Home & Heart Featuring Lorena Quiroz and Anne Hand

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Welcome. I'm Erik Fleming, host of A Moment with Erik Fleming, the podcast of our time.

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make this moment a movement.

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Thanks in advance for supporting the podcast of our time. I hope you enjoy this episode as well.

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The following program is hosted by the NBG Podcast Network.

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Hello, and welcome to another moment with Erik Fleming. I am your host, Erik Fleming.

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And I want to, in advance, wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving.

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As this episode drops, it'll be approaching. The holiday will be approaching.

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And again, I just hope that everybody, you know, gets a chance to spend time

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with family and friends, enjoy some good football and whatever else y'all do

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for your Thanksgiving traditions.

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And so I think this episode is relevant because I want to entitle it Home and

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Heart, because, you know, there's an old saying, home is where the heart is.

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And my two guests come from two different perspectives of the issue.

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One has been an advocate for immigrants in this country, you know,

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making sure that people that want to come.

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Are given the opportunities not only to come, but to live and live abundantly

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and to fight for their rights and, you know, give them protections, all that stuff.

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And then the other guest wrote a book about her experience applying for citizenship

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in another country and what was her motivation and what was the experience like.

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And even though she doesn't live in the other country,

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just the journey to go through that process, I think, is very important.

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And it makes for a good book, by the way.

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So I hope that y'all get that sense of home and heart when you listen to these

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guests, because even in the struggles that immigrants in the United States are facing,

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part of the reason that they're fighting is because they want America to be

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their home and their heart is here.

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Even though they have connections with their native country and those will never be severed.

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They also have a heart and a desire to make America their home and to make the

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most of their opportunity.

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So I hope that gets captured in the interviews that you hear.

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Still trying to get people to make donations, and especially as this holiday season is approaching,

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you know, we've got supportjamaica.gov.jm.

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If you still want to make donations to those folks in Jamaica that were ravaged by Hurricane Melissa.

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And, you know, just in the holiday season, you know, we had this scare during

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the shutdown where people look like they weren't even going to have food or

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weren't going to be able to afford food for the holiday season.

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So that just highlighted the need for support for our community food banks,

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support for organizations that raise money to deal with hunger in this country.

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And so I just, you know, whatever you can do, I know that's asking a lot of

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people in this economic time that we're in. And it's not so much the struggle

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as it is the uncertainty, right?

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Because we're all making adjustments on the fly as the administration seems

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to be making decisions on the fly based on the economy.

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So I just want people to have a giving heart.

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And do what you can, whatever you can.

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You know, in the Christian tradition, we talk about the story of the widow's mite, right?

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And, you know, how that was all she had. And that caught Jesus' attention more

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than the folks that were giving their tithes or giving more than their tithes, right?

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The wealthy, you know. So just do what you can.

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And I can assure you that there will be somebody that will greatly appreciate what you did.

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All right, so let's go ahead and get this program started. And as always,

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we kick it off with a moment of news with Grace G.

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Thanks, Erik. The Republican-controlled U.S. Congress voted to force the release

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of Justice Department files on Jeffrey Epstein.

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A federal court blocked Texas from using its new congressional map,

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which was intended to favor Republicans and was drawn based on race.

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Indiana Republicans called off a legislative session meant to enact a new congressional

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map despite pressure from President Trump and his allies. A U.S.

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Judge questioned the validity of the grand jury indictment against former FBI

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Director James Comey after prosecutors admitted the final indictment was never

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presented to the entire grand jury.

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Federal agents arrested at least 370 people in Charlotte, North Carolina,

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escalating the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign.

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The Pentagon is withdrawing some National Guard troops from Chicago and Portland,

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weeks after President Trump deployed them to those cities to combat crime.

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Nearly two dozen people, including faith leaders, were arrested while protesting

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outside a federal immigration facility near Chicago.

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A state prosecutor in Georgia took control of the high-profile election interference

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case against President Trump and his allies, following a court ruling that disqualified

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the initial prosecutor, Fannie Willis.

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A resolution was filed to expel Democratic U.S.

