Two weeks ago I was privileged enough to witness the opening night of what would be a week-long journey for 6 talented Latina artists – a few with strong Bronx ties – to a sold-out crowd on most nights.
‘Soledad Speaks‘ is self-described as “spoken word theater at its best,” but after coming to terms with what was presented, I find that too limiting.
The work is the brainchild of award-winning writer Linda Nieves-Powell who masterfully wove the words and talents of four poets and the choreography of one dancer, who’s works speak to your very essence, into a multidimensional and multifaceted introspective journey on identify particularly when looked through gender and racial biased lenses.
Through the intimacy of the small space at IATI Theater and the spoken word works of the four actresses, Nieves-Powell stirred powerful emotions, forcing us to ask questions and confront societal demons which we generally try not to deal with.
Soledad Speaks shows the viewer the effects of slavery and colonization on the women of Puerto Rico and how they perpetuate today but most importantly, the work is transcendent and speaks to all of us regardless of where we come from for the underlying message of acceptance is what you see here.
Meriam Rodriguez, Maria Rodriguez, Peggy Robles-Alvarado and J.F. Seary – together and separately – deliver a performance that comes from their own personal experiences so what you see is, raw and very real.
Through her choreography and dance, Milteri Tucker (Soledad) delivered a believable performance as an enslaved person who is kidnapped from her homeland and dragged thousands of miles across the ocean to foreign lands.
Tucker also delivered beautifully choreographed interludes as the rest of the cast is backstage prepping for the next scene.
In one scene, Milteri Tucker is poked, prodded and ridiculed for her ‘blackness’ as the 4 other cast members portray a “typical” day in a beauty salon where Latinas spend their hard earned money to wash away their heritage and conform to European edicts of standards of beauty.
‘Soledad Speaks’ is a must see and it is a shame that the show was only on for one week. The lessons taught during this performance and which the audience leaves with need to be part of a curriculum.
The many issues which the play deals with develop at a very young age and if we had our youth introduced to such plays as ‘Soledad Speaks’ we would be creating a brighter tomorrow.
The little girl with curly hair who’s bullied because of her strong, African features can walk with her head held high and proud of her ancestry rather than be ashamed of it.
The gay child who loves differently than what society says we should can continue to love without feeling bad or evil because of it
‘Soledad Speaks’ to each of us and forces us to be happy, proud and accept who we are.
Whenever major art exhibits come to the city, oftentimes the Bronx is not going to be a stop on the tour so it was to many Bronxites’ surprise when a Banksy appeared overnight in Melrose.
Well over a thousand fans flocked to our neighborhood to photograph the latest Banksy and take selfies with it.
They came from as far as Westchester or Brooklyn, the way the faithful flock to Our Lady of Lourdes in France.
Yesterday I expressed that I wasn’t quite sure how I felt for the piece and its tag of “Ghetto 4 Life”. I still think that of all words to use in his Bronx stop, ghetto may not have been the best choice but then again it’s Banksy and he does like to stir the pot.
Jeffrey Guard, founder and creative director of The Bronx Art Exchange had this to say on his website, “What Banksy, who is presumed to be both white and English, may not have realized is that in American culture, a white person using the word, “ghetto” can be perceived as racially charged, in that it suggests a not-so-subtle perjorative towards people of color meant to implicitly infer low-class, uneducated and criminal in nature. It’s analagous to people of color using the word “gentrify” as a racially charged perjoartive to subtley infer that white people are greedy, untrustworthy and lack a social conscience.”
Then you have my friend Karah Shaffer who was quoted in the Daily News saying, “It’s lazy and it’s ridiculous. Having a kid with spray paint and his butler writing ‘Ghetto 4 Life’ in the South Bronx is an easy way to perpetuate the way people think about the South Bronx…It’s disrespectful. Nobody comes here to be ‘ghetto,’”
But I’m not here to talk about the piece itself but more importantly the throngs who ran up to our home borough of the Bronx.
To many residents, they could not escape the dichotomy of thinking how cool it is that a world renowned artist left his mark in Melrose and the heart of the South Bronx and at the same time feel quite insulted that with decades of major street art, murals and our own homegrown and world-renowned graf artists it took an outsider to bring folks in.
