Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  00:00

For the better part of a year, I've been searching for anyone who saw Oscar Gomez the night he died. In an earlier episode, we found a list of names in a briefcase, names of people who were in the apartment where Oscar was staying in Santa Barbara. And we've been writing, emailing, reaching out in any way we could think of. And I did find someone, Jose Gonzalez, one of Noel Huerta's six roommates, but Jose told me he was not with the other roommates and Oscar on November 16th, 1994.

Jose Gonzales  00:31

I didn't see him in the apartment that night. I know they were all partying.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  00:35

[music in] After everything I learned last episode about the Bluffs and Oscar's injuries, I thought the investigative part of this journey was over. But then, one of the many emails we sent out came back. It said, "My apologies for the late response, but that is me." We'd made contact with another roommate from the Santa Barbara apartment where Oscar spent some of his last hours alive. And he remembered Oscar. [music out]

Javier Frigerio  01:15

[phone ringing] Hello, Javier speaking. [tv ambi]

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  01:16

Javier, it's Adolfo Guzman-Lopez.

Javier Frigerio  01:19

Hey, what's up Adolfo? [AGL: Hey, hey...] [duck under]

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  01:21

Javier Frigerio talks to me like he knows me, like we're catching up. Unlike Jose Gonzalez, who struggled to remember the events leading up to Oscar's death, for Javier, it's like November 16th, 1994 happened last weekend. He tells me that he remembers the march at UC Santa Barbara, Oscar's last day alive. He remembers his roommate Noel Huerta, nickname Nene, bringing Oscar over afterwards. And he remembers something going down at the apartment.

Javier Frigerio  01:53

Uh, I ended up going back home after the situation and I not gonna lie to you, I mean, I was getting all fucked up and shit. And there was a situation at our apartment.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  02:03

I've been working so hard to get these details, and now, I can't believe how candid he's being with me.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  02:10

What happened?

Javier Frigerio  02:11

You know, somebody said something stupid, and I know Kike and Oscar had an issue.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  02:18

Kike is Enrique Mendoza's nickname. He was another roommate.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  02:22

What was the issue?

Javier Frigerio  02:23

It was uh- Well, Kike was always a hothead. Right? And you know, somebody doesn't like what they hear and they got all mad so they went to the back of the fuckin' apartment and they got into a fight.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  02:34

You saw them fighting?

Javier Frigerio  02:36

No, I was actually inside. I mean, I, I kind of heard it, but they stopped it right away. It was quick and fast. [mumbles something] It was like two guys, like, like taking care of the discussion, but all of the roommates were there and fucking [mumbles something] they stopped it, right away. Quick, quick fast.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  02:51

Did you hear like chairs flying? Or or-

Javier Frigerio  02:54

Oh, no, no, no, not at all. Not- no, not even. We were so poor, we had no chairs back there. You know, no, it was like just a regular couple of punches. He ended up punching Oscar once, a good nice hit.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  03:06

Then Nene came in.

Javier Frigerio  03:07

Nene ended up walking and speaking with Oscar about the whole situation. I guess it calmed down the whole situation. Took Oscar in front of our apartment because there was a park right in front of our apartment.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  03:18

This may be the park we've heard of, a grassy patch on top of the Bluffs that locals called Dog Shit Park.

Javier Frigerio  03:24

And he put him on the chair, on the bench, right there in front of the park, right? And it was like, right by a cliff. [AGL: Uh huh.] So next, you know, he sat on there and, and-

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  03:37

And you remember? Jav- Javier, you remember seeing this? See- seeing Nene put Oscar on the chair at the park?

Javier Frigerio  03:44

So I was actually in the living room, and we have a big ass picture window and I saw that happen.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  03:49

And then, and then Nene left him on his own and nobody, nobody kept an eye on-

Javier Frigerio  03:53

No, because he was actually across the street though. It was like, it was- he wasn't that far away, you know what I mean. It was like, maybe 10 to 15 feet away.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  04:00

Was there a fence there at the park? Do you remember?

Javier Frigerio  04:05

There's no fence whatsoever.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  04:08

Back then there was no fence?

