A Taxi Ride Refusal Story Transcript

Script Key:

Julian - Julian Guerrero, Reporter | Yanny - Yanny Guzman, Host | JG: Guerrero, Interviewee

Act 1

Yanny: Welcome back to Working Class Heroes Podcast. My name is Yanny And what you're about to hear is not episode 3 to the taxi War series but we will be releasing that soon. Today we have a really interesting story for you all and to tell that story we have Julian. Hi Julian!

Julian: Hey Yanny, thanks for kicking this off.

Yanny: Yeah, can you let us know what this story’s about?

Julian: actually before we get into the story I wanted to ask you a question because I think it gets to the story. But the question is what is your most common complaints about cab drivers?

Yanny: Woo, what a question.  Okay, I have good and bad cabbie stories and I would say sexism, feeling uncomfortable in the back of the cab, and fighting about, well not often but fighting about how much I should pay for this fare.

Julian: You’re fighting with drivers about how much to pay for the fare but don’t they have a meter in the car to determine that?

Yanny: Not usually, I normally call my cab from la base, the base, the garage. So they’re predominantly black cars. I don't really have Yellow Cabs or take have to have noodles because they don't take me to the Bronx so I learned early on to rely on la base or the train.

Julian: Got it, that makes sense. And that's really a common experience for many passengers here in New York City is that they are often refused service when they are trying to get to the outerboroughs and that obviously has a disproportionate impact on people of color in particular black passengers who are trying to get to wherever really in the outer boroughs. It's terrible in part because our public transportation system is fantastic. Note the sarcasm. And so many people in a bind are like “hey let me just jump in a yellow cab and it takes me to where I need to go before the N train or the 4 train or whatever. Yeah, it sucks and I'm sorry that you had to deal with that.

Yanny: Yeah, and I'm sure a lot of people have their own experience with that. I'm sure that, you know, you listening to this right now are probably thinking about your own stories.

Julian: The funny thing about what you just said is that it actually connects  directly to the story that we want to tell. And that's a story of an incident of Taxi refusal. And the story is really about the mayor of San Juan, Carmen Yulin Cruz, being denied service by two yellow cab drivers. One of them is Mohamed Mansouri and the other is Jose Guerrero, who is actually my father.

Yanny: Wow, ok, so when did this story take place? I feel like I would remember the mayor of San Juan getting kicked out of a cab.

Julian: It’s been a bunch of years. This happened in 2015 before Uber basically tried to take over the Yellow Cab industry, before the Medallion market crashed and before nine drivers died by suicide to protest their conditions and their worsening conditions. The interview with Jose is actually three years after the fact, after the incident. I sat down with Jose in September 2018 to talk about this incident because he never really said anything about his whole experience, his side of the events, when it all went down.

Yanny: You mention  your father and Muhammad are there any other key players or any thing that you would like listeners to keep an ear up for while they take on this story with us?

Julian: Besides Carmen Cruz and the two drivers that were mentioned I think people should really try to listen to Melissa Mark-Viverito’s role in all this. She was the city council speaker at the time for the New York City Council. Obviously, Uber and de Blasio and what their roles are later on in 2015.

 Yanny: It's really unfortunate that it took your father 3 years to even tell his side of the story so I’m curious, why this story? Why now?

Julian: I think the reason why we want to talk about the story and share with everyone listening is that this issue that continues to perpetuate, to exist, and that people continue to have to deal with day-in and day-out has really not been addressed in a constructive or creative way. And I think many of the times that we have seen this issue come up in public dialogue has been largely to further the credibility and reputation of certain politicians who take advantage of this situation. And so I think it would be great if we could delve deeper into this issue, maybe try to correct the record if we can and illuminate this issue for our listeners so that they understand what is actually happening here.

Yanny: Great! Well, you know, really excited to see how this story provides context for their battle unfolding today. So where do we start?

Julian:  Let's start with an interview that Carmen Cruz did a few weeks after this incident went down.

Herson Barrero: “Great to be back and seeing you mayor. I think the last time we heard about you, you were in a cab taking to the Bronx and they didn’t want to pick you up..”

Carmen Cruz: “I was trying to get to the bronx..And once we were in, “well, what do you mean? I’m going to the Bronx” - “well, no, I don’t know where that address is” I said “well use your GPS” - “I don’t have GPS” The point was that they don’t want to take us to the Bronx and they told us to get out of the cab so...but I have to thank everybody in New York City because they were really good about it.

Julian: This clip is from an interview Carmen did with CITY AND STATE TV’s interviewer, Herson Barrero on May 27th, 2015, 22 days after the incident. 

