NCPRR NYC to meet August 27

Community calendar

Chapter meeting 6:30 p.m., Thursday, August 27 CSS BUILDING, 105 East 22nd Street, 4th Floor conference Room 4A, Manhattan For more information on the NCPRR, go to www.ncprr.us.

A Q&A with Whose Barrio's Ed Morales

Ed Morales and Laura Rivera are both journalists who were inspired to do the “Whose Barrio?" documentary, which focuses on the gentrification or the selling of NYC’s Spanish Harlem, El Barrio.

East Harlem is one of the hardest hit Latino strongholds in the city impacted. Many Latinos have fallen victim to raising rents, new buildings not suitable for the working class, and small businesses forced to close or relocate. In this documentary, you will hear from activists, artists, elected officials, and groups who are combating this sensitive issue and get a picture of the rapidly changing barrio.

Q: Why East Harlem? What was it about the community that got you into doing the movie?

A: First of all, my parents came to New York from Puerto Rico and they met while living in East Harlem. I have had several relatives who have lived there, and I still have an aunt who lives there. In 2002, I wrote a story for the New York Times about gentrification of East Harlem because I’d heard from some friends who were living there and were upset about it. I also consulted with Arlene Dávila, who was in the process of writing a book about gentrification of East Harlem. The story interested me because I had lived through gentrification of the East Village (Loisaida) in the ‘80s and ‘90s and I was frankly surprised that the same thing could happen in El Barrio. In 2007, while a Revson Fellow at Columbia University, I took a course on making a documentary and I asked Laura Rivera, who was writing a Master’s thesis on gentrification in El Barrio to be a co-director and co-producer.

Q: This documentary is it mainly about gentrification or the daily lives of people dealing with this issue?

A: The story focuses on a few different situations. One is the contrast between Jose Rivera, a long-time resident of El Barrio who feels like gentrification will price him out, and James Garcia, who is relatively new to New York and moved to the neighborhood from Battery Park City because he felt like it offered “more space for less dollar.” The film also focuses on Movement for Justice in El Barrio, Hope Community, and the debate over the East 125th Street development project, which was approved in October 2008.

Q: I noticed in the earlier previews of the film hardly didn’t get a chance to interview some of the white tenants coming into the community/buying property. Did you want to interview them or did they refuse?

A: We interviewed one white tenant briefly on camera. We felt we wanted to avoid an emphasis on race, so we focused on James Garcia to represent the point of view of the “gentrifier.” In this way, we could show that gentrification is first and foremost a class issue, even though race is clearly involved.

Q: While doing the film, did you get a chance to interview business owners and tenants about what is going on?

A: We did interview several tenants but not as many business owners. We tried to focus on dramatic situations to make the film a little more exciting. Not everyone that we interviewed wound up getting into the movie.

Q: What was the whole budget for the film?

A: We did almost all the work on the film ourselves, except for some camerawork and some sound editing, for which we brought in some outside people. Taking into account our labor and the equipment we bought, as well as tape stock, I would estimate that the budget of the film was about $35,000.

Q: Were you able to several well-known people born/raised in the area?

A: People who appear in the film include Aurora Flores and Dylcia Pagán, who grew up in El Barrio, Mariposa and Vagabond, who are artists that have done a lot of work in the neighborhood over the years, and Melissa Mark-Viverito, the City Councilwoman who represents El Barrio. U.S. Representative José Serrano and Taller Boricua co-founder Fernando Salicrup make brief appearances. Several of James De La Vega’s murals appear.

Q: Some people who are moving in are calling the area SP-HA and many longtime residents are not happy about that. What’s do you think about this?

A: I agree that it’s an irritating name. I resented when real estate developers called Loisaida “Alphabet City” in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Names like that are created to erase the memory of communities that already existed and don’t fit into the cool, exclusive gentrified area developers want to create. It’s dismaying that so many elite types move into a neighborhood like El Barrio and say when they moved in there was “nothing” there, ignoring the thousands around them who have created a living, vibrant community that has survived years of marginalization and poverty.

"Whose Barrio?" made its World Premiere at the New York International Latino Film Festival earlier this summer. The documentary has also been screened at several colleges and other institutions.

"Whose Barrio?" is currently available for screening at universities, community organizations, and cultural institutions. The co-directors are also available for speaking engagements related to the film or on other subjects for a fee.

For more information on institutional copies for sale to any universities and other institutions, e-mail whosebarrio (at) edmorales.net to inquire.

“Whose Barrio” is planned for a screening at the East Harlem Café this September, but the date hasn't been confirmed. The documentary is also entered at various film festivals around the country.

To view the trailer for "Whose Barrio?," go to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N9IhwXsvDI
-- Ismael Nunez

Ismael Nunez is a contributing writer to Puerto Rico Sun.

Happy birthday to Sol

Sol, the mascot of Puerto Rico Sun Communications and the face of the PRSUN for the ASPCA campaign, turns 6. She is my beautiful feisty boricua cat. She is a rescue from the island.

To celebrate, support the PRSUN for the ASPCA campaign.

