- [Narrator] Funding for this edition of One-On-One with Steve Adubato has been provided by The Russell Berrie Foundation.

Making a difference.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey.

PSEG Foundation.

New Jersey Institute of Technology.

NJIT makes industry ready professionals in all STEM fields.

New Jersey Children’s Foundation.

Giving all Newark students the opportunity to achieve.

Delta Dental of New Jersey.

Everyone deserves a healthy smile.

Wells Fargo.

And by The Adler Aphasia Center.

Promotional support provided by NJ.Com.

Keeping communities informed and connected.

And by BestofNJ.com.

All New Jersey in one place.

- This is One-On-One.

- I'm an equal American just like you are.

- The way we change Presidents in this country is by voting.

- A quartet is already a jawn, it’s just The New Jawn.

- January 6th was not some sort of violent, crazy outlier.

- I don't care how good you are or how good you think you are, there is always something to learn.

- I mean what other country sends comedians over to embedded military to make them feel better.

- People call me 'cause they feel nobody's paying attention.

_ It’s not all about memorizing and getting information, it’s what you do with that information.

- (slowly) Start talking right now.

- That's a good question, high five.

(upbeat music) - Hi everyone, Steve Adubato.

All this week we're featuring the best, at least what we think are the best, most interesting interviews we've done over the years.

30 year anniversary of the Caucus Educational Corporation created in 1994.

And this segment is about authors, interesting authors we've talked over the years.

Beth Macy, "Dopesick", good stuff.

Paul Sorvino and his wife, Deedee.

We've lost Paul Sorvino, he passed, but really interesting conversation we had as well.

How about Gloria Gaynor, "I Will Survive"?

Not just an incredible entertainer, but she wrote the book, "I Will Survive".

Jonathan Alter, a whole bunch of books.

He's a local author here in Montclair where I live, but wrote about President Obama.

Whole range of books there.

So many authors talking about former President Trump as we do this program.

So listen, 30th anniversary of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

"One-on-One", check out the authors.

(upbeat music) - People, women, in particular, all across the country and the world are using your song to find a way to survive.

Were you thinking at that moment when you thought you weren't gonna be with Linwood, "Where do I get my inspiration?"

I mean it- - [Gloria] Oh, no.

No, I wasn't.

- [Steve] Were you worried about surviving yourself?

- Not at all.

- Other people use the song.

What do you use?

- I use Christ.

He is my inspiration.

He was a part of the reason...

I shouldn't say He was a part of the reason, but the fact that I had put all of my faith and trust in Him as opposed to having put all of my faith and trust in my husband was one of the reasons for our, the near demise of our relationship.

- [Steve] But today, let's clarify.

- Today we're stronger than ever.

- [Steve] So these recipes from all.

- Oh yeah, I've been cooking.

This is, the interesting thing about this is anybody who knows will notice that these are absolutely Neapolitan.

I mean, most of them.

And they're not changed.

They're exactly as the way the Neapolitan sailors made them on their little boats for the marinara, let's say.

Marinara in the Neapolitan language means sailor.

So they created it, just olive oil, garlic and tomatoes, a little basil, and that's it.

- [Steve] Simple.

- If they made a catch, they'd put some seafood in it, the seafood marinara.

- [Steve] But unbelievably delicious.

- Very simple and out of this world.

- Did you, had you had marinara like that before?

- [Dee Dee] No.

- [Paul] No, not before me, yeah.

Not before me.

- No.

- [Paul] No, not before.

- No, not before.

Paul's an amazing cook.

He really is.

- The name of the book, "Were You Always an Italian?

", comes from where?

- Mario Cuomo.

I was interviewing him years ago.

I was a journalist at The Village Voice.

And I was writing a profile trying to place him in a progressive Italian American tradition.

And I was asking him lots of questions about Fiorello La Guardia, Vito Marcantonio.

What kind of relationship he had to those past progressive Italian American figures.

- [Steve] We should let everybody know for those who don't know.

Fiorello La Guardia, the "Little Flower."

- [Maria] That's right, that's right.

- Right, the mayor of New York City.

And Marcantonio was an interesting figure.

