Funny Janice Knight journalism fellow at Stanford University and I'm here with Artie Shaw who's N.P.R.'s Silicon Valley correspondent and also author of the new memoir here we are American dreams American nightmares r.t. Thanks very much for being here thank you for being here of course and I thought we'd start by really getting a sense of your story and how you tell your story which I think is very important so when you if you could read from right there Ok from where you've marked it Yes Ok so I'll just do a little bit of setup about it you know here we are is as you mentioned it's a piece of my family's immigrant story in broad brushstrokes we came to this country. We overstate tourist visas and we were undocumented. We eventually got our papers and we thought we were on the street shots of the American dream. It turns out that's not what happened. While I was pursuing my Perko shifts early career as a scholarship kid at a very fancy private school Manhattan that in today's terms by like a Tesla a year to attend. For real. My father started his own business a small wholesale lecture Onyx store on 28th Street and Broadway in Manhattan. That was his dream he was a really intelligent man he spoke 6 languages he could multiply very large numbers in his head he had a photographic memory but as a lifelong migrants who was part of low end globalization uprooted from his childhood home when he was young and continuously having to move around the world as a lifelong like that he was essentially irrelevant wherever he had to move he had to start over and who he was before he came here it didn't seem to matter to starting that. Story was a huge accomplishment for him and then one day we got a call that my father has been arrested and taken to Rikers Island because apparently my family business has sold watches and calculators to the Cali drug cartel and so we go from there to explore this legal case that in theory was supposed to be settled quickly through some maneuvers in a court room and in reality spiraled to take on multiple lives of its own and how I grew up in the shadow of that legal case and so I just want people to know in broad brushstrokes that's basically what the story is about. Because if you've heard me before I mean many of you know me so you've heard me and multiple contacts but if you don't know me then basically I like to call myself the Indian I see Lady on n.p.r. . That's who I am due to flee delivering the news on Facebook and Google and it's important news it's about this information campaigns disrupting the moxie it's about artificial intelligence reinvention in how the world works and making our lives better but also taking away jobs I mean it's complicated and important hefty and powerful but what you don't know was oh she was from Queens she didn't have papers for a long time her dad was in jail at that arc of experience fundamentally to find her entire life. And I needed you to know. Hence the book so this specific passage that you've asked me to read is. I mentioned we overstayed tourist visas and we were living in Queens is something to be really funny about what immigrants do not just my family is you garner the confidence and the wherewith all and the personal resources and whatever financial resources you have to cross an ocean or to cross the desert and then you just get tired and settle as quickly as you can close to the airport that's that's what my family did it's like it's actually Democrat it's like it's a statistical fact that's just what we do we get tired we lose steam we don't finish the marathon. So my family did exactly that. We got our papers through a process that is now derided as chain migration chain migration is to me a beautiful term every family member is a link on the chain and the more links you add the longer and the stronger the chain is we are unfortunately at a moment in this country where the things that we should see as positive we are unfortunately because we are misguided by certain leaders seeing as negative but it is actually a positive thing it's what built the backbone of this country so my family benefited from chain migration my auntie sponsored us we got our green cards and once we got our green cards dad wanted to leave a. True story dad was ready to do what millions of immigrants before him had done pack up and go we don't tend to hear this part of the American story we know about the Ellis Island immigrants who poured in not about those who then decided the winter was too cold the city was too mean and it was time to go back that was that thinking after his 1st business venture fell apart he tried to pick himself back up he went knocking on Broadway doors asking for any work he could get he got the most menial jobs sweeping streets and shoveling snow he would work a whole day and still couldn't put more than $40.00 in mom's hand and he longed for a country without snow of which there are many paralyzing isolation and extreme weather gross malfunctions of nature are for many immigrants 2 of the most devastating features of America and while women are raised to know they will leave their own families to join that of their husbands met or supposed to stay close to their parents and brothers until the end that's what that grew up learning wasn't that it wasn't bad another law of nature. Please mom tried to reason with him if you get a good job we can move to a better place by getting a green card they just broken through a major barrier now was not the time to give up thank you so your father was from Karachi Pakistan before it was Pakistan and right and then he lived in the Middle East and North Africa before arriving to the us so could you tell us a little bit about how he and your family ended up in Queens I think it's what you describe is the most diverse that code in the country right yeah well I believe it was when I was growing up certainly among the most diverse even through today so my parents were both born on the Indian subcontinent when it was just one land mass under British colonial rule the Brits occupied the subcontinent for more than 3 centuries and then were in a mad rush to leave. People in this room will be more familiar with the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi and the nonviolent peace movement maybe less familiar with the fact of partition there was a horrific civil war upon the end of colonialism. The British had a man who'd never set foot on Indian soil divide up India and Pakistan they thought that he was objective