night. When it was night, if I was coming someplace, even when I was an activist, to this day, I don’t walk through Garfield Park at night. Not by myself. No, that’s no man’s land because what happens is you could be mugged. You know, you could be a tough guy, but tough guy is not anything but four other guys and they got guns and knives. So [01:22:00] I would either walk around the park the long way, or you have to walk on the street above the park where the buses are because if you walk down in the park, the park is dark. So, you know, Garfield Park and Humboldt Park, a lot of them are natural, really nice resources. The question is how to put them to good use. And that’s a struggle. That’s a struggle. Imma say something about Spanish. What I found is that, you know, language opens up doors because also languages, it’s concepts. And the more languages you speak, the more you’re in tune to cultures and environment. So Langston Hughes was a poet. He went to Spain and became good buddies with Nicolás Guillén, [01:23:00] who was the poet laureate of Cuba. But what happened is Langston Hughes’s father was an attorney in Cleveland, and he didn’t like the United States. So he left, like many people. When they don’t like 48 �some place, they leave, especially if they have some opportunity to leave. So his father lived in Mexico City most of his life. So in the summers, Langston Hughes went to Mexico. Now his Spanish wasn’t good. He never said it was good, and Nicolás Guillén said it wasn’t good. But he could function. So he went to Spain in the 1930s, late 1930s, as a reporter that covered war against Franco, the Mexican Republic War in Spain, the Republican cause. A lot of people did all over the world. And that’s where he met Nicolás Guillén. And that opened up some more of the Americas to him because he became a longshoreman so he could travel to war. So he went to Europe and went to Soviet Union and all these places, and he wrote about what he saw. But [01:24:00] inadvertently, because his father lived in Mexico, he got to be functional in Spanish. He never went to school in Spanish. And then he could talk to Nicolás Guillén, and Nicolás Guillén translated some of his poetry from English to Spanish because he had certain rhythms and the Cubans had certain rhythms. So every culture has certain rhythms that are germane to that environment. So I think it’s important that people acquire as many languages as they can, like as many skills. And I took Spanish, actually, in college, and it helped. But what I saw ’cause some of my neighbors on the West Side were from Belize, and so their mothers would speak to the family in Spanish, especially when the mothers wanted to holler at them or didn’t want them to know what they were saying. They would speak to the aunts in Spanish. And then when I was in high school, we saw people who were Africans American who were bilingual. So okay. And then I started meeting people in [01:25:00] college whose first language was Spanish and then English 49 �was a second language. (break in audio) JJ: So we’re talkin’ about language. ML: When I got to University of Illinois, the Black Panther Party had a cadre. All right? And so they tell you which professors were progressive and who you should take. So some of the ones they mentioned were Doctor Blout, James Blout, who was a geographer. And then there was Doctor Peter Knauss. He was the political science department, and other people. And so Peter Knauss, he wrote a book called Daley, Chicago: One Party State. And the university didn’t initially give him tenure and the students was like, rebel, they were striking and all this. JJ: Because of the book? ML: Oh yeah, because he was saying that Chicago was like a dictatorship. JJ: Okay. And who was this? ML: Peter Knauss. He’s dead now. He died of AIDS. But he was very progressive. And then he wrote about Ben Bella in Algeria. And so he was like -- JJ: So he [01:26:00] said Chicago was a dictatorship under Daley? ML: Yeah, under Daley. He wrote it out and he, you know, he’s a scholar, so he wrote it all out and he said that Daley, the way he ran it, he could be a dictator in any country ’cause he had a system. And he wrote about Ben Bella in Algeria. And James Blout wrote about agriculture and economics. So he’s the one that really taught us about land use. You know, he was saying, “You gotta look at how farmers look at stuff.” And then he wrote stuff about where was capitalism 50 �developed. And he talked about different port cities all over the country. So he expanded our horizon, and he was a good scholar. Both of ’em were good men. JJ: But the party was saying these are certain people you should -- ML: Yeah, yeah, you should take because -- JJ: Did they have a listing of people or...? ML: Yeah, it was like a informal thing, but they would tell you who... I mean, whatever your major was, you gotta take these courses, but you also want to take these professors ’cause [01:27:00] these professors helped broaden your experience. And what the party did was made you read. You had to read everybody. So we read Che Guevara. We read Pablo Freire, the Brazilian, about literacy. We read Amílcar Cabral, West African. We read about Mozambique. We read Engels and Marx. We read Hegel. We read Russian philosophers. We read Chinese philosophers. We read about the South. And so they expanded because they said that, you know, to understand Chicago, you gotta understand the world ’cause all that comes together. Right? So I met [DeBlout?], we got to be friends. And that’s where I learned about Don [Viso?] Campos. JJ: Don Pedro Campos? ML: Don Pedro Campos. And he was the head of the nationalist movement. You know? And I didn’t know anything. [01:28:00] I didn’t learn that in school. And they started to say, well, you should come to these meetings and come to this. And you learn about the history of Puerto Rico and you learn more about the history of Dominican Republic and Haiti and stuff. As an anecdote, this is a true story. At one point, Hollywood decided they were going to make a movie about 51 �the Haitian Revolution, and they were going to have Anthony Quinn work, be the character for the leader of Haitian Revolution. The leaders of the Haitian Revolution, some of ’em was Toussaint Louverture and Dessalines. Okay. All these were former men who were enslaved. Anthony Quinn’s a good actor, but he doesn’t look like that. (laughter) So you could find somebody else that looked like him, but they were gonna have them, you know, and that. And people say, “Oh, no, no, no, no, you can’t do that.” You know, when they write the history, when there’s movies about Puerto Rico, there’s actors that should represent that history. So you don’t need to have somebody that probably doesn’t speak Spanish and does not [01:29:00] portray that character. I mean, I understand about The Old man and the Sea, you know, even though there’s Hemingway wrote that novel, and there’s two different people played that guy. I don’t know ’cause that’s fiction. But Toussaint Louverture was a African man, and Anthony Quinn was an Irish, Mexican-American. And he’s a great actor. And he’s played a lot of roles, but he shouldn’t have played that one. The NAACP, a lot of people said, “Oh, no. Hell no. We’re not gon’ do that.” So that stopped that. Because what happens is you start getting historically inaccurate figures. So DeBlout wrote a lot of good stuff in terms about, not just this country, but about the world and expanded ’cause you had to say, okay, so what does this mean about the port cities of the world. You know? And Knauss wrote about Ben Bella and about Algeria and what’s the successes and the failures? ’Cause everybody has successes and failures. And [01:30:00] so I joined the organization called Puerto Rican Solidarity Committee, PRSC. So I started going to different meetings and 52 �learning different people, and they had a place on the north side called New World Resource Center. And [Cindy?] was there and a lot of good people. I don’t remember everybody’s names now. And you learn about information. And then I went to Puerto Rico. First time, I went on a tour for a couple weeks, and it was interesting. It was interesting seeing similarities, difference. A lot of things in Puerto Rico are totally not like United States. I mean, one, the national language is Spanish. Now, the United States can try all they want to, but you’re talkin’ about basically you had to cut people’s heart out for them to stop speaking Spanish because that is the national language. It’s like my mother, if I went to Germany, she’s still going to speak [01:31:00] English ’cause that’s her first language, and that’s how she thinks, and that’s how she cooks and all that. That’s intrinsic. And Puerto Rico is different. It’s not the United States. I mean, you can see Puerto Rican communities here, which is an extension, but it has a different beat, a culture, a different national identity. And I think that’s one of the things that, when you come to United States... Many of the Puerto Ricans told me, you know, “In Puerto Rico, I’m Puerto Rican. In the United States, I get to be this, that, and the other, all these subcategories.” You know? And they didn’t like that. Or, “I get to be exotic.” You know, in Puerto Rico, I’m just Puerto Rican.” Okay? I went to Utado and Vieques and Cabo Rojo, and we went to the Grito de Lares. JJ: (inaudible) ML: We went to Old San Juan. In Spanish, they call it San Juan. They don’t call it Old San Juan, that’s a English thing. And when we went to Vieques, that was 53 �really interesting because Vieques is different from the other island. Every island is different, but the whole military presence is awesome. I mean, it’s like, you can see it. It’s like this huge U.S. Marine or Navy base, which is now is not over, but when you have something, some cases, that is just like having anything that’s polluted. It takes a long time to clean it up, you know, and the military presence. And also, a lot of times, young soldiers aren’t necessarily good for the environment. You know? I mean, they’re rough, they destroy a lot of stuff. So that was interesting and also realizing you’re so (Spanish) [01:32:55 - 1:33:10]. So it was difficult, you know, understanding everything. And sometimes you miss stuff, you miss subtleties because your Spanish isn’t deep. But also, some things are reverse where some public universities are the elite, and the private are the secondary. You know, the whole thing the University of Puerto Rico. And you saw, like, the waterfront areas of Puerto Rico. Some of those are in real need of repair. You know? They’ve been in disrepair for a hundred years. But also the culture. So it was very interesting seeing Puerto Rico. And then also, when I went back [01:34:00] the second and third time, I was on my own, and I would catch the bus. And sometimes, I would get lost because I couldn’t understand the bus driver because my Spanish wasn’t good enough where, you know, I go ask the bus driver for directions and he would speak, and he was speaking clear Spanish. I couldn’t understand. I was like, “What did he say? You speak so fast.” You know? I went to the grocery store, and I had to get (Spanish). And I would get confused when I went to get a [key made?], you know, and they’re like, “This guy doesn’t speak good Spanish. Where are you 54 �from?” So it was good, but it showed me some differences, and I understood also another level of white migration because my parents moved from the South because they wanted a better life. And so you saw public housing and San Juan, you saw drugs in San Juan, you saw a fast pace in San Juan, but you also saw a lotta beauty, a lot of beauty, a lotta culture, lotta pride, lotta emphasis on Taíno [01:35:00] culture. So one time I got lost, and I walked all over to San Juan because I didn’t want to ask the bus driver for directions anymore, but I could figure my way how to get back. So it took me an hour, hour and a half to walk, but it was okay. And then I went to Cuba. And the first time I went five and a half weeks, and I didn’t wanna come back. If they had let me stay, I would have stayed. You know, I was like, “Yeah.” And it was interesting and very different. I didn’t see the racial tensions. I met a lot of people, and I was able to move around by myself. And I met Black Cubans, white Cubans. I met Cubans. I went to block parties. People dancing is dancing. People all over the world like to dance and they like to drink rum and party and eat well, you know. So all that’s, if you can -- everybody functions at that same level. I met a lot of foreign students who were in Cuba taking classes, medical school, engineering school, or whatever [01:36:00] school. So then you learned that you had to really work on your Spanish because then Spanish is their language for which they’re communicating because they may come from El Salvador, but they might also come from Guinea-Bissau. So that was a good experience, and... Yeah. Sometimes you wonder, what would Cuba be like and Puerto Rico be like if they were associated with United States? Cuba, a lot of times they had to get stuff 55 �from Venezuela, Argentina to get to Cuba. They’ll buy flooring towel because they can’t buy it from Miami. And they had to spend so much money on national defense. What would it be like if they didn’t have to spend that? JJ: When was the first time you heard about the Young Lords? ML: I heard about the Young Lords because the Young Lords and their association with the Black Panther Party. [01:37:00] Chicago is a segregated housing stock, but people moved back and forth. And also young people, like in our school, there was a woman who lived on the South Side was totally bilingual. So she was African American, but she basically hung out with the Latino students because she spoke Spanish. Her daddy was a Spanish professor at Northeastern. So we assumed that her mother was Latino. We never met her mother ’cause, you know. We met her dad because her dad was a big-time professor. And she went to the University of Puerto Rico for college. Right? So the Panther paper, and I wrote for the Panther paper, the Panther paper encouraged chapters to send stuff, and they had a creative page. I used to submit poetry to the Panther paper, and they would have articles about different parts of the country. And so Young Lords and the Panthers and Rising Up Angry, Young Patriots, I’d use them [01:38:00] in combination. Had a association, a alliance, a union, a fellowship. So that’s where I heard about them, because I always read the Panther paper. And people model successful programs after each other. So the idea of the Panthers programs with the breakfast program, to me, extended from the long history of people taking control of an environment. So when you looked at Cuba, they had a literacy program. 56 �When you looked at Mozambique and Angola and Guinea-Bissau, when they kicked the Portuguese out, then they tried to set up somethin’. So you gotta set up schools. You gotta set up food distribution. So when the Panthers came up with the breakfast program, that made sense because there was a need. And in the programs about sickle cell anemia or free health clinics ’cause there’s a need. Or even on the North Side, they talked about black lung. [01:39:00] Lotta coal miners have issues with their lungs because of the smoke. And if you’re a coal miner, you’re a coal miner, whether you from Appalachia or you from Alabama, you know. You’ve been in those mines all those years and you’ve got black lung. That’s affecting your health. So I think the Panther programs were modeling after that because there’s a rich history of that. And that’s why going back to Pablo Friere, he was Brazilian, but they talked about how to learn, how to teach people learn, and why to learn, and what does education mean. Because, some point, kids are turned off. Like, I took French in school and I didn’t think it was important ’cause I figured I would never go to France. Now I’m gonna think like, “God, I wish I had taken French more seriously.” Because our life experiences was Chicago to Alabama. Me going to Montreal or Haiti or France was just not in the view, you know. But maybe it would be in my son’s view. And then, too, is interesting in popular culture. In Shaft, they talk about the Young Lords. (laughs) JJ: In where? [01:40:00] ML: There’s a movie, Richard Roundtree, Shaft. JJ: Oh, I didn’t know they talked about -- 57 �ML: Yeah, there’s a whole thing about, you know, “What’s going on? Is it the Panthers? Is it the Young Lords?” Because the Young Lords in New York and Chicago was a significant movement. So what we saw was that the Panthers have a structure. Every organization has a structure, and we borrow from that, about how to organize. And the breakfast program, we all learned from. So I worked on the breakfast program on the West Side, like at the Better Boys Foundation, and I would do it on days that school was out or somethin’ like that. And I think what happens is, you know, we just start learning ’cause what happens is the public schools in Chicago didn’t teach us about Latin America. I mean, they didn’t teach us about Africa or the South. It was just this kinda sterile version of the history of the world. And then you start picking it up because, let’s say, [01:41:00] I met people in the Puerto Rican Socialist Party. And this lady named [America Santini?], or [Mecca?] Santini. JJ: (inaudible) ML: Yeah. And then you start picking up stuff about Puerto Rico and its history and what happened in 54 and people who were in prison for 40 years because they had an operation in Congress. They were rebelling. And what does that mean? You know, what does that mean the history of the world? Why do people do that? You know, ’cause that’s not the first time in the world people have done stuff. They did stuff because they’re saying, “We don’t agree with what’s going on. And we don’t want to be--” And also, like, Mecca told me about on Don Pedro Albizu Campos. I didn’t know about him. I didn’t learn about that in school. And so then you start reading about him, and sometimes it sinks in later. 58 �You know, you go back and you say, yeah. You look at him and you look at his family or you look at [Antonio Maceo?] or [Amiro?] [01:42:00] Zapata. JJ: Emiliano Zapata. Yeah. ML: Yeah. And you start looking at why are these people in struggle? What’s the history of the world, and how it all interconnected, right? And so that probably helped get my interest into going to Puerto Rico. And I’m trying to think, had I gone to Cuba? I went to Cuba in ’77, and in between ’77 and ’83, my second trip I had gone to Puerto Rico. JJ: Final thoughts? ML: My final thoughts is that it’s one world. Like in a onion, we got layers of it. And the more that we try to cooperate and understand each other, the better it is. And each day, if you can try to do some good acts to make the world better, and to sustain it. And to be honest, and look at [01:43:00] the world as it is, not how you imagine it is. And take it from there. And enjoy the sunshine. (laughter) JJ: Yeah. ’Cause it’s raining. Yeah. END OF VIDEO FILE 59 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3a0164dc47be0b9ccefef2e7953fc7bb.mp4 7a25a7a1b31dd639dac4bb19b4f2f988 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 Melvin Lewis 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_Lewis_Melvin Title A name given to the resource Melvin Lewis video interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lewis, Melvin Description An account of the resource Melvin Lewis was born in Chicago but today lives in Fayetteville, North Carolina. His parents live in Maywood, Illinois. This is the same town where Fred Hampton of the Black Panther Party (BPP) grew up. It is also where, at Maywood’s City Hall, there is a recreation center with a swimming pool named after the slain leader of Chicago’s BPP. There is also a street named “Fred Hampton Way” and a bust of Chairman Fred Hampton. Mr. Lewis is a Chicago Black Panther and freelance writer, a master gardener and certified beekeeper. His recent articles include “Out Loud and Into Print” in the May/June 2012 issue of City View (NC). He writes on music and his publications include features on “Hootie and the Blow Fish,” and singer and song writer “Rene Marie in Pluck!” He has written and broadcast twelve vignettes about civil rights for FM Radio stations 107.7 and 91.9 FM and conducted interviews on horticulture, history and art. Mr. Lewis has also won the Significant Illinois Poet Award and is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is currently assisting with the Chicago Black Panther History Project. Their motto is, “ We will tell our story, in our own words; Illinois Panthers speak for themselves.” 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. 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 2012-08-26 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/65e4fa90b551daf302f4f605c12f1632.pdf 1540a035cd167c081a4da38789840edc PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Carmen de Leon Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 5/14/2012 Biography and Description English Carmen De Leon is a Young Lord who grew up in New York City and today lives in Loíza, Puerto Rico. A strong advocate for women, Ms. De Leon worked closely with Young Lord Richie Pérez on a range of education and youth centered programs. In her oral history, she recalls her days working with the Young Lords. Ms. De Leon discusses how the Young Lords were infiltrated by government agents and how “ideology” was utilized to factionalize and create divisions within the Movement, including encouraging takeovers, discrediting, and purging leaders. She vividly describes members being taken hostage as well as how she herself was purged from the Young Lords. Her interview provides important insights into how these repressive tactics were carried out and how they ultimately destroyed the connections between the Young Lords and the barrio base. Spanish Carmen De Leon es una Young Lord que creció en la cuidad de Nueva York y ahora vive en Loiza, Puerto Rico. Soportará fuerte por mujeres, Señora De Leon trabajo cerca con el Young Lord Richie Pérez en programas de educación para jóvenes. En su entrevista comparte sus memorias sobre los días que trabajo con los Young Lords. Señora De Leon habla de cómo los Young Lords fueron infiltrados por �agentes del gobierno y como “idolología” fue utilizado para nublar y hacer divisiones dentro del movimiento. Esto también incluye soportando unos que tomen poder y descreditando los líderes. Con vivacidad describe como los miembros fueron tomados como rehén y como ella misma fue purgada de los Young Lords. Su entrevista nos da una prospectiva importante en cómo estos tácticos fueron pasados y últimamente destruyo las conexiones dentro de los Young Lords y el barrio. �Transcript JOSE JIMENEZ: (inaudible) the same as (inaudible). Ready [John?]. P1: Recording. JJ: Okay, go ahead. CARMEN DE LEON: My name is Carmen [Iris?] de Leon [Quiñones?]