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Suketu Mehta: An Immigrant's Manifesto — Transcript

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0:00[Applause]
0:06thank you very much pleasure to be here
0:12in Chicago particularly since both of my
0:15sons attended the University of Chicago
0:18one of them is still here and his last
0:20clear land is here in the audience with
0:22quite an honor for me to be here in
0:25their University so I'd like to talk
0:31today about immigration which is the
0:34topic close to my heart since I'm an
0:36immigrant myself I came here from Bombay
0:42I came to the United States when I was
0:4614 I migrated to Jackson Heights in
0:51Queens which for those of you might be
0:53familiar with New York it's the most
0:55diverse neighborhood in the country
0:58there's more languages spoken in that
1:00one zip code one one three seven two
1:03than in any other sub code in the
1:05country so I came at the age of fourteen
1:08and my parents put me into what they
1:11thought was the nearest good school
1:12which turned out to be an all-boys
1:15deeply racist Catholic school and on my
1:19second day in the school this kid with
1:24red hair and freckles comes up to me and
1:26says and I was just fitting eating my
1:29lunch and face Lincoln should have never
1:31let him off the plantation and I said
1:34but what does have to do with me this
1:39was also the school where during the
1:43Iranian hostage crisis I was walking
1:49down the hallways with the only other
1:53real minority in the school who by my
1:56senior year was my name ashish and his
2:02presence was revealed to me
2:05by this blood cry hey may dad have not a
2:08high no in school she's turned out to be
2:12Jane but I didn't expect them to know
2:13the difference
2:15it's the Iranian hostage crisis we're
2:18walking down hallways and this other kid
2:20comes up to his ayatollahs I
2:24said hey hey we ain't Iranian two
2:26Iranians and the kid thinks this is
2:28Gandhi's so I knew the Queens
2:34that our president comes from I went to
2:38school with the children of the Donald
2:45Trump Trump grew up in a place called
2:48Jamaica estates which was an all-white
2:50Enclave and these were you know if you
2:56ever seen the show all in a family in
2:58Archie Bunker that's basically the
3:03version of the man we had sitting in the
3:05White House and I had deep acquaintance
3:08with these four people because East
3:12Elmhurst which was where my school was
3:13located was an all-white enclave and
3:15after the passage of the 1965
3:18immigration bill Queen started getting
3:21truly multiracial and multicultural and
3:25these were people who were kind of
3:28frightened of this new world of people
3:30like me so I was very happy to get out
3:37of that school and I went to NYU my
3:43parents wouldn't let me live in the
3:44dorms because they thought I'd get
3:45Americanized for commuted from Jackson
3:48Heights to Greenwich Village and now I
3:51teach at NYU because I said one way or
3:54the other I'm getting into NYU housing
4:01so I I started writing because that
4:05experience of migration really made me
4:07want to be a writer I started out
4:11writing about politics in India because
4:15those were the only kinds of assignments
4:16I could get even though I've been here
4:19since I was 13 you know no one would let
4:21me write about America I had to go back
4:23to India and write about it and so I did
4:25I wrote work AIDS in India the Union
4:28Carbide gas disaster and then I wrote an
4:35article about the very bloody
4:38hindu-muslim riots in Bombay in 92 93
4:42which is coated by a native of Hindu
4:44party called the shrimp's when I was a
4:46kind of an anti Muslim pogrom and the
4:48Muslims retaliated with a series of bomb
4:51blasts in the city so I wrote that piece
4:55it came out and it's literary magazine
4:57grunta and then I was offered a book
4:59contract to write a short book about the
5:05city of Bombay where I'd grown up and I
5:11was also supposed to write a novel so I
5:13thought I'd go back to Bombay and write
5:15a quick and dirty book about a quick and
5:17dirty city it might take me a year or
5:19two seven years later I dropped a
5:24manuscript of 1667 pages on the desk of
5:29my den editor at clubs funny matter who
5:32is not a man with much leisure time and
5:36he stopped speaking to me for nine
5:38months
5:39but then he published this book called
5:42maximum City which went on to be a
5:46Pulitzer Prize finalist and got me all
5:49kinds of nice things including a book
5:51about New York well this was the only
5:55other city that I wanted to write a book
5:57about because I've spent more of my life
6:00in New York than in any other place so
6:03I've been writing a book about New York
6:05for the last ten years or so but then in
6:112016
6:14something happened which made me really
6:17question what I was doing and made me
6:21kind of change my trajectory that of
6:24course was the election of Donald Trump
6:27and for the first time I felt my place
6:30in this country questioned but every
6:33year since I've been here
6:36I've lived in England I've lived in
6:38France of lived in Brazil and I never
6:41could feel English or French or
6:43Brazilian here I thought I belonged I
6:45could be fully American that year 2016
6:51my place in the country started getting
6:53questioned and very soon after the
6:58election I was walking with my fifth in
7:02Hoboken New Jersey which had just
7:04elected a Sikh male and we were walking
7:07to get a drink to celebrate the election
7:09of this week's mayor and then this we
7:13were crossing the road and his car comes
7:15up and there's this white guy you know
