John Leguizamo’s ‘VOCES American Historia’ highlights Latino contributions : NPR

Years in the past, actor John Leguizamo was serving to his then eighth-grade son with a college mission and located quite a bit much less Latino historical past within the textbook than he anticipated.

“And so, as super sleuth dad, I got all these books on Latin history on Amazon and went to all the [web] sites — and I was changed,” Leguizamo says. “When I found all this information, incredible countless facts and data about our contributions to the making of the U.S. and the world, I … [went from] feeling small to feeling like a giant.”

Leguizamo realized that the Maya individuals seemingly had flush bogs, that the Inca practiced cranium surgical procedure and that hundreds of Latino individuals fought within the American Civil Conflict.

“These are some of the findings you get,” Leguizamo says. “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.”

In 2023, Johns Hopkins College launched a examine discovering that 87% of “key topics in Latino history” are both underrepresented in textbooks, or neglected fully. Leguizamo is attempting to wrest again a few of that management with VOCES American Historia, a three-part PBS docuseries he co-created with director Ben DeJesus. The sequence options interviews and info that spotlight Latino contributions to American historical past and tradition.

“I wanted [the series] to be like Latino culture was on trial,” he says. “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.”

Interview highlights

On the distinction between Hispanic and Latino

“Hispanic” means you converse Spanish and, for essentially the most half, Hispanics are from Spain. … We’re all Hispanics as a result of all of us converse Spanish, however “Latino” means you are not from Spain, means you are from Latin America, means you had been colonized. … We’re all Latinos who expertise a whole lot of oppression, slavery, the stealing of our unimaginable wealth and land wealth and exploitation, for 500 years, that is what Latino means to me.

On rising up seeing white actors enjoying Latino roles, like in West Facet Story

They made me really feel like I did not need to be the lead in our personal tales. I used to be made to really feel that. Now that I am a grown man, it isn’t OK. I am enraged by it. You took a possibility of a Latin particular person. Antonio Banderas enjoying Latinos. He isn’t Latino. … We do not have Latino executives who say, “Look, you’re not Latino. Why are you taking Latino roles?” Otherwise you’re [Al] Pacino, you are a white Italian, why are you taking enjoying a Puerto Rican in Carlito’s Means and enjoying a Cuban in Scarface? These must be Latino roles and it must be Latinos enjoying them. …

This Menendez story being carried out proper now [on Netflix about a true story of brothers convicted of killing their parents in 1989] … It is a Latino story, a horrible Latino story. However there’s loads of Latino actors to play the dad. I like Javier Bardem. I feel he is an unimaginable actor, however he is not Latino. He is a white Spaniard. … There’s tons of Latino actors and expertise on the market. Put Latinos in Latino roles. Let’s not do a disservice. I see a lot Latin expertise being laid to waste, goals allowed to desiccate. Use our Latin expertise.

On not getting as many auditions as white actors when he was at NYU

They had been going to 5 to 10 auditions a day, and I used to be going to 1 each 5 months for a gang member, a drug seller, a assassin or a janitor. And I spotted, wow, I haven’t got a shot simply because I am Latino. …

I knew my alternatives weren’t equal and weren’t truthful. Even when I used to be nearly as good wanting as Brad Pitt — a Latino Brad Pitt — even when I might write like William Shakespeare and Tennessee Williams, or if I might act like Brando, I’d not be given that chance as a result of I used to be Latino.

And so I attempted to seek out another venues and I discovered efficiency artwork. After which I began creating my first present, Mambo Mouth. I’d do all these characters and I grew to become a star in these venues. … When Latin audiences discovered me, my God, it was church. As a result of they might be crying and screaming and laughing, and it was wild. And that fueled me. That fueled me for my 4 many years within the enterprise.

On why some Latino immigrants desire a stricter border

Some immigrants really feel … empowered by going in opposition to different immigrants, and I assume they really feel extra American or much less “othered” in the event that they assault others. I feel there is a syndrome of that. And a few immigrants are afraid of immigrants taking their jobs as a result of these are the roles that they may take. … I imply, the roles Latinos are doing, no person needs. That is why they’re doing it. And that is why we want immigrants, as a result of immigrants gasoline America. They’re doing the important labor. The Mexican immigrants and the Central American immigrants that died on the Maryland bridge, they had been doing that infrastructure work. We constructed Katrina again after Hurricane Katrina. We constructed Louisiana again. … We’re doing the work. We’re feeding America. We’re doing all that labor that no person needs. America doesn’t perform with out Latino immigrants. It simply would not. It by no means has and by no means will.

Heidi Saman and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey tailored it for the online.