December 9, 2020 • 35 mins
From the beginning, the Latino community has been a vital part of America's story and now represents the fastest growing demographic group in America. Leaders across the nation in politics, advocacy and entertainment are working to expand opportunity and build empowerment for Latinos so that everyone has a chance to benefit from and fully contribute to American life. Actress Eva Longoria joins Pete to discuss her work mobilizing and engaging Latinos to vote, why farmworkers should be considered essential workers, and the value of increasing opportunities for Latinas in STEM fields.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi, I'm Pete good a judge, and this is the
deciding decade. From fully tackling systemic racism to levenling the
playing field for small business owners of color, to opening
up educational opportunities for minority students, it has never been
more important for us to break down systemic and institutional
(00:25):
barriers and deliver true equity and roads to prosperity for
communities of color. From the beginning, the Latino community has
been a vital part of America's story and now represents
the fastest growing demographic group in America. Leaders across the
nation in politics, advocacy, and entertainment are working to expand
opportunity and build empowerment for Latinos so that everyone has
(00:47):
a chance to benefit from and fully contribute to American life.
With a prolific career dating back to the early two thousands,
Eva Longoria has long been considered one of Hollywood's leading
actresses and has per do TV shows and important documentaries
such as two thousand Fourteens, Food Chains, as well as
directing episodes of some of our favorite shows such as
(01:08):
Blackish and Jane the Virgin. On top of all of that,
Eva as a leader in her philanthropic work and social
and political activism. Some of the highlights from work she
has done include founding the Eva Longoria Foundation, which helps
Latinos build better futures for themselves and their families through
culturally relevant education and entrepreneurship programs, co founding groups like
(01:28):
the Latino Victory Project, a progressive political action committee aimed
at increasing the number of Latino candidates in local, state,
and national elections, and Momental Latino, a coalition of a
hundred and thirty organizations focused on health, education, economy, and
politics and helping Latinos disproportionately affected by the pandemic. She
has been campaigning for candidates and causes that are moving
(01:51):
the country and the world forward. Eva, it's an honor
to be joined by nice to nice to be with you.
I feel like I should be interviewing you. You are
the fascinating one. I am just a boring old actress. Hardly.
You've got a fascinating story. I'm looking forward to digging
into it right now. In fact, let's start there. Let's
start all the way at the beginning, literally the beginning
(02:13):
for you. So you were born in Corpus Christi, Texas,
in but I saw that your family. You don't have
to say the year, Pete, you don't have to say
the year. Yes, yes, it's relevant. It's definitely relevant when
I was born because I feel like so many things happened.
But I was reading that your family was in that
(02:33):
area since the six hundreds. Do I have that right? Yeah? Never,
we never crossed the border. The border crossed us. I
my whole life have identified as Mexican American, and I
and my dad would always say, well, we're technically Spanish.
And I was like, no, we're Mexican, like everybody knows that.
And he's like, no, no, we're Spanish. And then I
(02:53):
was on a show by Dr Henry Lewis Gates and
it's on PBS, and they do your lineage and your genealogy.
So they took my d n A, my my parents
day name, my father's and my mother's and then they
can pinpoint exactly your genetic makeup and it turned out
we were still eighty five percent Spanish blood, which is crazy.
(03:14):
Um So that that rocked my world because I was like, wait,
we were the colonizers. Oh my god, we were the
bad guys. Uh. And I was like um uh and
then we had about you know, obviously some indigenous blood
that was identified as Maan. I mean, it was a
fascinating thing to to be a part of. But what
Dr Gates said on the show which really struck me.
(03:35):
He goes, you're the most American person I've ever had
on the show because you're you're the furthest back from
before the Mayflower and before all of that. He said, um,
you know, before Christopher Columbus, before all of it, he said,
your family was already here. And he they found the
exact ancestor, which is my thirteenth great grandfather, who was
(03:56):
eleven years old when he left Spain to go to
the New World. And they had the letter where he
wrote to the king and he said, I would like
to join my uncle in the New Spain, and they
granted his permission. He got on a ship at eleven
years old landed in around Vera Cruz area. So then
somehow the Longoria has made their way north to what
(04:19):
is current day Monterey, the valley South Texas really uh,
and the king gave out land grants and the Longorias
were one of the people that got some land grants,
and it was I think like six Lamborious. So my
my immediate direct lineage was one of those plots, but
all the plots next to us were also Lamborious as well.
(04:39):
So the huge longboard Longoria is like smith in that's
like in Malta, by the way, so nowhere else, but
definitely in Malta. Definitely Malta. Okay, yeah, but that was
that the six three and um that same that same
piece of land that that land grant was we still
have today, we still are on the same rank. So
(05:01):
how do you think about a heritage that includes colonizers
and the colonized land that has been US, has been
has been Mexico. How does that shape your your concept
of what it is to be American. Well, I have
to say, growing up as a Texan, we're raised as
being Texans first. There's such a pride of being being
from Texas and that Texans have and hold. But growing
(05:24):
up you you don't really get the colonized history and
you don't get obviously the history of the underdog. And
so my family was under five different flags without ever
moving from New Spain to Mexico to France, to the
Republic of Texas to the United States. I mean there
was many, many exchanges of the land. And so when
I when I went to college, you know obviously that
(05:47):
you get critical thinking classes and it's not the history
you grew up learning. And so I wish that there
was more of that history in Texas history and uh,
and then I got my masters in Chicano studies, and
that really blew my mind wide open as far as
you know, the Battle of the Alamo, I mean, just
just that history and what it meant at the time,
(06:08):
and the Mexican American War, the settlers Sam Houston and
Stephen F. Austin and I'm really going back and so
my it's shaped me in the sense of how people
don't really know the history, and especially if we look
at what's happening today and how it's relevant. Is the
vilification of Latinos in the United States and the the
racist victriol directed at anybody who's of Hispanic descent, and
(06:33):
the hashtag go home. You know, when you go I
am home. I've been home. Um, there's nowhere to go
back to. And so um, that's you know, kind of
like what's shaped my more recent views of really trying
to get you know, this revisionist history out there too.
So people know the real truth about our roots. You
(06:55):
mentioned people saying go home, and this is something that
President Trump has done many times, including telling women of
color in the United States Congress, US citizens, all of them,
most of them born in the US, go home. And
I wonder, what do you feel like when you heard that?
And that hit you too in a way? Oh gosh.
Of course, first of all, let's just set aside the
misogyny in that, and then you know, second of all,
(07:17):
the the ignorance in that, and especially coming from a
world leader, words matter, and so everything stings whenever people
are uneducated about the history of immigration in our country.
And that's really what that's why I went to get
my master's was because immigration was such a hot topic then.
I mean, it's been on the administration's agenda for many presidents,
(07:41):
not just you know, recent recent ones, but like I
was like, wait, what is the history of our immigration
and what why is this this way? And when you
really look deep into the history of it, then you
bet you have a better understanding of it. You become
literate and you can speak on it. And it's amazing
how uneducated this outgoing administration has been. And one of
the things that really strikes me is that the last
(08:04):
time we had real immigration reform in the country, it
was in the mid nineteen eighties. You and I were
both children, Ronald Reagan was president. He was understood as
a bipartisan achievement, And it feels like something that Americans
of both parties believe we ought to do in commands
a strong majority of support among the American people, but
can never get an adequate majority in the American Congress.