Javier Frigerio  04:09

Oh, hell no. There was no fence at all. That park- it's like say that park was there though, but it was a cliff and you better be careful. And then all of a sudden, Nene went to go see how he was doing. And he was gone. He had walked off.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  04:25

If Oscar fell, then it's possible it happened right there in the park. However, the Sheriff's death report suggests it's more likely that Oscar walked about half a mile away, to Campus Point, and fell from the bluffs there.

Javier Frigerio  04:38

He had walked off, so we went looking for him.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  04:42

Who did?

Javier Frigerio  04:43

All of us did.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  04:44

Who, who all of you?

Javier Frigerio  04:45

I mean, I see all the roommate, I mean, Nene and all of us go, fuck it, let's go walk up and down the street at DP and see what he's doing? Where's he at? And nothing. We couldn't find him. He got tired of probably sitting and we figured okay, he went walking up and down.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  04:59

Wow.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  05:00

Hearing Javier's story, it sounds like the roommates became genuinely worried when they realized Oscar was missing.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  05:07

So, so this is what I'm thinking, Javier, I mean, and I've been, I've been, you know, kind of talking to people since September of last year about this podcast. So, so this is the first time I'm hearing from someone who actually saw Oscar that night in the apartment, and the way you're describing what the roommates did, after Oscar left was like, [JF: Uh huh.] am I hearing you say that you got, you all were concerned?

Javier Frigerio  05:37

You know, you always be concerned about, you know, a person, a situation, especially who been drinking, smoking, burning whatsoever. You know what I mean?

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  05:44

But if Enrique was out there looking for him, it seems like Enrique kinda like, you know, set aside whatever, you know-

Javier Frigerio  05:52

No, he was cool about it, but don't get me wrong, though. He understood though, you know. Enrique, Enrique's a smart guy, though. He understood, you know, things happen for for that situation. But yeah, hey, you know what though? It is what it is, and you know, you know, I'm not going to be having a grudge whatsoever.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  06:06

By the way, we tried reaching out to Enrique Mendoza, but we never got a response. Javier says he remembers the roommates in the apartment being rounded up by the Sheriff's office. No criminal charges were filed.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  06:06

Some people believe that the roommates, like Enrique, might have been responsible for killing Oscar.

Javier Frigerio  06:26

Oh, not at all. No. I can tell you that. Naw. That's, that'll be, that'd be super bullshit.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  06:33

Some people still believe that Oscar was murdered.

Javier Frigerio  06:37

That's what they say. [AGL: Yeah.] Even the dad said that once- I even met the dad.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  06:43

Did he talk to you guys?

Javier Frigerio  06:44

He talked to us for a little bit, and we apologized. We gave our condolences and so forth.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  06:50

Javier is recounting memories from almost three decades ago, and his story fits with what I've learned during this investigation. [music in] It fits with Jose's story. It fits with the pathologist's assessment of Oscar's injuries as likely accidental. And it fits with a pattern of bluff- related deaths in Isla Vista. It fits with a version of events in which Oscar, under the influence, upset after a fight, alone and disoriented in the darkness, had a terrible, fatal accident. Everything I've learned points to this version of the story. But I want to make one last try at getting the Santa Barbara Sheriff's version of events from someone who had promised us potential information early in our investigation.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  07:51

I'm Adolfo Guzman-Lopez, and this is the final episode of Imperfect Paradise: The Forgotten Revolutionary. [music out]

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  08:00

[Zoom bell] Raquel, how are you?

Raquel Zick  08:23

I'm good. How are you?

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  08:25

Natalie and I get on a Zoom call with Raquel Zick, Public Information Officer for the Santa Barbara Sheriff's office. [music in] When we started looking into Oscar's story, she told us she'd consider releasing the investigative report on Oscar's death if we shared some of our reporting with her. Here's what she told us back then. [music- duck under]

Raquel Zick  08:48

We may not be able to release those 150 pages until you can get through some, some of your interviews and we can kind of have more of a discussion. Is the case historic and we're done with it? Or is there things that you're coming up with, that people are telling you that we want to look into?

