Becoming White in America

Radio Atlantic

The Atlantic

Politics, News, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 13 April 2018

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In her new book Futureface, Alex Wagner writes that “immigration raises into relief some of our most basic existential questions: Who am I? Where do I belong? And in that way, it’s inextricably tied to an exploration of American identity.” In the book, Alex explores her own American identity – daughter of a Burmese immigrant mother and a small-town Irish Catholic father – and asks how true the stories we grow up with really are. Along with co-hosts Matt and Jeff, Alex is joined by The Atlantic’s deputy politics editor Adam Serwer to discuss the tangled intersections of history, heritage, family, race, and nationality. Is America truly a melting pot? Can nationalism be liberal? And is that stalwart American immigrant story just a history written by the victors? Links - Futureface (Alex Wagner, 2018) - “The Nationalist's Delusion” (Adam Serwer, November 20, 2017) - “America Is Not a Democracy” (Yascha Mounk, March 2018 Issue) - ”The End of Identity Liberalism” (Mark Lilla, New York Times, November 18, 2016) - ”How Can Liberals Reclaim Nationalism?” (Yascha Mounk, New York Times, March 3, 2018) - “Why Are We Surprised When Buddhists Are Violent?” (Dan Arnold and Alicia Turner, New York Times, March 5, 2018) - “The Americans Our Government Won’t Count” (Alex Wagner, New York Times, March 30, 2018) - “Huapango” by José Pablo Moncayo (South West German Radio Kaiserslautern Orchestra, 2007) - Black and White: Land, Labor, and Politics in the South (Timothy Thomas Fortune, 1884) - Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History (Steven Zipperstein, 2018) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	At the crossroads of artistic insight and intellectual curiosity, we find the edge of reason.
0:07.0	Dive into the heart of artistic inspiration, rooted in Enlightenment thinking, and discover how contemporary creators are holding a mirror up to society to reflect who we are, where we've been, and where we're headed.
0:20.0	Join me, Jeff Chang, at the Edge of Reason, a new limited podcast from Atlantic
0:25.6	Rethink, the branded content studio at the Atlantic, and Howzer and Worth.
0:29.4	You've wondered what you would find if you trace the two threads of your ancestry,
0:34.4	reaching back through the lives of your parents and their parents and their parents through the
0:38.5	quilt of history. And so you pull the threads and what you unravel is the story of how our forebears made the world that we inherited.
0:46.0	And how we might pass on a better one.
0:49.0	This is Radio Atlantic. Joining me today in
1:10.3	studio is my esteemed co-host Jeff hello.
1:13.2	Hi Matt.
1:14.2	And my other esteemed co-host in a studio in New York, Alex Wagner.
1:18.3	Hello Alex.
1:19.2	Hey Matt and Jeff.
1:20.4	And we're delighted to be joined once again by Adam Serwer, editor and writer at the Atlantic.
1:25.8	Adam, welcome.
1:26.8	Thank you.
1:27.8	Hi everybody.
1:28.8	And hello to you all.
1:30.8	No sound effects, please.
1:31.6	This is a serious conversation. Sorry. Today we are discussing
1:36.5	the family history of our own Alex Wagner. It's kind of weird actually.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Atlantic, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Atlantic and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.