JONATHAN MELROD

Family Background & Early Years in Washington, D. C. 

By all accounts, my life should have followed a predictable path and should have been predictably mainstream. Like others in the Jewish diaspora, my family hailed from a small shtetl in Ukraine, having suffered years of pogroms perpetrated by ruthless Cossacks rabid with anti-Semitism. My father Leonard (aka Eagle Eye Melrod) was a basketball star at Newark, New Jersey’s South Side High School. Of course, those were the days when us short Jewish guys were still in the game. Leonard’s family was quite poor, particularly after the depression bankrupted his father Samuel, a tailor. 

Leonard pulled himself up by his bootstraps from selling shoes, to become a self-educated attorney in Washington, D.C. Having no money for tuition, he asked students to open the transom above the classroom door so he could eavesdrop on the law professor’s lecture. Along the way, he met my mother Miriam, a Newark beauty out of his league. As a testament to his tenacity, he managed to court and marry her. 

I was born June 10, 1950, in the nation’s capital. At six, we experienced the “American Dream” and moved from a small apartment into a modest home in an upwardly mobile, largely Jewish, middle-class neighborhood in D.C.’s all-white northwest (NW) quadrant. I led a comfortable and secure childhood – riding my bike, staying out late to catch fireflies, going to Washington Senators baseball games, and playing basketball at the Jewish Community Center where my father coached our team. I attended public grammar school and later a year of public junior high, both within walking distance. Life seemed simple, secure, and non-threatening. 

When my mother discovered I was rehearsing Christmas carols in second or third grade —she threw down the proverbial gauntlet. She sent my teacher, an overt anti-Semite, a note prohibiting me from singing religious songs in a public school. In front of the class, all eyes riveted on me, the teacher banished me – “Mr. Melrod, I understand you won’t be with the rest of the class when we share holiday joy with the elderly”. She barked orders that I drag my heavy wooden desk into the corridor where the whole school could gawk at me. From that day forward I realized life wasn’t always carefree and painless.  

Growing up in apartheid-like D.C. opened my eyes to racism’s ugly face. When I was ten or eleven, black students tried to desegregate the local amusement park Glen Echo. Baffled, I wondered why black kids weren’t allowed to escape the scorching 100-degree heat to share the pool with us whites. Us kids had no beef. Rather than let the pool be integrated, racist whites dumped bleach in the water so no one could swim. I didn’t understand exactly why, but it registered that some white people felt disdainful and challenged by blacks, even black kids.” 

link >> A Summer of Change: The Civil Rights Story of Glen Echo Park. How the integration of the amusement park where we went as kids became the front line of the struggle for integration in the 1960’s when whites dumped bleach in the swimming pool to prevent black kids from swimming.

The D.C. area was fertile ground for observing racism in its rawest form. On a family drive in Virginia, we passed an all-black chain gang working on the roadside under the blistering sun. Their heavy metal shackles, black-and-white striped prison garb, and white guards cradling rifles atop large horses, imparted a lasting impression. All was not right – blacks were not treated the same as us whites. 

Eye’s Open at the Putney School in Vermont 

At fourteen, my life’s path altered radically. I left behind my comfortable middle-class cocoon to attend a progressive boarding school in Vermont – the Putney School. Other students were sophisticated, artsy, and well-versed politically. I stood out as a political/cultural neophyte. Perplexed, I wondered, what in the world had possessed my parents to send me to a school on a farm? 

Soon, however, the exciting lure of the counterculture and left-wing politics beckoned me like a moth to a flame. I became progressively more radical; my political orientation being steadily influenced by my progressive Putney peers. 

My first fourteen years faded into the rear-view mirror as I adopted a new, exciting vision of how our generation could reject the old and ossified while fighting for a new world predicated on compassion and humanity. With conviction, I looked forward to a future that embraced the generational mandate for a wholesale transformation of society. Nothing seemed impossible or out of reach. 

