Speaker 1: Hey, their listener. I'm Desi Contreras. As an editor at
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Speaker 2: This is Latino USA, the radio journal of news and
Speaker 2: Kurture Latino USA, latin Latino USA. I'm Mariainojosa. We bring
Speaker 2: you stories that are underreported but that mattered to you,
Speaker 2: overlooked by the rest of the media.
Speaker 3: And while the country is struggling to deal with these
Speaker 3: we listen to the stories of black and Latino Studios
Speaker 3: United Latino Front, a cultural renaissance organizing at the forefront
Speaker 3: of the movement.
Speaker 2: I'm Maria Inojosa nose Bayan. Hey you know USA listener, Gomostas,
Speaker 2: here's a show, the Los Archivos. The year was nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty seven. The setting Abraham Lincoln High School on the
Speaker 2: East Side of Los Angeles. That's where two students, Bobby
Speaker 2: and Joli, began to fall in love.
Speaker 4: I always liked Jioli. I always liked her a lot.
Speaker 4: Neither one of us had a boyfriend or a girlfriend
Speaker 4: at that time, but we hung out together with the group,
Speaker 4: you know, the rest of the kids.
Speaker 5: He was always a joker. He was making everybody laugh.
Speaker 5: We were close. We had the same kind of circle
Speaker 5: of friends. But I really liked his friend. His friend Louis.
Speaker 4: My best friend. Actually, we would all go out together,
Speaker 4: the three of us, many times, you know, and I
Speaker 4: knew they liked.
Speaker 6: Each other, but I liked her too.
Speaker 2: Bobby Verdugo and Joli Rios were both seniors at Lincoln High.
Speaker 4: Well, it was at that one particular Christmas party in
Speaker 4: sixty seven.
Speaker 6: We were celebrating, and.
Speaker 4: You know, we shouldn't be drinking ray for kids, but
Speaker 4: there was liquor there, you know, so we started drinking
Speaker 4: some movie that loosened the anxiety a little bit.
Speaker 6: I think Louis had a little bit too much to
Speaker 6: drink that night.
Speaker 4: So I saw my chance, you know, she was standing there,
Speaker 4: and I asked.
Speaker 6: To do dance.
Speaker 5: Bobby actually sang to me, are you angry with me, Darling,
Speaker 5: you know a Midnight Or's song, And I said, oh
Speaker 5: my god, this guy sings.
Speaker 7: Are you rengry with me? Darling?
Speaker 5: With me?
Speaker 7: Darling with me? Darling.
Speaker 5: We were slow dancing, you know, I said, oh man,
Speaker 5: this guy is very romantic.
Speaker 2: I love it, you know.
Speaker 7: Loved you level.
Speaker 2: As the two slow danced into the CRISP December night,
Speaker 2: a fifty year love story began, and soon something else began.
Speaker 3: Too, a movement that was going to set the course
Speaker 3: for the rest of their lives together.
Speaker 2: Ram Fudro Media and BrX It's Latino USA. I'm Maria
Speaker 2: Jojosa today. A love story but also a story of
Speaker 2: student activism. It's almost Valentine's Day and we couldn't help ourselves.
Speaker 2: So we're bringing you a love story but also a
Speaker 2: story about student activism. We were taking you back to
Speaker 2: the late nineteen sixties when thousands of Los Angeles students
Speaker 2: participated in protests that were part of the Grown Chicano movement.
Speaker 2: They're known as the East La walkouts or blowouts. The
Speaker 2: majority of the students were of Mexican descent, and for
Speaker 2: most of them, this was their first experience with activism.
Speaker 2: They walked out of their classrooms to protest discrimination in
Speaker 2: their schools and to demand change. It was one of
Speaker 2: the first mass movements of Chicano youth in a major
Speaker 2: American city Throughout the country. Nineteen sixty eight was a
Speaker 2: year of tragedy, fury, and hope in the civil rights movement,
Speaker 2: but for young people who lived it, the unrest was
Speaker 2: happening alongside their everyday lives. They were starting families, or
Speaker 2: going to college, or like Bobby Verlugo and Joli Rios,
Speaker 2: they were falling in love. Producer Jennie Yamoca picks up
Speaker 2: the story from here.
