Eugenio Perente-Ramos
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Eugenio Mario Perente-Ramos (Gino Perente) (21 November 1937 – 18 March 1995) was the founder of the
National Labor Federation The National Labor Federation (NATLFED) is a network of community associations, called "entities", that claim to organize workers who are excluded from collective bargaining protections by U.S. labor law. NATLFED was founded by Gino Perente. N ...
(NATLFED), a collection of
anti-poverty Poverty reduction, poverty relief, or poverty alleviation is a set of measures, both economic and humanitarian, that are intended to permanently lift people out of poverty. Measures, like those promoted by Henry George in his economics classic ...
organizations in the United States. While canvassing door-to-door and operating assistance programs for the poor, NATLFED has also been described by critics as a
left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of Ideology#Political ideologies, political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social ...
or
syncretic Syncretism () is the practice of combining different beliefs and various schools of thought. Syncretism involves the merging or assimilation of several originally discrete traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, thus ...
"
political cult Cults are social groups which have unusual, and often extreme, religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals. Extreme devotion to a particular person, object, or goal is another characteristic often ascribed to cults. The term ha ...
."Moran, Kevin and Carrie Saldo.
Past cult link dogs aid-for-poor group
. ''North Adams Transcript'' January 10, 2003.
Kifner, John.

. ''The New York Times''. November 18, 1996.
Some reporters, cult-watchers, and the FBI inferred in the early 1980s that Perente was born Gerald William Doeden, a
disc jockey A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include Radio personality, radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at nightclubs or music fes ...
from
California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
.Rauber, Pau
Shadow Politics
''East Bay Express'' May 18, 1984.
Affidavit of FBI Agent Neil Hermann
February 16, 1984


As Gerald Doeden

Gerald Doeden was born in
Crookston, Minnesota Crookston is a city in the U.S. state of Minnesota. It is the county seat of Polk County. The population was 7,482 at the 2020 census. It is part of the " Grand Forks, ND- MN Metropolitan Statistical Area" or "Greater Grand Forks". Crookst ...
and grew up in
Idaho Idaho ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain states, Mountain West subregions of the Western United States. It borders Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington (state), ...
and
Yuba City Yuba City (Maidu: ''Yubu'') is a city in Northern California and the county seat of Sutter County, California, United States. The population was 70,117 at the 2020 census. Yuba City is the principal city of the Yuba City Metropolitan Statistical ...
/
Marysville, California Marysville is a city and the county seat of Yuba County, California, located in the Gold Country region of Northern California. As of the 2010 United States census, the population was 12,072, reflecting a decrease of 196 from the 12,268 counte ...
. He was an amateur actor who performed in plays at Yuba College.FBI file 100-459234
on Gerald Doeden
While in college, Doeden was injured in a car accident and walked with a limp for the rest of his life. He was known in Marysville as a small-scale
con artist A scam, or a confidence trick, is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using a combination of the victim's credulity, naivety, compassion, vanity, confidence, irresponsibi ...
. Doeden married Ruth Mikkelsen in 1960, and had a daughter. Doeden, however, reportedly also fathered a child outside of his marriage. He and Mikkelsen were divorced in 1962, and he later spent some time in jail for non-payment of
child support Child support (or child maintenance) is an ongoing, periodic payment made by a parent for the financial benefit of a child (state or parent, caregiver, guardian) following the end of a marriage or other similar relationship. Child maintenance is ...
. Some observers have suggested that he may have left California to avoid child support payments., Chapter 12, "The Many Faces of Gino Perente"


Early activism

After working in Yuba City as a DJ for the
radio station Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based rad ...
KAGR for about five years, Doeden began working at the Little Red Bookstore in
San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
, where he went by aliases such as "Claude" and "Gino Savo." A number of individuals associated with the store reportedly formed a short-lived group called ''Liberation Army Revolutionary Group Organizations'' (LARGO). In March 1970, the group sent letters to government offices "announcing that armed guerrilla groups were about to attack public buildings." LARGO's only published statement, was a proclamation of intent to overthrow the government starting on March 15, 1970. While this quickly attracted the attention of the authorities, the group was described as quixotic by the media and dismissed by law enforcement.


Involvement with United Farm Workers Organizing Committee and foundation of EFWA

Around 1970 Doeden left California and resurfaced in
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
as "Gino Parenti". There he worked briefly in 1971 for the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee, the predecessor of
United Farm Workers of America The United Farm Workers of America, or more commonly just United Farm Workers (UFW), is a labor union for farmworkers in the United States. It originated from the merger of two workers' rights organizations, the National Farm Workers Associatio ...
(UFW) in its New York office. After taking charge during a power vacuum, he was fired when UFW sent Jose Gomez to head the office. About 20 years later, he was remembered by
Dolores Huerta Dolores Huerta (born April 10, 1930) is an American labor leader and feminist activist. After working for several years with the Community Service Organization (CSO), she co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) with fellow activ ...
as a "colorful biker type who played a small role in the boycott for about nine months or a year.... He created a lot of problems for the union, attacking us in the press. Then he went off and formed his own group." After leaving UFW, Perente founded the Eastern Farm Workers Association (EFWA) in
Suffolk County, New York Suffolk County ( ) is the easternmost county in the U.S. state of New York, constituting the eastern two-thirds of Long Island. It is bordered to its west by Nassau County, to its east by Gardiners Bay and the open Atlantic Ocean, to its no ...
, an agricultural region on
Long Island Long Island is a densely populated continental island in southeastern New York (state), New York state, extending into the Atlantic Ocean. It constitutes a significant share of the New York metropolitan area in both population and land are ...
.


