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

- Hola familia, welcome to "Que Pasa with Carlos Medina."

They say there's power in numbers, and when you look closely at those numbers, they tell a story, a story of more Latinos stepping into leadership roles that shape our communities in academia, business, and even in the kitchen.

Today, we see that impact in Andy Acebo, now officially the president of New Jersey City University, leading the charge in higher education.

We see it in Ana Valdez, president and CEO of the Latino Donor Collaborative, whose think tank is proving just how much US Latinos contribute to our economy and GDP and why those numbers matter.

And we tasted in the journey of Bronx-born self-taught chef Derick Lopez of The Freakin Rican, who turned his mom's family recipe into a thriving restaurant, catering company, seasoning line, and delicious pasteles shipped around the world.

And guess what?

He's coming to Jersey.

Let's get started.

(gentle upbeat music) - You're one of those people that should have had a show for a long time.

- It's amazing.

It's amazing.

- And now our first guest is my hermano, Cuban-American leader, Andy Acebo.

He's been on "Que Pasa" before, and now he's back as the official president of New Jersey City University to share his vision and what's next over at NJCU.

Welcome back to "Que Pasa."

You're the record breaker with four appearances on the show.

- Thank you so much for having me.

- Last time you were here, you were interim president of New Jersey City University and now you're full, what's the terminology?

- They lifted that interim title, the full appointment.

- How does it feel and how do you feel, obviously in the trust that they've placed in you and making you permanent?

- I think, look, it's an institution with a deep history, a rich history in our community.

It is New Jersey's oldest, longest standing Hispanic-serving institution of higher education, an institution that literally educated the teachers that I had growing up, the nurses, the cops on the beat in my community.

So in very real and distinctive ways, this institution played a pivotal role in my upbringing, even indirectly at times.

My wife is a proud alum, my mother-in-law, (speaks in foreign language) is an alum.

But Carlos, getting to share that moment after, you know, two and a half very long years of grueling work, of championing a community alongside incredible servant leaders, both in elected office and in business like yourself and members of the chamber.

To have that culminate in this moment as we're ushering in this next century of this institution, it was beautiful.

And to have my parents in particular, my kids and my wife, in attendance to witness it, it's a lot of pride, humility, and a revergence of purpose.

- You recently had a press conference with the Hispanic Chamber and the New Jersey Economic Development Authority announcing the business hub at Harborside.

Tell me about the significance of that, and I mean, it's a nice coup to pull that off, having three major players together.

- Absolutely.

Well, listen, like most good coups, they begin, like ours, you know, brainstorming over cafecito.

- Exactly.

- And really figuring out, like, how do you canalize and institutionalize a commitment to community?

And so much of what's so brilliant about this region is the diversity of our community, the vibrancy that immigrant communities bring to it.

And to be able to make sure that we're cementing that relationship and establishing in the halls of higher education and in business that we value this, that we're gonna drive resources and opportunities through this innovation hub, is a game changer, and I don't say that lightly.

I think the New Jersey Economic Development Authority saw what we aspire to build, I think was a beautiful testament to it.

- What's your vision for making NJCU stand out in a time when higher education is under attack?

It's a very unstable space right now.

- As a proud product of this community, public school educated, there's an unapologetic sense of responsibility to champion this community.

And not just in these moments of really significant headwinds.

But like most things, right, and most challenges that our community's up to taking, the resiliency, the grit is trimming ourselves, and we've done that.

We're on the precipice of doing something incredible.

In the fall of '27, our institution, our campus celebrates 100 years of committed centralized focus of service.

And we're building something incredibly new that I think will prove to be a national model in our planned merger with Kane University.

Bringing these two mission-focused, aligned institutions at a time where there's considerable downward pressure on higher education to be doubling down on our commitment to being an anchor institution, enhancing the reach and the opportunities that are afforded to our community and our students and equally to the people that are privileged to serve them, our faculty and staff.

I think we're gonna usher in a new century of higher education in Hudson County and Northern New Jersey and in the region that will be a national model.

And that's what I'm laser-focused on over the remainder of my tenure, is to usher in this glorious chapter and bring this campus to its second century.

- So you hosted the President of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, last year.

I mean, very significant accomplishment.

Number one, how did you pull off that?

You know, getting him there.

