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Speaker 1: Orla Latino Usa listener Gomostas. Today, we're going to bring

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Speaker 1: you an episode of a new podcast series by our

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Speaker 1: friends over at Radio Diaries. It's called The Unmarked Graveyard

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Speaker 1: and it's a collection of stories that want to put

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Speaker 1: a name and a human face on a place known

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Speaker 1: as Heart Island. It's a burial ground in New York

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Speaker 1: City where more than a million people have been buried

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Speaker 1: without headstones or plaques, people like Angel Garcia, a New

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Speaker 1: Yurekan from the Bronx. In this episode, we're going to

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Speaker 1: meet Annette Vega, who looked for her biological father Angel

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Speaker 1: for more than thirty years. Through her search, a Nette

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Speaker 1: discovered a whole new family Athia. Several cousins even have siblings.

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Speaker 1: None of them had heard from Angels since the late

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, and finally she found Angel in his resting

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Speaker 1: place at Heart Island. Here's the story of Angel Carcia.

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Speaker 2: Oh my god, that's the island. It's crazy. There's not

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Speaker 2: a lot of land for that many people to be buried.

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Speaker 2: At first, I thought it was eerie, but it's kind

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Speaker 2: of pretty because the fog just like erases the city.

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Speaker 2: It's just so beautiful. It's nicer than I thought. My

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Speaker 2: name is Annette Vega. I'm a registered nurse and I'm

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Speaker 2: fifty three years old. I grew up in the Bronx.

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Speaker 2: I lived with two of my younger sisters and my

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Speaker 2: mom and my dad. Dad was always working. He was

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Speaker 2: an electrician for Local three, and he was always the

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Speaker 2: strong guy, and a lot of the neighborhood teenagers looked

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Speaker 2: up to him. Not everybody had their dad and their life,

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Speaker 2: you know, looking back, it was a great childhood. So

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Speaker 2: when I was about seven or eight, I found out

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Speaker 2: that my dad wasn't my biological father. That's the first

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Speaker 2: time I came to know that there was someone else

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Speaker 2: out there. This is a picture of my biological father,

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Speaker 2: Angel Garcia. He looks like he's in his thirties, and

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Speaker 2: he has a long mustache and a da here that's

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Speaker 2: kind of brushed back. And I'm like, who was this person?

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Speaker 2: Why hasn't he been in my life? Could he be

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Speaker 2: looking for me? I just felt a persistent urge to

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Speaker 2: find out. Hello, hey, mom, Ayanet, So did you win

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Speaker 2: a bingo yesterday?

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Speaker 3: I won seventy five dollars yesterday and three hundred and

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Speaker 3: seventy something on Tuesday. Wow, I wish there was a

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Speaker 3: Bengo today.

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Speaker 2: So I wanted to ask you some questions. If you

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Speaker 2: don't mind, yeah, go ahead, Okay. The questions are related

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Speaker 2: to Angel Garcia, who's my biological father. No kidding, no

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Speaker 2: kidd all right, mother, So what do you remember about him?

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Speaker 3: He was very sweet, He was good to be. He

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Speaker 3: knew he was good looking, and he was sure of himself.

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Speaker 3: And who knows. He had this cologne. Oh my god,

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Speaker 3: it was the best cologne ever. You like that cologne

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Speaker 3: in minor.

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Speaker 2: And I My mom had me at sixteen. I was

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Speaker 2: a mistake, not a mistake, but you know I wasn't

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Speaker 2: a planned pregnancy. You know. She was a teenager growing

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Speaker 2: up in the Bronx and there was a young man

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Speaker 2: everyone called him Macho. You know. They had a little

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Speaker 2: summer romance. He'd be working in the auto body shop

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Speaker 2: and she'd go home happily with grease on her backside

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Speaker 2: of her shorts. And I'm like mom.

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Speaker 3: He talked about where his family came from, he talked

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Speaker 3: about the future when he got married, and he was

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Speaker 3: a charble. Let me tell.

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Speaker 2: Where there things about me that remind you of him?

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Speaker 3: I think you looked like him a lot.

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Speaker 2: You had green eyes, green eyes.

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Speaker 3: You had very green eyes like he did.

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Speaker 2: Remember my Mount to Carlo, my sixth cylinder that I

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Speaker 2: would be driving fast and you'd be like, oh, you

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Speaker 2: remind me of your father, And I'm.

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Speaker 3: Like, oh, yeah, cause he used to love to drive.

