San Juan Hill

A memoir of a young boy growing up in the Amsterdam projects during the 1950's. It is a coming of age story that chronicles the lives of a generation of urban youth growing up on the crest of the Civil Right Movement, in a diverse community coalescing to meet the future; it is the saga of a communities' triumphs and failures filled with rich characters whose ordinary lives are both repelling and inspiring - it is the story of how from the wretched arose the worthy. This story is told with the kind of affection people have for a childhood spent in a middle-class safe haven. People from the projects don't feel this way - outsiders would think what an odd sentiment to hold about a place that suggests poverty and hardships, and we had them in abundance, but we seldom focused on it and we never gave in to it. There isn't one of us who would say that we were poor although back then, many of us didn't have two nickels to rub together. Poverty isn't just about the lack of money; it's also about the lack of spirit, we had plenty spirit.