>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. >> Roberto Salazar: Good afternoon and welcome to the Library of Congress. This program is made possible by the Office of Equal Employment Opportunity and Diversity Programs. Our guest speaker, Sam Martinez, served 26 years with the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a special agent. Over the years the FBI assigned him to a myriad of postings in San Francisco, Chicago, Denver, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and Montevideo, Uruguay. He worked cases involving white collar crime, domestic terrorism, narcotics, foreign counter intelligence and undercover assignments. He worked on the Patricia Hearst Kidnapping, the Black Panther Party and the FALN, a Puerto Rican terrorist group. In Mexico he was the FBI case agent and supervisor to the kidnapping and murder of DEA agent Enrique Kiki Camarena. His last assignment was supervising, coordinating and authorizing oversea drug cases with the DEA. He joined lead plaintiff Mat Perez and 310 other Hispanic agents in filing a class action lawsuit on employee discrimination against the FBI. The lawsuit was not about hatred or bigotry, but subtle and unintentional discrimination which became evil when management retaliated against those investigative agents it relied on for its success. The court-ordered systems implemented after the trial benefited the FBI with greater opportunities for all agents, developed transparency and promotion policies, and caused the FBI to promote women at an unprecedented rate. He is the author of Systemic Evil: Mat Perez v. the FBI and he plans to write books on a less serious subjects. The book won the Southwest Book Award from the Border Regional Library Association. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming our guest speaker retired FBI special agent Sam Martinez. [ Applause ] >> Samuel Martinez: Thank you everyone. Since it's being video, would you please make sure you get the Library of Congress so I can send it to my mom. She'll be very proud of me. [ Laughter ] Thank you Roberto Salazar and the Library of Congress for inviting this starving artist to be here today at noon. I appreciate you being here. I appreciate the Library of Congress for having me here at lunch time. So we all have something in common; you're a hungry audience and I'm a hungry author. [ Laughter ] I am sincerely honored with the opportunity from the Library of Congress and for you taking the time to listen and ask questions at the end of my presentation. I'm also honored that we have retired agent Ed Mireles in the audience. I will read you his story and invite him here at the end to answer questions that you might want it ask him. Has anyone of you had a chance to discriminate today? Good I see some people. >> I did in the cafeteria. I got the ugly food instead of the super ugly food. [ Laughter ] >> Samuel Martinez: Good. I'm glad you raised your hand because people are afraid to talk about discrimination. And discrimination- I'm going to talk about the good side of discrimination and the bad side of discrimination. Has any of you seen at least a dozen movies of the FBI? Seems like we all raised our hands. Have any of you seen an agent cry in any of those movies? I didn't think you would. Have any of you had your judgement wrong about people? I see hands going up also. Look up the word discrimination and you'll see that humans discriminate every day. Discrimination is a decision making process. It's a natural process within us. Good discrimination are choices and actions that we make that don't affect others. People used to say, "He's a distinguished man with discriminating taste." There's nothing evil about that. There's nothing bad about that. We use discrimination as a survival instinct. Mark Cuban tried to discuss discrimination as a survival instinct when he said, "I know I'm prejudiced and I know I'm bigoted in a lot of ways. If I see a black kid in a hoodie walking down the street on my side of the street, I'll cross over to the other side of the street. If I see a white guy with tattoos and a shaved head on my side of the street, I'll walk back over to the other side of the street. None of us have pure thoughts." He intended no harm to others. He spoke his truth. He spoke his beliefs. He spoke his security. And the blacks and the media and others jumped all over his comments. The much needed discussion ended. A better way towards mutual respect is to engage directly with the moral conviction citizens bring to life rather than leave moral convictions aside. We have to listen first, understand and engage in dialogue not when we're angry, but engage when we want to listen. Mild discrimination are stereotypes. Stereotypes such as food. Some people would say, "Do you want chili on your tacos?" But there's some Mexicans that don't put chili on their tacos. Some people don't like the taste. We stereotype people with noodles or fried chicken or curry. Those are mild forms