Q&A with Tony Baez

Here's the complete interview that Griselda Aldrete of AQUI MILWAUKEE magazine conducted with Tony Baez, director of the Council for the Spanish Speaking and a pioneer Latino activist in the 1970s and 1980s.

Tell us a little about your background:

I'm originally from Puerto Rico. I came here originally in November of 1970. I came as an organizer and a student and I remained. I'm from Caguas. I have three kids, two boys and one girl. I later took them over and raised them myself as a father. I am now 59 years old.

Tell us about your education:

I went to the University of Puerto Rico, graduated from high school at the age of 16. Went right into the University of Puerto Rico. I was one of those kids in an advanced humanities program that took me right into the university. It was the first experiment in my town where they took 33 of us from the ninth grade on, and they hit us with the humanities, they gave us advanced courses and of the 33, 31 made it to major universities and colleges in this country and most of them became very political.

So I was one of those 33 and graduated with 3.9 right out of high school in Caguas, which is very difficult. So I went right into the university with scholarships and all. I came from the neighborhood of Borinquen, Caguas, and I was very poor, I couldn't have afforded it by myself so it was good that they paid for it.

I went to the University of Puerto Rico…I got there in September of 66; the riots began immediately after that. It was a bumpy three years of demonstrations and all of that stuff. I became president of the Hispanic Independence Youth Association for the district of Caguas. I was later vice president of the National Association en Defensa de la Juventud Puertoriqueña and a student activist at the University of Puerto Rico until 1969 when they thought I was a danger to the university so they wanted to let me go. My mother decided that it was best that I come to Chicago.

What were you studying at the time?

Pedagogy. I was studying to be a teacher and I had been a substitute teacher during that time, at the same time as going to school. So then I ended up teaching at a very good school, a high school that was an advanced high school because of a teacher that left in the middle of the year and I substituted for that person. That taught me a lot about education and that was very helpful. I had some incredibly bright kids. So when I left I came to Chicago and immediately joined the Young Lords and started in the life of activism as a minister of education of the Young Lords party at the national level.

Did you graduate from the University of Puerto Rico?

No. Actually they convalidated my almost degree to 72 credit hours but I finished here. In 1973 I finished a degree in education in Milwaukee at UWM. I came to Chicago in February of 1970, but I came to Milwaukee in November 1970.

Did you have family in Milwaukee?

One aunt.

What did you like about Milwaukee that made you stay?

They brought me here to make a speech, I was a Young Lord, and they were planning to take over the University of Wisconsin at the Latin American Center for Civil Rights and I came to speak about take overs because I had been one of the students that took over La Torre en la Universidad de Puerto Rico. So I walked them through what we did in terms of take overs and then they took over UWM in 1970.

So when I came, I immediately joined one of the committees that created the Spanish Speaking Outreach Institute and actually I selected the first director, worked with a number of people to start a new curriculum and do all of that stuff, I co-chaired the committee for about three years. I was about 23.

I still remember Roberto Hernandez looking at me one day and saying 'How old are you and how can you do all this?' I was co-chair with him on the committee called the Council for the Education of Latin Americans. It probably started with UWM first and then in October 5, 1972 we went to Milwaukee Public Schools and we started the bilingual program at MPS
We started demonstrations and meetings and all kinds of things but that was the earlier days.

By the way, when I came to Milwaukee, I came to work full-time as the associate editor of a newspaper called La Guardia. It was the first Latino bilingual newspaper in this town and I published all the Spanish part and Lalo Valdez published all the English part. So it was a Chicano and a Puerto Rican getting it done. And it we felt it was a great idea because we covered things that have to do with this community in general, not only one group. That was the only newspaper that was bilingual at the time.

And then your got your Ph.D?

