Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini Quotes

It’s over,” said Carmona to the town’s men at the casa alcaldía (city hall). “Word is that the United States Flag is waving in Guánica, Coamo and at El Morro and San Cristóbal Castles in San Juan. Puerto Rico is now United States territory.”“Another transition!” Manuel sighed. “What will this bring?
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
¡Ay, las faldas!” (“Oh, the skirts!”) he sighed, shaking his head and winking with a mischievous smile. While admitting women were his “Achilles heel,” Antonio, as many young men of the times did, also disclaimed responsibility, as though he had no control over his behavior or desires. Loving the opposite sex was “the natural thing to do for a man,” he thought.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
As the children left, Antonio shifted his gaze towards his father and gently waved at his family, while they returned the gesture.With half a smile and a tight lip, Antonio’s green eyes spoke, “Adiós” (“Good-bye”).Then, he turned and walked towards the green metal door of the steam cargo vessel that swallowed him away.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
All Americans were immigrants at one point or another,” he explained in his letters to his parents. Even his father Manuel migrated to Puerto Rico. Manuel was deemed a Peninsular, an immigrant from Spain, and sometimes even the Puerto Rican-born, the criollos, resented the Spanish-born newcomers. Manuel was familiar with being singled out, although not quite as much as Antonio felt while in New York. “It is amazing how people tend to forget their past,” Antonio wrote to his parents, surprised. “I recall what you told me about Maestro Rafael, Papá, when he said to you ‘never forget your history.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
Her heart now pounding, a strange feeling of combined fear and happiness invaded her. She took a deep breath. Her lungs filled with fresh air. An invigorating rush of electricity all over her body overcame her. “So, is this how falling in love feels?” she thought.She knew the answer.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
Do you know who Samuel Langhorne Clemens is, Antonio?” Bessie asked.“No, chood I?” he said. “He is best known as Mark Twain, the author of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” she said.“I have herd of the story, but I hav not red the booc,” he said.“Well, you should read it,” she said. “It is excellent reading. An American classic. Mark Twain worked in Schoharie for a while,” she said.“Is that so?” he said.“Yes, he worked as a brakeman on the Schoharie railroad station on Depot Street the winter of 1879, three years after he wrote his famous book,” Bessie said.“Why would he do that, a famos author?” Antonio asked.“A self-published author, I should add.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
Antonio could not stop thinking about Dean Fiero’s words during his welcoming speech, “Look to your left; now to your right. One of you will not be here in 1915!” These words were used to intimidate freshman law students to draw their attention to the importance of being diligent in their forthcoming studies. They still are.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
He woke up to knocks on his door. “Just a minute!” he said out loud. “I’m coming!”He got up and straightened himself as he opened the door.“Besi!” he said, overcome with emotion.He held her and never let go.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense. - Sixth Amendment, United States Constitution
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
No person … shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law …- Fifth Amendment, United States Constitution
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
Antonio’s will was cursed. Not once, but twice.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
What to do now, Father? I am going to die like a killer, and I do not even remember killing.”“You can pray, my son. You are in the hands of God now,” said the good priest.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
What you are about to witness is a blot upon the civilization of the twentieth century."- Sing Sing Deputy Warden Spencer Miller, Addressing Antonio Pontón’s execution witnesses on January 7, 1916
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
The Porto Ricans at Harvard University believe that the crime was a horrible one and it should be punished, but death penalty would add to, and not detract from, its horrors,” the Harvard students wrote. One of the student signatures on the letter was by Pedro Albizu y Campos who would later become a Puerto Rican promoter of ideals for the island’s independence from the United States.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
On Thanksgiving Day, during our family gathering, we pray you to have mercy on Antonio Pontón …
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
Dear Governor Whitman, … Our father is not a simple criminal. … He was harassed by more ideas than his mind could stand. …
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
The physiological effects of an electrocution are severe and painful. Besides launching the body into violent convulsions, the electrocution of a human being causes massive destruction throughout the body.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
There is always hope for a reprieve, my friend,” Stielow said. “You have to get the governor to pardon you if the courts fail on you. This is an unlikely thing, although possible. The last thing you hold on to ‘til the last second is hope. Hope is what keeps us doomsmen sane, for the most part. A miracle.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
Antonio looked down, silent, as Shillitoni kept talking. There he was, among cold-blooded killers, talking to a gangster. A much different picture than a year prior.“Can’t trust priests, can’t trust cops either. Can’t trust nobody! Whaddaya say?”“I am not like you,” Antonio said. “I’m not like them, either. That’s what I say. I am not a cold-blooded killer!”“Ya killed, you a killa! There’s not’ng more to it!” Shillitoni said.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
The Death House back then was a self-contained unit, with its own hospital, kitchen, exercise yard and visiting room. The cells were inadequate, dark, and did not have proper sanitary facilities or ventilation. One window and skylight furnished the ventilation and light of the entire unit. Twelve cells were on the lower tier, six on each side, facing each other, with a narrow corridor between them. Five cells were located in an upper tier. There was an area the prisoners called the Dance Hall that housed a prisoner to be executed on his last day. The narrow corridor connected the Dance Hall to the execution room, where the Electric Chair resided. The prisoners named this corridor the Last Mile or the Green Mile, because this was the last walk a prisoner would take all the way to the small green riveted door at the end of the corridor, on his way to the execution room.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
In Sing Sing Prison, in a ghastly white room stands a chair. Its parts are heavy joinings of oak, riveted and screwed together; its strong legs fastened to the floor with teeth and claws of steel. It bites into the marrow of men with fangs of fire. For this is the faldstool of bloody human justice, the prayer-chair of man’s vengeance upon man. Into it are strapped ... men who have killed other men. In it, for a high moral purpose, erring human lives are shocked across the barrier into night and the grave. - Edward H. Smith (1918)
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
Pardon me for this resolution … I know that this will be a disgrace that I bring to my people, but I cannot help it. Love is the blame for it. I go in peace ... pray for me ... good-bye all.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
¡Hundieron el Maine!” said Manuel to his wife Etervina, as he read the newspaper on February 16, 1898. “They sank the Maine!