of discrimination. They still don't affect others, but people are unaware how they can effect someone or pigeonholed someone even by surnames, culture, language, looks, or color of the skin. Harmful discrimination is protected by law. I know Lorena Sierra is here. She an EEO officer. She protects the disability, the age, people of gender, race, ethnicity. Those are protected by laws. Some people use discrimination to make themselves feel better or making others feel less. When used this way it's the attackers that are making less of themselves and less of this country. When you define others, you define yourself first. Negative discrimination is an attempt to steal your identity of who you are. No one talks about white on white discrimination, but it happens. Just ask William S. Sessions, former director of the FBI, about persona and his identity theft by discrimination. Our persona is more important that our data. Who we are is more important than what someone else believes. No other person is invested in us more than we are. Don't let anyone steal your identity. Oppression and injustice are discrimination. This book is about work discrimination where agents were trying to get a fair deal, fair assignments, fair promotions and we were being held back. The worst type of discriminations come from hate, fear and retaliation. I was assigned to Mexico City when the lawsuit began and I transferred in from the Denver office. When I transferred back in from Denver to testify, an agent who I had worked with, a friend of mine, pulled me aside and said, "Hey, I want to talk to you about this lawsuit." He took me to a room where they kept the work boxes. We went there and he said, "What's this lawsuit about? We don't hate you guys? We may hate the blacks, but we don't hate you." [ Laughter ] And I found out that he was kidding, but our case was not about hate, that was the last thing the bureau felt against the Hispanic agents. They just set us aside and forgot about us. And it wasn't just management, the FBI Agents Association was formed for the purpose of attacking or defending themselves against management. In the late 70s when the cointel program and other programs started and the FBI agents were accused of what they call black bag jobs, going in without warrants and things like that, and they started making the agents scapegoats, so they started the Agents Association to protect the agents against management. Well when the Hispanics filed a lawsuit and it was against management, it wasn't against our colleagues, the FBI Agents Association decided to side on the side of management and not the agents. FBI agents are supposed to be strong, ethical, just, truthful, inquisitive. Let me read for you just a minute from the book about Ed Mireles who is our guest here. This is one day in the life if Ed. Two FBI agents, Jerry Grove, Ben Grogan, died in a hail of gunfire as five other wounded agents battled through the carnage of April 11th, 1986. A crime perpetrated by two armed and dangerous U.S. army rangers trained killers. Face with the superior firepower of assault rifles, the FBI agents stood as a team with a purpose and defended one another. Agents lay dead and wounded in a quick exchange as over 130 bullets created blood chaos. As the two bank robbers attempted to escape in a stolen FBI car, Special Agent Edmundo Mireles Jr despite being dazed from one gunshot to the head and another that left his left arm paralyzed while still under fire sat up, supported himself off a nearby car. Then using his body, his knees, and his right hand cocked and fired all the rounds in a shotgun at the suspects. Faced with death his fear dissolved into anger and determination to stop the killers. Ed dropped the empty shotgun, pulled his revolver out and staggered towards the getaway car, shot and emptied all of his ammunition leaving the perpetrators dead. He had survived and in recognition of his actions the FBI awarded him the first ever FBI Medal of Valor. Yet even before that dark and tragic day Ed had survived other shots, wounds of discrimination, when he sensed rejection from within his FBI community. Ed would testify on the discrimination at the bureau, but not as a class member. I remember Ed's testimony on the day he testified. He was wringing his hands. He was crotched. His head was down. He spoke in a low voice. His voice cracked at times. He was nervous. You may want to ask him why a different Ed than the one that won the Medal of Valor? Let me add that three agents cried while testifying. One of them was my compadre Greg Rodriguez. Greg and I were partners in Chicago. We worked the FALN cases. We knocked on doors morning, day and night. We worked 16 hour days. Michael Deutsch, who was an attorney for the FALN, every time he sued the FBI they would have Greg's name and my name on the affidavit, but some days we weren't even present, some days we weren't even working. We had a reputation of going out there and knocking on doors and