About
Director’s Statement
I grew up on the corner that this story primarily takes place on, 93rd and Columbus, in the same rent-stabilized building where my grandmother raised my mom and aunt. My late mother instilled in me a keen awareness that the neighborhood’s Black and Latinx community has this deep connection to each other that outsiders are usually unaware of. And many feel it’s their responsibility to single-handedly keep the memories of their community alive amongst themselves despite the community’s story having city-wide, national, and global implications.
My childhood terrace overlooks the corner where most of the group’s activities occur. So from my youth, I always had a warm feeling about the Puerto Rican flag that goes up on the corner annually. But I never knew it was Chino and the group that did this ritual until I saw them doing it for the first time in 2020. Working with La Familia on this collaborative project has been a healing & fulfilling exploration of home for me where I learned more than I ever imagined I would at the outset. My mom has since passed away and there’s a theme within the story of Chino helping memorialize people who played a role in the old community so I also see the project as a memorial of sorts or co-collaboration with my mom who was the one to tell me about their story in the first place.
The Story
The film delves into the lives of several community members of La West Side Familia, a Puerto Rican-led biker gang and community group on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, through intimate, humanistic, and emotional portraits, offering an insight into their commitment to safeguarding their neighborhood from gentrification and cultural erasure.
Established in 1974, this group was founded by a group of politically active pre-teens of all races, who wanted to look out for each other and empower the people of their neighborhood. Inspired by the fervor of civic organizations in the ‘70s like the Black Panthers and Young Lords, as well as participating in the squatters' movement, they became committed to community care. In the present day, members of La Familia are still striving to make a positive impact on their community. They fill their days alongside one another engaging in initiatives like street cleaning, advocating for community clubhouses to keep kids off the streets, and patrolling the streets in an effort to deter crime. However, their efforts encounter resistance, with some neighbors expressing feelings of decreased safety in their presence.
We enter the narrative of the group through Chino Familia, the group's Boricua godfather, a tattooed man with a tough exterior adorned with pro-Black/pro-Boricua patches on his leather vest. Chino was involved in the squatters' rights movement and the Puerto Rican liberation movement from a young age, later joining the Black Panthers and Young Lords, including going with the Young Lords to take of the Statue of Liberty to put the Puerto Rican liberation movement on the national stage. Chino's vision for La West Side Familia is rooted in community care and exposing young people to liberation protest movements.
However, after a drive-by shooting in front of their building, which Chino says was targeting someone who lived in the building who wasn’t in his crew, the building’s tenant’s association tries to get the group to leave their hangout area in the plaza in front of their building. Soon after, Chino is arrested for refusing to leave the area he had hung out in his whole life. He fights with the tenant’s association for over seventeen years in court to prevent the building from putting a giant fence around the premises to keep them from hanging out there. And while he deters them from building a fence, the neighborhood witnesses the influx of new businesses, including luxury veterinarian offices, a coffee shop, and an elite pre-school teaching Mandarin which now fill in the former plaza area below the building.
LA WEST SIDE FAMILIA captures the fundamental tension that exists because of the group’s continued presence in the rapidly gentrified neighborhood. Some neighbors feel threatened by them as if they're dangerous–often calling the police on them for gathering on corners, even as they gather to participate in decades-long rituals like the 25-year-old tradition of holding an annual vigil in honor of a friend who died young. This profiling thwarts the entirety of the group’s self-proclaimed identity as stewards of the neighborhood who try to better the community and preserve inclusive neighborhood cultural traditions like annually hanging a Puerto Rican flag on their corner ahead of the parade and politicking to get permits for the neighborhood reunion block party.
The film weaves between the community's present-day activities and their past glory days of activism and culture in the 1970s and ‘80s as well as their challenges. Other community members, such as famous graffiti writer George Morillo, early hip hop dance pioneer “popmaster” Fable Familia, photographer Maximo Colon, original members Felix Familia and Louis Familia, city council member & former Manhattan borough president Gayle Brewer, and NY District Attorney Alvin Bragg contribute to the narrative, offering diverse perspectives on the neighborhood's history and current challenges.
The Style
Stylistically, the documentary mirrors the eclectic energy of the Upper West Side. This documentary is inspired by some of my favorite documentaries like Bobbito Garcia’s Netflix doc Stretch and Bobbito: Radio That Changed Lives, Rock Rubber 45s or HBO’s The Stroll. I value these stories because their artistic approach and style capture the fun energy and spirit of Black and Latinx people being their raw authentic selves on camera while telling culturally impactful and inspiring stories. They also are very grounded in location, often making it feel like a character, and maintain a specific cultural point of view regarding their slices of New York life. The tone of the film will be entertaining and captivating, with a quirky upbeat charisma and humor driven by the participants themselves who highlight a unique Black and Latinx perspective of the Upper West Side.