(08:24):
Well why do you think that is Well, because people
don't understand that immigration Comprehensive immigration reform is very difficult.
There's many tenants to it. So one tenant is a
guest worker program. Another tenant is a pathway to citizenship,
which is also the most contested of any immigration policy,
which is, you know, should should people have a pathway
(08:44):
to citizenship? Should there be a penalty? Should there be attacked?
And you know, all of that stuff if you take
that out, because I will tell you most of these
migrant workers not that they don't care to be citizens.
They want to be legal. They want to be able
to walk in the street, go to work, go back
to Mexico, come back and work, go back like you know,
as the border should be porous. That's what I feel
(09:06):
we should focus on is is understanding that agriculture is
totally dependent on migrant labor. Huge agriculture is still a
huge part of our economy. And so if you if
you separate it out a little bit and really look
at at the problems. You look at the visa programs
and you see low low skilled workers are only allotted
a certain amount of visas. But yet like doctors and
(09:27):
high tech people, you know those those visas are different.
So like you've understanding all of those layers, and when
people say you get getting the getting line, just like
everybody else that came to this country, you have to
understand there is no line. And then you pile on
top of that political asylum. So the things that are
happening in Central America, the instability that by the way,
was caused by the United States, that instability and why
people are fleeing these horrific situations. It's not a red
(09:51):
or blue decision. It's a life and death decision. I
(10:12):
want to come back to to your own journey. You
won in the ninety nineties the Mims Corpus Christi beauty pageant.
This brings an opportunity to compete in Los Angeles and
a talent show. You go there, and Los Angeles winds
up being home in many ways. Did you expect that
you were going to stay? And what was it like
to go from Corpus CHRISTI l a, Oh my gosh. Well,
(10:32):
first of all, I haven't really been outside of Texas.
And I entered this beauty pageant because it was a
scholarship pageant, and uh, and I needed to finish my
last year of college. And I was like, Okay, I'll
enter that scholarship pageant, hoping I would get fourth place,
by the way, because the fourth place was books and tuition,
and all I needed was like one more year of tuition.
(10:54):
And I ended up winning the whole thing, which paid
for my last year of college, and in the price
packet was a trip to Los Angeles. Um so I
graduated with my bachelor's degree in education, and literally the
next week I was using it as like vacation, and
I came to l A. And I don't know what
came over me, but I I fell in love. I
(11:15):
mean the minute I landed, I was like, oh my gosh,
look at these palm trees and and then I competed
in this acting competition and I had all of these
callbacks and agents and managers wanting to sign me, and
I said, what does what does signed me me? I
didn't know, and so I said, Mom, I think I'm
gonna be an actress. I mean just like that, just
one day. I didn't even know what the word meant.
(11:35):
And she said okay. But my parents were happy because
I had already like They're like, you have your degree.
They knew I could get a job anywhere. And I said, oh, yeah,
I'm gonna go get a job. That's what I'm gonna do.
And so that's what I did. I was here maybe
three days, and then I went to attempt agency in
Los Angeles because I was like, I can type, I
know word, I know Excel and uh. And the the agency,
(12:00):
the temp agency, hired me. They said, why don't you
work here? And I said, okay, I don't. I don't
know what you what it is here and they said, well,
you know, we find jobs for people and it's like
matchmaking for jobs. And I said okay, and I worked there.
I mean literally within a week, I had a job
and I had I would audition in between all of
this and just kind of figured it out. But I
don't know what got into me, because I didn't grow
(12:22):
up wanting to be an actors. I didn't even know
what that meant. Celebrity culture wasn't a thing. There wasn't
magazines and obviously websites and social media. I think that
the closest thing we had to tableau was a National Enquirer,
which was like aliens landed, and you know, I don't
know what it was. But I just came here and
I figured it out, and I took classes and just
kind of approached it strategically of like, well, let me
(12:43):
learn about this. But then you did something unexpected. So
you you you get not just a job, but a
lot of jobs. You have an incredible career. Desperate Housewives
is a huge hit. And then you decided to go
to school and get a master's degree in Chicano studies.
So you're well known, you're wildly successful, You've you've got
more than enough going on. What tugs you back to
getting a master's degree? You know, in my family, I'm
(13:07):
the underachiever. If you can believe that, I'm not sure
I can. I come from a family of educators, my
mom's a teacher. My my sister is a teacher, and
my answer teacher like, and so college was a big thing.
And my mom just kept bugging me, and she's like,
you know, all your sisters have masters and you don't
like And I'm like, Mom, I'm on the number one
show in the world, not in the United States, in
(13:28):
the world, and she was like, uh huh, and when
are you going to get your master's? It was it
was a big deal in my family. And and then
at the time again, like I said, immigration was a
big thing happening in the moment. And I've had the
privilege of having an amazing mentor in Dolores work Up
and so that's why I've been a farm worker advocate
for most of my adult life is because of Dolores.
(13:50):
And she would tell me things and I said, but
why why is that? Why don't farm workers have water
in the fields? And she'd explain, well, there's a policy
that you know, a lot of the games we made
in this civil rights movements have been dismantled now. And
why don't farm workers have shade? Why can't they take
breaks in the fields? And she would say, well, you know,
because the governor and she would explain policy to me
(14:12):
then why things were the way they were. She said
she you should read this book. It's a really amazing book.
It's called Occupied America by Dr Junia and he's the
he's the godfather of Chicano studies in the United States.
He's actually, um uh, the architect of like Mexican American studies.
He's brilliant and the book like rocked my mind and
I said, I want to write this author. I wonder
(14:33):
if he'd have a conversation with me. And I sat
and talked with him maybe four hours. He was just
a remarkable professor. Um. And he said, you know, you
should take my class. And I said, what's your class?
And he said, it's ch Kino one to one And
for people don't know what Chicano is, chi Kino. It
was a politicized term in the civil rights movement about
it was also putting the census one year um trying
to aggregate, you know, all Latinos under an umbrella, and
(14:56):
it was before the word Latino, and it was where
you know, there's a lot of we're not a model
to groups. So identity is a big thing for us.
But it really became a politicized it means, it meant
something more, but it's it's the history of Mexican Americans
in this country, and so it's cheap on a one
to one and I took it. I took that class
and I was like wow, and it was so comprehensive.
It was like I was telling you from from pre
(15:17):
Columbian civilization. Oh, Mick told text aspects to NAFTA to
present day. So that was like huge, uh, you know, uh,
spectrum of our history. And so after you take that class,
you can kind of go, oh, I'd really like to
know more about this. So I'd really like to know
more about that. And so I took another class and
(15:37):
another class, and eventually they said, you know, you have
to enroll. You've got to get your masks, You've got
to enroll the program. And I tried to secretly do it,
um because I didn't want the press finding out, because
then I would I thought, oh god, if they find
out that, I'm gonna have to finish. And so of
course they did, and I was like, oh my god,
why why couldn't this have been secret? Um? But honestly
(15:59):
it was I was so thirsty for knowledge about any
topic that was immigration adjacent and that touched upon it.