A romanticized Che Guevara beckoned from the cover of Time magazine. I followed revolutionary struggles breaking out across Latin America and Africa, and even knew the names of guerrilla leaders. 

Searching for an alternative to the inequities and inhumane exploitation of capitalism, I penned a letter to Chairman Mao Tse-Tung of the People’s Republic of China, requesting information on socialism. Months later, a package arrived containing four volumes of Mao’s Selected Works. Thus began my lifelong study of Marxism.  

The political and cultural revolution of the Sixties swept me and my cohorts up in its whirling dervish-like energy. From our long hair to our brightly colored bell bottoms and hippie sandals, to our lids of Acapulco Gold with seeds and stems included, we scorned the establishment and all its conservative 1950’s trappings of the system. We banded together as tribe renegade; the future belonged to us!

I passionately opposed the Vietnam War and avidly supported the civil rights movement. I joined with other Putney students trying to shut down the Manchester, NH, induction center to block recruits from heading to the jungles of Vietnam. I volunteered at the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in D.C. after three civil rights workers, barely a few years older than me, were murdered in Mississippi by the KKK.

As the tide of history continued to sweep away the old and atrophied, I enthusiastically rode the crest of that wave. Along with hundreds of thousands of like-minded youths, I listened to our generational anthem -- The Times They Are a-Changing -- and took my cue to change the world – nothing was beyond our reach! 

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be last
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin'
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'

1968 – Madison Wisconsin – Epicenter of Sixties Generational Rebellion 

Idealistic, motivated, and committed to political activism, I headed for the University of Wisconsin, Madison – an epicenter of the Sixties’ generational rebellion. In my first week, I enthusiastically embraced Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), at the time a nationwide organization with tens of thousands of members on 300 campuses. Madison lived up to my expectations as ground zero for opposition to the war and as a hot bed of youthful, counter-culture rebellion. 

Just a few months before I got to Madison, French students had risen in revolt, building barricades in the streets to battle police. Workers joined the students launching a general strike that threatened to topple the government. If they could, so could we! Revolution seemed so real, so possible, so imminent. 

I lived and breathed politics, associating with others in SDS and other anti-establishment activists. Images of the Vietnam War flooded the nightly news with gruesome scenes of death and unconscionable destruction; stories from returning vets confirmed the atrocities we feared were occurring. The war touched us/me every day and virtually every day I/we pledged to take action to oppose it. 

Week one in Madison, I disrupted my ROTC indoctrination class to demand abolishment of mandatory attendance for freshmen men. As mass pressure ratcheted up, the University was forced to discontinue mandatory attendance. We were organized and disciplined. 

While most students partied and partook of carefree student life – I, along with others in SDS, spent our nights in the dorms going room-to-room educating fellow students about the wrongness of the Vietnam war and the role of U.S. imperialism in exploiting the world’s resources. I didn’t really ‘enjoy’ dorm organizing but believed we could turn most students against the war. 

My earlier involvement in the civil rights movement and experiences witnessing the second-class treatment of African Americans, turned me into an ardent supporter of black liberation and motivated me to play an active role in the 1969 black student strike during which we battled armed National Guardsmen in the streets. 

Deeply inspired by Chairman Fred Hampton’s speeches on campus and the Black Panther philosophy of serving the people, I volunteered to coordinate sales of the Panther paper, selling 300 copies of each issue on Madison streets. Phone calls from my apartment to the Chicago Panther office landed me on the FBI’s radar, surveillance that continued unabated for the next seven years, filling close to 1000 pages. See link to FBI file

My deep-felt horror and outrage over the evils and death in Vietnam motivated me to help lead a mass shutdown of classes, accompanied by daily street violence and clashes with the National Guard, in opposition to Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia and the murder of four anti-war students at Kent State. Days and nights, I fought in the streets for my deeply held principles. We weren’t just out to oppose the war, but to challenge the establishment and the military-industrial complex. We stood united against the system. 