the word that I've heard before in different contacts. And what ended up happening was that millions of people were uprooted and or killed my ferrets were among those up rooted. And it was this horrific bloodshed I mean Muslims Hindus and Sikhs were both cheering each other train cars would pull into stations with bodies that were completely dead. Babies were roasted on skewers I mean there is horrific violence my parents each My dad being 6 years old my mother being an infant each left at that time interestingly no one knows my mom's exact worth it because she was born during Civil War and they just they couldn't keep track of time so her birthday is a mystery that us I have guesses based on what I believe to be her horoscope but based on what I think of your personality I'm like Mom you're totally a Leo everything about you is a Leo. But basically you asked about Dad streets of Queens my father and his family left to go live in India in a city close to Bombay but it wasn't their home it's just where they landed and then by the time he was a teenager he left the subcontinent altogether to go and become a migrant worker in Beirut Lebanon and to support his family of 13 so you know by the by the time before my father was 20 he was you know 19 years old he had already left home I mean very very far away and from Beirut he ended up traveling through northern Africa. And the middle east and eventually meeting my mother in Morocco my mom's family went from India to Spain to Morocco my parents met at a poker game. I was an accident but their 3rd child came much later. But they definitely had an appetite for risk that's for sure so as do I mean anyone who's going to cross an ocean has that appetite. They ended up in Queens I actually didn't know the answer until I wrote the book I had no idea why my family decided to go from a relatively stable life in Casa Blanca Morocco were me and my 2 older siblings were born. All the way across the ocean to live a precarious life in a one bedroom apartment like literally I can recall more than once a roach crawling up my pair of skin when I was little like we lived in a roach then. The reason they did it and I did not know this until I began talking to people about about including my mother I asked her a question that many of you might want to ask your parents or your grandparents but right Mom Why specifically did you decide to grab the kids and you and Dad Come here my father has since passed he passed in 2015 that's why I asked my mother I'm expensive ecclesia I because you always say Oh as to get a better life to you kids we wanted a better life for you kids and I was like but we had a really crappy life in some ways like what's a better life you're talking about and that's what my mother told me the specific details that I have now been. I don't know a couple dozen talk so far on this book tour and I realize these details will be familiar to many other people who know the history of the women of their family. My mother explained to me that back home in Casablanca home we were living and joint family a joint family meaning mom and dad living with dad's mom and brothers all of us together under one roof. And it was a really tough situation. My grandmother my father's mother was was mom didn't use the word abuse and back then she didn't know the word abuse but like if Mom made something that my daddy my paternal grandmother didn't like body with throw it at the wall and you know if it hit Mom or not it matter but she was going to eat it Mom had to get permission to open the refrigerator or to go out. My parents were not allowed to sleep in the same place my grandmother ordered my dad to stay in her room and mom had to sleep in the living room. And things got so bad that at some point and my mom is the most resilient human being I know I don't know anybody on earth more resilient than my mother. She tried to take her own life I didn't know that I'm very close to her we talk a lot I had no idea that my mom actually just as tempted suicide until you started writing the book I had no idea yeah so there is you know in the process of writing there are these 3 of facts that come out that you're like I didn't know I didn't know even when you're close that you can be so close to someone but there is that elements of being forever strangers you know that's I was that distance between you somewhere often that distance isn't drama because the nature of trauma is that people don't want to share their deepest pain because if you talk about it you may feel stuck in it. And you know it's so talking about it is. It's something that's for me about how you approached this book and the stories that you tell on it because you say that you know it wasn't like you said coming here for new opportunities even though that was sort of the common line that you would say you know are coming to the u.s. Because their opportunities are better. That it's easier to say we're having a better life for our kids then I despise you oh right family how did it feel to actually articulate that did you have any shame about that like did you have feelings saying that to the world. I mean that's definitely listen I get raw Ok like I am pretty. It was important for me to give the most honest version of the truth that I possibly could and that was important to me specifically because I think that there's something very dangerous that happens in this country around immigrant narratives you're either pro immigrant or you're anti immigrant and whichever camp you're in you have to flatten the immigrant identity into some 2 dimensional like nonsensical figure that just doesn't ring true to reality Well you know what I get to be a writer I'm not currently fighting to keep my family together I was in that position for more than a decade will talk about that when I was in the position of fighting to keep us together I gave the 2 dimensional version of us all the time. But I feel that this country needs and I need stories that are honest about the people who are the backbone of America. And that somehow over the last handful of decades become not Ok to share who we actually are because we either have to be perfect or rebel and and so it's interesting because it's not that I had to be like hey we had some family drama back home but you know what here's my guess if we had it a bunch of people that and what I had learned the story from my mom of why specifically we came here it fundamentally changed how I see the women at the border for example