Speaker 1: Pushkin. There's this tension a lot of us struggle with
Speaker 1: as we're coming of age and even sometimes into adulthood,
Speaker 1: and that's what do I owe myself versus what do
Speaker 1: I owe my family? I've learned it can be especially
Speaker 1: tough for children of immigrants, people who grew up having
Speaker 1: to translate for the parents helping them figure out life
Speaker 1: in a new country, which was the case for Nelli Galan.
Speaker 1: She was born in Cuba and her parents fled to
Speaker 1: America when she was just five years old. But when
Speaker 1: she was still a teenager, she got the job opportunity
Speaker 1: of a lifetime. Her parents begged her not to take
Speaker 1: the job, to stay close to home to take care
Speaker 1: of them. It was a tough decision, but Nelly took
Speaker 1: the job and it set her on a career course
Speaker 1: that included building one of the biggest Spanish language TV
Speaker 1: networks in America and eventually becoming that company president. This
Speaker 1: is started from the bottom, hard earned success stories from
Speaker 1: people like us. A conversation with Nelly starts way back
Speaker 1: when her family first came to the US.
Speaker 2: When we landed here the United States, in order to
Speaker 2: allow an immigrant to come to this country, you had
Speaker 2: to be sponsored by another family, and in our case,
Speaker 2: the Catholic Church and the Presbyterian Church took on the
Speaker 2: mission because of the Cold War of taking in Cubans,
Speaker 2: and so we got taken in by a Presbyterian family
Speaker 2: in southern New Jersey. The wife was redheaded like I
Speaker 2: love Lucy. And so the trauma my parents experienced from
Speaker 2: one day to the next. They came to this country
Speaker 2: late thirties, early forties, right, and to have to you know,
Speaker 2: college degrees, and your college degree is worth nothing, to
Speaker 2: have no money, to have lost everything, like literally not
Speaker 2: a dollar in their pocket, and they come here and
Speaker 2: the shame that you feel having to live in an
Speaker 2: American family's house and they have to pay for everything
Speaker 2: for you, and then you ask them to give you
Speaker 2: a running tab of what you're spending so you can
Speaker 2: pay them back. So, yes, that is what my experience.
Speaker 1: Is as a child. So you came here with nothing, nothing,
Speaker 1: And how did you feel being with this American family?
Speaker 2: Well, I felt like from the time I got here
Speaker 2: and I was five, I felt like I became a
Speaker 2: grown up. I felt like I was the parent and
Speaker 2: my parents were the children. Because they didn't speak English.
Speaker 2: I picked up English in two minutes. I was the
Speaker 2: one that had to communicate with the family. My parents
Speaker 2: were afraid of if somebody knocked on the door. It
Speaker 2: was like a major thing. And I think their personality changes,
Speaker 2: and I think they're depressed. And I think that you
Speaker 2: also hear them and like, when you're with them by themselves,
Speaker 2: they sound smart because these are college educated people, but
Speaker 2: then when they're around Americans, they sound really stupid. They
Speaker 2: can't speak English, right. You know your mother when your
Speaker 2: mother says, oh, I need to change the shits, and
Speaker 2: I go, mom, sheets, sheets, sheets, it's seats, and she
Speaker 2: sounds like an idiot, And all your friends look at
Speaker 2: her like she's an idiot, you know, So you do
Speaker 2: feel a lot of shame about your family. And I
Speaker 2: think you immediately feel like I got to like grow
Speaker 2: up quick and listen. I've had the most unbelievable ride,
Speaker 2: because you know, one of the things that I talk
Speaker 2: about is life is a lot about being at the
Speaker 2: right place at the right time. And I was at
Speaker 2: the right place at the right time, being Latina at
Speaker 2: the dawn of Latino television. So if you know, I
Speaker 2: tell a lot of young people, if you're first to
Speaker 2: market in anything. You could be the stupidest person in
Speaker 2: the world. You're going to hit. You're gonna hit it,
Speaker 2: hit because timing is everything in life. So I hit it,
Speaker 2: you know, and I've hit it a couple of times
Speaker 2: in my life, and that's all the people remember. But
Speaker 2: the fact of the matter is I gave a lot
Speaker 2: for that hitting it because some of the things that
Speaker 2: you realize later in life is that life is relational
Speaker 2: and that it isn't about transactional things. It is And
Speaker 2: especially if you're ethnic, where your life is all about
Speaker 2: family and your cousins and you're this, and you're that,
Speaker 2: it's hard to break out of that and go be
Speaker 2: very goal oriented type a all the time without having
Speaker 2: repercussions to that.
Speaker 1: Well, how did you break out of that? How did
Speaker 1: you break I mean a lot of immigrant communities are
Speaker 1: very close knit Latino communities. If you've been fortunate enough
Speaker 1: to grow up around large Latino communities that I have
Speaker 1: here in Los Angeles, you realize Latino families are very
Speaker 1: tight knit oftentimes too A lot of times, and especially
Speaker 1: kind of an area you grew up, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of traditional thoughts about the roles of women versus men.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you've seen to have really broken that mold.
Speaker 1: You broke out of just sort of this type you
Speaker 1: sort of this family, tight knit family mentality to succeed
Speaker 1: in business. How did you so? How did you do that?
Speaker 2: I think, listen, I think that some people are born
Speaker 2: with a self motivation. Not everybody has that. But I
Speaker 2: also think self motivation comes often from trauma, right. I
Speaker 2: think that I've had marker moments where I had to
Speaker 2: make a decision, and sometimes I made great decisions, and
Speaker 2: sometimes I made bad decisions. And I am the sum
Speaker 2: of all those decisions.
Speaker 1: So go back to some Marc moment. Let's start at
Speaker 1: the beginning, Okay.
Speaker 2: I think my marker moment happened sophomore year of high school.
Speaker 2: My parents had sent me to all girl Catholic school
Speaker 2: because at the time we lived in Teaneck, New Jersey,
Speaker 2: and it was kind of a treacherous time in Teaneck.
