No Killing in This Book: Louis Romano's Zip Code Challenge (Episode 83)

Today we have with us Luis Romano , and he is from New Jersey . He's an author , and today we're going to talk about his book called Zip Code , which is really , really interesting . So how are you doing today , luis ?

your background . So I was born in the Bronx , like I just said , and I went to Catholic school , which was good and bad for me . I'm a child of immigrants who came here from Sicily and Italy , so I had a kind of rough background growing up . The Bronx was kind of tough in those days .

I went to college after I was told I couldn't and then I started after business and after raising my family in New Jersey , I started writing novels . I started writing when I was 58 years old , believe it or not , and I'm old enough to be the grandparents of most of your , the grandfather of most of your listeners .

And I was in my senior year and the Vietnam War was about to draft me to go fight Vietnam , which I didn't want to do , and the brother asked me what I was going to do when I left St Raymond's and I said I'm going to go to college , I think , brother . He said don't waste your mother's money . I said we don't have any money .

I said we live in a project . There's no money to waste . He said well , I don't mean the tuition , I mean the application fee . Don't even apply . He said you're Italian . Take the sanitation department test in New York City , work for the sanitation department .

And I wanted to say what I wanted to say to him , but in those days they used to beat the shit out of you , so I didn't say it . I said okay , brother , I'll see . Then he said well , doesn't your family own a pizza shop or a restaurant they did . It was a very famous place . I said , yeah , he goes . Well , go learn how to make a pizza pie .

I mean , that was my advice as a senior in high school . Unfortunately , I listened to him . I went to a community college because we didn't have any money . Then I went to a state college in New Jersey and then I went to graduate school in New Jersey .

I did okay in business and then I had a really good business career in sales and left that after I don't know 35 , 40 years and decided to be a writer . I opened up a couple of businesses too with the money I had . So we did all right .

of , and that pisses me off .

It's about a couple of children that were separated at birth in Barranquilla , colombia , and one becomes a drug dealer , the other becomes a nothing . And what happens to their lives ? That's a standalone book and a couple of real life crime books . John A Light is a mafia killer , gene Borrello is a mafia hitman and another guy who's a Puerto Rican drug dealer .

So I have three nonfiction books , but my forte is really fiction . I like to develop stories in my mind and that's that's what that's what my , my passion is .

Uh , I don't know if you guys , uh your audience , ever heard of the twilight zone , but it was a TV show called the twilight zone and I used to watch that on television and a few other movies and so forth , some real feature films and I used to be intrigued with how they came up with the story , who wrote this story , who made this story , and that stayed

with me my whole life . And then I finally , at 58 years old , wrote a not such a great book , but some people liked it and it started me writing more seriously . It wasn't my best book , because you get better at what you do when you continue to do it Exactly . I think my newest book is better than my first book , and I hope so .

So it just intrigued me to write and then I finally did it , and it took me a long time to write the first one .

anything about where you're writing it .

I was very blessed to be able to visit Europe many cities around Europe and Boston and I have a great memory for places that I've seen and I've always intertwined them within my stories , and people are fascinated by the trips that I take them on in the books .

You know wait , you gotta kill me yeah , yeah , we do a lot of killing in some of the books no , I I know how much work goes into movies yeah a lot of work goes in , and one and one of the reasons I wrote zip code where there's a lot of really more important reasons , but one reason was to prove to myself I could write a book without killing anybody .

Nobody dies .

I grew up in mostly Puerto Ricans and blacks and you know Italians , jews , but mostly Puerto Ricans and blacks , and we were told that we were not good enough , not even in those words , but subliminally we were told we were not good enough , for example , in the book all right .

So two teenagers from Ridgewood , new Jersey , two seniors on a sociological experiment experiment , two kids from a very , very important , rich , wealthy school in New Jersey go to school in the South Bronx and two kids from the Bronx , a black kid and a Puerto Rican girl , they go to school in New Jersey , in Ridgewood , and they live in this big mansion and they ,

you know , and they're in this fabulous school .

When I was doing the research and at the schools at DeWitt Clinton High school in the bronx where we did , it was a charter school now and the important thing was they said , okay , we have , uh , the , you have to meet the um , the einstein class , the kids who were called the smartest kids in the school , einstein . And okay , so what's ?

How do you get into the einstein class ? You have to have an 80 average . Well , to me that's bullshit , because an 80 average is a b . I was a 77 average , so I'm not scoffing at an 80 average man , but I could say that , um , if you have an 80 average , yeah , you're pretty , you're not brilliant , you're okay , but you're not einstein .

But they but they put the ball low . In the ethnic schools and the bad neighborhoods . They put the ball low . So you shouldn't . You should be a 90 or a 95 to be in the Einstein group , not an 80 . So they're setting the ball low .

