- [Announcer] Funding for this episode of "Que Pasa NJ" with Carlos Medina has been provided by; Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, PSE&G, the Engineers Labor-Employer Cooperative 825, ROI, NJ Business Magazine, NJM Insurance Group, Hackensack Meridian Health.

- Welcome to this month's episode of "Que Pasa."

We're very lucky to have from the McCarter Law Firm, Judge Jose Linares and Guillermo Artiles, both partners at this prestigious law firm.

We also have Bishop Rodriguez from Cityline Church and Julia Carias-Linares, CEO of Freedom Studios.

And don't forget ladies and gentlemen, "Que Pasa!"

(salsa music) And our first guests are partners at the law firm of McCarter & English.

We have Judge Jose Linares and Guillermo Artiles.

Welcome to "Que Pasa."

- Thank you.

- Nice to be here.

- So Judge, tell me a little bit about your family's journey from Havana, Cuba to Essex County, New Jersey.

- I was, as you know, born in Cuba, lived through very tumultuous times in Cuba.

I was a very young child when Castro took over in '59, I lived through the Bay of Pigs Invasion in '61, the Cuban Missile Crisis in '62.

Through the eyes of a young man, I saw all of that terror and horror and the changing of what seemed at first to have been a very promising revolution to the disaster and the enslavement of the Cuban people that it came to be.

We eventually left Cuba in 1966.

Like a lot of Cubans, we went through Spain, where we spent about six to seven months.

I did seventh grade while in Spain, and ultimately we came into New York City.

We flew into New York once my father was able to get a work permit.

My father went to work at a factory as a maintenance guy.

My mother went to work, sewing clothing and stuff for people, and they were both educators in Cuba.

So we ended up in Newark as opposed to Union City or Elizabeth, where a lot of the Cubans were landing in New Jersey or Miami, obviously in Florida.

So we landed in Essex County in Newark, New Jersey.

My parents eventually went back to college to get their teaching degrees again.

And the rest is history.

I mean, I grew up in Essex County and I still think of myself as a Newark kid.

And now I'm practicing law in the oldest firm in Newark, New Jersey that's got a highway named after it.

- And Guillermo, you're Essex County?

Hudson County?

- A Hudson County boy by birth.

And then I married a girl who brought me to Essex County.

So, I straddle both ways.

- Any relations with that girl and this young man over here?

- I think so.

He was smart enough to marry my daughter along the way.

- Truth.

Truth.

- I leave it up to the audience to decide who married up.

(all laughing) - So how's it working at a firm with your father-in-law?

- It's amazing.

He's been a teacher of mine for many years and he's truly one of my best friends now in life.

So it is a true honor and a privilege to spend almost every day together.

So COVID was... Well, we worked from home, his home for four months.

- He moved into my house.

- [Carlos] Wow.

- During COVID.

Like it's been a ton of fun.

- So it's not the typical controversy with the father-in-law and the son-in-law?

- It's not.

- Its not.

(indistinct chatter) I give him a hard time publicly all the time, but he knows, we get along very, very well.

- So both partners at the firm, you run Government Affairs and you also run the Cannabis Division.

And you, I guess, would say litigation, patent is your specialty.

- I'm the chair of the Alternative Dispute Resolution Practice at the firm, which handles all kinds of alternative dispute issues, whether it's mediations or arbitrations or internal investigations, things of that nature.

And I also do...

I'm in the IP group, the patent group, and the commercial litigation group as well.

- So from Cuban immigrant to Chief Justice for the United States District Court in New Jersey.

Would you ever fathom that?

Would your family ever fathom that?

- Never in a million years.

- Never in a million years.

- I mean, if you told us when we got here, I didn't even know how to speak English, right?

My parents are back to square one.

That this journey would actually take place, I never would've believed it.

I said the other day that if I could meet my 13-year-old self today.

Like say we just met at a park bench somewhere, right?

Would that kid believe, truly believe in his head that I was him?

Could he have believed that as at age 13, that that journey would actually take place and that I would end up going to the White House multiple times and testifying before the Senate of the US, and becoming the Chief Judge of the Federal District Court.

