Homeroom with Sal & María Elena Salinas - Thursday, August 13

Hello, Sal here from Khan Academy. Welcome to our homeroom live stream! We have a very exciting guest today. Uh, but before we jump into that conversation, I will give my standard reminders to folks.

One, uh, just a reminder that we are a not-for-profit organization. The work that Khan Academy does is only possible because of philanthropic donations from folks like yourself. So if you're in a position to do so, please think about making a donation. You can go to khanacademy.org/donate.

I also want to make a special shout out to several organizations that, when they realized that we were already running at a deficit pre-COVID, in order to support, frankly, the world through the school closures, we were running an even larger deficit. Special thanks to Bank of America, Google.org, AT&T, Fastly, Novartis, and the Amgen Foundation for stepping up and helping us close that gap. Although we are still running a gap, so any support at any level for Khan Academy, if you're in the position to do so, allows for a lot of other folks who aren't in the position to do so to continue to keep learning, especially as we're going through these, uh, very, very hard times.

So with that, I'm super excited to introduce our guest, Maria Elena Salinas. For many of y'all, she is probably an icon, someone that you grew up with. For some of y'all, she might be a relatively new name, but, uh, for those of you all say that she's an icon for many folks. Uh, she anchored Univision for many decades. She's a contributor to CBS News, really one of the, um, iconic journalists in the world.

Maria, thanks so much for for joining us.

Maria: Thank you so much, Sal, for that very kind introduction and saludo in Español. That's, uh, hello to those of us who are listening in Spanish, who are watching in Spanish. Yeah, and thanks for that because today we do have our Spanish speaking; there's a fully Spanish version of Khan Academy at es.khanacademy.org, and we're also posting this on our Spanish language sites. So yes, uh, excited to have. I know it is there, that's really good. Let's continue learning!

Exactly! Exactly! On the screen, so, so there are two things I really want to talk about today. Obviously, we’re having this conversation in very sub-optimal times. We're going through a pandemic that has helped impact—it has an economic impact; it's having an education impact—and it does look like it's disproportionately affecting the Latinx community, especially in the United States.

So I definitely want to talk about that, and I also want to make sure we have time to talk about your journey, which I find very inspiring, and I think a lot of young people watching will find inspiring as well. But let's start, I guess maybe on the, you know, the world that we're in right now. You recently did a documentary on the pandemic and how it's affecting the Latinx community in particular. What were your, you know, what are the big headlines from that? What were your big takeaways? What did you learn from that?

Maria: Well, for one thing, I'm very happy that CBS decided to do this special. I don't think it was enough to do just one, two-minute, three-minute stories in their newscasts and their regularly scheduled programs, but it was important, and it was important also that we had a full Latino staff— all the reporters, producers, researchers, bookers—are all Latinos. Because, you know, there's a relativity that we have to the subject and to the community. We know our community better than anyone else.

I think, you know, the big headlines out of that really is that, you said it, we are disproportionately being affected by this pandemic. Latinos are getting sick in higher numbers. Latinos are dying in higher numbers. Latinos are losing their jobs in higher numbers or making less money. They are the essential workers that keep the economy going, and you know, while they do have a job, they're risking their lives, and many of them don't qualify for unemployment; they don't qualify for a stimulus check. So they're being affected, I think, economically, um, and also, um, you know, health-wise. They're being very, very affected, and it's not getting better; it's getting worse unfortunately.

So what do you think are the main levers that are causing this inequity, and then what do you think can be done to at least lessen and hopefully eliminate some of these issues?

Maria: Well, it's the historical inequities that have been really exacerbated by the pandemic: poverty, unemployment, um, you know, insufficient savings. I think there was one study that said that more than half of Latinos had only $500 or less in their savings, uh, lack of access to adequate health care. All these traditional inequities, or historical inequities, they just got worse during this time.

