good evening from los angeles. i'm tavis smiley. tonight a conversation with cristina saralegui. her new book, "rise up and shine", is now out. this cuban-born broadcaster was a host on univision. we are glad to have you join us on a conversation with cristina saralegui, coming up right now. ♪

and by contributions to your pbs station, from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ for more than 21 years, cristina saralegui was the host and producer of a show on univision. it became a ratings powerhouse. now cristina has written a new memoir, called "rise up and

shine." there's so much to talk to you about. let he talk to you about something i'm passionate about. >> okay. >> and sometimes when you host your own show you can talk about what you want to talk about. but i've always been so impressed by the fact that for most of these 21 years when you were hosting your show, you owned and controlled everything. now we know that oprah is the quintessential example of what it means to own your own content. i've been fortunate here at pbs to do the same thing myself. i own it, pbs distributes t i publish my own on books. that's important to me now. wasn't when i first started, but it is now. but you're a woman -- >> and latino. >> i was about to say all that. how did you pull that off? >> i figured when i went to sign my first contract that if i didn't put it in the contract, it said a lot of talent. i come from print journalism. i asked the lawyer, what is

talent? and he said the person in front of the camera. and who is the boss? executive producer. i said erase all that and put executive producer. in the contract my husband and i had the wherewithal to put that we wanted to control all aspects of the program, not just the content, but when it aired, who we interviewed, because, you know, your network can tell you all of a sudden, no. no. no. we are in a fight with a person we're advertising or whatever, you cannot interview her. so i put that in the contract. for 21 years, i call my own shots, and i'm so glad i did. >> but you lasted all that time from time to time with a struggles. >> it's a bad example. nobody else in my network, no

man, nobody had that by contract, only me. and i still had it when i did my last show. and still, no man has that in univision. so i think that was a point of contention. and i'm very hardheaded. i have a very strong character and i wasn't going to give that up, which is what my book is about. my book is empowering not just women but men. they don't know how much they're worth, their value. i always knew what i was worth, what i could do, what i could not do. i think i have a genetic problem with lying. i just can't lie. i get in trouble with my husband because of that. he wishes that i wasn't so sincere, but i am. so i figured if i didn't put that down, i wasn't going to get it, and i got it, and i'm happy. >> what do you think is the worth and value of what you were able to accomplish content wise,

because you had that control? >> well, it was very iffy at the beginning, because they, by they, i mean my network and different departments, would say things like i don't know if this show is going to work, because everybody knows that latinos don't like to talk about their private things, least of all on television. i said they will. then we found out after one year on the air that we were number one by then. i found out that latinos didn't have a place to say what was wrong in their lives or complain. and we gave them that forum. when we gave them that forum, it took off like a champagne bottle. whoo, the cork went, and they love talking about anything. my kid is in drugs, i would say my kid did this and this and this and we could share. i'm a firm believer not only in the truth but in sharing. and there i shared a lot about my kids and my life that are not very pretty. and you don't see a lot of

celebrities sharing stuff like that. i don't mind. >> speaking of your children. you were pretty transparent about a condition your son was wrestling with, tell me about that. >> we always like to say when marc and i got married that we were a his, mine and ours marriage. he had a daughter i had a daughter and we had a baby together of the this was our golden baby together. and when he was like 19, he tried to kill himself. i mean, that kid was perfect. we had no clue that there was anything wrong with his life. and all of a sudden we're like in a big event. i was giving my speech. and my husband is purple, and i'm going i wonder what i did wrong. the guy's like pissed. and we're in the car, and he says john marcos tried to kill himself. i said what john marcos, my son?

that night we had to take company to a cuban party and teach how to dance salsa. i went. my son, what he did is that he drove himself to the local hospital, to the psychiatric floor, and he signed himself in. he was 19. so he stayed. i went like a lunatic the next morning. da, da, da. the door wasn't even metal. it was metal so the loonies would not escape. i said my name is cristina, my son is locked up in here, he's a minor and i want him out. and they told me he's 19. he's not a minor. then a lady saw my state and said maybe this is the best thing that is ever going to happen to him. they didn't know he was bipolar then, neither did i. but he was in a car, trying to throw himself off the fifth floor of a parking lot, i mean, tavis, come on. then theres with a long time

that we didn't know what to do with him, where to put him, what he had. it was ten years that i did the cristina show with my son going to hospital to hospital. he ended up in boston. they are the experts for mental illness in young people. and i would go do my show and dance with the stars and do my jokes. and then i would go home, get his bed, get his tee shirt, and tell the nanny, don't wash this, because it will still smell like him. and i will cry all night long smelling it until my husband would come get me, babe, i'm lonely, come to our room. and i did that for ten years. >> as you look back on that, how did you get through that? are you a person of faith? are you, what, what did you pull upon, pull from or draw upon to get you through that period? >> well, i am a cuban mother. >> mm-hm.

