Rest in Power, Carlos Cardenas

There is a Carlos-Cardenas-shaped hole in the universe, and it’s been hanging over us for one year now.  Today is his yartzeit (death anniversary). It’s fitting that his yartzeit is on May Day; Carlos was a worker and his experiences exemplified the many ways our society has forgotten the Carlos’ of the world. To honor him and his memory, I wanted to share my reflections on him. 

It’s hard to describe who Carlos was in my life. He was the very first grassroots, community member I brought into the organization where I work. He quickly became a key leader of our organization and ultimately became our longest serving board member. He would introduce me to his family, “This is my organizer, Hannah.” I was proud to be Carlos’ organizer. But our relationship went further than that. Last May, when his niece called me to tell me he’d passed, she said, “I know you were like a niece to him.” And that felt just right. He always felt more like family than anything else. And while he always thanked me for training him in the skills of public life, I believe he taught me more about life than I will ever be able to articulate. Carlos taught me about resilience, the beauty of relationships, to be open to others, to trust and be trusted, and the healing power of music. 

Carlos was born on September 7, 1972. He died at the age of 47 – way too young. Yet Carlos was wise beyond his years.  I had the distinct privilege of working with him for 11 years. I first met him during the summer of 2009. I was at the Lakeview Pantry asking if anyone had hospital debt and stories of aggressive hospital collection practices. This man limped over to me on crutches and he said, “You’re looking for stories? I’ve got a story. I’ve got over $100,000 in debt to St. Joseph Hospital.” We met the next week and our journey together unfolded from there. It turns out that was the one and only time he ever visited that food pantry. It was b’sheret (meant to be) that our paths should cross. 

While Alinsky-style organizing tries to draw strict boundaries between public and private relationships, Carlos would have none of that. We developed a relationship that was unique. We came from very different walks of life. Him a proud, working-class Chicano from Chicago, me a young, Jewish, upper-middle class woman from Skokie. Over the years, despite our different race, class, religion, and gender backgrounds, we formed a deep bond together.

Carlos became a key leader on our campaign to hold non-profit hospitals accountable to their charitable mission by providing free care or paying their taxes. He told his story over and over again to legislators, government officials, the media, and members of the community. For much of his life, Carlos was uninsured. In 2006, he developed a sore on his foot, but he left it untreated because he didn’t have access to health care and he couldn’t afford to miss work. He tried to treat it himself, but eventually it became so painful that he went to the emergency room. It was infected and they had to amputate his foot to prevent the infection from spreading and killing him. It turns out he had undiagnosed diabetes.  After the amputation, he could no longer work as a bouncer; he lost his job and became homeless. His mental health deteriorated. He stayed on the streets and then in shelters. And despite being homeless, unemployed, and having applied for financial assistance at this non-profit hospital, they were still chasing him down to pay his bills. 

Eventually he was able to get a prosthetic. That was around the time that I met him. His life slowly began to turn around, but things were still rocky for many years. He was able to return to work as a bouncer. He was also able to get onto Medicaid after it was expanded thanks to the Affordable Care Act. However, his battle with diabetes resulted in further amputations, and the dire lack of affordable housing and his lack of a steady income stream meant he would experience more bouts of homelessness. Years later, he was awarded Social Security Disability (SSDI) benefits which finally allowed him to secure stable housing. 

Witnessing Carlos navigate these many setbacks taught me about resilience and showed me firsthand how broken our systems are. He endured more than any human should have to in his short 47 years. The thing that Carlos understood so clearly was that he was not alone. There are millions of Carlos’ who are left behind by our health care and economic systems. What made him special was his willingness to share those difficult and vulnerable stories. But Carlos wouldn’t want to be remembered for his hardships. He’d want to be remembered for his contributions. 