because now you see on your news feed you see images of all these people coming in how do you understand who they are why I understand them in 2 ways now in part through the news of the drug wars and the horrific violence happening throughout Central America but I also understand it as America has long been a place for women seeking freedom not from communism per se but from like their extended family and patriarchal structures that's a huge part actually I go to Ellis Island if you're back in my hometown New York City take the ferry to Ellis Island they restored it it's a gorgeous museum now awesome audio tour you'll hear these stories that there are so many women like that I actually went with my mom over the summer and she was fascinated hearing that like you know women who are now you know who were at the time of recording this audio archives recounting themselves being teenagers wanting to get away yeah you also wrote about how it wasn't really until your dad was actually in Rikers where you actually set out to try and get to know him you didn't actually feel like you knew him on till then so it was essentially across the visitor table at Rikers Island what what was that like yeah and that you know I kind of glossed over and high in brushstrokes what happened with my with my family in terms of an arrest just give a little bit of color you know that and tell you about the way that Dad and I bonded. So. I was a scholarship kid at the Briley school learning fascinating about cattle I've always loved words and I learned words like earthworms like country house if you've never heard this term before which I hadn't when I started being a scholarship at the private school a country house is a home that is your 2nd home. You have to understand that for somebody who grew up in a one bedroom one room Roach and with their siblings and parents like that that is like earth shattering news that that there are people are rich enough on this earth to afford that so I was like in the Crimea like I had never seen so many white people before in my life like no literally like ads t.v. I had but not in person my upbringing was working class United Nations that was where I grew up and side just was like I didn't think that's like I wanted to pull blond hair I was like I really like it was that kind of thing I was just in the whole new world. And it was exciting world and it felt such a big world and I have to admit as I was going through that sort of experience. Even before my father was arrested I felt ashamed of my parents like you're not supposed to say that about your parents like that's it's a very rude thing to say but I kind of felt like oh well there are there are not C.E.O.'s of these things called Fortune 500 companies. Professors at Columbia I learned what the word tenure at Nantes you know like I just they were at those things and so I was kind of like already in that kind of that developmental mind state of oh my God I don't want my classmates to see where I come from I already had that feeling. And then I got a call that my father's at Rikers Island Ok and I remember the 1st time I visited that my reflex when I was yeah and you know this because we're buddies now. I want to be a prosecutor that was Michael I'm going to grow up I'm going to grow up I'm going to wait about guys that's where I came from. And I have very good prosecutor and stinks. And when dad was arrested my 1st thought is What did you do what did you do dad to get yourself into this mess I was so angry at him and that anger lasted for a while I mean it took me a while before I started to pay attention to his case and see it in a different way but I went to go visit him at Rikers Island with my mom and my brother and I thoughts like What are we doing here we don't belong here this is also a big mistake and the wind a little thought though that popped up in my head that I and spending a decade of my life I'm packing in an unexpected way the one little thought was looking around in that room huge visitor center hundreds of people visiting their incarcerated loved ones looking around and I was like Where are all of the white criminals does New York City not have any white criminals. I didn't know what to do with that then but it was there. Now what happens in my father's case I remember the 1st day we went to court for his hearing. I didn't tell people at school why I was missing school. We go to court and it's the people versus the Shanghainese and you know it's really a stunning thing to hear the people versus the Shawnees it's like oh my god I thought we were the people. I mean you know like my mother you know who I keep smiling I refer to her like she started the tenants association in our building because the slumlord was so bad and she like organize tends to like petition for clean up so like get rid of the drug dealers who were selling the kids in the front of our building you know like we were to people like I learned nonviolent conflict resolution from a Quaker center from one of the oldest buildings in all of the Americas when I was a teenager was it was so weird to no longer be the people but I'm against us and the prosecutor basically made it sound like my family's business was a full out front for a drug cartel. We're just laundering money for these people who sell to kids and shoot journalists that in restaurants in Jackson Heights that's what we're doing that's how it sounded. The official charge was money laundering and that an interesting thing happened fast forward a few months of hearings delays and just scheduling whatever whatever the prosecutors are offering a deal Mr Shahani and his little brother my uncle who is also running the store of Mr Shahani Mr Shahani just take an 8 month sentence and call it quits for the whole matter behind us well if we're the front for a cartel Why are you offering a sentence. And here is the thing if they want to go to trial this is a very poorly understood part of the criminal justice system for anyone who's not been in it there's something called a trial penalty meaning if you exercise your right to trial because you want to beat all the charges you will get penalized if convicted so instead of taking the 8 months that they're offering you if convicted you'll get a decade maybe 15 years it's a penalty it's a very strong healthy which is why in most regions it's like 99 percent of people plead Ok that's just what people do statistically speaking because you know it most most people don't have the appetite