Who Gets to be American?

Radio Atlantic

The Atlantic

Politics, News, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 26 January 2018

⏱️ 46 minutes

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Summary

Once again, immigration is at the top of America's legislative agenda, as it has been, seemingly every generation, for much of the nation's history. But while many recent discussions of immigration have focused on unauthorized immigrants, some of the most contentious aspects of the current debate concern legal immigration: Who should the U.S. allow to be an American? Priscilla Alvarez, an editor on The Atlantic's politics and policy team, joins hosts Matt and Alex to discuss the debate within Congress, and to review the lessons America's history offers. Links - “America’s Forgotten History of Illegal Deportations” (Alex Wagner, March 6, 2017) - “The Diversity Visa Program Was Created to Help Irish Immigrants” (Priscilla Alvarez, November 1, 2017) - “'An Assault on the Body of the Church’” (Emma Green, January 22, 2018) - “The Ordeal of Immigration in Wausau” (Roy Beck, April 1994 Issue) - “To Be Both Midwestern and Hmong” (Doualy Xaykaothao, June 3, 2016) - "How Wausau's Immigration Fears Failed to Come True" (Robert Mentzer, Wausau Daily Herald, December 2014) - “Black Like Them” (Malcolm Gladwell, New Yorker, April 29, 1996 Issue) - Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s (Francisco E. Balderrama) - “Asians in the 2016 Race” (Alex Wagner, September 12, 2016) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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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	Reth, the branded content studio at the Atlantic and Howzer and Worth.
0:29.4	Immigration is one of the biggest points of fracture in American politics, and now it's back on the top of the nation's legislative agenda.
0:37.0	Yet despite the fact that the US has a major debate about the issue every couple of decades, much of America's history of immigration has been
0:44.3	easily forgotten. What lessons does that history contain and what's in store for the
0:50.4	future? This is Radio Atlantic. Hi, I'm Matt Thompson, Executive Editor of the Atlantic, and over in New York I am
1:11.9	joined by my esteemed co-host Alex Wagner, contributing editor at the
1:16.4	Atlantic.
1:17.4	Hello, Alex.
1:18.4	Hello, Matt.
1:20.4	Jeffrey Goldberg, our co-host is off gallivanting today.
1:25.0	However, in his place, we are joined by our colleague Priscilla Alvarez,
1:29.6	who is one of our politics and policy editors.
1:31.8	Welcome to the table table Priscilla.
1:33.7	And that knows.
1:34.7	We trade it up.
1:35.1	Yeah.
1:36.1	Agreed.
1:38.1	We are talking today about immigration and immigrants, and we three three all three of us are the children of immigrants to the U.S.
1:46.9	We have kicked all the Mayflower Americans out the room
	...

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