CUNY

DIGITALHISTORYARCHIVE

A project produced by the Alliance for Puerto Rican Education and Empowerment, APREE.

Interview with Milga Morales Nadal
Interviewed by Pam Sporn and Tami Gold

October 19, 2019
New York, NY

[Start of recorded material at 00:00:00]

Milga Morales Nadal So my family's from a very small town in Puerto Rico. The name of the
town is Guayanilla. It's actually the southern part of the island near Ponce,
for those of us who know the island fairly well. It's a place where in the
old days, you'd have to travel at least three hours from the San Juan
airport, through the mountains to get to go Guayanilla. And then to get to
many of the places where we lived, when we were young, when we were
children, where my family is from, of people, mostly the mountainside,
some of us in the city in Guayanilla, but Guayanilla is very small, my
husband always said that if you, you know, go through it, it’s like you
would never know you were there, because it's so small. But it's really not.
It's a vast piece of land. But a lot of it is concentrated in small little
houses, around the countryside. And my family came from a place called
La Playita. Of course, la playa, people know that it's about the beach, but
wasn't really a beach, it was just, you know, near the water, and the homes
there were made out of wood. And my mother always told me that, when I
would ask her about, do we have photos when we were kids when we
were very, very young. And she always said, No, because the ocean would
come and just wipe everything away. And this was like a normal
occurrence for those of people that live near La Playita. So obviously,
coming from that area, you would know that come from whatever, say
modest, modest, if not poor, economically, but very rich in tradition, in the
sense that my family always held in their hearts, Puerto Rico as a very
important place for them, and taught us all about our history and culture,
or at least tried to when we were when we were young. Now, what I
remember is that at I guess two and a half, and I don't really recall the


details, when people tell me these things, my family decided that they
needed to come to New York. And they did it for various reasons, as I
understand it. One of them was because jobs, there was very little job
opportunity in Puerto Rico, my father was a great cook. So he and my
mother decided to put up a place that they called, like a friambrera. A
friambrera is when you put food in three different vessels, and you put the
rice in one and the beans and another one and something to eat like some
kind of meat or something or maybe vegetables in the other one. And he,
they used to prepare friambreras for the people in the community and the
people that we're going to work. So that was the kind of business that they
had. But clearly it wasn't, you know, very lucrative. It wasn't anything that
they can really live off. And by then, they my mother had my sister from
another marriage and my father, between my father, and my father
actually had a son as well from another marriage. And so they're blended
family. And then of course, the three of us came along myself as the oldest
and then two brothers. But my brothers were not born in Puerto Rico, they
went to New York City.

So when we were there in Puerto Rico, my father was also very active,
politically. He wasn't involved in what they call la massacre de Ponce and
a situation that happened in Puerto Rico, which is a situation that
happened in Puerto Rico, where many people were killed in, basically
support, of the independence of Puerto Rico. They were marching. And it
happened that the police started shooting. So with the massacre in Ponce,
my father was not directly involved, but he was definitely a simpatizante,
he definitely sympathize with the Nationalist Party in Puerto Rico. So
we've talked about the economy, then we talk about the politics. And for at
least those two reasons, if not more, my parents decided that they needed
to come to New York. So there's always a little discrepancy in terms of
when he really came here. Recently, I found a little membership card for a
union, and it said 1947, so I was born in 1947. So that means that my
father was actually in New York. So I didn't realize that he probably, they
had me and then they left. And that's why I think I was also very close to
my extended family including my uncle, because they left us with my
uncle in Guayanilla in Puerto Rico.

[01:05:05]

My parents came here and as I understand it, also they tried to find a place
to live, it was very hard to find a place to live, they counted on their
friends, who had come before them. My father wound up living Manhattan
somewhere, my mother in Brooklyn somewhere, again, as I understand it.
And even at one point, I was told that they didn't even know where the
other one was, you know, when they came for the first few days in the first
few, first few weeks, but they finally got a little place to live. So we
wound up in, first we wound up in an area called Williamsburg, which
obviously, it is not the same area, that it is today for those people that


know Brooklyn and know Williamsburg, it was kind of an industrial area,
close to a place called Greenpoint, a lot of warehouses around there. We
lived there for a little while I'm in a project, the projects. And we were
here myself, my sister and now my two brothers who actually were born in
New York City. We grew up, you know between Williamsburg and
Bushwick, there’s another area in Brooklyn, and went to the public
schools in that, in in those communities. I remember that at one point, we,
my family decided that they needed to move they needed to find a place to
live. So we wound up in downtown Brooklyn the area that's called
Gowanus. So that area was really changing, it first, it was mostly Italian
when we got there, then by the time we were there are a few years, the
community was totally Puerto Rican. We had a great sense of community.
We knew everyone in the neighborhood, all the families knew each other.
And it was a wonderful place to grow up, in my parents were both active
in their jobs, particularly as union members, my mother was active with
local 1199, which was the Hospital Workers Union. I used to go with my
mother to the various union activities, including the strikes and the
protests, and the rallies. And I think that's kind of where I learned first, to
kind of stand up for myself and hopefully for and for others as well. And
my father was also very active in the hotel workers, many of the people
that came especially the men at that time, would find jobs working as
lavapotes, first because you had to learn how to wash the cans that they
use, because they actually recycled pretty well in those days. And then you
kind of worked your way up to a lavaplato, where you can learn, you can
actually learn how to wash the dishes and make sure you did that well, to
the point where he became what they called a cold order cook. And he
worked at the Sheraton Russell Hotel in New York. Those were hard very
hard times for us. But at the same time, very, very familial. Lots of
activities at home, lots of, one of the things that we always did was
celebrate everybody's birthday. I mean, there was one thing even a small
cake, no presents, or maybe a little present, you know, my brothers always
complained that they gave him the socks and underwears. And that's all
they got, ever got.

Milga Morales Nadal But they really tried to keep our family together and keep the extended
family together. We had very great relationships with the Guyanillenses
people from Guyanilla, that came to New York. And so there were a lot of
those different organizations here that represented the hometown groups,
and lots of people, lots of Puerto Ricans joined those groups. And my
family definitely was very involved with our hometown group, we had all
sorts of activities every Friday, Saturday, you know, we would go into the,
into the train, and we would have we would, have to make arroz cong
gandules, you know, the rice with peas, so that we could take it to the
activities that we were celebrating, whatever, whatever it was. And I
always remember taking pernil, which is the pork you know that that
smells beautifully, but in the train, and I would be a little bit embarrassed


Pam Sporn

that everybody was looking at us because they smelled the pork. But it
was at the same time, very happy time is when everybody worked very
cooperatively with each other and there wasn't much money coming in
from different areas like later on like the poverty program and poverty
programs and money coming from the federal government. So it was
really communities helping each other in those days, especially the
hometown groups.

What schools did you go to and what? What was the? What was your
schooling like?

Milga Morales Nadal [00:10:07]

Pam Sporn

So definitely, definitely went to public schools. And I remember that the
school that I went to in the Williamsburg area was on Starr Street. It was
small school, still exists today. In fact, I, one of my, one of my students
from when I was teaching in College actually wound up being a teacher
there. So I got to see that school way later on. And it's interesting, because
when I went there, it reminded me so much of how we grew up in, and
how we went to school and how we were, I guess, educated. And it was
pretty much of a drill type of place. In other words, the children were sort
of marched along to do things, and which was, interesting, just recently,
and you know, here I am, and I'm seeing the kids being sort of marched in
and marched out. And we were taught, I think a lot of basic things, like a
lot of hygiene was taught in the schools, they wanted to make sure that we
came clean, you know, to school, I remember that they used to make a big
thing about what breakfast did you have today. And, of course, I've heard
a lot of people talk about this, we would always lie, we would always say
that we had orange juice and that we had toast. And that we had milk,
when actually most of us had coffee in the morning, because that's what
we were used to and everybody drank coffee, you didn't have a special
breakfast for you, everybody drink coffee. And we would have some
probably sliced Wonder Bread or something like that. But there was a lot
of emphasis on us, I guess, coming into the schools and folks wondering if
we were clean enough, if we were prepared enough. And so there was a lot
of concentration on that. I mean, I remember getting weighed in school,
you know, all of the things that people now do when they go to the
doctor's, but that was all done in the school. I remember also, one day, one
special day, when we were going to be weighed, and I had my socks on.
And we had to take off our shoes, so we could get weighed. And I had a
little hole in my sock. I was so embarrassed. It was one of those times
when you go like, you know people don't know what's going on in your
brain, right? Teachers don't know. But in my head, was what was going on
was, Oh, please, I'm going to be so embarrassed when I take off this shoe.
So a little thing. But those are the kinds of things that that we had, I guess,
deal with internally.

Were the teachers, what was the make up of the teaching faculty.


Milga Morales Nadal I guess talking in terms of today, we wouldn't there would be no teachers

Pam Sporn

of color working in the schools that at least I went to. It was primarily
teachers probably from German backgrounds from, maybe Jewish I'm not
sure because I wasn’t sure in terms of the religion, but Italian
backgrounds, possibly but not, you know, not too many. Mostly, I think
they were mostly European. You know that their families were a second or
third, they were second or third generation from their families. Yeah.

Do you remember having any Puerto Rican teachers?

Milga Morales Nadal I don't think I ever saw a Puerto Rican teacher until, I'm trying to think

Pam Sporn

yeah, probably until college. I never saw a Puerto Rican teacher. I wasn't,
I've never had any experience with Puerto Rican teachers in school. In
fact, I had an experience with, maybe an African American teacher in high
school. No Asian teachers. Yeah.

