0:01

I'm Alec Schwartz. I'm Nomi Frye. I'm

0:03

Vincent Cunningham, and this is Critics at

0:05

Large, a New Yorker podcast for the culturally

0:08

curious. Each week, we're going to talk about

0:10

a big idea that's showing up across the cultural

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music, art. And I always want to talk about

0:19

celebrity gossip, too. Of course. What

0:22

are you guys excited to cover in the next

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few months? There's a new translation of

0:25

The Iliad that's coming out, Emily Wilson. Really excited

0:28

to see whether I can read The

0:30

Iliad again, whether I'm that literate. I

0:32

mean, the jury is out.

0:33

I can't wait to hear Adam Driver

0:35

go again in an Italian accent in Michael Mann's

0:37

Ferrari. He can't stop. I mean, and bless him.

0:39

I can't wait. Molto bene. Molto

0:43

bene.

0:44

We

0:46

hope you'll join us for new episodes each Thursday. Follow

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1:01

Radio Topia. From

1:05

PRX. From

1:11

Radio Diaries, I'm Joe Richman, and

1:13

this is The Unmarked Graveyard, a series

1:16

untangling mysteries from America's largest

1:18

public cemetery. Neil

1:19

Harris was last seen in Inwood, New

1:22

York on December 12, 2014. Uncle

1:24

Caesar was estranged from our family for 40 to 50

1:27

years. The playwright, novelist,

1:30

and author of Happy Island, Miss Dawn

1:32

Powell. You can't help

1:34

but wonder what her life has been. So

1:36

many questions, man. So many questions.

1:46

Over a million people are buried on Hart

1:48

Island. It's often called a potter's

1:50

field. People end up there if their

1:52

family can't afford a private burial or

1:54

the city can't find anyone to claim the body. And

1:57

when New York City gets hit hard by an epidemic,

2:00

like the flu of 1918 or just

2:02

recently COVID, Heart Island gets

2:04

hit hard too. During

2:06

the 1980s, the epidemic was AIDS.

2:09

More than 100,000 people would ultimately die

2:11

because of AIDS in New York City alone. Many

2:14

were buried on Heart Island. Some

2:16

of their families never found out what happened to them.

2:20

Today, episode three, one woman's

2:22

search for a man she never knew.

2:29

Oh my

2:31

gosh, the island, crazy.

2:35

There's not a lot

2:37

of land for that many people to be

2:40

buried.

2:43

At first I thought it was eerie, but

2:46

it's kind of pretty because the fog

2:49

just like erases the city.

2:53

It's just so beautiful. It's

2:57

nicer than I thought. My

3:04

name is Annette Vega. I'm a registered

3:06

nurse. I am 52 years

3:09

old. I will be 53 this month. I

3:12

grew up in the Bronx. I lived

3:15

with two of my younger sisters and

3:17

my mom and my dad. Dad

3:20

was always working. He's an electrician for

3:22

a local three and he was always

3:25

the strong guy. And

3:27

a lot of the neighborhood

3:29

teenagers

3:29

looked up to him. Not

3:32

everybody had their dad in their

3:34

life,

3:36

looking back at it, it

3:38

was a great childhood. So

3:44

when I was about seven or

3:46

eight, I found out that my

3:49

dad wasn't my biological

3:52

father. That's the first

3:54

time I came to know that

3:56

there was someone else out there.

4:00

This is a picture of my biological

4:03

father, Angel Garcia. He

4:06

looks like he's in his 30s and

4:09

he has a long mustache and

4:11

a DA here that's kind

4:13

of brushed back.

4:15

Who was this person? Why hasn't

4:17

he been in my life? Could he be

4:20

looking for me? I

4:22

just felt a persistent urge

4:25

to find out.

4:29

Hello. Hey mom. Hi

4:31

Annette. So did you win a bingo yesterday?

4:34

I won $75 yesterday and $370 something on Tuesday.

4:40

Wow. I wish there was a bingo today.