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Representative Sheila Sherphilis McCormick following her federal indictment

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for allegedly misusing COVID-19 relief funds.

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New restrictions on student visas and other Trump administration policies contributed

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to a 17% decline in the enrollment of new international students at U.S.

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Colleges and universities this autumn.

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And a federal judge has ordered a dozen Texas public school districts to remove

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Ten Commandment displays from classrooms by December.

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I am Grace G., and this has been a Moment of News.

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All right. Thank you, Grace, for that moment of news. And now it's time for

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my guest, Lorena Quiroz.

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Lorena's journey began in New York City. She was born to immigrant parents who

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value cultural heritage and community.

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In Mississippi, she raises her children with values of resilience and community involvement.

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As executive director of the Immigrants Alliance for Justice and Equity for

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Mississippi, Lorena employs innovative strategies, amplifying unheard voices,

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and fostering recognition and respect for all.

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The many rich experiences and stories from her lived experience inform her resilience,

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innovation, and dedication required for the strong leadership in IAJ's fight

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for community empowerment.

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Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest

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on this podcast, Lorena Quiroz.

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All right. Lorena Quiroz. How are you doing, ma'am? You doing good?

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Well, as good as can be. I'm healthy and that's a beautiful thing.

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I understand. With the work that you do is jumping and we're going to get into,

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some of the urgent stuff that you're dealing with right now.

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But I want to start off the interview with the icebreaker portion.

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So the first thing I want you to do is respond to a quote that I'm going to read to you.

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It's a big piece of my heart because I'm not only an immigrant,

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but the daughter of an immigrant, a woman who migrated and left her entire family for years.

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To think that my mom sacrificed all of that so I could be talking to you,

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it's incredible to think that's the work they're doing for their children.

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What does that quote mean to you? It's my life.

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It describes my life. It describes me. It describes my work.

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It's my organization. It's the community that I've created, even within the organization.

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It's the way that I lead. It's forever present in everything that I do.

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Yeah. All right. So now the next icebreaker is what we call 20 questions.

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So I need you to give me a number between one and 20. Three. Three. Okay.

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How should we balance rights, freedoms, and responsibilities?

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I think freedom is what encompasses all the work that we do,

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whether it is migration, leaving one state for another.

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Oftentimes, as immigrant community, we talk about the migration that happened

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from the South to the North, whether it is going from one continent to another.

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It is about freedom, the freedom to make decisions, to have agency over your

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own life, over your body.

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And I think freedom, to me. And then you mentioned responsibilities.

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And what was the third one? It was balancing rights, freedoms, and responsibilities.

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So tied very heavily to that is our rights, the rights to choose.

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I think it is our responsibility, though. There's a lot of us that feel that we can be neutral.

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I think that a lot of people feel, and I heard it in a conversation yesterday, that I'm not political.

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I think our very existence is political.

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And so it is our responsibility to be where we can and the degree that we can,

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that we are responsible to being agents and promoters of freedom,

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right? to have the right.

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I think that those of us that sit in the background don't realize that.

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Our future is tied to our neighbor's future. So although I say freedom lies heavily,

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as I speak to you, I'm thinking of how, yes, it is our responsibility to make

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sure that we all have the right to freedom.

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Yeah, I got you. All right. So many Americans are experiencing the actions of

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ICE and the Border Patrol under the current Trump administration,

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including communities in Mississippi.

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But this is not the first time you and your fellow Mississippians faced an aggressive

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Trump administration policy, immigration policy.

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Talk to the leaders about the raids of August the 7th, 2019.

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So I was organizer and my phone just blew up.

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My emails and I was sitting, I can tell you, I was on the floor of our office on Congress Street.

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And everyone was sharing what was happening. I think it was maybe around 9.30

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in the morning and a lot of the family members were sharing.

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They took our people, they took our families, they took my mother,

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they took my children and they called me because I'd been in community for so long.

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And at first I froze, didn't know what to do.