>> and you do not let your cubs get into trouble without you trying to help them all the way. so i wasn't going to let john marcos, you know, off to his own devices trying to kill himself, you know, so i figured it was my responsibility, and also, i am the sole income person in my family. my husband is my manager. my parents were then alive, and i was responsible for them as well, so i figure, hey, man, it's my job. i got to do it. so i did it. i'm very responsible. i am not a person of faith. i'm a catholic. i was brought up catholic, but i'm not a church-going sort of girl. i'm very spiritual. i pray every night. i believe in heaven and hell. >> mm-hm. the. >> but i'm not a person who goes to church like every sunday. so that's not the way i thought about it. i thought, he's my kid. he's our baby together. he's in my house now.

he's driving again. and the other day, he told me, ma, i think i want to go back to college. so i have no worries for everything that happened to us. and in life, the bigger the pain, the more you hurt, the bigger the lesson you're learning, so pay attention. >> there are a lot of catholics who have been disaffected, i'm not saying you were, but a lot of catholics who have been disaffected for years are being turned on because of this new pope, relatively new pope. your thoughts about him? are you following him? are you watching him? >> oh, yeah. he's a very good pope. we've had the good, the bad and the ugly throughout history. >> every faith tradition does. >> and i think that he is a good man. and if you're not a good man to start with, you cannot be a good pope. and using, you know, when you're famous, that big, and you have that much responsibility, it's very hard to remain with your

feet on the ground. i think he has. that guy wears tennis shoes like i do. and i goes in a bus to work. he'sargentinean, and he's a great guy. >> with all the success you've had, 21 years in your lane, i think the explosion of latino talent and the consumer base, i wonder if you think you were ahead of your time. and i only ask that because, who was here the other day, the singer from -- he was just here, and we same conversation about whether he felt a little ahead of his time. you know, he had a lot of hits, but there's an interest now in your community that didn't seem to exist 21 years ago. so you think you were ahead of your time?

>> i've always been ahead of my time. [ laughter ] >> high-five. that was a good one. >> always. but you know what has been beneficial? and i've reaped a lot of benefits from that, so i can't complain. i've never had to do focus groups, because i travel all over the united states as editor in chief of latin america cosmopolitan. when i started, miami was all cuban. new york was all dominican apo r puerto recan. i knew all of that because i had experienced that, which saved my life. it taught me to speak in a spanish that's really not spoken any war. and the magazine was great for

that, because it circulated in 23 latin america countries. so they have very different vocabulary words in every country. so i learned that vocabulary so i could use it on tv when the time came, and that saved my life. >> i think one of the mistakes that we've made is that we group all spanish speakers in one category. and i think we do ourselves a disservice to do that. >> that is a huge mistake. a huge mistake, because they are very different, not only in the spanish-speaking ways and the words they use, but in the way they see the catholic church or the christian church, in how completely open they are or not of the in ordther words, they'r very different. an american, a person from great britain, a person from canada, a person from south africa, they all speak english, but they

couldn't be any more different. and that's what happens with us. you have to know the differences. >> what is your sense, since you now these communities better than anybody, certainly as well as anybody. what is your sense of the way that madison avenue, we'll start with that. we'll break this down. what's your assessment of the way that madison avenue is regarding, disregarding, you tell me, this community. >> i think we've always been wrong, but what just freaks me out is the older i get the more wrong they seem to be. they just don't get it. and they actually get you in a room full of experts, and they tell you, you know what, this is how we're going to do your next campaign for this, this product that i've been doing a advertising throughout my career. then they put a person jumping in a pool, water, and i'm like,

that has nothing to do with my people, you know. they said what would you do? i said i would put a cut out of me in a grocery store, you know, and i would have the cut out talk to the kid. >> really? seriously? they did that, and they sold water. we sole mod more water than the american counterpart of the same ad. you have to know your people. they don't. >> so that's madison avenue. the obvious question. your sense of the political clout that this community is starting to have. they did not turn out in huge numbers in the mid-term elections. and i pry diedicted that ahead time. black unemployment is higher. the hispanic community can't get one of their major issues on the table, immigration reform. the question i'm asking now, is

how you view the way that the body politic is viewing or not viewing this growing political clout in your community? >> they foeel like they're goin to lose their jobs to the latinos coming in. they don't understand what the immigration problem really is. i do, because i've found a lot of taliban-like books in the border. so a lot of people that we don't want in the united states, guess where they're coming in from. for heaven's sake, this country was mexico before it became the united states. and you just have to have patient. when you say my people and your people, your people are very, very, very married to our people. you have no idea how much alike we are. >> i do. is it your sense that in the short term or long term we are

going to have meaningful immigration reform? >> yes, but i don't think it will be long. that duty dot not belong to any party. it belongs to all of us who are living here. this is a country made by immigrants and for immigrants. and the only people that lived here before were the american indians. that's it. that's the only americans there are. so i think eventually everybody's going to understand it. but let motel you h me tell you. they're going to understand it through salsa, marin g ringue, g love. >> all of the consequences is that this particular community, your community, or certainly members of your community believe that assimilation is the answer. and at times, not always the

