Saturday, 12 and 9 p. M. On sunday, and 12 a. M. On monday. You can also watch after words online youre kind of booktv. Org and click on after words in the booktv series and topics list on the upper right side of the page. Welcome today to a booktvs live coverage of the 2014 texas book festival held in austin, the state capital. Over the next six hours will hear from nine authors on such topics as social change an instant, the Death Penalty, the global history of train travel. Author and professor ilan stavans starts off with a discussion about his latest book, a most imperfect union a contrarian history of the United States. Hello and welcome. Happy sunday morning, everybody. I name is nathan. Im here with ilan stavans, professor of latin american latino studies at amherst college, author of last time i counted about 10,000 books. The latest of which is a most imperfect union a contrarian history of the United States. It is do you call it a graphic novel if its nonfiction . We have in English Limited lexicon to address the growing genre of the graphic novels, graphic books. When hes a graphic book you really would have two meanings. It is illustrated or too violent and sexual. We need to nonfiction book, the catalog as in that graphic novel. Brass live in a country where the past is fiction. [laughter] it is. As you say in the book i think history is plastic, history is not the record of what happened but its the record of what we think happened. Yes. I do believe that the past is an invention and we accompanied that passed to our needs. Relieve we live under the perception that the future is the one that is in constant change but the fact is the future is the only country that never changes. The present is a noble. The past keeps on changing. Every generation has as its duty to reinterpret it, to reconfigure it, to reinvent it. And thats why we have the profession of historians. s. Do you consider yourself a historian to speak with no note. Im not a historian, thank god. [laughter] i dont take the responsibility of a handling history for the next generations in a pure fashion. My job was actually critique the historians, say why theyre not doing right but in some ways bring it back to us, the rest of the earthlings. All right. In the introduction to the book you define yourself as a contrarian, which means questioning American Attitudes to pleasure aesthetics consumption, history, outsiders, Political Correctness and foreign countries. You go on to say that your your contrarian roots lie in an inquisitive restless disposition linked with your experience as an immigrant. And i love to talk about a little bit about why being an immigrant has to do with being a contrary and. Thank you for that question. Its the one that im often asked. I am thrilled to respond to it. I think that the contrary is nt the person who says no. Its not the person who says yes, but its the person who says why . Why the yes or why the no . I think it is the duty to come most of us, to be contrary and, to ask why the yes and why the no. If we have inherited the yes or we have inherited the know, to what extent that yes or that no is the poker. It speaks for us. Unfortunately, the country is simply a person antagonize, that goes against the status quo your but if that is the case then the country is the one that takes seriously the role, the job of being an individualist that wants to think for herself or for himself. And im proud to say that i am a contrarian in the state of texas. I am an immigrant from mexico. I grew up in a Jewish Company small jewish place in mexico city. My first language was gibberish. That in and of itself turned you into a contrary in any country of 150 Million People, there might be 4000 that spoke it is when i was growing up. There might be three that speak yiddish today. And speaking a different language in many ways is an opportunity, an invitation to look into the culture where you live from the outside, to be an outsider. At the same time because youre part of a culture, to be an insider. When i was growing up in mexico i was a jew. I didnt think of myself as a mexican. I thought of myself as hud can i spoke yiddish, because my last and was different from the last names in the country. The majority of them rodriguez, juarez, gonzalez hit because of the color of my skin, because of the education that i had. And then in 1985, nathan, i moved to the United States and as an immigrant, became mexican. [laughter] i arrived in new york city and indexes the fact that i was jewish was absolutely irrelevant. [laughter] of the fact is mexican and looking like this, it was clear that the Puerto Ricans and dominicans and the colombians would not trust me that i am truly mexican and that i speak spanish as one of my native tongues. And i relos and when coming to the United States as an immigrant that i realized two or three things. One is that the minorities have a privileged viewpoint on society. They cant see it again from the outside in. They are part but not full members, at least yet, when it comes to latinas, when it comes to hispanics, when it comes to mexicans and that that double position is very beneficial. And also learned that this is a country of immigrants. What i have been puzzled about is what makes a country if we are immigrant . Why is it that italians and irish and jews and the scandinavians and the french and blacks and latinos all at one point become members of the same club . While still having some elements that define us. If all of us are from different backgrounds, are we all outsiders . Who is the insider . So i love being an immigrant. I love having an accent. I love the opportunity to live in a country that accepts, or used to accept, people and embrace them is that the trend . Are we moving away from acceptance . I think were shortly moving away from acceptance. We are a very generous nation that is very suspicious of foreigners, and less they are highpaying tourists. After september 11, whoever comes from the outside be seen either as a terrorist or as i went back to his taking our places in schools and hospitals. I think that the tradition of embracing immigration