Isabel's Hand-Me-Down Dreams

Uprooted from Puerto Rico to Spanish Harlem in New York City at the age of three, Isabel and her siblings are raised by their single mother and grandmother in a stifling, claustrophobic upbringing that paradoxically fosters her imagination. Without support and guidance in a teeming metropolis where few understand their language and culture, Isabel learns to rely on herself to overcome adversity against reason and others' discouragement. The roads she takes are paved with startling events as she forges forward with blind faith, unaware that her childhood fantasies would eventually be recaptured in the crowning pages of her life story. Told with panache and comedic flair and saturated with the color and vibrancy of life in El Barrio in the turbulent sixties and spirited seventies, Isabel immerses us in her proud cultural heritage while asserting her conviction that it's never too late to find happiness.