Speaker 2: There were issues in the public schools, and so they
Speaker 2: sent me to this Catholic school, but they really couldn't
Speaker 2: afford it. I was writing. I decided I thought I
Speaker 2: really wanted to be a writer, and I was writing
Speaker 2: stories for English class and this nun who is my
Speaker 2: favorite teacher. I walk into school one day and the
Speaker 2: nun says to me, I don't I'm sorry, but I
Speaker 2: don't believe you wrote the story. I think this is
Speaker 2: an Ernest Hemingway short story. And I have to suspend
Speaker 2: you for three days. And she sends me home and
Speaker 2: I am crying because I'm such a goodie two shoes.
Speaker 2: I mean, kids of immigrants don't cheat because we get
Speaker 2: told you better not screw this up again. Remember, let's
Speaker 2: remember the mentality. They just came from a revolution. If
Speaker 2: you speak up, you go to jai at political prison,
Speaker 2: or you disappear and you're called this up. I see you, though, right,
Speaker 2: and nobody sees you ever again. So you come to
Speaker 2: this country and the first thing your parents tell you
Speaker 2: is don't speak up, be under the radar, don't make waves,
Speaker 2: shut the hell up, and just be good. Everybody in power.
Speaker 2: You just do whatever they tell you to do. So
Speaker 2: I come home and I tell my parent, I'm so distraught.
Speaker 2: There's not things I didn't write this. And my mother
Speaker 2: and father take the side of the nun and they said,
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter. You go apologize to the nun. She's right,
Speaker 2: you are wrong. I go, I didn't do anything wrong,
Speaker 2: and they're like, well, maybe you by mistake you read
Speaker 2: Ernest Hemingway, you know, like they kept finding me wrong.
Speaker 2: And I was so angry at my parents. I locked
Speaker 2: myself in my room and I didn't know how to
Speaker 2: deal with my anger. So I did what I knew
Speaker 2: how to do, which is right, and I wrote an
Speaker 2: article about why you should never send your daughter to
Speaker 2: all girl Catholic school, and I sent it into the
Speaker 2: only publication I read at the time, which was seventeen magazine,
Speaker 2: and I just mailed it and at least it got
Speaker 2: off my chest. And a few days later I went
Speaker 2: back to school and the first thing the nun says
Speaker 2: to me, she goes, I'm so sorry. In fact, you
Speaker 2: should be complimented because your story was so good that
Speaker 2: I was convinced it was an Ernest Hemingway story. But
Speaker 2: in fact no, and I almost like yours better and
Speaker 2: you got an A plus. Wow, So the whole thing
Speaker 2: blew over.
Speaker 1: Why did you think Ernest Hemingway because you're Cuban. No?
Speaker 2: No, because a story took place in a fishing village
Speaker 2: in Quba, it did have some Ernest Hemingway elements, but
Speaker 2: very few, and it was about an old lady, not
Speaker 2: an old man, so like, but she thought I had
Speaker 2: just taken the idea, gotcha, and tweaked it. So anyway,
Speaker 2: it passed. Three months pass and I get a letter
Speaker 2: in the mail from seventeen magazine with one hundred dollars
Speaker 2: check and it says, we loved your article and it's
Speaker 2: coming out in the next issue.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And I'm shitting a brick pardon the French. I'm like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, oh my god, what did I write?
Speaker 2: Oh my god? And I'm like, how can I buy
Speaker 2: every single issue? So no one sees it? Like it
Speaker 2: was insanity what I was thinking. And every girl in
Speaker 2: America read seventeen, I mean, think about today's you know,
Speaker 2: the internet, social media there was I mean, it was like,
Speaker 2: so I went to school and every girl in the
Speaker 2: school was like talking about like, oh my god, it's
Speaker 2: going to be in big trouble because I like because
Speaker 2: by the way, the article was very funny. It was
Speaker 2: actually very good. It was very It was more like
Speaker 2: tongue in cheek, like like these are the horrible things
Speaker 2: about being in all girls. It was very funny, but
Speaker 2: it was brutal, right. I get called to the principal's
Speaker 2: office and the head nun says to me, and this
Speaker 2: nun was kind of like treacherous, right, and she's like,
Speaker 2: we don't like your kind here. And I get expelled.
Speaker 1: What wait, we don't like your kind here?
Speaker 2: She says that to me, like almost like I can't
Speaker 2: believe we took you in and this is how you
Speaker 2: repay us kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And I go home and I tell my parents that
Speaker 2: I've been expelled, and it's like World War three. My
Speaker 2: mother starts calling me, why did you why do you
Speaker 2: who do you think you are? Shage Ada? Why do
Speaker 2: you have to be revolutionary? Why do you have to
Speaker 2: craz problems for us? Blah blah blah blah. This is
Speaker 2: a shame on the family. I mean, it was like horrible.
Speaker 2: And then I got really I got really mad because
Speaker 2: I thought to myself, wait a minute, you guys told
Speaker 2: me that one of the reasons that you turned on
Speaker 2: the regime of Cuba is that there was no freedom
Speaker 2: of speech. And I said, so, now you're not giving
Speaker 2: me freedom of speech and you're not backing me that.
Speaker 2: I mean, how could they even expel me? For writing
Speaker 2: whatever the hell I want. And my parents like, you
Speaker 2: are wrong, and you are going to go on your
Speaker 2: hands and knees and you are going to beg because
Speaker 2: you're not bringing shame on this family. And I was
Speaker 2: so upset and hurt at my parents more than the none. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And I did something really insane. I went to the library,
Speaker 2: which was half a block from my house. I looked
Speaker 2: up the board of Education. That's another thing. Back then,
Speaker 2: we didn't have the internet. You guys are all spoiled.
Speaker 2: I had to look up who was the head of
Speaker 2: the board of education. I called the Board of ed
Speaker 2: of the State of New Jersey. He did not answer,
Speaker 2: but an African American man answered. And I say, I
Speaker 2: bless that man the rest of my life, because he
Speaker 2: picked up the phone. And I was hysterical and I go,
Speaker 2: this nuts.
Speaker 1: Eh, that expelled me.
