Latest / National Immigration Law Center Freedom to Thrive Podcast / Ep. #109: Chicano Legend | Cheech Marin

Transcript

Ep. #109: Chicano Legend | Cheech Marin · National Immigration Law Center Freedom to Thrive Podcast

0:00
When I was a kid, my dad bought a record player. Not just any record player, this thing was a beast.
0:05
It was one of those massive 1970s dark wooden consoles, three feet tall,
0:11
six feet across, and it was loaded.
0:14
It had a turntable, an eight-track player, and an AM-FM radio with built-in
0:19
speakers that had mustard yellow crushed velvet trim.
0:22
It was a beauty and probably the most expensive item in a home furnished with second-hand wares.
0:29
My parents both worked in factories, so I'm sure the consul set them back,
0:34
but it was nice to hear them enjoy their Antonio Aguilar, José Alfredo Jiménez,
0:39
and Amalia Mendoza albums.
0:41
My five brothers would play Kiss and Led Zeppelin, and my three sisters played
0:46
Barry Manilow and the Beatles.
0:48
I had Puff the Magic Dragon, which one of my exasperated brothers flung onto the 605 freeway.
0:54
I was six years old, but I digress.
0:57
When my parents weren't home, my brothers would sneak out their Cheech and Chong
1:01
albums, and we'd all gather around the console, nine Ballesteros siblings howling with laughter.
1:08
We would listen to Cheech and Chong's Los Cochinos in the mornings before we went to school.
1:13
As a kid, they made me laugh, and as an adult, well, they bring me to tears, but in a good way.
1:19
Fast forward 30 years, and my own son also fell in love with Cheech,
1:24
except this time we were able to enjoy his work together, watching Spy Kids,
1:29
where Uncle Felix, played by Cheech Marin, is the cool tío caught up in the family adventures.
1:34
This is a testament to his enduring appeal, the breadth of his talent,
1:39
and his evolution as an entertainer.
1:42
Cheech Marin has had an unparalleled, lasting, and impactful career.
1:46
From comedian, musician, and actor to author, film director,
1:51
and opening the Chichmarin Center for Chicano Art and Culture,
1:55
which we'll definitely be talking about, there are few people as well-known
2:00
and universally loved as Chichmarin.
2:03
And I have the distinct honor and privilege of welcoming him to the podcast
2:07
today, and I'm so excited to have this conversation. This is the NILC Freedom
2:12
to Thrive Podcast, powering pro-immigrant narratives, one story at a time.
2:18
I'm Victoria Ballesteros, Executive Vice President of Narrative at the National
2:23
Immigration Law Center. Hi, Cheech.
2:26
Hi. Thanks very much for having me on this show and getting me up so early.
2:31
Of course. Thank you for getting up so early. It's against my religion, but okay.
2:37
Okay, so I wasn't going to ask you this question, but so many people want to
2:41
know, where does your name Cheech come from? Is that short for something?
2:45
Why, yes, it is. It's short for Chicharron.
2:49
When I was a little baby first home from the hospital, I was laying in the crib
2:54
and my uncle Bano, who was the namer of all nicknames in my family.
3:00
Looked into the crib and said, I parece un chicharron, man.
3:03
It looks like a little chicharron all curled up like that.
3:06
And so that became my nickname in the family forever.
3:11
And then when we were trying to put together Cheech and Chong,
3:14
we were trying to think of a name.
3:16
And Tommy said, well, do you have a nickname?
3:20
And so I says, well, Cheech is my nickname. And he said, Cheech and Chong,
3:24
Cheech and Chong. And that was it from that day forward.
3:27
And it worked and it stuck forever, right? Thank you for indulging that question.
3:31
And that feels like such a mexican thing to me is we all
3:34
have primos that have some nickname that that
3:37
speaks to a physical attribute right we all have
3:40
a gordo a flaco you know in the
3:43
family so having a horse face or a chango that they're gonna look like it's
3:49
all there thank you again for indulging that question so when i was a kid there
3:54
really weren't any chicanos on tv and i think that's probably one of the reasons
3:58
we played your album pretty much every day we related to you.