7:19leaning out of the window screaming at
7:22us and for some reason he was screaming
7:24Allahu Akbar Allah Akbar it's just a--
7:29colliding you're clearly so i give him
7:30the finger
7:32and he jumped out of the car starts
7:35running after if now I'm not afraid to
7:39admit he would have beat me to a pulp
7:42so we ducked into a restaurant you know
7:45he was climbing and yelling outside then
7:48after a while he drove away and I called
7:51the cops because he was so pumped up
7:52that he was gonna go after the next
7:54brown man that he found the cops come
7:57and does this old white cop in a young
7:59Parisian cop and the white cops is all
8:02right well so so what happened we were
8:05crossing the road and then this guy came
8:09up and he said oh you were the crossing
8:14the road eh did you press the signal to
8:19cross the road did you press that for a
8:21walk fine I said no he said aha you
8:24crossed against the light and my sister
8:27said you going at his for jaywalking
8:28we should I press the light okay what
8:32what are we yelling Allahu Akbar so the
8:35cop says so what's that mean well in
8:38Arabic it means peace be upon you it
8:40says so what's wrong with that and we
8:45had to explain that it's something that
8:47might you know did sometimes yelled at
8:49people who people saying they're Muslim
8:52and it's it's not meant to be a
8:55compliment or an invocation to the
8:57Almighty and the cop looks of keenly
9:00Ennis's you don't look Muslim to me you
9:04look Indian so we had to explain that
9:06India has 200 million Indians and is the
9:09second largest Muslim country in the
9:10world which is something I've recently
9:13had to explain in India itself
9:17when I went for this thing called India
9:20today Conclave and there was a you know
9:23giant delegation of CEOs and Modi
9:25government ministers and I made the same
9:26point that India of the second largest
9:29Muslim country when a series of things
9:33happen and I thought I I have to do
9:37something else that's an emergency
9:39worldwide and that emergency is around
9:42migration and it's not just people like
9:46me it's people who live in a country
9:48other than the one they were born in
9:50today there's a quarter of a billion
9:52people like me who live in a country
9:55other than the one we were born in
9:57there's never been more people migrating
10:01and never has the backlash to this
10:03migration beans FULFILLER in country
10:06after country people are electing
10:09leaders on a way of inner phobia the
10:13ghost of the fascists are coming back in
10:15Europe and so I started thinking about
10:21you know what the terms of the debate
10:23was why people move and most of the
10:26debate in the rich countries really is
10:28about you know what's in it for us
10:32the host countries should we let in
10:35immigrants should we not let them in how
10:38many should we let in is it good for us
10:43should they be skilled or unskilled
10:45migrants and I started thinking you know
10:47what about the migrants themselves
10:49what about their point of view and then
10:52a story my grandfather once told me came
10:57to mind and it's not my book so my
10:59grandmother was born in in Gujarat in
11:02India when the British still ruled India
11:05and because the British had impoverished
11:08India he had no future in rural Gujarat
11:13so he struck out for Nairobi Kenya where
11:16his uncle had an accounting office and
11:19at 16 he began his career sweeping the
11:22floats of his uncle's accounting office
11:24Kenya was also ruled by the British
11:26there was
11:27hope for Indians like him to rise to the
11:31top but you know he became faithful
11:33manager of a Scottish multinational and
11:35then he retired in England where his son
11:38was then living for one day in the 1990s
11:41my grandfather sitting in a park in
11:43North London minding his own business
11:45and if elderly British gent comes up to
11:47heaven wags the finger at Henry says why
11:52are you here why don't you go back to
11:54where you came from
11:56my grandfather who was a Gujarati
11:58businessman said well because we are the
12:00creditors you came to my country
12:04you took my gold and my diamonds you
12:07prevented us from developing our
12:09industries so we have come here to
12:11collect if we are the creditors we are
12:18here because you were there and and I
12:24you know I thought there's a lot of
12:26truth in what he's saying to raise
12:28migrants they are moving from well first
12:34of all 85% of people that move moved
12:36from a poor to a slightly less poor
12:38country but the ones that move from
12:41India to England from Guatemala to the
12:43United States from Guinea to Spain
12:49they're doing it because the rich
12:52countries were there first and I started
12:55thinking about the you know the specific
12:59reasons why they move and it comes down
13:00to four broad categories colonialism
13:05corporate colonialism war and climate
13:08change when the British came to India at
13:12the beginning of the 18th century
13:14India's care of world GDP was 23% by the
13:20time the British left in 1947 India's
13:23share of world GDP was under 4% during
13:27the colonial period the European share
13:31of world GDP went from 20% to 60% Europe
13:36didn't develop the colonies the colonies
13:37developed Europe
13:39and it's not just what the colonial
13:43countries did when they were in the
13:46empire it's how they left
13:49anyone who acquainted with the survivors
13:55for the descendants of the survivors for
13:57partition in India and Pakistan and
14:00Bangladesh know what the effects were
14:04millions of people died over a million
14:07people were raped it was the greatest
