GILBERTO GERENA VALENTÍN
My life as a Community Activist, Labor Organizer and Progressive Politician in New York City
By Gilberto Gerena Valentín, edited by Carlos Rodríguez Fraticelli, translated by Andrew Hurley, with an introduction by José E. Cruz
Published 2013
316 pages; notes, index; 6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-878483-79-9 (paperback)
About this book
Gilberto Gerena Valentín is a key figure in the development of the Puerto Rican community in the United States, especially from the forties through the seventies. He was a union organizer, community leader, political activist and general in the war for the civil-rights recognition of his community. Gerena Valentín played an active part in the founding and development of all the major Puerto Rican organizations in the postwar period, including the Congreso de Pueblos, the Puerto Rican Day Parade, the National Association for Puerto Rican Civil Rights, the Puerto Rican Folklore Festival and the Puerto Rican Community Development Project. During this period he was also a member of the New York City Human Rights Commission and a New York City councilman. Gerena Valentín was also a pioneer in the creation of coalitions with the principal African American civil rights organizations, playing a central role in the mobilization of Puerto Ricans for the famed marches on Washington in 1963 and 1968 and in the New York City school boycott of 1964, the largest in the nation’s history.
In his memoirs, Gilberto Gerena Valentín takes us into the center of the fierce labor, political, civil-rights, social and cultural struggles waged by Puerto Ricans in New York from the 1940s through the 1970s.
Table of Contents
Dedication
Editor’s Note
Introduction: The world in context that Gilberto Gerena Valentín lived by José E. Cruz
1. The Beginning
2. My Mother and I
3. Back to Lares
4. Perseverance Pays
5. My First Grito
6. Lares-San Juan-New York via Caracas?
7. Dishwasher and Skullcracker
8. A Cup of Coffee Opens Many Doors
9. What a Penny Means to Me
10. El Barrio
11. Better Three Stripes Than a Bar
12. On the Pacific Front
13. Back in New York City
14. Blackballed in the Hotels
15. The American Labor Party
16. Organizing Workers at the Emerson Plant
17. The Puerto Rican Community Loses Its Strongest Ally: The Death of Marcantonio
18. My Relationship with the Reform Democrats
19. At the Adams Plant
20. The Origins of the Congreso de Pueblos
21. How the Congreso de Pueblos Functioned
22. It Wasn’t All Work. . .
23. The Campaign Against the Literacy Test in English
24. Freehold, New Jersey
25. The Origins of the Puerto Rican Day Parade
26. Fidel’s Visits to New York City
27. Marching with Martin Luther King
28. The School Boycott
29. Stretching Puerto Ricans to Make Them Cops
30. How They Tried to Take the Presidency of the Puerto Rican Day Parade Away From Me
31. The Prettiest Flag in the World Measures 50 Feet by 35 Feet
32. Boycott as a Weapon
33. Commissioner of Human Rights in New York City
34. Mayor for a Weekend
35. A Short but Fiery Visit to the Windy City
36. From the Fires of Chicago to the Folklore Festival in New York
37. The Puerto Rican Community Development Project (PRCDP)
38. The “Wednesday Club”
39. My Radio Programs in New York City
40. “Saul’s Ladies”
41. Marching Against Fear in the South
42. Marching with the Poor In Washington, D.C.
43. Operation Jimmy Shine
44. Red Eggs and Stink Bombs
45. From City Hall to the Jail on Rikers Island
46. A Huge Health-Care Corporation
47. It Takes a Sledgehammer: Opening Doors in the Construction Industry
48. One Good Turn Deserves Another
49. Solidarity with Culebra
50. Sham Civil Rights Hearings
51. Culebra and the Puerto Rican Independence Party
52. How We Got Humberto Pagán Released from Prison in Canada
53. My Debut on Public Television
54. From Republican Cadet to Air Pirate
55. Back to Unionizing
56. City Councilman for the South Bronx
57. Swank
58. The Peoples’ Parliament for Peace
59. My Visit to Tehran
60. A Short-Lived Branch of the Independence Party in New York
61. Yellow Cabs and Gypsy Cabs
62. Five Billion—Not in Rubles, But in Dollars
63. My Initiatives on the City Council
64. Defeated by Gerrymandering, but I Sued Them and Won
65. The New Alliance Party and I
66. Taxi Organizer in Miami
67. Three Years with Governor Cuomo
68. Farmer
69. Puerto Rican Citizenship
70. A Soldier in the Battle of Vieques
71. Ramón Vélez and I
72. Organizing the Diaspora on the Island
73. Grito Cultural and the Literary Contest
74. The “Don” Free School
75. My Beloved Son Joey
76. The Tamarind Tree
Notes
Index
About the Author
Gilberto Gerena Valentín was a central figure in the labor, political, civil-rights and social struggles of Puerto Ricans in the United States. He marched with Martin Luther King in The March on Washington, promoted the boycotting of industries in order to face them to higher minorities, founded the Congreso de Pueblos to unify all Puerto Rican organizations, and was elected to the New York City Council.
Carlos Rodríguez Fraticelli is a professor of social sciences at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras.
Andrew Hurley is Professor Emeritus at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras.
José E. Cruz is an associate professor of political science at the University at Albany, SUNY.
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