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And then, you know, it hits you, hey, you're an organizer, you have everybody's phone number in your,

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if you're a good organizer, you have relational meetings, you have,

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you have people's phone numbers and we sent out a press release and Noel Ditla, my sister, Dorothy,

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this elder, civil rights actor, elder, and myself, we put together the press

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release and we had a response over 200 national partners, regionals, and locals showed up.

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And so I want to say that.

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As a child of immigrants growing up in New York, I want to say that I have a

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certain level of privilege, you know, having access to language,

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having access to even navigating the systems.

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But I also, you know, was that child, the oldest child that was next to my mom,

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saw what she faced, the hardships in getting employment and how she worked 12 hours a day.

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And so living in Mississippi and being faced with the fact that our immigrant

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communities have such little resources,

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how we are often overlooked and how people claim to be our voice.

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When we have a voice, there's just no platform.

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It was enraging, heartbreaking.

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And to think that the whole state of Mississippi, although this happened in

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central Mississippi, in five cities, six chicken plants, the whole state felt affected by it.

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So whether it was North Mississippi and the family of, you know,

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ranchers with a child who served in the Ivy League, who went to an Ivy League school,

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their family members was just as affected as the person whose wife was taken that day.

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So it was traumatic, to say the least. It was horrible.

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Also, the way that you got to see the cognitive dissonance, right?

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I got to interview because I was the organizer on the ground.

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I got to be connected to the entire world when it came to reporters.

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Korea was here. Paris was here.

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Telemundo. And some of the interviews were directed to business owners.

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And I want to say that a lot of them.

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They said, we love, and of course, they kind of, you know, put us all together as Mexican.

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We love the Mexicans, but hey, they're illegal.

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And I just could not understand business owners who pretty much paid their money

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off, you know, our immigrant communities, documented, undocumented,

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who could actually think like that.

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So I really got to see and experience, you know, firsthand what it was like.

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People who did not feel that they were racist, people who felt that they loved

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their brother and sisters in their faith,

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how they could agree with the dehumanation of these humans who had lived with

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them, who went to school with them, who went to church with them.

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And it was hurtful to say the least. I also saw something which a lot of people

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in one particular media outlet that came looking for the story of black and brown people.

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Separation to say the least. But what I saw was Black churches respond immediately.

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Black churches that were right next door to the schools, they were the first

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without any ask to deliver products to deliver. I mean, they just filled up

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their trucks and delivered.

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That wasn't covered. So I got to see that firsthand.

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I got to see community organizing themselves.

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I got to see also national response and how it can be extractive,

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although well-meaning, the phrase, the way to hell is paved with good intentions,

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stands out very, very clearly.

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But I also, for the first time, was othered.

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You know, I am an immigrant and my people are immigrants. And I remember stepping

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up to lead this coalition.

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My background is public health. I do organizing work because I organized as a young woman.

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But when people questioned my leadership, I saw it. I was just another brown

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person. I could have been picked up that same day.

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Who is she, right? When the immigrants' rights sector has been historically

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led by white folks who have no immigration experience except the desire to do good.

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And so simply to me, that was, I am an immigrant, And so I'm well fitted to

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lead this coalition work. So I got to see it.

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I got to experience it even by, you know, my social justice colleagues.

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The fact that we, you know, how we are seen, how we're perceived and how we

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have to fight really hard to change those narratives that, you know,

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that brown people have the capacity to lead and form coalitions and create organizations

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that are led by us for us. Yeah.

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And that particular raid, if I understand correctly, was the largest one in American history?

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So, yes. And what's interesting, recently, Atlanta, Georgia got raided and they

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are saying that it was the largest.

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That was the first that that was the largest one site, single site raid.

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Ours was the largest raid in the history of this nation.

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Unfortunately, in Mississippi, we are known for some of those,

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you know, where like we're the worst in the list of everything that is, you know, decent.

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And we are the first on everything that is bad.

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Unfortunately, yes, that was the largest worksite raid where 700 people were detained.

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About half of them were, three quarters of them were kept for,

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you know, an extended amount of time.