Wondering if the fact that you came from a Spanish speaking family was
seen as a as a deficit or an asset by your...

Milga Morales Nadal Yeah, no, absolutely. The focus was on, on English. And there was

definitely not something that was encouraged for you to speak another
language. We definitely grew up as being treated as immigrants even
though we weren't really immigrants. We were migrants coming from,
US. citizens coming from Puerto Rico. But we were definitely seen as
different. And the school for me, I always felt the school was really trying
to make us be this thing that they wanted us to be. And I did have friends
that were Italian and from other backgrounds. And so for us, you know,
we obviously picked up English right away. My father learned some
English on the job. My mother also learned some English, she always, she
always told, told us that she knew English very, very well and we would
go, okay. And because, you know, she did she, she was able to
communicate, because she wanted us, and I think many parents were like
this, they wanted us to feel like they were helping us to assimilate, and not
to be treated differently, because to be treated differently was certainly to
be treated in a negative way. So they, they, it wasn't that they encouraged
us to speak English, but they tried to learn English as well. And having a
sister who was a little bit older than me, she brought English into the home
early on. So we would have the conversations where my father would
speak in Spanish, and we would answer in English. And my father's every
once in a while would throw in an English word, but not too many. But
definitely, we were back and forth with English and Spanish that my
experience with the language, unfortunately, at that time, was that I didn't
really know either language that well, because we were too back and forth.
And there wasn't any emphasis really on, on maintaining Spanish. So it
wasn't until I guess I was in high school that I really understood that it was


Pam Sporn

an asset to have the language it was certainly not something that was
promoted in the schools.

[00:16:34]

Did that present, the fact that you, you said you, you didn't feel like you
had a command of either one. Did that create challenges in terms of your
academic...

Milga Morales Nadal Yeah, I always felt that I could converse in English. But I always felt that

Pam Sporn

if I would have had more emphasis and more instruction in my native
language, I could have transferred those skills to the English, it would
have made it easier for me. And I would have been a better English
student, speaker of English, but also academic English, and also of
Spanish. And I think that probably is something that a lot of our young
people still, are going through. And definitely went through...at least my
generation went through that.

Right. So were you ever ashamed that Spanish was spoken in your
household. Can you tell me something about that?

Milga Morales Nadal Yeah. So in my case, because we were very connected to our hometown

Pam Sporn

group, the Spanish was pretty...in the, in the environment in a natural
way. So I didn't think of it as I didn't think of it as a negative. But when
we moved into the neighborhood, I mentioned before downtown
Brooklyn, it was Bergen street, in the Gowanus area. And we came across
other communities in that case, the Italian community. They would
actually, some comments were made, to us. Why are you speaking that
language? And what are you? I’m Puerto Rican. Well, you shouldn't say
that you are that. Maybe you should say your you could even say your
Spanish, but don't say you're Puerto Rican. So there were there were, there
were comments that were made. But I guess I, I benefited a lot from
growing up with folks that were using the language quite a bit when I
would go to the different activities, the language was appreciated. And so I
think that that was always there. You know, the language was appreciated.
I, I didn't know it well enough. Unfortunately, I understood it. So I can't
say that I was embarrassed by it. My brothers sometimes tell me yes, you
are. Yes, you were, you wanted to be Italian at one point, I don't remember
that, maybe it was so traumatic, I don't remember that. But I can see where
yeah, there was very uncomfortable moments when folks would remind
you that you were not, you know, like them, and therefore but also not like
them and also that you were not as good as they were.

What did you learn about the history and/or culture of Puerto Rico or
Latin America, in school, during your schooling from elementary through
high school?


Milga Morales Nadal [00:19:34]

Pam Sporn

Oh, my God, that's one of the things that probably I would say biggest
deficit that you know, that that we had, and I certainly had also as a, as a
young person. I had the cultural experience of being around Puerto Ricans
and being from people from my hometown. But clearly there was nothing
in the school. It was all just our communities. You know, what our
communities shared with each other, what our communities brought in,
what our communities brought from, from Puerto Rico, the back and forth
that, that I was able to hear the songs and I was able to hear the music and
become familiar with those things very early on. My father was a, he had
the great gift of gab. But he was also a bohemio, he was a kind of person
that knew every single song there was about Puerto Rico, including
Mexico and all the other Latin American countries. And so we were
exposed to that, at home, and in the community.

But definitely, school was completely void of that, there was nothing
there. And I remember that so well, because I remember, they said, at one
point, I think, I think was in high school, that they said, you should write a
report about, you know, some country that you're interested in, and I
thought, all right about Puerto Rico. And I looked around, and I had
nothing, nothing written. I knew my family stories and music and all of
that, but there was nothing written anywhere. And my father had gotten
this bunch of National Geographic magazines, from his hotel that they
were going to throw out. And he thought, oh, let me take them home.
Because maybe the kids, you know, can get something out of them. And I
went through them. And I found a National Geographic with pictures of
Puerto Rico and I said oh my God, this is like a treasure. And I took that
National Geographic, and probably shouldn't have done it, because it was
just something we should probably should have treasured for a long time.
But I started cutting it out. And that's how I got my report. But that was it.
There was absolutely nothing, nothing. It's very unfortunate.

How did your teacher receive that report about Puerto Rico?

Milga Morales Nadal You know, it was very interesting, because I had one teacher, who

apparently had been to Puerto Rico. And this is the thing that we faced as
young Puerto Ricans coming up in New York. She knew that I was Puerto
Rican. And so and then the report, and she said, oh, I've been to Puerto
Rico, you must know, el Yunque, and you must know, San Juan. And I
said no, I've never been to Puerto Rico. So it was those kinds of little
encounters that made you feel like, I don't really, I am sort of from there.
But I don't really know enough about there. And I certainly wasn't getting
it in school. So you know, I think we were bringing it into the school
actually, at that point.

(silence)


Pam Sporn

You were born in Puerto Rico. But you had never been back to Puerto
Rico.

Milga Morales Nadal Yeah.

Pam Sporn

How do you see yourself as a Puerto Rican...

Milga Morales Nadal Yeah, it was, it was when I was, I guess I was 16 years old. My sister got

Pam Sporn

married. And, and she and her husband said, we're going to go to Puerto
Rico. And I was like, excited about that. Because, again, I had all this
culture here. But you know, didn't know what was going on in the island.
I'd never been there. And I was already sort of getting a consciousness, a
political consciousness was sort of developing, in terms of seeing the
haves and the have nots and wanting to know more about, so what is you
know, what's really going on there? Because I hear negative comments
about Puerto Ricans here. And I'm wondering, how, how did that come
about? You know why I'm so proud of who I am, as Puerto Rican and it
was hard for me to reconcile them. I went to Puerto Rico. And it was quite
traumatic for me, traumatic for me, because one of the things that I did
immediately when I got on the island, I just kept on talking English. I kept
on speaking English. Now, that would have worked if we stayed in San
Juan, but we're from a small town in Guyanilla. Nobody there at that time
was speaking English. And my sister who was a bit more fluent than I
was, she had spent a couple of more years in Puerto Rico than I did. And
she, at one point said to me, Milga, you can't speak, you can't speak
English here. You have to speak Spanish. And I was like, I don't know, I
was just taken aback. And I felt like, okay, that means I'm gonna be quiet
for the rest of the time that I'm in Puerto Rico, because I can't speak
Spanish. And she was kind of ashamed that if I would make mistakes in
Spanish, you know. So it was really, so that was traumatic, but I loved
being there. I loved seeing the island that I didn't remember that well. I did
focus a lot on looking at the more, I guess the older structures, you know,
what was going on in the island. And that was the time when people were
going like, the island had to give it, more be more industrialized. And
folks were already starting to get into fast foods, you know, those kinds of
things. And I said well, you know, can we go and eat like the food of
Puerto Rico? You know, what's the food of Puerto Rico? Oh, no. All these
changes were taking place. And they were saying, No, let's go and have a
hamburger. So but I didn't come to Puerto Rico to have a hamburger. So I,
you know, it was very, it was kind of confusing, actually. And a bit
traumatic. But that was my first experience. You know, from then on, you
know, I had different experiences there. But that was definitely my first
experience. I wanted to know more, though, that's one of the things that it
did.

[00:25:38]


So, tell me about how you ended up at Brooklyn College.