And when it comes to education, a subject that I know that you're passionate about and that has become your mission and your passion, Latino kids are staying behind more than others—more than any others—and that is because only one in three Latino households has access to the internet, and only half of them, about 50 percent, have enough computers at home. Nothing. They don't have computers; they don't have enough computers. The majority of essential workers do the types of jobs that you can't do at home, from the comfort of your home in a Zoom box, so they do have to go out and work. But the ones that do have to rely on a computer, and if they have two or three kids, they don't have enough.

And even though school districts across the country have been distributing computers, laptops, or tablets to kids around the country, it hasn't been enough. This morning, there was an article in the Los Angeles Times that talked precisely about that point and said that in California alone, kids need more than a million computers to be able to go back to school and study from home.

Now in this last point, obviously, as you know, this has been something that we've, at Khan Academy, we've been very focused on throughout the pandemic, even pre-pandemic, around the divide. And you know, there's exactly right: there's the education issue, there's the economic issue, and then there's the healthcare issue. And maybe we'll start with the education issue, just where you left off. What do you think we can do? Because, yeah, I'm seeing the same thing when we talk to district officials, we talk to educators. Even where there have been heroic efforts to get a lot of laptops out there, they're still losing a lot of kids, and these kids are disproportionately students of color.

A lot of their parents, as you mentioned, they might be essential workers. They're the folks that are making sure that we can get our groceries; they're the folks that are making sure that other things are up and running. And so these kids are a little—are less supported. But, you know, personally, I've been at a loss of knowing what the solution is. What can we do, you know? Obviously, on our level, we're trying as much as possible. Hey, Khan Academy's there if you have internet access, if you have a device, even a cellphone, use us. That's something. But what else can we do? Should we think about as a society?

Maria: Well, you're right. Latino parents are very concerned. In fact, um, a recent survey by Latino Decisions that focuses only on Latino voters or Latino families says that 53 percent are really thinking of not sending their kids back to school now. A great majority say that they wish they could go back to school, but that the only way that they would send them back is if there were precautions, such as making sure that the classroom is clean and—and such as making sure that they're aware that they're wearing masks and taking the necessary precautions there.

Um, and, uh, 83 percent are concerned that their kids will be left behind in their studies, and that is a real concern. But you know, when you think about kids and going back to school and wearing masks and taking all the necessary precautions, I mean, I see it all the time. I have two daughters and I have two stepdaughters. My two stepdaughters are both teachers—one of them teaches second grade and the other one teaches at the university level. The one that teaches second grade, you know, tells me, you know, you sit in a class, and not to have kids on top of each other, hitting each other, teasing each other, or having them wear a mask to make sure that the mask is over their nose is virtually impossible to do.

Now, she is only 32 years old; she might not be at very high risk, but her husband has diabetes. He's had childhood diabetes. If she gets sick and takes it home, her husband can die. So these are the things that we need to think about. And my other stepdaughter, who teaches at the university level, she teaches journalism at UCF. Same thing. They are doing virtual classes, and she'll be going in to teach once a week.

However, she has a seven-year-old son who's in second grade, and he's doing virtual classes, and she will not let him go to school because she's very afraid that he would get sick because she has a little baby. So, you know, every family has their story. Every family has a set of circumstances that makes them more vulnerable. You know what the solution would be, of course, for everyone to have access to the necessary technology so that they can study from home, so that the kids can continue learning from home.

And maybe some of those school districts who don't have cases that are that serious maybe begin going back little by little, with taking all of these precautions. But it really is scary how this has turned into a political issue. This isn't a matter of red and blue; this is a matter of life and death. So it's really sad, and it's dangerous also for this to happen. I live in Miami, and in Florida, the governor is forcing schools to go back in person to have in-person classes; otherwise, he threatens with withholding state funds.

Now, when the president said he would withhold federal funds, well, you think it's only maybe five, ten percent of their budget, but the state funds are a little bit more. So it would be detrimental to school districts.