or the resources for that kind of risk in their life you know that's a point that I think is really important the justice system it is not about innocence and guilt it is about risk and reward just that is fundamentally what it is about so my father and my uncle did what everybody pretty much everybody in this room would do they took a plea. They were supposed to serve 8 months and this is another interesting detail even though we were front for the cartel the prosecutor agreed to let one man go in 1st do as 8 months and come out and then let the other guy go and so that someone could always run our family business in one vault. Crazy day one that your front for the cartel cleaning day we understand these are family men and it's a family business and whatever so my uncle wants in 1st he was supposed to do 8 and a half months excuse me 8 months with the 8 months he ended up serving 2 and a half years because of a New York State administrative error they just made a mistake. That's how the system works. So I got involved then yeah at the time when you're Yeah so I mean his prolonged I ended up getting involved when I was 19 or so basically we thought this was a short thing it be over but a good thing so I had set up actually writing to the judge in the case and I wrote directly to the judge I was by then a college student at the University of Chicago and I wrote directly to the judge because I was like The Wire is part fixing the problem the lawyers just keep showing up to court I'm not doing anything and no one files any paperwork and there's a man I'm related to the president who needs to get out so I write this for the judge I explain the sort of probably in these terms like be idiocy of the week that are over and the judge responds he actually responds It was amazing he ordered all of the lawyers to come into court he ordered all of them to clean up their mass and Mr Shahani my uncle Mr Johnny was must be returned home and then Dad would do his time while here's what happened. Everything solved problem solved. We're planning my uncle's homecoming party celebration thank God one chapter almost done and then he goes missing for 123 then 4 days no idea where he is he used missing homecoming party is now a search party where his uncle right then my father gives me a call and this to me is like that. This moment in caps lates for me the turning point in my relationship with my father like. He gives me a call and I'm by the way like I'm his baby girl with the really big mouth who he's like really worried oh my God how is she going to fare in this world like she's just like no one will accept or she's not marriageable Ike everything about her is off like my father would never have imagines that in America a woman could be paid for a mouth like this that was not that he just that's not the world he came from. But this is America anyway you know my father who always saw sort of my. Kind of fiery Spiritus as a liability and I didn't much care for him I mean he was the guy who just told me my skirts too short to measure it's too tight or you know whatever like I didn't I didn't bond with him exactly. He I was the 1st person he called to tell me and he was weeping I had never heard my father cry before never before had he cried that I that I had heard and he's like they took him they took who took who immigration took right then immigration to grow up and look what are you talking about that. He's like for deportation they're taking him for deportation. Now to me this was really baffling because both my father and uncle had green cards they were lawful permanent like the cards as lawful permanent resident and most of us were naturalized u.s. Citizens and I had by the way my name I now say are 3 Hani up until I was 20 I was r.t. Like I had that was my America you know we have Starbucks and I was my American names r.t. . That tells me for deportation and I am like like a lack trick currents through my entire being if you've ever had a moment where you felt your existence existentially threatened that it can come in many ways it could be in a sporting events it could be that you have a child and you see something happening to the child and you feel it there in any number of ways where you literally just feel that bolts go through your body and you're not sure what's going on but you feel your entire being needs to rally that's what happened that moment and I told my father Dad you were wrong this is a mistake uncle wrote that already to this time he said more than this time the judge said they shouldn't even go to jail you should even go to jail I mean like we had were good people I was done judging him I was like whatever we're good people. This is a mistake and there is no double jeopardy in this country it's in the Constitution there is no double jeopardy and I was wrong so my uncle was summarily deported to India where he had not lived since the fifty's. And then my father was you know going to be next that's that's what was that was what was that's what the last that . You were listening to the Commonwealth Club radio program you can learn more about the club it's many events it's travel program and how to become part of it all at Commonwealth Club dot org You can find thousands of our podcast on i Tunes Google slang and stitcher today's program features are the show honey in conversation with Jim Colby now back to our program. So it's almost like a 2nd sentence after they've served their time it's not even tell us it's not or it isn't seconds it is and it's not until after they've served the time that they actually find that yeah it's exactly a sort of 2nd surprise punishment and then the thing about it is that legally deportation even though the process involves exile and prisons like you get put into prisons while they're holding you to the side which do they do on paper it's a civil proceeding it's more close to like a parking ticket. And that's why it's not considered punishment because it's civil not criminal it's just that the I basically started learning this if I thought I was going to be a prosecutor my 1st foray into law was my family's photo Fandor and I started learning about the system from age 19. And then fighting to keep my father here with all sorts of things that had nothing to do with that courtroom. About age 30. So I trace it to that phone call really yeah yeah and did your views I imagine your views changed all this time about the criminal justice system that immigration system all around this time it