4:44

So I wanted to ask you

4:46

some questions if you don't mind. Yeah

4:49

go right ahead. Okay. The

4:51

questions are related to Angel Garcia.

4:54

Who's my biological father? No

4:57

kidding.

4:58

No kidding. Alright, mother. So

5:01

what do you remember about him?

5:04

He was very sweet. He was

5:06

good to me. He knew he

5:08

was good looking

5:09

and he was sure of himself and who knows.

5:12

He had this cologne.

5:14

Oh my god it was the best cologne ever.

5:17

He left that cologne in my drawer and I

5:20

waited a little. My

5:22

mom had me at 16. I

5:26

was a mistake. Not a mistake

5:28

but you know. I was in a planned

5:30

pregnancy. You know. She

5:33

was a teenager growing up in the Bronx

5:36

and there was a young man. Everyone

5:38

called him Machu. You know

5:40

they had a little summer romance. He'd

5:43

be working in the auto body shop.

5:46

She'd go home happily with

5:48

grease on her backside of her

5:50

shorts. And I'm like mom.

5:54

He talked about Puerto Rico.

5:57

Where his family came from.

5:59

He talked about the. future of

6:01

when we got married and

6:03

he was a trauma. Let me tell you.

6:06

Were there things about me that

6:09

remind you of him?

6:12

I think you look like him a lot.

6:14

You had green eyes. What? Green eyes.

6:16

You had very green eyes like you did.

6:19

Remember my Monte Carlo, my six cylinder

6:21

that

6:21

I would be driving fast and you be like,

6:24

Oh, you remind me of your father. And I'm like, Oh

6:26

yeah. Cause he was a love to drive.

6:29

He used to steal cars and I think he

6:31

used to steal cars just for the fun

6:33

of it.

6:34

Wow. He was a bad boy.

6:36

So I guess maybe I was into bad boys. Who knows?

6:41

Aren't we all?

6:42

Do you remember the last time you guys

6:46

saw each other? I seen him

6:48

after I gave birth to you.

6:50

We hooked up again and, um,

6:52

you used to pick you up and talk

6:55

to you. And we used to go and car rides

6:57

with you and everything like that. When's

6:59

the last time you spoke to him? What

7:01

was that conversation like? All I remember

7:04

I was insulting him. Insulting

7:07

him. So by what? I told

7:09

him that he was not

7:12

your father. That he was only a father

7:14

because he made you, but not because he

7:16

raised you or supported you.

7:19

I knew that that would hit him hard.

7:23

And then he disappeared one day and

7:25

I went to his job and they told

7:27

me no, that there was another woman looking

7:30

for him and all that. So

7:32

I never went back and

7:34

I never looked for him again.

7:42

I remember my mom telling me he was

7:44

kind of a tough guy

7:46

and she thought that he was in a gang.

7:50

The South Bronx, one of New

7:52

York City's roughest neighborhoods and

7:55

since the mid sixties home to an

7:57

outlaw motorcycle gang who called themselves.

8:00

The Chingalings. I

8:01

remember hearing about the Chingalings.

8:05

They were notorious motorcycle

8:08

gangs

8:08

that people were

8:10

fearful of. I thought he

8:12

might be with them. So what does it

8:14

mean to be a Chingaling? The

8:17

religion we got is a Chingaling religion. That's

8:20

the only religion we have. Ride a bike,

8:22

party, hang out. This is like a family

8:24

thing.

8:27

So I literally walked

8:30

up

8:31

to the Chingaling's house in

8:33

the Bronx. It's like painted

8:35

in black and you know motorcycles

8:37

all around and another guy comes out

8:40

looking rough. He comes over, he

8:42

talks to me and I tell him,

8:45

I'm trying to find my father. They

8:47

call him my chew. He has green eyes. Oh,

8:50

I haven't seen that dude in years.

8:52

Another woman comes out of shoes. You know, out on the

8:54

stoop, having a cigarette and she

8:56

goes,

8:57

I remember him. I remember one

8:59

night we were

9:00

partying really hard.

