Nelson Antonio Denis

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Nelson Antonio Denis is an American attorney, author, filmmaker, and former member of the New York State Assembly. He represented the 68th district (East Harlem and Spanish Harlem) as a Democrat from 1997 to 2000.

Born on June 1, 1955, in New York City, Denis is the son of Antonio Denis Jordan, who was born in Cuba, and Sarah Denis, from Puerto Rico. His father was deported when Denis was eight, and he was raised by his mother and grandmother. He studied at Harvard College, earning a BA in Government in 1977, and then earned a JD from Yale Law School in 1980. He also acted in college plays.

Denis worked as a lawyer and ventured into film and writing. He wrote and directed the feature Vote For Me!, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. He later directed Make America Great Again. His screenplays won awards from the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and CineFestival. He wrote the screenplay adaptation of his book War Against All Puerto Ricans.

As editorial director of El Diario La Prensa, Denis published more than 300 editorials and won the National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ Best Editorial Writing award. He has written for The New York Times, The Nation, Publishers Weekly, and other outlets, and has appeared on radio and television to discuss Puerto Rico’s economy and politics.

In the community, Denis ran a neighborhood legal clinic in East Harlem and held various local leadership roles. In 1994 he sparked controversy by recruiting members of the Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation to support his campaign; opinions on the move were mixed, but he received the New York Times’ endorsement. He won election to the New York State Assembly in 1996 and served from 1997 to 2000. He also served as a New York State Democratic District Leader from 1995 to 2001.

Denis’s book War Against All Puerto Ricans (2015) draws on declassified FBI files and eyewitness accounts to recount the Puerto Rican independence movement and U.S. government actions against it. The work received wide attention and praise from major outlets, and it has been adapted into a screenplay with plans for a feature film. The book topped best-seller lists in Puerto Rico and sparked extensive discussion about American history and policy toward Puerto Rico.