all changed now I mean I would say in part. I mean it change for the exposure my family had also changed because of 911 so when I 1st learned what was happening to my family I was looking for help I was like I need to find us a really good lawyer like not one of these ambulance chasers who we keep landing but someone who actually knows what they're doing and I started like writing around and I kind of I just accidently got invited to speak at the New York City Bar Association as like an event at the Bar Association this is the 1st time publicly speaking in search of I was really I was looking for a lawyer but like I'll go anywhere just throw me some lawyers and I got to the Bar Association that's not realize that what the event was was actually this massive like can all to discuss a bipartisan campaign Republicans and Democrats both agreed if you can imagine that time in American contemporary history Republicans and Democrats both agreed that the immigration deportation laws had gone too far there was bipartisan agreement that America created a system that was too punitive and that families were being hurt wrongfully and this needed to change so I actually stumbled into this panel one of the other people the panel was the top prosecutor for the immigration authority and I was like wow I just I'm really in it right now and I you know I was like maybe I was 20 by then I lectured them about the Constitution not. Like the sweeping men just I had I had to let the adults know because the adults seemed so clueless to me you know. Any way I answer the finding not just a lawyer but a an entire political campaign that was dedicated to trying to help families like mine and I joined that campaign. And it was exhilarating it was you know this is like I see a few younger people here I'm very happy to see unlike you know I remember that time as being I was 20 years old fighting not just for my father but to change the laws that were affecting thousands of other families just like my family and we were meeting with Republicans and Democrats and they were taking our meetings and we were going to Congress and we're going to fix it all and I'm a September 11th 2001 I was on a train from New York City to Washington d.c. . To continue pushing the Bipartisan Campaign for immigrant rights. And then the towers collapse my 1st reflex is where is my brother my brother worked in one of them and then you know it's interesting one of what a disruptive moment happened it's you don't always know in that moment how things are going to pan out how the disruption unfolds it's hard to know so listen in retrospect I'm just going to sound woefully naive an optimistic view but I really have a match and in that moment and for 2 more years after that moment no it's Ok my family and my loved ones and the people I'm fighting for and with had nothing to do with the attacks it's not about us we're grieving to America is going to come together and we're going to like improve national security and we're going to restore honor rights. Well you would have made the same mistake. Maybe not. And you're going through all this you're still 192021 you're the family attorney you're bringing about all these changes writing to the judge getting response from the judge it sounds like you probably have to grow up very fast in that time do you ever resent that. Oh so much I mean here's the thing is that I really appreciate that question because I feel like. Listen ultimately I really love my family and I think that part of what gave me permission. To write so honestly in this book is we've been through so much together we really trust each other and so they kind of trusted me like r.v. You got this it's fine. But that sad I definitely felt like you know how I stumbled into journalism it's quite unconventional the backstory to your Indian i.t.o.e. Like I basically Fahed through all sorts of political channels and very bizarre legal maneuvers to keep my dad in this country and when I was done I was 30 my credit score was horrific I mean like I looked at that FICA thing I was like I mean does it go low enough for me you know like it was so bad. Even though I had a really nice education I felt like there was nothing kind of discernible I could do with my life. I no longer think of 30 is young but when you are 30 I don't think 30 is old rather But when you are 30 you somehow think it is like you don't realize that you're still a baby and you have plenty of time. But I had that kind of like of oh my God I come from nothing. I have nothing. And what the heck is my life when I'm not being an immigrant daughter I was angry and even when I was writing this book like you know what I told you I talk to my mom about like Ok mom why exactly did we move here like What was that about. It wasn't a neutral question I mean it was straight up resentment it was like you put us through so much like justify yourself you know and that's when she told me about the family situation the attempted suicide. And and was she did she find it hard to talk about like. Yes definitely it's funny I think I think that. You know different people react differently to painful memories. My sister very close to me at this point she's like part of it seems like you deal with pain by wanting to like staring straight in the face and dissects the hell like you just you don't want to stop going at it with your scalpel and my sister wants to deal with it by like forget it and let's move on to happier times you know like let's just not look at the past my mother is interesting because I believe she has the capacity for either but she was willing to go there with me she basically like it's not that she needed to talk about it. But she knew that I needed to and she did she need a lot of time and if like what I was listen I wrote this book from the heart of this book is my heart on a page Ok. But I'm also I am a journalist and I you know I have some very strong investigative reflexes so when mom tells me the story about my mother and my grandmother her mother in law I'm like you know when the tears are dry when there's been sufficient moments for empathy and also for me internalize it because you know the difference between writing memoir versus reporting somebody else's story is when you're reporting somebody else's story this is a fact for us journalists there is a slight kind of delight in the pain that a suffered by others. And. It's unfortunately the end centipedes of the business it's like if it bleeds it leads and you know I