My love for my adopted “hometown” of Grand Rapids, Michigan is deep – so deep that I once sued it in order to more fully belong. Today, my life here has come full circle. As a 60-something retiree, I’ve immersed myself in the city’s civic life.
My story starts in 1959 when I arrived in Grand Rapids as a 10-year old from San Juan, Texas, just north of the Rio Grande River. My family of 11 had seen enough of tomato fields, of crouching our way along row after row, of working sun-up to sundown — the life of migrant workers.
At one point, we lived beneath the chassis of a tired, old truck. We put sheets all around it and that was our home. We also lived in chicken coops, but the worst place we lived in was an old barn, sleeping right next to the cows. I was scared at night because I could hear the rats running across the corrugated metal roof.
In Grand Rapids, I was overwhelmed by the sight of grand homes along the city’s South side, and floored by my first glimpse ever of something called a “basement.” I attended Catholic school for a short time, but transferred to the public high school – when our family’s funds ran low. I dropped out in my senior year to join the Marines.
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After serving my military time, I worked hard on a new dream of joining the Grand Rapids Fire Department, which at the time was comprised of some 300 men – only two of whom were minorities.
Rebuffed at every attempt to get in, I finally filed a class action suit and was hired, paving the way for more blacks and Hispanics to enter the force.
I spent 30 years with the department, 18 of those as a fire investigator, charged with determining the cause of blazes – some of which still haunt me today, given the lives lost and bodies I saw and autopsies I attended.
Among the images that won’t go away is that of a little girl who perished in a house fire on the lower West Side. When I got to her, she was kneeling on a popcorn tin, her little hands folded as though in prayer.
When I retired in 2008, as odd as it may seem, my first impulse was to give back to the city that I had once filed a lawsuit against. My wife and I and our four sons – three of whom are involved in police work or firefighting – love our life here.
I’ve immersed myself in community efforts from the American Red Cross to reading books at an elementary school. I help direct the Committee to Honor Cesar Chavez, the American labor leader and civil rights activist, by staging an annual social justice march. But my passion is guiding fellow veterans at the American Legion Post 258 to help them obtain benefits, which can be a daunting process.
I enjoy paying back a community that has been so good to me.