Coming into the global ground zero of street art, graffiti, hip hop and urban culture to gape and awe at an outsider’s work makes me scratch my head and ask of them, “Where have you been? Why don’t you support your fellow urban brothers and sisters from the Bronx with such avidity.”
Perhaps that was Banksy’s intent, to poke fun of the folks who would otherwise never step into the neighborhood, and cast a light on cultural appropriation? To bring the sheep in to the most maligned borough and show the world it’s ok?
I live in a predominantly latino and African-American neighborhood so to see white people coming in by the hundreds throughout the day you can’t help but make that obvious observation.
Several individuals took offense that I saw it to be quite comical but they missed the entire point of my statement. I, in no way, shape or form am saying that a group of people shouldn’t come to the ‘hood to experience art, I am simply asking said group to think long and hard of why they never came before. Lynn Roberts, on Facebook, summed it up perfectly when a reader, who is white, found my comments disturbing. The reader couldn’t look beyond that I said ‘white’. Roberts went on to say:
“…the overwhelming majority of the white people who are flooding the hood just to see Banksy’s work would not venture there otherwise. I also doubt they are spending their money in local businesses while there. Your individual actions simply do not compensate for the hundreds of others who are otherwise disinterested in visiting “the hood.”…If you want art to be for all, then whose art are you talking about? Banksy gets paid big bucks for his knock-off “art” while the original artists in the hood have had to scratch to make a dollar and/or risk arrest.”
So if Banksy did something big in the South Bronx, it’s that he opened up an important dialogue between the locals and the outsiders. Many, myself included, challenged a number of the visitors to come back for some truly local artwork and see what we’ve been doing for decades before Banksy was a household name.
A number were eager to see more. Almost every single one had never been to the Bronx other than maybe Yankee Stadium or simply just driving through.
A few admitted that they were scared of coming up here having been brainwashed by the media and were pleasantly surprised to see that the Bronx was not this monster waiting to chew them up and spit them out.
Whether we like Banksy or his piece in Melrose doesn’t change the fact that it was an historic event
Woke up today and my block is abuzz as Banksy left his latest mark in the Melrose neighborhood of the Bronx.
Walked down the block to see his latest piece which has the tag “Ghetto 4 Life” which I still don’t know how I feel about it, however, my friend and neighbor
Karah Shaffer says it’s lazy and the tag does a disservice to the neighborhood.
My friend and neighbor, Karah Shaffer interviewed by Bronx News12
If you wanna catch it before it’s gone, come to East 153rd Street between Melrose and Elton Avenues less than a 5 minute walk from 3rd Ave and 149th Street Station on the 2 and 5 trains.
Update: I have mixed feelings about his choice of words…Ghetto 4 Life? What exactly is he saying here? Several residents have expressed similar concerns. Our neighborhood is filled with so much art and culture, murals and graff and no one really comes to experience it so it’s disappointing to see so many sheep flocking over because it’s supposedly “hip”.
Sometimes I like to change things up a bit and I’ll take a different route during my walks through my neighborhood and the Bronx.
In doing so I usually stumble upon the beauty that is right in my neighborhood waiting to be discovered.
Check out this mural done in collaboration with New York based Spanish graffiti duo How and Nosm and the Spanish graffiti and street artist Aryz who hails from Barcelona.
If you want to go check it out, it’s conveniently located on East 148th Street between Morris and Courtlandt Avenues.
For the past 30 to 40 years the Bronx has received much negative press and it never seems to end.
What has ended is the fact that we, as Bronxites, no longer will remain quiet when our hometown is bashed, particularly without any real world and real-time facts.
I can go on forever on why I love the Bronx but this is really about you, the reader!
We want to know, in your own words, why you love the Bronx. You can post the comments below, you can email us at info@welcome2thebronx.com and it doesn’t just have to be just your words! Tell us in pictures or videos or Vines using the hash tag #whyilovethebronx on Instagram, Vine, twitter and Tumblr. Make sure to tag us too Welcome2TheBronx and #welcome2thebronx
This will be an ongoing project and we will feature one response a week so check back often to see if your response made it!
Yes, it happened again. An individual felt the need to not only trash talk about the Bronx but to publish their article as fact.
Meet Patricia Vaccarino, a Seattle publicist who thinks she’s an expert on all things Bronx yet she lives thousands of miles away and her only defense for the article was that she was here in November of last year.
