Listen to the voices and read the words of the people who joined the struggle to save Lincoln Annex.
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I believe that one’s conscience always remains. History will continue to confirm who was on the opposite side of the community.
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I am very proud to be part of a struggle. We played a small role in this, but to see this level of activism was just so reaffirming to the work we do.
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A really important strategy was educating the public and making people aware of the millions of dollars at stake here and who these big operators were. One of the flyers that we put together based on Juan’s research was the salaries of all the hospital and Cancer Center executives. These are guys making two, three,…
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We were going to hit all the government meetings—they knew that this was going to require a dozen or two dozen different public meetings, and they’ve got the county involved, and they’ve got Rutgers involved. So it was going to create a ton of opportunities for people to speak. And then, bam, COVID.
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I remember asking: what’s going on? They were talking about the hospital and Rutgers’ new project, and that [Lincoln Annex] students will have to go to the warehouse school. I told them that was where I went to school for a couple of years. I thought it was abandoned. I was surprised.
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They operate with hubris, right? They’re the elite and think the world is their playground to do as they will. And so they don’t think that undocumented folks from New Brunswick can challenge their will.
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They called us crazy. They told us, no, it is all lies. Who was fooled?
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The only thing that personally consoles me a little bit is that the [new] Lincoln Annex will not be built on that contaminated site where they wanted to build it. The struggle does not stop there.
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It was just the best feeling to be in those in those meetings, where so many different groups and individuals came out. I can’t remember ever having that kind of cooperation between university groups, community groups, more overtly political groups.
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I honestly lost my fear when I joined New Labor. When I came to New Labor, the fear started to go away because they were doing a lot of things that I didn’t know how to organize…The proudest I’ve ever felt [was] when we won the fight against wage theft and for [drivers’] licenses for…
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What am I proud of? Everything. Of everything we have done. We have succeeded in good times and bad. I feel proud. I feel proud of this, to be there, to continue fighting.…Because everything we look for is in the community. And if the community is united, the politicians tremble.