14:09mass migration in history why because
14:11the British after ruling over the
14:12country for 200 years they had to leave
14:15in a hurry so they brought down an
14:17English barrister named Radcliffe who'd
14:20never been to India and gave him five
14:22weeks to draw two lines down a map
14:25separating what's now close to two
14:28billion people so they fell on each
14:31other I've interviewed people who
14:35participated in the riots of partition
14:37who told me these were people on the
14:38Punjab border on both sides of the
14:40Punjab border and until days after the
14:43independence of India and Pakistan they
14:46didn't know which side of the border
14:47they would be so if you were a Muslim on
14:50the Indian side you have no idea whether
14:52you'll be in Pakistan or India and the
14:55same thing with Hindus and Sikhs from
14:56the other so in both countries the
14:59majority communities went on a campaign
15:01of widespread ethnic cleansing against
15:03the minorities because the British
15:05hadn't told them which side of the
15:07border they were going to be forty
15:11percent of all the borders on the planet
15:14Earth today have been created by just
15:17two countries Britain and France if the
15:20same story in Africa you look at a map
15:22of Africa it abounds in straight lines
15:24which goes great through tribal
15:26homelands so all these small-scale Wars
15:29with conflicts that you continuously see
15:32happening in Africa there as a result of
15:36lousy colonial map making when the
15:44colonizers left
15:47the crown left but the company wouldn't
15:51so they were replaced by these
15:54corporations these multinationals in
15:57country after country where they're the
16:03went in and ruthlessly exploited their
16:06natural resources 40% of the world's
16:10multinational tax profits today are
16:12immediately moved to tax havens every
16:16year a hundred and fifty billion dollars
16:18leaves Africa alone for tax havens
16:22between 1970 and 2010 Mexico lost eight
16:27hundred and seventy two billion dollars
16:29in illegal financial outflows most of it
16:33going from corporations doing business
16:34in the country to American banks in the
16:37same period 16 million Mexicans came to
16:40the United States they were just
16:42following the money their money I'd like
16:48to read out affection now of the effect
16:50of this kind of corporate colonialism on
16:54ordinary people so you know people like
17:00Trump call migrants rapists robbers drug
17:05dealers people like Amit Shah the Home
17:08Minister of India called Bangladeshi
17:10migrants thermite I have a different
17:12word for them ordinary heroes because
17:17most of the people that I met and I went
17:19to Spain and Morocco I went to Mexico I
17:24went to Hungary I went to the Indian
17:26Pakistani border
17:28I spoke to migrants all over the world
17:30and most of them were just moving so
17:33that they could have a better life for
17:34their families the families they were
17:36taking with them and the families they
17:38were leaving behind I call them ordinary
17:40heroes all over the world ordinary
17:45heroes are on the move whether it's
17:46Vendrell America or Ghana or other parts
17:49of sub-saharan Africa in the summer of
17:522018 I visited Europe equivalent of the
17:56US Mexican border
17:58the trait that separates Latin Spain
18:00from northern Mexico in 2017 Morocco
18:05rejoined the African Union after a 33
18:08year absence
18:09it is now trying to set up Casablanca as
18:12the capital of Africa trade with West
18:15African countries is flourishing and who
18:17is the human traffic across the border
18:19you see them everywhere the African
18:21migrants speaking French or English
18:23rather than Arabic some invited by their
18:27hosts others not for many of them of
18:29course Morocco isn't a destination it's
18:31a transit country sub-saharan migration
18:35across the Mediterranean and into Spain
18:37jumped tenfold from 2016 to 2018 Morocco
18:42and Spain have negotiated a treaty that
18:45returns migrants attempting to cross
18:47over which the two countries have held
18:49up as a diplomatic success the victor is
18:53overlooking the Mediterranean at the
18:54bottom of Tangiers old town where
18:56migrants from all over West Africa
18:58gather and look past the yacht towards
19:02the cliffs of Andalusia Tangier is the
19:05last step of the long journey across
19:06Africa you can see El Dorado just 14
19:10kilometers across this great it is here
19:14that I meet Khalil a 26 year old man
19:16from Conakry the capital of Guinea he
19:19and his wife have been in Tangier for
19:21nine months
19:22last week their baby boy is haka Khalil
19:26is waiting till the baby is a month old
19:28to make the crossing
19:31Khalil expansion is just below and to
19:35the right of the terrace as I climb up a
19:38Moroccan man challenges us who am i why
19:41am I here he wants to examine my bag to
19:43extract his commission all the other
19:45guests were African on the wall of the
19:48landing there's a tourist poster of the
19:50Tower of London Colin takes me into his
19:53room which has yellow walls and a bear
19:54light bulb and shuts the door behind him
19:57three women are inside his wife and two
19:59other African women whom he introduces
20:02as his sister Anu and his grandmother on
20:05the floor is a plastic bottle of cooking
20:07oil half an onion and a pile of unwashed
20:09mugs in a pot
20:11there's a small gas cylinder in the room
20:13clear fire hazard and another one
20:16outside they use the one in the room
20:18mostly to make tea there are three beds
20:20with brightly patterned polyester