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Speaker 3: She used to steal car and I think he used

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Speaker 3: to steal cause just for the fun of it. Wow,

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Speaker 3: he was a bad boy, So I guess maybe I

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Speaker 3: was into bad boys. Who knows, aren't we all?

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Speaker 2: Do you remember the last time you guys saw each other.

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Speaker 3: I've seen him after I gave birth to you. We

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Speaker 3: hooked up again, and then he used to pick you

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Speaker 3: up and talk to you, and we used to go

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Speaker 3: and car ride with you and everything like that.

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Speaker 2: When's the last time you spoke to him? What was

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Speaker 2: that conversation? Like?

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Speaker 3: All I remember was I was insulting him.

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Speaker 2: You were insulting him if I want.

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Speaker 3: I told him that he was not your father, that

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Speaker 3: he was only a father because he made you, but

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Speaker 3: not because he raised you or supported you. I knew

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Speaker 3: that that would hit him hard. And then he disappeared

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Speaker 3: one day and I went to his job and they

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Speaker 3: told me, know that there was another woman looking for

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Speaker 3: him and all that. So I never went back and

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Speaker 3: I never looked for him again.

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Speaker 2: I remember my mom telling me he was kind of

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Speaker 2: a tough guy, and she thought that he was in

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Speaker 2: a gang.

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Speaker 4: The South Bronx one of New York City is roughest

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Speaker 4: neighborhoods and since the mid sixties, home to an outlaw

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Speaker 4: motorcycle gang who called themselves the Chinga Links.

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Speaker 2: I remember hearing about the ching Lings. They were notorious

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Speaker 2: motorcycle gang that people were fearful of. I thought he

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Speaker 2: might be with them.

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Speaker 4: So what does it mean to be a China Ling?

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Speaker 4: The relinear we got, it's a Chingling religion. That's the

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Speaker 4: only religion we have.

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Speaker 2: I had a bike's party hang out.

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Speaker 4: This is like a family thing.

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Speaker 2: So I literally walked up to the chin Lings house

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Speaker 2: in the it's like painted in black and you know,

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Speaker 2: motorcycles all around. And guy comes out looking rough. He

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Speaker 2: comes over, he talks to me and I tell him

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Speaker 2: I'm trying to find my father. They call him my shoe.

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Speaker 2: Hees green eyes. Oh, I haven't seen that dude in years.

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Speaker 2: Another woman comes out and she's, you know, out on

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Speaker 2: the stoop, having a cigarette and she goes I remember him.

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Speaker 2: I remember one night we were partying really hard. I

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Speaker 2: got so messed up, and he helped carry me upstairs

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Speaker 2: to the bedroom. That man could have done anything to me,

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Speaker 2: and he put me in the bed and put a

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Speaker 2: blanket on me and left. Nice guy. They wished me luck,

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Speaker 2: they said, ope, you find them. I felt kind of

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Speaker 2: silly looking for so long without a real reason as

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Speaker 2: to why I was looking for him. I didn't need

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Speaker 2: him to be my father, but I still really wanted

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Speaker 2: to find him. There were thousands of questions, where's his family?

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Speaker 2: Do I have brothers, Do I have sisters? Do I

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Speaker 2: have a grandmother? Do I have aunt? Where's his people?

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Speaker 2: It was late January. I got a message from someone

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Speaker 2: on ancestry who gave me names. I used the White Pages,

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Speaker 2: I used Facebook, and I sent the messages. That evening

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Speaker 2: my phone rings. I hear this woman crying emotional missa, missabina.

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Speaker 2: Don do diempo, don gando All this time, my niece,

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Speaker 2: I've been looking for you. I was like, you have

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Speaker 2: you know about me? Why high D's young?

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Speaker 3: I think you don't want joke.

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Speaker 2: So I'm here. I arrived at my Tity's house. My Tity, Miriam,

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Speaker 2: my father's sister. It's a really pretty home.

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Speaker 5: Oh, my name is Medium, Medium Gasia.

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Speaker 4: My brother is Angiel.

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Speaker 2: Angel is your brother. He was younger than you or

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Speaker 2: older than you and her younger brother. He only went

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Speaker 2: to sixth grade. But there was something about him that

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Speaker 2: he could just pick up things, like he learned how

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Speaker 2: to work on cars. He can take a car that

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Speaker 2: was destroyed and make it look like new. Angel was

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Speaker 2: a good man, but he had a really really hard life.

