An Interview with José E López, Executive Director of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center
CLARIDAD, the newspaper of the Puerto Rican independence movement, will honor, among others, the Chicago-based Juan Antonio Corretjer Puerto Rican Cultural Center (PRCC) and its leader, José E. López, at its annual festival. In a message to López, the editorial board of the newspaper wrote, “For CLARIDAD, the Center and its founder and leader, our beloved colleague José López Rivera, are among our most loyal friends and allies. Their tireless work in defense of the rights and values of the Puerto Rican community there, and their extraordinary collaboration with our newspaper and the struggles of our people, earn them the deepest respect and gratitude of those who recognize all Puerto Ricans as sons and daughters of the same nation, no matter where they are.”
The PRCC was established in 1973, in the wake of the 1966 Division Street Riot, the first urban uprising in the Puerto Rican diaspora. Since its first year, the organization has developed over forty grassroots programs and community-building initiatives that have confronted the educational, health, economic, housing, and community needs and conditions of local Puerto Ricans and other marginalized populations. These include, among others, a bilingual childcare, an LGBTQ+ education and empowerment program, a youth leadership and employment program, a diabetes and obesity prevention program, rooftop gardens and fresh produce delivery, support for entrepreneurial small businesses and affordable housing, a community newspaper, and several major annual events, such as the Puerto Rican People’s Day Parade and Fiesta Boricua. Throughout its over fifty-year history, the PRCC has also defended the inalienable right to Puerto Rican independence and self-determination and played a pivotal role in struggles to free multiple generations of Puerto Rican political prisoners and prisoners of war, among other anticolonial campaigns. It has also exercised solidarity with other colonized and racialized peoples and nurtured connections across the Puerto Rican diaspora and archipelago. Consuelo Lee Corretjer’s ethical dictum, “Live and help others to live,” has been put into practice through these local, diasporic, and transnational efforts.
In light of CLARIDAD newspaper’s recognition of the PRCC and its leader, sociologist Michael Rodríguez-Muñiz and historian Margaret Power, members of the PRCC Board and co-directors of its archival project, Digitizing the Barrio, interviewed José E. López about the founding of the PRCC the longstanding executive director of the organization, its anticolonial orientation, and aspirations for the future. The following is a condensed and edited transcript of the interview.
Margaret Power (MP): Who was involved in the 1973 establishment of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center?
José E. López (JEL): There were obviously several people. One of them was my brother, Oscar. Another was “El Viejo,” Reverend José Torres of the First Congressional Church, as well as several other ministers from Lutheran and Presbyterian churches. América “Mecca” Sorrentini and her late husband, geographer James Blaut, were also involved. There was a woman who left very early. Her last name was Díaz and she was a social worker. My ex-wife, Myrna Salgado was involved too, as were Alejandrina Torres and Kathy Ortiz. Haydee Beltrán, who was a student at the time, was also involved.
Multiple individuals contributed but never became completely involved in the organization, like Carmen Valentín and Lucy Rodríguez. A teacher with the last name Burgos and a Brazilian named Antonio Dos Santos, who was a good friend of my brother Oscar and Reverend Torres, were supporters, among others. Several supporters were students at the time, such as Norma Reyes, Ricardo Jimenez, and Martha Rodríguez.
Michael Rodríguez Muñiz (MRM): When did you and others begin to meet and organize what became the PRCC?
We started to look at what was happening in Latin America in particular, around the issue of the theology of liberation. Around 1968, many of us began to read the works of thinkers, such as Camilo Torres Restrepo in Colombia, Gustavo Gutiérrez-Merino Díaz in Peru, and Leonardo Boff in Brazil. We also looked at Paulo Freire. Lucy Rodríguez, for example, was at the time part of a little grouping of women called Católicas Revolucionarias, or something like that. Lucy’s family belonged to Saint Michael’s Church in Lincoln Park.