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  09:03

So we're here to close the loop and make one final try for the investigative report. We want to get as much information as possible before we present our findings to those who were close to Oscar. Raquel keeps her camera off, so I'm looking at the black square with her name on it as I make my pitch. [music out]

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  09:22

So yeah, we wanted to take up your offer to get back to ya, after we've done, you know, the the reporting we needed to do. So uh, so can I do that? Can I just kind of give you some of the highlights of what we, what we found? [RZ: Yeah.] We talked to a retired um, forensic pathologist to ask her about um, some of the injuries that the family found suspect, such as no broken bones in other parts of the body. If... [duck under]

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  09:54

I give Raquel an overview of what we found.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  09:57

So yeah, so this roommate said that he, he saw Noel put Oscar on a chair out there to chill out. Then Noel came back in and, and then, you know, they looked, and he was gone.

Raquel Zick  10:08

It sounds like you ran almost every theory, you know, to its end.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  10:14

It's taken a while. One of the things we found is that so few of the family and friends have a, a basic knowledge of of the Sheriff's investigation. And that absence of facts has caused a lot of pain in a lot of people. So one of the important things will be to look at the narratives in that criminal investigation, and, you know, summarize them and present them in the podcast. So um, yeah, can you release that to us?

Raquel Zick  10:50

A criminal one is not subject to public release.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  10:54

Well, that, that, that state law does not prohibit the release of these documents. State law says that an agency can decide [RZ: Mmm hmm.] whether or not, and when we sat down with you, you said, okay, come back to us, tell us what you found, and then let's talk about releasing that to you. That's what you said.

Raquel Zick  11:17

And and you did ask for it through the, through the PRA process and already received a response.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  11:26

Raquel, I kind of feel like you were dangling a carrot that you were never gonna give to us.

Raquel Zick  11:32

Our records department has responded to your request.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  11:36

We did submit several PRAs, Public Records Requests, that were denied. But Raquel had told us to come back after we'd finished our reporting, so she could reevaluate. But now she's acting as if this never happened.

Natalie Chudnovsky  11:52

My understanding was, the sort of delicate balance was that, if in our reporting, we find information, that would mean that you want to reopen the case, then obviously, you would want to withhold the criminal investigation because it might become active. Or if at the end of our reporting, we tell you what we found- it doesn't bring any new information, then you would consider Oscar as like, a historical figure. There's no harm in releasing the criminal investigation, [RZ: Mmm hmm.] and that you would consider doing that.

Raquel Zick  12:25

This isn't a- This isn't a me considering. This is my agency considering it. [NC: Sure.] You're welcome to resubmit it based on you know, hey, we- this is what, this is where we're at, we're going to, you know, release this podcast and we'd like it for part of that. I, I would suggest resubmitting through the PRA process with that additional information.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  12:47

We'll do that. Do we have a good chance?

Raquel Zick  12:50

It's not for me to say.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  12:51

So I resubmit the PRA. And it's a no. [music in] Dealing with the Santa Barbara Sheriff's Office, the opaque bait and switch language- it makes me really feel for Mr. Gomez, and what he must have gone through after his son's death. The frustration of being told one thing, and then later, being told another, whether it was through unclear communication, or disregard. The lack of transparency, the mutual distrust, colored everything about this case, which makes me all the more uneasy to tell Oscar's closest friends and family about our investigation. [music out]

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  13:45

[outdoor ambi] Thanks for meeting us.

Juan Gonzalez  13:47

You're welcome.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  13:48

We wanted to have this kind of sit down with Mr. Gomez [JG: Uh huh.] and we're not able to at this point. [JG: Yeah.] So we're having it with you.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  13:58

I meet Juan Gonzalez at an outdoor picnic table near a Baldwin Park Rec Center. Since my last sit down with Oscar's dad, when I turned off the audio recorder, Mr. Gomez asked for more time to process. It's hard to relive the most painful event of your life in front of a tape recorder, and I respect that. So I'm going back to Juan, the person who put me on this path in the first place.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  14:22

