2010.019

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2010 - 2010

Date(s) Created: 2010 Date(s): 2010

Notes: archives catalog 2010.019.0001.08 Centro oral history interview protocol Angel and Gloria Padilla, January 26, 2010 Interviewer: Christina Ziegler-McPherson Interviewees: Angel Padilla, 28 Winfield Avenue, Jersey City, N.J. Gloria Padilla, 28 Winfield Avenue, Jersey City, N.J. Place: 28 Winfield Avenue, Jersey City, N.J. Transcription made by Christina Ziegler-McPherson, 2010. Consent: do you give your consent to record this interview/conversation for the purpose of preserving the history of the Puerto Rican community in Hoboken? Padilla: Yes. Where we you born? Padilla: I was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico in 19, November 25, 1940. How old were you when your family moved to Hoboken? Padilla: My whole family didn't move. My father came here first, 19-, 1954 from Puerto Rico and he moved to 217 Clinton Street, in Hoboken, at the time, and he, after a while, he move, due to the way my father and mother were divorced, got divorced, and one day I saw the, I saw his name on the, what do you call it, one of the checks that he used to send us, and I wrote him a letter to send for me that I was, that I would like to come to the United States, and so. He used to send us clothes and everything from a store, Micky Finn in Hoboken, where you could buy a pair of shoes for 99 cents at that time, you know, and ties and suits and everything, you know, clothes for the family in Puerto Rico. I wrote him a letter and he sent for me and I came here in, I believe, it was July 24, 1955 to Hoboken. So you were about how old then? Padilla: Then, 1955 I was close to, I was 14 and a half, 14 and a half years old. And I tell you what happened. I was supposed to have come at night on July, no, I came the 25th, July 25th, I was supposed to come July 24 with friend, my first cousin's husband, who was coming here but what happened was at that time, you know, July, it was the season, was the tourist season and I lost the plane seat that night. So I couldn't make it that night with him. So I came the following, the following day, my father's first cousin got me, you know, fixed, I don't know what he did, fixed up the, with the airline, and they send me by myself on a plane. We used to take seven and a half hours to come here because then they didn't have jets in the Fifties, you know, we didn't have jets. So they placed me on the plane and when I got off the plane there was nobody waiting for me at the airport, 50 cents in my pocket, and the luggage, whatever I had, a couple of pants. So anyway, what happened, since nobody was waiting for me there, and we had no telephones then, you know, to communicate, to call my father or anything, it was terrible. So, what I did was, the girl that was sitting next to me, that lady was maybe 25, I don't remember her, I don't remember her name or anything. Anyway, I asked her, 'look, nobody waiting for me, I don't know what to do, do you think you could take to your house and maybe I could look for the address and locate my father?' So what happened, the family took me with them, we catch the train to Brooklyn, New York, and I stayed there until about 10 o'clock. They feed me, you know, I even changed my clothes, put my sneakers with holes on and everything, and about 10:30, one of her, because nobody in the house knew where Hoboken was, they didn't know where Hoboken was, so one of the brothers that came that night at about 10:30, he was coming from Fort Dix, he was stationed in Fort Dix, New Jersey, and the girl that I asked her to take me to her house said, 'look, this young man came here and nobody was waiting for him and so he asked me to bring him to the house and take him home, so I took him over here,' and the brother said, 'oh, don't worry, I know where Hoboken is, I have to go through there when I go to Fort Dix.' So that night, at about 11 o'clock, we got in the car, the brother had a car, and they drove me back, they drove me to Hoboken and I got there, to the address, to 217 Clinton Street where my father was living at the time, and they let me in the basement there with some lady about 90 years old, Mariana, remember, she (referring to Gloria Padilla) knows the lady I'm talking about, and my father shows up at about 12 o'clock from New York and was surprised when he saw me, to see me there, you know. The only thing that I (unintelligible), I never took the address of the people that brought me to Brooklyn and never got in touch with them to thank them, you know, for what they did for me. And that's part of the story, of me coming to the United States. When your father and you lived on Clinton Street, what kind of street was it, was there many Puerto Ricans living there, was it Italian, Irish neighborhood? Padilla: No, at the time, in Hoboken, it was mostly Italian, Irish, German. Germans were up Elysian Park, the upper class there, up past