Speaker 8: Bobby Anyoli grew up on the East side of Los
Speaker 8: Angeles and one of the city's oldest neighborhoods, Lincoln Heights.
Speaker 8: It was the nineteen fifties and the community was majority
Speaker 8: of Mexican and tight knit. Here's Jolie.
Speaker 5: Our circles are very small when you grew up in
Speaker 5: the city, in the vadios, you know, we don't get
Speaker 5: out much.
Speaker 8: Bobby and Joli lived about eight blocks apart. They didn't
Speaker 8: know each other as kids, but they lived almost parallel lives,
Speaker 8: both from working class families and both the oldest. Other
Speaker 8: siblings Bobby werememberus his early years when the neighborhood was
Speaker 8: one big family.
Speaker 6: In those days.
Speaker 4: I mean, I remember many of the mothers who were
Speaker 4: not mine, you know, pulling me by the year and
Speaker 4: taking me home if they saw me doing or getting
Speaker 4: involved in some things that I shouldn't have been doing
Speaker 4: as a little boy.
Speaker 6: But I had a real good childhood, you know.
Speaker 4: I didn't feel some of the things that I would
Speaker 4: realize later about being oppressed and being treated as a
Speaker 4: second class citizen, you know, those kind of things I
Speaker 4: didn't realize until much later.
Speaker 8: In nineteen sixty five, Bobby and Yoli met at Lincoln
Speaker 8: High School. At first they were just friends, but.
Speaker 4: Was beautiful bad I tell you, I immediately was drawn
Speaker 4: to her.
Speaker 8: Julie had dark, shiny hair that just brushed her shoulders,
Speaker 8: and her presence was warm and nurturing. Friends at school
Speaker 8: would call her Mamma Yoli. Bobby was a football player,
Speaker 8: and he looked like one. He had broad shoulders.
Speaker 5: I thought he was handsome. He had a lot of
Speaker 5: facial hair. I said, Oh, man, that's a man as
Speaker 5: a real man.
Speaker 8: Before Yoli officially started at Lincoln High School, her uncle
Speaker 8: gave her one piece of advice.
Speaker 5: When you go to high school, you are going to
Speaker 5: demand to be a math major. When you go see
Speaker 5: that concert.
Speaker 8: He was referring to the public schools tracking systems. You
Speaker 8: could take college prep classes or be placed on a
Speaker 8: vocational track, and Mexican American students were generally put in
Speaker 8: the vocal courses to prepare them for things like factory
Speaker 8: or secretary work. But Yoli had the grades for college.
Speaker 8: So Yoli demanded to be placed in math classes.
Speaker 5: And I could tell it was different because my friends
Speaker 5: who didn't insist, we're taking typing and a little bit
Speaker 5: of bookkeeping, and we're all in the home economics, you know,
Speaker 5: And I was I would never see them, I'd never
Speaker 5: see my girlfriends.
Speaker 8: In the fall of nineteen sixty seven, Bobby and Yoli
Speaker 8: began their last year at Lincoln High and that's when
Speaker 8: they slow danced on that December night.
Speaker 4: That night, you know, we hung out to the rest
Speaker 4: of the evening, you know, And then weeks after that
Speaker 4: we started getting closer and closer and kind of like
Speaker 4: unsaid words, but it was kind of exclusively seeing and
Speaker 4: talking to each other.
Speaker 8: They started talking more and more over the phone. They
Speaker 8: had a few classes together, and Yoli would call Bobby
Speaker 8: at seven in the morning to wake them up for school.
Speaker 5: Bobby, you know, he was in my class and I
Speaker 5: don't think there was a day class where he didn't
Speaker 5: crack a joke. And they would march him up to
Speaker 5: the front of the room and just bend over, grab
Speaker 5: your knees and boom, get paddled.
Speaker 8: Bobby Jeseus front and center. What you're hearing is a
Speaker 8: scene from the two thousand and six HBO film Walkout.
Speaker 6: What I Do You spoke Spanish?
Speaker 2: You Know the.