. I was born on August 13, 1955 at Bellevue Hospital in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City. JJ: Okay. And who were your parents? CL: My mom, her name is [Paula?] Quiñones. And my father, his name was José Antonio de Leon. JJ: (inaudible) were they also born in New York? CL: My father was born in Juncos, Puerto Rico, and my mom in Gurabo, Puerto Rico. But they did meet in New York. JJ: They met in New York? CL: Yeah. JJ: So what year did they (inaudible) CL: My mom was 16 when she arrived to New York, and she’s 79 now. JJ: [’30?] or something? CL: Yeah. Yeah, she [00:01:00] got to New York, I believe, like 1949, something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. JJ: And your father also came? CL: He was there. I don’t know what year my father... 1 �JJ: (inaudible) CL: I believe so, yeah. JJ: And what about your other siblings (inaudible)? CL: They’re all in New York. JJ: I mean how many? (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) CL: Oh, okay. I had five sisters and two brothers. JJ: (inaudible) their names (inaudible) CL: My oldest sister, her name is [Inez?], a brother named [David?], a sister named [Nidia?], myself, sister named [Marixa?], sister named [Evelyn?], sister named [Josephine?], and a brother named [José?]. JJ: And you said the Lower East Side of Manhattan? CL: I was born and raised in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. JJ: Coming from Chicago, I have no idea [about that?]. What is that like? [00:02:00] CL: The Lower East Side, it’s the lower part of Manhattan where a lot of immigrants resided there for work. And so a lot of Puerto Ricans, besides going to El Barrio in Manhattan, they also resided in the Lower East Side. JJ: So it’s part of Manhattan, so (inaudible) Square, that area? CL: Okay, it’s not far from there. JJ: Not far from (inaudible) Square, that area. CL: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Delancey Street housed in that area, close to Chinatown, not far from Little Italy. JJ: So what are your first memories? CL: My first memories of the Lower East Side, as a child, it’s so funny because to me, 2 �all the Spanish people that I knew were Puerto Ricans. [00:03:00] (laughs) That was it. And everyone worked. You know, that w-JJ: What kind of jobs? CL: Sewing. My father, he was a welder. My mom didn’t work. She took care of the kids. But everyone else, if you were not sewing, you were doing some sort of manual labor. JJ: What was the housing? (inaudible) CL: The housing, well, we never lived in projects, but my parents always rented apartments, which were like 35 dollars a month. So we lived on Ludlow Street, which is in the Lower East Side. We lived on Sherriff Street. JJ: How many bedrooms (inaudible) CL: Two bedrooms, three bedrooms. And they were very, very big and very nice. JJ: I know at one time they had a bathtub in the (inaudible) CL: Yes, my grandmother lived in an apartment [00:04:00] where the bathtub was in the kitchen and the toilet was in the hallway. JJ: (inaudible) CL: And they were like a railroad train type of apartment. You had, like, the kitchen, then the living room, then the room, so they look like a train. JJ: Like if you were in the (inaudible) CL: Uh-huh. JJ: But they were good sized? CL: Some small, some fairly large. JJ: So what was the grammar school? Grammar school? 3 �CL: Grammar school. JJ: Where did you go to grammar school? CL: I went to P.S. 160. When I started school, it was in first grade. JJ: So when they say P.S. 160, I’m not clear on (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) CL: That’s an elementary school. JJ: Yeah. But I mean are all the schools called by number? CL: Public schools, yes. Well, in the Lower East Side, yeah. JJ: Is that (inaudible) CL: Well, I have no idea because we didn’t really live anywhere else. JJ: But they were all called by numbers? CL: By numbers, yeah. JJ: So in the school, it was all Puerto Ricans or...? (inaudible) CL: There were a lot of Puerto Ricans, [00:05:00] yes. But there were no Spanish teachers at that time. And, like I said, when I started school, I started in the first grade. JJ: Puerto Rican speaking Spanish or...? CL: Yeah. Puerto Ricans speaking Spanish. JJ: (inaudible) Spanish (inaudible) CL: Yeah, ’cause when I first started first grade, I didn’t speak any English. JJ: Where would they (inaudible) were they there (inaudible) Like what city did they (inaudible) CL: No. Yeah. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. To me, everyone was all the same. The parents spoke Spanish. 4 �JJ: Like, culturally, were they from cities or from the country, the rural area. CL: Oh, that I don’t know. That, no. No. JJ: But they had (inaudible) generation. CL: I believe like me, you know, I was the first generation. JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) the late ’40s? CL: Yeah. JJ: (inaudible) late ’40s [in the end?] because I know (inaudible) Puerto Rico (inaudible) 19... [00:06:00] CL: Yes. JJ: But there was a big immigration in late ’40s. Is that what you’re saying? CL: Uh-huh. I believe that the Puerto Ricans that migrated here in the early 1900s mostly went to El Barrio. JJ: So that’s the old (inaudible) CL: Uh-huh. Yeah, because Tito Puente, he was born and raised, and his parents were, like, there. JJ: Yeah so there were (inaudible) Okay, so El Barrio was the older -- CL: Yeah. JJ: -- Puerto Rican section. CL: Mm-hmm. JJ: In the 1900s, so now the Lower East Side, there’s a new body that is forming? (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) CL: Well, to me, you know, I never thought about that as a child, really. But I did know that the parents did not speak English, so if they didn’t speak English 5 �obviously, to me, they had just -JJ: So the most of the people didn’t speak English? CL: No. JJ: So they had to be new. CL: Yeah. [00:07:00] JJ: There was a new wave -- CL: Uh-huh. JJ: -- of immigration in that area, the Lower East Side? CL: Uh-huh. JJ: Okay. So remember, what are some of the stores? Bodegas (inaudible) CL: The bodegas owned by Puerto Ricans. JJ: What kind of (inaudible) CL: No, we just called it the bodega. I remember, where I grew up on Ludlow Street, the bodega, you would find [verdura, aguacate?], everything that you needed to cook Puerto Rican food. The rice, the beans. And it used to strike me kind of strange because he used to put hay on the wooden floor. JJ: Oh. CL: (laughs) JJ: In Chicago, they had hay (inaudible) used to say it (inaudible) because they used to put hay on the floor (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) CL: Especially when it rained. JJ: I don’t know why they did that. CL: No, no. [00:08:00] 6 �JJ: But the name bodega -- so what, Ludlow you said (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) CL: Ludlow Street was a fairly commercial street, mostly for Jewish store owners. And they sold a lot of figurines. Beautiful, expensive figurines. But there was just one bodega. JJ: So were there a lot of Jewish store owners, was there Spanish food and stuff like that? Spanish products? CL: No. JJ: Or were there Puerto Rican stores owners? CL: The Puerto Rican store owners were the bodega y la carniceria, the meat market, that was on the corner. JJ: Okay. So you went to P.S.? CL: 160. JJ: 160. And how far did you go in that school? CL: ’til the sixth grade. JJ: Okay, the sixth grade. (inaudible) CL: Well, that’s the first time I saw Bozo. JJ: Oh, okay. [00:09:00] Bozo the Clown? CL: (laughs) Yes. JJ: (inaudible) CL: I was like, oh. JJ: Now you see him and (inaudible) CL: That’s where -- 7 �JJ: He came to the school or...? CL: Yeah, he came to the school to visit. That’s where they sent me to speech class because, since I didn’t speak English, you know, they thought that I had just gotten there from Puerto Rico. So they sent me the speech class ’cause I couldn’t pronounce some of the English words the way they wanted me to pronounce it. JJ: So they had a special speech class? CL: Yeah, for a lot of us. JJ: For a lot of people? CL: Yeah. JJ: ’Cause other people, like, some people they would put back a grade. CL: Yeah, I was put back of grade as well in the fourth grade. Miss [Elwood?], I remember her clearly. JJ: Okay. Then you were also in a speech class? CL: Yes. JJ: And there were other (inaudible) you there? CL: Yes. Yes. [00:10:00] JJ: What about your friends and then what kind of social life? CL: Well, school friends, when we went to school and we played recess, Double Dutch, jumping rope. JJ: Double Dutch (inaudible) CL: You know, tag with the boys. JJ: Okay. So what about high school? 8 �CL: I didn’t go to high school. JJ: Oh, you didn’t go to high school? CL: (laughs) No. JJ: Oh, okay. (inaudible) CL: I went to the Young Lords high school. (inaudible) JJ: You went to the Young Lords high school? Okay, what was the Young Lords high school? CL: Well, let me first tell you how I got there. Again, like I told you, I was growing up in the Lower East Side and drugs was kinda very rampant in the neighborhood due to -- JJ: What kind of drugs? CL: Heroin -- JJ: Heroin. Okay. CL: -- mostly. JJ: What year was this? CL: ’70. JJ: ’70? CL: ’71. JJ: (inaudible) was all over [00:11:00] (inaudible) CL: Gentrification. JJ: Oh, gentrification, that’s... CL: Yeah, this was the beginning of -- JJ: Yeah, but you went from drugs to gentrification (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) 9 �CL: Yes, because -- Okay. Well, that’s why the drugs were put there because of the gentrification. And what they did was -- JJ: What do you mean? CL: Okay, they had a plan for the Lower East Side, and we were not included in the plan. So you have to first get rid of the Puerto Ricans that were there in order to execute the plan that they have now. JJ: Who is they? CL: The government, the rich -- JJ: The city? CL: -- the city. And so what they did was they -- JJ: Are you talking about the mayor or the alderman (inaudible) CL: Yeah, whoever was controlling it. JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) who are you talking about? CL: Well, I’m talking about whoever wanted this gentrification, and planned and executed. JJ: Somebody had a plan, but it was a plan. CL: It was a plan. JJ: Why do you say it was a plan? CL: Because, after so many years, we see the results of the plan. [00:12:00] The Lower East Side is totally a home -- JJ: It looked like it was set up in a way that... CL: Yes. And so what they did was they infested the neighborhood with drugs. JJ: They came in with drugs? 10 �CL: Well, yeah. What they did was -- well, it was easy, accessible to get the drugs. So kids who didn’t have, they started to deal drugs. It was easy to get. So if you don’t have any money, and you wanted money, well, then you deal drugs. JJ: (inaudible) everybody was selling and there was no police trying to stop it. CL: No. JJ: Is that what you mean? Something like that? CL: Yes. JJ: I mean, that’s what you’re saying? CL: Yes, yes, yeah. The police were not really doing much about the drugs. They were very easily accessible to the kids. JJ: Okay. To the kids? CL: Yes, I was only 15, 16 years old. JJ: You were 15 or 16? CL: Yes. JJ: And then you started using drugs at 15 or 16? CL: I [00:13:00] started to experiment, yes. JJ: (inaudible) not snorting? CL: No, just the snorting. I never shot [sharps?]. JJ: You never fooled with that? CL: No, no, no. And at the same time, the youth was getting very, very fed up of what was going on in the Lower East Side. The Vietnam War. Our male friends were being drafted to the... JJ: You’re talking about street youth or college youth? 11 �CL: Street youth. Nobody was thinking about going to college. JJ: Okay, so they were upset. There was no college. CL: (laughs) No. JJ: There were no colleges at that time? CL: Yeah, there were colleges, but -- JJ: But [not enough motivation?] (inaudible) CL: -- no one was thinking about going to college. JJ: There was people in the street (inaudible) CL: And so, you know, we would take the garbage and we’d go burn it, and the whole social... JJ: But was this, like, before the Young Lords you were taking garbage and burning it? CL: Well the Young Lords were already -- ’cause in [00:14:00] ’70, ’71, the Young Lord’s Party was formed in New York. JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) CL: But there were other little groups coming about, like Movimiento Latino, that was in the Lower East Side. Carlos Feliciano, his case was something, you know, very big at that time in New York where they had placed a bomb in his car, etcetera, etcetera. JJ: Right, so that was big and a lot of people were talking about that? CL: A lotta turmoil. And we were not gonna take that. JJ: And then there were people talking about the war too or...? CL: Yes. 12 �JJ: On the Lower East Side, there was a lot of political work going on? People passing leaflets and stuff like that or...? CL: Yes. Yes, there were. See, it was a dual type of thing because the drugs were always there, and then on the other side, this was happening too. A lot of us were becoming rebellious against our parents, against the establishment. And so [00:15:00] I was becoming more aware. JJ: Against the parents? What do you mean? CL: Well, yeah, because, you know, our parents come from a generation that you do as you’re told. Where our generation -- JJ: So when you say a lot of others, you’re talkin’ ’bout women? CL: And the guys. JJ: And the guys. So, you got the parents that are telling you, “Do as you’re told.”? CL: Exactly. Don’t say a word. JJ: Yeah, and they’ll say you’re rebelling against them? CL: Yes. And the establishment as well. JJ: (inaudible) CL: Well, yeah. We would hit the streets, you know, we would go hang out, we would go do a whole lotta cra-- JJ: Hang out where? CL: Well, I used to go to this place called the [Latin House?] on Hester Street. JJ: What happened there? What was that like? CL: We would all come together, listen to music. At that time, the music was a lotta slow jams. The (inaudible), The Stylistics. And that started to become more 13 �[00:16:00] of a family. And so, again, the question of money was a big issue for kids, or for us then. And so when the Young Lords had the parade that they took over the front of the parade. That really -- I was so impressed behind that. I went. JJ: How did that happen? Because I wasn’t familiar with that. How’d it happen? The regular Puerto Rican parade? CL: Parade and the police used to march in front. JJ: (inaudible) CL: And so the Lords felt that that was not right. The people should march in front. JJ: Police shouldn’t march in front. CL: Exactly, and so we were gonna take it over. I wasn’t a Lord then, but I wanted to be a part of that, and so I went. And while I was there, my father saw me. And so I was fighting my [00:17:00] father and the police at the same time because my father was going to kick my butt. I was only 15 years old. JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) CL: Yes. And they were not too keen with the Young Lords. They felt that that was a gang. JJ: Your father? CL: And my mother. JJ: But they thought it was a gang? CL: Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, and like I said, our parents’ generation come from, you do as you’re told. And you don’t say, you just do it. You don’t question it. You don’t do otherwise. 14 �JJ: So you guys took it over? Took over the front of it? CL: Well, there was a big riot. People got hurt, hit. The parade was -- JJ: Anybody got arrested or...? CL: -- stopped. People got arrested. JJ: People got arrested? But, I mean, did you eventually take it over or no? CL: No. JJ: Or just got (inaudible) CL: It was just a lot of craziness going on. JJ: So if it was stopped, it must have been a [00:18:00] (inaudible) CL: Yes. Of course, yeah. Yes. Mm-hmm. But, you know, when I saw my father, I was more scared of him. (laughter) JJ: I can deal with the police. (inaudible) CL: Exactly. JJ: (inaudible) Okay, so what other things that are going on? CL: Okay, so I start rebelling at home, like I was saying. You know, I would go to the streets and there was, like, hang out. There was no sense of direction in my life. I was just bouncing off the wall. And my mom, after us, you know, with the hard hand. It wasn’t let’s sit and talk and let me explain, I’m gonna hit you for what you’re doing. And so one day I got home about eight o’clock. When I got home, I got severely punished physically [00:19:00] because this is the way... JJ: Your mother or your father? CL: My mother. My father, they had separated. JJ: Split up. (inaudible) 15 �CL: So the next day -- JJ: Now all your sibling was living in the house (inaudible) CL: Yeah. Mm-hmm. JJ: The next day, what happened? CL: So then the next thing, I had gone, sometime before, to court for Carlos Feliciano, and I had met some of the members of the Young Lords, and I was like really impressed. You know, these -- JJ: What impressed you about them? CL: They looked like they had a direction, that they were going somewhere, that this is what it should be. And so, you know, I had met them, etcetera, etcetera. So, okay, I went home, whatever. So one day, a friend of mine says to me, “Well, listen, you know, I have a friend, and he has some drugs. You want to start dealing and make some money?” And I’m like, “Wow, yeah, why not? I can use a couple of dollars.” And so we were on the corner [00:20:00] of Hester and Forsyth Street. So there’s a park that goes from Houston all the way down to Canal Street on Forsyth. So this was Hester and Forsyth. And I was with this girl named [Elena?]. And we’re waiting there, and the guy just doesn’t show up. And we’re waiting. And the guy doesn’t show up. So it must have been about four o’clock, and I see this group passing by. And I see this guy that I had met at the courthouse for Carlos Feliciano. His name was TC, or is TC, [Tony Copeland?], who became my future husband. So as they’re walking by, I recognized him and he recognized me. And so he, well, you know, we were very happy to see each other. So he says to me, “What are you up to?” And I’m like, 16 �“Nothing.” Well, of course I wasn’t going to say here I’m waiting, [00:21:00] you know, to do something really bad. So he says, “Why don’t you come with us? We’re going to [Yihequan?] to see this movie.” CL: Yihequan is -- JJ: Yihequan? CL: It was a Chinese group and they were located -- JJ: (inaudible) CL: Dealing drugs. JJ: Oh, dealing drugs. Okay. So he walked in... CL: Okay, so he says, we’re gonna go see (inaudible) at Yihequan. So I says, “Yeah, okay. I’ll go.” And it was about four or five o’clock in the evening. So I left, and I didn’t do the thing about picking up drugs and dealing the drugs. Well, the movie was great. I think we were watching Women Hold Half the Sky, and we had a really great time. I don’t remember who else was there, but I do remember my future husband was there. So it was about nine o’clock. And I am like, “What time is it?” He says, [00:22:00] “It’s nine o’clock.” I’m like, “Oh my god. If I go home now, I’m really -- they’re gonna kill me. JJ: They’re gonna kill me. CL: So I says to him. “Can I go with you guys?” And he says, “Well, yeah. If you want to.” So I ran away with him and the Young Lords. So I call my sister and I says to her, “Nidia, I’m not coming home. I’m safe. Just let mom know that I’m safe.” So I went up to the Bronx, Cypress Avenue. 141st and Cypress. And so, the next day, Tony, you know, TC as he was known back then, takes me to the 17 �storefront or the office. JJ: Now you’re staying with TC -- CL: Yeah. JJ: -- himself or with -- CL: Oh, no. JJ: -- the other Young Lords? CL: Okay, no. [00:23:00] He was sharing an apartment. They were called collectives at that time. JJ: Okay. What are collectives. What is that? CL: Collective meaning several people lived together. It wasn’t just a man and a woman, or a man and man, or woman and woman. There were several. There’d been several couples, several friends. JJ: They were, like, couples. They weren’t (inaudible) CL: Yeah. Yeah. So it was him, [Lucky Luciano?], who’s [Felipe?] Luciano’s brother. JJ: Oh, Lucky Luciano? Okay. CL: Uh-huh. A girl that he was with then, and myself and Tony. JJ: And you were living together in that collective? CL: In that collective, yeah. Yeah. JJ: How did you pay them rent and stuff like that? CL: Oh, he paid the rent. JJ: Oh, he paid it? Okay, so [continue there?]. CL: So, that was September of 1971. JJ: (inaudible) September of 1971? 18 �CL: Well, it was late August beginning September [00:24:00] that I ran away that I ran away with Tony and the Young Lords. And so, a few weeks later, you know, I continued to call my sister to tell them, you know, that I’m fine. My mom was hysterical and, you know, I was so young. So my sister knew where I was, and she knew with whom I was with. And so, about three weeks later -- no. About a couple of months later in October. October 15, 1971, my father was killed, and so she needed to get ahold of me. JJ: How was he killed? CL: He was stabbed in a social club. They were drinking and one thing led to another, and a friend of his, in fact, that was raised with him here in Juncos, Puerto Rico, [00:25:00] stabbed him. And so when my mom tells my sister, then now she has to tell my mom where I am because she has to go get me to go to a funeral. And so I remember, I think it was a Sunday about seven o’clock in the morning, it’s a knock on the door. So Tony gets up and he goes to answer the door, and he’s in his underwear. And when he opens the door, it’s my mother. And when, you know, he comes and he says, “Carmen, your mom is there.” I totally freaked out. I said, “Oh my god, I’m in trouble now.” And so she was very, very, very serious and very upset with me too. And so she said to me, “Your dad passed away.” And I looked at her and I said, “So what am I supposed [00:26:00] to do, cry?” ’cause I lived a life very angry with my father. JJ: (inaudible) Why? CL: Well, because he was very abusive with my mother. He had a lot of issues. JJ: What do you mean? Hit her? 19 �CL: Yeah, he would. Yeah, physically -- JJ: [Violencia?]? CL: -- abuse of her. Yeah. So anyway, I left with her. And we did the whole funeral thing with my dad and whatever. So after all of that was over -- JJ: What do you mean the whole thing? CL: Well, you know, going to the funeral with the family. They buried him here in Puerto Rico. We didn’t partake in that. You know, there’s, like, this family feud. I was all right with that back then. I was so upset with him. It was like a relief, if you can understand. JJ: (inaudible) to get rid of your father? CL: Isn’t that a horrible thing to say? It’s just for my mom, you know. JJ: (inaudible) he was [close to?] your mom? CL: ’Cause he would -- Yeah. Yeah. [00:27:00] JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) CL: Very, very close to her. JJ: (inaudible) CL: So I went back home, and she thought that I was going to stay at home. And I said to her, “I just can’t do this anymore. You know, to me, I want to be there. You know, I want to change the world. I feel that that’s where I belong.” And so I went back to live with Tony and to become a Young Lord. JJ: While you were there living with Tony, you were still in the collective? Or no? CL: Yes. Yes. JJ: You were still living in the collective together. 20 �CL: Uh-huh. JJ: So what were some of the work that you were doing? What was some of the work? CL: With the Young Lords or...? JJ: Yeah. CL: Well then, [00:28:00] of course, I met [Panama?] at the time. I met [Augie Robles?]