Washington Street. The Italians were from 7th Street on downtown, because at that time in Hoboken the Italians and the Irish, they didn't mix too much at that time and they were still, but then, when, I guess, when the Puerto Ricans started coming in, the Irish and Italians stop fighting and they start picking on the Puerto Ricans, you know, the Italians and Puerto Ricans, I remember when I came, there were a lot of conflicts, you know. Although when I went to school I never had any problems in school, thank God, I had a lot of friends, but at night, if you went to the park, 4th Street Park and Willow [Church Square Park], if you went there and you was by yourself you used to get beat up and everything, you know, it was tough. They used to call you 'spic.' 'Hey, spic!' you know. And if you went to rent an apartment and even if it was empty and they saw your skin tan, they'd say, 'no it's rented already.' We had a bad experience when, in 1956, I remember the day, Saturday, it was my father's birthday, September 21, and we had a fire about 5 o'clock in the morning. We were lucky it wasn't earlier, if it had been earlier we would have been gone, I wouldn't have been here telling you this story, you know. I think it was, you know, arson, somebody put in the basement, something in the basement, spread gasoline or whatever around, so no one could get out of the building, everybody had to run upstairs and a lot of people had to jump from, you know, because one building was higher and they had a lower one, so people who went to the roof had to jump from the high to the next building which was low, a lot of people had broken backs and everything. I had to hang up to a window after I pulled my father, my father and my sister to safety, next door was like a window here, because the curtains were already on fire and everything, so I just pulled them down and threw them outside. And I took my father and sister next door and waiting for the firemen to come and pick them up and I jumped and let myself hang on the window and jumped down, you know, and thank God nothing happened. That particular week we, we went to, I believe it was Our Lady of Grace Auditorium, which we had to stay there for a week, sleeping on cots and everything. We couldn't, my father was making at the time $28.50 at St. Mary's Hospital as a janitor, you know, which was a lot of money. And what happened that same week, we went to 235 Monroe Street looking for, we heard that they had apartments there and when we, when we, you know, went to see the landlord, it was a lady, I think she was Polish or something, she wasn't Irish or Italian, she was Polish, which was rare at that time in Hoboken. She was very nice with us, the husband was more mean. But anyway, we explained the situation to the lady, that we had a fire in the house, that we had lost everything, because we did, we lost everything, you know, everything got wet, put everything outside on the sidewalk to get dry and the lady was ready but the husband didn't want us to rent out because nobody, no Spanish people living in the building at that time, you know. But anyway, I said, 'look, we need an apartment bad,' they had a first floor apartment empty, one bedroom with a small kitchen and everything. So when I found out I went to get Father Eugene Zwahl, who was in charge of the Hispanic community at the time and he used to help everybody at St. Joseph's, and I explain him the situation, 'Father, you know, we had the fire and we're still sleeping in the school auditorium,' you know, the Red Cross gave us some help too, but anyway, I said, 'Father, do you think you could go with us and talk to the lady and maybe she can give us the apartment,' you know. So we went there and after the lady listened to the priest, Father Eugene, they give us the apartment. Everybody was paying $25 at the time there, $25, you know, and they raise the apartment to $48 and he couldn't afford it, but you know, but it was lucky that I was working part-time in a liquor store, I used to make deliveries in a liquor store after school, so that's how I helped my father out, you know, $5 every, so when the rent came, we had the money to pay for the rent at the time. And thanks God, you know, we came through and after we started moving, I got married, I married Gloria, met her at the, she was the Daughters of Mary, Daughters of Mary, it was an organization in the Church, you know, like they have the Holy Names Society, and that's when I met her, and we got married in 1960, we have 3 kids, Kevin, Gregory, and Angelo, they're 44, 43, 45 and 48. Gloria Padilla: 48, 45, and 43. Padilla: Yes, and we have seven grandkids. Well, we actually have five grandkids because what happened was my oldest son's first wife, she pass away at the age of 33 with three kids, he becomes a widow, he remarries again, and then he had two more kids, so that's five, three from the first who passed away and two from the second wife and then she had two more, so