4:02
When you were starting your career, I can imagine that there weren't a lot of
4:06
Chicanos in the entertainment industry, but you blazed your own trail,
4:11
which is never easy to do.
4:13
Who inspired you along the way?
4:15
Well, gee, God, everybody that I saw on TV that was Latino of some sort,
4:21
you know, and especially if they were funny, because I
4:24
was attracted to a funny comedy you all
4:27
my life and so i i think the first guy that
4:30
i ever saw on tv that was latino and funny was jose
4:33
gonzalez gonzalez and he was on it was
4:36
a guest on the uh groucho mark she bet your life show and he was just hilarious
4:41
and and lo these many years it comes to turn out that he was clifton collins
4:47
jr's grandfather oh and he looks exactly like him i pulled up all those things from
4:55
days gone by and look exactly like him. So that was the first guy.
4:59
And I would, every time he was on the show, I'd make sure that me and all my cousins tuned in.
5:04
Nice. I love that. And so over your career, which has spanned decades,
5:09
and it's very diverse, you've done comedy and music, acting,
5:13
writing, directing, you're an author and a serious art collector.
5:17
To what do you attribute your lasting creativity? Where does that come from?
5:21
Well, you know, I come from a very funny family, first of all.
5:27
Everybody in my family is very quick-witted and funny.
5:31
So if you wanted to get any time at the dinner table, you had to have a tight
5:35
three minutes to go in and be all together.
5:39
But we're very smart, and we're all Catholic-educated.
5:43
That meant a liberal arts education with torture.
5:47
Yeah. And so we gathered together in a little group. There was four of us, and I was the youngest.
5:55
And the oldest cousin, Louis, who was just a brilliant genius,
5:58
got a scholarship to grade school.
6:01
And then every school he ever went to after that decided that we were going
6:05
to have this little group, and we were going to learn other stuff.
6:08
So he assigned us topics. And Regine, my cousin Regine, who eventually went
6:14
on to get the first doctorate in Chicano studies from Harvard University, was the other cousin.
6:20
Another cousin was Lolly, who just finished 30 years as a Catholic nun.
6:24
And then Louis, and then me, and he said, and Cheech, you go learn about art
6:29
and bring it back to the community, the cousins.
6:33
And so I go, okay, how do you do that? So I went to the library and started learning about art.
6:37
I love that. And it stuck with you. Yeah.
6:41
That's amazing. I learned, you know, what really came out of that group was a love of learning.
6:49
Yeah. How to learn. And once you get that love of learning, then everything
6:54
is, you know, interesting and irresistible. And you can't wait for the next thing for that.
7:00
And that led to being like a collector, you know, of anything.
7:05
Baseball cards, marbles, stamps, buttons, you know, anything.
7:09
So that was, that was my lifelong kind of goal, you know, to go along that path.
7:14
And you said you had a funny family. I'm curious because I think,
7:17
well, I read somewhere that your father was a policeman. Is that correct?
7:20
Yeah. He thought he was funny. He thought he was funny. So was he, what did he think?
7:26
So he's a policeman and your early years were, you know, you did a lot of humor around pot and weed.
7:31
And what was his response to that? Did he support it too?
7:35
He loved that I was famous, especially with the young juvenile delinquent crowd,
7:43
because that was his area.
7:45
And so he would love that I would give him free records.
7:49
Oh, nice. And he would take them to these guys and say, hey,
7:52
you ever heard of Cheech and Chong? Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, he's my son. Here, want a record?
7:56
And blah, blah, blah. So what's going on over here?
7:59
So he was into that. So his first words always when he saw me,
8:03
he said, you got him a free record?
8:05
I love it. I love it. That's what family's for. Yeah, it is.
8:09
So I've heard a story about your grandmother and how she would answer the question
8:14
about where she was born.
8:16
So was she born in Mexico or was she born in the United States?
8:19
And I am so fascinated by that story.
