Concerned Latins

“Culture, both in its private and the public expression, has given Latinos in Northwest Indiana a sense of unity and has been the fire that forged the community.” Edward J. Escobar

Edward J. Escobar in 2017

Not long after starting my academic career at IUN, I joined the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).  Our union chapter participated in the founding convention of the Calumet Community Congress (CCC), a coalition of concerned citizens belonging to many labor, environmental, neighborhood, religious, white ethnic, African American, and Latino groups, including the League of Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and a fledgling organization called the Concerned Latins Organization (CLO).  It was an inspiring event modeled after a political convention and covered by the national press.  A photo in Newsweek showed the AFT banner and, using my imagination, I claimed to be visible amidst the throng. Roman Catholic Bishop Andrew Grutka gave the CCC his blessing, but local corporations and entrenched politicians like Lake County boss John Krupa were wary and soon began red-baiting its leadership and ties with the Saul Alinsky institute of Chicago, whose founder’s primer was provocatively called “Rules for Radicals.”

Several CLO members were IU Northwest students, who pressured the administration into hiring a Latino historian, Vernon Carl Allsup, to teach a variety of Latino Studies offerings. The History department cross-listed his courses, and several of us befriended Carl, playing together in touch football games and inviting him to parties.  He was adopted and claimed Latino heritage.  I called him Carlos. He was extremely competitive in everything he did. Once, for example, he was at our place at 337 Jay Street in Miller watching a football game and afterwards joined Phil (8), Dave (7), and I across the street for a hockey game on the Blando’s frozen outdoor swimming pool. Less familiar than us, he took out his frustration by shooting dangerous lofted slap shots until I told him to stop.  His girlfriend, a former student, threw him yearly surprise birthday celebrations, expecting us to provide all the food and drink. At a Halloween party he came as Conan the Barbarian and picked up, literally, several women, including Toni.

Carlos had an opinion about everything.  In the cafeteria he’d comment on several TV programs from the previous evening that had aired simultaneously. He was never neutral about anything.  For someone without tenure he was outspoken about university matters to a fault (his own, it turned out).  He had run-ins with both Chancellor Danilo Orescanin and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Marion Mochon, who when he came up for tenure instituted a new requirement that candidates’ research credentials be peer reviewed by outside experts rather than those at IUN or chosen by the candidate. Carlos had published his dissertation, “American G.I. Forum: Origins and Evolution” (1982), a feat virtually assuring previous candidates promotion and tenure.  The History department unanimously endorsed his case and protested the new requirement, obviously done with him in mind.  American Federation of Teachers (AFT) representative Lew Ciminillo protested his mistreatment, but its power had diminished in the wake of state anti-union legislation.  Ron Cohen recalled that after Fred Chary made a speech in the student union supporting Carl, we all marched on the administration building and discovered that Mochon had locked herself in her office. 

Previewing Saturday morning’s show about 1982, WXRT morning deejay Lin Brehmer played “I Ran” by A Flock of Seagulls, which became a smash hit.  Even though ridiculed for their silly combed-back hair, the new wave band from Liverpool has since come to be appreciated and still has many fans.  I gave their self-named album to Carl Allsup when he left to take a job at University of Wisconsin at River Falls after being denied tenure at IUN.  He had thrown a combination birthday and going-away party for himself and didn’t invite me, but I went anyway bearing my gift, which we danced to, mention of my crashing the event left unsaid.  He had been angry at me for not protesting more vociferously for his retention but acted pleased to see me.  Carl had a volatile personality that some found abrasive, which probably doomed his tenure case more than lack of academic output. As later was true in the Jerry Pierce and Anne Balay cases, there is little one can do when the “Old Boy” network of “toadies” (as we "Young Turks" called them then) has it out for you.

 University of Wisconsin Platteville diversity committee, Allsup on left

A few years later, Ed Escobar and I published Allsup’s article on the Concerned Latins Organization in “Forging a Community: The Latino Experience in Northwest Indiana, 1919-1975” (1987). Instead of being grateful he was pissed that we had cut out several pages, in my opinion improving it.  He had originally begun with a rant about the lack of scholarly interest in Latino, but recent studies by a generation of young historians, many Latinos, were rendering that argument obsolete.  As acknowledged in footnotes, much of Allsup’s information came from a paper David Castro wrote entitled “The CLO Inc.” and an interview I conducted with Castro while we both belonged to the Latino Historical Society founded by Jesse Villalpando.  The interview appeared in Steel Shavings (volume 13, 1987), “Latinos in the Calumet Region.”  David was very personable and idealistic, though sometimes his ambitions outpaced his ability to implement his many initiatives.  Castro had moved to Indiana Harbor from San Antonio, Texas, in 1962 with his family at age 15.  After high school he hired in at Youngstown Sheet and Tube and went to the founding CLO meeting at Katherine House because he believed the organization would fight for Latino rights in the steel mills. He became active in numerous community fights, including demands for bilingual education in the public schools and putting pressure on businesses to hire worthy Latinos.