[birds chirping] One of the things I want to do with you is close the loop in a way on this production. So [JG: Okay.] you know, we began nine months ago, [JG: Mmm hmm.] more or less. [JG: Mmm hmm.] And so we want to um, talk to you a bit about what we found along the way and in our investigation.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  14:46

[music in] So over the course of about an hour, we sit across the picnic table, and I run through what we found. First, that we didn't find evidence for the big hazard theory.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  14:58

And he laid out what [JG: Mmm hmm.] his brother Noel told him [JG: Mmm hmm.] soon after Oscar died. [duck under]

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  15:00

What we learned from Javier Frigerio.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  15:06

Javier tells us that Noel sat him down on the chair, came back into the apartment. The roommates look out and they say, Oscar's gone. Where is he? Hey... [duck under]

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  15:08

The public records requests to various agencies and institutions involved that didn't turn up anything.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  15:24

No communication from the Santa Barbara agencies... [duck under]

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  15:24

What we learned about other bluff deaths.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  15:24

Some of those deaths had injuries similar to Oscar's, and um... [duck under]

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  15:26

The conclusion of the forensic pathologists.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  15:27

They don't see it being caused by somebody hitting Oscar. They said that the injuries are consistent with an accidental fall. [music out]

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  15:50

I'm watching Juan carefully, expecting some reaction. But his expression is even, unchanged.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  15:58

[outdoor ambi] We didn't find that Oscar was murdered.

Juan Gonzalez  16:03

Yeah, well, um, no one found that. Now, if you asked me my opinion, and and based on what I've heard, I would have to say that he was.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  16:12

Does any of this that I've told you, though, move the needle for you at all?

Juan Gonzalez  16:17

Well, I've heard it before. I've heard hey- I heard even it was suicide. I heard it was accident. I heard that, you know, that Oscar was careless, you know what I mean?

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  16:27

The bar to convince you that it [JG: Yeah.] wasn't a murder sounds really high, Juan.

Juan Gonzalez  16:31

Well, not as high, but I, I just don't close my door to anything.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  16:36

You might hear that I'm struggling here. Everything I've learned over the last months, much of it new information, is being dismissed as just another theory. But I'm also thinking of the pathologist, Dr. Lindsay Thomas, of trying to be sensitive, of letting go of the idea that I can convince anyone of something they don't want to hear. For now, my disbelief towards Juan's reaction is winning out.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  17:04

Comin' into this, the the word murder was so strong and so loud from you, from Mr. Gomez, and Justicia Para Oscar, [JG: Mmm hmm.] um, seemed to mean finding the murderer. And I haven't.

Juan Gonzalez  17:23

Yeah, well, um, again, what, 28 years after the fact Adolfo? You know what I mean? Um, it gets- every year it gets 10 times harder to to pinpoint anyone that had to do with Oscar's murder. Um, it could have been a stranger, it could have been a passerby, we don't know who it was.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  17:46

So these are fair points Juan is making. It is possible that a random passerby pushed Oscar. It's possible that Javier and Jose were not telling us the truth. What we have is a lack of evidence for those kinds of possibilities. We did find evidence that supports this scenario: that Oscar fell accidentally at night with no witnesses around. And if that did happen, there's no way to prove it definitively. Which leaves the door open for other possibilities, which seem more persuasive to Juan and for Mr. Gomez too.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  18:27

None of what I've gone through, proves to you?

Juan Gonzalez  18:30

No, no it, for me, for me, all the theories, whether it's, it was a crime, a conspiracy, an accident, th- they all have the same level of of of, you know, percentage. In my mind, no one has proved to me that it w- it was accident or was a crime. Um, and that's okay. You know, for me, that's okay. Because whether time will reveal itself um, th- that's something to to be seen.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  19:07

Our conclusion is just so similar to what the Santa Barbara Sheriff's Office found nearly three decades ago. The agency Juan and the family have been suspicious of for so many years. I can't change that. All I can give him is my empathy about what Oscar's friends and family went through after his death. That's it. [music in] For me, I have come to new understandings while searching for what happened to Oscar. And there's one last conversation I want to share with you, with the person who helped me process my Chicano activist years, someone who I spent a lot of time with back then, and who was close to Oscar too. That's after the break. [music out]

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  20:06

[outdoor ambi and greetings] Natalie and I meet Sabrina Enrique outside a grocery store in Sacramento. It's loud, so we have to get creative.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  20:13

Um, how about talking in the car? [SE: Okay.] Is that all right? [SE: Yeah, sure.] Yeah, we got a Mitsubishi. [SE laughs and says: Okay.]

