Laurie Collyer's compelling "Nuyorican Dream," a significant documentary onCinemax tonight, introduces us to Robert Torres, a 30-year-old gay man, a dedicated teacher with a tasteful Greenwich Village apartment and a family racked by drugs and poverty.
Yet this family is held together by deep bonds of love established by their steadfast mother, Marta.
Torres, whose family moved from Puerto Rico to New York City in 1968, provides the narration. He was the eldest of five children and able to comprehend from an early age how a heritage of colonialism, racism, economic deprivation, inferior education, lack of birth control and aversion to abortion have conspired to keep Puerto Ricans a permanent underclass; drugs are a constant temptation for both escape from chronic despair and the promise of quick money.