Later, in 1973 I finished my B.A. and then I worked at alternative schools, I ran alternative schools, I taught at alternative schools, worked at MPS as a curriculum developer, as a parent coordinator. Then in 1977, I was invited by Ricardo Fernandez, who was the first director of SSOA in Salomon Flores to join them in a proposal that they were writing with Adrien Chan at UWM and that became the center at the School of Education called National Origin Desegregation Assistance Center. And it was a center to make sure school districts had an obligation to provide bilingual education for desegregation particularly programs for girls that had been deprived of entering programs of, I believe, Title 9, the handicap act. We were asked to assist those school districts develop plans in the whole Midwest. So I went there to work as coordinator of programs. That meant that whenever a school district needed me, I would go to that school and help develop a plan.

When I was at UWM the opportunity in the early 1980s was to write a proposal for Title 7 of the Civil Rights Act, which was the Bilingual Education Act, that would give UWM five scholarships in the area of doctoral bilingual students. So I wrote the proposal and wrote myself into it because that was a guarantee of resources for somebody who was a single father to go to school and complete a PhD. So I went to UWM and I told them I didn't want to do a Masters; I wanted to go right into the PhD program.

They said 'you can't do that.' And I said 'yes I can because your regulations don't say that I can't, so I'm going to do that anyway,' and I said here's my plan. And when they looked at my plan they thought I was crazy. It was a bunch of courses and other stuff. They said they would have to test me, and they tested me and said, 'you know what, he's OK,' and they let me in and I didn't do a Masters. I went right from a B.A. to a PhD program. Took me a while to complete it because I did all the courses in the early 80s paid by the people of Title 7 and then continued to pay out of my own pocket for the research and the dissertation pieces until I finished my PhD. Overall it took melonger than anybody else, I think about 15 years.

I was doing stuff in the community, I was involved in South Division, the Bilingual Program, the State, community based organizations, so it was very difficult to concentrate only on the writing of the dissertation. I couldn't be a full-time student. I would do a course here and there and I kept my status so that I could continue doing it and pay some of my courses and finally wrote the dissertation. It was a study of Hispanic bilingual education litigation from 1920s to the 1990s. It was the first dissertation of its kind: a historical dissertation on all the legal cases in the U.S. about bilingual education. I read a lot of cases, talked to a lot of lawyers and a lot of people, conducted interviews, went all over the country, a lot of libraries. Dug out a lot of litigation that was hidden that nobody could find because it was somebody's documents. So there were about 200 something cases, and I still have that dissertation in case anyone wants to read it.

You did so much activism…do you still consider yourself an activist?

Yes I do but not at the same level that I used to before. I think that when I was younger I did a lot more. I was on a lot of committees, spent a lot of time writing documents, preparing materials, my activism work was mostly in education but there was a lot to do in educational opportunities at that time, the late 70s and early 1980s. My God there was so much to do. We had to institute bilingual education; we had to get every single university to establish a program called Latino Students and get involved in all of those. We had to make sure that every institution established structurally programs that would remain over time. So we did a lot of thinking and actually when we developed the bilingual program here we appeared in front of the school board but I would tell the school board, 'well we gotta do this or we will sue you.' This is a state that prides itself on being bilingual and supporting bilingual populations so why not support bilingual Latinos. And they did, to my surprise they did. But it was harder when they did because one, you have to produce documents and things like that and they expected us to serve as a resource. They recognized that they didn't have a lot of talent in that field but if we came up with something and presented it to them they would consider it. We presented a lot of documents and if you go to the Wisconsin Historical Society you will find them there. I mean my letters alone are like two file. And in each one of those letters we would look at data, trends in the country, we would look at things that were going on and we would be like California is doing this, New York is doing this and we should do that and we knew that things were happening so we found out in mid 1970s that for example the southwest states were doing bilingual litigation and bilingual education acts…but the bilingual education acts were mostly transitional. The first bilingual act was Massachusetts, on the east coast; it was called Transitional Bilingual Act of Massachusetts and we said we are not going to do it like them. We are going to do a Maintenance Bilingual Education Act…so we went to the school district and said 'do you want to be like that…you don't want to be like them.' We'd say, 'Why would you go to the State and promote a Bilingual Education Act that is just like California…nobody believes in California, look at them they're a disaster with Hispanics. Don't do that.'

