- [Presenter] Funding for this episode of Que Pasa NJ with Carlos Medina has been provided by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, the Engineer's Labor Employer Cooperative 825, Hackensack Meridian Health, ROI, NJ Business Magazine.

The Alamo Insurance Group.

- Hola familia.

Welcome to this month's episode of Que Pasa.

This month we're lucky to have superintendent of the Newark Public School System, Roger Leon, author Adriana Erin Rivera and the Flooring King himself, Antonio Sustiel.

So ladies and gentlemen, don't forget to ask yourselves, "Que Pasa?".

(upbeat music) And our next guest is Superintendent of the Newark Public School System.

Roger Leon, thank you for joining Que Pasa, Roger.

- Thank you so much for having me.

- Tell me about your family's immigration story and how that has shaped your values.

- My parents arrived in this country, my mom, dad and my three older sisters in the mid 60s.

My dad had family here.

All of my mom's family is still in Cuba even to this day.

And originally lived in with an aunt in the Bronx.

My mom's cousin, her husband actually was a landlord of a super, actually in an apartment building in Newark.

They moved to that apartment on the first floor and I was born a couple of years later.

Always the value of family, the importance of neighbors, the values of an important education is something that has been instilled by my mom and my own home.

- Let's focus a little more on that.

You know, that Hispanic culture growing up in Newark, how did that shape you as an individual that would eventually lead you into getting into teaching?

- Well, it's interesting that on my block we were, there were only like two Latino speaking families there.

So in the Ironbound section where I've lived since I was four years old 'cause I was actually born in Newark South Ward, but in the East Ward since four my block, the majority of the students that were in that block were Portuguese, 'cause at one point in time, a big Portuguese thriving community.

However, we had the Lapchaks that were down the middle of the block and Violeta who lived on the second floor of the house next door.

So Violeta was a Cuban woman who really was like the police officer of our block.

If we did anything wrong, they didn't have cell phones then.

But by the time we all arrived in their houses I don't know how she did it 'cause I don't even think she had people's phone numbers but everyone's parents would know, you know, what had happened, who did what, and you know, we would obviously get punished.

So we really appreciated her for understanding a sense of community amongst us.

The Lapchaks who lived next door to her were absolutely incredible.

A Polish family who really understood like the purpose of America from a really immigration standpoint.

And so valuing education were things that they were teaching.

And fortunately for me, I had a good foundation from home of the importance and value of an education, but with my friends who were either black, Latino or Portuguese.

So the Portuguese community was growing at that point in time.

But there was an, pretty much an even mixture of the beauty of what we see in Newark today that coupled with those adults and the parents of other friends as well as my teachers helped kind of create a sense of culture, the importance, the value of it, community, the values of education and how that's instrumental towards improvements in growth and the value in all of it.

And that's what really helped influence and obviously my teachers in college as well.

Kind of the idea of becoming a teacher and the importance of that role.

- Sure, sure.

So you're a Newark public school teacher.

Do you ever envision that you'd be the leader of the entire, the largest school district in the state of New Jersey?

- I actually knew I wanted to be the superintendent when I was about five years old.

And so the teachings that I had, not only of my teachers but the principals of the schools they had explained to me at a very young age that there was this position of a person in our school system called a superintendent.

And that that superintendent's ultimate job was to help the children realize their dreams.

And as a little boy when I was hearing that and as I was growing throughout the ages, I knew that that's something that I wanted to do, to be able to help children have a dream.

The fact that I'm in it today is incredible 'cause I happened to be the 21st superintendent of Newark's incredible history, the first Latino ever to be appointed a superintendent and obviously is an extreme honor with a great responsibility.

- You're the first elected superintendent in what, 20 years 'cause it was under state control.

How, tell me how it's going.

- The school district began going into state operation in like the mid 90s and in February of 2018 a transition plan began to move from state operation to local control.

So I become the superintendent on July 1st, 2018.

And on July 1st, 2020 is when in fact the state released our status of state operated.

'cause during the transition period we were still under a state operation even though the board had elected its own superintendent for the first time.

So the realities during that time period, we completed the successful transition to full local control.

We created a year strategic plan which is somewhat unusual.

They're usually about three years, to really assess what happened over the 25 years.