8:22
Can you share it with me? Well, there was an assignment. I think I was in fourth
8:26
grade or something like that.
8:28
And the assignment was to delineate our heritage, where did our grandparents
8:33
come from, our great-grandparents that we knew, and everybody in our family.
8:38
And so I surveyed the whole family, found out where they were.
8:42
And then I went to my grandmother, and I said, Mom, no, no, they're asking me
8:46
at school to where you're born.
8:49
And my dad says you were born in Mexico, and my mother says you were born in
8:53
the U.S., so where were you born? She goes, Tucson.
8:56
I said, okay, well, that's good. And I started to walk away and she kind of whispered, Mexico.
9:01
And I said, what? Well, maybe this is the idea of Alzheimer's kicking in, you know, or something.
9:07
And so I said, okay, well, let's do it one more time. So were you born in U.S.
9:11
Or Mexico? She said, Tucson.
9:13
And so I said, okay. United States, no, Mexico. She said, what's going on?
9:18
Tucson was Mexico, pendejo.
9:23
Okay. I got told. she was
9:26
born she was a prime example of she didn't cross
9:29
the border the border crossed her and it was
9:32
really fascinating for me at that point wow she
9:35
was born in mexico yeah all my grandparents were
9:40
born in mexico in different parts of mexico yeah wow you know what really strikes
9:45
me there's a couple things that strike me about that story one is that yes the
9:49
american southwest was once mexico and the fact that you had a conversation
9:54
with your grandmother about that who experienced that shift in the border,
9:58
is a reminder that it wasn't that long ago. It's not ancient history, right?
10:02
It's recent history, just a generation or two, you know, that's passed.
10:07
And with the changing of borders, the demographics don't necessarily shift.
10:12
And of course, these border states, the American Southwest is full of Mexicanos, right?
10:18
And yet, you know, we see many of these border states also passing these egregious
10:25
anti-immigrant, anti-Mexican, just hateful laws, which I will never understand,
10:29
but that's really striking to me.
10:32
Well, we have to have a border policy that makes sense and that gives respect
10:38
to everybody and secures our borders at the same time.
10:41
So, you know, we're in somewhat of a quandary there, but this is not a new situation.
10:47
This has gone on for hundreds of years, you know, because they don't want to
10:52
come to a situation. and they've had plenty of chances.
10:56
And what will alleviate the situation is that the people that are doing the
11:01
hiring on the United States come to the aid of the immigrants here because that's
11:07
what's kind of the bottom line.
11:09
Everybody's coming for jobs, not to go for the weekend to see the Rams game or something.
11:15
That's right. And to your point, it is a centuries-old issue.
11:20
And yeah, it's just an important reminder that...
11:23
Our immigration system has not been updated in more than 30 years, so we're long overdue.
11:30
On another show a couple of weeks ago, and the host asked me a lot of those
11:35
questions, and what he pointed out that look at what has changed in 70 years. Yeah.
11:44
A lot of attitudes and a lot of different things in the body politic has changed drastically.
11:52
Yeah. So we have to look at that and say, okay, that is our future.
11:57
Our future is changed in order to accommodate everybody in the United States.
12:01
And so we have to kind of be admiring of that progress and not be bogged down
12:08
into the opposite side. Very wisely said. Thank you.
12:13
Let's talk about your 1987 film, Born in East LA, which you wrote,
12:19
directed, and starred in.
12:20
This was a comedy, but the storyline touches some really serious topics around
12:26
immigration, deportation, border crossings, and in today's environment with
12:32
a majority of Americans supporting mass deportations.
12:35
That film is timely and
12:38
relevant today as it was almost 40 years
12:41
ago you know you could put it out today and it would speak to
12:43
exactly what's going on absolutely and so when you made that film was it a social
12:51
political commentary was there a message that you were sending or was it just
12:54
meant to be straight comedy it was both at the same time it's the same it's
12:59
the same method that Charlie Chaplin used.
13:01
Yeah. You know, he was funny and political at the same time,
13:05
you know, and I think that that is, it's always, you can attract more bees with
13:09
sugar than you can with vinegar and so, you know, that was always my goal. There's a,
13:15
I was reading this article about a young boy who was like 12 for 13,
13:19
and he got caught in an immigration raid in Los Angeles, born in the U.S.,
13:23
couldn't speak Spanish well, and couldn't speak any language.
13:27
He was autistic in some degree.
13:30
And he got caught in a raid and got shipped off to Tijuana, and nobody knew
13:34
where he was. And he was wandering the streets for a month or so.
13:38
His parents didn't know where he was, and they finally found him.
13:42
And I was reading this article, and this Bruce Springsteen, born in the USA,
13:47
was playing on at the same time as I'm reading it.
13:50
Poor guy, he was born in East L.A. And I started, that's the funniest line.
13:55
And I started making the record.
13:58
But it was, you know, it was an interesting situation that's continuing right now, you know.
14:04
But there has been a life, centuries-old path of immigration or migration for
14:12
these two countries forever.
14:14
Yeah, yeah. That's a tragedy. I didn't know that that was actually based on
14:20
a true story, although I imagine that that's happened to other people as well.
14:24
Yeah. Yeah, and I'll tell you a funny story. My son, when he was in preschool, pre-K,
14:29
got in a fight with his pre-K teacher because he insisted that Born in the USA
14:36
was a remake of your song, Born in East Dallas.
14:41
So, yeah, I always remember that funny story, getting called in too.
14:44
It's all, you know, because of my friend Bruce Springsteen and also both because
14:48
of his piano player, Roy Benton, who's a very good friend of mine. Yeah.
14:52
And had to get their permission, had to talk to them and send them the lyrics
14:57
and all those things, you know.
14:58
But he's right on that same page, you know, that he's promoting right now.
15:03
So it was good to be hooked up with him.
15:07
So you recently launched the Chishmarin Center for Chicano Art and Culture.
15:13
Yeah. which houses the largest collection of Chicano arts.
15:17
A lot of it from your personal collection. I think five or 700 works of art
15:21
from your collection are there.
15:23
What inspired you? And you referenced this a little bit, but what inspired you
15:27
to start collecting art and specifically why Chicano art?
15:31
Well, you know, like I said, my, my history was in art. I was assigned this topic at a early age.
15:38
I go to the library and I learned about Western art, you know,
15:41
and then I would go there and.
15:43
And when the librarians caught on to what I was doing, because they see this
15:46
little kid coming in every Saturday, and he wants to check out art books with it.
15:51
And so I told him what I was doing. I said, okay, but we're going to help you.
15:55
So I'd come in every Saturday, and they have a stack of books.
15:58
You know, and they, okay, today we're going to learn about Impressionism.
16:01
Okay. And then they would kind of walk me through it, and I'd look at the pictures.
16:05
And, you know, that was my upbringing there. So I knew a lot about art at that
16:10
time. And so when I came to the point, I was always a collector.
16:14
I mentioned that earlier.
16:16
But when I got some money after being successful with Cheech and Chong and I
16:20
could buy art, that's when I kind of happened along these Chicano painters.
16:25
And I saw exactly what they were doing right away because all of them,
16:30
with very few exceptions, maybe two exceptions, were all art school and or university
16:36
trained. They went to school specifically for that.
16:40
And so I saw what they were doing because they were, you know,
16:46
exposed to Western art and even Eastern art.
16:49
And then they incorporated that in the structure of making their statement as
16:53
a Chicano painter or paintress.
16:57
I don't know. Is that a word? Painter, paintress.
17:01
And so I saw what they were doing. They were influenced by world art,
17:05
but with a Chicano sensibility and a Mexican and Latino roots.
17:09
And I thought, this is unusual, and this is very cool, man.
17:13
This is a new school of art that nobody's paying attention to at all.
17:17
And they're not viewing it that way.
17:19
And they always kind of looked at the beginning of just individual artists.
17:24
But they were all together. So when they started kind of promoting themselves
17:29
as a group, that's when it started to grow, and that's when I joined the picture.