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Several hundred were deported and included women, you know, women that did have permits,

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residents, breastfeeding moms, and some of them were detained for over a year,

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even during COVID, right? Like we went right into COVID.

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So it was a time. It was a time.

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Yeah, it was the worst, the largest raid in the history of the nation right here.

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Yeah. So it was just reported by the Associated Press that Homeland Security

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is planning to deploy about 250 federal border agents to Louisiana and Mississippi,

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aiming to arrest about 5,000 people in the two states starting in December.

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So based on your experience dealing with 2019, how will your organization fight against that?

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One of the things that we've been doing is trying to prepare our community.

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What we know is with these large-scale tactics, people are going to get apprehended and deported.

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With some of the executive orders where we have little to no processing,

00:21:26.476 --> 00:21:32.296
we are getting people ready. So it's important that people not only know their

00:21:32.296 --> 00:21:33.656
rights, but also be prepared.

00:21:34.176 --> 00:21:38.796
There's nothing like your agency taken away, like feeling that there's nothing you can do.

00:21:39.016 --> 00:21:43.356
So making sure that families have, you know, have their affairs in order,

00:21:43.516 --> 00:21:47.636
have copies of birth certificates, have, you know, prepare their children.

00:21:48.936 --> 00:21:52.516
Because that can ease some of the hurtful trauma.

00:21:53.576 --> 00:21:57.436
Some of the things, again, that are like easy lifts are making sure that people,

00:21:57.676 --> 00:22:00.616
their cars are in order, their tags are in order.

00:22:01.056 --> 00:22:03.176
All of that is prevention and education.

00:22:03.816 --> 00:22:07.076
We do want to do a lot of bystander trainings.

00:22:07.416 --> 00:22:13.676
One thing that we are aware of being a national and regional calls is that these

00:22:13.676 --> 00:22:16.196
folks have been hired off the street.

00:22:16.496 --> 00:22:22.856
They're not trained to law enforcement and some pretend to be law enforcement. So we,

00:22:23.447 --> 00:22:28.347
We know that the legal system sometimes doesn't work. Sometimes it takes many years.

00:22:28.587 --> 00:22:31.707
We need to catch these mistakes.

00:22:32.427 --> 00:22:38.447
And we need to train anybody who has even an inkling of care,

00:22:38.447 --> 00:22:43.107
if they're passing by, to record what's going on.

00:22:43.107 --> 00:22:47.447
We need to have a record of these mistakes, whether it's, you know,

00:22:47.567 --> 00:22:52.167
actual mistakes by law enforcement or whether it's people pretending to be,

00:22:52.267 --> 00:22:53.807
you know, law enforcement.

00:22:54.047 --> 00:22:57.507
So we're doing some of that, these bystanders training.

00:22:57.787 --> 00:22:59.627
There's a lot of information gathering.

00:22:59.927 --> 00:23:05.247
There's a lot of resource sharing. We are trying to create small hubs of community.

00:23:05.247 --> 00:23:11.187
It has to be led by community that's preparing warning in case they see,

00:23:11.187 --> 00:23:12.887
you know, what's going on.

00:23:13.067 --> 00:23:16.347
We're making sure that restaurants know their rights.

00:23:16.747 --> 00:23:22.027
We're making sure, and even ourself, like our organization, we are,

00:23:22.167 --> 00:23:24.427
we're going to be working remotely, right?

00:23:24.627 --> 00:23:29.667
We're trying to make sure that people are aware of what's going on.

00:23:29.947 --> 00:23:33.067
We're also trying to make sure that like children are protected.

00:23:33.067 --> 00:23:37.587
And so that's another thing that we've been working with churches so that people

00:23:37.587 --> 00:23:44.707
have access to, we don't provide legal representation, but we're connecting

00:23:44.707 --> 00:23:47.427
them to our partners so that they can have access,

00:23:47.607 --> 00:23:51.207
so that they can have a number to call in case something happens.

