ZOOM-PRODUCED TRANSCRIPT OF THE FRESH AIR INTERVIEW WITH JOHN LEGUIZAMO.

THERE WILL BE SOME ERRORS AND MISSPELLINGS.

TANYA MOSLEY
This is fresh air weekend. I'm Tanya Moseley. Our next guest is John Leguizamo. For the last
4 decades we've watched him go from a 1-man show and stand-up comedian to television
and TV actor activist. And now educator. His latest project, an ambitious docuseries on the
history of Latinos, feels like an inflection point for a man who has spent his career asserting
himself as a Latino American while also discovering his place in this country. The new
docuseries now airing on Pbs. Is called Voces American Historia, the untold History of
Latinos, which he co-created with Director Ben de Jesus. It's like a textbook on screen with
Leguizamo at the head of the class exploring Latino contributions to the Americas over
thousands of years. If this sounds familiar, that's because this series is an evolution of
Leguizamo's 2018 one-man show, called Latin History for Morons, which aired on Netflix.
John Leguizamo is an Emmy and Tony Award winning performer, who began doing stand up
in the eighties and gained critical acclaim for his one man. Semi autobiographical shows
about growing up in queens, including Mambo Mouth and Freak. where Leguizamo
portrayed dozens of characters from his life growing up in queens, including friends,
relatives, and neighbors. He's performed in over a hundred films and television shows,
including his breakthrough roles in 93, as Luigi in Super, Mario Bros. And Brian de Palma's
Carlito's way, as Carlito's Nemesis, Benny Blanco from the Bronx. he also starred in Moulin
Rouge, and he currently hosts the Msnbc travel show Leguizamo does America.
John Leguizamo? Welcome back to fresh air.

JOHN LEGUIZAMO
Thank you, Tanya. What a pleasure to be here with you.

TANYA MOSLEY
John. I absolutely loved Latin history for morons and for those who don't know it. In 2018
you did this one man show on Broadway, where you essentially got on stage and traced
3,000 years of Latin history.
and the idea was actually spawned from this discovery that your son was being bullied.
and it almost feels like you were working out this idea for what is now this new docuseries?
Is that what was happening? How did you come to this idea for American Historia?

JOHN LEGUIZAMO
Oh, Tanya, that's so true. I mean, the genesis was basically my son was in 8th grade, and he
was doing a history project, and he was being bullied at the same time, and I wanted to
help him with this project to be, you know, a good dad get some brownie points for my wife,
and I realized that there was no Latino contributions to the making of American history in
his textbook. And so, as super sleuth, Dad, I got all these books on Latin history on
Amazon, and went to all the sites, and and it was it was I that was changed my molecules
when I found all this information incredible countless facts and data about our
contributions to making of the Us. And the world. I became a diaerent person from being
feeling small to feeling like a giant.

TANYA MOSLEY
Well, John, your entire career, as I said in the introduction, you've kind of been asserting
your Latinoness. You've been the person who has been speaking about like this is who we
are, and these are our contributions for this documentary, though you all choose 3 diaerent
time periods, and I'm really curious how you decided to choose them, because, as I think,
I've heard you say, there is no Ken Burns, Doc, or Discovery Channel Show. or even
textbooks. I mean, you went to Amazon to find some of these books, but a lot of the history
that is in this documentary. Many of us have never heard before.

JOHN LEGUIZAMO
Tanya, you're so right. I mean John Hopkins University and Unidos, us did a study and found
that 87% of latino contributions to the making of the Us. Are not in history textbooks. So
that's what's in this show that 87% that's missing. When I did the show. I wanted to be like
Latino culture was on trial, and I wanted to have evidence. I wanted to have facts. I wanted
to have testimonies. I wanted to have quotes. I wanted to have evidence to support this,
because there's a lot of deniers, and they're going to be deniers about our contribution. So I
wanted it to be fact, check proof. And so I got these historians, these experts, these
archaeologists, to be on camera with me. I got all these allies from my 40 years in the
business as allies to come and make these quotes come to life because not a lot of footage
at the Conquest. There's not a lot of footage of the 15 and 16 hundreds, so I had to get
quotes as many, and I pulled as many as I could, and I got Brian Cranston and Liev.
Schreiber and Benjamin Brad and Ethan Hawke and Lawrence Fishburne and Rosario
Dawson to make them come to life. Incredible allyship, and it warmed my heart. I mean,
the facts are astounding. Right?

TANYA MOSLEY
You're like a walking textbook now, and what I also feel from you is kind of this phenomenon
that always happens is, once you see it, you can't unsee it.

JOHN LEGUIZAMO
So true, true.

TANYA MOSLEY
Like you really sound like a man on a mission.