trying to solve cases. Try testifying against a dysfunctional family or a dysfunctional school you attended or a religion you follow that convers up abuse or an agency that represents Lady Justice, mother burial [phonetic], father faith, fidelity, bravery and integrity. Testifying against the bureau wasn't easy for me. It wasn't easy for Ed. During the trail there was a lot of words that came out; tamale squad. Tamale squad was when agents first came in in 1970. The bureau didn't know what to do so they put them all in one squad and so we started called ourselves the tamale squad. The Taco Circuit started. The Taco Circuit -a friend of mine last weekend, Evan Dobbs, told me he says, "That's the first time I've heard taco used as an adjective." And what was happening was that the bureau was -the supervisor was going out into the bullpen and saying, "You Mireles, go out we need you [inaudible] 90 days in Puerto Rico, in Los Angeles or New York or wherever on a case." But in that bullpen was also Adams, Williams, Jones who also spoke Spanish, but it was easier for the supervisor to see Ed Mireles because of the color of his skin, Ed Mireles because his surname for him to get those duties. He wasn't thinking it was out of abuse. But it became abuse when we started telling how come it's not happening to them. And that's when they got upset that you question management and so that's when the retaliation began. On promotions there were agents that were more qualified than others, and it was a good old boy system. A good old boy system; picking your friends is easier, working with your friends is easier than somebody who's touched all the bases and you don't know them and you say, "Well I'll just pick my friend." And that happens quite a bit. So it was that type of discrimination that was going on in the bureau. The other word that came up in the bureau was angle helper. And angle helper was because we would get assigned cases and we would have responsibility for them. When the responsibility came, let's say Smith had a case that needed Spanish speakers, they would take us off our cases, go work with them, come back, and since they didn't speak Spanish we would have to transcribe them. So we actually became what they call angle helpers. There's also in the book there's when Mat Perez was in El Paso as the ASAC he told his SAC he says, "We need more Spanish speakers because these people are getting drained from their work. And the SAC said, "Well who's going to talk to the bankers?" As if Spanish speakers don't talk to the bankers. Spanish speakers speak English too. El Navajo [phonetic] in his book testified to the fact that he was assigned to Puerto Rico and was an angle helper because agents were being sent to Puerto Rico that didn't speak Spanish so he would have to go work their cases, work his cases, and the term angle helper came up in trial. FBI director Comey visited El Paso and said, "Anytime you have people in power, you're going to have at some point people who go sideways as a result of that power. You just have to hold people accountable." That's what I was doing, holding people accountable. I did not testify against the bureau. I did not testify against colleagues. I love the bureau, I love my colleagues, I testified against management. The people I worked for. The people I worked with. I was in management. The FBI is perfect. Individuals are less than perfect. I am less than perfect. Director Comey knows that the FBI is constructed as a perfect organization. I want to keep it that way. Educated, experienced and responsible Hispanic agents had the ideal work ethic required for premiere law enforcement agency. Hispanics had learned to accept their humble beginnings, their accents, their language, their culture, their surnames, their skin color, who they were. It was time for FBI management to learn Hispanic men and women deserve career opportunities. Hispanics are just as good as any other agents in trench coats, wingtip shoes, fedoras, or FBI raid jackets whether they have blue eyes, green eyes, or beautiful brown eyes like mine. Let's see if you agree with me that the actions of some supervisors within the FBI were evil. I got assigned to Mexico City as a case agent for Kiki Camarena and in between that time I got a call from a person who wanted to give me some information. Apparently he had given the information to the office before and nobody did anything about it. So I called him in, listened to him, spent the whole day with him and told him I needed about three days to write it out and I would call him back so I could make sure I got everything right. I did and he came back and we made some changes and sent it out to the bureau. And he was hiding -he was a bodyguard for one of the president's cousins who was running drugs. And so he decided when the earthquake came he decided to hide out and he decided he wanted to get out of what he was doing. At that time we had two good cases that were FBI cases that we