There were a lot of things happening. On the other hand, there were changes within the church and particularly in the seminaries, where they were having these serious discussions. On the one hand, there were efforts of community organizing, in which Oscar was deeply involved. These developments led us to ask, “What are we doing?” We had a huge series of issues in this community.
Oscar was trained by the Northwest Community Organization. There was a white man there, who had been a student of the famed Saul Alinsky, named Shel Trapp. He was an amazing community organizer and influenced Oscar greatly. There was also Florence Scala, a legendary organizer in Chicago’s Italian community, who was close to Oscar. Obviously, struggles in the Black community were already happening too. These networks and people fed into each other in terms of practices, in terms of support.
We started our high school with the idea, informed by liberation theology, that you shouldn’t just talk about problems. People needed immediate answers to their problems. What we should do is create parallel institutions in the community. If you looked at liberated zones in, let’s say El Salvador [during the civil war], the FMLN [Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional] created alternative institutions—parallel institutions—that provided people with what they needed, or at least addressed some of their needs, while at the same time continuing the [political] struggle. Through this process, oppressed people were becoming self-actualized, seeing that they could build things. In Chile, the MIR [Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria] also developed a series of parallel institutions. There was a documentary we saw where the MIR took over a school during the Allende administration, confronting the Ministry of Education for its inattention to a shantytown in Santiago. I say this because all these things informed what we were doing.
MRM: Where do you attribute the consciousness to focus specifically on Puerto Rican needs?
JEL: The profound attacks on Puerto Ricans by the [Chicago] police and the educational system. A 1971 study on Puerto Rican dropouts, which I contributed to, informed what led to the building of our high school. Puerto Rican youth had a 70%, almost 72%, dropout rate. What were we going to do? We could struggle for bilingual education, and we did, but this would not address these kids’ [needs] immediately, based on the themes that came out of that study. And the thing that I tell people was what these young people were saying, “Teachers hear me, [but] don’t listen to me.”
MP: What were the initial issues or problems in the community that motivated the creation of the PRCC?
JEL: Education became the dominant because, as I noted, I participated in the dropout study. I came to teach at my former high school, Tuley. I taught a course on Latin American history, which came out of our struggles. The students demanded Puerto Rican history, so I began to teach that. Soon after, I started meeting with the students after school at Association House. At the same time, a group of students at Lane Tech High School, who I believe were in the ROTC refused to wear their uniforms and were thrown out of the school. Another high school expelled another group of Puerto Rican students. A local lawyer who had an office on North Avenue began giving free legal advice to students. We joined the lawyer and those kids, and that’s how we created [Pedro Albizu Campos] High School. And when we opened the high school, we saw all the needs the students had. There was a need for food, a need for housing, a need for everything. This led us to go beyond a school to create other institutions or initiatives to address people’s needs, such as the PRCC.
MRM: At this early junction, what were the broader political goals and aspirations? When did Puerto Rican independence and self-determination become a defining principle?
JEL: Our discussions centered on self-determination, self-actualization, and self-reliance from the very beginning. For me, these ideas were linked to the notion of parallel institutions. I studied quite a bit of Brazilian history and was captivated by the quilombos, the maroon societies, in Brazil that runaway slaves and Indigenous people created during the colonial period. It made a lot of sense to me that you could develop a practice of freedom parallel to a system of oppression. That’s what the maroon societies were; they were communities of resistance.
MP: Do you think the legacy of the Nationalist Party in Chicago had any role?
JEL: Yes. I knew at least two people who were part of the Nationalist Party. One of them was an older man, a member of the Party in the 1950s, who had remained underground all the way through. He reprinted in Chicago Laura Meneses’s book about her husband, Pedro Albizu Campos. I met him. He also spent time with Oscar, my brother. Later, I found out he had also spent time with Cha Cha Jimenez of the Young Lords and even with Jaime Delgado from Chicago’s Southside. Interestingly, he had touched all of us without us even knowing it, and he did it very clandestinely.