I mean, that stuff is just crazy stuff.

Never would've believed it.

- So a Republican President nominated you and the Senate confirmed you.

What year was that?

2002?

- 2002.

Yeah, it was George Bush Jr. And I got- - Bipartisan support.

I know there were some prominent Democratic senators that supported- - I think I was unanimous.

It might have been one vote abstaining or something, but I'm pretty sure it was unanimous.

That was great.

- That was a different time.

- It was different times.

Both sides of the aisle were a little friendlier then.

- Definitely.

Definitely.

- And Guillermo, you worked for the Joe Biden campaign.

You were co-chair for a couple of the various groups.

Tell me about that experience.

I know when I watched one of the speeches, everybody saw Guillermo's family on the hood of a car, like right in front of ABC, CBS.

- Hudson's very famous.

And contrary to what many believed in the red solo cup, there was not beer that he was drinking.

It was the only way I could get him to sit comfortably on the hood.

I put blueberries inside the solo cup.

So he was picking at some blueberries, not on a Bud Light.

Yeah, look, it was one of those fortunate things.

Lucky enough, our chairman emeritus at the firm, may he rest in peace, Mike Kelly, and Brian McGlinchy who, you know, grew up with the Biden family.

And early on, sort of asked me whether I was interested in getting involved, which at the time was not very easy because I'm a big fan of our Junior Senator, Corey Booker, who at the time was running.

But it made the most sense given where I was in my career at McCarter & English to support the Biden campaign.

And it turned out to be an incredibly wise decision that I made.

It was fascinating to sort of be involved and get a little insight into what happens on a campaign of that size.

It was great.

- Excellent.

Excellent.

You know, Guillermo, that diversity is important to me.

We sit on the statewide Hispanic Chamber Board together.

And I know both of you at the firm are an example, two partners of Hispanic origin.

Tell me why McCarter gets it and a lot of companies still... And why are some corporations just completely missing the ball on that?

- Yeah, look, it's definitely work in progress, but I think those who get it right, including McCarter, are the ones that are intentional about it, right?

That really sort of talk about it and then empower the individuals who can be part of that sort of solution, right?

I think we're two great examples of it.

The firm has given me every opportunity I could have asked for, right?

Allowing me to sort of launch the Government Affairs Practice.

At the age that I launched it was at the time a seemingly crazy decision on the part of our chairman and managing partner, and being able to look up at leadership and see that the former chair of the US District Court is one of the partners at the firm, sends an amazing message, an inspiring message to younger diverse lawyers who are trying to make it in this career.

He's truly a beacon of hope.

- Give me some words of wisdom for our viewers about that perseverance as an immigrant and all the struggles to make it.

- If I had to advise a young lawyer or a young college kid coming up, how do you get from point A to point B?

And is that really possible?

Is that just an impossible dream or is it truly an American dream that you can truly pursue?

It starts and ends with being involved, being involved in the community.

And as a young kid, I would go to things that my father belonged to.

He was involved in all kinds of neighborhood activities and things.

And I learned to be involved at the community level at that early age.

And I think becoming involved in that, for the young kids out there, there are a couple of recipes to that is staying away from drugs, number one, and getting an education, right?

I think getting an education is key to this whole thing because it opens so many doors.

The involvement with the community and the involvement with all kinds of different groups opens doors because of relationships that you create.

The people who are young and in the community become the business people of tomorrow and they become helpful to you and you become helpful to them.

And then from there...

But if you continue to be involved, even now, as young people become successful, like this young man to my right here, he's all over the place, right?

He's still engaging.

He's still going.

And that's a measure of his success is that he's always out.

Continuing to be engaged is part of the success.

- That's great.

Well, thank you, gentlemen.

Keep inspiring and thanks for joining "Que Pasa."

- Thank you for having us.

This was fun.

- And up next, we have Bishop Joshua Rodriguez from Cityline Church.

(salsa music) And now we're happy to welcome Joshua Rodriguez, the pastor and founder of Cityline Church.

Welcome to "Que Pasa."

- Thank you.

Good to be here.