'Cause what we didn't wanna do is make mistakes that we have lived in the past and we definitely didn't wanna necessarily continue any practices that we really believe were inconsistent with where we needed to go as a school district.

That yielded a 10 year strategic plan.

So we have a historic 10 year strategic plan, we just finished this third year and part of the strategy of the 10 year strategic plan is to create in Newark a self-sustaining school system where students enter at birth and they go through our schooling and they develop across the years, graduate from college and then return back to the system.

And even though we're a public school district and our responsibility are from ages three through finishing high school, the 10 year strategic plan says that starting at age three isn't soon enough.

That we actually have to begin working with families when the baby is in the mommy's tummy.

So our conception to cradle to age three work occurs before a student is enrolled in our schools.

Even though our work has already, with the incredible hospitals that we have in Newark we've identified already 200 students that will be entering schools in about 2026 in Newark but they're not even born yet.

- Wow, amazing.

- And then as the students progress through our system the idea is what we're teaching them with our alumni associations, the values of gifting back to the school system by, you know, either becoming people who actually live in Newark or work in Newark, a combination of the two or having their children after they have finished college or in the workforce, have the children of our students eventually become students themselves and creating this self-sustaining cycle.

And it's quite amazing that we're in year three and we're seeing aspects of its benefits already.

And knowing also that during this incredible time period the pandemic hit which we were better situated, 'cause no one could have prepared for it.

But we were better situated because of the realities of the 10 year strategic plan.

Very forward thinking strategies that have not stopped because of the pandemic, but really has fueled the importance and urgency of the moment right now.

There's a lot of work that we need to do.

There was a lot of work that we needed to do prior to the pandemic.

And so a heightened sense of urgency is really where we're at right now.

- Roger, you're uniquely qualified to offer advice to young people 'cause you've had so many young people that you've worked with in your career and you're a role model.

What would you tell young people that are watching the show today, seeing other role models?

- We need them to watch what we are doing because we need them to fix things that we err on.

So they have to be mindful of what is occurring.

They cannot be so isolated and unaware of the realities of the moment because the only way that they're gonna be able to fix it is by actually tackling them head on.

And so they need to find an adult, a very trusting adult that they can consult with, that they can share what their thoughts are, somebody who's gonna be able to guide them.

And that that relationship needs to really flourish beyond a one time, one year experience.

So getting close to that adult, having that adult influence decision making and to be a consultant for them on problems that they believe are theirs alone.

There's nothing that any of our young people can't accomplish and the world is just waiting for them to become adults to do that but they don't have to wait to be a productive citizen.

They can actually do that right now.

- Sure, that's great.

Thank you so much for joining us and keep doing all the good things you're doing in Newark not only for the youth, but for the community.

- Well, it's my honor to be here and I thank you for the invitation.

- And up next we have author Adriana Erin Rivera.

(upbeat music) Welcome back.

Up next we have Adriana Erin Rivera, author, thank you for joining Que Pasa.

- Que Pasa, how are you?

- I'm doing great, thank you.

Tell me a little bit about the inspiration for your new book.

- Yes, so "Paloma's Song for Puerto Rico: A Diary from 1898" is a collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution.

It's very exciting project.

And it's about this girl, Paloma, she's 12 years old.

She grew up on a finca like a plantation in Puerto Rico, Ponce specifically and it's all taking place in 1898.

The Spanish-American War is afoot and it's all about how, you know, the US invade Puerto Rico and what happens after that.

- Tell me a little bit about the research to be able to do the research to be historically accurate in your publication.

- Yeah, it's very important for historical fiction to be historically accurate.

Smithsonian was very helpful in terms of getting a lot of the details right.

But the Newark New Jersey Public Library was actually very helpful in getting me the access to different articles and facts and resource books.

Just really knowing those facts because the reality is that information is out there but it's not traditionally taught in schools, unfortunately.

It's not in the textbooks the same way.

So you don't hear about Puerto Rico the same way that you would hear about Hawaii at the same time that this is happening.

So it's just interesting to hear about this history that not enough people know about.

- In the book, the protagonist, Paloma, she likes to dance, she likes to read.

Tell me a little bit about how you developed that character and is she based on anybody in particular in your life?