MRM:: What can you tell us about the 1966 Division Street Riot and how it shaped community politics during that period?
JEL: [The riot] brought out, in a dramatic fashion, the contradiction between Puerto Ricans and the government. I was able to see how people organize and organize organically. I remember that since the buildings on Division Street were next to each other, people would go up the back of the stairs to reach the roof and throw bricks and things at the police. The police could not get in. On Division and Leavitt, I remember, the police almost carried a firing squad, trying to shoot people on the roof. It was a war. I always tell people that Oscar, who was in Vietnam at the time, called us, by coincidence, on the first day of the riot. Hearing the shooting and the fighting outside, he asked what was going on.
MP: Throughout much of its history, the PRCC has been a target of political repression. When did you and your comrades become aware of the FBI and other intelligence agencies?
JEL: There was a lot of awareness about the FBI, particularly because we were reading what was happening in Puerto Rico at the time.
My first personal experience of the FBI came in 1972. I had gone to Puerto Rico to research for my thesis on Puerto Rican nationalism. It was my first visit to Puerto Rico since I had left, almost 13 earlier. I had contact with Carmen Cancel, the wife of [imprisoned nationalist] Rafael Cancel Miranda. Carmen had visited Chicago and we developed a close relationship. While in Puerto Rico I stayed in her house, and from there made contact with many nationalists, including Nationalist Party President Jacinto Pérez Rivera, Vice-President Julio Pinto Gandia, and veteran of the 1950 Grito de Jayuya, Blanca Canales. During my visit, the Nationalist Party dedicated an assembly to me because they were so moved by what we were doing [in Chicago.] At the assembly, there were about 30, maybe 40, people; all were old. [This trip and contacts] are what initially brought the eyes of the FBI to me.
They came to my apartment on Damen Avenue and Augusta Boulevard. When I opened the door, [the agents] pulled out their badges and said, “Could we come in?” I said, “No, you cannot come in.” They responded, “Oh, we just want to ask you about some people.” A person they wanted to speak to me about was Juan Mari Bras, founder of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party. I said, “I have nothing to tell you… nothing for me to discuss with you.” I closed the door. That was the first time that I had contact with the FBI.
MP: What were the major challenges you faced in the early years?
JEL: We all volunteered and had jobs on the side or were doing different kinds of work. The big issue was maintaining ourselves while doing all the work. We were not just organizing the high school. We were involved in a lot of issues. We were involved in the big struggle against the electric company ComEd, demanding they hire Puerto Ricans. We were involved in the struggle at Tuley High School that led to the creation of Roberto Clemente High School. We organized a huge march against the then-superintendent of schools. We also worked to open the doors of the University of Illinois, Chicago, and Northeastern Illinois University for Puerto Rican and Latino students. So, doing all this work, there were a lot of challenges with time and resources.
MP: People were younger then and had so much energy. They didn’t do anything else. That was their life.
JEL: Yes, that was the way it worked. I mean, you were [in the struggle] 24/7.
MRM: Broadening beyond the early years, what do you see as the major shifts or continuities over the decades?
JEL: The most important part of our work has been how deeply rooted we have always been in the community. If anything, that saved us from repression, it was how much we were able to capture the imagination of the Puerto Rican people. For example, in 1979, we organized a welcome of the Nationalist political prisoners—Lolita Lebrón, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Andres Cordero, Rafael Cancel Miranda, and Irving Flores—immediately after they were freed by President Jimmy Carter. We organized the welcome with the idea that we would get about 1000 people. We put together a little caravan that left our former building on 1671 N. Claremont Street and headed to the First Congregational Church on Hamlin Street and Grand Avenue. Some of us went in a van with the Nationalists, along with about 100 people walking alongside us. But by the time we got to Division and Western, so many people had joined the caravan that we could not control the van any longer. The van was moving on people power. The following day, an editorial in the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper, claimed the crowd represented popular support for the FALN [Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña].