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  20:20

I first met Sabrina in 1990 at a Chicano activist meeting in San Diego. She was a little younger than the rest of us, more connected to Cholo street culture. We carpooled to conferences and marches. I remember her radical speeches, intense stare, and black clothes. Her family, the Enriques are legendary in San Diego. They helped create the city's Chicano Cultural Center, and her grandmother helped found San Diego's Ballet Folklorico en Aztlan, a group that teaches Mexican folkloric dances and performance. Sabrina says she remembers giving presentations as a kid about Aztlan and the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Chicano activism was in her DNA. She says that activism gave her a sense of purpose.

Sabrina Enrique  21:08

[street ambi] I had a lot of um, conflict in my inner personal life within my family. And the, there was just a lot of chaos and then moving around to different schools. And the one constant was that I had this one outlet that let me be like, kind of maybe forceful in a way and, and feel like I, like my, my worth mattered when I didn't feel that in my life, in my personal life at that time.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  21:40

When Sabrina met me, I was just starting to embrace the term Chicano, still intimidated by the militant ideology of some of the people we met at Chicano student gatherings. It was at one of these conferences that Sabrina met Oscar.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  21:55

Um, so let's talk about Oscar.

Sabrina Enrique  21:59

Talk about Oscar, okay.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  22:00

Uh, how'd you meet him?

Sabrina Enrique  22:02

You might have been there, homey. [laughing] I think so. Maybe- [AGL: Date, time, place?] [music in] He was on a panel for something. Uh, I, I just remembered seeing him and then initially just getting like this spark, this energy. And I was like, what's that? Like, kind of like this shock thing, which I hadn't experienced before. And I, I was initially first put it to like, was that just like, a random like, kind of like, crush, you know? And then um, he came up and introduced himself as we were leaving. When we first like, shook hands, it felt familiar? He was like a true like, soul- person, soul friend. We shared this really beautiful chemistry, and connection. [music out]

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  22:53

At the time, Sabrina said she was negotiating her needs and those of the Chicano movement. Some of the organizers told her not to apply to college, because the movement needed her. But Oscar provided a different perspective.

Sabrina Enrique  23:07

He was super encouraging. I remember that. And also had me kind of question or think about some of the environment or elements that were affecting me, you know, in people and in organizations and and in things he's like, you know, why, why are you focusing on this, instead of focusing on like, you know, college apps or something like that.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  23:27

And it sounds like Sabrina provided a different perspective for Oscar too.

Sabrina Enrique  23:32

Oscar was a complex person. You know, he had a lot of drive and animo, but I think, a little bit of a chaotic part to him. Because he would come to me really, almost like swirling like, there were no periods, [laughs] or commas in the language, just kind of like this, like ball of energy. And by the end, he would always say, you know, just like he would, he would just be so calm and so grounded and good. And that was what we shared- was, there was something there where he had this way of building me up, and I had a way of grounding him. And that was how we were compatible, if that makes sense.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  24:09

It does.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  24:12

We've heard before from Oscar's friend, Eddie Salas, that Oscar was reassessing his relationship to the Chicano movement in the last year of his life. Sabrina saw a more internal struggle that Oscar was dealing with.

Sabrina Enrique  24:25

He would say like, what is he, if he grew up with just, with stability with a mother and a father in like a comfortable neighborhood like they moved out of the barrio to give them a a comfortable environment. He had friends, he had good schools. And he had a little bit of like, who am I to be telling these, these kids that are in in juvie or in in the pen that like, that I have the answers. So there was a little bit of that conflict. Questioning, who are you to speak to these things when you've had a different experience essentially, like from a place of what many people would regard as a privilege.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  25:09

There were also external pressures. Sabrina said Oscar was thinking of pursuing politics or communications but was afraid of being seen as a sellout by the movement. She saw members of her own family experience these accusations firsthand.

