Maxi Rivera Oral History Interview

Maxi Rivera Oral History Interview

Maximino (Maxi) Rivera was born in Puerto Rico in 1950. His father was a cane cutter, and when he moved to 144th Street in Mott Haven in 1963 he and his brother were teased as jibaros, although their baseball skills helped them to make friends. He had eight brothers and sisters. As a kid he shone shoes at the Hub and worked in a grocery store, and he attended Elijah D. Clark Junior High School and DeWitt Clinton High School. He graduated high school in 1969 and was drafted that summer. He fought in Vietnam in the Marines, where he was radicalized by encounters with racism and colonialism. When he came home to a changing neighborhood, he got involved in the Puerto Rican Socialist Party, and then in local housing struggles and electoral politics. He was on the school board, ran Puebla En Marcha for 24 years and in 2012 ran an unsuccessful campaign against Carmen Arroyo for State Assembly. Maxi worked in the post office from 1984 to 2010, where he was a shop steward and then elected the Bronx director of the New York Metro Postal Workers Union. He has 4 children, 5 grandchildren, and 2 great grandchildren, and now lives on 157th Street in Melrose. He remains active in progressive politics and recently began working in the Rainbow Life on Earth garden on his block.

Maximino Rivera, 68 years old at the time of the interview, was a migrant to New York City from Puerto Rico at 13 years old. He discusses the sadness and shock he felt as an immigrant adjusting to a new place as a child, his dealings with corruption and abuse within the U.S. military while fighting in the Vietnam War, and how that inspired him to join the Puerto Rican Socialist Party after his return to the U.S. Particular detail is also given to his extensive involvement in grassroots social justice organizations in the 1970’s-1980’s such as Hostos Community and Pueblo en Marcha. He discusses his fight for housing justice and dealings with many specific politicians and organizations in his ongoing fight for social justice.

2018-03-20

audio

Amy Starecheski

Maximino Rivera

Bronx, NY