case, but you know this. assimilation and aculturation are two different things. how do you not make aculturation the enemy of assimilation. >> okay. i'm going to answer that by saying what you call my community was not so before. it was the puerto ricans fighting the argentineans. divide and win. nobody wanted a huge voting block. they divided us, but now we're not divided anymore. the cubans are no longer just in miami. we're heall together everywhere. what do you call that? do you call that aculturation? we're a big vote being blocing . >> how do you not pooh-pooh that

because i am american now? >> because america has changed. because america is no longer white. because america is no longer english-speaking only. and because we're all in this together. and the day that america fails we all fail, all of us. >> mm-hm. >> you write about this in the bock book as well. you talk about success in career, to some degree success in life. we have not talked about how you've learned to be successful in relationships. tell me something about that. >> i think for example nowadays girls get married for reasons like oh, he's so cute, he dances so well. i love him. he's got ripped abs, and you know what, i see marriage as a journey, okay. and if you want a marriage that lasts, the whole trip of life, because getting there is not important. the trip is what's important.

and my husband and i have been married for 31 years. we have three grandchildren, and he's 11 years younger than i am. and he's a musician from miami sound machine, "the conga." he went on that tour. i was an editor. print journalist in chief. and everybody told me don't marry him. i saw the eyes of his soul. and i told him, babe, what do you expect from me at the end of the road? and he told me, well, i want a big, long table with your kids, all of us together. we're very much family-oriented people. and that's what i want from us. and the last thanksgiving, i told him, marc, look around you, what do you see? he told me, i see what we wanted, and it's here now. and you know what, it's important that you know where you're going first. a lot of people know what they don't want out of life, but they

don't know how much they're worth. i tell my daughter, i said you think you're so unhappy, you have to know what you want. you have to make sure that person, i don't care if you are gay or straight. i'm very liberal. you have to make sure the person has the same dreams and goals that you have. >> you mentioned earlier that your husband is your manager, has been for a long time, and you mentioned that you are the primary bread winner in that family because you're the talent here. >> thanks a lot. >> you're the talent. how did you get comfortable, and how did your husband get comfortable, because so many of us men, we men think somehow our masculinity is tied to our earning potential.

>> two things. but my husband is very short but a very great man. and i saw that. he's one of the most sure of himself men that i've ever met. and when you're in the media, you meet a lot of men. and i thought, guy, this man is so sure of himself. the first time he told me, if you and i make love, and he says no, when you and i make love. i said i dig my toenails in red. this guy is for me. how do we handle that? very simple. i was sitting in a big desk, doing magazine. i was the editor in chief of two magazines. marcos came over and said you're a lot smarter than that. he saw things in me that i never saw in me. he said you can come here and work in your pjs. to i said why don't we do tv.

not only that, but he told me if you don't get at least this amount of money when you go negotiate, don't come back home. so this man-made me wealthy, rich and very happy. >> is that your way of saying that women can have it all? >> yeah, but not at the same time. you have to know what you want, and you have to time it, okay. now what my advice, what i did, because there is just my advice, that's not the bible. what i did is that every time, for me having a family was the most important thing in the world, and kids. so what i did is that every time there was a problem between the kids and the job, i always picked the kid, in other words, the family always comes first to me. and i'll give you an example. there's a lot of men, especially latin men, they don't even know what the pediatrician's phone number is. you know what? that's why i love my husband. because he takes the kid to the

pediatrician. he's a mr. mom. he packs the bags. he is a macho in a good sense of the word, unlike my dad, unlike my dad, i had nine credits to go in college, and my dad told me, you know what, you can finish. i got to take you out of college. i said what? he said you got to stop going because i don't have enough money to send you and your brother to college. and a latin man, my duty, is to send your brother to college because you are going to get a husband to support you. little did my father know i was going to end up supporting him. so he got me out of college. i never graduated. never. >> i got 30 seconds here. and before i get a bunch of e-mails, i'm going to let you respond to this question now. does your husband have any single brothers? >> all my girlfriends ask me that. >> i could feel that coming.

>> oh, yes. >> and the answer is? >> no. >> so you ain't got to write me. cristina just told you this. cristina saralegui has a new book out called "rise up and shine." from a woman i've admired for many years, and i'm dou am deli to have her as a guest tonight. as always, keep the faith. for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. join my next time for a discussion about the book about peter paul and mary. , paul and .

and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

>> rose: welcome to the program. tonight, we go to the museum of modern art and take a look> he really is one of the most important artists in the 20th century. very many people place him and picasso together as the two major people. also with do chum. he is a person with a very long career and varied career and important career. what's important for us with the cut-outs is in this late work he was signaling to younger artists a new way of thinking about form and bringing together color and drawing. >> he just had an enormous impact both during his life. artists came to visit him to his studio in nice and also in a whole generation. i thk