Milga Morales Nadal Okay, so I said that I lived in the Gowanus area. My father, when I was
leaving, my junior high school, graduated from a junior high school, my
father said, you have to go to a school where there's no boys. And, you
know, my, he always thought something's going to happen, because those,
that's what happened to a lot of young girls, you know, they would get
pregnant at like 15 years old. And so that was something that was always
on his mind. And as a person that worked all day long, cause he worked
from five o'clock in the morning, overtime, you know, I mean, the
overtime until about at least 10 o'clock at night, he wasn't around very
much. So he was always afraid that something was going to happen to us.
And, you know, that was one of the things, so I won't go into an all girls
school, it was called Bay Ridge High School at the time. That, that
experience there, was an experience that, I guess it was good, and not so
good. It was good because yeah, we focused a lot, because you know, you
didn't get involved with anybody, there was no real well, at least for me,
there was no relationships at all, except outside of the school. But leaving,
leaving that school was again, good and complicated and challenging.
Because when I was about to graduate, I guess that last year in Bayridge,
wound up in Bay Ridge High School, I was about to graduate that last
year, I wasn't the greatest student in the world is, you know, some of the
background, you know, definitely showed up, but I was trying very hard.
And I didn’t know that I wanted to go to college. I did over hear my
father, at one point saying to my mother in Spanish, dile a Milga que no,
yo no tengo dinero para que ella pueda ir a la Universidad, you know,
basically saying I don't have the money to send her to college. And the
expectation those days was that you were going to go out and get a job and
bring some money and not be dependent upon, the upon the family. So
what I did is I applied for what they called a Standard Oil Company
scholarship. And the scholarship was basically to train for executive
secretaries. So that was very important, because I wouldn't be just a
secretary, I would be an executive secretary. So that was a big thing. And I
actually got it, I got it, I got the scholarship. So that would have meant that
that year at the end of my my high school, I would have gone into that
program, starting that that summer. I wasn't a very good typist. I wasn't a
very, I wouldn’t have been a very good secretary at all. But it was
something, you know, especially if I wasn't going to go to college. But in
the high school, that same, I guess it was probably April through through
June those, those months right before graduation. I had a friend in the
school, her name was, my last name was Morales, her last name was
Morales also, Carmen, and Carmen had been accepted into a program
called the College Discovery Program. There was only about four or five
slots that were given to the school. Every school I guess, had a few slots.
And there was an opportunity to start at a community college. And they
would give you, provide you with a stipend and they would provide you


with some transportation money. So we weren't, so if one of us got it, we
wouldn't be, we wouldn't be dependent so much on our families and we'd
still have to work but not so much. So, one morning, Carmen and I are in
the cafeteria, and she tells me, Milga I am going to leave, I'm going to be
traveling, I didn't know then, but found out later on that she was going to
be a missionary. And I'm not going to take the slot, at the school that
they're going, you know for the community college. I'm not going to take
that slot for the program, the College Discovery Program. So she said,
Would you like to do it? So would you like to be part of that? So I said, of
course I would. That's an opportunity to go to college. She marched me,
Carmen and Milga, we marched to the counselor's office. And she actually
said, I can't go, but I want her to go. And you know, and so, that's how I
got into college.

[00:30:25]

I was very, I was very excited, because at my graduation, from high
school, it was I think it was the B.A.M., Brooklyn Academy of Music. But
my mother had always been very ill. She was an asthmatic, a severe
asthmatic. And just about every other month she was in the hospital. But
my father did go to my graduation. And with, my with an uncle, the uncle
that he left me with in Puerto Rico, I found out later on the, Tio Angel,
they both showed up at the graduation. And it was just, I don't know how
this happened, but I was in the audience. I had heels on those white heels
that we wore those days, little white heels on, but I was like, I think it was
my first time wearing those heels, and I didn't really know how to walk in
them. But all of a sudden, somebody from onstage called Milga Morales,
like, why are they calling me? Well, they wanted the school to recognize,
they wanted everyone to recognize that the school was actually doing
something for students that particularly students of color, and students
from other countries, etc. So this was a way to get that kind of recognition
by bringing us up on stage. So even though it was a small thing, I got on
stage and was recognized for the Standard Oil Company scholarship. And
when I was on stage, they said, oh, and we also have a number of students
that are going to college with the College Discovery Program. So that was
another way, that the school was kind of taking credit for something that
they didn't really, really do. Because some nobody spoke to me about
college when I was, you know, at the high school. So it wasn't if it wasn’t
for a friend. So anyway, they actually called us on stage. I mean, sorry,
they, I was already on the stage, and they called me up again, soI was
called twice forward ,to come forward. As a result of that my family
thought that it was the greatest thing in the world. I was like, I could have
won the Nobel Prize. I was like a Nobel Prize winner. My father had a
friend in the audience who happened to be from my hometown of
Guayanilla, and that friend went and told everybody in Guyanilla that I
had gotten these fantastic awards, and it just kind of spread. And in a way,
it really helped me because then I felt like oh, I could, you know, I could


Pam Sporn

win something, I could do something. And that was my my experience
with getting into college. Getting into the first college that I went to was
Queensboro Community College.

So it's interesting, you got this. Although the family, it was difficult for the
family to make it possible to go to college, the school didn't really
encourage you. But somehow you once you've got the ability your family
was totally in support of it. So that was...so you ended up at a community
college. Tell me about how you got from the community college to
Brooklyn College.

Milga Morales Nadal Okay. All right. So, the first thing we had to do when we got to the

community college, Queens, Queensboro Community College, in this
case, was attend a summer program, because we were in this special
program College Discovery therefore those of us that were there, were
thought of as folks that could do well in college, but hadn't really
demonstrated that throughout, in terms of their academic records coming
in so we were definitely being asked to take courses that, some of them,
they could call them compensatory courses, but they were basically
courses to help you, to help better prepare you. So we started the summer
in that program. And it was, it was really, a very interesting summer,
because the community college that we were in, hadn't quite been built
yet. So it was on a golf course, in Queens and it was the top of the hill was
where the main building was, the administration building today, you go
there, it's beautiful, it's very different. But it was mostly all mud. And
when it rained, many of us got stuck in the mud, like a, it was like a
swamp walking up there to get there where I lived, I had to take two trains
and how to take a bus. That's how much you wanted to go to college. At
one point, I was going to sleep with my clothes on, so that the next day I
would be able to get up in time, so I would make my eight o'clock classes,
you know, when you're a new student at the college or a freshman, as they
used to call them, you would have to always wind up but you always want
to put the eight o'clock in the morning classes. So it was good times and
bad times. The bad. The great part about it is that I met a cohort of, of
young people like myself that were very excited about being in college,
we were very diverse, my best friend at the time, and that became my best
friend later on, was also Puerto Rican. And she was actually from East
New York, and we became, you know, great buddies. So we would try to
meet up all the time to get to walk up that, that hill that that muddy hill all
the way up, to get to the administration building and then to go to our
classes, which were held in temporary, pretty much temporary buildings.
It was a real effort. I remember, two things that I'd probably just want to
share really quickly is one, I had a friend named Rosalie and Rosalie, one
day decided that she was going to walk on a board over this mud to go up
the mountain, she felt the board didn't, didn't have, you know, she
wouldn’t get stuck in the mud. Well, my friend Rosalie fell into the mud,


we actually had to get help, too. It's like, it's like being in a swamp. And
like in quicksand, it pulls you down. Nobody knew that we were going
through these things. But my, when I would get home, my family who
always had this quick sense of humor, you know, always made comments.
My remember my brother, my older brother said, Milga, where do you,
Where were you coming from? I thought you were going to college? I
said, Yeah. So he said, but what do you come home with mud every day in
your, on your in your shoes. And it's true, our shoes were always very
muddy. So, you know, it was kind of a challenge for us. Because in
addition to that, we had to deal with the academic, the academics at the at
the college.

But it was also at a time when there was civil rights marches, Martin
Luther King, we were all very, we all became engulfed and engaged in
what was going on in the country. And that I think, was because my
connection to my community, but also just being in the room in, in the
classes with other young people. And it was more diverse this time. So
you know, yes, a lot of White students, a lot of White students were, had
been in already admitted in the college, not necessarily an our program.
But then we had another group of students like, like ourselves, that were
from different backgrounds. The first time that I got into the college, I
remember like, I you know something, I want to join something here I
want to join like a club or an organization. And I was looking around and
didn't quite see what I would be interested, in people were doing things
like tutoring kids in the neighborhood in Queens, so you would take
another bus, and to go, and this was just volunteer, but there was a spirit of
the times was like, folks were trying to help each other. So I wound up
doing some of that, going to a church and working mostly with Latino and
African American children just trying to help them learn to read these
were second and third graders, for me was like so fulfilling. And I guess
that's why I became very interested in education later on. But in addition
to that, I wanted to be more active in doing things, I was very interested in,
I grew up in marches with my mother and you know, and the rallies that
she attended, and with the hospital workers. So I was very interested in
and wanted to, to be more engaged. And I remember one day coming
home and telling my mother, I want to do something in the school, but I
don't know what, I don't know what group to be part of. I didn't want to be
a cheerleader. And there was a lot of that stuff, too, going on sororities and
fraternities and all of that, but that wasn't my interest. My mother said to
me, you know, don't worry, you're gonna find something, you're gonna
find something. Well, the next day I walk by, and it's kind of they call it a
club hour, it was one of the rooms and I saw a bunch of people in there.
And I kind of just put my ear here and I heard that they were talking about
that they were gonna go to Washington, DC, and that was going to be a
protest, and it was about civil rights and everything. And it just sounded
like, yeah, that sounds like something I wanted to be part of. So I walked


in, and it happened to be the Congress and Racial Equality chapter. At
Queensborough CORE, they called it and the minute I walked in, I sat
down, and they were looking for a secretary. So it's so funny that you
know, I left the secretary and wound up being the secretary that same day
of the Congress of Racial Equality at my school. So that experience, I
think, led to so many other experiences, which

[00:40:11]

basically connected back to the community again, because we all, those of
us, especially in the program, were from all different communities in
Brooklyn, like East New York, like Gowanus, like those communities.
And we kind of like circled and it was kind of a circle of information, you
know, things coming out of the community, going into the school, in the
school, and then getting additional information from people that were
already really involved in the Civil Rights struggles at that time. And of
course, the war in Vietnam was something that we were becoming much
more familiar with, my we were already what 18, 19, my brothers were
already of draft age. So both of them were in a situation where either one
of them could be drafted at any moment. So that certainly became
something that became part of my struggle as well, coming from, from my
family, having had two uncles who went to ,who were in Korea, and, you
know, I think were drafted as well into Korea. And they came back and
had a very difficult time when they came back. So going to war, and
particularly this particular war, which we didn't quite understand what,
what people were fighting for, was something that I was already
developing a consciousness about. So I think all of those things together
were really what made me more engaged and more active in school. And
as I said before, I developed a friendship with a young Puerto Rican girl
who's from East New York. So we got involved in the community in East
New York, we wound up even getting trained as draft counselors, we
basically, were just giving information to anybody who wanted to know
that you had an option, you didn't really have to go. But you needed to
know all of this, all of this information. And it was funny because my two,
funny, in the funny not really funny, but it was interesting, because my
two brothers were actually of draft age and so, that was that I was
constantly something that I was thinking about. But, you know, they
eventually wound up going, one of them going to Vietnam, and the other
one being drafted during the Vietnam period, as well. And so our families
were completely involved with all of this. This was we, you know, it was
very hard in those days to say you weren’t in part of something, because
one, you were you were hooked into it one way or the other, you were just
naturally part of being active. And I think that was the tenor of the times.

