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Latinos in the media are almost non existent.
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It's uh it's hard to say because we're now more than 16% of the
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But we're less than 2% of the images that we see on film and television
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Let's begin with everyone if you would and let's start off
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with your name and nationality.
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My name is Carlos Santana.
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But sometimes they mistake me for George Lopez.
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But uh they used to think I was Geraldo Rivera but uh really
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Pleasure to have you here with us.
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Tell me, tell me a little bit about your childhood.
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Um childhood was incredible because of my uh uh ability to
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be with my great grandparents.
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My grandparents, my parents, my siblings had a brother and
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a sister and we all lived uh in one house and uh wasn't a very
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It's really uh a wonderful time.
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We had everything we needed.
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We were in Boyle Heights on first in Indiana, right there in
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And it became a really um probably the most extraordinary
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understanding of my existence because of the fact that uh
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the diversity was total.
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We live right next door to a, um, an Apache family.
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And then, uh that was to the right of us as you're looking at
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my front door to the right then to the left of us was a, um, a Mexican
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family and they had uh 14 kids and uh right across the street
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was a Japanese American family.
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They had uh three kids and then right up the street used to end
02:17
on first street, East Berlin.
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And on top of First Street, it was a hill and on the hill there
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was two homes, one of them was um orthodox Russian orthodox
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And they were really extraordinary because they dressed
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They always wore white cossacks, white pants, white shoes
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They had, they were albino kind of people.
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They had white hair with white, white skin and there was about
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four of them in that family, plus the mother and the father
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And then right next door to them in the same driveway to go up
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He uh a a drive, the same driveway would go up to the other house
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So one driveway for two houses and on the other house was uh
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an african-american family and they were um extraordinary
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They are actually so pristinely beautifully dark that they
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They were almost blue in, in their color.
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It was so beautiful and they were African Americans and they
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And then uh right below their house was the, which was uh the
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little store that was right in the front.
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And then to the right of that store, a little market owned by
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uh the Pacheco family was all the way to the corner of Lorena
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and first street was a uh Chinese store.
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They own the store in the Chinese, owned the store on the corner
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And then if you were going to the left of the, on the corner was
04:03
So in a matter of, you know, maybe 100 yards of, of everybody
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that was, you know, six or seven nationalities, indigenous
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Asians, Africans, Europeans and uh Latinos, there was um
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every, every Wednesday or Tuesday morning, seven o'clock
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that would be the uh Jehovah Witnesses selling the or giving
04:36
the Watch Tower away at the corner of cheese on first street
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And um La Gloria, the uh was right on the corner and it's still
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It's still one of the finest tortilla makers in all the United
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If not in North America, it's called La Gloria.
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And they, they producing.
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So I've seen their tortillas in New York.
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I've seen it all over the country and they're really good.
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And um so it was a, it was an incredible, incredible what I call
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It was a um where it was never a melting pot.
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No one ever lost their identity.
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You know, I always said that you know, and I, I couldn't understand
05:25
what was interesting about our place is that we were a salad
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bowl where the onion stayed, the onion, the tomato stayed
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the tomato, the olives stayed the olive, the, you know, lettuce
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stayed lettuce and, you know, on top of it was a Russian dressing
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or French dressing, you know, or Italian dressing and it was
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all mixed up and delicious salad of culture.
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Soon as I crossed over the first street bridge into downtown
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Los Angeles and got into West L A, I found the salad was still
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there, but the olives lived in South Central, the onion lived
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in Palisades, you know, the Latinos lived in Pacoima and they
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all lived in different parts of the plate, but nobody lived
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And uh we were the only place Boyle Heights right there where
06:29
we all mixed and molded from, you know, I was born in uh I'm a
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you know, baby boomer.
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So I was born in 47.
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So it was a very, very beautiful existence and uh much different
06:43
than anybody and any stories that I've heard about what diversity
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really is all about.
06:49
And uh so for us, I mean, there was Jews, there was Catholics
06:53
there was, we were raised first, we were American Baptists
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the very first religion that I knew of was a Baptist.
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My uh great grandparents were Baptists.
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And uh so I went to Baptist church for a long time till about
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And then my father said, uh we should, we should go to the Catholic
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church because I'm Catholic.
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So we went to the Catholic church and we went in there and we
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sat down and then we stood up and then we sat down, then we stood
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up and then we kneeled down and uh the priest was talking in
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So I don't know how many people in that audience at San Alfonso
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are, would know Latin.
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But, you know, we sat there and, you know, I didn't know what
07:43
Nobody knew what he was saying.
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Then we, you know, did the side of the cross and we left and um
07:51
in Baptist church, we used to go from oh seven o'clock in the
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morning, we would arrive, my, my great grandfather was a custodial
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keeper of the church.
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He had the keys to the church and he would open and close it.
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So we'd go in there and he'd open the church up and we'd walk
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in with him and I was four or five years old and we make sure all
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the seats were up and we'd clean the, the, the, you know, the
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the carpet and then we'd make sure that all the books were
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set in uh in the uh on the chairs and the seats, those hymn, hymn
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And um then we'd get all the church all fixed up and open the
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windows and, and get everything ready.
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And then about nine o'clock people would, at 8 30 people started
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to come by nine o'clock, the service started and, uh, it was
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Spanish, uh, fire and brimstone.
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I mean, it was real Baptist fire and brimstone.
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But in Spanish and man, it was intense people speaking in tongues
08:58
and was really an experience and we'd go until about one o'clock
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and then at one o'clock we'd break for lunch and then we'd all
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go into the main dining hall, huge dining hall where everybody
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in the church, 100 and 10 people, 100 and 50 people would go
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A bunch of kids running around would go and eat and they would
09:20
make big vats huge, huge.
09:23
I mean, the, this big, easily they would make.
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