Still en La Lucha

Timely issues impacting the Latino community

Episode #1: AfroLatinos Presente

by

“Manuel Mendez, founder and Chair of the DC Afro Latino Caucus and noted community activist, shares powerful narratives of immigrating to the United States from the Dominican Republic, his passion for organizing and community activism, and the significance of AfroLatinidad.”

 

TRANSCRIPT:

[Music Open and Voice Over]

NELSON CRUZ: Hello y bienvenidos a “Still in La Lucha”, where we discuss current and emerging issues impacting the Latino community. I’m your host, Nelson Cruz.

[Music rises and fades]

MANUEL MENDEZ: I came to the United States in 1991.

[Voiceover]

NELSON CRUZ: That is Manuel Mendez, the Chair for the DC Afro-Latino Caucus. Manny as his loved ones call him, was born in the Dominican Republic and moved to Washington DC at the age of nine. After graduating from Bell Multicultural High School, he earned his bachelor’s degree in African Studies and Communications from Antioch College. Manny’s passion for supporting positive youth development and the issues that plague the African diaspora are ever apparent themes in his pursuit for affecting progressive change in his community.

MANUEL MENDEZ: When we came to the United States, obviously I’m from the Dominican Republic, I’m from um the capital, Santo Domingo, and when I decided to come to the United States because it really was me that wanted to come to the United States because my grandfather was here already, and I wanted to be with my grandparents. I wanted to be with my grandmother and my grandfather because I loved them so much and it was amazing to be here.

[Music rises and fades]

[Voiceover]

NELSON CRUZ: Manny’s story is the story of many immigrants. We come to the United States seeking a better life with family being at the cornerstone of that journey. While many of our stories are often ones of resilience, they are also ones of struggle, sacrifice, and hard work.

MANUEL MENDEZ: My mom struggled through the first few years of us being here because of the language, because of being a woman, because of being a black Dominican, because we were poor. When new immigrants come to this country, especially black immigrants come [to this country], we never think about their struggles. When we came here in 1991, we moved with our grandmother, and my grandmother had uncles. My uncles were living there and they worked full-time and part-time and my grandmother too — My grandmother worked at American University cleaning their dorms. One of the limitations my mom had was that she had to find a job because there were two extra mouths to feed. So one of my favorite stories of how my mom got employed is the story of “Lenin’s of the Week” and how she would wake up at 5 00 a.m in the morning, on a regular basis, for two to three weeks and went to “Lenin’s of the Week” to stand in front of the manager and asked for a job,  and she did that. I Mean, it took a lot for someone like my mom to do that, she’s a strong woman. She stood there for three weeks before the guy, the manager, I guess took into consideration that she was there, you know every single five a.m in the morning and gave her a job. 

[Voiceover]

NELSON CRUZ: Being an immigrant child in DC during the 90s was tough, but Manny prevailed. Following his time at Raymond Elementary, he attended Garnet Patterson Middle School and later went on to Bell Multicultural High School, present-day Columbia Heights Educational Campus (CHEC). Here, Manny would discover his passion for organizing and community activism. 

MANUEL MENDEZ: One of my earliest memories of why I do what I do today is the 1997-98 year at Bell Multicultural, was which was my freshman year at Bell Multicultural High School. Obviously, you see it now with the modern building, but back then, we had an old rinky-dink building where a lot of things were not being taken care of. So the school had a leak and it was very hard for the DC public system to take care of, and they wanted to shut the school down. So during the summer of 97-98, we were bussed from Hyatt Street to Wisconsin Avenue and took classes in the summer at UDC. The seniors wanted their school and so the adults helped them organize a walkout and we walked out from Wisconsin Avenue and we walked all the way to Hyatt Street.

[Bumper]

NELSON CRUZ: Mi gente, I’m Nelson Cruz, and you are tuned in to “Still in La Lucha,” a podcast discussing current and emerging issues impacting the Latino community.

MANUEL MENDEZ: So that’s what switches at the time when I’m beginning to be a teenager. To think about how I can be an organizer — someone that makes things better for DC residents, youth, and mind you I want to say this clearly too, there were a lot of teachers that helped us during the way, you know that helped us process what was going on during that time. I had great teachers bro, who nurtured my direction, once they knew that I cared about the community, it was over. So a lot of my high school years were about being an activist. I was everywhere, so wherever there was a protest I was there. For affordable housing downtown, community events, wherever there was a speaker, I was there.

[Music rises and fades]

NELSON CRUZ: Manny’s conviction to the community did not stop there, he went on to attend Antioch College, an institution in Yellow Springs, Ohio known for nurturing and cultivating Activists. Manny continued his community work throughout his college years, and by the time graduation came around, it was clear what he wanted to do.

MANUEL MENDEZ: After I graduated from Antioch, I wanted to come back to DC. I wanted to be here because my mentors that were at Bell and outside of Bell, gave me so much as I said, I was nurtured by the community and so I had a responsibility to come back to Washington, DC.

[Voiceover]

NELSON CRUZ: Following his return to DC, Manny worked as a youth coordinator for nearly a decade, providing safe and nurturing spaces for hundreds of youth, like me, to pursue their passions. After his tenure as a youth coordinator, Manny landed an opportunity that has allowed him to further engrain himself in the community.

MANUEL MENDEZ: I said okay, so what do I want to do next and the next thing was, I love books. I love being around books, even if I don’t have time to read all the books, I love books. So I said the library, the public library gives me the space to read books, to organize, and to be a consistent face. 

[Voiceover]

NELSON CRUZ: Being at the library allowed Manny to gain the trust of many elder Afro-Latino activists in the area. This became the impetus for the creation of CarasLindas, a podcast and audio repository of Afro-Latino stories, and the DC Afro-Latino Caucus, an advocacy organization geared towards Afro-Latino issues.

MANUEL MENDEZ: So one of the things I thought about when thinking about the DC Afro-Latino Caucus and CarasLindas was Afro-Latino folks history, Afro-Latinos in general, are Forgotten, intentionally hidden. Someone like Nestor [Hernandez] whose photography is almost everywhere but we don’t have tangible things to move it to the next generation. My next step is to get this Ph.D. in Information Services to be a gatekeeper of the information of our community. Because when we talk about Latino history in Washington D.C., our history is never told, it’s told slightly, it’s told in bits, but the Black Latino history in Washington, D.C., has never been told.

[Music rises and fades] 

[Voiceover & Closing]

NELSON CRUZ: I want to give a huge shout-out to my mentor and brother, Manuel Mendez for joining us on our inaugural episode. Join the conversation on social media using the hashtag#StillInLaLucha and tell us what you thought about this episode. Until next time seguimos en la lucha.

[Music rises and fades]

 

SHOW NOTES:

Manuel Mendez: