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Encarnacion Padilla de Armas

Oral history interview conducted by John D. Vazquez

October 21, 1974

Call number: 1976.001.048

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0:00

VAZQUEZ: How did you get here?

ARMAS: I came here by boat. At that time we didn't have airplanes and I landed in the pier, I watched my way to [unintelligible].

VAZQUEZ: To where?

ARMAS: [unintelligible] where I went to school.

VAZQUEZ: How old were you then?

ARMAS: I was 16 -- 16, 17.

VAZQUEZ: You came to live in Brooklyn?

ARMAS: No. I came over here and spent two weeks in Brooklyn and then I went to Newark and from Newark I went to Philadelphia, and from Philadelphia I went to Washington D.C. and from Washington I went to Holy Trinity where I finished my 1:00high school. Then when I finished my high school in 1929--'28, I came back to Brooklyn. And I stayed with the missionary servants around 60 Street in Brooklyn.

VAZQUEZ: 60th Street?

ARMAS: Around Bay Ridge area.

VAZQUEZ: Yes, the Bay Ridge area.

ARMAS: Bay Ridge, and there I got my first job. I went to work in the library, in the Fort Hamilton Library, putting the books in the shelves [unintelligible] and I was about 18 or 19 years old.

VAZQUEZ: What was the community like then? What year was this, about 1929?

ARMAS: '29.

VAZQUEZ: What was the community in Bay Ridge, where you lived, like?

ARMAS: In Bay Ridge where I was living at that time 90% of the community in the 2:00circle in the area where I was living, there were Italians and Irish and there were very few Puerto Ricans.

VAZQUEZ: Did you know any Puerto Rican families in that area?

ARMAS: I know three families.

VAZQUEZ: Which were they?

ARMAS: They were Calderon, Melendez and another family by the name of Rodriguez. I was very young. I was not in both -- in the "Puerto Rican movement" yet, as you could call it.

VAZQUEZ: How many years did you live there?

ARMAS: I lived over there one year then I moved to Manhattan and I lived in Manhattan because I start in Columbia University and it was the--The commuting was terrible from--The BMT was open the year that I was living there and you 3:00have to change trains to go to the -- to Manhattan in the IRT. And I moved to 107th and I worked and I studied over there. In 1930, I returned to Cuba. I say I returned to Cuba because I had been in Cuba many times. Although being a Puerto Rican. My father was an agriculture engineer and he worked in the plants and they used to call him the doctor of the plants because he watched the diseases of the plants; especially in the sugar cane, tobacco, and coffee. And after there was a big cyclone in Puerto Rico and after the cyclone he went to 4:00Cuba and -- I think the cyclone was in 1929 or 1928. I don't remember exactly because I was not in Puerto Rico, and he went to Cuba to work in the Department of Agriculture over there. And he didn't want me to continue my studies here. I went to Cuba and finished my studies there. [unintelligible] stay in Cuba.

VAZQUEZ: What year did you return to the United States?

ARMAS: 1945.

VAZQUEZ: And where in the United States did you return to, in 1945?

ARMAS: --to New York. I lived in New York for a year in Manhattan--It was at the end of the war--the Korean War. It was very hard to find a house and we couldn't find nothing. We lived in a furnished room and they used to charge us $22 for 5:00the furnish room a week.

VAZQUEZ: A week? What kind of work were you doing then?

ARMAS: In the beginning when I worked--I worked in everything I could find because it was very hard for me. Then I got married by the second time and I started working with the McCalls Corporation. I would do translations for them and worked with the Bristol Myer Company. My husband was also a literary man and we prepared translations for Spanish-America. He used to work for RCA, La Voz de America. Then he worked with La Prensa and El Diario and I, in 1946 (at the end 6:00of '46) I started working for the Liberal Party as a steady job. I always stayed there.

VAZQUEZ: What did you do for the Liberal Party?

ARMAS: I was the coordinator of the Liberal Party for the Spanish-speaking.

VAZQUEZ: Were you involved in any other political groups at the time or just the Liberal Party?

ARMAS: Just the Liberal Party. I have always been an Independentista and I have always been in the movement of Independentistas. I was the instrument to get the Liberal Party because when they invited me to work over there, they had in the platform that Puerto Rico should be a state, you know. And I said I'll come and work for you as long as you have that in your constitution because I believe in freedom and every human has the right to decide what they want and the Americans are not supposed to tell us what we should be. We should have the right to 7:00decide. We are a democratic country we should decide even by the vote of the people.

VAZQUEZ: Were there any other Puerto Ricans in the Liberal Party at that time?

ARMAS: Yes, you know after my work when--

VAZQUEZ: How long did you work with the Liberal Party?

ARMAS: Sixteen years.

VAZQUEZ: And who worked with you?

ARMAS: We formed the Spanish division of the Liberal Party and we became very strongly--We were the first political party that ever nominated a councilman for the--a Spanish councilman for East Harlem.

VAZQUEZ: Who was that?

ARMAS: It was Manuel Velazquez. And we tried to run Spanish candidates and we forced the Democrats and the Republican to nominate because as you know politically speaking--the Republicans nominate the first Puerto Rican to 8:00office--that was Garcia Rivera. And after that nobody nominate -- the other political parties didn't nominate Puerto Rican candidates and we were instruments to nominate Puerto Ricans. I had the philosophy that being the Liberal Party, the balance of power in that time of the political movement, I thought that the Puerto Ricans register or affiliate with the Liberal Party we could be the balance of power of the government. You have to remember that I was a politician all my life and I see the work as a politician not as a--and I believe in scientific politics and my numbers--and I was not a political de 9:00barrio. I was a political person that talked politics at a high level. And when I leave--there was a time when we were 15 percent of the Liberal Party vote was Puerto Rican. When you realize that the Liberal Party was almost 80-98% Jewish--

VAZQUEZ: 98 percent Jewish -- This was in Brooklyn?

ARMAS: No, in all over the State of New York.

VAZQUEZ: Did you work with any other groups before this?

ARMAS: In politics? In New York? In United States?

VAZQUEZ: In politics, in Brooklyn, primarily?

ARMAS: I have always been an enrolled Liberal since I came. I never enrolled with Democrat because I thought that the Democrats were using us and not giving us the right time, politically.

10:00

VAZQUEZ: I believe that you mentioned that Brooklyn doesn't have the oldest Puerto Rican population, that there was another Puerto Rican population that was around in Staten Island. [unintelligible]

ARMAS: What do you mean by "oldest?"

VAZQUEZ: What I mean by "oldest" is the first Puerto Ricans that came to the United States that settled in the State of New York.

ARMAS: The first Puerto Ricans that came to the United States settled in Staten Island.

VAZQUEZ: What year was this?

ARMAS: It was at the finish of the 1700s, after the revolution.

VAZQUEZ: After the revolution? You mean we had some Puerto Ricans come from Puerto Rico?

ARMAS: No, the first Puerto Rican that came--in the records, in the studies that I'm making, in the survey that I did in Annapolis--they came with the Dutch, 11:00because if you remember in historical the Dutch took possession of the island and there were Puerto Ricans that went with the Dutch to Europe and they came. You know, we are the people that have traveled most.

VAZQUEZ: We travel the most in the world today.

ARMAS: We are like gypsies, we don't stay put. When I was working in the Liberal Party I always say this anecdote because it is a very interesting thing. We had an office of service at that time and it doesn't exist, and the anti-poverty or nothing like that. We opened an office to serve the Puerto Ricans.

VAZQUEZ: What year was this?

ARMAS: In '46, '48 to '50. There was no other political party that gave this 12:00service we give. We didn't ask the person where they were registered or with whom they registered, if they registered, because that was the conditions in which I started working for them. My interest was to serve the Puerto Ricans--and they used to come from the Island. In that time they used the political situation, or the economic situation, whatever you like to call it--It was very bad in Puerto Rico and they used to come very often. And every time that the industry was prosperous here and they need workers they would send for my cousin, my brother, my--you know how it was--[laughter] and then come a fellow. Which I always remember him, his name was Luis Rios. Luis Rios came from 13:00Utuado and he was what we called a true jibaro, a very intelligent man. He had a natural intelligence and he was proud. And Luis came to my office because somebody who used to work with me in politics who was from Utuado and went back to Puerto Rico and talked to Luis about me--and said, "Don't you worry. When you go you go to the Hotel Claridge in 44th Street and Broadway, the 14 floor, and you ask for Mrs. Armas. Everybody knows there Mrs. Armas and she will help you." Before Luis there used to come the letters of uptown and downtown to know where it was the subway. And he goes there and he asked for work and I tried to give 14:00him work and when he worked in a factory of pocketbooks and there was a machine that put things together and one day Luis came and said that he doesn't want to work there anymore. I said, "But Luis, you don't know anything else." [unintelligible] He said, "I am going to register in school and I am going to learn English." I said o.k. So I took him and registered him to learn English. So when he mastered the English, he became enrolled in the Liberal Party. Then he wants a new environment and he moved to New Jersey. One day, in Election Day, they called me and it was Luis. He said, "Mrs. Armas, they have put me in jail." 15:00And I said, "But what have you done Luis." He's a very decent guy, you know. And he said, "You know I came to vote because -- and they arrest me." I said, "But you can't vote here in New York because you live in Jersey." So this is the sense of loyalty that he had and so the years pass by and I was working for the United--no for the Spanish-speaking bishops of Texas, making a study for them of the Puerto Ricans--and I was changing train in Nevada, in one little town of Nevada very late at night, and when I was in that platform waiting for my train 16:00I hear a fellow say, "Doña Arma"--because that was the way he always called me--"Doña Arma que hase usted por estos montes." I said, "What is strange is what you are doing in this part of the world." [laughter] He said, "I am on my way to Alaska."

VAZQUEZ: To Alaska?

ARMAS: To Alaska, and he worked his way through to Alaska -- in Fairbanks, Alaska, I saw him then, years after.

VAZQUEZ: What was he doing there?

ARMAS: Working.

VAZQUEZ: Working?

ARMAS: He wanted to see the world. He wants this. And this I always say it because he got the idea that he had to see the world. And he surely did.

VAZQUEZ: I have an uncle called Matias Vazquez that traveled every corner of 17:00Puerto Rico, then came to the United States. Came to live in Brooklyn with us, my uncle. He couldn't read and write too much, but he wrote decimas, and he would sell decimas for anything that happened--the correa coto--President Kennedy's death in English and in Spanish--which he learned from reading comic books, during the war.

[Interview interrupted.]

ARMAS: There is a very great immigration of Puerto Ricans in Australia.

VAZQUEZ: They are going to Australia?

ARMAS: Yes, it is very interesting. I think, you know, that we are very interesting. I am very prejudice because I think we are the best people on earth.

VAZQUEZ: Well, I know that for a fa-- I agree with that.

ARMAS: Because--honest. I am so proud of when people ask me, "Where you are from?" Some people think that I am very sophisticated and they have a very poor 18:00idea of what is a Puerto Rican. They say, "Oh but you don't look Puerto Rican" and I say, "Thanks God I am a Puerto Rican. And believe me if I was not a Puerto Rican, then I go back to heaven and say to God, "Listen I don't want to be born in any other place but in Puerto Rico."

VAZQUEZ: That is very well put.

ARMAS: Because you know when they say, "From where are you?" I always say, "From Puerto Rico." In Spain they always call everybody that was born in America. Which is true--is America, all these countries--they call, "la senora Americana" and one day I had a very interesting experience; I had to visit the Bishop of Cuenca and I called his office and his secretary talked to me and said, "Tomorrow I will let you know exactly at what time he is going to see you." I 19:00was working for United States Catholic Conference--it was visiting bishops. So I called and the secretary of the Bishop was not there but the--I think the secretary of the secretary of the Bishop in Cuenca--In Spain they are called "the deano," the assistant of the bishop--and his secretary said, "No, Mr. Don Salvador didn't leave a message for you. He left a message for una senora Americana." And I said, "But I am not an American, so that message is not for me. So you tell him when he comes that Encarnacion Padilla de Armas lo llamo, and he should call me at the Hotel Costado where I am at such a date and time." 20:00So I just reached the hotel and I received a call, and he said, "Why I left a message and you are supposed to be there at such and such a time." I said, "Your secretary said that the only message he has was for an American lady and I am not an American. And that message was not for me. I don't want to hear it. I am a Puerto Rican!" [laughter]

VAZQUEZ: Tell me Senora Armas, have you worked with any groups in Brooklyn?