- [Maria] Yeah.

A congressman from East Harlem.

- Right.

- Very progressive.

Some people thought too progressive, but really.

- [Steve] You mean like socialist progressive?

- Well, a lot of people said, "Oh, communist."

(Steve and Maria laugh) But he always denied it.

He said that was never the case.

- Gotcha.

So you're asking Cuomo all these questions.

- So I'm asking him all these questions.

And in the middle of this he looked at me and he said, "Were you always an Italian?"

And I thought for a minute, and I shook my head no.

And he said, "Oh, I know all about ethnic self-hate."

- What do you believe Dr. King would say and/or more importantly do, to help us come together and not be as polarized and divided as we are bordering in the eyes of some on a so-called Civil War?

Loaded question, I know.

- His appeal was based on the fact that he was calling out to our principles as Americans and our believers in God.

And he was able to unite that.

He was able to say that if we are wrong in seeking justice, if we are wrong in seeking equality, then the Constitution must be wrong and the Bible must be wrong.

And people found something in his message that resonated, even if they weren't necessarily on board with the civil rights movement.

And I think, you know, that gives us hope that there may still be things that unite us.

It seems hopeless now, but I would argue that things were a lot worse in King's day.

- The White House says that your book is basically lacking in facts, and research, and has no credibility.

- Right, and the reason they say that is because it's very damaging to them.

In other words, they haven't pointed out a single factual error in the book.

All they've done is link to a bunch of left-wing blogs and say, "Read these blogs.

You'll get an idea of what's wrong with the book."

Robert Gibbs, the White House Press Secretary, the only challenge he has made to my book substantively is to say, "Dinesh is raising the ugly issue of whether Obama is born in America."

And the truth of it is, you can read my book and put squeezed lemon juice on it.

It's not about this birther issue.

In fact, I say specifically, Obama's born in Hawaii, he was not born in.

- [Steve] So, you're not a birther?

- I'm not a birther.

- [Steve] You're not even interested in that.

- I have no interest in that.

- [Steve] Got it.

- I'm about, not where Obama was born, but where does he get his ideas?

- [Steve] Do you think Barack Obama loves America?

- [Dinesh] I do.

- The main message you want people taking away is... please.

- We can't outsource our responsibility for democracy any longer.

We have to take responsibility for it.

If American democracy is to be saved, we're gonna have to save it.

So we can't look to political leaders.

We can't look to so-called prophets or heroes.

We have to find that within ourselves.

And you know, that means in a sense, Steve, that if we're the leaders that we've been looking for, we have to become better people.

- Where do the Yankees fit into this?

- The Yankees, in the late 1950s when this story takes place, are baseball.

The Yankees are the most successful team.

The Yankees are so essential to the success of baseball that the American League needs the Yankees to win every year because when the Yankees are champions.

- [Steve] They need them to win.

- They need them to.

- [Steve] Because they need the revenue?

- Because when the Yankees come to Kansas City, or Cleveland, or Detroit, they sell out, or come close to it.

The Yankees are the power in baseball.

They are warlords.

- Having books that tell all kinds of stories.

- Yes.

- About all kinds of people.

Diverse, diversity in our books.

- Yes.

- How the heck did it become so controversial?

- It's a good question.

I mean, for me, I'm confused by all of it simply because as a parent, like I think all parents, want their children to have access to everything, to learn about everything, to be able to take a look and decipher what they feel is what feels true, what feels right to them, what makes sense to them.

To understand context and history, understand how things brought us to where we are today.

- Every one of these guys talked in awed tones about what a total musical genius Frank Sinatra was.

- [Steve] Genius?

- Genius.

- Not just the voice?

- [Guest] No.

Genius.

- What else?

- Musical genius.

The ability to interpret a song, to convey it in a way that no other singer, no matter how good their voices were, could do.

The ability to take a song and to make you feel as though you were hearing it for the first time, as though he was singing it just to you, as though he understood that song as nobody else understood it.

This is a guy who couldn't read music, you know?

- That's right.

- And these musicians, they all had perfect pitch.

They could look at a score, read it inside out.