Go to

http://www.change.org/actions/view/prsun_for_the_aspca

(photo by Clarisel Gonzalez of Sol's birthday 2008)

Senator reacts to city's plans to create commercial kitchen space at La Marqueta

Here are a few photos I shot inside La Marqueta during a visit earlier this summer with the NYC Collective of the Puerto Rican Photographic Society:



I recently went to La Marqueta and hope not to return until there is new life there. It is a depressing place to visit and something must be done and very soon to revitalize La Marqueta in NYC's El Barrio, which at one time was a happening place. The place feels like a ghost town. It is sadly not worth visiting.

On the day I went, there was an outdoor festival at La Marqueta, but the community festivals don't change the fact that La Marqueta is an empty place on most days of the week. It's really sad. There are a few and I mean a few vendors still there. One said he is counting the days for his lease to be up to go out of business for good.

The city now wants to create a commercial kitchen space at La Marqueta, but whatever happens there should include the needs of community residents, and it should live up to its name "La Marqueta." The place is significant in the story of Puerto Ricans in New York City and that can't be forgotten. But whatever it is, it should be done and soon. 

Here's a press release from Senator Jose M. Serrano on the latest on the plan for La Marqueta:

Senator José M. Serrano (D-Manhattan/Bronx) today weighed in on the city's plan to create commercial kitchen space in La Marqueta, calling it a visionary idea but one that must be implemented with utmost consideration for the needs of local residents.   "Kitchen incubation can help return La Marqueta to its former glory, and at the same time create jobs and spur grassroots development," said Serrano. "You just need the right ingredients."   The city-owned space is located along Park Avenue, from East 111th to East 119th Streets, below the Metro North railroad tracks. A bustling market, created by Mayor LaGuardia in the 1930s, it now houses just a handful of food sellers. "Any new development at La Marqueta must address the lack of healthy and affordable food in East Harlem," said Serrano, who last year mapped out the closure of supermarkets throughout the neighborhood, and has come out in support of city and state measures to stem the tide.   "Everyone loves baked goods and pastries, but we'll also need to incubate kitchens that create high-nutrition meals with fish, non-fatty meats, and fresh fruit and vegetables."   He added that healthy food and ethnic food are not mutually exclusive. "Take a look at the Manhattan Borough President Stringer's Go Green East Harlem Cookbook for some extraordinary examples of Latino and African-American dishes that are easy on the arteries."   "But healthy food means nothing if you cannot afford it," said Serrano, who noted that 30,000 East Harlem residents use food stamps. "The green markets, and even the big box stores, are accepting food stamps. Let's make sure the city's own incubator program follows suit."   Serrano said he believes the La Marqueta site can help foster immigrant-owned businesses. "Some of the best food in the city is being made by immigrants who cannot get a retail store, or even a permit to sell on the street."   He pointed to a 2007 report, "A World of Opportunity," by the Center for an Urban Future that highlighted the high costs of real estate and insurance as barriers to success for immigrant entrepreneurs in the food industry. The report noted that "immigrant-owned firms are more likely to operate with razor-thin profit margins and less apt to set up accounting and management systems to help them deal with these costs."   Serrano said he was encouraged by the potential for business services and consultation as part of the La Marqueta program.   "But these firms are not going to succeed if they never get in the door. I would like to see a comprehensive outreach plan from the city for connecting the new space with underserved and sometimes disengaged populations in our community," he said.   "Finally, we must envision the Park Avenue corridor as a whole. Much of the area under the viaduct is currently devoted to storage or parking. I believe it could be put to more effective use. Residents already utilize the open space for passive recreational activities such as playing dominoes. Why not redesign this to accommodate local needs by installing permanent domino tables, and making improvements to the lighting and landscape?"   He concluded: "If the viaduct has always been a barrier that divided East and Central Harlem, it can certainly become a dynamic bridge between these two communities in the future."

Puerto Rican crime film as protest

Film

This year PRdream’s Summer Film Fest in East Harlem kicks off tonight with La Venganza de Correa Cotto.

PRdream presents two Puerto Rican crime films La Venganza de Correa Cotto, directed by Jeronimo Mitchel; and La Palomilla (tomorrow night), directed by Efrain Lopez Neris, as an exploration of crime as a form of protest. Classics in their own right, they were produced in Puerto Rico in the seventies and reflected an earlier period of transformation and transvaluation of island society brought on by U.S. investment policies known as Operation Bootstrap.

These films portray the law as an external imposition, foreign to the values of the common folk, and the outlaw as the unconscious expression of revolt. Both Correa Cotto and Jose Anibal Gerena Lafontaine (La Palomilla) were simple men, thrust by circumstances into extraordinary acts of transgression that challenged the colonial status quo. Correa and Gerena were men of their times, embodying the passions of a people experiencing the trauma of rapid urbanization and displacement. Anthony Felton who also produced Correa Cotto: Asi Me Llaman will be present for a Q&A after the film. Jaime Sanchez. A leading actor in both Puerto Rican and American cinema, who stars in La Palomilla will be present after that screening. Ritchie Velez, an actor who appears as a cell mate in La Palomilla will also be present. Some graphic scenes.

PRdream's summer films are in the 103rd Street Community Garden (103rd Street and Park Avenue). Free admission.

For the rest of the lineup for this year's outdoor film festival, go to www.prdream.com. For more information,  Judith Escalona at 212.828.0401 or judith.escalona (at) gmail.com.