John Leguizamo took the stage at the Hispanic Television Summit, as the session “Reflections on The Making of American Historia” went down. The three-part series premieres on PBS September 27 and airs on consecutive Fridays.
Leguizamo said the project began because his son was being bullied at school for being Latino, and Leguizamo recalled the same thing happening when he grew up in Queens. “To me, violence is the lowest form of communication,” he said, so he decided to share with his son the contributions Latinos have made to the world.
“In my research, I found a plethora of contributions to the world, and to America, that was mind-blowing,” said the actor and producer. “I couldn’t believe how much we’d contributed to the world.”
Cynthia Lopez, CEO, New York Women in Film & Television, moderated the panel. She called American Historia: The Untold History of Latinos “cinematically beautiful to watch and historically accurate.” The series sees Leguizamo in the U.S. and Mexico, unearthing Latino history.
Ben DeJesus, co-founder of NGL Studios with Leguizamo, was also on the panel, along with Luis Ortiz, managing director, Latino Public Broadcasting.
DeJesus shared how he and Leguizamo were at work on the Broadway show Latin History for Morons and ended up with a lot of good material they could not use in the live production. DeJesus said, “There’s something here — what if we took all these stories that did not make the Broadway stage?”
Their projects often begin with a call to Latino Public Broadcasting. Ortiz said he likes to be “the starting point” for such projects.
“Latino voices are not being told enough, and we want to [share] those stories,” he said.
Asked what he learned in putting the project together, Leguizamo said “a lot of beautiful surprises” rose to the surface of his research. “We wanted the top-most experts in Latino history in our show to validate our contributions,” he said, adding, “People think we just got here. But we’ve always been here.”
DeJesus said the production aimed for a “more premiere” production than one might expect from a docuseries on broadcast TV.
The Hispanic TV Summit is part of NYC TV Week, hosted by Broadcasting+Cable, Multichannel News and Next TV.
Leguizamo said he hopes all children, not just those from the Hispanic community, learn from American Historia. “They matter, they’re important, they can do anything they choose to do with their lives,” he said. “That’s what I want to [pass on].”
DeJesus spoke of promoting “a better sense of understanding for our community. I would love for audiences to come out and be like, wow, I didn’t know that!”
Ortiz credited Leguizamo and DeJesus for touching upon a wide variety of Latino cultures in the project, and for focusing on women.
“Latina women are the powerhouse of Latino culture,” Leguizamo said. “It wasn’t hard to put them in there because they put themselves there.”
