Soledad O'Brien, 'Latino in America' - Winning ticket
Here's an an interview/preview I did for the Sunday "Sun" with CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien on her documentary "Latino in America" that airs Wdnesday and Thursday:
One of the great joys of TV journalism is seeing first-rate correspondents matched up with subject matter that they are passionate about. Think of the late Ed Bradley sitting down to interview a pop culture pioneer whom he admired like Lena Horne, or NBC's Richard Engel in the line of fire covering a war.
CNN's Soledad O'Brien achieves that kind of stature with "Latino in America," a four-hour, two-night documentary series on the experiences of the nation's largest and fastest-growing minority, beginning Wednesday night at 9.
Some might argue that the 43-year-old journalist had already arrived in that elite company with "Black in America" in 2008 and "Black in America 2" this year. But while I think her work was first-rate in those shows, there is something extraordinary about O'Brien's performance and presence in the new Latino documentary.
She is in total command of the subject matter and seems so finely tuned to the nuances of assimilation, multiculturalism and changing notions of identity that you can't help but trust her after just a few minutes of watching. And she forges that same kind of bond with the people she is interviewing and reporting on in the film, getting sullen-looking teenage boys to confess their ethnic insecurities and clinically depressed adolescent girls to talk openly about the pain they feel in being caught between two cultures.
Conversations about race and identity do not come easily in this country, and members of the media do not achieve the kind of rapport O'Brien does by hot-dogging in for on-camera interviews after all the documentary grunt work has been done by producers and other reporters.
"I traveled for a lot of this year six days a week to do this documentary, which is really hard," O'Brien says. "I mean, I love to travel. It's one of the things I love about being a journalist. But six days a week is an insane travel schedule. A lot of the travel was to the West Coast, and I was doing three red-eyes a week."
But there was no other way to get beneath the safe and superficial way the media and minority members often talk about race when the cameras are on except to put in the time to build credibility and trust.
"I don't know how else to do these kind of stories unless you're personally there and totally engaged," says O'Brien who describes her own identity as "black and Cuban, Australian and Irish."
"How do you do a conversation about race?" she asks rhetorically. "It's not a court case. You don't jump in, read the transcript of the trial, and we're all caught up. It's about getting people to sit down and talk very honestly about perceptions and things that are so intangible."
The first two hours of the documentary find O'Brien chronicling the journeys of people named Garcia, now the eighth most popular surname in the United States - ahead of Wilson and Taylor, and gaining on the most popular, Smith.
The stories O'Brien tracks range from that of Lorena Garcia, a star TV chef on Univision looking for a crossover audience, to Bill and Betty Garcia, a professional baby boomer couple who moved from a Dominican neighborhood in New York City to Charlotte, N.C., decades ago, and are now wondering about the price they paid in loss of roots identity for mainstream success and assimilation. She's from the Dominican Republic, and he's Puerto Rican, and one of their teenage sons just flunked high school Spanish.
Perhaps, the most compelling saga is that of Cindy Garcia, a high school senior of Guatemalan descent who is struggling to graduate from high school in the underfunded Los Angeles public school district while working long hours in her single mother's clothing store.
No spoilers here, but just when you think you know where Cindy's life is headed, it suddenly swings in another direction - as only true life can. And O'Brien is there every step of the way, listening to and deftly questioning the girl as she tries to make sense of the place where her dreams and reality collide.
"I think that especially because of my background in a way I have a lot of personal interest, but also a lot of credibility in these questions about race and ethnicity and identity. You know, I relate to a lot of the stories in this documentary personally," says O'Brien, whose black, Cuban-born mother was brought to Baltimore as a girl in 1947 by the Oblate Sisters who ran a mission in Cuba.
Her father, who did his undergraduate studies in his native Australia, came to Baltimore in the late 1950s to earn a doctorate in engineering at the Johns Hopkins University.
"I sat down with the boys in the Bill and Betty Garcia story and I said to one of them, 'You know, your mom thinks you're embarrassed by her [ethnicity],' " O'Brien recalled. "And he said, 'No, you don't get it. I'm embarrassed that I don't speak Spanish well enough. I'm embarrassed of me.' "
O'Brien, herself a mother of four, says she had the same kind of issues related to her mother that the teenage Garcia boy did with his.
"You know what, I'm embarrassed of me that I don't speak Spanish well enough," says the veteran CNN correspondent and anchor. "And here I am talking to a 16-year-old boy, and he and I are saying exactly the same thing. We are both this sort of first-generation, born-in-this-country, don't-speak-the-language, trying-to-figure-out-what-it-means-to-be-Latino among parents who see themselves as very Latino in a community that's not really sure what you are because you kind of look different and they don't know what that means."
If that sounds complicated, that's because American identity has become so in these multicultural times. And in the end, thanks in large part to O'Brien's own fearlessness, the triumph of "Latino in America" is that it honestly faces, engages and ultimately embraces that complexity in its contradictions, energy and glory.