And as you know, most most world issues just bump
up against each other. So education has been so important
for you, it's been so important for your family. And
then your foundation means that if you've done a lot
(16:20):
of work on issues related to education for the Latino
community in the US, what what conclusions have you drawn
and what are the areas you think we're going to
need to pay the most attention to make things better
in education in the next decade. Yeah. Well, because of
my master's my thesis was on latinas and stem fields,
and I used my master's thesis as the basis for
(16:42):
the foundation, so um, all the research I did, UM,
I wanted to know what made certain latinas successful. And
so I interviewed twenty latinas and stem fields, an engineered
x on, a professor at m I T bio researcher
or you know, at a pharmaceutical company, and I said,
(17:03):
I wanted to know the common denominator of success, not
the barriers. There are so many studies that tell us
the barriers. We know the barriers, like I we know
the barriers. I want to know why did those women
why were those women successful, those latinos and and is
there something we can replicate? And so in the study,
we found that they all had any at least one
(17:26):
engaged parent in their education, one parent that was like
pushing and pushing and advocating and putting them in a
higher class and going to the school and saying why
isn't my daughter in math class math club, or why
isn't she on this higher track, or why can't my
daughter take um A P classes they're taking, you know.
And so that was the number one thing in our
finding was was having an engaged parent that said the
(17:47):
word college, college, college, college in the household. The second
one was after school activities, any anything that kept him
at the school longer, because it didn't it didn't even
have to be academic. It could have been banned, it
could have been cheerleading, anything that just had them engaged
in the school community. Um and all of them were
(18:07):
involved in something we could track or math club or
robotics or whatever. And so with the eveleng Gloria Foundation,
we were like, Okay, we know, we know parental engagement works,
and we know after school programs worked, So we set
up all of our programs to to do that. And
we have this six week parental engagement program that parents take.
So it's not even the it's not even the kid,
(18:28):
it's the parents take it. And they learned how to
advocate for their kid. They learned how to navigate the
school system. So many of our parents, regardless of language,
we're so intimidated by the school. They didn't know what
transcript meant. They didn't know, uh, you know, high track
versus a low track. They didn't know they could go
to the school and asking you please, um, you know,
put my daughter in a higher, higher class or I
(18:51):
feel like you know. So many of the students were
straight as students, but on a low track. And then
they realized when they get to high school, they're not
prepared for college because they've been on a lower track.
And so once the parents finished and completed the course,
we saw an increase in graduation. I mean a so
we go wow. Once their parents got involved, it was
(19:12):
game over, I mean game over. These kids were going
to be successful. And not only that, those parents became multiplayers.
So those parents took that information back into their communities,
into their neighbors and to their sisters, and they said
you know what you should do. You should go ask
for their transcript because you've got to look at their
transfer and they were so proud of everything they've learned
and how to advocate for their child and to take
(19:32):
that back into the communities. And so we've we've helped
over twenty n Latinas. So let me connect a thread
from from education to what you're saying about your interest
and involvement and advocacy for farm workers. So when you're
encountering a student, especially maybe a young Latina STEMS student
who maybe hasn't heard about the heritage and the tradition
(19:55):
of organizing farm workers, doesn't know who Dolora Squerta is
U and might not know about how that leads to
to where we are today. One of the most important
things that you think a new generation should know. And
how would you explain it? Yeah, it's a it's a
it's a beautiful history. UM. And also you know when
you think about Dolores, what you think about our history
(20:17):
to UM. You know, people know se us your job is,
but what they don't know was more so is Dolores.
And so even even a lot of these movements that
have happened UM have always been in a patriarchal way,
and so I would love for them to know more
about the number of female organizers that that work by
the scenes. If you see just this past election, it
(20:37):
was women of women of color who showed up, um,
and and women of color who organized. And so I think, UM,
we have a lot of lessons to learn from from
the historically how women have shown up and been involved
in activism, and particularly farm workers. It's my desire. You know,
people ask me, because I mean I was I didn't
(20:58):
grew up as a farm worker. I I UM, people
ask me what my connection is. Why do I advocate
for them? And I said, because I eat like we
should all advocate for them. During this global pandemic. Um,
every time you go to the supermarket, there's food there,
and there's food there because these phone workers are still working.
And um, you know, the the pandemic has deemed farm
(21:21):
workers essential, and us in the advocacy world go, They've
always been essential. We didn't need a global pandemic to
tell us they're essential to the food supply and the
economy and the economic engine of the United States. They
should always be applauded and uplifted and supported and given
a livable wages and livable living quarters and um instead
(21:43):
of vilified and and living in fear or being deported
or being arrested or being targeted. And my wishes that
we all could appreciate the work that they do well.
There's something about workers being treated as essential and visible
at the same time, depending on the purpose at the moment.
(22:04):
Right So, what do you think is most important right now,
especially in the context of the pandemic, to make sure
that farm workers and other essential workers get the support
that they need. You know, there's so many great organizations
that are doing amazing work, but the number one thing
for farm workers is many of them are going to
work without ppe. I mean there's just there. There's not enough.
(22:24):
They don't have the money for it, and their bosses
don't provide it. Um. Their living quarters often don't have
you know, clean running water, they don't have soap, they
don't so like the washing of the hands, which is
required right now, is you know, something as simple as
basic as that. And then the poverty wages. You know,
farm farm workers still aren't protected under labor laws. You know,
(22:48):
children are in the fields and um, there's no minimum
wage and so a lot of those laws that apply
to them are archaic and barbaric. And you see, you know,
kids as on as twelve carrying fifty pound baskets of tomatoes,
and then you see that exact family who picked those
tomatoes go to the supermarket and can't afford to buy
(23:09):
that tomato. That's a tragedy. You know. It strikes me
(23:29):
that sometimes the way we think as citizens is different
than the way we think as consumers. Right there. I
think there's so many of us who, uh, you know,
if we were voting on a referendum that said, should
there be higher wages for farm workers, we would vote yes, yes,
of course. But then when when you're at the supermarket
and you pick out this avocado instead of that one
because it's five cents cheaper, you don't realize that's a
(23:51):
vote on the exact same issue. It just hasn't been
presented to you as a referendum. It's been presented to you,
you know, as a food item. And yet that choice
you make in the marketplace is as powerful, maybe maybe
has even more implications than the choice you would make
if somebody actually came up and said, you know, with
the clipboard, what do you think should happen to farm
workers in this country. But that's where the information becomes
(24:12):
so important, right, so important. And it's such a good
point that you said that, because if you do think
of the supermarketing people, this kind of surge and interest
of where your food comes from. Right, Like, I am
meeting soy and I'm gluten free, and I'm you know,
all of these choices that you can now make buying
organic people, I'm buying organics. I don't want to. I
(24:34):
don't want to ingest pesticides, but you should buy organic
because that means farm workers were not sprayed by pesticides. Right,
Like you go, oh yeah, i'll pay, I'll pay twenty
cents more. The restrictions on pesticides being sprayed or the
regulations on it is based on weight of a man,
like a hundred and fifty pound man. So if you're
(24:55):
a child working in the farm workers, if you're a
woman working in the in the field, I mean, um,
that dose that you're getting and ingesting as you're picking
and you're in the field is deadly and and cancerous
and causes a lot of health problems for our farm workers.