In our interview Castro informed me about confrontations he’d participated in:

 In Gary one time, we went to a City Council meeting.  We had a prepared text and three or four people ready to read it.  They wouldn’t recognize us so one guy stood up and starting reading it as loud as he could.  A cop came over and escorted him out.  Another person started where he left off and was escorted out.  Then I got up and was escorted out.  Outside, we saw that they had a line of police cars directing us out of town – like when they are preventing people from turning at the end of a football game.

 One thing you learn is to keep your composure.  Once at a school board meeting CLO president Irene Gonzalez was demanding to get in to see the records.  The Superintendent said, “O.K., you guys can come in tomorrow and have a perusal.” We all looked at each other silently and thought: What the hell does perusal mean?” You could hear a pin drop.

 But we made progress.  We got city jobs, more representation, bilingual education. We got people affected by urban renewal into housing that was promised them.  The little side issues were important, too, like getting a street light. You’d think that would be easy.  Nope!  You have to start at the bottom, and you take the people with you.  Just to get a street light.

 One day a lady moved from an apartment, and the landlord wouldn’t give her back her deposit.  She came to a block meeting, so we adjourned and 20 or 30 of us went to the guy’s house.  We knocked on his door late at night and said, “How about giving this lady her money?”

 It’s a sense of power.  It got to the point that if you said you’re with the Concerned Latins Organization, he’d say, “Come on in.”  It took a long tome to get that respect.

 Latinos can learn a lot from the black experience.  They have the NAACP, the Negro College Fund.  They push for their people.  Young Latinos should not forget their roots and also be proud of where their parents came from.  If kids aren’t aware of their history, they’re not aware of their self-worth. Unless they learn that, they’ll still be las cucarachas(from the traditional song “La Cucaracha,” about a cockroach that could not walk).

The CLO ceased to function in 1976, five years after its birth, a victim of factional disputes, but with many of its objectives achieved and grievances ameliorated.  Some members gravitated toward politics; others concentrated on school, family, and careers. As Allsup wrote:

  The Concerned Latins Organization developed in response to a longstanding set of grievances and its confrontational tactics were immensely successful in shaking up the power structure of East Chicago. 

 Castro’s disillusionment with the CLO came at its last convention.  As head of the jobs committee, he had been pretty much his own boss but, in his words, “had been a thorn, a pain in the ass to some because I always wanted my own way.”  His rivals drew up a new constitution, which transferred the chairmanship of the jobs committee to one of the officers.  “So that neutralized me,”Castro concluded: “I just got on with my life and went back to school.  For three years I hadn’t seen my children grow up, I was always at meetings, on the streets, doing research at Crown Point.”

Allsup concluded:

 The members of the Concerned Latins Organization confronted more issues and produced more substantive results than any previous Latino organization in the Calumet Region.  With an intensity and vigor seldom experienced in the Midwest, the CLO developed a progressive vision that transcended narrow political gain. As East Chicago Latinos suffer through the depression of the Rust Belt and cope with the elimination of old economic mainstays, the CLO focus may be recalled.  The results hopefully will mitigate a life quality for a people who cannot escape the shadows of abandoned mills and empty work places.

