“El grupo de militantes”: How El Diario/La Prensa Reported on The Young Lords

Natalie Saldarriaga

In the notorious New York heat during the last summer of a turbulent decade, the Young Lords made their mark not only in El Barrio but around the city with their garbage offensive.^[1] This group of radicals, inspired by the Black Panther Party, decided that no city official would step-up and provide for their impoverished community like they could.^[2] Consisting of mostly Puerto Rican college-educated youth, the Young Lords would inspire their black and brown neighbors to take action and be proud of their roots even though they were mistreated and neglected because of them. Through vast member’s accounts and academic literature it is clear that the Young Lords had a lasting impact on black and Hispanic youth in the early 1970s and beyond. Like in any other other political movement, the news is always at the forefront informing those in the community who may not be directly involved with activism. El Diario La Prensa, a Spanish-language newspaper that circulated in New York, would have been one of the main ways in which those living in the Young Lord’s community of East Harlem would have received information about the group.^[3] Through my research, I will be looking at El Diario La Prensa from September 1969 to September 1970 because in one year, the Young Lords carried out four of their most well-known demonstrations. In studying these articles from El Diario La Prensa I hope to better understand how the Spanish news reported on the activist group and how El Barrio residents reacted to them as well. To accomplish this I will analyze El Diario La Prensa’s reporting of demonstrations documentation of community reactions and opinions in the newspaper itself and compare it to those of English language periodicals such as The New York Times and The Village Voice.

Towards the end of the 1960’s a restlessness and resistance grew within the New York Puerto Rican community. Once viewed as a “mild mannered” people by the New York Times in the post-war period, that perception would change by the end of the sixties.^[4] In July of 1967 a riot broke out in the Puerto Rican neighborhood of East Harlem after Renaldo Rodriguez was shot and killed by a policeman.^[5] Although the tragedy was a familiar one in Harlem, many youths took to the streets to display their dissatisfaction with the way they were being neglected by politicians and abused by the police. The youth of the community were “angered and fed up with what they perceived to be a non-supportive approach to community health, education, and political needs of the Puerto Rican community,” so they resorted to violence as it seemed to be the most effective way to get the city’s attention.^[6] The reasons that provoked the riots in 1967 had a long history and affected other major northern cities in the United States as well.

The US involvement in World War II encouraged mass immigration of minorities into northern cities because of the many positions available to them in the workforce as a result of the war effort. To add to that, around the same time many whites were leaving the cities due to suburbanization which largely encouraged white flight and segregation.^[7] Many of those who migrated to the north from the south or Puerto Rico found themselves able to earn money in ways not available to them in their hometowns or home country. Puerto Ricans also had other push factors such as dislocation due to Operation Bootstrap, the island’s industrialization effort and “migration initiatives sponsored by the island’s local government” contributed to the number of them moving north.^[8] New York City experienced the biggest wave of Puerto Rican immigrants in the years following the war, where in 1946 almost 40,000 immigrants resettled in the area.^[9] During the Great Migration emerged the long-term process of structural change within the US economy in northern cities. The industrial cities which had been stable and growing in the years preceding the war found themselves “evaporating” just as Puerto Ricans and other minorities had flocked to the north, and not surprisingly they were the ones disproportionately affected by all the changes.^[10] Among white, African American and Puerto Rican workers the lack of employment was highest amongst Puerto Ricans. On top of that, living conditions in cities “were further worsened by tax-base erosion, which exacerbated the disrepair of the urban environment after the Depression,” and crime rates increased substantially throughout the 1960s.^[11] As one might expect, growing up in this environment would lead to the organization and radicalization of urban youth. They witnessed daily how their parents struggled to make a decent income and could not escape the reality of their poverty outside of their homes, as conditions around them were no better than their own. The riot of 1967 was the bubbling over of the sentiments felt for so many years as living conditions continued to worsen throughout the decade.

Due to growing up during the civil rights movement and Vietnam War protests, the youth in El Barrio saw no other way to solve their problems then to organize themselves and fight against their oppressors.^[12] One of the best examples of this sentiment actualized is the Young Lords Party of East Harlem. Branching off of the original Chicago organization, Jose Martinez managed to start the group that worked out of El Barrio, a predominantly Puerto Rican neighborhood.^[13] The Young Lords chapter of New York officially announced their formation on July 26, 1969.^[14] One of the first actions taken by the group was their Garbage Offensive, which was a protest against the city’s neglect in collecting garbage from El Barrio. What the group did was clean the streets and block major intersections with the garbage they had collected forcing the city to pick it up.^[15] The group would call their demonstrations “offensives” after the 1968 Tet Offensive, a Vietnamese military campaign against U.S. forces.^[16] They modeled themselves, stylistically and in terms of organizing, after “Third Word” guerrilla armies. They saw themselves as a revolutionary army and “embryonic government of a future liberated nation” as its leadership was organized into central committees. The group’s physical appearance was quite striking resembling of “pseudo-paramilitary” style. The Young Lords became a symbol of discipline and power, purposely going against the negative societal image of blacks and Hispanics as unruly people and delinquents.^[17]

The Young Lord’s militant activism allowed them to have many successful demonstrations throughout El Barrio and the city. One of the offensives that caught a lot of attention was their occupation of the Spanish Methodist Church in December of 1969. The Young Lords were able to hold off police for ten days turning the church into a “center for free breakfast, clothes, health care, political education, and cultural events.”^[18] The following year the group would turn heads again with their demonstration at the Puerto Rican Parade on June 8th. The Young Lords threw eggs and tomatoes at Puerto Rican officials walking the parade like Luis Ferré, the governor of Puerto Rico.^[19]  The Young Lord’s demonstrations gained them recognition and attention of not only residents in El Barrio but also around the city. They would come to be known for their forceful style of protests that strayed from the non-violent practice of the Civil Rights Movement a few years before.

Periodicals in New York City grew fascinated with the Young Lords’ unique approach to their demonstrations. The emergence of the group “became the subject of hundreds of articles in local news publications,” and one of these local publications would be El Diario La Prensa^[20]  El Diario and La Prensa were originally two separate New York publications that merged in 1968.^[21] La Prensa was founded in 1913 by a Spanish entrepreneur named Rafael Viera. The periodical was thoughtfully launched on the Dia de la Raza on October 12th , “Race Day”, because in the post-Spanish American War years it was regarded among Hispanics “as the celebration of a common cultural identity.”^[22] And even though at the time of its conception 35% of the Hispanic population was from Spain, much different than the demographics of the late 20th century, it showed that the newspaper’s focus was not solely on current events but also in preserving Hispanic traditions in a dominantly Anglo society.^[23]  El Diario was founded in 1948 under a similar mission “to serve the city’s growing Puerto Rican population”.^[24] The merged periodical is believed to be “of the oldest and one of the largest Spanish-language newspapers in the United States”.^[25] The paper’s publisher and CEO, Rossana Rosado, considers that El Diario La Prensa has served as “the voice of New York Latinos,” especially in times when they didn’t have one. She also stated that “over the last century, the newspaper has been a major player in New York’s landscape, helping shape the destine of the Hispanic community and championing the causes that are dearest to its heart”.^[26] But despite the periodical’s focus and contribution to the New York Hispanic community, the impact of newspapers on society isn’t unique to El Diario La Prensa. Though it does make it the perfect newspaper to analyze and learn more about how the community felt towards the Young Lords. But first it is important to discuss the relationship between social movements and news media.

Social movements and the news media are closely linked. For a movement or a group to be able to amass a positive image within a community the attention it receives in the news is important as the media can have a profound effect on a communities’ views. But news coverage isn’t always positive and helpful towards the goals of a movement or group.^[27] Their ideals or motives can be skewed by the media making it difficult for a movement to gain support. It has been acknowledged that historically “dominant” news media has had an adverse relationship with movements due to its “serving not as watchdogs of the public interest but primarily as guard dogs for powerful interest and mainstream values,” meaning that depending on a publication’s agenda they can purposely affect a movement due to its own motives or to uphold socially acceptable values.^[28] Publications, especially “dominant” ones, are not known to go to far from mainstream beliefs and if a movement is pushing them, then they can do serious damage on a movement’s image to uphold traditions. But regardless of the complicated relationship between the two, social movements depend on the media. Individuals participate in social movements when “they recognize their membership in the relevant collective,” and this recognition “can only grow out of communication between individuals”.^[29] In Jurgen Habermas’ theory of the public sphere, the role of communication in public opinion is highlighted.^[30] Meaning that for an individual to form an opinion on a movement, there needs to exist a discussion outside of that individual, and the media provides an outward space for discussion between “ordinary citizens on public matters.”^[31]

El Diario La Prensa is specifically important to examine in regards to how they reported on the group because of the mission of both newspapers as separate and singular entities. The periodicals were created and merged to support the New York Hispanic community in a way that English periodicals did not because they were outsiders. How could they correctly report on the issues in the Hispanic community if they could not possibly understand what it was that the community needed? The Young Lords were part of the New York Hispanic community and knew more than anyone else what El Barrio needed to improve the lives of community members. But despite the similarity in intention between the activist group and the periodical, it seems that El Diario La Prensa wasn’t as outwardly supportive as one might have expected them to be, which could have affected how the Young Lords were perceived by the community.

One of the Young Lord’s first mentions in El Diario La Prensa was on September 4th, 1969. Almost two months since the Young Lords had officially announced their formation in July, but the newspaper does not call them by name. The article describes the garbage offensives that were occurring in El Barrio, where garbage was placed in the middle of the street, and fires broke out. The group is instead described as only “dos hombres, uno de ellos hispano,” meaning two men, one of them being Hispanic.^[32] The article goes on to state that “residentes del area habian lanzado basura a las calles anteriormente en un esfuerzo por dramatizar lo que ellos llaman un servicio pesimo de recogimiento de basura y limpieza en general.”^[33] The article perfectly describes the Young Lord’s motives for their garbage offensive without legitimizing the group or their efforts. This could be due to the fact that the Young Lords were a relatively new activist group but The New York Times does name the group and much earlier. An article dated August 19th describes “the garbage-dumping protest in East Harlem,” and includes that, “in claiming credit for spearheading the protest, a group of Young Lords said yesterday that they had acted to show the people of El Barrio, East Harlem’s Puerto Rican slum, that such activity was necessary to get the city action to meet community needs”.^[34] The rest of the article contains a lot more detail on the group including direct quotes from members and from the Sanitation Department in response to the Young Lords. It is evident that the Young Lords were on the Time’s radar earlier than they were for El Diario La Prensa. Though this doesn’t necessarily mean that they were not deemed important enough to the Spanish periodical, it could be that as outsiders, the Times might have found the group’s actions much more fascinating than El Diario La Prensa. They might not have expected the group of youths to continuously hold demonstrations or really make a difference. As stated before, the New York Times had previously seen Puerto Ricans as “mildly mannered people,” so the extreme change in demeanor could have come off as more alarming to the English periodical.^[35]

The Young Lords received their most exposure in El Diario La Prensa during their church offensive. The first article that mentions the Young Lord’s church offensive was on December 29th, 1969. The group is immediately identified as “un grupo de militantes puertorriquenos, denominados los Young Lords”.^[36] They are seen by the newspaper as a militant group and are also associated with the Black Panthers. Prior to this particular demonstration, the Young Lords had been trying to negotiate with the First Spanish Methodist Church located on 111th street and Lexington Avenue for months.^[37] On their mission to “fulfill the objectives of program and platform,” they “sough out local institutions they perceived to be advancing dominant interests and failing to serve,” El Barrio. They viewed the church as a credible and well known institution that El Barrio residents could trust them to work with and vice versa.^[38] Interestingly though, the group found that most of the churches in the El Barrio were already running some sort of “pragmatic community service program that served residents in ways other than,” the weekly masses held, but unfortunately that was not the case for the Spanish Methodist Church. The early negotiations the Young Lords had with the leaders of the church in October did not go as planned for a few reasons, including that the congregation was conservative in comparison to the Young Lord’s radical ideals. Secondly, the pastor of the church, Humerto Carrazara, was an anti-Castro Cuban exile while the Young Lords were pro-Castro. Lastly, many of the members of the church were not residents of El Barrio, so they could not sympathize or rationalize with the need to use the church for the implementation of community programs.^[39] Due to their failure in appealing to church leaders, the Young Lords decided that instead, they needed to appeal directly to the church’s membership. The Young Lords distributed flyers and attended Sunday worship but that also didn’t go as plan and resulted in a police confrontation with Young Lord members. Though they did continue to attend Sunday service and had asked from the parishioners to “an agreement to use the space for a free breakfast program, a daycare center, a makeshift medical clinic… and a ‘liberation school’.” None of their efforts were progressing their agenda to help the community until their December 29th demonstration, where instead of continuing “futile negotiations,” the Young Lord’s took over the church renaming it the People’s Church.^[40]

El Diario La Prensa reported that “los militantes entraron a la iglesia cunando el servicio estaba en progreso,” claiming that the Young Lords took over the church while services were in progression.^[41] The publication accurately described the motives of the Young Lord’s offensive as “un esfuerzo por forzar a que se permita que se use el lugar durante la semana para dar desayuno a los niños pobres antes de entrar a la escuela.”^[42] Reporting that the drastic measures were taken by the group to feed poor children in the neighbor. In the article there is also mention of the congregation’s opinion of the demonstration stating that “muchos de los feligreses dijeron que respaldaban a los ‘Young Lords’ en sus demandas del programa de desayuno, pero alegan que no habia necesidad de que estos se apoderaran de la iglesia,” meaning that many did agree with the group’s mission but not with the way in which they carried out their demonstration.^[43] The group was mentioned again the following day on December 30th. This time there was more background information given on the group, making it clear that they had made a mark in El Diario La Prensa‘s radar. The publication, who only three months prior did not credit them for their garbage offensive, now took notice of the movement the Young Lords were heading. The article mentions that,”mientras sus oponentes los llaman extremistas por los derechos puertorriquenos, los que los respaldan alegan que el grupo esta mas interesados en reformas sociales como facilidades recreativas y mejores oportunidades para los jovenes de habala hispana”.^[44] Informing those readers who saw the Young Lords as an extremist group, due to their method of advocating for Puerto Rican rights, that those who did support them believed that their interests instead lied in helping the general community. The inclusion of both points of view of the Young Lords in El Barrio is interesting because it comes off as if El Diario La Prensa doesn’t really have its own opinion of the group or at least is deciding not to insert it into their article.