On yourself, on a family member?

(laughs) - (laughs) Yes, so when I was creating this character, it was really important to have her have a creative outlet.

So music is so important in the Puerto Rican culture of course, as part of a lot of Latin American cultures.

And I really wanted to make sure that that was part of her character.

So she sings and her father plays the cuatro tiple, and they sing songs together and she's writing a song throughout the whole story of the book.

So that was a really important part of telling her story.

And that's where Paloma's song comes from, I actually wrote an original song for the end of the book that's, well what is the song she wrote?

So I wrote the song.

- Tell me about that process of songwriting.

Who did you collaborate with?

- Yeah, so I am a singer songwriter myself in my free time I suppose.

I was able to write a song really talking about, you know, hear my island sing and, you know, (indistinct) and just singing those songs and hearing the coqui and the birds singing together.

And that's how we come to hear our island sing.

- So this is a collaboration with Smithsonian.

And how did, you know, how did this come to be?

Tell me how you hooked up with Smithsonian to work on this project.

- Sure, so I'm really lucky and fortunate to have really good friends in publishing.

An author who I'm very close with who's a professor at FIT, Richie Narvaez who's a fantastic author, Puerto Rican author.

He actually recommended me for this project.

He said, "I know who would be perfect for this one."

And so the publisher reached out to me and sent the whole package of, you know, of writing samples and my pitch for the story, they had a synopsis of what they wanted and had to build from that and I really pushed that forward and they loved it.

- That's great.

- Smithsonian loved the story so that was really great and they loved it.

- Tell me why the diary format, you know, what made you wanna tell the story in that particular format?

What were some of the challenges of that and what are some of the advantages of writing in that particular format?

- Yeah, so it's in diary format, like you said.

It was a challenge for sure in terms of telling that story with dates.

There are specific dates but the timeline is so specific and I wanted to make sure it was very specifically accurate to this happened on July, on July 25th.

Okay, now how do we build back from that?

And it was a lot of going back in time a bit, you know, but telling her story and seeing how she develops every day is just a really fun process as a writer.

- So as a writer of Puerto Rican descent, you know, what were some of the messages and stories that you felt you wanted to really, you know, put in the book and tell your, what's the story or the message in particular that you're trying to tell the reader?

- Sure, so when I was a kid I actually went to Puerto Rico a lot.

My grandfather had a farm in Aguadilla and I spent so much time as a kid playing on that farm with the goats and the chickens and the goats and the cows.

I lived Paloma's life for a little bit in terms of the farm life for a couple summers and that was amazing.

So I really just wanted to bring that child's eyes look into Puerto Rico and tell the story from child's eyes and using my own experience being, you know, playing on a farm and naming every single goat there was.

Just really having fun with that, was a really big experience for me.

- So as somebody who has been able to publish your work and advance your career, what are some words of wisdom or tidbits you'd give to some of our viewers?

Whatever their aspiration and their career might be?

- I'd say that writers, aspirational writers should read a lot.

I read a lot of work and wrote a lot of different kinds of work before I even got to this point.

I've written plays like in short play festivals, I've written short stories and songs and some like small books and things like that, just to really get my feet wet and really try to explore different mediums within writing and literature.

Just write anything that makes sense to you.

Write something that makes you feel like you're inspired by what you're writing.

I feel that's really important but read a lot because that makes you a better writer.

- Great, that's great advice.

Thank you for joining us on Que Pasa.

- Thank you so much, I appreciate it, thanks for having me.

- And up next we have the owner of Flooring King, Antonio Sustiel.

(upbeat music) Welcome back and next guest is Antonio Sustiel the Flooring King, all the way from Miami, Florida, bienvenido Antonio.

- Thank you, sir.

Thank you for having me on your show, Mr. Carlos.

- Antonio, as an immigrant entrepreneur, tell me what advice do you have for other individuals also pursuing the American dream as you have so aptly been able to achieve?

- Work very hard, focus on your goals, dream big, never quit, rise and fall, you're gonna be fine.

- Tell me a little bit about that journey from Israel that you had.

Tell me how many years ago did you come to the United States?

- I landed in Miami in 1990, almost 31 years ago is when I came to Miami.