So next time you go to the store instead of
going I want to buy organic because I want to
eat healthy. You'd say, I want to buy organics. I
(25:16):
want to make sure I'm protecting farm workers. You know
that that point about how they calibrated the regulations on
pesticides is so interesting, and I'm gonna try not to
fully geek out with you, but but one question I
think you might have an interesting take on. So I
think a lot about what we measure, what we count,
and how that expresses what matters. You mentioned earlier that
the term chicana was included on the census once and
(25:38):
that was very important, and just how we gather data
around economics, around people, around wages. Obviously, the Census in
particular has been an issue recently because the targeting of
undocumented immigrants. If there were two or three bodies of information,
two or three statistics that don't exist right now that
could Is there anything that you think it would make
(25:58):
a difference to gather some form of data or measure
something or pay attention to something that we have the
capability to find out, but we just haven't ever done it,
or if we have, it hasn't been made public or
nobody's really looked at it. I love that geeky question
because I am an academic at heart. You know, we
have to do more studies that contribute to the body
(26:21):
of knowledge, and I don't think there's enough studies out there.
Even if you see medical studies, they don't really include
people of color, sometimes heart heart disease, diabetes, and until
you have a seat at the table. You know, this
is what makes me crazy about Washington and government and
women's reproductive rights. When you have a table of nine
men making decisions about women's reproductive rights, that's just insane
(26:43):
to me, Like you don't have a uterus. I think
it's it's about that, Like we need innovation to happen,
it comes from within our community. And so that's why
I focus so much on women and stems because if women,
if if Latinos could become doctors and they had a
family member that was you know, had sickle cell or
(27:05):
that had like something that's regionally an ethnically a problem
health problem for our community, they would go and want
to research that. And so I think that that's that's
what we do need, more and more, more studies that
are specific and data that that's specific to our communities.
I also think, you know, again looking at the guest
worker program in immigration and looking at UM. You know,
(27:29):
there's so many I'm I'm I'm a YouTube geek when
I go, you know, what is the electoral college and
I'll go look at that YouTube for dummy video to
see how does it say? So I did that with UM.
With the visas, I was like, what's an h one visa?
And there's so many great professors that break it down
in a way that that goes. It's actually simple, Matthew.
(27:50):
We only give you know, ten ten passes to the
party out and there's eight hundred people wanting to get
into the party. We have a bottleneck problem. It's very
like they break it down in a way. And so
I would like some data as far as how our
visa systems work specifically for the guest worker program and
immigrant migrant labor. That would be uh some metric system
(28:12):
that I think could be valuable. Just like UM, forget
his name, you probably know his name. Biden just appointed
him to Homeland Security. Yes, the Cuban, Yes, who was
the architect of DOCCA and how he came up with DOCCA?
And he is a you know, a Cuban refugee and
he kind of he comes from a community in which
(28:33):
he understands empathy and compassion, and we have to solve
a problem like that's important that somebody that somebody in
that position understands it intricately, just like why is Betty
Betsy Devace, you know, the Secretary of education, Like you
see where that's a problem. I think there's a lot
of metrics and tracking and data that would be so
(28:56):
valuable as to how policies right. We just need the
formation because like I said, people go gand the back
of the line go home. All those are those are
ignorant statements because you're not even talking about the problem.
So in order for that change to happen, everybody needs
to be engaged. And you have been a leader in
mobilizing and engaging Latinos to vote, founding Latino victory, connecting
(29:20):
with voters, especially in Texas, Florida, California, other places with
critical elections going on. You know, we call this podcast
the Deciding Decade because I love thinking about what the
ties will lead to. So if you're looking ahead to
or even just two, what do you think are the
things that there needs to be more of starting now
in order to build and engage and enduring and activated
(29:44):
Latino electorate. Well, you know, like I said, we're the
fastest growing demographic in the United States. A Latino turns
eighteen every thirty seconds. You know, this is the first
election that we've been the largest minority voting block. UM.
But demography is not destiny, and so we have never
(30:05):
as Latinos, we've never voted over eligible voters. This election,
over two thirds of eligible voters voted right. So we're
moving in the right direction. But let me tell you,
we're not always going to have a racist, misogynist bigot
on the ticket. You know, patriarchy and white supremacy come
in many forms, and so I think we have to
(30:26):
keep our eye on the prize and stay engaged UM
and UM. You know, voter outreach and voter education, it's
it's it's UH year round work. I think what what
has to happen is UM candidates and and parties, you know,
can't just come two months before in election and say
your vote matters. You have to come at us year
(30:47):
round with outreached our communities that say your lives matter,
Your lives matter to to us, and how can we
engage in these communities all the time, not just during
election years and election cycles. Um, of course this is
this is something that cuts across politics, entertainment, a lot
of other fields. I mean, how do you say representation
has changed, especially Latino representation on the screen just in
(31:09):
the years since you first arrived in l A as
a young person from Corpus CHRISTI looking for your first gig. Yeah,
it uh ebbs and flows. You know, there's like a
the hot term right now is diversity everywhere, corporate America,
Hollywood politics. But what's happening I think here in Hollywood
is the way in which people consume content has shifted.
(31:32):
And because of that, it's really given content creators the power.
You don't have to go through this archaic system of
studios and networks and you could be a content creator
on YouTube. You can go do your own show on
your iPhone. I mean, technology is really disrupted the way
we do business here and because of that, we've been
able to tap into new talent pools. And usually those
(31:53):
new talent pools are communities of color, lgbt Q, indigenous communities.
I mean, every every anything, there's so much opportunity that
you don't have to go through the gatekeepers anymore. And
I think that's a good thing. Um. Somebody was asking me,
you know, how do we educate the gatekeepers of all
these studios and networks here in Hollywood to hire more women,
(32:16):
to hire more diverse people as screenwriters and as producers
and directors. And I was like, I don't think we
educate the gatekeepers. I think we changed the gatekeepers very good. Yeah,
we're going to change them. There they got to go.
The other thing is is we look to the future.
I would love to know what your greatest sources of
optimism are. I mean it kind of uh a kind
(32:38):
of sense, just the way you talk about your advocacy,
your activism, and your work. You are very much alive
to all of the problems and obstacles out there, but
you don't seem to focus on them or let them,
uh diminish your optimism. So what gives you hope? Yeah?
Oh my gosh, I'm I'm actually an optimist at heart.
I mean, I'm half class fool for everything. Uh. But
(32:59):
I think probably the thing that this particular year has
given me so much hope. And Obama had said it
as well about our youth, like when you see the
amount of young people in the streets and protesting, and
whether it was you know, the Women's March, or whether
it was Black Lives Matter or UM, whether it was
(33:20):
you know, joy to the polls, the amount of young
people who were engaged, and if you look at the
past civil rights leaders of our time, you know, Martin
Muther King was young, Representative John Lewis was young. I
mean they were they were young. And so when you
see our youth civically engaged, it's it's actually exciting because
(33:41):
you know that's going to be civically engaged adults and
hopefully that manifests and change and progress. I'm fascinated by
Eva's family history, a ninth generation Texas from a family
we who, as she says, didn't cross the border, the
(34:02):
border crossed them. She's connected to America's story with roots
that go back to the very beginning, before the beginning,
even there's such a rich history here and now she
and so many in her community are leading the charge
on figuring out how to make this country better in
the future for the fastest growing demographic group in the nation, Latinos,
from improving our conditions for farm workers to changing our
(34:24):
food system to encouraging young Latinos to pursue and thrive
in STEM and other educational opportunities. She reminds us of
a world of possibility for a vital part of our
national life and for our country as a whole, and
I'm glad Eva has decided to take her voice beyond
the predictable spaces and drive action on these opportunities. For
(34:47):
more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. Two
Hi, I'm Pete good a judge, and this is the
deciding decade. From fully tackling systemic racism to levenling the
playing field for small business owners of color, to opening
up educational opportunities for minority students, it has never been
more important for us to break down systemic and institutional
(00:25):
barriers and deliver true equity and roads to prosperity for
communities of color. From the beginning, the Latino community has
been a vital part of America's story and now represents
the fastest growing demographic group in America. Leaders across the
nation in politics, advocacy, and entertainment are working to expand
opportunity and build empowerment for Latinos so that everyone has
(00:47):
a chance to benefit from and fully contribute to American life.