is one that is being fractured. And am afraid for the experience that our children are going to have the i am in desperate need to teach my students and to engage with readers and to have a nationwide conversation about that. That statement in the poem, and the thought she had in the pedals of the set statue of liberty of welcoming those that are the hoddle masses huddled masses. Take one step back. If you went to new york and became mexican, i did teachers to hear what your experience as a jewish Mexican American has been in texas. In texas. Well, i come from massachusetts to texas. No two states can be more different. [laughter] and more proud of him different, right . Than texas and massachusetts. I love being an outsider here, again. I love the fact that texans dont understand massachusetts, and massachusetts dont get texas either. We might be really unless you work in california. Is max massachusetts and texas. If you could help a massachusetts resident be a little more texan, what would you suggest . Im afraid im going to Say Something very dangerous and probably i wont laugh until my next flight which is tomorrow morning. I think i would try to go beyond stereotypes and say that theres a place in the country where people are truly in the pennant minded and have a sense of the concept of republic in a unique fashion. That is in texas. It is also a place that can be intolerant for the same reasons that massachusetts can be intolerant. And a place in its uniqueness defines the rest of the country just as massachusetts. In your book, continue called texas a quintessential american state. Im curious just to hear how you would define americanness, both for yourself and maybe anyone out here in this audience. Americanness, nathan, is the proud noun of saying we are going to start from scratch. Were going to have dreams, and were going to deposit those dreams in our children so that those dreams become even better than ours. I say that americans are a true inheritors of the biblical concept of starting the promised land. And absolute committed to the vision of perfection. The idea that the country can be perfected, that the tomorrow, unknown as it is, can be better than that today, and certainly other than yesterday. In a country that, in spite of its xenophobic elements, is truly a microcosm of the rest of the world. Every single language in the world is spoken in the United States, you know, aside from english. [laughter] when its spoken, it is also a country where people from all over the world at some point come and this is the magic or the marais choose element i was telling you about, at some point called home. How is it that an italian immigrant arriving to the United States in 1880, wants this would to be part of this country, and his grandchild in 19511960 will look at italy with nostalgia thinking thats where my roots are . But now i am an american. It happens with latinas but it happened with the jews. There is some magic, some miracle in this concept of nation that we have that im absolutely in all of about. I think theres a dark side to the idea of starting from scratch but as you point out in your book, you could say that with columbus and the pilgrims we were starting from scratch, but, of course, there were already a few people here. Starting from scratch, again, that passes always reinvented and fictional but i invite readers in the book to think in what sense are the following words synonymous, synonyms, or in what sense are the really very different words . Immigrant, subtler settler, exile, refugee, slave, tourist. All of those words describe and define people that have come from the outside to the United States for a short period of time, or permanent. Immigrant is the key word there your migrant, immigrant, but it is connected with being a settler. We dont use the word settler anymore, but many of us are settlers going to be places. Massachusetts in my case, new england, to settle down and to start a family. The difference with this lace is dramatic in that they did not come to the United States willingly. I think the openness of our lexicon from a variety with to describe those who come from the outside makes the american experience, so intriguing and so engaging, and also why getting the resistance of people who call themselves americans when they use the word we to include all of those groups that you just mentioned . Is a resistance because americans ultimately, we think that we are members of an elite squad. We are a nation better than other nations. We are the true people of israel in that we have a responsibility to teach others what they need to know about being good in the world, about behaving correctly, about teaching your children. And so we want to be very protective of that, and we do so often in a violent way. Violent verbally, violent physically, violent socially but we can also do it in a very generous way. Ive lived in a number of countries. I am always amazed at the generosity, the volunteerism of americans, trying to help others to in this rhetoric right of way from our politicians that immigrants are taking away a slice of the american dream, i think its more the rhetoric and the true way of seeing the american experience. It is a country of we but if the country of, of capital i. We that is made by or of 350 million different capital eyes, and we always make sure that we capitalize it. Even when we text. [laughter] not always. Well, to shift gears a little bit, because where in texas so hthey parts of the book are interesting, especially in the graphic novel format. I think he used visual irony a lot where, for instance, in one panel youre talking about american identity as were just talking about. You talk about thats starting to be shaped in the late 1700s and then the images someone, white person wetting a black slave. Another one later is talking the the treaty of guadalupe day after the mexicanamerican war when suddenly the entire american southwest which was america suddenly became mexico. And you say that this is the birth of chicano over i think your illness or, you and your illness or are characters in the book. Could you talk about