- Tell me about your congregation here in Jersey City, New Jersey.

- Yeah.

Well, Cityline's been around for about 30 years.

And although I'm a native New Yorker, just came here with my wife about 30 years ago, fell in love with Jersey City.

And it's actually one of the joys that we have been pastoring the church is that we've been able to build a group of families, probably over 400 families now.

Representing over 60 different ethnic groups.

And that diversity makes it a lot of fun and very interesting.

- What's your experience been around diversity, and including diversity as much as you can?

- Well, it's a very challenging topic because some folks don't understand the power of diversity, the benefits of diversity.

Some folks still have not been able to comprehend that you're able to identify human beings from all different shapes and sizes and different backgrounds, that have much to give.

So some people get it, some don't, and that's disadvantage.

And folks don't understand it or get it, especially at the highest levels of corporate America.

- How's your congregation dealing with people's angst around COVID and just the world.

We're so divided as a country right now.

Do you feel that your congregation is coming to you more stressed about the world events and the health crisis?

- Yeah, so COVID...

I would say not just COVID, but the last three years have been fascinating as it relates to church life in the United States of America and abroad.

And so when you look at all that has happened, specifically the United States of America over the last several years, COVID, the whole aspect of vaccinations and wearing masks and church closures or building closures, versus keeping them open, the George Floyd murder, the presidential election.

It was like a perfect storm for churches.

And so doesn't matter what pastors tried to do right, pastors that pulled churches and said, "Okay, do we open up at this point six months later?"

Half in many surveys, half would say, "If you open up, we're not coming back."

And half would say, "If you don't open up, we're not coming back."

And so it was a dilemma for churches across the country and around the world, I would say.

And Cityline, we've been fortunate.

We've been fortunate that we've invested at least 15 to 20 years.

The first 15, 20 years of our start in pastoral ministry, we did a lot of leadership building.

So we invested a lot of time.

As you know, we travel all over the world today, but at the beginning, it wasn't like that.

At the beginning, we invested time pouring into people.

And because of that, because we have a strong leadership structure and team, our exit door was very small.

Thankfully, we didn't lose many leaders, and that created momentum.

So now as people start coming back, there's a lot of positive aspects, a lot of positive paradigms that we've experienced right now, thankfully.

- In the world we live in today, there seems to be an attack on diversity, especially diverse churches.

How do you... Are you prepared?

Is it something that concerns you that you could be a target, unfortunately, because you are diverse and religious organizations that are diverse seem to have been targeted across the country?

- Yeah.

It continues to be a concern for us.

One of the good things that we have at Cityline is that, we are a church that's police friendly, meaning that we work closely with the policing community.

I myself have been a chaplain since 2006.

And so I've been mentoring cops for over two decades in Jersey City.

So we have a strong police presence in our congregation.

And that's good.

It's also challenging because when all kinds of things disrupt in society, you've gotta constantly educate people as it relates to every industry that has good and bad.

Our folks feel safe.

We have a solid security ministry in place just to make sure that if there is anything that we believe can threaten the safety of our folks, we're ready to respond.

- I see you've worked with Governor McGreevey, Governor Christie, Governor Corzine, so it's always a compliment when somebody's able to work beyond politics and work for both sides of the aisle.

What do you attribute your ability to work for multiple governors in your capacity?

- As a Christian, we believe that our call is to work with whoever is in power.

And that has cost us.

It has cost us, we've paid a heavy price for that because folks have tried to put us in a box.

And so we try to teach that the founder of our faith, Jesus Christ, never allowed anybody to put him in a box.

In fact, when the political establishment asked him, "Are you the king?

What party do you belong to?"

He said, "My kingdom's not of this world."

And so we try to teach folks that as Christians, our job is to protect the rights of people, stand for truth, stand for integrity, stand for the poor, regardless of who's in power.

And so it's been a challenge, not with the folks internally, but the folks outside of the church who wanna force us to pick and choose a specific party, a specific current.

And at the end of the day, we try to teach people, "Hey, go with your convictions."

As Christians, we believe and we teach that we don't fit in either party because our belief systems really fit in partially in both parties.