. I finally got to meet [Yoruba?] because he was in China during the time that I had -- JJ: (inaudible) China at that time? I was in China too. CL: With him? JJ: No, no. In the late ’70s. CL: Oh, okay. I met [Richie?]. But before my mom went (laughs) to get me, because she didn’t know where I was, she knew that I was with the Young Lords. So she took the police to the national headquarters in El Barrio to demand that they return her daughter. And, of course, they didn’t know that I was in the Bronx. They didn’t even know who I was. So they must have had a shock when they saw the police. (laughs) JJ: So she thought that the Young Lords [00:29:00] were taking you hostage or something like that? CL: I guess. Yeah. JJ: Okay. Now you said, Richie. What do you mean you called him Richie? Richie [Bredas?] CL: Richie Bredas. Yeah. (inaudible) Well, I knew that Richard was a teacher, that 21 �he taught typing. I know that he was the minister of defense or information. JJ: I think he was information minister. CL: Yeah. Minister of information. Yoruba, I was, like, in awe of him, you know. You’ve gone to China. JJ: You were in awe? What do you recall? I mean, he went to China? CL: Yeah. I remember him being a very, very serious individual. I had met [Mickey Melendez?]. We had gotten involved with, or they were -- JJ: What about Mickey? What are your thoughts about Mickey? CL: Mickey was very serious man too. JJ: Okay. Very serious? CL: You know, [00:30:00] they were all very serious. (laughs) Like, “Ooh!” Then again, I was only 16 years old. I was so young. JJ: You met Augie, you said? CL: Augie, we became the best of friends. JJ: What do you mean (inaudible)? CL: She became my (Spanish). [Auga?]. I liked her a lot. She was very staunch in her beliefs. Richie and her were together at that time. JJ: They were living together in the -- CL: Yeah. Uh-huh. I met [Iris Morales?]. JJ: Thoughts about her? CL: Iris Morales, I used to like her a lot back then too, and, I mean, I still like her today. [Valerie?], [David Perez?]. JJ: (inaudible) 22 �CL: Did you ever meet David Perez? JJ: David Perez? Yeah. (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) CL: Okay, well, he was -- his companion. JJ: (inaudible) Did they call it (inaudible) [00:31:00] or...? CL: At that time, we called it, yeah, companion. JJ: (inaudible) CL: Yeah, we didn’t... Yeah, exactly. JJ: (inaudible) CL: Yeah, no. No one said wife or husband. You said, you know, companion. JJ: (inaudible) At Chicago, we had an underground [training for people trying to get?] (inaudible) collective, but we didn’t use companions. We used brother and sister (inaudible) CL: Oh, okay. Mm-hmm. We used brother and sister too, but, I mean, in terms of relationships, you know, “That’s my companion.” JJ: I gotta tell you (inaudible) term. CL: (laughs) It’s a good term. JJ: (inaudible) So tell me something about Tony (inaudible) CL: Tony. JJ: Yeah. CL: Like I said, I met Tony -- JJ: What impression (inaudible) CL: Well, I found Tony to be a very handsome young man at the time, smart, [00:32:00] and he was very friendly. And so we sparked a relationship that lasted five 23 �years. I have two children by him. JJ: What are the names of your kids? CL: My oldest son’s name is [Damien Copeland?]. My second son is [Eric Copeland?]. JJ: (inaudible) CL: Eric Copeland. JJ: Eric Copeland? Do they live here with you? CL: No, they live in (inaudible) JJ: What kind of work (inaudible) CL: Who, Tony? I believe Tony works for a union. I don’t recall. I mean, we have, really, no contact, and he’s into some sort of a -- JJ: Oh, you’re not together? CL: No. Oh, no. No, no. Our relationship lasted five years. JJ: Five years? CL: Yeah. JJ: So, how (inaudible) CL: Oh, well, that was 15 years ago. I had met someone else [00:33:00] when I was 38. JJ: You’re with someone else now. CL: Yeah. Uh-huh. JJ: Okay. (inaudible) 15 years ago, you (inaudible) CL: Uh-huh. JJ: (inaudible) 24 �CL: My life is good here. I’m into more spiritualism, more -- JJ: (inaudible) CL: Yeah. JJ: (inaudible) CL: No. No, no. JJ: (inaudible) CL: More the way of the yogi, the way of the monk. JJ: (inaudible) what, the yogi, the...? CL: More into working on my inner self so my externals could be in a better place. JJ: Okay (inaudible) I’m just kind of trying to think of a way to understand (inaudible) [00:34:00] So this is not like (inaudible) CL: No. It’s more like Tai Chi, more connecting yourself with the universe, with divinity, with the light. JJ: (inaudible) something like that? That’s the only thing I know. CL: Okay. JJ: So it’s more like that? Something similar to that? CL: It’s called the fourth way if you’ve ever... JJ: I’m not familiar with it. (inaudible) CL: Uh-huh. Well, you can Google it. JJ: So can you explain what (inaudible) fourth way or...? CL: Well, yeah. It’s more on working on yourself so you can be a better being so your being can grow. Because once your being grows, then everything around you will also change and grow. 25 �JJ: Sort of like [00:35:00] (inaudible) CL: Oh, he needs five minutes? (Spanish) JJ: (inaudible) P1: Well, I mean, you guys sound -- (break in audio) P1: And whenever you’re ready. JJ: You could tell me a little bit about Richie. We were talkin’ ’bout Richie Bredas. CL: Well, Richie, Richie was always laughing. A person who was a very happy, happy individual. Always laughing, cracking jokes, and serious as well and very smart. Very, very smart and people respected him. He carried that because he gave respect. [00:36:00] Didn’t matter how old you were, ’cause I was a young whippersnapper. And a very, very giving individual. I had gotten the opportunity to live with him, his companion Augie at the time, and Tony, who was my companion at the time. And we shared a lot of good, good times. And again, he was very, very, very good. JJ: (inaudible) CL: Well, he was with Auga at the time. JJ: Oh, okay. CL: And I was the Tony, and we made up the collective. JJ: So you were living together in the same collective? CL: Uh-huh. Exactly. JJ: He was a giving person and -- CL: Always laughing. 26 �JJ: ’Cause he was information deputy? CL: Uh-huh. JJ: So [he was in the?] -- CL: And he worked hard and he had a good job. He had gone to college and -- JJ: What kind of work (inaudible) CL: A teacher. JJ: He was a teacher? Okay. So he was a teacher, he was a Young Lord. CL: Uh-huh. JJ: (inaudible) CL: Yes. [00:37:00] JJ: So he was doing community work at the same time? CL: That’s one thing about the Lords back then. That we were always in the community. People knew us. People bought the (Spanish). They knew us. We went door to door. You know, it wasn’t, like, an organization that locked itself up and talked a lot of rhetoric, which that did happen later on. JJ: But not at that time? CL: Not at that time. JJ: At that time it was (inaudible) CL: Out in the street and we were organizing. JJ: Talking to people in the neighborhood? CL: Exactly. And Richie was involved in organizing a lot of students. JJ: Students? CL: Yes. 27 �JJ: What school was he working at? CL: Well, at the time, he was still a typing teacher. So you know, at -- and what was that organization’s name? [00:38:00] Aspira. JJ: Aspira, Aspira. So he was worked with Aspira, with the schooling groups and that? CL: And he had recruited a lotta students as well. JJ: He definitely did a lotta work (inaudible) CL: He did a lot of work, yes. JJ: (inaudible) worked with Aspira. CL: Yeah. JJ: So we were talking also about PRRWO (inaudible) Puerto Rican (inaudible) CL: It was called Puerto Rican Worker Revolutionary Organization. JJ: And who were the leaders of that? CL: [Gloria Fontanez?]. JJ: (inaudible) CL: Yes. The Central Committee. JJ: Where did she come from? Oh, the Central Committee was part of them? CL: Yeah. It was still, everyone there except Yoruba, [Juan Gonzales?], David. Okay. So the Central Committee consisted of Gloria [00:39:00] Fontanez, her cousin, [Carmen Cruz?], I believe Gloria’s husband, [Don Right?], who we all, then later on, believed that he was an agent. JJ: Why did you believe he was an agent? CL: Well, I mean, you know, I don’t have like documentation -- 28 �JJ: [You mean a rat?]? (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) CL: -- but everything that happened once this individual came into the picture just led to all of that. The Young Lords then felt that they needed to organize the workers. We needed to become a more of the workers organization than just a community, lumpenproletariat organization. JJ: So they wanted get away from the [metropolitan?]? CL: Yes. And so we -- JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) CL: -- needed to be more ideological. And so we needed to be more ideological, we needed to be more Lenin, more Stalin, more Mao. And in order to do that, we had to change our name, [00:40:00] and so they did. They changed the Young Lord’s Party to the Puerto Rican Workers Revolutionary organization, PRRWO. And so, at the time, we linked up with a group called the MLN from Chicago. And they would come to New York and we would have these crazy debates. I mean, these seminars with these crazy, crazy debates. And when I mean crazy, it wasn’t about I’m gonna teach you and you’re going to teach you, no, I’m gonna put you down and you’re gonna put me down. It looked more like a war to me. JJ: Criticism and self-criticism? CL: It was more criticism than self-criticism. (laughs) JJ: I know, that’s what -- you know, the (inaudible) something similar. That’s what they were explaining to us. CL: So then that didn’t work. You know, MLN went their way. JJ: So that’s Movimiento por [00:41:00] Liberación Nacional? 29 �CL: Uh-huh. That didn’t last too long. They went their way. PRRWO went their way. Still looking for affiliation. Then they found the Revolutionary Union, R Union. JJ: (inaudible) CL: Majority white organization. And that’s when this individual Don Right comes into the picture. JJ: So he mighta just been a member of Revolutionary Union. CL: Yeah. JJ: Maybe he wasn’t an agent, he was just...? CL: I don’t know. It could be. JJ: (inaudible) CL: It could not be. JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) CL: All I know is a lot of crazy stuff started to happen after that. We would go to meetings. We no longer were in the community. So we had severed the ties with the community. JJ: Okay. What does that mean, that you were no longer in the community? CL: We were more in meetings debating with one another, with each other, about how wrong you are, how right you are. [00:42:00] And then it became very rigid. If you differed, then you were under attack. You could not differ because then you became the oddball, and you were under attack. And those were the things that were happening to me back then. JJ: But if can hold that thought first. CL: Yeah, okay. 30 �JJ: (inaudible) you became rigid. The whole (inaudible). But now, you said that you were no longer with the community. CL: Yes. That meant that we no longer went to the community to organize. We no longer had those -- JJ: You weren’t going door to door. You weren’t doing any -- CL: Or those health clinics or the -- JJ: Were you doing any programs or anything? CL: No programs. We weren’t doing anything. JJ: Just talking? CL: Just talkin’. Exactly. You know -- JJ: Did you get into the -- CL: -- still building the structure of the -- JJ: -- about Marx and Lenin? Did you get into the (inaudible) CL: Exactly. And that... JJ: Because before, I mean, the Young Lords -- I read books about Marx and Lenin. We (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) CL: No, no, but this was -- JJ: But now it was all Marx and Lenin and nothing -- CL: Nothing else. JJ: -- about the community. CL: And if anyone disagreed -- JJ: That was just a different line. CL: Mm-hmm. [00:43:00] And if anybody disagree, or when they had these heavy- 31 �duty debates in the Central Committee and they purged someone. You know, like when they purged Juan Gonzalez, when they purged -JJ: They purged Juan Gonzalez too? CL: Yeah. Yeah. JJ: (inaudible) CL: And they purged Yoruba. So Yoruba left -- JJ: Yoruba they purged (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) CL: Iris had to leave because she was the wife, and when they purged David Perez -- JJ: The wife of who? CL: Of Yoruba. JJ: Yoruba (inaudible) CL: Yeah, at the time. JJ: (inaudible) CL: No. (inaudible) JJ: So that all started (inaudible) CL: Yoruba. And then, when they purged David Perez, Valerie had to go, too. JJ: So wait a minute, they were purging all the Central Committee? CL: Anyone who disagreed. JJ: But it looks like David and Yoruba and -- CL: And so what happen-- JJ: -- people like that, they were Central Committee members. They were purging the Central Committee. CL: And so what [00:44:00] started to happen in the body of the organization, most of 32 �the members started to leave because then it was no longer that zest, that passion to go to the community, you know, to become one with the community. JJ: Let me get this. Anybody that kind of was helping the Young Lords (inaudible) as leaders of the Young Lords were being purged at that time? CL: Can you repeat that? JJ: Most of the leadership was being purged? CL: Yes. Yes, yes. JJ: The old leadership of the Young Lords. CL: And so back with Richie, Richie was on the Central Committee. And at the time, we thought that was the right thing. So yeah, we started to even mimic or even believe some of these things until it just continued to happen. JJ: Some of these things? What were they saying? What were they putting forth? CL: Okay, like, let’s see. [00:45:00] It’s just like, let’s say, for instance, if at the moment they believed that we were not a party, we were an organization. That became the hot issue. Or which way were we gonna suppose to organize the factory workers? JJ: Okay, hold on a second. So we were not a party, and we needed to become a party? CL: No, an organization. JJ: We need to become an organization. (inaudible) back to globalization? Okay. All right. (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) CL: I don’t know. See, because remember, now, this is the Central Committee and these meetings, you really didn’t know because, you know, this was like -- 33 �JJ: The Central Committee was here and you were here? CL: Yeah, exactly. (laughs) We were here and they were up there. JJ: (Spanish) CL: Uh-huh. (Spanish) And now that you [00:46:00] talk about that, Gloria Fontanez, I grew up with her family. I didn’t know her. JJ: Yeah, what was she like? CL: Okay. Well, let me just say. I grew up with her family. Her brother was my best friend when I was 14, 15 years old in the Lower East Side. We hung out in the same places. When I get to the Young Lords, then I find out that she’s related to these people that I used to go visit her mom, eat at her house, you know, share, and you all her brothers and sisters, but I did not know her ’cause she had left. She was way older than they were and she had left way before I came into the picture. Gloria was -- JJ: But what were her brothers and sisters like? CL: They were really nice. They all knew how to dance. That was something. JJ: Lotta dancing (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) CL: In the Lower East Side, you had to know how to dance some mambo. JJ: (inaudible) Oh, mambo. You didn’t do [split?]? You didn’t split? CL: No, no. Mambo. You had to dance Latin. You know? JJ: (inaudible) did the mambo (inaudible) CL: They were really good people, humble people. JJ: Humble people? (inaudible) CL: Yeah. I used to love her brother [00:47:00] dearly, dearly, and he got caught up 34 �with the drugs as well. JJ: One of her brothers, Gloria Fontanez? CL: Yeah, Gloria. JJ: So she was really, like, community (inaudible) CL: Huh? JJ: She was really before that community? CL: Yes, yeah. JJ: And then just get into (Spanish). (laughter) Nah, I’m just joking. I mean, ’cause the spiritualism (inaudible). So she got really involved in the ideological? CL: Yes. I mean, to the point that when they would do this thing, it was so insulting. And that started to turn me off. I would say to myself, “Oh my gosh, so what is it? You can’t express your opinion, your view? If you have a different opinion or something then that means you’re the bad guy?” So they had placed my husband, or my ex-husband, Tony in the Central Committee. And honestly -- JJ: Of who? CL: Of the PRRWO. [00:48:00] And I really thought that he wasn’t ready for Central Committee stuff. So I was wondering what was going on. But then again, okay, fine. He and Richie were arguing over something, and he never even said to me what, but they were in real hot water. So one day he comes home from a meeting and he says to me, “Things are really hot.” And I kind of felt it every time I would go to a meeting. And now, this time, Richie is married to [Diana Caballero?]. JJ: (inaudible) 35 �CL: So, you know, things were not going well in these meetings. And you kind of, like, sense when things are not right. But my husband comes home and he says -- JJ: What do mean you sense it? What are you sensing? CL: Hostility. JJ: You mean instead -- CL: And afraid. JJ: of friendship, hostility, [00:49:00] fear? CL: Yeah, among the [conjoint?]. JJ: Among the conjoint? They’re scared (inaudible) CL: Scared. Afraid to voice an opinion. JJ: Of what? They would be ridiculed, [but not included?] CL: Ridiculed. Well, no, not yet. Well, I never thought that things would ever get to that point. JJ: So they were being ridiculed for that kind of thing? CL: I would say shut down. JJ: Shut down. They were being (inaudible) CL: Exactly. Then you became the outsider. JJ: So you’re saying that (inaudible) CL: Exact on that. You know, you’re dangerous. Where you coming from? JJ: Are you an agent or something? CL: Exactly. JJ: So the agents are asking the agents, “Are you an agent?” The agent is saying, 36 �“Are you an agent?” CL: Yeah. It was all part of COINTEL. JJ: I don’t know if they were agents. I’m just saying that. CL: Yeah, I know. Well, but they were doing the job that COINTEL wanted to be done. So anyway, [00:50:00] my husband comes home and he says to me, “Things are not well in the Central Committee, and I’m a real hot water because I don’t agree.” He said, “Me and Richie are in hot water because we don’t agree with certain things.” And I already knew that Richie was not happy because he was the not happy person that he used to be when I met him and throughout the years that I had known him. So we used to have meetings on Thursday. So that Thursday, no, Wednesday, my husband comes home and says to me, “I’ve been purged from the Central Committee.” JJ: [Told him to come home?] CL: He tell me that he was purged. JJ: Did he say why? CL: He didn’t say why. He just said, “’cause I was not in agreement with what was going on.” So Thursday we were supposed to have a meeting with the conjoint, [00:51:00] and I was going to attend, Diana, and some other members of this committee. But something came over me. There’s such a bad feeling, and I said, “You know what, Tony? I’m not going to go to this meeting.” I’m gonna call these people, and I’m going to pack everything that they ever gave me, and I’m gonna tell them that they can come and pick it up downstairs.” Because they already knew that since they had purged him, I was going to be purged to 37 �because it had happened with Yoruba and Iris, it happened with David and Valerie. There was already a pattern. So I didn’t go. In not going, Diana went to the meeting. So she gets kidnapped at this meeting. JJ: Diana Caballero, you’re talking about? CL: Diana Caballero. JJ: She’s kidnapped at the meeting? CL: Well they take her against her will to keep her against her will to keep her hostage [00:52:00] in somebody’s apartment, her and Richie. JJ: So they had, like, [the own deal?] or...? CL: Well, you see, since I didn’t go to that meeting, and I know that if I would have gone to that meeting, they would’ve taken me too. JJ: But I mean they took her hostage, so in other words, [they’re posted?] in their own safehouse. CL: Yes, exactly. JJ: [Gone forever?] or whatever. CL: Exactly. JJ: (inaudible) well-organized group to have a deal like that. CL: Yes. JJ: (inaudible) CL: Yes. And, and I’m talking about people that Richie knew for years that slept in his home, that ate his food. JJ: So these are people that Richie knew? So they were not (inaudible) these were just people that (Spanish)? 38 �CL: Yeah. They were very -- Exactly. JJ: (Spanish) CL: But yes, they were (Spanish), they lost their mind. They really lost their mind. JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) CL: Because then they tortured him. They turned cigarettes off from him. They beat him. You don’t do that to someone [00:53:00] who... JJ: But then if they’re like that, somebody’s getting stuff [in their head?]. CL: Exactly. Richie became the traitor. He became the bad guy. JJ: Somebody’s feeding them -- you don’t know who? CL: Exactly. Well, COINTEL. JJ: Because most of the other people were people, they grew up together (inaudible) CL: Yeah. JJ: Somebody else has been (inaudible) CL: Exactly. JJ: And they’re part of (inaudible) CL: Well, no. They were not there. No. JJ: Oh, they’re not (inaudible)? CL: These were our own people. JJ: Our own people from the (inaudible) So somebody’s interested in being (inaudible) CL: Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. So, I’m devastated because now these are new people, but then they had also recruited some new people that we had just barely knew. And I had just given birth to my second son, he must have been eight 39 �months old. So I got a call from a female, one of them, stating to me that whatever they gave me for a baby shower, that they wanted it back. [00:54:00] Well, my street stuff from the Lower East Side, of course, came out. I was like, “You can take it all. And don’t you ever...” JJ: (inaudible) CL: Exactly. “Don’t you ever come here again. Ever again.” And so this was April 1976. Heartbroken, young girl from 16. I’m 21 years old now. Two kids. No direction because the direction was -- my life was the Young Lords. I go to Auga. Auga was working in Gouverneur Hospital on the Lower East Side. And she was my -- JJ: (inaudible) CL: (inaudible) She was my (Spanish). Someone that I loved. Loved her for many, many years, respected her. And it was so important for me to tell her [00:55:00] and to let her know that what they were saying was not true. Because then what they did was, is that they wrote this article in Palante stating that Richie Perez, Diana Caballero, [Felix Flores?], [Lydia Flores?], Tony Copeland, and Carmen Copeland, that’s how I was known back then, were meeting to overthrow the Central Committee. In the five years that I was in the Young Lords, not once did these three couples ever meet together alone. Ever. And never to talk about overthrowing the Central Committee. They had, or so they said because this is what came out in the Palante article, Lydia Flores, [00:56:00] she was the one that came forward and said that we were meeting. JJ: You were what? 40 �CL: Meeting. That the three couples -- JJ: Lydia Flores (inaudible) CL: -- were meeting to -- Uh-huh. And meanwhile, this young woman at the time, we used to share. They had a child, we had a child, we used to share, we used to go to the park together, we used cook dinners on Sundays together. JJ: Lydia Flores? CL: And her husband Felix. JJ: So she grew up with everybody else? CL: She was in student Aspira, part of the -- JJ: Student Aspira, but she didn’t grow up with anybody else? CL: Yes and no. Because in the beginning was Aspira, and then later on, it was the PRRWO. Felix did, he also came from Aspira, but I think he had more of the Young Lords because -- JJ: He was Huracan’s brother. CL: -- Huracan’s brother. JJ: Yeah. Felix (inaudible) CL: Okay, Felix. JJ: But not Lydia. CL: Not Lydia. JJ: (inaudible) [00:57:00] CL: Yes. JJ: (inaudible) CL: But, you know, these are things that hurt a lot, I mean, because when that 41 �happened, my husband and I, we split up right after that. JJ: But let me just, you know, say ’cause we had members in our group that we grew up with. Right? (inaudible) that doesn’t matter when -- whether they grew up or not. CL: Anyway, getting back to Auga. I wanted her to know that this was not true, that we were not doing that. So I go to Gouverneur. I muster up the nerve to go and see her. I was just afraid of her doing what she did. Because when she seen me -- I go, she was working in emergency. When I go there, I’m like, “Augie, I’m here to tell you that it’s not true. [00:58:00] You never even asked me. Does that matter to you?” She just turned and just walked away. JJ: What was her name again? CL: Auga [Goga?] (inaudible) JJ: She didn’t answer you? CL: She didn’t, no. JJ: (inaudible) CL: She stood with the PRRWO. You know, she stood with them ’til the end. ’til the end. JJ: Because you had purges of the members (inaudible) CL: Said I wasn’t going to stay with -- You know, okay, I got purged and everything, when my husband w-- I had already decided I could not do this anymore. You know, I could not be in an organization that was like that. This was not the Young Lords. JJ: It was not the original Young Lords that (inaudible) and you were very scared? 