This article was adapted from a speech presented at "A Strategy for the Future: Building a Latino Agenda at Harvard," a conference held at the Kennedy School of Government on Saturday, April 6, 1996, and sponsored by El Concilio Latino. Latinos from the College and each of the graduate schools were invited; the purpose of the conference was to enlist undergraduate and graduate students to build a long-term strategy to advance the Latino community at Harvard. By the end of the day, five Action Teams--addressing Structure, Alumni Outreach, Communication, Community Outreach and Service, and Diversity--were created to implement different parts of the strategy that was mapped out during the day.

The Young Lords Organization started in New York City in January, 1969. They were based on the Black Panther model of community organizing, and their goal was the liberation of Puerto Ricans both in the United States and on the island. One of their first documented instances of confrontational activism occurred on July 1969. The following passage, recounting the events, is taken from the Young Lords Organization newsletter, Palante!

"In a display of community strength and support of the Young Lords Organization (YLO), the people of East Harlem (El Barrio), and the YLO closed the streets of Third Ave. from 110th, across to 112th and down to Second Ave. on Sunday, July 27, 1969.

"For the two weeks previously, the Young Lords had been cleaning garbage from the streets and into garbage cans to show the people that the department of garbage, or DOG, does not serve them.... [T]he people saw that even a nothing department like DOG looks upon Puerto Ricans as though they are something lower than garbage. These dogs at DOG have forgotten that they must serve the people. And it all blew up Sunday.

"By July 27, the original operation had grown to such a large number of people, not just including Lords, that the brooms and shovels we were using were not enough. So four Lords--the Deputy Ministers of Finance, Information, and Education and an information photographer--went to the nearest DOG hole at 108th St. After some Bureaucratic Bullshitting they steered us to the DOG hole at 73rd St. Dig it! Two miles away, while a hole was sitting three blocks away.

"After playing the man's game of red tape, the Lords brought it all back home. We ran it down about what happened and a course of action was developed. As fast as it takes a streetlight to change, all the People--Lords, mothers, Li'l Lords placed cans of garbage across Third Ave. at 110th St. The pigs, who have been eyeing the Lords for the past few weeks in New York, came to the scene in a matter of seconds. Sources on the blocks say the pigs had trucks waiting a few blocks away.... Brothers and Sisters on 111th and 112th caught that old revolutionary spirit last seen in '66, and blocked the streets too.

"When the garbage truck finally did show, the man vainly tried his game once more. For all those streets filled with garbage, DOG sent one Puerto Rican Brother. The people wouldn't fall for this cheap trick, and finally two white garbage men patted the junk into place while the brother hustled it into the truck. Afterwards a rally was held at 112th St. The cats in the street agreed that:

"The streets belong to the People!

The moon belongs to the People!

Power to the People!"

--YLO, Palante!, January, 1970.

The first time I heard of the Young Lords and their political militancy I was probably nine or ten years old, and I felt that my whole future was suddenly settled. That's what I was going to do. I was going to get 1,000 people to throw their garbage into the middle of the street--that would teach "the man" that he couldn't mess with us. Seven or eight years later, while sitting in my high school headmaster's office threatened with suspension for refusing to stand during a crackly, pre-recorded rendition of the "Star Spangled Banner" played at the induction exercises of the local National Honor Society chapter, I realized that this man, this white man in Puerto Rico, was paying no attention to my actions or what they were meant to imply. He actually asked me whether I had been feeling ill during the anthem, giving me what he supposed was an easy way out of the mess I had very willingly jumped into. It occurred to me then that perhaps throwing garbage into the streets or sitting during the American anthem (as forced a comparison as that may seem), was not the greatest way to respond to whatever injustice I was encountering.

The following year I came to Harvard, my politically active past (or childhood rather) in hand, ready to combat the racist America I had grown up so close to yet so distant from. Having grown up in Puerto Rico, I had heard stories of the "American Dream" from my many relatives who had brincado el charco from the island to the "mainland." I have to admit that I was at best reluctant to accept their rosy expectations, for I had heard that Puerto Ricans in the United States didn't necessarily do as well as my relatives seemed to believe they would. In fact, I had read that Puerto Ricans, who in 1992 made up a little over 50 percent of New York City's Latino population and 12.2 percent of the city's total population, fared horribly in their new home. Puerto Ricans, I knew, did worse than all other Latinos throughout the United States. Their median family income, $19,933, was $4,000 below the median Latino family income, and $16,000 below the median non-Latino family income. In 1992, 30 percent of Puerto Ricans in the US lived below the poverty level, compared to 23.4 percent of Chicanos, 12.5 percent of Cubans, and 9.2 percent of non-Latino families.

But apart from the economic hardships Puerto Ricans faced in the US, there clearly existed deeper-rooted problems. Where were the Puerto Rican faces at the top, I wondered? Where were the Latinos in power? While on my little island I had heard of César Chávez a few times, I knew that Henry Cisneros was around, and I knew, of course that Antonia Novello, a Puerto Rican woman, was George Bush's Surgeon General. But honestly, that was all the knowledge of Latinos in the US that I had. And that was not enough.

So here I was at Harvard, frantically searching for somewhere to turn, something that I could do. Surely, I thought, among the hundreds of extracurricular activities that Harvard offered, there was a Puerto Rican organization. But there wasn't, not by the time I got here. Apparently there had been one, La Organización Estudiantil Boricua (La O), but it had disappeared the year before. So I thought, "Oh, my God, this can't happen, this needs to be fixed." After approaching several former members of La O, as well as other first-years, it was agreed that the organization needed to be restarted -- surprisingly enough, nothing happened.

Then this year something happened, or at least seemed to. La O came back into action--a board was elected, grants were applied for, events were planned, and meetings were scheduled. But, as I and the newly elected board soon found out, something was still wrong. At the first meeting, approximately 30 people showed up, an exciting number but, unfortunately, only a temporary success. The second meeting had about 15 people present; the next two meetings averaged five members, including the four-person board. When the initial membership list had been drawn up, there were well over 50 people on it, none of whom had been arbitrarily designated as members. All these people had at some time either signed up or otherwise expressed interest in being a part of the organization. At the end of all the hard work I and a few others had invested in reuniting the Puerto Rican community at Harvard, we had nothing. In fact, a few weeks ago, a meeting was called by the leaders of several Latino organizations on campus, all Latinos were invited. I counted no more than four or five Puerto Ricans there.

I think the question that must be answered if anything is to be learned from the recent history of the Puerto Rican undergraduate community, is: why? Why was the initial momentum lost so quickly? Why were so few people fazed by the repeat disappearance of an organization able to provide a unified Puerto Rican voice? Though I am sure that whatever answer I can provide will be biased and incomplete, my response is division--whether internally generated or externally imposed. As Latinos we are divided among Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, etc., and as Puerto Ricans we align ourselves as either from the island or the "mainland." Latinos represent only about 7 percent of Harvard's undergraduate student body. By creating divisions we can only weaken ourselves.

So, in closing, I guess the point of my many anecdotes is to highlight how important the work we are doing today is. We need to work together, regardless of our differing ethnicities and identifications within our ethnicity, and we need to prepare ourselves to make history.