And so education, education, education has been our key.

It's worked so far, and we're hoping that more folks are able to find common ground as it relates to working hard for just the wellbeing of every human being.

- I feel, and this is just my life experience is that a lot of times people would refer more to country of origin.

Like instead of saying, I'm Black, they'd say, no, I'm Cuban, I'm Dominican, I'm Puerto Rican.

How has your experience been?

And has it changed in the last five years with some of the politics that we see nationally?

- That's a great question.

For us, it's been a life long journey as a Black Puerto Rican, which is how I describe myself.

Some Puerto Ricans will stop and say, "Well, wait a minute.

You're not Black.

You're Puerto Rican."

I say, "Well, let's get into social constructs.

Let's get into what a social construct is.

Let's get into what race is."

And so going back to education, educate people in regards to race, where did it come from?

Is it a social construct?

I believe it is.

Coloring colorism, code switching, all that has been an educational journey for us.

And so as a Black Puerto Rican, we've educated and continued to educate.

Roberto Clemente, as you know, one of our heroes in the Puerto Rican community, when I did research on Roberto Clemente, I noticed that he was... Perhaps his complexion was just slightly darker than mine's.

Yet, I've come across Puerto Ricans that would ask me, (Spanish language) You're Puerto Rican?

When the icon... One of the greatest icons in our beautiful heritage is Roberto Clemente.

So we constantly educate people.

And so wherever you go in the United States of America, Carlos, I can go into Bodega, owned by Hispanics, and speak to them in Spanish, but they won't hear me.

They will see me.

So they respond in English.

And it's not until I can repeat myself and say some phrase in Spanish, like how much is this?

(Spanish language) Once or twice, so that there can be a click, and they can raise, "Oh, this guy speaks Spanish."

The next question will be, "Where do you learn Spanish from?

Are you Latino?"

So it's a constant issue of educating folks on not just the power of diversity, but the blessing of heritage.

Cityline has become a hub for what we call blended heritage families.

And so it's common for you to walk into our doors and you'll find all kinds of mixes.

You'll find somebody who's from Germany, married to somebody who's African-American and so on and so on.

And we teach our folks, celebrate that, teach your kids, that this is not a disadvantage, but it's an advantage.

Celebrate heritage.

- Bishop, thank you for joining us, and keep spreading the word and doing the good work that you do.

- Thank you, Carlos.

Always a pleasure.

- And up next, we have Julia Carias-Linares, CEO of Freedom Studios.

(salsa music) Welcome back.

And up next, we have Julia Carias-Linares, CEO of Freedom Studios.

Welcome to "Que Pasa."

- Thank you for having me.

- Tell me about Freedom Studios.

- Yeah, Freedom Studios is a media company that we launched about three years ago, a little bit prior to the pandemic.

And is three Latinas.

It's owned by three Latinas.

Three former television and advertising executives who came together after working on a project.

And we realized that we really like working with each other.

And we wanted to really focus on stories that told our stories, right, our community.

Stories with a lens of just telling women's stories in our Latino community.

So we've just been developing a variety of content and projects, and we have started to pitch.

So we have anywhere between 12 and 13 projects in a variety of stages in development.

[Carlos] - Excellent.

Excellent.

- Yeah, it's been exciting.

- Tell me about your time with A&E.

- Oh.

A&E was pretty, pretty interesting.

I had been on the production side.

And to have worked... Now had the opportunity to work on the buyer's side.

So I started working, and I was very fortunate to be part of a team that launched FYI, which was their lifestyle network.

It was pretty interesting because it was a smaller brand.

However, we were tapping into the resources of a larger corporation.

So that was amazing.

We had a lot of success.

We were able to have two hits off the bat when we launched FYI in 2014.

And we were the first ones to be in the tiny space.

And we had "Married at First Sight," and I did seven seasons of that.

And it was pretty amazing because I learned a lot about reality television.

I learned a lot about being in the program development and programming space from a buyer's perspective, and really how it touches all the different departments.

I think that it was the preparation to then go out and launch Freedom Studios.

