Puerto Rico, Protest, Prison: Johanna Fernández and Jose Saldaña Talk About The Young Lords

^{Jose Saldaña and Johanna Fernández in Johanna’s Washington Heights apartment, 2020 (Photo: susie day)}

Johanna Fernández, child of immigrants from the Dominican Republic and professor at New York’s Baruch College, has just published The Young Lords: A Radical History, a book about the 1960s Puerto Rican activist group. The Young Lords began as a Chicago street gang; then, inspired by the Black Panther Party, morphed into a militant rights organization that caught fire in New York City, where Jose Saldaña, child of Puerto Rican immigrants, was born. Raised in impoverished East Harlem, Jose spent 38 years in NY prisons. On his release in 2018, he became the Director of Release Aging People in Prison Campaign (RAPP) and a compelling critic of our criminal justice system. Johanna, for her part, has devoted years to the prison abolition movement, championing the release of imprisoned journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Last March, a few days before social distancing took hold, Jose and Johanna met with me in Johanna’s Washington Heights apartment to talk about the Young Lords: why Johanna wrote this book; how the Young Lords changed so many Latinx lives; and how the moral lifeline they gave Jose helped him survive decades in prison. Jose discovered the Young Lords when he was 18 years old…