Young Lords, The

by Johanna Fernandez (2021)

6/10

Because I sympathize with the aims and ideology of the YLO, I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. It had a lot of valuable information about how the Young Lords formed and grew into a national political force, and why they flamed out. This is the kind of info I value most in movement histories, because it is the most useful information for modern organizers, who both need to understand how older orgs were able to accomplish what they did, and what missteps to avoid in order to create a more durable organization.

Particularly helpful for me was Fernandez highlighting the probable misstep of focusing organizing efforts on the lumpenproletariat, i.e. folks on the margins of society who may be predisposed to rebelling against authority, but also have many social preconditions that can impede revolutionary progress. I also loved learning the blow-by-blows of the various “offensives,” (Garbage, Lead, Church, Hospital). Seeing the autopsy of how those actions were organized and implemented, in addition to their positive impact, was definitely inspiring. Learning about where YLO went wrong, especially their abandonment of the community to pivot to a Puerto Rico campaign, was highly informative for any organizing I might do.

Unfortunately, this useful information was padded by a lot of general pontificating and contextual analysis that was bland and repetitious… stuff that I presume most people who will want to read about the Young Lords will already have quite a solid grasp on. Reading in-depth history of the Puerto Rican independence movement, or the healthcare industry, or the Black Panther origins on the west coast, e.g., were not what I wanted from this book. I know all of that.

I would have preferred a more focused book sticking strictly to what I didn’t already know: the rise and fall of the YLO, and why it mattered. IMO Fernandez could have done this in maybe as few as half the number of pages she gave us here. I’m not claiming this as an objective critique, because I recognize that plenty of folks could really enjoy how she connected the YLO to all of these broader issues. For me it just landed in the no-man’s-land of more space than I expected to be spent on those topics + not being formulated in a fresh way at all.

I also think there’s a deeper discussion to be had about the tension between the radical feminism of the YLO, and Gloria Fontanez’s portrayal here as the person single-most responsible for the group’s demise, (due to some at least mildly gendered criticisms of her attitude and approach).

Overall this is a valuable book that would have benefitted from a tighter focus. I recommend it to folks interested in social movements of the 60s/70s, and organizers looking to inform their own work.