Nuestras Historias: Latinos in Richmond (Pt. 3)

Excerpt from 2014 interview with Jose Henriquez Jr., ©2014 Jose Henriquez Jr.

Jonathan [J]: Did you dream of joining the army when you was small?

Jose Henriquez Jr. [JH]: Did I dream of joining the army?

J: Yeah.

JH: Nah, man. I never…

J: What did you want to be?

JH: What did I want to be?

J: Dream job.

JH: I don’t really remember, yo.

J: When I was small I wanted to be a ambulance. Not a—a firefighter I mean.

JH: A firefighter.

J: Yeah.

JH: But you said—Now what you wanna do?

J: Join the army.

JH: Did you say why?

J: Because it looks fun. You know, I mean it’s not fun. It’s a serious job. A marine or a bomb patrol. Blow up stuff like fireworks. Fireworks!

JH: And why you think it’s important to join the army?

J: Cause you know someday you’ll probably become famous, ‘cause you did something important. You probably protected the president, or something. Let me see, let me see why…I really want to hold a gun. Not like as being a gang member. You know how they hold guns? I want to hold a gun with, you know, like knowing you have to hold it and you actually have to use it. It’s protection. Not like, you know, people that kill for no reason. Why they kill people for no reason?

JH: Alright, so the army kills for a reason, you’re saying.

J: It’s protectin’. Protectin’ your country. I mean, I don’t really like the country, but I was born here.

JH: What do you mean? What don’t you like about it?
J: I feel like it’s not, it’s not so much freedom. Like really my dad—you go to jail because—like my dad was sent to El Salvador because of something that happened in the past.

JH: Forreal?

J: Yeah. He was okay. He had stopped drinking, he had started going to church with my step mom and then one day…He had just come, came from cutting our hair, from the barbershop. And then two hours later, I was sleeping, they called, they said that immigration had took him. Yeah.

JH: Where was he?

J: In his house.

JH: Y’all didn’t live together?

J: No we lived with our mom.

JH: Oh, so both of you’re parents lived in Southwood just not together.

J: Well, my dad he lived in the restaurant. ‘Cause he had his own—him and my step mom had their own restaurant.

JH: Oh really?

J: Yeah.

JH: He used to sleep there?

J: Yeah, ‘cause downstairs was the restaurant. Upstairs was like rooms and stuff. But you know it started getting creepy, like ghost and then like they had raped people and they died. Like doors would open and stuff. It was creepy.

JH: What?

J: Yeah, that’s why we moved out.

JH: So you’re saying you don’t feel like there’s really freedom here?

J: Oh yeah! And they burned the restaurant and they blamed it on my dad. That’s what mostly got him in trouble. It wasn’t even him. He was at home.

JH: So the restaurant burned down?

J: Yeah.

JH: Who did it?

J: I don’t know.

JH: Y’all don’t know?

J: I mean they didn’t, I mean cause you know, then my dad got arrested and then…

JH: He got arrested because of that?

J: No. They found out where he lived because of that. ‘Cause you know he was undocumented or like not documented. And so that’s why…

JH: I’m curious as to why you want to join the army, man. I’m still like, you know what I’m saying, like I understand, but I don’t know. I want to know why exactly. So, you said to protect the country.

J: Yeah
JH: Protect it from what though?

J: From bad people. I mean, you know, my dreams are gonna change. They’re not always—like when I was a little kid I used to want to be a firefighter. When I was smaller I thought I was going to be the king. Like I was gonna be the king. No president, a king. Like I would rule. Then I was like, “that’s stupid, I’m gonna be a firefighter.” I was like, “that’s childish.” And as I got older it started changing. Like, “Why would I join?” Now, I feel like sometimes, I feel like, “Why would I join the army? I mean I’ma die.” Now, I still—My dreams shoulda been changed.

JH: I mean, yeah, you’re right. Your dreams can easily change. I mean, things change all the time. Like, it’d be interesting to think about why you want to do what you want to do.

J: Some people say it’s about the uniform.

JH: It’s about the uniform?

J: Yeah. How you look with your uniform. How you live. They say I become famous for doing something good at war and then my child can live in a better place than what I did. I don’t want my children to live out here. I want them to live in a house, a better place. But I mean, it’s because my parents were born over there.

JH: Born where?

J: In El Salvador and they came here looking for better opportunities.

End of transcription.

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La Mancha, or “the stain” in Spanish, is the nickname given to the Southwood neighborhood located in between Hull Street and Warwick Road. It is home to many Latino families who identify as Mexican, Mixteco, Salvadoran, Guatemalan and Honduran. The children in Southwood attend Greene Elementary School, whose student population is 80 percent Latino and 72 percent economically disadvantaged. Despite socioeconomic hardships, children in La Mancha have big dreams, such as Jonathan’s to join the military.

Christine Frijuckic emigrated from the Dominican Republic to New York in 1982. There, Christine worked in a public school and as a neighborhood beautician. After Frijuckic relocated to Richmond in 2000, several of her relatives followed and opened salons and restaurants throughout Southside.

Inspired by this entrepreneurialism, Christine Frijuckic opened Christy’s Beauty Salon in 2009 on Midlothian Turnpike in South Richmond. Dominican salons specialize in Afro-centric hair care. Christy’s Beauty Salon used these rollers and hairnet to style hair with low heat and few to no chemicals.