Speaker 8: Rules, which is based on the events and the East
Speaker 8: Side schools in nineteen sixty eight. Bobby's character gets into
Speaker 8: trouble with the teacher first, and just like Yolie said,
Speaker 8: he swatted in front of the class with Jolie's character
Speaker 8: watching as.
Speaker 4: The young Chicano want to be tough, so you don't
Speaker 4: want to complain too much, thinking, well, you know what,
Speaker 4: I's right, and I could take this. You know, go
Speaker 4: ahead hit me if you're gonna break me or anything.
Speaker 4: But it hurts the spirit, you know, little by little
Speaker 4: they were breaking me.
Speaker 5: It was humiliating. It angered you. I felt really powerless.
Speaker 8: Corporal punishment was common at Lincoln High, but there were
Speaker 8: other more subtle ways that Bobby and Joli felt mistreated.
Speaker 8: In her trigonometry class, Yoli noticed a complete lack of
Speaker 8: interest from her teacher.
Speaker 5: One day rang out this little green carpet and it
Speaker 5: had a little putting thing at the end, and then
Speaker 5: it brings out some golf clubs and he's at the
Speaker 5: front of the class and he starts putting, and I said, Wow,
Speaker 5: this guy is going to go golfing. You know this teacher,
Speaker 5: this Anglo teacher, was teaching in Mexican school, So why
Speaker 5: Amon put forth the effort.
Speaker 8: Like Yoli, Bobby was a bright kid and he was
Speaker 8: active on campus. But as he got older, he started
Speaker 8: noticing a change.
Speaker 4: My performance level kind of tapered off. I wasn't getting
Speaker 4: the straight a's in the seventh and eighth grade that
Speaker 4: I used to. They turned to c's, d's. In my
Speaker 4: junior year, I realized I was in trouble.
Speaker 8: Bobby said he was repeatedly told by teachers, many of
Speaker 8: them might that he wasn't worth their time, and it stuck.
Speaker 6: So I started to believe it and I started to perform.
Speaker 4: Likewise, so by the time I got to eleventh and
Speaker 4: going into my senior year, I started realizing.
Speaker 6: I'm not going to make it.
Speaker 4: I'm not going to graduate, and I realized I had
Speaker 4: to take responsibility for my actions or inactions. But there
Speaker 4: was a lot more to it than just me being
Speaker 4: a failure. I was being failed by the schools that
Speaker 4: my parents entrusted them to teach me.
Speaker 6: They weren't doing their job.
Speaker 8: What was happening to Bobby was a common story at
Speaker 8: Lincoln High in nineteen sixty eight. Lincoln had a huge
Speaker 8: dropout rate, almost forty percent, and the kids affected well
Speaker 8: over ninety percent of the student body was Latino, mainly
Speaker 8: of Mexican heritage, and that segregation wasn't just by chance.
Speaker 8: Families had been pushed into Eastside neighborhoods like Lincoln Heights,
Speaker 8: Foil Heights, and East la displaced by freeway construction and
Speaker 8: other development. The public schools in these neighborhoods were underfunded, overcrowded,
Speaker 8: sometimes forty five kids to a class, and teachers came
Speaker 8: here after year with low expectations and a lack of
Speaker 8: cultural sensitivity. In the sixties, there was no shortage of
Speaker 8: inspiration for young people who felt mistreated, communities of color
Speaker 8: that had been oppressed for centuries were crying out for revolution.
Speaker 8: The civil rights movement, the war in Vietnam, and especially
Speaker 8: the farm worker strike led by the Lotus wed then
Speaker 8: Sasta Chavez began to politicize Mexican Americans. At the time,
Speaker 8: Mexican American youth were calling themselves Chicano and Chicana, which
Speaker 8: historically was used as a derogatory term towards people of Mexican.
Speaker 5: Heritage, and we are going to take that negative terminology
Speaker 5: and make it revolutionary, making it to it We're standing
Speaker 5: up against discrimination, against racism, against second class citizenship. For me,
Speaker 5: I accepted that that we were going to be a
Speaker 5: part of a movement of change.
Speaker 8: And the discrimination you only mentioned. Shared stories from friends
Speaker 8: about police profiling young Mexican Americans in the neighborhood.
