Wajahat Ali on How to Become an American when America Doesn’t Seem to Want You

KQED's Forum

KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 26 January 2022

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

“I believe America is simultaneously a riotous comedy and a heartbreaking tragedy,” writes Wajahat Ali in his new memoir “Go Back to Where You Came From.” With humor, Ali recounts a Bay Area childhood growing up as the shy, pop culture-loving, Husky jeans-wearing only son of Pakistani immigrants. Although the community around him made clear the only acceptable careers for him were doctor, engineer, or successful businessman (the only other option was being “a failure”), Ali found a career as a writer, and it was art that saved Ali when his family’s lives were blown apart by scandal. In this book, part autobiography and part social criticism, Ali takes apart the myth of the “moderate Muslim,” and describes what life in America is like post-9/11 and post-Trump for a Muslim who once felt free enough to pray publicly at a Cirque du Soleil concert and the stalls of the Gap, but who no longer feels he can. We’ll talk to Ali about his book and what it means to be American when your fellow citizens question your right to be there. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Support for KQED podcasts comes from San Francisco International Airport. Did you know that
0:05.7	SFO has a world-class museum? Get ready to be wowed by art, history, science, and cultural exhibitions
0:12.3	throughout the terminals. Learn more at flysfo.com slash museum. Greetings boomtown. The Xfinity
0:20.6	Wi-Fi is booming.
0:22.4	Xfinity combines the power of internet and mobile.
0:25.5	So we've all got lightning fast speeds at home and on the go.
0:29.1	Learn more at Xfinity.com.
0:31.0	Restrictions apply.
0:31.7	Xfinity internet required.
0:32.8	Actual speeds vary.
0:34.7	From KQED.
0:36.0	Thank you. very from kQED from kQED from kQED in san francisco i'mina kim coming up on forum i believe america is
0:53.8	simultaneously a riotous comedy and a
0:57.0	heartbreaking tragedy, writes Wajahat Ali in his new memoir, Go Back to Where Ali
1:04.0	His Personal Story and a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor to show the absurdity and the pain of being
1:10.7	an American when his fellow citizens
1:12.6	question his right to be here.
1:14.6	Ali, a playwright lawyer and commentator, joins us to talk about growing up in California
1:20.1	and how writing saved him through some of the hardest moments of his life.
1:23.6	Forum is next.
1:56.0	This is Forum. I'm Mina Kim. You may know Wajahat Ali for his commentary on MSNBC or CNN, or for his play, The Domestic Crusaders, or maybe even his national plea for liver donors to help his then two-year-old daughter survive stage four liver cancer. But before Ali was a dad and a social and political commentator, he was a shy, husky jeans-wearing son of Pakistani immigrants growing up in Fremont, California, and learning the contradictions of being a brown Muslim American.
2:13.5	His new memoir is titled, Go Back to Where You Came From, and Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become American.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

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

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