17:33
And I was a perfect person. I knew what the art was. I had money to collect
17:37
it, and I had celebrity in order to proselytize for it.
17:40
And all those three things came together then. And it was, wow,
17:44
it caused a big sensation.
17:46
And we were touring the collection for, oh, my God, 10 years before we landed
17:54
at Riverside to do a show there.
17:56
And it was a works on paper show, and it was the biggest attended show they
18:00
ever had, of course, because of Riverside being what it is.
18:03
And they made this offer to house the collection in this beautiful mid-century
18:11
building, you know, and I didn't know what they were talking about when they
18:15
first came to this. You want me to buy a museum?
18:18
I'm doing okay, but I don't know if I'm a museum, Rich, at this point.
18:24
Cheech broad, yeah. And they says, no, no, we want to offer you the museum to house the collection.
18:33
And you will give us a collection and we will not give you the building,
18:36
but we will dedicate the building only for your collection.
18:41
Okay, how does that work? Because this is a collection I put together over almost
18:47
50 years and turned it all over.
18:49
And I was looking for a sign. I really was. At this point, I was in a quandary.
18:54
I didn't know if I was going to do this or not.
18:56
And one day I was walking across the museum. It was a library then.
19:00
I said, how big is this building? Because it's a big building.
19:03
And she said, well, it's 66,420 square feet.
19:07
And I go, 420?
19:10
420 square feet? That's the sign. 420. Thank you, Lord.
19:15
And so we went ahead with the project. That's the sign.
19:19
I thought you were going to say, oh, it's a library. It's a library building. That's the sign, right?
19:25
That was the last thing I remembered.
19:27
And it was kind of in the same conversation. Oh, yeah, it's a library. Isn't that cool?
19:34
I love it. I didn't think of that first. I love it.
19:38
I love it. And shout out to public libraries, too, for, you know,
19:41
planting those seeds because it is a beautiful collection. The biggest,
19:45
I think, collection of Chicano art.
19:48
Well, it may not be the biggest. I don't know. But it's the best. Yeah, of course.
19:53
And it's here in Riverside. So if folks haven't had a chance to visit,
19:58
I think they absolutely should.
19:59
And the exhibition on view right now is the work of Yolanda Lopez.
20:04
And it's titled Women's Work is Never Done. Amen to that.
20:08
And I recently learned from your museum website, the Cheech website,
20:13
that she was one of the founding members of Los Siete de la Raza,
20:17
which is a Black Panther-backed movement that galvanized San Francisco's Chicano
20:22
community and produced these works of protest art.
20:25
And I find that fascinating to me because...
20:28
It underscores something that I'm hearing as you're talking about your experiences
20:32
and the work that you've done and why you've done it.
20:34
It underscores the central role that art and culture play in social justice
20:40
movements, historically, and also because of the solidarity between Chicanos
20:46
and the Black Panthers in the civil rights movement.
20:49
So I'm fascinated by that.
20:51
I had never heard of the Siete de la Raza before, and I'm looking forward to
20:56
learning more about that. Yeah, please come and see the show,
20:59
anybody that's in the sound of my voice.
21:02
It's a really great show because she did not, Yolanda did not exhibit in her lifetime.
21:08
You know, she didn't have any big shows. And so nobody was, they were aware,
21:13
if the public was aware at all of her art, it was a few images.
21:17
You know, hers as a Guadalupe hero running down the street and in tennis shoes
21:23
and stuff like that. But they didn't have any private gallery shows.
21:27
She didn't have a dealer, you know, so it was hard for her to get that message out.
21:31
And she was strictly in San Francisco, you know, so we wanted to kind of get
21:36
the message out from beyond those borders.
21:39
Her husband was Rene Yañez, who was the curator of the Chicano Vision show,
21:45
because we needed an identifiable person in that field who had credibility with the museum contingent.
21:54
To represent us because it was very fraught with ideological differences at
22:02
that time in the Chicano.