20:22blankets lumped on them it cost him two
20:26euros two-and-a-half year overnight for
20:29the room
20:30callate father died and his little
20:33sister and a mother in Conakry and a
20:35brother in Belgium who was a wife who
20:38has papers and works cleaning houses in
20:40Conakry Khalil worked in a call center
20:43it's not easy it's not easy and they
20:45keep saying the teachers in Conakry
20:48haven't been paid in three months for
20:50their own strike but Kelly shows me
20:52pictures on his Facebook page of his
20:55life back in Conakry there two people
20:57dress up have parties have fun have a
21:01Facebook life guineas population lives
21:05in extreme poverty but it's not a poor
21:06country it has from a quarter to half of
21:10the world's bauxite reserves and gold
21:12and diamonds a series of Western
21:15corporations including Rio Tinto and a
21:18hedge fund named ox zip Capital
21:21Management have systematically exploited
21:23the country's enormous mineral wealth by
21:25coat negotiated contracts with the
21:29country's leadership that siphon off an
21:31extortioner share of the profit
21:34according to 2017 u.s. SEC complaint aux
21:39zip bribe the Guinean officials to the
21:41tune of tens of millions from 2007 to
21:472012 the previous year the firm paid a
21:51two hundred and thirteen million dollar
21:53criminal penalty not to Guinea but to
21:56the US Justice Department and another
21:58199 million dollar fine to the SEC for
22:01corrupt practices in Africa these were a
22:04slap on the wrist compared with the
22:06profit the company had made already with
22:09these profits Dan Oak the funds chairman
22:12bought an apartment at 220 Central Park
22:15South the most expensive building in New
22:16York were units sell for up to a quarter
22:20of a billion dollars
22:21but he kept his penthouse at fifteen
22:24Central Park West which is only valued
22:26at a hundred million dollars Michael
22:29Cohen an American who was the European
22:31head of octave but a nine hundred acre
22:33estate in the English countryside in
22:362018 US officials charged him with crime
22:39on criminal fraud and bribery relating
22:41to the hedge funds African activities
22:43the money earned by Guinean locals is
22:46mainly accrued by the President and his
22:48many wives and that money too follows
22:50the company profits out of the country
22:52it took Khalil and his life two weeks to
22:56go from Guinea to Senegal to Mauritania
22:58to Morocco in a series of trucks
23:00sometimes the drivers would demand money
23:03or threatened to abandon that cargo in
23:05the desert he traveled with 16 people at
23:07night the women slept in the truck and
23:10the men on the road had very little food
23:12and only a small bottle of water
23:14we should have shipped from not knowing
23:16how long it would last they arrived in
23:18Casablanca stayed there for a week and
23:21met an African smuggler who convinced
23:23the two of them to give them two and a
23:26half thousand euros which of all their
23:27savings to cross into Spain then the
23:30smuggler disappeared with their money
23:31his skin is black but he is not African
23:34a little bit early they moved north to
23:38Tangier
23:39and found a room with a Moroccan family
23:40after a while they couldn't make the
23:42rent and were kicked out they found
23:44shelter with the Senegalese migrants who
23:46said join me in my room then Khalil's
23:48wife found out she was pregnant for the
23:51first time they had a baby in the
23:54Moroccan Hospital which treats blacks
23:56differently than it does Moroccans
23:58Allen's wife went into labor in the
24:00morning so she went to the hospital but
24:02was told that she had to wait till the
24:04evening to be admitted she sat in the
24:06corridor all day without anyone checking
24:08on her I am given Asaka the five day old
24:12baby to hold on my lap there's none of
24:14the rigmarole of visitors washing their
24:16hands before passing the baby he looks
24:20like me through my eyes fuzz from his
24:22fetal skin still on his cheeks such a
24:25wrinkly little thing probably premature
24:28if overdressed and sneezes but flexes
24:31with surprising strenght as I hold him
24:33in my arms
24:34it is hot stifling hot the window is
24:37jammed shut and therefore curtain over
24:39it and the door leading to the corridor
24:41is kept closed there are mosquitoes and
24:44bad air in the room with the baby the
24:47mother breastfeeds the child in full
24:49view of all of us they need seven
24:51medicines I am told for the baby and the
24:54mother the Moroccan hospital delivered
24:56the baby for free but then give the
24:58medicines which cost $90 money they
25:00didn't have the newborn haven't seen a
25:02doctor since he was born
25:04someone who crossed over to Spain with a
25:07baby earlier has told Khalil to buy a
25:09medicine at the pharmacy that will keep
25:10the baby quiet for three hours the
25:14duration of the crossing and to swaddle
25:15the baby so tightly that this fee won't
25:18let him Khalil is intent on buying
25:21medicine that will keep the baby quiet
25:22for 24 hours fearing for the baby's life
25:26I begged him not to do it they have to
25:29get a group of people together now and
25:31buy a boat a plastic boat the more money
25:34the bigger the boat and the more
25:35powerful the motor and they need to pay
25:37the captain and bribe the Coast Guard
25:39and they need if they are intercepted by
25:42the Navy they'll be picked up from the
25:44small boat and we put on a naval boat
25:46and brought back if it's bad weather
25:49they'll drown like two of Claire's
25:51friends recently dead none of the people
25:54in this room know how to swim in 2016