think a lot about this is a human when you're writing memoir The pain that people recount for you in the your loved ones it's your pain so you actually don't want it to be that bad you don't want to hear it I would have preferred a much less interesting coming to America story. I didn't want that one but that was the truth but even after she told me that I think that price spent like that evening literally like laid out on a bad because it she's my mother she's somebody I love so to find out that she went through certain things was very painful including things I did not put in the book that I chose not to put in the book. Is painful but then the next day my questions are her is who can corroborate this. Your 2nd source Yes 430 Exactly exactly and then she points to you know I didn't realize this but my my grandma's daughters who are still alive did not care for their mother and would not visit her after they were married and so they had their own stories about growing up you know. So you could yeah I mean very easily Yeah so few people in their audience of us a question about how you've managed to stay positive Have you always stayed positive going through all this and not become better about the justice system of immigration. Thank you for saying that I seem positive. It's important for us to like positive like you know like like marketers positive like let's all be happy or what I like it's not that it's it's that you know again it's seeing fully It's the acceptance of duality my book it's called here we are heading American Dreams American nightmares that here we are is a pure statement of fact like it or not here we are the American dream so American nightmare is my thesis about this country. My father was the fall on Nightmare What does that look like and mean the nightmare is basically. Being the constant target of institutionalized racism the long arm of the law that refuses to look at who you are like literally my father is my father's crisis in the justice system is that who he was literally did not matter like that was his issue in the justice system. He left that nightmare thoroughly and we lived at the margins of it but here's the flip the American dreams I have a good life let's be real I have a very good life I mean. In this country my big mouth was not a liability it opens doors that would never have opened back home I was allowed to go to school not sure that would have happened back home. I got scholarships to amazing places I mean I did not encourage you know this is not every American students experience I did not encourage that going to school for whatever school I went to it's a very different experience from it and you know I think that part of your question right now in this country is is the dream alive. There you know there are excellent now burgeoning economists and social scientists sort of looking at how the dream is dying because the nature of the dream of the American dream is the ability to cross into worlds you did not know existed and your parents could not access that's the nature of the dream I absolutely love that we are in a moment in this country where more and more Americans are not living and so I think that in part what we're seeing in terms of the immigration crisis in this country which I think is a crisis of consciousness more than having what we're seeing is playing out across issues and fields and constituencies you know but my you know I feel positive in the sense of you know to some extent America's a bit of like a broken relationship right now and a broken relationship how do you solve it do you solve it by just looking at what's broken and saying that that that and then fighting it or do you also kind of adjust or Aladdin's to see where the hope is and see what works and emphasize Oh this is possible oh this is possible let's remember our better selves you know. So for a time you were an activist as well you started a nonprofit that's only been facing deportation and now you're a journalist how would you compare the impact you had as an activist compared to being a journalist impact. Such a tricky word. I think in one of those people who I don't feel that I've had an impact on anything like put it this way rather I certainly had an impact on my family's life I know I did. Part of why I wrote the book was actually to grapple with a question that many immigrants ask but we're not supposed to ask out loud and the question was simply Was it worth it was coming to America worth it was coming to America a mistake a lot of us ask that question I've now been on a book tour for you know for many cities in many states that question comes up for people to look at it's difficult to ask it because when you're fighting to stay somewhere you have to lead with your gratitude not with your doubt right. And so part of what I'm working through in my book is was it a mistake to fight for my father the way that I did. Did he actually want it. Was I just pushing my way because I could it's imagined us existing except for in this place that was to me help that is to me help. So there's a pact there I think what community organizers and journalists both June even though there's an industry divide what they have in common is that. They're storytellers We're storytellers you're seeing something that you believe needs to have a light shone on it. You're being gauged with irrelevant actors I mean the thing I love about community organizing as opposed to just sort of like a petition kind of activism is that in organizing you're actually meeting the people who are affected by things you're building what's called the base of people of constituents you're bringing them together you're talking to each other you're getting a sense of other people's lived experience it's incredibly grounded work and journalism can be incredibly grounded work where you go and you scavenge for who has relevance for something that is happening in this world not just any armchair blowhard but someone who's actually relevant and understanding what they what they understood what they know about it whatever it is I actually see a great deal of continuity between the 2 What I'm not sure about is which one has more impact because you know what I see ultimately it's like in Silicon Valley you get to see real power I mean real power and I give this example like Travis calendar. I remember covering her reporting before and after its i.p.o. Particularly before the i.p.o. About that company and I was actually focused on the worker issues