I arrived here with not too much money, worked super hard for many years, different jobs, did whatever I had to do, dreamt big, never gave up.

And today I'm okay.

- Tell me how you're very well known for leveraging social media for success.

Tell me how you've been able to achieve that and maybe some of our audience members would like some tips on how you've leveraged social media so very well.

- I started with social media pretty much at 2017 when I was featured on CNBC.

CNBC called me a few years ago and said that they've been watching what I'm doing.

I do a lot of philanthropy, I help a lot of people with needs.

And I also had a successful business.

They featured me on CNBC.

That show went very well worldwide to a lot, a lot of millions of people.

And from there on organically I opened an Instagram account and a Facebook account and I noticed all of a sudden that I have a lot of followers.

Organically today I have a lot of a few million people following me, but basically on social media, you just need to be consistent.

You need to be real and you need to be yourself.

That's the most important thing.

You're gonna end up making it good.

- Tell me a little bit more about your philanthropy, Antonio.

It's always important to me personally to see when you make it, you have, really a responsibility to give back to others.

- Absolutely, so I'm a part of the habitat here of humanity nationwide.

I've been supporting the Habitat for Humanity from day one in my journey on the flooring industry.

We support the habitat worldwide.

In this part of my success, what happened is we start very, you start slow, you don't know where you're going and when you start making it big, you're starting to understand that money really absolutely has nothing to do with all this, is what's inside you.

For me, my goals today is to help the community in Miami and to help people worldwide.

So I'm creating some kind of foundation right now to build houses worldwide with the habitat, with (indistinct) and with a lot of philanthropies to build houses nationwide and worldwide to support people that really are not doing well right now.

- Tell me, as a immigrant entrepreneur, what some of your largest challenges were here when you came to the United States and how were you able to overcome them, Antonio?

- Many challenges when you come first is the language.

When I landed over here, I barely speak English.

I had no papers, I wasn't even legal over here.

Everything is 100% difficult.

The journey at the beginning is completely hostile.

You come from a country that you're used to, you're used to the language, the food, you're used to your own speed over there.

When you land over here, everything is completely different.

I overcome all these challenges by being super nice to everybody.

I outwork everybody.

You have to respect the system.

You have to understand that you're no longer in your own country.

You have to pay taxes on time.

You have to just be a part of the American system, which is completely different.

But if you dream big and you follow the rules over here you can make it super big in this country.

The land of opportunities is America.

- Yeah, often an entrepreneur's journey is being fearless.

People don't realize the trials and tribulations of an entrepreneur.

- Absolutely, 100%.

It's just very difficult to make it when you come from a different space, different belief system, different language.

In my case, I didn't even speak English.

So now you need to learn the language in order to conduct business which is even a double challenge.

But if you believe, you can achieve.

- Antonio, can you tell, give our viewers, you know, one real good nugget of advice that they will put forward in their career and in their particular field of entrepreneurship.

Give us that one secret recipe.

- Never stop dreaming.

I believe everything is about the dreams.

So to continue, believe of what you can really work hard, can really happen.

So believe and achieve.

That's, you know, Napoleon Hill said that I've been following him since the beginning of my journey.

You have to really, really never give up.

Continue falling, fall eight time, rise nine.

Continue falling, actually fall a lot and then continue rising.

You're gonna be fine, but never give up.

- Great, thank you so much, Antonio.

Thank you for joining Que Pasa.

- My pleasure, sir.

Thank you for having me on your show, Mr. Carlos.

It's been a pleasure.

- Ladies and gentlemen, and that's a wrap.

Thank you to the Superintendent of Schools, Roger Leon, thank you to Adriana, the author of that great book about Puerto Rico and to the Flooring King Antonio, thank you for joining us and thank you for sharing your inspirational immigration story.

And don't forget, ladies and gentlemen, Que Pasa.

- [Presenter] Funding for this episode of Que Pasa NJ with Carlos Medina has been provided by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, the Engineer's Labor Employer Cooperative 825, Hackensack Meridian Health, ROI, NJ Business Magazine, the Alamo Insurance Group.

Thanks to the statewide Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey, find out more about our familia at shccnj.org.

This has been a production of the Modesto Educational Foundation.

(upbeat music)