During that time she says, “I was in the Bronx last November. I spent the day on Arthur Avenue and I didn’t see any cultural attractions except a whole lot of statues of St Francis of Assisi and bunches of guys standing around in big groups with their hands stuffed in their pockets.”
A commentator by the name of Joe responded by writing, “…if you were truly on Arthur Ave. and looking for cultural facilities you could not have helped but notice the Fermi Cultural Center which is at least a third of a city block in size and consists of one of the largest collection of Italian literature and artifacts this side of the Atlantic. And if you happened to be looking east away from the Fermi Center you would be looking in the direction of Fordham University one of the largest and more diverse Jesuit centers for learning. ”
So let me get this straight, she was in the middle of the most authentic Little Italy in New York City which has been written about countless times but she saw nothing positive to write about?
It shouldn’t be too surprising once she responded with that because after reading her poor attempt at journalism it becomes quite evident that she didn’t even bother to research her work. The article was clearly written by an individual who saw the Bronx through the lens of someone who experienced it in the 70s and 80s.
But enough about her and her sloppy, poor and dare I say unethical journalism – which Vaccarino excitedly tweeted about that she’s now a journalist with her first article.
I’m here to talk about how proud I am at this very moment of my fellow Bronxites who immediately set the record straight on such journalistic trash.
“Pray tell, Ms. Vaccarino, what reality are you currently inhabiting. Your story is, at best, deeply offensive and lacks any in-depth research or actual facts.
“Please tell, all of us, when in fact you reportedly observed, “huge groups of gangstas hanging out on the streets look[ing] like happy tourists.” What street, when? And did you seriously just reference Mayor Ed Koch? You do know he hasn’t been mayor since 1989–right? Furthermore, Ms. Vaccarino, are you honestly suggesting that his assessment of the Bronx is still relevant, today in 2013?
… you seem to be wedded to the idea that the Bronx has to be something that it no longer is–I guess that’s because it makes for good copy and you were paid for writing bilge like this.But for you, that’s sad, because you’re honestly missing one of the most amazing organic transformations happening in NYC. Now that would have been a story worth reading.”
Olga Luz Tirado, Executive Director of the Bronx Tourism Council also chimed in and challenged Patricia Vaccarino to come back to the Bronx:
”
Patricia, I am deeply disappointed that someone who obviously has the capability to compose a series of words and turn them into an article, did so without first conducting the appropriate research. The fact of the matter is that The Bronx is up and coming, whether your limited time here suggests otherwise. Pray tell, what were you doing when you “spent a day” on Arthur Avenue?
Perhaps your jaded view of the borough prevented you from venturing out to the New York Botanical Gardens or some of the other wonderful places some of my fellow Bronx lovers mentioned in the comments section.
That the Grand Concourse was fashioned after the Champs Elysee does not suggest that the architect intended the Concourse to look like Paris. Among many reasons, he was simply designing a boulevard that would be able to accommodate automobiles as well as horse and buggies. If you would have asked, one of us would have been happy to tell you.
There are fine restaurants here and a lot of wonderful things to do and see. I personally invite you to come back to The Bronx, but really come back to The Bronx. I would think that a true professional who has done his or her due diligence would be less likely to spew erroneous information. ~ Olga Luz Tirado,Executive Director, The Bronx Tourism Council
”
This wasn’t the first piece written about the Bronx with such a negative and erroneous slant on our borough and it won’t be the last. What Patricia Vaccarino didn’t count on was that the Bronx has a voice and we defend our own – loudly.
Viewing your company’s website and press kit as well as your bio, one would be led to believe that as a successful publicist (or was that part simply just “spin” on your part to make you look good?), you would research extensively that which you would write about.
So Patricia, do come back to the Bronx. Perhaps you can stay at the Opera House Hotel smack dab in the heart of the South Bronx. The luxury boutique hotel, which opened in August, has received nothing but rave reviews from guests from all across the country and globe.
Folks like you who had a myopic view of a Bronx that no longer exists due to irresponsible journalism such as you decided to churn out.