Speaker 5: We knew when we would cruise down Wadier Boulevard we
Speaker 5: were being stopped and searched and seized.
Speaker 8: Underground newspapers were being passed around in the schools, newspapers
Speaker 8: like Larissa magazine with articles informing the students about civil rights.
Speaker 8: Even the cartoons made a statement. One depicted corporal punishment
Speaker 8: with the saying, teach the best, spank the rest. As
Speaker 8: they grew closer, Bobby and Julie were also gaining a
Speaker 8: new understanding of social injustice in their community.
Speaker 5: They can't do that. They're violating your civil rights. So
Speaker 5: all of these things peaked up. What are our rights?
Speaker 5: It was a quick joke in our minds and in
Speaker 5: our consciousness.
Speaker 4: Not all the teachers were bad, though, and not all
Speaker 4: the teachers hit, and not all the teachers would say
Speaker 4: things that would try to dehumanize you.
Speaker 6: I had some very good teachers. Selcastro, of course one
Speaker 6: of them.
Speaker 8: Sel Castro was Bobby's social cities teacher at Lincoln High.
Speaker 8: He was young, in his early thirties. Here he is
Speaker 8: being interviewed in archived newstape from the PBS series Chicano.
Speaker 9: Most teachers approach to Mexicans with a negative attitude and
Speaker 9: that you have nothing to give to me. I am
Speaker 9: going to make you an angle, come hell or high water,
Speaker 9: and whatever you have to say about it.
Speaker 8: Makes no difference, he related to his students. He grew
Speaker 8: up on the East Side, and he was Mexican American
Speaker 8: like many of his students.
Speaker 9: For years, the schools have wrapped or blamed the Mexican
Speaker 9: home for not doing a good job and educating the kid.
Speaker 9: In other words, if the kid doesn't go to school,
Speaker 9: it's a Mexican parents fault or the Mexican homes fault.
Speaker 9: That has never been the fault of the Mexican home.
Speaker 8: Sel Castro, who died in twenty thirteen, became more than
Speaker 8: a teacher to Bobby. He became a mentor.
Speaker 4: It's okay to be angry, but what do you do
Speaker 4: about it? And I think that's really what I learned
Speaker 4: from Sal.
Speaker 8: Sal began to help Bobby Yoli and the other students
Speaker 8: at Lincoln High organize it was time to demand more
Speaker 8: from the schools. Students from several Eastside high schools began
Speaker 8: getting together with the help of seal Castro. Some of
Speaker 8: their parents and others helped too.
Speaker 4: A lot of college students were the ones who were
Speaker 4: actually hosting, letting us into their homes to discuss these things.
Speaker 8: And these college students, many of them, had gone to
Speaker 8: high school on the East Side and experienced the same problems.
Speaker 8: Even though Bobby had little chance at this point of
Speaker 8: going to college, he became one of the group's leaders.
Speaker 4: And My involvement was a very personal one. Even though
Speaker 4: I didn't think I was going to graduate. I said
Speaker 4: to myself, I need to be involved in this. I
Speaker 4: need to be involved in making change. It may be
Speaker 4: too late for me at this point.
Speaker 6: I'm a senior.
Speaker 4: I got a zero point one five great point average
Speaker 4: at this point, and whatever it was, I'm not going
Speaker 4: to make it.
Speaker 6: But I still need to fight to make some change.
Speaker 8: As the students started to organize, they weren't sure of
Speaker 8: what actions they should take, but they knew it needed
Speaker 8: to be big. One of the first steps was smaller though.
Speaker 8: They handed out surveys asking how the students felt about
Speaker 8: the schools.
Speaker 5: We were taking our cues as the information we'd come
Speaker 5: back again. Our job was to communicate to our classmates.
Speaker 8: Early in nineteen sixty eight, rumors began to swirl that
Speaker 8: a massive student walkout was in the works. The students
Speaker 8: were beginning to drop the long list of demands to
Speaker 8: present to the school board. They wanted bilingual education, more
Speaker 8: Latino teachers, and an end to corporal punishment. Bobby and
Speaker 8: Joli and their friends continued organizing, and then on Friday,
Speaker 8: March first, something happened at another Eastside high school, almost
Speaker 8: two hundred students walked out. The blowouts had officially.