But to back up just a bit. If the name Carmen Cruz rings any bells, you might remember her from her sparring with President Trump after Hurricane Maria had devastated Puerto Rico in 2017. The US Government was bungling the disaster relief plans. Trump was filmed flipping paper towels into a crowd of Puerto Ricans waiting in line for FEMA supplies.

Cruz called him out on it, Trump blasted her on Twitter, you can imagine how this went. But let’s get back to 2015, to where we left off in the interview, with Carmen’s opinion on why addressing taxi service refusal is important...

Carmen Cruz: “And uh, I think it helped to heighten the need to know that transportation is something that is basic when people are trying to do better for themselves, so in that respect it was good that it happened and that I could use my voice as a microphone for those who do not have a microphone. You know, you would be amazed at the amount of reporters that said “that’s happened to me”,  that happened to me, the people, in facebook and twitter so..but people in New York were very nice. They brought me two little cabs and a little taxi stand where it said “Don’t even think of parking here”. 

Herson Borrero /CITY & STATE Interviewer: “You felt like a New Yorker”

Carmen Cruz: “Yes, it was nice. And It doesn't matter if you're a mayor of a city you're trying to get somewhere a good transportation system and access to transportation or the lack thereof is also a way to discriminate against people. I was staying in this wonderful little hotel, quite inexpensive, outside of Manhattan and we're doing it precisely because Melissa Mark-Viverito is always looking after her district so we were staying over there.”

Julian: Everybody has a story when a taxi driver refused to take them somewhere. I’m sure there was that one time it even happened to you. 

You tend to get the most pushback from yellow cabs when you’re in the outer-boroughs, you know, queens, brooklyn, the bronx. Then there’s those stories of black or brown passengers, and from young passengers or maybe a group of young folks, as they would say, being turned down or ignored by cabbies driving in empty cars while they’re in Manhattan. For people in wheelchairs, hailing a cab is a whole ordeal of its own. 

But listening to Cruz tell her story, it feels like there’s some gaps to her it. Like there’s more to it than she’s saying...

JG: It was May 5th of 19...- 2015, Cinco de Mayo, and there were a lot of people in the street. It was raining, drizzling, dark night. Somebody hailed me and I just told em to come over to my cab. And three people came in. Two women sat in the back and a man sat in the front.

Julian: The cab that Carmen Cruz and her staff are stepping into is that of Jose Guerrero.

JG: They told me they were going to 49th street and four something, four hundred something East 49th street, so I said sure. Let’s go. And then in the middle of the ride the man pulls out, like a little business card from a hotel. And it said 500 something 149th street or very close to that, in the Bronx. Now I never refused any fares. I’ve had no complaints with customers, from the customers to the TLC, at all. I’ve always picked up Blacks, I’ve always picked up Spanish people. So, in the middle of the ride the guy says its in the Bronx so I asked him. I asked everybody, I asked the lady, the Mayor, I says, I didn’t know she was a Mayor, she was just a woman, I ask her if she knew how to get there. I didn’t have a GPS. And she said rather snottily, she says that if I knew how to get there I would be driving myself. Alright okay who cares what her attitude was or whatever. But then I said is it around Grand Concourse? She said no. Is it around Park Avenue? No. She just said no to everything and then she turned around to her friends and said “he doesn't want to take us to the Bronx”. I said “why do you say that”? I'm asking you where is it around? What do you mean I want to take you? Why do you say that? “Well, because this is America and I can say whatever I want”. 

JG: Then I said “look I don't have a GPS, the newer taxis have GPS. I'm going to bring you over to 7th Avenue and then, it was about three blocks away, it was drizzling, it wasn’t raining that hard, but it was drizzling, but I offered to bring them over to 7th Avenue where there's empty cabs passing every minute. Or every second at the time. And I wanted to go because, at the time everything in the cab industry is timing. In other words, you get into Manhattan at 5pm-6 and it stays busy until 7 or 8 with people going to wherever they want to go to, like Madison Square Garden or to the theater or if they want to go to restaurants or whatever. So it becomes rather slow from 8 to about 10pm but it's a beautiful time to get a long ride because you can make money rather than just driving around in an empty cab with 4,000 empty cabs around you. 

JG: So I brought them over and they got out, I remember that she said “1V11”, which is the medallion number of my cab, which she noticed, you know I knew that she was doing, there's nothing wrong with that.

Julian: She didn't have GPS on her phone? 

JG: No, no, she didn't mention anything she didn't say anything and I remember distinctly saying this car has no GPS.

