Nelson Antonio Denis | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Member of theNew York State Assembly from the 68th district | |
| In office January 1, 1997 – January 1, 2001 | |
| Preceded by | Francisco Diaz Jr. |
| Succeeded by | Adam Clayton Powell IV |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1955-06-01)June 1, 1955 (age 70) New York City, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Parent(s) | Antonio Denis Jordan Sarah Denis |
| Education | Harvard University (BA) Yale University (JD) |
Nelson Antonio Denis | |
|---|---|
| Notable work | (Film)Vote For Me! & (book)War Against All Puerto Ricans |
| Awards | "Best Editorial Writing" award from theNational Association of Hispanic Journalists |
Nelson Antonio Denis is an American attorney, author, film director, and former representative to theNew York State Assembly. From 1997 through 2000, Denis representedNew York's 68th Assembly district, which includes theEast Harlem andSpanish Harlem neighborhoods, both highly populated by Latinos.[1][2][3][4]
As the editorial director ofEl Diario La Prensa, Denis published over 300 editorials and won the "Best Editorial Writing" award from theNational Association of Hispanic Journalists.[5][6][7]
His most recent work isWar Against All Puerto Ricans, a non-fiction book, about the life ofPuerto Rican independence leaderPedro Albizu Campos, and the treatment of Puerto Rican nationalists by agencies of the United States government.[8][9][10]
Denis was born in New York Cityborough of Manhattan to Antonio Denis Jordan, a native of Cuba of French descent, and Sarah Denis, originally from Puerto Rico.[11] After his father was peremptorily deported back to his homeland, when Nelson was eight years old, he was raised by his mother and grandmother.[12]
Denis went on to graduate fromHarvard College in 1977, where he earned aBachelor of Arts in Government, and then received aJuris Doctor (J.D.) fromYale Law School in 1980. At Harvard, he acted in dramas, portraying lead roles includingStanley inA Streetcar Named Desire. He then went to work as an attorney with the New York law firm ofDonovan, Leisure, Newton & Irvine.[13][14]
| External audio | |
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 You can hear Nelson Denis on WNYC Radiohere. |
Denis's screenplays have won awards from theNew York State Council on the Arts, theNew York Foundation for the Arts, and CineFestival.[15][16] He also wrote and directed the feature-length filmVote For Me! which premiered at theTribeca Film Festival.[3]
Denis wrote the screenplay adaptation of his own bookWar Against All Puerto Ricans (Nation Books, 2015). According toThe Daily News a feature film ofWar Against All Puerto Ricans was being planned from this screenplay and several actors, includingLuís Guzmán, were interested in the project.[17]
For several years Denis was the editorial director ofEl Diario La Prensa, the largest Spanish-language newspaper in New York City, where he published over 300 editorials and received the "Best Editorial Writing" award from theNational Association of Hispanic Journalists.[5][6][7]
Denis also wrote editorials for theNew York Times,[18][19]Publishers Weekly,[20]The Nation,[21]Harvard Political Review,[22]Daily News,[23][24]New York Newsday,[25]Orlando Sentinel[26] andThe New York Sun.[27]
He was also a cultural and political commentator onWNYC,[28][29]WADO, and other radio outlets.[30]
From 2015 onward, Denis's journalism has focused on the economic crisis in Puerto Rico, and the historical and political underpinnings of this crisis. His editorials in this area have appeared in the New York Daily News,[24]New York Times,[18][19]The Nation,[31][32] Orlando Sentinel,[26] andTruthout.[33] Denis has also appeared onABC TV,[34]C-SPAN,[35]New York 1,[36]MSNBC,[37]Al Jazeera TV,[38] andDemocracy Now![39][40] to discuss the history and current fiscal crisis of Puerto Rico.
Denis also gave radio interviews around the US to discuss conditions on the island: including theBrian Lehrer Show in New York,[41] WBEZWorldview inChicago,[42]WNPR Connecticut,[43]WBAI/The Jordan Journal,[44] andWGBH/The Takeaway.[45]
He is a strong proponent ofPuerto Rican independence because of the "rigged capitalism the United States has forced on its Caribbean colony."[46][21] He has also written extensively about the Jones Act, and its economic impact on Puerto Rico.[18]
His article on the status of Latino publishing in the U.S.[20]was the second most-read editorial inPublishers Weekly for the year of 2017.[47]
Before and during his years as anassemblyman, Denis conducted a neighborhood legal clinic that provided advocacy, advice, and free legal services to the residents ofEast Harlem.[13][14][48][49]
Denis majored in Government at Harvard,[3] and was involved inNew York State government for fourteen years.