Oh, I'm in 1967, January 1967, I arrived at Brooklyn College, along with
my friend who had, I had met at Queensborough and both of us were fairly
intimidated by the college itself. We walked down the halls. With me there


is a very big, Brooklyn College is very big. And we were looking around,
I guess we were trying to find a home or place under the sun at Brooklyn
College. I mean, it took us a while, but we had done that at Queensboro.
And we really couldn't find people to talk to that were kind of from our
neighborhoods, even folks that were, I guess, you might say involved and
engaged, we really couldn't find that until we arrived on the campus one
day, and there was a rally going on. Very big demonstration going on, on
the campus. And I was very excited. Oh my god, something's going on at
this college. And, you know, clearly we were still involved with the civil
rights of the anti war, anti war movement. And it was the day when the
college, when the students at the college decided that they would go on
strike.

And they were and I'm trying to remember what the strike was particularly
for that day, but I know that they wanted to cancel classes. And I saw a
professor get up and speak and his name is Bart Meyers. Professor Meyers
was. I found out later on a very big activist, a professor of psychology at
Brooklyn College. And so that was about the entree, you know, then I
began to go okay, there's more to this college than meets the eye. I also
saw a young man get up and I thought he might be Latino, you know, I'm
not sure but he might be maybe Puerto Rican I don't know. And I kind of
feel like the he was standing on a box. You know how people say that
stand on a soapbox. I kind of feel like he was standing on something
because it wasn't a regular podium. And he was facing,, we were we were
sort of on the outside and we were just like looking at the campus looking
at the quad, what they call the quad is the center of campus, and we were
looking and admiring this young man who was up there talking. And you
know, we liked him, what he was saying because he was definitely
engaged in terms of civil rights. And also they were talking about the
campus and how they wanted more students of color on the campus. So all
of those things resonated with us. So the college for us was to, you know,
at least two different places. One was the sort of the academic setting that
seemed to us to be very sanitized.

[00:45:28]

And then we had sort of this mix of folks that were talking about different
issues and different programs. The young man that was, that I think, I
remember him on a soapbox and probably wasn't a real soapbox but I
remember him standing up on something, turned out to be from a student
group called the W.E.B Du Bois Club. And that was one of the most
active student, student clubs on the campus. By way of introduction to the
campus life at Brooklyn College, that was that was the first step. After that
we became familiar with other groups on campus Stuudents for a
Democratic Society, B.L.A.C., which is a Brooklyn League of Afro
American Collegians was already, also on campus. So we decided after a
while that, a few of us would get together some of the some of us that


came from Queensborough, but also we started meeting some students on
the campus. In fact, talking about language, we decided let's take a
Spanish class, because in the Spanish class, we may actually meet people
that come from Latin American countries, and maybe even Puerto Ricans.
And we did, we met at least one student in that, in that Spanish class. His
name was, his name is Felipe Pedraza, and Felipe and myself and Irma, is
the other student, the one that came from Kingsborough, the three of us we
started coming together and meeting in the school cafeteria.

And, you know, just kind of analyzing a little bit about what was going on
in the campus. And what could we do and how could we get involved. We
knew we wanted to be part of the bigger picture. But we also wanted to
address issues of Puerto Rican culture and history. And the fact that in
order to find out anything about Latin America, you basically had to take a
course in Hispanic Studies or Spanish department at the college. And we
thought that there was, at that point, much more information, much more
literature, many more, much more history that we could, that could be
included in the campus ,in the campus, curriculum of the college. And we
definitely wanted to start moving in that direction and though some of the
conversations that we had in what was then called Whitehead cafeteria, it
was just a place where we met alongside, the sororities and fraternities,
they were very big around the campus at that time. In fact, all the houses
around the campus, probably including, you know, these houses around
the Brooklyn College neighborhood, that you still see standing now were
houses where they did, where sororities and fraternities were meeting as
well.

So yeah, so there was a mix at that point. And, as I said, the two worlds of
Brooklyn College. So in terms of the demographics of the campus, what
we perceived is that there were 1000s of students that were probably
categorized as White. And then, in terms of numbers of Latinos, or
students of color, we did not see or interact with very, with very many of
those. And after a while, we realized that there were maybe on, they can
be counted on maybe two hands. The numbers of students, definitely the
numbers of Puerto Ricans. And then there was a maybe a few more of
African American students on the campus. But that was the extent I think
of the the people of color, demographics at Brooklyn College at the time,
at least as you know, the way that we perceived it. At Brooklyn College, a
few of us started getting together in January of ‘67, then in September of
“67, and then January ‘68. During that period of time, there was a lot of
activity going on in the college, related back to the issues of civil rights
and the war in, the war in Vietnam. And also, across the country, people
talking about ethnic studies. And it was something that we started talking
about at Brooklyn College it was just a few of us. But the few of us that
would get together in the cafeteria in, at Brooklyn College, we would talk
about like, what about if we came together we created an organization.


Pam Sporn

What about if we, together put forward the things that we thought should
be changed at the college, you know, what should be included? And we
certainly were talking about the things that we were concerned about, we
wanted to be a community, we wanted a connection to our community, we
wanted the college to really be open to doing more service in the
community. But we also wanted our history and our culture and our
language to be taught in the college. So we had all of those, all of those
concerns. And after a while, we became friends with students from other
organizations, the W.E.B. Du Bois club, as I had mentioned previously,
also the Brooklyn League of Afro-American collegians. Students for a
Democratic Society, there was a number of student groups and some
coalition student coalitions that were, students that weren't necessarily
involved in any particular group but were very concerned about the issues
and also wanted to take an active role in a very progressive way. And so
we decided, one day that we would come together as an organization. And
we did, and we didn't have a name. But one day before a rally that was
going to be held on the campus during that time during those months, a
student group, and I believe, I remember it to be the White student group
on the campus, it was very progressive. They had made up a flyer, and
they had actually talked to us the day before about getting involved this
particular rally. And on the flyer they wrote, Puerto Rican Alliance,
because we were an allied to what they were doing. But that's the name.
And that pretty much stuck. Some people say it was another group that
that came up with the name. But that's how I, that's how I recall, recall it.

[00:51:46]

So then you were a founding member of the Puerto Rican Alliance? What
was the what was the impetus behind this formation? What were the goals
of the organization? What were the goals of the Puerto Rican Alliance?

Milga Morales Nadal You know, that's a good question, because, well, the goals of the Puerto

Rican Alliance were to introduce into the campus, the history and culture
of Puerto Rico. And at that point in time, we didn't really have something
concrete. And we didn't have the exact books that should be taught. We
didn't know where do we get these teachers? We didn't have any of that
information. So many of us, you know, were new to college, and our
families didn't know anything about this. So we didn't know how to
introduce these things. How do you, how do you make demands? And
then really expect to get things from it if you don't know specifically what
is it that you want? So generally speaking, we knew that history, culture in
that included art, and music and all the things that we thought we, the
college would be enriched by, you know, and it shouldn't just be for us, it
should be in the curriculum for everybody, to everybody to learn. We saw
that there was something called Area Studies, Urban Studies, and we go,
hmm, that kind of touches upon it. I know I personally was approached by
these, a professor in the Spanish language department, who heard that we


were developing something called the Puerto Rican Alliance, and that we
had these goals. And that person actually came over to me, I remember
that distinctly, that Professor came to me and said, you don't have to create
something new. You already have a Hispanic club on the campus. And we
would try to communicate to him No, it's not the same thing. We just don't
consider ourselves Hispanic. We know that we are as Puerto Ricans, we
are definitely products of at least three different groups that we can
mention. We are, we're a product of the indigenous peoples, we are a
product of the African peoples and of course, yes, we are Spanish also, we
have Spanish heritage. But that's not the only thing. So we don't want to be
only a part of the Hispanic society. And we do have, we know that Puerto
Rico has so much, so much history and culture and language that we don't
know about. So we want to do this not just for others to learn, but we want
to learn, we want to take those classes too because we never had those
classes before, we'd never had those classes in college. Elementary
School, obviously not. So we decided that we would go forward with
those goals. And it just it was in tandem with what the Brooklyn League
of Afro-American students also wanted. They wanted at that point, and
they had already, they were already they're calling for an Institute of Afro-
American Studies at Brooklyn College. And we started thinking about that
as well. So well, that sounds like, that's a way to make it something
permanent.

