How The Ringwald's 'Somewhere' Echoes 1959 Displacement in an Era of ICE Raids

Actor Latress London channels his own family’s struggles as a Puerto Rican neighborhood fights to survive and hope

Latress London, Ysa Velez, Alexis Morales and Airia Ramirez-Blair. Courtesy photo

Published: February 4, 2026 | Last Updated: February 4, 2026

In 1959, a thriving Puerto Rican neighborhood in New York City's San Juan Hill faced demolition to make way for Lincoln Center. The residents were given no choice, their belongings sometimes lost in buildings torn down before they could retrieve them. Fast forward to January 2026, when federal immigration agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis during Operation Metro Surge, including 37-year-old VA nurse Alex Pretti and mother Renée Good. Meanwhile, some 600 immigrant children have been placed in government shelters by ICE this year — already higher than the previous four years combined — with average stays now stretching nearly six months while siblings are left to care for one another or placed with strangers. Both stories share a haunting thread: communities targeted by government force, families displaced or destroyed and neighborhoods gripped by fear.

This is the moment when The Ringwald Theatre brings Matthew López's "Somewhere" to Ferndale from Feb. 6-22 for its Michigan premiere. The play is about a Puerto Rican family navigating loss and hope in the wake of the events in San Juan Hill in 1959. For actor Latress London, who plays eldest son Alejandro, the parallels aren't abstract. He lives near Detroit's Mexicantown, where the vibrant street life has visibly contracted under the shadow of immigration enforcement.

"Before all this, you could go into Mexicantown, especially in the summer, and people would be walking, shopping at restaurants, eating and outside playing," London says. "Now, it’s quieter. Kids aren't outside playing, and it's really sad because people are afraid. Just imagine being afraid to go out and get the mail. That is insane."

London, 37, grew up singing and dancing. His mother discovered his talent early and immediately enrolled him in programs. He did theatre in high school and competed in the show choir circuit. But after one show at age 19, London stepped away from performing entirely. For nearly two decades, theatre became something he'd done in his past, not something he did.

The reason was simple: His family needed him. Born to a single mother who dreamed her children could achieve anything, London set aside his own Broadway aspirations to help support his family. His mother, Kimberly Gavin Lopez, worked tirelessly to keep her three children safe and provided for. "She could have been a completely different parent and not cared and we could have ended up in the system or out on the streets," he says. "But because she worked so hard to keep us in a roof, I want to, in a sense, repay her and make her proud."

It wasn't until last year that London auditioned for a show at Stagecrafters Community Theatre — and booked his first role as an adult. That production snowballed into other opportunities, eventually bringing him to the attention of director Jay Kaplan. "It's been a minute since I've done theater and everything," London says with characteristic understatement about an 18-year gap.

It's a story that maps directly onto Alejandro's journey in "Somewhere." The character shoulders his family's survival while his mother dreams of her children on Broadway, even as their neighborhood crumbles around them. "When reading the script, I'm reading and like I said, the first two pages I just kind of fell in love," London says. "Once I really got to read Alejandro, I realized he and I are the same. I stopped performing because I had to get a job and help with family stuff. But I always wanted to go off to New York and try it on Broadway."

Alejandro voices what London has felt with lines like, "There's just not time in the day. There's not enough money in the can. It feels selfish pursuing my dreams." It's a sentiment that resonates across generations, particularly for communities facing economic precarity and external threats to their existence.

Director Jay Kaplan has waited 15 years to stage this play, eight of those years waiting for the script to be published and rights to become available. When he first became aware of "Somewhere,” he was fascinated by its subject matter, but also "by the idea of incorporating the musical 'West Side Story' into the hopes and dreams of these family members, who are trying to escape the limitations placed on them by society and economics," Kaplan says. "I loved the fact that the characters dance when they can no longer express themselves in words."

The play's connection to "West Side Story" adds another layer of resonance. Playwright Matthew López, an openly gay writer who won the Pulitzer Prize for "The Inheritance," has a personal connection to that 1961 film. His father and aunt were extras in the movie as children, and López's work, including "Somewhere," centers Latino family experiences that rarely appear on Metro Detroit stages.

After a cancelled production at Stagecrafters due to difficulty casting Latino actors (the playwright requires authentic representation), Kaplan organized a staged reading at Affirmations last July. The response was so enthusiastic that The Ringwald stepped in for this full production, the first in Michigan and throughout most of the Midwest.

Theater has always served as a space where communities process collective trauma and find resilience. Tony Kushner's "Angels in America" gave audiences a way to comprehend the AIDS crisis and government indifference in the 1980s. "The Laramie Project" helped a nation grapple with hate crimes and LGBTQ+ violence. Now "Somewhere" arrives as immigrants and their families face militarized enforcement operations in American cities.

Ysa Velez and Jonas Annear. Courtesy photo

"I think it's also another thing that theater has always been one of those things for me and I think people use that to escape from things that are going on, even if it's just for a couple hours to smile and laugh and enjoy and forget," London says. But the play offers more than escape. It offers recognition.

"There's one word that they keep saying in the entire show. It's the word ‘hope,’" London explains. "And you want to do well because you want to kind of give people that hope that everything is going to be OK, even though it's a really, really crappy time right now."

For London, performing "Somewhere" carries particular weight given the current climate. He identifies as Black and Puerto Rican, and the fear he describes in Mexican Town is not theoretical. "I was born here, but [ICE] could stop me," he says. "It's always a fear. It's very nerve-wracking. You always are looking over your shoulder and it's not a way for someone to have to live."

Black Latino culture and community "don't really get a lot of representation and the representation they do get, it seems to be very negative for some reason," London says. "I'll never understand it because living next to Mexicantown, it is one of the greatest places to be a part of. The atmosphere, the culture, it's vibrant, it's electrifying, it's so much fun. The people are wonderful."

Through Alejandro, London hopes to show audiences "not only are they just regular families as well, but they also have their own traditions and their own way of doing things."

Kaplan describes "Somewhere" as "a love letter to chosen family — to the people who save us, challenge us, and remind us who we are when the world around us starts to disappear. Matthew López captures that fragile moment when youth, art and hope collide, and it feels deeply personal and urgently human."

The Candelaria family's story is a specific one, rooted in Puerto Rican New York and the shadow of gentrification. But London hopes audiences will see themselves in it too. "These people are amazing and they're just so much fun and I can't wait to share this story with everyone," he says. "I think they're really going to like it."

London's mother will be in the audience, as she always is. "She's always loved watching me do shows," he says, his voice catching. "She's always crying after and she's just always so proud and so happy. My mom was a single mom and everything that she's done for us kids — she gave up her dreams for us."

In 1959, NYC urban planner Robert Moses demolished San Juan Hill to build Lincon Center as a temple to high art. In 2026, communities across America watch their neighbors disappear into federal custody or live in fear of stepping outside. "Somewhere" holds space for both moments, reminding us that art isn't separate from survival. Sometimes it's how we survive.

"Somewhere" runs Feb. 6-22 at The Ringwald Theatre inside Affirmations Community Center, 290 W. 9 Mile Road in downtown Ferndale. Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 7 p.m., Sundays at 3 p.m. Tickets are available at theringwald.com.