00:23:51.907 --> 00:23:56.067
Right now is a time to unify community. It doesn't matter who, what,

00:23:56.267 --> 00:24:02.307
we just need to get together and get the folks that want to help trained because

00:24:02.307 --> 00:24:07.607
also there can be harm, you know, brought onto community if people are not aware

00:24:07.607 --> 00:24:10.127
of how to navigate the system,

00:24:10.547 --> 00:24:15.687
you know, in a way that it, that will protect them and the community that they're trying to support.

00:24:16.247 --> 00:24:19.287
Yeah. And so you had mentioned that.

00:24:20.026 --> 00:24:28.066
In 2019, a lot of black churches responded to help out families that were impacted

00:24:28.066 --> 00:24:30.626
by the raids and, you know,

00:24:30.766 --> 00:24:36.666
some of the some of the appeals that you've been working on to prepare for this one.

00:24:36.866 --> 00:24:41.366
How do you work to build coalitions with other social justice movements?

00:24:42.361 --> 00:24:53.621
So we have, 2024 was, you know, a year where we were planning in case, you know, the, what we,

00:24:53.881 --> 00:24:57.901
it happened, what we were hoping wouldn't happen, happened.

00:24:58.141 --> 00:25:04.661
And so we've been building a coalition of allies, but we're also part of other coalitions.

00:25:04.661 --> 00:25:09.521
There's also a Mississippi Rapid Response Coalition of allies throughout the

00:25:09.521 --> 00:25:13.341
entire state that although they're not immigration inclined,

00:25:13.521 --> 00:25:18.361
they're ready with resources, you know, they are citizens.

00:25:18.361 --> 00:25:23.581
So the privilege that a citizen has is in driving or picking up food.

00:25:23.761 --> 00:25:26.941
And so we are part of these coalitions in the state.

00:25:27.121 --> 00:25:31.041
We are also part of some other coalitions that provide some trainings.

00:25:31.041 --> 00:25:33.141
So how do these things intersect?

00:25:33.281 --> 00:25:37.201
So a climate justice coalition can find some readiness training.

00:25:37.421 --> 00:25:41.521
So we send our leaders over there, right? Like the Mississippi Repet Response.

00:25:42.161 --> 00:25:47.281
Again, they have been able to mobilize people and accompany people to court

00:25:47.281 --> 00:25:52.081
dates and that kind of thing. Our coalition gathers all of that and we do it

00:25:52.081 --> 00:25:54.281
through like a specific immigration lens.

00:25:54.501 --> 00:25:58.721
And so we're particularly creating committees where their education,

00:25:58.921 --> 00:26:03.181
so making sure that the school systems have the latest, you know, know your rights.

00:26:03.561 --> 00:26:08.501
We have a legal committee. So that way, because right now we are so short on

00:26:08.501 --> 00:26:13.421
immigration attorneys, a committee helps at least answer some basic questions.

00:26:13.921 --> 00:26:17.901
Again, we make sure that our members know that we are not attorneys,

00:26:18.161 --> 00:26:21.901
but we have a group of attorneys that can say, hey, if you haven't been here

00:26:21.901 --> 00:26:25.101
for two years, these are the things that you need to do.

00:26:25.301 --> 00:26:28.521
This is the right paperwork, you know, that you have to fill out.

00:26:28.641 --> 00:26:33.081
So we kind of do a triage and then we lead them to resources,

00:26:34.001 --> 00:26:35.701
you know, reputable resources.

00:26:36.001 --> 00:26:40.961
And so we are coalescing our folks and we're also coalescing.

00:26:41.965 --> 00:26:47.585
Because immigrant, the word immigrant is not clearly, it is clearly defined.

00:26:48.125 --> 00:26:51.685
Unfortunately, people do not understand the word immigrant.

00:26:51.945 --> 00:26:55.265
And it's perceived, you know, especially with the narrative,

00:26:55.465 --> 00:27:00.085
it's perceived as anyone who is undocumented is an immigrant.

00:27:00.345 --> 00:27:04.485
People don't realize that, you know, there's so many nuances.

00:27:04.765 --> 00:27:08.125
There's permits, there's temporary protective status, there's international

00:27:08.125 --> 00:27:10.125
students, there's residents.

