El Barrio, Spanish Harlem. The home of the Puerto Ricans.

Juan Campos was Puerto Rican, and he’d lived in El Barrio all his life. When he was seven his father had died and his mother Maria had struggled hard, taking cleaning jobs mostly, to support her only child.

Life in El Barrio was tough, but the spirit of Maria Campos was strong. She was proud of her heritage. She loved to cook the rich, spicy mixture of Spanish, Taino and African dishes that was the Puerto Rican cuisine. Black bean soup, pollo con arroz, stews, mofongo and deep fries, coconut and plantain, okra and passion fruit—these were the staples of Juan’s diet. Sometimes Maria would go out, and dance to the beating drums of the bomba, or the lively guaracha. These were the few times that Juan ever saw his mother truly happy.

Above all, however, Maria Campos was possessed of a burning ambition. She knew that her own life was unlikely to change, but she could dream for her son, and her dreams were grand.

“Remember the great José Celso Barbosa,” she would tell him. Barbosa had been a poor Puerto Rican, with imperfect sight, who’d worked his way out of poverty, become the first Puerto Rican to gain an American medical degree, and ended his life as a hero and benefactor of his fellow countrymen. “You could be like him, Juan,” she’d told the little boy. Barbosa had been dead a long time, and Juan would have been the living hero, like Roberto Clemente the baseball star. But since he was small and short-sighted, Juan knew he couldn’t hope for that destiny. All the same, he did his best to follow his mother’s precepts—except in one respect.

“Stay away from your cousin Carlos,” she always told him. But Juan had soon figured out that if he wanted to survive on the mean streets of El Barrio, then the person he needed more than anyone else was his tall and handsome cousin Carlos.

Every street has its gang, and every gang its leader. Among the kids where Juan lived, Carlos’s word was law. If a boy wanted to rob a store, or sell drugs, or anything else, then he’d be a fool to try it without Juan’s permission. If anyone laid a finger on a kid under Carlos’s protection, they could expect a beating they’d never forget.

If Juan was small and didn’t see too well, God had given him talents to make up for these disadvantages. He was lively, he was naturally kind, and he was funny. It wasn’t long before Carlos had decided that his little cousin belonged under his wing. The gang adopted him as a kind of mascot. If Juan’s mother wanted him to study at school, that was okay. What else could a kid like that do? For the rest of his childhood, no one gave Juan any trouble.