22:04
And all these museums directors didn't want to put their head in the block saying,
22:09
yes, this is officially Chicano art until the San Antonio Museum did.
22:15
And Renee was the head of spearheading that movement, who was her husband.
22:20
Oh, wow. Well, I really look forward to learning more about her and seeing her work at the Cheech.
22:26
The work that's up right now, I've never ever seen most of it because she never exhibited it.
22:32
And they're beautiful, big portraits and all kinds of other stuff, but big paintings.
22:36
So I urge you, you probably won't get many chances to see this if you come to the Cheech now.
22:43
Great. Great time to go. And on that front, you know, she's a Chicana artist.
22:49
The term Chicana was cemented during the 1960s. I think it was used in a derogatory
22:54
way before that, but in the 1960s during that struggle for Chicano civil rights.
22:59
The term Chicano was really, you know, Chicanos reclaiming our power and pride
23:04
as the sons and daughters and descendants of Mexican immigrants.
23:08
So I have identified as Chicana for as long as I can remember.
23:12
What does the term Chicano mean to you personally?
23:15
Oh, but Chicano, I mean, it's exactly what that, I was searching for what to
23:19
call myself in those kind of years.
23:21
And I grew up half in an all-Black neighborhood and then half in an all-white neighborhood.
23:27
And so in the in the all-black neighborhood i
23:30
was they always always are called mexican you know and i
23:33
kind of at some point i come wait a minute i'm not mexican i've
23:36
never been to mexico i don't speak spanish all
23:39
that well uh my parents were born here all my grandparents were from mexico
23:44
but how how does that make me a mexican and so and so when i first heard the
23:49
term chicano and then i understood the description so that's what i am yeah
23:54
i'm i'm not fully mexican but i'm I'm not fully American,
23:58
and I'm the best of both.
24:00
It has come together and with a Mexican heritage and how to reinterpret all
24:06
those things that I've been learning.
24:08
And so from that, the first time I found out what a Chicano,
24:11
yeah, that's what I am. And I've been Chicano ever since.
24:14
I love it. I love it. Chicano pride. Yeah, you know.
24:18
And my dad, who was a policeman, LAPD, 30-some years.
24:23
And my uncle Rudy, who was also LAPD, and it was the highest-ranking Chicano in the LAPD.
24:31
And they named the Hollenbeck station after him, the Uri de Leon station.
24:37
Oh, wow. Go there today, and you'll see the plaque.
24:39
Oh, nice. And he was the first one I ever heard the term Chicano from. Oh, nice.
24:44
Yeah, he was at the house, and they were having dinner. And he said,
24:48
you know, I went down to get my car fixed, and they wanted $200 to fix it.
24:52
He said, give me a pair of pliers and some aluminum foil. I'll fix that.
24:56
I'm a Chicano mechanic, you know? And I go, that's what I am.
25:00
I am a can-do spirit, you know? That's right. We can fix anything. Anything, yes.
25:07
Let's talk about the Cheech and Chong documentary that was released this month.
25:11
It looks at your extensive career and your work with Tommy Chong. Yeah.
25:16
As you think about everything that you've achieved and experienced,
25:19
what are you most proud of?
25:21
Oh, you know, that legacy is hard to beat, you know what I mean?
25:26
Because we've gone through, we're in our, you know, almost 50 years.
25:32
50 years has gone on past 50 years that we had been together.
25:36
And we started from nothing. and you
25:39
know but we captured the spirit of a generation that
25:42
we were the kind of emblematic hippies and it
25:44
always cracked me up that the emblematic hippies were now this
25:47
chicano low writer and this half chinese friend okay here's
25:51
your american hippies yeah and they're funny and they're cool you know so that
25:56
was it was an interesting kind of left turn for america and their cultural recognition
26:02
at that time yeah that's beautiful so in 50 years when people We'll talk about
26:06
Cheech Money in a hundred years.
26:09
People talk about Cheech Money, and they'll be talking about Cheech and Chong.
26:11
And probably the museum will outlive me, or the reputation, because it touches so many people.