00:27:10.125 --> 00:27:16.165
And so we are gathering the unusual suspects, right, and just getting them together

00:27:16.165 --> 00:27:21.485
and training them so that at least if they're moved to support that they can.

00:27:21.825 --> 00:27:29.565
Right now, we need everybody to do even, you know, even the tiniest bit in protecting

00:27:29.565 --> 00:27:31.545
our community and their own neighbors.

00:27:31.545 --> 00:27:38.625
So is the definition of immigrant the biggest misconception or myth that you

00:27:38.625 --> 00:27:42.845
you constantly fight against? It is one of them.

00:27:43.525 --> 00:27:50.765
And this criminal narrative, you know, not being documented is not a crime.

00:27:51.085 --> 00:27:53.945
And so that comes with that.

00:27:54.265 --> 00:27:58.285
I think that I can give you an example, something that has been floating around

00:27:58.285 --> 00:28:06.245
in social media is this particular sheriff who is saying that he hopes that I can look at it, right?

00:28:06.245 --> 00:28:11.145
But he hopes that he gets some access to something in the sheriff's department

00:28:11.145 --> 00:28:17.745
and the vitriol, the hatred, where people are like, well, how did he get a job if he's illegal?

00:28:18.005 --> 00:28:21.965
And then you see that people are saying, well, if he's a resident.

00:28:22.871 --> 00:28:28.591
He was well qualified. He applied for a job and he can work in the United States.

00:28:28.731 --> 00:28:36.011
So having to explain people when they're looking at a picture of a uniformed sheriff, right?

00:28:36.291 --> 00:28:42.711
Having to make those distinctions in 2025 to many people is surprising, but that's how it is.

00:28:42.871 --> 00:28:47.571
In a historically binary state where people don't really, you know,

00:28:47.711 --> 00:28:51.131
are understanding and immigrants are moving here because of,

00:28:51.271 --> 00:28:55.211
you know, you have cities from New York that are so expensive, so unaffordable,

00:28:55.911 --> 00:28:59.691
even, you know, Nashville, how it has boomed, people coming in and finding refuge

00:28:59.691 --> 00:29:06.051
in these places that are rural, you know, having, you know, easy access to employment.

00:29:06.451 --> 00:29:08.051
This has been blurred.

00:29:09.111 --> 00:29:13.751
Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, I get that.

00:29:14.071 --> 00:29:20.091
I think that, you know, the other thing too that came up during the campaign,

00:29:20.571 --> 00:29:24.751
you know, where they were going after the Haitian immigrants in Ohio. Oh, yeah.

00:29:25.471 --> 00:29:31.411
You know, it's just very easy to create these what we call boogeyman scenarios, right?

00:29:32.011 --> 00:29:37.051
Anybody that's not, as you say, in that binary, right, of black or white,

00:29:37.231 --> 00:29:38.911
it's like they're this other.

00:29:39.091 --> 00:29:44.211
And then you try to create, you know, you try to create villains out of other

00:29:44.211 --> 00:29:51.231
human beings when all they are are just people seeking the same thing that we all seek.

00:29:51.591 --> 00:29:57.671
And, you know, when we talked about freedom and opportunities to work in safe

00:29:57.671 --> 00:30:02.951
communities and all that, that's the reason why people come to America in the first place, because,

00:30:03.631 --> 00:30:07.491
that's what we advertise, that this is a land of opportunity, right?

00:30:08.111 --> 00:30:10.091
Correct, yeah. Yeah, okay. Okay.

00:30:10.872 --> 00:30:18.872
What does a truly just and humane immigration system look like in your ideal vision for the future?

00:30:19.212 --> 00:30:24.172
I think that seeking asylum is not illegal.

00:30:24.892 --> 00:30:29.972
I think that people who have proof, you know,

00:30:30.092 --> 00:30:36.532
to be members of communities by existing and creating and living a dignified

00:30:36.532 --> 00:30:44.192
life should have an opportunity to apply for a pathway to citizenship, whether it be,

00:30:44.772 --> 00:30:49.972
whether, and you know, I haven't even thought, I really, I think anybody that

00:30:49.972 --> 00:30:53.272
just comes in should be able to live. And that's just me, no borders, right?

