i have a son named john enrique who s brown and black and human and tender. i have you inside this body. but i stop, and i simply write down hispanic. [cheers and applause] [inspirational music] - when you think about a community, the first thing you think about for us is a greeting. - mm-hmm. - right? you walk through a neighborhood that s a neighborhood, and i say hello, you say. [together] hello. - now here s the thing. you know gentrification has taken hold when that hello becomes. when a street full of greetings gets invaded by silence, we think about fear. [jazzy music] - i am the clave that beats your timbales, the pearls that shake in maracas, salsa dancing in your soul. i am the child of. [speaks spanish]
so they see themselves celebrated, honored, respected. cause this country wasn t made without us. it was made because of us. [cheers and applause] in the meantime, i m gonna get a sneak peak of the new latin history exhibit at the smithsonian with director jorge zamanillo. - welcome to the national museum of american history, john. - i love it. - this is the molina family latino gallery. it s really the first physical presence of the national museum of the american latino. - finally, thank you! - yeah, let me show you around. - yeah, please, please. i m so curious, because i love history. what about latin culture did you feel that we have to offer america? - well, one thing i discovered when i first visited museums here in d.c. is that they did a great job telling the american narrative, the american history that we learned in textbooks, but i didn t see our story being told, right? - yeah, hello? - so that representation was missing. i knew we had to tell the stories. - there s so ma
juggling multiple jobs, classes, and learning english. gala is that safe space where they can let go and just be themselves, and in a country where they often feel invisible, gala makes sure that they get the spotlight. - [speaks spanish] - [speaks spanish] [both speaking spanish] [cheers and applause] - oh, yeah. [cheers and applause] thank you. - hey. - aldo. - aldo, john. fran. - fran. - yeah, why not? i m ready for a challenge. - okay. - yeah, come on, man, yeah.
in the united states, but only half of all eligible voters of any color actually vote. that s why maria teresa kumar and rosario dawson founded voto latino with one mission in mind, to get more latinx voters to the ballot box, and it s working. since launching in 2004, voto latino has registered over a million new voters and spearheaded campaigns to fight unfair redistricting and voter suppression. - so you re here to shake it up a little bit? - i want to try to shake it up a little bit. shake it up a little bit. you re you ve been shaking it up forever. how many years has that been? - oh, my gosh. i like to say we re 18 years young. - yeah, yeah, that s amazing. i mean, longevity in this game is everything. - well, and this is what folks don t realize is that every 30 seconds a latino turns 18 years old. and so when people. - voter. - voter. - and that s for folks you know, and people say, well, why do you do what you do? well, if we deeply believe that latinos are part of americ