26:20
It's a real cultural statement, as was Cheech and Chong.
26:25
Because we came in, without trying to hammer a point, we had a funny way of demonstrating it.
26:32
Yeah, you did. And that caught on.
26:36
Is there anything that you haven't done that you're still hoping to achieve?
26:41
What's next for you? Well, that I haven't done, you know, I don't know.
26:47
You've done it all? So far, I've, you know, kind of accomplished everything
26:52
that was put in front of me, but
26:56
I'm concentrating on being a grandfather right now. You know,
27:00
that's, and when your kids go to different places or in different states,
27:05
you know, sometimes even different countries, it's hard to kind of stay on that.
27:09
But I try to, but I have three grandkids that, you know, that are doing very
27:13
well, and I want to kind of support them.
27:15
We're going to go, they live in Colorado, so we're going to go up for Thanksgiving
27:19
and spend Thanksgiving with them.
27:22
That's so beautiful. A well-o-cheech.
27:25
It is beautiful they call me grampy grampy
27:29
oh grampy cheech i love it so i
27:32
have one last question it's it's to me it's a really important
27:35
question and i'm going to set it up a little bit
27:38
so throughout history movements for social change for social justice again have
27:44
had art and culture at the center as a core strategy to advance a vision that's
27:49
possible and i i believe that's one of the most powerful roles that an artist
27:54
can play is to paint a vision of what can be.
27:58
So I wonder if now that we're seeing legalization of cannabis in many states
28:04
and even discussions now at the federal level of possible legalization of cannabis,
28:10
do you feel that your work as Cheech and Chong impacted that?
28:14
And was that the ultimate goal? Or again, was it straight comedy?
28:18
It wasn't the ultimate goal, but we saw very quickly that that was part of the
28:22
goal because everybody was looking and reacting to us that way.
28:26
And just like the Chicano painters, the first Chicano painters were the sign
28:30
painters for the Cultural Revolution, the placard of the Si Se Puede guys, you know.
28:36
And they made the backdrops for Luis Valdez and his Teatro Campesino.
28:42
It was the graphic face of a political movement.
28:47
As time went on, most of these artists kind of started concentrating on their
28:52
own private concerns, but, you know, they still have this air of defiance around them, you know.
28:57
There's one special incident where we were in San Antonio opening the very first
29:03
Chicano vision show, and the debate was raging then, you know,
29:08
about, you know, Chicano art is only political art, Chicano art is this.
29:12
And basically, it broke along age lines.
29:16
The veteranos who had come up with that only wanted it to be cultural art, political art.
29:22
And the younger people just wanted their art shown, you know.
29:26
So there was this big blue hustle. I said, okay, what's going to happen after
29:32
we open the show on a Friday?
29:33
I said, tomorrow morning, 9 o'clock tomorrow morning, we're going to come here to the museum.
29:37
And if anybody's got anything to say about the subject, this is your chance.
29:41
And so I made it at 9 o'clock to make sure I eliminated half of the audience
29:45
because they weren't going to get up Saturday morning at 9 o'clock.
29:49
So get them out of here. And so we had this whole discussion and went back and forth and everything.
29:54
And so at the end of the day, there was this older woman got up and it looked
29:59
like she had seen everything Chicano in her lifetime.
30:03
And she says, and she said, I have a question for John Valadez.
30:06
And John Valadez, there's no more OG Chicano painter than John Valadez.
30:11
He was there at the very beginning, still doing it now today.
30:14
And she says, considering everything you've heard here today back and forth,
30:18
do you still consider yourself a Chicano painter?
30:21
And John looked at the ceiling for a minute and he goes, you know, only if it bothers you.
30:28
That's my hero. Oh, my hero John, what about this?
30:34
And so I think there's a little bit of that attitude.
30:37
Not so much now, although it's kind of started building again because of the issues that come up.
30:43
But there's a certain era of defiance. No, we're not going to play the prescribed game.
