How does the author portray life in Spanish Harlem in the memoir, Undocumented?

Spanish Harlem is the area of New York City in which the author and his family made their home. As the author portrays it, the community was poor, violent, and populated with people struggling with addictions, racial prejudice, and lack of opportunity. He did manage to connect with a group of friends there, which provided him with a degree of security and connection that his life in Manhattan could not. Nevertheless, it was still associated with experiences of insecurity, and with the author's sense of being torn between two worlds.