I: And so in trying to be like a movement group or...

Cha Cha: Right we were trying to learn to be one. Because we were you know a lot of the movement groups even though they related to the lumpen proletariet in the streets they racing, a lot of them had came out of student groups where we were coming straight from the streets all the way. And now we were uniting with the students but we were all, I mean we were just... learning, so it probably had more of an impact with us than it did on the people. I mean, I would read one book about Puerto Rico and be outraged wheras somebody else would have to read an encyclopedia to become outraged.... If we got into a debate I could never explain why Puerto Rico should be independent or whatever or the various arguments I could, I still can't do that today. But I know that it belongs to us and they trying to take it away, that's all that it mattered to us. And so it was like a gang banger theory. This is ours, you gotta take it, you can't have it.

I: That's a good phrase "a gang banger theory."

Cha Cha: I mean real simple. We were simple folks that... I guess that just came out like that but I mean that's what it was. We didn't need much to teach us. You know, kind of people are like that anyway. I mean you know they don't mean much, they try to keep it simple you know with everything. I know that you need more. You know you need more intelligence, you need to be able to defend something and all that but now I know that now but  I mean at that time that's when we felt so you know those tapes, not tapes, those records from and then we read Che Guevara and all that, Franz Fanon, the Wretched of the Earth.

...You know we were reading that. You know we got more into reading. I mean so we were actually becoming more intellectual at that time and learning stuff that we had never done you know. I mean today a lot of Young Lords that go onto college and stuff like that and that was part of that so being in the young lords helped them go to college and stuff like that. And so we stayed there as long as we could in that apartment. But then after we took over the church then we had the church so we were like in a romantic sense ...we believed we were revolutionaries. That's what we believed in. I didn't stay in the church because of my lawyers. They told me I couldn't stay in the same place two nights in a row. Because you know but this was later after Fred Hampton died. They told me that I could not stay in the same house two nights in a row. But there was always that threat. I mean the police were all, you know I mean they arrested me 18 times in 6 weeks. And all felonies so you know. Well most of them were felonies. But even the misdemeanor felt like a felony because you know that 15000 dollar bond for a misdemeanor and you know that's incredible..

..Okay now we're talking gang theory now. So we, we're at this point that I feel strongly about and
that is that, and...Thrasher he wrote about it in his diagraph. Neighborhoods in transition breed
gangs. That's what he wrote and that's what was going on at that time. I mean the neighborhood was
completely changing. It was integrated. It was all white when it started and then it began to get
mixed and more mixed and..., there were like white gangs already there...

I: What were some of the names of the white gangs?

Cha Cha: We had Romas. You had the Oasis.. Mostly Italian and Irish. And of course you had Polish
and German other you know. People from Appalacia went to work for them who were connected around
there. So the Romas on Webster and Sheffield. Oasis was right next to that. On Bissell and
Webster. You had another pizza place...I forget what it was called right now...our people had a fight
there. I wasn't there that day when we fought. But it was another pizzaria on Halstead and Dickens,
right around there. ..

Water High School was where we went to school. And so they were, they controlled the school...
...We started being chased first...Not only were we being chased but our parents you know from
the Hachas Viejas were getting beaten up you know also. So I mean you know we grew up with that
And with the fact that you know these people up our fathers over there where you know when we're
little kids at that time but we're going up and seeing that and we get that anger towards them and
all. You know that prejudice I talked to you about my nickname and all that and how that Irish guy
was calling me a Cha-Chabusor whatever you know. So we were growing up with a little, there was
a little prejudice there.   I mean my mother talks about how, how she went with her friend to look
for apartments you know and they said no dogs, we don't allow dogs here. You know I mean that happens to a lot of...new immigrants coming in...

I: it sounds really as if what you're saying and other people have said this but you know to
grow up in those neighborhoods would be to automatically be part of some gang. There's there's no way around it.

Cha Cha: I say it all the time. You know if you're from Chicago and you weren't in a gang then I don't
think, then you can't really say you were from Chicago. Because you had to be in something. Whatever neighborhood especially in Lincoln Park all the youth were, you know in some kind of a gang, some
kind of a group. That's why I don't even call 'em gangs because they're just the youth of that community. Street organization is a good term, a very very good term. They're like an organization from the
community. The same problems that thebroader community has the gangs have. You know where they
fight each other those same problems that the gangs are having so I don'tÉ I've always seen it like that.
You know they might be the ugly ducklings or whatever but not all of them are the ugly ducklings.
They're the brothers and sisters of the ugly ducklings too. So...that's what I mean it's the youth of our community that have been wrongly labeled by either gang researchers...

 ...like Lincoln Park was full of gangs, white gangs, but that term wasn't even used at that time. They
didn't even call anybody gangs at that time until the Puerto Ricans started and the African Americans
started calling themselves by names. But Lincoln Park was full of white gangs but nobody even used
the term gang. And this is the Romas or this is Oasis. They didn't say it was the Roma gang or the
Oasis gang but when they said ..it was the Young Lords gang and the Paragons gang and the Black
Eagles gang and the Latin King gang.