Or not like New York did. In Aspira vs. Board of Education they had 250 Latino kids, two U.S. attorneys took the case to court and they compromised everything under the board. We don't need to do what they did, we can do a Maintenance Bilingual Program. So they passed a policy in MPS that said that a bilingual program will be from Kindergarten to 12th grade and it will be a program that will maintain and nurture the language of these kids and we will have various kinds of bilingual programs. We will have regular bilingual programs, the maintenance type, we have second language acquisition school, we had two way bilingualism schools, we had German immersion, Spanish immersion... Milwaukee go to be know nationally for its ability to institute schools, public schools supported with public money, that were for bilingualism. Then we went to the State and said to the school district, when your lawyers go to the State of Wisconsin to pass the Bilingual Education Act, we will support you. Because what you're proposing is what we are proposing. They did. In other states they wouldn't do it. In Texas no way, but they did here so we went with them, we lobbied with them, I remember we took bus loads of parents -- this was 1975 -- we used to take lots of parents to meetings, we had 500 to 600 people to meetings, packed wall to wall, and we got bills passed.

If you look at the record in for example, May 7th, 1974, the Bilingual Act in MPS, each if the 13 points passed, we wrote that. Most of them I wrote because I worked with the parents and most of them thought that I could write better than them so I did it. Ricardo Fernandez, who is a wonderful person, has PhD at the UWM, he was the director of the Spanish Speaking Outreach Institute at the time. He's a very good friend, man of Puerto Rican background, he went to school with Raul Julia. He would correct a lot of my stuff because I really didn't write as well. And he would advise me. He'd say you're going to go this route; that's not going to work you may want to do this, you may want to do that. We had a very strong Puerto Rican and Mexican community and sometimes we had meetings where we would present our plans and they would say 'well that's going to fly or that is not going to fly,' so we would amend.

But we had Latin American Union for Civil Rights, the United Community spot at the time, all these organizations contributed in some way to what we were proposing, that the state of Wisconsin could do to position itself to be better for the rest of the state. So as an activist at that time I was busy all the time. I had offices in the north side, in the south side. I had 15 schools with parent committees and at each one of those schools we have an active and I was there, so I was all over. When I went to the school I would say we are going to present this issue to you on such and such date and I was there. We would get like 300 parents there, people would show up because at the time, people knew they had to set the tone for those of you that came later to be able to do it. And I believe we did, we created programs at UWM, at MATC, Mount Mary, programs in the community that sort of like sustained themselves for a while. And all of that you know till about 1980s where Reagan came.

So we did a lot of activism in the 70s and the 80s that created opportunities, opened doors for people to go to school and to go to the university. As the community grew we created more and more organizations, all of that happened here in Milwaukee.

And now?

Well now it's a little bit different because now we have a grown community. We have a larger community, very diversified, a lot of conservatives like you guys, and at that time, we were sort of like the only ones that were doing it. Now there's a bunch of people and all these people that are involved in the community in some way with institutions, corporations, they contribute in some way. We don't necessarily agree on everything. In fact, some of them take on the role that contradict what we are doing but in a way the fact that you have such a vast involvement in this city -- there can't be anything done in this town without a consultation with Latino leaders at some point.

Are we moving in the right direction? We are not to sure about that yet. But the fact that we have so many people involved means that I don't have to put out as many hours because now there are more people doing other things. And you know some of them I don't even know and some of them don't even know me, but it doesn't matter because I hear about them. 'Such and such is doing this,' and I say OK. For example we know now that there are several agencies in town that after the program of school choice came about…in order to get that money they compromised a lot. And some of the things that they did was that even though they serve only Latino kids, they tell them only to speak English. That's contrary to everything we stood for. These are very large institutions that are telling our kids to only speak English, we never allowed the public schools to do that but today we allow community based organizations to do that. We should not allow community based organizations to do that…somebody has to take them on. Should I take them out? Why me? Somebody at some point should do something about it. Now I look back, I know who it is, and I will help people who want to do something about them and I'm going to speak to the Wisconsin Bilingual Association about it. So that at some point some of them will go to those folks…who happen to be by the way people that we trained as bilingual principals doing that, so we see it in the paper and I say 'what the heck are they doing?'

What do you feel when you see that?

Very bad. I feel horrible. I feel sadness. Can you imagine? Well, lets talk about one of the St. Anthony's, with 1,000 kids, the largest elementary school in the city, larger than any MPS telling all their kids that they should only speak in English? And the principal of that school was the principal of the Two Way Bilingualism School that we had in MPS at once. But now he works for them. So for us that's really very frustrating. Why do they do that? They don't have to…because our kids should know two languages.

This is a world that requires more than one language spoken. So the people that do that are very stupid, because by no means should we today tell our kids that they should only speak English. Totally unacceptable. Why are they doing it? Because they are very dumb. And every time I look at that I go like 'my God' and in the name of kids doing better in school in No Child Left Behind tests, that's not going to last. The Democrats are coming in, they're going to dump that, they're going to call it something else. But because the Republicans did it they have to follow track. That doesn't make any sense. So at some point somebody's gotta talk to them. But why me? It should be somebody else. I gotta tell people you've got to do this stuff. The people that are taking over, the people who are picking up need to learn how we learned. Some of them have to be able to say 'OK I'm going to go to Tony to get some mentoring, to get some advice…or this or that' but it's going to take a while to convince those people. It's as important as building these community based organizations. We do have in Milwaukee community based organizations that are much larger than many large states in the United States. Some of these community based organizations here are more effective here than in California, Texas, New York and any of the big states, because they are very large like the United Community Center is very large.

But there are very few organizations in the whole United States that are as competent as they are. Are they as competent? I don't know. Somebody has to decide that. Are they as competent as lets say, in places as Kansas City that has a Spanish Center that has a $30 million in budget, larger than them, does a lot more with the community, brings people in, serves the poor, not the middle class but the poo. Are the people from Kansas City better than them? They have eight schools as opposed to one, maybe they do more, and at some point someone is going to have to make the connection there. It doesn't have to be me, it has to be somebody else that does that. I stay on top of that stuff because I want to make sure that people know. Because one of my obligations is to give the next generation the baton, darle la batuta al próximo…al que sigue. Trato de reducir…pero sigo ahí.

Is activism the way you did in the 70s is still the more effective way to enact change?

Yes because there isn't any change that happens in and of itself. People have to promote it. We have to instill in people the desire for change. The changes that we are seeing in this society today are brought about not necessarily just by from people from the left but people from the right. And we know that this is a society, a democratic society that requires people to think a lot. It's not easy to implement democracy. It's easier to implement an Islamic state that emphasizes that all women have to wear burdas and that they have to be quiet and not talk to authority that's easier to do because you just tell the women to 'shut up' and they do it. Unfortunately, most of them do it, because the ones that say no, they have to leave. They can't stay in Saudi Arabia…las matan…like in Pakistan. So we know that today. So that in a way easier because in those states, that's it. You either do it or you're going to be killed. But in a democracy, there's debate, there's discussion, community involvement, people don't agree on things, people disagree, there's fights, there's struggles, there's politicians, community based organizers. That requires a lot of work. And people need to build on that because some of the solutions that people came up with in the 70s may not necessarily be solutions for 2008. So there are some things that as community organizers, we are saying today, 'should these organizations really work with the government?' or 'should they concentrate on community development?'…should they build community? Why is it that mainstream America has such a hang up about immigrants? It's a country of immigrants. It makes no sense that German immigrants are going after Hispanic immigrants today. It's very stupid, why do they do that? So because we discuss these things openly it takes a lot more, and more of us will have to be involved in the development of the community not less. More.

