WEBVTT - Part One: The Young Lords: How Some Puerto Rican Socialists Changed Everything 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:04.120 Hello, and welcome to Cool People to cool stuff your 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:07.440 podcast about Wait a second, Sophie's not here. We can 0:00:07.480 --> 0:00:11.080 do anything we want. Hello, and welcome to Hollywood. Let's 0:00:11.080 --> 0:00:12.920 talk about Hollywood. That's a real place and we care 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:15.160 about the people there, Shreine, Do you think that's a 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:17.239 good podcast? I feel like will be the first people 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:19.880 to come up with that kind of podcast. Yeah, we're 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:23.240 gonna it's gonna be a big hit, smash hit. Yeah, 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:29.080 we're gonna get some podcast money. Hell yeah U or Okay, 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:32.160 actually maybe we should just we'll do that later. First, 0:00:32.159 --> 0:00:35.240 we'll do it. Cool people did cool stuff. Okay, Yeah, 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:36.360 I guess we had to get that out of the 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:39.239 way first. Yeah, okay, great, we'll jump in. Yeah, because 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:43.400 I'm really excited about today's guest and topic. My guest 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:46.760 today is a Linda Segata and the principal songwriter. I 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:47.960 guess this is the maybe way to say it, but 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:49.720 I'm not entirely certain of one of the best bands 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:52.400 out there. Hooray for the riffraff. Helenda, how are you? 0:00:53.440 --> 0:00:57.560 I'm good. I'm on a wild journey of life, but 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:01.600 I'm really happy to be here and I've missed you. Yeah. Yeah. 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:05.200 I keep finding my guests are like my old friends 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:07.360 from back in the day in a nice way. Um 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:10.600 and Linda and I know each other from New York 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:15.640 many many years ago. Yeah, that's beautiful, Linda. I was 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:17.320 going to describe your music, and then I realized, I 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:19.360 don't know how to. Is there like a catchy one 0:01:19.360 --> 0:01:22.880 sentence version that you use? I guess like sometimes I 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:26.800 say folk rock because I feel like people not when 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:30.920 I say that, Okay, you know, I will go out, 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:33.560 go ahead, Sorry, Oh there's there's a rock in it, 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:38.440 but it's also folk. Yeah, I will say to anyone 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:42.800 who I don't usually like folk rock as described, and 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:44.800 I really like hooray for the riff raff, so if 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:49.200 anyone good, yeah, everyone, would you call it? Also, one 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:51.919 time somebody called it folk punk, and I was like, whoa. 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:57.200 I felt like younger me was really excited. But me 0:01:57.920 --> 0:02:00.760 I used to distinguish between folk punk and punk's playing 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:06.080 folk because folk punk is when you take the punk 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:09.720 vocals and put them over folk instrumentation, and then punk's 0:02:09.760 --> 0:02:13.400 playing folk is when punks play folk music. Yes, and 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:18.040 I like that one more. I gotta I want some 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:21.360 I want stop playing shows. Because I was playing shows 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:24.040 with an accordion and I told this other person I 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:25.239 played with. I was like, oh, I don't usually like 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:26.800 folk punk, but I relate like your set. And he 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:29.480 got really offended and he was like, which is fair? 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:30.839 It was a dumb thing for me to have said. 0:02:31.800 --> 0:02:33.399 And he was like, what do you call what you do? 0:02:34.080 --> 0:02:38.040 And then I stopped playing shows. I want to be 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:45.239 folk power. Anyway, that's not what we're talking about today. 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:49.880 We are not talking about folk punk today. Okay. Well, first, 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:52.440 as people might have noticed, our our producer Sophie is 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:54.800 not with us. Instead, we have Sharine at least partly, 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:58.320 but otherwise we're flying solo. I believe in you. I 0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:02.280 thank you. That's I'll claim that I do too, so 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:06.720 that everyone feels safe. Our audio engineers Ian high Ian, 0:03:07.840 --> 0:03:10.080 and our theme music was written for us by a woman. 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:14.720 And our topic today, Elenda. People talk a lot about 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:17.560 like getting shit done, but usually they don't get shit done. 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:20.920 They talk about getting shit done. Today we're gonna talk 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:23.080 about some people who got shit done. This was the 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:25.760 thing that I kept running over and over again, was 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:30.639 just like getting shit done, be out of They got 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:33.040 so much done that this is our second four partner. 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:36.240 There's two weeks that we're going to be talking about 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:40.320 a street gang that turned into revolutionary socialists who fought 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:43.240 for change, and they only got the tiniest portion of 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:45.840 what they wanted, and they still got more than almost 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:49.600 anyone I ever read about. In case anyone's wondering, anyone 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:52.040 who's listening, if you were wondering, huh, I wonder if 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:55.080 the reason that the trash gets picked up is because 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:57.960 of people rioting. I wonder if the reason that people 0:03:58.000 --> 0:04:01.360 don't use lead paint anymore is because of militant demonstrators 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:05.680 who were threatening to overthrow capitalism. And was it people 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:08.280 committed to the destruction of capitalism who brought us the 0:04:08.320 --> 0:04:10.520 patient's Bill of Rights and the fact that some of 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:15.800 times were treated okay at hospitals? The answers yes, because 0:04:15.840 --> 0:04:18.119 today we're gonna talk about the Young Lords. E Linda, 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:20.760 have you heard of the Young Lords? I have learned. 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:25.240 I have heard of the Young Lords. I was very 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:29.760 deeply affected by learning about them some years ago, and 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:33.239 it like really changed my music and it changed my life. 0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:37.839 That's cool. The the reason A Linda's the guest for 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:40.280 this is that I started writing a script for someone else, 0:04:40.520 --> 0:04:43.960 and then um, I was name dropping A Linda and 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:47.840 one of one of their songs in the script, and 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:50.000 then I was like, e Linda should be the guest 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:53.880 for this, and then A Linda said, yes, I'm really 0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:57.080 excited to learn to learn about them, you know, like 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:02.279 I've had the emotional experience of learning some about the 0:05:02.320 --> 0:05:07.080 Young Lords, but I am ready to deep dive. Fuck yeah. Okay, 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:09.560 So today we're gonna talk about this week and next 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:11.240 week we're gonna talk about some of the amazing stuff 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:14.120 done by the Puerto Rican radicals in the continental United States. 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:16.440 And that means we should at least briefly talk about 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:20.240 Puerto Rico itself. Puerto Rico is an American colony. The 0:05:20.320 --> 0:05:23.200 US doesn't like to use that word. They use the 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:30.000 word unincorporated territory. Whoa, yeah, it means I've heard commonwealth 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:33.640 my whole life. Oh okay, I think that which is well, 0:05:33.640 --> 0:05:37.080 I just think it's a very silly term when it's 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:43.360 like there is no commonwealth. Yeah, well, the that's the 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:45.840 white people in the United States have the commonwealth of 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:52.039 Puerto Rico. It was all extracted. Yeah yeah, so the 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:55.320 US got this colony in eighteen ninety eight by the 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:59.240 usual means of colony getting colonies through war, and in 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:01.760 this case they sold it from Spain as the result 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:04.440 of the Spanish American War. Spain, of course, had stolen 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:07.000 it in the first place. They stole it from the 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:10.960 indigenous people the island back in fifteen oh eight Puerto Rico, 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:13.719 so it becomes a colony of the US instead of Spain. 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:17.680 And then in nineteen seventeen, Puerto Ricans were suddenly granted 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:22.520 US citizenship, which was so benevolent. It was just a 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:26.400 strange coincidence that there was just in time for all 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:31.200 the Puerto Rican meant to get drafted. Yes, yeah, yes, 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:34.600 So the US gave Puerto Ricans US a citizenship because 0:06:34.600 --> 0:06:36.320 they wanted to throw them into the meat grinder of 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:39.960 World War One, and the entire Puerto Rican House of Delegates, 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:43.359 like the local governance in Puerto Rico, voted against getting 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:46.960 US citizenship because they were like, oh, whoa, yeah, that 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:48.960 part actually a little bit surprised me because a lot 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:51.920 of US statehood is a big part of a lot 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:54.080 of Puerto Rican movement stuff. Now right, we're gonna talk 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:56.800 a little bit about that. But they knew it was 0:06:56.839 --> 0:06:58.640 a fucking trick as far as I can tell, they 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:01.719 were just like, yeah, why would we go off and 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:06.120 do this. So Ever since, Puerto Rican folks have been 0:07:06.120 --> 0:07:08.400 fighting for and this depends on who you ask. Some 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:11.200 people are fighting from independence from the US, some people 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:15.200 are fighting for statehood. Either way, people are fighting. I'm 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:19.000 kind of curious whether, like in your family, whether like 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:23.600 there's a strong sense of statehood, independence, that kind of thing, 0:07:23.680 --> 0:07:28.920 Like it really depends. It's like, I think there's definitely 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:35.360 exhaustion that my family has. I think is pretty common 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:40.120 to Puerto Ricans who you know, I don't really have 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:43.040 a lot of family in the island anymore, and it 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:45.120 seems like my family is very much like, well, how 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:48.400 would the island survive if we weren't owned by the 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:51.280 US at this point, like an exhaustion of this idea 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:56.320 of independency even being possible. But then there are certain people, like, 0:07:56.440 --> 0:08:00.080 you know, there's like some more radically leaning people, and 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:04.360 my family they're just like the point is to try, 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:07.320 The point is to figure it out, you know. Yeah, 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:09.440 And I feel like it's like useful to understand and 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:12.200 be sympathetic to both of those positions for me, as 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:14.760 someone who's not Puerto Ricans, just being like, all right, 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:18.760 like independence, the more radical thing sounds always cooler to me. 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:22.760 But I'm like, I could get people just trying for 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:26.240 what they can, you know. Yeah, And I feel that too, 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:29.800 even being like a Puerto Rican person that wasn't brought 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:31.800 up on the island. I'm like, what right do I 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:35.600 have to tell people how to like to make a 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:38.719 decision that really it affects them. It doesn't affect me, 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:42.000 you know, it affects their daily life. So I definitely 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:44.559 try to be aware of that, especially with like having 0:08:44.600 --> 0:08:48.199 a band and being sometimes the only Puerto Rican person 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:53.040 that someone's ever talked to, right, you know, yeah, Well, 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:56.680 part four of this episode will be particularly interestingness relates 0:08:56.720 --> 0:09:00.720 to not the band part, but the mainland US Puerto Ricans, 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:03.679 and we'll talk about that later. Everyone's got to wait 0:09:03.720 --> 0:09:07.480 a little bit. So the US they want Puerto Rico still, 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:10.160 and it is part of the US exercising power across 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:12.560 the globe. It's not like some benevolence thing that we 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:15.720 have this fucking colony. The majority of US interventions in 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:18.480 Latin America are staged on the island. Of Puerto Rico. 