In 1995, as deputy director of Yucahu Inc., an East Harlem community group, Denis opposed the merger ofChemical Bank andChase Manhattan due to inadequate service to the community.[50][51]
Denis was a member of the East HarlemCommunity Board (C.B. 11), the Area Policy Board, and the director of strategic planning for theHarlem Community Development Corporation.[13][52][53]
In 1996 Denis won a seat in theNew York State Assembly, where he served as a Democrat from 1997 to 2000, and developed a reputation as a reformer.[54] He was also a New York State Democratic District Leader from 1995 to 2001.[14]
The press noted that his mother, Sarah Denis, worked 12-hour days on the campaign trail and that Denis was himself an untiring campaigner who was "often seen throughout the neighborhood campaigning on the back of a blue bus."[13][55]
In 1994, Denis entered into a controversial relationship with theAlmighty Latin King and Queen Nation. While jogging along theFDR Drive, he ran into a group of 500Latin Kings and recruited them into his campaign for the State Assembly.[52]
Denis and the Latin Kings cleaned up several parks in East Harlem, and attended community board meetings together.[52][55] Denis also pledged that, if he won, he would help the Latin Kings to create a community non-profit corporation, a leadership training course, and a construction apprenticeship program to rehabilitate roughly 800 abandoned buildings in East Harlem.[55]
Denis maintained that "the Kings are the product of 20 years of neglect. These are the youth thatReagan forgot."[55]However, others did not agree. His opponent, the incumbent Assemblyman Angelo Del Toro, said "they're gangsters and a threat."[55]
Another early skeptic was Denis's mother. She laid down rules that included no beepers or babies in the office, but she gradually learned to work with them.[55]
Despite this controversy, theNew York Times endorsed Denis for the State Assembly that year.[56]
Prior to serving in the New York State Assembly, Denis directed TV commercials and several short films, and wrote eight screenplays.[57] His screenplays won awards from theNew York State Council on the Arts, theNew York Foundation for the Arts, and CineFestival.[15][16]
Denis also wrote and directed the feature filmVote For Me! which premiered at theTribeca Film Festival. It also won the Best Picture Award at the 2009Staten IslandFilm Festival, and a Feature Film Award at the 2009OrlandoHispanicFilm Festival.[58][59]
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Starring Malik Yoba (New York Undercover,Soul Food,Cool Runnings); Chi Chi Salazar (Scarface (1983 film),Carlito's Way); Ricardo Barber (The Feast of the Goat);Vote For Me! was a comedy about a 75-year-old Puerto Rican super who runs for the United States Congress.
The film was based on Denis's own experiences in East Harlem. Many East Harlem residents, musicians, and even local politicians appeared in the film, which "blurred the line between reality and fiction to capture the spectacle of New York City politics."[3][57]Vote For Me! screened in over a dozen film festivals in New York andPuerto Rico, and was well received by the press.
The New York Times declared it "reminiscent of Spike Lee'sDo the Right Thing, but with a lighter touch."[3][57]
The Boston Globe found it "ebullient...politically charged...mixes quirkiness and cultural poignancy."[60]
Vote For Me! also received national coverage fromFox News Channel,National Public Radio,Univision,Telemundo,WSKQ FM,MEGA FM,WADO-AM,WNYC, VIVA Magazine,El Diario La Prensa,El Nuevo Dia, Siempre, Hoy, and other news outlets.[61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68]
Denis wrote, produced and directed the feature filmMake America Great Again, a dark comedy about the immigrant experience in America, which premiered at theChelsea Film Festival in New York City.[69]
According toThe Huffington Post, "The film traces the adventures of Rogelio Yola, a dreamer from theDominican Republic who comes to America in search of a job, gets falsely accused of terrorism, and is chased by ICE agents for nearly half the movie. Aside from one of the most outrageous chase sequences in recent cinema history, the film offers an intelligent, ironic and politically astute vision of US immigration policy."[70]
NBC News noted that "Make America Great Again was shot in the diverse neighborhood ofWashington Heights in New York City. Denis intentionally incorporated local landmarks like theUnited Palace Theater, the Iwo Jima Memorial, theMorris-Jumel Mansion, theAudubon Ballroom (whereMalcolm X was shot), and theGeorge Washington Bridge into the film, to make his characters' surroundings part of their story."[71]
Long Island Weekly reported that, "With the daily political narrative being defined within a truth-is-stranger-than-fiction framework, filmmaker Nelson Denis has taken a satirical crack at addressing these strange times we currently live in. The formerNew York State Assemblyman and acclaimed author ofWar Against All Puerto Ricans recently shotMake America Great Again, a feature film that takes a look at the trials and travails of an undocumented immigrant from the Dominican Republic, played by Angel "Chi Chi" Salazar (Scarface (1983 film)."[72]
In New York City, the film received additional newspaper[73] and radio[74] coverage from the Latino press, and was invited to theChelsea Film Festival, for a world premiere on October 20, 2018.[75][76][69]
In Spring 2019,Make America Great Again was commercially distributed inPuerto Rico.[77] While playing in movie theatres throughout the island, the film received major coverage from the island's largest newspapers.[78][79][80][81]
Denis is the author ofWar Against All Puerto Ricans, which was published on April 7, 2015. The book is based on recently declassifiedFBI files, congressional testimony, oral histories, personal interviews and eyewitness accounts. It covers thePuerto Rican Nationalist Party Revolts of the 1950s, a series of coordinated armed protests for the independence of Puerto Rico led by the president of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, DonPedro Albizu Campos.[82][83]
The book also documents how theU.S. Army arrested 3,000 Puerto Ricans, deployed thousands of troops and bombarded two towns in order to stop the uprising - the only time in history that the U.S. government intentionally bombed its own citizens.[82][83]
The US Government also dropped incendiary bombs from bi-planes during the Tulsa massacre of African Americans in 1921, as recorded by Buck Colbert Franklin, a noted Oklahoma attorney in Smithsonian Magazine, December 12, 2018.
