Iris De La Cruz – And Her Daughter Melissa: Street Walking Blues – Podcast 143

The Rialto Report

A few years ago, I was researching an article for The Rialto Report when I came across a 1980 radio program from WBAI, a popular New York City station that specialized in progressive and alternative voices at the time. This particular show featured a prostitute named Iris De La Cruz.

Iris wasn’t directly connected to the adult film scene in New York at the time – though she was friends with several of the adult performers – but I knew of her because she wrote for men’s magazines like Cheri, Partner, and Eros. Her monthly columns were an eye-opening account of her life working as a street prostitute, and this edition of the WBAI show was more of the same, with Iris talking about her experiences and then taking questions from callers to the station.

But the reason that I found this show compelling wasn’t just Iris’ connection to the sex business in New York in the 1970s. No, what was startling, jaw-dropping even, was that Iris had brought a guest onto the show, her ten-year-old daughter, Melissa, and was interviewing her in a completely unfiltered way about what she thought of Iris’s street-walking job.

Even for a program from 40 years ago on a counter-cultural station like WBAI, it still makes for a surprising, engrossing, but sometimes jarring, listening experience. In the current age of debate around parental controls, book bans, and school curricula, this frank, public discussion of sex work between a mother and young daughter is an exchange that probably wouldn’t, and couldn’t, happen today.

I listened back to the show several times – and each time, the same questions came into my head.

Who was Iris De La Cruz, and why did she expose her daughter to a potentially traumatic experience at such a young age

Who was Melissa, her daughter, and what did she make of this – would she even remember it today, or did it actually have any lasting effects?

And then, what happened to this mother and daughter in the years after this show was recorded – after all, Iris would likely be in her 70s today, and Melissa in her 50s.

I wanted to find what happened to both of them.

This is April Hall. And this is Iris and Melissa’s story.

This episode’s running time is 61 minutes.

Many thanks to Melissa De La Cruz for her participation and kindness.

Thank you to Veronica Vera for Scarlet Harlot and Aphrodite Awards photos. Visit Veronica’s site for more on New York’s world of sex work, art, and activism.

We never ask you for money or accept any advertisements for what we do, but if this story means something to you, we’d love it if you went to the Iris House website and considered making a donation, however small. We’re not associated with them in any way, but they do such good work and well… we know that Iris would be grateful to you. Thanks so much.

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Iris De La Cruz

Jean Powell, P.O.N.Y. spokesperson before Iris de la Cruz

Iris defending surge pricing

Prostitutes of New York (P.O.N.Y.) newsletter

Sex worker rights activity Scarlet Harlot protesting down by Wall Street in downtown NYC

Aphrodite Awards hosted by Annie Sprinkle (middle) with Iris de la Cruz to her right

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Excerpts from Iris’ publication Kool AIDS On Ice

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Melissa De La Cruz

The opening of Iris House by Melissa de la Cruz and her grandmother in honor of her mother Iris

Early photo of Melissa and her grandmother, Iris’ mother Beverly Rotter

Iris House carrying Iris’ legacy today

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