Speaker 2: That's a fair and he goes, young lady, you're right,
Speaker 2: it's not fair, he said. Unfortunately, they can do that
Speaker 2: because it's a private school, and they can fire you. Basically,
Speaker 2: it's like being an outwill employee. They can get rid
Speaker 2: of you for any reason. However, you don't have to
Speaker 2: take it, and you do have rights and you do
Speaker 2: have a voice, and I defend that voice. And I'm
Speaker 2: going to call a local reporter and a local newspaper
Speaker 2: and you're going to tell your story. And I didn't
Speaker 2: even give it a second thought, which I probably should have,
Speaker 2: and I was scared, but I did it anyway, and
Speaker 2: I gave my interview and the very next day, driving
Speaker 2: like ridiculous. But it comes out in the paper Cuban girl,
Speaker 2: Cuban immigrant gets expelled for first Amendment. And it was
Speaker 2: a scandal, full blown scandal. Everyone in the town read
Speaker 2: the newspaper. My parents got a million calls. My parents
Speaker 2: are like literally thank god my parents weren't into hitting
Speaker 2: me or I would have been dead. They were literally
Speaker 2: like hitting the furniture, freaking out. I mean, it was
Speaker 2: full blown chaos. The nun from the school calls and says,
Speaker 2: come into the school immediately with your parents. My parents
Speaker 2: are screaming at me the entire way of my mother,
Speaker 2: why are you making me do this? I now I
Speaker 2: have to speak Kinglish.
Speaker 1: It's bad. I don't speak Kinglish.
Speaker 2: And my father's like this is a shame on the family.
Speaker 1: In it.
Speaker 2: We get there and the nun is like nice because
Speaker 2: we forget bad press is a beautiful thing. And the
Speaker 2: nun's like I never said that. I never said that
Speaker 2: I didn't like your kind. I said, well you she goes,
Speaker 2: and she goes. I said that I didn't like what
Speaker 2: you did. But you know, the truth is I looked
Speaker 2: up all your records and you're the number three student
Speaker 2: in the school, and you have done all ap classes
Speaker 2: and you've gotten straight a's. In fact, you have so
Speaker 2: many credits that we can graduate you a year and
Speaker 2: a half for early And my mother and father called, oh,
Speaker 2: this is an honor. I go, yes, it's a big honor.
Speaker 2: And it went right over my parents' head that she
Speaker 2: was getting rid of me, but in a nice way.
Speaker 2: I get home and there is a voice message from
Speaker 2: the editor in chief of seventeen magazine, who happens to
Speaker 2: be a former nun, Midge Richardson, and she calls me
Speaker 2: and says, please call us back, and she says, we
Speaker 2: are so proud of you. We are just beside ourself
Speaker 2: that you did that article and that you went and
Speaker 2: spoke up for yourself, and that you got expelled on
Speaker 2: our behalf. We have decided to make you the youngest
Speaker 2: guest editor in the history of the seventeen magazine.
Speaker 1: What yes, what?
Speaker 2: And so I think when something like that happens to you,
Speaker 2: I mean, I can't just tell you that my life
Speaker 2: changed dramatically, completely immediately in the most magical way.
Speaker 1: Nelly Golan really knows how to get people's attention. You'll
Speaker 1: hear more from her after the break, we're back with
Speaker 1: Nelly Galan, who's fresh out of Catholic school and now
Speaker 1: the youngest ever editor at seventeen magazine.
Speaker 2: They loved me at seventeen Magazine when the editor in
Speaker 2: chief used to be a nun and she left the
Speaker 2: nunhood and now she's got a protege that was like
Speaker 2: rebelled against the nuns and made them look good. How
Speaker 2: good does that?
Speaker 1: There's also this thing of like when you're fifteen and
Speaker 1: if you're able to go in the city, like you're
Speaker 1: in the suburbs and you go into the city. You're
Speaker 1: an editor at a magazine, you're graduated high school early,
Speaker 1: and now the most fashionable people on the planet are
Speaker 1: telling you and they're making you us. In a way,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like but in another way, it's like, Wow,
Speaker 1: I got the key, I got the key. To life.
Speaker 2: Here. This is it, I really did. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: like winning the Teenager.
Speaker 1: Like sweet Steaks forget about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, here's what happens. I go there, I work
Speaker 2: with the model editor and it's the whitest girl from
Speaker 2: Connecticut and she's casting all blonde blue Remember that was
Speaker 2: the era of Cheryl Tigus. Sure, and girls are coming
Speaker 2: in to be the models for the cover and this
Speaker 2: and that. It was all blonde, blue eyed girls. And
Speaker 2: one day walks in Phoebe Kate's.
Speaker 1: Wow from Fast Times.
Speaker 2: Well, she wasn't an actress, and she was just like
Speaker 2: like a little school girl that was like half Asian
Speaker 2: and half Jewish. And then walks in like Bill Cosby's
Speaker 2: dog her and in walks in these people that are
Speaker 2: different girls of color, and she was never picking them.
Speaker 2: And one day and again they loved me so much
Speaker 2: that I felt like I could do anything. I felt
Speaker 2: like I was the ship there. And I said to her,
Speaker 2: you know, you really need to put some ethnic people
Speaker 2: in this magazine. And she goes, well, nobody's ever said that,
Speaker 2: nobody's ever done that. And I said, yeah, well I
Speaker 2: think we should do that. And I put Phoebe Kates
Speaker 2: on the cover.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: To this day, Phoebe Kates tells everybody she got me
Speaker 2: on the cover wow, because I fought for her and
Speaker 2: then I fought.
Speaker 1: For her career. Just something made her to a certain degree.
Speaker 1: Help it did. Yeah, my son.
Speaker 2: I always told my son that I put Phebe Kates
Speaker 2: on the cover. He didn't believe me. And then one
Speaker 2: day we're literally walking to New York and she's married
Speaker 2: to Kevin Klein and she goes, no, hey, in the
Speaker 2: middle of the street. She goes, Kevin, this is the
Speaker 2: girl that made my career. And my son goes, mom,
Speaker 2: you weren't lying. I go you think I lie? You
Speaker 2: think so? Anyway, and then I started putting black girls
Speaker 2: on the cover and like Latina on the cover, and
Speaker 2: like then the lady goes, okay, we need another white
Speaker 2: girl again. But here's what happened that the Girls of
Speaker 2: Colors issues started selling, and then I get a call
Speaker 2: from Elite Models and they said to me, we want
Speaker 2: to we want to get all those girls and bring
Speaker 2: them to Elite and it's Elite like it was John Casablanca's.
