I dedicate this book to my grandmother Luz, and my mother Angela.
Through their positive actions and struggle, they unknowingly taught me to visualize more than what I can physically see.

Te quiero mucho mama!
Te quiero mucho mami!
 

Preface

    96 Street and Lexington Ave, a neighborhood with a mixture tenement buildings, high rises, copy centers, convenient stores, modern supermarkets and clean parks.  You'll see a few Latinos and blacks in the area who might live there, or come from their neighborhoods to experience what it's like to play in a clean park, and play basketball on a decent court with a hoop that has a real backboard and a net, not like in El Barrio, which has buckets hanging off light poles tied together with electrical wires.  In the 96 street park, kids can swing on real swings, and climb real monkey bars, not like the ones in El Barrio with jagged edges that penetrate your skin instantly on contact.  In the 96 street park, the water fountain actually works, and provides real water, not mud, or nothing at all.  Kids actually get wet while playing with real sprinklers, not like in el Barrio, where although it is illegal, kids find a monkey wrench to crack open the nearest fire hydrant to get blown away by its powerful force when  opened all the way. 

    Hello! How are you? The greetings most often heard from a friend to a friend around the 96 street areas. Yo! Wat up? The greetings most often heard from a homeboy to a homeboy in  El Barrio, Spanish Harlem.  There is a visually noticeable difference once you cross the invisible border into El Barrio walking from 96 street.  Hooked up cars drive by playing hip hop tunes with thumping base sounds generated by expensive amps and boosters which travel the sounds to speakers easily kicking over 200 watts. Arms hang out from the driver's side window displaying thick and expensive gold jewelry holding wrists hostage.  Need to put a spell on someone? Go to El Barrio, the botanists will help you to keep that certain someone away, or how to attract the one you love who might not be loving you back.  He'll also help you with your sicknesses by putting together concoctions made from different plants and other natural elements, which are imported, because our soil and even the climax will not allow them to grow.  Need good luck? He'll whip something up for that also. Just make sure you show up before the job interview, and not after. You won't find authentic condiments for your exotic Spanish recipe on 96 street, but go to El Barrio, where Dominicans, Mexicans, and Puerto Ricans have stored on shelves and in small plastic bags, the real thing! No preservatives. These folks barely have room for science and its alteration of what might still be considered natural. Want to drink a real Papaya drink, or a morir sonando? You know where to go. 

    Reads like an urban fairy tale doesn't it?  Not when the neighborhood police is constantly up your ass because they don't like how you look, or how you're dressed, or the fact that you might be a decent young man simply living in a place they consider indecent, and full of parasites who contribute nothing to the positive advancement of the human species.  It is true, that there are parasites in the neighborhood. How can I deny that?  How can I think that El Barrio is full of positive people who just want to help and mean no harm?  How can I for one second believe that we are so good, and are just treated bad just because?  How can I for one second not realize that there are so many negative elements roaming the neighborhood?   How can I entertain this ignorant thought?  I don't. Because just as the negative elements exist in our  neighborhood, El Barrio, they also exist everywhere else, including 96 Street. Just so happens that we are a bit more exposed, and what happens when things are exposed? People can see them better.

    I can see the drug addict going through the desperation of figuring out how the next high will come about.  I can see the drug dealer waiting for the addict to bring along the right amount of cash for that next high.  I can see the cautionary measure the dealers take to make sure they don't get caught handing over a bag or a rock.   I can see it all. As a matter of fact I know them all.  They're my friends.  Behind these so called parasites, there is still a soul, a heart, and plenty of room filled with goodness.  As much as I can see the negative elements, I can also see the positive, and they come from the same place.  This book is a semi-autobiographical account of growing up in El Barrio, Spanish Harlem, and how all the elements you find in what you would consider a negative environment, are not all negative. How sometimes, someone like myself who grew up in this environment, can sit in a meeting for any major company and offer advice and solutions without ever completing a 101 course on anything.  How someone in this environment can pay more attention to the real things in life, and at the same time, see right through an executive of any major company, while he gives a speech full of flaws and promises that sometimes are not kept. How someone from this so-called negative environment, always had the opportunity to sit with these great minds.  How someone like myself can come up with ideas worth millions, and never get any real credit, or recognition.  How just because you're different, they laugh in your face at suggested solutions, which are ahead of their mentality, but because your title is not a certain rank, they mean nothing. Welcome to my hood, welcome to my mind, welcome to my soul, welcome to El Barrio. 

Danny Contreras