Because what we're talking about now offering one course is not going to,
they're not going to continue that we know that, as a matter of fact,
because they heard the college apparently heard about the fact that we
wanted these courses, they did introduce a Puerto Rican Studies class. And
as a student at Brooklyn College, I registered for it. And I was kind of
happy. Yeah. We got at least one course. Interestingly enough, the person
that they put to teach, well, definitely wasn't Puerto Rican. And the first
day that we went into class, gave us a lesson about her travels to Ecuador,
which was very valuable and very important. However, that's not a Puerto
Rican Studies class. So we knew even from that, they weren't getting it.
You know that in order to have Puerto Rican Studies at Brooklyn College,
we not only needed to have the idea of it, but we needed to have resources,
which meant that we had to bring some teachers in. And if we had to bring
them from Puerto Rico, import them from Puerto Rico, and we needed to
have the materials, we needed to have some books on the campus, we
needed some, we needed things in the library that we could go to and we
can use. I started thinking about what different activities we could have.
And so one of the first things that we did, we, was an art exhibit at the
college. And together, we got together with a friend, with friends at the
college, some of those that transferred over with me from Queensborough
Community College. And we set up in an art exhibit, we invited artists
that were here in New York City from Puerto Rico but we're living in New
York City. So they were coming in from Harlem, from East Harlem, and


Pam Sporn

they contributed their artwork, it was one of the first things that we did
concretely because in a way we had to show the college, what it was that
we wanted, because I don't think they had an idea.

[00:56:43]

So how did you continue to go about organizing this as students that you
actually eventually had the Institute of Puerto Rican Studies? How did
you, when you went from three students meeting in the cafeteria, what was
your...

Milga Morales Nadal We went from so, during this period of time, we grew, from three students

Pam Sporn

Milga Morales Nadal

to maybe 15,20, 25,30 students, and that all related to the Puerto Rican
Studies, the goal for Puerto Rican Studies at Brooklyn College, in May of
1968, the call went out that not only did we want more studies, ethnic
studies at Brooklyn College, and clearly Puerto Rican Studies and Afro
American Studies, but we also wanted more students of color, in the
college. So along with asking for, demanding Puerto Rican Studies, and
Brooklyn College, we also talked about bringing in 1000 Black and Puerto
Rican students in the college, many of us walked around with a little sign
that said, 1000, 1000, lots of folks didn't know what that meant. But that's,
that was an effort to make sure that the college was changing along we
would introduce new things, but we also wanted the college itself to
change and to be more inclusive. And that's how we, that's one of the
things that we organized around.

What kind of response did you, did the Puerto Rican Alliance get from the
Brooklyn College campus, from the administration, from the faculty, from
other students?

Well, lot of us were not, lots of us at Brooklyn College were not familiar
with the structure of the college, how things work administratively. But
we knew there was something called the Faculty Council. And through our
friends in the B.L.A.C., the Brooklyn League of Afro-American
Collegians, it was it was related to us that we would have to go to Faculty
Council, and we would have to make demands at that, at that Council of
the faculty. We didn't know the faculty, you know, we knew that teachers
were teaching us those faculty, but we didn't know any of these other folks
that were in this, in this body called the Faculty Council. But a number of
us did get together. And we went to the Faculty Council and along with
with the B.L.A.C. students, Brooklyn League of Afro-American
Collegians, we got up and we demanded an Institute of Puerto Rican
Studies. At that point, the college was in, I would say in turmoil, and there
was changes going on with the administration at the college. The faculty,
lots of faculty were committed and involved and also supportive, not
everyone, because even when we went to Faculty Council on that day,


Pam Sporn

within the Faculty Council, there were there were people that said, one
comment that we got from a faculty member was, well, if you're going to
have Afro-American Studies, and you're going to have Puerto Rican
Studies, then why can't the American Indians be included too, which we
thought, again, was very important, but we also saw it, for it, it's intention
was really to distract, you know, and to then, from there, we would then
say, well, then we don't need any of that, because we're already doing
everything for everybody. So in other words, you're so inclusive that you
really don't, don't include anybody new because you're already so
inclusive. We took that to mean that there was definitely some attitudes
against having these changes in the campus and we found out
subsequently to that, that there were other Faculty Council meetings that
took place where, in fact, people wanted to actually cancel out everything
that happened at this faculty meeting, where in fact, they did approve
Afro-American Studies, and Puerto Rican Studies, at least Institutes.

One of the things that that was interesting about the session where we
demanded Puerto Rican, an African and African American studies is that
they wanted to know whether or not it should be one, one unit, whether
Afro-American Studies and Puerto Rican Studies should be one unit. And
it was it was a moment of pause for us, because we had so many things in
common with the African American students and what they were fighting
for. But we also thought that things were very specific. So we actually left
it with, we left that day, and we went, we thought about it. And we said,
no, we want to have two separate Institute's because it will be more
powerful if we have two separate Institute's we're coming in with two
different powerful organizations, populated not only by some interested.
and committed faculty, but also by students that were committed and
involved. And I think that's the best decision that we ever, that ever made.

So can you say the date that the Puerto Rican Studies Institute was
established?

Milga Morales Nadal Well, it was demanded and I guess you would say establish, I believe it

was May 16, 1968. At the Faculty Council meeting, it took time before it
was put together. And of course, you know, we needed resources. So we
had to keep on coming back. With more demands for the funding for an
Institute, we needed to put together a plan for the Institute, we needed to
actually bring in someone new, because those people there did not have
the background to set up an Institute like the one that we were expecting to
have, because we wanted an Institute of Puerto Rican Studies that, that
was committed to continuing work in the community, we wanted to make
sure that it had the history and culture and also an opportunity for folks to
do research. And there was also a very big interest in having bilingual
studies at that point as well.


Pam Sporn

So you were students proposing this? How did you? Were there other
faculty members that joined forces with you? How did how did these 15
students at this point, end up having the school institute this official
program?

Milga Morales Nadal When as outsiders, when you come to a school like Brooklyn College, you

Pam Sporn

really don't know what's going on in the campus, you really don't know the
people, right? You really don't know the stories, their backgrounds. We
were pleasantly surprised at the college that even within the Faculty
Council, where we did have some people that were not in favor of, of
establishing ethnic studies, we call later on ethnic studies. There were
some professors that were very supportive. And a few of them were
African American professors and we did have a few, found out later on
Latino professors as well. But on the day that, on that May 16 day 1968,
there was a professor that had sat next to a little group, a little group of
Puerto Rican students. And I don't remember his name right now but he
was giving us a little orientation as we were sitting there, this when you
ask for something say in this way, make sure that they, that they're making
a commitment that you're not going to walk out of here, and they're just
going to yes, you. So we did have support from some faculty and then
later on, we brought in new faculty that that really were committed to
Puerto Rican Studies.

Was this demand for the Institute part of the 18 demands?

Milga Morales Nadal Yes, yes.

Pam Sporn

Tell me about the 18 demands, what were the 18 demands that the Puerto
Rican Alliance made?

Milga Morales Nadal [01:04:34]

So our demands included, we wanted to have a small school. Let me start
again. We had several demands that we made as Puerto Rican students at
Brooklyn College during that period of time, and we wanted them to be,
these we wanted to bring in, to create an Institute that would allow us to
carry out the things that we thought were most necessary for us and for our
communities. One of the things that we wanted was an adult education
program. Again, that's our connection to our community. We knew that
there were many adults in our community that would love to get that time,
they call them general equivalency diploma, a GED, we didn't have an
opportunity for them. They didn't have many of those programs, that they
could take and would be offered by the campus, by the college. So we
asked for a GED program, adult education program. We also wanted to
start children off, not the way we started, but start them off with an
opportunity to learn their language, and that that should happen in early
childhood. And so we asked for an early childhood center. So we started


Pam Sporn

the first Escuela Infantile Bilingue. And that was actually a school where
the person that developed the curriculum for that, contributed greatly, her
name is Dr. Sonia Nieto and she created a fantastic curriculum for the for
the children, it was the most beautiful sight to go in there and see what we
never had, we were able to get that demand as well. We also wanted to
have an opportunity for our teachers to be able to teach in Spanish, that is
the students that were in education at Brooklyn College, that they be
trained to use the language in classroom with the kids, the children, that
they were teaching, and for them to also better their language. So we
wanted some courses to be taught where they would get instruction in their
native language, because they probably didn't have the opportunity to
learn it well, especially academic Spanish, but to also be able to go into
the schools and use the language and converse with the students, at the
same time have the history and culture. So we had several demands. And
you know, clearly, we wanted more students of color in Brooklyn College,
there was a list of 18 demands.

Okay. Was this the point when you said you were wearing the pins that
said 1000? Was that when you went out and actually recruited students?
Can you tell me about that?

Milga Morales Nadal Yeah, a number of us actually did that. We went with during the period,

for sure, for sure. So yeah, so during this period of time, also in the in
those years, we were interested in bringing more students of color into
Brooklyn College, but also we wanted them to be able to be supported,
because not all of them could actually pay for their, even though it was a
very small tuition, they would still have to pay, they would still have to
buy books. So what we wanted was the SEEK program, the Search for
Education and Knowledge program, which was very similar to the
program that I, that I was in when I was in community college the
program was called the College Discovery Program. But again, this is a
program that helps students that were committed to getting a college
education, that were making the effort to go to college, that were fairly
well prepared, but needed maybe some more support, and it was a way to
get getting them into Brooklyn College, but also to make them ,to help
them succeed. Because one thing is to come in, and we see the revolving
door people, you know, they're one, folks, they're one semester and then
out the next semester. So we wanted to avoid that. And so we want to
1000 students to come in but supported through the SEEK program, what
we wound up doing is getting lots of applications, that we actually took
ourselves to various high schools. And we went to the high schools, and
we asked to be allowed into the high school so that we could talk to
students that were there and encourage them to apply, not for four years
from themn from then from them, but right now that they could go in
September of that year. I know I personally went with my buddy Irma,
who had met in Queensborough Community College. And I found again


Pam Sporn

learning new, we learned something new every day that you just couldn't
walk into a high school and get, and do that. But we just we had a friend
who knew the head of the Department of Education, they called it the
Board of Education at that time, and made a phone call to the head of the
Board of Education. The Board of Education happened to be Puerto Rican
at that time. And, and was very supportive, and gave us, gave the school
the okay to have us come in for this wonderful thing that we were doing,
and to actually speak directly to students. Now a number of us did this in
the Puerto Rican Alliance. And this was all volunteer. Nobody knew that,
none of us were getting paid or anything for this. But we were so
committed to making these changes in the school. And this is one of the
changes that had to be made. We had to make sure that the school was
more inclusive.