SDS fractured in summer 1969; most in the Madison chapter gravitated toward the Revolutionary Youth Movement II (RYMII) faction that supported the Black Panthers and believed that the working class possessed the power to bring about a fundamental transformation of capitalism with the goal of creating a new world founded on principles of equitable socialism and justice for all. 

The philosophical principles of RYM II led us to reorganize into the Mother Jones Revolutionary League (MJRL). MJRL affiliated with the Revolutionary Union, a rapidly expanding Bay Area communist organization. Joining the RU required commitment, but we felt that we were on the road to right the wrongs of capitalist America.

Milwaukee 1972 – Into the Factory to Organize Rebellion 

January 1972, I departed Madison for industrial Milwaukee. Along with thousands of students across the country, who similarly adhered to the RYM II philosophy, I took a job in industry. I landed a coveted job at the American Motors Corporation (AMC) working on the auto assembly line. 

My first days on the line were tough and forced me to leave behind the relatively easy, carefree life of a student. At first, I didn’t think I could physically tolerate the hourly, daily abuse of the assembly line. Sixty days later I completed my probationary period, with great relief, and became a proud member of UAW Local 75. 

I thrived on the comradery of working day-in-and-day-out with hundreds of people. At every opportunity, I wandered the trim department talking to people and making friends. I soon hooked-up with like-minded, rebellious young workers of which there were plenty. The most defiant, ready to fight back against the monotony of being chained to the assembly line, were workers of color tired of being pushed around and treated as second-class, particularly those back from Vietnam.  

Having figured out who exhibited the most anti-company, militant sentiment, I charted who to approach to get organized. We joined together in a militant rank-and-file caucus – Fight Back -- that led a successful rebellion against a failed effort by the company and local union leadership to force us to work Saturday overtime. Buoyed by our success, feeling the rush and elation of our collective power, Fight Back led hundreds to challenge an assembly line speed up, which so disrupted production the company was forced to hire additional workers. Both management and most of union leadership viewed our rebellion as an existential challenge to their authority. 

Management contacted the FBI for guidance to crush our militant “fuck-you” rebellion. Per an FBI Memo, the bureau logged a call from AMC management, “there is a group of new employees who are banding together and are trying to create work stoppages, etc.” The FBI and AMC concurred: “JONATHAN MELROD is … attempting to organize a caucus …” 

Within days of the FBI Memo, plant guards dragged me down four flights of stairs and out the door; I had been summarily discharged. With unshakeable conviction, I vowed that I would someday walk back up those stairs to my job on the trim line -- AMC had not seen the last of Jon Melrod!

For the next two and one-half years, as the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) slowly adjudicated my rehiring. I decided to suck it up and learn as much as possible about other sectors of the Milwaukee working class. I pushed myself to work at a putrid, rat-infested, non-union tannery; a Dickensian foundry welding axles for Mack Trucks; and at a turn of the century steel fabrication plant – Pressed Steel Tank – where I organized a caucus that led an eight-week strike. Each experience, no matter how unpleasant or physically challenging, constituted invaluable experience and I soaked up newfound knowledge about the hardship of daily life in the working class.

January 1976, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered my reinstatement at AMC. I couldn’t conceal my David just beat Goliath attitude. Through unwavering tenacity I had humbled the 4th largest auto company in the U.S. despite their collaboration with the FBI, army of attorneys, and legions of private detectives. I returned victorious to my job, much to the company’s chagrin and humiliation. 

Summer 1976, my job transferred to the AMC Kenosha plant. Fortuitously, I hooked up with two political activists – John Drew and Tod Ohnstad -- who had pulled together the Fighting Times newsletter and rank-and-file caucus in UAW Local 72. 