Carlos was a fighter! He was driven by love and fought in every way to make the world a place where love was more possible. He was dealt a tough hand in life and those experiences informed his dedication to make the world more compassionate. He accomplished this in many different ways – starting on the individual level. He always took on the role of the protector.  He served in the Guardian Angels. They patrolled the streets and the trains and intervened when someone needed help. At restaurants, he would always sit facing the door so he could monitor the crowd and be ready for an attack. On the sidewalk, he’d always walk closest to the street. If he heard a woman being abused in his building, he would intervene. He was trained in martial arts. He gave me and many other young women the gift of a Kubotan key chain – a small black bar I could use to break someone’s nose if I was ever attacked. 

Through his work with our organization, Carlos took his passion for building a more loving and compassionate world into the public arena. He was deeply dedicated to the project of building a people’s organization, one that had enough power to shape the decisions being made that affect people’s lives. Carlos contributed in innumerous ways – from testifying at hearings in Springfield, to sharing his story with the media, to doing crowd control when we were on marches, to making sure our events had soul by bringing music into them. 

Carlos was a healer! Perhaps one of the greatest lessons Carlos taught me was the healing power of music. In our first meeting, I asked him what helped him get through the experience of homelessness and depression. “House music,” he told me. Over the years, I’ve come to understand what he meant and the role House Music has played in the lives of so many people who have struggled. Not to mention the role House Music has come to play in my own growth and evolution. Carlos insisted on infusing our organizing events with music, and thank God he did. Whether it was him drumming or bringing his DJ equipment – he used his talents to set the right tone and energy for our events. He was also trained in Reiki and other non-western healing traditions. He regularly offered Reiki treatments and other healing advice to members of our organization.

Carlos was resilient! He was the type of person for whom things are always harder. I don’t know why the world was so cruel to him, but it felt like he was constantly being tested, one hardship after another to see if he would persevere. And persevere he did! On the macro level, those challenges looked like a health care system that failed him, an economy that left him behind after he lost his foot to diabetes. On the micro level, it was little tests like when he got locked in a bathroom at a gas station after one of our long days in Springfield and he had to break himself out of it by using a Starbucks gift card I slid to him under the door. I’m telling you, the world never ceased to present hurdles to Carlos and he never ceased to overcome them, big or small. 

Carlos was immensely loyal. The Kington Mines, a famous Blues music hall in Chicago, was an important community for him. He worked there as a bouncer. He became close with the owner, Doc Pellegrino and his family. In Doc’s old age, Carlos was one of his trusted care takers. He stayed in touch with the servers who worked there. He was also a talented drummer and would often play with the Blues legends that would come through the Mines. That was a trend. Whatever he did, he put his heart and soul into it and treated everyone like family.  His drums were some of his most prized possessions. We buried him with his drumsticks. Music was his salvation.  

Carlos was always looking to grow and take risks. He never shied away from a new challenge. We used to conduct charity care workshops as a way to find people who had debt to big non-profit hospitals, help them apply for charity care and then bring them into our campaign. Carlos needed a new challenge, so I put him in charge of setting up one of these workshops. He organized our most successful workshop. There was a line down 3 flights of stairs and out the door of people looking for assistance with their hospital debt. Carlos had a way of connecting with people that was unique. He judged no one and desperately wanted to help others. 

He was deeply dedicated and loyal to our organization. In our early days working together, we had to make frequent trips to Springfield to lobby on our legislation that would hold big non-profit hospitals accountable to their charitable mission. The Kingston Mines, where Carlos worked, is a 4am bar in Chicago. He never said no to a lobby trip, despite having worked all night. Our routine was that after work, he would go and wait on a bench in a little park at the intersection of Halsted, Lincoln and Fullerton. Around 5:30 or 6am, I would pick him up. He’d hop in the backseat, pop off his prosthetic, eat the breakfast he picked up after work, and sleep in the back while I drove to Springfield. Then, he’d pop his prosthetic back on, fight through the pain and exhaustion from having been on his feet all night, and walk through the capitol to lobby legislators on our bill. He was incredible. 