Sabrina Enrique  25:24

Well, they, you know, say, well, say they speak negatively about my Tio Tupac and his organization in, in Arizona, and what he was doing, working with the United Nations, for indigenous peoples for land and water rights. He was going to Switzerland to speak for indigenous peoples at a high platform with a lot of notoriety, I guess, you know? And so the organization in San Diego would look at that and say, well, you know, he's selling out, [laughs] because he's going on this world platform, and not, you know, putting us ahead of him, essentially.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  26:04

Some of these more radical Chicano activists rejected any and all government organizations. They saw these agencies as part of the system that shut Chicanos out of socio-political opportunities in the US.

Natalie Chudnovsky  26:18

And you would try to like, voice concern, and then what would happen?

Sabrina Enrique  26:23

Um, I, I'd get shut down. There was so much like, harsh negativity and this bickering and a lot of like machismo and just kind of putting each other down and someone leave the room and they're talking shit about each other.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  26:36

Sabrina said she felt especially dismissed, because she was a woman.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  26:41

Can you give me a for instance, like, oh, one time something happened?

Sabrina Enrique  26:45

And a woman like, would be doing all the pamphlets, [laughs] and then doing all the cooking and, you know, be out working too, but then still have to give their contribution monetarily to to organizations. Always being uh, essentially at the service of the men who had all the, all the power and all the say so and the decision making.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  27:10

[music in] Listening to Sabrina is taking me back to conflicts that I experienced in the Chicano movement too. This idea we inherited from 60s activists, that you didn't want to be a Tio Taco, a sellout, a coconut, as we said in the 90s. It made the world, and my choices feel so binary. It created an atmosphere of suspicion rather than one of compassion and honesty. And at that time, I remember learning about the machismo of 1960s activists. In the 90s, we thought we were past all of that. I'm embarrassed to say that I'd never seen anything wrong with the movement's gender relations, though I realize now, it's because I didn't look hard enough. [music out]

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  28:03

I'm sorry you went through that. Um-

Sabrina Enrique  28:05

Oh, it was hell. It was shitty.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  28:07

I'm, you know, and I say, and I give that apology as someone who was part of that structure.

Sabrina Enrique  28:14

No, no, no, no, no, no.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  28:16

Well, part of the- if not- I didn't cause any harm to you directly, [SE: No, no, no, no.] but I went to s- a lot of those meetings.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  28:22

I remember these meetings, and the people Sabrina's talking about. I had looked up to some of them as my intellectual mentors. I spent a lot of time with them driving to and from college campuses. I agreed to publish their writings in my college newspaper, Voz Fronteriza. We talked so much about overthrowing oppressive power structures, but we hadn't examined our own.

Natalie Chudnovsky  28:52

Did you see that, like machismo in Oscar?

Sabrina Enrique  28:57

I did not. I did not. And I'll tell you something. There there was a time I was really questioning like my identity. And like, I had been dating a a woman who was uh, a few years older than me. And I hadn't told anyone, and he was the one person that I talked to about it. I had internal conflict, I didn't have the terminology to label it myself, you know. And so he was the person I talked to, and people who knew him differently wouldn't know that about him. But he's the one who was encouraging and was like, you know, you do you. Like, no one else can, like, uh, label you and, and, and put you in in uh, any position that you don't want to be in, that kind of thing. So that was the person he was to me. And he was very encouraging of me just, you know, exploring and being my own person.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  29:45

[music in] I used to think my identity as a Chicano was stuck in the 90s. But what this investigation has filled in for me is the progression of the movement since then. It's allowed me to see our work more fully, which means acknowledging the hurt we caused. And that allows me to recognize how the Chicano Chicanx Latinx activists who've come after us have created more inclusive spaces for all sorts of people, including my kids who are multi-ethnic, and for me too, a Mexican born, formerly undocumented, border raised American citizen. But I don't think we would have gotten here without 90s Chicano student activists working to resist xenophobic policies and to affirm their dignity. Back then, all I saw was setbacks, but now, I can recognize our victories. Chicano student activists protested and drew attention to Prop 187, which was ruled unconstitutional after it passed in 1994. Student hunger strikers won victories for their campuses, like the creation of university Chicano Studies departments and doctoral programs, which are still around in some form today. I think those efforts laid the groundwork for changes being made now. In recent years, California's public high schools, community colleges, and the 23-campus state university system approved ethnic studies class requirements. And then there's the way we talk about organizing today. In 2019, MEChA leaders voted for drop Aztlan and Chicanx from the organization's name, to be more inclusive of marginalized groups, intersectionality, coalition building, anti-racism. So many of these ideas grew out of seeds planted in the 90s, some of those seeds planted by Oscar. [music out] Hearing Sabrina talk about Oscar makes me proud in a way I've never been before of our Chicano Movement as an ongoing process of liberating our minds. It's validating.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  30:00

This has been a healing process for me. Do I have Oscar to thank for that? Yes. [SE laughs and asks: Why is that?] Because he's the one who put me on this road of looking for him, and I think through looking for him, I found myself.

Sabrina Enrique  32:28

Oh, interesting. Interesting. I, I still don't know the story of how you essentially went from, you know, high school into UCSD and then involved with reporting, like how did that come about? And I mean, and you can decide, you may or may not want to talk about it here right now, or we could be done, but think about it.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  32:48

I think I can tell you a little bit about it here, [SE: Okay, okay.] yeah. Thumbnail is uh, 1986- Amnesty is approved, right. And that allows me then to apply to UCSD. There's a counselor who helps me. There was still affirmative action. [SE: Mmm hmm.] And so I got in on special action because I d- I don't know if, I didn't have the grades. So I get into UCSD-

Sabrina Enrique  33:04

You? You see- you [laughing] only speak like that? I didn't like-

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  33:16

I know, I should show you my transcript. [SE laughs] Um, so, I get to UCSD...

Sabrina Enrique  33:21

I would watch my language around you. [SE laughing] [AGL: Oh, God.] Like, don't curse, [AGL: That's funny.] use three syllable words. [AGL: That's funny. That's funny.] [SE laughs]

Natalie Chudnovsky  33:22

So you presented in a totally different way.

Sabrina Enrique  33:31

Oh my goodness.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  33:33

What was the formality? What was the- [SE: Very formal language.] Yeah, because I grew up around adults and like, like I said, I didn't have like core groups of friends that that I could just be myself around very much. You know what, if you take me to Tijuana, to my cousins, the Carmonas, you'll see a diff- you'll be like ahh- border border Adolfo.

Sabrina Enrique  33:58

But border, border Adolfo is probably comfortable, right, [AGL: Oh yeah.] casual. But you presented yourself as if you were working, you know?

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  34:07

[laughs] That's so funny. I don't [SE: Yeah.] know. I, I'm, I trust you, [SE laughs] totally trust you. And it makes sense. And I can see that.

Sabrina Enrique  34:14

I appreciated that you took things seriously and you were never inappropriate. Like all of those things, I will always you know, have a high regard for you in in your way, because you were reporting, essentially reporting the news. You seemed straight arrow and like, clean guy, I say it straight out, clean cut, put together, the big thick rim black glasses way before they were cool and trendy and everybody wearing 'em now. [laughs] [AGL: Thank you.] You presented yourself very professionally from the start. And that was a good thing.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  34:48

A few years ago, this kind of praise would have made me feel so uncomfortable. But now I'm feeling this sense of connection with Sabrina. I'm starting to have the kinds of conversations that I closed myself off from growing up.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  35:08

Thank you. [SE: Yeah.] And like I said, you know, I'm hearing you now and I know you've done so much more and you're, you're you're, you know, at a, at a really good place, but I'm hearing the same down Sabrina, together with a super strong foundation that I knew back then. [music in] I just, I'm appreciating it in a different way. [SE: Mmm.] So thank you.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  35:36

[footsteps] Producer Natalie Chudnovsky and I are on our last trip to Santa Barbara. We're at Campus Point, the rocky bluffs where the UC Santa Barbara campus and the Isla Vista neighborhood meet. According to Oscar's death report, this is the location where he most likely fell.