And if you could have another head of state in come visit the campus, who do you think, who would you like to have on?

- So I like leaning into our community roots, right?

So when you consider that our campus is located in Hudson County where more than half of the population is foreign-born, we've made considerable efforts to strengthening our ties and leveraging the fact that Jersey City in itself is a global city, right?

Any corner that you turn, you can come across varied cultures and languages and experiences.

And that I think is the strength of our community.

We've launched partnerships of one of its kind, the first of its kind with GLACO, the Grupo Latino-Americano of the consular generals of Latin America, where we host them on a monthly basis, fortifying relationships.

That was kind of the conduit for hosting Ecuador's head of state, which was his first trip as the sitting head of state to the United States.

Made his trip to the UN and crossed the Hudson to the better side of Hudson, I like to remind folks.

Invited the Ecuadorian diaspora onto our campus and see themselves reflected in real time, right, of like, this community is rich and is so dignified and so respected that the head of state comes to this campus to see it and interact with it.

So as far as other heads of state, anyone that is appreciative of the struggle of the diaspora, that embraces the richness of our community and the promise of our American ideals in ways that is always under siege, it appears nowadays, is one that'll find an extended hand on our campus.

- I love it.

I love it.

Well, thank you for joining us.

- Thank you.

- And continue to impress.

And continue to top all the education power list that New Jersey puts out.

- Thank you so much.

(gentle upbeat music) - Our next guest knows how to win people over one bite at a time.

He's a self-made boricua, self-taught chef from the Bronx, and a man who could make people happy just by walking into the room.

He's turned his mom's recipes into The Freakin Rican restaurant, seasoning line, and pasteles that he ships all over the country.

As someone who has his mom from Ponce, Puerto Rico, and my dad was from Cuba, I know, I used to have arroz con gandules on one side of the table, and congri, or frijoles negros on the other, so I'm certainly ready for this conversation.

Welcome to the show, Derick.

- Thank you.

Thank you so much for having me.

- Tell me a little bit about growing up in the Bronx and your memory of falling in love with food.

- I felt the Bronx was like little Puerto Rico back in the day.

I remember being in the Bronx, I think I was, until I was about nine years old.

I'm 40, gonna be 47 now, so quite a while ago.

But I love the Bronx.

You had (speaking in foreign language) playing dominoes, the kids out in the hydrant in the summers, freestyle playing in the cars.

It was really a great time.

My mom would often take us to the Machinas, which were the carnivals on Third Avenue.

And they used to sell a whole bunch of cuchifritos, alcapurrias, bacalaito, and that's when I really fell in love with the food and just the ambiance around the food, people singing, people dancing, and it just stayed with me throughout all my life.

And for some reason at such a early age, I knew that I wanted to be in the culinary world and have someday a little cuchifrito of my own.

- Take us on that ride.

You went from having The Freakin Rican digital platform, then you had restaurant, seasoning line, shipping orders.

Tell me, where did you muster that courage to take that leap of faith and just go for it?

- I think, well, I had one restaurant, I had one restaurant when I was 34 years old.

It was called Mi East Life, failed after seven months.

I really knew nothing about business, I just knew that I wanted a restaurant.

So obviously, it failed after seven months.

Again, I had little to no experience.

I went back into the makeup world because I am a professional makeup artist.

I went back for a year, basically saved all of my money, and just one day woke up and said, I'm gonna do street festivals.

And so I did street festivals, kind of branding myself as The Freakin Rican.

And we did like 12 festivals, then we did 60 festivals.

We had one stand, then we had two stands 'cause I did this with my former husband, my ex-husband.

But I've always did like the shipping, I have YouTube.

So I was always trying to dibble and dabble in anything that I could.

And basically anything that would come to my mind, I would think of it as a download from God, from the universe, basically guiding me.

And all I did was just listen to that little voice, do this, do that.

And I would just, no excuses, just do it, do it, do it.

And here I am now about to open up my second location after 10 years of this journey.

So it's been quite a journey.

- Tell me about that experience of cooking with mom and how it shaped, not only your culinary journey, but just your life journey really.

- My mom and my grandma really instilled so much of that soul, of that, you know, when you cook for someone, it's so personal, you know?

And I remember making pasteles with mommy.

Mommy's an amazing cook.