With a prolific career dating back to the early two thousands,
Eva Longoria has long been considered one of Hollywood's leading
actresses and has per do TV shows and important documentaries
such as two thousand Fourteens, Food Chains, as well as
directing episodes of some of our favorite shows such as
(01:08):
Blackish and Jane the Virgin. On top of all of that,
Eva as a leader in her philanthropic work and social
and political activism. Some of the highlights from work she
has done include founding the Eva Longoria Foundation, which helps
Latinos build better futures for themselves and their families through
culturally relevant education and entrepreneurship programs, co founding groups like
(01:28):
the Latino Victory Project, a progressive political action committee aimed
at increasing the number of Latino candidates in local, state,
and national elections, and Momental Latino, a coalition of a
hundred and thirty organizations focused on health, education, economy, and
politics and helping Latinos disproportionately affected by the pandemic. She
has been campaigning for candidates and causes that are moving
(01:51):
the country and the world forward. Eva, it's an honor
to be joined by nice to nice to be with you.
I feel like I should be interviewing you. You are
the fascinating one. I am just a boring old actress. Hardly.
You've got a fascinating story. I'm looking forward to digging
into it right now. In fact, let's start there. Let's
start all the way at the beginning, literally the beginning
(02:13):
for you. So you were born in Corpus Christi, Texas,
in but I saw that your family. You don't have
to say the year, Pete, you don't have to say
the year. Yes, yes, it's relevant. It's definitely relevant when
I was born because I feel like so many things happened.
But I was reading that your family was in that
(02:33):
area since the six hundreds. Do I have that right? Yeah? Never,
we never crossed the border. The border crossed us. I
my whole life have identified as Mexican American, and I
and my dad would always say, well, we're technically Spanish.
And I was like, no, we're Mexican, like everybody knows that.
And he's like, no, no, we're Spanish. And then I
(02:53):
was on a show by Dr Henry Lewis Gates and
it's on PBS, and they do your lineage and your genealogy.
So they took my d n A, my my parents
day name, my father's and my mother's and then they
can pinpoint exactly your genetic makeup and it turned out
we were still eighty five percent Spanish blood, which is crazy.
(03:14):
Um So that that rocked my world because I was like, wait,
we were the colonizers. Oh my god, we were the
bad guys. Uh. And I was like um uh and
then we had about you know, obviously some indigenous blood
that was identified as Maan. I mean, it was a
fascinating thing to to be a part of. But what
Dr Gates said on the show which really struck me.
(03:35):
He goes, you're the most American person I've ever had
on the show because you're you're the furthest back from
before the Mayflower and before all of that. He said, um,
you know, before Christopher Columbus, before all of it, he said,
your family was already here. And he they found the
exact ancestor, which is my thirteenth great grandfather, who was
(03:56):
eleven years old when he left Spain to go to
the New World. And they had the letter where he
wrote to the king and he said, I would like
to join my uncle in the New Spain, and they
granted his permission. He got on a ship at eleven
years old landed in around Vera Cruz area. So then
somehow the Longoria has made their way north to what
(04:19):
is current day Monterey, the valley South Texas really uh,
and the king gave out land grants and the Longorias
were one of the people that got some land grants,
and it was I think like six Lamborious. So my
my immediate direct lineage was one of those plots, but
all the plots next to us were also Lamborious as well.
(04:39):
So the huge longboard Longoria is like smith in that's
like in Malta, by the way, so nowhere else, but
definitely in Malta. Definitely Malta. Okay, yeah, but that was
that the six three and um that same that same
piece of land that that land grant was we still
have today, we still are on the same rank. So
(05:01):
how do you think about a heritage that includes colonizers
and the colonized land that has been US, has been
has been Mexico. How does that shape your your concept
of what it is to be American. Well, I have
to say, growing up as a Texan, we're raised as
being Texans first. There's such a pride of being being
from Texas and that Texans have and hold. But growing
(05:24):
up you you don't really get the colonized history and
you don't get obviously the history of the underdog. And
so my family was under five different flags without ever
moving from New Spain to Mexico to France, to the
Republic of Texas to the United States. I mean there
was many, many exchanges of the land. And so when
I when I went to college, you know obviously that
(05:47):
you get critical thinking classes and it's not the history
you grew up learning. And so I wish that there
was more of that history in Texas history and uh,
and then I got my masters in Chicano studies, and
that really blew my mind wide open as far as
you know, the Battle of the Alamo, I mean, just
just that history and what it meant at the time,
(06:08):
and the Mexican American War, the settlers Sam Houston and
Stephen F. Austin and I'm really going back and so
my it's shaped me in the sense of how people
don't really know the history, and especially if we look
at what's happening today and how it's relevant. Is the
vilification of Latinos in the United States and the the
racist victriol directed at anybody who's of Hispanic descent, and
(06:33):
the hashtag go home. You know, when you go I
am home. I've been home. Um, there's nowhere to go
back to. And so um, that's you know, kind of
like what's shaped my more recent views of really trying
to get you know, this revisionist history out there too.
So people know the real truth about our roots. You
(06:55):
mentioned people saying go home, and this is something that
President Trump has done many times, including telling women of
color in the United States Congress, US citizens, all of them,
most of them born in the US, go home. And
I wonder, what do you feel like when you heard that?
And that hit you too in a way? Oh gosh.
Of course, first of all, let's just set aside the
misogyny in that, and then you know, second of all,
(07:17):
the the ignorance in that, and especially coming from a
world leader, words matter, and so everything stings whenever people
are uneducated about the history of immigration in our country.
And that's really what that's why I went to get
my master's was because immigration was such a hot topic then.
I mean, it's been on the administration's agenda for many presidents,
(07:41):
not just you know, recent recent ones, but like I
was like, wait, what is the history of our immigration
and what why is this this way? And when you
really look deep into the history of it, then you
bet you have a better understanding of it. You become
literate and you can speak on it. And it's amazing
how uneducated this outgoing administration has been. And one of
the things that really strikes me is that the last
(08:04):
time we had real immigration reform in the country, it
was in the mid nineteen eighties. You and I were
both children, Ronald Reagan was president. He was understood as
a bipartisan achievement, And it feels like something that Americans
of both parties believe we ought to do in commands
a strong majority of support among the American people, but
can never get an adequate majority in the American Congress.
(08:24):
Well why do you think that is Well, because people
don't understand that immigration Comprehensive immigration reform is very difficult.