 Dr. Donald Shirley and Mahershala Ali in "Green Book"

I saw “Green Book” during its third appearance (all brief) at Cinemark in Valpo. I found it charming and evocative of an age when racism was overt, especially in the Deep South, where concert pianist Donald Shirley (Mahershala Ali) could neither dine nor relieve himself at venues where he was the featured artist. Before his final tour appearance in Birmingham, Alabama he walked out and played for an appreciative black audience at a roadhouse. Critics who branded the film old-fashioned and simply a reverse “Driving Miss Daisy” were totally off base. Shirley, based on an actual classical pianist who hired nightclub bouncer Tony “Lip” Vallelonga (Viggo Mortensen) as his driver, was portrayed as flawed  and conflicted; he got drunk on a bottle of Cutty Sark scotch each evening and sought out sex from male strangers in a redneck dive and a YMCA. In each case street smart Tony came to the rescue.  Director Peter Farrelly evokes several classic Hollywood films, actors, and directors, not so much “Driving Miss Daisy” as “My Fair Lady,” Sidney Poitier (in the final scene, guess who, Ali, comes to partake in an Italian dinner), and Martin Scorsese (Tony had mob ties).  The main inaccuracy, according to the family, was that Shirley wasn’t as ignorant of black culture, food, and music as made to appear for dramatic effect. 

Called It a Day

The moon went down stars were gone
But the sun didn't rise with the dawn
There wasn't a thing left to say
The night we called it a day

         Bob Dylan, “The Night We Called It a Day”

David Letterman’s final show three years ago began with the late Gerald Ford uttering the statement about Watergate: “Our long national nightmare is over.”  Then the line was repeated by Presidents Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama, with the latter adding, “David Letterman is retiring.” In the monologue Dave said, “I’m going to be honest with you.  It’s beginning to look like I’m not going to get ‘The Tonight Show.’”  Earlier in the week, Bob Dylan sang “The Night We Called It a Day.” When Letterman thanked him afterwards, Dylan replied, “It’s an honor.”  In 1985 punk rocker Billy Idol, a guest on “Late Night,” bragged that his songs were so popular, drug dealers were naming products after them, Letterman replied, straight-faced: “You must be a very proud young man.”  The final show concluded with David Grohl and Foo Fighters performing “Everlong” while shots of past highlights flashed on the screen, including pro wrestler Jerry Lawler knocking comedian Andy Kaufman to the ground and Drew Barrymore jumping onto Dave’s desk and flashing him. Here’s the final verse of “Everlong”:

And I wonder
If everything could ever feel this real forever
If anything could ever be this good again
The only thing I'll ever ask of you
You've got to promise not to stop when I say when

Good buddy Louis Vasquez, 94, passed away, leaving four children, nine grandchildren, six great-grandchildren, and many other friends, relatives and admirers.  Louis worked at Inland Steel’s Hot Strip mill for 36 years and was looking forward to continuing his role as assistant basketball coach at St. Stanislaus parish.  Until a couple years ago, he helped out with his son’s Little League team.  A fixture at East Chicago Central basketball games for decades, where he sat in the front row with his scorebook, Louis allowed me to publish his autobiography, “Weasal,” as a special issue of Steel Shavings (volume 24, 1995).  I wrote this in the Editor’s Note:

  The central focus of “Weasal” is family bonds; but for Vasquez the concept of family conjures up not only blood relatives but “buddies” in the neighborhood, in the service, in the mill, and in church and civic organizations.  Louis is, above all, a family man.  He calls many people compadre to designate close friends, not only of Mexican ancestry, he is quick to point out, but of all ethnic groups.  He is representative of the children of immigrants who came of age during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency and whose assertive personalities and unapologetic patriotism were much influenced by their wartime military service.  They had paid their dues and weren’t going to be pushed around by employers, realtors, or fellow workers.  Many Harbor vets from his “Block and Pennsy” neighborhood got involved in union and city politics; Louis explored both these paths but put most of his energies into volunteer organizations such as sports teams and the Latin American Vets.  As its social chairman and then its president for three terms during the mid-1950s, he drew into the club not only World War II vets but younger guys like Jesse Villalpando, who had known him from CYO programs Louis had organized at Our Lady of Guadalupe church. For many, the LAV club was like a second home; Jesse recalls spending all night there, finally falling asleep on the shuffleboard court.  He also remembers when for a fundraiser the LAVs brought in a famous exotic dancer named Tongolele as headliner of a Latin musical review.  She had appeared in several movies and had graced numerous covers of Spanish-language magazines on sale at Harbor newsstands.  In the midst of the show, Father Mitchell strode on stage threatening to expel choir members who wouldn’t leave.  Few did.