The following day on December 31st, the Young Lords are featured again but the attitudes expressed in the article are different than from the day before. This article focused on the the Spanish Methodist Church’s side of the story and the actions they had taken against the group. The leaders of the church had appealed the court to try to get the Young Lords off of the premises after their third day of occupation. The church’s lawyer, Gonzalez Suarez, claimed that “los demandados han estado interrumpiendo los servicios religiosos de la iglesia desde el 26 de octubre… de la misma forma”.^[45] The Young Lords were being accused of having interrupted mass in the same way that they had on December 29th since October. Making the group come off as bullies instead of activist. The church also alleged that the group “han estado amenazando e intimidando a los fieles y han jurado continuar haciendo lo mismo,” claiming that the Young Lords had been hassling and intimidating churchgoers.^[46] The article ends with the mention that the Young Lords have supporters who are Black Panthers. This is important because of the reputation that the Black Panthers carried and what an association with them could mean for the Young Lords. Again, El Diario La Prensa doesn’t outright state their opinions of the group but what is included and what isn’t speaks volumes of their opinion on the group.

On December 29th the New York Times also published an article on the group’s church offensive. The Young Lord’s are identified  as “a cadre of Puerto Rican activist,” instead of militants as they were called in  El Diario La Prensa’s  article.^[47] The reports also differed in that the Times reported that the demonstration came at the end of Sunday service and not during as reported by El Diario La Prensa. What stuck out the most in the Times article was what El Diario La Prensa chose to omit how the church leaders treated the Young Lords.  Yoruba, one of the members of the Young Lords told the Times, “we wanted to talk to the board but they kept refusing to meet with us. They called us Satana-the devil.”^[48] This paints a different picture of the negotiations that were being conducted prior to the church offensive reported in El Diario La Prensa’s article. Although El Diario La Prensa did not make their stance on the group entirely clear, had one read the Times article instead, one would have walked away with quite a different point of view of the group.

Another offensive that caught a lot of media attention for the Young Lords was their Puerto Rican Day Parade demonstration of 1970. The Puerto Rican Day Parade was organized in the early 1950s by Gilberto Gerena Valentin and Antonia Denis to “fight discriminatory practices against Puerto Ricans and other Hispanics in the City,” following in the footsteps of Italian and Irish immigrants that came before them.^[49] The parade was seen by El Diario La Prensa as “la mas titanica obra civico cultural de solidaridad boricua,” considered a day of solidarity for all Puerto Ricans in the city.^[50] The issue of the day following the Puerto Rican Day Parade was filled with articles describing different aspects of the parade. All filled with very evident Puerto Rican pride in the parade, calling it a success. The periodical did not shy away from reporting on the scandal of the parade, the Young Lords who had thrown tomatoes and eggs at Puerto Rican officials. All together there were about 300 members of not only the Young Lords but also the Puerto Rican Students Union that were at the parade. As they marched down 69th Street, they chanted, “Puerto Rico, si! Yanquis, no!”^[51] The Young Lords and others who joined them decided to throw food at Puerto Rican officials to bring attention to their demands for Puerto Rican independence.^[52] This demand was at the core of the organization’s platform. It was the first point in their 13-point Program and Platform, which listed what the group desired to accomplish.^[53]

In addition to an article in El Diario La Prensa describing the demonstrations that took place, in the same issue, there was an article on Herman Badillo’s reaction to what the Young Lords had done. Badillo, who had been the first Hispanic Bronx borough president in 1965, at time of the parade, had recently lost the mayoral election of New York City in 1969.^[54] He did, though, win a seat in Congress representing his Bronx district. Within a few months of his congressional win, his political rival Ramon Velez challenged his seat and garnered the support of El Diario La Prensa.^[55] In the article focusing on Badillo’s reaction to the demonstration, he reminds the Young Lords that ,“en este pais tenemos el derecho a la disensión y siempre he luchado para proteger ese derecho. Pero los Young Lords, especialmente, deben darse cuenta que es posible sentarse en una mesa de discusión y resolver problemas sin llegar a la violencia”.^[56] He believed that the Young Lord’s should have been able to talk about any issues they had on the state of Puerto Rican affairs with officials instead of turning to violence. Badillo also mentioned the directors, president, and committee of  the parade saying that they should, “resentir que el acto del domingo fuese usado para propositos politicos. Nunca se ha visto que en ninguna Parado sea irlandesa… se ha usado un alto parlante para hacer campaña”.^[57] Badillo believed that the demonstration at the parade was a political stunt on behalf of his rival Ramon Velez by the parade’s directors and committee. Badillo believed that the parade that year was an insult to the Puerto Rican community and stated “debemos comenzar ahora mismo a reorganizar el Comite de la Para para el proximo año, de modo que no caiga en manos de politicos ambiciosos ,”^[58] Calling on a reformation of the committee to insure that there were no political ambitions.

The accusations made by Badillo were heavy but also brought to light the political issues going on in El Barrio during that time. Badillo was interviewed by the periodical, which had publicly supported his political rival. There is a feeling of resentment in Badillo’s statements, but it seems that the New York Puerto Rican leaders were also quite embarrassed by the Young Lord’s demonstration. They did not want what happened at the parade to speak for the entire community, as New York Puerto Rican’s often saw themselves as extensions of those still living on the island. Due to its proximity and US colonial status, those in the mainland held a deep connection to the island. So to host Puerto Rico’s Governor for a special day dedicated to Puerto Rico, and to have a mainly Puerto Rican activist group egg him must have been a nightmare for the city’s leaders. But it also shows the impact that the Young Lord’s demonstrations had on members of El Barrio, and also how the group flared tensions and started conversations amongst Puerto Ricans.

The day following Badillo’s article the parade committee made it clear that they did not have any affiliation or prior knowledge of the Young Lord’s demonstration to El Diario La Prensa. The parade’s committee president Jose Antonio Rodriguez clarified that the Young Lords did not have the authority to participate in the parade. They had sneaked into the parade by hiding behind a group of women and children and that it seemed as if the police let them participate in order to avoid  problems.^[59] In the same article Rodriguez refuted that “”Badillo se ha olvidado de que el fue la primera persona que inicio la politica en el Desfile de 1969,” reminding Badillo that he in fact was the first person to use the parade for a political stunt the year before.^[60] Rodriguez did not see how Badillo could even call on the committee to be reevaluated since he did not have that authority. Most shockingly Rodriguez stated, “ya es hora de que el senor Badillo comprenda que el no representa la comunidad puertoriquena ni esta autorizado a hablar en nombre de ella…”^[61] Letting the congressman know that he did not represent the Puerto Rican community and had no right to talk on its behalf. The parade’s president also made it clear that the committee did and would continue to support Ramon Velez. It is interesting to see how within one periodical so much of the political tension between Puerto Rican leaders in El Barrio could come up. It makes one think that although the demonstration received back lash in was in fact a successful demonstration.

After the parade offensive El Diario La Prensa included their own thoughts on the incident. In an editorial piece written in English by an unnamed journalist the periodical made it clear that they did not agree with the demonstration. They believed that “the parade was marred by a regrettable incident,” stating “we are in a democracy and everybody is entitled to his opinion. This however, does not justify the egg and tomato throwing,”.^[62] Worried about the image of the Puerto Rican people the editorial hoped the rest of the city understood “the Puerto Ricans are an orderly and law-abiding people which rejects violence in all its forms,”.^[63] El Diario La Prensa wanted to hold on to the Puerto Rican’s previous reputation for being “mild mannered people,” which went against the Young Lord’s platform that strived to change traditional institutions who no longer served the community, and to do that they could not stand silently in the shadows.^[64] But ultimately the periodical viewed the Young Lords as violent and wanted to disassociate with the group as to not further tarnish the image of Puerto Ricans in New York.

Looking at El Diario La Prensa is important in trying to gain a sense of how the community viewed the Young Lords because they had been so ingrained into the culture for so long. Their whole existence relied on the fact that the Hispanic community was being underrepresented by other dominant and English-speaking newspapers. There is a big possibility that the ways in which the periodical chose to report on the Young Lords had an effect on the ways in they were perceived, especially by the older generation in El Barrio and around the City. One must remember that a majority of those in the group had hit the streets with other youths during the riots of 1967 or had witnessed activism as children. In an oral interview conducted by Hunter College Centro Archives, activist Elizabeth Yeampierre remembers growing up seeing the Young Lords on television who would influence her to go around saying “patria or muerte” meaning “the homeland or death”.^[65] In another oral interview for Centro, Anthony Suarez who was born in the fifties mentioned that all of the political movements such as the civil rights movement, Vietnam Protest, and the Young Lords had influenced him growing up in New York. He also felt that the late1960s and 70s was not only a turning point for the United States but also Puerto Ricans in New York.^[66] In the book Tenants of East Harlem by Russell Leigh Sharman, a Puerto Rican man by the name of Jose had his life in East Harlem documented. Jose, who was a teenager at the time of the church offensive remembered when his mother yelled out “There are people with guns in the church!” as the Spanish Methodist Church was on the same block as their apartment.^[67] His parents made clear their “distaste for the Young Lord’s tactics,” and had instilled fear in fifteen year old Jose. The group was “tapping into the nascent angst of a new generation of Puerto Rican youth,” though the older and religious generation of those living in El Barrio did not agree with the Young Lord’s want for the island to break its link to the mainland.^[68] And using Jose’s mother’s reaction as the perfect example, there was obviously very different ideals between the older and younger generations of Puerto Ricans in New York. According to a study conducted by the Pew Research Center, when it comes to first versus second-generation Latinos, “first generation Latinos are more likely to express views generally considered more conservative than second-generation Latinos,” and those in the Young Lords who were immigrants grew up around the more liberal second and third generations.^[69]

