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So earlier today I spoke with Eva Longoria, who is not only an award winning actor, producer, and director, but she is also an activist committed to lifting up the Latino community and women in Hollywood. Eva Longoria, Welcome to the Daily Social Distancing show.
How are you? I'm so happy to speak with you. I see you every day, but it's really nice to be able to speak with you. Well.
You can speak to the TV screen all you want. I don't think anybody still speak, and you can just say things to me and then we're speaking to each other.
Many times I've yelled at you the TV.
Welcome to the show. Let's jump straight into it. I mean you you made news this week being part of history hosting the first virtual Democratic National Convention. Everyone from random people on Twitter to Senator Marco Rubio, you know, random people tweeted out what is Eva Longoria doing here? She has no idea how to connect with everyday, real life Americans. How do you respond to that? Are you not a real life American? What does that even mean to you?
All Right? I know, you know I've gotten this my entire life because I've been a political activist for twenty five years. I mean most of my adult life, I've been involved in my civic duty, which I think everybody should. It's like if you told a dentist, oh, shut up and do teeth, Like, wait, no, you can't have an opinion because you're a dentist, or an actor or a farm worker. I totally understand my position of privilege today and the work that I've done to get to where
I'm at. But I was on student loans. I had pel grants to get to college. I worked at Wendy's most of my young life to pay for college. I had student debt. I mean, it was not until my mid thirties that I figured life out and I approached hosting the first night of the DNC as a ninth generation Texans, as the daughter of a veteran, as the daughter of a teacher, and as a wife and as a mom, and as an American and a patriot. And sometimes I hate that one party is hijack the word
patriot because it actually belongs to everybody. Anybody who loves this country is a patriot. That's who I was on Monday Night.
Some people would argue that you were the perfect face to kick off the DNC with because Joe Biden hasn't been his strongest with Latino voters. You know, I think it was Julian Castro who said that Joe Biden and the Democratic Party have to do a better job of reaching out to Latino voters and showing them that they have their best interests at hearts. Where do you think the Democratic Party could do a better job of reaching out to the Latino community at large?
Wow? You know it's people assume Latinos are a monolithic group and we're not. We're very faction just generational generationally. And I think that there's an assumption that we vote democratically and both parties shouldn't take the Latino vote for granted. I think that both parties need to do a better job at really understanding Latino issues are American issues. The number one issue Latinos care about is the economy. Number
one issue Americans care about the economy. You know, people make the assumption, you know, we only care about immigration, or we only care about citizenship, and that's part of it, and that's definitely an important issue, but it's we share the same values as all Americans. We want to have economic mobility. We want to have the opportunity and the infrastructure of opportunity in our communities to move ahead and have progress, generational progress in our families.
With that in mind, I have to ask you about Moment told Latino. What is it all about.
Yes, Momental Latino is it translates to the Latin Moment, but it is a coalition of activists and leaders and business people and it's about lifting up our voices within the Latino community right now because we are one of the most effective communities due to COVID. And again, you know, COVID didn't cause these problems, but they've exasperated a lot. And so you know, despite being eighteen percent of the population,
Latinos make up thirty five percent of essential workers. That's healthcare workers, farm workers, drivers, delivery people, grocery store stalkers. You know, there's we over index on essential workers. Farm Workers have have kept the American food supply going going all the time. And we didn't need a pandemic to say farm workers were essential. They've always been essential. Farm Workers have always been essential to this country and the
food supply of this country. Now they're forced to go to work without ppe, without hand sanitizer with very enclosed living conditions. Despite all of this, we keep going to work and I think it's just important that Momento Latino pushes for change and is around after this pandemic.
Eva Longoria is not just an activist. Eva Longoria is also a producer, a very successful director, somebody who has taken the reins of not just her career but a part of the industry that she works in. One of the pieces you created that that created a lot of buzz recently has been the new ad campaign where you
shot an ad from Home. I think it's a Loureal ad and it's really it's really intimate because you show your gray roots and you talk about coloring and tell me how that came to be and tell me why you felt the need to share this part of your journey with people.
Well, yeah, well I'm an open book. You know, people know everything about me. But I during the pandemic, I was like, I'm gonna let my grays grow. I have a full head of gray hair. I've had full head of gray hair since I was eighteen. It's like heretica, thanks Mom, And so I was like, I'm gonna I think it'd be really cool to go gray. And then about two months in, I go, yeah, this is not cool. It's not not as fun as I thought. This sucks.
I'm really gray. And then Larel called and they said, would you be brave enough to color your hair on camera? And I was like yes, because I do box color all the time. I grew up doing box color. And I was like yeah, and I did it. And I think there was an appreciation for the accessibility to not only my life, but thissibility to look. We're all human and aging and grays exist, and they exist on Eva Longoria's head as well.
It feels like you're not afraid to expose yourself to the public, and I mean that comes with affection and scrutiny and criticism at the same time. I mean one of the journeys I know a lot of people loved about you was were sharing your journey as a new mom.