All of us Milwaukee guys were uninvited strangers and were initially shunned by Kenosha workers who were naturally protective of their jobs. Feeling like an outsider, I made every effort I could to integrate myself. I moved to Racine so that I could be closer to the plant and hung out with local 72 members after work and on weekends. Before long, I gained acceptance as a member of tribe Kenosha.  

I threw myself into the economic and political struggles, steadily climbing the ranks of union leadership from line steward to chief steward. I was elected department chair and international union delegate. At the core of my beliefs and at the forefront of Fighting Times’ platform was the struggle against white chauvinism and racism, and second-class treatment of women, both on the shop floor, within the ranks of the union, and in society. 

No instance of racial discrimination was too small or insignificant to be exposed and opposed in the pages of Fighting Times. The caucus signed on to participate in a struggle against the Ku Klux Klan in Tupelo, MI, where the United League had instituted a boycott of downtown businesses in seeking redress for historical grievances such as the theft of black-owned land, harassment by local police, and the lack of jobs for local blacks. 

I believed it imperative that we stake out a dividing line against white supremacy and the KKK fit the bill. Fighting Times went right at the Klan, calling the organization out for the white supremacists they were and had been throughout U.S. history. We distributed upwards of 5000 copies of Fighting Times announcing plans to join a bus heading to Tupelo to participate in a march against the Klan. Several caucus members signed up to make the trip. 

Our bus pulled up, after an all-night ride, directly in front of the Tupelo police department. Out the front door marched a large contingent of white-robbed Klansmen carrying axe handles. The Klan were the police! And the police were the Klan! A scary thought then and now. 

Fighting Times reported on the march, establishing for all in the plant our stand on white supremacy. The newsletter and caucus members were at the forefront of the battle against racism both in Tupelo and on the AMC factory floor. No mistaking where we stood!

When the state-owned French automaker Renault entered a joint venture with AMC, I travelled with Tod Ohnstad twice to France and Belgium to meet with fellow union delegates. I had advocated the need for unity and solidarity with workers of other countries, now I had the opportunity to act on my message. In the pages of Fighting Times, we sought to educate Local 72 members to their status as one cog of an international working class in unity with Renault workers in 25 countries. 

1984, along with caucus members Tod and John Drew, the membership elected us to the executive board/bargaining committee (“board”). From day one in the UAW, my dream had been to be in a leadership position where I could influence the policies and practices of the union. 

When Renault threatened to close the plant and move production to France, I/we faced the toughest negotiations in the local’s 50-year history. Despite understanding that the threat to our jobs was real as Renault sat on unused capacity in their French plants capable of producing the same models we manufactured, we met their existential challenge with defiance. Admittedly, I knew we were playing with fire, but I felt it incumbent to push back against Renault’s threats.

In a daring show of solidarity, the board and the Local 72 membership voted not to be stampeded into concessions, but to fight tooth-and-nail to protect our jobs.  Every day I personally felt the heavy weight of responsibility for thousands of people’s lives. One wrong step and the edifice created over 50 years could come crashing down, including the livelihoods of 43,000 workers and their families, including the pensions of 18,000. 

After brutal, high-stakes negotiations, I/we reached a painful decision. To protect and maintain production of current models in the Kenosha plant, we agreed to concessions that brought our contract in line with those in the Big 3 (GM, Ford, and Chrysler); a giant step backward from what had been the premier working agreement in the auto industry for fifty years. 

The negotiations confronted me with a tough personal quandary. I had always stood adamantly opposed to concessions as a false premise for saving jobs. In this case, however, I made an educated decision based on clearly understanding the facts behind Renault’s threat to move production. 

It would have been easy to vote NO. I could look like a tough, no compromise militant. Or, I could recognize the existential threat that a Renault closure posed and vote YES. I made the later difficult choice. As Local 72 President Rudy Kuzel (our ally and mentor) remarked to the press, “A Big 3 job is better than no job at all.”