9:03

I got so messed up and

9:05

he helped carry me upstairs to the bedroom.

9:08

That man could have done anything to

9:11

me and he put me in the bed and

9:13

put a blanket on me and left. Nice

9:15

guy.

9:17

They wished me luck. They said,

9:19

I hope you find them. I

9:31

felt kind of silly looking for

9:33

so long without

9:35

a real reason as to why I was

9:37

looking for him. I didn't

9:40

need him to be

9:42

my father,

9:43

but

9:44

I still really wanted to find

9:48

him. There

9:50

were thousands of questions. Where's

9:53

his family? Do I have brothers?

9:55

Do I have sisters? Do I have a grandmother? Do

9:57

I have aunt?

9:59

Where's his people?

10:07

It was late January. I

10:10

got a message from

10:12

someone on Ancestry who

10:14

gave me names. I

10:16

used the white pages, I used Facebook,

10:19

and I sent the messages. That

10:21

evening,

10:22

my phone rings. I hear

10:24

this woman crying, emotional.

10:27

She said, I'm sorry, I'm

10:29

sorry. I'm sorry.

10:33

I'm sorry. All

10:36

this time, my niece, I've been looking for

10:38

you.

10:40

I was like, you have?

10:42

You know about me?

10:45

Hi, baby.

10:49

Thank you. Thank

10:51

you. So

10:54

I'm here. I arrived at my Titi's

10:57

house. My Titi, Miriam, my

10:59

father's sister.

11:00

It's a really pretty

11:02

home. My

11:05

name is Miriam. Miriam Garcia.

11:09

My brother is Angel.

11:11

Angel is your brother. He was younger

11:14

than you or older than you?

11:16

Me, her younger brother.

11:18

He only

11:21

went to sixth grade, but there was

11:23

something about him that he could just pick up things.

11:26

He learned how to work on cars. He

11:28

could take a car that was destroyed

11:31

and make it look like noon.

11:33

Angel

11:36

was a good man,

11:38

but he had a really, really hard life.

11:47

I was a little bit tired, but I was just

11:50

like, I'm going to have a situation. There

11:52

was issues in the home growing up

11:55

because their father was an alcoholic. I was

11:57

a little bit tired.

11:59

and my father went to the streets.

12:03

And he started using drugs at the age

12:05

of 13.

12:08

He

12:12

was arrested and imprisoned from

12:14

selling drugs. But

12:17

it wasn't like a traditional prison. It

12:20

was like a camp.

12:23

Mm-hmm. So she said

12:25

in 1985 or 86, police came to the house to

12:33

tell them that he escaped. They

12:37

don't know how he did it. Someone

12:40

had to have helped him. Mira.

12:49

She received a letter. She

12:52

received a phone call from him in the

12:54

summer of 1989 that he was very

12:56

sick with pneumonia and he wanted

12:58

to come home. Her

13:03

and her husband went to New York. They

13:07

walked through the streets looking for

13:10

him. But

13:14

she never heard from him again. She

13:19

hasn't seen him in 30 years.

13:20

She said, I don't

13:22

think he's alive.

13:28

OK, so this is what I find out.

13:32

I received an autopsy report.

13:35

And I actually have it with

13:37

me. And

13:40

it says, Angel Garcia

13:42

died August 3, 1989 at 11 PM, 37 years

13:49

old, immediate

13:51

cause of death, pneumonia, due

13:54

to AIDS as

13:57

a consequence of chronic

13:59

intravolta. venous

14:00

narcoticism. Ivy

14:03

drug abuser.

14:05

It says he was buried in a place

14:07

called Heart Island.

14:10

People are buried there. People with no

14:13

idea on them. People who haven't been

14:16

claimed. And

14:18

then I spoke to Titi Merrim.

14:20

We went through it together and

14:23

she put it down and she said

14:25

this is him.

14:27

You found your father.

14:34

Hi.

