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- Notes:
- Dimas Rodríguez Flores grew up since the 1930s in Barrio San Salvador of Caguas, Puerto Rico and continues to live there in the Lao Frío side of the barrio. He is a twin brother with Encarnación Rodríguez Flores. They have another eleven siblings, including their youngest sister, Eugenia Rodríguez Flores. Although Mr. Rodríguez has always lived in Puerto Rico, like many Puerto Ricans his life is connected to cities across the United States mainland through family; many of his children live in the United States. A veteran of World War II, Mr. Rodríguez is now retired. He enjoys his parakeets, cooking his vegetables, and eating the fruits of his land.
- Date Created:
- 2012-06-21T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Eugenia Rodríguez is the mother of José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez. She is the youngest of 13 children and was born in San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico to Juan Rodríguez and Victoria Flores. They then moved to the Morena section of the barrio of San Salvador, Caguas, Puerto Rico. When she was just a child her mother became sick and so Ms. Rodríguez was sent to be raised by her older sister, Toribia. But Toribia also had her own family to raise, so Ms. Rodríguez’s father decided to send her to live in a Catholic orphanage until she was 15-years-old. She never attended formal school but did learn how to read and write. When Ms. Rodríguez left the orphanage, she returned to live with Toribia. There she met Antonio Jiménez, the younger brother of Toribia’s husband, who would become her husband. In 1949, Ms. Rodríguez traveled to New York and then to Boston. In early 1951 the family moved to La Clark in Chicago.
- Date Created:
- 2012-05-30T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Carmelo Romero grew up in Lakeview and today lives in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago. His family lived in Lincoln Park and knew of the Young Lords. Mr. Romero volunteered to help with the Jiménez campaign for Alderman. Maria Romero, his sister, remains a full-fledged member of the Young Lords; in the 1970s she ran the office at Wilton and Grace Streets.
- Date Created:
- 2012-08-23T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Iberia Hampton is the mother of murdered Illinois Black Panther Party Chairman Fred Hampton, as well as Dee and Bill Hampton. Throughout her life she has been active within her church and the community. Along with Bill Hampton and the board, Mrs. Iberia Hampton is the primary organizer of the annual celebration of the Fred Hampton Scholarship Fund.
- Date Created:
- 2012-02-09T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Marcelo Jiménez, or “Chelo,” is one of the younger sons of Cristina (Tino) and Gregorio Jiménez. Mr. Jiménez grew up in San Salvador, Caguas, Puerto Rico and did work in that mountain barrio like the others, laboring on different farms or helping to construct neighbors’ homes, and migrating back and forth to the United States to work in fields, factories, and hotels. Mr. Jiménez also worked in a foundry on Armitage Avenue by the Chicago River branch in Lincoln Park for many years. Back in Puerto Rico he continued to help his father plow or turn the soil on the farm, using two bulls and a small plow. He also hung tobacco to dry in the tall rancho that they made from the bamboo that grew next to the creek. The creek served as the boundary of the farm in the 1940s through the 1980s when some of the plots were sold by some of the family. Mr. Jiménez would load the produce in his truck, or a cow when money was needed, and head to La Plaza Mercado in Caguas, near La Salida, or exit, to Aguas Buenas. When José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez lived in Puerto Rico in 1963-64, he became Mr. Jiménez’s assistant in his cow feed distribution business. Each morning they would fill up Mr. Jiménez truck with 100 lbs. bags of cow feed. They would then drink their coffee with cow’s milk from the can, a few soda crackers and butter and Tino and Don Goyo would wave them on. The two of them would leave in darkness and travel to nearly every town on the Island, delivering and selling the bags of feed, and would not return until late. When business was slow Mr. Jiménez and Cha-Cha would hang out with the Titeres de La Plaza, or the Huckleberry Finns clique, of San Salvador, sometimes even barefoot. The youth clique is centuries old. No one is excluded. It is like a life passage that exists today in a varied fashion. There was rarely any harm done. Everyone knew them, and then there was no police to bother them. But back In Chicago Mr. Jiménez would sometimes hang out with his cousins of the Hacha Viejas. Most of the time they did the same thing but in a rougher manner. In Chicago the neighborhood was unstable and transient. There was prejudice and hunger (poverty). The culture in Chicago was “everyone for themselves,” as Mr. Jiménez recalls. And then there was police intimidation and many times unnecessary arrests that served to served as bragging points and hardened the group. For Mr. Jiménez, he was lucky to join with other groups for support, like the Caballeros de San Juan. And most of the time he just worked long hours and enjoyed his children and family. His relatives were also part of the Caballeros and Damas de María. He became one of the first immigrants to Chicago during what some called the Great Migration of Puerto Ricans, between 1950 and 1960. This was the era when Puerto Ricans were going back and forth from Puerto Rico to Chicago. Mr. Jiménez built a mansion in San Salvador and today lives content in the town of Caguas.
