we re gonna talk talk about about topic chopping 18, which is 18, which is a southeast eight out southeast asian refugee asian migrations refugee migration. . and and, if you if you have have been been following the following the news in news in recent recent years years,, i i imagine imagine is that that you, you, like we, like me, have have found it found difficult to difficult to ignore the topic ignore the topic of of refugees. refugees. this is an image of a refugees experience fleeing communist vietnam in 1975, but in many ways, it reminds us of images that we might see on the news today. it s hard to ignore the human stories of assemblies perishing at sea, refugees are suffocating in meat trucks. they re crowding onto leaky boats, they are drowning, the parties of those who are unable to cross to safety are washing up on major train in. beaches refugees are being uprooted by conflict all around the world. so, we re not just talking about refugees coming from syria but
found a typical to ignore the topic of refugees. this is an image of a refugees experience fleeing communist vietnam in 1975, but in many ways it reminds us of images that we might see on the news today. it s hard to ignore the human stories of families perishing at sea. refugees are suffocating in meat trucks they re crowding onto leaky boats. they re drowning. the bodies of those who are unable to cross to safety are washing up on mediterranean beaches. and refugees have been in the news for the past few years particularly related to the crisis in syria, but refugees are being uprooted by conflict all around the world. so we re not just talking about refugees coming from syria, but from other war-torn regions. especially in the past couple years. it has also been very difficult to ignore the public response to refugees. and refugee resettlement like so many other topics today has become a polarizing topic. on one hand opposition to refugees has been fierce and even hostile.
read book so people across the country are able to have conversations about that experience, kao kalia yang is one of the best to take us there. her new book the song poet, a nice companion piece to a memoir about her father and his role in keeping history alive through the oral tradition. i thought both books were moving, giving me such insight into the role of culture and family life, made me think about how it works. without further a do, help me welcome kao kalia yang. [applause] can you all see me? okay. can you all hear me? even if you can t see me. thank you for being here. i m delighted to be back. two years ago i was here with the late home, her and i am glad to bring you the song poet . i am incredibly proud of this. i m working on speaking slower. people told me i speak too fast. you give me some feedback afterwards, okay? the song poet came out of a conversation i had with my father a few years ago. i asked my dad how does a song poet become? he looked at m
can you all see me? okay. can you all hear me? even if you can t see me. thank you for being here. i m delighted to be back. two today i m excited to bring you this book. i m incredibly proud of it. i m working on speaking slower. people. people have to me that i speak too fast. so you can give me some feedback on how this goes afterwards. okay. the songbook came out of a conversation i had with my father two years ago. i. i asked my dad, i said how does the song point become he looked at me for a little bit and said when i was young there is few people who said beautiful things to me. my father died when i was two years old. my mother took to the mountainside to see her nine children.ld i was two years old. growing up i always wish for a father, i used to go to the house of one number neighbor to the next collecting the beat of the things people had to say to each other. one day was speaking to myself, and the song was born. i thought those beautiful. so i said to my dad
they are both going to be downstairs signing and selling the books. i wrote a book about gps and pinpoint how gps is changing culture and mind and i think i will be signing books. they definitely will.e] [applause] [inaudible conversations] and you re watching c-span2. the next author panel will begin in about ten minutes or so and it s an author panel on immigration. we will be back in just a fewilb minutes. [inaudible conversations] book tv just covered a live panel on c-span2. the conversation on political parties and the election and that included ralph nadir, thomas frank and the three authors signing books right now, having conversations, they weren t able to take q&a, questions and answers duringue panel discussion so this is the opportunity for festival goers to ask some questions and getto their books signed. a beautiful day out here in brooklyn new, new york, c-span is live all day. we have three more panel discussions left. one is happening right now upstairs