Announcer: Major funding for "Chat Box with David Cruz" is provided by the members of the New Jersey Education Association, making public schools great for every child.

♪ David: Hey, everybody.

Welcome to "Chat Box."

I'm David Cruz.

Our theme is disparities in many walks of life.

We will talk about disparities when it comes to female and minority entrepreneurs business with New Jersey in a few minutes.

First, we begin today with long existing disparities in business, the arts, and representation that Latinos still face, a story you ain't heard before, says John Liga Sama in his three-part series , which premieres this week on PBS and October 8 onNJAPBS.

We are pleased to have the creator and host, stage and screen actor, reducer, writer, and [speaking Spanish] for good, John Leguizamo, and John's frequent collaborator Ben that has Sue's -- Ben.

>> [speaking Spanish] David: John, you will accept [ speaking Spanish] >> At times, but -- [speaking Spanish] I definitely would like to be incorporating the executive side until we get equal representation across corporations, banking, technology, medicine, and Hollywood.

David: We will talk about politics, as well in a little bit, but, so, having watched the episodes, I was expecting something close to Latin history for more on, the theater piece that you did back in the city in 2016.

This series is like the more serious cousin to that, yeah?

John: Yeah, this is our in-depth version of all the accumulated facts of our contributions to the making of the U.S., from our empires, from 1492, all our contributions to the building of America in the 1800s, all of our oppression, segregation, the fight against segregation, to the activists in the 1970's.

David: And not for laughs.

This is not played for laughs.

I found myself saying, as you do throughout the series, I did not know that.

Which I think really underlines the point that you made when you said if our contributions were written back into history textbooks, can you imagine how America would see us, and more importantly, how we would see ourselves, right?

John: that is why Ben and I put the show out, to help us see ourselves and all the great value we brought to America and the world that we don't get seen, that does not get seen because John Hopkins University did a study and found 87% of Latino contributions to the making of America are not in history textbooks.

This is our corrective.

David: It is incredible.

Ben: When John was doing "Latin History for Morons," people are there to laugh, but they were also enlightened by the time they were done with the show.

All along, it was the idea that John has done this incredible amount of research.

Unfortunately, only 1000 people a night are able to see it, and on Netflix now they are able to see it, but what if we took that idea and put John in the role as he was on stage, as a professor.

I tell people that John is the most intellectually curious person I've ever met.

If you look at his office, he always looks like you studying for exams or a midterm.

[LAUGHTER] He is cramming, highlighters, Post-it notes.

Just this idea of his infectious curiosity, partnered with PBS, who we have done six projects with already, it was a no-brainer to do this.

David: Ben, you are the director of the show.

I tried to come up with the pitch line for this.

It is like American experience with [speaking Spanish].

Part of it is the host, but the stories that you choose to tell, the individuals you highlight, I feel like there was some purposeful editorial points he wanted to make, yes?

Ben: Look, we wanted to basically make sure that people know we were here all along, and this is not to exclude other cultures or other populations, it is more for us to say we were here, as well customer a lot of good things we take for granted in the American culture, some have our fingerprints on the, taking credit, and Latin people being in light and entertained anyway.

John: I always feel like if we Latinos have always been here, why are we not further along on the food chain and the hierarchy in the pyramid?

And then when you study all the things that we brought up in the show, you see why.

We were lynched, burned alive, shot, massacred, experimented on, segregated, and to fight against all of that, it is almost impossible to get up the food chain.

That is when you understand our political wealth and land wealth was taken from us, and, yet, we are still here and thriving, somehow.

David: You talk about those stories that have purposely been erased.

How did you re-create the history?

I cannot imagine what kind of research project this was.

Ben: I will say that John has been working on a version of this for the last 15 years.

John: Longer.

Ben: Longer.

He really was kind of the intellectual behind it, the academic.

He says he is an amateur historian, but when we talk to professors, they are like this guy could teach a class in history.

They are learning from him.

It was a matter of really digging into really the roots of it I would say in terms of a piece of content, but every time you get closer to Broadway, you have to cut 10 minutes, all of a sudden, you are like, these incredible stories are not even going to make it.