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:22.360 Oh wow. And since Puerto Rico is a colony, it 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:24.600 means the US is out to extract whatever value it 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:27.800 can from the island, which in nineteen seventeen met Grist 0:09:27.880 --> 0:09:31.680 for the mill. Post World War Two, it was something different, 0:09:31.720 --> 0:09:35.360 but something related. It was need workers. We need workers 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:37.560 because so many of ours just died because we just 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:41.800 fought World War two. So please everyone come over. And 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:45.240 so between nineteen forty seven and nineteen seventy a third 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:47.480 of the population of Puerto Rico moved to the United 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:52.920 States looking for something like stability in a decent life. Disproportionately, 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:55.319 this was youth who came, and ninety percent of them 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:57.439 went at least to begin with the New York City. 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:02.040 This massive gration started because of a US project called 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:06.360 Operation Bootstrap, which was this massive spike in industrialization that 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:09.480 displaced people even as it like put in power lines. 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:10.679 So it was like kind of like, oh, we're doing 0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:12.520 all this nice stuff. We're bringing in power lines and 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:17.079 industry and infrastructure, but it just fucked everything up. It 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:19.719 was openly an attempt to stabilize the political situation in 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:22.080 the colony and make it more useful for US. Interests, 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:25.840 the sugar economy, which was also bad, but it was 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:29.400 like what Spain was mostly up to, was replaced by industrialization, 0:10:30.280 --> 0:10:34.000 also bad, and US investment in capitalism, just like poured 0:10:34.040 --> 0:10:38.280 into Puerto Rico. So Puerto Rico, Puerto Rican folks led 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:40.560 the fucking up of their country and moved to the US, 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:45.920 where they were welcomed with open arms, economic opportunity, good 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:50.199 living conditions, the American dream and no, no, wait no, 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:55.040 it's the opposite of that. Puerto Rican immigrants was even 0:10:55.240 --> 0:10:57.680 immigrants the right word. I mean, you know, people coming 0:10:57.720 --> 0:11:05.359 from Puerto Rico. Yeah, yeah, met with violence, nativism, bigotry, racism, classism. Instead, 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:11.079 Puerto Ricans in the US were immediately slandered as junkies 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:14.560 and thugs and welfare dependents, the same as marginalized people 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:18.600 always are. They're treated like illegal immigrants, which of course 0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:22.719 is not true, and obviously undocumented people should also be 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:26.679 treated well in borders. But in this case, literally it's 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:30.080 US since moving to another part of the US, and 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:32.079 they'd come over basically at the behest of the US 0:11:32.160 --> 0:11:36.320 government to work. But the piece of shit racists didn't 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:43.040 like thinking. Period. Yeah, this is actually when my family 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:46.520 came over is like around nineteen forty seven. Oh okay, 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:48.439 oh damn, so like kind of like first wave of 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:51.680 all this stuff. Yeah, my dad came over when he 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:53.720 was a kid, and he asked this story about being 0:11:53.920 --> 0:11:58.920 on a plane, that the chairs were actually like lawn chairs, 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:02.080 and that my mother came with like her three kids 0:12:02.080 --> 0:12:04.520 because my grandfather was already over in New York working, 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:08.880 and like it just being like okay, every you know, 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:12.839 I'm sure they were like some house that bolted down, 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:17.280 but just like this totally crazy, yeah experience of like 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:19.920 let's get as many of these people over as we can. 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:23.840 You know, that's fucking I mean, it doesn't surprise me, 0:12:23.880 --> 0:12:26.480 but I just had never even imagined that kind of like, yeah, 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:30.000 like I wonder how I thought. I never really thought 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:36.120 about how folks came over, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Operation 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:39.600 Bootstrap had another impact. It showed the world that the 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:44.360 quote unquote Third world was open for business. And I 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:46.000 think it was like one of the things that kind 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:49.240 of started the industrial economy disappearing from the United States. 