Photo by Tom Jenz
Marty Calderon
Marty Calderon
Marty Calderon is an ordained preacher, but he dresses like a store clerk. At 52, Pastor Marty has the weathered look a man who has lived through troubles learned in the school of hardships, but he comes across through a soft-spoken sagacity. As a community preacher in the Latino community, Pastor Marty takes care of people who have been hurt, some who have never been loved or parented. He knows their pain because he’s been in pain. That’s where this story begins.
I understand you’ve had a difficult background that includes drug addiction and criminal behavior. Where did you grow up? What was your community like? Your parents? Your schools?
I grew up on Milwaukee’s South Side on 12th and Madison, a Latino neighborhood. I am Latino, Mexican. When I was in the 9th grade, my parents divorced, and my dad remarried. We ended up in Oconomowoc with my stepmother. This was a huge social change for me. I was going to school with all white kids. Myself, my sister, and one Black kid were the only non-whites. I came from a Milwaukee inner city school where almost all the students were people of color.
What was that like, going to school in Oconomowoc? I assume you felt like an outsider?
It was difficult at first. How will I fit in and build relationships? Plus, my home life was tough. I didn’t get along too well with my stepmother, and my real mom was in California. I wanted to have friends, be included. I started playing sports and got to hanging around with kids whose families had boats, ATVs and big houses. Compared to where I came from, this lifestyle was exciting. The parents had liquor cabinets in their homes, and we started drinking. By the 10th grade, we were smoking marijuana. That led to smoking hash. By 11th and 12th grade, we were snorting cocaine, and then we were smoking crack. My Oconomowoc friends had money. We’d drive into the inner city and buy the drugs. I did have a job at Pick N Save, and my wages were going for booze and drugs.
What did you do after graduating from high school?
I still worked at Pick N Save, but I’d get pulled over for drunk driving now and then. I did three jail stints at the work release Huber jail in Waukesha. By the time I was in my early 20s, I was a drug addict and alcoholic. I did end up getting a full-time job at the Oconomowoc Developmental Training Center. They help kids diagnosed with emotional and developmental disabilities. Ironically, the people I worked with were doing drugs and alcohol just like I was.
Were you married, then? Or did you have a girlfriend, a relationship?
About that time, I met my future wife, and I focused on our relationship. We moved to Franklin in the city, had a son and ended up getting married. I was still doing drugs and alcohol, but my consumption slowed down for a while. Eventually, my addictions resurfaced, and this caused problems in my marriage. We got divorced. One night when I was intoxicated, we got into an argument, and I was arrested for disorderly conduct. I ended up in the downtown jail. That ’s when I hit rock bottom, and I knew something had to change in my life. I was 27.
The morning I got released from jail, I went to the Oak Creek Assembly of God Church and met with one of their pastors. I told him I needed help. He connected me with a guy named Rich who was a street minister. Rich became my mentor, holding me accountable. I became part of Shalom Ministries as a volunteer. We did outreach in the parks, on the streets, and we did home visits. Once I focused on that mission, it took me away from drinking and drugs. I was also still working at the Oconomowoc Training & Development Center.
So this experience in the volunteer ministry more or less changed your life?
Yes, it did. I quit my Oconomowoc job and worked for the Latino Community Center on 14th and National. I was their Outreach Minister, and I got paid. I worked for them for years. That was the early 2000s.
What was going on then in the Latino community? What was the culture like?
The family and church structure was pretty strong. Most Latinos and Mexicans are Catholic. Despite struggles with poverty, people took care of each other and their neighborhoods. But there were some gangs and occasional violence.
At some point, you became an ordained pastor. How did that come about and what was your religion?
In the early 2000s, I was attending a church in Pewaukee, the Oil of Joy Church. I was doing a pastor’s role, visiting the incarcerated, doing home visits. The minister asked if I wanted to be ordained through his church. I earned my pastor’s license, and I’ve been a pastor ever since.
Starting in 2016, you ran God Touch Milwaukee. What was the purpose of God Touch and how did it work?
God Touch was very community organized, and we did a lot of community events. We also housed guys coming out of jail. I developed a relationship with the House of Corrections in Franklin, and I took in guys who wore ankle bracelets. They stayed in my group homes. We also ran transitional homes. We had counseling sessions and Bible studies, which led to us having a church. That all went well, but eventually I felt it was time to move on, and I left God Touch in 2022.
On your LinkedIn Page, you wrote, “I have over 25 years of experience working in the human service field in a variety of settings including: residential, church, community, and schools. I have worked with people whose needs include emotional/behavioral, alcohol & drug abuse, gang problems, academics, housing, employment, domestic abuse, violence, social and religion.” What are the major personal issues with many of these troubled people?
The main issue is accountability. For instance, when I was in my stage of abusing substances, I was accountable to no one. I was young and foolish. I did whatever I wanted to do. If you have accountability, you have structure. When there is structure, your lifestyle will change. At God Touch, we had a very structured operation. 98% of the people who went through our program did not go back to the streets or to jail.
I’m hearing you say that people living on the criminal edge or having an addiction did not have the proper parental influence as children and teens.
I’ve worked with a lot of gang members who did not have families at all. The gangs became their families. To be accountable in the gang culture, you have to rob and fight. It’s negative motivation compared to the family structure.
As I’ve encountered urban teens and kids who get into trouble, they exhibit a lot of anger. It’s almost radiating off them.
I’ve seen that, too. If the family structure is broken and you have kids raising kids, that system is not gonna work. There’s a lot of good mothers, but if you have only a mother raising a young man, it’s nothing compared to a dad being present. A mother can’t play the role of the father. A grandmother can’t play the role of both mother and father. I didn’t have a mother around in my formative years. I turned to drugs and alcohol to numb my hurt. It wasn’t until God healed me so that I could see my issues and deal with them.
You have a proven track record of being able to work with even the most difficult individuals and help them to achieve success. What might be some examples of difficult individuals?
Years ago, I met a gang leader. His name was Edwin. He didn’t trust me at first. I spent time with the guys in his gang, trying to help them through prayer and guidance. I’d stop by regularly where the gang hung out to meet with the guys, but Edwin never gave me the time of day. One time when I stopped by, Edwin was sitting alone on the porch, but his guys weren’t around. “Hey, Preacher,” he said, “you can’t pray with me like you pray with my guys?” We held hands and prayed, and after that, we became really good friends. I became Edwin’s role model.
From then on, we were able to prevent different crimes from happening. At one point, a rival gang shot and killed Edwin’s right-hand man. Edwin decided to go to war with the rival gang. Took me a while, but I talked him into delaying the war and finally deciding not to retaliate. Later, I was able to get Edwin and Chris, the two rival gang leaders, together with me, and they made a truce. Lives were saved.
You saved lives by getting those two gang leaders together to talk about their differences.
I think I did. Here’s another story. I counseled a prisoner named Alfredo who later committed murder and was sentenced to 17 years in prison. His wife had also been incarcerated. They had a 5-year-old son named Gio. Alfredo had been trying to raise the boy himself, but he was doing a bad job, punishing the kid too much, being abusive. When Alfredo went away to prison, he asked if I could raise his child. My ex-wife and I became Gio’s guardians. He is 12 now, and we are trying to give him a good life. Sadly, a few years after Gio’s real mother was released from prison, she was murdered by her ex-boyfriend in Racine.
That’s a good story but still heart breaking. I think you saved Gio. Moving onto a broad subject, what are the biggest problems and issues facing the Latino community?
We get immigrants from Mexico who speak Spanish. Their kids attend Milwaukee schools, and the children learn to speak English. In the Latino community, this causes a culture barrier between the generations. Also, a lot of the older Latino people are very religious Catholics. Their kids often don’t want to follow that tradition. There has also been an increase in undocumented people from Mexico and Latin America. I try to help them get housing.
You live in a city with many social and criminal problems. Presently, you have a contract to work with the Office of Violence Prevention. What does your work for the OVP consist of?
At the Office of Violence Prevention, I have three partners. The four of us are called Team Unified. We do a lot of outreach in the high crime areas. Team Unified is very involved in community. We go to neighborhoods that need accountability. We might visit an area frequented by prostitutes and give them assistance. We also go door to door or stand on the street corners, talking to residents. We also do block parties and different events where I might give a talk. We work mainly on the south side but also partner with OVP teams on the north side. For instance, we were vendors at the Juneteenth event on ML King Drive.
Do you visit these neighborhoods after a crime has been committed?
We do, but we also try to make visits in order to prevent a crime. If there is a shooting, for instance, we talk to the residents and canvas the community.
Well over a year ago, Milwaukee’s Office of Violence Prevention was awarded considerable money from the Federal ARPA funds with some of that money yet to be distributed. Recently, OVP Director Ashanti Hamilton said, “There's conversations about expansion of 414Life violence interruption into the south side. Helping to build up community-based organizations that are doing youth work.” Will you and your people receive any of these funds?
The Office of Violence Prevention takes good care of us on the South Side. We see good changes in our neighborhoods, with more people volunteering. There are 13 OVP teams across Milwaukee, and we communicate well together on a daily basis, the North Side and the South Side. We are committed to slowing down the violence in Milwaukee.