We just thought, how can we make it?

John: Then we went to the experts, some of the great historians of Latin history in America.

There are a ton of them.

You know, Latin history was banned in Arizona until recently.

You are not allowed to teach Latin history in Arizona, where 30% of the population, and in Texas, they are only allowed to teach Latin history one day of the year when 40% of the population is Latino.

That is why the show is an antidote for that.

This is our way of getting these important facts out to the culture come out to America, so America, like you said, can see us differently and we can see ourselves differently.

David: You give startling statistics about the impact of Latinos on the national GDP and the size of the Latino marketplace for films, food, all of that.

I feel like there are scant few Latinos controlling the means of production and film, theater, etc.

Do Latinos have to do it themselves?

And are the big stars out there falling little short in that regard?

John: I mean, it is a hard battle to get into the executive offices.

I think pressure is important, and all the tools of picketing, boycotting, protesting are important.

But I don't think they are sufficient, especially when there is this movement by right-wing groups who have organized and gotten lawsuits, and that is what has taken away the voting rights act and that is what took down the affirmative action.

And these are destroying the EI programs are customary -- DEI programs across America, so we have to use lawyers to get a place in these corporate offices.

David: You are a longtime collaborator with John on his projects, but what is it like outside of the production world that you, too, have created?

Who is buying Latino stories?

What kind of Latino stories are being made?

Ben: Right now we have several feature film projects and development and TV series, as well.

We had a company called NGL collective, acquired by or created, so we are reaching many Latinos in that way, but it takes organizations and places like PBS and Latino public broadcasting, who believe in the mission of telling our stories.

Not just to Latinos because I tell people this is not just a Latino story for Latino audiences.

This is a Latino story for all audiences.

So thank to the support of PBS on the publication -- public broadcasting, we are able to get this to the screen but we are not waiting for permission.

We are not here to hope Hollywood finds us.

We are here to tell our stories by any means necessary, and we will make it happen.

Here we are, sitting -- it took us seven years.

John: That is all.

Ben: Only seven on this one.

Hopefully, things will move a little quicker.

John: And be better.

Time is running out.

Ben: What we are also excited about the stuff we have done with NBC Universal, "Leguizamo Does America," so in our small way, we are trying to change the system on our own.

John: And executives like the first chairman of NBC news green lit "Leguizamo does aAmeric -- America," we are less than 1% of the stories being told.

.0% of the executives.

And that needs to change ASAP.

David: Is this a different era for Latinos?

John, I think you and I are around the same age.

I remember hearing the word spic almost daily, to be honest.

John: Yeah, we are the same age.

David: I'm glad we have not tried to reclaim that one, by the way, but it made me wonder, could you name your show that today without some sort of blowback?

John: I had blowback back then, too, it was banned in Texas and Canada because of the term.

That is good and bad, but the show itself, I think was important, and inspiring youth to be writers and performers, and I'm glad I had a hand in that.

As Latin people, we face a lot of systemic racism in America, when I get political, I get a lot of blowback on the Gram and X, saying "go back to Mexico," and I say, gladly, I'm not from there, I'll take the vacation.

Go back to performing, you clown.

You get a lot of aggression when you speak up, but I'm not afraid of speaking up.

David: And I was going to say that it does not seem to have stopped you because I mean from Trump through everybody, including ourselves, you have been there to point the finger at and point the finger in the eye, as well.

John: I'm from Queens.

I'm a Latin man that grew up in America.

I had to fight my way to get here, so I'm not afraid of fighting and to keep fighting.

I will fight until the day I die.

David: Certainly not afraid of no Trump.

John: Nah, not afraid of Trump.

David: Ben, there are a lot of stories that you said, you could not tell when you were doing the stage version of Otieno's for -- "Latinos for Morons," but a lot of stories did not fit into this three-part series.

The lives and stories of some of these figures, I don't think it came up in the series, but I have been waiting for someone to come up with the biopic of Pedro Abiso Campos.

Ben: There is one being worked on right now.

