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Well, in the, when I was around, I think it was 19, it was, at that time there was a little

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bit of organization because one of the things that I became involved with was the afterschool

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program to teach English. They had a teacher at Kaminsky Grammar School, which was in

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the corner of, I think it was 17th Street and Troup Street. And that had been initiated

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by request of the people there because there were a lot of people that needed to learn

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English. And so I got involved in there. They had classes after school. I went there every

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day. And another thing was that we called it Hall House, which is now Casa Slam. The

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teacher at Kaminsky Grammar School referred us to Hall House, which is really funny because

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we lived only a block away. But we, basically, my parents and myself, we're kind of shy about

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approaching people that, because we didn't know the language that well. So even though it was a

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block away, we didn't know about it until the teacher referred me there for two reasons, so that

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I could take another class during the weekends and Saturdays for English. And the other was that a

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library bus or trailer would come in. They had books, so I could borrow books there. And that,

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as far as I remember, was kind of where I became more conscious of the community. And that these

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were people that were interested in improving the lives of the members there. During that time,

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a lot of the people living there were from Yugoslavia, Europe, Northern Europe, I forget,

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and they were very nice to us. But we were, I guess, kind of shy about approaching them. So

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this was an effort to sort of get people involved. After a while, when I started in high school,

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there was a period between the late 1960s and early 1970s. There was a lot of activity,

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a lot of political, where they had meetings at Kazakhstan to work out problems. One of the

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problems in the neighborhood was that our garbage was not picked up on a regular basis. Sometimes

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it would be two weeks, two weeks and a half before they picked up. And it was a problem,

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because there were a lot of poor families there, and it was very tempting for the young children

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to go pick up food from the garbage and that sort of thing. The other problem was that potholes or

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on sidewalks were not fixed. And there was, particularly in the black, a big gaping hole.

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We called a city, and all they did was put one of those horses with the lights. Of course,

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we would go in and play there. We thought it was neat. And the kids would go there and play. It

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took several months before they even came to put the horse in, and then several months before

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they even put a board on top of it, which wasn't much help. That, even though it may seem trivial,

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was kind of a beginning of a turning point for the community. Before that, people were kind of

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pathetic. They felt, well, nothing's going to get done. So it was even hard to get people to come

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and meet and talk about their problems. We had people come in also to talk about immigration,

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which was, immigration was a very strong force, a dreaded force. And even for people that

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had documentation who were residents, because they were not aware of what their rights were.

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And even citizens, that was a problem, not being aware of what their rights were. And that occurred

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sort of as a result. You really don't know unless you get educated here what the United States is

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about and what are the rights and different things. It was in the early 1970s that we started seeing

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the painting of the murals. And I am not familiar as to which was first or not. I don't remember.

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But the ones that I liked, that I enjoyed, and that made an impact on me, were the ones that

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were painted at the Casa de Slam. In their general hall, they painted ones that were kind of very

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individual. I think the artist, it was just one and maybe with the help of others. I enjoyed those

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because they were paintings of heroes that I was aware of that I learned in history, my history classes in Mexico.

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It was exciting because to me, these were people that looked like me that were significant. And at that time,

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my experience had been one where I felt like I wasn't significant. And it wasn't only my experience,

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it was the experience of my family, other families that we knew. And it was just sort of nice to have something

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that was positive. And the meetings there had another added dimension that meeting elsewhere was not.

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And I think it had to do with just seeing these bigger than life pictures of people that we were familiar with

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that were from the same place that we were. Those were repainted with less political themes.

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There was a lot of talk and controversy. It's like, we need to work with the larger community of Chicago.

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This sort of getting back to our roots is important, but being this political might turn people off.

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And we had groups which wanted, let's preserve our roots and let's do this thing traditionally.

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And let's just keep our segregated basically. And there were the others who said, this is our home.

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We have to work with the rest of the people that live in Chicago.

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And so there was a lot of fire in the discussions in some of those meetings there.

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One of the things that people agreed on were to try to do something for the children.

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And there was a lot of graffiti in all the buildings.

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And there was hardly any spots that had some kind of gang name or just full of graffiti.

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And that was, so someone came up with the idea that if the murals inside Casa Slan,

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nobody had written over, and in the past they did. It was just another place to,

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somehow people were protecting them. Why not do it for the local grocery stores

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and they had big walls. So they sold that idea.

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I think that in an unconscious sort of way too, this was a kind of an accepted way of gathering.

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I said that in that our experience during the 60s, late 60s and 70s was that we were not allowed to gather.

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There was a group of people in the corner talking, especially if there were men,

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the police would come and disperse. There was a lot of sense of paranoia of people gather.

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It was to plot, I don't know what. But it was kind of an experience of

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friends or cousins that would come home very mad that they were just talking with a few

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friends in the corner and the police had come and told them to move out.

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Often with threats that if you don't move out, we'll call the immigration service.

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It worked very well. So this was actually a way that kids, adolescents,

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could get together and do something that was constructive, that was positive, that was going to stay there I think.

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I saw a lot of the kids in school got involved with that.

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I worked for St. Pocoppia's during the summer between grammar school and high school.

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Basically, I forget what the title was, it's some kind of supervision of children from ages 10 to 12, I believe.

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Some of them worked in the mural by Blue Island, the one over P.S.

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It's just different faces of different colors.

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The kids liked it because a lot of them were from different colors.

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We had a mixture of black, Puerto Rican, Mexican, and from Yugoslavia.

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We had the full range of colors there.

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The kids liked it and we always used to tease them, where did the pink faces come from?

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They said, we just want to say that it's different colors, that they're pretty,

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and that they can be together.

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That was important.

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Let's see, I don't know.

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I know you talked to Julie and Susan about feeling a sense of outrage,

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and that you saw that expressed in the murals and that was something related to.

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Could you talk about that, why the outrage and how you identified with that in the murals?

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Around the early 60s and 70s, a lot of things were happening.

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There was increased police activity in the area as far as dispersing groups.

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There just seemed to be that sense that blacks or anybody that looked different were very threatening.

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People had to stay in their houses.

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Gangs also, at that time there were a lot of gangs that were very active.

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They had this appeal that most of the kids were approached to join them.

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I think some of them started as a result of that sense that we couldn't gather,

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and they were kind of a way of protesting that.

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Eventually they just started doing destructive things against the community.

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But initially it was just a form, sort of a protest form.

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So I felt a sense of being isolated.

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My family did too.

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Again, the behavior, I tell you that we just knew that little area.

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That the majority of people there were poor, working in factories.

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It was just a sense of oppression that you weren't going to get there.

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People were driving out of school to help their families,

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start working soon, early, and help their families.