Densho Digital Archive - Bob Santos Interview III (denshovh-sbob

<Begin Segment 9>

TI: I want to talk about the Gang of Four. I mean, I've traveled to lots of different cities talking to different communities, and the Gang of Four is very unique.

BS: It is.

TI: You have the leaders of four major ethnic groups, not only working together, but such good friends.

BS: Right.

TI: I mean, have you seen that anywhere else?

BS: No, we really haven't. I spoke, I mean I went to a conference in Portland a year ago, maybe a year and a half ago, and on the panel was a new group that was formed with a Latino, African American, and a Native American. And there was no Asian up on the panel and they had formed a group, and when I asked the question, why don't you have representation from the Asian community, and the answer was -- and this is the housing conference -- the answer was, "Well, most Asians own their own homes." It didn't register with me, but I said, at that time I said, that's not right. That's not true. And so I think, like, Portland was trying to get these communities together, but they didn't quite make it. So I've never, none of us have ever seen a coalition, and we formed the Minority Executive Directors Coalition, which from four members has turned into about a hundred and sixty individual members that represent their organizations or agencies.

TI: But it was that combination of not only working together but really, socially, really liking each other and doing things together.

BS: Socially, yeah. You know, and Roberto, he was a worldly figure. He traveled to Cuba, and when he became sick just last, this year, right? He passed away several months ago, but when he became sick, the word came up from Cuba that invited Roberto down to Cuba and they would take care of him with the medical expertise that they have. But he would've had to move his whole family there and he decided he was eventually gonna pass away, it's gonna be here. But he was also involved, El Centro, when it was formed, soon as they, after they occupied the Beacon Hill School and it became El Centro, there was an earthquake in Nicaragua and devastated Managua, the capital city of Nicaragua, so El Centro, they packaged all this foods and stuff and they sent care packages down to Nicaragua. So there was an immediate relationship from the government of Nicaragua to the, to the staff at El Centro, and Roberto became very close to the Sandinista government. So when Reagan was president and the U.S. forces were stepped up to eliminate the Contras, the Sandinista government, Reagan actually wanted to invade Nicaragua. Well, Maestas would organize delegations of Americans, locally and eventually nationally, to visit Nicaragua to actually observe the kinds of treatment the people in Nicaragua were having under this regime. And the Gang of Four, all four of us, were on those delegations. And Roberto, I mean, myself, I almost give him singlehandedly one of the reasons why Nicaragua was never invaded. We had more Americans there than we had here in Seattle. They were always on these delegations.

TI: 'Cause he thought that would be a way of protecting the country, by just having Americans there observing, that it would cause such an uproar if Reagan or whomever decided to do that.

BS: Exactly. I mean, the guy was an amazing guy. Roberto, he was, course, he spoke to all the leaders in Central and South America because of the connections of family background, Spanish background and all that.