- Date Created:
- 2012-05-12T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Melisa Jiménez is the youngest daughter of Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez. Like his other children she was not able to grow up with Mr. Jiménez. But she has always maintained a close relationship with him, even though they live miles away from each other. Ms. Jiménez’s other siblings are Jackie, Jodie, Sonia, and Alex. Ms. Jiménez lives not far from Mrs. Iberia Hampton, Fred Hampton’s mother, and they have maintained a close personal relationship for many years. Ms. Jiménez was born in the Lincoln Park neighborhood hospital, via the use of the La Maze childbirth method. Her father reminds her that he was the first to hold her. Ms. Jiménez lived in Lincoln Park for the first years of her life until the rent became unbearable for her mother. Only a couple of months after she was born, her father was incarcerated for a year, awaiting trial because his bond was too far out of range for his income. He later explained to her that he was doing, “volunteer work, supporting the Puerto Rican Freedom fighters.” When Mr. Jiménez won the case, Ms. Jiménez was living in Logan Square and they were once again united. This time Jackie, the oldest of Mr. Jiménez’s daughters from another relationship, moved in with them briefly. Teenage Jackie had a young boyfriend who was extremely polite, but very persistent. So Jackie’s mother, frustrated, dropped her off for Mr. Jiménez “to take responsibility and to take care of her.” He gladly agreed. And It was a way for Melisa and Jackie to get to know each other. Each sibling plays a role and Ms. Jiménez has played the role of sibling unifier in a world of divorce and separations. She graduated from Oak Park River Forest High School in 1998 and attended some college. She loves photography and is an accomplished artist. Some of her jobs have included child care, marketing research and mortgage broker sales.
- Date Created:
- 2012-07-15T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Oral history of Diego Figuearoa, Jr., interviewed by Jose 'Cha-Cha' Jimenez, on 8/25/2012 about the Young Lords in Lincoln Park.
- Date Created:
- 2012-08-25T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Jack Hart was a primary assistant to Walter “Slim” Coleman during the Jiménez for Alderman Campaign of 1975. He continues to live and work in Chicago’s 46th Ward, primarily in the Uptown Community. In the 1970s, Hart was a member of the Intercommunal Survival Committee, a white group that supported the Black Panther Party. He worked closely with the Young Lords. Mr. Hart joined Mayor Harold Washington’s Administration as Assistant Commissioner and was responsible for administering all of the City of Chicago’s rehabilitation loan programs.
- Date Created:
- 2012-03-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Oral history of Carol Blakely, interviewed by Jose 'Cha-Cha' Jimenez, on 10/25/2012 about the Young Lords in Lincoln Park.
- Date Created:
- 2012-10-25T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Notes:
- Benedicto Jiménez is the son of Toribia Rodríguez and Miguel Jiménez. For Mr. Benedicto Jiménez, the importance of family and neighborhood ties became especially clear once he was in Chicago. There, Puerto Ricans faced the same hardships and so sought each other out and were glad to know that they were related in some way. Instead of asking what one thought about the weather, the conversation would be about, “what town in Puerto Rico are you from and what are all your last names.” Mr. Jiménez moved closer to Aurora, Illinois because he was desperately looking for work and with the help of other relatives and friends worked at the honguera of West Chicago. The honguera produced mushrooms and other vegetables for the Campbell Soup Company. Mr. Jiménez worked there for many years and since he is well educated and fluent in English, he was asked to translate. His help never translated into more pay or a better job. In those days of the 1960s and 1970s jobs were not given by skill but by national origin and by race. He says that the honguera was 50/50, about 200 Mejicanos and 200 Puerto Ricans, who lived in the dormitories of the migrant camp, by signed contract. Mr. Jiménez describes long days and work weeks in an enclosed, unlit room because the mushrooms are grown in the dark. He was reintroduced to Don Teo Arroyo, whose wife Gina cooked at the camp for the men. They began organizing the community for Aurora’s first Puerto Rican Day parades.
- Date Created:
- 2012-06-02T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