What are some of the challenges that the Latino community still continues to face?

As it grows its going have a lot more challenges. The larger we are the more challenges that come before us. As we grow we have 2nd and 3rd generation children who adopt the thinking and the behaviors of people before their generations…of the people that look more like the people that we had problems with in the beginning…as we grow we see that the Hispanic community is facing challenges and is facing issues that other immigrant groups faced when they came. So if you look at history, you are going to see that some of the issues we face are not different from the other immigrant groups it's just that they're slightly impacted by the feel and the moment and we need to prepare people because some of our own people disagree. So for example, it's very easy for somebody in Miami to say 'these Chicanos in California I don't know what the hell they're talking about when they're talking about immigration.' When they have a law that allows Cubans to touch the ground and become citizens. And people who come across that Rio Grande can't. So why are Cuban Americans in Miami questioning what people are doing in California…they're full of it. Because they can't…with what moral legitimacy do they have to talk about poor people that are trying to cross that border because of economic conditions in Mexico? So we have a very different community all over the country…we have a large community in Miami…large community of Caribbean people in the east coast. The people that come to us from the Dominican Republic are darker…and because they are darker, racism is still very real in America. So if you take a walk down Washington Heights in New York City and you see black people talking Spanish, they're Dominicans. So we have to do something with them and for them and we have to get that community to do something for itself…but racism is quite an issue in this country.

Do you think that's an issue in Milwaukee?

Definitely. Look at how segregated we are. So wherever you go in this country, look at Obama last night talking about race. He lied a few times, he disassociated himself from his sort of educator, but that's a politician. On the other hand, Ferraro says a few things that as a white woman is normal for her to say that and everybody jumps at her, the media jumps on her with what moral standing does the media jump on her? They have no moral standing…they have messed over dark people for ages, and all of a sudden we see this debate and the racial question in America, that's foolish, we know that, we lived that. Race is very present in American society. Hispanics need to face it, so it's a very challenging thing for Hispanics because in other parts of the country, Mexicans are not as dark and they have to confront this fact that whenever somebody dark you know comes in, in the election they prefer to vote for the white because the other one is dark. So at some point we need to sort of figure this out. It's not a simple issue, it's a very difficult issue. The more conservative you are as a Hispanic the less likely you are to vote black. The more conservative you are the less likely you are to vote for the issues that affect poor immigrants…so is it bad to have Latinos who are more conservative…maybe not…because we have a very diverse community in the United States…but we find that Latinos in this country are facing the same kinds of issues that other groups face and sometimes they're intensified by the technology, by the fact that now we have information at the tip of our hands whenever we want and we didn't have before. So the larger the community, the larger the issues…and Latinos will have to face it.

How do view inter-Latino relationships here in Milwaukee?

In Milwaukee it's better than in other places I think because we struggle to make sure in the 70s and the 80s that we minimize this whole thing about you're Puerto Rican and you're Mexican…there's a lot of inter-marriage. Lot of people work together…in fact today, one of my employees for a long time I thought she was Mexican. And she brought to a meeting some arroz con gandules and I said 'where did you go for that trice…what restaurant?' oh it's from my sister…and I said 'you're sister' and she said yeah I'm Puerto Rican. And I said 'oh you speak like a Mexican,' and she said I grew up here around a lot of Mexicans. Totally my mind set was that she was Chicana. So for a long time in this community we have had the growth of people together and they have not looked at people because of the nature of what nationality they are…when Mexicans come in…large Mexican immigrations of nationals into this community, they face a community that's very inter-mixed and they're going like what's going on here…why is this? So we are different from people in California, we are different from people in Texas and more of them are becoming more like us. Their children you know are merging in…but we have a very large community around Milwaukee that is Mexican nationals and they're wondering what we are doing or why we do things the way we do. There are lots of places in Milwaukee that are intermixed. We take pride in that…you know whenever we go to other parts of the country we talk about it…in Milwaukee we do this, in Milwaukee we do that. As opposed to in Miami you know whose Cuban or in New York…Puerto Rican pride or in California I remember speaking at UCLA I was speaking about Latinos and this guy gets up and says 'I want you to know that I'm a Chicano and I don't like you talking about Latinos,' and I said 'good for you…that's great…but where I come from we call it Latinos and you are going to swallow that because I have the podium and you don't." And people laugh and clap because they understood that we speak differently in the Midwest. Chicago and Milwaukee are very much alike in terms of how we do things…but the rest of the country is very different.