Some of my friends are developing it and we are supporters of it, but that is an incredible example of a figure who unfortunately, we have three hours to tell about 3000 years worth of history.

Really, this is just the beginning.

We hope that we come back with volume 2, 3, 4.

Because in the way that Ken Burns showcased and highlighted a lot of American history, we have to just ask the question, why not us, as well?

This is our first foray into it, but the goal is to go on and tell the story of Pedro Campos , Emilio Estevan, and many others.

John: and Jovita -- Ben: Lolita.

John: There are so many people we have not addressed and we would like it to be a hit, so we would like you all to watch.

David: Always have to ask as we get to the end of a segment like this to both of you, are you optimistic about the future for Latino stories, either in popular culture or history, in films, theater, but also in history books?

John: I think we have a big shot.

I think our show is one of the correctives to that.

PBS Davis this great platform, and they have an incredible reach in schools, 11,000 schools that have access to, and we are the largest population in public schools in America.

This is one way of being a corrective to the history books excluding us.

David: Add to the fact that Latinos are not a monolith.

They literally come from dozens of countries around the world with not only some distinct languages but certainly cultural differences.

We should note 35% of Latinos vote Republican in this country, so it is not a monolith.

Ben: Absolutely not.

We share a lot of culturally once is in common, in terms of quizzing and our love of rice and beans, in terms of the language, but we come from different backgrounds and whatnot.

But what was important in this film was to highlight as much of the representation is we could, especially when it came to Afro Latinos and women and their role in activism in a way that maybe has not been highlighted before.

Again, we had three hours, and we hope people will tune in, enjoy, and will once more because there is plenty more to tell.

John: And white people also are not a monolith.

David: You make that point.

You made that point in the series.

John: Yeah, so, you know, we come from different races.

We are part indigenous, part Afro-Latino, and we have European.

This is what makes Latinos the future.This is what the future looks like as Latino.

David: The future is Latino.

This series is called "American Historia," airing on PBS this month, John Leguizamo is the creator and host, Ben DejJesus s the director.

John: Thank you.

[speaking Spanish] David: A study released last year found a gap when it came to women and minority entrepreneurs getting a shot to do business with New Jersey.

Lawmakers are now putting up a series or bill -- of bills addressing that, including the chair of the legislative Black caucus, assembly member, who joins us now.

Thank you.

Guest: Thank you for picking up this important topic.

I'm excited that we are working towards repair and working with minority and women owned businesses in New Jersey.

David: What did the study find in terms of numbers?

Guest: That black owned companies that make up 9.91% of the available construction businesses in Jersey only received 0.014% of construction contact dollars.

0.014%, where we had 9% of eligible contractors, nearly 28% of construction firms in the state are minority owned, so back to my point of we have some businesses that are eligible to compete in this process, yet, they received less than 3% of the funds for prime construction contracts, valued at over $5.7 million.

I have been with you previously to talk about the wealth disparities that impact the Black community and women over the years, and now this is a big part of that component that further emphasized that New Jersey can do better as a state, and we are prepared to do better with a package of bills we introduced Monday.

David: You took me where I wanted to go, the package of bills.

What specific steps are they intended to create?

AWS.

Sumter: essentially, they are intended to create aspirational goals, working with Allstate contracting units, Allstate contracting units to work with minorities and women owned businesses.

What is important for us is that you not continue to do the same thing.

We have a database that recognizes minority and women owned businesses where they can register, so now the state has a database, so that theory that they don't know where the businesses are and they cannot find them no longer exists.

We also had legislation for education training and advertisement of state contracting, working with our chambers of commerce, not only the State chamber but the affinity chambers, the African-American chamber, the Hispanic chamber, the pride chamber, so we can socialize when the opportunities are available so you don't have to try to search for the entities.

Also one that is near and dear to my heart, making sure that our small businesses, who cannot afford to wait for payment, early payments when they are selected to work on state contracts, so that they can pay their staff and continue to pump out the work.

I'm excited about this package.

It is just the beginning of some of the repair that allows certified, eligible businesses to work in state procurement practices.