25:57for every 47 migrants who cross the
26:00Mediterranean one person died lately the
26:03fatalities have been rising even higher
26:05one out of every 18 won't make it to
26:07shore on the 14 kilometer ride through
26:10dangerous currents the migrants think
26:12spiritual songs praising and appealing
26:14to whatever gods they worship the Coast
26:19Guard will give them a sign and the
26:20navigational GPS signals we should have
26:22to follow the ideal time to cross over
26:24is Ramadan which is coming up everyone
26:26is hungry and the police spent much of
26:28the day sleeping on the 27th day of
26:31Ramadan the heavens open up and the
26:33Prophet ascends on his horse to heaven
26:35they know it's dangerous they know they
26:38might die making the crossing but when
26:40you've come this far when you've crossed
26:42deserts and mountains this is the final
26:44bit
26:45because you can fix pain you can see
26:47your destination Khaleel wants to go to
26:50Europe
26:50no matter the difficulty he won't turn
26:52back because he says my family needs my
26:55aid in Belgium Khalil would like to play
26:59professional soccer in Conakry he was a
27:02midfield attacker number nine in a
27:04second division team Holly live not
27:07playing football here he doesn't have
27:08the right shoes he's wearing fake Crocs
27:10and it doesn't have a soccer outfit
27:13he went stride to play soccer in a field
27:15but Moroccans drove him off so he can't
27:18play he can exercise and at night the
27:21baby cries so I have all these accounts
27:27of these migrants as ordinary heroes
27:30because the whole debate about migration
27:32tends to be about numbers and policies
27:34and much less about the actual people
27:36who caught up underneath this foot of
27:43tyrannical history I also spent a lot of
27:47time on the US Mexican border and here's
27:52San Diego in San Diego and an integer
27:54honor and there I looked at the effects
28:01of war of conflict small and large upon
28:07migration three-quarters of the guns in
28:12Mexico and up to 98 percent of the guns
28:16in the Caribbean comes from the United
28:18States during the Nicaraguan conflict we
28:22flooded Honduras alone with 1.8 million
28:26guns to give to the contrasts the u.s.
28:30funded civil war in El Salvador cost
28:3375,000 lives so when we wonder why
28:39Guatemalans Hondurans Mexicans
28:46Salvadorans are coming here it's because
28:48we were there first at one point one
28:52American company the United Fruit
28:53Company owns 42% of all the land in
28:55Guatemala
28:56I spoke to a young underand woman from
29:02San Pedro Sula Honduras and a woman's
29:04shelter in Tijuana and she too had a
29:07baby she of Quintus we're told and she
29:10had this beautiful boy in her arms and
29:14she was going to cross over and ask for
29:17asylum and this was last year when I was
29:20talking to her at the height of the
29:21family separation crisis when we shamed
29:25ourselves as a nation by snatching
29:28babies from their parents arms and
29:30putting them in jails thousands of miles
29:34away from them so I told her this would
29:37happen to her does she want to risk it
29:40and she had tears in her eyes she fed
29:42she had just come from San Pedro Sula
29:46where her husband had witnessed a gang
29:48murder he wasn't part of the gangs but
29:51he happened to be a bystander he washed
29:52it for her to flee for his life so the
29:54gang came to her house and demanded the
29:59baby in payment now where do these gangs
30:04come from ms-13 this gang that Trump
30:06keeps invoking was actually created in
30:09the prison's of California and then they
30:13were deported these young men to a
30:16country where you know many of them had
30:19come over when they were a year or two
30:21old they didn't speak the language they
30:23had no idea how to survive so they turn
30:25to these gangs and they armed themselves
30:27with american-made guns and they started
30:30selling drugs for export to America so
30:34this young mother she'd only why she had
30:40no choice but to migrate she said this
30:43baby that I love more than my own life I
30:46know that if I cross over they might
30:50take the baby but if I stay in Honduras
30:56I know that he'll be dead why is a young
31:05man
31:06if that lucky and if they do for the
31:08choice I'm faced with I would rather
31:11never see this baby again and know that
31:13if alive somewhere and someday I have
31:15some hope of seeing him then to have to
31:17put him in a hole six feet below the
31:18ground where I come from I spent some
31:23time at a place called Friendship Park
31:24on the border it's the last bit of the
31:28border just before there is actually a
31:31wall outside Tijuana and it stretches
31:37into the mountains but it ends in a
31:40fence in a small patch of land called
31:43Friendship Park which was created under
31:45the Nixon administration and it's for
31:47people for migrants on this side who
31:51might not have papers or might not might
31:53only have a work authorization so they
31:55can't go back to the countries but if
31:57they want to feed their families this is
31:59the one place where it's land controlled
32:03by the Border Patrol but they will allow
32:06you to go on weekends for 10 to 15
32:09minutes at a time to talk to your family
32:12so it used to be under the Nixon
32:14administration that you could go and
32:15actually sit down with your families
32:16they could come from that side of the
32:18border you'd come from this side you can
32:20even picnic with them you could give
32:21them a hug you could exchange Christmas
32:23gift they would go back that side you
32:25would go back to fight under successive