On My 13, 1985, Philadelphia Police commissioner, Gregore J. Sambor, ordered a helicopter to drop two one-pound bombs on the roof of MOVE activists. The explosion caused a massive fire destroying an entire city block and the death of 11 inhabitants, mostly children. As described in the May 27, 1985 issue of Time Magazine.
Amongst the reviews for the book, theNew York Times wrote: "Scathing insights into Washington's response to Albizu Campos's nationalist party and its violent revolution in 1950 that still has broad implications...his perspective of largely overlooked history could not be more timely."[8]
TheNew York Daily News wrote: "The book gives a meticulous and riveting account of the decades-long clash between the Puerto Rican independence movement...prepare to be outraged...a timely, eye-opening must-read."[9]Latino Rebels wrote "War Against All Puerto Ricans earns 'instant classic' status…anyone who wants to understand U.S. imperial history from the time ofManifest Destiny needs to read this book."[84]
Mother Jones called the book "The lost history of Puerto Rico's independence movement."[85]
VIBE Magazine wrote that "War Against All Puerto Ricans, in obvious wake of the island's economic turmoil, is relevant in understanding, full circle, why Puerto Rico is where it is today."[86]
Kirkus Reviews described the book as "a scathing examination of American colonial policy in Puerto Rico...a pointed, relentless chronicle of a despicable part of past American foreign policy."[87] InLa Respuesta, the reviewer praised "the book's historical value...a must-read for anyone interested in learning more about Puerto Rico."[88]Gozamos reported that "Nelson Denis doesn't just give us history. He gives us history on fire…a thoroughly researched indictment of over acentury of U.S. policy toward one small island…a full-throated eulogy of brave heroes, men and women of conviction, who devoted every drop of their blood to a people and a principle."[89]
War Against All Puerto Ricans was featured on national and local television, includingDemocracy Now![39][40] andNew York 1.[90] Denis also appeared in radio broadcasts around the US, including theBrian Lehrer Show in New York,[41] WBEZWorldview inChicago,[42]WNPR Connecticut,[43]WBAI/The Jordan Journal,[44] andWGBH/The Takeaway.[45]
Extensive author interviews were also conducted inTruthout,[91]Mother Jones,[85] and the largest newspaper in Puerto Rico,El Nuevo Dia.[92]
TheNew York Daily News noted that theIndependence Party of Puerto Rico scheduled an eight-town tour for the book on the island of Puerto Rico.[93] The Daily News also reported that the book "has become the subject of political water-cooler talk, national TV and newspaper coverage - including a three-part series of articles inEl Nuevo Dia - and a letter from Puerto Rico's governor,Alejandro Garcia Padilla, to the book's domestic distributor recognizing its significance."[93]
A year after its publication,Rain Taxi reported that "Denis's book is a work of history, essential history...an indictment and a call to action."[94]
The book has stirred some controversy. One historian questioned Denis' writing style and "resourceful imagination."[95] Another stated that it contained "extraordinary and incredible assertions" and that Chapter 14 should have "more references."[96] Denis responded to these concerns with a detailed article in theUniversity of Puerto Rico newspaper,Diálogo UPR.[97]
Denis also wrote the screenplay adaptation of his bookWar Against All Puerto Ricans. According toThe Daily News a feature film ofWar Against All Puerto Ricans was being planned from this screenplay and several actors, includingLuís Guzmán, were strongly interested in the project.[17]
In March 2016,El Nuevo Dia, the largest newspaper in Puerto Rico, reported on the 25 best-selling books in Puerto Rico over the past year (2015-2016).War Against All Puerto Ricans topped the entire list.[98]
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{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)| New York State Assembly | ||
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| Preceded by | New York State Assembly 68th District 1997–2000 | Succeeded by |