On TV
"Latino in America" airs at 9 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday on CNN
Comments
I love Soledad Obrien and hope to watch this show this week.
When I was growing up a family at our church & private school...Mr Garcia was our school janitor & bus driver. He was able to get U.S. citizenship and we all were given a true life lesson about the good that immigration can do for our country & a family we cared alot about. When I saw the intro this morning to Mrs. Obriens Latino story my mind went straight back to that time period with that awesome family I knew.
Posted by: Irene | October 18, 2009 12:14 PM
I was really glad to see Soledad O'Brein doing another one of these documentaries. I throughly enjoyed her Black in America 2. The documentary gave me the courage to ask my cousin how her daughter of African American heritage felt about being raised black in America by white parents. We have had her in our family since she was three years old. I learned that yes she has had issues from time to time and they have encouraged her to explore all of her feelings and to reconnect with her birth mother. For us Brittany's loving family issues of race will never be an issue, we love Brittany for the wonderful person she is and we always will. But it is important for her to be able to expand her feelings outside of our family to connect with her heritage. This can only strengthen our love as a family and shows like these can only help to bridge the cultural differences and issues we all face in this country. I really can't wait to watch this.
I was very impressed with Soledad's interview today on the Howard Kurtz Reliable Sources. She said something to the effect that hard work had gotten her where she was today. I am so thankful that she uses her talent to bring us these very important documentaries. I am sure I will have more after I watch.
Posted by: Sherry T. | October 18, 2009 12:48 PM
i grew up in NYC when it was to be asham to be Puerto Rican
Mom was White and Pop was Puerto rican no i nerver was taught to speak spainish I found pride as an adult married to a PR finding that yes as a Latina I am someone speacial there are so many of us,Thanks Soledad for telling our story.
Hi Sonia, Thanks so much for this comment. And I hope you watch the documentary on Wednesday and Thursday nights. I think you will like it. And please, if you do, will post another comment here telling me what you thought. Thanks again. Z
Posted by: Sonia Seda | October 18, 2009 5:53 PM
Let us make it very clear that anti-illlegal immigration groups--the majority of them are not racist. Even though the open border demagogues like you to think so? Even though many of the ethnic organizations are? Right now there are 8 million illegal aliens in the working force taking jobs away from U.S.-born citizens, especially Hispanics, where 1 in every 5 over the age of 16 doesn't have any work. This is a high concentration of a particular group who need to join the membership of NUMBERSUSA, as this group Numbersusa are--ONLY--adverse to illegal immigrants and their families. Same as they are assuredly against any individual or group, who either overstays their expired tourist visa, stormed the border fence or illegally used bogus documents from any ship from the Caribbean and its islands. It is only lies and the propaganda that spills from the mouths of open border zealots, that is current in the National liberal press and other media, that most ethnic groups seem to believe?
Extraction by E-Verification will cause--expedited ATTRITION--without huge expenditures, without forced deportation. Agents of ICE only need to mobilize a large force of Auditors to investigate employer I-9 records. Especially if informants within, are on the payroll, having discovered suspicious individuals working there? Being responsive that there are severe monetary risks or even prison, for employing illegal employees? We surely need exemplary court sentences for companies that hire illegal labor. So when unable to support themselves as jobs are no longer available, they will leave by their own accord. NOW IS THE TIME TO COMMAND OUR RETICENT SENATE & CONGRESSMAN TO IMPLEMENT E-VERIFY PERMANENTLY FOR EVERYBODY IN THE WORKPLACE AT 202-224-3121. Also investigate the prestigious public watchdog legal group at JUDICIAL WATCH relating too sleaze and corruption in--ALL--government. CAPSWEB will explain to you about the risk of OVERPOPULATION.
If we think about the monetary consequences of another AMNESTY, it will unbelievably stagger the mind. Not only will it legalize somewhere between 20 and 30 million more people, but it will attract millions of despondent people from across the border and other impoverished nation of the world. We are informed by politicians that it will be an impossible task to deport the huge numbers of illegal entrants already in the United States. But E-Verify can and will exclude illegal immigrants from the job market as it’s available to every business freely on the Internet. There should be no excuse for not using this immigration enforcement tool? Out government is failing to protect our borders or even the interior enforcement of our nation.
Posted by: Brittancus | October 20, 2009 6:45 PM
I have no problem with latinos in America, as long as they are LEGAL! Illegal aliens are destroyin this Country, and one has to have poor eye sight not to see this.
Illegal aliens have made America the dumping ground for all their illegal alien children, then we have to school them and give them free medical care.
...