JOHN LEGUIZAMO
Yeah, I'm like the Rainman of Latin data and facts. And I'm okay with that, I'm nerding out
on you, I know, and on your public. But these facts are, they change your chromosomes,
they change your DNA. You know you're a young Latin man or young Latin woman in
America, and you're growing up here, and there's nothing in literature that reflects you, or
history textbooks or math, and you feel very small. And then, when I start reading these
facts about our contributions and our empires, that our empires were bigger than European
empires, that they were more advanced than European empires. It blows your mind that
the Aztecs had toilets with running water, that they bathed 3 times a day, that the Incas had
superior brain surgery. that the modern world hasn't hadn't achieved until after the Civil
War. They had anesthesia that we gave the world. We had suspension bridges. We had
Incas had binary code back then, before computers today, these are some of the findings
you get, and you're like, Wait a minute. What? How is this kept from me? Why is this kept
from me. And then you start to understand that he who writes the history textbooks
controls society. Plato, said. He who tells the stories controls society, and you know it's
been true, and it's intuitive truth as well.

TANYA MOSLEY
Can we do a little Latino history 101, as we continue to discuss this docuseries, because
for the people, I think it's important for us to note. you share the distinction between Latino
and Hispanic, especially as it pertains to how you approached this history in the
docuseries. You do this at the top of every episode. Can you very quickly share that
distinction?

JOHN LEGUIZAMO
There's a huge distinction, and we Latinos are grappling with our identity, you know, on a
daily basis, and trying to do the best we can, because we haven't done as well as we should
have, like, including our Afro Latinos, and giving tribute to our indigenous Latino side.
which is a huge part of our DNA Hispanic means. You speak Spanish. and for the most part
Hispanics are from Spain. But we we are all Hispanics, because we all speak Spanish, but
Latino means you're not from Spain means you're from Latin. America means you were
colonized means you're from the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America, and South America,
and that includes Brazil and Haiti. We're all Latinos who experience a lot of oppression,
slavery. the stealing of our incredible wealth and land, wealth and exploitation for 500
years.

TANYA MOSLEY
That's what Latino means to me, and Latino is African, indigenous, and Spanish by blood.

JOHN LEGUIZAMO
I'm a snap to that, because that's exactly what it I feel. Latinos. The majority of us are,
mestizo, indigenous and Afro-latino. We have a mixture of all that, and that's Latino. There
are white Latinos, but you know they're a very small percentage, but they do run things in
Latin America, and that's where you know. With it the colorism happens, and and racism in
our own countries exists.

TANYA MOSLEY
You know another topic that you take on in this, Doc, is to chart how language in particular
Spanish was weaponized. I mean, you actually go as far back as when the Europeans
interacted with native Americans who spoke their own language over time. We saw this
enter the school system, where children were separated from their Spanish language, and
Professor valise. Abanez talked about a memory growing up in the Southwest that was
especially painful for him. I want to take a moment to listen to what he had to say, Let's
listen.

RECORDING OF PROFESSOR IBAÑEZ FROM THE DOCUSERIES

Segregation has many implications and many consequences. In our particular case the
Spanish language has been used as a racist trope. and for those of us who were in school.
We were forbidden to speak Spanish, and for every word of Spanish that you spoke we were
hit with a bat that had been shaved with holes at the end. So you went home, and your
mother might bathe you when you were 5 years old? She asked. Well, you know. What are
those marks on your rear end? And I told her I said I got spanked. Well, did you misbehave?
I said. I don't know. but I didn't know why I was being spanked. What occurs is that the child
then learns to associate pain with the language that the child is speaking. Now that
language is internalized very early on the language that's spoken by a mother to her child
when she's cooing. Her child has a deep implication, because you learn, then, that you've
got to hate this language that your mother raised you upon.

TANYA MOSLEY
That was Carlos Velez Ibanez, Professor of Transborder studies at Arizona State University
from the new documentary produced and hosted by my guest today, John Leguizamo and
John. He is touching on the mental health toll of being separated from your language. You're
a Columbia born in Queens raised, and we're going to talk about that. But what was your
relationship with the Spanish language growing up?

JOHN LEGUIZAMO
Well, what he said was so touching and so painful to reveal that I learned in this
documentary series. and what he's talking about happened all over the Southwest and the
West, because, you know, it was all Mexico, Texas, Arizona. They have our names, you
know, New Mexico, Arizona's dry land, Nevada's snowy land, California's beautiful
temperate zone. Jim Crow laws were for Latinos as well. They called them Juan Crow laws,
and you would see these signs that said, no negroes, no dogs, and no Mexicans. We were at
the bottom of the underneath the dogs. Yes, underneath the dogs, because we were the
majority of the population all over the West and the Southwest had all just been Mexico,
you know, from 18 thirties it stopped being Mexico when we were invaded. so I had a
diaerent sort of understanding of Spanish, because I didn't grow up in the South West. I
grew up in the northeast and in the east coast. and we Latinos are a little younger
population here, and my parents immigrated here, so they had a huge pride of Spanish.
They would force us to speak Spanish at home, you know, and I was very reluctant because
all I saw on the media and in my classes was English, so I did not want to speak Spanish,
and they would force me to speak Spanish. And now I regret being such an obstinate child,
because now I want to recoup my Spanish
TANYA MOSLEY
John earlier this month, at the 76 primetime Emmy Awards. you spoke about the
importance of representation in Hollywood, and you mentioned how you grew up seeing
white actors playing characters of Latin descent, and how, when Latinos were in movies
and shows they were often playing a stereotype. I want us to to listen to a little bit of it. Let's
listen.