Sal: Yeah, I think there's several things you're touching on there. One is the school opening issue. Yesterday, we had the head of the NEA, the largest teachers’ union, and last week we had the head of the NFFD. And you know, this is one of those situations where regardless of, you know, sometimes these things in education turn very political, but this is just a basic health and safety issue. And any epidemiologist that you talk to will tell you if there's a high incidence in a community right now to put kids, put 30 kids in a not-so-well-ventilated place and a teacher who may or may not be at high risk themselves but they’re going to have family members that could be at high risk, it's actually just not even good for those people directly involved. It's bad for the whole community because a pandemic—you have to, you have to keep—it's going to hurt all of us who aren't even going to school because it'll just create more spread in the community.

What, you know, I've seen some good examples actually. The head of the NEA yesterday talked about Maryland doing a good job of where, even where kids don't—you know, they're going to distance learning, which seems appropriate given where we are in the pandemic—but for those kids who need those extra supports at home who might, you know, maybe their parents are essential workers and can't support the kid while they're during the school day, they are opening the schools up for a few of them in a very careful way. But they're still doing distance learning from school, but they're getting some kind of child care and they're getting some support from some adults.

Are you seeing programs that you think are helping? I would say especially the Latinx community but just in general communities that need extra supports right now, or are you kind of discouraged by the state of affairs right now?

Maria: I do see a lot of help, and you know, in lieu of having our governments at all levels help these kids, you do see philanthropists stepping up and helping with different programs and helping families with food, helping families maybe pay their rent and also in this case helping families distribute computers. People are very kind and they always try to help. You know, we shouldn’t underestimate the kindness of the American people.

There was one, um, case of a family that I covered also for CBS earlier this year, just a couple of months ago, where these three little boys, the Hernandez boys, they had only two computers—one that was provided by the school, another one that they had at home, and then the third boy, who was eight years old, had to do his homework on his father’s phone. And that created a problem only because it's very difficult for you to do homework on a phone.

Not to mention the fact that the data would be more expensive for this family when the father is unemployed because he lost his job because of COVID and the mother is a housewife; she stays home taking care of the kids. So when we heard this story, I got so many tweets of people wanting to step up and wanting to help and wanting to donate a computer to these kids, and finally one person did get in touch with the family and did send the little boy an extra laptop.

But, you know, we have to rely on the kindness of our neighbors, of organizations, um, so that we can have this. But let’s say that we get enough computers out there—that would get enough laptops—and that some philanthropy says, "Okay, we need a million in L.A., in California, we’re going to give them a million." There's also the issue of having access to Wi-Fi. In Texas, for example, there was one area where there was a school bus that was retrofitted to become a Wi-Fi hotspot, going to communities where they knew that these families, these low-income families, didn’t have access to it. There were some families that told us that they have to get in the car and drive to the parking lot of a McDonald's or a Walmart or another store so that they're able to use those hotspots.

That is a serious issue; that's a serious problem, and I don’t know what the solution is. I mean, they said money is it; is it always that we throw money into things and then they get solved? Um, you know, money does help. But in this case, it's going to be, it takes a lot more.

You know, I interviewed a teacher of these three Hernandez boys that I mentioned to you, and she told me that her main concern was not the fact that they might stay behind. She says, "They're smart kids; they're young enough where they will eventually catch up." She was worried about their security. She was worried that if they're not in school, that maybe they live in areas that might be a little dangerous and they go out on the streets and put themselves in danger, or that because the parents go home, the older kids have to take care of their younger siblings; therefore, don't have the ability of spending enough time and having enough attention to the classes that are being given online.

Sal: Yeah, it's a super tough situation. You know, we had Dr. Fauci on a couple of weeks ago, and you know when we played out how this all might work, and you know, I've talked to other folks who are very well steeped in the epidemiology of the pandemic. It looks like the best-case scenario is that we're looking at an unusual circumstance that we're in maybe for another 9, 10, or 12, you know, the next year—and there’s even some probability it goes beyond the next year if some of these early vaccines don’t work out.

And so given that, let’s just say we’re looking at a year of, um, you know, a health crisis, a year of a lot of service industries being really difficult, you know, restaurant transportation, travel, and a year of some form of distance or hybrid learning. What do you—where do you think this is going to leave us a year from now? If we’re having the same conversation, what do you think is going to happen to society and especially a lot of the populations, a lot of the folks that that you've been working with over the last many decades?