Amazing, amazing, amazing.

She will make one thing 50 million ways.

My mother's just amazing.

And so, being brought up in the South Bronx, my mother cooked a meal every single day.

Chinese food, pizza was like (speaks in foreign language).

because mommy always, always cooked.

So being around that, it just made me know good food, and I just really try to make her proud every single day that I'm doing this.

- I know you put a little bit of a modern twist on it, but how do you keep true to your Puerto Rican roots while experimenting with new flavors and new ingredients but still remaining true to the Puerto Rican customs and traditions?

- Basically, one thing that I wanted to do since starting this brand was give you the same flavor, but it was really important for me to make products and season food with no artificial coloring.

We make achiote oil, so that's what we color all the food with.

We don't use packets of sazon, which contain MSG.

So our sazon is all natural, our adobo is all natural.

We only use our sazon, our adobo.

Just a twist in trying to keep my people healthier because my family, you know, most of my aunts, my uncle, my blood pressure, (speaks in foreign language).

So just in that sense, try to take better care of my people.

And so that is mainly the biggest twist that I put into my food.

Just making it clean, healthy, but still not lacking the Puerto Rican flavor.

- Tell me about your pateles.

They've really become world famous.

So tell our viewers a little bit about them because not all our viewers know about Puerto Rican pasteles.

- Pasteles to me mean family, mean my mom, mean my grandma and my aunts.

It's such a tradition that it was so important for me to get the pasteles on point, on point, on point, because when you taste them, it just transports you back to when you were that child on that assembly line doing whatever, you know, if you had the olives, or if you, God forbid, you had guayando, you know?

I think everybody ran from that.

- Oh, that was my job.

(chuckles) - But it's so nice because when you think back, a lot of times, you know, maybe you're not as fortunate to have those loved ones around and you think back and you hold onto those memories.

And then when you taste one of my pasteles, it just transports you to that time.

So again, food is very personal, and our pasteles just make you feel at home, they pack a punch in flavor.

We won a New York Times, I think it was 2019, Best Pasteles of the Year.

We also won the pasteles contest.

We ship nationwide, our pasteles.

So I think that makes a big deal because sometimes you live in Las Vegas, Nevada and you can't find Puerto Rican pasteles.

So you just contact me and I ship them straight to your door.

So it's been a huge, huge success.

- What's next for you?

Any other plans, any other restaurant expansions after Teaneck?

- I always wanted to create a space to make my people proud to say, "Oh my God, The Freakin Rican is one of us."

And so, my plans would be a third, a third restaurant, and then to franchise.

I always, since I started, I said, "I want Freakin Ricans all over the place."

I love it because in the Astoria location, I have customers that didn't have babies and now their babies are like five, six, seven because they come and they come and they come.

And so just creating a space where everyone really feels in community and feels at home.

- I love it.

Thank you for being part of the Que Pasa familia, Derick, and best of luck, and I'll see you at the grand opening in Teaneck.

- I hope so.

Thank you so, so much.

And to all of your viewers, (Derick speaks in foreign language) Thank you, guys.

(gentle upbeat music) - And our last guest is Ana.

Hola Ana.

Before we dive into your story, I think it's important to go over the numbers.

I want our audiences to know the person behind the data.

You grew up in Mexico, worked in Spain, spent time at the United Nations in Geneva, and even served in the United States during the Clinton administration.

That's an incredible journey.

Welcome to "Que Pasa."

- Hola Carlos, thank you so much for having me.

- How has that experience, that international experience, shaped the work that you're doing today?

- You know, I was born and raised in Mexico City, and then I lived in Europe, both in Spain and in Switzerland for four years.

I also studied a year in high school in the United States.

And I think that all this, you know, all this different lenses allowed me to understand the Latino community in the United States so much better, right?

First as an outsider, quite frankly, in every aspect, right?

We're talking music, we're talking fashion, we're talking family values.

My incredible luck of being able to see the Latino community from so many angles, it was incredible.

I gotta tell you, and I'm gonna add just one more thing because it's important to what you asked.

When I lived in Europe, people, I was of course young and free and everything, and people really loved everything I had to say and loved my culture.

I always joke that I always felt like a young Aztec princess in Europe.

People just loved everything that Mexico, you know, meant, and they wanted to travel there, and they wanted to speak Spanish.