So what happened?

Milga Morales Nadal So that year, I personally I was able to witness students who had

Pam Sporn

completed their applications and in September, there was, this gym, were
you use to register for classes and so all of us were able to kind of see each
other in the gym. And I personally was able to see students that came from
that high school, I had actually registered, and we got into the SEEK
program. So there was definitely a shift in the number of students, we
were able to get numbers of students, I think the number is 800. I am not
exactly, sure. But yes, definitely made a difference.

Oh, it was it was wonderful. It was wonderful because for me, witnessing
the changes, not, during, during this period, we were witnessing changes
that were going on in the country, or going on in the world. With the war.
With the civil rights, voting rights, bilingual ballot, there was so many
changes going on, and to be able to be in a place where you could actually
see it upfront, not just reading the newspaper, to see the changes were
happening in front of us over really, maybe two years which was a
relatively short period of time. It was, it was an incredible feeling in a very
empowering feeling for, for all of us, I think.

[01:11:25]

So things kept developing on the campus. Tell me about what happened
when Black, Puerto Rican and White students occupied President Pecks
office on May 1 of 1969. What was that about?

Milga Morales Nadal So the college was about, so in 1969, we were still looking to make sure

that the college was being as inclusive as possible, and bringing in more
students of color. We also wanted to make sure that tuition was not being
raised. So we were concerned about that. We were concerned that they
were bringing police on campus. And we were concerned that students
that were activists were going to be punished for being activists on the, on


the campus. So there was a number of, a number of concerns that we had
some, some of us actually took over the office, took over the President's
office. I did not, I was not inside the office, my best friend Irma was. But
we were outside and we were the support that, that night and we stayed
overnight, actually, they closed the gates of the campus. And my family
didn't know where I was, they wanted to, they were looking for me. And at
that time, there wasn't really cell phone so we couldn’t use the cell phone
to connect. But I remember very clearly it was one of the last times that I
saw my mother, very active after that, she passed away. But she came to
the doors of the doors, the gate, she came to the gate of Brooklyn College,
to one of the side gates, and started asking people if they knew where I
was. And of course, the students were there, were all students that had
been active. So we pretty much knew each other. And they knew where I
was. And I went to the gate, where I saw her, she was on the other side of
the gate and she had she had for me coffee in a thermos. So it was a
wonderful example of how your family sometimes are not always in
agreement of everything you do. But when they see you're totally
committed to something, they're very supportive and I was lucky in that
way.

The office of the president clearly was this for us at the college, reflected
power, and taking over an office and even supporting the students that
were doing that and some faculty as well, was definitely empowering for
all of us. Not only, not only those of us who are students in the school, but
for our communities. This was happening not just at Brooklyn College,
that was happening at other colleges to throughout this, the CUNY system,
as well as throughout the country. So we weren't alone. And clearly, some
of us had gone to workshops and retreats where we learned about how to
do these kinds of things. But we didn't know everything. So one of the
things that we wanted to make sure is that, that the students that were
inside the President's office, were not penalized, for that. Because it was
for a good cause. I mean, it was really this is, this was not to hurt the
institution in any way. This is to make the institution better. And that's
how we that's how we all saw it. And the fact that we supported the
takeover of a President's office at that time, because it was the way to get
the attention of the campus, get the attention of the community, get
national attention as well. And we were in sync pretty much with other
progressive groups on throughout the country that were doing.

I would say that most of us would not use the term that we were scared.
We, those of us that were in support of the President's takeover, and the
people that were inside the President's office were pretty clear on their
goals. And we were all clear that we wanted change. And some of us
maybe had a different emphasis on the kind of change that we wanted. But
we were all clear on that. And I didn't, I didn't feel like there was a sense
of fear amongst the students, and the community that supported us. Maybe


that's why because we knew that we, we came from supportive
communities. And we weren't doing this alone.

Pam Sporn So were there reprisals against the students who, who took over the
President's office and were making these demands for change?

Milga Morales Nadal Yes, the police came in at a certain time of the night and arrested the
students. And the next day, we all came back and had a rally and collected
money and were supportive to make sure that the students if they had to,
there was bail necessary, that we would all be in support.

Pam Sporn Were these the BC 19? Or was that something else?
Milga Morales Nadal That's something else? That comes later.

Pam Sporn [01:16:38]
So what did you, what did you win from the takeover of the President's
office?

Milga Morales Nadal The wins, Let me start again. The victories that we can talk about. And it
was not just about taking over President's office, but I think it was a, that
was a culmination. It was the ongoing work that folks were doing every
day, including the rallies and working with the community and engaging
more people every day, getting those non-committal students to be
committed. All of that work, I think resulted in I believe, resulted in our
Institute's of Puerto Rican Studies, which we still have today. In fact, now
we have departments, resulted in changing the face of the campus, in the
numbers of students of color coming into the campus and other students,
poor White students as well, that would not normally have been able to
come in under the regular requirements. It also, it also created a sense of
that Brooklyn College could be a place where you could contribute to
changing it. You know, where folks, yes, it's okay, you could do that. We
got that sense that we were doing the right thing. And a lot of people
agreed with us.

Pam Sporn How, what was the connection between this demand for ethnic studies,
Puerto Rican Studies and Black Studies at Brooklyn College, and the
CUNY wide struggle for open admissions? Can you make some
connections?

Milga Morales Nadal Yeah. Well, at Brooklyn College, when we first got to the college, we
wanted to make sure that we were making a change right away and the
change there was, that was important to us, was to make the college more
inclusive. And that actually was happening at the other campuses as well,
because CUNY was a what they used to call it though working persons
college. It's where you went, if you were a really good student, but didn't


Tami Gold

have a lot of money to go to one of the private colleges or if you are a
person of a particular background, and you were excluded, and some
places in the country you were still excluded from, from particular
colleges. So you went to CUNY, but that made CUNY mostly an all
White institution. And so at the different campuses, City College, Hunter
College, similar movements were taking place. And those of us that were
learning, we were learning from each other, but we also are learning from
Columbia University and from other places where similar struggles were
taking taking place.

This is the time when the Young Lords were active, right? Did you see
yourself as militant with the parades and the marching...

Milga Morales Nadal [01:19:45]

So this is the time when we when we also experienced seeing very militant
students, and not students also, just folks from the community, for
example, the Young Lords of Party. We knew that the Young Lords
organization was created in Chicago. But then we had a burgeoning
Young Lords Group here in New York City. I myself attended a class at
Brooklyn College and at, in the class, it was an education course. And
they were looking for our students to have an experience in New York
City that they wouldn't normally have. And I volunteered to go up to East
Harlem with the class and actually be the kind of guide. So we wound up
going to the offices of the Young Lords in East Harlem. And that was
very, we were, I think, very impacted by that experience. Because we were
all very excited about, you know, the Young Lords, we thought, like,
wow, they're really doing, they're really doing, they're really committed,
they're really in the streets, they're, you know, burning garbage in the
streets and serving breakfast. And that's the kind of stuff that we really
think is really, really important to do, in addition to getting our ethnic
studies programs. And I remember going to the Young Lords office in
East Harlem, and, really seeing some interesting things. One of the things
that we saw, and this was with a class of students that never had even been
to East Harlem at all, was young men experienced, there was a young man
apparently had been found taking bread from a from a deli. And rather
than call the police, the Young Lords actually stepped out and basically
shamed the young man in the community. And so what we were looking at
was the sense of, wow, this is like a different kinds of justice system that's
going on. So we were exposed through the Young Lords and through the
more militant organizations like the movement, pro independence for
Puerto Rico, we were exposed to different tactics and different strategies
that organizations were using. And some of those things we were actually
we were also able to use Brooklyn College.


Pam Sporn

So at this point you had the Puerto Rican Studies Institute, what were the
changes in the curriculum at this point, once you won this victory? What
were the concrete changes in courses that were offered?

Milga Morales Nadal We the so when we got the Puerto Rican Studies Institute at Brooklyn

Pam Sporn

College, the first thing that we did was bring in someone that could
actually organize an Institute, because we didn't really know exactly what
to do or how to organize it. We did have some students that attend to
conferences in other parts of the country. And we're coming back with
information about how to how to put together an Institute of, an Institute
of ethnic studies. So Dr. Josephine Nieves, was our first director of the
Institute of Puerto Rican Studies at Brooklyn College. And she came out
of the experience also of ASPIRA, and under the leadership of Dr.
Antonia Pantoja, which maybe many folks will recognize as a great leader
in our community, especially when it came to education. We were
building on what are what are these the experiences and the expertise of
our community. And Josephine was able to do that. And she knew she
didn't have all the experience of putting together courses. So she also
brought in other professors, Professor Carmen Dinos to build a program of
bilingual studies. And then Professor Sonia Nieto to help to develop that
curriculum, and also to head up a school for the for our early childhood,
Escuelita Infantil Bilingue. Professor Herminio Vargas. These were folks
that were teaching in other schools in the city, and both Professor Vargas
and Dr. Sonia Nieto were teaching in the schools in East Harlem, working
with Luis Fuentes who was the first Puerto Rican principal in New York
City. And this is the kinds of people that we actually got to come in and
help us to develop courses.

