Does Anyone Know Norca Torres?

When I knew her Norca Torres lived on Rockaway Ave just off the corner of Atlantic Ave. in Brooklyn, New York. This was back around the mid 60’s. She had 2 brothers, one was Raymond and the other was Walter. Her step-father was partners with a Jewish fellow in a clothing store on Broadway just a bit west of Rockaway under the J train.

Norca had married a guy named Winston, don’t recall the last name, which is the guy the family felt she should marry.

Sometime around the late 60’s the family had moved to a large house just south west of Highland Park. I remember having been there once or twice before I went to the service. Upon my return I married and lost track of Norca and her family as well as a number of other friends.

A number of years ago my brother ran into her, don’t remember if it was in Brooklyn or Queens. He found out that she had been divorced from Winston. That was the last I ever heard of her.

If anyone reading this post knows of her or knows her please direct her to this blog so we may re-establish contact. Tell her Robert, Walter’s old friend is trying to re-establish contact with her.

The Tragedy of Doña Adolfina Villanueva

While discussing the matter of Paseo Caribe my wife told me the story of a woman whom I had not heard of. Her name was Adolfina Villanueva who lived in Mediania Alta, which I understand is in Loiza. What my wife recounted about what took place on February 6 1980 with this woman shocked me and the fact that nothing was ever done shocked me even more. What really got me was the fact that when I tried to find out the story regarding Doña Adolfina I had problems on the internet accessing any files about her! It was only when I included the word “Eviction” in Spanish that I finally got a page on Google with the story about her.

It is a very sobering story indeed about a grave injustice which to this day has not been corrected. The story has many parallels with what is currently going on in Paseo Caribe and the People!
For the full account ( in Spanish ) go to Indy Media here

This coming February 6 marks the 27th anniversary of her death.

Se Anuncia La Primera Feria De Vehículos Hurtados En Plaza Las Américas

People you have got to go to El Ñame's site and check out this article by Oscar Marrano. I guarantee that you will die laughing over this one.

Se Anuncia La Primera Feria De Vehículos Hurtados En Plaza Las Américas

Escrito por Oscar Marrano
Oscar Marrano

Hato Rey, Puerto Rico - El Presidente de la Asociación Independiente de Dealers de Puerto Rico, Emilio Pérez Graulau, anunció la Primera Gran Feria de Vehículos Hurtados de las Américas, que comenzará este fin de semana en el estacionamiento de Plaza Las Américas en Hato Rey y continuará evidentemente por tiempo indefinido. Más...

Comment from Train of Dreams

trainofdreams said...

Gracias por poner este mensaje de navidad, lo hice por una buena causa, Easy Anthens han hecho un cd llamado hark¡ que se puede bajar las canciones gratis desde su página de myspace, pero además harán el cd en soporte lógico que se puede adquirir y cuyos fondos serán para los menos necesitados. todo está explicado en mi blog

Gracias trainsofdreams- inasperada

I found this comment to be so appreciative that I am posting it here along with the site URL so others may go there and enjoy some of the music and maybe help out with funds for the poor. The
comment refers to the Christmas slide show below this post. The link is below:

http://trainofdreams-inasperada.blogspot.com/

Slideshow con Mensaje para Navidad

| View | Upload your own

Body of popular musician killed in Mexico returning to Indiana

I decided to put this link here due to the demand for news about this musician who was brutally tortured and strangled this past Sunday.
Many in the entertainment business in Mexico are now in fear for their lives especially since this is not the only such incident. Here is the link.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Those who knew popular Mexican-American musician Sergio Gomez from his many visits to Spanish-language radio station WEDJ-FM cannot understand how he got caught up in the wave of entertainment-related murders in Mexico. More…

FBI Statistics Show Anti-Latino Hate Crimes on the Rise

Well here is the latest statistics from the FBI that I came across on Democracy Now.

New FBI statistics suggest anti-Latino hate crimes have risen by almost 35 percent since 2003. In California—the state with the largest number of Latinos—the number of hate crimes against Latinos have almost doubled. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the violence engulfing Latinos is part of a backlash over the immigration debate in this country. More…

The Borinqueneers

While attending to matters on my other blog, The Last Caribbean Bohemian Artist I noticed that someone had been spending a lot of time going through the images. I was curious so I did a little back-tracking which took me to the Yahoo search engine page who's search term was: PUERTORICANS SOLDIERS TODAYS.

Obviously someone was doing some research regarding Puerto Ricans involved in the military and since I do put material about Puerto Rican soldiers on that site and the site was listed on the search page I didn't think nothing strange about. Then my eyes landed on something that caught my attention. One section below my site entry there was an entry for The Borinqueneers. I clicked on it and landed on the website of The Borinqueners.

I had never heard of them so I did a bit of reading and suddenly realized that they were talking about the famed 65th Infantry of Puerto Rico. This unit I had heard of though to say the truth knew very little about them about from the fact they they were involved in the Korean War, also known as the Korean Conflict and the Forgotten War. This site advertised the documentary about The Borinqueneers which would seem was aired this past August on PBS. On a hunch I typed in the information on my YouTube account and sure enough there was a trailer about the video.

Many Puerto Ricans, including myself, do not really know very much about the 65th Infantry apart from the fact that it was an Army unit and is the name given to a main highway here on the island. Even less known is the fact that 162 of their members were court martialed .

In December 1954, 162 Puerto Ricans of the 65th Infantry were arrested, 95 were court martialed, and 91 were found guilty and sentenced to prison terms ranging from 1 to 18 years of hard labor. It was the largest mass court martial of the Korean War. The Secretary of the Army Robert Stevens moved quickly to remit the sentences and granted clemency and pardons to all those involved.

Though I don't have a copy of The Borinqueneers, the trailer below shows that it is an important documentary that all Puerto Ricans should watch.

In researching the information at YouTube I cane across a number of links that you may want to check for yourselves especially those from the Boston area:

Boston Latino TV

National Association of Latino Independent Producers

Las Comadres.org

I hope everyone enjoys the trailer and finds it informative and that you can enjoy the full length video whivh can be obtain at the Boriqueneers website listed above ( just click on it ).

The Borinqueneers Trailer

Reactions to Venezuela referendum

Reuters : Venezuela's referendum: President for life?
You can click here to go to the Reuters page that has a bunch of information about the election and past statistics as well as many other articles regarding Hugo Chavez and Venezuela.

Reactions to Venezuela referendum

US War Vets to Speak Publicly About War Crimes

Though this is an article of National concern I decided to put the link here as many Puerto Ricans have and are serving in the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and would be interested in it. Click on this link:

Hunterseeker

Presos Politicos de Puerto Rico

Here is a video that I came across at a new Video site I found, Videos de Boricuas at the following link: http://www.videosboricuas.com/
You might want to click on over there and check out their videos.

For more information on either of these two Puerto Ricans you can go to the following site:

Oscar López Rivera http://www.prisonactivist.org/pps+pows/oscar-lopez-rivera.html

Carlos Alberto Torres
http://www.prisonactivist.org/pps+pows/carlos-alberto-torres.html

For a List of Political Prisoners go to the following site:
http://www.prisonactivist.org/pps+pows/pplist-alpha.shtml
There are other organizations of interest listed at this site under the names
of the individuals.