BOOKS
Puerto Rico, Protest, and Prison
Johanna Fernández, Jose Saldaña talk about the Young Lords
BY SUSIE DAY
Johanna Fernández, child
of immigrants from the
Dominican Republic and
a professor at New York’s
Baruch College, has just published
“The Young Lords: A Radical History,”
a book about the 1960s
Puerto Rican activist group. The
Young Lords began as a Chicago
street gang; then, inspired by the
Black Panther Party, morphed into
a militant rights organization that
caught fi re in New York City, where
Jose Saldaña, child of Puerto Rican
migrants to the city, was born.
Raised in impoverished East
Harlem, Jose spent 38 years in
New York prisons. On his release
in 2018, he became the director
of Release Aging People in Prison
Campaign (RAPP) and a compelling
critic of our criminal justice
system. Johanna, for her part, has
devoted years to the prison abolition
movement, championing the
release of imprisoned journalist
Mumia Abu-Jamal.
In March, a few days before social
distancing took hold, Jose and
Johanna met with me in Johanna’s
Washington Heights apartment to
talk about the Young Lords: why
Johanna wrote this book; how the
Young Lords changed so many
Latinx lives; and how the moral
lifeline they gave Jose helped him
survive decades in prison. Jose
discovered the Young Lords when
he was 18 years old.
JOSE SALDAÑA: I was a high
school dropout, Spanish Harlem
was my turf. And once my dream
of becoming a baseball player faded,
my next aspiration was to become
a big-time drug dealer. One
day, I was up on 111th Street and
all these cops started showing up
— they were everywhere. My sister
comes running, she says, man, the
cops are surrounding the church
because the Young Lords are in
there.
I hadn’t heard of the Young
Lords, and I was pissed. They were
bringing cops to the neighborhood,
and cops stop business. See, I had
Jose Saldaña, director of the Release Aging People in Prison Campaign, and Johanna Fernández, author
of “The Young Lords: A Radical History,” seen here in March.
no politics, no social consciousness,
sometimes no moral consciousness.
JOHANNA FERNÁNDEZ: I write
about that protest in my book. The
Young Lords occupied the First
Spanish United Methodist Church
in December 1969 and again in
October 1970. You’re referring to
that fi rst occupation.
SALDAÑA: Right. I went over to
the church, and that was my introduction
to the Young Lords.
FERNÁNDEZ: This was their
signature protest. They occupied
that church because, after a month
of negotiations, they failed to convince
the pastor to allow them to
feed poor community children
there. On December 7, 1969, the
Young Lords make their request to
the entire congregation. But, unbeknownst
to them, the pastor had
SUSIE DAY
asked the cops in, undercover.
So Felipe Luciano, the Young
Lords chairman, appeals to the
congregation: “The church must
address community needs. Here
in this sea of poverty, with all your
wealth, you turn the other way. If
Jesus were alive today, he’d be a
Young Lord…” Luciano got his arm
fractured by the cops. Other Young
Lords were beaten up, and some
were arrested. That’s the backdrop
to the occupation two weeks later.
Jose, how did you change your
mind about the Young Lords?
SALDAÑA: Because I grew up in
extreme poverty, killing rats in our
apartment. The lead poisoning —
I had to watch my baby brothers
and sisters, because you know babies
they pick up anything and put
it in their mouth. We were aware
of these health problems, but nobody
gave a damn. With the Young
Lords, for the fi rst time, somebody
started caring. People came and
talked to us — a few women, especially.
We’re smalltime drug dealers
— nobody there was big — and
right there on 111th Street was a
building where the prostitutes do
their business, I was very close to
some of them. The Young Lords
was talking to them like they’re
human beings. I’m saying, “Wow,
nobodytreats them like that.”
Growing up, everybody I knew
was fi rst-generation Puerto Rican,
but it didn’t mean anything,
except people didn’t like us. When
the Black Panthers came out, they
had an identity; we didn’t have
that. The Young Lords gave me the
identity I was missing and a social
and political conscious. I started to
connect things.
Like, when I was nine years old,
I was befriended by a prostitute —
very young, she might have been a
16, 17-year-old-girl. I used to run
errands for her. She’d throw money
out the window; I’d go get something
for her; she’d try to give me a
couple of dollars but I never wanted
payment, because everybody hated
them. My moms would always
scream at me when she’d see me
coming out of that building.
One day I was running an errand
for her and on my way back
cops were dragging her by the hair
down the stairs — Bang! Bang!
Bang! I got her groceries in my
hand and she didn’t even see me,
she was all bloodied up. I carry
that today.
The Young Lords gave me an
understanding of that. I remember
being in the church later, listening
to them speak, and that image
came to me. I decided: We have to
stop this.
FERNÁNDEZ:You’re articulating
pretty brilliantly what I argue
in the book — there’s something
profoundly liberating for people,
who’ve been told all their lives that
they ain’t shit, to stand up. To do
that knowing history, understanding
how society works.
➤ THE YOUNG LORDS, continued on p.68
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