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
SHE RESEARCHED WHEN everyone slept. In the dead silence, her mind worked with more clarity. No interruptions, no worries. Sometimes she even imagined that her ancestors guided her. That they reached out from the past to share their stories. “Hocus Pocus!” she thought, smiling. Her inside joke was a source of inspiration. But her imagination was not far-fetched.My second cousin, twice removed, is a family historian. She is also a lawyer. And this is why I chose her. I needed her to do me a favor. I chose her, although she is a business lawyer and not a criminal lawyer. That was fine by me. It’s not like my lawyers did a superb job at defending me. I was wrongfully executed.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
THEY CALLED HIM “Ponce de León” because he acted as though he could conquer anything and anyone. He enchanted every young woman that came his way with piropos (pick-up lines) and clever sweet talk. “Has spring started? I just saw the first flower!” Antonio whispered as he walked by a group of blushing young ladies, tipping off his white Panama hat as a silent ‘How do you do?’ He was never at a loss for words. “What are you doing out this morning? Don’t you know that stars only come out at night?” was one of his favorite lines. And he had many. On a good day.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
Manuel acquired as much land as he could afford and refused to sell it to anyone, even if he was not planting anything on it. “La tierra no se acaba” (“the land does not perish”), he often said.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
Manuel adapted well to the Puerto Rican culture and its African and Taíno Indian influences, which permeated into the local language. Taíno words such as tabaco (tobacco), barbacoa (barbecue), canoa (canoe), and hamaca (hammock) remain in use today in Spanish, English and other world languages. Also, the word cigar or cigarro is derived from the Taíno word sik’ar, a Taíno gathering or festival where tobacco played a main role.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
And then there was nature’s music. The small frog the locals called coquí was a treasured new sound, a lullaby sung by the chanting Puerto Rican native species. Sometimes, while he lay in bed awake at night, Manuel tried to imitate the sound of the little frog. He tried to sing it at first. But then he realized he could get the sound just right by whistling it. “Coquí! Coquí!” Manuel whistled. He improved his coquí whistle every day, until he sounded just as the little frog. People in town laughed at Manuel practicing his coquí sounds. Sometimes they could hear his whistles from outside the store, as though Manuel was carrying out a conversation with the small creatures.The tiny coquí sang through the nights and soothed Manuel’s sleep, keeping him company and reminding him that he was not alone.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
¡Zape! (Shoo!) Go away, go away, espíritu maligno (bad spirit)!” they sang. “Go back to where you came from!”The festive musical celebration combined the prayers and songs with expressive dancing to the rhythm of percussion and string instruments, which accompanied the child’s ascent into heaven, where she would become an angel. Women, men and children ate, drank, prayed, sang and danced. They also played games like la gallina ciega (the blind chicken) where children tried to escape the touch of a blindfolded child who would walk around trying to feel for them. Whoever she touched was disqualified from the game. The baquiné lasted throughout the night. In a time when so many children perished to disease, this was a way for the child’s loved ones to say good-bye and endure the painful loss. But when all were gone, the crude reality set in. Manuel will never forget the image of those poor parents, devastated, sitting alone right next to the altar where their child lay dead, weeping desperately at her loss.He prayed for Ana’s soul. He prayed for those parents.And he prayed that he would never have to suffer the agony of losing a child.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
The United States media is advocating for the country to go to battle with Spain and take over Cuba and Puerto Rico to gain advantage over the Atlantic,” said Manuel. “They have swayed public opinion. I would not be surprised that the countries go into war, and we are caught in the middle.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. - Eighth Amendment, United States Constitution
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
ANTONIO PONTÓN’S TRIAL made front page headlines across major newspapers. On April 17, 1915, the Schenectady Gazette headline read, “Trial of Ponton on the Charge of Committing one of Most Startling Murders in History of County.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini