What: “Latino in America”
Where: CNN (unless pre-empted by breaking news)
When: the first half debuts at 3 p.m. tomorrow, rerunning at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m.; the second half airs at the same times Thursday.
When else: Saturday (first half) and Sunday (second half) at 2 p.m.; each reruns at 5 p.m., 8 p.m. and 10 p.m.

Soledad O'Brien's most vivid view of Latino immigration was her grandmother.
“She came from Cuba in the '80s” with no English, O'Brien recalled. “She was able to say 'Hello' and 'Bye bye.'”
That's all she needed, amid the warmth of the family. O'Brien's father (Irish) and mother (black and Cuban) were headlong in the assimilation rush of middle-class America.
Today, her own four young children are being immersed in multiple cultures. And O'Brien has an ambitious, four-hour documentary series, “Latino in America.”
The first half is titled “Los Garcias,” because it starts with the fact that Garcia is now the eighth most common surname in the U.S. “Garcias are everywhere,” O'Brien said. “Some are black; some speak Spanish, some don't.”
The second half is called “Chasing the Dream,” a complex subject.
Historically, immigrant families have achieved quickly, O'Brien said. “You have this incredible value put on education.”
She views the prosperity of Cuban immigrants in the 1950s. She visits Pico Rivera, a California city of 64,000 that is 93 percent Latino and very upscale. “(We) want to see, 'What's the secret of Pico Rivera? Is this a metaphor of what will happen in this country as the number of Latinos explodes?'”
And she views Orlando, Fla., where the Latino population has quadrupled since 1980, with 56 percent of the Latinos being Puerto Rican.
People in Puerto Rico have officially been Americans since 1917, but their school system often fails to teach them English. “I talked to Carlos, who said, 'I'm educated in American schools …. I should be able to come here and do well,” O'Brien said.
After going through the police academy in Puerto Rico, he's now been struggling to pass a written exam that would lead to a $39,000-a-year job as a sheriff's deputy in Orlando. His fiance graduated from college in Puerto Rico, got a teaching degree there, but then was making $5.35 an hour at a fast-food place in Orlando.
O'Brien met a variety of people “being embraced or vilified.”
She found success stories everywhere. Latinos in Orlando praised Disney World as a place to work; O'Brien was enthusiastic about “Desperate Housewives” star Eva Longoria Parker, who discussed her Texas roots. “She is such an activist …. She said, 'I'm American; my family has been here for nine generations. My people have not moved; the border moved.'”
On the flip side, she looked at the events in Shenandoah, a Pennsylvania town that has struggled since the coal mines closed. “Luis Ramirez (was) beaten to death by six white boys, and they have all pretty much gotten simple assault (convictions) in their trial.”
That, too, may be part of being Latino in America.