Speaker 1: Okay, so one of the top biggest agencies.
Speaker 2: And then they're like we want to hire you as
Speaker 2: our consultant. Like if you see people that you think
Speaker 2: are going to be cool that come to because they
Speaker 2: all would come into seventeen, not to them that you
Speaker 2: tell us about them, because we'd love to be their
Speaker 2: booking agents. So I become a On top of that,
Speaker 2: I become a consultant to Elite and John Casablanca's who is,
Speaker 2: by the way, a dog to models, And John cas
Speaker 2: blanc is like, I want to invest in your career
Speaker 2: because you're going to go places. And I said, well,
Speaker 2: you can help me pay for car and so he's like, okay,
Speaker 2: well if you do, if you consult for us on
Speaker 2: like these, you know, because I think you have a
Speaker 2: real eye, we're going to pay for it. So I
Speaker 2: got into Barnard Early Admissions with a complete between the
Speaker 2: scholarship and John casablancaz any lead paying for me, I
Speaker 2: didn't have to pay for shit. And I was working
Speaker 2: at seventeen and they, after the my internship was over
Speaker 2: there like we want we're going to hire you, so
Speaker 2: in between school or whatever, you work here. Because I
Speaker 2: was a real teenager, they realized what people now realize,
Speaker 2: which is like we need somebody in here who's a
Speaker 2: real teenager. So anyway, all that was going on and
Speaker 2: then the most unbelievable thing happened.
Speaker 1: No, no, this is unbelievable.
Speaker 2: No, it gets better, It gets better. This lady who
Speaker 2: is the first Latina executive producer in news, this lady
Speaker 2: gets this job producing the teenage version of sixty minutes.
Speaker 2: Remember Lisa Ling when she started out, she was a
Speaker 2: teen order for this thing called I forget what it
Speaker 2: was called, but it was a news show that was
Speaker 2: in schools, yes, many moons ago. Yes, Well before that,
Speaker 2: there was this teenage version of sixty minutes licensed sixty
Speaker 2: minutes to PBS for a Saturday morning show. Wow, And
Speaker 2: it was going to be people that were older than teenagers,
Speaker 2: like twenty somethings, but they kind of could pass for
Speaker 2: teenagers that were telling stories that were important to young
Speaker 2: people in America. And the lady calls me at seventeen
Speaker 2: magazine and she goes, I love all the articles you've written.
Speaker 2: She says, I want to meet you. And so she
Speaker 2: comes to New York. She's living in Texas. She's in Austin, Texas.
Speaker 2: So I meet her and she goes, Okay, I want
Speaker 2: to hire you. I want you to be one of
Speaker 2: our three correspondents of the show. She goes, but you
Speaker 2: have to move to Austin, Texas in two weeks.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: I tell my parents. I'm now sixteen and a half.
Speaker 2: At this point, I met Barnard in my first semester
Speaker 2: and I'm working at seventeen. I'm working for Elite and
Speaker 2: all this shit. And I say to my parents, I
Speaker 2: am leaving and I'm going to Austin, Texas. Oh Ostano
Speaker 2: say you do not leave here till you are married
Speaker 2: Latino culture and I said, you guys don't get this
Speaker 2: because you don't understand what sixty minutes is. But that's
Speaker 2: like a big deal. And I'm doing this and my
Speaker 2: parents are like, oh no, you're not You're not going right.
Speaker 2: I go back and tell seventeen. I go back and
Speaker 2: tell Elee. I even go tell the school. I go
Speaker 2: I need to put this Barnard thing on freeze. I'll
Speaker 2: come back. And everybody was like congratulating me, throwing me parties.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, you're going to be on TV. You're
Speaker 2: going to be a correspondent sixty minutes. Amazing. And two
Speaker 2: weeks later, I wake up at three in the morning,
Speaker 2: I had a Chevy Chavette, which I don't even know
Speaker 2: what that is, but it's like the smallest, shittiest car
Speaker 2: on the planet. And I pack up my car and
Speaker 2: my parents wake up and I go, what are you doing?
Speaker 2: I go, I'm leaving.
Speaker 1: You were trying to leave them the middle.
Speaker 2: Of the Yeah, I'm leaving. And they first they like, go, well,
Speaker 2: you're not going anywhere. I go, I'm sorry, but I'm
Speaker 2: going to go. And you guys, unfortunately, you don't know
Speaker 2: what's best for me because you're not American. You don't
Speaker 2: really get it, Like you didn't get the whole thing
Speaker 2: with the school, and I can't go by your judgment.
Speaker 1: This is a tough thing. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: immigrant kids do.
Speaker 2: This is a story that when I tell it to
Speaker 2: minority girls, they all cry hysterically. How many girls in
Speaker 2: America have given up a Harvard scholarship to stay home
Speaker 2: with their parents a lot? How many girls get expelled
Speaker 2: from school and it breaks them for the rest of
Speaker 2: their life. How many girls get an opportunity and the
Speaker 2: parents guilt trip them or they have to support their parents,
Speaker 2: and they stay. And I knew that I had to
Speaker 2: choose myself first, because my parents had let me down,
Speaker 2: and my mother called me every name in the book.
Speaker 2: And now that she's ninety years old and she has
Speaker 2: dementia once again, she has thrown it in my face.
Speaker 2: She goes, you left me when you were sixteen, and
Speaker 2: I will go to my grave and never forgive you
Speaker 2: because I was her therapist. I was her I was
Speaker 2: her everything.
Speaker 1: Do you how do you process that?
Speaker 2: When she said something, I will tell you because I left,
Speaker 2: I left. I got in the car and drove cross
Speaker 2: country by myself at sixteen and a half to Texas.