San Francisco 1985

At 35, seeing the workforce drastically diminished at AMC, I left Kenosha to attend the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, intending to practice labor law. I arrived in the bitter cold of the San Francisco summer not knowing a soul and dreading the nagging apprehension that I was starting life all over again. I slogged it out in law school – a miserable experience I wouldn’t recommend. 

Rather than labor law, however, I opened an office practicing refugee/asylum law, representing hundreds of clients from around the world seeking safety from persecution. Once again, I was followed my lifelong calling as a political activist. Women from Afghanistan persecuted by mujahadeen zealots sought my counsel, as did refuges from India fleeing persecution by the army for struggling for Sikh separatist goals in Punjab state, as did Kashmiri refuges also fleeing the Indian army. I successfully won asylum for Vegan, the Elvis Presley of Iran who had to flee the ‘morality police’. I many represented clients from Latin America fleeing political, sexual, religious, and ethnic persecution.  

I embraced an entirely new avenue for continuing the struggle to improve the plight of some of the world’s most endangered refugees. While the national average for asylum grants stood at around 33%, our firm won over 80% of our cases, winning asylee status for hundreds.

Click to view articles on the immigration cases.

Working with several Spanish speaking clients, I encountered a new, politically charged, musical genre “Rock en Espanol” -- aka “Combat Rock”. Manu Chao is probably the most famous artist of the genre, known to millions around the world. 

Combat Rock grew out of the violent and deadly struggles in Argentina and Mexico in the late sixties to protest the vicious violence and state orchestrated murder perpetrated against rebellious students and young people fighting for democracy and justice. Along with a few partners, we founded Aztlan Records in San Francisco’s Mission District to create an indie label to record U.S. artists in the Latin alternative music world. 

The co-founding of Aztlan Records proved to be the next step in pursuing my political vision for a just society. The bands on the label sang and spoke lyrically to the struggles of Spanish-speaking immigrants and Latinos to carve out a survival niche north of the Rio Grande where life turned out to be a constant battle to create a decent existence for themselves and their families. Click to view articles on Aztlan Records.

Suddenly, I found myself backstage at concerts till the wee hours of the morning as Aztlan bands performed for predominantly Latino audiences. Over several years, Aztlan released about 25 CDs, but never gained the market share required to survive in a music world dominated by giants like Universal, BMG, and Sony.

Diagnosed with Terminal Pancreatic Cancer 

In June 2000, on the very night of my fiftieth birthday my health went awry. My small and large intestines were carpeted with an extensive colony of pre-cancerous polyps. Within days I was under the knife having a major portion of my intestines, including the sphincter muscle, cut out. Staph infection set in and it took months before I regained my ability to walk and function. 

Over the next four years, I was repeatedly hospitalized with excruciating intestinal blockages. I felt like my health hung in the balance daily, but I had to just grin and bear it. In 2004, I experienced one of the most excruciating blockages. At work, my head lay on my desk, and I frequently sprinted for the restroom. Worried, I set an appointment with my surgeon.  

In 2004, I was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. I refused to accept the surgeon’s death sentence, vowing not to leave my young sons, Eli and Noah, ten and seven respectively, without a father. Against all odds, I promised myself that I would attend their Bar Mitzvahs, see them off to college, and, with a lot of luck, maybe be here even longer. 

Through dogged determination and irrepressible will power, I pledged to hold off the grim reaper. I commenced a year of chemotherapy and radiation and embraced ‘alternative’ treatments, staying alive year-after-year. In 2014 my oncologist pronounced me cancer-free. I had looked over the precipice and beaten insurmountable odds. 

Part of my self-prescribed therapy had been to leave behind the stress, traffic, and concrete paving over San Francisco. In 2007 I separated from my wife Susan (with whom I am now a close friend) and moved to Sonoma County. I focused on my recovery and developing a healthy, stress-free lifestyle.  I also set out to write my memoirs, hoping to leave a legacy for Eli and Noah of my lifelong commitment to the struggle against oppression and for a just, equitable society. 

