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Nuyorican Dream
 
Directed By: Laurie Collyer
Produced In: USA, 2000
Running Time: 97 minutes
Genre: Documentary
Language: English and Spanish with English Subtitles
Themes: Cultural Identity: Latino, Drugs and Addiction, Immigration, Puerto Rico
Distributor: California Newsreel
Synopsis:
In an American media landscape offering few Puerto Rican stories, NUYORICAN DREAM makes an urgent and resounding arrival. Combining cinema verite and personal documentary with astounding access to her subjects over a seven-year period, director Laurie Collyer delivers a powerhouse of emotion and insight with this chronicle of the struggles and aspirations of three generations of the Marta Gutierrez family. The film follows Robert Torres, Marta's eldest son and the only member of his family to finish both high school and college and make it out of the Bronx tenements. College was supposed to lead to the American Dream, but the experience of transcending class has alienated Robert from his classmates and, ultimately, his family. Two of his sisters battle drug addiction, and his younger brother attempts to stay out of jail while his mother shoulders the family problems, housing both children and grandchildren on a meager income. Robert's position between the worlds of school and the street lends the film a powerful double consciousness: a deeply personal and sympathetic view of his troubled family and an incisive analysis of the effects of colonialism and poverty on Puerto Rican people.
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