could have used him for, but my boss said, "Hand him over to DEA." He didn't want anything to do with him. So we handed him over to DEA and DEA was working the Kiki Camarena case, which was a high priority case. He was running financially low on his money, and so I told him, I said, "Why don't you just leave? Go to the U.S. now and wait for DEA to call you." And he said, "Well I don't have any money. I have two guns." And so I fixed it up for a security guard company to buy the guns from him, which they were authorized to do. They bought the guns, I got the money, gave it to the informant. And the guns ended up in the truck of the car the first day and my boss saw it and I had told him what had happened and did nothing. A year later I was accused by customs and the DEA that I was selling guns to informants, which was false. And my boss I told him, I said, "This has to do with the incident about the two guns from Kermit." Kermit is just a name that I used for him. So Kermit left Huston and became an informant for customs and for DEA and that's where that information came from. So my boss sends a note out to headquarters and I was accused of criminal activity, lack of candor and insubordination to cover up an event that occurred a year earlier. I knew I could prove I committed no crime. I also knew unless its orange of my alma mater UTEP, I wouldn't look good in an orange jumpsuit. [ Laughter ] However, the insubordination and lack of candor charges we're my boss's word against me. I requested the FBI polygraph me to prove I follows all my boss's instructions and that I was candid at any inquiry of the investigation. The 1, 2, 3 levels above my boss refused to polygraph me. Who's running this place? Kim Jong-Il? [ Laughter ] I was alive. I had to pinch myself. It was not a dream. I had to do something. I paid a retired FBI polygrapher to examine me. I passed. The bureau paid no attention to the results and demoted me. Attempts to fix things within the FBI failed. All 1, 2, 3 levels of leadership management weren't interested. I could not understand what integrity or the FBI meant to those managers, what emotion was destroying their sense of reasoning, destroying their sense of responsibility, destroying the essence of investigations within the FBI. I knew what the FBI meant to me. I was embarrassed and sad that I had to take my case to an outside agency, the Merit Systems Protection Board, who reviewed my case and overturned my demotion. The story of Mat Perez is worse. I'm going to deputize all of you and make you SACs in charge of an office, an office of 62 people; 55 in your field office and the rest out in the field. Just to the north of us you have a Navy shooting where 10 sailors are shot. 2 are killed. That's a major case. On the south of us you have an [inaudible] Air Force base that's bombed. 25 planes are destroyed, 12 completely. Just on the east of us -east is this way. Just on the east of us you have a Navy ship that was bombed. And to the west of us you have a police corruption case where you're investigating over 40 officers for corruption and they're assigned to help you with investigations. Now what would you do now that you're in charge of your office? You ask for help. You ask for help from headquarters. Headquarters sent him support. He was asking for specifically for Spanish speakers and for 90 days they turned him down. They sent him whoever they could for 30 days. If you've ever been to Puerto Rico, you have streets that don't make any sense, the language is different. It's a difficult place to get situated. So you had agents that were coming it, you had to situate them and then they would turn around and leave in 30 days -they weren't being much help. So if they turn down manpower is that discrimination or mismanagement? I'd go with mismanagement at the beginning. Now you need computers and you ask for computers and the executive director says, "Well you're behind Springfield. You're 7th on the list behind Springfield division." Springfield division is a small office too. But instead of looking at what the situation is in Puerto Rico they put you 8th on the list. There were 7 people ahead of you. The admiral on the base seeing that people have died, people are getting Purple Hearts, knows the urgency, so he contacts the CIA and the CIA gives us state of the art computers right away. Mat calls headquarters, asks for computer personnel to run the computers. They say no. Is that mismanagement or is that discrimination? Then he hears from a friend of his who's up in headquarters the executive director says, "Let's see how he plans to man those computers now." For me that's discrimination and that's evil. No leader, no manager, no one is as important as any agency. No one has the authority to undermine agency values whether it's the Library of Congress, a corporation, or the FBI. Trump was recently elected as president. He came out and said that Mexicans are rapists. That Mexicans are murderers. That