MRM: What lessons do you think the history and struggle that you’ve participated in offer Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rican diaspora?
JEL: I learned early on from my study of anti-colonial movements around the world that many of them had been aided and, in some cases, even nurtured by their diasporas. There would be no Irish movement, and you would not have had the incredible attempts to even settle the question of Northern Ireland without the Irish population in the United States. There probably wouldn’t be an independent Algeria without the Algerian diaspora in France. I look at how the [anticolonial] leaders of Vietnam began to organize themselves in France and that the greatest anticolonial thinker, Frantz Fanon, was an expatriate from the West Indies.
We recognized very early that we needed to be tied to the struggle in Puerto Rico. There has been no struggle in Puerto Rico over the past 50 or so years in which we have not actively participated. We participated in the struggle against the petrochemicals. We participated in the struggle against the mines. We participated in the struggle to get the U.S. military out of the islands of Culebra and Vieques. We participated in the struggle to end the gas pipeline in Puerto Rico. We participated in favor of the heroic residents in Villa Sin Miedo, who took on land seizures in the 1980s. We have also struggled against political repression at every level, against the grand jury, against political incarceration, against political assassinations. We’ve made it part of our daily struggles. After [Hurricane] María, our community was the first Puerto Rican community to land an airplane in Puerto Rico and to provide aid immediately directly to five towns.
For me, this demonstrates that we are part of an anticolonial struggle for Puerto Rico. Puerto Ricans in the U.S. are a pivotal part of that struggle. Ultimately, you cannot have a free Puerto Rico without the role and full participation of the Puerto Rican diaspora. This means that we have to immerse ourselves in the struggle [in the diaspora] and continue to link the struggles of our people here with the struggle of Puerto Rico. Over the last 15 years, we have dedicated our annual Fiesta Boricua to a town in Puerto Rico. This has created greater bonds and a greater sense, at the organic level, with Puerto Rico, with the cultural production in Puerto Rico, with the needs of the Puerto Rican people, and how we can help them address those [needs]. To me, this is probably the biggest lesson that we can offer in this period—a lesson that runs the whole gamut of the past 50 if not 60 years.
MRM: What do you think about the future of the Puerto Rican independence movement?
JEL: For me, the independence movement of Puerto Rico is at its greatest moment. [This] was proven in the last election. The fact is that an overwhelming number of Puerto Ricans turned down and opposed statehood [in the 2024 referendum]. You have a brand-new generation of young Puerto Ricans coming to the fore, who affirm our Puerto Ricanness, and project it onto the future, as Bad Bunny and other musicians and visual artists have done.
As a nation that struggles to take its place among all the nations of the world, we are committed to solidarity. We are not just talking about Puerto Rican issues; we are also talking—as we have done in Chicago—about Palestine, Eritrea, Iran, our friends and allies in the Chicano-Mexicano movement, the African American movement, with Indigenous peoples. We’ve said ¡presente! in all those struggles and will continue to do that. I believe that a self-determined, self-actualized, self-sufficient Puerto Rico will ensure that we make a place for humanity that is better. I look at what is happening [today] in Puerto Rico, and what we’re doing here, using what [Zapatista] Subcomandante Marcos so beautifully described in his essay, “The Seven Loose Pieces of the Global Jigsaw Puzzle.” Marcos says the seventh piece is when the pockets of resistance all over the world confront the Empire of the moneybags. I think people all over the so-called Third World are doing this. Many lessons are being learned from people in struggle in almost every country in the world, particularly the colonized peoples of the world.
MRM: Puerto Rico’s longstanding pro-independence newspaper, CLARIDAD, will soon honor you and the PRCC at its annual festival. What does this mean to you?
JEL: It is a huge honor for CLARIDAD to recognize our work during its 50th anniversary celebration. This is a path that we have walked together. It has been an honor to walk this path with so many wonderful people who have made and continue to make CLARIDAD a reality. We are making the path by walking, as Antonio Machado so aptly put it.