He was the genius.

- Why is that relevant to the functioning of a democracy, trusting election results, win or lose?

- Yeah.

No, I think you're absolutely right.

Look, democracy is an act of faith.

Right?

It's an act of faith that we believe in our system, that we believe that when we cast our vote, there's gonna be an honest counting of them.

And what Donald Trump is trying to do is tell people that it doesn't work, the system as functional as it is.

In fact, this is probably the cleanest, best run election in 2020 that we ever had, according to experts who know about these things, was somehow crooked.

There's no evidence of it.

None whatsoever.

- Those things they argue, cause the book to be banned.

Kids shouldn't read it.

You say?

- Yeah, I wanna make sure one, that we, because they oftentimes use the word "kids", right?

And we know when we hear "kids", we think kindergartners.

We think elementary school children.

My book is not for kids, it is for teenagers, specifically 14 to 18, who are growing young adults.

When they talk about, oh, the book is too explicit or too sexually provocative.

One, it indicates to me that they have not read the book.

And two, it indicates that most of them do not understand what teenagers actually live through day to day, - When Henry Hill got so caught up in heroin, and all that stuff, and it got out of control, was he totally open with you about how out of control his life was?

- Yes, at that point, what had happened was the government, everybody wanted to kill him.

All the guys, his best friends, the guys.

- [Steve] Why?

- Because he was going to become a government informant.

- [Steve] Yes.

- It's the only way he was going to stay out of prison, the way he could save his wife from going to jail.

And he decided to flip because they were going to kill him, and he knew they were going to kill him.

Even if he didn't become a government informant, they were going to kill him just to be safe.

- And by the way, how you got to talk to him.

- Yeah.

- You had to take a couple of flights to meet him in certain places.

But he's taken three flights, to do what?

To avoid the guys?

- Nobody should see him at an airport.

They wanted to make sure a casual bypass didn't.

I know, it's insane.

But back in those days, 25 years ago when the witness program was just really beginning, and they had all of these witnesses who were really in danger and lots of guys who were about to go away, those mob guys' lives depended upon whether or not you testified.

- Do you believe that Richard Sackler was an evil person who knew what he was doing and did it to quote you to become a billionaire from being a millionaire?

He was an evil person.

- In court he was asked in a deposition... No, in a court hearing he was asked, do you think you hold any responsibility?

"No."

He was asked how many people had died.

He said he had no idea.

He was asked if Oxycontin created the opioid crisis.

"No."

Did his family have any responsibility?

"No."

I mean, he has to be evil if he can't see the facts laid out before him.

- With those who don't like Obama, the Birthers and others who believe Obama not born here.

but make the case as to how dangerous they believed he was and is for this country.

- If you, you know, read the pamphlets or obscure websites in the nineties, you would've people saying that Bill Clinton killed people at an airport in Arkansas, right?

Or they said Dwight Eisenhower was a communist.

But these things were on the fringes of our politics.

The birther nonsense went to the center of our politics.

So people were asked on "Meet the Press", do you believe the president was born in the United States?

- Malcolm X would especially, is especially important now, Ms. Payne- - Absolutely.

- Given race in this country and race relations in this country and racial trauma that continues to go on.

He's more important now than ever before.

Please share.

- Well, Malcolm's language and the way he would talk about how do you deal with this system that's set up against you and how do you navigate it and how do you find, you know, how do you deal with the hatred that's set against you?

And while also how do you deal with the hatred that you are turning against yourself as a result of this.

And he speaks to that.

And young people pick him up for that.

They pick him up for how he talked about the system, how he talked about how we could use voting, the black vote in this country.

He talked about this in the 1960s, 1964 and 5, about using the black vote as a voting block.

And this was before the Voter's Rights Act was even passed.

- [Narrator] To watch more "One-on-One with Steve Adubato", find us online and follow us on social media.

- Our 30th anniversary programming continues as we look at a whole range of community leaders, not-for-profit leaders making a difference.

These are people, a lot of 'em you're not gonna recognize, but we know that we have a responsibility to feature these folks.

People who are in the trenches making a difference every day in their communities with the people they serve.

So this is the 30th anniversary programming of community leaders making a difference.

(upbeat music) Why is it that the Robert Retreat Charter School- - [Stephen] Yes.

- Has these kids succeeding, performing like a grade above in reading and math test and the kids, their counterparts in the public schools are suffering?

What's that about?

- It's that we are not buried on the bureaucracy.

We can have, we can stick to the simple task of educating children.

Also, some of it has to be looked at by outside people.

Because that question I can't fully answer.

I'm too close to it.

The results are phenomenal.

I'm not over...

They're just beyond.

- Say somebody else says, "I wanna do what you're doing, Steve Adubato.

I want to start a charter school in my city."

Could be in Baltimore, Philadelphia, in urban areas all over.

- [Stephen] Right.

- Number one, what do they need to do?

- Number one, have much higher expectations.

- What's the greatest satisfaction you get?

- I think seeing the kids progress through life.

Seeing what parents have to say about their relationship getting better.

You know, we have a lot of kids who've gone on to some great institutions, a lot of kids who've just graduated, who the parents would tell you, you know, three or four years ago they weren't even talking about college, the first going to college.

- What would that have to do with your program?

- Well, I think what they would tell you that it has to do with them is that it made their, it inspired their kids.

It inspired their kids to do great things.

- [Steve] Mm.

- It inspired their kids to find the greatness in themselves.

- The idea behind it is really just to help young adults, particularly in inner cities with their leadership, communication, and overall life skills, whether they're going into the workforce, whether they're going into college.

The key is just to give them that confidence in public speaking, eye contact, everything that really goes hand in hand with being successful in their adulthood.

- These kids matter to you a lot, don't they?

- Yes, they do.

- Talk about them.

- Absolutely.

Well, the reason I have actually continued my relationship with the Newark Public Schools, although in a different way, is because I am really concerned and about the future of Newark's children and working with Stand and Deliver actually helps me as much as I hope that I help the students, because it allows me to continue, even though I'm not a teacher in the classroom, to really continue to be able to give and to help facilitate learning and growth in Newark students.

- Talk about the growth in the business community, the Hispanic business community, A and B, the impact of COVID as we get two years and beyond into this.

- Yeah, the numbers, the last census shows that New Jersey is 21.6% Hispanic, and those are those that filled out.

So I feel that number is even higher, but a very impressive number.

And we just keep on growing.

The Hispanic business population is doubling and tripling.

Back in 2009, when we had our last recession, Hispanic businesses were growing while Main Street businesses were stagnant.

And there's an argument to be made that Hispanic businesses drove us out of that recession.

- Clem, we spent a day with a young lady in the summer youth performance workshop here at NJPAC, extraordinary young woman, wants to be a singer.

Is that an example of what NJPAC can do for the kids of this city?

- Yeah, I think so.

Old Newarkers, like you, often brag about the disproportionately large number of talented artists who've come out of a relatively small American city.

The reason why Newark produced so many distinguished American artists, both in the performing, visual, and literary arts, is because this city once had a top-flight arts and education program in its schools.

What NJPAC I think has done, to its credit, is to suggest that talent is within the reach of every kid in Newark if you ignite the spark of curiosity and ingenuity.

- Every year we recognize some of them.

There are three bigger prize winners, in terms of monetary gifts, and then there are a whole range of others who we recognize.

Some of those folks never are recognized.

Am I right?

- And they don't do it for recognition, which is so amazing to everybody else who are present at these awards.

Just yesterday, or no, just last week, I was with Sandra Ramos, who won the award this year.

And she started a women's shelter, one of the first battered women's shelter in the country.

It's called Shelter Our Sisters.

And I had the pleasure of being there, because she named the house, the latest house she was able to buy with the prize money from the Russ Berrie Awards; she used the money as a down payment to buy the house, and she named it after Russ.

- So much crime, murder, particularly of young people, drugs, gang violence, how do you preach a positive message in the midst of that?

- Well, Steve, let me say that hope is related to tomorrow.

It's never about today or yesterday.

Hope is about what is possible despite what we know now.