RECORDING OF JOHN LEGUIZAMO FROM THE EMMY AWARDS

I'm John Leguizamo, and I'm 1 of Hollywood's DEI hires. That's right. DEI. The d is for
diligence. The E is for excellence. The I is for imagination. and everyone in this room tonight
has dedicated their lives to diligence, excellence, and imagination. So we are all DEI hires.
and man. What a beautiful and diverse room this is tonight, guepa. because when I was
growing up in Jackson Heights Queens, a scrawny little Wannabe gangster you're not from
Queens don't lie. I didn't know that people like me could be actors at 15. I didn't know the
word representation. Actually, there were a lot of words. I didn't know back then. but I saw a
lot of Brownface. I saw Marlon Brando play a Mexican and Viva Zapata and Al Pacino play
Cuban gangster. Tony Montana, and Natalie Wood play a Puerto Rican beauty named
Maria. Everybody played us except us. I didn't see a lot of people on TV who looked like me.
Of course there was always Ricky Ricardo. “Lucy, you got a lot of explaining to do.” and I
know some of you remember the Looney tunes, cartoon, mouse, speedy Gonzalez, the
fastest mouse in all of Mexico. “Arriva Riva Andale,” and his lethargic, useless sidekick
Slowpoke rodriguez sorry Senor pussycat I can't play with you no more. It's time for my
siesta. and that's how we saw ourselves, because that's all we saw of ourselves.

TANYA MOSLEY
That was my guest, John Leguizamo, at this year's primetime, Emmy Awards talking about
representation in Hollywood. John, what was what was the reception to that speech?

JOHN LEGUIZAMO
Wow! It was electric and seismic. I was a little nervous, you know, because I was saying a
lot of edgy things, and and luckily the Emmy Committee relented and allowed me, because
Chris Abrego, the new chairman of the Emmys is Latino, and he fought for me.

TANYA MOSLEY
to be able to show them what you were going to say before you said it.

JOHN LEGUIZAMO
Yes, I had to, and it had to be approved, and it had to be a lot of conversations because they
wanted to keep it light. They didn't want people to feel bad. so I made it as funny and light
as possible. But I still got my points across which was powerful, and I saw. you know
people in the audience, you know, nodding, hooting, hollering, snapping back. And I was
like, Oh, my God! I got him, and it was quiet. Sometimes you could hear a PIN drop, and
then the laughter. And it was wild. It was. It was such a beautiful experience.
TANYA MOSLEY
You know. There are so many movies that we grew up with that. They're just iconic, you
know, thinking about when I was a kid like Scarface, all of the guys I grew up with loved that
it was playing all the time. And I wonder, like, what is your relationship with some of those
movies today that really did like sit in those stereotypes. You know Mexican bandits and
Westerns, or the West Side story that cast all white actors to play Puerto Ricans and
Scarface.

JOHN LEGUIZAMO
Yeah, you know at the time I was like, you know I was. I didn't feel. you know. They made me
feel like I didn't deserve to be the leads in our own stories. I was made to feel that. now that
I'm a grown man. it's not okay. I'm enraged by it. You took an opportunity of a Latin person.
you know Antonio Banderas playing Latinos. He's not Latino. He's a white European
colonizer. It's not his fault. I'm not saying I mean, it's because we don't have Latino
executives who say, Look, you're not Latino. Why are you taking Latino roles? Pacino?
You're a white Italian. Why are you taking playing a Puerto Rican in Carlito's way, and
playing a Cuban in Scarface. Those should be Latino roles, and it should be Latinos playing
them. And I'm going to say something controversial. This Menendez story being done right
now. There's only one real latino. There's only one real Latino in that cast. It's a Latino story,
a horrible Latino story, but there's plenty of Latino actors to play the dad. I love Javier
Bardem. I think he's an incredible actor, but he's not Latino. He's a white Spaniard. and a
little bit of Brownface going on, and that's not cool. I'm gonna do like Kendrick Lamar going
after Drake, you know. I'm sorry, but those roles should be to David Zaius, Benjamin Bratt.
There's tons you'll ask. There's tons of Latino actors and talent out there. Put Latinos in
Latino roles. Let's let's not do a disservice. I see so much Latin talent being laid to waste.
dreams allowed to desiccate. Use our Latin talent.

TANYA MOSLEY
John Leguizamo. It was such a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much for taking the
time.

JOHN LEGUIZAMO
Oh, Tanya, it was a blast.

TANYA MOSLEY
John Leguizamo's new Pbs series is called Voces American Historia. The untold history of
Latinos.