42 �[Marxist, Leninist?] CL: Doing horrible things, no. No, you don’t go around beating people like that. No, no. You just don’t. After that, to get a hold of Richie and Diana [00:59:00] was like mission impossible. Because, again, we wanted to write something in response to what had happened, and we did. We did do it. I don’t even have a copy of that ’cause after, you know, we moved -- JJ: But more or less, what did it say? CL: That it was not true. Oh my god, we took Gloria Fontanez and Carmen Cruz, and we also like dragged them in the street. You know, we were so upset with them. JJ: (inaudible) CL: How dare they? JJ: What kind of (inaudible) CL: Okay, you know, several things were not true. JJ: These are just feelings or...? CL: No, we had facts. JJ: (inaudible) CL: But I just can’t, like, you know. But it was a pretty large, you know, and I’m still trying to locate that pamphlet so I can read it and refresh my memory in what had happened. JJ: But basically, you were [01:00:00] saying what? They’re not relating to the people or...? CL: That we were, that the turn that the Young Lords Party had taken was not a 43 �correct turn. JJ: It was not a (inaudible) CL: That we had criticized so many groups in the movement. JJ: The turn of going to work with the workers? CL: The turn of changing its name PRRWO and divorcing itself from the workers and the community ’cause we were not doing proletarian organizing or anything like that. We were stuck in rooms doing (inaudible), you know, I don’t agree with you, you don’t agree with me, so I’ll kick your ass and you’ll kick mine. That’s what it was all about. JJ: (inaudible) saying that that was (inaudible) CL: But then throughout the years, after I left and of course after, you know, you can’t have an organization with one person. So you’ve got to dissolve the -- because eventually other people who have been there from the beginning, like [Miriam?], [01:01:00] had to leave too. And then throughout the years I ran into her, I ran into other people, I ran into people who hurt Richie, who regretted it, and they were, like, in a frenzy at the time. JJ: What were they saying about Richie? What were they trying (inaudible) CL: During the time that they beat them up? JJ: Yeah. Yeah. Well, what is the beating? We didn’t (inaudible) CL: Oh, okay. Well they turned cigarettes off on him, they hit him, they kept him against his will. JJ: Did you see this or...? CL: No, ’cause then Richie came out, and Richie told us. And the persons who did 44 �this. JJ: So they put cigarettes on him? (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) CL: Yes, turned the cigarette off on his skin. And the person who did it, he came out and he said it. He regretted it. JJ: Who was that? CL: Oh, gee, I don’t know if I should. JJ: Say it? That’s all right. Okay, you don’t -- It’s not important. Okay. You don’t want to say an identity? (inaudible) [01:02:00] CL: But Richie forgave that person. P2: (inaudible) Panama. Panama. CL: (Spanish) Richie didn’t -- P2: I’m sorry. For the record, Panama is [still another thing?]. CL: We’ll talk about it off camera. (laughs) JJ: (inaudible) CL: But then, you know, after that Richie -- we finally was able to get in contact with Richie, and he was very, very scared and very weary because his life was in danger. But we were able to meet and we wrote that pamphlet. We were very happy and satisfied with it. And then after that, everybody just tried to pick up the pieces and move on. JJ: So people kind of got together later on? CL: Right after the purge. Okay, they took Richie maybe about a month after, and then about another month when Richie came back and he finally was willing [01:03:00] to meet with us. 45 �JJ: And met with different people [and that?]? CL: Mm-hmm. JJ: So what happened to Gloria and Auga? CL: Well, Gloria, she kept on -- JJ: Gloria and (inaudible) CL: Then Carmen Cruz left, and she went on with her personal life. And Gloria, I think she started drinking a lot. I do know that I ran into her several times throughout the years. The first time I run into her, it was in a dance place called [Justine’s?]. JJ: What is it? CL: Justine’s, it’s a Latin joint that they had back in -- JJ: In the Lower East Side (inaudible)? CL: No, that was on 38th Street and 8th Avenue. JJ: (inaudible) CL: I’m in the bathroom and I’m just, like, I’m there. When I turn, I see her coming. When she seen me, she was, like, the smile. [01:04:00] I looked at her, my body just became so rigid, and my face dropped. She knew right then and there ’cause her smile went from smiling to frowning. And the energy, boom, was like, don’t you dare. I have nothing for you, nothing at all. And so I walked out. The next time I run into her we were -- My husband and I, we were invited to the John Leguizamo show, when he had the show on television, but we went to the TV show. JJ: John (inaudible) 46 �CL: John Leguizamo. And so when we’re there, when we turn, she’s there with the daughter, oh my God, the whole family. There was the daughter and friends. And so I had to explain to my husband [01:05:00] who she was. So I didn’t make it easy for her. I just kept going pss. (gestures indicating whispering) (laughs) The third time I run into her, we were doing some work to free the political prisoner Dylcia and the women and the guy. JJ: (inaudible) prisoner of what? CL: From the FALN. JJ: The FALN? (inaudible) CL: We were at the Puerto Rican Day Parade, and we had, like, this side table. So I decided to go to the store to get a bottle of water. So I got my water, I’m coming out, and who’s coming in? But she is with some guy. I don’t know what she expected, for me to hold the door or something, but I slammed the door in her face. And the guy looked at me like (makes a face) and she was like, “Just leave well enough alone.” She went in, I went out, [01:06:00] and that was the end of that. I’ve never seen her again. JJ: (inaudible) proactive and everything? CL: Yeah, she is proactive. She does poetry. P2: (inaudible) last time I saw her. (inaudible) CL: She does poetry now. People don’t know -- in fact, I have a friend. His name is [Jeremy Delgado?], and I was on Facebook checking on his page, and he had made a comment, and she came out. And when I seen her, of course, every time I see her, I kind of, like, freeze. You know? So I went into her page and 47 �says, “Is that Gloria. Oh?” So I called him, and I spoke to him, and says “Listen, you have this woman on your page.” And he says, “Yeah. She’s a great poet, a great writer.” I’m like, “Well let me tell you a little story about Miss Gloria Fontanez.” Okay? He was in total shock that this woman partook in the downfall of the Young Lords Party, and how she [01:07:00] helped create a situation to hurt so many innocent people. All in what? You know? JJ: (inaudible) Is there anything else (inaudible) community? CL: His name is [Miguel Vasquez?]. JJ: Miguel Vasquez? CL: Uh-huh. JJ: And what [does Miguel do?]. CL: Miguel is a English teacher for elementary school. JJ: How did you meet him? What was that (inaudible) CL: I met him in New York on the train. JJ: Oh, on the train? CL: Yeah. JJ: So you guys moved and you live here. CL: Well, we met 18 years ago. And so, two strong-headed people. The beginning was very [01:08:00] hard for us. And so we decided to part ways in the beginning, and he came to Puerto Rico. And when he came to see his parents, his parents were old, and so he decided to stay. I’ve always wanted to live in Puerto Rico, and I’m like, “Gee, if I don’t move to Puerto Rico, I’m going to lose my chance to, you know -- 48 �JJ: Be together. CL: -- have a relationship with this man. And so I decided -- and my kids were already grown, out making their own life. And I said, “Well, let me move to Puerto Rico.” And I did. And here I am. JJ: So what does he do? (inaudible) CL: He’s a teacher. English teacher. JJ: Oh, yeah. English teacher. (inaudible) CL: Well, yeah, he was active in New York with, how you say (Spanish). P2: The United Bronx Parents. CL: The United Bronx Parents. P2: (inaudible) [01:09:00] CL: Very nice guy. Very decent man, taught me a lot of things that, when you grow up in a place like the Lower East Side, you tend to grow up with missing certain things like morals. And, you know, when you also are rebelling, you tend to move some of these things in your life because you’re willing to -- you’re rebellious, you’ll rebel against anything and everything. JJ: So do you think we made an impact at all in -- you guys made an impact in New York or...? CL: Oh, absolutely, yes. Oh, yeah. You know, it’s so funny. Moving to Puerto Rico, I couldn’t find the kind of work that I did in New York and the salary, so I decided to work in restaurants because they gave me the salary or the way [01:10:00] that I liked to live. So that’s what I’ve done in the last 18 years, or 15 years, here in Puerto Rico. I’ve worked in restaurants. So this youngster several years ago, 49 �he says to me, I did a paper on the Young Lords. Well, we were talking about the Young Lords, and I’m like, “You know, I used to be a Lord.” Oh my god, he was so amazed. And he says to me, “You know, I did a paper on the Young Lords.” He was excited. Oh my god. And I’m like, “Well, I want to read your paper.” And one thing led to another. And I’ve never read his paper, but -- and I did promise that I wanted you to meet him. And the kid is only 19 years old. JJ: (inaudible) CL: And look, he in Puerto Rico... JJ: (inaudible) CL: Yeah. JJ: Anything else that you want to add (inaudible) [landmark?] [01:11:00] CL: Well, to finalize, the experience, the people that I’ve met, what I’ve learned because, again, I didn’t go to high school. And my education came from the Lords. JJ: Did you get a GED or anything? CL: Yeah, I did get a GED, but after all the Lords, then I tried, you know, started to find my way. Because, again, you know, when you’re 16 and you’re 21, it’s an impact. JJ: But that’s (inaudible) you seem to be (inaudible) the Lords for them teaching you about life -- CL: The reading, understanding. JJ: You started reading? CL: Yeah. We had to read Lenin, Marx, Stalin. So you have to be at a certain level 50 �to understand, you know, and read this. JJ: (inaudible) CL: [In there?]. JJ: (inaudible) CL: Yeah. In fact, I never went to [01:12:00] take classes for my GED, and I passed it the first shot. When I went back to school, and I took a test, they could not believe that I didn’t go to high school. So yeah, of course it impacted. I learned a lot. And one thing I did say that after that happened, I would never join another group blindly, ever. If I were to join a group, I would definitely have to know exactly where they’re coming from, and I would have to truly believe. That’s why, when I left, that day that I told Tony, “I’m gonna call them and I’m gonna leave.” I no longer believed in the PRRWO. JJ: (inaudible) CL: And I still have good friends. Panama, Richie -- JJ: (inaudible) CL: And I’ve met you, you know, who started it all. JJ: (inaudible) END OF AUDIO FILE 51 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7e59af5b7c5d0ea787e9221d510757b2.mp4 548a6e755aa65307ea2dbbac5d4b3686 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 de Leon vídeo entrevista y biografía Descripción Spanish language Description entry Carmen De Leon es una Young Lord que creció en la cuidad de Nueva York y ahora vive en Loiza, Puerto Rico. Soportará fuerte por mujeres, Señora De Leon trabajo cerca con el Young Lord Richie Pérez en programas de educación para jóvenes. En su entrevista comparte sus memorias sobre los días que trabajo con los Young Lords. Señora De Leon habla de cómo los Young Lords fueron infiltrados por agentes del gobierno y como “idolología” fue utilizado para nublar y hacer divisiones dentro del movimiento. Esto también incluye soportando unos que tomen poder y descreditando los líderes. Con vivacidad describe como los miembros fueron tomados como rehén y como ella misma fue purgada de los Young Lords. Su entrevista nos da una prospectiva importante en cómo estos tácticos fueron pasados y últimamente destruyo las conexiones dentro de los Young Lords y el barrio. Sujetos Spanish language Subject terms Young Lords (Organización) Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Narrativas personales Justicia social Puertorriqueños--Illinois--Chicago--Condiciones sociales 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_Leon_Carmen_de Title A name given to the resource Carmen de Leon video interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Leon, Carmen de Description An account of the resource Carmen de Leon is a Young Lord who grew up in New York City and today lives in Loíza, Puerto Rico. A strong advocate for women, Ms. de Leon worked closely with Young Lord Richie Pérez on a range of education and youth centered programs. In her oral history, she recalls her days working with the Young Lords. Ms. de Leon discusses how the Young Lords were infiltrated by government agents and how “ideology” was utilized to factionalize and create divisions within the Movement, including encouraging takeovers, discrediting, and purging leaders. She vividly describes members being taken hostage as well as how she herself was purged from the Young Lords. Her interview provides important insights into how these repressive tactics were carried out and how they ultimately destroyed the connections between the Young Lords and the barrio base. 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--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 2012-05-14 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/a3d3ebc4320ef314be129250e2f9adcc.pdf 156c95d987fcb59faf23ecb405d8f966 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: David Lemieux Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 7/15/2012 Biography and Description David (pronounced "Daveed") Lemieux joined the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party in the spring of 1969. At age 16, he was the second youngest member of that Chapter. He was a "rank and file" member and functioned in all BPP activities including the Free Breakfast for Children Program and the dissemination of the Black Panther newspaper. As a member of the Education Cadre, he was constantly engaged with "speaking" the mission and purpose of the Black Panther Party. He remained active with the BPP into the early 70s. In 1982, after consultation with other members of the activist community, David joined the Chicago Police Department and began a 26 year career where he was able to use his office and authority as a vehicle to serve the people. Currently, David Lemieux gives seminars facilitated by Chicago's Black Star Project entitled "Keeping OUR children out of the 'Just US' System" and speaks locally and nationally on the role of peace officers serving the community through the justice system. He is active with the Chicago Black Panther History Project and other efforts committed to preservation, education and reclamation of the true history of our struggle. �Transcript JOSE JIMENEZ: David, you can give me your name, full name, and date of birth, and where you were born? DAVID LEMIEUX: Okay. My name is David Lemieux. I was born April 10, 1953 in Georgetown, Ohio. I came to Chicago when I was very, very small. I have no real memories of Ohio. I grew up in Chicago. JJ: So, you were like a couple years old? DL: I was in maybe first grade or something. Kindergarten, first grade. JJ: So, no recollection whatsoever? DL: Not really, no. JJ: And your parents, where did they come from? DL: My father’s from Haiti. My mother’s from here. JJ: She’s from Chicago? DL: Yes. They’re both deceased now. Well, as far as I know, my father’s deceased. (laughs) I can’t verify. JJ: Oh, you can’t verify? DL: No, if he’s alive, no. My father’s name was [Mark Lemieux?]. [00:01:00] That’s about all I can tell you. JJ: So, you didn’t grow up with him at all? DL: Very short term. I was raised essentially by my mother. JJ: What do you know about him? 1 �DL: I know he was from Haiti. I know he was working at a hotel maybe. They met -of course, my mother was white, my father was Black, so it was not the most popular thing in 1953, or the safest thing for people. They were together for a little while. Things were not easy for them. I don’t know if he stayed here. I don’t know if he went back to Haiti. I really don’t know. JJ: Where were they living? (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) DL: In Chicago. Well, see, I lived in Chicago -- when we moved to Ohio -- I’m sorry, when we came here from Ohio, [00:02:00] we moved to Hyde Park in Chicago. I don’t know a whole lot of my parents’ history. I get a little confused. I don’t know if they met here. My mother traveled a lot. So, I don’t know if she met my father here or if she met him in San Francisco because she lived in California for a while. JJ: Tell me what she did. She traveled (inaudible)? DL: She traveled. My mother was a free spirit, bro. She just went different places. When she came here she was working. I remember when I was a little kid she worked at the Conrad Hilton hotel downtown. And then, she worked for this -- as an accountant at a warehouse. Not a trained accountant, but my mother was self-taught. She did books for this small company. Can’t really give you a lot of history about my parents. There’s not a whole lot I can tell you. JJ: So, you grew up in Hyde Park. DL: Grew up in Hyde Park basically. JJ: Hyde Park is a rich area. [00:03:00] 2 �DL: Hyde Park isn’t a rich area at all. But Hyde Park is close to the University of Chicago. It’s a very diverse community. I don’t know if my mother did it just by accident. I don’t really see her as being someone who was going to do a lot of research. When she came to Chicago, like I said, I was very small. To end up in Hyde Park, which was, for Chicago, a very diverse community -- remember, Chicago was very segregated. Hyde Park, however, was not because of the University of Chicago community. There were people from all over the world. I went to St. Thomas the Apostle Grammar School which was, as I recall, roughly 80 percent Black, 10 percent white, and [00:04:00] 10 percent miscellaneous. I may be a little wrong with the figures. It may have been a little less than that. But it was primarily Black students, although there were still white students there that you could see, that were visible. There were families there that had been there a long time. JJ: So, it was the neighborhood that changed basically. (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) DL: Hyde Park never really, really -- Hyde Park has been pretty consistent all the way through. I mean, there’s more Black people there now. The neighborhood, when I was growing up, was, like I say, it was diverse. There were a lot of Black folks living there, and there were a lot of white people living there, and there were some Asians living there. Wasn’t a lot of Latinos. There were some Eastern Europeans. There was a few Latinos. JJ: There were [a few, is that right?]? 3 �DL: But not a lot. But not a lot. But this was in, [00:05:00] what, early ’60s. I went to high school. I started high school in ’68. Went to Hales Franciscan until I got kicked out. JJ: To where? DL: Hales Franciscan. My grammar school was at 55th and Woodlawn. My high school was at 4935 Cottage Grove. So, a lot of my high school years were spent at Parkway Gardens which is at 64th and King Drive. I mean, one of those situations where I didn’t necessarily live there but I was there all the time. Well, I was a kid. I had a girlfriend that lived there. I spent a lot of time with her family. JJ: So, how was your childhood? DL: Childhood was interesting. You know, I always use the term -- I love my mother [00:06:00] dearly, but my mother raised me by what I describe as benign neglect. Benign neglect is a political term that usually refers to the relationship between a colonial power and its colony, where the colonial power doesn’t really mess with the colony as long as they do what they’re supposed to do. They’re not really hands on in doing a lot of raising. My mother certainly gave me a foundation for right and wrong and etiquette, things that were very important. I’m certainly not going to -- she wasn’t neglected there. I wasn’t neglected as far as not having food and clothes and all that. But my mother worked in 3:00 to 11:00 shift when she worked at the Conrad Hilton when I was in grammar school. So, by the time I got home from school -- she would see me off in the morning, but when I got home from school, there was nobody there until eleven o’clock at night. So, I was kind of on my own. [00:07:00] 4 �JJ: [I actually worked?] at the Conrad Hilton later (inaudible). DL: Yeah, so, I was one of the original -- what they called latchkey kids where they -she tried to have babysitters and people that would watch me. I had brief periods where I would go maybe stay with somebody after school or whatever. School was like eight or nine blocks from where we lived. So, that was a nice little walk. Wasn’t no taking the bus. But since she had to go to work before I got home, that never worked out because I would always eventually just walk home. I didn’t want to stay with other people. I did stay with one lady for a while. That was kind of cool, her and her family. Actually, her name was [Nancy Ramos?]