ALAN LUPO

Politicos Latinos

ALAN LUPO — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:51:18 GMT

The growing clout of the Hispanic community
This article originally appeared in the February 22, 1983 issue of the Boston Phoenix.

This article originally appeared in the February 22, 1983 issue of the Boston Phoenix.

From Aguadilla and San Lorenzo, from Barranquitas and Arecibo, they made their way to San Juan and hopped a $75 flight to Boston. Or they took the subway from the Bronx to the New York Port Authority terminal in Manhattan and caught a bus to Boston for eight bucks. Like so many groups before them, they found fetid apartments in once stately row houses in the South End and settled in to wait. They waited in the barely furnished apartments with the stained ceilings and the cracked plaster, waited for opportunities that could not be found in Aguadilla and Arecibo. They waited under the anxious gaze of their kids, under the compassionate eyes of the painting of Jesus, under the compelling gaze of the photo of the other messiah, Kennedy.

A few died waiting. Some migrated elsewhere. Some gave up. Some made it. Carmelo Iglesias, a young social worker in the 1960s, walked up and down the creaky stairs to their apartments to console them. He drank with the young men in a Tremont Street bar. He talked with the kids and old-timers on the corners of a South End just beginning to gentrify. One night, with a reporter in tow, Iglesias looked up from the street to the Pru, all lit up with the promise of a night out on the town - if you had a fat wallet. What does a Puerto Rican kid think, he was asked, if he stands there, looking up at such a sight? “If he’s introspective,” Iglesias said, “he’d probably want to take a rifle and blow every damn light out.” It was 1966.

It is 1983. The other night, Carmelo Iglesias, still counseling the needy, met with 20 others, many of them Latinos, in a nice restaurant. Nobody in the room believed that life here and now for the Puerto Rican, the Costa Rican, the Colombian, the Dominican is easy and full with promise. But in the years since he looked up at the Pru, Iglesias has seen Spanish-speaking teachers hired in the schools, translators put on duty in hospital emergency rooms, bilingual education implemented for the kids. Creating such change was not easy, nor are the changes enough. But they are the beginning of what is, in part, a political story of a community scrapping for its place in this most intensely politicized state. The meeting the other night was to discuss building a sophisticated city-wide organization to run a Puerto Rican, Felix Arroyo, for the Boston School Committee.

You could look it up

ALAN LUPO — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:52:23 GMT

The all-star alternatives
This article originally appeared in the February 8, 1983 issue of the Boston Phoenix.

This article originally appeared in the February 8, 1983 issue of the Boston Phoenix.

Okay, Bourbob Bondurant, this one’s on you.

Sportswriters are the only journalists who still enjoy themselves. And no wonder. They’re always being asked to name the best this and the greatest that. I’m not a sportswriter, though I have had moments of joy. I was pleased, for example, with Truman’s victory over Dewey. But my opinion is never sought. The other day, the NBA All-Stars were picked, and a bit earlier, the all-time, very bestest and goodest Red Sox team was selected. Neither was done with my input. So I’ll offer my own choices and let those who never solicited my views bemoan their guilt of omission.

In an age of psycho-history, when we now know so much more about the motivation of Santa Anna, the complex id of Hereward the Wake, and the subliminal personality quirks of Count Andrei Ivanovich Osterman, why should we limit our selection of historic jocks by judging on ability alone? I have here some all-star offerings that break through the narrow definition that most sportswriters and fans apply to all-star selections, that definition being one’s ability to play the game in question.

If, for example, I were to pick an all-star football team, I would avoid the obvious choices. You’d not find Hugh McElhenny, Johnny Unitas, Red Grange, Jimmy Brown, or Sid Luckman on my squad. You would find, however, Arrowhead, Deadeye, Deer Slayer, Red Fang, and Red Fox. I have no idea if those guys had any first names, and if those happen to be their first names, then I guess I don’t have any idea if they had any last names. Those names, as listed on the roster, are sufficient. They played for the 1922 Oorang Indians. Their teammates included a running back named Laughing Gas, a guard with a moniker of Wrinkle Meat, an end who used the handle Joe Little Twig, and some gentlemen with the most musical names in pro-sports history—Reginald Attaché, Hippo Broker, Xavier Downwind, and Baptiste Thunder. Trouble was that the Chicago Bears of that year had come up with the likes of Gaylord Stinchcomb, a quarterback, and Bourbob Bondurant, a guard. In a league with 18 teams, the Oorang Indians finished a poor 12th, despite the presence of some legitimate greats like Jim Thorpe, Pete Calac, and Joe Guyon. The Bears made it to second place and lost to the Canton Bulldogs, among them one Fats, one Link, one Duke, and two Dutches.