Speaker 2: I stopped the car a blot from the house, and
Speaker 2: I cried for two hours because I felt so guilty
Speaker 2: that I was leaving my children. But I knew that
Speaker 2: I had my parents. Oh boy, But I knew I
Speaker 2: had to go because I knew that that was going
Speaker 2: to change my life. And when I got to Texas,
Speaker 2: that lady took me under her wing and she goes,
Speaker 2: and you know, she figured out when I got there
Speaker 2: that I was really underage. She didn't really know that.
Speaker 2: And then she said, if I had known you were
Speaker 2: leaving college, I would have never even asked you to come,
Speaker 2: because I believe so much at college, and she said, so,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to let you get behind. And she's
Speaker 2: the one that brought me. And so imagine that I
Speaker 2: am less than eighteen. I am in a bus with
Speaker 2: a crew. Every couple of weeks, I switched crews, and
Speaker 2: I'm doing stories with Heraldo Rivera. I mean, I'm doing
Speaker 2: like the same kind of story sixteen Minutes is doing,
Speaker 2: but told from the point of view of a young person.
Speaker 2: And I learned everything you could possibly learn from like
Speaker 2: the most brilliant people that were thinkers and like people
Speaker 2: analyzing the greatest problems in America. Back then we were
Speaker 2: having you know, all the farm worker problems and you know,
Speaker 2: problems with immigration and the same shit that's going on now,
Speaker 2: but you know, the gangs and the racism and this
Speaker 2: and that. And I was going so deep with all
Speaker 2: these people that were deep. And by the time I
Speaker 2: was nineteen, I was recruited at CBS in Boston to
Speaker 2: be in the Network Correspondent Training program WOW. And I
Speaker 2: was what they call a stringer, So I was the
Speaker 2: one doing all the stories for like Diane Sawyer at
Speaker 2: the time, I would do seven stories a day, send
Speaker 2: them in and Diane Sawyer would be the anchor, and
Speaker 2: I was just and sometimes I wasn't even on camera.
Speaker 1: It was like.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I just shot footage that they put in and
Speaker 2: she'd do a voiceover. So I like, I'm running around
Speaker 2: the country. I now look at these people sometimes and
Speaker 2: I go into I have PTSD too, because I know
Speaker 2: what it's like to get on the plane in the
Speaker 2: morning and you put your makeup on and you do
Speaker 2: a story and then you get on another.
Speaker 1: It is a grind.
Speaker 2: It's a grind. It is it's for young people. And
Speaker 2: I look at these older correspondents like, I don't know
Speaker 2: how the hell they do it. And one day they're
Speaker 2: in London and the next day there and so I
Speaker 2: get asked to do this John F. Kennedy special, in
Speaker 2: other words, to go do all the interviews for this
Speaker 2: John F. Kennedy specials. I'm off the grind of the
Speaker 2: daily thing for a minute, and I'm working on this
Speaker 2: big two hour special for Diane Sawyer. And they sent
Speaker 2: me to Hollywood and I have to do like twenty
Speaker 2: interviews of twenty people, right, and one of the people
Speaker 2: I have to interview is Norman Lear. Oh wow, And
Speaker 2: Norman Lear had been very good friends with John F.
Speaker 1: Kennedy, who knew I did not know that, So I
Speaker 1: have to introduce, should you say, for the people that
Speaker 1: might not know. Norman Lear one of the absolute geniuses
Speaker 1: of scripted television. All in the family. He's an incredible talent.
Speaker 2: Super lovely guy. And he basically said to me, what
Speaker 2: are you? Are you Jewish? What are you? And I
Speaker 2: go because I kind of, you know, I grew up
Speaker 2: Tina in New York accent right, little Joan Rivers thrown
Speaker 2: it right. I said, no, I'm Latina, you know, I'm Cuban.
Speaker 2: And he goes my partner and I just brought the
Speaker 2: first license for the first Spanish Tivy station. I go, oh,
Speaker 2: that's nice. I'm like, not, you know, And he says,
Speaker 2: I think you should meet with him because he would
Speaker 2: like you, and you know, you might want to come
Speaker 2: and work for us. And I'm like, all right, whatever.
Speaker 2: I go back to Boston. I'm still doing my thing,
Speaker 2: and like a couple of weeks later, I get a
Speaker 2: call from this guy, Jerry Perencio, billionaire passed away. Just
Speaker 2: so everybody knows, he used to be an agent many many,
Speaker 2: many moons ago. Then he went and ran Norman Lear's company,
Speaker 2: and he eventually, many many many years later brought Univision.
Speaker 2: And he is one of the in Hollywood, the behind
Speaker 2: the scenes, like you know, big deals and honestly the
Speaker 2: person I've learned the most from him my whole life. Tough, tough, tough, tough, tough.
Speaker 2: But you'll see how big he becomes in my life.
Speaker 2: I go to meet with him. He calls me and
Speaker 2: he's like, Norman thinks I should meet with you. I
Speaker 2: fly to New York to meet with him. By this point,
Speaker 2: I'm twenty one and I've been working at CBS for
Speaker 2: two years, okay, And he says to me, so we're
Speaker 2: going to launch the Spanish TV network station in New York.
Speaker 2: He goes, you should come and work for us. And
Speaker 2: I go, well, what am I going to do? And
Speaker 2: he goes, you're just going to learn how to do
Speaker 2: everything you got to like start it up. And I go,
Speaker 2: no offense, sir, But like Spanish TV is not for
Speaker 2: somebody like me. That's like for my parents. It's kind
Speaker 2: of like, eugh, everything about it is not for me.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't think you understand. I work at
Speaker 2: CBS and I'm going to be a network correspondent. And
Speaker 2: he's like, that sounds like a factory worker to me.
Speaker 2: And I go what And he goes, how many segments
Speaker 2: do you do a day? I go seven? How many
Speaker 2: times a week do you fly every day? And he goes, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm going to tell you something a little harsh. And I,
Speaker 2: you know, I think to myself, would somebody like him
Speaker 2: have the balls to tell me something like that today
Speaker 2: when everything's so politically correct. He goes, you're Latina, right,
Speaker 2: you're bilingual, right, he goes, you know your culture right.