Are you?
Are you in the camp of people who have found this moment in time to come with the silver lining of getting to spend more time with your young child at home. You know, for many parents as the age gap, it depends on where your kid's age is, and that determines how you feel about being stuck in the house with them. Are you having the time of your life right now? Getting to spend every.
Time of my life time of my life because he is in that age, he's not in school, and he's not a baby, so he's not like just a lump of nothing. He's like so active and funny and walking and he loves mommy right now. But you know, I had so much planned this year. I was directing two features, and I was, you know, filming a new TV show, And the fact that it all stopped, like it just stopped, was a welcome pause because I haven't had a break
in twenty five years. And so for me, I do approach it with the silver lining of instead of like I got to get home and bathe Santi, I gotta get home and feed him, I got it was like I get to bathe them, I get to put them to bed, I get to wake up with them. And so changing the vocabulary that you use in life is powerful.
Hopefully next time I will see you in person like I normally get to see you. But until then, please keep shouting at me through the screen and I'll just imagine I can hear your voice.
Okay, good and hear my laughter because you may be laughing.
I will do. Thank you so much.
Eva, my guest tonight, is an Emmy nominated co host of the View. She's also a CNN political commentator and one of the most badass latina's walking this planet. Please welcome Anna Navarro. Can look at that, a Latina guess and a Latino host to.
The people that.
So people at home, you're not watching OI be shown. It's okay, it's still a daily show.
Listen.
Part of me wants you're not to emphasize it because I'm afraid immigration might show up at any moment.
Ain't get me.
And then again, and then I remember Donald Trump's no longer president.
We ain't getting deported, right. I love it. You start right out it, you go out it, right out of the gate. I love that about you.
Listen, it's only taken ten hosts for them to have a Latino host who's colting.
I wasn't calting.
I'm really happy that you're here, and I always I'm always grateful to you because you do. You are so consistent. You've been consistent in your entire life and elevating voices.
I have to have elevated.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Listen, it's taken ten.
Let's not pock it up. Yeah yeah, I'm not going to pack this up. There's no way we can look with this great audience that we got here.
Yeah yeah.
I mean they love it when you toss it to them. They just work to themselves on Canada anyway. You know, Republicans are so good at coming after Latinos. I mean they go to our WhatsApp, they go to our Spanish stations. They're throwing the trigger words like socialism and authoritarianism. Why are the Democrats falling behind? Why we Why are the Democrats not coming after us?
Listen.
I think first of all, they take it for granted, right.
I think a lot of people thought, you know, they're not going to vote for Donald Trump, babe.
I mean that's the.
Alternative, right, They're going to vote for the Democrats. And that's not the way to do it. Also, people need to understand, and I don't know how long we have to say this, you can't show up six weeks before an election and then you have to show up. And this is the same for African Americans, for Latinos, for any group put into the group, show up at the right minute and expect to daing them and they have to fight hard against this socialism, communism type of label.
I remember Joe Biden getting asked at a town hall, you see town hall. I remember him getting asked, you know, your opponent Donald Trump says that you're a socialist? Are you a socialist? And he laughed, he laughed, and he said, do I look like a socialist? Now I get where he's coming here.
Right.
If somebody said to me, Anna, you know, are you a Martian? I would laugh too, right, But we need more than laughter. We need him to come back with it. We need him to fight back, you know what. We need him to say, We need him to say. Let me tell you what socialists do. They attack the free press, they attack political opponents, They attack private businesses. Guess who's doing that in America today?
Right right? Right? See, gee, you know what's happening. You know what's happening, you know what time it is. That's why I love talking to you, because you know what is going on. Also, how we get divided sometimes Latino people get divided. Is it us doing it? Is it them doing it to us? I mean Nicaragan's Cubans, Colombians Puerto Ricans. Aren't we stronger together and better together?
It's like, don't we know how to do math?
Listen by themselves.
Cubans are three and a half percent, right, Mexican Americans are eleven percent.
Together, we're twenty percent.
And guess what if we build alliances with other groups like African Americans, we are unstoppable.
Black and brown together, man, black and brown together, we're so strong together. Why aren't we getting together? The Black cauc is, a Latino cauc is in DC.
We also need the gay caucus because we need to accessorize. Oh yeah, but we You know, what we need to understand as different communities is that we can't fall victim. We can't fall prey to Let's compete for the same small piece of pie. No damn it, give me a bigger piece of pie so that.
We can eat.
And we need to understand that we rise upwards together. It's too easy to pit us against each other, too easy, and we have to And not only did we have a problem, because not only the problem is that we get focused on, Uh, did they cross the border.
Or did the border cross us?
Were they political refugees or are they economic refugees? Were they rich before the revolution in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaraua or did they come here because they were poor?
Who carest much?
I know, John, The people who hate you, the people who hate me, don't care, Papa. They don't care how much of your DNA came from Spain or how much of it came from Indigenous America. They care that you're a Latino and they want to otherize us. So as soon as and the quicker we realize that and that we have to band together and fight against discrimination bigotry together, the more powerful we will be and not fall princes.