Julian: And nowadays when somebody jumps in your car what's the typical reaction? I’m sure many people are surprised that you don't have a phone? 

JG: Oh yeah, oh my God, how do you talk to your children? I said I don't talk to them, they’ll have to wait until I get home to know if something happened. I know it's not the most modern way of dealing with the situation but then again, hey, I'm still around, you know. It's not the end of the world.

Julian: Even though Carmen Cruz frames it as just an issue of discrimintation, Jose’s story paints a bigger picture. This incident is about something else. Jose thinks it’s about unrealistic expectations people have of cabbies.

JG: But what it is is that people think that we know absolutely every nook and cranny of the city and that is not true. There's so many places.

Yes, sometimes they take you to Brooklyn Heights often but then again they bring you there that often, but there's many places that they take you I didn't know I had any idea existed and then I say aha! I know how to get there but then they bring me back two years later when I have forgotten absolutely everything. So you know people have to realize that, but people also have the attitude that Yellow Cabs don't like to go to the Bronx, Brooklyn or whatever.

That's not the point, we don't work those boroughs, especially in my situation, because if you bring me at three in the morning to Utica Avenue and Eastern Parkway, well who else is there? Even the Flies are sleeping, there's absolutely nobody around and whoever is around might be a wise guy or something like that, so what do we do, we shoot right back into the city, because that's where there's some people, that's where there's still people all night long, even though they say that New York doesn't sleep but New York sleeps, trust me when I tell you. 

JG: I remember the first day that I drove a taxi. 

Julian: Back in 1978…

JG: A man asked me to take him to the Plaza Hotel. And I said can you tell me where it is? **laughter** Really true, that happened. First of all the Yellow Cabs, we generally stay in Manhattan especially more so at night. And so if somebody gets into my cab now, they say “listen I'm going to some place in Brooklyn” I say “look I don't have GPS can you direct me?” and because it's at night most of them are going back home and they say “sure, take this, take that, like this” and I take it and sooner or later, before you know it, I'm there. 

Julian: Nowadays people have GPS on their phone and it’s pretty common, what do you think about that?

JG: I think it's a great invention. I really think it is. Especially for someone who's never used it for someone who has relied on memory, yeah it makes it much easier, but I don't have a phone, that's it, I just don't have a telephone now. So therefore I don't have GPS.

Julian: Statistics on how many passengers get refused service are hard to come by. But all parties involved would agree that it’s a somewhat common occurrence. So much so that if you ride in a yellow or green cab long enough you’ll likely hear this public service announcement. 

“Our doors are always open so is it illegal for a taxi to refuse service because of your race, ethnicity, cultural background, disability or gender or based on your destination if it is within New York City, Westchester, Nassau, or Newark Airport. Please note, borough taxis can’t pick you up in most parts of Manhattan. If you are refused service contact 311. Make sure you have The Medallion or borough taxi number, pick-up location, date and time. We need to know. You can make a difference.”

From the taxi driver’s side, the decision to refuse service isn’t so cut and dry. In our previous episodes, we tried to break down the reasons why a taxi driver might refuse somebody service. 

The city’s racially segregated neighborhoods and geographic unevenness play a negative influence on drivers. And these working conditions create pressure on drivers to put profit ahead of ethics. Jose is a taxi driver stuck in a time before GPS, Uber and smartphones. Jose was shocked though to see how the story had been reported the following day.

JG: No, I think I saw I think I saw it in the paper the following day. And I was surprised you know. What can you do, whatever I did, I did, whatever happened, happened and that’s - And if I get a penalty and I have to pay a fine or whatever I will do it because in the long run I admit the fact that I was wrong.

Julian: Jose accepted responsibility for the charges thrown at him. But when I asked if he had ever heard Carmen Cruz’s version of the story, he said no. So I played him a clip:

Reporters: “News 11 tonight - the Mayor of San Juan is claiming she was kicked out of a NYC taxi cab because she wanted to be driven to the Bronx. Man, this is a story all too familiar to many New Yorkers who want to get to the outer-boroughs. Carolina Leid in Greenwich village with the story. Carolina…

Carmen Cruz: The cab driver said “oh, well, this is in the Bronx” and I said “yea” “well, I don’t know how to get there.”

Reporter: San Juan Puerto Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz Soto said the trip to New York City has yet again been amazing but trying to get a cab to take her to her hotel in the South Bronx has really been a headache. 

Carmen Cruz: I said “Well, you’re telling me you don’t want to take me to the Bronx” - he says, “no, I’m not telling you that because that would be illegal. But I’m telling you that I don’t know how to get there so you’re going to have to get off and take another cab.” But clearly he didn’t want to go to the Bronx.