that's seven all together. Luckily, he has a good job and can afford to, you know. They live up in Lake Hopatcong. And we also have a son that is, made the Olympic team, we were lucky in, when did Kevin make the Olympic team? 1988? The tai kwon do? The martial art? You know. He went, because when Bruce Lee was around, the movies and everything, Bruce Lee became his idol, and he had Bruce Lee all over the place, so he started going to Washington Street, a school that used to teach tai kwon don, and his youngest brother, well, his youngest brother quit but he continued. He told his mother, 'no matter what, Mom, I like this.' So he starts selling papers, he used to pay for his own school and everything, selling papers, deliveries. So he made the Olympic Team while we were in Puerto Rico on vacation. He calls us, 'Pop, I made it,' he had to beat four guys in one day to make the Olympic Team, four national champions and then he traveled, he started traveling all over the world with the national team, which is the team representing the United States all over the world, to this day. Last year, he became an Olympic coach at the China Games [Beijing, 2008], he was doing, this guy (indicating photo), he's an Olympic coach, he's also the director of the coaches, Olympic coach director, and he's on, the first Hispanic, I think, in the tai kwon do organization to be vice president or something or director or something, board of directors, board of directors. Gloria, when did your family come to Hoboken? Gloria Padilla: We came 1954. Where did your family live in Hoboken? Gloria Padilla: In Monroe Street. Padilla: 119 Monroe. Gloria Padilla: 119 Monroe Street. That building isn't there now. When you were going to school in Hoboken did you go to public schools or parochial schools? Padilla: Public school, I went to public school. Which schools did you go to? Gloria Padilla: I went to Demarest, it was a junior high and then, yeah, that's the high school, Demarest, and then from I went to high school. Padilla: I went to, up to, I went to Demarest, which was high school. Gloria Padilla: That's where I met Tom [Olivieri], I met Tommy, I knew him in Puerto Rico, but I didn't see, they came here when they were babies, you know, and I didn't see him for a long time, because his mother used to bring me to school in Puerto Rico, I used to go to school with her. After I came, you know, I met him in school, in one of my classes. We didn't speak much English or anything, you know, so they saw me, he said, 'oh, you're Gloria, yeah, yeah, oh, you remember,' you know, because so many years, he says, 'oh my mother knows you're here, she'll go crazy,' so you know. What church did your family attend? Padilla: St. Joseph's. Gloria Padilla: St. Joseph's. Padilla: St. Joseph's in Monroe Street in Hoboken. At the time it was, where most of the Hispanic from all over town used to gather and come, you know, parishioner, mostly the church used to be packed on Sundays, because it had Father Eugene, he was the organizer of the Hispanic community in Hoboken, was a German priest, but he spoke Spanish, because he lived a long time in Costa Rica, you know, so but he was the one that organized the Hispanic community back in the, during the Fifties and Sixties, and he helped the Hispanic community a lot, you know, organized the Holy Name Society, Daughters of Mary, Hijas de Maria, what else? Gloria Padilla: Madres Christian. Padilla: Christian Mothers, another organization, you know. He did a lot, and also he used to set up trips for the community, you know, going to Rye Beach, Bear Mountain, museums all over, so you know, he really opened the eyes for the community and he helped us a lot, also when had to raise a lot, do a lot of fundraising also, during, while he was the pastor of the church, some of the funds he used them to help people that couldn't pay the rent, people who couldn't pay their electric bill, people who, we used to, the Holy Name Society members, we used to get together, he used to, we knew the families that were in need and we used to go and bring sometimes food or if a lady had a baby and they didn't have clothes or something we used to go their houses and give them clothes, you know, from the Church and everything. It was nice, nice, they don't do that anymore, I don't think as much as when we first came when Father Eugene was involved with the Hispanic community, you know. How often did your family attend church? Padilla: Well, we used to go every, every Sunday, it was very rare we miss one Sunday, you know. Whether it's then or now, it's still the same. Would you call your family religious? Padilla: Our family, very, yes, yes, the whole family, brothers, my oldest brother, he goes to church every Sunday, belongs to different organizations, he goes out, do the rosary in the house when somebody passes away, because that's part of the culture of Puerto Ricans, when somebody pass away, we do nine rosaries, doing- Gloria Padilla: a novena, after nine days, like a novena- Padilla: like a novena, yes, after a person pass away, and then once a year, and my brother is very much involved in all that, my eldest brother, Jose. If you could think about your childhood growing up in Puerto Rico, how was attending church in Hoboken different from attending church in Puerto Rico? Padilla: Attending church in Puerto Rico, I was a rascal in Puerto Rico, a little rascal, and I didn't go often. We used to, the church was only two blocks away from my house, but you know, then, I was ignorant, we used to go, we didn't have the, I didn't have the mentality as when I came here, that my mind was more developed, the problems, but in Puerto Rico I was a little rascal with the priests and everything, doing bad. I'm being honest with you, that's the way you want to hear it, you know. Gloria Padilla: I used to be the only one going to church in Puerto Rico. Even here, because I only had my sister here, and I was the only one that went, you know, she got married, she had all this happening, the kids went to Catholic school for a little while and stuff but she didn't really used to go to church, her husband, after she passed away, now he goes all the time, you know, pretty good, pretty strong in the Church, you know. When you were growing up though in both Puerto Rico and Hoboken, did you go to church regularly? Gloria Padilla: In Puerto Rico? Both Puerto Rico and here. Gloria Padilla: Here, yes, ever since, because I always used to go to church in Puerto Rico, my niece and my, my cousin, she used to work in a convent, so she used to take, because I didn't have a mom, I lost my mom when I was seven years old, so my grandparents came to live with us and she used to work in a convent, and she used to take me to all the sacrament and everything, my communion and everything in Puerto Rico, you know. So I always went, I always went there, but when I came here, where we found the church, it was right on Monroe Street, so we started going to St. Joseph's, that's our parish. Did you ever attend the Fiesta of St. John the Baptist in New York in the 1950s and 1960s? Padilla: I did, St. John the Baptist, at Randall Island, I got pictures too. Yeah, I got, Randall Island, taken from 1960 was one of the biggest years that we had in New York, in Randall Island, everybody went from the Holy Name Society, the Daughters of Mary, the Christian Mothers, everybody packed on buses from Hoboken and went there, stayed there all day. I got, I got old 9-milimeter movies, they used to last like ten minutes, you had a camera, they used to last ten minutes, you had to wind them up, and I got those, I still got, pictures, video, what do you call it? The movies, film, and I also have pictures also. Right here, after we finish the, I will show the pictures in case you need them. Why do you think the Hoboken Puerto Rican community didn't organize a Feast of St. John in Hoboken, why is there not a Feast of St. John's at St. Joseph's? Padilla: Why is not? I, that's a good question, you know, that's, that's, no, they have everything else, like, once a year on River Road, they used to have it at 4th Street Park [Church Square Park] I think it was. Gloria Padilla: What? Padilla: The Puerto Rican feast in the summer, July, July party they have every year at the- Gloria Padilla: not St. John. Padilla: No, no, it's, well, maybe it's not really St. John the Baptist, no, no, but I- Gloria Padilla: It's not from the churches, you know, they have St. Ann's. Padilla: It was only when Father Eugene was, we used to go to New York to the St. John the Baptist festival, feast. It's a big, St. John the Baptist is a big feast in Puerto Rico. I don't know if you know that, July 24 is a big thing on the island, and everybody runs to the beach the day before, the 23rd, and they sleep on the beach until the 24 and it's a baptismal thing. Do you recall any tensions between Puerto Ricans and other ethnic groups in the Church? Padilla: Tensions? Say conflicts about using church buildings or about having services in Spanish? Padilla: Maybe at the time, maybe back in the Fifties when we first started getting into the community, you know, and mingling with, with the church, because at the time it was mostly Irish and Italians at St. Joseph's and we didn't have a Mass, a Spanish Mass in the Church. We used, we, but then it was Latin, when I came the Mass was still in Latin, you know, Latin Mass, the father looking back to the parishioners, facing the alter, you know, and after it changed, I don't know if it was a face lift or what but anyway, when I came here it was still in Latin. But anyway, there was a little conflict at the beginning, you know, the Hispanic used to go to the Mass. It's natural, I want to mention, and you know, it's, you know, because I have a lot of good relationships today with, but at that time, it was a little conflict, little tensions in the Church. After 1965, when the Masses were given in