Hello, I'm Dana Taylor, and this is a special episode of The Excert.

Walls, we all navigate them, whether they be the walls throughout our homes, neighborhoods,

the places we choose to frequent, or the internal walls that allow us to maintain our distance from

others. What are the walls we erect represent when we look at how they shape our society as a whole?

A non-Pundian professor of anthropology at Johns Hopkins University, traveled across

America in search of answers. What is keeping us apart? That's the subject of his new book,

something between us on bookshelves now. Anon joins us now to discuss his experiences,

seeking out people whose views he disagrees with, and whether

our disconnection is a choice or a consequence of living within a world of physical, political,

and psychological walls. Thanks for joining me, Anon.

Thank you so much for having me. It's really a pleasure.

I want to start with the idea of cultural belonging in America, deciding who's in and who's

out.

Has this idea become increasingly fluid, or has it always been this way?

Well, this is, of course, a nation of immigrants, and we've been lucky to share this country

with people from so many places of the world.

And at the same time, we have most certainly seen that cultural difference, racial and social difference, have become much more fraught topics in recent years.

There has been a lot of consternation around the question of who really belongs in this

country and who may not quite

have a place. And it's questions like that and concerns like that that led me to pursue the

research for this book. What drives American suspicions of migrants, especially when we look at

policies like Title 42, which allows curbs on migration in the interest of protecting public health.

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