Natalie Chudnovsky  35:53

So is this Campus Point? [AGL:Yup.]

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  35:59

There are students in twos and threes, walking, taking photos, or staring out at the ocean as the sun is close to setting. Below, surfers ride the waves. Some very close to black rocks jutting out of the water. I step right to the edge of the bluff and look over. The drop down is maybe 20, 25 feet. Was this the view that Oscar saw, too? [music out]

Natalie Chudnovsky  36:28

How are you feeling about the idea of ending the project? [beach ambi]

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  36:34

That we have to finish the script and actually-

Natalie Chudnovsky  36:36

Oh, yeah, yeah, all that stuff. I mean, like, emotionally.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  36:40

It's such a privilege to be able to tell Oscar's story and the story of his friends and his family but also of his movement. So to me, it's a great privilege. And I know it's got to come to an end, and it should, because I can't live in Oscar's world from 1990 to 1994 forever. And I wouldn't want to- because it's tough. But people have been- people have been living in that, in those years. And that's all they've got of Oscar.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  37:14

You know, in the decades since the 90s, I've gotten into Judaism. At first it was through attending services with my wife. And though I have not converted, it's become my regular spiritual practice. Judaism taught me about connection and empathy, unconstrained by space and time.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  37:35

Just a really interesting teaching from a rabbi that I, that I was reading. So the teaching was, okay, a wave is coming in, you know, from far out in the ocean, and it sees the waves ahead and they're crashing and the wave gets anxious like oh my gosh, oh, no, I'm gonna, I'm gonna crash and I'm gonna disappear. But the wave doesn't realize that it's part of the ocean. It doesn't disappear. It's still part of the ocean. How is that relevant to Oscar Gomez, well, all these things that we've been learning about Oscar, all these positive feelings that he left, uplifting things that he said to people, all this kind of like enabling that he did of people's positive identity of themselves, all these friendships that he had- his legacy, to me, is the ocean, right? You know, he's still there, through all those positive things, and through the movement, and the people he touched. [voices in background] Thank you for the prompt.

Oscar Gomez  38:53

For all the gente were, uh, you know, listening out there, you know, it's important that you know, that we listen to the different things, you know, the poetry and the, the murals and the art. It's all part of our cultura. And it's all part of our expression, [music in] you know, and so you gente out there, you are the, you know, as far as the radio goes, you know, I'm just the needle, you guys are the record, you know, and without, without you guys I'm I'm not anything so I mean, it's all about giving back to the very people that give us, you know, the source ***and the border, which is la gente de Comunidad and once again, if you want to give me a Yamashita, you want a little feedback 752-2777 Kubal

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  40:15

Imperfect Paradise: The Forgotten Revolutionary is written, reported and hosted by me, Adolfo Guzman-Lopez. Natalie Chudnovsky is the lead producer, and our associate producers are James Chow and Francisco Aviles-Pino. Editing by Audrey Quinn. The show was a production of LAist Studios. Antonio Cereijido and Leo G are the executive producers for LAist Studios. Fact checking by Audrey Regan. Mixing by our engineer, E. Scott Kelly, and thanks to engineer Shawn Campbell. Our music supervisor is Doris Anahi Muñoz. The music is written, performed, and recorded by Joseph Quiñones at Second Hand Sounds in Rialto, California. Thanks also to past LAist interns, ***Mendy Kong and Kyle Chang. Our website LAist.com is designed by Andy Cheatwood and the digital and marketing teams at LAist Studios. The marketing team of LAist Studios created our branding. Thanks to the team at LAist Studios, including Taylor Coffman, Sabir Brara, Kristen Hayford, Kristen Muller, Andy Orozco, Michael Cosentino, Emily Guerin and Leo G. Imperfect Paradise: The Forgotten Revolutionary is a production of LAist Studios. Support for this podcast is made possible by Gordon and Dona Crawford, who believe that quality journalism makes Los Angeles a better place to live. This program is made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people. [music out]