00:30:53.432 --> 00:30:58.572
But if we're thinking about processes, there could be five-year temporary status,

00:30:58.872 --> 00:31:02.152
seeing how that works. You have had no misdemeanors.

00:31:02.292 --> 00:31:04.972
You move on to applying for residency.

00:31:05.312 --> 00:31:09.492
And so this right now, unfortunately, there is no such pathway.

00:31:10.112 --> 00:31:15.732
And even asylum, people don't realize that you should have, I mean,

00:31:15.872 --> 00:31:21.152
you should be able to apply for asylum. and then actually.

00:31:22.179 --> 00:31:28.099
Be able to have an opportunity. Right now, people who seek asylum are very unlikely to receive it.

00:31:28.199 --> 00:31:32.059
They pretty much have to have been attacked, right?

00:31:32.119 --> 00:31:39.559
And even then, the amount of what they need for you to prove is almost impossible to get.

00:31:39.859 --> 00:31:45.399
And then also, it depends on what region of the nation you're in, on the court system.

00:31:45.659 --> 00:31:50.119
Like we know there's court systems that like 99% of the time,

00:31:50.319 --> 00:31:52.399
they're going to deny you asylum.

00:31:53.059 --> 00:31:57.739
Incredible as it is, right? That we're thinking it's the same laws that apply to all.

00:31:57.979 --> 00:32:01.839
So I think something that would apply to everyone would be seeking a protected

00:32:01.839 --> 00:32:03.599
status once you've been here.

00:32:03.879 --> 00:32:07.479
I don't think having people wait 10 years is fair.

00:32:07.799 --> 00:32:12.919
I think that you can see people's intentions right away. I think if people are

00:32:12.919 --> 00:32:18.119
you know, seeking work and been able to show you for three, five years that

00:32:18.119 --> 00:32:20.599
you have been able to establish income,

00:32:20.939 --> 00:32:25.459
temporary status, moving on to residency, and then, you know, citizen.

00:32:25.659 --> 00:32:30.499
And even now obtaining citizenship, it is, it is, they're making it much more difficult.

00:32:30.939 --> 00:32:35.199
We know the applications are more expensive. We know like the processes are

00:32:35.199 --> 00:32:38.119
getting, but I really think that.

00:32:38.887 --> 00:32:44.147
The contributions that we make to this country are so much more than what,

00:32:44.147 --> 00:32:48.387
you know, this narrative is trying to portray, whether it's economic,

00:32:48.647 --> 00:32:50.387
cultural contributions.

00:32:50.727 --> 00:32:56.567
When I go to the university medical center, so many heads of departments are

00:32:56.567 --> 00:32:59.687
immigrants, so many, you know, neurologists.

00:32:59.867 --> 00:33:03.907
And so we are really benefiting greatly from this expertise.

00:33:03.907 --> 00:33:07.407
In a space like Mississippi, where we experience brain drain,

00:33:07.667 --> 00:33:09.967
you have immigrants that, you

00:33:09.967 --> 00:33:14.787
know, are reminded of home because of the climate, because of, you know,

00:33:15.527 --> 00:33:19.487
the rules, nature of the state. They are reminded of home.

00:33:20.567 --> 00:33:24.367
And these young people are choosing to stay here.

00:33:24.527 --> 00:33:29.227
So there are so many reasons why we should be creating these pathways.

00:33:29.227 --> 00:33:34.347
And unfortunately, we're making it worse and worse and much harder to achieve.

00:33:35.187 --> 00:33:45.167
So, Lorena, if you were given the power to reform something right now in immigration

00:33:45.167 --> 00:33:49.587
policy, what would be the most urgent thing that you would work on?

00:33:49.587 --> 00:33:53.347
The due process immediately.

00:33:53.807 --> 00:33:59.287
The fact that they removed due process for anyone that's here for under two years.