Reporter: So she got out and hailed another yellow cab house from Greenwich Village but that wasn't much better.

Carmen Cruz: “He took us there and all the way he was complaining about this is why people don't want to go to the Bronx”

Reporter: Mayor Cruz Soto says  she got a taste of what it's like for some people trying to get a cab to the outer boroughs. she told her friend Council speaker, Melissa mark-viverito, who called the TLC.

Melissa Mark-Viverito: I encouraged her to stay in a hotel in my district in the Bronx. And I was very happy that she agreed to do that. So it was pretty disappointing that in her experience in trying to get back to the hotel she was denied a ride.

Carmen Cruz: This is New York City, I mean this is a place where dreams come true where people come and say if I can make it there I can make it anywhere but in order to make it here you have to get to the place where you're going.”

Reporter: And the mayor filed a formal complaint with the TLC using the ID number that she found on the receipt. The TLC confirmed that it is investigating reporting live from Greenwich Village carlena Leid. Channel 7 Eyewitness News.

 Julian: I'm curious to hear now what you think after watching how it was framed in the media, how the questions were asked to the mayor of San Juan, Carmen Cruz, you know how she responded herself and how she framed that whole story. What did you think about it?

JG: She’s lying. She's lying because I asked her if she knew how to get there or if, and, I gave her three or four or five different choices. If she says “look it's on the Bruckner and whatever” I know how to get there. Because it was 5 something East whatever street. But at no time did I say I did not want to go. At no time did I refuse to not go. It's just that we don't know every place in the city. This is a gigantic city.

Julian: When I asked Jose why he didn’t clarify his version of events to the New York Times, he said: 

JG: I didn't want to make it even worse situation. I didn't want people to start taking pictures and start putting it on the front page of the New York Times or whatever because I refused to take a person. I did not refuse! She didn’t cooperate with me, fine I understand that, but then again I don't think I should have been penalized because I did ask her three or four different things. 

Julian: Did you not trust the public that if you said look it wasn't exactly that and I already paid my punishment, already paid the $200 but I wanted to say that it was a little bit more of a nuanced story than that. Do you think the public wouldn't have trusted you or do you think you would have been reprimanded or retaliated against further?

JG: The truth does not exist anymore. Because she said something and that was not the truth and if I had said something people would have said that he’s lying and so this is what we've learned, we learn to distrust everybody and not to believe anything what anybody says so to me it was like a waste of time to me to defend myself, all right, I did something wrong, in 40 years, once I’ve been complained - there’s been one complaint against Jose Guerrero - yo!

Julian: So the truth is dependent on who has the power to get it out there the most?

JG: Absolutely,  of course were they going to believe? Who are the people going to believe a taxi driver or the mayor mayor Merida or whatever the hell their name is, umm, whatever, what is her name? 

Julian: Melissa mark-viverito or Carmen Cruz?

JG: Carmen Cruz, who were they going to believe? They’re going to believe Carmen Cruz even though she's lying.

Julian: People may agree with these points but it’s about how these types of stories get reported to the public. Those with some social power get to beat up on those without any of it. Nevertheless, the narrative that drivers are racist or discriminatory is what sticks. 

From STATE & CITY TV Interview: 

HB: “...You took it very well. Being slighted by this cab driver. I don’t know what the TLC did to that drivers…”

Carmen Cruz: “They went through the process, there were two of them. They went through the process And the one that kicked us out received a much harsher penalty than the one who took us and was complaining all the way they took us there. But it was nice.”

Herson Barrero: “You survived it.”

Carmen Cruz: “I survived it and most importantly, thousands of people in New York City survive everyday discrimination and they push on. That’s what is important. That it doesn’t matter where injustice stands up. That there be 10k, 11k, however many, one stands up to injustice. 

Herson Barrero: What can I say to that? You know that’s the kind of thing that we "hear from politicians in New York. That’s wonderful, I’m sure that the people that are watching this appreciate that….”

Act 2

Julian: But who is Jose and why should you believe his side of the story when it clearly contradicts Carmen’s experience? Let’s hear a little bit more about him. I’d like to remind you that this is a bilingual project. You can follow along Jose’s story using our translated transcript on our website, WorkingClassHeroesPodcast.com. 