In 2005, Argentina Ortega bought La Sabrosita, a traditional Latin American bakery. Ortega began her operation by selling baked goods to local businesses. In 2009, she expanded the bakery to its current location on Midlothian Turnpike in Chesterfield County with her sons Eduardo and Mario Dawson as business partners. The Ortegas used this rolling pin and pitcher to prepare pastries at La Sabrosita.

Transcription of message sent to the Williams family.

Father Ricardo Seidel: Hi Michael, Carmen and Isabel, children and your mom also. I want to thank you for your prayers. I’m feeling gradually better. And I will keep you posted. I don't know exactly when I will be leaving the hospital, but tomorrow my doctor will be here. Depending on what information […] I’ll give you a call so that you know where I’m at. But in general I am feeling better. Thank you so much for your friendship, and your concern and your prayer. God bless you all. I love you all very, very much. Take good care.

Transcription ends.
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Born in Peru, Father Ricardo Seidel (1931–1999) was a minister and advocate for immigrants and Latinos throughout Virginia and led the initiative for Spanish-language mass in Richmond. He joined the Diocese of Richmond in 1974 at St. Paul Catholic Church on Chamberlayne Avenue, where he conducted monthly Spanish masses in a meeting hall. On July 29, 1999, Father Ricardo held the first official Spanish masses at Sacred Heart and St. Agustine Catholic Churches. Passing away less than a month later, Father Ricardo created a permanent place where all Latinos could gather in worship, as well as lasting friendships, as demonstrated in his last message to the Williams family.

This Spanish lectionary, a book of scriptures, is from Sacred Heart Catholic Church. The parish, located in Richmond’s Manchester neighborhood, now offers three Spanish masses a week. Sacred Heart, whose congregation was dwindling at the turn of the 21st century, credits its Latino members with reviving the 116-year-old church. Many of the church’s Latino parishioners are from various parts of the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico. After mass, one can hear several speak indigenous dialects such as Mixteco (Mexico) and Quiché (Guatemala).

“My grandmother always bid everyone farewell with this phrase: ‘Con Dios y la Virgen vas, y con Dios y la Virgin vienes.’ I never saw my grandmother in a church, but this virgin served as her place of worship.” –Meg Medina

For many Latinos, religion is not practiced in the traditional sense of weekly worship, but exists in daily speech, individual meditation and ancestral teachings. Religious statues like this one often serve as guardians in Latino homes. This Lady of Caridad del Cobre statue has been a part of the Metauten and Medina families for more than 40 years.

Victor Torres overcame gang member life and heroin addiction in New York in the early 1960s, leading him to religion and faith. Pastor Victor and his wife Pastor Carmen Torres came to Richmond on a series of speaking engagements, when they decided to settle down in the city. Together they started New Life for Youth, a Christian-based program that assists troubled youth, and New Life Outreach International Church from their former home on Semmes Avenue in the 1970s.

Lent by the Torres family
New Life for Youth and New Life Outreach International Church has expanded to serve thousands of people through a male facility in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, a mother’s home in Richmond and 22 churches in Chesterfield County and throughout the United States.

In 2007, Oscar Contreras joined Christian radio station Radio Poder, where he started a public radio hour inviting community members to share upcoming events and services available to Richmond Latinos. Religious organizations serving Latinos often facilitate creating community and integration into Richmond society.

In 1992, Puerto Rican Yvonne E. R. Benner (1953–2001) established El Sol, Virginia’s first Spanish-language newspaper. She gathered much of the news herself, published it from home and circulated the newspaper with the help of a small team. Benner founded El Sol to create a platform for Latino voices. Benner also organized Richmond’s earliest Latino cultural celebrations and in 1997, she became the first person of Latino descent appointed to a Virginia university board. El Sol stopped publication in late 1999, two years after Benner was diagnosed with cancer.

Cubans who relocated to the Richmond area formed the Cuban American Club of Richmond, Virginia in the 1960s (later incorporated in 1989) to preserve their Cuban culture. The organization held social and charitable events in Richmond.

The Colombo-American Association of Richmond was founded in the 1990s to unite Colombian families in the region. Although both organizations became inactive mid-1990s, they set the precedent for other pan-Latino groups that emerged in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Marcelo Cornicello, a native Argentinian, and his wife Barbara Cornicello started the initiative to create Richmond’s Hispanic Liaison Office. Led initially by Tanya González, the Hispanic Liaison Office, opened in 2004 in South Richmond to connect Latinos to city services, including translation, education and the annual Imagine Festival. In 2012, the office expanded to the Office of Multicultural Affairs for a wider community impact. Humberto Macaiza, a long-time volunteer for the Office of Multicultural Affairs, translated this Richmond City brochure, which informs residents of school programs at public parks.

A group of Latino and non-Latino business leaders established the Virginia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Richmond in May 2000. Led by Michel Zajur, the organization strives to provide business opportunities to Richmond Latinos through educational programs and cultural events, including entrepreneurial clinics, English classes and the ¿Qué Pasa? Festival, an annual Latino celebration held alongside the canal in Shockoe Bottom.

Mixtecos are an indigenous Mexican community. In 2011, Mixteca women formed La Cooperativa de Artistas Mixtecas at Sacred Heart Center. The Center opened in 1990 to serve the then predominantly African-American Manchester neighborhood through school and job-training programs. As Manchester’s demographics changed, the Center’s programs became under-used. In 2011, under former director Mary Wickham’s leadership, Sacred Heart Center refocused to assist the area’s emerging Latino population, offering the community social services, education and cultural celebration. A member of the group originally from Guerrero, Mexico, made this embroidered servilleta.