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Members on Outreach 1: Nuyorican Dream

Published on August 20, 2001

Lessons Learned From the Outreach Campaign for Nuyorican Dream

Film Description:

Nuyorican Dream, directed by Laurie Collyer, follows five years in the life of the Torres family, a New York Puerto Rican family struggling against poverty, drug addiction, and incarceration - the flip side of the American Dream. The film validates the struggles that low- income Latinos have to face on a daily basis. Eldest of five children, Robert Torres is the narrator and the only family member to finish high school and graduate from college. This feature-length, cinema verit documentary captures the emotional immediacy of a family in free-fall without a social safety net.

The Incentive to do Outreach

Nuyorican Dream

Nuyorican Dream was purchased by HBO's Cinemax Reellife and broadcast in October 2000. While this venue reached an audience of millions, the filmmakers wanted to prolong the life of the documentary beyond broadcast. The director and the producers both felt that Nuyorican Dream had the potential to inspire Latinos to reflect on their own lives, to share their experiences with others and to organize around economic justice issues. They wanted to make sure the film would be seen in environments where it could directly impact communities.

Identifying the Issues:

They were first faced with the task of figuring out what issues the film raised and in what context they could be presented most effectively. Through Robert's voice the film examines the social conditions that have affected his family over the years:

Poverty: Robert's mother immigrated to New York because of her dire economic situation in Puerto Rico.
Education: Shot in a poor inner city neighborhood, the film portrays the struggle to get a good education without enough educational and economic resources.
Drugs: One of the younger members of the Torres family is addicted to crack and another was arrested for drug trafficking.
Teen Pregnancy: All of the women in the Torres family have given birth in their teens.

Goals:

To provide a tool for organizations working on the social problems addressed in the film, specifically prevention programs for at-risk youth.
To encourage young people to actively participate in social change
To promote discussion amongst Latino College Students. "Many college students are eager to learn about their cultural backgrounds and the issues that affect their communities. Hence, we felt that Latino college students would be very receptive to the film because it addresses the conditions of poverty in the community with which they identify. By reaching out to college students we wanted to tap into their enthusiasm to raise awareness of Latino and social issues," explains Carla Gutierrez, outreach coordinator for Nuyorican Dream.

Funding/Resources:

The producers at Big Mouth Productions were able to set aside $3,500 for outreach from the Cinemax licensing fee. With this money they hired Carla Gutierrez as the Outreach Coordinator. They paid her $1,000 per month, three days a week for three months. The remaining $500 was spent on printing, shipping and phone calls.

Gutierrez says that "Due to the limited time and resources for the outreach campaign, we focused on states with the largest Puerto Rican populations: New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Washington DC and Maryland."

Tips and Tricks:

Gutierrez's next task was to find institutions and community groups who may be interested in showing the film and leading a targeted discussion.

In looking for nonprofit organizations that may be interested in screening the film Gutierrez used the database of nonprofits on MediaRights.org. She had searched the database using the following terms: Latino organizations, youth programs, drug addiction treatment and prevention programs, and juvenile justice organizations. Gutierrez sent out a mailing to the organizations she found through MediaRights.org. Out of 430 letters sent, 31 were returned (7%) because the organization had moved or no longer existed. She also made follow up calls to all the organizations for which she had detailed contact information.
Gutierrez contacted college students at seventy colleges and universities. "Taking into consideration that Latino students plan activities and cultural events for Latino Heritage Month (in October) very early in the school year, we focused on this target audience first," explains Gutierrez. She used online search engines to look for student groups and college administrations. She sent out emails providing information about the film and proposing a screening/event. Latino students from a total of 14 schools responded enthusiastically and requested more information.

Results:

Robert Torres was invited to six schools to lead post-screening discussions.
Gutierrez found that direct phone calls were most successful with the organizations working with at-risk youth. Many of the organizations had not paid much attention to the letter sent to them previously, but once she started talking to them they became interested. She referred a total of 28 organizations to California Newsreel to purchase a video and fifteen of these seemed interested purchasing one. She continues to coordinate the outreach events and to direct organizations to California Newsreel.
One of the nonprofit organizations Gutierrez found through MediaRights.org, The University Settlement Society of New York, became extremely interested in possibly inviting Robert to screen the film and to lead a discussion. However, the organization lacked the facilities or resources to program a screening for its clients. At that time she also learned that the Graduate Students of Color Coalition at New York University wanted to organize a screening. So, Gutierrez decided to connect the two screenings and requested NYU schedule the screening of Nuyorican Dream in a larger auditorium so that she could invite the University Settlement Society and other non-profits in New York city to attend the event and discussion. She also sent a tape to the World Bank for their film series to which Latino organizations will be invited. In addition, she started a listserv email campaign around New York activist organizations.

What Could Have Worked Better:

Gutierrez learned that many schools schedule their Latino awareness events at different times throughout the year (not necessarily during the National Latino Heritage Month), and that students take a long time to respond to the information sent to them. Due to these facts, she is still getting requests from students to schedule screenings for the year 2001 even though her work on the outreach for Nuyorican Dream is technically finished. There may be a lesson here to allow enough time to develop relationships and spread outreach over a longer time period.
From Gutierrez's communication with these non-profits she learned that many of the organizations providing human services are not used to incorporating media into their programs. There was also a concern that the 82 minute documentary was too long to fit into their schedules. They found that many organizations do not have the facilities or resources to set up screenings for their clients.
The original outreach plan included finding an organizational partner. This partner would help them hook up with social service organizations working directly with their target audiences. Gutierrez solicited one of the most well respected Latino organizations: the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Educational Fund (PRLDEF). She felt that the PRLDEF's involvement in the outreach campaign and endorsement of the film would provide access to their target groups and result in enthusiastic reception of the film by other local organizations. They were also based in New York city, making them a likely partner. Unfortunately, several members of the PRLDEF staff perceived the characters presented in the film to be negative stereotypes of the Latino community. The filmmakers respectfully disagreed but were unable to sway the organization. However, they did gain valuable experience in dealing with a delicate political situation.