One might safely assume that my life’s journey of political activism concluded, having survived cancer and innumerable critical health crisis’s. But that was not to be. Like the immutable law of gravity that causes an apple to fall, I felt the irresistible tug to continue to fight the good fight.

Sonoma County 2013 – Joining the Fight Against Police Murders 

October 2013, a thirteen-year-old Latino boy Andy Lopez was gunned down by Sonoma County Sheriff’s deputy Erik Gelhaus just miles from where I live. While on a routine patrol Gelhaus observed Andy carrying a plastic toy gun; he opened fire killing Andy within 3 seconds. The Santa Rosa Latino community erupted with thousands, primarily youth, taking to the streets to demand justice for their friend, calling on the DA to hold Gelhaus accountable for murder. 

No way I could stand silently on the sidelines. The Latino community was collectively mourning, and at the same time rising in righteous rebellion. Understanding the dynamics of spontaneous rebellion after forty years as a political activist, I grasped the need for organization to sustain and advance the struggle. 

I helped spearhead the formation of the Justice Committee for Andy Lopez (JCAL). For the next few years, JCAL pursued every avenue available from militant street demonstrations to school walkouts, from petitions to packing County Board meetings, from legal actions to appeals to the State’s Attorney General Kamala Harris (who rebuffed every attempt seeking her intervention), to punish Gelhaus for murder and win justice for Andy. 

Young people, particularly Latinos, got a taste of just how disingenuous justice for all could really be. Gelhaus skated by with a promotion to sergeant while the County ‘compensated’ Andy’s family with over $3 million, a pittance for the loss of a child.    

Realizing my skills as an attorney were needed in the face of arrests and constant police harassment of activists during JCAL protests. I dusted off my law school diploma and reupped my Bar membership. 

Related articles about the Andy Lopez murder:

The Guardian | NBC Bay Area | KQED News
Santa Rosa Press Democrat | Bakersfield Now
Half Moon Bay Review

June 2013, the family of 18-year-old Yanira Serrano, who suffered from schizophrenia, called 911 in Half Moon Bay, CA, seeking emergency medical assistance; Yanira had refused to take her meds and was agitated. The 911 dispatcher asked her brother Tony if he required assistance from “fire, police, OR medical.” Tony responded “MEDICAL” as three times previously Yanira’s schizophrenic incidents had been handled without incident by an EMT. In this case, however, a cop rushed to the scene, shot and killed Yanira, allowing her to bleed out as her family begged to assist her. Along with attorney Arnold Casillas, I represented Yanira’s immigrant family. 

February 2015, Guatemalan immigrant Amilcar Perez-Lopez engaged got into a verbal dispute in the San Francisco Mission District with a man about his bicycle. At 10pm, two plainclothes cops in an unmarked sedan pulled up. The cops approached Amilcar from behind without identifying themselves. One grabbed Amilcar from the rear; Amilcar struggled to break free not realizing he had been grabbed by a cop. 

According to Amilcar’s roommate, who witnessed the murder, when the cops said ‘drop your weapon’ they gave Amilcar NO TIME before they opened fire, shooting him four times, and once to the BACK OF HIS HEAD - assassination-style. Witnesses dispute whether Amilcar dropped a knife, but there is no dispute that the cops did nothing to deescalate before opening fire. Along with attorney Arnold Casillas, I represented Amilcar’s family living in Guatemala.  

On an October evening 2015, Glenn Swindell, longtime Safeway employee living on a white working-class cul-de-sac near Santa Rosa. Glen and his wife Sarah had returned home from a work function. After having a tiff in the car, Glen took their two young children into the house and locked the door. Sarah made a 911 call to report a “NON-VIOLENT INCIDENT”. Deputies arrived Rambo-style. Glenn let the kids out, closing the door. Glenn demanded the deputies leave telling them he feared they’d shoot him as “they had shot 13-year-old Andy Lopez” seven months earlier.  