Speaker 2: He's like, do you not know that the Latino market
Speaker 2: is going to be a multi billion dollar market that
Speaker 2: you're people are growing at these rates? You're going to
Speaker 2: be the biggest minority by the year such and such.
Speaker 2: And he's like, let me get this right. Norman's a
Speaker 2: multi millionaire. I'm a billionaire. You're gonna go work for
Speaker 2: a network where you're a factory worker or you're gonna
Speaker 2: be employee one, no offense. But even if you're an idiot,
Speaker 2: you're going to be rich. And I thought to myself,
Speaker 2: oh my god, he's right. And I ask you the question,
Speaker 2: and I ask you the question, and I ask everyone
Speaker 2: listening the question. In today's world, if you had the
Speaker 2: choice of your ego and being on TV or being
Speaker 2: employee one of a startup that you think is pretty
Speaker 2: boring and stupid and kind of taggy, what would you choose?
Speaker 2: And the only reason I made the greatest and best
Speaker 2: decision of my life is because, deep in my soul,
Speaker 2: even though I was really I felt like I was
Speaker 2: I felt like I was chosen because I had had
Speaker 2: this beautiful trajet.
Speaker 1: Brought into the prestige of CBS.
Speaker 2: To be correct, even though I felt that I was chosen,
Speaker 2: and it's almost like you feel anointed in that way,
Speaker 2: I felt like, let's be real, let's be grounded. And
Speaker 2: that's when my parents, in my heart and in my
Speaker 2: soul ground me. It's like, no, these guys are a
Speaker 2: better choice. Normanly Or and Jerry Parentia are a better
Speaker 2: way to go.
Speaker 1: And you must have believed in them too, because I did.
Speaker 2: But I felt like he was right. You know what
Speaker 2: it is, And I think this is important to hear
Speaker 2: because nobody says this to young people, especially a lot.
Speaker 2: No job is more important than the people that you
Speaker 2: work for. You can choose a career, or you can
Speaker 2: choose people.
Speaker 1: Interesting.
Speaker 2: You choose people because people are going to take you
Speaker 2: to the promised Land, not a job. So I chose well,
Speaker 2: and I went and became employee number one of what
Speaker 2: is today Telemundo.
Speaker 1: When we come back, you'll more about Nelly's rise at
Speaker 1: Channel forty seven, a small Spanish language station that went
Speaker 1: on to become Telemundo. Before it became the giant that
Speaker 1: it is now, Telemundo was just Channel forty seven, a
Speaker 1: local New Jersey TV station that promised to deliver Latino content,
Speaker 1: and Nellie Glan was employee one.
Speaker 2: I had this little rinky dinky station. It was an
Speaker 2: independent station. Literally, I had no business, no money, no nothing,
Speaker 2: no content, no nothing. Okay, I had nothing. I had
Speaker 2: to get on a plane and go to Latin America
Speaker 2: and going to meet all of these Latin American networks
Speaker 2: and saying, can I buy a show from you for
Speaker 2: fifty dollars an episode? I don't know whatever. I got
Speaker 2: a fill in.
Speaker 1: Wait wait wait wait, you said, so hold on, this
Speaker 1: is interesting. How did you know what your charge was?
Speaker 1: How did you like? You have to get some savvy,
Speaker 1: you have to know the business to some degree to
Speaker 1: know that. Let me go get some programs on the
Speaker 1: cheap that we could just fill time with, or did you?
Speaker 2: I mean no, I figured it out. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 2: what does another network look like? Okay, they have programming. Okay,
Speaker 2: I don't have money to produce programming. What do I do? Okay?
Speaker 2: Where can I find Spanish language programming? I gotta go
Speaker 2: to Spanish language country, right, Okay? How do I do that?
Speaker 2: I mean I figured it yeah out? Wow, And every
Speaker 2: day I made a hundred mistakes on oh PM, which
Speaker 2: is the best thing to do in life, you know,
Speaker 2: work for somebody else, that's right now. I literally would
Speaker 2: open the mail, and I would open the mail and
Speaker 2: it would say somebody would send me out and go,
Speaker 2: we have infomercials we want to air from midnight to
Speaker 2: three in the morning. We'll pay you a million dollars
Speaker 2: a year. And I'd call up an engineer that we
Speaker 2: you know, I find out, where does it cost me
Speaker 2: to stay open from midnight to three in the morning.
Speaker 2: We were only on eight hours a day in the beginning.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh it, it'll cost you about fifty thousand
Speaker 2: dollars a year. I go, that sounds perfect to me.
Speaker 2: We're doing that and I would make a million dollars.
Speaker 2: I answered the mail. I mean you also forget that.
Speaker 2: When you have something, build it and they will come. Okay,
Speaker 2: let me tell you what else came. I'm sitting there literally,
Speaker 2: you know, like a startup with like four employees, and
Speaker 2: I get a call from this guy, Puerto Rican guy
Speaker 2: who's managing Manudo, Manudo the boy Man, and he goes, listen,
Speaker 2: I need to see you. I need we just got
Speaker 2: booked to do Radio City Music Hall. I need airtime.
Speaker 2: I need to promote this. I go, okay. All I
Speaker 2: have is airtime. I go, okay, can we make a
Speaker 2: little commercial whatever, let's do whatever. It's some crappy little commercial.
Speaker 2: He goes, I have no money for you until the
Speaker 2: show's on and I sell the tickets. I have no money.
Speaker 2: I go, okay, I'll take a shot at you. I go,
Speaker 2: I'll give you a commercial every fifteen minutes, but you're
Speaker 2: going to give me half your box fifty to fifty
Speaker 2: box office.
Speaker 1: Really you've said that I did fifty to fifty.
Speaker 2: That was my start. I mean I could negotiate right.
Speaker 1: That's where she starts it.