There's many tenants to it. So one tenant is a
guest worker program. Another tenant is a pathway to citizenship,
which is also the most contested of any immigration policy,
which is, you know, should should people have a pathway
(08:44):
to citizenship? Should there be a penalty? Should there be attacked?
And you know, all of that stuff if you take
that out, because I will tell you most of these
migrant workers not that they don't care to be citizens.
They want to be legal. They want to be able
to walk in the street, go to work, go back
to Mexico, come back and work, go back like you know,
as the border should be porous. That's what I feel
(09:06):
we should focus on is is understanding that agriculture is
totally dependent on migrant labor. Huge agriculture is still a
huge part of our economy. And so if you if
you separate it out a little bit and really look
at at the problems. You look at the visa programs
and you see low low skilled workers are only allotted
a certain amount of visas. But yet like doctors and
(09:27):
high tech people, you know those those visas are different.
So like you've understanding all of those layers, and when
people say you get getting the getting line, just like
everybody else that came to this country, you have to
understand there is no line. And then you pile on
top of that political asylum. So the things that are
happening in Central America, the instability that by the way,
was caused by the United States, that instability and why
people are fleeing these horrific situations. It's not a red
(09:51):
or blue decision. It's a life and death decision. I
(10:12):
want to come back to to your own journey. You
won in the ninety nineties the Mims Corpus Christi beauty pageant.
This brings an opportunity to compete in Los Angeles and
a talent show. You go there, and Los Angeles winds
up being home in many ways. Did you expect that
you were going to stay? And what was it like
to go from Corpus CHRISTI l a, Oh my gosh. Well,
(10:32):
first of all, I haven't really been outside of Texas.
And I entered this beauty pageant because it was a
scholarship pageant, and uh, and I needed to finish my
last year of college. And I was like, Okay, I'll
enter that scholarship pageant, hoping I would get fourth place,
by the way, because the fourth place was books and tuition,
and all I needed was like one more year of tuition.
(10:54):
And I ended up winning the whole thing, which paid
for my last year of college, and in the price
packet was a trip to Los Angeles. Um so I
graduated with my bachelor's degree in education, and literally the
next week I was using it as like vacation, and
I came to l A. And I don't know what
came over me, but I I fell in love. I
(11:15):
mean the minute I landed, I was like, oh my gosh,
look at these palm trees and and then I competed
in this acting competition and I had all of these
callbacks and agents and managers wanting to sign me, and
I said, what does what does signed me me? I
didn't know, and so I said, Mom, I think I'm
gonna be an actress. I mean just like that, just
one day. I didn't even know what the word meant.
(11:35):
And she said okay. But my parents were happy because
I had already like They're like, you have your degree.
They knew I could get a job anywhere. And I said, oh, yeah,
I'm gonna go get a job. That's what I'm gonna do.
And so that's what I did. I was here maybe
three days, and then I went to attempt agency in
Los Angeles because I was like, I can type, I
know word, I know Excel and uh. And the the agency,
(12:00):
the temp agency, hired me. They said, why don't you
work here? And I said, okay, I don't. I don't
know what you what it is here and they said, well,
you know, we find jobs for people and it's like
matchmaking for jobs. And I said okay, and I worked there.
I mean literally within a week, I had a job
and I had I would audition in between all of
this and just kind of figured it out. But I
don't know what got into me, because I didn't grow
(12:22):
up wanting to be an actors. I didn't even know
what that meant. Celebrity culture wasn't a thing. There wasn't
magazines and obviously websites and social media. I think that
the closest thing we had to tableau was a National Enquirer,
which was like aliens landed, and you know, I don't
know what it was. But I just came here and
I figured it out, and I took classes and just
kind of approached it strategically of like, well, let me
(12:43):
learn about this. But then you did something unexpected. So
you you you get not just a job, but a
lot of jobs. You have an incredible career. Desperate Housewives
is a huge hit. And then you decided to go
to school and get a master's degree in Chicano studies.
So you're well known, you're wildly successful, You've you've got
more than enough going on. What tugs you back to
getting a master's degree? You know, in my family, I'm
(13:07):
the underachiever. If you can believe that, I'm not sure
I can. I come from a family of educators, my
mom's a teacher. My my sister is a teacher, and
my answer teacher like, and so college was a big thing.
And my mom just kept bugging me, and she's like,
you know, all your sisters have masters and you don't
like And I'm like, Mom, I'm on the number one
show in the world, not in the United States, in
(13:28):
the world, and she was like, uh huh, and when
are you going to get your master's? It was it
was a big deal in my family. And and then
at the time again, like I said, immigration was a
big thing happening in the moment. And I've had the
privilege of having an amazing mentor in Dolores work Up
and so that's why I've been a farm worker advocate
for most of my adult life is because of Dolores.
(13:50):
And she would tell me things and I said, but
why why is that? Why don't farm workers have water
in the fields? And she'd explain, well, there's a policy
that you know, a lot of the games we made
in this civil rights movements have been dismantled now. And
why don't farm workers have shade? Why can't they take
breaks in the fields? And she would say, well, you know,
because the governor and she would explain policy to me
(14:12):
then why things were the way they were. She said
she you should read this book. It's a really amazing book.
It's called Occupied America by Dr Junia and he's the
he's the godfather of Chicano studies in the United States.
He's actually, um uh, the architect of like Mexican American studies.
He's brilliant and the book like rocked my mind and
I said, I want to write this author. I wonder
(14:33):
if he'd have a conversation with me. And I sat
and talked with him maybe four hours. He was just
a remarkable professor. Um. And he said, you know, you
should take my class. And I said, what's your class?
And he said, it's ch Kino one to one And
for people don't know what Chicano is, chi Kino. It
was a politicized term in the civil rights movement about
it was also putting the census one year um trying
to aggregate, you know, all Latinos under an umbrella, and
(14:56):
it was before the word Latino, and it was where
you know, there's a lot of we're not a model
to groups. So identity is a big thing for us.
But it really became a politicized it means, it meant
something more, but it's it's the history of Mexican Americans
in this country, and so it's cheap on a one
to one and I took it. I took that class
and I was like wow, and it was so comprehensive.
It was like I was telling you from from pre
(15:17):
Columbian civilization. Oh, Mick told text aspects to NAFTA to
present day. So that was like huge, uh, you know, uh,
spectrum of our history. And so after you take that class,
you can kind of go, oh, I'd really like to
know more about this. So I'd really like to know
more about that. And so I took another class and
(15:37):
another class, and eventually they said, you know, you have
to enroll. You've got to get your masks, You've got
to enroll the program. And I tried to secretly do it,
um because I didn't want the press finding out, because
then I would I thought, oh god, if they find
out that, I'm gonna have to finish. And so of
course they did, and I was like, oh my god,
why why couldn't this have been secret? Um? But honestly
(15:59):
it was I was so thirsty for knowledge about any
topic that was immigration adjacent and that touched upon it.