how chicano culture fits into the idea of americanness . Yes. In many ways the latino expense, the latino immigration experience is like other immigrant experiences in the country, and its also very different. For one thing, latinos are really not one single ethnic or racial group as you know. We are a sum of parts. We are mexicans and dominicans and colombians. We are white and black and asian the people that dont speak spanish at ilogistics are people that speak only spanish and are latinos. We are also a minority that in its entirety did and didnt come to the United States. Part of us did. I survey did but theres a large portion, and were in the southwest, that the United States came to us with the treaty of guadalupe an they come with nevada and utah and new mexico and colorado, and california and texas. Many ways this region has an id. Started in the indigenous or the aboriginal cultures that still lives in the name of the streets and the way people relate in the way people interact with god and with nature and with the environment. Black teen of consciousness is a multiplicity. When one lives in the northeast, what is very much influenced by caribbean will become to the north, to the southwest you have mexicans and jeb Central Americans. The term mexican in some ways is a synonym for latino. Nicaraguans and salvadorans complain that people refer to them as mexicans because every latino is a mexican. They want to keep their distinctions. Their unique profile. Now, the portion of the southwest that was sold for 50 million, 50 million to the United States in 1848 with the treaty of guadalupe a do you think that was a good deal of . It would be incredible right now. Yesterday i was in a department that was renovated just two or three blocks from here for twice as much. [laughter] its very important to think that the treaty was written in english and really was not disseminated as a document. So people that live in the southwest that were nonenglish descent, or nonenglish come english profile, were given one year decided they wanted to become americans, or the want to go back to mexico. But either they didnt have access to the document, they never heard that the war had ended, or they simply did not know what you could do in a year in order to move. Why would you move from your home and going back to mexico. I mean, really moving to a different part of your former country. Many of them were very ambivalent towards mexico even for the war. So think of them is going back to mexico is a very complicated issue. So it is anyways the birth of people that see themselves as being colonized. But manifest destiny, the United States has not only been about getting people in by taking over other parts, the philippines, puerto rico, alaska, hawaii. This is a country that has seen itself, all of us, venturing out and hoping to take the land that we will civilize, we will order, we will make coherent. Do you see that continuing . In many different ways. I am obsessed by the idea of bringing democracy to other countries. Do you think its a good thing . Its a terrible thing. [laughter] i think democracy is a wonderful thing but you cant bring democracy summer. Democracy has to start from the bottom up. You cant tell someone, be free. Somebody has to struggle. You cant take someone be democratic. After recognize that. This concept of bringing democracy out is so american. Let others be like us, even though at the bottom of our heart we know they will never quite reach there. At it doesnt always work out so well when we bring democracy. Never. I want to talk about literature a little bit. After all, you are a literature professor. I love the part in the book where you call moby dick, you say its, i think in the first chapter of the book you said moby dick is a lack american novel. And by that you mean its that become restless and encyclopedic. And maybe you could just talk about how you teach literature as a way to also foster maybe contrariness in your students. Yeah. Uncertainty. I hope my students stay in the class come and by the end of the semester disagree with me. What i want is for them throughout the semester to polish their arguments, to ground it, to make it their own so that after they leave the classroom they will have a point of view. My objective as a teacher is not to give them my point of view but to make them realize that they need a point of view. That they are not one of 350 million. They are one that matters among 350 million whose voice matters, will define this country. And i think literature has the dna of who we are. In our literature, and our art, in our movies, i am a passionate reader and devoted writer. I think that we find the genome, the source of who we are when we read emily dickinson, when we read america for a, when we read arthur miller. And, of course, everybody has their own list of favorites. For me, moby dick is the ultimate american book, the most expansive, the most encompassi encompassing, a book that you can get lost in, a book that tells you how to read. If youre patient, often a book that uses you and not vice versa. It is the type of book, i dont think readers choose books. I think books choose readers. Books have ways to get rid of it and has ways to retain readers, to enable them to find companions. I think we have a short life to live, and we have 10, 15 books that going to be our closest friends, our companions. They are going to grow as we grow. You are going to read moby dick at 22 and find that tale of adventure. When you read at 53, my age, you find it a tale of lost adventure, of wanting to do something when you were young. I want is one would think about moby dick. I had read moby dick in 1983 in spanish and a different translation. And then i moved to the United States with very poor, limited, rotten english. And they did not want to become a pariah in this country. And so the first or one of first things that it did was to buy myself a cheap Penguin Classics copy of moby dick, and to try to read it in english. And the way i did it is i would open it late at night and i would read a sense. Call me ishmael. And then i would close the book and see i