not the not the worker issues that Susan Fowler and that were uncovered in terms of the the women's issues at the company I was focused on like the driver issues like the working class driver issues the sort of crap to get kind of a jobs that people are doing and how the app doesn't even let you know what you're exactly what your expenses are when you're doing it because you know the app maker is could help you track your your cost but they don't just don't have this kind of like working class stuff. And I remember while reporting on Uber and learning more about the company and how its model is it is better to ask forgiveness than permission that is literally the model of uber go into a market whether a watch you are not whether you're a lot or not and then say sorry and then have your political operatives in your lawyers just handle it like you know it's to me the legal engineering is much more impressive than the technological. And. The rich but I mean that's but you know but that's how bad how capitalism asked you know and when I look at the fact that my father who was a workaholic. Whose face a goal was just to provide for his family and he was great at math and languages and why did to work 7 days a week and he was at the margins of the tech economy he was at sort of a low and those are small businesses selling things selling watches and calculators before Amazon existed that he paid such a heavy cost and was never able to return to the workforce for what was supposed to be an 8 month sentence and that Travis calendar is not in criminal proceedings for this like To me it's like here's how justice works if you're rich you have a civil war Ning and possibly case and if you're working class you get the criminal route. So you know I think that. Silicon Valley as a student of power I think I've always I've long been a student of power Silicon Valley has been a very eye opening place to me about how our works. So the question here from the audience after all you've seen an experience about your parents would you feel it's easier for you to migrate yourself have you ever decided that a better life lay elsewhere. Wow audience. Like shout out some destinations. Part of what I decided when I was writing this book like I did it's write the book for me ultimately you know. The deepest meditation happening in this book is not about politics and policy it's about me and my that it literally is just that journey of like in what crazy circumstances did this guy I didn't like become my best friend like to me that is the greatest puzzle of all and nothing is worth deeper contemplation that love and that's what happens here I do love America I do you. And I feel like the right thing to do is to try to make her better so listen we're living increasingly in a world and I think what's interesting about this group in Silicon Valley it's like people here more so than other parts of the country are accustomed to this idea of binational or multinational living and having really strong ties to other parts of the world something I love about here is that people understand that actually the direction of the world is just to be more integrated that's actually just that's the March of capitalism it's the March of technology it's the direction of human relationships I mean the u.s. Is you know there's so much interracial marrying in this country you know like my mom points out to me you know I told you about the Hindus Muslims and Sikhs who are killing each other during Partition you get to Queens they're babysitting for each other they're sharing milk and sugar and you know killing roaches see other like like America has such a capacity to absorb difference. And it is really easy to forget that right now because that's not that's actually not our national narrative right now our national narrative right now is very very polarizing and it's making us feel that the divisions between us are greater than they actually are in our lived experience and so I feel like I mean listen I'm game to like you know try my hand in another country maybe at some point but this will always be a home or the home home for me and an important place to speak up right now because I have insight from growing up in Flushing Queens you should all visit great food make sure you have cash because plenty of places still to his take Square and you know through best highest value meal. You know from growing up in Queens and then even from moving to Silicon Valley and in that whole journey seeing for example when my father was being threatened with exile from this country who rallied for us I'm going to be very honest and some of the my fellow they say is Indians in the crowd wonder stand us it wasn't our people who rallied for my father our people frankly they were the 1st to cut us off some of them were doing exactly what that was doing cash business selling watches and calculators didn't want to be in you know implicated I think some people had judgment you know but Americans and other immigrants black Americans white Americans Latin people from all sorts of places they were like We're going to help the shiny family stay they were writing our petitions they were giving us hundreds of letters of support it was Americans or people who decided this is their home and so I feel that's very instructive about the the true culture of America because the issue is that there is a difference between one culture Ok this is very simple. Our culture is open and expansive and absorbance our laws are not and our laws are not because our political leaders are misguided shocker. We're dealing with that in a lot of contacts right now not just this issue and so the challenge is for us to make leadership have laws that are reflective of our open in a foreign culture another question from the audience how did your parents talk to you about their document and their documentation status and do you remember that when I was little Yeah I mean my brother remembers that Mark's My brother is a decade older than me and my brother was basically my surrogate father starting at age 12 for him had a lot of heat a lot of pressure put on him to be a support I would hear my parents use words like like I remember hearing the word greencard I remember my father you know sort of once you know like telling my mother not to sign something it was basically my ass about it was like a petition it like a basically a complaint to the super like when you're on documented you don't want to leave a paper trail that's sort