Bronx born and raised HOLA award winner for Outstanding Solo Performance, José Roldán, Jr
The Hispanic Organization of Latino Artists (HOLA) is recognizing one of our borough’s very own this year in their 14th annual award and benefit gala on October 21st. During the same event, HOLA will also be honoring such widely recognized names as Bobby Cannavale, Nadine Velázquez, and Vanessa Verduga
José Roldán, Jr, born, raised and currently residing in the Bronx, wrote ‘Father Forgive Me For I Have Sinned’ – for which he is receiving the HOLA award for Outstanding Solo Performance – as an autobiographical piece on growing up in the South Bronx during the 1980s and ’90s and dealing with his own sexual identity in an all too familiar latino household ruled by a father’s machismo softened by the love of a mother.
After missing the performance several times before, this summer I was fortunate enough to go on this journey with José as he performed this one man show and I will say that I was not prepared for what I witnessed.
José Roldán, Jr masterfully takes you on this journey and paints the scene for you with such clarity that you ARE sitting with him and his family, watching as the drama unfolds.
When he gets into one of the many characters that is his family, you are not watching José but instead you are witnessing Bruja Tía or the his sister, the queen of Freestyle.
Being an out, gay male who grew up in the South Bronx I could easily identify with the trials and tribulations which José Roldán, Jr went through but the core message of acceptance by your family transcends the gay world and you can easily see how this show relates to many different aspects of our family lives.
You can catch José perform his award winning ‘Father Forgive Me For I Have Sinned’ on the following dates:
October 26, 2013:
THE UNDERGROUND THEATER @ THE @6:30PM – GET YOUR TICKETS HERE Tickets are $8.00 but hurry before it’s sold out!
November 21st, 2013:
LEHMAN COLLEGENOVEMBER 21 @ 12:30PM -CONTACT TICKETS@JOSEROLDANJR.COM FOR TICKETS
Yolanda Gonzalez, the former chief of the nonprofit group Nos Quedamos, left a police precinct on Wednesday, charged with stealing nearly $900,000 from the charity. She pleaded not guilty.YANA PASKOVA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
I was approached by someone about Gonzalez several years ago. The individual was concerned about the same shady dealings Yolanda Gonzalez has been charged with. Shortly after my conversation with my source, a trusted friend was appointed to the Board of Directors and assured me it was going to be handled with immediately.
Nos Quedamos was founded by her late mother, Yolanda García, when the long time residents of Melrose where threatened by redevelopment.
City Hall wanted to bulldoze most of the neighborhood above 149th Street and create developments strictly middle and high income families. They saw the rubble as a way to clean house but they didn’t count on such strong resistance from the community.
Today, Melrose stands as the fastest growing neighborhood in the Bronx and one the 3rd in all of the city.
The myriad of mixed-income developments – no longer segregating families of different means – is a testament to Nos Quedamos’ fight so that we would not be displaced rampant development as has happened in countless gentrified neighborhoods across our city.
As residents of the Bronx and particularly the South Bronx, we must be ever vigilant and keep a keen eye on our community leaders. Report any wrongdoings immediately. We cannot let our very own people get away with this.
INTERVIEW WITH FORMER BOROUGH PRESIDENT ADOLFO CARRION
Sorry for the delay in this week’s article. An interview with mayoral candidate Adolfo Carrion was supposed to happen for this week. Unfortunately, it seems like that may have fallen by the wayside.
Carrion is on the outs with the Bronx Democratic Party. Last week, Vice Chair of the BX Democratic Party took to facebook to bash the former Beep. Lewis Goldstein posted the following:
“Mr. Carrion has abandoned the progressive ideology he used to have when he was a member of the NYC Council and Bronx Borough President. He has abandoned the needs of the middle and lower class residents of NYC. He has adopted tactics of the Tea Party and fellow travelers. He has referred to the Democratic candidate for mayor as being a Communist. He does not represent what the Bronx Democratic Party stands for. My respect for him has waned.”
So, naturally, I was looking forward to asking Mr. Carrion to respond. Hopefully we can get together soon.
Mr. Carrion is polling at 2% in the mayor’s race and has $96,000 on hand.
40 UNDER 40
Not surprisingly, City and State named two of the Bronx’s newest elected officials to their list of “Rising Stars: 40 under 40.”
Of course these two newly (presumably) elected officials are Ritchie Torres and Victor Pichardo.
And of course I have to talk some smack about both of them.
First, Torres. This guy! When asked what would he be doing if he weren’t involved in politics, he responded by saying he would be “an appellate attorney of constitutional law.” WOW! LOOK AT MR. BIG FANCY PANTS USING BIG WORDS!!!!