JG: Dondes el principio que supe que mi papa se quería venirse a Nueva York. Nosotros no nos venimos por el sueño Americano, mi papá ya tenía el sueño Americano en Colombia. El era un CPA (Certified Public Accountant), contador y tenía diferentes sitios en donde el iba a trabajar y ganaba muy bien dinero. Tenía carro de 1954, teníamos un Ford 1954. Que es prueba que había dinero. //// When I first knew my dad wanted to come to New York. We didn't come for the American dream, my dad already had the American dream in Colombia. He was a CPA (Certified Public Accountant), an accountant and had different places where he went to work and earned very good money. He had a car in 1954, we had a 1954 Ford. Which was proof that there was money. 

Un dia se levanto y dijo soñé con que, que me quiero ir a Nueva York y me voy a ir a Nueva York, tenía un amigo muy amigo que era vicepresidente de la flota mercante Colombiana. Eran buques y viajaba a Nueva York o Los Ángeles , obviamente por mar. Y entonces él se consiguió un puesto como contador de unos de esos buques en ciudad de Neiva, de todas formas consigue ese puesto y se vino, y entonces venía á Nueva York una vez al mes. //// One day he woke up and said I dreamt that, I want to go to New York and I am going to go to New York, I had a very good friend who was the vice president of the Colombian merchant fleet. They were ships and he traveled to New York or Los Angeles, obviously by sea. And then he got a position as an accountant on one of those ships in Neiva City, anyway he got that position and came, and then he came to New York once a month.

Julian: Jose was not happy about his father’s decision to migrate to the united states. 

JG: Yo odiaba la idea de venir acá porque yo estaba con un muy buen grupo de amigos, muy deportistas en un barrio muy bueno de Bogotá en esa época. Y no quería que me arrancaran de mis raíces. ////  I hated the idea of coming here because I was with a good group of friends, very sports-oriented, in a very good neighborhood in Bogota at that time. And I didn't want to be torn away from my roots.

Julian: He disliked the idea so much that he developed a great disdain for English. Jose’s mother attended a very prestigious school and decided to teach him English in preparation for the trip.

JG: Yo me acuerdo que le cogí fobia, fobia al inglés. Y mi mama me martillaba clases de inglés y yo lo odiaba a morir. Llegamos nosotros aquí en Nueva York en 1961 el cuatro de marzo, a un sitio muy bueno. Papa andaba bien económicamente, en Riverside Drive y la calle 94. Elegante de lo mejorcito que había en Nueva York. Después él compró una casa allá en Corona, la vendió porque tenía un amigo en el Bronx y no fuimos al Bronx a vivir en el Bronx.//// I remember I got a phobia, a phobia of English. And my mom would hammer English on me and I hated it to death. We arrived here in New York in 1961 on March 4th, and in a very good place. Dad was doing well financially on Riverside Drive and 94th street, elegant, one of the best places in New York. Then he bought a house there in Corona, sold it because he had a friend in the Bronx and we went to the Bronx to live in the Bronx.

Julian: Jose Alberto’s family settled on Clinton ave. in the Bronx about 7 stops away on the 4 train from the Opera House Hotel. The hotel where Carmen and her friends stayed during their visit in New York in 2015. 

Julian: How old were you at this time in the bx?

JG: Deber ser como 14 anos. 14 o 15 maximo, ni siquiera era 15. Yo tenia solamente 14 anos. //// Must be about 14 years old. 14 or 15 tops, it wasn't even 15. I was only 14.

Julian: y sin amigos y todo? ////  And no friends and all? 

JG: absolutamente no conocía a nadie. //// I didn't know anybody at all.

Julian: Similar to what many experience when moving to a different country, Jose felt isolated from his community. The neighborhood he moved to was predominantly Jewish and it took Jose’s athleticism to prove himself and be accepted on the block. 

JG: Ellos estaban jugando su stickball, tu sabes lo que es stickball en la calle. Y ami, they never chose me, nunca me escogieron a mí por que yo no era del grupo. Ellos no me admitían al grupo. No que me rechazaban, o que me empujaban, que me trataban mal, pero simplemente me ignoraban como si yo no existiera. //// They were playing their stickball, you know what stickball is on the street. And me?  they never chose me, they never chose me because I wasn't in the group. They wouldn't accept me in the group. Not that they rejected me, or pushed me, or treated me badly, but they just ignored me like I didn't exist. 

Entonces que paso, un dia estaban jugando stickball y yo estaba sentado en el carro, como en esa época nos sentaba mos sobre el carro a hablar a discutir, entonces yo estaba mirándolos por que no me escogian, they never chose me. //// Then one day they were playing stickball and I was sitting in the car, and we were sitting on the car talking and arguing, and I was looking at them because they never chose me.  

Julian: did you ever asked to be included?

