Me i was a bubbalooking mexican. Hinojosa bubba . Yeah, the bubbalooking mexican. Hinojosa laughing and you can. You even got that southern training twang there. You can. Well, you know, its having lived in the south, i guess. Im fascinated by it. Hinojosa i mean, you really are like 100 , and even in your home when you were raised, you were 100 mexicano. Your dad didnt even want you to ca yourself a chicano. Oh, no. Hinojosa and you mom was 100 american. Right. Hinojosa she wore white gloves, and you had to say. How did you have. You had to speak in perfect english to her. She liked to be addressed as mother dear. She was a league victorian, you know, and she always. I always say she was the only lady in the barrio with a little veil and a little string of pearls and white gloves, and she would do her hands like this when she talked. Hinojosa laughing and shed say, call me mother dear. you couldnt say, yeah, you had to say yes; preferable, yes, mother dear. Hinojosa but youre also 100
22. For 22 years, without motorized vehicles, yeah. Hinojosa and throughout all of that, an essential part is your friend here, the banjo. My friend the banjo. Hinojosa does banjo have a name . Well, its american princess. American princess. Its an old banjo. Its over 100 years old, and was built in philadelphia. Hinojosa so the banjo became a central part of you as a persona in these years where you were walking and you were not talking. Yeah, it did. Hinojosa but lets go back for. And you play it normally. I do, all the time. So you might hear it as were talking. Hinojosa its an extension of. Yeah, it is. Hinojosa but lets talk about how it all started. It started when. It was 1971. 1971, in california. An oil spill happens in january, near the golden gate bridge. I hear about it on the radio. And were living up in point reyes, 40 miles away, north. And we drive in, my girlfriend and i, to see the oil spill. But fortunately we cant see it because of the fog. Thats probably why the ac
Well, i dont really feel it, it doesnt feel like a crisis, you say what . So the way i approach Global Warming is that i think of it as an insurance question. Its like if you were driving down the street and someone told you that your house was on fire, and then someone said, oh, no, its not really your house, its the house next door, dont worry about it, what would you do . Youd probably turn around and go back. You have insurance not because you actually think your place is going to burn. You have insurance because, you know, if it happens, its such a catastrophic problem that theres no real way out of it. So right now were in this really important point where i feel like if there is a possiblity that this is going to happen it makes a lot of sense for us to take care of it now. And i think its not just a possibility. Most scientists would agree that it is a reality. The debate mostly is about how quickly its going to happen and what we can do about it. Hinojosa but the fact is that
Fire, garbage, pollution. When you look at the south bronx, you see what . Possibility, promise, some of the worlds most beautiful people. Hinojosa hmm . All sorts of assets that are just waiting to be developed and recognized as such. Hinojosa but when you were growing up in the south bronx. Uh hinojosa . One of ten kids, okay . laughing yeah. Hinojosa what were you seeing around you . I was seeing, you know, the burnedout shells of buildings. I did see, you know, crack heads who lived across the street from me in a burned out shell. I did see my neighborhood played out larger than life on television about being, like, the worst place in the world and nothing good could come of it, because thats where crime and prostitution and all these awful things were, and so thats what i saw, you know, as a kid. Hinojosa what does that do to a kid . sighs deeply hinojosa i mean, profoundly, what does it do to you when you, every day to get to school, youve got to walk by the crack addicts, and th
This community. And you started writing that when you were in college. Yeah. Hinojosa so did you ever imagine, yeah, its going to end up on broadway, or was that just like an illusion . Oh, i imagined it laughing i mean, you wouldnt write it if you didnt feel like it was. It was worth something, but i imagined it in the way that you imagine being a jedi when you are three years old, you know . Its in the realm of possibility, and sure, maybe one day. But you know, i just. I knew that i wanted to write, i knew that i wasnt good at anything else, and i just. I knew there werent enough musicals to keep me employed as a latino actor if i wanted to go into theater. And i. And i just sort of started writing everything id always wanted to see in a musical, musically speaking. Just hip hop music and latin music and all the stuff id sort of grown up with. Hinojosa and you were able to translate that. What i love is that you had these images of broadway, and youre able to take hip hop and salsa,