The problem with this is, of course, that in order to be a lawyer, one must first attend law school. And in order to attend law school, one must first get accepted into law school — to get accepted into law school one must have excellent grades as an undergrad in college. And this is where Mr. Fancy Pants falls short: he dropped out of college despite having a free ride at NYU. The last time I checked, one needed educational requirements a little higher than a high school degree to become “an appellate attorney of constitutional law.”
Now, Pichardo. Wow. Just WoW.
Direct quote: “They have to justify to themselves why they lost, not the fact that I had a better understanding of the issues. I stated a better case to my neighbors, and I put in a lot of effort and a lot of work in going up and down those stairs, meeting with a lot of my neighbors at their homes, seeing them at work, on the trains and just engaging them in a conversation. I’m focused on the folks I interacted with during my campaign.”
Or, you know, the election really was stolen and you really are an illegitimate elected official. But who is keeping score? I guess we can agree to disagree.
Erica Veras, Education and Community Liaison for the Bronx Borough Presidents office was fined $5,000 because she improperly threatened her son’s school for not letting him participate on a field trip. Then she even tried to sneak him on the bus the day of the trip.
The BP, through an unknown source, adamantly explained that Erica Veras is not part of the Diaz Jr. team; she is a civil servant who has been in borough hall since before Ruben became Borough President. In other words, they are distancing themselves from their own office?
DIAZ JR. AND DIRT BIKES
The beep also made news last week for introducing legislation that would fine gas stations that sell gas to owners of illegal dirt bikes.
Of course there were criticisms leveled on facebook. Mostly on three concerns:
1. The legislation passes the buck to the private sector.
2. What happens when a credit card is used to purchase gas? Is the gas station attendant required to shut down the pump and chase away the menacing bikers?
3. What’s stopping dirt bikers from parking around the block of the gas station, pulling out a red gas can, walking up to a pump and getting gas that way?
IS ANYBODY THERE?
I should’ve said this before, but anyone who wants to send tips, suggestions or press releases, please email me at robagiuffre@gmail.com.
Comments, views, and opinions are that solely of the author and should never be misconstrued as that of Welcome2TheBronx or any other authors of this site.
Photo credit: Yainis Ynoa stars in "Babygirl," a movie by Macdara Vallely.
I had the pleasure of reading the script for “Babygirl” several years ago and immediately was gripped by how well Macdara Vallely captured the Bronx and its residents.
Since then, the film is finally complete and is now up on the big screen downtown at the Quad until this THURSDAY October 10th ONLY. Show times are as follows:
Macdara Vallely, the writer/director of “Peacefire” and two movie shorts, wrote and directed “Babygirl,” a new movie about a plucky, parentified, Nuyorican Bronx teenager Lena (Yainis Ynoa), who is the object of advances by her mother’s sketchy boyfriend, Victor (Flaco Navaja).
Vallely, 40, who was raised in Northern Ireland, now lives in the Pelham Parkway section of the Bronx with his wife, Vanessa (an esthetician who worked as a script editor on “Babygirl”), and their 2-year-old son, Alonso.
The award-winning “Babygirl,” which was shot largely in the Bronx and features a Nuyorican cast, opens Friday, Oct. 4, at the Quad (34 W. 13th St.) for a one-week run.
You were inspired to write this movie after seeing a teenage girl on the 2 train reject the attentions of an older guy who then hit on her easily flattered mother. Did you have a parent who made relationships with romantic partners a higher priority than the well-being of her children?
No! I had two very nice parents. My mother was a teacher and my father was a musician. But I identify with the story and I know situations like that. Being a parent is very challenging. You only realize how challenging once you have your own children — then you cut your own parents some slack. I have a lot of compassion for Lucy’s predicament. Lucy (played by Rosa Arredondo) is very lonely and has a lot of needs that can’t be met within the family. If I’d become a parent in my 20s, I don’t think I’d have been such a good parent. And there is love between Lena and Lucy.
What are the similarities of Irish culture and Latino culture?
We both share colonial pasts, place an importance on family and we like to enjoy ourselves. I married into a Puerto Rican family — my wife told me she wouldn’t marry me unless I learned how to dance salsa. We’re raising a kid who speaks Spanish and Irish and understands English. We’re experimenting on our kid, because, well, you can’t experiment on other people’s kids.