. She was Mexican. Actually wish I had stayed there longer because maybe I could have learned Spanish. [00:08:00] But she had a kid and a husband and sister in law. They just sort of babysat for me. I wouldn’t really sleep there, but I would stay there. They lived close to where we lived. Then I would just go home. They would take me or walk me home. So, I wouldn’t just be unsupervised for all those hours after school. But then, after a certain time, I was just pretty much on my own. I learned how to cook and do all that kind of stuff. And my mother was cool. JJ: Your mother’s name was what? (inaudible) DL: [Ann?]. JJ: And your father? DL: [Mark?]. JJ: Mark. And any brothers and sisters? DL: I’m an only child. 5 �JJ: You’re the only child. DL: Yeah. JJ: So, you were cooking and -- DL: Cooking and -- I got pretty self-sufficient. I started working a part time job when I was 15 as a busboy at a restaurant. [00:09:00] Matter of fact, I remember my mother going and lying about my age because you were supposed to be 16 to work. So, she went and told them. They didn’t ask for a birth certificate. So, she told them I was 16 so I could. I never had to give my mother any of my check. But once I started working, of course, then she didn’t have to give me as much money, which was good. I would do my own day to day maintenance with things. I mean, again, my mother certainly provided food, clothing, shelter, and love. We had a good relationship. It just wasn’t maybe the traditional -- I don’t know. I don’t have anything to compare it to too much. It’s how I grew up. JJ: So, then non-traditional, (inaudible). DL: It was cool. My mother said to me one time -- this was not when I was a small child. I was actually -- it may have even been when I was in the Panther Party. I’m not sure. [00:10:00] But my mother even said to me that, “Son, there are some things about you that I’ll never really understand exactly because you’re Black,” referring to me, “and I’m white,” talking about her. So, it was never -- I always liked to compare my mother to Mary Tyler Moore. She was so nice and kind of oblivious sometimes to things. At least maybe it appeared that way to me when I was younger. As she got older and I got older, I realized that she may not have been so oblivious to things that were going on. But at the time, she was 6 �just -- there was an instance that happened when I was in high school. I was always a troublemaker at school, but not a troublemaker like misbehaving, like doing anything [00:11:00] like gang stuff. But I got politicized when I was in seventh grade. I became attached to the struggle when I was in seventh grade. So, that’s a kid. That’s a grammar school kid. I saw Stokely Carmichael on television. And this was when all the demonstrations were going on in the South. They had the Freedom Riders riding the buses. And keep in mind, I had never been south except for one trip to Florida, and I’ll tell you about that. But when I saw Stokely Carmichael on TV, when he said Black Power, he was speaking before a bunch of people the Lowndes County Freedom Party in Lowndes County, Alabama. They were registering people to vote. And he was speaking at a rally, and he said very loudly that what we need is Black power. And when I heard that, I was like, “That’s what I’m talking about.” [00:12:00] I would say that and joining that Black Panther Party were two pivotal points in my development, I’d say, as a human being. They just were. Hearing that -JJ: What did it mean to you? DL: Well, the thing is this. When I was much smaller -- I must have been about five or six years old -- my mother and I went to Florida. My mother looked like a Latina. That’s how she looked. My mother had very coal black hair. My mother was a very nice looking woman. Her features and her very dark hair and the way she pulled it back -- we were at a swimming pool in Florida and I’m guesstimating it was about ’59, about the year the revolution down there, and a lot of Cubans came to the U.S. [00:13:00] I mean, granted a lot of them were what may have 7 �been perceived in Cuba as white Cubans. They were really people with money. Some people came. But in America, they were people of color. In America, they were foreigners and people of color. JJ: Even though they were [white?] (inaudible). DL: Well, that becomes a vague term. That becomes a vague term. But there was still -- in Miami, there was always a lot of Cubans. There’s a lot of Cubans in Miami. So, we were at this swimming pool that didn’t have any signs posted or anything like that. My mother couldn’t swim. But in a section of the pool there were what of course I know now to be Cubans. And they were visibly a little different than the other people that were there. And they were in a certain section of the pool. I mean, a lot of this is retrospect because I remember it from then. [00:14:00] Nobody ever taught me how to swim. Somehow I just knew how to swim. So, when I was a little kid, I could swim. So, I get in the pool and my mother got up to use the washroom. I mean, there’s a lifeguard there. She didn’t know how to swim anyway, so nothing she could do if I started to drown. (laughs) But she wasn’t really worried about that because I could swim really well. So, I just got in the water and I just started swimming all over the pool. Well, apparently, I swam in a part of the pool that the Cubans were not supposed to go into. But I’m just swimming. And a bunch of white teenagers -- I mean, I even remember this now. A bunch of white teenagers jumped in the pool and they started pushing me under water. And I remember they were saying, “What’s the matter, Carlos? Can’t you swim? What’s the matter, Jose? Can’t you swim?” I mean, they’re calling me all these names like that. So, obviously they 8 �thought that I was Latino, that I was with this group of Cubans. [00:15:00] Had they known I was Black, it might have even been worse. But I knew I was being singled out for some difference I had with these folks. That was, I would say, my first real encounter with racism. But I certainly didn’t analyze it back then. I didn’t really know what to associate that with until later when I got older and I figured out the Carlos and Jose part in 1959 in Florida and Cuba, whatever. But going back up to seventh grade and becoming attached to the struggle -- we were watching TV and we would see the dogs and stuff down in Birmingham and the water hoses. We saw all that. Just like you watched the war in Vietnam, you also watched the civil rights struggle going on. There was something about not fighting back that did not appeal to me. [00:16:00] I was terrified of the idea of going to the South, but I always imagined -JJ: (inaudible) DL: Yeah, I just wasn’t feeling that. I just wasn’t feeling that. And I will admit that I was terrified about going South. I mean, I thought they had Black folks just hanging, lynched from every tree because I had always been here. And like I said, the experience in Florida -- I really hadn’t put that into perspective then. I saw them throwing rocks. As a matter of fact, I even saw Dr. King when he was here. My mother took me to see Dr. King, I want to say, maybe at the auditorium or (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) [was pretty progressive?]. DL: Oh, yeah, without a doubt. She didn’t talk a whole lot about it, but she was. I mean, I sort of analyzed that later. It’s kind of hard going back to that time. It’s 9 �like, “Okay, cool. We’re going to see Martin Luther King. I know he’s about nonviolence. Okay.” [00:17:00] I was still a kid, but I just wasn’t really about that idea of these people throwing bricks and rocks and water hoses on you and siccing dogs on you and not fighting back. There was just something about that that just did not sit well with me. So, when I heard Stokely Carmichael say Black Power, it wasn’t just me, but some of my friends and a little bit older -- we would start talking about things that were going on. Keep in mind, we’re talking about a kid in grammar school. But we would start talking about social issues as much as our seventh and eighth grade minds could comprehend and figure out certain things. And then, I remember in eighth grade, that’s when we started listening to records of Malcolm X, “Ballot or the Bullet,” “Message to the Grassroots.” JJ: So, what year was this? DL: This was in ’67, I want to say, because Malcolm was assassinated in ’65. JJ: [I would say ’68 was?] (inaudible). DL: And ’67 -- I remember [00:18:00] listening to him actually at St. Thomas. We had an after school group. It was Black Christian Students Association. I wasn’t Catholic, but wasn’t none of us really religious at all. We just, okay, we had this group because that way we could use the facility and maybe get some Kool-Aid or whatever from the church. And we would sit there and we would discuss social issues. So, I was already very much attached to the whole idea of resistance when I was in eighth grade. So, when I went to high school -- JJ: Now, eighth grade -- where was the school? 10 �DL: Eighth grade, 55th and Woodlawn, St. Thomas. I went to high school at Hales Franciscan at 4930 Cottage Grove, Hales was the only all Black Catholic school. It was an all-male school. But at Hales, we started a Black student union. [00:19:00] Even though it was an all-Black school, we started a student union because we were sort of in conflict with the priests. The priests, all but one, were white. And we would have these things with them. “Look, you’re all a bunch of white missionaries trying to civilize us.” I mean, we really had these ongoing things with these priests. JJ: Would you come by that and tell them that? Because it’s kind of hard to talk to a priest like that. (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) DL: Well, we would do it -- yeah, there were some of them that were pretty aggressive with their stuff. I remember being a sophomore in high school. When I was a sophomore in high school -- when does school get out? In June? In May of ’69 -- I started freshman year in ’68 and ’69 was my sophomore year. In ’69 I joined the Black Panther Party. I was in the party and still sitting in [00:20:00] school in Hales Franciscan wondering why I was there because I thought the revolution was going to start tomorrow, and I don’t know why I’m sitting here listening to these white people talk the counterrevolutionary nonsense. JJ: So, you thought the revolution was going to be -- DL: It was imminent. JJ: It was imminent? DL: It was imminent. JJ: You know, [a lot of people felt that?] (inaudible). 11 �DL: And again, I was 16. I mean, your sense of urgency is heightened. Your sense of mortality is nonexistent. So, why couldn’t it be the revolution tomorrow? I mean, hey, the brothers are ready to do what we need to do. And then of course, once I joined the party and could put organization to this -- I mean, I remember there was one of the guys that I went to high school with who was a little older than me who brought a Panther paper to school. [00:21:00] I remember looking at the Black Panther paper and he said, “Well, you know there’s a chapter here in Chicago.” This was ’69, and he was going to a meeting on a Tuesday night at 2350 West Madison. And I was like, “Man, that’s what I want to do. I want to do that.” I believe it was, like I say -- I’m almost positive that it was May because I know I was 16. And I was the second youngest member of the Chicago chapter. There was a brother we called [Oppressed?]. That’s not his name, but we called him Oppressed, who was 15. So, he was the youngest, and I was the second youngest. I remember coming to the meeting. And by me being so light complected, there were people that were looking at me a little funny. But the brother I was with said, “This is David, my friend from -- I got to school.” I guess he verified my race credentials or whatever. [00:22:00] I went to the political orientation class (audio cuts out) and studied the Red Book and started going to the breakfast program and selling the papers. I mean, being 16 years old and getting up at 4:30, 5:00 in the morning to go and serve breakfast to some children, especially -- ironically being an only child, I didn’t really have a lot of interaction with other -- I didn’t have no brothers or sisters. But I actually liked it, the whole idea of what we were doing. See, I sort of got it. I got it at a young 12 �age. I got the whole international view. My concern as far as my immediate concern is the quality of life for Black people in America. [00:23:00] That’s my immediate concern because that encompasses who I am and my family and what I’m dealing with. But I was able to immediately grasp our solidarity with these different liberation struggles throughout the planet. JJ: Because you’re looking at Stokely Carmichael and Black Power (inaudible). DL: Right, I’m really feeling that. JJ: You’re feeling it, okay. DL: And I’m feeling the Black Panther Party. Again, my concern, my personal concern, what David is concerned with is my community. But I recognized early the similarities between what other oppressed peoples are and have dealt with in the world. [00:24:00] I was able to understand the whole concept of capitalism and socialism. I got that there were these rich greedy people. JJ: And your mother is not telling you this. DL: No, I’m not getting any of this from her. JJ: Are you getting some of it from school? DL: Only from friends. I’m not getting any of this from -- there are no authority figures that are telling me this. This is from my own -- you have to remember, I was reading Malcolm X when I was in grammar school. I was reading Fanon when I was a freshman in high school. I read everything I could get my hands on. I read as much literature that I could get my hands on that had to do with the struggle, that had to do with resistance. I read Che. I read Fidel. I read that because I was ready to go to war. I mean, I liked the -- the social programs were 13 �fantastic. I understand. As a mature person -- [00:25:00] I’m 59 years old. I understand all that now. Back then, what I was waiting for was to have the [carbine?] and go to war. That was like -- I’ll do all these other things, but when do I get to get the [carbine?] and go to war? Yeah, I’ll do that, that’s great. But we’re talking about a 16-year-old now. We’re not talking about an adult. But the biggest appeal for the Panther Party and the greatest appeal to me personally was saying that our lives are precious enough, and our freedom or hopefully our future autonomy from this government is precious enough to fight for, to actually fight. Not have a conversation, not make [00:26:00] declarations, not file petitions and march and, “Please, can you all stop treating us like this.” I like the idea that if you try to harm me, if you try to hurt me, I will hurt you back, I will harm you. I am not going to let you do whatever you want to me because I am a child of the African Diaspora. That does not give you the right to have control over me to the point where you can do whatever you want to me or to my people just because, or because you can. I say you can’t. I say if you try, I’ll fight you back. I believed in that. This came from my -JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) DL: -- came from my friends and from me. JJ: And your mom a little bit. DL: Well, the thing with my mother was this. [00:27:00] My mother was proud of me that I was rebellious, if you want to put it, for lack of a better way of putting it. My mother, of course, had not been treated well by most of her family. I won’t include my grandparents. They were cool. My grandfather was legally blind, so 14 �he couldn’t see me anyway. And he just really -- my grandparents were very old. They were already in their seventies. I mean, my grandparents died when I was in grammar school. But they always treated me well when I would see them. They were in Ohio. They were cool. They never discussed anything. They never mentioned issues of race. I heard my grandfather use some terminology. I mean, I never heard him say nigger, but I heard him say darkies. I mean, I was a little, little kid. I heard my grandmother [00:28:00] bemoan the fact one time -- I think she said something like, “Couldn’t Ann find a white man?” She might have said that. But she didn’t -- but even saying that, she didn’t say that to me. I was probably not supposed to hear that. As far as the way they treated me, they treated me okay. But my politicization -- whatever, I’m not saying [the word?], but you know -- I got politicized and conscious on my own from my own reading and from what I saw. I didn’t need somebody to feed it to me. I read it. I started listening to Malcolm X. Watching people get beat and dogs sicced on them was enough for me. And you have to remember here in Chicago -JJ: (inaudible) DL: That was on television. But remember, here in Chicago, being so segregated, I knew that Hyde Park was a special community. But we could not go -- we, being Black folks, we could not go to Marquette Park. [00:29:00] We could not go anywhere near Bridgeport. We couldn’t -- when I was in grammar school, Black people couldn’t go to Rainbow Beach which is at 77th and South Shore Drive. It’s all Black people now. But when I was a kid, you could get beat to death over there. Matter of fact, all the way when I was in high school, a friend of mine got 15 �beat into a coma at Rainbow Beach, which is at 77th South Shore Drive. This is in high school. So, that had to be, again, ’69. It wasn’t even the 70-- you know, the ’60s. JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) and the history in Rainbow Beach from the 1920s? DL: I think those riots were 31st Street maybe. I think when they killed -- JJ: So, 31st Street was Bridgeport. DL: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) 31st Street, yeah, but that far east isn’t, but Black folks were not welcome. There were riots there back in -- [00:30:00] JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) of Bridgeport. DL: Right, yes, it would have been. JJ: That’s where Mayor Daley’s [gang?]. DL: Exactly, the Hamburg gang. But a lot of people now -- it’s hard for them to imagine -- JJ: But Rainbow Beach you couldn’t go -- DL: Couldn’t go anywhere near there. South Shore -- there were some Black people living in South Shore. South Shore was like the really bourgeois stuff, at least that’s what we thought. You have to remember, people trying to analyze other people’s neighborhoods and their pocketbooks doesn’t always come out quite correctly. You may have someone living in a house that looks -- I mean, I never lived in a house until I was an adult. So, I thought that anyone that had a house was rich. I mean, that’s just what I thought. If you lived in a house, you must be rich. When it’s people working three and four and five -- not three or four -- but 16 �people that worked two full time jobs in order to provide that particular environment for their children. So, I realize now that they weren’t [00:31:00] rich. But I thought South Shore you had to be kind of rich to live there. Of course, I found out later that wasn’t the case. But reading Malcolm and listening to it, and then -JJ: You mentioned (inaudible). DL: No, I’m just saying, there are older people that I started being around -- I met another brother from Haiti, it’s actually “Ai-ti.” His name was [Leslie Vieux?], V-IE-U-X, Leslie Vieux. I don’t know whatever happened to him. I haven’t seen him since I was in eighth grade or maybe a freshman probably. But he was what was called a Black nationalist. And he would come and talk to us, and he talked to us about Haiti and about the formation of the country and how they defeated the French [00:32:00] and threw out their enslavers. So, I was pretty fired up by the concept of fighting for your freedom, protracted armed struggle. When I got in the party, I started reading Mao, Fidel, people that had had successful revolutions, and then also combined with the Haitian Revolution. JJ: Oh, the Haitian revolution? DL: I mean, all of it. Just all of that’s going on in my mind. JJ: You’re studying this. DL: Right. I’m reading about this. I read about Toussaint Louverture and JeanJacques Dessalines and Henri Christophe, and that was 1796 to 1804. But all that was inspirational. All that was like, “Well, you know what? You can fight 17 �against oppression and you can win. [00:33:00] And You can fight for real. You can actually fight.” JJ: Did you say you were born there or -- DL: No, I was born in Ohio. JJ: Your father was. DL: I was born in Ohio. I mean, it was just -- I’ve ironically had these contacts and connections with Haiti even though not so much through my father. It’s just worked out that way. It’s like it’s just meant to be that way. But the biggest appeal for the party to me was the idea of armed struggle. I’m just saying. The social programs were absolutely fantastic. I’m just saying for me philosophically the idea of armed struggle -- JJ: You were ready. DL: I was ready. JJ: And a couple of things. You were ready, but the party is saying, “We have to use the programs to educate you.” DL: Oh, sure, absolutely. I was ready but I wasn’t a fool either. [00:34:00] I did defer to the -- I perceived as the wisdom of people that were older than me. It’s funny. I say older than me when I see old films from then, and I realize that the leadership of the party was 20, 21 years old. I was 16, so they were older than me. So, I deferred to their -- I guessed they were smarter because they were older. Remember, I wasn’t from the generation that, like now where the dynamic between young and old is totally screwed up. There was some element of me thinking that maybe you knew a little more than me because you were older. And 18 �then, of course, the party had a central staff. When I first joined the party, Chairman Fred was still incarcerated. JJ: When was that? DL: May of ’69. I know exactly. If I got a calendar, I might even be able to figure out the date. I know it was a Tuesday evening in May, and I know it was eight o’clock. I mean, it was a meeting at the headquarters. [00:35:00] I took the number 20 Madison bus with the other guy I went to school with. And we got off the bus and it was raining. Junior Walker and the All-Stars was playing “What Does it Take to Win For Love for Me” from -- I don’t know if that was a record shop or -- there was a record shop that was right by Panther headquarters, and they were blasting that through the speakers. So, anytime I hear that, I think of that. I remember that very vividly. I was just a solider. I was rank and file in the party. I did the things that members of the party were expected to do. I sold papers. I went to the breakfast for children program. I went to rallies. I remember this guy inviting me once [00:36:00] to speak to -- because he knew I was in the Panther Party -- to speak to a group of people from the Baha’i faith because they wanted to know. And I talked to Che, you know, Minister Che. He’s like, “Yeah, go ahead, brother. You can talk to them if you want to.” It wasn’t like a big, huge -- it wasn’t like I was in auditorium. It might have been like 10 or 15 people over in Hyde Park. Remember, Hyde Park has always been a more unique community in the city than any other place. I mean, it just is. Even though the University of Chicago is the devil. Still -- (laughs) it’s the devil. At the same time