LATIN TIMES MAGAZINE - 2019 Summer Edition | Page 44

Cafe y Cultural
L atin T imes I nterview with
R ick N ajera
by: Victor Padilla
One of the biggest things with Latino Thought Makers
is college recruitment; nobody knows because it’s so sub-
tle. We are in some colleges, and recruitment has gone
up. It really reaches out to the community. And for me,
I’m back in college taking courses in college now. It’s
the first time I’ve ever had a Latino professor, I’ve never
ever had a Latino professor teaching me something, and
that’s amazing If you think about it. And that part of
the disconnect between Latinos and education, we don’t
see our own teaching.
LTM: Rick Najera, how are you doing..
Rick Najera: I'm doing very well looking forward
to the show tonight, and it's great the show real-
ly celebrates our people and our culture, and to
represent us, the great leaders like Cheech Mo-
rin, what a great guy to celebrate.
LTM: Yes, How long have you and Cheech known each other?
Rick Najera: It's funny, I came to Hollywood almost 30 years
ago, omg, and I wasn't accustomed to all Hollywood? I ended up
writing speeches for Ricardo Montalban and a few for the new
generation during that time.
I was really working, and it was a different group, more classi-
cally trained actors, so to me Cheech was the funniest album of
comedy I remember. Cheech was a big influence on my career,
so getting a chance to meet him was great, and working with him
was even greater.
LTM: Tell us a little about your family, where you were born and
raised, and your family history..
Rick Najera: I was born and raised in San Diego, California, my
family grew up in Barrio Logan, my grandmother was a union
organizer, and my grandfather was actually a cockfighter. He
grew up very ranchero, he grew up in New Mexico, on a ranch,
his family originally is from Chihuahua, Mexico, so were in Chi-
huahua and during the revolution my family, we had a ranch. We
moved from Chihuahua and into New Mexico. That was like in
the 1900's. So we didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us,
when I ask my grandfather, he says there wasn’t a border to cross.
You went from one part of the land to the other. Back then, it was
really considered our land. It was a different way of thinking.
My grandfather taught me to be proud of our culture and our
people it was unique because at the base of California? Was the
whitest place of all time? You know in the Valley or in Mesa was
unique because there were no Mexicans, and here’s the great part
of the story, one family, this man lived on a Chicken Ranch, Juan
Vargas, now the Congressman, so it's him, an Astronaut and Me,
coming from the Mesa.
LTM: So tell me about the Latino Thought Makers.. Give us in-
formation about it…
Rick Najera: Latino Thought Makers started years ago, I actually
for me a lot of my work has always been about Latinos and peo-
ple always say, well why do you write about Latinos, and I say
nobody ever asked Mark Twain why he writes about Mississip-
pi, but for some reason for Latinos, they always bring the ques-
tion up. What I thought was our songs are so rich, they need
to be told, we need a library of our culture of stories that hav-
en’t been told by people. You can still count on two hands the
amount Latino leads. Latino written, directed and produced,
there hasn’t been a lot of that, and it's not saying that we only
need to work with our own people, we’ve just had a hard time of
Hollywood accepting our people. I just hope that when we tell
our story, it's told right.
LTM: Tell us about some of the work you’ve done in the past.
Directing and so forth.
Rick Najera: Some of the work that I’m most proud of is really
giving people opportunities. Give people jobs, that's it.
What I’m most proud of is the companies being more active,
especially with my monologues. The first person to invest was
Emilio Rivera – The Mayan. The first time I ever directed was
in a monologue. People like Emilio Rivera gave me a break in
the Latino realm. Emilio Rivera was in Latino Monologues on
Broadway. That’s something that I’m proud of.. TV Shows I’ve
worked on, In Living Color, Mad TV. Great Comedy. I contin-
ue to create more stuff. I’ve worked with Mark Robbins, great
producer, worked with many people coming up with more idea,
I have more things to write ever in my life, and I’m going back
to school.
LTM: In today’s industry, do you find it easier for Latino nowa-
days than before when you started?
Rick Najera: I think there is more opportunity, that’s for sure.
In the end, it really becomes two different things, the one is are
you good at playing, and if you are, you might have a better ca-
reer, but that's not what you want to be, you want to be an actor.
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