Both cultures also share the influence of Catholicism. Growing up in Northern Ireland (as a Catholic) I was definitely on the on the wrong side of society — you’re not a part of the privileged class. But Latinos face the added aspect of racial discrimination. In New York, if you’re a minority there is a likelihood that you are a part of the economic underclass and live in the outer boroughs. You see it on the trains: Once the train gets past 149th St., I’m often the only white person in the carriage. That marker is just huge. I wanted this movie to be a very broad representation of Puerto Rican people — the kind of people I know. Flipping through television, you don’t get that diversity.
There are scenes that read visually like a love letter to Bronx parks.
One of the things I love about this city are the green spaces, particularly in the Bronx. People celebrate their lives in these shared spaces: We live in these tiny little apartments and people have their birthday parties and barbeques in the parks. They’re such a big part of summer in New York and provide such a contrast to all the asphalt and concrete surfaces.
But in “Babygirl,” there’s no garbage! The parks look so clean!
Well, at Lena’s Sweet 16, you’ll see she’s cleaning up her own garbage (after her birthday party). People should definitely clean up after themselves.
You thank the Irish Film Board for its support in “Babygirl’s” credits. Is Ireland more supportive of the arts than the U.S., where even major directors seek funding on Kickstarter?
On a per capita basis, there’s much more support for film production in Ireland than in the U.S. There’s a public body, The Irish Film Board, and they award funds for movies according to merit. It’s not perfect, but it allows people like myself to make movies and to break into the movie making business. It’s a really good idea and turns out good movies. The awards are contingent on doing at least a part of the production in Ireland — we did our post-production there — so it supports all the local industries as well. In the U.S., they give you tax breaks.
Props for capturing the difficulty of being a teenager — especially a teenaged girl — in NYC.
There’s a lot at stake in a person’s life at that age. Teenagers often don’t have the resources to deal with the problems they confront because they’re young and inexperienced, yet the decisions they make can have implications for the rest of their lives. That’s a situation that lends itself to drama. I was really anxious that Lena not come across as a victim. In most films, young women are either sirens or victims and I wanted Lena to be bigger than just one of those two things. She fights back.
What was your greatest challenge in making “Babygirl”?
The casting! Finding the lead actors! It just took forever. We had all but given up on the casting the lead, then during the last open call Yainis (Ynoa) read. She did the scene where the mother kicks the daughter out of the house and made my wife cry. My wife was just sitting there with tears rolling down her face.
Why don’t we see more movies about believable people with real life problems?
Tons of movies like mine are made every year — they just don’t get seen because distribution is so difficult. To roll a movie out is very expensive and filled with risk.
It’s really, really tough to get any movie made, and the people who make them are exposed to so much risk, they’re forced to go for the low hanging fruit by making movies about super heros and so on. Unless you have big stars attached to a movie, it’s very difficult to get a broad release so you rely on a good festival run and getting a few awards.
Why isn’t “Babygirl” being shown in the Bronx, the borough it depicts with so much affection?
This is a platform release. If it does well at the Quad, it could expand to the other boroughs. … I’ve lived in the Bronx for seven years and wouldn’t live in any other borough. It’s my favorite part of the city. I’m in the Pelham Parkway section and 10 minutes from my house is the Bronx Zoo. A quick bike ride away is Arthur Avenue or City Island.
Do you consider Victor, the character who courts Lucy to get access to her daughter, a pedophile?
Flaco Navaja, who played him, and I talked a lot about that in rehearsals. Victor has an intense physical attraction to Lena but actually starts to fall in love with her. “Lolita” was in the back of my mind in that regard. There’s definitely something there in terms of the power play between Victor and Lena and how that power play gets reversed. He might be physically 25 or 26, but he’s a bit of a child himself — and Lena is actually more mature.
Lena opts not to live with her aunt, who seems much more stable and better able to provide adult guidance than her mother.
In the story, Lena is given a choice of leaving her mother, but she chooses to stay. It’s a big choice, and not the easiest choice. She can’t resist the pull of family and that’s something we all deal with than in our own families.
There’s a marked absence of decent dads in the film. Where are the fathers?
This is about the relationship between mothers and daughters and girls and their friends. The fact is a lot of people in the Bronx, and in the U.S. and in Ireland as well, are from single-parent homes. It’s a small movie! You can’t do everything!