ARMAS: Yes. The most interesting thing that I found in Brooklyn--Many, many years ago there was a woman that lived in Columbia Street. Columbia Street was full of Puerto Ricans--

VAZQUEZ: What year?

ARMAS: In the '40s. And there was a woman that had a parade; Dennis.

21:00

VAZQUEZ: Antonia Dennis.

ARMAS: Antonia Dennis. And her sister used to know my father's family from Arecibo and her sister was a little senile. She was burned in a fire over there.

VAZQUEZ: In Puerto Rico or here?

ARMAS: Here in Columbia Street. And she used to visit me and I loved her spice. You know, I collect spice. I loved the mustard and peppers and all those things, and she always used to bring me -- almost every week she used to come to my house with a little pot like this, not more than 2 inches, and she had the garlic grown, and she would bring me the matita de ajos.

22:00

VAZQUEZ: Garlic? Who was this? Antonia Dennis.

ARMAS: Antonia Dennis's sister and she wrote a book for me. I must have it around the papers. She used to have a parade for the children and we had it in Atlantic Avenue between Henry and Hicks a club and I worked with the children and we had a Christmas party.

VAZQUEZ: What was the name of the club?

ARMAS: It was the Liberal Party Club. And we had a party for the children, and we had it in the Red Hook Stadium--and it--we got, that year, about 2 thousand Puerto Rican children and we would bring them toys and all. We got the toys from 23:00the Novelty Toys Workers Union and Oscar Otero who is now the secretary of the union used to be a worker over there.

VAZQUEZ: Oscar Otero?

ARMAS: He was working in Brooklyn and now he lives in music.

VAZQUEZ: Was he around for a long time?

ARMAS: Oh, yes. And do you know Mario Abreu?

VAZQUEZ: Mario Abreu?

ARMAS: Have you interviewed him?

VAZQUEZ: I have not interviewed him but I know him personally -- He has been in Union 65.

ARMAS: In District 65--He is an old timer. There are many old timers here. In 1950 I made a study for one San Francisco--for one of the university and it was based on housing. At that time I was living on my own home, on Congress Street--

24:00

VAZQUEZ: Downtown Brooklyn, Congress Street.

ARMAS: Yes, that is my house; 150 Congress Street.

VAZQUEZ: That is near the highway?

ARMAS: Yes, it is between Hicks and Henry.

VAZQUEZ: Near St. Peters Church.

ARMAS: Right in front of the Presidio de Christiana--and they were 118 and I am 150. I lived there since 1950. I bought the house until now and I retired. My son bought this house and convinced me to move with him because he said the house was too big for me. He always says, "Why do you need such a big house?"

VAZQUEZ: So you rented the house over at Congress Street. That house is rented now?

ARMAS: Yes, but it is my house. I will not sell it until I die, I feel very 25:00attached to that neighborhood.

VAZQUEZ: The Red Hook section?

ARMAS: No, it's not the Red Hook section--Cobble Hill.

VAZQUEZ: Cobble Hill?

ARMAS: Yes, the Red Hook section is farther down.

VAZQUEZ: Did you work in any community organizations while you were in that area there?

ARMAS: I was a member of La Casa Ayuda--that still exists.

VAZQUEZ: And what is La Casa Ayuda?

ARMAS: It's a program that they have in Columbia Street, and I also--they have still--when they established La Casa Ayuda.

VAZQUEZ: What does La Casa Ayuda do?

