They grew up around gunfire in Fort Worth barrios. Today, they value education, peace

Rosemary Galdiano and her family would roll from their beds and onto the floor when they heard screeching tires in the middle of the night in the 1970s. Telltale shots roiled the darkness as gang members ripped bullets into the house across the street.

Growing up on Drew Street in Worth Heights was an adventure filled with risks, family survival, resiliency, and learning. She recalled a gang shooting at Immaculate Heart of Mary’s Jamaicas (or festivals) and later attending her brothers’ teenage friends’ funerals. North Side, Diamond Hill, and Southside Latino gangs endangered working-class Latino families seeking to improve their lives through hard work, education, and civic involvement.

Her father Carlos Vasquez owned a cement contracting business which allowed his wife Guadalupe Ramos Vasquez to stay home. To address the violence, Guadalupe joined other community activists to seek crime violence prevention funding and police cooperation. On New Year’s Eve, Guadalupe, aware that at midnight, gun-toting neighbors would unleash a fusillade into the air, ordered her five children inside. She prepared cookies and joined her children to greet the New Year as safely as possible. In haste to shoot his shotgun outside on one New Year’s Eve, drunken Carlos blew a hole through their house roof.

Despite the poverty, violence, and high Latino school dropout rates, Rosemary remained hopeful their lives would improve in the New Year. She lived with a family of seven in a 950-square-foot house constructed by her father. Her loud-music-playing parents and cramped quarters motivated her to study at the South branch library on Bolt Street. She persevered to earn a bachelor of science in nursing and a master’s of public health.

Joe Ponce, owner of Ponce’s Transmission, admitted that in his youth in the ‘70s he ran with Varrio North Side. His gang slugged it out with other gangs at dances, festivals, and on the streets. When his stepfather José Gatica and he watched Muhammad Ali and other professional boxers on television, he was awed at their ability to punch, jab, and dance for 12 rounds. Street fighting normally lasted a few minutes because street gang members grew exhausted. Joe later realized the stupidity of gang violence, opened Spartan youth boxing club in 1986 and trained hundreds of inner-city youth. He coached them in Golden Gloves and for out-of-state tournaments over 30 years.

After his mother signed for him, Joe enlisted in the Army at 17 where he learned mechanic skills. He attended Tarrant County College earning a mechanic skills certification paid by his veteran benefits. Heeding his stepfather’s advice to own his own businesses for financial independence, Joe, 22, opened his first auto repair shop.

Joe recalled that on New Year’s Eve in the ‘70s, the din of gun shots around midnight sounded like a war zone on the north side. Now living in northwest Fort Worth, Joe views the gunfire as dangerously stupid. He considers the police response to the massive gunfire as inadequate. Although he enjoys working on the north side with its delicious food, loud Mexican music, and friendly folks, he avoids the gun play on New Year’s Eve.

Emerico Perez Jr., district director for state Rep. Ramon Romero, recalled fondly growing up in the TP barrio in the ‘60s and ‘70s, so named because many men in the neighborhood worked for Texas and Pacific Railroad. Consisting of Chicanos and Mexican immigrants like his father Emerico Perez Sr., TP was a close-knit community with San Mateo Catholic church as the spiritual and social center. Like other barrio churches, Jamaicas brought the community together with cake sales, pageants, and dances. Unlike other Fort Worth barrios, TP avoided gang violence. However, gunfire erupted at the local Piedras Negras cantina.

Perez recalled a police officer drove into the barrio, stopped his father and asked him for his immigration papers. While his father went into the house to retrieve the documents, the cop took off. After a school yard fight with an Anglo bully, Emerico was given detention while the other boy walked free. At a young age, he witnessed the skewed justice system.

On New Year’s Eve, his mother prepared buñuelos, the children popped firecrackers, and at midnight his father along with other neighbors shot their guns into the air. They stayed up to 1 a.m., watching various televised New Year’s Eve celebrations across the country. TP as a barrio no longer exists, and San Mateo is mostly closed by order of Bishop Michael Olson.

Based on a lifetime of experiences, Rosemary considers a good education as the surest route out of poverty and to financial stability. Joe highly recommends Latinos and Latinas start their own businesses as the best road to financial freedom. Emerico recommends education and business ownership as the optimum path to the good life.

All three wish for an end to gang violence and to firearm use in Fort Worth barrios. They recommend city support in promoting small businesses, education, and a peaceful New Year.

Author Richard J. Gonzales writes and speaks about Fort Worth, national and international Latino history.

©2023 Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Visit star-telegram.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.