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:54.160 Oh as industrialization has moved out to the colonies and 0:12:54.200 --> 0:12:56.840 to the sort of you know, in a neoliberal sense, 0:12:56.840 --> 0:12:58.600 you can kind of claim that most of the quote 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:01.880 unquote developing world is colonies for the rich nations. You know, 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:06.960 So there's a weird, awful downside to this. Millions of 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:09.440 people are showing up for looking for work in the 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:11.800 cities because they've been told to come over and get 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:15.600 work in the cities, just as the US is like 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:20.200 starting to eradicate industrialization within in the continental United States, 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:24.680 and so there's not a lot of work. In nineteen 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:28.439 sixty six, a study found that the unemployment or underemployment 0:13:28.480 --> 0:13:31.480 of Puerto Rican men in East Harlem or what's called 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:35.880 Spanish Harlem or Elbadio was forty seven percent. Half the 0:13:35.920 --> 0:13:38.320 Puerto Rican families in New York lived worse than immigrant 0:13:38.320 --> 0:13:41.600 families in New York during the fucking Great Depression. So 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:44.160 by nineteen sixty six, twenty percent of the students in 0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:46.520 New York City where Puerto Rican and thirty percent were black, 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:49.400 which means it's the first time that white people weren't 0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:53.360 the majority in New York City in the schools. WHOA, 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:56.080 And I don't know if you knew this, but white 0:13:56.080 --> 0:14:00.839 people don't historically like that. They don't. Yeah, it's not 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:04.600 a not a cool look. Yeah, Yeah, they haven't figured 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:07.040 out that. They're like, they don't want to get treated 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:12.079 like they've been treating people, you know. Yeah, So two 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:17.160 thousand white parents picketed City Hall over school integration. In 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:21.520 nineteen sixty four, almost half a million white students stayed 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:25.320 home in a boycott protest organized by their racist fucking 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:31.280 parents in New York City. Wow. Yeah, like half a 0:14:31.400 --> 0:14:33.840 million fucking kids didn't go to school and protest of 0:14:33.840 --> 0:14:35.640 their being people of color in their schools. And like 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:40.400 white Northerners have this attitude that, like white Southerners are 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:50.320 the only racist people. Seriously. Yeah. Wow. So we'll come 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:52.920 back to New York later. Our story winds up in 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:56.840 New York, but it starts in Chicago. Yeah. In Chicago, 0:14:56.960 --> 0:15:00.760 nineteen fifty four, some white assholes fire bombed to Puerto 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:03.520 Rican bar in an apartment, which led to a week 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:07.000 of fighting, and it led to non white gangs forming 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:11.680 for self defense. Specifically Puerto Rican, Mexican and Black gang 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:16.360 started forming in Chicago in the nineteen fifties. And you've 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:19.920 got a bunch of capitalists exploiting this racist fear. White 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:23.200 people started fleeing Chicago in the fifties out to the suburbs, 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:27.040 the classic white flight. The white people who stayed in 0:15:27.120 --> 0:15:31.280 Chicago were like really paranoid about black people driving down 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:34.560 their property values or whatever. So these real estate assholes 0:15:34.880 --> 0:15:37.920 who created the racist panic in the first place, would 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:40.560 get white people to sell at a loss and basically 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:43.680 like stoke these fears in order to make money and 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:46.880 flip houses. And it was kind of like Domino style, 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:50.120 and so like the white flight was like both racist 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:56.160 cowards and also racist capitalists. We're looking to exploit the 0:15:56.200 --> 0:16:01.360 fear of them racist capitalists, racist cowards, and that's the 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:05.480 condition into which are very young heroes or lords as 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:09.840 we might call them, and to our story. Yeah, but 0:16:10.000 --> 0:16:15.640 first we're going to talk about some other heroes, cap 0:16:15.640 --> 0:16:21.120 Botalism and products and services that support our show because 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:25.120 we're ads sponsored, and now you can listen to those ads. 