ARMAS: Try to help people. That is the only thing that you can do. Try to--

VAZQUEZ: And what do they do for people?

ARMAS: They help with orientation--Spanish lessons. They have a program for the 26:00children, for the parents.

VAZQUEZ: How long has La Casa Ayuda been in existence?

ARMAS: I couldn't tell you. I think over 10 years and before I used to be very active with the Colony House that was on Joralemon Street.

VAZQUEZ: You were active with the Colony House that was on Joralemon Street. They use to give dances for teenagers?

ARMAS: Yes and they had a Head Start program on--

VAZQUEZ: --Know they have it on Pacific or Dean.

ARMAS: A-ha.

VAZQUEZ: It's that the same Colony House?

ARMAS: The same Colony House.

VAZQUEZ: That is where all the teenagers from the community used to get together in Columbia.

ARMAS: And in St. Peters Church they did a very good job for me.

VAZQUEZ: Did you ever meet Sister Carmelita?

ARMAS: Sister Carmelita was the Sister that met me when I came from Puerto Rico.

27:00

VAZQUEZ: The first time. Did you do any work with her at all?

ARMAS: Not in Brooklyn, not in that area--I worked in that area when Sister Lucita was there. I worked with the people that happened to be there; the rehabilitation program.

VAZQUEZ: Did you ever meet or know anything about Carlos Tapia?

ARMAS: I knew very well the Hernandez.

VAZQUEZ: You knew the Hernandez brothers.

ARMAS: The Hernandez brothers --

VAZQUEZ: Luis, Miguel--

ARMAS: No I am referring to the funeral parlor.

VAZQUEZ: Oh the Hernandez Funeral Parlor, how long have they been around? Which Hernandez is this?

ARMAS: The Hernandez was the first Puerto Rican funeral parlor that we had in 28:00Brooklyn. When Mr. Hernandez died, his daughter took over the business and then she sold it and went to live in Miami.

VAZQUEZ: Where were the Hernandez [unintelligible] first?

ARMAS: It was--you know when they build the Municipal garage in Atlantic Avenue, between Court and Boreum Place. They bought the brownstone and they was next to what is the Atlantic A & P in the corner of Clinton and Atlantic, is the A & P. It used to have a drugstore then after the drugstore--now they sell chicken 29:00delight--this was a very old drugstore. Then after the drugstore was the A & P and after the A & P was the first club that was created to teach Spanish and it was paid by the Spaniards from Spain and they had a teacher that taught Spanish to the descendants of the Spanish-speaking Puerto Ricans.

VAZQUEZ: What was the name of it?

ARMAS: I don't remember. But it existed there for years.

VAZQUEZ: Did you ever hear of the Voters Club? By the Hernandez brothers?

ARMAS: Oh that is in the other part. I am talking about this. I have been and I 30:00have talked to Luis--the Sures--

VAZQUEZ: Yes I know. He lives on 15 Bushwick Avenue.

ARMAS: And they used to call it the Sures.

VAZQUEZ: He has a club on Tompkins Avenue.

ARMAS: And Celia Vice was with them always.

VAZQUEZ: Celia comes from this neighborhood too,

ARMAS: No, no she came from the Hernandez--where Luis Hernandez and all that.

VAZQUEZ: No but I mean she lived downtown when she was a young girl, and Betty Villa.

ARMAS: And the Olmeda, I know him.

VAZQUEZ: Luis Olmedo.

ARMAS: Luz Olmedo and his brother was a member of the Liberal Party 31:00[unintelligible]. I used to campaign all over. And Mickey Hernandez too.

VAZQUEZ: Who?

ARMAS: Mickey Hernandez, the lawyer. And Felix Coss--

VAZQUEZ: Yes, Felix works for me now. Well he was-- [Interview interrupted.] The first Puerto Rican man that they had in the area.

ARMAS: And I was involved in the movement when they had those first 13 Spanish teachers. Called SAT, S-A-T, that was in the time of Wagner--O'Dwyer--was the first one that I assisted.

VAZQUEZ: O'Dwyer, yes he ran off with some money.

