Remembering Moody Park: The Death That Sparked a Houston Riot

Listen here on Latino USA.

Jose Campos Torres – Army veteran. 

On Mother’s Day 1977, the body of a Mexican-American man was found floating in Houston’s Buffalo Bayou.

It was the body of Jose Campos Torres (also known as Joe), a 23-year-old Army veteran who was last seen in police custody.

The death of Jose Campos Torres started a chain of events that culminated in a violent uproar nearly a year later in Houston’s Latino community. Known as the Moody Park Riots, the event changed many lives forever—and brought reflection about the racial makeup of Houston’s police department.

Anosognosia: Helping Someone Who Doesn’t Believe They Need It #mentalhealthreform

Listen here on WHYY’s NewsWorks.

Katherine Flannery Dering and her brother Paul in 2007.

Katherine’s brother Paul died eight years ago from cancer when he was 48 years old. And even when he was dying, he didn’t know he was ill. He said he swallowed bad acne and it got into his lungs and if he could cough it out, he would get better.

But Paul did have cancer, and he also had schizophrenia. He was diagnosed when he was 16, but he never acknowledged it. He told people he’d been shot in the head. It might sound like he is in denial, but he’s not. Paul sufferered from a condition known as anosognosia– the inability to recognize one’s own illness.

As He Was Stabbing Me He Told Me, ‘I’m Sorry, Dad’

Anthony and Cynthia Hernandez hold a photo of their son, Aaron.

Listen here on Latino USA.

A southern California father fights for mental health reform after trying in vain to get his schizophrenic son treatment.

I’m so proud that after 5 months of working on this story it’s finally on air. Anyone who knows me knows that starting this piece was a journey to cope with everything that happened to me in 2014 when a loved one became mentally ill. This was a way for me to make sense of the mental health system. I am so lucky to have met people like the Hernandez’s on that journey.

Listen: The Making of a Chavista #NextGenRadio

Jose Cortez, 68, at Piestewa Peak in the Phoenix Mountains.

Done at my NPR fellowship at KJZZ in Phoenix. Listen here.

In the 1960s farm workers in the United States began to organize and fight for better working conditions. The movement was famously led by Cesar Chavez, a farm worker turned civil rights activist born to Mexican-American parents. Jose Cortez was one of the men who was charged with protecting Chavez during his rallies in Arizona. Cortez tells us about how the farmworker movement still resonates in his life.