Speaker 2: I love it and he goes, he goes okay. By
Speaker 2: the way, it doesn't work anymore. He goes okay, and
Speaker 2: I go okay. So we sold out five nights five
Speaker 2: nights because I put so many commercials on this. And
Speaker 2: by the way, we started mating, like we started making
Speaker 2: a Latino revolution, because every artist would call me and go, go,
Speaker 2: can you give me as many commercials as I go? Yeah,
Speaker 2: all I got is commercial time, and I started doing
Speaker 2: fifty to fifty deals. Now, by the way, that didn't
Speaker 2: last very long because then people were like, come on,
Speaker 2: you know, and also I started getting other commercials. I
Speaker 2: didn't have as much commercial time. So I mean, it
Speaker 2: was like a year where I hit the jobs.
Speaker 1: The wild West for a bit of wild West.
Speaker 2: So but all I'm saying is like I didn't even
Speaker 2: think I could figure this out, And in like a year,
Speaker 2: I made eight million dollars profit. So I went to
Speaker 2: work for them. At almost twenty to twenty five, I
Speaker 2: ran the station. We were making eight to ten million
Speaker 2: dollars a year. So one day I walk into work
Speaker 2: and his lawyer comes in and says, I have great
Speaker 2: news for you. We sold the company. I go what
Speaker 2: we sold the company to? Saul Steinberg, who is an
Speaker 2: insurance company in New York, and he speaks Spanish and
Speaker 2: he wants to build a network. I go to see
Speaker 2: Jerry and I do the one thing you're never supposed
Speaker 2: to do in business. I start to cry and I go, Jerry,
Speaker 2: this is my baby your I'm your burger king manager.
Speaker 2: This doesn't mean anything to you. How could you solve
Speaker 2: this as my baby? And he goes, young lady, stop
Speaker 2: the tears. He goes, young lady, these are my chips.
Speaker 2: If you think you have what it takes, and I
Speaker 2: think you have what it takes, he goes, stop crying
Speaker 2: and go get your own chips.
Speaker 1: Wow, he goes.
Speaker 2: When I it was your age. I started a business.
Speaker 2: I made no money for ten years, and then I
Speaker 2: became a millionaire. Go do it. I'm giving you three
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars in a Mercedes Benz and I was like.
Speaker 2: I went home and I cried, and I like, really
Speaker 2: I was so I thought he was the devil.
Speaker 1: And he gave you a pens.
Speaker 2: By the way, I cashed in because I didn't even
Speaker 2: know how to drive, and so I had but I did.
Speaker 2: I had like three hundred and seventy five thousand dollars
Speaker 2: at that point, and I lived in the East Village
Speaker 2: and a fourth floor walk up, and I decided to
Speaker 2: start a business, and I started a business. And so
Speaker 2: when he sold the company, I went and saw everyone
Speaker 2: in Hollywood with this idea that I had for a business,
Speaker 2: and every single person, and I could tell you very famous, famous,
Speaker 2: famous execs turned me down. So what I wanted to
Speaker 2: do is I realized there was a whole the market
Speaker 2: that I was going to visit all these networks in
Speaker 2: Latin America and buying shows from them, and they had
Speaker 2: no American shows, none. And I was like, why isn't
Speaker 2: there HBO in Latin America? Why are these channels not
Speaker 2: going abroad? I could sell this in a minute. So
Speaker 2: I was pitching people about my business. But for four
Speaker 2: years nothing happened, and I was really feeling very distraught,
Speaker 2: and I was embarrassed to go back to Jerry with
Speaker 2: my tail between my legs because he would have given
Speaker 2: me a job or you know. And I thought I
Speaker 2: have to prove myself. And in the fourth year the
Speaker 2: whole thing changed. The president of HBO at the time
Speaker 2: says to me, Nellie, remember you came to me like
Speaker 2: three years ago, and I said, no, we're ready to
Speaker 2: do that. We've sent three MBAs to Latin America and
Speaker 2: they can't figure it out. I go, well, do they
Speaker 2: speak Spanish and he goes no. I go, well duh,
Speaker 2: So he goes, but we can only do it with
Speaker 2: you as a consultant. See. I wanted to like own
Speaker 2: a piece of the channel right because I was thinking
Speaker 2: like Jerry Parentio. So I said, okay, I'll do it
Speaker 2: because if I got to do one, just to show
Speaker 2: I can do it. And I had the channel up
Speaker 2: and running in Venezuela in three months. And then I
Speaker 2: get a call and another great call from this African
Speaker 2: American guy name is Bernard Stewart. He was the one
Speaker 2: in charge of globalizing ESPN. And he calls me and
Speaker 2: he goes, Nelly, come and see me. I heard from
Speaker 2: Michael Fuchs at HBO that you helped launch HBO. And
Speaker 2: I go over there to see him and he says, listen,
Speaker 2: we're going to do We're going to launch three channels
Speaker 2: in Latin America. We're going to do one in Portuguese,
Speaker 2: two in Spanish, one in Argentina, one in Mexico. We
Speaker 2: have to hire like forty on camera people, but we
Speaker 2: want to outsource it to you because if it doesn't
Speaker 2: work out, then we don't have all the bodies, you
Speaker 2: know how you can't hire people. And then he goes
Speaker 2: and then if it works, you sell it back to
Speaker 2: us in five years. And then, in a weird way,
Speaker 2: I was the best person to do this channel because
Speaker 2: there were all these different languages for different things in sports,
Speaker 2: Argentinians using mix and I had to just pick one
Speaker 2: and make a new language that would be the same
Speaker 2: in the entire continent. And they could yell at me
Speaker 2: because I'm another Latina. I go listen. I picked the
Speaker 2: word that I thought was the best free and that's
Speaker 2: what we're going with. And now it's become the language
Speaker 2: of sports in Latin America. So anyway, I launched those channels,
Speaker 2: and I went from nothing and nothing was working to
Speaker 2: exactly what Jerry Purna said, if you hang in there.
Speaker 2: But I went from zero to I launched ten channels
Speaker 2: in four years.
Speaker 1: That's incredible.
