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This land is our land an immigrant's manifesto

"There are few subjects in American life that prompt more discussion and rancor these days than immigration. In [this book], the renowned author Suketu Mehta offers a reality-based polemic that vitally clarifies the debate. Drawing on his own experience as an Indian-born teenager growing up in...

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Main Author: Mehta, Suketu (Author)
Format: Books Print Book
Language: English
Published: New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, [2019]
Edition: First edition.
Subjects:
Immigrants > Cultural assimilation.
Immigrants > Social conditions > 21st century.
Refugees > Social conditions > 21st century.
United States > Emigration and immigration > Government policy.
United States > Emigration and immigration > Social aspects.
Western countries > Emigration and immigration > Social aspects.
Western countries > Ethnic relations.
Summary: "There are few subjects in American life that prompt more discussion and rancor these days than immigration. In [this book], the renowned author Suketu Mehta offers a reality-based polemic that vitally clarifies the debate. Drawing on his own experience as an Indian-born teenager growing up in New York City and on years of reporting around the globe, Mehta subjects the worldwide anti-immigrant backlash to withering scrutiny. As he explains, the West is being destroyed not by immigrants but by fear of immigrants. Ranging from Dubai and Morocco to New York City, Mehta contrasts the phony narratives of populist ideologues with the ordinary heroism of laborers, domestic workers, and others, and he takes readers on a heartbreaking trip to San Diego and Tijuana, where a border fence divides families and damages lives. Throughout, Mehta shows why more people are on the move today than ever before. As civil strife and climate change reshape large parts of the planet, it is little surprise that borders have become so porous. But Mehta also stresses the destructive legacies of colonialism and global inequality in large swaths of the world: when today's immigrants are asked, "Why are you here?" they can justly respond, "We are here because you were there." And now that they are here, Mehta contends, they bring great benefits, enabling countries and communities to flourish. Impassioned, rigorous, and richly stocked with memorable stories and characters, [this book] is an urgent and necessary intervention, and a literary argument of the highest order."--Dust jacket.
Physical Description: 320 pages ; 21 cm
Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN: 9780374276027
0374276021
Author Notes: Suketu Mehta is the author of Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found , which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and won the Kiriyama Prize and the Hutch Crossword Award. His work has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, Granta, Harper's, Time , and GQ . He has won a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Whiting Writers' Award, and an O. Henry Prize. He was born in Calcutta and lives in New York City, where he is an associate professor of journalism at New York University.

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