32:28administrations this policy became more
32:31and more prescriptive the open land was
32:36replaced by bollards and now there's a
32:39thick ugly industrial mesh that you've
32:45separates the families in Friendship
32:47Park so I spent two weeks there and did
32:50maybe the most emotional reporting of my
32:53career I saw a Mexican man who'd come
32:58there from Colorado made a long bus
33:00journey to feed his mother who hadn't
33:02seen in 17 years she'd come up from a
33:05different province in Mexico so he goes
33:08up against the French slowly walks with
33:10his mother she walks up and they both
33:14put their faces to the iron fence out of
33:16it fides of it and he told me later he
33:20says he could feel her breath on his
33:23face he could smell her he told her how
33:27much he loved her how much he missed her
33:32she told him how much she loved him how
33:35much she misses him she asked himself
33:38eating right he looks at him and then
33:43they both put up their palms to the
33:46fence and the holes in the fence are
33:50only big enough to put their pinky
33:52fingers through so they do what's called
33:55a pinky kiss he touches his mom's pinky
33:58with his pinky and all along the fence
34:00they're our brothers and sisters mothers
34:03and children husbands and wives doing
34:07this kissing of the pinkies weeping
34:09telling each other how much they miss
34:11each other there's no earthly reason
34:16that these families can be allowed to
34:17give each other a hug I spoke to the
34:19head of the Border Patrol there and I
34:23asked him like you know there's a gate
34:25here and it used to be that this gate
34:27would be opened on special occasions and
34:30people would be allowed to hug each
34:31other just how does it hurt the national
34:36interests of the United States
34:37if this man gives his mother a hug and
34:41he says I'm a Christian and it says
34:44right there in the Bible God deported
34:49Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden
34:51and built a wall around it so they
34:53couldn't get back in actually have this
34:57one tape I couldn't believe you said
34:59this the biggest reason that people are
35:05going to move are moving and will be
35:08moving this century is climate change if
35:12you think that 4 million Syrians moving
35:17to Germany for political refugee are an
35:20issue right now what happens when
35:23Bangladesh get flooded and 40 million
35:26Bangladeshi have to feed dry land where
35:28are they going to go
35:30the United Nations estimates that by the
35:34middle of this century around a billion
35:37human beings are going to be displaced
35:39by climate change
35:43temperatures in India this year
35:45with the hottest they've ever been 123
35:49degrees in the north by the middle to
35:54end of the century large parts of
35:55northern India and Bangladesh will
35:57literally be uninhabitable because will
35:59be too hot for the human body to go
36:01outside and that combination of humidity
36:03and heat will literally kill you who's
36:09responsible for this
36:12we Americans constitute 4% of the
36:16world's population but we put 1/3 of the
36:18excess carbon in the atmosphere the EU
36:20another 1/3 with the first country to
36:25have walked away from the Paris Accords
36:28we emit at will because the President
36:31believes that climate change of a
36:32chinese-made hoax
36:34the US military alone emits more
36:37greenhouse gases than 140 countries the
36:41average American uses as much energy of
36:4335 Indians or 185 Ethiopians developing
36:49countries will bear 75% of the cost for
36:52the climate crisis despite the poorest
36:56half of the world's population causing
36:58as being responsible for only 10% of
37:02greenhouse emissions the linkages
37:07between civil war and climate change in
37:11hot years things get hotter in Africa is
37:16projected to be an increase of 54% of
37:19small wars by 2030 an additional three
37:23hundred ninety three thousand people
37:25dying much of it caused by competition
37:28over water and farmland so these people
37:35are moving because we were there first
37:38we have to look at who's responsible for
37:42global migration and then I've been
37:44calling for immigration as reparations
37:46that countries should have national
37:50quotas for migration depending on how
37:53much they've ruined other countries so
37:56Britain should have quotas for Indians
37:58Americans should have quarters for
37:59Central Americans France should have
38:02quotas for Haitians a giant bill is
38:07coming due to the West but it is one
38:10that it should look forward to paying
38:12because my book of an angry book but
38:15with a happy ending and the happy ending
38:18is that when people move everyone
38:20benefit the migrants will benefit
38:22because for many of them it's literally
38:23a matter of life and death the receiving
38:27countries benefit because they're not
38:28making a babies and here in the
38:32statistics are really undeniable without
38:36immigration America's GDP would have
38:38been 15% lower from 1990 to 2014 Britons
38:43would have been 20% lower and further in
38:45Europe's up to 30% lower immigrants are
38:4914% of the American population but we've
38:51started a quarter of all new businesses
38:53and earned over a third of all the
38:55American signs Nobel Prizes immigrants
39:02around the world tend to be younger and
39:04work harder and commit crimes at a lower
39:08rate than the native bone the immigrant
39:10Armada that is coming to your Shores is
39:13actually a rescue fleet you know you
39:19hear this slogan the country is full we
39:21can't take any more people the u.s.