Should we be seeking to build pan-Latino coalitions?

All the time…we have to make efforts of building Latino coalitions…this is not easy…this is more difficult than done…for example the Hispanic Health Coalition…is a coalition comprised of all kinds of Latinos that work in the health profession…we have Mexicans, Puerto Ricans…what they care is that Latinos in Milwaukee get better health care…Latinos in Milwaukee get more access to health care and that is a very important coalition because that is one of the biggest issues affecting Latinos in this country as a whole…health. So if in Milwaukee we get the people, the Latinos, the people of Latino background that work in the health community and on their own time to come together we have meetings…sometimes 70 people…that's really good. That's indicative that we can build other coalitions. So we do have other coalitions emerging…we have the housing coalition, we have people from Mexican and Puerto Rican descent and Latin American descent working together. We have organizations…I talk to all of them…by in large the big ones we all talk to each other and we are very mixed and you know we go from Mexican, to Cuban, to Puerto Rican to everything. And male and female…more male than female…which we have to address because we can't continue on that route. At some point we have to stop that because the next generation that is going to take over all these organizations easily 60 percent of them are going to be women. So that we know that what we know we have to pass on to women so that they become prepared to run these organizations…we have to structure more…establish situations where we go to Latina women and say you can do this or you can do this job. We don't have to wait. It's very important that we have women at the table…it's very important for this diverse community.

What has been your biggest satisfaction professionally?

I don't think that way. Like today a young people think of my professional career and what I did this and what I did that. When I was dealing with a lot of the changes that were needed in this community we realized that I needed a degree so that I could be heard. So people talk about Dr. Baez this or Dr. Baez that…but not because professionally it made me any different than anybody…or from what I was before…so in a way for me the most satisfying professional thing is that I use my degree to convince people that certain things  make a lot of sense. But I don't think I've said anything that people have not said before…by in large I try to keep up with people and even though I influence some people because I have a better understanding of some things or I tell folks about it…so really what my professional expertise has done is validate what I have been doing for a long time and that is good…but satisfaction is seeing a lot of things happen in this community. We have seen this community grow…we predicted that…change…we said in the early 1970s 'we are going to change this community.'

Biggest satisfaction personally?

Yeah when they ask me to be a speaker or a panelist at conferences or workshops. When people come to with questions on racial justice issues and they will also go to other Latinos…and Latinas and get them involved in different kinds of things. That means that we are opening the doors for other people to come in.

Do you ever get nostalgic about your career?

For me a vacation is an opportunity to learn. I always want to learn more. So I read a lot about the world, about history, literature, politics…I read whatever I can because I realize that I know so little in comparison to the rest of the world. And that the more I read about what other people do offers me a whole other perspective on how people view the world. I try to read one Spanish and one English book…I try to improve my language…and I have a long way to go before I die. I read about 4 books a month.

Future…what does the future hold for you?

I want to do more in the area of non-profits. I want to make this community understand that when we have these organizations is because government sometimes doesn't do these kinds of things. So I want to build them, make them more solid, you know in terms of what they do and how they do it. I want to dedicate myself to this for a while. And then personally I want to grow, read more…read more literature, more poetry…understand better the world I'm in by reading as much as I can. So those are two of the most important things I want to do. And hopefully this community will grow and change. I plan to stay here.