Educational Media Reviews Online

What is a Nuyorican? According to Marta Torres, it is someone who does not know about Puerto Rico or understand their Puerto Rican heritage. In this video viewers will meet Marta, her children and grandchildren and learn how in her son Robert's words the American Nightmare is the opposite of the American Dream.

Marta left Puerto Rico when Robert was a baby to find a new life. She married and had four other children. She found herself trapped in a two bedroom apartment raising five children and their children. Tati and Beatriz are addicted to drugs. Daniel has been in and out of jail. Robert has graduated from high school and college and teaches at an alternative school he has founded. Youngest sister Millie is trying to avoid the traps that have ensnared her siblings.

During this video viewers get to meet Robert, his mother and each of his siblings. Robert expresses concern about losing touch with his heritage and his family by reaching for the American Dream. However he also makes many comments about how the culture of poverty has hurt people of African-American and Latino heritage by allowing them to be tracked into the lower level classes and into special education courses, keeping them from learning about their heritage and not supplying enough opportunities to get away from poverty. He notes that he had to fight to get into the upper level classes while his siblings gave up and dropped out. Beatriz or Betty as she is known in the film, is addicted to crack and heroin. She talks about her sadness at having to give up her children because she is unable to care for them. Tati is also addicted to drugs and moved to Florida to try and get away from the cycle of drug addiction. However, she too is unable to get away and with the assistance of her husband shoots up heroin at her job. Daniel's arrival home from jail starts the movie. He speaks of his desire to get a job and start a new life but soon finds that finding a job is not as easy as he thinks and he eventually ends up back in jail. When he is released he will have spent half his life in jail; something which angers him because he believes he should have done something better with his life. Much of the movie looks at the sibling's children. Beatriz's eldest daughter is frighteningly perceptive, talking about how she knows her mother is sick and how she plans to spend her life taking care of her. She appears to be comfortable with her life and her place in it.

This is a fascinating and sad video. Each of the children discusses giving up and living in a culture of failure. Each family member faces frustration and a period of decision making from Robert trying to decide whether to give up his life as a teacher and enter the world of business where there would be less frustration and more financial reward to Marta having to deal with raising her grandchildren on welfare and the money she gets selling clothes. Robert points out that fewer Latinos are graduating from high school and college, a problem that will grow as Latinos make up a greater part of the population. This video truly brings home the issues that not only these families face but that we as a people will face as the Latino population grows. However, in the final scene when Marta begins to sob during her birthday party and expresses love for Robert and her children viewers will realize that there is strength and a reliance in many of the family members, a strength and a love that will help them to get through the trials and tribulations that they face.

This video was shot between the years of 1995-1999 and shows the family at their best and worst. It would have been interesting to see how Robert's homosexuality affected his choice of career and his desire to move away from the ghetto, something that is not explored. However this is a fascinating study of a family in poverty and will be a wonderful addition to American studies, sociology, Latino studies, urban studies and education collections.