You could be happy as a waitress . I mean , my father was a waiter , my grandfather was a waiter . I mean my other grandfather was a plumber . They were relatively happy . They didn't know any better . It was happy . But if you , if you want more out of life , you you got to go get it .

You can't say , oh , because I'm Black or because I'm Italian and they told me I can't do this , I'm going to not do it and I'm just going to lay here and get my AV average and I'll be Einstein . No , because when you get out of school , the world changes .

today . We say it's not , it is , but it really is , and I like the fact that you're an old white guy saying some of the same stuff that young black people are already saying .

The third one didn't , but it cost me more to keep him out of jail than it did to pay the colleges for my other two kids . They've all done well . He's done well , but he's not a good person and we stay away from him . And it breaks my heart .

And it breaks my heart because he got in with the wrong people , with drugs at 13 years old and daddy , who thought he was slick from the project , didn't even see it . So you know , everybody's got their own baggage man , and I have baggage . And now I have a 13-year-old grandson who's the apple of my eye and he's a basketball player .

And now I have a 13-year-old grandson who's the apple of my eye and he's a basketball player . He thinks he's an NBA player . He's a terrific kid and we have a great time watching him . So I've seen kids go through their teenage years as an adult and as a parent and as a grandparent . So I think I have something to say and Zip Code said it .

I think very , very well .

She was in the class of 1960 , this young girl and this is the idea behind zip code so this girl had a couple of strikes against her in 1960 . She was in my brother's class and I remember her well . She was Puerto Rican , that was strike one Hispanic . She was poor , dirt poor . She lived in the in the Bronxdale projects and that was a pretty .

My project was better than her project . And if you want to believe that it was a bad project , my project was better than her project . And if you want to believe that it was a bad project and number three and I hate to say this to you , fatima , and don't get angry Well , she was so smart . Her father was dead . I think it was her mother .

I met her mother several times and I think her sister or brother . I don't remember that now . But anyway , this young girl went to a very good Catholic high school on scholarship because they were poor . It was called Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx .

From there she went to a little school nobody ever heard of called Princeton University , which is one of the biggest schools in the country right Now . Yeah , right , and she went to . It was then too . She went to Princeton University on scholarship and all of a sudden now she's going to Yale Law School .

After that Yale University , all Ivy League schools , this little Puerto Rican girl who had no future . So she got into the law business and blah , blah , blah , and now fast forward . She's four years younger than me , so she's 70 . And they named the projects after her , the Sonia Sotomayor Houses .

Now , if you don't know who Sonia Sotomayor is , she is a Supreme Court justice , one of nine Supreme . So this little Puerto Rican girl from my school who had no shot for advancement became a Supreme Court justice . That's a lifetime acknowledgement , it's a job for lifetime , and I'm not saying I believe in her politics , but I believe in her .

I believe in what she came to . And she wasn't the only one , general Colin Powell . There were so many ethnic people that came out of the neighborhoods that I lived in and they became very successful people . Why ?

Why because they wanted to , because they had the internal something that said I'm not going to stay here , I'm not going to stay in the projects , I'm not going to stay in this bad neighborhood anymore . I'm going to do something with my life to make myself better , to make my family better and to make myself more secure and have a happier life .

We're talking about New York City and the Bronx and the poor areas in the US , but there are kids out in the village of Zimbabwe who need to understand and hear the principle that you're talking about

, because it still applies for them too .

You can break through them , and that's what I love about zip code is that it really is all about that .

Demonstrating some people of color are what we already live through , but also for some people who might not live through that , for them to understand that there are still differences , for them to understand that there are still differences and although we've gotten better as a society , we haven't arrived . You know , we definitely haven't arrived .

There's some of the same issues that you talk about in the city All over the world .

Those kinds of stories inspire me all the time . But you know something in my neighborhood when I was , those kind of stories inspire me all the time .

I decided not to go that way . I mean , I didn't think that was the right life to have and that's really appealing . When I didn't have $300 to pay my last month's tuition in college at Montclair State University , I was offered $1,000 to make a delivery . I didn't know what the delivery was . I'm going to tell you it wasn't mozzarella salami .

They wanted me to make a delivery from one point to another for $1,000 in 1969 . My new car cost $2,600 . So it was almost half the value of a new car to make a delivery . And then I decided at that point , in that moment in time no , I'm not doing this , because then I'm in and I'm going to be in for life . So I made a decision . It was easy money .

I didn't even have the tuition , I had no money at all . And I said you know what ? I'm going to do this on my own and my mother was behind me . My mother always told me to stay away from those bad guys , so it was kind of I'm sort of happy I did that , because I'd be dead or in jail today for sure .

So one of the girls has a little weight problem in the Bronx the Spanish girl and she gets involved with a mother in Ridgewood who really works it out with her , she helps her and she becomes this knockout because she had all this self-esteem questions . The black kid that came to Ridgewood , new Jersey , his name is Jamal Jamal Samaj .