Spanish, did that resolve things or….? Padilla: That? No, we, we still work together in a lot of, we used to have festivals and everything, we still work out, you know, it's still work, it's never going to be no matter what you do, you know, the same, but things got a little better, you know, and when we start working, I guess people realize that we were not as they thought, you know. That happens when you don't know somebody, you know, and you meet this other person that you think he was, sometimes people judge you by the way you look until they speak to you and learn about you, and say, 'geez, I was mistaken, the person is the most lovely, you know, the most lovely person that I ever met,' you know, because I have friends, even Puerto Rican friend, that when I first came, I see one with, with a slash maybe here (indicating cheek), I say, 'maybe this guy's tough,' but when I talk to him and we became friends, in fact, one of them, that we even had a fight[unintelligible] yesterday, I called him, we've been friends for 55 years, I call him in Puerto Rico yesterday, Juan Ortiz, was one of my best friends, but in the beginning, when I first met him, we didn't like mingle, we didn't like each other until we really got together and everything, you know, so these things happen all over, no matter where you go. Was anyone in your family active in the Cursillos? Padilla: I was. I'm a Cursillista, yes, I made a Cursillo, well, you know, I'll tell you how it happened. Father Dugan from Our Lady of Grace back, it was 1964, I think it was, 1964 when the Cursillo movement, the big Cursillo movement started and everything, they had this Hispanic, what happened is I met this priest from Our Lady of Grace and he needed an interpreter to go with him to Boston, Massachusetts, he said he would pay all the expenses and everything, so, you know, a weekend away, pay everything, so I went with him and there I didn't have to translate anything. When I got there, everybody was Irish, in Boston, you know (laughs), I was the only Puerto Rican with everybody, so I didn't have to speak any or do any translation, you know. But anyway, it was very spiritual uplifting for me, because when I came out of there, what I learned, when I came out of there I felt my, my, I changed totally in those three days, my, my whole way of thinking changed, I was really very, very spiritually lifted, my way of thinking about the Church and everything, and I came out of there it felt like I was not stepping on ground but stepping more off the ground, my spirit was very, my spiritual- Gloria Padilla: elevated. Padilla: Right, but after a while, you have to follow it, because you get cold, you know, if you keep the practice, you know- Gloria Padilla: they call it- Padilla: by the fourth day- Gloria Padilla: they call it the third day is the hardest, you know? Padilla: Yes, the fourth, no, when you come back to the, when you- Gloria Padilla: the reality- Padilla: the reality, to the world again. But in the beginning, when I came out of there, I didn't talk too much to the people, I wasn't cursing like I was cursing before, and it did something for me, you know, my way of thinking, it helped me out up to this day, not that I'm a saint or anything, we're all sinners and everything, it really did help me out a lot, though. How about you, Gloria, did you ever do a Cursillo? Gloria Padilla: No, I didn't. Padilla: She's been good too, being a saint, Gloria's her name, so, you know. Gloria Padilla: I was home with the kids. Padilla: She only needs the wings to fly (laughs). Did you do any other retreats? Gloria Padilla: We did retreats like Marriage Encounters. Padilla: Oh yes, we used to, because- Gloria Padilla: Family Encounters, you know. Padilla: Because the kids used to attend Catholic schools, you know, and so we did, you know, Marriage Encounter, was it? Gloria Padilla: Marriage Encounter and Family Encounter, you know. Padilla: It helped us out a lot, with a lot of discipline in the family, and help us to guide the children, too be better in life and everything so, thanks God they came out good, you know, I mean, I'm no saint, we, they have obstacles in their life but they came out good, they stick together and they came out professional, the three of them, three professionals, you know. I'm curious about the Hispanic Catholic Center, the Spanish American Catholic Center. Padilla: Oh, the Spanish American Catholic Center. Did you ever go there? Padilla: Yes, that's what the Spanish American Catholic Center, that was- It was on Washington Street? Padilla: it was on Washington Street, 227 Washington Street, in Hoboken, on the second floor, on top of, it was a paint- Gloria Padilla: Sealy Paint? Padilla: City Paint, right, that's what it was. That used to help the, people that used to come from Puerto Rico and from all different parts of South America and Central America and the Caribbean, and they didn't know about the community, they used to go there and