Speaker 2: And then Rupert Murdoch and Sony decided, okay, so the
Speaker 2: original guy that bought my station, Channel forty seven bought
Speaker 2: fifteen stations around the country for a fortune. It was
Speaker 2: when stations were one hundred million, two hundred million each
Speaker 2: Overspent tried to start a Latino network. Wasn't working. There
Speaker 2: wasn't enough money to justify that the cost of those channels.
Speaker 2: He died of a brain and yours his family got
Speaker 2: the company. It went into bankruptcy court and it was
Speaker 2: between Sony and Fox to buy it, and Sony won
Speaker 2: the blind doction in bankruptcy court. And when Sony bought it,
Speaker 2: they came after me because I was the only Latina
Speaker 2: that had experienced running channels and really being fiscally responsible,
Speaker 2: and I get the job to basically be the president
Speaker 2: of Telemundo. They buy my little business. And by the way,
Speaker 2: I forgot to say that when I was doing the
Speaker 2: channel business, all of the networks that I ended up launching,
Speaker 2: everyone gave me production deals because they're like with your company,
Speaker 2: with my company, because again, not because I came into
Speaker 2: it as a creative. Because I came into it as
Speaker 2: a fiscally responsible Latina from the business side, and all
Speaker 2: the Latinos in Hollywood kind of trash me. Who is she?
Speaker 2: We've been at this for years? How did you give
Speaker 2: the deals to her. And I was smart because I thought,
Speaker 2: don't worry you guys, I'm going to give you guys
Speaker 2: all deals, right. But they didn't realize. And this is
Speaker 2: another thing that I don't think people say to young people,
Speaker 2: is that everybody wants to have an ego and be creative,
Speaker 2: including me, everybody. But in fact, if you learn the
Speaker 2: fiscal stuff first, if you want to be the queen
Speaker 2: of content, first be the queen of distribution and understand
Speaker 2: distribution and the finances of distribution, and you're on your way.
Speaker 1: Wow, Wow, all your success I almost have success fatigue
Speaker 1: with you.
Speaker 2: I mean no, no, let me just tell you so. Let
Speaker 2: me be not humble but honest. You could have failure
Speaker 2: fatigue if I talk to you about my failures. I
Speaker 2: have way more failures than successes. But that's the other
Speaker 2: thing people should know. You only need a couple of
Speaker 2: successes and that's all people care about. And remember, you
Speaker 2: remember the failures, but other people don't. So it's taken
Speaker 2: hundreds of thousands of failures to have two or three successes.
Speaker 1: Nelly, I hope you will come back. I feel like
Speaker 1: there's so much more to talk to you about. We
Speaker 1: didn't even go there's a whole other half of your career.
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you, just more specifically about
Speaker 1: the dawn of Spanish language television here in the States.
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about your successes in
Speaker 1: reality TV and really also what your next well I.
Speaker 2: Think, I think what's a good thing to leave with
Speaker 2: for for your listeners is how do you find your
Speaker 2: north star? And I would say the one thing that
Speaker 2: that I think people are not looking at carefully is
Speaker 2: don't pick the sexiest thing. Don't pick the thing that
Speaker 2: everyone else is doing. Try to really do your homework.
Speaker 2: Like I'm a very mathematical person. Like I tell I
Speaker 2: tell everybody Google what's an emerging business, what's an emerging city,
Speaker 2: what's an emerge market? And here's the beauty of it.
Speaker 2: You don't have to have millions and millions and millions
Speaker 2: of customers. You can survive on very few customers in
Speaker 2: a niche business. Niches, by the way, are better than
Speaker 2: mass things. Niches are things that you can fully own.
Speaker 2: And also niches tend to come from your pain. You know,
Speaker 2: I did a niche in Latino TV and did very
Speaker 2: well telling stories that I lived through of immigration of pain. Okay,
Speaker 2: so you make money on your pain. You come up
Speaker 2: with something from your pain, not from what everybody else
Speaker 2: is out here doing. Don't have fomo like where you
Speaker 2: are right now, bored in your house is where you
Speaker 2: need to be to invent the greatest thing of your life,
Speaker 2: not at the party with everybody else.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Oh my gosh, we're having you back. You're coming back, Nellie.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. This has been so lovely. I
Speaker 1: can't thank you enough.
Speaker 2: Yoh.
Speaker 1: Nellie Galan is definitely coming back on the show. We're
Speaker 1: only part way through her career and there's still a
Speaker 1: whole other reality TV and Psario chapter we didn't get
Speaker 1: to that I'm dying to talk to her about. But
Speaker 1: before we let Nellie completely go, I want to play
Speaker 1: you a part of our conversation that didn't make the episode.
Speaker 1: It's a really important point I think she makes about jealousy.
Speaker 2: The other technique that I use to decide what do
Speaker 2: I want to do is what am I jealous of?
Speaker 1: And I think that's a really great Okay, who were
Speaker 1: you jealous of in that moment?
Speaker 2: Susie Orman? So what Susie Ormand did for white women,
Speaker 2: it's like she put the light bulb on, Like, where's
Speaker 2: your financial empowerment? You guys are all like really sitting
Speaker 2: around waiting for some guy to save you.
Speaker 1: Now, when Nelly Golan tells you she's jealous of someone,
Speaker 1: you got to figure out how to talk to that person.
Speaker 1: So next week I'll bring you personal finance guru, best
Speaker 1: selling author multiple times. I'm guests on the Oprah Show
Speaker 1: Susie or Started from the Bottom is produced by David Jaw,
Speaker 1: edited by keyshow Williams, engineered by Ben Holliday, booked by
Speaker 1: Laura Morgan with production help from Lea Rose. The show
Speaker 1: is executive produced by Jacob Goldstein, who's not all up
Speaker 1: in the videos for Pushkin Industries. Our theme music's by
Speaker 1: Bent Holliday and David Jaw featuring Anthony Eggs and Savannah
Speaker 1: Joe Lack. Listen to Started from the Bottom. Wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts and if you want ad free episodes
Speaker 1: available one week early sign up for Pushkin Plus. Check
Speaker 1: out Pushkin dot fm or the Apple show page for
Speaker 1: more information. If you like your show, please remember to share, rate,
Speaker 1: and review us on your podcast app. I'm justin Richmond.