39:24ranks 190 first in the world for density
39:28so on the emptiest countries and on the
39:29planet but 86 people per square mile and
39:3380 percent of the US population lives in
39:37only 3% of the continent u.s. population
39:42growth is the slowest since the Great
39:44Depression we add 900,000 fewer people a
39:49year to the population that we
39:51every friendly of the early 2000 and
39:55we're aging as a nation from 2015 to
39:582050 the number of Americans 85 and
40:01older will increase by more than two
40:02hundred percent while those age seventy
40:05five to eighty four will rise by more
40:07than 100 good friend and at the same
40:09time the number of Americans younger
40:11than 65 will only increase by 12% but we
40:14need those young Americans to pay into
40:17the Social Security system for the
40:20rapidly aging population where are these
40:22people going to come through immigration
40:24is the best and most obvious way and
40:32immigration is also good for the
40:35countries that the migrants leave behind
40:37if you want to help the poorest people
40:40in the world then the fastest way to do
40:43so is to ease barriers to migration last
40:46year migrants went back 689 billion
40:50dollars in remittances which amounts to
40:52three times more than the direct gains
40:54from abolishing all trade barriers four
40:57times more than all the foreign aid in
40:59the world combined and a hundred times
41:00more than the amount of called debt
41:02relief this is money that migrants sent
41:04back in you know all these money
41:07transfer stations feel free all around
41:11the Mexican areas of Chicago and in $5
41:14$10 increments so the story of
41:18immigration ultimately is a good news
41:20story it's it's going to be redefining
41:25human phenomenon of the 21st century
41:27it's not something that we should be
41:30afraid of but it's an issue that's going
41:35to determine elections around the world
41:38and that's another part of my book the
41:40rise of the populist who've come to
41:43power on a wave of winner phobia whether
41:45it's in England with brexit the biggest
41:47own-goal in British history or in
41:51Hungary or in the United States and now
41:56I'm sad to say also in my birthplace in
42:00India
42:04I think I'm out of time for a talk but
42:06we have from 15 minutes for questions of
42:09and we know tons of questions so me and
42:20my colleague will be circulating with
42:22two mics we just ask that you speak
42:24clearly into the mic and restrict your
42:26questions to questions not comments
42:28please thank you so my name is Lucifer
42:35I'm a graduate student in public policy
42:37here
42:37I'm also an immigrant from Mumbai I came
42:39to Chicago nine years ago my question
42:42you touched on this a little bit with
42:44your interaction with the Border Patrol
42:46officer I was just wondering how do you
42:49engage with the other side people who
42:52don't disagree with you and you know
42:54what is this - what's what's your
42:55experience been liking right so you know
42:59I've come up with this like how do you
43:01persecute people who don't like
43:04immigrants or are fearful of immigrants
43:07particularly working-class American
43:09white who decided the last election and
43:12might decide the next one - how do you
43:14convince them right am i just preaching
43:16to the converted I think what we need to
43:21do is to remind working class white
43:25Americans of the class interest with
43:30newer immigrants most of the people who
43:34vote against or vote for anti-immigrant
43:38candidates tend to be people who don't
43:40have everyday lived experience of
43:44immigrants so the people who voted for
43:46blacks which were largely white English
43:50people who lived in the countryside New
43:53York is an incredibly pro-immigrant City
43:58as are most of the cities of America two
44:01out of three New Yorkers for immigrants
44:03for their children and New York has
44:04never been safer or richer so people who
44:08know immigrants in the day to day lives
44:10and not to fear them
44:13but the fear was created so I have a
44:16chapter in my book which takes its title
44:19from a phrase that Hannah Arendt once
44:22wrote the alliance between the mob and
44:23capital 50 ban on once observed that the
44:29origin of the current wave of populism
44:32lie in the 2008 financial crisis and I
44:36certainly don't agree with Steve Bannon
44:38about much we both like the
44:42bhagavad-gita but that a separate issue
44:44but here I think his right so what
44:48happened in the 2008 financial crisis
44:50was you know all these people who were
44:52sold houses that they couldn't afford
44:56and this for the rich getting much much
44:59richer today six men on the planet owned
45:06more than half of the planet combined or
45:09more than three and a half billion
45:11people combined so people all over the
45:14world and particularly in these you know
45:16places like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania
45:20they're outraged that their future - of
45:24stolen and so the elites in these
45:29countries know that the peasants are
45:31going to come for them with pitchforks
45:32they're angry and they need this anger
45:37diverted and who better to divert it
45:41onto than the weakest the newest the
45:44immigrants but there's been a kind of
45:49redirection of this outrage and a
45:52manufacturing of this fear you know
45:53people are being told you know these
45:55factory workers were being laid off in
45:57Michigan there's a narrative that the
46:00cause of your problems are those
46:03Mexicans who come in here to work in
46:07your fields and they're the ones that
46:08are going to take the jobs it's
46:10manifestly not true but it's a battle of
46:14storytelling right so that's why I wrote
46:16this book um I'm a storyteller all over
46:18the world there are these people like
46:22Trump like Bolton ro in Brazil like do
46:25tears in the Philippines
46:26a populist is essentially a gifted
46:29storyteller he can tell a fall story
46:30well and the only way to fight him if by
46:33telling a true story better this is why
46:37this populist whether it's Modi in India
46:40or Trump here are so hell-bent on
46:44attacking journalists and writers
