![\"Judge](\"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_8145.jpg\")
Centro is the only university-based research institute that is dedicated exclusively to the study of the Puerto Rican experience in the United States and has been housed at Hunter College since 1983. According to the Carlos Vargas-Ramos, a research associate and communications director for the Centro, they were \u201ccompelled\u201d to present Judge D\u00edaz\u2019s book because it \u201ctraces many of the shared elements of the larger Puerto Rican experience in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
“Part of our mission at Centro is the dissemination of knowledge about the Puerto Rican experience in the United States,\u201d said Vargas-Ramos. \u201cWe feature works done by others that expand our knowledge of the Puerto Rican experience. This is the case of the presentation of Judge D\u00edaz\u2019s book.”<\/p>\n
In the minutes leading up to the event, the Glass Caf\u00e9\u2019s green and grey chairs quickly filled up with colleagues of Judge D\u00edaz who passed time by sharing positive and uplifting stories about their work and\/or other affiliations with Judge D\u00edaz in the past. A table was set up to sell copies of D\u00edaz\u2019s book throughout the event.<\/p>\n D\u00edaz sat at the front of the room along with Juan Cartagena, president and general counsel to LatinoJustice PRLDEF (Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund), who engaged the audience as the talk\u2019s moderator. The two spoke candidly about the tribulations D\u00edaz has faced throughout his career and personal life that were the result of institutionalized racism against Latinxs in the United States.<\/p>\n D\u00edaz described his experience growing up in public housing in the Bronx and Harlem and detailed the lack of opportunity that kids of his income status were provided to succeed. In an interview with ABC6 Philadelphia that was shown to the audience before the talk began, D\u00edaz explained that gang activity ruled much of the neighborhood he lived in because there weren\u2019t many options for children to be involved in other organizations. \u201cIf you didn\u2019t belong to something, you really couldn\u2019t get between one neighborhood to the other,\u201d he said. D\u00edaz also recalled some experiences with more overt acts of racism, including being called racial slurs by Ku Klux Klan members while they organized against his efforts to integrate public housing in Texas (alongside Henry Cisneros, former United States Secretary of H.U.D. under President Bill Clinton).<\/p>\n Regardless of the challenging circumstances D\u00edaz described, he remained optimistic and confident in his own skin. \u201cSometimes you have to walk a few feet backwards to move a few feet forwards,\u201d he encouraged the audience. Soon after the talk started, audience members began to trickle over towards the table to buy copies of his book. By the end of the discussion, the line of people waiting to buy books extended to the back of the room.<\/p>\n Audience members grew visibly impassioned by D\u00edaz\u2019s words. Many responded with mumbles and grunts to the heavier details of his life, such as the time he had a cross burned on his family\u2019s property in New Jersey. He lightened the discussion at moments, particularly when he could not read an excerpt from his book without using the flashlight on Cartagena\u2019s phone.<\/p>\n Before concluding, he took questions from audience members. When an activist for Puerto Rican issues asked him about the United States\u2019 efforts to provide relief to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, D\u00edaz exclaimed, \u201cIf the lights had gone out in Pennsylvania for 11 months, there\u2019d be riots!\u201d The audience erupted into applause and cheers.<\/p>\n D\u00edaz encouraged everyone in the room to write and share their own stories so that Latinx children and others can learn about the struggle of Latinx people in America and create change. He concluded by chatting one-on-one with attendees and signing copies of his book, for sale in stores and online now.<\/p>\n![\"Judge](\"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_8143.jpg\")
![\"Judge](\"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_8155.jpg\")