Maria: Um, you know, I think they're going to be hurting very much. You know, people keep saying we're all in this together and we're on the same boat, but we're not. It's the same storm but we're in different boats; some are in yachts, others are in sailboats, and others are in rickety little boats that can easily turn over. And we have to take into consideration that not everyone can survive this; not everyone can have homeschooling or special tutors.

So I, you know, it affects everyone. We're talking mostly about kids right now, but when you talk about businesses that will not be able to survive, families that will not be able to pay the rent, uh, even though there was a moratorium on rent, there's so many families that can become homeless if those, that moratorium doesn't extend for several more months or whatever is needed. In some states like California, that has been extended by the governor, but it can happen. And you also have to think of the landlords.

Well, you know, they're paying that also. There are some landlords that might have multiple homes, and there are some that might be depending only on the rent of that person in order to be able to pay their own bills. So it's a domino effect that doesn't have to be. And I think that's what's the most frustrating thing: if everyone just cooperated and everyone followed the rules, this would be over so much faster.

You know, we see—we see it in New Zealand; we see it in countries that took action early on and didn't open up too fast. And also I think another problem that we have here in the United States is that there's no uniformity. Um, it's not only the, you know, it's not only that the federal government doesn't have any specific regulations or mandates; it's that they vary state by state, and even within the state, they vary county by county. So what do you do? I mean, how do you solve a problem when it might be better in the area where you live, and maybe your neighboring area is much worse, or maybe better, and do you move there and create another housing crisis?

It's, you know, I do see it as a major problem, and you're right, it could go on a lot longer. Um, I know my daughters and I, who are working from home, they're 23 and 25, and you know, we've realized that we have to think that at least the rest of this year, this is the way it's going to be instead of worrying every day and every week, "Is this going to be over? Do we have, you know, is it going to be next week or the week after, the month after?" Let’s just assume that the rest of the year this is the way that we're going to live. But it could happen beyond that, like you say; it could very well happen beyond that, and we have to prepare for this.

I think it's going to take a catastrophe to shake us up and say, "Okay, we got to do something." Maybe it's going to take a complete shutdown of the country in order for us—God willing, no! Wear some wood; knock on wood; let's hope that doesn't happen. But if it's necessary, then it should happen because we can't go on like this. It's, it's just hurting everyone. Every single person is being hurt by this, especially families.

Sal: And families, absolutely. And it's definitely—there's levers that are, you know, out of your, my controls. But as you mentioned, the federal and the state-level pandemic response, we have patterns, other countries—quicker testing, etc. And then, you know, what are the economic safeguards, which it does—you know, you bring up a good point. It's not just a moratorium on evictions or rent; you know, the landlords, some of them are also very vulnerable. So you have to go through the whole system all the way through the banks and the financing system and whatever else.

I'm getting a ton of questions here on social media. This first one from Chris Young from Facebook—he's a high school teacher new to ESL, new to English as a second language. He's asking, "What are my must-dos to be better at including my Hispanic community?"

Maria: Well, yeah, you know, I'm glad that you brought that up because some of the most vulnerable are also kids that are taking ESL classes and kids that have special needs. Um, how do you get to them? I mean, without that personal contact, uh, you know, what do you tell this teacher? The most important thing is, is even if there are to be less hours of learning, there needs to be consistency. Uh, the kids need to feel that it's something important; they need to feel that they're doing something important and that it's making a difference.

So I think that consistency, um, is going to help them understand not to get discouraged. You know, it might take a lot longer for them to learn, but it's better for to take longer than for them not to be learning at all. So, you know, whatever ESL teachers can do, you know, make an extra effort because they have extra needs to teach these kids online and to keep them engaged and—and, and make them interested and—and understanding that it's important for them to do this every single day, even if it's on weekends, you know? Why not?