Mexicans are bringing drugs into this country. And I'm OK with that because Scottish people are rapists. Scottish people are murderers. Scottish people also bring drugs into this country. What bothered me was when he said, "I assume some of them are OK." When he said that I said, "I've been living in this country for a long time. I've got five generations on my father's side that are from the New Mexico area, which at one point was part of Mexico. I've been in this country longer than many others." When he said, "I assume some of them are OK" that means he doesn't know Mexicans. He doesn't know Mexican Americans. He accuses a judge of Mexican heritage that he would be unfair. He doesn't know Mexicans. My parents -not my parents, but my grandparents had land taken away from them in Mexico, in New Mexico. They took it away because the deeds were in Spanish. And now we became part of the U.S. so they said, "We can't read that. We don't honor that." So they gave it to settlers that were moving into the New Mexico area and other parts of the west. I grew up in Lakeside, a subdivision of El Paso. Now you may think that sounds aesthetically great, but my view was a view of the ditch. But kids in grade school made fun of me because I had holes in my shoes. I had holes in my shoes, but it wasn't me, I didn't have holes in myself. I grew up in El Paso with a great group of friends: Oscar, Joe, Ernie, or Robert [phonetic]. We went everywhere together. When we were in high school or in college we had to develop our interpersonal skills. We also had to make ends meet, so we would crash parties, weddings and quinceaneras. We'd call it networking with food and drinks [inaudible]. [ Laughter ] We're still waiting on the movie The Quinceanera Crashers. [ Laughter ] Some nights we would crash at one of our homes. If it wasn't at Oscar's house we would have to stop at his house first. It wasn't to ask permission, but it was to pick up his blanket that he slept with. For Oscar Barajas, who we called Cook [phonetic], that blanket represented his security. We complained the first night, but then we just accepted him as is. Now before you think this person speaking to you hung out with a bunch of wusses and cried on the stand when he testified against the FBI, let me say that Cook was shot and killed having dinner at Howard Johnson's in Albuquerque when two armed robbers came in and threatened the cashier. They were looking for money then they planned to kidnap her. He intervened by trying to calm the gunman down and protect the cashier. He did not retreat for his security blanket. He rose to the occasion of knowing his identity of who he was. Who he was cost him his life. The robbers took his life, but they did not take away his identity. Ed Mireles did the same thing when he had to stand up. Every day you are creating a new you. Your personal identity is in a constant state of evolution. We all have the power to reinvent ourselves and create a new empowered identity that expands what is possible in our lives. The key is to take conscious control of the beliefs we are creating about ourselves so they can power us towards what we desire most. The power to tap into our tremendous potential comes from our identity. How we define ourselves and having faith in what we can achieve. Have faith to let go of who you are at this moment and accept how far you can reach. Your reach has enormous potential beyond what's thought to be possible. Let me do a Miami Senate. [ Laughter ] Our identity is the strongest influence to our happiness and our actions in life. Living inconsistent to who you are creates a life of disappointment, frustration and stress. You don't want to live someone's perception of you. You want to live and embrace your authentic self. Embrace your deepest beliefs, your deepest fears, your deepest strength to create the almighty harmony in your life. I want you to please look at the person next to you. Please vow that you won' kill the potential in them or others. We are here to enjoy the gift of life. Vow the day [phonetic] from evil thoughts that you will not diminish, disregard, or steal anyone's identity of who they are. None of them knows what inside of you, and you don't know what's inside of them. Just as no one knew what was inside of Oscar Barajas. In the face of death he knew the value of right and wrong. Faced with death he cared for someone he knew nothing about more than his own life. Only you know your true identity. Only you know your true potential. Only you know who you are. Let no one steal your identity of who you are. It's your right to inner peace, your right to fairness, your right to the almighty gift of life. Thank you all. I'll open it up for questions. I also want to ask Ed Mireles to stand up here with me and for you to honor him. [ Applause ] You can ask him any questions or ask me any questions that you'd like. Yes sir. >> I'm here because my father has a good friend who was with I don't think the FBI [inaudible] the