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:33.400 And we're back and we are talking about the beginning 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:37.040 of the Young Lords. They formed as a street gang 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:40.480 in nineteen fifty nine in Lincoln Park in Chicago. They 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:43.400 were formed by seven kids. Six of them were Puerto Rican, 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:47.440 one of them was Mexican. And this part I didn't 0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:50.360 know what I mean it when I say kids, how 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:53.600 old do you thinks these kids were I mean I 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:58.720 always imagined like mid twenties, but I know that's wrong. Yeah, 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:04.600 like half that some of them are like eleven what yeah, 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:08.159 in fact, well like actual children. Yeah, the kind of 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:10.159 like main founder of the will get to this, Like 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:11.800 one of our heroes that we're going to talk about, 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:17.320 Jose Chachamenesh he was eleven years old in nineteen fifty 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:19.600 nine when he was a founding member of this gang. 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:23.119 Yeah that actually, okay, that reminds me though. Have you 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:27.440 heard there is a story about kids in Puerto Rico 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:30.280 talking about kids not going to school, about kids in 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:33.359 Puerto Rico like not going to school and protest of 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:36.639 this time when they were trying to make when the 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:39.159 US was trying to force like English to be the 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:43.880 official language of the school system. Oh no, this is cool. No. Yeah, 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:46.239 so there is I don't know a lot about it, 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:49.120 but there is like a history of Puerto Rican children 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:52.320 being like yeah, fuck you, but we're not gonna go, 0:17:54.200 --> 0:17:57.400 which is the opposite of us. Sorry, go ahead, it's 0:17:57.400 --> 0:18:00.960 in the blood. Yeah, and the opposite of those half 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:02.760 a million white kids who are like, we don't want 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:05.439 to go to school because there might someone at schools 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:11.400 speaking Spanish. I can't handle it. Yeah, God forbid. Wow 0:18:11.440 --> 0:18:15.280 eleven yeah, Jose Shacha Jimenez. He was a founding member. 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:18.760 He's eleven years old. By the time he was fourteen, 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:21.080 he was a pretty petty crook. He got caught a 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:23.120 bunch going in and out of facilities all the time. 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:25.800 His Catholic parents had come over from Puerto Rico with 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:29.440 him when he was two. His mom passed when they 0:18:29.560 --> 0:18:32.439 moved to Chicago. His mom packed Christmas cards for a 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:34.600 living and his dad worked in a meat packing plant. 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:37.879 As the city redeveloped and tore down everything and like 0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:40.400 fucked over all the pool poor people. They moved nine 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:42.600 times in the first six years they lived in Chicago. 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:47.119 Oh wow yeah yeah. Where they wound up in Lincoln 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:49.960 Park was like diverse quote quote unquote, but it was 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:53.680 segregated block by block. His mom pulled a bunch of 0:18:53.720 --> 0:18:55.840 strings to get him put into a Catholic school because 0:18:55.880 --> 0:18:58.639 he'd been she'd been raised in a Catholic poorhouse and 0:18:58.880 --> 0:19:02.760 had connections. But this will be shocking to you, So 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:06.760 the priests at this school not so cool. Um. They 0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:08.480 were all a bunch of racists. They used the N 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:14.320 word constantly. They just fucking hated these like as best 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:15.920 as I can tell, it was like white Catholics and 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:20.280 they were like, fuck, why did And it's like, honey, 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:23.080 that's on you. Your missionaries went and turned all these 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:27.040 people of color into My family had so many stories 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:30.879 about like nuns, like hitting them with rulers and ship like. 0:19:31.200 --> 0:19:34.679 Luckily I was able to grow up, not like we 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:38.000 went to mass like for Christmas, but I was raised. 