Father Eugene and other, they used to get them established in the community, help them out with jobs if they could, or look for apartments, or whatever, yeah, that was the main purpose of the Spanish American Catholic Center, to help the people that came from the different places of the Caribbean, the South Central America, or wherever. Did you ever use resources there? Did you go hang out? Padilla: Oh, we used to hang out there. Gloria Padilla: They used to have a lot of activities, yes. Padilla: It was like a civic center, you know, where they used to have fund raisings, you know, we used to have a party like for Christmas, whatever money we collected from the big fund raiser, we used to go and buy, Father Eugene sometimes buy a lot of, you know, we used to celebrate the Epiphany, the Epiphany, you know, the 6th of January, which is most of Latin American, Europeans like Italy and such celebrate, the children, that's like Christmas for the children when they get the gifts, they put, in Puerto Rico they used to put a box, a carton, box of shoes with grass and, you know, when we were, we didn't have the, you know, under the table thinking that the Three Kings would come and leave the gifts, and- Gloria Padilla: (unintelligible) Padilla: So anyway, we used to have a lot of, we used to give a lot of, used to go with Father Eugene to New York to the stores and they used to give a big discount, the toy stores, you know, and then we used to collect them and then when the party came we used to get dressed up as kings, you know, Melcior, Gaspar, Balthasar, and it was a lot of fun, that was a big holiday that day for the Hispanic community, the Three Kings, we used to celebrate it at St. Joseph's Catholic School, in the auditorium, that was where we used to celebrate that. But, we also have fund raising for like, what else was it? We used to have those trips that we used to have, like to Rye Beach- Gloria Padilla: Well, that was with Father Eugene. Padilla: Yeah, right. Some of it was to help other communities, you know, whatever they needed help, like I explained to you before. I'm wondering when and why the Church closed the Spanish American Catholic Center, because it's obviously not on Washington Street anymore. Padilla: That's, that's, that was after, Father Eugene. Let me see, it was opening, 227 Washington, 1955, and it lasted for 18 years, until, there was a big dispute, because Father Eugene was removed from the (unintelligible) there at St. Joseph's, there was a conflict of interest, it was like, it seems like there was a conflict of interest or something, I don't know. I know Father Eugene which was the strongest man at the time at the church in the community, he was, I don't know, he was moved, they wanted, they moved him out of there, right, remember? They transfer him. And that's when things started going down, they closed the Spanish American Catholic Center, and they had it open for a while, Father Richard, I think it was, Father Richard, remember? He came there for a while and, but after that it didn't last that long, I don't remember exactly what, but I know it was open for 18 years. Do you know where Father Eugene went? Padilla: Father Eugene, he, they sent, he went to an asylum, an asylum in Seaside Heights, I think it was, he pass away about three years ago. We didn't even know, because everybody loved Father Eugene, we used to go visit him and the only guy his name that he remembered was me, because I used to go visit him all the time, you know, visit him, (unintelligible) Padilla, he used to call me Padilla, my last name, 'I remember you, Padilla, Padilla,' you know, he was like, when, in fall, we had, we had a get together, when (unintelligible) when he was 87 years old, we had a big birthday for him- Gloria Padilla: in 2000, in the year 2000- Padilla: 2000, yeah, we have a video and everything, and people from all over came from Puerto Rico, the old parishioners came from Puerto Rico, from California, from Florida, forget about it, it was a big affair, her nephew is a musician, had a band, play at the affair and everything, we had a guy that was dressed up as Elvis Presley at the time, which was his favorite star at the time, we brought him, he was a make-believe Elvis Presley, the guy was really, like (gestures), it was a great night that night, you know, with all the parishioners that came from all over, from all over to celebrate with his birthday and everything. It was a great time. But he passed away unfortunate, I think it was like 92 years old when he pass away, but when we found out, it was three months that he passed away, that he, that we were informed that he had pass away, nobody ever told, he used to complain, 'nobody comes to see me.' Gloria Padilla: We were away, you know. I think we were in Puerto Rico, right? When we came back that's when we found out that he passed away, right? Padilla: Yeah, yeah, three months after he- Gloria Padilla: it was... [truncated due to length]