Department of Homeland Security [inaudible] last year or so awarded to the Mason case. [Inaudible]. My question is as your case and any other case like that continue, what does the FBI and Department of Homeland Security or government [phonetic] agencies do to try to make that process more justice [phonetic] for people versus that [inaudible]? >> Samuel Martinez: I filed an EEO case on January 1st. I pulled an agent from vacation because my 90 days was going to end on the next day on the 2nd of January. So I pulled him off vacation and I said, "You're taking my EEO case." So I filed an EEO case and it took 7 years to resolve. What I wanted for them to do was take the lies out of my personnel file. That's what I wanted. I took them 7 years to do that. I didn't see it coming and those 7 years just chipped away at what justice meant to me and the FBI, what investigations meant within the FBI. They would assign people to investigate EEO cases and they would say, "Well you can go over there, but just ask him this part of the question. Don't ask him on this side of the questions." So, you know, if somebody had told me and I had a badge for the FBI, I'd say, "No. Get somebody else. I'm not doing that." I just couldn't do it. But I see it happening. I know that EEO cases sometimes they're not as big as what they -but people get defensive. Supervisors get defensive when a subordinate says something about them and that's the last thing they need to do. I wasn't going to talk about it, but just think of the Ferguson case, you know. Was it a race thing? We hear it is, but what about attitudes? Could it just have been attitudes where police had a bad day and a young kid who had just stolen something had a bad day? And if we start investigating things from that point in and actually start negotiating. The EEO actually needs good negotiators, they need to find out what it is, because people get defensive, you know? Racism is thrown out, prejudice or bigoted is thrown out real quick and so people get defensive, they put up a wall automatically, and so it's hard to talk through that wall when you're trying to get something settled. But I don't see there any -to be honest with you I haven't reviewed any EEO cases, but I know that back when I was doing the book it was EEO cases less than 10 percent there was some kind of findings. So you think is it possible that 9 out of 10 people are making up false claims? I think there's a lot of unfairness. Just like I spoke about the unfairness -I think it was unfair for Judge Sessions to be removed from the bureau as a director when he flew out to San Francisco to see his daughter in a ballet and also visit the office. But the previous director would go and talk to boys club and then go and ski and play tennis is the mountains of Denver, Colorado. So for me the system is unfair, it's not always discrimination. But I really can't answer to you if they're getting shorter, but they should, they should. And if you ask for a good negotiator to negotiate some kind of agreement -but it's kind of hard to prove discrimination just like I said. If you're in charge of an office and there's 4 major cases going on and somebody is slow at sending you manpower, is it stupidity? Is it mismanagement? When do you put the finger on its discrimination? And discrimination ought to be looked at as is it unfair for you to do this? Is it unfair for you to send people to Nebraska on a case extra manpower when they have less going on? That's when you start determining what discrimination is. I don't if Ed you want to add something. No. [ Laughter ] >> Ed Mireles: You did a good job. >> Samuel Martinez: Yes. >> I have a question and I'm sorry, I apologize, I came in a little late. What was the outcome of the case? [Inaudible]. >> Samuel Martinez: The outcome was that the FBI won, won in restauration because the Hispanics won as the plaintiffs. The FBI lost as a case and from that loss the FBI won because as Roberto said women were promoted at an unprecedented rate within the FBI. I had a chance to go before a [inaudible] police seniority panel and say, "I should be at a grade 15 position." And I justified my position and I got it. Once you're given an opportunity, you're basically saying, "Hey, let me fail. Give me the opportunity to fail. That's all I want. Just an opportunity to prove myself. That's what I want. Give it to me." And there's Hispanics that have failed and there's Anglos that have failed and blacks have failed. But then there's been a lot of them that have surprised people and been successful. So yes, we won the lawsuit. Hispanics didn't get any money. It was basically a [inaudible] place seniority promotion where we were asked to go before an individual panel to justify our positions. But the FBI won, the FBI won because it became a better agency. Supervisors became more sensitive and secret service, bureau prisons, DEA, all these other agencies that were in law enforcement they opened their books and