This draws to one reason: the periodical reported on the group like they did. There was a disconnect between the generations where the Young Lords were being seen as radicals not only by parents but also by the traditional media like El Diario La Prensa. Though interestingly enough, the Young Lords understood that they needed media such as El Diario La Prensa to give them exposure. The Lords agreed that they would need to correctly use the media to get their message across to the community after their Garbage Offensive. They decided they would use traditional media until they could “have a TV station and a radio station”.^[70]  They knew that everyone would buy El Diario La Prensa and saw it as a tool since “the people already got access to these things,” they believed they would use them to their advantage.^[71] But just because the Young Lords believed it would help them it didn’t mean it would. In El Diario La Prensa the Young Lords mostly came across as extreme, irrational, and dramatic group of youth who usually had the best at heart but chose unnecessarily violent ways to address issues. And if those who were reading the periodical were part of the older, often first generation, they might not have thought of the group in a positive way.

This image would have differed greatly had a first-generation Barrio resident read the New York Times. Since it seems that the periodical was much more open to hearing the Young Lords’ rationalization behind a demonstration by including more direct quotes from members. But also this is not to say that the New York Times was a radical newspaper due to their reporting style of the Young Lords. In an article published by The Village Voice the differences between how the Young Lords are reported on by the media in comparison to the Black Panthers is discussed. In the article it is stated that, “The Lords were exploited by the press as leverage against the Panther,” due to the fact that in their church offensive the Young Lords did not go directly against the police but rather their own community.^[72] The article argues that the Lords had been used as a buffer for “living room” liberals and white media whereas the Black Panthers were seen as a actual threat. Meaning that the Young Lords could have received so much attention from the English media like The New York Times to showcase just how dangerous the Panthers were instead of really being supportive of  the efforts of the group. It was also easier for the Times to generalize the sentiment of El Barrio as outsiders in comparison to El Diario La Prensa which was able to include different attitudes toward the Young Lords because their goal wasn’t to try and call out the Panthers by showing just how “great” and less “anti-police” the Young Lords were. El Diario La Prensa and The New York Times obviously had very different intentions behind their publishing, making their articles of the group come across very differently.

There is also a possibility that El Diario La Prensa did not deem the group as important as it is considered now. In looking through the periodical I found that the group was mainly mentioned the day after and a few days after a demonstration. During the weeks or months in between the group was rarely talked about. It is important to remember that El Diario La Prensa catered to all Hispanics in the city and not just to residents of El Barrio, where 3 of the 4 demonstrations mentioned took place. The periodical lacks an animated response from the public in published articles because they might not have had any opinion towards the demonstrations held in another borough. And for those who did live in El Barrio, the group’s demonstrations might have gotten lost in the all the demonstrations other Hispanic groups around the city were conducting as well. It can also be that the Young Lords’ efforts and demonstrations have been over-glorified by the passing time. In March of 1989 El Diario La Prensa published a six paged story on the Young Lords. In it there is a detailed account of the groups history and interviewed with original members. This surely would not have happened in 1970 where very little direct information of the group was given.^[73] Though in The New York Times there was a story published on the Lords in June of 1970.^[74] Proving that to El Diario La Prensa the group might not have been as influential as it is thought to be today.

Ultimately, although it is not that it is expected of El Diario La Prensa to have completely supported and aided the group in their mission, out of all the media publications it would have made the most sense. Although their ways of going at it were different, both the periodical and the group had the same mission, to serve the people of El Barrio and Hispanics of the city in ways in which that were not being done for them in the wider white society. It was evident that El Diario La Prensa did not agree with what the Young Lords were doing. With former Young Lord member’s recollection of their time in the group and by the literature produced in the academic world, it comes off as if the support for the group was all-encompassing, but in reading through El Diario La Prensa articles it becomes evident that that wasn’t the case. The Lords may have appealed to the youth but the older generation often saw them as violent troublemakers, though this does not take away from the impact that the Young Lords had on the community. And it is often easy to assume that El Barrio residents would have much to say about the group during the height of their time together, but that can be due to the idealization created around them today. Overall, the study of the El Diario La Prensa’s reporting did give great insight as to what the periodical itself felt towards the Young Lords and is a great starting point to begin understanding how the rest of the community felt as well.