 JG: Yo como que ni hablaba inglés. Mejor dicho yo como que no… me sentía apenado o algo asi Me imagino que debería estar un poco acomplejado de no poder comunicarme con ellos bien. De todas formas… escogieron, they chose the game, escogieron un partido y empezaron a jugar.  Y como en el segundo inning una mamá saca la cabeza de su cuarto piso de su apartamento y le dice a Steven, sube que nos tenemos que ir a algún sitio, entonces se descuadro el equipo. Entonces me miran, se dieron cuenta que yo estaba ahí, y me dijeron, usted quiere jugar? Le dije bueno si. Jugué mejor que babe Ruth. Entonces, ya al dia siguiente ya decían, cómo es que se llama usted? Bueno yo quiero que el juegue en mi equipo.  Y por eso es que a mi me gustan tanto los deportes porque fue a través del deporte que me aceptaron los amigos. //// I didn't even speak English. I guess I was a little embarrassed that I couldn't communicate with them properly. Anyway... they chose, they chose the game, they chose a game and they started playing.  And like in the second inning a mom takes her head out of her fourth floor apartment and says, Steven we have to go somewhere, so the team was incomplete. Then they looked at me, they realized I was there, and they said, you want to play? I said yes. I played better than Babe Ruth! Then the next day they were already saying, what is your name? Well, I want him to play on my team.  And that's why I like sports so much because it was through sports that my friends accepted me.

Julian: Getting the chance to play stickball helped him to break through that isolation but it didn't necessarily mean he was embraced by the entire community.

JG: El grupo era como de unos veinte muchachos y eran solamente tres muchachas. Pero una de ella se llamaba Debbie, y todos estábamos enamorados de Debbie. Y Debbie se llevaba muy bien conmigo y nos llevábamos bien y todo pero la mamá, digamos, sacaba la cabeza por la ventana cada diez minutos para asegurarse de que Debbie no estaba hablando conmigo. Y por qué no hablaba - no era por mi forma de ser ni nada, si no por lo que yo no era Judío. Ya? Hubo ese racismo en esa época, no de los muchachos, los muchachos me aceptaron perfectamente bien. Pero de los papas de los muchachos. //// The group was about twenty kids and there were only three girls. But one of them was named Debbie, and we were all in love with Debbie. And Debbie was getting along with me and we were getting along and everything but her  mom would, like, stick her head out the window every ten minutes to make sure Debbie wasn't talking to me. And why wasn’t she speaking - it wasn't because of the way I was or anything, but because I wasn't Jewish. Right? There was that racism at that time. Not from the kids, the kids accepted me perfectly well. But from the kids’ parents.

Julian: Jose was aware of the cultural differences and while he was a part of the group he knew he would not be allowed to court Debbie. But as Jose was coming to understand how class and racial dynamics work in the U.S., at the same time Jose was experiencing something he didn’t before as a white Colombian man.

JG: Me paso eso, a mi me paso eso de que me rechazaron total y completamente parte por no hablar ingles y parte por que los hispanos, nosotros al principio tuvimos un mal nombre. O una forma negativa de que nos vieran porque los primeros hispanos que llegaron a Nueva York fueron Puertorriqueños. Los Puertorriqueños se unieron con los Negros en Spanish Harlem y esto o el otro, y la música y la parranda y la falta de trabajo y como eran ciudadanos Americanos...the unemployment and this and that. //// But that happened to me, that I was totally and completely rejected, partly because I didn't speak English and partly because I am Hispanic, we had a bad name at first. Or a negative way of being seen because the first Hispanics who arrived in New York were Puerto Ricans. The Puerto Ricans joined with Black people in Spanish Harlem and this and that, with the music and the partying and the lack of work and since they were American citizens... the unemployment and this and that.

Julian: Throughout US history, Latinx folks, Black Americans and Indigenous people have been barred from opportunities of social mobility. From good paying jobs, from housing, from getting a decent education. Many of them have been thrown into poverty instead.

JG: Ellos consideraban que los puertorriqueños aprovechaban de los beneficios que daba este país y entonces a uno lo agrupaban como Hispano o Puertorriqueño en el mismo grupo. Entonces no nos  querían muchísimo que digamos. //// They felt that Puerto Ricans were taking advantage of the benefits of this country, and so one was lumped into the same group as Hispanic or Puerto Rican. So they didn't like us very much.

Julian: Jose observed how U.S. society discriminated against Black and brown people. He noticed how all Latinos were grouped into a category by skin color, culture and language despite their differences and for the first time Jose saw himself included in that oppressed group. Despite these difficulties, Jose did not want to leave New York City when his father decided to return to Colombia.

