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At This Hour
Kim Jong-Un Makes Appearance with Limp; Chris Cuomo Discovers His Roots
Aired October 14, 2014 - 11:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We want to take you to Hong Kong right now. A new face-off between protesters and police there. Look at this, this is a video of the demonstration zone. Riot police with masks, shields, batons and pepper spray hit the streets trying to tap down a new wave of protests. Authorities say the officers tried to reach protesters through a tunnel, but instead got cornered themselves.
Now just yesterday, police removed barricades and reopened key roads after weeks of peaceful sit-ins protesting limits that Chinese officials have put on candidates in local elections. We're going to continue to monitor this and get back to you as soon as we get more information.
MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: We turn now, though, to North Korea. Apparently, that nation threw the world a bit of a bone, releasing what it's calling new pictures of Kim Jong-Un, their Dear Leader, with a cane. His whereabouts have been a mystery for more than a month. There's been speculation the discomfort he has been feeling is getting more serious.
BERMAN: But could part of this problem be doctors are trying to make him look like his legendary grandfather?
Our Paula Hancocks learned some shocking details about the family.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He's back with a smile and a walking stick. North Korean leader, Kim Jong-Un, is on the front page of the country's newspaper Tuesday doing what he does best, giving field guidance. No date given for the visit or the photos, but this should quell some rumors about where he's been for the past five weeks.
Kim Jong-Un had a profound limp before disappearing. State media admitted he was feeling discomfort. But it may be more than that, according to Dr. Kim So-Yeon, personal doctor to his grandfather, Kim Il Song, and familiar with the medical history of his father, Kim Jong-Il. She says both suffered diabetes, heart problems and stress.
"There are a lot of psychological problems he inherited," she tells me. "And there's a history of obesity. But what's more serious is that I think Kim Jung-Un was artificially made to look that way to look more like Kim Il-Sung."
Dr. Kim, who defected in 1992, suspects hormones shots to make him look like his grandfather, the founder of North Korea and a man many North Koreans still have a found memory of. She also believes Kim Jong-Un's face is swollen due to painkillers. And his reappearance may be temporary, forced by the intense worldwide scrutiny on his disappearance.
(on camera): There were more news bulletins throughout the day, each of them showing Kim Jong-Un seemingly back at work. And this was probably not just for an international audience but also for a domestic audience, trying to show their leader is, even if not in complete health, seemingly in complete control.
John and Michaela back to you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PEREIRA: Paula Hancocks, what an interesting look. I never would have considered it.
BERMAN: Look, the reclusive nature of the nation invites conspiracy theories.
PEREIRA: Absolutely. Where do you sit on that side?
BERMAN: Always on the side of the conspiracy.
PEREIRA: So yesterday, you weren't here, but I got to take our viewers on a personal journey to learn more about my roots. My story took me to Jamaica. And, John, I wanted to bring you something from there and you weren't here yesterday so I'm giving you your gift now. Are you ready?
BERMAN: Careful, we're on TV.
PEREIRA: It was an emotional journey and this seemed like the answer for you.
BERMAN: Oh, that's good. Very nice.
PEREIRA: Put it on. Let's see.
BERMAN: I'm not going to put it on but --
(CROSSTALK)
PEREIRA: Wait. You won't put this on?
BERMAN: No, we have to go to break.
PEREIRA: Really? That doesn't seem right.
BERMAN: @THISHOUR, Chris Cuomo searched for answers.
(CROSSTALK) BERMAN: "Roots, Our Journey Home."
PEREIRA: How about that?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PEREIRA: This is a tremendous opportunity we're getting at CNN. 13 CNN anchors and hosts have gone on this journey to find out who they are. Yesterday, you had a chance to experience along with me my journey to find my roots. A DNA test connected me to Jamaica, so I went there and found my roots.
BERMAN: It's part of CNN's series, "Roots, Our Journey Home." And today, we learned about Mr. Chris Cuomo, the co-anchor of "New Day." He chased his story all the way to Italy.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(MUSIC)
CHRIS CUOMO, CO-ANCHOR, NEW DAY (voice-over): How did I wind up here?