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Speaker 2: What is that you saying. There was issues in the

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Speaker 2: home growing up because their father was an alcoholic, and

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Speaker 2: my father went to the streets and he started using drugs.

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Speaker 2: At the age of thirteen, he was arrested and in

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Speaker 2: prison from selling drugs.

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Speaker 5: They don't see.

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Speaker 2: But it wasn't like a traditional prison. It was like

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Speaker 2: a camp.

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Speaker 3: Mm hmm, ok.

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Speaker 2: So, she said. In nineteen eighty five or eighty six,

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Speaker 2: police came to the house to tell them that he

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Speaker 2: escaped sire from They don't know how he did it,

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Speaker 2: and I didn't know what you're done. Someone had to

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Speaker 2: help them, Mirah. She said she received the phone call

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Speaker 2: from him in the summer of nineteen eighty nine, that

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Speaker 2: he was very sick with pneumonia and he wanted to.

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Speaker 5: Come home call me a Posso they put.

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Speaker 2: Her and her husband went to New York and they

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Speaker 2: walked through the streets looking for him. I don't know better,

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Speaker 2: but she never heard from him again. Justin't seen him

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Speaker 2: in thirty years. She said, I don't think he's alive. Okay,

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Speaker 2: So this is what I find out. I received. Then

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Speaker 2: all tap say report and I actually have it with me,

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Speaker 2: and it says Angel Garcia died August third, nineteen eighty nine,

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Speaker 2: at eleven pm, thirty seven years old, immediate cause of

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Speaker 2: death pneumonia due to AIDS as a consequence of chronic

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Speaker 2: intravenous narcoticism IVY drug abuser. It says he was buried

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Speaker 2: in a place called Heart Island. People are buried there,

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Speaker 2: people with no idea on them, people who haven't been claimed.

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Speaker 2: And then I spoke to Titi Merim. We went through

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Speaker 2: it together and she put it down and she said,

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Speaker 2: this is him. You found your father, all right? What's that?

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Speaker 2: I can't believe I'm standing here with my brother like

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Speaker 2: it's mother, Like he's so cute. I'm like God, it's

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Speaker 2: so nice. So I found out that I had a

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Speaker 2: brother named Angel. I've never met him. He also didn't

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Speaker 2: know where our father was.

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Speaker 5: She reached out to me and wrote me a letter

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Speaker 5: telling me she was my sister. I was incarcerated. I

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Speaker 5: was incarcerated. So at first I was like, what what

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Speaker 5: the hell was going on here? She went into detail

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Speaker 5: telling me who she is and how she went about

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Speaker 5: finding me. So research paid off.

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Speaker 2: I know I should be a private investigators. Yes, now

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Speaker 2: we're gonna go see our father where he was buried.

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Speaker 5: It's weird, like nobody knew where he was at all

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Speaker 5: these years.

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Speaker 2: Flocked to a boy three right there, to a one

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Speaker 2: grave twenty seven. So this is the plot where Angel

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Speaker 2: was buried our dad.

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Speaker 5: Wow, I was always the biggest fan, like rooting for him. Yeah,

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Speaker 5: I must have been like seven years old. And we

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Speaker 5: went to the prison to visit, and he took us

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Speaker 5: from the visiting room to like the dormitory. He introduced

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Speaker 5: us all the dudes that was locked up with him

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Speaker 5: or his friends or whatever. He gave me like a

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Speaker 5: boat made out of like wood, and and that's the

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Speaker 5: last time I seen him. Well, now I know where

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Speaker 5: he's brother.

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Speaker 2: The people that loved my father, whether its my brother,

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Speaker 2: my aunt, my cousins, everyone talks about how he was

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Speaker 2: such a good guy. I think they were afraid to

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Speaker 2: tell me the bad stuff, whether it's being in a

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Speaker 2: gang or being in prison, being an IVY drug abuser.

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Speaker 2: You know, Angel was not an angel, but it's who

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Speaker 2: he is. I mean, it's not a complete story without

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Speaker 2: all of it. I'm putting flowers here at his grave,

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Speaker 2: just planting. I'm marking because he's here, he's not lost.

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Speaker 5: I'm happy to see where he lays and too like

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Speaker 5: tell him like hell and I found you, She found

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Speaker 5: us and we're here and now we know who you are.

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Speaker 3: And the tact there's nothing, there's nothing anything,