of the nature of being undocumented. Sorry that stuff what I really remember more about is I remember. Listen. When we did not have our papers there was another family of our ethnic group who also through forces of globalization and choice you know it's never just one or the other through sort of huge forces they landed they were childhood friends of my dad and they landed in the apartment building next to ours in Flushing Queens and that was thrilled thrilled to encounter his countryman his neighbors from back home my father was someone who spent his life just longing for home and fated not to have it back that was his life. And this country men like Nanda I'll take care of you everything will be fine come under my wings that I guess what happened he was the 1st one to rob us blind he was the one to threaten to call the port Haitian officers on us he was the one who in my father's absence attempted to follow my mother that's the real world. So we're coming up to the end now and it's an informed tradition to ask all of our speakers Are you Ok with with this question so it's it's the question is everyone else and I know where we're radically changing. Matter here and now but you're also a time N.P.R.'s correspondent so maybe it's relevant but the question is what is your 62nd idea to change the world it's simple. Now it's relevant to my idea each of us has to give ourself the gift and the discipline of quiet I thought when I was fighting for my father I was just like a decade long tornado. And it became very hard to see things clearly and something that I think gave me the courage to see clearly and to make sense of my family's journey was letting myself just hear what was inside and I think if if we're less afraid of that you know we will each lead with much more clarity and that's why such. Great people are the thanks so much for joining us today and the form of a common story. This is been the Commonwealth Club radio program featuring Aarti Shahani in conversation with Jim Colgan join us next time for another program from the Commonwealth Club you can learn more about us on our events at Commonwealth Club dot org find thousands of our programs on i Tunes Google Play and You Tube And when you're in the Bay Area Please join us in person at the Comedy Club. At 859 support for k.q.e.d. Comes from Stanford health care where patients turn when it matters for breakthrough medical advances designed to prevent diagnose and treat illness and from the San Francisco Symphony celebrate the holidays with the San Francisco Symphony from beloved films including Love Actually with live orchestra to New Year's Eve with Seth MacFarlane to learn more at s.f. Symphony dot org slash holiday this week's program from the Commonwealth Club of California will be on again tomorrow morning at 2 news from the b.b.c. World Service is coming up next and then at 10 o'clock on forum with Friday host Nina Kim it's a rebroadcast of this morning show about the new edition of The Joy of Cooking. Rain will develop across the North Bay and spread south overnight the National Weather Service says it will be showery and cool on Saturday with possible thunderstorms and highs around 60 degrees showers will linger Sunday morning and then the dry weather returns Monday and Tuesday with a slight chance of rain by mid week in the Bay Area and Sacramento. San Francisco and North Highlands Sacramento at 9 o'clock. Mt Welcome to the new Eastern from the b.b.c. World Service I'm Rosemary Maine American entrepreneur eon Muskies creative d. Faming a British caved I think he called p.j. Guy on Twitter questions are asked of Saudi Arabia after 3 people were killed by a Saudi Air Force trainee as a us military base the government of Saudi Arabia needs to make things better for these victims and I think that they're going to owe a debt here given that this is one of their individuals an Indian woman who was attacked in set on fire on her way to testify against her alleged rapists has died of her enjoy this and make a funny spending out of control near Australia's biggest city Sydney conditions here kind of a transformation for the Grays today this is one of the 2 major 5 currently burning out of control and the Munch talks about play fair if you comes to a London siesta but critics Ross not to talk about it too much you're listening to the b.b.c. World Service now a summary of the nice. I'm Stuart Mackintosh with the b.b.c. News Hello the social media platform read it has said it believes a leak of sensitive documents detailing trade talks between the u.s. And the u.k. Is linked to a Russian campaign to influence British voters the does he has been used by the Labor Party leader Jeremy Colvin in the campaign for next week's general election he said it proved that the National Health Service would be part of u.s. Trade negotiations after breaks it had claimed a net denied by the governing Conservative Party Mike Wendling reports since the documents became public there have been questions about where they came from now Reddit the place where the documents 1st appeared says it believes the leak was part of a campaign originating in Russia the site has suspended 61 accounts which it believes were involved in a pattern of coordinated action Reddit says it is based its judgment partly on information from law enforcement agencies but the site which is one of the Internet's most popular collection of message boards has given few further details about how the documents came to be posted online an Indian woman who was attacked and set on fire on her way to testify against her alleged rapists has died of her injuries doctors said she suffered 90 percent burns during the attack in time Pradesh the cases sparked further anger in India where that had already been protests over a murder and rape case in the southern city of Hyderabad last week protection reports from Delhi The 22 year old woman was on her we 2 were hearing in a keys she fight against 2 men when she was attacked well yet this week she had been in a critical condition in hospital with severe burns 5 men including 2 of her alleged rapists have been arrested on suspicion of setting her on fire the sister of the victim has now told the b.b.c. That she expects the death penalty for the accused. The author it is in the u.s. Say they are continuing to investigate the motives of a Saudi gunman who shot dead 3 people at a military base in Florida the Air Force trainee who was killed during the attack had been receiving training in.