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: That's what I was thinking clutching a ball slathered in pig fat with men climbing over me in a place I'd never heard of in Italy.
(SHOUTING)
CUOMO: The mystery about my family that led me here was even more surprising, especially since I thought I knew the whole story.
(MUSIC)
MARIO CUOMO, (D), FORMER NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: Here we are at this convention to remind ourselves where we come from.
CUOMO: For many, my lineage comes as no surprise. That's my pop, Mario Cuomo, former governor of New York.
CUOMO: We speak for ethnics who want to add their culture to the magnificent mosaic that is America.
CUOMO: He spoke for years about his Italian heritage, and the struggle that led to not one but two men holding the highest street in the greatest state.
ANDREW CUOMO, (D), GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK: We come into the chamber, we're not Democrats, we're not Republicans, we're New Yorkers working for New York.
CUOMO: That's Andrew, my brother, the governor of New York today.
I knew it all cold about who we are and how the Cuomos got here, et cetera. So I thought. Turns out, I was right about my mom's family but my father's side had
a big fat mystery. It is true that he was a first-generation American and he grew up sleeping in the basement of this grocery store in South Jamaica, Queens. And my grandparents did come to this country working like dogs, suffering bigotry, all to build a better life. A legacy, thanks to my great grandparents.
But that's where the mystery begins.
So let's talk about something interesting, like me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Perfect.
CUOMO: What do we know?
CUOMO: The folks at ancestry.com uncovered the story of how the Cuomos came here --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In digging more --
CUOMO: -- is very different from what I heard.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- this is the first document of the Cuomos.
CUOMO: This is very cool.
Looking back at the records a century ago in the U.S. in these teeny tiny villages, we found a trail no one had ever followed. Donato Cuomo, he came first. For months, he dug ditches and saved and borrowed to send for his loving wife, my grandmother. Her name was Germana Castaldo. Or was it?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Her family is right here. She's listed as Germana Costanza. This is the death of Germana. She's Germana Costanza, Maria Delia and Germania Castaldo.
CUOMO: That doesn't sound good.
(LAUGHTER)
CUOMO: Who was she and where did she come from? Why did she keep changing her name in the story about who she was?
The story I grew up with on who she was and who she became to be known as my great grandmother was all wrong. Fake.
There's only one way to figure out the real deal.
So you believe I need to go to this place and see if I can track it down?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Absolutely.
CUOMO: I'm just the man for the task.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think you can handle it. (MUSIC)
CUOMO: My great grandmother's life had to begin in Italy. So did our journey of discovery. When I told my wife I had to go to the Italian countryside on assignment, she wasn't buying it. So I brought her along with my oldest, Bella, to hunt for answers to where my blood comes from.
I believe this would have been the church.
Kind of cool, too. The latest generation of Cuomos looking for the earliest.
The last document we found was key. My great grandmother's birth was in a tiny unknown place called Casa Castaldo (ph), high above the sea. She was born here in 1869. The question is, to whom?
The good news is that her name is all over the place, Castaldo. Turns out, back in the day, the Castaldo family ruled here. So maybe we're not peasant stock after all. Royalty, baby!
Word spread that I was here tracking down my roots and a local historian came around to help. What he had to offer took the story in a very different direction. Far from the gilded center of the city, he took us down a lonely side street.
UNIDENTIFIED LOCAL HISTORIAN (through translation): In this street, in one of these doorways, there was an orphanage. There was a woman took in the orphans, the children that were abandoned and took care of them before someone adapted them.
CUOMO: So this is the sad part of the story. This street, this is where my great grandmother was given up for adoption. We're told that basically babies were just left on the ground, there was a knock on the door and the people would take off. Why? It was a rich town. Maybe it was somebody who was very wealthy known, had had an indiscretion. Maybe it was someone who didn't want a baby. Either way, she would be given the name Castaldo because that was the ruling family in this area. So it doesn't mean she came from that family, just that it was a common name. But this is where her life began, where some woman she didn't know wound up taking care of her. And later on in life, she'd wind up marrying the man who would bring the Cuomos to America.
