NEWS MKE SPEAKS: CONVERSATIONS WITH MILWAUKEEANS
Photo by Bill Arnold.
Common Council President Jose Perez:
‘I Will Always Listen’ BY TOM JENZ
O
n April 22, District 12 Alderman Jose Perez was elected President of the Milwaukee Common Council by his colleagues. Of Puerto Rican ancestry, he is the first Latino to hold this office. He replaced Cavalier Johnson, who had been elected the Mayor of Milwaukee. We met at City Hall in the common council president’s large, wood-paneled office. He never ducked a question. His answers were straight and on point.
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Tell me your life story, your parents, where you grew up, the neighborhood you lived in and the schools you attended. I’m Puerto Rican and in the first generation of my family born here in the United States. In 1950-51, my grandparents migrated from Puerto Rico with my mother to Milwaukee. My grandparents were humble country folks, lived with dirt floors. Everything they owned they got from working for someone else, or bartering, or they
grew crops and sold them. My dad is from Puerto Rico and met my mom in Milwaukee. My dad could not speak English, but he got a job at Grede Foundries and worked there until he retired. My mother worked at the tanneries and then at Sobel Electric on 9th and National, which is now the MATC building. I’m a lifelong Southsider, grew up off Fifth and Pierce, tough neighborhood, a lot of drugs and gangs around us. I went to
