VEGA: Angel was a good man, but he had a really, really hard life. He can take a car that was destroyed and make it look like new. But there was something about him that he could just pick up things. He was younger than you or older than you? She said, Annette, (speaking Spanish) - all this time, my niece, I've been looking for you. I used the white pages, I used Facebook and I sent them messages. I got a message from someone on Ancestry who gave me names. Where's his family? Do I have brothers? Do I have sisters? Do I have a grandmother? Do I have an aunt? Where's his people? I didn't need him to be my father, but I still really wanted to find him. VEGA: I felt kind of silly looking for so long without a real reason as to why I was looking for him. That man could have done anything to me, and he put me in the bed and put a blanket on me and left. I got so messed up, and he helped carry me upstairs to the bedroom. I remember one night we were partying really hard. Another woman comes out and she's, you know, out on the stoop having a cigarette, and she goes, I remember him. He comes over, he talks to me, and I tell him I'm trying to find my father. It's, like, painted in black and, you know, motorcycles all around. VEGA: So I literally walked up to the Ching-A-Ling's house in the Bronx. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: The religion we got is the Ching-A-Ling religion (laughter). KURTIS: So what does it mean to be a Ching-A-Ling? VEGA: They were a notorious motorcycle gang that people were fearful of. VEGA: I remember hearing about the Ching-A-Lings. (SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "ROAD WARRIORS: THE BIKER BROTHERHOOD")īILL KURTIS, BYLINE: The South Bronx, one of New York City's roughest neighborhoods and, since the mid-'60s, home to an outlaw motorcycle gang who call themselves the Ching-A-Lings. VEGA: I remember my mom telling me he was kind of a tough guy, and she thought that he was in a gang. So I never went back, and I never looked for him again. And then he disappeared one day, and I went to his job, and they told me no, that there was another woman looking for him and all that. And we used to go on car rides with you and everything like that. We hooked up again, and then he used to pick you up, like, and talk to you. ORTIZ: I seen him after I gave birth to you. VEGA: Aren't we all? Do you remember the last time you guys saw each other? And I think he used to steal cars just for the fun of it. He'd be working in the auto body shop, and she'd go home happily with grease on her backside of her shorts. You know, they had a little summer romance. I was a mistake - not a mistake but, you know, I wasn't a planned pregnancy, you know? She was a teenager growing up in the Bronx. He left that cologne in my drawer, and I used to spray it. He knew he was good-looking, and he was sure of himself. The questions are related to Angel Garcia, who's my biological father. So I wanted to ask you some questions, if you don't mind. VEGA: I just felt a persistent urge to find out. And I'm like, who was this person? Why hasn't he been in my life? Could he be looking for me? ![]() He looks like he's in his 30s, and he has a long mustache and a DA - hair that's kind of brushed back. This is a picture of my biological father, Angel Garcia. That's the first time I came to know that there was someone else out there. ![]() So when I was about 7 or 8, I found out that my dad wasn't my biological father. I lived with two of my younger sisters and my mom and my dad. I'm a registered nurse, and I am years old. But it's kind of pretty 'cause the fog just, like, erases the city. There's not a lot of land for that many people to be buried. Radio Diaries brings us one of their stories.ĪNNETTE VEGA: Oh, my God. Many were buried on Hart Island, and some of their families never found out what happened to them. More than 100,000 people would eventually die because of AIDS in New York City alone. During the 1980s, that epidemic was AIDS. When New York City gets hit hard by an epidemic, like the flu of 1918 or, more recently, COVID, Hart Island gets hit hard, too. So many questions.ĭETROW: Hart Island is a narrow strip of land off the coast of the Bronx where over a million people are buried in mass graves with no headstones or plaques. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: So many questions, man.
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