Longing to be more than a historical overview of the neighborhood and its residents, the film is full of joyful silly moments, heartwarming moments, as well as the sad, anxiety-inducing, or infuriating moments that blend organically in a realistic mosaic of their lives. Similarly to the documentaries that I draw inspiration from, the Upper West Side becomes a character through sensory experiences of various cultural events in the neighborhood such as lively outdoor scenes from the Puerto Rican Day Parade, the annual neighborhood reunion block party that former residents travel across the country for, and the neighborhood walking tours led by La Familia members that highlight how the neighborhood is stratified often on the same city blocks. Even the stiller moments of sit-down interviews are done on balconies against backdrops of the beautiful summery neighborhood expanse. This approach will contribute to a vibrant picture of a neighborhood that’s working to preserve its environment’s cultural traditions within its physical and social spaces.
The Context
The Upper West Side of Manhattan is known primarily as a wealthy predominantly white neighborhood in popular imagination. But it’s also home to a sizable multi-generation predominantly Black and Latinx community in rent controlled and public housing with a strong community identity, and rich protest and cultural history. The community took historic stands for affordable housing through its little-known yet active squatters' movement and other politicking for rent stabilized units which continue to benefit generations of New Yorkers today. The Black Panthers and Young Lords were active in the neighborhood. And in the 70s, people of all races in the community joined their power in numbers to help one another advocate for their causes, which helped movements like the Puerto Rican liberation movement and Cuban liberation movement gain national momentum. These inspiring political breakthroughs were targeted by the government and weakened by the crack epidemic and AIDS. But culturally, the neighborhood still went on to be a key hub of afro-latin jazz, a haven for writers like James Baldwin, and it became a pioneering bedrock for breakdancing and early hip hop culture.
But the rich history of the Black and Latinx community of the neighborhood has been erased by the city’s gentrification initiatives like Mayor Guliani destroying graffiti walls in iconic locations for hip hop history. Popular entertainment featuring the neighborhood like Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Gossip Girl, or Little Manhattan, centers white narratives. And even within the world of hip hop history, the neighborhood’s often sidelined even though key Upper West break dancers were in the first articles, movies and TV appearances teaching the world about the culture.
The Upper West is one of the few neighborhoods in New York where the mega wealthy share space with a sizable multi-generation community raised in rent stabilized and public housing. This doc captures a rare kind of gentrification story that’s about what it looks like when the typical gentrification tactics to push out “unwanted groups'' don't fully work and wealthy families have to share a local identity with people of color.
There have been plenty of attempts to get rid of this community with political squabbles to raise the rent on rent-controlled apartments, landlords trying to buy people out, illegal eviction attempts, and various intimidation schemes. But despite these attempts, the neighborhood’s lower-income communities have remained largely intact, primarily because of their collective organizing and information sharing. Wealthy neighbors have resorted to segregationist public school zoning, destroying outside benches popular for hangouts and constantly calling the police to break up corner hangouts. But the group continues to challenge the cultural narrative of the neighborhood pushed by gentrifiers with traditions like hanging a Puerto Rican flag on their corner that neighbors then call to have taken down. Their coexistence story exposes the root of the cultural oppression and warfare within gentrification. And it shows how neighbors that stick together can hang on to their homes and community, even up against increasing structural barriers and the wealthiest New Yorkers.
The Audience
This film is first and foremost for anyone who has ever loved the Upper West Side either as a resident, a guest, a worker, a school kid, a passerby, or a movie / TV watcher. But in the editing process, I’m making sure to get notes from people who are both familiar and unfamiliar with the neighborhood to make sure that I can do the story justice while still making it captivating for an outside audience. Because I believe that the themes of community preservation and the lessons of a tight-knit diverse community like this one can benefit outsiders too. The hope is that it can be of interest to viewers looking for anything from a unique New York history story, to a Black history, a Puerto Rican history story, or a modern-day story of gentrification resistance.
Distribution
As for distribution, I intend to submit the project to a host of film festivals, prioritizing New York festivals like Tribecca, DOC NYC, Brooklyn Film Festival, The People’s Festival (Harlem), and the Hip Hop film festival. I’ll also submit it to culturally relevant festivals like Blackstar and the International Puerto Rican Heritage Festival, as well as all the major film festivals. In addition to the festival circuit there will also be at least one free screening in the community, most likely at an auditorium in the Goddard Riverside Community Center, an old neighborhood staple where generations of the community, including myself, went to camp and where parents organized for tenant rights.
Grassroots and direct outreach will serve as a key strategy. Our goal is to disseminate flyers for the documentary strategically throughout key rent-stabilized buildings in the neighborhood, as well as within local stores and the last remaining institutions of the historic community. The utilization of lobby bulletin boards aligns with the cultural practices of the community, where such boards were traditionally employed for various purposes, including the posting of fliers for community organizing meetings or commemorating the passing of longtime residents with photographs. Moreover, considering the proactive interest expressed by individuals during recording sessions inquiring about how to access the film, I have created a listserv of interested parties. This listserv will be utilized to send out emails notifying individuals when it’s time to screen the documentary for the community.
After in-person screenings, I’ll look into whether the film can be licensed to a TV provider or if not, if it can live online with a New York editorial outlet like The New Yorker or The New York Times, or an otherwise reputable archiving cultural institution.
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