“BORICUA SOY YO” A JOURNEY THAT STARTED ON A ROOFTOP IN YABUCOA

Almost four years ago, I embarked on a journey that brought me to Yabucoa, Puerto Rico on a Hurricane Maria relief sponsored by my former employer and All Hands and Hearts, a volunteer-powered nonprofit that addresses the immediate and long-term needs of communities impacted by disasters.

This effort saw me spending over a week on top of a cement roof helping our Puerto Rican brothers and sisters rebuild almost a year to the day when the Hurricane hit the island and came on land in the municipality of Yabucoa. The roof I worked on was a flat cement roof, typical of the many dwellings seen on the island. The roof was heavily damaged, full of cracks that were leaking into the home below. We spent time patching the roof and adding Henry’s white silicone roof coating throughout the entire surface hoping it would give some relief to the poor homeowner who lost everything but the walls of the home to the devastating hurricane that hit the island only a year before.

During the week I spent there, I was surrounded by several non-Puerto Ricans, from all walks of life, many of whom came from different countries that spanned the Americas, North, and South, to Eastern Europe and Asia. On a base of about 70 volunteers, there were about four other volunteers who were of Boricuas. This reality made me sad, and I remember the warm reception I received from one of the owners of the home I was helping rebuild when he learned my mother was from Sabana Grande. Seeing the happiness in his eyes knowing that one of the Boricuas from the mainland was there to help also brought a sad reminder that not many of us showed up for our people on the island.

When I first learned that my employer was partnering with All Hands to send two teams to Puerto Rico post-Maria, I was eager to go. Hearing the sadness in the voice of the homeowner’s words as he lamented how hardly any of the volunteers were Puerto Rican, my decision was cemented. I knew I was where I needed to be.

After my time in Yabucoa ended, I spent the last two days of my time in Puerto Rico in Old San Juan, taking in the sites, culture, and scenery. I hardly ever travel to a new place without a camera in hand and visiting Old San Juan I knew I wanted to film video footage, I just had no real direction. I hit record on my camera, knowing I could always come back to it.

Fast forward two years, and my employer, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic informed me that my position along with countless others was, unfortunately, going to be eliminated due to the economic slowdown and sales projections not meeting expectations.

I was devastated. As a married father of three, with a mortgage and responsibilities that come when one reaches the upper middle class, I didn’t know what to do with myself. Thankfully we had savings, however, I was out of work for about six months.

During that time, I decided to pour my time into what would become my next documentary project. During the fall of 2019, just before the pandemic hit, I completed my first feature-length documentary film, “In Their Words – Of Service and Sacrifice.” This film captured and documented the story of five veterans who served in three different wars.

When I was finally done with “In Their Words,” I was at a complete loss for what I would do as a follow-up. That answer came as I was going through pictures and video that was sitting on my hard drive at home one night and came across the footage, I filmed in San Juan almost two years earlier.

Remembering the pride, I had for how resilient our people were, and how proud I was going there to help rebuild, what little I could, I decided the focus of my next film would be on Puerto Rico, more specifically, what it means to be a Boricua living on the mainland and how Puerto Rican history, art, and culture can mean a lot of things to many people.

It was September 2020, a few weeks removed from losing my job, when I started planning the project that would become “Boricua Soy Yo.” I chose the title specifically because it was grammatically awkward. The phrase “Yo soy Boricua” is one we hear all the time, however I wanted to differentiate it, and make it sound like something that someone who isn’t completely fluent in Spanish would say.

Soon after I put together an outline for my project, one that consisted of the history of Puerto Rico’s relationship with the US after the island became a colony in 1898, to Puerto Rican politics, art, and culture, I started reaching out to professionals on the college level, scoring a few interviews with two well respected University of Central Florida professors, Sociologist Dr. Fernando Rivera and historian and author Dr. Luis Martinez-Fernandez. After reviewing the footage from those two interviews, I knew the idea of telling “our” stories was the right decision.

Thanks to social media connections and networking, I was able to make a few connections with folks in the Puerto Rican community here in Buffalo. Living in Orlando at the time, I knew I could have a solid connection to the large Puerto Rican population there in Central Florida, however, because “Boricua Soy Yo” was such a personal project, I knew I wanted to film some of it here in my own hometown of Buffalo, specifically on the Puerto Rican West Side.

In mid-October 2020, I booked a trip to Buffalo, to visit my mother and schedule and film interviews with a number of Puerto Rican mainstays in our city such as Beatriz Flores of El Batey; Alberto Cappas of this very publication, the Buffalo Latino Village; Efrain Burgos of Efrain’s Hair Salon on Niagara Street; and Martiza Vega of the Hispanic Heritage Council of Western New York to name a few.

The interview sessions with each one of these local subjects were eye-opening and really invigorated me into seeing this project through. For those who aren’t familiar with independent filmmaking, it can be a very lonely journey, and although I had a hand from my young cousin Kyle Berrios with filing some of the interviews, much of the work on this project, a good portion of it, to be honest, was me showing up with cameras in hand and having a conversation.