Speaker 2: Begun, coming up on Latino USA the walkouts.
Speaker 4: Truthfully, I didn't even know if I was going to
Speaker 4: walk up, you know, I wanted to, but there was fear.
Speaker 6: There was real fear.
Speaker 2: Stay with us, get out when.
Speaker 10: Through much more do Latino Music and Miss Angri and
Speaker 10: m Andre which are at the Pronto.
Speaker 2: Hey, we're back. And when we left off, it was
Speaker 2: March of nineteen sixty eight and the East Side walkouts
Speaker 2: had officially begun. Producer Jennie Yamogun tells us what happened next.
Speaker 8: Bobby Vardugo, Joli Rios and their classmates left into action
Speaker 8: that day when they heard that the students at another
Speaker 8: high school Wilson, had walked out of class.
Speaker 5: There was a message that when now people were calling
Speaker 5: each other on the phone or seeing each other at
Speaker 5: school or going over to each other's how we got
Speaker 5: to meet because Wilson walked out?
Speaker 2: What are we going to do?
Speaker 4: And we didn't anticipate that was going to happen so soon,
Speaker 4: But there was a lot of agreement and there were
Speaker 4: those who were really anxious.
Speaker 8: So the organizers at Lincoln High School, including Bobby, started
Speaker 8: planning their own walkout. They had to do it soon
Speaker 8: if they wanted to continue the momentum.
Speaker 4: There was a sense of urgency about what we're going
Speaker 4: to do, and we needed to talk about what our
Speaker 4: goals were, but also to realize what the consequences may be.
Speaker 8: The students and organizers knew that the police could get
Speaker 8: involved and it could get violent. On Tuesday, March fifth,
Speaker 8: students from another Eastside high school, Garfield, walked out. The
Speaker 8: Chicana newspapers that were passed around in schools reported that
Speaker 8: over two thousand students left their classrooms. The next day,
Speaker 8: it was Lincoln High School's turn. The organizer spread the
Speaker 8: word to other students walk out at ten am.
Speaker 4: Truthfully, March sixth, that Wednesday, I didn't even know if
Speaker 4: I was going to walk up.
Speaker 6: I really didn't, you know.
Speaker 4: I wanted to, and I had been preparing for that moment,
Speaker 4: but there was fear.
Speaker 6: There was real fear.
Speaker 5: As I was headed out to school, I went over
Speaker 5: to my mom to remind her. Mom, get we're walking
Speaker 5: out today, and she was. She turned around. I guess
Speaker 5: she had forgotten, so she goes okay, Well, just be careful,
Speaker 5: you know, she just said, be careful.
Speaker 6: My mom knew I was gonna walk out before I did.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 4: She was already waiting outside to make sure that I
Speaker 4: wouldn't get hurt, as were a lot of parents. My
Speaker 4: attendance record was never all that great, but I remember
Speaker 4: really wanting to be at school that day to walk out.
Speaker 8: The timing ten am was strategic. It was meant to
Speaker 8: hit the school where it hurt it's funding, because that
Speaker 8: funding was partly based on attendance, and since the teachers
Speaker 8: took attendance around ten am, they'd have to report all
Speaker 8: the absences and the school would lose money. This is
Speaker 8: another scene from the HBO film Walkout, which shows the
Speaker 8: students standing up from their desks and leaving their classrooms. Right,
Speaker 8: let's take attendance, right as a teachers took attendance, and
Speaker 8: student leaders running down the halls yelling.
Speaker 5: We were just kind of like waiting to hear the call.
Speaker 5: You know, we weren't exactly sure who was somebody was
Speaker 5: going to knock on the door, or how it was
Speaker 5: going to go. But then we heard Bobby, you know,
Speaker 5: the different students coming by.
Speaker 4: I remember being in the hallways yelling walk out, and
Speaker 4: I've been confronted by the vice principal telling me to
Speaker 4: go back to my class.
Speaker 5: One thing that was going through my head as we
Speaker 5: were walking out is I could see there was two
Speaker 5: teachers and I can't remember their names, but they look
Speaker 5: so sad because I had never seen that expression, you know,
Speaker 5: and I said, good, I interpret that expression that good.
