Camachos were leading edge of Latino immigration in Amsterdam

By Bob Cudmore

          Aldelmo Camacho spent his early years on a farm near Yauco, a small city on the south side of the island of Puerto Rico.  The youngest of ten children, Camacho joined the Army in 1942 and served as a medical surgery technician.  After the war, he attended business college where he met his future wife, Ernestina Perez.  In 1948, they married and the family grew with the birth of two daughters.

          Jobs were scarce in Puerto Rico.  Two of Aldelmo’s brothers had moved to America and settled in Amsterdam, attracted by newspaper ads from the carpet industry.  In 1950, Aldelmo left his family and arrived in Amsterdam on a Sunday in June.  He had his first job the next day, making pocketbooks for Central Leather. 

          “When I came here, you could have a job, quit the job and get another job in that same building with another company,” Aldelmo said.  “If you didn’t have a job here it was because you didn’t want to work.”

Aldelmo stayed in Amsterdam four months but returned to Yauco because he missed his family.  There was still no work in Puerto Rico so Aldelmo headed north again.  This time he ran a milling machine at Collette’s Manufacturing, preparing rubber for tennis and beach balls.

          Within a few months, Tina and the children moved to Amsterdam and Tina began work at Amsterdam Glove.  Their first home was in the former Amsterdam Hotel on Main Street.  Apartments followed and then their own houses on Academy Street and now on Bunn Street.

There were only a few Latinos in Amsterdam in the early 1950s.  “When we came in it was just Puerto Ricans and Cubans,” Aldelmo said.  Today, Amsterdam’s many Latinos also have roots in Columbia, Costa Rica, Mexico and other countries.

          In 1953, the Camachos were instrumental in forming the Spanish American Club, which closed in 2004.  Its Milton Avenue clubhouse is now a church.

          Aldelmo and Tina worked hard.  Tina held jobs at Chalmer’s Button Shop, Hanover Dress, Martin Jay Dress and Mohawk Dress.  She also earned her high school diploma and attended Fulton-Montgomery Community College.

“We made an honest dollar every place we went,” Tina said.  “We started at 75 cents an hour and then it went up to a dollar an hour.  We lived on that.”

Aldelmo worked several years at the Naval Depot in Scotia and then was a dress cutter at Hanover’s.  Hanover’s closed its Amsterdam plant in 1972 and wanted Aldelmo to relocate to Vermont.  Instead, the Camachos returned to Puerto Rico.

          “We went back and I got a job in San Juan cutting dresses,” Aldelmo said.  “But I was in San Juan and she was in Yauco, a hundred miles apart and we stayed just seven weeks.  When we left Puerto Rico it was one way of living.  When we went back it was too different.  It was a different country for us.”

          Back in Amsterdam, Aldelmo secured jobs at Coleco, then Gem Urethane, Bojud Knitting and General Electric before his retirement.

          “This town came to be more important than the town where I was born,” said Aldelmo, who has a reputation for his skill at dominoes.  “This town for me is like my hometown.  It’s where I’ve raised my family and where my grandchildren are.  Everything for me is here.”

          The Camachos have eight grandchildren and six great grandchildren.  One daughter, Ida Slansky, works at City Hall and the other, Lillian Murillo, works for Paul Tonko, former Assemblyman and now head of the New York State Energy Research and Development Agency.

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Tomorrow Episode 117

Wednesday Archives

2016

American Revolution in the Mohawk Valley Conference

Bob Cudmore hosts an episode covering the 2016 American Revolution in the Mohawk Valley Conference.  Edward Lengel is author of “First Entrepreneur: How George Washington Built His and the Nation’s Prosperity.”  J. L. Bell is author of “The Road to Concord, How Four Stolen Cannons Ignited the Revolutionary War.”   And editor Don Hagist explains the online Journal of the American Revolution.

Newspaper columnist and podcast host Bob Cudmore will introduce the speakers Saturday and Sunday June 11th and 12th at the 2022 American Revolution Conference sponsored by the Fort Plain Museum. 

The conference will take place at the Fulton-Montgomery Community College Theater, 2805 NY-67, Johnstown.  Speakers will include Edward Lengel, William Fowler, James Kirby Martin, Mark Edward Lender and many other experts on the Revolutionary War.

https://fortplainmuseum.org/

Thursday, June 2, 2022- From the Archives of the Daily Gazette-Camp Agaming in th Adirondacks

The Amsterdam Family YMCA recently observed its 150th anniversary and some long time members reminisced about YMCA Camp Agaming at Lake Pleasant in the Adirondacks.

          “I’m going back to the year 1939,” ...

Friday, June 3, 2022-Episode 425-New York City correspondent Jim Kaplan has the story of the Buttonwood Agreement, the founding document of the New York Stock Exchange.

Schenectady County Historical Society

Wednesday, June 1, 2022

https://schenectadyhistorical.org/

Secret Stockade

The Stockade and its secrets come to life on this behind-the-scenes journey through the neighborhood. Though a national historic district, the Stockade is alive with the smells and sounds of a vibrant, ever-changing neighborhood. Walk its storied streets, meet local characters, and learn its legends and lore with us this year. Tickets are $35, include exclusive access to Stockade homes and gardens, and lunch at Arthur's Market, which specializes in great coffee and house-made sandwiches and salads. This tour lasts approximately three hours, and is offered -- by reservation-- on the first Wednesday of the month in warm months.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Tuesday, May 31, 2022

https://dailygazette.com/

https://www.recordernews.com/

Leader Herald

A day to remember the fallen, what they fell for

by Andrew Pugliese

https://www.leaderherald.com/