Maybe that's why I love you, because you bring the truth.
She brings it.
Yeah, together, we're gonna do it, David, connected and money that sisterhood and unity. Together, we're gonna do it.
And congratulations on your new show.
Thank you do that.
You focus on the different groups and you.
Say we all yeah, we all all.
Better together, stronger together. Actually, thank you Annaviaru for the best. Congraculate, amazing, amazing. Be sure check out the view weekdays on ABC. My guest tonight is an activist, author, an actor. You may know from Oranges and New Black Doom Patrol and encanto. Please welcome Diane get rid of please all right, calm down, calm down, relax y'all, relax, Hi, they're excited, they're hey, Diane. Do people believe you when you tell them that you
do the voice for incanto? Because when I tell kids, nobody believes me.
I have to sing the entire song.
The whole song, the whole song. But then they believe you.
Then they believe me. Yeah, the kids.
Sorry, And I have to like do like a few lines to like flowers and then.
Like I've been stuck, and then they get it. Oh, yeah, now I believe you. Yeah, I wasn't short, but now I got it. Yeah. No, they don't get it even when I do the voice, you know, like I don't know who I am. They don't get it because his face scares them.
No, no, you got you gotta sing this. You gotta do the wrap part.
Oh I forget that. That's not happening. Yeah, that's got in the pocket.
Yeah that's a hard one.
Now let me switch it over to something else. Your child of immigrants and every immigrant, Yes, thank you, thank you. I go okay, what do you want people to know about your experience growing up?
Yeah?
Well, when I was fourteen, my parents were separated from me. I am a child of a separated family due to deportation, and it, I mean.
It ruined a lot, a lot of it ruined me.
Yeah yeah, yeah, because you were fourteen years old. You were fourteen years old, yeah yeah yeah. And the police, the immigration I in s Ice, came and took away your parents.
And that's right. And I had to grow up on my own, and.
I had to make very very difficult decisions on my own throughout my entire life.
You imagine a kid just left alone at fourteen to raise themselves.
So crazy, not right, not okay, not okay.
And I mean I've gone through a lot of therapy and I'm still going through therapy, and I'm you.
Know, I thank you.
I've really on my community to support me in this, and I have been very candid. I wrote a book in twenty sixteen about my experience and.
Because thank you.
My family and I were separated like for twenty years. I mean I've been able to go back, but they haven't been able to come here. And so you know, pandemic happened, and I was like, what am I going to do here? Like die in La by myself. So I bought a farm in the mountains of Columbia and I'm now I'm living there. My dad sadly passed away a year ago, but thank you so much, but my mom is there. I'm close to my family and no one's ever going to separate us.
Every day.
Now, I also hear that you're the leading actor who recently enjoyed No join a whole bunch of leading actors in the visionary line to the National Hispanic Media Coalition. I had to read that.
Because that's not the leading actor.
You're not the leading actor.
No, I'm not the leading actor. I'm one of the actors. Oh one of them? Yes?
And then and what is the mission statement of the coalition?
Look, and I'll give you numbers.
I'm not a math girlly, but I'll give you some numbers. In twenty twenty two, only three women of color directed a top one hundred film in the span of sixteen years. Okay, twenty one female directors. Women of color directors directed twenty one films out of.
Sixteen hundred films.
That's crazy.
I'm not a math girly.
Like I said, people of color are at least forty percent of the population, if not a lot more, because white people are only fifty nine percent of the population.
Right, right, So I mean that's getting into more numbers than I rehearsed.
But I'm a math boy, you are a math Well, all.
I know is that that's cultural apartheipe.
Yes, right, And I know that's the term that you use a lot, And I follow you and I follow your work.
Thank you so much, Johnny Luz for doing yeah and inquiring me to do the work that I'm doing alongside you.
Well, we need allies, and we need people like you. We need soldiers out there, thank you.
We want representation, we want we want we want the right kind of representation. We're tired of the only things getting made about us drug lords, criminals, cops.
Right, yeah, yeah.
Right what we we?
We want to be represented as we are, real, beautiful, curious. Uh you know, existential crises.
Happen, and yes, maybe and yes maybe even mediocre and in some days sometimes right and if something.
White people get to be mediocre all the time. I mean, I'm jealous because white people get to fail upwards. Just peruse just I can barely succeed upwards.
Agreed, Likewise, just perus through the cannon, the cannon of like mediocre films of functional white.
Worlies, Jack and Jail.
The cannon is riches.
We deserve to be allowed.
To fail on camera people and big movies. We make crap. Don't want to make crap on television, on streaming.
I want to be like white people. I want to make wooly mammoth meatball crass.
I get paid, I get paid for everybody paid for test. To do that, we have to work really well in sushi kitchens pezzias. We gotta cook all the food of this goddamn country.
Just like we deserve to be excellent, we deserve to make crap as well and everything in between.
You beg you so much.
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