because of it being an academic community, there were always 19 �bookstores and places of gathering where progressive people could gather. It’s just always been that way. [00:37:00] During the ’60s, we used to go up to the Point, and that was all Black folks. We would go out to the Point and brothers would play drums and sisters would dance -- it’s at 55th -- it’s the Lake Point, Promontory Point it’s called. It’s right there at 55th and the lake, Lake Michigan. It’s a park, it’s a park. And brothers would go out there and play drums and sisters would dance. We would solve the problems in the Black world. JJ: To have a discussion. DL: Yeah, right. Somebody might have even a little tape of Malcolm. There was not so much cassettes then, but someone might actually have a reel-to-reel -- they even had little portable record players. I remember them having little portable record players that you could buy. And I remember listening to Malcolm outside once on one of those record players like that. It was like this little portable thing. [00:38:00] But you could actually play records on it. I remember listening to Malcolm in the park once, a bunch of us sitting around. JJ: Do you guys were really listening to the speeches? DL: We listened to the speeches, yeah. JJ: So, that was [a whole study?], this is pre-Panther? DL: That was pre-Panthers yeah. But once I was in the party, like I said, I would go to the political education classes, and I was studying revolution. I was studying the revolutions that had occurred, how they occurred, how Fidel landed with the yacht, Granma it was called, and he had X amount of people. I mean, I’m not good with numbers. But let’s say he had 87 people, and almost all of them got 20 �killed immediately. They got spotted by a plane, by one of those spotter planes. And they killed a bunch of them. But because of the [00:39:00] true need for revolution in Cuba at the time, the oppression they were suffering under Fulgencio Batista, those who were left in Fidel’s group were able to go through the countryside and continue to recruit. So, they were able to replace all the people that were lost in the initial encounter. And the revolutionary army grew and grew and grew and grew. And as we knew, in 1959, they marched into Havana, overthrew Batista. He fled the country. I read about things like that. To me, that was very inspirational, how you can start with these very few people and be decimated. But still, as long as there were people who carried that revolutionary zeal and enthusiasm to the people, that you could organize and get the revolution to grow. [00:40:00] And I truly, truly in my heart believed that’s what was going to be happen here in America. I believed it. I believed it was going to happen and nothing could stop it. JJ: And your friends believed the same thing? DL: Yes. JJ: Did they join in? DL: Well, (laughs) the friend that I was talking about was in the party. This guy, he was already in the party, and he took me down there. I haven’t talked to him in many years. I don’t know what’s happening. Kind of lost contact with that particular person. But I have other comrades from the party that we remained tight for 40 years. JJ: What were some of the other comrades? (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) 21 �DL: When I first joined the party, I’m pretty sure that [Billy?] was there when I very, very first joined in ’69. This guy’s name was -- well, he may not want his name mentioned on this -- I don’t know what he’s doing now, so I won’t. [00:41:00] He and his brother were both -- he had a twin brother, and I can’t remember if his twin brother was participating, but I know he was in the Panther Party. Most of the people I go back really far with, you know. (laughs) When I joined the party, Che and [Wanda?] and Billy and, you know, [Billy Dunbar?]. We’ve stayed in contact pretty much off and on most of our lives since then. I’m also involved with the history projects as well. JJ: So, what is the history project? DL: The history project is where we’re trying to organize archival information about the Illinois chapter of the party and also do similar to what we’re doing now, [00:42:00] interviews, oral histories, oral histories. Pretty much that, and compile it into a presentable program that can be used. JJ: Why do you think there’s a need for [that now?]? DL: Well, because as time passes, the people who can tell the real history of what happened in any given circumstances are not going to be here forever. So then, everything becomes speculative. People our age -- we’re all plagued by the veracity of our memories. I mean, maybe we’re not always so clear. But we’re more likely to be clear than someone who wasn’t there at all. [00:43:00] We may remember different versions of something. But I would rather have two or three people who were actually at an event or around during a certain time in history speaking on that than someone who wasn’t there at all speculating on what they 22 �think might have been. That’s not going to work. But I do remember the Rainbow Coalition. I remember interesting stories about that. I was working security -- oh. (laughs) I’ll tell you, when I first joined the party, Chairman Fred wasn’t there. When he got out, I happened to be in headquarters, in party headquarters, 2350 West Madison, sitting at the top of the steps. And I guess Fred and Che and different people were in the back in a meeting. [00:44:00] But I was to be there at a certain time. So, I wasn’t there when he got there, but when they come out of this meeting, he sees me. And he goes -- he hadn’t seen me before. Because of the way I look, he goes, “Power to the people.” He asked me was I in the Young Lords. That’s the first thing he asked me. (audio cuts out) “Are you a Young Lord?” I said, “No.” Then he said, “Are you a Young Patriot?” And I was offended, I will admit. This if Fred Hampton. This is chairman of the Illinois chapter. This is the first time I saw him. I already held him in awe. JJ: You had already knew him. DL: I already knew who he was. JJ: You’d seen him. DL: I believe it was Mr. Che who said, “That’s a Black Panther there.” Because, you know, [they had Che, this is a Black Panther?]. He said, “Oh, all right, Brother.” I mean, that was it. That was, again, Che verifying my race card, I guess. He let him know I was from the South Side. [00:45:00] JJ: Being light skinned, also. DL: As well you know, not always easy being green, brother. 23 �JJ: So growing up actually, it was a blessing or -- at times I had situations where [you just mentioned?], but it was a blessing also because I could kind of see from other angles. How was it for you? DL: This is the thing, I never -- JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) the incidents that -- DL: I think that it has been an issue with me my whole life. I’m 59. I’ll be 60 this time next year, and it’s still an issue. JJ: And you said (inaudible) it never goes away. DL: Right, it never goes away. And [00:46:00] it is what it is. I know how I look. When I was younger, it was very painful. It was not fun at all. It was -- people could be very -- say very mean things because, see I never tried -- JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) DL: Yeah. Well, see, the thing is I never tried to go anywhere else. The concept of what they used to call passing or whatever, that just was never even -- I never even considered that. It wasn’t like, “Oh, I’ll just go over here and be with Todd and Brandon.” I just never even thought to do that. And because I never thought to do that, when people would even suggest things like that to me, I found that very hurtful. You have to remember, starting to be involved in the struggle when I was in seventh grade -- what are you, 11, 12 years old? [00:47:00] So, I was already conscious when I was a kid. So, I became very aware of race and issues of race and everything and being called out of who I was or suggested that I should go do this, that, and the other when I was already committed not only being who I am -- I’m just Black to me, just light skinned Black person. So, when 24 �people would imply that you would feel differently about injustices and about things that were aimed at Black people that somehow you would feel different because even though, “Yeah, we know you’re Black, but you’re real light, so maybe you feel differently about it.” I didn’t feel any differently about it. I didn’t feel less oppressed or [00:48:00] less anger at the people who did these things because I share some complexion traits. My momma didn’t oppress me, but I didn’t associate my mother with the behavior of white people in general. I mean, I knew that wasn’t the behavior of white people in general because I was able to observe their behavior, you know, in life. I was able to see it. I was able to see how, yeah, sure, I could go places sometimes and maybe people would not -- I’ll be the first to admit, sure, they didn’t know me. But I was always with other people who were browner. So, maybe they weren’t reacting to just me, but they were reacting to the presence of Black folks then. So, I was still privy to that constantly, seeing their behavior and how they would treat people. And I never felt [00:49:00] like I had some sort of dispensation from that. “Well, you’re a white man.” That would really irritate me when people would come with that. JJ: They used to call me Casper the Friendly [Ghost?]. DL: I can only imagine. (laughter) See, I remember exactly how you looked in 1969, believe it or not. You were a little smaller then, but I remember. Yeah, you were a little smaller then. But I remember. Like I said, I remember you and Chairman Fred embracing on the -- it was either you and Fred or you and Che embracing on the stage. JJ: On the stage, where? 25 �DL: It was at Grant Park. It was at Grant Park. JJ: Oh, I remember that. They had to take Che out of there because they had a warrant. DL: See, I wasn’t privy to all that, but I don’t doubt it. JJ: They stopped us on Lake Shore Drive. Did Fred (inaudible) get rid of him (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). [00:50:00] DL: Quickly, get him out of here, before the pigs get him. I remember, like I said, my first encounter with Chairman Fred. Just so you know, when he asked was I a Young Lord -- hey, it’s always been cool if people thought I was Puerto Rican because to me, Puerto Ricans are children of the Diaspora. But I wasn’t trying to be confused with a Young Patriot. But speaking of Young Patriots, again, I was sitting at the top of the steps at headquarters, working security, 16, I had my thing. And the door opens downstairs and here comes a white man and a white woman. And the white man has got on a denim jacket with the Confederate flag on it. So, I was like, “Whoa, [00:51:00] hold it right there man.” I didn’t shoot him. But I’m like, “Stay right where you are.” I remember so clearly he said -- I swear he said, “Howdy.” He said, “My name is Preacherman Donald Fesperman and this is my wife, Darlene. I’m here to see Chairman Fred.” (laughter) I wasn’t right -- I knew that we had these different coalitions with different groups, but I had never actually seen any Young Patriots before. I had seen their Rising Up Angry newspaper. So, I saw some of the guys with the black leather jackets. I guess they called them greasers back then or something, [Mike James?]. Was that his name? Mike James. 26 �JJ: Yeah, Mike James went with the greasers. DL: Right. I saw some of their pictures, but I had not [00:52:00] -- remember this is 2350 West Madison. These were hillbillies, and I had never seen them before. I hadn’t seen Slim Coleman yet. Eventually I met Slim Coleman and I eventually met most of these folks just tangibly. I mean, I was rank and file. It wasn’t like they were coming to see me. But I met some of these people. I remember chairman or whoever coming and saying, “Oh yeah, let him up.” “Okay, if you say so.” So, he goes on by and he’s got a big old Confederate flag there. I read their literature, somewhat after the fact. I read some of their literature. And again, I got it. I wasn’t overly comfortable, but I got it. You know what I’m saying. I was very comfortable. I was comfortable -- JJ: You got it, but some other people were negative. [00:53:00] DL: With the -- well, I was comfortable with the Young Lords. I was comfortable with peoples of color. I was not particularly comfortable with the coalitions with other folks. But that was contrary to party philosophy and party intent. I just wasn’t entirely comfortable with it. But that’s part of the party. Intellectually, I could get it. I got it intellectually. I remember going to be SDS -- JJ: Emotionally you had a problem with it. DL: I emotionally had a few problems with it. I remember going to the SDS convention when they had it at the -- not the amphitheater -- the place that they tore down. What was the place that they tore down on State Street? [00:54:00] JJ: Coliseum. 27 �DL: The Coliseum. They had the SDS convention there, and I went down there to sell Panther papers, which was great because it was zillions of folks. And you could sell the whole stack of papers. But I remember, now here’s all the -- what we called the white mother country radicals. That was terminology. JJ: That was Eldridge Cleaver, that was (inaudible). DL: Yeah, maybe it was -- right. Again, like I said, coming from Hyde Park, I come from a diverse community. So, I wasn’t -- I had met white folks that were okay with me. That would be (inaudible) my mother. But I told you, my mother’s always a separate entity to me. So, it wasn’t like -- I knew these -- it’s not like I looked at these folks like they were the enemy necessarily, but [00:55:00] I also just wasn’t entirely comfortable. I’m most comfortable around people of color. I just am. That’s just the way it is. I don’t mean to no harm. I just am. JJ: Did you see the Young Lords a lot or were they -- DL: I didn’t see them a whole lot. I saw them sometimes. I had a friend in -- because I got kicked out of Hales and I ended up at Kenwood. And there was a Puerto Rican brother that went to -- I can’t remember his name -- that went to Kenwood, that had one of the YLP buttons. I know that’s a different -- the fist with the rifle. JJ: That was our button. DL: That was your button. “Tengo Puerto Rico en mi corazón”? “I have Puerto Rico in my heart.” Is that it? JJ: YLP was the next year, the following year. It was created in Chicago. Everything was created in Chicago. DL: Okay. But he had a button that said -- I remember that button. [00:56:00] 28 �JJ: The purple berets and we had the buttons. DL: Right. Now, that, I remember. I remember I would see members of the Young Lords, like when we would occasionally go to a rally on the North Side, I would see them. Again, I had a whole different -- a very comfortable affinity there. That was cool. Purple berets -- and of course, in literature, I would see the brown berets in California, the Chicanos with the brown -- see, I was cool with that. It was a little hard for me to deal with the whole Confederate flag thing with that. And it’s funny. The thing with the greasers, the Mike James folks, [00:57:00] I want to say I was in the party when I did this, but it may have been the year before I joined the party. At 95th and Throop, there’s a Catholic girls school called Longwood Academy. It’s a girls school. And they were having some problems. It was majority white, but they were having a problem with the Black girls being harassed when they got out of school. This was back in maybe ’68. And they were at the bus stops up there and they were bothering them. And I put a rifle in a guitar case and went up to the bus stop. I was 15, 16 years old, whatever. If it was in ’68 I was 15. I was already in high school. I actually went up there with this guitar case because I thought they were actually attacking them. [00:58:00] I took a rifle up there. I was going to protect those sisters up there at the bus stop. So, that’s kind of where my head was at. I remember that the people that were supposedly bothering them -- and I saw some of them -looked like the guys that Mike James was working with -- they were all these white boys with black leather jackets and grease in their hair. JJ: The white gangs were dressed like that, that’s (inaudible) the greaser [name?]. 29 �DL: Yeah. So I saw some of them up there. JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) but they were being evicted too, (inaudible) their homes too. DL: But I’d say that the -- JJ: So, was there -- you were glad that Mike James was working with those other guys? DL: Look, I’m not mad at none of them, okay? Of course, now -- JJ: They did admit that they were a little racist. DL: Sure. And of course now, in retrospect, [00:59:00] again, being in the Black Panther Party was one of the more pivotal or important parts of my life. I think that the Panther Party, as my comrades have said earlier, is one of the most important organizations that has ever existed. The fact that J. Edgar Hoover called us the most dangerous threat to the security of America is one of the greatest compliments that we could ever get. America was founded on the genocide of the Indian and the enslavement of the African. It’s not right and it’s not likely to ever be right because it’s founded on something that’s incorrect. This very system, the very government, it’s founded on something that’s incorrect. The only institutions in this country that were designed specifically with Black people in mind has been chattel slavery and penitentiaries. So, for us to have been a group [01:00:00] that fought against that and the very nature of what runs this country, that made us extremely important. Maybe because of our age, we probably were not overwhelmed by the risks we were taking because I don’t think that we really comprehended what we were up against. Of course, the 30 �COINTEL Program and the 24/7 battle against us. We would occasionally sleep and our enemy never sleeps. And that’s something that has continued until today. [01:01:00] We get caught sleeping. They’re always awake. That’s just the way it is. Battles in the future have to be fought by -- our battles now and in the future have to be fought by people that always have someone that’s awake. You just have to sleep in shifts, but somebody always has to be awake. JJ: You mentioned penitentiary. Did you ever have any problems with courts or anything like that? DL: No. I did get arrested with a pistol. I’ve carried a pistol almost every day since I was 16 years old. And as you might know, in 1982, I was able to get on the Chicago Police Department. I was a policeman for 26 years. JJ: Oh, I didn’t know that. DL: Yeah. Just as I am. People think that going to the police [01:02:00] academy was like going back to high school. But that’s -- JJ: What station? DL: I was in the tactical unit. Well, I went to 71st and Cottage Grove in patrol. I was in uniform for a year and then I was in plain clothes after that. I worked an allBlack district, which was fantastic. Then I made detective in ’96 and all I dealt with was shootings and murders. I was a violent crimes detective. So, I say unequivocally that the system is not our friend. So now, I do seminars for Black Star Project keeping our children out of the just-us system because it is the justus system. I never had any illusions that I was changing the system. I liked the idea of the community being represented. Everything that’s in our community, we 31 �should be represented, not just superficially but realistically. [01:03:00] So, I never represented the police department as a community. I represented the community in my behavior. That’s another whole topic. JJ: What years were you a police officer? DL: Oh, ’82 to 2008. JJ: Oh, this is later. DL: Oh, yeah. I was 30 years old when I got on the police department. I was in the party 16 to like 19. JJ: During that period, there were no [problems in areas?] (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). DL: Oh sure. That was the reason that I even ended up doing that was because Howard Saffold was on the radio one day making an appeal saying that we need brothers and sisters to take this job because we need to be represented in these cars in the community. The police aren’t going away. Black Panther Party always espoused community control over the police. [01:04:00] Well, what better control is it than to be it? They can’t make you be a pig. If that’s how you’re going to be, that’s how you’re going to be. They can’t order you to do pig things. If that’s your methodology, that’s what you’re going to do. I was a Panther on the police department, just like I am now. I didn’t miss a beat and I didn’t change. It is what it is. Did they know all that? Did they ask me? Did they interview me? No, they’re not that sophisticated. I mean, at a certain point, they figure out how your behavior is, that you’re not -- again, I came on at the time right when Harold 32 �Washington was being elected. It was shortly before his election. I worked in an almost exclusively Black district. JJ: You know (inaudible) campaign, the Young Lords worked on his campaign. They were the first Latino group to endorse him and the first Latino rally was held by former Young Lords, [01:05:00] so-called former Young Lords. DL: So-called former. You never really totally stopped. JJ: In Chicago, we never quit the Young Lords. DL: Just like there will always be Panthers. JJ: But in fact that was Northside Hispanic Coordinator, (inaudible) use the term “Hispanic” anymore, because I ran for alderman too for a while. DL: I remember that. JJ: You remember that? DL: I do remember that in 1980, ’83 maybe, ’82, ’83, ’84. JJ: Actually -- DL: Oh, back then when he ran because Harold was elected in ’83. JJ: I turned myself in exactly to the day of Fred Hamptons -- the anniversary of his death. DL: December 4th. JJ: December 4th in ’72. And I went and did my year. And as soon as I came out, we announced that I was running for alderman. In fact, because we had that in mind [from the beginning?]. [01:06:00] DL: Shall I give some last thoughts? 33 �JJ: And then after that, the Harold Washington campaign came. We worked on that. So, we haven’t really stopped working. It’s just we haven’t talked about (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). In fact -- DL: Is that still running? JJ: Yeah, (overlapping dialogue; inaudible), yeah, [what are some final thoughts?]