And as you know, most most world issues just bump
up against each other. So education has been so important
for you, it's been so important for your family. And
then your foundation means that if you've done a lot
(16:20):
of work on issues related to education for the Latino
community in the US, what what conclusions have you drawn
and what are the areas you think we're going to
need to pay the most attention to make things better
in education in the next decade. Yeah. Well, because of
my master's my thesis was on latinas and stem fields,
and I used my master's thesis as the basis for
(16:42):
the foundation, so um, all the research I did, UM,
I wanted to know what made certain latinas successful. And
so I interviewed twenty latinas and stem fields, an engineered
x on, a professor at m I T bio researcher
or you know, at a pharmaceutical company, and I said,
(17:03):
I wanted to know the common denominator of success, not
the barriers. There are so many studies that tell us
the barriers. We know the barriers, like I we know
the barriers. I want to know why did those women
why were those women successful, those latinos and and is
there something we can replicate? And so in the study,
we found that they all had any at least one
(17:26):
engaged parent in their education, one parent that was like
pushing and pushing and advocating and putting them in a
higher class and going to the school and saying why
isn't my daughter in math class math club, or why
isn't she on this higher track, or why can't my
daughter take um A P classes they're taking, you know.
And so that was the number one thing in our
finding was was having an engaged parent that said the
(17:47):
word college, college, college, college in the household. The second
one was after school activities, any anything that kept him
at the school longer, because it didn't it didn't even
have to be academic. It could have been banned, it
could have been cheerleading, anything that just had them engaged
in the school community. Um and all of them were
(18:07):
involved in something we could track or math club or
robotics or whatever. And so with the eveleng Gloria Foundation,
we were like, Okay, we know, we know parental engagement works,
and we know after school programs worked, So we set
up all of our programs to to do that. And
we have this six week parental engagement program that parents take.
So it's not even the it's not even the kid,
(18:28):
it's the parents take it. And they learned how to
advocate for their kid. They learned how to navigate the
school system. So many of our parents, regardless of language,
we're so intimidated by the school. They didn't know what
transcript meant. They didn't know, uh, you know, high track
versus a low track. They didn't know they could go
to the school and asking you please, um, you know,
put my daughter in a higher, higher class or I
(18:51):
feel like you know. So many of the students were
straight as students, but on a low track. And then
they realized when they get to high school, they're not
prepared for college because they've been on a lower track.
And so once the parents finished and completed the course,
we saw an increase in graduation. I mean a so
we go wow. Once their parents got involved, it was
(19:12):
game over, I mean game over. These kids were going
to be successful. And not only that, those parents became multiplayers.
So those parents took that information back into their communities,
into their neighbors and to their sisters, and they said
you know what you should do. You should go ask
for their transcript because you've got to look at their
transfer and they were so proud of everything they've learned
and how to advocate for their child and to take
(19:32):
that back into the communities. And so we've we've helped
over twenty n Latinas. So let me connect a thread
from from education to what you're saying about your interest
and involvement and advocacy for farm workers. So when you're
encountering a student, especially maybe a young Latina STEMS student
who maybe hasn't heard about the heritage and the tradition
(19:55):
of organizing farm workers, doesn't know who Dolora Squerta is
U and might not know about how that leads to
to where we are today. One of the most important
things that you think a new generation should know. And
how would you explain it? Yeah, it's a it's a
it's a beautiful history. UM. And also you know when
you think about Dolores, what you think about our history
(20:17):
to UM. You know, people know se us your job is,
but what they don't know was more so is Dolores.
And so even even a lot of these movements that
have happened UM have always been in a patriarchal way,
and so I would love for them to know more
about the number of female organizers that that work by
the scenes. If you see just this past election, it
(20:37):
was women of women of color who showed up, um,
and and women of color who organized. And so I think, UM,
we have a lot of lessons to learn from from
the historically how women have shown up and been involved
in activism, and particularly farm workers. It's my desire. You know,
people ask me, because I mean I was I didn't
(20:58):
grew up as a farm worker. I I UM, people
ask me what my connection is. Why do I advocate
for them? And I said, because I eat like we
should all advocate for them. During this global pandemic. Um,
every time you go to the supermarket, there's food there,
and there's food there because these phone workers are still working.
And um, you know, the the pandemic has deemed farm
(21:21):
workers essential, and us in the advocacy world go, They've
always been essential. We didn't need a global pandemic to
tell us they're essential to the food supply and the
economy and the economic engine of the United States. They
should always be applauded and uplifted and supported and given
a livable wages and livable living quarters and um instead
(21:43):
of vilified and and living in fear or being deported
or being arrested or being targeted. And my wishes that
we all could appreciate the work that they do well.
There's something about workers being treated as essential and visible
at the same time, depending on the purpose at the moment.
(22:04):
Right So, what do you think is most important right now,
especially in the context of the pandemic, to make sure
that farm workers and other essential workers get the support
that they need. You know, there's so many great organizations
that are doing amazing work, but the number one thing
for farm workers is many of them are going to
work without ppe. I mean there's just there. There's not enough.
(22:24):
They don't have the money for it, and their bosses
don't provide it. Um. Their living quarters often don't have
you know, clean running water, they don't have soap, they
don't so like the washing of the hands, which is
required right now, is you know, something as simple as
basic as that. And then the poverty wages. You know,
farm farm workers still aren't protected under labor laws. You know,
(22:48):
children are in the fields and um, there's no minimum
wage and so a lot of those laws that apply
to them are archaic and barbaric. And you see, you know,
kids as on as twelve carrying fifty pound baskets of tomatoes,
and then you see that exact family who picked those
tomatoes go to the supermarket and can't afford to buy
(23:09):
that tomato. That's a tragedy. You know. It strikes me
(23:29):
that sometimes the way we think as citizens is different
than the way we think as consumers. Right there. I
think there's so many of us who, uh, you know,
if we were voting on a referendum that said, should
there be higher wages for farm workers, we would vote yes, yes,
of course. But then when when you're at the supermarket
and you pick out this avocado instead of that one
because it's five cents cheaper, you don't realize that's a
(23:51):
vote on the exact same issue. It just hasn't been
presented to you as a referendum. It's been presented to you,
you know, as a food item. And yet that choice
you make in the marketplace is as powerful, maybe maybe
has even more implications than the choice you would make
if somebody actually came up and said, you know, with
the clipboard, what do you think should happen to farm
workers in this country. But that's where the information becomes
(24:12):
so important, right, so important. And it's such a good
point that you said that, because if you do think
of the supermarketing people, this kind of surge and interest
of where your food comes from. Right, Like, I am
meeting soy and I'm gluten free, and I'm you know,
all of these choices that you can now make buying
organic people, I'm buying organics. I don't want to. I
(24:34):
don't want to ingest pesticides, but you should buy organic
because that means farm workers were not sprayed by pesticides. Right,
Like you go, oh yeah, i'll pay, I'll pay twenty
cents more. The restrictions on pesticides being sprayed or the
regulations on it is based on weight of a man,
like a hundred and fifty pound man. So if you're
(24:55):
a child working in the farm workers, if you're a
woman working in the in the field, I mean, um,
that dose that you're getting and ingesting as you're picking
and you're in the field is deadly and and cancerous
and causes a lot of health problems for our farm workers.