I for one, am sick and tired of these illegal aliens snubbing their nose at our immigration laws and the many other laws of this Country. If our Federal Government can not ENFORCE our immigration laws, and get these illegal aliens out of this Country, then let the States do it! One way or another, an end has to come to this illegal immigration, and not with AMNESTY! Amnesty will only encourage more illegal aliens to invade our Country and reward those who broke our laws and raped the American taxpayer in many ways...depressing our wages, taking our jobs, overwhelming our schools with their ILLEGAL ALIEN children, driving without a license or car insurance, all the crime from stolen identities to rape, drugs and everything else.
It's time for ZERO TOLERENCE with these illegal aliens. It's time for them get out of this Country and back in their own Country where they belong. When we get rid of the illegal aliens, we will get rid of all the problems that go with them. THAT IS A FACT!
As for CNN, they are a very liberal station, except for Lou Dobbs. He is OK. I watch FOX News. They are the best!
Posted by: Delaware Bob | October 20, 2009 10:09 PM
Delaware Bob -
That is kind of a tough postion to take. They are probably coming to this country to look for a better life, jobs and the American dream. I agree that they need to become LEGAL. I think that part of the problem is no one can agree on a good way to accomplish this in a timely manner so some of these people have a chance for a better life. That is another problem that this country needs to address right now it is a big mess.
Posted by: Sherry T. | October 20, 2009 10:43 PM
I am excited to watch the first half of this documentary tonight. Soledad O'Brien had an interview today On CNN with an actress who has made a name for herself in lots of movies, Lupe Ontiveros. It was a good interview. She explained how she got her start in movies.
Posted by: Sherry T. | October 21, 2009 8:01 PM
There were so many inspiring stories in this documentary I would not even be able to pick one story that I liked best. I think I would say even better than Black in America 2, I felt like I gained a huge understanding of how Latino's feel about being American.
I could really relate to the couple who moved from New York to I think it was North Carolina when their boys were young. It seemed like they regret some of their decision, not teaching the boys spanish. They took them back to New York to try reconnect with their Latino heritage and they connected with the uncle a radio disc jockey who is well known.
And the young girl Cindy who was trying to graduate and becomes pregnant. Broke my heart at first, but then she showed how determined she is to make it work, and I think she will.
Also, I would not have known how different Latino families values were. They place working for family above everything. Very different from American families and the struggles that a young Latino girl had with this to the point of not wanting to live.
Soledad O'Brein shines in this. I so enjoyed this and can't wait for the second part. Great show!!
Posted by: Sherry T. | October 21, 2009 11:07 PM
Way to go Solidad. Your documentary lived up to the hypee. even better. We as Americans need to embreace latinas not as they will be the majority but because of the perspecitive they bring back to America. Embrace the family. I am proud that Latinas will be representing America. I belive Latina is what America is. Family struggling for something better.
Posted by: Jim Johnson | October 21, 2009 11:21 PM
Glad for Latino in America!
Posted by: Marco Portales | October 22, 2009 6:14 AM
Too wrapped up in Gosselin land.
I saw about 30 minutes of this last night. I have to see the whole thing.
Mrs. Obrien did a great job.
I just took from what little I saw what people like "Marta" will do to get a piece of America. Something alot of us take for granted everyday. I could not imagine ever being on an innertube except maybe a lazy day at the river with my kids.
Hmmm...has to stir something up in you if you even watch 5 minutes.
Posted by: Irene | October 23, 2009 4:28 PM
Wow Irene, I missed it too! I had a long day at work and by the time I got home my kids needed attention. I missed the part about Marta, I am assuming that her trip to America was not a pleasant one.
I was impressed with Lorena Garcia though and the food empire that she is building. Her father had wanted her to be a lawyer, but she is making a future in the world of cooking. She is so enthusiastic and I would watch a version of her show in English for sure. I like Giada De Laurentiss. I thing she could be the next one if she pursues this.
My heart was also breaking for the young girl who came over with her parent's when she was 7, America is all she has known and she was going to be deported back because she was working under a false SS#. She is appealing. She will have to leave her family and her young daughter to a country where she does not know anyone. It is a shame that the country does not make better provisions for getting these people processed and legal. The system is very broken. We all came from other countries that is what makes up America.
Posted by: Sherry T. | October 23, 2009 5:41 PM
I have a different opinion. I thought she focused too much on failure and despair.
What about the success stories? I would have liked to see an interview with the two Latino astronauts who were on the space shuttle this summer, Jose Hernandez and John D. Olivas. I would have liked to see an interview with Dr. Mario Molina who won the Nobel Prize in chemistry. Those stories would have been uplifting and inspiring.
Instead we saw dropouts, suicidal girls, and a guy who couldn't pass his police officers exam. What was the point of that?
On a positive note, Soledad O'Brien's coverage of Shenandoah, PA and the Luis Ramirez murder was compelling and heartbreaking. That story needed to be told.
Posted by: Anna | October 24, 2009 3:36 PM