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:40.439 So I was raised by a bunch of like hit 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:46.400 bees basically that got hit by nuns. We're just yeah, yeah, 0:19:46.440 --> 0:19:50.479 so I'm very lucky. Yeah that Yeah. My dad went 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:54.520 to Catholic school, so I didn't have to exactly. Yeah, 0:19:54.560 --> 0:19:56.960 so this is what he's getting raised. How he was 0:19:57.000 --> 0:19:59.439 getting raised. His dad had actually been in a gang himself, 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:04.320 Lacha Vieja the Old Hatchet, which is the oldest known 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:07.439 Puerto Rican street gang in at least Chicago. I'm unsure 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:09.639 if there's older older Puerto Rican street gangs in the 0:20:09.680 --> 0:20:12.600 United States. I tried looking and like it would come 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:15.720 back being like nineteen seventy and I'm like, no, no, 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:20.440 that's not the one. Well cool name though, I know, right, 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:24.719 and especially sick band name. Okay, but you're breaking my 0:20:24.800 --> 0:20:28.320 rule I have, Like if there's like Margaret's law, it's 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:29.840 that everyone who says that would be a cool band 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:32.480 name is wrong, but this actually would be a good 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:36.760 band name. Like yeah, you, um, you broke the law, 0:20:39.720 --> 0:20:44.159 band jail you have to go to. Yeah, I know, 0:20:44.320 --> 0:20:50.000 especially because the old Hatchet was probably a bunch of teenagers, right, Like, yeah, 0:20:50.160 --> 0:20:53.000 the only like Puerto Rican street gang I know about 0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:55.359 is the Ghetto Brothers. Okay, I don't know about, but 0:20:55.400 --> 0:20:57.400 I think that was. I think that was later on. Okay, 0:20:57.440 --> 0:21:02.159 they eventually became a band. Oh yeah, so different than 0:21:02.160 --> 0:21:06.719 the Ghetto Boys. Yes, great, I was like, Okay, So 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:08.600 the history I feel like it's worth pointing out if 0:21:08.600 --> 0:21:11.000 I'm talking about this street gang, right, and people have 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:13.720 like various impressions about street gangs depending on where you 0:21:13.760 --> 0:21:16.320 live and all of these things, but it's like really 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:20.160 worth understanding why people are forming a street gang. There 0:21:20.240 --> 0:21:23.160 is a long history of ethnic gangs in Chicago. This 0:21:23.240 --> 0:21:25.040 is not a nice history. It goes back into the 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:28.080 late nineteenth century when German and Irish youth crewed up 0:21:28.119 --> 0:21:30.760 not with each other, but with other German and the 0:21:30.800 --> 0:21:33.119 Germans or the Germans, the Irish, the Irish, because everyone's 0:21:33.119 --> 0:21:38.280 fucking bullshit in order to be shitty to more recent immigrants. 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:42.760 That's where ethnic gangs come from in Chicago. And this 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:46.280 tied very happily and easily into the city's politics. The 0:21:46.359 --> 0:21:49.480 city gave the gangs resources, and the kids would grow 0:21:49.560 --> 0:21:52.960 up and join the more formal political structure. They all 0:21:52.960 --> 0:21:59.280 became cops and firefighters. Oh wow, yeah, there's this this 0:21:59.400 --> 0:22:03.840 criminal a professor guy, his names John M. Haggardorn and 0:22:04.000 --> 0:22:07.399 his quote is the Irish gang in effect was reinvented 0:22:07.440 --> 0:22:13.000 as the Chicago Police Department. Oh wow. Yeah, corruption and 0:22:13.160 --> 0:22:18.640 Chicago go the long history together. Yeah. So the white 0:22:18.680 --> 0:22:22.240 ethnic gangs continue to be fucked up, whether before joining 0:22:22.280 --> 0:22:24.959 the cops or after joining the cops. And they did 0:22:25.000 --> 0:22:26.880 a bunch of racist shit time and time again as 0:22:26.920 --> 0:22:30.360 black labor moved into the city. And so I feel 0:22:30.400 --> 0:22:32.480 like this is important to understand when we talk about 0:22:32.520 --> 0:22:35.120 the development of non white gangs in the US more broadly, right, 0:22:35.160 --> 0:22:39.399 because like a huge part of racism is like being like, 0:22:39.440 --> 0:22:43.400 but the gangs or whatever, you know, totally and it's like, Okay, 0:22:43.720 --> 0:22:48.160 they came from defending themselves against you yeah for real, 0:22:48.760 --> 0:22:50.879 which isn't to say whatever. We'll talk about some of 0:22:50.920 --> 0:22:53.080 what they got up to, and you know it's complicated, right. 0:22:53.400 --> 0:22:55.720 So Chasha starts a gang when he's eleven because white 0:22:55.720 --> 0:22:57.640 gangs have been fucking with him for a year already, 0:22:57.640 --> 0:23:00.399 since he's ten years old. He's used to white gangs, 0:23:00.480 --> 0:23:03.760 like because the white kids in the area outnumbered everyone 0:23:03.800 --> 0:23:08.399 else seventeen to one at that point demographically. Yeah, and 0:23:08.440 --> 0:23:12.520 he guess his nickname because racist kids keep saying cha 0:23:12.680 --> 0:23:16.879 cha cha every time they see him, oh wow, and 0:23:16.960 --> 0:23:19.560 he's like, all right, fuck it, that's my name. I'm 0:23:19.640 --> 0:23:23.000 cha cha And he just becomes a badass, you know. 0:23:23.359 --> 0:23:26.320 And it liked be like a scary name to run 0:23:26.359 --> 0:23:32.639 into someone who's like fucking with you. Definitely. It's like 0:23:32.680 --> 0:23:35.520