Speaker 5: Feel bad because you have been discriminating against us. We
Speaker 5: have been abused, we have been treated badly, poorly as
Speaker 5: second class citizens.
Speaker 4: We walked out and we were in the courtyard, all
Speaker 4: the students, fifteen hundred plus students in the courtyard, and
Speaker 4: we didn't know what we're going to do. You know,
Speaker 4: there was like no plan of action, and I wanted
Speaker 4: to stay you by you only side and my brother
Speaker 4: seemed to make sure that they nothing would happen to them.
Speaker 8: While the student leaders were trying to figure out their
Speaker 8: next steps, one of their fellow organizers gone on top
Speaker 8: of a water fountain in the courtyard.
Speaker 4: And started yelling Chicano power and this and started getting
Speaker 4: everybody all excited and being like the voice.
Speaker 5: You know, he got up and just not saying Chicano power,
Speaker 5: he was saying we have the highest dropout rate. You know,
Speaker 5: it was a period of education for all the students
Speaker 5: to hear. These are the grievances we are going to demand.
Speaker 5: There should be no corporate punishment.
Speaker 4: And I think it was either he or someone made
Speaker 4: the decision, Let's go outside. What are we doing in here?
Speaker 4: Nobody can see us in gire? What kind of statement
Speaker 4: is this?
Speaker 8: They eventually spilled out from the courtyard into the streets
Speaker 8: and continued chanting Chicano power and walk out. Over ninety
Speaker 8: percent of the student body from Lincoln walked out of
Speaker 8: their classrooms that morning. The students walked to a local
Speaker 8: park called Hazard Park, about a thirty minute walk from Lincoln.
Speaker 8: The school board had an area office there. They swarmed
Speaker 8: the building, but there was only one superintendent there and
Speaker 8: he wasn't able to address their concerns. Most of the
Speaker 8: students went back to class later that afternoon, but this
Speaker 8: was just the beginning.
Speaker 6: So it didn't last all day. The walkout itself.
Speaker 4: We went back into school, which was interesting to see,
Speaker 4: Like you really said, some of the teachers look sad,
Speaker 4: some of them looked excited. Someone that came up to
Speaker 4: us and without any words you know, either hugged us
Speaker 4: or said I'm glad.
Speaker 6: You know, you guys are okay.
Speaker 8: Bobby said he heard that some of the teachers just
Speaker 8: ignored the protest.
Speaker 6: You know, let's just move on. You know, this is
Speaker 6: you had your moment.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 6: They didn't realize it was going to happen through the
Speaker 6: rest of the week.
Speaker 8: So Thursday, more walkouts at Roosevelt High School, students were arrested,
Speaker 8: and at other schools gates were closed so students couldn't leave,
Speaker 8: but that didn't stop them. On that Friday, March eighth,
Speaker 8: thousands of students from all the East Side high schools
Speaker 8: walked out. They peacefully marched to Hazard Park.
Speaker 6: Some of the schools had to come greater distances.
Speaker 4: The estimates of the crowd, you know, whoever you talked to,
Speaker 4: but there were over ten thousand students from different schools
Speaker 4: meeting there.
Speaker 6: It Hazard are rallying.
Speaker 4: It's pretty remarkable if you think about it, because each
Speaker 4: school is a different neighborhood.
Speaker 5: There's these little mounding hills. You know, Belmont's coming over
Speaker 5: the hill. They would make announcements. You know, Garfield's coming
Speaker 5: up on the plant. You know this street and it was.
Speaker 5: It was so good to see the unity and being
Speaker 5: able to have the district officials there to hear us out.
Speaker 8: The students rallied and spoke about the poor conditions of
Speaker 8: their schools, and they share their demands with members of
Speaker 8: the Los Angeles School Board who were there to listen.
Speaker 4: By that time, the sun had come out, and it
Speaker 4: was in many ways metaphorically and even you know, physically,
Speaker 4: it was like salhad mentioned.
Speaker 8: Seal Castro, the teacher who inspired Bobby.
Speaker 6: It was beautiful beat Chicano. That day.
