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video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A05gsY_v9Q
Christian Pavia interviews Jose Morell - part 1
Bronx History
Bronx Senior Storytellers - Jose Morell - part 1 of 3

When I came from Puerto Rico.. aahhh, I lived on 111th, from there I moved to 137th and Willis and Brown Place.

Sarah: Oh my gosh, that's right next door.

Jose: A long time, long time...

Sarah: Yeah

Jose: I know about that block… I know about that area...

Jose: People gotta go through some kind of training, you know, because when I was younger and I started working, I didn't know how to behave either, you know, I was rough, I couldn't talk to my co-worker because it was a new experience to me, I had to leave the attitude from the street from the job. See, when I had the same attitude from the job from the street, but somebody saw something good in me that sent me to a place that I would understand how to behave in my work and be a better person… and that's what I told her. Listen if I gave myself as an example, what I went through… you know, and I don't know what happened, I know they suspended him and they fired him, but I wasn't looking… I wasn't looking… I wasn't looking for him to get fired because every person got family, you know, and I understood. What I wanted, it was an understanding, that he understands that were seniors, that he's here to… to protect us. If he wasn’t here he would never have had a job, you know, because see he don't work for administration, he works for us, so he… he had a better attitude toward us and he got fired and I feel kinda bad because he's lost his job, you know, and that’s sometimes you fight for your rights, people lose their jobs. And you not hurting him, you hurting his family…. And see, and that’s why it's hard sometimes, to go against a worker, because you not hurting only the worker, you taking food from the kids. See it's … it's hard, it's very hard, but it's hard too, if they don't behave and they don’t… they don’t do they job they supposed to do and understand that we are seniors here, you know….. you know, sometimes you gotta go through life, through things, you don't have to, you don’t have, but you go through because your ignorance. See when you ignorant, you do a lot of things… let's say I don't go to school, you love the street better… if you stay in school, you get a good education, you get college, you go at any place and you come out and you… you graduate, you get a good job, but when you stay in the street, you get jail sentence, you lose family and when you come out, you don't got no kind of training, you don't know how to behave because most of your youth you spent it in jail. I'm being truthful, you know, and then you don't know how to get back to society. See that's… that's… but when you find somebody to support you, when you find a friend, a girlfriend, you know, that takes you by your arm and doesn't care what you did, they care just how to make you a better person, sometimes you need somebody to carry you because you cannot carry yourself, you know, and that's my story.
Mid-Bronx Senior Citizens Council, Grand Concourse
July 26, 2018
BASE CareerCLUE cohort - Summer 2018
communycate
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Created on 2019-03-27 at 23:20 and last updated on 2019-06-07 at 23:05.