erate to get to Nueba Yol and achieve the American Dream. “Nueba Yol” is best understood as a mythical land where achieving the American Dream is easy. Marti does not just play the part a movie character. As Balbuena, he personifies the hopes and dreams of all Dominicans who yearn for the existence of a Nueba Yol. He mortgages his humble home to buy a visa from a corrupt American consular officer. With fraudulent visa in hand and a Puerto Rican friend as his guide, he unwittingly departs on a journey for his cherished dreamland. His expectations run high. After all, his friends have assured him that in Nueba Yol money grows everywhere, like lettuce ready for picking; that dollars float down the streets unnoticed.Consistent with his passion for enlightening the nave, Marti shows his Dominican audience the shocking reality behind the mythical Nueba Yol. Before long his character finds immigrant life in America is not at all what he expected. Balbuena’s experience shows that honest money is not so readily earned, and that it can be difficult to find any job. Although he achieves some measure of success with his uncommon pluck, the film clearly paints a bleak picture of Nueba Yol for those who would undertake a similar search for the American Dream. By the film’s end, after multiple shootouts and run-ins with drug lords and exploitative employers, Balbuena is barely alive and longs for home. Of course, this real Nueba Yol plagued with crime and violence is the very New York City frequently portrayed in many Dominican newspapers. Last year, multiple articles appeared in the Listin Diario and Hoy newspapers detailing two particularly disturbing trends in the real Nueba Yol. First, hardworking Dominican taxi-drivers in rough neighborhoods have been recurring victims of homicide. The New York state legislature responded rapidly with protective laws, but the killings revealed how honest working Balbuena type immigrants d...