And it was just this incredible love that exists in Europe for Latin America in general.

And then when I moved to the United States and I see this contrast, honestly, I was, you know, shocked because our community is fabulous.

Whatever people say in this country or not, our community is incredible.

And so that has also given me all the strength all these years to just make sure that the more people possible sees this angle of who we are, which is admired everywhere in the world, sometimes except in the United States.

- As you and I both know, stereotypes can be very damaging.

Your data helps fight negative stereotypes and myths.

Can you tell us, you know, what do you feel your research has completely disproven about Latinos that are still commonly shared by mainstream media and the mainstream community in this country?

- So the organization has been up for 15 years, I joined 10 years ago.

And I remember that from the very beginning, even before I was here, every three years we do a poll, of, you know, perception of Latinos.

You know, we always make sure that we actually include Latinos and non-Latinos.

In the latest one, we actually segmented non-Latinos by African American, white, Asian in three different countries because of the volume of the Asian community and of course Latinos ourselves.

And we've seen a huge change, not enough though.

But just to showcase, in 2012, which was the first poll, 75% of Americans thought that Latinos were a burden.

And when you asked what do you think they are, they would always say, "Well, you know, they're not hard workers" and all these horrible misconceptions.

In our latest report, actually that number switched.

A little 69% of our polled people said that Latinos were contributors to this country.

You know, today in most of the polls, 80% of people are against deportation of people that have been here in this country, undocumented or not, but in a legal, in a contribution kind of, you know, role, and that have actually built this economy.

Just to know that there is a powerful movement in the country, especially now with a big deportation movement that is happening.

But there is a counter movement where the majority of Latinos actually agree that immigrants especially come here and make this country better, is just really a pleasure.

And again, so much more to do, but we've been lucky to achieve also a lot.

- 20% of the United States is Hispanic, and the new numbers from Latino Donor Collaborative say the gross domestic product of the United States' GDP is $4 trillion.

Is that accurate?

- That is.

And the trend of the Latino community just keeps growing.

Our scientists, our researchers have projected that in the next 10 years, we'll actually surface Japan and Germany to put us on the third or fourth, you know, economy in the world if Latinos in the United States were an economy.

- Ana, if every CEO, policymaker, investor, truly, truly understood the data that you're working with, what would change tomorrow in the Hispanic community?

- Well, we've seen already, you know.

This year, again, you and your audience probably have seen how, you know, the president of Coca-Cola saying, right?

You know, because Hispanics are not coming to buy Coca-Cola, our sales are 3.3% down.

Or the CEO of Target saying, "Please stop this movement.

People are not showing up in my store.

And our sales and revenue, you know, are suffering," or the CEO of Constellation Brands, you know, which commercializes Modelo, the beer, saying, "Latinos are not gathering.

Latinos are not going out.

Latinos are not consuming our products and that really is hurting our economy, and therefore the economy of the country."

And you know what, those are the examples that I can mention 'cause they're public.

But we have a lot of one-on-ones with CEOs, and we hear them constantly saying, "Believe me, you don't have to convince me.

I'm feeling it on my sales.

I feel it when they come out and when they celebrate, and we feel them when they don't come out and we miss them.

Our numbers miss them.

Our board of directors miss them.

You're talking about Disney, you're talking about, you know, toys.

I don't know if you know this, Carlos, according to the US census, 30% of all the new births are Latinos in the United States.

So imagine companies like diapers, right?

Toys, you know, formula for babies.

Those are, you know, tremendous businesses that depend on a 30% basis on our community.

- Ana, the work you're doing is so important.

I will be inviting you to come to New Jersey to speak at an event because I'm very impressed with what you're doing and impressed with the time we were able to chat today.

Thank you so much, and I hope to have you back on "Que Pasa" very soon.

- Thank you, Carlos, for the work that you do.

- Ladies and gentlemen, that's a wrap.

And thank you for joining us in honoring leadership, elevating representation, and proving that Latino stories and data tell a powerful truth that benefit everyone.

You could watch full episodes anytime on pbs.org, and don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Until then, (speaks in foreign language).

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

(gentle upbeat music) Thanks to the Statewide Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey.

Find out more about our familia at shccnj.org.

This has been a production of the Modesto Educational Foundation.