in the world around them.

And, you know, for so long, the Latinx community

hasn't had that.

We don't have the visibility.

[INSPIRATIONAL MUSIC]

One of the beautiful things about the "Latinx List"

is that you have 10 writers who all come

from different experiences.

What drives you?

What's that push?

To me, my culture represents a north star,

that I can kind of follow it.

Again, trying to be the artist both my parents

weren't allowed to be.

They know how complicated it is being Latinx in this country.

We've been here, we're indigenous.

This is our home.

I feel like now people are willing to pay attention.

[LATIN GUITAR MUSIC]

Hi, I'm Juan Carlos Fernandez.

I'm one of the people selected for the inaugural "Latinx TV

List," and I'm here with my brother Eduardo, my younger

brother, remotely from Seattle, to talk a little bit

about the Latinx experience, what

it was like for us growing up.

Like what are some of the things that help you identify as Latin

that are maybe different than other people?

I spent my formative years, my childhood years

from like 3 years old to 14, in Southern Connecticut, where

there were no other Latinx kids in my neighborhood,

other than you and our other brother, Ricardo.

You're caught between worlds.

Like at home, we were a bilingual family.

At home, we spoke Spanish.

At school, we spoke English.

And, like, then the two never crossed over.

You were ridiculed sometimes because you spoke Spanish,

even though technically you know two languages, as opposed

to everybody else who knows one.

You're sort of treated differently.

You're treated kind of like an outsider in a lot of ways.

Going to Puerto Rico every year was like the one time

that inside and outside I could be the same thing,

and I didn't have to code switch.

When I'm speaking to my friends, I'm Juan Carlos Fernandez.

When I'm speaking to you or our parents, I'm (LATIN ACCENT)

Juan Carlos Fernandez.

It's almost a universal thing.

I mean, I think everybody to one extent or another,

whether you're Latinx, whether you're Black,

however you identify, you have a certain life here,

and then you have a different sort of life there.

And you kind of like jump between the two

and you walk this tightrope.

We obviously have this rich heritage in terms of like, you

know, our parents are Cuban.

You were born in Puerto Rico.

You spent a lot of time in Puerto Rico with family

that moved there, as well as the time in the States growing up.

So how do you identify?

Sometimes I don't know, and I don't

know how to answer the question when somebody asks me,

and it's because we have this like mash-up of cultures

and mash-up of experiences.

It's like, yes, I think that primarily I identify as Cuban

because I think that the bulk of what we were raised on

and what we were taught are Cuban traditions.

But I was born in Puerto Rico, and I

did grow up in Connecticut.

So, you know, what am I?

In Latinx culture, there's a little bit of everything.

And I think that that's why just in general

people have a hard time identifying

who is Latinx or who isn't.

And, you know, I'll go order coffee

and they'll ask me my name.

And they're like, oh, you don't look like a Juan.

And, you know, and our parents, they came from Cuba.

They left Cuba when they were in their teens.

Thinking back as an adult now, you're like, oh,

they had to abandon everything, like their childhoods were left

behind, and are in a place that they can't go back to,

the same way that somebody else can go back to where they were

born or where they grew up.

That mash-up of cultures, like, you

see it even in our traditions like, you know, Thanksgiving.

Like, you know, we have the turkey

and we have the stuffing, and we also have black beans and rice,

which, you know, when I came to LA, and the first Thanksgiving,

I'm like, I'm gonna make black beans and rice,

and people didn't understand why.

You know, you mentioned, you know, our parents.

And one of things I've not had the whole story of

is like what that journey was like especially

for mama, right, and what she had to go

through, through that journey.

She had to leave behind everything.

Like she had to leave without telling her friends.

Latin American culture, in general,

is very focused on family, knowing everybody

and the extended family and even the people that

aren't officially technically part of your family,

but that you still call them tío and tía.

And I think that some of that also comes from the fact

that, like, they had to leave everything behind.

That's so, so important, and that's been important for us.

Like that's something that we continue.

And I continue it in my traditions here with my friends

here.

My friends are my family.

Like is there any one moment that you can kind of point

to that really reminded you of your roots

and kind of drove how you identify today?

In terms of like me and how I identify personally,

both as a Latinx and just as an individual,

it was largely when I moved to LA, about 20 years ago.

Back when I was in Florida, I was a big "Star Trek" fan.

I was watching "The Next Generation,"

and there was a name in the credits that always

stuck with me, René Echevarria.

Because you recognize it as a Latinx name,

and you're like, oh, look at that.

And then when I discovered that the "Star Trek" shows

took script submissions, I submitted a script

and got an opportunity to pitch.

And I actually pitched to Réne Echevarria.

I was now in a world where I knew no one.

I had to sort of figure out who I was.

And once you're in a place where you don't have to be this

and you don't have to be that, you can just be who you are.

So can you tell us a little bit about your story

that got you on to the "Latinx List"?

It's called "Sunpatch Alley," and it's

about a Cuban-American woman, Gracie Fuentes,

who's the creative director of this children's

television show in the 1970s.

I had it take place in the '70s because number

one, that was the heyday of educational television.

It was a time that was very similar to our time.

It was kind of turbulent.

At that time, we were dealing with Vietnam, Watergate,

the free love movement, and it was a time when women were

still treated as second-class.

Women couldn't even have credit cards at that time.

And it also allowed me to tell a story about a Latinx character

that I hadn't seen before.

She was white-passing.

At work, she's Gracie Fuentes, but at home she's Graciela.

It was just much closer to my experience

of what it's like to live as a Latinx individual.

What are your thoughts on how some of the stigmas and cliches

that we often see with Latin characters and the

like in entertainment?

How do we break those?

Stop doing them.

Humanize them.

Dimensionalize them.

We want relatable characters.

We want characters that feel authentic.

I mean, I don't know what it's like to be a gardener or

a housekeeper or a gang member.

When there is a Latinx character,

that's typically what they are.

And I don't know what that is, and so I want to see

more Latinx professionals.

I want to see people living their lives normally

just like everybody else.

Make them feel like real, living, breathing human beings

and not just a prop.

And don't be lazy about it.

So how does the future of Latinx look like to you

in the entertainment industry?

More of us.

We need more of us.

We need more of us telling our stories.

We need more people in creative roles.

We need more producers.

We need more directors telling, you know, to tell our stories.

If and when I achieve success through this,

I plan on paying it forward because we

need more visibility.

I don't want the next generation to have

to grow up without these role models

that I didn't grow up with.

If I have the opportunity to change that, I want to do that.

[LATIN MUSIC]

Thanks for celebrating Latinx Heritage Month with us.

Be sure to like, comment, and subscribe

to this channel for the latest updates on all things Hulu.

Acentos Bienvenidos, "All Accents Welcome."