But that led us to the next part of the mystery, their wedding. Church records pointed us to another Italian village I'd never heard of, where I had much deeper roots than I would have ever imagined. The tiny Italian city of SantArsenio.
(SINGING)
So we don't even have to guess about it. This is Nicola, the deputy mayor here in SantArsenio. And he says he has documents that prove that my great grandparents were married right here in this church.
What do they say? UNIDENTIFIED DEPUTY MAYOR: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
CUOMO: So 1890. So they were married in this place.
UNIDENTIFIED DEPUTY MAYOR: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
CUOMO: Germana Castaldo. That's my great grandmother's name, but remember, she used other ones.
What about the other names she used? Gemma, Delia? No, she wasn't a criminal. The writing was literally on the wall.
We've got another piece of the puzzle. Dominic and I meet on the plane and he says, where are you going. I say SantArsenio. He says, hey, I live in SantArsenio when I'm not in Jersey City. He then asked my I'm coming. I told him I was trying to trace my great grandmother, the Cuomo family. He says he knows something about it, takes me to this plaque.
What do you know, my friend?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My dad once told me that the Delia family immigrated to Jersey City.
CUOMO: Delia is part of the family that the Cuomos were also a part of. And there are some of that family who were in Jersey City.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right. It all ties back to Saint Orsenio.
CUOMO: Had you ever heard of any connection to the Cuomos?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's rumor of connection to the Cuomos going back.
CUOMO: But what was that connection? Who was this Delia and why was he on that wall, and why was my great grandmother using his name? That part of the mystery would have to wait.
But our little investigation wasn't the only thing going on in SantArsenio. When they heard we had roots here, we got conscripted into the man testing that's part of a festival weekend. And the townspeople had big plans for me.
This is the solemn festival in honor of San Rocco. "Events, participating will be Chris Cuomo directly from CNN. Participating in what?
(MUSIC)
CUOMO: We had an amazing time from these beautiful people, some of whom could be cousins. We played games, drank some wine, maybe too much. The next thing I knew I was staring at this.
So here's how this works. This is like the main event of this festival where they climb this pole that's like 45 feet high. It takes four of them. The pole is greased with this pig grease soap stuff. I'm going to be the first guy and I'm going to hold on.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Up? Up? OK.
CUOMO: The good news is, you can now say I'm a real member of the village. The bad news is, I loved that shirt and I smelled like feet for a while.
For all we had learned, though, we still had one last stop, the coast.
The Cuomos left their tiny villages up in the hills and came down to the Tyrrhenian Sea. But when they looked out, they didn't just see open water. They saw their future, America.
My great grandfather, Donato, became what's now known as a bird of passage, someone who traveled to the new world to make his fortune. Some fortune, though. The $16 voyage was more than he had to his name. But he and his mysterious bride would make it to the new world and their progeny would lead to the man talking to you now.
But what about the other names and parts of the family we learned about? Remember Dominic and what he told us about the Delias? Turns out, Francesco Delia was my great grandmother's adoptive father. The Delias would make it big in the new world, too, in, you guessed it, Jersey City. And they sent a big chunk of that money home to SantArsenio.
Oh, and my team on the greased pole? They went on to win the competition, with me.
And my family left Italy with a new understanding of who we are. And remember, for the Cuomos, (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE), family is everything.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PEREIRA: What an adventure. That was so cool.
BERMAN: Really wonderful. So great he got to take his daughter along.
PEREIRA: I know.
BERMAN: Coming up, Chris will be here. He'll tell us what it was like behind the scenes. What it was like to hold on to that pole.
PEREIRA: Was that three men? Oh!
(LAUGHTER)
BERMAN: We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BERMAN: I've heard it from you. It's surprising to me there was such a big piece that you didn't know about.
CUOMO: Thank you for embarrassing me about that, John.