Carlos was never the biggest personality in the room. He would often sit quietly, at the back of the room or off to the side if he could get away with it, and listen. He didn’t waste words. When he spoke, he said things that mattered. In the beginning, it took tremendous courage on his part to begin sharing his personal story publicly. But he did it out his drive to make the world more compassionate for those that followed. One of my favorite memories of Carlos finding his voice was on one of our trips to Springfield. Our bill was up for a vote in committee and there was a hearing before the vote. Our coalition built a slate to testify. It was a mix of policy experts and community leaders. As is too often the way, the legislators were only interested in hearing from the policy experts and discounted the voices of those directly affected by the bills being debated. This manifested by them cutting off our panel before Carlos was able to share his story about the impact of hospital debt and aggressive collection practices on his life. The committee chair cut off his mic and they were discussing amongst themselves. 

I was tense watching this unfold from my seat in the committee room. Carlos was told throughout his life that he didn’t matter. He got that message from the way he was treated growing up, from our health care system that only treats those who can pay, and our economy that brutalizes low-wage workers, doesn’t value musicians, and disposes of people with disabilities. But Carlos was clear on what he was there to do. He was there to speak his truth and tell his story to those with the power to make things better for people like him across the state, suffering from lack of access to health care and immense hospital debt. It was a transformative moment for Carlos to demand that he be listened to.

Carlos shot his hand in the air, interrupting the legislators, and said, “Excuse me, sir? I traveled all the way down here from Chicago to tell my story. Can I please do that?” And the legislator looked at him and saw him and ceded him the floor to share his testimony. It was a privilege to work with Carlos and witness him find his own voice and demand that the world hear him and the many other Carlos’ out there. Our bill lost that day, but we did go on to pass a bill that guarantees everyone below 200% of the poverty line, including those who are undocumented, qualifies for free care (aka charity care), at any hospital in the state. That was a major victory. 

Carlos was an organizer! When I became the Organizing Director, I stopped working so closely with Carlos. By that time, he was on our Board of Directors, and he was still a key leader with our economic justice team. He was being mentored by another organizer on our team, but we always enjoyed seeing each other at the office. In September 2019, we went out for lunch to celebrate his birthday and to catch up over what had been too long a gap. Over lunch, he told me about a tenants’ association he was building with some of the other people at his building. The management wasn’t maintaining the building. He proudly told me how he was using everything we’d done together to build the association and win some improvements at the building. I was proud to see him leading in this way with the skills he and I honed together. They developed a list of demands, had meetings with management, went to the owners, and escalated to put pressure on them. My favorite part was when he told me they had monthly dues of $5/month to be a member of the tenant association. I was impressed, and I’ll admit surprised, that they were charging dues. Asking people for money can often be one of the hardest parts of organizing. I said, “Wow! You have dues?” He said, “Yeah Hannah, we need a budget to print fliers and things!” Of course they did! 

There are so many more stories. Like the time he held onto the mic with an iron grip when we were asking our county commissioner to support our campaign at the very first public meeting we organized together. Or him losing his ID while we were in DC and him having to take the Greyhound home to Chicago because he couldn’t get on the plane. There were countless laughs, CDs exchanged, dances and meals shared. He was always bringing me food at the office – he wanted to make sure I ate. In exchange, he loved to enjoy Jewish holiday dishes that I’d bring for him. 

Carlos died in the early months of the Covid pandemic. He didn’t contract Covid, but he is one of the many uncounted casualties. He didn’t go to the hospital when he wasn’t feeling well for fear of contracting it. He told his friends not to worry, he would sleep it off. I am furious about the horrific mismanagement of the pandemic and the millions of people we lost as a result. I am devastated that he never got to meet my baby. Carlos was so excited for me when I told him I was pregnant. He was always happy to receive pictures of him and we both agreed the pandemic needed to end quickly so the two of them could meet. Carlos left us too soon. He touched the lives of thousands of people. I am devastated for my loss, for our community’s loss, and our movement’s loss. He taught me a great deal about life. Most of all, he taught me to never judge a book by its cover. He is sorely missed by all of us who had the great privilege of crossing paths with Carlos. Rest in power, Carlos!