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Bibliography

“Badillo Scores Young Lords For Attack on Puerto Rican.” New York Times, June 9, 1970.

Black, Jonathan. “Making a Revolution Beware the Media !” Village Voice, March 5, 1970.

Cordasco, Francisco and Eugene Bucchioni. The Puerto Rican Experience: A Sociological Sourcebook. Totowa, New Jersey: Littlefield, Adams & Co, 1973.

Chronopoulos, Themis and Jonathan Soffer. “Introduction. After the Urban Crisis: New York and the Rise of Inequality.” Journal of Urban History 43, no.6 (2017): 855-863.

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Notes

^[1] Russell Leigh Sharman, The Tenants of East Harlem (Berkeley; Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2006), 62.

^[2] Johanna Fernandez, “The Young Lords and the Social and Structural Roots of Late Sixties Urban Radicalism,” Diálogo 11, no. 1 (2011): 146.

^[3] Albert Scardino, “El Diario Sold by Gannett To Group Led by Publisher,” New York Times, September 1, 1989, https://www.nytimes.com/1989/09/01/business/the-media-business-el-diario-sold-by-gannett-to-group-led-by-publisher.html.

^[4] Fernandez, “The Young Lords and the Social and Structural Roots,” 146.

^[5] Ibid., pp 147.

^[6] Darrel Enck-Wanzer, “Decolonizing Imaginaries: Rethinking ‘the People’ in the Young Lords’ Church Offensive,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 98, no. 1 (2012): 2.

^[7] Fernandez, “The Young Lords and the Social and Structural Roots,” 152.

^[8] Johanna Fernandez, “Radicals in the late 1960s: A history of the Young Lords Party in New York City. 1969-1974” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 2004), 17.

^[9] Nathan Glazer and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Beyond the Melting Pot: The Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Italians, and Irish of New York City (Cambridge, M.A.: The MIT Press, 1970), 93.

^[10] Fernandez, “The Young Lords and the Social and Structural Roots,” 152.

^[11] Ibid., pp 152.; Themis Chronopoulos and Jonathan Soffer, “Introduction. After the Urban Crisis: New York and the Rise of Inequality,” Journal of Urban History 43, no.6 (2017): 859.

^[12] Fernandez, “The Young Lords and the Social and Structural Roots,” 152.

^[13] Francesco Cordasco and Eugene Bucchioni, The Puerto Rican Experience: A Sociological Sourcebook (Totowa, New Jersey: Littlefield, Adams & Co., 1973), 247.; ”El Barrio,” El Museo, accessed April 9, 2018, http://www.elmuseo.org/el-barrio/.

^[14] Fernandez, “The Yung Lords and the Social and Structural Roots,” 146.

^[15] Ibid., pp156.

^[16] Ibid., pp 141.

^[17] Fernandez, “Radicals in the late 1960’s,” 142.

^[18] Jeffery O. G. Ogbar, “Puerto Rico En Mi Corazon: The Young Lords, Black Power and Puerto Rican Nationalism in the U.S., 1966-1972,” Centro Journal 18, no.1 (2006): 157.

^[19] “Badillo Scores Young Lords for Attack on Puerto Rican,” New York Times. June 9, 1970, 83.

^[20] Fernandez, “The Young Lords and the Social and Structural Roots,” 146.

^[21] Anthony Ramirez, “Carlos D. Ramirez, 52, Publisher of El Diario,” New York Times, July 13, 1999, https://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/13/nyregion/carlos-d-ramirez-52-publisher-of-el-diario.html.

^[22] Claudio Iván Remeseira, “El Diario La Prensa celebrates its centennial,” http://nbclatino.com/2013/10/12/el-diario-la-prensa-celebrates-its-centennial/

^[23] Ibid.

^[24] Ramirez “Carlos D. Ramirez”, New York Times.

^[25] Ibid.

^[26] “El Diario/La Prensa, Oldest Latino Newspaper Celebrates 100th Anniversary,” https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/01/el-diariola-prensa-oldest-latino-newspaper-100-anniversary_n_2598098.html.

^[27] Andy Opel, “The Whole World is Sweating: Newspaper Framing of the Student Anti-Sweatshop Movement,” International Communication Association, (2003 Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA): 4.

^[28] C.N Olien, P.J. Tichnor, and G.A. Donohue, “Media coverage and social movements,” in Information Campaigns: balancing social forces and social change, 139-163. London: Sage, 1989, quoted in Andy Opel, “The Whole World is Sweating: Newspaper Framing of the Student Anti-Sweatshop Movement,” 4.

^[29] S.C. Wright, “Strategic Collective Action: Social Psychology and Social Change,” Blackwell handbook of social psychology 4: 409-430, quoted in Amandha Rohr Lopes, “The Impact of Social Media on Social Movements: The New Opportunity and Mobilizing Structure,” Journal of Political Research (2014): 7.

^[30] Jurgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action (London: Beacon Press, 1981), quoted in Lopes, “The Impact of Social Media on Social Movements”, 7.

^[31] Ibid.

^[32] William Rivera-Torres, “Detienen a Tres en Incidentes Ocurridos al Este de Harlem,” El Diario La Prensa, September 4, 1969.

^[33] Ibid.

^[34] Joseph P. Fried, “East Harlem Youth Explain Garbage-Dumping Demonstration,” New York Times, August 19, 1969, 86.

 ^[35] Fernandez, “The Young Lords and the Social and Structural Roots,” 146.

^[36] “‘Young Lords’ Toman Iglesia de Harlem y Clavan Las Puertas,” El Diario La Prensa, December 29, 1969, 4.

^[37]Wanzer, “Decolonizing Imaginaries: Rethinking ‘the People’ in the Young Lords’ Church Offensive,” 3.

^[38] Ibid., pp 7.

^[39] Ibid., pp 8.

^[40] Ibid., pp 9.

^[41] “‘Young Lords’ Toman Iglesia de Harlem y Clavan Las Puertas,” El Diario La Prensa, 4.

^[42] Ibid.

^[43] Ibid.

^[44] William Rivera-Torres, “Young Lords Declaran a Iglesia Territorio Libre,” El Diario La Prensa, December 30, 1969, 37.

^[45] William Rivera-Torres, “Piden ‘Young Lords’ Digan Por Que Ocuparon Iglesia,” El Diario La Prensa, December 31, 1969, 3.

^[46] Ibid., pp 3.

^[47] Michael T. Kaufman, “Puerto Rican Group Seizes Church in East Harlem in Demand for Space,” New York Times, December 29, 1969, 26.

^[48] Ibid., pp 26.

^[49] Carlos Rodriguez Fraticelli, “The Puerto Rican Parade: Now and Then”, Centro Voices (2014): https://centropr.hunter.cuny.edu/centrovoices/chronicles/puerto-rican-parade-now-and-then.

^[50] Esli Ramon Gonzales, “‘Viva Puerto Rico’, Gritan 300 Mil”, El Diario La Prensa, June 8, 1970, 3.

^[51] Peter Kihss, “Puerto Rican Day Parade Mixes Pride and Politics With Protest,” The New York Times, June 8, 1970, 31.

^[52] “Badillo Scores Young Lords For Attack on Puerto Rican,” 83.

^[53] “Young Lords Party 13-Point Program and Platform,” The Sixties Project, accessed May 3, 2018, http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Manifestos/Young_Lords_platform.html.

^[54] “Badillo, Herman,” History, Art, & Archives: United States House of Representatives, accessed April 21, 2018, http://history.house.gov/People/Detail/8806.

^[55] Thomas Lorrin, “‘Juan Q. Citizen,’ Aspirtantes and Young Lords: Youth Activism in a New World.” in Puerto Rican Citizen: History and Political Identity in Twentieth Century New York City (University Chicago Press, 2016), 357.

^[56] Luisa A. Quintero, “Badillo Condena Actos Violencia en el Desfile,” El Diario La Prensa, June 8, 1970.

^[57] Ibid.

^[58] Ibid.

^[59] Cesar A. Marin, “‘Young Lords’ No Estaban Autorizados en el Desfile,” El Diario La Prensa, June 9, 1970, 4.

^[60] Ibid.

^[61] Ibid.

^[62] “Looking Back on the Parade”, El Diario La Prensa, June 9, 1970, 17.

^[63] Ibid., pp 17.

^[64] “Young Lords Party 13-Point Program and Platform” accessed April 21, 2018.

^[65] Elizabeth Yeampierre, oral history conducted 2017, in Centro: 100 Puerto Ricans Oral History Project, 2013–, Hunter College, Center for Puerto Rican Studies Archives, Brooklyn, New York.

^[66] Anthony Suarez, oral history conducted 2017, in Centro: 100 Puerto Ricans Oral History Project, 2013–, Hunter College, Center for Puerto Rican Studies Archives, Orlando, Florida.

^[67] Russell Leigh Sharman, The Tenants of East Harlem, 63.

^[68] Ibid., pp 63.

^[69] “Generational Differences,” Pew Research Center Hispanic Trends, accessed April 30, 2018, http://www.pewhispanic.org/2004/03/19/generational-differences/.

^[70] Francesco Cordasco and Eugene Bucchioni, The Puerto Rican Experience: A Sociological Sourcebook, 261.

^[71] Ibid.

^[72] Jonathan Black, “Making a Revolution Beware the Media !” Village Voice, March 5, 1970, 15.

^[73]“Los Young Lords: titeres o revolucionarios,” El Diario La Prensa, March 5, 1989.

^[74] Jose Yglesias, “Right on With the Young Lords,” New York Times, June 7, 1970, 215.