And so yes, of course, we had to develop a course on the history of Puerto
Rico. We had to develop a course on the culture, including the music of
Puerto Rico, which became like probably one of the most popular courses,
and that were taught at Brooklyn College. But we also developed an
educational program, a bilingual educational program. So we had a series
of courses where students were able to take materials from Puerto Rico,
and from New York City and develop even newer, newer materials and
put them into the curriculum so that they could then use them in the
classroom in the elementary schools, as they, as they were teaching our
younger kids coming in.

[01:25:10]

Who was taking the courses? How many students began to enroll? Were
they all Puerto Rican students, were there Black students were there White
students who was who? Who registered for these courses?

Milga Morales Nadal You know, that's that. So in terms of registering for the courses, we had

many students from different backgrounds registered with courses, but at


Tami Gold

that time, there was quite, quite a number of Puerto Rican students. And as
the Puerto Rican Alliance, one of the things that we would do is actually
go and recruit the students on the campus with flyers and say, please
register, please take this class, please try it. And because they made a
connection with another person, and they said, oh, we are you taking the
class to say, yeah, we're taking, I'm taking the class, we're taking the
classes. So they would, they would register for the for the classes. But then
we had other students that were not Puerto Rican, not Latino students,
African American students, we had students from Panama, we had
students from the Dominican Republic. And they all became excited and
interested about Puerto Rican Studies. I have a friend who is Panamanian,
and she took those courses very early on. And she, I remember her telling
me Milga, I go home and my mother says to me, remember, you're not
Puerto Rican, you're Panamanian. But she loved the classes so much. And
through taking those classes, she learned more about her own Panamanian
heritage and culture, because that certainly wasn't being taught in the
schools.

We as a, we, as Puerto Rican people, are also a very oral society. And I
think very early on, many of us did not go actually to schools, you know,
because we didn't have access in Puerto Rico has always been very, very
poor economically. So a lot of what we learned, we learn through stories.
And a lot of those stories were music, were told through the music. And
we, we knew we played instruments. The maracas, and guitara, all of these
instruments that are, instruments that remind us every day of our Puerto
Rican history and culture, was a way for us to make a connection back to
Puerto Rico. And I think that's what the students, why the students would
take the class, because they somewhere somehow heard about this, they
may not have heard about, you know, how many provinces there are in
Puerto Rico, how many districts in Puerto Rico, but they did hear the but
the music, and that there was, it was just a course that everybody wanted,
wanted to take. In that course, they were able to make connections, not
just the contemporary music of the time, which at that time, would have
been mambo, cha-cha, all of those kinds of things, but even go back
further, and learn about the danzas and the plenas, the bombas. And
through that they would learn the culture. And so it was, it was a very
exciting and interesting way. And, you know, till today we see that, you
know, we see that the music for us is just incredibly important.

What were some of the words?

Milga Morales Nadal Oh, God. So, you know, it's interesting, because you were talking about

the different songs I'm thinking now about children's songs, [sings song in
Spanish] probably not exactly those words. But those were those are the
kinds of things that they will talk about in the course, and people would
remember. But we also learned, of course, the Puerto Rican national


Pam Sporn

anthem, and we learned that there was a different version of the Puerto
Rican national anthem, which we didn't know is a revolutionary version.
So so much it was so rich was very, very rich.

[01:29:11]
At what point did you feel it was necessary to demand departments rather
than just Institutes tell me about that.

Milga Morales Nadal So we early on in, in terms of the Puerto Rican Studies Institute, we early

Pam Sporn

on realized that every year we would have to ask for funding for the
Institute. And it became clear to us, particularly through the experiences of
our Director, who had worked with ASPIRA and with other groups, it
became very clear to us that we would have to ask for something more
permanent. And the more permanent organization at Brooklyn College is
called a department. A department is a place where you would have
tenured professors, not, folks that would have to be hired every, year, or
what we call adjuncts coming in as part timers, these would be, these
would be professors that will, would be with us full time, we knew that we
needed something where we could go to a professor and that professor
would be there, like the following week, and the following year, you
know, and not someone that was just coming here for maybe six months,
and then had to leave right away. So how do we do that, the only way that
we can do that is by having a department that actually needed at least five
professors to be tenured in it. And that would take a long time. But we
were willing to make that commitment, because we knew we wanted to
institutionalize the Institute of Puerto Rican Studies, and the only way that
we can institutionalize it would be as a Department of Puerto Rican
Studies.

Was it 123, did they say ok now we have a department or...

Milga Morales Nadal Yeah. So you know, we wanted a Department of Puerto Rican Studies at

Brooklyn College because we wanted to institutionalize the Institute of
Puerto Rican Studies, there were a number of different ways to do that
with strategies. And clearly, there was a strategy of dealing with the
administration, and telling them, this is what we want. And so the Director
of the Institute of Puerto Rican Studies, being a Director at the college had
influenced and could do that. But politically, everyone would want to be a
Departments other folks wanted to be Departments in Brooklyn College.
So we needed to make sure that they understood why, we needed a
department. So we needed to actually say, develop a rationale and a
mission for the Department, which we had to basically sell to the rest of
the campus. And as you know, very being very consistent we wanted a
department where there was research was being done, where there would
be curriculum would be taught in would be a focus on, our experiences,
and particularly Puerto Rican experience. And where we would have a


commitment to the community, continued commitment to service in the
community.

So we had to actually sell that mission at the college. We did have, we did
get a lot of support from the Department of Africana Studies at that time,
they were called Africana Studies. And we got commitment from other
progressive faculty as well that supported the Department. But we also
made sure that we in the Department itself, created something called a
steering committee. And so as part of that steering committee, we made
sure to include students, we made sure to include faculty and even
community members and faculty from other departments of the college.
So there was a strategy that we use, because we knew that they weren't
just going to say, oh, sure, you can have a department tomorrow, that
wasn't going to happen, it would take a lot. And subsequently, we found
how much it would take, because at one point, we wanted to elect a chair
for the Department of Puerto Rican Studies at Brooklyn College. And
basically, we had a search committee, and the search committee was made
of people from the Department. I'm sorry, two people from the Institute of
Puerto Rican Studies...

Milga Morales Nadal So, at one point. In order to get a Department of Puerto Rican Studies at
Brooklyn College, one of the strategies that we used was to make sure that
we had a steering committee made up of students, faculty, staff, and even
community members. Together, we worked to start talking about who
would chair the Institute of Puerto Rican Studies, once it becomes a
department. And we through, with the College of working with the college
and the administration, we came up with a search committee and the
search committee included not just people from the department. I'm sorry,
again, from the Institute of Puerto Rican Studies, the search committee
included people from the Institute of Puerto Rican Studies, and it included
people from the from the college itself. Those everybody worked together
and came up with some candidates that would be very qualified to run our
Department of Puerto Rican Studies. The candidate that the steering
committee in the Department of Puerto Rican Studies agreed upon was
Maria Sanchez.

[01:34:36]

Maria Sanchez was an elementary school supervisor, many, many years in
education. Also very, very committed to the study of Puerto Rican Studies
itself and culture and history. And very knowledgeable. There was another
candidate that interviewed for the position who had come from Puerto
Rico, and that candidate had really no knowledge of the Puerto Rican
diaspora, had no idea of, you know what was going on here in terms of our
struggles, and how we got to where we were, where we could actually
grow into a Department of Puerto Rican Studies.


Pam Sporn

It was determined by the college that they would not recognize that we
were in support of Maria Sanchez, and that they would, that they wanted,
that they made a decision that Elba Lugo, who was the candidate that the
administration definitely said that they wanted, would be put into place,
she would be the next chair of the department.

As aresult of that, we definitely decided, nope, this is time that we have to
take a position. Because if we're going to be a department, and we're going
to have an autonomy, as a Department at the college, then we also have to
be able to elect the person that's going to lead that department. And for
that, many of us decided that it wasn't going to happen unless we did a
number of things, including going back to our rallies and marches, and
demonstrations, and working with the allies that we, that we could find on
the on the campus and off campus.

So what year was this and were you still a student?

Milga Morales Nadal At that time, I had just,, so in the in the year that the department was I'm

Pam Sporn

Milga Morales Nadal

Milga Morales Nadal

sorry. In the year that the Institute was, was to be made a Department that
we were struggling for the Department to be created from the Institute. In
that year, I was already a counselor at Brooklyn College. And as a
counselor it was was very exciting for me because I was able to work with
students, bringing them in and providing orientation and making sure that
they felt comfortable at Brooklyn College and not intimidated, like when I
had entered the college. So I was doing my work as counselor. But we also
had a Latino Faculty and Staff organization. And that organization, I was a
member of and through that organization continued to do my political
work on the campus.

Okay, so you were able to win the Department.