Speaker 8: After the walkouts, the Los Angeles School Board finally agreed
Speaker 8: to listen to the students on their own turf their schools.
Speaker 8: They organized a meeting that would take place at Lincoln
Speaker 8: High later in March. Meanwhile, Bobby and you only hit
Speaker 8: a new milestone in their budding relationship.
Speaker 5: One day.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 5: It was my girlfriends are saying, well, are you Bobby together?
Speaker 5: I said, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Maybe so.
Speaker 4: The term going around man going steady, you know, back
Speaker 4: in the sixties.
Speaker 6: And on that one particular morning when she called.
Speaker 5: Me, she said, Bobby, you know it's already ten minutes
Speaker 5: fifteen minutes to seven. You got to go to football practice. Okay, okay,
Speaker 5: and Bobby, by the way, I have a question. I go,
Speaker 5: are we going around?
Speaker 6: Are we going around?
Speaker 4: Because my friends it doesn't matter to me classical line, Eh,
Speaker 4: it doesn't.
Speaker 6: Matter to me, but my friends are asking are you
Speaker 6: guys going around?
Speaker 5: And then he said something to the effect. Well, he goes,
Speaker 5: you know, I like you, and I said, okay, let.
Speaker 6: Me ask you. Do you want to go around with me?
Speaker 4: She goes no, but Fater, She's just of course, yeah,
Speaker 4: but don't worry.
Speaker 6: It's it's just something I wanted to know from me.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, when I get to school, everybody's standing at
Speaker 4: the front gate waiting for me to get there, and
Speaker 4: they say happy going.
Speaker 6: Around day to you.
Speaker 4: It's like, yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure, glad it was
Speaker 4: just two you and me here. So I gave her
Speaker 4: my ring and we officially. That was March twenty third,
Speaker 4: a couple of weeks after the blowouts, and that's where
Speaker 4: we became Bobby and Joi.
Speaker 8: On March twenty sixth, the Los Angeles School Board met
Speaker 8: with students at Lincoln High School. The meeting lasted four
Speaker 8: hours and over a thousand people attended. The students were
Speaker 8: able to air thirty six demands. They were published in
Speaker 8: the Los Angeles Times. They wanted mandatory bilingual and by
Speaker 8: cultural education, to abolish corporal punishment, and for teachers and
Speaker 8: administrators to stop discriminating and be respectful of cultural traditions.
Speaker 8: As the meeting ended, the board agreed not to punish
Speaker 8: the students that participated in the walkouts, but overall nothing
Speaker 8: much came of it. It may not have been the
Speaker 8: immediate outcome that the students wanted, but still they had
Speaker 8: forced the powers that be to hear their voices.
Speaker 5: It was exciting to have these thoughts, to think we
Speaker 5: can do this. We weren't afraid of the challenge. We
Speaker 5: were ready to take it on.
Speaker 8: Bobby didn't graduate that year from Lincoln High School. With Yoli,
Speaker 8: he sat in the bleachers and watched. He did ultimately
Speaker 8: get his ged and attend college, but he didn't finish
Speaker 8: his degree until he was in his forties. Joli did
Speaker 8: go to college immediately after high school on a scholarship,
Speaker 8: and eventually she became a union organizer and Bobby became
Speaker 8: a social worker who mentored tem fathers. They got married
Speaker 8: in nineteen seventy nine and for decades the two of
Speaker 8: them worked to improve the same community they had grown
Speaker 8: up in and protested in.
Speaker 4: We may not be sixteen to seventeen year old students anymore,
Speaker 4: but we're going to continue this fight and be there
Speaker 4: where we can and try to make some change.
Speaker 8: Even today, after five decades, Bobby and Joli still act
Speaker 8: like high school sweethearts. At least they did when I
Speaker 8: visited them. And I'm not the first person to ask
Speaker 8: them about their long relationship.
Speaker 6: It seems to be a particular interest in the fact that, God,
Speaker 6: they were boyfriend girlfriend back then and they're still together,
Speaker 6: you know, And I'm sure there have been challenges and
Speaker 6: they have, But I think the work is a lot
Speaker 6: bigger than just us.
Speaker 8: I asked them if the work, their activism is the
Speaker 8: secret to their long lasting relationship.