? DL: Well, final thoughts is (audio cuts out) Black Panther Party will absolutely remain one of the most significant organizations in the history of our struggle here in America. We didn’t cover all of the bases. We covered most of them. We had social programs. We had political education. And also, we had military objectives as well, or a military element, meaning. And I think that’s very significant. That was the appeal of the party to me. I don’t think that there’s been anything like it since. There’s always been [01:07:00] resistance. But the idea of -- as Fanon says, I’m not quoting is word for word, “True freedom for the slave comes when he kills the slave master.” Now you can kill them metaphorically, but you can also kill them literally. And the audacity of us to suggest that, yes, if you try to harm us, we will actually fight back and we will take out your soldiers as you try to take out ours. That was a big deal, which is why [01:08:00] every force of the government available was mustered to try to destroy that, to even destroy that as a concept because to this day, that remains the most dangerous of concepts, that the lightbulb will go off and the those people who are oppressed will actually fight back against their oppressors. That’s some dangerous stuff. That’s my final words on that. 34 �END OF VIDEO FILE 35 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7d6ae2e651494a21d876b7ed8ca8e9e8.mp4 081b9323d5c31b5ffa6f1246024dcb92 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 Lemieux 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 Relaciones policía-comunidad--Illinois--Chicago Partido Pantera Negra. Illinois Capítulo Relaciones raciales Racismo--Estados Unidos 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_Lemieux_David Title A name given to the resource David Lemieux video interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lemieux, David Description An account of the resource David (pronounced "Daveed") Lemieux joined the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party in the spring of 1969. At age 16, he was the second youngest member of that Chapter. He was a "rank and file" member and functioned in all BPP activities including the Free Breakfast for Children Program and the dissemination of the Black Panther newspaper. As a member of the Education Cadre, he was constantly engaged with "speaking" the mission and purpose of the Black Panther Party. He remained active with the BPP into the early 70s. In 1982, after consultation with other members of the activist community, David joined the Chicago Police Department and began a 26 year career where he was able to use his office and authority as a vehicle to serve the people. Currently, David Lemieux gives seminars facilitated by Chicago's Black Star Project entitled "Keeping OUR children out of the 'Just US' System" and speaks locally and nationally on the role of peace officers serving the community through the justice system. He is active with the Chicago Black Panther History Project and other efforts committed to preservation, education and reclamation of the true history of our struggle. 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 Police-community relations--Illinois--Chicago Black Panther Party. Illinois Chapter Race relations Racism--United States 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 2012-07-15 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/9896a815a48d329dee7a92757e2a8dc2.pdf 30b44c7ffc6e8045e1b0d41ecb7d259f PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Mike Lawson Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 3/29/2012 Biography and Description Mike Lawson is a civil rights activist who first met Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez in 1968, after Mr. Jiménez was released from prison. At that time, Mr. Lawson was in charge of a G.E.D. program for ex-offenders that already had enrolled a number of Black Stone Rangers, Disciples, and Young Lords. The group met at Argonne National Laboratory. Because Mr. Lawson lived in Old Town, he helped some of the students who lived in Lincoln Park get to the classes. In the morning most of the students would work part-time as janitors; they would study part-time in the afternoons.As an extension of their classroom lessons, Mr. Lawson took some of his students on a fieldtrip to Grant Park during the Democratic National Convention where they witnessed police beating up on hippies and reporters firsthand. These demonstrations helped to remind Mr. Jiménez of the goals he had set for himself while in jail. Today Mike Lawson lives on the south side of Chicago and is dependent on a wheelchair to get around, as he is plagued by muscular dystrophy. He is probably not aware of the deep way his work has changed many Peoples’ lives. �Transcript MIKE LAWSON: -- the housing situation because it was the number one issue of this town and therefore, we invited Dr. King to come to Chicago -JOSE JIMENEZ: ML: Wait, I’m sorry. Go ahead. And -- I’m sorry. I had a thought. JOSE JIMENEZ: Sorry, because I’m thinking that today we’re still dealing with the housing issue. So, what year was that, basically I was just trying to… ML: It was back in the ’60s and ’70s, early ’70s, right? JJ: Early ’70s. Okay. And you were just kind of working all over the city in terms of the housing when you brought Dr. King here to Chicago? ML: Well, we brought Dr. King -- let me talk about this first because I got deeply, much more deeply involved in civil rights because [00:01:00] I was teaching school up on the North Side. And one night, I had the TV set on and I watched a movie called The Judgement of Nuremburg [sic]. And that was a movie that dealt with the atrocities of the German people toward the Jewish people. Before I turned the TV off that night, there was a newsflash from Selma, Alabama. I witnessed in that newsflash horses going over a bridge and driving Black folks off the bridge and beating them. I said, “My God. This is like Nazi Germany.” And all [00:02:00] the next day, I went to school. I taught in a white Catholic school. Therefore, all the next day I went to school and I was in great distress. And I had great anger about what I had witnessed the night before. And very interesting because it was a young -- the students I taught were all young white Catholic 1 �students. And one little guy, [Ray Sandton?] said, “Mr. Lawson, I think you should go to Selma.” Two weeks later, I left school for about a week. I went to Selma. And it was through that experience I got involved in civil rights and my life began to change. [00:03:00] Before that time -- when I say my life began to change, it’s because before that time, I identified more with middle class white culture. With the Selma culture, because of the kindness of many Black people who gave us their homes, who fed us, who helped us get involved in the march. We began to march in Selma, began to go to Montgomery, Alabama. I went a few miles, and then I came back to Chicago. But it was that whole entire experience that gave me a whole different awareness of who I was as a Black person and also my involvement in civil rights. [00:04:00] It was then we invited Dr. King to come to Chicago, because we had a very serious housing project along with educational situation in Chicago. But housing was the reason why we invited Dr. King to come to Chicago, because we wanted to begin to organize marches. It was Dr. King in Chicago. We finally eventually marched into Marquette Park. And if you recall, it was at Marquette Park, somebody hit Dr. King in the head with a rock. It was in Marquette Park that I experienced -- my car was almost turned over. It was the type of [00:05:00] violence through the white population there that caused me to begin to realize how serious was the racial situation in the city of Chicago. I was scared. I didn’t know what to do. I finally drove out of that park and returned to a Black church that we were trying to organize from to march in the white community. JJ: Okay. And this was around 1965, 1964? 2 �ML: No, this was around ’65, ’71, ’72. JJ: That you were doing that work. ML: I worked for two years in civil rights. Then I ran into somebody from Argonne National Laboratory [00:06:00] and I decided to leave civil rights, and therefore get a job as an educator in a program which we had Black P. Stone Nation disciples and Young Lords. This is where I went to Argonne. JJ: Okay. So, if I can backtrack just a little bit -- okay, so, you were teaching school at -- you said a Catholic school. What school was that? ML: St. Gregory’s at North Side. It’s no longer there. JJ: What address? ML: I don’t -- JJ: I mean, what streets, basically, cross streets. ML: Bryn Mawr and Ashland. JJ: Bryn Mawr and Ashland, [that was?] St. Gregory’s? ML: Right, mm-hmm. JJ: Okay. And you were teaching -- what grades were you teaching then? ML: I taught high school. In those days, you taught all kind of subjects. I taught history, religion -- I call it theology -- [00:07:00] a social science course, sociology. I taught a whole variety of things there. But that was very typical of Catholic schools in those days. JJ: And your car was overturned during the demonstration? ML: Right. JJ: And to have your car overturned means you were -- 3 �ML: No, no, it was not overturned. They attempted to overturn the car. They rocked it. JJ: So it was in the procession basically -- was it in the procession or the march? ML: It was driving people into the area to get out of the car at Marquette Park and become a part of the march, yes. [00:08:00] JJ: Okay. So, you were driving people from different churches? ML: The church that we met at in the very beginning at 71st and about Halsted. Right. JJ: Okay. And they saw that you were doing that and they tried to break your car? ML: Once we got the cars into -- they saw Black folks that were in the car going into their neighborhood. JJ: They rioted. This was like a white riot then. ML: Somewhat. It was white anger. And many of the -- it’s interesting because many of the other whites were part of -- they got the church structure in those neighborhoods, and they would come out of church and they would come out of church very angry. “What are you going in our neighborhood? Get out. Get out. Get out.” [00:09:00] Again, in those days, there were white neighborhoods and Black neighborhoods. The thing was the whites could not -- excuse me -- Blacks could not go past Ashland. In other words, we kind of knew that this was white turf. If you check out the South Side today, Blacks are up to [Kinzie?] and Pulaski and so forth. Not in those days. JJ: So, what happened to a Black person if they passed that street, that dividing line? 4 �ML: Well, it’s interesting because -- to respond to your question -- let me respond this way. [00:10:00] I knew of some Blacks that got up the nerve to move into Bridgeport. JJ: Which is Mayor Daley’s old neighborhood. ML: That’s the issue. Mayor Daley had the cops move those people that were friends of mine who moved into Bridgeport -- he moved them out of Bridgeport. In those days, it was, again, day and night. The people that moved in to -- found a place to live in, found their apartment -- they were there less than a night. They were moved out. They could not stay. And we know by fact that the mayor said, “Move them out. Get them out of here.” [00:11:00] JJ: With a document from the court? I mean, how can they be moved out? Was it the sheriff that moved them out? ML: It was police. JJ: Regular police? ML: And police would not make a decision without the mayor enforcing their -- it was ultimately -- very quietly, it was the mayor. JJ: This is the mayor of the city of Chicago. ML: Boss Daley. JJ: Boss Daley, right. ML: The old man. JJ: So, he wanted certain people in certain areas and people that were Black, African American, could not be in that community? Is that what you’re saying? It was the mayor? 5 �ML: Well, Chicago, in those days and even today, has Black folks community, and you yourself know, Puerto Rican community, Mexican community. We still have a system of [00:12:00] very deep segregation. It’s not as bad as it was in those days I’m talking about. But you know from your experience today that the system still exists, okay? JJ: Of segregation? It still exists. ML: Right. JJ: I’m not going to interject. So, you were saying the Black P. Stone Nation, the Black Disciples, and the Young Lords were -- ML: In a program at Argonne National Laboratory. Argonne decided like many of the businesses in those days, “We had better do something -- we had better start hiring” what they called the hardcore. In those days, if you recall, the [00:13:00] terminology was -- you, because you eventually went to Argonne, were considered hardcore. I kind of smile because, in other words, hardcore were the bad niggers, the bad Puerto Ricans. That’s what the term meant. And so, we decided that we would not only give them a chance to work, but also give them some jobs. When I first went out to hardcore as director of the education program, the hardcore people that we allowed into that program were janitors. After being on site and finding that the laboratory, eventually [00:14:00] they ceased being janitors and they decided at that point there were various divisions at Argonne in terms of biology, solid state science, chemistry. We would let the young men that were part of the hardcore eventually be trained and do jobs that were in various areas. We brought about a whole different utilization. For 6 �instance, I’ll give you an example. One of the -- [Crip?] is dead now. One of the Disciples was given a job in glassblowing. He was taught glassblowing. We had a man in solid state science. We had a man in chemistry. [00:15:00] When I say a man, a young Disciple or a Black P. Stone Nation or Young Lord. But we got them some meaningful jobs, some jobs where they weren’t just janitors no longer. José, you went to Argonne. Were you a janitor? JJ: Yeah, I was a janitor. ML: Eventually, but -- JJ: I was a janitor half day ,and half day, I went to school to get my GED. ML: Went to school, right. But you stayed a janitor. JJ: All the time I was there, I [stayed as?] a janitor. ML: You were new. But we had made some changes. But you were part of the changes. JJ: I was part of, I think, the beginning of the program and then I left after that, or got in trouble and then left after that and got in more trouble. But it didn’t -- it helped me a lot [00:16:00] [when I was with?] the program. I’m very grateful for that. So, what were some of your -- what you wanted to do with the students at that time? Because you’re dealing with the hardcore and that. What was it that you were trying to do? ML: Well, I guess the issue for us was to get personnel and to convince personnel that the men just can’t be janitors because those were the jobs that were almost the jobs that a lot of folks got caught in no mobility situation. Therefore, we got people involved in being trained not only in school in the afternoon but also being 7 �trained on the job. [00:17:00] Example being we had [Crip?] trained in being a glassblower. We had another person being trained in biology, some of the fundamentals of biology. So, we began to -- and that caused a problem because there were a lot of Black folks at the laboratory that were janitors, and they began to realize that the young gang members that we brought in were now being given better jobs and they were stuck in their old janitor jobs. The other people themselves were stuck in the janitor jobs. So, that was a conflict that we did not anticipate and we had to become aware of that. JJ: So, what changes did the Argonne Laboratory do? How long did the program stay in effect? ML: The second year I decided that -- I began to see the program was having some internal political problems. And they were going to bring in somebody to replace me. And they brought a person in. And that was the beginning of the real death, quote-unquote, of the program because the new person did not work out also in the program. And it was one of those types of programs where it didn’t last much further more than the two years that I was involved. [00:19:00] It ran into problems in those days. JJ: I know that you were wearing at that time a dashiki to work and your hair was teased or -- you know, the same fashion as the ’60s during that time. I wasn’t even aware that you were involved in civil rights. I knew you looked militant to me, what they call the militant stereotype at the time. ML: I was given a chance to really -- I’ll give you an example. One day -- I would spend a lot of time in jails and in the court fighting to get the various students that 8 �were part of the program out of jail, out of the court systems. [00:20:00] I can recall one day that I spent the entire day in a courtroom, and fighting like hell to get the men out of the jails and so forth. And I returned to the laboratory at night. And I was asked to kind of talk. There was a laboratory meeting of some of the folks that stayed around after regular hours, and I was asked to give a talk to those people. I gave a talk, and I was told that it was such a fiery speech, as one person said, I ended up preaching. And the director of the laboratory was at that meeting. [00:21:00] And he was so overwhelmed with what I had to say, he began to make some significant changes. This is when we began to get the men into better jobs. Again, I was told that through my fiery talk I confronted the laboratory director and he began to make some changes. JJ: But his changes were to try to get rid of you. ML: No, no, no. That was other politics. I don’t think he was aware that some of the other politics were going on at the laboratory. JJ: Okay that was other politics. Okay, so what other politics? Was it just personal politics, not political? ML: Well, it’s hard to talk about because -- [00:22:00] (break in video) JJ: Okay. ML: I was born -- my name is Michael Lawson, L-A-W-S-O-N. I am 71 years old. I was born May 29, 1940. I was born and raised in the city of Chicago, a part of the community called Englewood. Englewood was a community on the South Side of Chicago, 63rd and Halsted was the heart of the community. And in those 9 �days, 63rd and Halsted was (inaudible) Sears, [Hi-Lo?], A&P, some banks. In other words, it was an ongoing vibrant community of people. [00:23:00] If we compare it, it’s like the Chatham in those days or rather Chatham today. In those days, it was like Chatham because it was a very good community of people. I was born, again, and raised a Catholic in Englewood. I went to (inaudible) school for first eight years and then for four years I went to Quigley, which was a preparatory seminary on the North Side of the city of Chicago. JJ: So, you were -- Englewood was a vibrant community. What do you mean by that? ML: What do I mean? For instance, the community had -- in those days -- good is relative -- but we had good schools, both Catholic and public schools. [00:24:00] I would say if there was any unemployment in those days, it was eight percent or nine percent or even six percent, five percent. People had jobs. Black folks either worked in the post office or in the stockyards or in the steel mills. We could get jobs, and we had jobs. We had a home. Well, let me backtrack. JJ: What year was this, basically? ML: I finally got moved into a home in -- I was about eight or nine years old, so 1948. [00:25:00] In those days, we got a nice bungalow in Englewood from a German woman, and we paid $6,000 for the home. In those days, Black folks could only buy homes on contract. And that means that if they missed one payment, just one simple payment, they lost the house. That’s buying on contract. That was the only way that Black folks could buy a home. And we bought a home on contract. It was a good home. When I was eight or seven years old -- it was 10 �interesting. My mother went to the [grammar?] school and she talked to the monsignor who was the pastor of the parish, and she wanted his permission [00:26:00] if she could bring her daughter to school. He said, “Of course you can bring your daughter to school.” And the irony of the situation was my mother was very light. And my sister [Sandra?], who went to grammar school -- they realized they had their first Black child at the school. My sister was the first Black child to go to that school. I was the third Black child in that school. There were no other -- very few, I should say -- Black children in the school until I was about in seventh or eighth grade. [00:27:00] When I was in seventh or eighth grade, I can recall coming home one afternoon and saying to Mother, “Mommy, what is a Negro?” I had no idea because the kids that went to school were Irish or Italians or Germans or Polish. And there was no separation. I was just part of the group that went to school. I never realized. And we weren’t taught at home about racial pride and so forth. We simply understood, quote-unquote, we were to fit in and that was part of the reality of being raised and born in those days. JJ: So, Englewood was an ethnic minority community? (inaudible) ML: No, Englewood -- we had Polish, [00:28:00] Germans, Irish, Italians, Blacks. If I go back and tell you about the Black -- next to Aberdeen Street -- I lived on Aberdeen which was half Black. Just to the east of us was -- I can’t recall right now -- it was [Sangamon?] was in there. But everything east of us was white. There were no Blacks east of us. Black folks were at Aberdeen and the block west of me and the next block were Black. But that’s all the Blacks were in the area. [00:29:00] 11 �JJ: So, the South Shore Drive was primarily white at that time? ML: If we go into South Shore, it was all white at that time. South Shore -- JJ: Okay. And this was in 1948? ML: Sure, 1940, 1945, ’48, ’50. Blacks didn’t start moving into South Shore until I was in high school. And there were very few Blacks that were allowed into South Shore. For instance, the South Shore Country Club would not allow any Blacks in the South Shore Country Club. Even the postman had to leave the mail at the front of the South Shore. He could not go past the [00:30:00] gate if he was Black. Therefore, he was not allowed to come into the place. The whole idea of race relations in those days was like black and white. Black folks -- we folks knew our place and we knew what blocks we could go on and what blocks we should avoid. For instance, I would go to school with some of my classmates. I recall one of my classmates was [Raymond Lamont?]