Oral history interview with Carlos Pagan, 2015

Biographical Note

Carlos Pagan is the founder of the rehabilitation program El Regreso (Project Return) and a former resident of Phoenix House

Scope and Contents

In the first session, Carlos Pagan discusses his initial involvement with Phoenix House and his role in founding the program. He explains how he joined Efrén Ramirez's rehabilitation program after years of chronic drug abuse and details how that initial program grew in membership and gradually evolved into Phoenix House. Pagan credits the creation of Phoenix House to the support group of six founding members that he maintained, and a move from Hart Island to Manhattan, which put the group out on their own. In the second session, Pagan discusses the dynamic that existed between the original six members of Phoenix House, as well as his childhood upbringing in Williamsburg as a young Puerto Rican immigrant. Pagan details the beginning of his drug use in the mid-1950s, due to his gang involvement and his subsequent bouts with incarceration. He explains how he joined Efrén Ramirez's program to rehabilitate and how he met the first few members of the Phoenix House program there. He then documents the acquisition of the first house and subsequent expansion

Subjects

• Drug abuse--Treatment--United States.
• Drug addicts--United States.
• Executives--Interviews.
• Gangs--New York (State)--New York.
• Imprisonment--United States.
• Interviews.
• Murphy, Kristin L., interviewer.
• Oral histories (literary works)
• Pagan, Carlos--(El Regreso founder)--Interviews.
• Phoenix House (Organization)
• Substance abuse--Treatment.
• Therapeutic communities.
• Williamsburg (New York, N.Y.)

Access Conditions

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