said, "We need to look at ourselves and see what's going on. Because if the FBI can lose with the Department of Justice backing them up, we're going to lose." So there was a lot of changes. I spoke at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission last week and a couple of agents from the IG's office came up and said, "Hey, you've made it better for us." And I think we did. I think IRS I even got notices from [inaudible] that we did it better. So the FBI won. On the books they lost, but the FBI really won. >> Ed Mireles: I just want to echo what Sam said. First off, to clear the record, I wasn't as rich as Sam was when he was growing up. [ Laughter ] He had shoes. [ Laughter ] No, but Sam is absolutely right. The suit was righteous, OK? It was never about money. Never about money. I mean nobody was saying, "Hey, I want a million dollars to make me whole." It was never about the money. It was about being given a fair chance, you know, being given the same chance that your colleagues had, OK? And Sam is also right the FBI became a better organization after the suit. However, if I could take you back to that era, you would think their dog died. [ Laughter ] Because they were appalled that they had lost a case. And, you know, for us it was a no-brainer. I mean how could you not lose the case for all the stuff that you were doing? And like Sam said, you know, it wasn't done out of evil, it was just done out of incompetence or stupidity or being uneducated. It's hard to describe. Don't get me wrong, I ran into some bigots in the FBI. I know a couple that were outright bigots, OK? Against Hispanics and blacks, and thank god they're retired and long gone. But the FBI couldn't believe it had lost a case. And then when the court told them what they had to do, you know, it was like the remedy was worse than the actual disease. And I think that -if Sam will back me up on this- I think the fact that the bureau had to... [ Laughter ] Had to partake in the remedy that the court set out that was probably worse than having to go through the trial because I mean it's like dragging a spoiled little kid down to the doctor's office to get a shot, you know? But Sam is absolutely right the FBI and the government in general became a better organization and especially women. My wife was an FBI agent at the time, you know, she became a supervisor. And probably because of the suit there were more opportunities for women that came open. Thank you Sam. >> Samuel Martinez: Any more questions? Yes sir. >> Yes. You testified at the hearing or at the trial, but you weren't actually part of the lawsuit. Can you explain why? >> Ed Mireles: Well it's like Sam said, you know, I grew up -I'm a product of the- well my grandparents were a product of the Great Depression. My parents were a product of the World War II era. And I was their product. I can't say Korean War. But I grew up in an environment where family, you know, the great spirit, church, country, respect for family, respect for elders, love, honor and all that stuff. And I'm a firm believer in in that, you know. A friend of mine told me once, "Ed, you're the worst employee to supervise." I said, "Why?" He said, "Because you're not loyal." He said, "You're not loyal to any individual." He said, "You're loyal to causes. You're loyal to the constitution. You're loyal to the Bill of Rights. You're loyal to the rule of law." He said, "If somebody stands in your way and he's not following the rule of law or not following the constitution," he said, "Ed, you'll screw him over in a heartbeat." And so I mean I very truly feel that way. The rule of law, OK, that's what we all stand for. Justice and equality for everybody. I mean that's what guides me. That's my North Star I guess you could say. And I looked at the FBI as my second family, OK? And then I found out it was like -it was a shock that maybe your family wasn't as wholesome as you thought. And it was very difficult for me to actually conceive the fact that the FBI would be doing these things to his children, to employees. And when the first started I said, "Well I support the suit in spirit, but I have not directly been involved or been a victim of discrimination. But then as the suit progressed I talked to more and more people involved in the suit and then as it turned out I was subject to a transfer from Washington, D.C., to Miami and there were some logistical issues where the FBI transferred someone from Miami to Washington at a full-paid transferred, but when it came time to transfer me to Miami they said, "Well we're doing you a favor by sending you to Miami. You have to pay your own way to Miami." It's like wait a minute, isn't the government supposed to transfer its employees? They said, "Yes, but we're going to send your paycheck to Miami. If you want it you got to go down there." So anyway, that happened after the lawsuit had been going on for a while so I joined at the very end as a witness for the Perez side. And it was very