I'm sorry , samaj Samaj thought everybody was prejudiced against him and he was blamed for robbing a store and he didn't do it . But he feels he finds out at the end that they were not prejudiced about him and it opens his eyes . And then it talks about interracial dating a little bit .

It talks about the people who went to the Bronx and how they had to look around and say , hey , I can't get on this subway at 4 o'clock in the morning and get home alive . You know , I got to be home at a certain hour .

That's why there's a curfew at nine or 10 o'clock , because after that all hell breaks loose in the New York City subways and if I'm on that subway I'm going to get killed . And they learn that pretty quickly . They learn the streets pretty quickly .

So , yeah , I think it's also about understanding each other understanding each other's foibles , understanding each other's racial makeup , understanding each other's customs . I mean , I have a friend who doesn't want his son to be involved with this girl because she's Dominican and he doesn't understand the customs of the Dominicans . He doesn't even know it .

So he needs to go to the Dominican Republic and spend time and see what the culture is about . It's a wonderful culture . I go every year , so it's a culturally . People need to open their minds .

We stared at the black what the fuck Excuse my language that's a black guy and a white girl . Today it's commonplace and no one's staring at them . I mean , it's just commonplace . It's like okay ,

no-transcript . Systemic racism is absolutely an issue , and it's not an issue in the United States . You're a global network . It's an issue globally , and the only way I think you could fight it is one at a time , one person at a time .

That's why I brought that up , because I like hearing that coming from an older white American who's , you know , not one of us , who's complaining all the time or whatever nonsense they want to say , but hearing it from someone else who's not , who's not in this , so to speak , but who understands it because of the fact that you grew up in the South Bronx and

and I it because of the fact that you grew up in the South Bronx and I get where you're coming from .

This was in the 60s and the 50s and I remember it . I mean now the neighborhood is fine . It's right near Fordham University . I go every week for lunch and have cigars with my friends and it's a melting pot .

Sure , every once in a while , a Dominican or a Puerto Rican drive by in their car and they're blasting the music and it sort of like pisses me off because it's loud , it's loud , it's loud . But I understand it . That's their culture , that's their expression . Let it happen , let it happen . I mean , I don't like tattoos on people .

People have sleeves of tattoos . That's cultural . Yeah , that goes back to my grandmother who fainted when my uncle had a tattoo of the word mom on his arm and she fainted . So you know .

A lot of the principles behind some stories are thank you for saying that timeless and they are still very , very , very relevant . Plus , you're just interesting . You like to put murder and serial killers not a good stuff in there , and that's what we all like to hear about . All the gory details .

It says uh , what do you call ? What is that called ? Not audio book ? It's not on audio books , it's signed ebooks .

But if you're in the united states and you don't have the money for it , send me a letter and I'll send you a book for free oh , wow yeah , I mean , if yeah , I'll send you a book for free , because I want the book to get into the people's hands . I don't really care about making the two bucks per book , I don't . You know it's .

It's more of the awesome , it's more of the , it's more of the uh , the uh .

He was Russian and he said wow , I am so happy to meet you . This book meant so much to me . His parents didn't speak English , they were Russian immigrants . He goes . Now I know I can make it here . I have to tell you I almost fell into a puddle of piss . I mean , I was really , really so taken by him .

Don't let that shit be your life . Don't make it . Manage your life . Like I told you before , I had a son he's still alive , but we don't talk anymore who went really bad , and he didn't have to go bad . We lived in a lily white , beautiful community . His two brothers graduated major colleges . They're both very successful businessmen .

He himself is a successful businessman , but he's a drug dealer not anymore drug abuser and a thief , and I couldn't have that around me . So imagine me having three grandchildren that I don't see .

That breaks my heart . So don't do that to your family , don't do that to yourself . Don't try to be slick because of whatever drugs are popular today . I don't even know what drugs are popular today . When I was a kid it was heroin , and I think it might be back to that Fentanyl .

Who the hell knows all these bad things and look at all the kids we buried and look at all the people who meant so much to us , who could have affected our lives so well , like Michael Jackson , like all these great , great performers who died from drug overdose . They robbed us . So if you're doing that , you're robbing society .

You're robbing your family Never mind your mother's crying over your casket . That's bad enough , but you're robbing society of your positive possibilities . All I say is go do it .

You still have an area that you live in , and I want to say this to everyone . Listening when you come from does not have to define you . You do not have to follow the same path as everyone else around you .

In fact , you should step outside the box , outside your postal code , outside your zip code , outside your village , step outside of everyone else's expectation . That is where you can find true freedom .

Thank you for listening . Be sure to follow or subscribe to MindShift Power Podcast on any of our worldwide platforms so you , too , can be a part of the conversation that's changing young lives everywhere . And always remember there's power in shifting your thinking .