The idea for this section began almost two years ago in a discussion with José E. López, the Executive Director of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center. We discussed being able to “do something” with the writings, poems, graphics and other media assets that we had rescued from the corroded Zip disks I had found them on.
In 2014, long after Ramón had returned to Barranquitas to take care of the home that his aunt had bequeathed him, he left me a touching voicemail thanking me for rescuing “years of work.” Upon his departure from Chicago, most of Ramón’s computer equipment had been repurposed almost immediately, and the storage media made its way into a milk crate, where it lay comfortably for years. Later, as part of a clean-up, the milk crate made it to my office, where I decided to try to rescue the files on the drives.
It took almost 8 months, on and off, of cleaning and converting files into text files, old file format PICT into jpgs and then into pngs, and finally, burning them onto two CDs and mailing them to Ramón. Hence the voicemail.
Thank you to:
• Ruben Gerena, for always responding cheerfully to my last-minute requests.
• Jan Susler, for reviewing the English translation of Elizam Escobar’s essay on Ramón.
• Greg Bozell and Barbara Popovich, formerly of CAN-TV, for permission to use the videotaping of Ramón López.
• Clarisa López Ramos, for always stepping up and proofreading and/or translating articles.
• Eduardo Arocho, for enthusiastically embracing the concept when I spoke to him about it, and contributing an updated version of his poem about Ramón and the audio interview of Ramón.
• Alida Millan Ferrer, for agreeing to the concept of a simultaneous posting of the Spanish language content of the “Ramón López en Chicago” section on the Claridad website, for last-minute proofreading, and being flexible to last-minute changes.
• Dr. Michael Rodríguez Muñiz, fellow PRCC Board member, for immediately agreeing to my request for an introductory essay.
• Carlos Quiles, también, for supporting the idea from its inception and for agreeing to write the essay on the Puerto Rico side.
• José E. López, for agreeing to publish the “Ramón López in Chicago” section on the La Voz del Paseo Boricua website.