32:00

ARMAS: O'Dwyer was the first mayor that formed the Puerto Rican Community Committee.

VAZQUEZ: He was the first mayor. What was the Puerto Rican Community Committee?

ARMAS: There was supposed to meet with O'Dwyer.

[Interview interrupted.]

VAZQUEZ: You graduated originally from Ford--from Fordham?

ARMAS: No--was honorarium. [inaudible] I was the first Puerto Rican woman--the 33:00first Spanish woman to receive an honorarium from Fordham University. I am not with the liberation movement because I was born free. And I always patronize women from every type of things that are initiated by women.

VAZQUEZ: Were you ever in any organization of liberalization of womaen?

ARMAS: I formed the Agrupacion Femenina Hispanoamericana in 1950. Still exists.

VAZQUEZ: A donde es esa organizacion?

ARMAS: We function from Manhattan. But we have it all over and we--it belongs 34:00to--for all nationalities of Spanish woman and the idea was to help the people to be the woman to take the place that they represent in society. We went to Washington. We went to Albany for progressive law for women.

VAZQUEZ: [unintelligible]

ARMAS: Si. How did you guess? [Interview interrupted.] Y Las fiestas patronales de los pueblos--used to be the following you know?

VAZQUEZ: A greasy pole.

ARMAS: And the Puerto Rican style to climb that greasy pole. That in New York: It's very hard to break through. And the others instead of pushing them to get 35:00to the top, they pull them down.

VAZQUEZ: You say that there is no unity among the Puerto Rican community?

ARMAS: There is no unity in the Puerto Ricans. One is trying to destroy the other.

VAZQUEZ: What do you think is the future of the Puerto Rican?

ARMAS: I don't know the future because I am not a gypsy. I know the past and I know the present. The future belongs to God.

VAZQUEZ: You have no predictions as far as--

ARMAS: I think it is going to be very hard because we don't have leaders. We have-- Everybody is a "chief"--from the unions--and nobody wants to be an "Indian." And this is the greatest problem. I hate in politics every time that I see in a district a Puerto Rican and see another Puerto Rican running against him. When we know how to close our hands and how, for example when I saw Luis 36:00Roman running against--

VAZQUEZ: Luis Olmedo?

ARMAS: Luis Olmedo and Luis Roman said you know are--and I said, "Listen, Luis Roman, I love you very dearly and I have helped you in politics but this first, I am retired of politics and second I will never in my life will help one Puerto Rican against the other." Because I think it is a dirty trick and shouldn't be done. I think we have to stick together. We have to join hands. We have to push up together. That is--I don't say that we are perfect. We are very much imperfect but if we don't stick together we will be destroyed. They say divide and 37:00you will conquer. And I say stick together. But they don't do it. 90% you ask to a Puerto Rican, "How is so and so?" and he will say, "Oh, he is very good but--" and don't listen after that "but" because the only thing they do then is cut them into pieces. And we have to say--you know the Cubans have a very good saying that it was said by Marti, our--"Nuestro vino es agrio pero es nuestro vino--tenemos que aprender a tomar." And no matter with all our faults we have to stick together and in sticking together we better ourselves. And we have to, 38:00you know, when we study the greatest problem of the island--the greatest problem of the political situation of the island. We have survived 78 years. You know, what is 78 years of an imposition of a different culture, and we have survived to save our language.

VAZQUEZ: It takes a certain amount of stubbornness--

ARMAS: No, it takes a certain amount of love for the island. And you see we have contributed tremendously to the culture of this country and they never count the 39:00contribution that we have done. We have brought children to the streets, we have brought the love of the children that they didn't have it--the American families were accustomed to two child and if they see you with another child they thought they saw a monster--they have learned to shake hands and love, and say good morning and good night. You listen here in the building and you live with your neighbor across the hall, and you don't even know who he is.

VAZQUEZ: Isn't that a phenomenon of an urban community?

ARMAS: No, it is not, is a phenomenon of this big culture, because the American culture they need to have a government nominated to be united. And they thought that the only thing was to speak English and everything that was not English 40:00they tried to destroy--and they destroyed the Italian culture and they destroyed the French culture. And they destroyed the German culture. And the only culture that they have not been able to destroy is the Spanish culture. Because you have to consider when you feel that we are so many Spanish-speaking in this country and we have been here most of our lives, because you don't have to think only of New York, you have to think that every state of the United States has Spanis-speaking people. That the state that has less has two thousand four hundred or something--

VAZQUEZ: What state is that?

ARMAS: Maine. Is the one that has lest. And we have to join and we have to join 41:00with the Spanish people that are in the United States because we have two common denominators that can help us to join. One, that we speak the language (matao) como dicen los Mejicanos but we speak Spanish, and we are Christians. And those two things can unite us. And I think when you touched the point of the religion; I am 100% with you. The problem is that they don't understand because the church in the United States is an Irish church is not a Catholic church.

42:00

VAZQUEZ: Is an Irish Catholic church--

ARMAS: Is an Irish church, with all the prejudice and all their things. And we have to renovate the church and we are in the renovating movement of the church. And make the church what it should be. Because they have created white God when God wasn't, doesn't have color. Now the women are asking what sex the Holy Ghost has because it might be that he might not be a he, it is a she.

VAZQUEZ: Well that's--

ARMAS: That's jokingly.

VAZQUEZ: But that is true by the way they have asked that.

ARMAS: And I think for example I am very proud of the bishop of Brooklyn and I think it has been a blessing for us Spanish-speaking people to have a mass 43:00bishop because when they have never had the interest that they have. Brooklyn has 45% of the Catholics that are Spanish-speaking people. And we have 72 churches with Spanish services.

VAZQUEZ: In Brooklyn?

ARMAS: In Brooklyn. [Interview interrupted.] We were talking in the Senior Citizen program of the city in which we need a program in Spanish for the senior citizens. You cannot reach them if we have thousands of programs; federal, state, city. But they come out in English, so they don't know and they don't get advantage of that.

44:00

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Interview Description

Oral History Interview with Encarnación Padilla de Armas

Encarnación Padilla de Armas came to Brooklyn in 1926, at age sixteen. Her residency there was sporadic since then. She traveled extensively through all of the Spanish-speaking countries of the world. Padilla de Armas obtained a bachelor's degree and an honorary doctorate from Fordham University. She worked for sixteen years with the Liberal Party. In 1974, she had organized a community group of elderly, urban Puerto Ricans, was retired, and a widow. Padilla de Armas died in 1992.

In the interview, Encarnación Padilla de Armas begins by describing her involvement with the Puerto Rican community in Brooklyn in the 1920s. She reminisces about her first years in America as a teenager, and then continues with a description of her involvement with certain organizations and civic leaders, as well as her personal interest in Puerto Rican citizens in need. She closes by evaluating and forecasting both political and social matters concerning the Puerto Rican community of Brooklyn in the 1970s. Interview conducted by John D. Vazquez.

This collection includes recordings and transcripts of oral histories narrated by those in the Puerto Rican community of Brooklyn who arrived between 1917 and 1940. The Long Island Historical Society initiated the Puerto Rican Oral History Project in 1973, conducting over eighty interviews between 1973 and 1975. The oral histories often contain descriptions of immigration, living arrangements, neighborhood ethnicities, discrimination, employment, community development and political leadership. Also included are newspaper clippings, brochures, booklets about Brooklyn's Puerto Rican community, and administrative information on how the project was developed, carried out, and evaluated.

Citation

Padilla de Armas, Encarnacion, Oral history interview conducted by John D. Vazquez, October 21, 1974, Puerto Rican Oral History Project records, 1976.001.048; Brooklyn Historical Society.

People

  • Denis, Antonia
  • Padilla de Armas, Encarnacion

Topics

  • Cultural assimilation
  • Emigration and immigration
  • Ethnic identity
  • Political clubs
  • Puerto Rican women
  • Puerto Ricans

Places

  • Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)
  • Puerto Rico
  • Red Hook (New York, N.Y.)

Transcript

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Finding Aid

Puerto Rican Oral History Project records