46:47because with the truth-tellers
46:49over and over again they go after us you
46:51know the fake news and because they know
46:57that you know the best confess we
47:00believe in this wonderful American
47:01invention called fact-checking when I
47:05write something for The New Yorker or
47:06the New York Times there's some annoying
47:08person who calls me up and goes over
47:09every line questions every number I
47:12hired a professional fact checker to go
47:14over every page of my book and the fifty
47:18pages of footnote so you might not agree
47:21with my statement but it's really hard
47:26to contest most of the numbers from the
47:28facts in my book because you know I've
47:32checked and rechecked the numbers and in
47:35the end maybe I won't convince everyone
47:37right but maybe my book is gift
47:41ammunition like when you have an
47:43argument with your racist Uncle Ed at
47:46Thanksgiving dinner
47:49they're here to steal and they take her
47:52jobs in give him a copy of this book or
47:54read here are the numbers ask him to
47:58come up with more true numbers about
48:00fact check numbers questions
48:11hello and this which or three I'm
48:13actually a student of public policy and
48:15they had a school of public policy and I
48:18just moved to the US a couple of months
48:19back so my question is this when you
48:22talk about immigrations as a form of
48:24reparation do you think the idea of
48:28immigration can help enhance the psyche
48:32of those who are victimized by the
48:34colonial experience as in I come from
48:36India and upward social mobility to a
48:39very large extent seventy years after
48:40our independence is still dependent on
48:42how well you can speak English so do you
48:45think migration in that way would be an
48:47answer to the repression of our own
48:50intrinsic identities and if not what
48:52could help
48:53probably restore the confidence in our
48:57own selves that we as migrants face so I
49:03do believe in immigration of reparations
49:06for the insane amount that the colonial
49:11countries told and and it's not just you
49:21know England with India I mean my family
49:27moved all over the world and certainly
49:30English for us was kind of essential and
49:37this is how the country communicates and
49:39you're very right to point out it in
49:41seventeen in 70 years
49:45we formed a sense of herself and there
49:48is well one of the great achievements of
49:52independent India was that the abolition
49:54of famine during British times famine
49:57was rampant I mean even in the 1940s it
50:01took only a decade or so for India to
50:05largely eliminate famine so that one
50:07fact alone shows what happens when you
50:10give people agency over their own
50:12affairs literally it saves millions of
50:15lives I mean the great Bengal famine of
50:17the 1940s you know this is something
50:20that not much of the world is aware of
50:22maybe not
50:23of Indians aware of but up to three
50:25million Indians died in Mangold because
50:27Churchill diverted supplies of rice to
50:31the Allied forces ancho chili just
50:33didn't like Indians for he didn't care
50:34so yes I believe in immigration as
50:41reparations but what it does to the self
50:43is a very complex issue right that that
50:46wasn't the province of novelist when we
50:48have of the best novelist in South Asia
50:51who chronicled is the experience of
50:54migration I've done this in my earlier
50:55book in maximum Freddie about what it
50:58did to me at the age of fourteen to come
51:01here you know I really felt truncated I
51:03felt when I left Bombay it's like I'd
51:08left behind amputation organ of my body
51:11and and all my life I've been going back
51:14and forth seeking this answer to this
51:17question what is home so when you
51:20migrate this is the question that is
51:22brought to your mind first and foremost
51:25what is home right and so I've come up
51:35with a word which might describe people
51:39like us it's called inter locals when
51:42interlocal is someone who connects two
51:46or more localities so I'm a resident of
51:49Greenwich Village and Bandra in Bombay
51:52I basically live the same sort of life
51:57in Greenwich Village as I do in Bandra I
51:59wake up in the morning I have good
52:00Columbian coffee of an Indian vegetarian
52:03lunch pasta and wine for dinner I might
52:06feel friends in Bombay last week that
52:08I've seen in New York this week that
52:10I'll see in London next week right and
52:13it's not just this kind of mobility
52:14isn't just for the privileged I know a
52:17group of Mexican restaurant workers in
52:19Sunset Park in Brooklyn their allegiance
52:22is to Sunset Park in Brooklyn and a
52:25village in Puebla where they come from
52:26there those who have papers go back and
52:28forth between these two places these
52:31large abstract entities like
52:35America or even New York don't have much
52:39meaning for them they non-fan fit Park
52:41they know this religion trebla and the
52:46hold is made up of this kind of
52:47migration of people who have strong
52:49sense of allegiance to localities and I
52:53think this is a it was a really good
52:55find you know I'm off now so you know
53:00what if you're home say I live in a
53:03palace because I'm a very rich writer I
53:07live in this palace with lots and lots
53:10of rooms it's a palace called the earth
53:13and I think it's something that we
53:15should all effort our right to move
53:20across the planet so I'll end with the
53:24epigraph for my book I'll end with the
53:25beginning and it's a word from the I
53:28Turia brahmana from Indra the protector
53:31of travelers there is no happiness for
53:34him who does not travel Rohit ah tests
53:37we have heard living in the Society of
53:40men the best man becomes the spinner
53:42therefore wander the feet of the
53:45wanderer are like the flower his soul is
53:47growing and reaping the fruit and all
53:49his fins are destroyed by his fatigues
53:51in wandering
53:52therefore wander the fortune of he who
53:57is fitting fit it rises when he rises it
54:01sleeps when he sleeps it moves when he
54:04moves
54:04therefore wonder I always all of you to
54:08under
54:10[Applause]

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