Right, we were able to get a Department of Puerto Rican Studies, and we
decided that we should keep the Institute of Puerto Rican Studies because
the Institute would allow us to do work that the Department would
normally not be doing. The night that the BC 44 were arrested at Brooklyn
College, in the struggle to bring Maria Sanchez in as the chair of the
Department of Puerto Rican Studies, I, during that time, I was pregnant,
nine months with my daughter, her name is Lenina. So you will know that
she's since become also very active in various struggles. I was outside and
actually saw everyone being brought in, to the what they call the paddy
wagon and being arrested that evening, including my husband as well.
[transition]

Where they learn more about who they are, and how much they don't
know about their culture and their history. So even if they're from another
country, it actually impacts them in a way that they want to learn more,


Pam Sporn

and they go out and they study. And so it's, it's a Department that is not
only academic, but it educates. It truly educates in a reflective way, ina
very Freirian in the sense that in the Department, you're not just asked to
write papers, and to do assignments, but you're asked to get involved and
to get engaged. And not just in the course itself. But outside of the
Department as well. There's an expectation that you're going to follow the
mission of the Department, which is yes, you're going to do your research,
you're going to be professional in your career but you're also going to be
committed to your community. And we have from the ASPIRA logo, an
expression that ASPIRA uses a triple A process, awareness, analysis and
action. And I think that that definitely has been something that has guided
us those three words have guided us in the Department. And till today,
everyone and anyone who has taken courses in the Department, I feel they
have something positive to say about it. Sometimes they don't even get the
best grades but they're excited about having gone through the courses,
about the friends that they've met, about how much it means to their
families when they come back knowing more and more about their history
and their culture. So for us, it's, it's a great, it truly is a great asset and it's a
great victory that we till today have a Department of Puerto Rican Studies
when in some cases in some areas of the college, some colleges, it doesn't
exist in the same way that it used to.

[01:40:07]

So we began this conversation with you telling me about your early
childhood experience and coming to college. You’ve had quite a career at
Brooklyn College. Can you, what's been the, the impact on you,
personally, in terms of your early activism and where did you, where did it
take you in your career at Brooklyn College.

Milga Morales Nadal So I believe that my career Brooklyn College is pretty much of a circle. I

started off not knowing a lot about who I was, even though I did get
support for learning of who I was, but definitely the college was not there
with that information, what I needed the history and the culture. So I went
forward, I, with many others struggled, and we made some changes in the
college. I've tried to stay consistent with that, in whatever position I've
had. And I've been at the college for many, many years. And I've just
recently retired. But I've tried to stay consistent with trying to make an
impact wherever I was. So when I did my counseling work at Brooklyn
College, and that's how I started, as a professional at the college, I
continued to work with students, so that they would create organizations,
we had the Puerto Rican Alliance. From that we grew into something
called the Latin Women's group, we had many different organizations, a
Student Union for Bilingual Education, all of those organizations came in
and I was directly involved with the creation of those, coming through
then, becoming a faculty member of the college, I went and got a degree at
another university, I got my doctorate in developmental psychology, I


Pam Sporn

came back and taught in the School of Education, in the bilingual program
in the School of Education. So I was able to work again with our students
and making sure that they were cognizant of the Department of Puerto
Rican Studies, what it offered, and what it offered our community and to
make sure that the students that graduated from that program, you know,
were very conscious of that and we continue to fight for it, and we always
talked about, you've got to continue to fight, you know, we got to maintain
this, then going on to working as, in the administration of the college,
which was very challenging. Becoming a Dean in the in the college also
gave me an opportunity to do things that maybe I couldn't do as a
professor. And I would be able to sponsor conferences, where we brought
in people from Puerto Rico, but also from other places, you know, in the
United States and beyond and talked about what are the themes that we
think are important.

So as a Dean, I was able to create many different opportunities for
students to also learn extra, in an extra curricular way things about the
Department of Puerto Rican Studies, but also things that would be helpful
for them as young people. We wanted to recognize students who made a
difference. And basically, we were looking for students that were making
progressive change, and that were taking action in their communities. So
being in the administration, I was able to actually promote programs that
focused on that and those programs are still they're still there today. And
finally becoming Vice President at the college for Student Affairs, that
gave me a more global picture of what's going on with students in the
campus. And again, facing many challenges, but learning a lot. So my
learning has not stopped, from the very beginning as we talked about
earlier, as I talked about earlier, till now, I am still learning. And I guess, I
will continue to learn.

Last question. How does the formation of APREE connect to this moment
that you arrived at Brooklyn College campus in the early in the late 1960s,
as a student.

Milga Morales Nadal APREE begins to be formed, APREE, the Alliance and Puerto Rican

Education and Empowerment begins to be formed by a number of us that
were actually there in the “60s together, really the founders of APREE,
and we felt like yes, some of us are going to be retiring. But we're not
going to be retiring from our commitment to continue to do the work that
we've been doing to continue to struggle. So APREE would give us an
opportunity to support the Department of Puerto Rican Latino Studies,
other progressive departments that are doing similar work, and as
outsiders then from the college, we would be able to advocate and then be
able to do things that sometimes you can't do from within, we can do from
without.


Pam Sporn

In the late 60s, we read many reports that had been written about Puerto
Rican students in the schools. And we saw that they were not doing as
well as students that were considered students, the majority, which were
mostly the White students in the schools, and we had a lot of concerns.
And a lot of the things that we did to, that we created were as a result of
also being very familiar with those reports. Till today, we find that we
have lesser number of students in the schools that are Puerto Rican. But
many of them are facing the same trials and tribulations that were faced by
the young Puerto Rican children of the ‘50s and ‘60s.

[01:45:52]

Does this situation add to your commitment to with a feeling that there's,
there's still such a need for the Department of Puerto Rican Studies and an
organization like APREE.

Milga Morales Nadal The populations of Latino students have changed in CUNY and in the

Tami Gold

school system, so that you don't have as many Puerto Rican students, but
the need for a department that has a vision and a mission, like the
Department of Puerto Rican Studies, has not changed. because it not only
supports and services, Puerto Rican students, but it services students from
all different backgrounds, and with its commitment to community, its
commitment to service, its commitment to committed research, and its
commitment to an inclusive curriculum. That is something that all students
benefit from.

Did that influence your struggle at all? The independence movement.

Milga Morales Nadal My father was a sympathizer of the Nationalist Party. And so I grew up

always understanding that there was a colonial relationship between
Puerto Rico and the United States. And I believed at that time, and still
believe that a lot of the problems that the island of Puerto Rico is suffering
and has suffered through so many years, the exploitation, the exploitation
of its resources, the situation that we have, where Puerto Rico is still the
poorest of the territories, or the states, all of those things have an, have had
an influence on my work, I can never leave that part out. So of course, I
also became very active during my college years as well, with the
movement pro independence, which then eventually became the Puerto
Rican well, this particular movement, pro independence, we call it the
MPI, which eventually became the Puerto Rican Socialist Party and I
became a member of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party and actively worked
in various communities here in Brooklyn, in Sunset Park in Williamsburg.
Lalso became a staff writer for the main organ of the Puerto Rican
Socialist Party, which was a newspaper called Claridad, and learned a lot
more Spanish, because I had to write in Spanish, I always had these great
opportunities not only putting together an article in terms politically you
know, what was going to be said and the facts for a particular article but


Tami Gold

also actually having to use my, my Spanish as well. And so till this day I,
we stay committed and the Alliance for Puerto Rican Education and
Empowerment, also recognizes that we cannot talk about just a diaspora
we have to talk about the island because the fact that the diaspora is here is
because of what's going on in the island and the colonial relationship with
Puerto Rico.

So, are you sad when you think about the devastation there now, because
it makes me very sad. All these years of struggling and how Puerto Rican,
Puerto Rico the island hurts so bad.

Milga Morales Nadal [01:49:23]

We recently had a devastation on the island with major, a major storm and
we know all about that. But one thing that I realized is how much people
here are connected to the island. You know, I'm so proud when I see our
young people that they know how to dance, they know how to, you know,
they keep the language and we were told when I was getting my doctorate,
I was told by the third generation everybody would lose Spanish, and
that's not the case. So our communities are staying connected when the
devastation of the storm happened in Puerto Rico. Maria happens in
Puerto Rico and Irma. We all here, definitely organized and supported
Puerto Rico. We were extremely happy to see that in the when, when we
we heard about the corruption that we knew had been going on for a long
time, but became very clear with the arrest of significant figures in the
Puerto Rican government for having taken funds, particularly federal
funds and to be used for themselves. When we heard that they, in fact,
were going to be ousted from the government and the people were very
upset about that isxn Puerto Rico, I happened to be a few days there
during that time, especially when the Secretary of Education in Puerto
Rico, Kelleher was ousted for being part of this whole corruption, we were
particularly glad because we had seen what she had done during the storm
and after, where they closed up so many schools in Puerto Rico, schools
that the community needed, that were not just a source of education in the
community, but a source of people meeting, and families getting together,
you know, it was, it was the hope of the community. And so we were
actually felt good that this person was found out and discovered and,
ousted. But however, you know, we were wondering what else was going
to happen on the island, and subsequently, we find out that there's a social
media, as actually given us an opportunity to organize for against
colonization, and for the people of Puerto Rico, because through the social
media, we find out that a number of folks, especially the governor of
Puerto Rico, were actually making comments, negative comments, not
only about the Puerto Rican people that were lost in the, in the storm, as a
result of the storm, the 1400 people that were not counted originally and
that died in the storm, was making fun of them and making fun of people
just because of their bodies and their, you know, what they looked like,


and that made a big impact on Puerto Rican people, because it was such a,
it was just such disrespect. And I and we feel that they, many people in
Puerto Rico, the were not that had been like, sort of sitting in the
background for a while, got clearly more interested than ever before and it
touched them. It touched them in ways that other things had not touched
them. And so we see the Puerto Rican people raise up, rise up and it's
continuing. So we're moving forward and when we're addressing not only
the issues of the economy, but we're also addressing the issues of
colonization as well.

[End of recorded material at 01:52:50]