AllMovie

In this decidedly Hollywood view of what growing up Puerto Rican in New York must really be like, almost an entire family (with only one son and a daughter) faces disintegration and tragedy. The father loses his job, which puts the family in a crisis situation. So the son goes out to find work as a delivery boy and the daughter eventually lapses into prostitution. Trouble brews when the son confronts a local gang leader whom he believes has misused his sister, and the mother similarly tracks down a bully for more or less the same reason. In a plot twist, it is the mother's confrontation that goes from bad to worse, precipitating a comparable and tragic denouement at home.