30:49
Right, right. I love that. And the reason I think that question,
30:53
and thank you for sharing what you've just shared, is so important,
30:56
is that there are parallels here that I want to draw for those of us who are
31:01
advocates for social justice, for immigrant justice.
31:04
But the change that we're seeking to create is not, we're not going to be able
31:08
to achieve it strictly through what's critically necessary,
31:13
which is fighting back and rapid response work,
31:16
but that the injustices that we're seeking to remedy require also a long-term
31:21
investment and a long-term commitment to shifting hearts and minds,
31:26
right and and and one of the best ways that we can do
31:29
that is through art and culture right because that
31:32
as you said earlier that's the way to bring people in
31:35
right you bring them in through this on-ramp that is a little bit safer maybe
31:37
a little bit more accessible and you're building power for new narratives you're
31:42
building power for a new vision of what can be which together can lead to greater
31:47
impactful change and you've demonstrated that i think with with your work your
31:52
early work as Cheech and Chong,
31:55
to show a vision of what could be. And here we are 50 years later.
32:00
Marijuana weed cannabis is is legal
32:03
and in so many states and it's just not this counterculture
32:07
thing anymore like it used to be yeah you know
32:10
when i first came up the all the statement i or the question that i was like
32:14
well you're you're the first one in this field or you're the only one in this
32:17
field and there was not a lot of latinos you can learn or look up to in the
32:22
entertainment industry in the intervening time from then until now you can't not turn on your TV,
32:29
to see a show that doesn't have Latinos in it, as either some of our biggest
32:33
pop stars are Latino or Chicana, Chicano,
32:37
or whatever, where they come from.
32:39
There's a lot, a huge change that has come, because my generation was the first
32:46
generation of Mexican immigrants to know they were going to college. Yeah.
32:54
My generation. And so they knew, we knew we were going to go into some college.
32:59
They went to some of the best colleges.
33:02
Regine went to Harvard and got a doctorate. Louie got a scholarship to every school he ever went to.
33:07
And so that change has happened rapidly, you know.
33:13
So, I mean, pick up your billboard charts or your TV guide or look at it,
33:19
And there's going to be a Latino in every single, just about, you know.
33:24
Category that you can, drama, comedy, documentaries, everything you want,
33:29
you know, and especially in entertainment, you know. Yeah. We are everywhere.
33:33
Everywhere now. And that's incurred in a very short relative period of time.
33:40
Well, and I credit you for blazing a trail, right? Because again, you sort of had to.
33:47
There really weren't a lot of Chicanos in that time when you were.
33:51
Well, I was always a blazer, you know, so.
33:55
In a different way. But you've blazed a trail and you've had that impact,
34:00
not only in entertainment, but on our society and for Chicanos as well.
34:06
And amplifying the proud history and culture of Chicanos, as well as working
34:12
in ways that support those who favor the decriminalization of cannabis.
34:18
Because there's not a section of American society that marijuana doesn't enter.
34:24
Not a section. That is right.
34:27
Whether you're black, brown, purple, or green, or right, left,
34:31
whatever your philosophy are.
34:34
Somewhere one is going to enter your life you know
34:37
if they're you your kid grandkids or you know
34:40
your next door neighbor or somebody that marries
34:42
into your family in every single society
34:45
it could be a court justice or
34:49
homeless or anything you know
34:52
it's it enters every single facet of society you know
34:55
so that is right i thank you
34:58
for your work i thank you for the impact that you've had
35:01
and for sharing your time with me today and for the
35:04
decades of joy and laughter and culture
35:07
that you've brought to millions of fans across the
35:10
globe myself included thank you my absolute pleasure
35:14
and keep on going and go to this cheek you'll be amazing because in the first
35:19
year of the museum's operation we were recognized as one of the top 50 shows
35:25
in the world so incredible So you're going to see some great art there. Congratulations.
35:31
Thank you very much. Thank you.
35:35
I want to thank our listeners for spending time with us.
35:38
For more Immigration Truths, visit us at nilk.org and freedomtothrive.com.
35:43
And make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes.
35:47
I look forward to continuing this conversation with all of you.