We’re excited that friends at the CUNY Graduate Center have made the film “Making the Impossible Possible: The Story of Puerto Rican Studies in Brooklyn College” available for everyone in the CUNY community to watch!
Visit this link to watch the film; if you’re off campus, you’ll be asked to log in first with your CUNYfirst login. This film can be shared in the classroom and screened at any CUNY event that does not charge admission. The Alliance for Puerto Rican Education and Empowerment has also created a study guide for the film.
More about the film: MAKING THE IMPOSSIBLE POSSIBLE tells the story of the student-led struggle to win Puerto Rican Studies at Brooklyn College, CUNY, in the late 1960s. The documentary is a mosaic of voices, film footage, and photographs taken by student activists. This important intergenerational story highlights how students and faculty seized the moment to build upon an alliance of Puerto Rican, African American, and other progressive students forged in their communities and the civil rights movement. Together they changed the face of higher education, transforming the curriculum and expanding who gets educated. The film sheds light on the 50-year history of struggle that started with the founding of one of the first Puerto Rican Studies departments in the nation, and documents the continued movement to maintain their gains.
Directed by Pamela Sporn, Tami Gold, Produced by Gisely Colón López, Tami Gold, Pamela Sporn, Alliance for Puerto Rican Education and Empowerment (New York, NY: Third World Newsreel, 2021), 34 minutes
Special thanks to Alycia Sellie, Roxanne Shirazi, Michael Hughes, and other library workers who contributed to making this film accessible to CUNY.
