HOLYOKE — When a teenage Wilfredo Melendez and his family moved from the south Bronx to Holyoke in 1969, he said “it was almost like I was leaving a country.”
After leaving a diverse neighborhood of minorities for one in the Paper City where his family were some of the only Puerto Ricans, Melendez grew up learning about how de facto segregation causes “forced misrepresentations” of different cultures. So after high school, looking to learn more about the world, Melendez said he joined the Marine Corps in 1974.
“I wanted to get to know America, I wanted to get to know my country — I wanted to get to know me,” said Melendez, now 65. “And I figured the Marine Corps would be the best place to go to test my abilities, and my resiliency.”
Melendez, now deputy director of veteran services for the city, works and lives in a Holyoke that looks much different now than it did when he and his family first moved here — the 2010 census counted 44.7% of the city’s total population as Puerto Rican.
On Wednesday, Melendez was honored as Veteran of the Year by the United Veterans of Holyoke in a short virtual ceremony for Veterans Day.
“To be honored and recognized by people who I respect and look up to keeps me motivated and lets me know that I’m on the right track to keep on doing what I’m doing, which is to help veterans and get the word out to the civilian population about veterans,” Melendez said.
Outgoing state Rep. Aaron Vega, D-Holyoke, recorded a message played at the beginning of Wednesday’s ceremony in which he thanked veterans and their families. He recognized the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home, which underwent a deadly outbreak of COVID-19 earlier this year that killed 76 veterans and sickened many more.
“I want to ensure people that we are working hard to ensure that the respect and the dignity and care is re-instilled at our Soldiers’ Home,” Vega said. “Those veterans that we lost will not be forgotten, and we’ll be sure to use their memory to make sure that a tragedy like that doesn’t happen again.”
During the ceremony, Chris Sims, chairman of the United Veterans of Holyoke, gave the Public Servant of the Year award to Holyoke Police Sgt. Joseph Garcia, a graduate of Holyoke High School who started as a reservist in the department in 1987 and became a permanent officer in 1988.
Sims said Garcia has “led the way to train every school administrator, teacher, nurse and cafeteria personnel in the city’s crisis plan,” and that his training has been shared with other organizations such as the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Holyoke.
Garcia said that he while he was flattered to receive the award, “it’s the whole Holyoke Police Department that needs this award right here, because without the whole Holyoke Police Department, I wouldn’t be able to do my job.”
Next, Sims presented the Citizen of the Year award to Gina Nelson, who was born to a military family. In addition to serving as a eucharistic minister at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in the city, Sims said Nelson is the co-founder and executive director of Community Roots, a nonprofit in the city that aims to connect people with services they need. Nelson is also vice president of the Council for Human Understanding of Greater Holyoke.
“I am not, in anything that I do, alone,” Nelson said after accepting the award. “There are a legion of people just as committed who do it.”
The final award of the day was given to Melendez, who served as a heavy equipment operator in the Marine Corps from 1974 to 1976. Never sent to Vietnam, he spent his time in the service on bases in North Carolina and Puerto Rico.
Melendez said he decided to leave the Marine Corps at a time when the Vietnam War was ending and the military branch was “in chaotic mode,” where internal fighting and a lack of support created a toxic atmosphere.
So Melendez came back to Holyoke, where he met his future wife while studying at Holyoke Community College. He said his three children have all been educated through the city’s public school system and have since gone on to achieve bachelor’s degrees from college. Melendez eventually got a job as an advocate for veterans and in 2012 was hired as the city of Holyoke’s deputy director for veteran services.
Melendez said part of his job is to keep reminding the civilian population about veterans and their service to the United States.
“A lot of civilians, they don’t get to see that rawness of life — in particular, the life and death,” Melendez said. “It just changes you altogether — you become a different person. And the more you know about that, as far as what this person has gone through, the better it is to interact with them.”
Michael Connors can be reached at mconnors@gazettenet.com.