Rossana Rosado's Bronx Attitude

**Brian Lehrer** (0:10)
It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. People in New York Journalism Circles know my next guest as the Emmy Award-winning and Peabody Award-winning former editor and publisher of El Diario-La Prensa, the city's oldest Spanish language newspaper. She was also a WNYC intern on her way into the field. People in government and criminal justice circles know her these days as Governor Kathy Hochul's Commissioner of the Division of Criminal Justice Services, and maybe you just know her if you're from the Bronx. Rossana Rosado has a new memoir out now called Bronx Attitude. You know, I used to call you Rosana as a journalism colleague. Now, I guess I should call you Commissioner. Welcome back to WNYC.

**Rossana Rosado** (0:56)
Thank you, Brian. So good to be back.

**Brian Lehrer** (0:58)
I actually was surprised to see in the book on page 101, I didn't know it was coming, that you were a WNYC intern. That was before I was here. So what kind of internship did you have? And what did you get out of it? Something good, I hope, at the time.

**Rossana Rosado** (1:13)
Oh, it was actually wonderful. It's when the city actually owned the station. We were in the municipal building. I don't know if you still are. But the offices were on one floor and then the studio was all the way in the tower. So it was an unpaid job, but they paid me in two rolls of tokens a week because I lived in a double fare zone in the Bronx, where I had to take a bus to the train. I had associate producer credit on a show called Amanecer. It was English language, but about the Latino community. It had an art section and then we always interview someone. We interviewed Raul Julia at the time was in the Play 9 on Broadway.
As this intern, I got to write the script, serve the coffee, go upstairs to the tower, escort guests onto the show. It was a TV show. So I got a lot out of it. It was the early days. I want to say it was 1983
The 1980 census had predicted that the 80s would be the decade of the Hispanic. So it was in those early days. I think the 90s became more of the decade, but I got great experience. I was there for six months. We did 13 shows, and then I went to work for ABC, All News 88 radio.

**Brian Lehrer** (2:31)
All you got paid in was subway tokens. What's a subway token? I'm kidding.
The WNYC story you told in the book was about your interview as an intern here with the actor, Raul Julia, who you just mentioned, that came up later when you were at, I think it was CBS, in the context of Puerto Rican actors playing Italian characters and Italian actors playing Puerto Ricans. Would you like to tell that story?

**Rossana Rosado** (3:00)
Sure. It was the guy who did reviews. Well, the station closed last year, but he was still there till the end. He said to me, I told him I had seen the play Nine, and Raul Julia was a hero in our Puerto Rican community.
He said, I don't like the fact that there was a Puerto Rican playing an Italian. I was young and a little intimidated by Lions, that was his name. I said, well, Italians have been playing Puerto Ricans for years and to see West Side Story. So it was interesting being a young Latina reporter in a newsroom like ABC, where there were people from all over, but also very New York. It was a station very ingrained in New York lore.

**Brian Lehrer** (3:49)
Was that talking back as a young journalist, young Latina journalist to this established radio theater critic, was that an example of your Bronx attitude?

**Rossana Rosado** (4:03)
Yes. Some people say, it was a tough time too. I was a little intimidated, but when someone says something you totally disagree with and you're from the Bronx, you just let them have it. I think it's not just Bronx, I'm from the Bronx, but I think there's an outer borough thing. When you come into Manhattan, you're making your living and people push you in certain ways.
Your borough personality comes out and you say, it took me a while to get here. I had the longest train ride, so I want to let you know that I have a right to be here too.

**Brian Lehrer** (4:37)
There you go. I was born in the Bronx and raised in Queens, so I've got it twice. Why did you call the book Bronx Attitude?