As head of EFWA and NATLFED

Within a few years, Perente's followers had started similar organizations patterned on EFWA in California and elsewhere on the east coast, and eventually one farm worker organizing drive had spawned a network of twenty such drives, called the
National Labor Federation The National Labor Federation (NATLFED) is a network of community associations, called "entities", that claim to organize workers who are excluded from collective bargaining protections by U.S. labor law. NATLFED was founded by Gino Perente. N ...
(NATLFED). By the late 1970s, Perente's activities were increasingly limited to giving lectures to volunteers interpreting the writings of
Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...
,
Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...
, and
Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...
and directing the daily activities of his volunteers. Perente also co-authored a number of tracts, including ''The Essential Organizer'', the training manual of the EFWA, and "The Genesis," a story of the origins of NATLFED claiming that the party was part of a secret International including the
Communist Party of Cuba The Communist Party of Cuba (, PCC) is the sole ruling party of Cuba. It was founded on 3 October 1965 as the successor to the United Party of the Cuban Socialist Revolution, which was in turn made up of the 26th of July Movement and Popu ...
, the
Sandinista The Sandinista National Liberation Front (, FSLN) is a socialist political party in Nicaragua. Its members are called Sandinistas () in both English and Spanish. The party is named after Augusto César Sandino, who led the Nicaraguan resistan ...
s and revolutionaries in
Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...
and
El Salvador El Salvador, officially the Republic of El Salvador, is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south by the Pacific Ocean. El Salvador's capital and largest city is S ...
, and that members of the Venceremos were among its founders. Perente retreated from public view in the mid- to late-1970s. Individuals associated with Perente purchased 1107-1115 Carrol St, an apartment building in the
Crown Heights Crown Heights is a neighborhood in the central portion of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Crown Heights is bounded by Washington Avenue to the west, Atlantic Avenue to the north, Ralph Avenue to the east, and Empire Boulevard to the so ...
neighborhood of
Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...
, and he lived there, surrounded by volunteers for his organizations, for the rest of his life. Some ex-full-time volunteers have alleged that Perente was a drug addict, sexually harassed female volunteers, and regularly physically abused some volunteer organizers during this period.Archive of a lengthy online discussion on NATLFED
at Portland
indymedia The Independent Media Center, better known as Indymedia, is an open publishing network of activist journalist collectives that report on political and social issues. Following beginnings during the 1999 Carnival Against Capital and 1999 Seat ...
In 2016 former cadre Sonja Larsen's memoir ''Red Star Tattoo- My Life as a Girl Revolutionary'' was published by Random House Canada. The book details her personal relationship with Gino Perente/Gerald Doeden and the emotional, physical and sexual abuse of women which she witnessed while living at the safe house around the time of the organization's revolutionary 'countdown.'


Death

Perente died March 18, 1995, in the Crown Heights apartment of
congestive heart failure Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome caused by an impairment in the heart's ability to fill with and pump blood. Although symptoms vary based on which side of the heart is affected, HF typically pr ...
. He was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in
Stony Brook, NY Stony Brook is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in the Town of Brookhaven in Suffolk County, New York, United States, on the North Shore of Long Island. Begun in the colonial era as an agricultural enclave, the hamlet experienced gro ...
by the organization he founded. The ''New York Times'' printed his
obituary An obituary (wikt:obit#Etymology 2, obit for short) is an Article (publishing), article about a recently death, deceased person. Newspapers often publish obituaries as Article (publishing), news articles. Although obituaries tend to focus on p ...
, and then a correction. The initial obituary relied primarily on information from two close associates, Daniel Fiske and Christopher Day. The ''Times'' was then contacted by his former wife, former colleagues, and longtime critics of Perente, including
Chip Berlet John Foster "Chip" Berlet (; born November 22, 1949) is an American investigative journalist, research analyst, photojournalist, scholar, and activist specializing in the study of extreme right-wing movements in the United States. He also studie ...
, and, after
fact checking A fact is a true datum about one or more aspects of a circumstance. Standard reference works are often used to check facts. Scientific facts are verified by repeatable careful observation or measurement by experiments or other means. For e ...
the initial obituary, the Times issued a corrected obituary the next day.


Publications

* Perente, Eugenio Mario (1973).
The Essential Organizer
'. Eastern Farmworkers Association, s.l.


External links


Gino Perente at the Marxists Internet Archive.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Perente, Gino 1934 births 1995 deaths People from Crookston, Minnesota American communists American radio DJs National Labor Federation