Is the U.S. in charge of the Americas?

KERA's Think

KERA

Society & Culture, 071003, Kera, Think, Krysboyd

4.8 • 861 Ratings

🗓️ 7 August 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The violence in El Salvador has come to American attention with the deportation of accused gang members to a notorious prison there. Viet Thanh Nguyen, professor of literature at the University of Southern California, joins host Krys Boyd to discuss his trip to El Salvador, which coincided with Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s trip, and how their versions of American greatness differ immensely as they look to immigration and violence in the region. His article “Greater America Has Been Exporting Disunion for Decades” was published in The Nation.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	In our new podcast, Everybody's Business, we talk about the business news that concerns everybody.
0:06.9	From Bloomberg Business Week, I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith.
0:09.5	And I'm Max Chaffkin.
0:10.9	Each week, we unpack what is happening on Main Street and Wall Street, all the streets.
0:16.5	WrestleMania has taken over the U.S. economy.
0:19.3	A poetry that executives write on LinkedIn.
0:22.1	A little actual magic in our underrated story of the week.
0:25.5	The single grades marketing campaign, the music business has ever seen.
0:28.1	I decided to ask people how they felt about the penny going away.
0:32.1	Listen to everybody's business wherever you get your podcasts.
0:48.4	People who live in the United States, we call ourselves Americans, right?
0:53.7	Despite the fact that there are 34 other countries in North and South America. When we refer to being Americans,
0:55.7	we sort of expect the world to not just understand what we mean, but to accept that we are
1:00.8	the real Americans among two continents worth of also-rans. From KERA in Dallas, this is think. I'm
1:08.5	Chris Boyd. If all this were just a matter of naming privileges,
1:12.5	it probably wouldn't be that big a deal. But my guest sees a pattern, an unofficial but
1:17.0	deeply consequential project he refers to as Greater America, by which the United States
1:22.5	assumes its preferred policies in countries throughout North and South America are simply
1:27.2	our prerogative.
1:29.1	Beatt Tan Wen, he is professor of literature at the University of Southern California.
1:33.3	His novel, The Sympathizer, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2016.
1:38.1	His essay for the Nation is titled Greater America has been exporting disunion for decades.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 16 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

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

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