14:42

I can't believe I'm standing here with my brother. Like

14:45

it's small. Like he's so cute. Oh

14:47

look at him.

14:48

Thank you. Oh my god

14:50

so nice. So I found out that I had a brother

14:54

named Angel. I've never met him.

14:56

He also didn't

14:59

know where our father was.

15:01

She reached out to me and wrote

15:03

me a letter telling me she was my sister.

15:06

I was incarcerated.

15:09

I was incarcerated so at

15:11

first I was like what? What the hell

15:13

is going on?

15:15

She went into detail telling me who she is and

15:19

how she went about finding me. So

15:22

I researched that. I know

15:24

I should be a private investigator.

15:26

Now we're gonna go see

15:28

our father where he was buried.

15:31

This

15:35

is weird like nobody knew where he was at

15:37

all these years. Right

15:42

there. 201, grave 27.

15:45

So

15:46

this is the plot where

15:49

Angel was buried. Our

15:50

dad. Our dad.

15:53

Wow.

15:55

I was always the biggest fan like rooting

15:57

for him. Yeah. I must have been. been

16:00

like seven years old and

16:02

we went to the prison to visit him and

16:05

he took us from the visiting room to

16:09

like the dormitory. He

16:11

introduced us all to

16:13

do the locked up with him or his friends or whatever.

16:18

He gave me like a boat

16:20

made out of like wood and that's

16:23

the last time I seen him.

16:29

The people that loved my father,

16:32

whether it's my brother, my aunt,

16:34

my cousins, everyone talks about how

16:37

he was such a good guy. I

16:40

think they were afraid to tell me the bad

16:42

stuff, whether it's being in

16:44

a gang or in prison, being

16:47

an IV drug abuser.

16:50

Angel was not

16:53

an angel,

16:54

but it's who he is. It's

16:57

not a complete story without

17:00

all of it.

17:04

I'm putting flowers here

17:05

at his grave, just

17:08

planting

17:08

and marking

17:10

because he's

17:12

here. He's

17:15

not lost.

17:17

I'm happy to see where he lays

17:20

and to like tell him like, yo, I never found

17:23

you. She found us and we're here.

17:25

Now we know who you are.

17:40

That was Annette Vega and her brother,

17:42

Angel Garcia. And a final

17:44

note, since we spoke to Angel, he

17:46

has been arrested and is awaiting trial on

17:48

a felony charge in New York City. This

17:51

story was produced by Nellie Gillis. Her team

17:54

also includes Micah Hazel, Elisa Scarsay,

17:56

Lena Ingelstein, and myself. Our

17:58

editors are Ben Shapiro and Deborah G. George, sound

18:01

mixing by Mitra Kaboli. Music

18:03

in this episode from Roy Brown and from Matthias

18:05

Bossi and Stellwagen Symphonette.

18:08

We couldn't make this series without the help of Melinda

18:10

Hunt and the Heart Island Project. Visit

18:13

heartisland.net to learn more. And

18:15

also thanks to our broadcast partner, NPR's

18:18

All Things Considered. We're proud

18:20

members of Radiotopia from PRX, a

18:22

network of independent, creator-owned, listener-supported

18:25

podcasts. You can hear them all at

18:27

radiotopia.fm. Radio

18:29

Diaries has support from the National Endowment for the Humanities,

18:32

the Lillie Auchincloss Foundation, New York City's

18:34

Department of Cultural Affairs, and from

18:36

listeners like you.

18:38

Coming

18:44

up on the unmarked graveyard,

18:46

the woman who has led the charge to open up Heart

18:48

Island.

18:49

The importance is, for me, reframing

18:52

this

18:54

terribly dark image of

18:57

a place that is so damaging to

18:59

so many people, so that

19:02

they believe that

19:03

their life matters to the city

19:06

of New York,

19:07

that the lives of their relatives matter.

19:11

I'm Joe Richman of Radio Diaries. See

19:13

you next week.

19:15

Radiotopia from PRX.