(LAUGHTER)
It was surprising. And when I learned why my great-grandmother hadn't said anything, that there was fear, embarrassment. We were talking about this a lot, about what it meant for her in that generation to have been orphaned. And then to come to this country and not get the help from that family, it was hard for them. But it was also very interesting. It's unusual in life we get to tell a story that surprised us. Let alone, about ourselves.
PEREIRA: And on the company dime.
CUOMO: Yeah.
PEREIRA: But it's magical you were able to take your eldest, Bella, with you. You had old world and new world. Most kids today don't get a chance to do that.
CUOMO: Yeah. A lot of it gets lost in terms of who you are and what matters and what doesn't. Everybody's roots matter to them. That's what's so compelling about this series and why I'm so interested in hearing about the stories of everybody else. And my own, because I didn't like to know. But in my family, especially -- again, doesn't make us unusual, but it is certainly central to my upbringing -- was that family is everything. It wasn't just an Italian stereotype. When you're in politics and you're new immigrants, you feel there's a lot against you. You feel that you have to fight. And it really galvanizes you.
BERMAN: When you were there, did you get the sense from the people there that they were excited that you were so interested in tracing these roots?
CUOMO: The truth? They were very excited when they knew a Cuomo was coming. But when it was not Mario --
(LAUGHTER)
-- when it was not Andrew, or when it was not Matilda, it went down a little bit. When they found out it was me, they were like --
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: Then I stood at the base of the pole and had the men climb on me.
PEREIRA: Well, you had other things. You had some great behind-the- scenes pictures. You and your producer and the family went. We'll have all of that stuff posted on our website.
CUOMO: John Griffin did all this. He could not take enough pictures of me in bad situations. This is a great one. To bring the kid, my oldest, and my wife was a tremendous experience.
(CROSSTALK) CUOMO: This is us back in Queens. This is Andrew in front. I'm the pipsqueak in the back.
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: No. That was my father, actually. He was wearing a wig. Sometimes we do that.
PEREIRA: You would wear a wig?
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: If you gave me something --
(CROSSTALK)
PEREIRA: If I gave you a wig, you would wear it while dressed in a suit?
CUOMO: Michaela, I'm a Jamaican.
PEREIRA: You are.
BERMAN: I thought that was a moving piece.
Thank you for joining us.
CUOMO: I can't wait to see yours.
PEREIRA: All of this information will be online, CNN.com/roots. More this week. Stay tuned for more.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PEREIRA: Women who work in science and engineering make up 33 percent more -- they make 33 percent more than women in other fields. The problem is, though, so few are working in those areas. The woman you're about to meet has made it her mission to get girls interested in math using dance.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KIREN SINHA, FOUNDER, SHINE: Form a circle.
PEREIRA (voice-over): It may look like they're playing games but these girls are doing geometry.
Perfect.
PEREIRA: The combination is the brainchild of dancer and MIT graduate Kiren Sinha, who based her program SHINE on the therapy of kinesthetic learning.
SINHA: This concept that by moving your body and using your brain simultaneously, you're able to better retain information. I couldn't recite the periodic table. But I can still play piano pieces or do dances to moves that I learned years and years ago.
Two units to the positive X direction.
PEREIRA: The girls act out math problems using games and dance moves.
SINHA: This one, you reflect over an axis.
PEREIRA: Sinha says the results speak for themselves.
SINHA: We saw almost a 300 percent improvement in their math scores. We got over 100 percent improvement in competence. So much of what this program is about is not only getting girls' competency up but a lot of it is about attitude, how they view themselves and the field.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Before this, it was more of like, oh, the nerds do the math. You can still have fun doing a dance and then you're away from that stereotype.
PEREIRA: It's that changing attitude that SHINE believes may be the key to inspiring girls everywhere to stick with STEMS.
SINHA: I think this is the kind of programming that can help girls all over the country regardless of where they are. It's a really exciting time of growth and it's a real chance for us to change an entire generation.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PEREIRA: Really innovative.
BERMAN: Whatever works.
PEREIRA: Exactly.
Thanks for joining us. I'm Michaela Pereira.
BERMAN: I'm John Berman.
"LEGAL VIEW" with Ashleigh Banfield starts right now.
