Free The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano by Sonia Manzano Page B

se acabó,” she said. “It’s finished.”
    What was finished? The baking? Our relationship? The Young Lords?
    I looked at the grease stains on the walls and at my mother’s pathetic attempts to make everything pretty with plastic and roses.
    I stormed out the door to find Abuela. But she was nowhere.
    It was as if El Barrio had swallowed her up.

W ho can tell what is the very beginning of a storm?
    Not a weather storm but a storm of ideas that grows like a flame.
    I wondered, What was the very beginning of the Young Lords’ storm? Was it the garbage on fire? Or was it when they opened a storefront office in the neighborhood? Was their office the first flutter of things to come?
    Walking by their workplace after school, I could see them, all long-haired and wearing jeans and eating take-out rice and beans and laughing and pointing and arguing.
    Watching them became a habit. Did they see me walking back and forth? Me — pretending I had something to do and somewhere to go, when all I really wanted wasto see what made the Young Lords so passionate about whatever they were doing.
    I tried to guess what the tall one with the dark glasses was saying, but he loped across the room too fast.
    Was there a motor in the heart of the Young Lord with the kinky hair and blinding smile, or was strutting the only way he knew to get from one end of the room to the other?
    And why did that other Young Lord look as sad as if he carried the world’s problems on his shoulders? His eyes as dark as la esperanza de un pobre — as sorrowful as the hope of a poor person.
    Even with that sad expression, he and the others looked strong and powerful and full of meaning.
    Observing them, I realized sweeping the streets and passing out flyers weren’t the beginning of the Young Lord storm. Neither was getting a storefront office. They were just signs that something was coming.
    The storm began when the Young Lords started to go to church. The First Spanish Methodist Church. Our church.
    They had asked the church elders if they could use space in the church for a free-breakfast program for Barrio kids.
    It was like the whole world groaned in protest. You would’ve thought they had asked for the sun and the moon. When the church elders recovered long enough from the audacity of this outrageous request and cameback with a resounding no, the Young Lords decided to go to the people.
    And so the eight-week campaign of trying to win over the people in the congregation began.
    The Garbage Offensive had warmed the people’s hearts toward them, and though some of the older worshipers were scared, they couldn’t help but align themselves with the Lords, even if only in their hearts.
    The Young Lords would wait until the end of the service. Then, one of them would get up and state his case, saying that the church was only open one day a week, that the space could be used for social programs, that the church should serve the people, and what better way of serving the people than having a free-breakfast program for the children of El Barrio ?
    Parishioners walked out or countered with “No, this is our church, we have to worship the way we want, you cannot tell us what to do, you are not members of this church.” And the Young Lord would quietly walk away from the altar until the next time.
    Being told no did not stop them any more than being told no stopped me when I first asked permission to work at the five-and-dime.
    Weeks had passed. Summer was over, and now autumn was filling our neighborhood with its chill. Thankfully thegarbage didn’t stink as badly, but there was still a fight for equality going on.
    After several Sundays of peacefully persisting, the Young Lords were starting to win the confidence of the congregation. Soon there were more and more church people willing to go along with them. Good people who cheered them on and wanted them to persuade the pastor to see things their way.
    The