John Leguizamo's 'The Other Americans' aims to remedy Broadway's lack of Latino stories

Transcript

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Amna Nawaz: Comedian, actor, producer, playwright, and advocate John Leguizamo has appeared in more than 100 films, while also telling a distinctly Latino story, in documentaries, one-man shows, and now full-scale dramas.

Senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown met him recently at the Arena Stage in Washington to talk about his latest work on stage, his larger goals, and his response to the recent election. It’s for our arts and culture series, Canvas.

John Leguizamo, Actor and Playwright: I just don’t understand how everybody gets to fail up but us.

Jeffrey Brown: In the new play “The Other Americans,” set in Queens, New York, in the late 90s, 59-year-old Nelson Castro, born in Columbia, raised in the U.S., is struggling.

His laundromat business is on the brink of failure. His family is reeling in the aftermath of a shocking attack on his son.

John Leguizamo: He’s dreaming, hustling, grinding, doing everything you can, you’re supposed to do to get that American dream, and yet falls short of it all the time.

Jeffrey Brown: The man who plays the role and wrote the play, John Leguizamo, aiming to set a distinctly Latino story within the American theater tradition of family and work dramas that includes Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” and August Wilson’s “Fences.”

John Leguizamo: I had the whole American canon in my mind. How do you create an American classic was my goal.

Jeffrey Brown: That’s a big goal.

John Leguizamo: I dream big, just like Nelson.

(Laughter)

Jeffrey Brown: Yes?

John Leguizamo: Just like all Latin people dream big, and then hopefully we hit the mark someday.

Jeffrey Brown: So this was personal for you?

John Leguizamo: Oh, yes, of course, it was very personal in many, many ways.

Jeffrey Brown: Now, 64 Leguizamo, who was himself born in Colombia and raised in New York, has been a major presence on screen for decades in dramatic going back to 1993’s “Carlito’s Way” to the voice of Sid the sloth…

John Leguizamo: Why? Doesn’t anyone love me?

Jeffrey Brown: … in the animated “Ice Age” series, while also telling his own and the larger Latino story in one-man shows…

John Leguizamo: What is the life expectancy of a Latino man?

Jeffrey Brown: … and in documentaries such as the recent PBS series “VOCES: The Untold History of Latinos.”

John Leguizamo: It all starts here, the Olmec, the Taino, the Maya, the Inca, the Aztec.

Jeffrey Brown: Even with his success, he’s experienced the limited roles and opportunities available to Latinos. And he’s been an outspoken advocate for more representation in TV, film and theater, including at this year’s Emmy Awards ceremony.

John Leguizamo: And for years I didn’t complain about the limited roles my people were offered, the spicy sex pot, the Latin lover, the maid, the gangbanger. Turns out not complaining doesn’t change anything.

We Latin people are equal to white people in population in New York City, but less than 0.06 percent of the actors on stage. There’s no Latin story up on Broadway right now. What’s going on? That’s been going on since I was a little kid. That’s not OK. I have always felt that incredible sort of erasure and invisibility, like we’re living this shadow parallel life.

Jeffrey Brown: So here you are writing plays. I mean, your attitude was, if it’s not out there, I’m just going to do it myself?

John Leguizamo: I had to do it myself, because here I am seeing all these amazing Latin people in my community that are not represented anywhere.

Jeffrey Brown: And is the bigger goal to create a new canon?

John Leguizamo: Yes, yes, because why not? Why the hell not? I mean, I know it sounds daunting and maybe perhaps egotistical, but that wasn’t what was motivating me. What was motivating me was to put Latin people on the marquee, to put them on the boards, to put them on the great Broadway.

Jeffrey Brown: But, right now, Leguizamo, a big supporter of Kamala Harris and other Democratic candidates, is also absorbing the election loss amid strong gains Donald Trump made with Latino voters.

Did the results surprise you?

John Leguizamo: Shocked me, yes, shocked me. I didn’t expect that, I mean, especially with all the hate rhetoric against Latinos, Mexicans and Puerto Ricans. I — it was shocking, you know?

But it goes with sort of the lack of interest in Latin culture and what’s going on. They don’t do enough studies. They don’t fund the grassroots organizations. I talk to all of them all the time, Chicanos Por La Causa, Voto Latino. They don’t get the money and the funding to go out and do what they need to do best.

I mean, the Democrats have to work much harder to get the Latin vote. They have not worked hard enough.

Jeffrey Brown: But why do you think that Trump and the Republicans got more of the Latino vote this time, a much higher proportion than last time?

(Crosstalk)

John Leguizamo: Yes, because their talk was easier to grasp, was clearer, was about big business. And Latin people only care about business. That’s the most important thing in their lives, because they need to make a living because we’re at the bottom of the economic food chain.

Jeffrey Brown: On our show recently, Pastor Samuel Rodriguez — he’s a conservative evangelical — he said:

Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference: I really do believe that what we experienced at this election was the official breaking up of the Latino community with the Democratic Party.

Jeffrey Brown: He said it didn’t have to be permanent, but it’s happened. What do you think?

John Leguizamo: I think that’s B.S. And that’s not — Latinos did not break with the Democrats. They broke for their wallets.

Unfortunately, people have a short-term memory and they forget that we came from a terrible economy under Trump and COVID, and all his lack of response caused this inflation that Biden had to try to fix. No, it’s not a break with the Democrats in the Latino community. There’s still too many things that we’re fighting for that are the same.

We have to celebrate the wins too. We had about 50 seats we got as Latinos, Ruben Gallego, the first Latino senator in Arizona, which is 30 percent Latino, but incredibly racist. We had huge wins all over the place. So I’m celebrating that.

Jeffrey Brown: And he’s continuing to work on this play about a man, a family, a community he calls “The Other Americans.”

John Leguizamo: I keep working on it and retooling it and try to write some more stuff, and keep doing what I do as an artist. That’s — my success is my revenge against this blight that just happened.

Jeffrey Brown: Your success is to continue as an artist, to keep writing these plays?

John Leguizamo: Yes. To keep going is the revenge. That’s right. And it’s also the panacea, for me.

Jeffrey Brown: For the “PBS News Hour,” I’m Jeffrey Brown at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.