Finding posts on Glenn’s Facebook page questioning police misconduct and learning he had two legally registered guns, they called in 50 SWAT cops. On arriving, a SWAT supervisor yelled out, “WHY DON’T YOU JUST KILL THE FUCKER!” SWAT unleashed a military barrage of concussion grenades, flash bangs, and tear gas launched through every window. A DOD military assault bearcat smashed down the garage door. SWAT officers inserted a tube to pump asphyxiating CS gas into the attic where Glen had taken refuge. 

With Glenn trapped in the attic, Sarah, his children, and dozens of neighbors watched a military assault that lasted 12 hours! After suffering intense mental and physical anguish from hours of gassing with only a wet rag to cover his face, Glenn, in desperation, took his life with a single shot to the head. Along with attorney Arnold Casillas, I represented Sara Swindell, Glen’s wife.  

Representing families of those murdered by the police tore me apart. Witnessing families wailing over coffins and expecting some modicum of justice overwhelmed me. I did my best, but with limited success and much frustration as the system is stacked to protect law enforcement no matter how egregious their behavior. 

The Law of Attraction – Meeting My Wife 7000 Miles Across the Ocean 

Summer 2014, my life’s path dramatically altered, once again, as serendipity flung open a new door. I began to communicate with a woman in the Philippines -- Maria Isabel Lopez. Over facetime, we got to know each other, and Isabel sent me a photo of her addressing a mass rally in Manila sponsored by Gabriela: A National Alliance of Women. As if fate (or in Isabel’s words – the law of attraction) had guided our meeting, Isabel and I found ourselves on the same page politically and personally. She was active in both Gabriella and Karapatan – a leading Philippines human rights alliance. 

In a rather impetuous act, questioned by friends and family, I flew to Manila. When the plane touched down, I panicked, yet felt excited. I found myself in a foreign country where I knew no one. Serendipity, however, had guided me well as I had met my future wife. Unbeknownst to me, Isabel turned out to be an award-winning actress of Philippine TV and film, having launched her screen career after being crowned Ms. Philippines in 1982. 

On my first visit, I asked to meet with political prisoners languishing in jails. Under the auspices of Karapatan, a visit was scheduled, and we prepared a huge meal for the prisoners. We met in the narrow stifling hallway adjacent to small cell blocks each of which housed prisoners stacked in overcrowded bunk beds three tiers high. Our visit concluded when one of the women brought out a guitar and we sang the International – the world-wide anthem expressing solidarity of the oppressed. 

Over time, Isabel convinced the warden to allow us to set up a library in one prison, which we delivered in multiple boxes, with a good number of leftist books mixed in. I have met with long-term political prisoners in two other jails in the Philippines. According to Karapatan, there are close to 500 political prisoners being held under false pretenses in miserable conditions across the country. 

On a later trip, we flew to the island of Mindanao to visit a sprawling refugee camp at the United Church of Christ packed with hundreds of indigenous peoples – Lumads. The Lumads had recently fled their villages, carrying all their belongings for days, to escape aerial assaults by the military intended to drive the Lumads from their ancestral lands and open the area for foreign mining and logging interests. The military dropped bombs on their schools and homes. forcing a mass evacuation.

Isabel and I have continued to work with displaced Lumads, often meeting with their Datu (tribal leaders) to show solidarity and support their ongoing struggle for land and dignity. On Christmas we brought food and art materials to Lumad children housed without their parents on church grounds in Manila. Were it not for the bbq chicken we brought, their holiday meal would have only consisted of rice.  

Isabel, an accomplished artist, conducted an art therapy workshop asking the children to draw pictures of their lives. Virtually every drawing depicted the aerial bombing of their schools and homes, and their mass flight seeking safety. 

On June 9, 2019, Isabel and I were married on our country property where we now live, sharing the property with my sons Eli and Noah.