difficult, it was very difficult to testify. It was like -as Sam said- it was like one of the most difficult things I've done, probably more so or almost as bad as getting shot because I felt I was betraying a trust, you know, against an organization that's bigger than anyone. It was bigger than me. But then I stopped to rationalize it, you know, the trust had already been betrayed coming this way. Trust is a two-way street, OK? And when I realized the trust had been betrayed coming this way, I didn't feel so bad when I thought I was betraying the trust going that way. Hope that answers your question. >> Samuel Martinez: I joined the lawsuit and I had a reason for it, but if I didn't have a reason for it I still would have seen it with the assignments and being part of the Taco Circuit, part of the angle helpers. I mean I was dragged all over the place. Agents liked me because I did their investigations and I did their work. But I thought it was unfair and that's why the judge found systemic discrimination within the FBI because of the system that they had in place and using it, so I would have joined even if these incidents hadn't happened to me. Any other questions? >> Ed Mireles: Just to follow up on what Sam said, our promotion system is based on your performance, OK? How many arrests have you made in the year 2016? How many people have you interviewed? How many people have you indicted? How many people have you, you know, prosecuted? And so on and so forth. If you are TDY from your office, from your cases, for 3 months and some cases 6 months, OK? That's 6 months of you not working, you're stuck. So you have less stats, less evidence to prove your worth, prove your contribution to the cause. And the other guys, the guys that Sam would have to help, they would get their stats, you know. Sam would help them arrest people and indict people and interview people. But he never got the credit. The other guy got the credit, OK? So it's like Sam's like [phonetic], "Hey Sam, you only have 2 arrests this year and Bill over there has 22." It's like, "We're going to promote Bill." It's like wait a minute, I helped Bill with those 22 arrests. So that's how it affected the individuals. >> Samuel Martinez: What Ed's talking about is your statistical accomplishments. But then I spoke last week it's also your administrative profile. And your administrative profile is sometimes more important than your statistics. If you look at some of the way promotions happen within an agency it's who you know and not what you know and so sometimes that happens. You have a question? >> Just a quick follow-up. Was [phonetic] there a mechanism now in place as a follow-up to kind of that discrepancy where someone assists in helping you by providing translation or arrests, etc., like now they get credit as well? >> Samuel Martinez: Well now they have Spanish speakers that aren't agents. A lot of them are doing what they call the wires; interceding the conversations. They have them doing that. But as far as -I know that they were making attempts to hire more Spanish speakers. One of the things I didn't mention was that if you were Anglo and came in under the Spanish program, there was a period where they allowed you to opt out. Well that policy never said it's only for Anglos so some Hispanic read it and said, "Hey, I want to get out of the program." I said, "No you can't because you're Hispanic." So it was unfair in that system. But yes, I'm pretty sure that there's still cases out there where somebody needs a Spanish speaker because he goes into an area where a case agent may not speak Spanish. I'm not sure how they're accredited now, but the burden on Hispanics has diminished. I spoke to an agent last week who came out to the presentation and he said it's a lot better than what it was. Yes, madam? >> Do you have any advice for young Hispanics entering the FBI or other organizations like the FBI? Is it really just networking or are there other things [inaudible]? >> Samuel Martinez: Do I have any advice for people coming into the FBI? Yes. It's a great organization. There's a lot of excitement. Each day is different. You work with good people. [ Laughter ] Mostly good people -until they get into management then they become evil. But no, I have great friends and great colleagues in the bureau. It's a great career and I recommend that field of work. They've now gone from the criminal side more to security side because of the terrorism threats in this country. But it's an exciting field and it's a great opportunity for women and women are promoted and they're in charge of offices and everything else. So it's a good opportunity. I have some books that are signed back there to sell. It's also on audible.com, but if you live in D.C. it's under 10 hours so in 2 commutes you can go through the book. [ Laughter ] But thank you very much for having me and having Ed up here. We appreciate it. [ Laughter ] >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov.