SPECIAL | Can we, as a 'nation of immigrants,' please learn to talk about immigration with generosity?
The Excerpt
USA TODAY
4.1 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 8 February 2024
⏱️ 13 minutes
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Summary
Mention immigration at any gathering these days and it's likely to generate strong emotions. The images of repeated humanitarian crises at the border tug at the heartstrings of some and enrage others. It can be hard to have a conversation about the issue, as divisive as it is today. Veteran Immigration Reporter Lauren Villagran sits down with veteran broadcaster and author Ray Suarez to have a more nuanced conversation about the issues. Can we apply a historical lens to our identification as a "nation of immigrants" to create the space for a more nuanced conversation? Ray's new book "We Are Home," an oral history of new immigrants, hits bookshelves this April.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Wunderry Plus subscribers can listen to USA Today's The Excerpt, ad free right now. |
| 0:05.0 | Join Wunderry Plus in the Wundery app. |
| 0:08.0 | Hello and welcome to The Excerpt. I'm Lauren Villagran, National Reporter for USA Today. |
| 0:17.0 | Today is Thursday February 8th, 2024. more. |
| 0:25.0 | Mention immigration at any gathering these days and it's likely to generate strong emotions. |
| 0:31.0 | The images of repeated humanitarian crises at the border tug at the |
| 0:35.5 | heartstrings of some and enrage others. It can be hard to even have a conversation |
| 0:40.5 | about the issue as divisive as it is. |
| 0:43.0 | As a long-time immigration journalist, |
| 0:45.0 | I've been thinking a lot about whether it's possible to find common ground |
| 0:50.0 | and have more nuanced conversations. |
| 0:52.0 | Our next guest is a veteran broad... and have more nuanced conversations. |
| 0:52.7 | Our next guest is a veteran broadcaster and historian who thinks there is. |
| 0:57.6 | Ray Suarez, thank you for coming on the excerpt. |
| 1:00.3 | Great to be with you, Lauren. |
| 1:02.0 | Ray, when and how did the issue of immigration become Great, It's been a pretty tough issue. |
| 1:13.0 | But I'd say that things certainly got worse |
| 1:16.2 | after the 2008-2009 recession. |
| 1:20.9 | When Americans started to look at the large number of rivals legal and illegal |
| 1:27.0 | through the lens of taking care of the home folks first, tending to your own first, a kind of idea of who gets to get |
| 1:37.5 | in line in what order for the goodies that America doles out. The United States is not a particularly generous place about the |
| 1:46.5 | role of the immigrant in American society when things are not going well. For instance, during the 1990s you hardly heard at all about this issue as people |
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