Sal: Yeah, to actually stay engaged, it seems like the name of the game right now and make sure they have not just the academic, yeah, the social engagement. There's a question here. This is, you know, this is actually a really interesting question that I'll broaden a little bit. From YouTube, Dave Hankins says, “Maria, as a journalist reporting on what's going on, how do you feel about the misinformation that's being spread about COVID that's not necessarily based on science or reality? I have noticed that many people are still in denial about how serious it really is and will continue to be."

And I'll broaden that question even broader than COVID because it seems like the nature of media has somewhat changed over the last few decades, where it feels like it's more polarized. That, you know, people talk a lot about social media, where you can kind of be in your own bubble and only kind of hear what you want to hear. But it also feels like that has happened even in the mainstream media where, you know, I’ve at least read things in the media that, you know, some of the incentives, even in the media houses, seem to be much more focused about just purely engaging folks and getting them hooked versus, you know, giving the middle-of-the-road information that may not necessarily be what they want to hear, but it's actually closer to the truth.

How do you view that? How do you view the evolution of media? Are you seeing the same types of trends? And how do you think we can get to a world where, you know, the media is playing that role as that fourth estate, the institution that kind of makes sure that we all have good information and holds us accountable?

Maria: Exactly! That's the role of the media—to seek the truth, to denounce injustice and corruption. Yet, we are being threatened, and I think it also threatens democracy. I mean, the media is a pillar of democracy. Um, it's one of the pillars of democracy, I should say. You know, I think it's very dangerous when people don't believe the media, and I understand what you're saying that the media is also divided.

And, and you have—and I think this is especially true when you have these 24-hour news channels where they had 24 hours to fill with all this information. And also the trend that started a few years ago of not only journalists presenting shows on these 24-hour show networks, but also, uh, people that are not journalists. People that are commentators, uh, people that are celebrities or commentators, they're not journalists.

So if you see someone sitting behind a desk reading with graphics on the side, to you, they look like any anchor, any journalist that is reporting, and it's not necessarily so. They are doing commentary; they are giving their opinion, which is something that a journalist doesn't do.

But if you watch ABC, CBS, and NBC News, you're going to see something very different. Uh, I think that's where you get most of your information, but then you have half an hour only, and out of that half an hour, it's really only 22 minutes of information of the whole world because of the commercial break. So there's very little time for that.

So I think, you know, really, people need to do their research. You know, they need to—that's their responsibility also to be out there to read as many sorts of different sources as they can. Um, I know in my social media some people say, "Oh, I'm not gonna listen to the media; I'm going to listen to the experts." And then you think, okay, how are they going to listen to the experts if it's not through the media?

Because the expert is not going to call you up or send you an email and tell you this is the way things are. You know what an expert is going to do is have a press conference and make sure that the media has the information that they can relay to the people but, but it does worry me—all these conspiracy theories. I mean, you see very smart, intelligent people believing some of these conspiracy theories.

And you know, I think it happens all the time. We have 350 million, I think, people in the country, and we have 160-something thousand that have died. So if it doesn’t—so the great majority of people are not affected by this. Um, they don't—not—they may not know someone who has gotten sick or—or who has died. So if it doesn't affect you, you don't believe it. But the moment it does, the moment you have someone in your family getting sick or dying, is—that's what it takes for you to take this seriously.

Um, you know, and I don't know that there’s anything we can do about that, honestly. I wish there was a response; I wish I could tell you this is the secret sauce, this is the secret to to everybody paying attention and listening and believing, but that's not gonna happen. People, you know, have these conspiracy theories, and they're going to continue to have these conspiracy theories no matter how much you tell them that it's not true—but it's very dangerous. It's very, very dangerous.

Sal: I mean, to your point, something like the crisis we're in, it might be like that type of reality where at some point those opinions don't matter anymore because at some point you do know folks. I mean, I just—in our broader friend circle, we know at least two people who've actually passed away from COVID, um, and and so I'm guessing it is going to start hitting a lot, a lot more folks.

I mean, related to that, have you seen, like when you talk to journalists—people you've been working with for decades—do they feel like, yeah, you know, it's the good old days? The good old days we were all about, you know, getting the information out there; we weren't as concerned with, you know, hooking people in. We could, you know, it wasn't just about sound bites—while now it's much shorter; it's all about grabbing attention. Is there that trend? I mean, that's—I obviously I've asked that in a somewhat biased way. That's at least my perception of how things have evolved.