David: Women and minority business, make yourself more known, as well.

How do you measure the success of these initiatives?

I don't have to tell you, we have been down this road before.

Isn't there an office of women of minority businesses?

Guest: -- Asw.

Sumter: there was an office on minority women owned businesses, depleted under Chris Christie, so getting back to some of the harm that has occurred that polled information, but now working through the office of treasury to make sure we capture this data, and two, we have legislation to continue to do the studies because this also includes not only African-Americans, Hispanic persons, but Asian and Pacific islanders.

Where you had entities in a state that could contracts, they were not selected.

So we need to be sure that they are selective because time is money, recognize when they apply, and it takes time from their day-to-day business.

David: A couple of other items, changes announced this week at state police after two investigations found widespread abuses, including racial and gender harassment and dissemination.

Regarding female troopers, Matt Platkin, now moving human resources, moving them out of the state police into his office, and ordering more reforms.

Is this not an indictment of that department that here in 2024, after two decades of going back to them 1990's of the consent decrees, they still have to fix the thing, so that "the demographics of the New Jersey state police will better reflect the diversity of the state it serves."

Huh?

How long?

Asw.

Sumter: I share your incredulous spirit with this.

It is deplorable.

It is the second report we received this year, we have the office of law enforcement and the standards reviewed earlier this year.

I spoke to the Attorney General, so let me state that the New Jersey Attorney General, Matt Platkin, we say thank you for following through with the work and releasing the report, and calling it out for what it is.

But now we need further reports, the dissent decree is not being monitored, it has not forced the state police into doing what should be right.

The Legislature has instituted bias training to stop implicit bias, cultural diversity training.

We have recruited for minority state police officers, women, yet, within their own, internally, they have experienced bias that has intentionally harmed their ability for promotions, for promotions when they are eligible.

So we really have to put this -- flip this thing on its head, and the NAACP has called for strong reforms, including the resignation of the Colonel.

We as a legislative Black caucus are looking at what reforms are in our wheelhouse.

We also need civilians involved in oversight.

That is something that has not been widely publicized or having inclination to move towards, but we need the public to be the watchdogs for the very entity that has over enforcements because that is what the other reports show, of Black and brown individuals on state highways, let alone how they treat their own internally.

David: One of the things he wanted to see was Colonel Callahan to resign?

Asw.

Sumter: I said the state NAACP conference calls for him to resign in their press release, that was reported.

David: You mentioned the Attorney General and you said some nice things about him.

We had the mayor of Patterson here last week.

He was with us on "Roundtable," and said he would like to state out of Patterson, out of the police department, do you agree with that?

What do you think of the job the AG is doing?

Asw.

Sumter: the AG has been transparent in holding law-enforcement accountable, so I do give him and his department to credit for that, moving the equal employment opportunity and human resources from state police into his division is important, but also being sure that there is oversight and there is a time and a season, so AG's change, so it is important that civilians are also employed and deployed to provide internal investigations because we have seen it, even in Patterson, where police monitoring themselves has not yielded any good results.

Centers that we've done in Patterson to partner with the police is important to be sure that we are working with each other and the people are involved, civilian review boards, we had some issues of corruption with law enforcement in Patterson.

We also don't have enough officers.

We are down upwards of 100 officers, and you are not going to have that level of recruitment overnight, let alone with a population in eight square miles of over 160,000 persons.

There was a lot to be there.

Supports are needed, and I still stand with that.

We cannot tax our way out of state policing, and we cannot leave people out of state policing.

David: Assembly member Sumter, she washed.

Asw.

Sumter: thank you for having me.

David: That is "Chat Box" this week.

Thank you to John Leguizamo and Ben for joining us.

Bernie Williams joins us next week, just in time for the playoffs.

That is next week.

Follow me on X at David CruzNJ.

If you like the content, share and subscribed to the YouTube channel.

I'm David Cruz.

For all the crew here, thank you for watching.

We will see you next week.

Announcer: Major funding for "Chat Box with David Cruz" is provided by the members of the New Jersey Education Association, making public schools great for every child.

♪