So my obligation, and I've been at Bethany now approaching 15 years, I've never preached the same sermon twice, and I'm always aiming for a vision beyond this veil of tears.

- Breast cancer survivorship.

Dr. Leong, what do we mean by that?

A and B, why is it so important for all of us to understand?

- So breast cancer survivorship is kind of the end of their treatment.

It's when they start to begin to resume their normal life with their family, kinda get back to their day to day, trying to get back to what they were pre-diagnosis as much as they could.

- Dr. Jhawer, beyond breast cancer, breast, excuse me, cancer survivorship overall, is it different depending upon the cancer you're talking about, A, and B, are there just some similarities across the board?

- Absolutely.

So the word survivorship has evolved.

It's from the time of diagnosis through treatment and beyond.

And essentially each diagnosis, even within breast cancer, everyone has unique types of breast cancers.

So their survivorship journey or plan is very different and unique.

- And executive producing documentaries where there's the deaf representation in front of the camera, but you've also said it's so important to have that representation behind the camera.

Talk about that and how you're making sure that's happening.

- [Interpreter] Yeah.

My strongest opinion truly is that representation does not happen in front of the camera but instead behind the lens.

So many people have asked me over the years, essentially, how "Deaf U," which is also a Netflix, our docu-series really broke the molds, and what we did to really dive deeply into deaf culture.

Hearing people have told me so many times that they've never seen anything like it, which I love.

And I tell them the secret sauce really is to hire people on set who come from the community.

Our crew was made up of over 50% of deaf people.

And it's incredible to be able to capture the nuanced conversations, and the language, and just using that deaf lens and that perspective to really pull storylines out and understand where the really good stuff is, that's representation to me and that's where it starts.

- Describe what that is, Margaret, your mom's name.

These women, their children, they have a place to be safe.

Talk about it.

- We named the safe rooms and schools for these young people after my mom, Margaret's Place.

It's a safe place for them to go.

We have a master's level counselor.

So if kids like I did, I never wanted to talk about anything.

And a big reason for that, Steve, is the fact that I thought I was the only one that was going through this.

I knew there was nobody else in the neighborhood.

You know, when you close the door of their homes that anything was going on, because that's what I was thinking as a youngster.

But more importantly is there are other young people in the room and they realize they're not alone and it's not their fault.

- Arming teachers.

There are some watching right now who say, "Let's give teachers guns so they can protect themselves, so they can protect their kids.

That's part of the answer."

You say, David?

- No.

- [Steve] Because?

- The reason why we shouldn't arm teachers is because that's, I often think of this like, you know, we could try to stop fires from breaking out at buildings in the first place, or we could try to hire more firefighters, right?

Yeah, if you hire more firefighters or first responders, you may be able to stop, you know, a few more people from dying.

But the reality is why not stop the shooting or that fire from happening in the first place by being preventative about it.

You know, by putting in smoke detectors, by making sure that you have the right measures in place to stop that fire from breaking out in the first place.

The reality is, other countries, even ones with guns like Switzerland, where they're a major part of their culture there, do not have school shootings on a daily basis.

And you know why?

It's not because they have cops in every school or their teachers are armed.

It's because in those countries, if you wanna own a gun, responsible ownership is mandatory, legally speaking, and not something that's voluntary.

- What have you taken from this personally?

This experience since Mallory's tragic death.

The work that you're doing, what have you taken from that?

- Oh, first of all, 80% of the population is amazing.

That's what I say, is that the only coverage that really gets news coverage is the 20% that are just angry, mean, hateful people.

So, but when I talk to people like you and all the other reporters and people who share Mallory's story, overall, we're a great community.

We're a great group of people who are just trying to make the world a nicer place.

(bright upbeat music) - [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Celebrating 30 years in public broadcasting.

Funding has been provided by The Russell Berrie Foundation.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey.

PSEG Foundation.

New Jersey Institute of Technology.

New Jersey Children’s Foundation.

Delta Dental of New Jersey.

Wells Fargo.

And by The Adler Aphasia Center.

Promotional support provided by NJ.Com.

And by BestofNJ.com.

(hands clapping) (drums banging) (fingers snapping)