Maria: Yeah, well, you know, in local news, there's a saying that if it bleeds, it leads, um, which means that yeah, most media, especially local media, always looks at something that can grab you. Why? Because people have the option of watching different channels, and you want to grab them from the beginning.

And you know that just goes to tell you that people are very curious. I don't want to use the word morbid, but usually those that are more sensationalist are the ones that have the highest ratings. People want to watch, and then they say, I don't want to know; I don't want to know, but I'm watching. I mean, that happens all the time.

I do think that we wish we were in the good old days where we were reporting news and and not being questioned the way we are questioned now. I'll tell you one thing that really affects people is the rhetoric against the media, mainstream media, coming from the highest levels of government.

Um, and you know, I worked in Spanish language media for decades, like you mentioned at the beginning, and we know we've covered a lot of authoritarian governments in Latin America, and we know that authoritarian governments, what they do is one of the first things they do is try to silence the media.

They either kill them, for example, like in Khashoggi's case, or they close down their business, or they put them in jail. They do anything that they can to silence them. I know recently I was in Nicaragua, and the way they tried to silence the media there is by kind of forcing them to go digital because they put a special tax on importing the products to publish the newspaper, the paper, the ink, the equipment.

And then another way of doing it is calling them the enemy of the people; it's by discrediting journalism and discrediting journalists. You know, I sometimes watch these 24-hour news— that say I watch CNN quite a bit, and I'm astonished when I see some of these journalists that I've been watching for years—that I know are very good journalists—that I know are, I shouldn't say objective, because objectivity doesn't exist anymore—that are balanced, that give perspective because that's what journalists are supposed to be doing constantly—fact-checking.

They're spending their whole time on the air fact-checking, fact-checking, fact-checking, fact-checking and and playing devil's advocate against people—the non-believers. And you know, I think what's happening now has pushed people to be that way. Um, but I still think it's a noble profession. I'm still very honored to be a journalist, and I still do believe that our profession is a profession that we need to be proud of and that, you know, we are there to serve the public. We are there—we are the only barrier between those in power and those that they are trying to reach.

Sal: Um, so if we weren't so important, they wouldn't be trying to silence us.

Maria: I completely agree! And, and as you point out, you know, now with social media where anyone can publish anything, uh, I think couldn't be more important than any other point in history.

Uh, well Maria, you know, whenever we're having these interesting conversations, the time goes way faster than I ever expect. I could talk to you for hours, but I just really wanted to thank you on my behalf and the whole Khan Academy team and all the viewers we have for joining us. I think we learned a lot, and I hope we can do this again.

Maria: Thank you so much, Sal! I really appreciate the opportunity, and sorry sometimes I tend to talk too much and go on and on and on, but you know these are issues that I'm passionate about. I know that you are too, and I I thank you on behalf of the Latino community for also having this forum and making sure that students of different nationalities in the country and the world have some kind of support so that they can, you know, continue—so they can get ahead. Education is one of the most important things that we can have, and I think that everyone is very well aware of that, and in our case in the Latino community, immigrant families know that education is the only way their kids won't have to go through what they went through in order to get ahead. So thank you so much for what you do.

Sal: Thank you! Well, everyone, thanks so much for joining today's live stream. You know, every time I think we're like 10 minutes into it and we—I realize I'm 31 minutes into it because there's so much to talk about. But I hope you enjoyed the conversation today with Maria as much as I did.

I look forward to more of these conversations; we're going to have Lester Holt on tomorrow, and I think we'll actually be able to continue to some degree this conversation about the media and also, you know, I always find it interesting because, you know, journalists report on what's going on in the world, but these are also very thoughtful folks who are seeing aspects of society in the world that many of us don't get to see. And so I think they really form really interesting perspectives about, you know, the context that we're in and maybe ways to get out of them or make them better.

But once again, thanks so much for joining, and I will see you all tomorrow!