Speaker 5: So, no matter what in our relationship, when we would
Speaker 5: get angry with each other, and it could be small
Speaker 5: things all he doesn't do is wash or he's always
Speaker 5: late or whatever, But when things are happening politically, you know,
Speaker 5: no matter what it was that you know upsets you,
Speaker 5: an issue comes up that has to be discussed. Boy
Speaker 5: that goes away quick.
Speaker 4: I'm going to say thank you and I'm going to
Speaker 4: take that as a big forgiveness and a lot of
Speaker 4: things that I've done or not done in a good
Speaker 4: way all these years.
Speaker 6: Just the fact that here we are fifty years later.
Speaker 4: I mean, there were a lot of boyfriend girlfriends who
Speaker 4: walked out together holding hands, and I think a lot
Speaker 4: of it. To its credit, or maybe to our credit,
Speaker 4: our work has kept us together. That passion for wanting
Speaker 4: to do well, and we seem to be able to
Speaker 4: do it better together rather than apart, has kept us alive.
Speaker 8: Fifty years have passed since Bobby and Yuli stood up together,
Speaker 8: walked out of their high school classrooms and made a
Speaker 8: mark in history. It's the type of history they would
Speaker 8: have loved to learn about in high school, and now,
Speaker 8: because of them and the rest of the East Side students,
Speaker 8: Latino kids can.
Speaker 2: Today. Bobby Verdugo and Joli Rios are both retired and
Speaker 2: they've traveled around the country sharing their experience as student
Speaker 2: organizers and participants in the nineteen sixty eight walkouts. Sadly,
Speaker 2: Bobby Verdugo died at the age of sixty nine. The
Speaker 2: Chicano leader is remembered by Yoli and his two daughters
Speaker 2: and by the many students and young adults he mentored
Speaker 2: throughout his life. The legacy of the student walkouts continues
Speaker 2: to live on. It's immortalized in documentaries and the HBO
Speaker 2: film Walkout that you heard from throughout this episode, but
Speaker 2: most importantly, its impact is felt in the same hallways
Speaker 2: where students made history more than five decades ago. Now,
Speaker 2: while those changes weren't immediate, some were made at East
Speaker 2: Side schools over the years. Corporal punishment was banned and
Speaker 2: college enrollment for Latino students spite. At Abraham Lincoln High School,
Speaker 2: where Bobby and Joli went, ethnic studies classes are now
Speaker 2: offered and the dropout rate is about three percent. Now,
Speaker 2: that's it for this week. This episode was produced by
Speaker 2: Janie Yamocan, edited by Alison McCadam. It was mixed by
Speaker 2: Stephanie Lebau. Back checking for this episode by Nidia A. Baltista.
Speaker 2: The Latino USA team includes Andrea Lopez Cruzado, Marta Martinez,
Speaker 2: Mike Sargent, Daisy Contreres, Victoria Estrada, Renaldo Leanos, Junior, Patrisa Subran,
Speaker 2: and Elizabeth Loenthal Torris. Our editorial director is Fernande Santos.
Speaker 2: Our senior engineer is Julia Caruso. Our associate engineers our
Speaker 2: gabriel Le Bias and jj Carubin. Our marketing manager is
Speaker 2: Luis Luna. The Midnighters music is courtesy of Jimmy Espinosa.
Speaker 2: Our theme music was composed by Saniel Rubinos. I'm your
Speaker 2: host and executive producer Marigul noo Rosa. Join us again
Speaker 2: on our next episode. In the meantime, look for us
Speaker 2: on social media. Remember Lottevayas and we'll see you on
Speaker 2: the next one.
Speaker 7: Ciao.
Speaker 11: Latino USA is made possible in part by California Endowment,
Speaker 11: building a strong state by improving the health of all Californians.
Speaker 7: The Annie E.
Speaker 11: Casey Foundation creates a brighter future for the nation's children
Speaker 11: by strengthening families, building greater economic opportunity, and transforming communities.
Speaker 11: And the Ford Foundation, working with visionaries on the front
Speaker 11: lines of social change worldwide.
Speaker 2: Together in love and in struggle. Just made that up.