JG: Y a los diecinueve años papá se fue y de los diecinueve años  yo estoy viviendo solo. Mejor dicho, saliendo adelante solo. //// And at nineteen years old Dad left. And since I was nineteen years old I have been living alone. I mean, getting by on my own. 

Music cue. 

Julian: After his parents left to Colombia Jose would have several jobs here and there before becoming a cabbie in 1979. But as you can see, Jose’ experiences in dealing with first hand racism and growing up in the Bronx seems to cut against the type of person Carmen Cruz is trying to depict in her story. 

Act 3

Julian: So Yanny, after hearing all that, I’m curious to hear what you think about it

Yanny: Wow, Carmen Cruz really used her power, her office, her title to exploit the situation and vilify two drivers. I don’t know. It’s horrible. I think it’s very opportunist and it’s really sad to see that politicians take real problems and issues faced by New Yorkers and instead of providing actual solutions or to get to the root of the problem they use these situations to build their careers.

Julian: Right. Definitely and again, it’s to the real detriment of these drivers. I mean, Mohammed Mansouri was fined $1,400 and his license was revoked and Jose was fined $200 and none of them questioned any of this despite their lived experience and seeing something different than what was being told in the mainstream media about this whole incident.

Yanny: How is that a solution to the problem?

Julian: It’s not. I mean what Carmen Cruz got out of it was a nice little soundbite. Do you remember it? It was something like “You know, if you wanna make the American Dream you gotta get to it”.

Yanny: “Get to it!”, right.

Julian: Real cynical stuff. And it wasn’t just Carmen Cruz who took advantage of this, the Bronx Borough President did as well. And we’re talking about Ruben Diaz Jr. here.

Yanny: I’m not surprised.

Julian: He wrote this letter to the Taxi and Limousine Commissioner, to the chairperson, Meera Joshi, who’s not the chairperson of the TLC anymore, and it was a public letter and in the letter it said, “If yellow taxi drivers are refusing service to The Bronx, or only providing that service begrudgingly, how many potential tourists is my borough losing because of this?”...“The Bronx has seen significant transformation in recent years, and we cannot effectively tell that story if yellow taxi drivers are refusing to bring passengers here.”

Yanny: *sighs* - I’m not surprised he said that at all. You know, I don’t need any more reasons to dislike and really hate Ruben Diaz Jr. because he has been an agent of displacement and gentrification in the Bronx. You know he’s in cahoots with real estate developers that are working to displace us and the fact that he focuses on tourism just tells you where his priorities are. He does not care about us.

Julian: Right.

Yanny: And that’s just two examples, you also said to keep an ear out for Melissa Mark-Viverito’s role…

Julian: Do you remember that public service announcement we played earlier on in this episode?

Yanny: The one that states the passenger’s rights if they are refused service and all that, right?

Julian: Yea, do you know who that was?

Yanny: No.

Julian: That was Melissa Mark-Viverito.

Yanny: Oh! Okay.

Julian: Right, so she definitely like, grabbed onto that role of being the spokesperson of Taxi Refusals and later on played a more detrimental role for cab drivers. In 2015, later on in that year, and we’re talking about a few months later, like in July, Mayor De Blasio goes toe-to-toe with Uber. The reason for it was because Uber’s number of cabs exploded. They were just growing too quickly taking up too much space and causing a lot of congestion and a lot of questions that were brought on because this whole Uber thing was not regulated in any way. And so Mayor De Blasio was like “let’s put a cap on Uber so that we can study the effect of all these cars and see what we can do to try to regulate this service and bring them into the whole taxi industry. 

Julian: Well, Uber decided that that was not what they wanted to do. Their whole model depended on adding more and more cars because ultimately they want to displace the Yellow Cabs altogether. So Uber decides to run a whole PR campaign and they do it very effectively from De Blasio’s Left. They play a bunch of commercials and most of them are using talking points that Carmen Yulin Cruz and Melissa Mark-Viverito are using in their own statements and press conferences to go after these two cab drivers. Actually, as a matter of fact we have one and we’d like to play it for you right now.

Uber Commercial: “You need to get to the night shift  in the South Bronx. Get your baby to the doctor in Jamaica, Queens and get to the airport from Sunset Park, Brooklyn and while taxis often refuse people in minority neighborhoods, Uber’s there, taking more people to and from communities outside Manhattan than anyone but Mayor De Blasio is pushing the agenda of his big taxi donors to limit Uber cars and drivers and vital service for thousands of New Yorkers may vanish. Tell Mayor De Blasio, don’t strand New York.”

Julian: Uber uses this commercial and is able to stop the cap but the interesting thing is that De Blasio was not that far away from beating Uber and imposing the cap. He had collected all the votes he needed in the City Council and with the help of Melissa Mark-Viverito, the City Council Speaker, they were just about to vote on passing the cap but then something happened. Melissa Mark-Viverito decides that instead of having the vote she talks to De Blasio and compels him to enter into negotiations with Uber. And that’s when the cap and the effort to get a cap passed on Uber just dies. From that point on Uber is allowed to grow, all the problems that we see play out from 2015 to now. Then the Medallion Market crashes early on in that time and we have all the troubles we’ve seen and that we reported on in episodes one and two. But again, this is the role that Melissa Mark-Viverito played in that fight

Julian: Uber, in an article that we can share on our website, points to the incident between Melissa Mark-Viverito and Carmen Yulin Cruz and these drivers as the reason why Uber is a superior service.

Yanny: You know, I didn’t know just how deep this connection was. I really appreciate you taking the time to break that up for us. To see the connection between this incident and what is unfolding today. And so, I’m really curious, Julian, what was it like for you to provide your father this opportunity to tell his side of the story. I mean, you lived through this, right, you were directly impacted by this. This was an incident that happened to your father on the job and could easily have gotten his TLC license revoked.

Julian: I mean it was frustrating to see and I definitely saw my father feel very repressed because a lot of his experience was not what was being reflected in the stories and reporting of this whole incident. I’m sure Mohamed Mansouri felt the same way. Neither one of them released any statements nor did they reach out to any organizations, as far as I know, to try to get them to help deal with this situation in the public eye. I...you know, I think it really...first of all, I think it really underscored this reality that my father did not have a cell phone at the time because we couldn’t really afford it.

Yanny: Hmmm…

Julian: We were living like, what’s worse than paycheck to paycheck?

Yanny: yea…

Julian: Who knows. But we were in that kind of a situation and he didn’t have a smartphone or any phone at the time and this is all compounded by that. But honestly, I think what it - the way it affected me was that it really made it clear to me how official politics and politicians really push working people away from engaging with politics altogether. In the face of that, working people just step away. And if anything maybe this is why we see this growing sentiment of anti-elites or anti-elitism that we see now. The same sort of sentiment that gave a pass to Trump to the presidency and is kind of electrifying Bernie Sanders’s campaign for President right now. And I think that there is an alternative set of politics that working people are in dire need of and one that really just represents them honestly and does not use and abuse them.  

Julian: So, I think that, yea, this really cemented that for me. 

Yanny: What are your opinions on what the City could do to actually address service refusal in the cab industry?

Julian: Well, I think the starting point are some of the things that we’ve listed before, right. So I think the City has to reckon with a few things. First and foremost, the incredible racial segregation that we see in this City. The transportation inequality and lack of access that we see for many working people in the outer boroughs. Which is only getting worse as the MTA continues to restructure and by restructure, they don’t mean to expand but to cut several services, like bus services to Queens. I think that the City also has to really go back to 1999 to that incident that we spoke about in episode two between Danny Glover, his taxi refusal experience and what he tried to do about it in collaboration with the New York Taxi Workers Alliance - giving the cab drivers an opportunity to talk about these issues, to talk to the public to come up with solutions that they think will be effective, to understand why they have to make these difficult choices which I’m sure many of them are not happy to do but do so because of the economic pressures they feel in this ever increasingly expensive City to just reside in.

Yanny: Really have to agree with you there. So, to conclude, the reason why we wanted to share this incident with y’all is because it seems like there’s a relation between Carmen Yulin Cruz, Mohamed, Jose and the defeat of the Mayor’s cap in 2015. And then we see the rise of Uber and it’s takeover of our streets and that’s when we start to see working cabbies actually organize and fight back and take a stand against their working conditions, the fight with Uber and Lyft, as well as speak up for their fellow workers and those who have died by suicide because of their working conditions and their struggle to maintain their profession and feed their families. So we’re seeing today that these drivers are standing up are saying “enough” they want to be heard and are telling the City exactly what they need to have a healthier work industry and what I find beautiful about it is that they’re really standing there having each other's backs. You know, they’re still there and they’re still very vocal, we have to support them because as of today, no one at the TLC has been held accountable for bust in the Medallions and that has cost lives. And I’m hoping that this movement can get to the point where they can have justice. 

Yanny: We will be back with episode three soon. In the meantime, check out our website at WorkingClassHeroesPodcast.com to review the transcript for this bonus story, photos from previous episodes as well as links for further readings into the politics of this story. We hope to be back with you soon. This is Yanny Guzman, as always, in solidarity.