Archibald McKinlay’s “Reejin Archetypes” (1996) contained a portrait of Louis Vasquez entitled “The Lamented Lover” gleaned from his autobiography that described his wartime experiences in England and France, concentrating on liaisons with a LeMans hairdresser named Renee and other French damsels.  My initial reaction was dismay and consternation, but Louie apparently loved being dubbed a “Latin lover.” At Oleska-Pastrick funeral home in East Chicago I gave Louie’s grandson my signed copy inscribed “To a Reejin guru.”  Louie’s remains in the open casket appeared peaceful in repose, but I told his grandson, a state trooper, that what I recall most about him is his expressive voice and gestures, his literally being full of life.

 Gene Clifford and Lucy, April 2017

At Hobart Lanes Gene Clifford’s granddaughter Chelsea visited with a little girl, Lucy, who initially balked at being plucked onto his lap.  I quipped that I wouldn’t want to sit on his lap either.  Lucy quickly acclimated and smiled when Gene made several strikes in a row and then beamed at her.  The Engineers took 5 of 7 points from Fab Four, as Joe Piunti bowled well above his average. Opponent Marilyn Feczko has a unique way of taking several steps toward the foul line, coming to a complete stop, and then taking two more before releasing the ball.  At one point she had four splits in a row and finally converted the 6-10.  Next frame, when she missed the headpin but then converted the spare, I said, “That’s staying out of trouble.”

Visiting the refurbished downtown Gary Public Library to deliver Steel Shavings issues to David Hess in the Indiana Room, I was impressed with its Wi-Fi Café and computer rooms for both adults and kids.  Gary Hall of Fame plaques adorned a second-floor wall.  The list is top-heavy with ministers and politicians and bereft of historians.  I briefly served on the selection committee.  In 1990, other members wanted to honor chair Randall C. Morgan as a surprise.  I was in charge of the booklet, which Morgan demanded to inspect prior to the banquet.  I managed to foil his attempts, which so enraged him, he was still fuming after learning the reason. 

Longtime NWI Times reporter Bill Dolan called to find out when the County Courthouse across from Gary City Hall was built.  I was certain it was one of many Gary building constructed along Broadway during the prosperous 1920s, the city’s “Augustan Age.”  Sure enough, the WPA Guidebook to the Calumet Region confirmed that it opened in September 1929, nine months after City Hall.

from left, Julie Czoka Pass, Juanita McCabe, Effie Rork, Fay Keenan Price, unknown, Frances Arcuri, unknown

On the cover of Reminisce magazine is a 1951 photo of comely car hops who worked at Ted’s Drive-In in Gary.  Contributor Fay Keenan Price was 24 with two small children at the time owners George and Marge Pratt hired her.  She worked full-time for two years and then part-time after obtaining work at Illinois Bell Telephone Company.  Fay recalled:

    If I did well, I made $7 or $8 a day [in tips].  We also received a 1 percent commission on our sales. The biggest commission I ever made was $15 for one week.  Wow!  That was a lot back then.

    The menu offered a nonalcoholic drink called the Zombie, which was made with red soda pop.  A sign cautioned “Limit 2,” so teens sometimes thought the drinks contained alcohol and would start acting silly after drinking one.  What a show!

Teacher Chuck Halberstadt wrote:

You know you have a tough group of students when one of the two aides that watched them during your 30-minute lunch break had to go lay down in the nurse's office afterwards because her blood pressure spiked and she was worried she was going to have another heart attack.

Jesse Michaels responded: “Cops in my class today.  Feel your pain bro!”

Alyssa Black wrote:

Today a kid asked me to sing a song at the end of class. The chorus to The Vines' Get Free was the only thing I could think of. I think the class thought it was pretty funny; they like when I sing songs.  I was surprised when one of the students started singing Elton John's Crocodile Rock and a couple of kids started singing with him. It was a good moment.

I replied: “‘Crocodile Rock’ must be in a kids’ movie.”  She answered: “Maybe not.  The kid really likes Johnny Cash, too.”  Nonetheless, I found a rather creepy scene in “Barnyard” (2006) where Barnyard Ben the Cow sings “I Won’t Back Down.”  The chorus to “Get Free, on the Vines’ 2002 CD “Highly Evolved, goes: “I’m gonna be free, ride into the sky.”  I have it on heavy rotation with “Band on the Run” by Paul McCartney and Wings, plus CDs by Social Distortion, Chainsmokers, and Taylor Swift.

After a fight with wife Joy, Jack Griffin, the protagonist in Richard Russo’s “That Old Cape Magic” admits to himself that he “should have swallowed his petulance.”  I’ve tried to follow that advice, not always successfully.