. He lived on Aberdeen, but he lived across 59th Street. It was an unwritten law that we should never go across 59th Street. And we knew that. And therefore, we wouldn’t go [00:31:00] across 59th Street. I’ll give you another example. JJ: Across -- heading north or south on 59th? ML: On 59th, it’s just north of us. So, it was north of us. JJ: So, you couldn’t go north of 59th Street? ML: No, in those days. A little further north of 59th Street, at about 55th and Racine was a park, all white park. I can recall -- let me tell you about that park. I was the only Black in the area allowed to ride my bike in that park. I found out I could do that only because they recognized me to be Catholic. [00:32:00] I went to a 12 �Catholic school, and that park was controlled by Irish Catholic Visitation, therefore being light skinned and also being Catholic, I was allowed to ride my bike in that park. The park that we could go to was Ogden Park at 64th and Racine. But I can recall when I was at Ogden Park, we would stand and put our hands on barbed wire, on the wire fences and look in at the white kids swimming. We could not even go in the swimming pool in those days. We weren’t allowed in the swimming pools. Let me tell you -- eventually, I [00:33:00] went to Quigley Seminary. I left there about four or five years later. JJ: So, when did you start Quigley Seminary? Because that’s going into the priesthood. Were you going to -- [that’s to prepare for the?] priesthood? ML: Well, that was -- in those days, they considered Quigley a seminary, but it was a - we look back on it now and we kind of smile. The question is, how can any 13or 14-year-old kid have any idea of what he wanted to be? It was ridiculous to put any kid in that situation. And so, I went there. JJ: But it was still to prepare kids for the priesthood. ML: That was the goal, and I’m saying it was ridiculous. It was crazy. [00:34:00] JJ: But you were there, you were there. ML: I was there. JJ: So, you didn’t want to be a priest? ML: Eventually, in my fifth and sixth year, I decided to not to go and pursue Quigley. I went to Mundelein, which was the major seminary. It was at Mundelein I decided not to continue my studies for the priesthood. That’s when I went to Loyola 13 �University, a Catholic University in the city of Chicago. I went there for about three years, got my bachelor’s degree. And I moved into Old Town. JJ: Okay, if we can go a little bit back. So, why did you decide to leave the seminary and go to Loyola? [00:35:00] I mean, what was going through your mind at that time? ML: I changed my mind about wanting to be a priest. So therefore, I did not want to be a priest. Therefore, I left the seminary. JJ: Were you angry with the church or something? ML: No, no, no. It was just a matter of I didn’t want to pursue this way of life anymore. JJ: Okay. So, you went to Loyola. ML: Right. It’s interesting because I went to Loyola because it was a Catholic university. I was still in that mentality of that security of wanting to stay within the Catholic structure. So, I went to Loyola, got my degree in sociology. I left Loyola and moved for the first time [00:36:00] after graduation into Old Town. I moved at 1452 Hudson Street, [or 1450 Hudson Street?], and in those days I had an old beat up car that ran and got me around. I had apartment of five rooms. I made a hundred bucks a week. I point that out -- I taught at a Catholic high school. And I point out the fact that I made a hundred bucks a week, which was no money, but in those days, one could exist on that amount of money and have a car and pay rent and do things. If we compare that to the way people live today, [00:37:00] it’s like day and night. 14 �JJ: Okay. So, you’re in Old Town. You’re on Hudson, and also on Sedgwick? Was this also part of Old Town? ML: Right. I moved from Hudson Street further north to Sedgwick, 1752, and it was there that I first encountered many more Puerto Rican friends. I had my Black friends. I had my white friends. And I had my Puerto Rican friends. If you recall [Juan Colon?]. JJ: Yes, I know Juan Colon. ML: Juan Colon and I were good friends. I don’t know where Juan is right now. [00:38:00] JJ: I don’t know (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). ML: The last time I saw him, he was married. I got the impression -- I smile because we all change in life. Juan became a very middle class person. What does that mean? Unlike the Juan Colon that I knew years ago who was somewhat a poor person and a gang banger to some degree. JJ: Now he’s more middle class at this point? ML: That’s what -- when I saw him and I met his wife -- we didn’t talk a lot. But that’s the impression I got, right. JJ: So, you were teaching for a Catholic institution? ML: Right. I taught for a Catholic institution. [00:39:00] That was my first -- no, it was my second job, because my first job -- I used to be a vocational counselor for people on welfare. I worked there for about a year. And then, I applied to a Catholic school and I taught there for two years. Then I went full time into civil 15 �rights. I became assistant director of the Catholic Interracial Council. I was full time civil rights -JJ: Catholic Universal Council? ML: Catholic Interracial Council. In those days, the Catholic church in Chicago was very much involved in what was called social justice. And the Catholic church, quote-unquote, was a witness to many things in life. When I saw witness, [00:40:00] in other words, the church through various agencies was very deeply involved in causes. And one of the causes was racial cause and therefore, I became the assistant director of the Catholic Interracial Council. JJ: They were located where? ML: The Catholic Interracial Council is now Superior Street -- 21 West Superior Street is now a condominium that probably cost $3,000 or $4,000 for each one. JJ: So, at that time, Superior Street had Puerto Ricans also around La Salle. Do you recall that or no? La Salle and Superior? ML: Yes, I do recall. It’s interesting. I recall -- since you mention it -- because [00:41:00] the people next door to us were young Puerto Rican family that had a good number of Puerto Rican kids. And their kids would hang around the neighborhood and play. I recall now yes it was Puerto Ricans, around there along with probably some poor Black folks that were around there. JJ: And that area at that time -- wasn’t that a poor area? That was Clark Street and - what do you recall? ML: I recall -- but again, when you say poor area -- JJ: I’m thinking that it was like a Skid Row area. 16 �ML: It probably was. But in those days, [00:42:00] we more or less accepted it as we were part of the same way of life. We weren’t much different. So, we could identify with the poor people. We identified it as good people. JJ: Okay, as good people. ML: Yeah, sure, who happened to have school problems, various problems. The father was not home bringing a paycheck and so forth. But that was part of our reality. JJ: And the interracial council was working with that community? ML: The Catholic Interracial Council was working with that community, and also it was one of the clear goals of the Catholic Interracial Council was to get Catholic folks involved in social causes. Therefore, many of our members were middle class and upper class people who got involved in the [00:43:00] various problems of Chicago. And one problem was housing. Black folks, in those days, occupied 10 percent of the land and yet they were 25 percent of the population. And that’s true of -- when I saw Black folks, Puerto Rican folks were also part, in my mind, of the poor situation, of the situation that needed to be dealt with for equal justice and a real clear cause. JJ: Okay. So, the housing was one of the major issues that [00:44:00] the Catholic Interracial Council was working with? ML: If you recall, we invited in those days Dr. King to come to Chicago -- (break in audio) that we make some of the Black folks who were caught into janitorial jobs angry, because the young men in the program I was in charge of were getting better jobs. But some of the, quote-unquote, white employees also were 17 �becoming disturbed because they didn’t want to see some of these men now being part of biology, [solid state?] science, glassblowing and so forth. So, they were becoming very angry. In other words, looking back at what we were trying to do in those days, we [00:45:00] overwhelmed people. We did not spend enough time educating people, preparing people for some of the changes that we were trying to make at the laboratory. So, some of the problems we caused ourselves. It was not just everybody on the outside. We caused our own problems. You understand? JJ: You mean some of the participants caused their own problems. Why not discipline some of the participants? ML: In other words, we should have spent more time educating some of the -- JJ: Participants? ML: -- employees that were caught in dead-end jobs. They were caught in janitorial jobs, dead-end jobs. And the young men who we bought [00:46:00] out there were getting better jobs and they were aware of that. JJ: Okay, so, that was the politics then. ML: That was some of the politics going on. JJ: That was the jealousy that was going on. ML: And at the same time, some of the white people, white employees themselves -because you spend so much time doing so much for these young people, “What are you doing for us?” So, they were becoming angry. 18 �JJ: Could it also have been that some of the -- because these were former gang members or in some instances still gang members -- could they have also contributed to the fall of the program, because they were not that disciplined? ML: Yeah. That was part of it. In other words -- it’s interesting. They weren’t disciplined, and they would miss a lot of days of work. [00:47:00] We would oftentimes, to get these men to work, send out government cars. Argonne had its own taxi fleet in which they would send government cars and then they would pick up the men in the program. JJ: They’d pick them up at their house? ML: They would pick them up at their homes. And these very gang members that were gang members in their community -- once they got in the cars and were going outside of their turf were scared enough to hide on the floor of the cars. (laughter) It was incredible. Once [00:48:00] we took them out of their neighborhood into new neighborhoods, this was a whole new experience for them. And these tough gang members almost were crying, “Oh, please, please, don’t take us out of here.” Right. JJ: I remember they had golf carts there at Argonne. I don’t know what they were used for. Like, little golf carts for -- ML: I don’t remember. JJ: You don’t? Okay. But I know that some of the members, the employees or the participants, would take the golf carts and just drive around all day through the place, where they would be found asleep in the janitor’s closet. So, they were 19 �doing mischievous things too. [00:49:00] That was part of it too, (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) ML: That was for sure, right. Sure, right. JJ: So that kind of contributed also. And we would sit segregated too when we would eat lunch. And sometimes we would just joke around and sit. ML: And make a lot of noise. JJ: And make a lot of noise, so everybody knew we were there. So, we were kind of like in a way outcasts. They didn’t want us to be outcasts, but we were, in a way. ML: How long were you in the program? JJ: Several months, a few months. I never did get -- I got my GED later. But that definitely helped me -- contributed to it, because I remember we were doing speed reading and all that. [Carlos?] stayed there. ML: And he moved ahead in the program. He did very well. He was very serious. [00:50:00] JJ: Oh, he has a master’s degree today. Today he has a master’s degree. ML: Okay, that’s great. Is he married with his own family? JJ: He’s not married now. He has been married. But I’m going for my bachelor’s. It’s taken about 40 years. ML: That’s great. And wasn’t [Poppy?] -- your cousin was a part of the program? JJ: [William Jimenez?], yes. ML: He’s probably retiring now. He’s getting up in age. JJ: He is retiring. He had a good job as a supervisor. Yeah, he was a supervisor for a store, one of the big stores. 20 �ML: Good for him. JJ: He’s retired now. ML: He’s got his pension. He’s retired. That’s good. JJ: So, most of the people kind of advanced. The people that (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) did advance. ML: Now, let me ask you -- how much more do you want from me? JJ: We’re almost done. I’m just going to ask you some final questions about -[00:51:00] do you recall when the Young Lords -- you were still living in Lincoln Park when the Young Lords started, became political? ML: Yeah. Actually, I’m aware they became very political but I’m not aware of the details behind that. JJ: How did you feel? You knew some of the people? How did you feel when they made that change? ML: Well, to me, it was like experiencing the same old problems. For instance, at Division Street and La Salle Street where it used to be a very poor neighborhood -- when they began to rebuild the neighborhood, they built the very fine buildings that Puerto Ricans and Blacks and poor whites could not afford to move into the new housing. So, it was the same old game being run on people in the city of Chicago. [00:52:00] JJ: Basically to kick them out of the area. How did you feel that you knew some of these members and now they were now beginning to protest, actually some type of similar work as the Interracial Council but a little more militant maybe? So, 21 �how did you feel about -- did you oppose them because they were more militant, or how did you feel? ML: No, I didn’t oppose them. I guess I was so busy with my own life, struggling to get into business and do some new things in life, that I was not aware of the details of their program and what they were trying to do. I was very unaware. [00:53:00] JJ: Okay. So, you weren’t aware at all of what was going on? ML: No. JJ: Okay, any final things that you would like to add to the interview? ML: Well, it’s good news that you are doing so well in school. That makes me feel good, even though, like myself, you’re an old man now too. (laughter) How old are you now? JJ: I’m 64 now (inaudible). Not yet but I’m going to be in a couple months. ML: Right. I’m almost 10 years older than you are. Almost, not quite. JJ: I’m very grateful for the program there at Argonne. I had just come out of jail. And so, to me, it was like an ex-offender program. And so, it kind of opened up my eyes, especially again, the fact that you were [00:54:00] a little political. I didn’t know you had been in civil rights. But the fact that we went on a field trip one time to the Democratic Convention. ML: I guess one of the things I was very conscious of was the whole exposure is very much a part of the educational process. To expose your group and you to as much as possible about other parts of life, what was going on. That to me, was very, very important. It was part of my responsibility. 22 �JJ: Well, we definitely appreciate it. It worked for us, it worked for us. ML: Thank you. JJ: All right. Thank you. END OF VIDEO FILE 23 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b32640f790b987d1dd61d5fec30aaccb.mp4 12a0e2d7461f891e7b8b49408667543a 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 Mike Lawson 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--Condiciones sociales Ex-convictos--Educación--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_Lawson_Mike Title A name given to the resource Mike Lawson video interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lawson, Mike Description An account of the resource Mike Lawson is a civil rights activist who first met Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez in 1968, after Mr. Jiménez was released from prison. At that time, Mr. Lawson was in charge of a G.E.D. program for ex-offenders that already had enrolled a number of Black Stone Rangers, Disciples, and Young Lords. The group met at Argonne National Laboratory. Because Mr. Lawson lived in Old Town, he helped some of the students who lived in Lincoln Park get to the classes. In the morning most of the students would work part-time as janitors; they would study part-time in the afternoons. As an extension of their classroom lessons, Mr. Lawson took some of his students on a field trip to Grant Park during the Democratic National Convention where they witnessed police beating up on hippies and reporters firsthand. These demonstrations helped to remind Mr. Jiménez of the goals he had set for himself while in jail. Today Mike Lawson lives on the south side of Chicago and is dependent on a wheelchair to get around, as he is plagued by muscular dystrophy. 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 Puerto Ricans--Illinois--Chicago--Social conditions Ex-convicts--Education--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 2012-03-29 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/84436cc563f00a94bf6efa73caa37da5.pdf fca0af828e934cf63e33c678e92dad11 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Roberto Jiménez Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 7/9/2012 Biography and Description Roberto Jiménez is son of “Tio Funfa” Jiménez. Today he lives in the small mountain town of Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico, but did live for some years in Detroit, Michigan, traveling back and forth in the 1950s, “when there were not that many Puerto Ricans living there.” It was cold in Detroit. And Mr. Jiménez recalls having to rely on family and friends for transportation and other things. He likes to raise rabbits for sale, and chickens. Mr. Jiménez also grows green bananas and other vegetables in his backyard behind the three houses where his brothers and sisters live in separate apartments. At least one of the houses is an inheritance and it is not bad to be able to live and to share supper with family. When friends arrive to visit, he has a habit of giving them some bananas or a chicken or a rabbit. If he has to do the work to prepare it, he will charge for his time. Mr. Jiménez considers himself to be just a humble worker and recalls going to the United States because farm labor was seasonal and there was no work. Sometimes construction was good. But it did not last long because there were many people trying to do it. Mr. Jiménez had heard about the Hacha Viejas, but they were his cousins, children of Tio Gabriel Jiménez, and workers who worked on his uncle’s farm, and not part of his immediate family. Today, Mr. Jiménez has no plans except to enjoy the tropical breeze from the same chair he sits on daily in their patio/garage entrance. Here he is calm and can think as he enjoys the car and truck traffic blaring as it passes the house. � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/cccaa63d02d47bb877a5368c7b0456e5.mp4 8598819a0234f4d582e6d784f232a989 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 Roberto Jiménez 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_Jimenez_Roberto Title A name given to the resource Roberto Jiménez video interview and biography Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, Roberto Description An account of the resource Roberto Jiménez is son of “Tio Funfa” Jiménez. Today he lives in the small mountain town of Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico, but did live for some years in Detroit, Michigan, traveling back and forth in the 1950s, “when there were not that many Puerto Ricans living there.” It was cold in Detroit. And Mr. Jiménez recalls having to rely on family and friends for transportation and other things. He likes to raise rabbits for sale, and chickens. Mr. Jiménez also grows green bananas and other vegetables in his backyard behind the three houses where his brothers and sisters live in separate apartments. At least one of the houses is an inheritance and it is not bad to be able to live and to share supper with family. When friends arrive to visit, he has a habit of giving them some bananas or a chicken or a rabbit. If he has to do the work to prepare it, he will charge for his time. Mr. Jiménez considers himself to be just a humble worker and recalls going to the United States because farm labor was seasonal and there was no work. Sometimes construction was good. But it did not last long because there were many people trying to do it. Mr. Jiménez had heard about the Hacha Viejas, but they were his cousins, children of Tio Gabriel Jiménez, and workers who worked on his uncle’s farm, and not part of his immediate family. Today, Mr. Jiménez has no plans except to enjoy the tropical breeze from the same chair he sits on daily in their patio/garage entrance. Here he is calm and can think as he enjoys the car and truck traffic blaring as it passes the house. 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.) Spanish language--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 2012-07-09 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/5d59a66cca1ef41b7c75d39a77b44bf3.pdf 26d56871775dfaa728683b644f0f2fb3 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Ramonia “Monin” Jiménez Rodríguez Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 6/25/2012 Biography and Description Ramonia “Monin” Jiménez Rodríguez came to live in the La Clark barrio of Chicago on La Salle near Division Street in the mid 1950s. The La Clark barrio once encompassed the area between Grand Avenue on the south and North Avenue on the north, bounded by Dearborn Street on the east and continuing west to Halsted Street, and in some sections along Chicago Avenue to nearly Ashland. La Clark was chosen by Puerto Ricans because it was the location of many service jobs, including domestic work, waitressing, dishwashing, and other hotels. The neighborhood was also close to a number of factories along Wells, Franklin, and Orleans Streets and along the Chicago River. Ms. Jiménez Rodríguez attended mass at Holy Name Cathedral and St. Joseph. She became involved early in the Council Number Three Damas de María at St. Michael’s Church. There she helped other Damas to cook the arroz con gandules dinners regularly. The dinners would be sold to raise money in the gymnasium after mass. There was usually a live band playing and many neighborhood people dancing. Ms. Jiménez Rodríguez later joined St. Teresa’s Church Council Number Nine, as the Puerto Rican community expanded to encompass the streets of Lincoln Park west of Sheffield to Ashland Avenue. The Caballeros and Damas used St. Teresa’s Hall for many of their activities.Her brothers were also active in community life and civic affairs. Antonio “Maloco” Jiménez Rodríguez was vice-president of the Hacha Viejas in these early days. Angel Luis Jiménez became president of Council Number Nine; they opened up their own social club across from St. �Teresa to hold meetings and throw smaller parties to raise funds for the Caballeros and the Damas. Through the 1960s these affairs grew as they strove to cater more to the youth groups. St. Teresa had some of the best dances using the new bilingual youth bands that were spreading everywhere throughout Lincoln Park, Lakeview, Wicker Park and the new, expanding Puerto Rican community in Humboldt Park. Ms. Jiménez Rodríguez worked hard volunteering for the Chicago’s Puerto Ricans at St. Michael’s and at St. Teresa. She was also part of the movement to try to get mass held in Spanish. In later years, Ms. Jiménez Rodríguez moved back to Puerto Rico to retire which is where she now lives. � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/391b782be2a7f5e89a3be549c541c827.mp4 cbde9e9f4512aa121c09cd7048508759 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 Ramonia “Monin” 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 Puertorriqueños--Illinois--Chicago--Vida social y costumbres Juventud--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_Jimenez_Ramonia Title A name given to the resource Ramonia “Monin” Jiménez Rodríguez video interview and biography Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, Ramonia Description An account of the resource Ramonia “Monin” Jiménez Rodríguez came to live in the La Clark barrio of Chicago on La Salle near Division Street in the mid-1950s. Ms. Jiménez Rodríguez attended mass at Holy Name Cathedral and St. Joseph. She became involved early in the Council Number Three Damas de María at St. Michael’s Church. There she helped other Damas to cook the arroz con gandules dinners to raise money after mass. There was usually a live band playing and many neighborhood people dancing. She was also part of the movement to try to get mass held in Spanish. In later years, Ms. Jiménez Rodríguez moved back to Puerto Rico to retire which is where she now lives. 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 Youth--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