- What caught my attention on your resume was when you were at A&E, you were part of a multicultural insight team.

I feel like every company should have such a team, but tell me a little bit about what that team looked like, what you did.

- You know, it was really...

It was such an important group of people.

I think that the goal was always to not only impact the programming, but also the culture of the company.

It was great, because it was a bunch of brown people, which was amazing, right?

Who really wanted to impact and make sure that there was diversity and inclusion, and in range anywhere from senior level, all the way to entry level, people that were involved.

So it touched the programming aspect of it and the culture of the company.

- So tell me a little bit about your family's immigration story.

- Yeah, sure.

So I'm originally from Honduras and I came here in the mid-'80s.

It was an adjustment, especially having come from a tropical place to New York and had to adjust not only the language, the culture was very different, and also the weather.

It was pretty tough.

And as you can imagine, back in the '80s, the mid-'80s, New York was a pretty tough place to be.

Just like every other family that comes to this country, it's about seeking opportunities and the American dream.

And I always knew that my mom made such a sacrifice.

So for me, it was very important to continue dreaming and continue to go after my dreams and really set out and live with a purpose.

- And as many Latina business owners, one job wasn't enough.

So you also have a staging and real estate company with your husband.

- Yes, that's correct.

Yeah, one day at A&E, we had a show that was being sponsored by Wayfair.

And they canceled the show, but a lot of the items were brought to the company, and they sold it to the employees.

And I love interior design.

I mean, I've always been fascinated by beautiful spaces.

It's like, you know what?

I love this.

And maybe I can be a stager.

I mean, I was doing these home shows, right?

Two weeks later, I get, you know, a phone call.

Somebody's blowing up my phone and I don't know who it is.

I'm in a creative meeting.

Finally, after like maybe 10 times that this person called me, my cousin texts me.

He's like, "Hey, pick up your phone.

Didn't you say you wanted to be a stager, a designer?

I just sent you a recommendation."

And believe it or not, it happened.

That was my first recommendation.

I bid for the job and I got the job.

But I am a producer, so I thought about it.

Okay.

What do I do?

I need to rent furniture.

I need to figure out the space.

And sure enough, like we did the job.

The apartment sold in less than three months.

And he kept bringing me jobs.

And so I was like, okay, there are real estate shows out there, but they often feature men.

We don't have a multicultural cast.

And so that's when I call my two partners.

I said, "Ladies, what do you think about this concept?

Four women in the real estate space, they're all diverse, what do you think?"

And they were like, "We love it."

So we shot a proof of concept and that's how Freedom Studios was born out of that project.

- What do you tell our young viewers?

You talked about perseverance, pivoting, all things that many immigrants talk about when they come on the show.

Give some words of wisdom to our audience about that perseverance advice when they're facing struggles.

- Yeah.

I've been in this industry for a long time.

And a lot of people who I started with are no longer in this industry.

Part of it is that is a tough industry.

We get a lot of nos, especially as an artist, because I started off as an actress.

What I would say is, you've got to stay in the game, but most importantly, if an opportunity doesn't exist, you gotta create your own opportunity.

I've always been that type of person.

I'm like, "Well, if it doesn't exist, I gotta go out and figure out who in my circle I can bring, you know, on this journey to reach that particular goal, power's in the numbers.

And we have to support each other, but create your own opportunities.

You can make it.

That's it.

- Great.

Those are great words of wisdom.

Thank you for joining us today, Julia.

"Que Pasa."

- "Que Pasa New Jersey."

(laughs) - Ladies and gentlemen, that's a wrap.

You got to hear about diverse law partners, diversity within the church, and diversity in motion pictures and television.

These are topics very important to us here at "Que Pasa."

And we're gonna continue to bring them to you week after week.

Thank you.

And please remember, "Que Pasa."

- [Announcer] Funding for this episode of "Que Pasa NJ" with Carlos Medina has been provided by; Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, PSE&G, the Engineers Labor-Employer Cooperative 825, ROI, NJ Business Magazine, NJM Insurance Group, Hackensack Meridian Health.

This has been a production of the Modesto Educational Foundation.

(salsa music)