So next time you go to the store instead of
going I want to buy organic because I want to
eat healthy. You'd say, I want to buy organics. I
(25:16):
want to make sure I'm protecting farm workers. You know
that that point about how they calibrated the regulations on
pesticides is so interesting, and I'm gonna try not to
fully geek out with you, but but one question I
think you might have an interesting take on. So I
think a lot about what we measure, what we count,
and how that expresses what matters. You mentioned earlier that
the term chicana was included on the census once and
(25:38):
that was very important, and just how we gather data
around economics, around people, around wages. Obviously, the Census in
particular has been an issue recently because the targeting of
undocumented immigrants. If there were two or three bodies of information,
two or three statistics that don't exist right now that
could Is there anything that you think it would make
(25:58):
a difference to gather some form of data or measure
something or pay attention to something that we have the
capability to find out, but we just haven't ever done it,
or if we have, it hasn't been made public or
nobody's really looked at it. I love that geeky question
because I am an academic at heart. You know, we
have to do more studies that contribute to the body
(26:21):
of knowledge, and I don't think there's enough studies out there.
Even if you see medical studies, they don't really include
people of color, sometimes heart heart disease, diabetes, and until
you have a seat at the table. You know, this
is what makes me crazy about Washington and government and
women's reproductive rights. When you have a table of nine
men making decisions about women's reproductive rights, that's just insane
(26:43):
to me, Like you don't have a uterus. I think
it's it's about that, Like we need innovation to happen,
it comes from within our community. And so that's why
I focus so much on women and stems because if women,
if if Latinos could become doctors and they had a
family member that was you know, had sickle cell or
(27:05):
that had like something that's regionally an ethnically a problem
health problem for our community, they would go and want
to research that. And so I think that that's that's
what we do need, more and more, more studies that
are specific and data that that's specific to our communities.
I also think, you know, again looking at the guest
worker program in immigration and looking at UM. You know,
(27:29):
there's so many I'm I'm I'm a YouTube geek when
I go, you know, what is the electoral college and
I'll go look at that YouTube for dummy video to
see how does it say? So I did that with UM.
With the visas, I was like, what's an h one visa?
And there's so many great professors that break it down
in a way that that goes. It's actually simple, Matthew.
(27:50):
We only give you know, ten ten passes to the
party out and there's eight hundred people wanting to get
into the party. We have a bottleneck problem. It's very
like they break it down in a way. And so
I would like some data as far as how our
visa systems work specifically for the guest worker program and
immigrant migrant labor. That would be uh some metric system
(28:12):
that I think could be valuable. Just like UM, forget
his name, you probably know his name. Biden just appointed
him to Homeland Security. Yes, the Cuban, Yes, who was
the architect of DOCCA and how he came up with DOCCA?
And he is a you know, a Cuban refugee and
he kind of he comes from a community in which
(28:33):
he understands empathy and compassion, and we have to solve
a problem like that's important that somebody that somebody in
that position understands it intricately, just like why is Betty
Betsy Devace, you know, the Secretary of education, Like you
see where that's a problem. I think there's a lot
of metrics and tracking and data that would be so
(28:56):
valuable as to how policies right. We just need the
formation because like I said, people go gand the back
of the line go home. All those are those are
ignorant statements because you're not even talking about the problem.
So in order for that change to happen, everybody needs
to be engaged. And you have been a leader in
mobilizing and engaging Latinos to vote, founding Latino victory, connecting
(29:20):
with voters, especially in Texas, Florida, California, other places with
critical elections going on. You know, we call this podcast
the Deciding Decade because I love thinking about what the
ties will lead to. So if you're looking ahead to
or even just two, what do you think are the
things that there needs to be more of starting now
in order to build and engage and enduring and activated
(29:44):
Latino electorate. Well, you know, like I said, we're the
fastest growing demographic in the United States. A Latino turns
eighteen every thirty seconds. You know, this is the first
election that we've been the largest minority voting block. UM.
But demography is not destiny, and so we have never
(30:05):
as Latinos, we've never voted over eligible voters. This election,
over two thirds of eligible voters voted right. So we're
moving in the right direction. But let me tell you,
we're not always going to have a racist, misogynist bigot
on the ticket. You know, patriarchy and white supremacy come
in many forms, and so I think we have to
(30:26):
keep our eye on the prize and stay engaged UM
and UM. You know, voter outreach and voter education, it's
it's it's UH year round work. I think what what
has to happen is UM candidates and and parties, you know,
can't just come two months before in election and say
your vote matters. You have to come at us year
(30:47):
round with outreached our communities that say your lives matter,
Your lives matter to to us, and how can we
engage in these communities all the time, not just during
election years and election cycles. Um, of course this is
this is something that cuts across politics, entertainment, a lot
of other fields. I mean, how do you say representation
has changed, especially Latino representation on the screen just in
(31:09):
the years since you first arrived in l A as
a young person from Corpus CHRISTI looking for your first gig. Yeah,
it uh ebbs and flows. You know, there's like a
the hot term right now is diversity everywhere, corporate America,
Hollywood politics. But what's happening I think here in Hollywood
is the way in which people consume content has shifted.
(31:32):
And because of that, it's really given content creators the power.
You don't have to go through this archaic system of
studios and networks and you could be a content creator
on YouTube. You can go do your own show on
your iPhone. I mean, technology is really disrupted the way
we do business here and because of that, we've been
able to tap into new talent pools. And usually those
(31:53):
new talent pools are communities of color, lgbt Q, indigenous communities.
I mean, every every anything, there's so much opportunity that
you don't have to go through the gatekeepers anymore. And
I think that's a good thing. Um. Somebody was asking me,
you know, how do we educate the gatekeepers of all
these studios and networks here in Hollywood to hire more women,
(32:16):
to hire more diverse people as screenwriters and as producers
and directors. And I was like, I don't think we
educate the gatekeepers. I think we changed the gatekeepers very good. Yeah,
we're going to change them. There they got to go.
The other thing is is we look to the future.
I would love to know what your greatest sources of
optimism are. I mean it kind of uh a kind
(32:38):
of sense, just the way you talk about your advocacy,
your activism, and your work. You are very much alive
to all of the problems and obstacles out there, but
you don't seem to focus on them or let them,
uh diminish your optimism. So what gives you hope? Yeah?
Oh my gosh, I'm I'm actually an optimist at heart.
I mean, I'm half class fool for everything. Uh. But
(32:59):
I think probably the thing that this particular year has
given me so much hope. And Obama had said it
as well about our youth, like when you see the
amount of young people in the streets and protesting, and
whether it was you know, the Women's March, or whether
it was Black Lives Matter or UM, whether it was
(33:20):
you know, joy to the polls, the amount of young
people who were engaged, and if you look at the
past civil rights leaders of our time, you know, Martin
Muther King was young, Representative John Lewis was young. I
mean they were they were young. And so when you
see our youth civically engaged, it's it's actually exciting because
(33:41):
you know that's going to be civically engaged adults and
hopefully that manifests and change and progress. I'm fascinated by
Eva's family history, a ninth generation Texas from a family
we who, as she says, didn't cross the border, the
(34:02):
border crossed them. She's connected to America's story with roots
that go back to the very beginning, before the beginning,
even there's such a rich history here and now she
and so many in her community are leading the charge
on figuring out how to make this country better in
the future for the fastest growing demographic group in the nation, Latinos,
from improving our conditions for farm workers to changing our
(34:24):
food system to encouraging young Latinos to pursue and thrive
in STEM and other educational opportunities. She reminds us of
a world of possibility for a vital part of our
national life and for our country as a whole, and
I'm glad Eva has decided to take her voice beyond
the predictable spaces and drive action on these opportunities. For
(34:47):
more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. Two
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