00:33:59.527 --> 00:34:07.387
I mean, you actually have to have your bills, you know, in order to qualify for due process.

00:34:07.627 --> 00:34:09.687
I mean, who has heard of that?

00:34:10.827 --> 00:34:15.907
Right. I think that immediately, like that's like the I mean,

00:34:15.967 --> 00:34:19.147
who even thinks of that? That's something that we need to ask for.

00:34:19.427 --> 00:34:23.747
But the removal of due process for our people that have not been here under

00:34:23.747 --> 00:34:25.887
two years, like there's really like

00:34:25.887 --> 00:34:30.367
no chance of you unless you prove that you've been here for two years.

00:34:30.367 --> 00:34:36.287
So I think that asylum seekers, be that as, you know, whatever it is,

00:34:36.487 --> 00:34:41.247
the North America has caused much of the conflict,

00:34:41.467 --> 00:34:46.847
including the climate change that is causing a lot of immigration up north.

00:34:47.067 --> 00:34:51.627
I mean, you have people from Central America, Guatemala, indigenous folks that

00:34:51.627 --> 00:34:54.487
cannot grow crops, that don't have access to food.

00:34:54.747 --> 00:34:59.727
And so if you're seeking asylum, I think also that would be the next thing,

00:34:59.887 --> 00:35:04.727
like, people should be able to seek asylum in this country.

00:35:05.207 --> 00:35:10.787
So the process to seeking asylum, we should remove a lot of those barriers.

00:35:12.287 --> 00:35:18.247
I know during the raids, I spent a lot of time with the indigenous women and I can,

00:35:18.427 --> 00:35:22.827
you would not know from looking at them, but I can sit in a space if I gather

00:35:22.827 --> 00:35:27.547
these folks again and I can name you 20 women in the room that were raped on

00:35:27.547 --> 00:35:31.567
their way or that have fled because they experienced sexual assault.

00:35:32.496 --> 00:35:36.556
And so the amount of suffering that our people are going through,

00:35:36.756 --> 00:35:42.056
and if we think about it, who wants to leave their homeland, right?

00:35:42.196 --> 00:35:47.856
A place like mango trees growing around the corner, like banana leaves, beaches.

00:35:49.736 --> 00:35:55.376
There's something that's drawing you to a place where you can seek better opportunities.

00:35:55.596 --> 00:36:00.476
And not necessarily for yourself or for your child. I know that my mom had to

00:36:00.476 --> 00:36:03.796
undergo so many hardships,

00:36:04.176 --> 00:36:09.456
leave her brothers and sisters and the beauty and the safety of that to come

00:36:09.456 --> 00:36:13.316
here and bring me and my sisters, you know?

00:36:13.536 --> 00:36:21.276
And so seeking asylum, it's something that we, yeah, it's a right.

00:36:21.276 --> 00:36:23.576
And they're trying to take that away from us as well. Yeah.

00:36:24.076 --> 00:36:30.296
All right. So my last question is, how do you cope with the emotional toll of

00:36:30.296 --> 00:36:34.936
fighting for families and individuals facing detention or deportation?

00:36:37.276 --> 00:36:43.516
I think that that is so honestly, I was going to I was going to say, how should I cope?

00:36:43.616 --> 00:36:47.336
But I, I just keep going. And that is not a good thing.

00:36:47.796 --> 00:36:55.076
I just keep going because there's always work to do. I have children of my own and.

00:36:56.271 --> 00:37:01.791
I just, when I see, like, women that remind me of my mother,

00:37:02.111 --> 00:37:08.911
all I can think of is what they're sacrificing so their children can be here.

00:37:09.291 --> 00:37:16.491
So it's hard. You know, I recently after the election, I saw a young woman who

00:37:16.491 --> 00:37:18.711
was one of our lead volunteers.

00:37:18.711 --> 00:37:21.951
You could call her 10 o'clock at night. If you needed someone picked up from

00:37:21.951 --> 00:37:25.431
the tension, you would call her and her husband.

00:37:26.011 --> 00:37:31.311
And I hadn't seen her in four years. And when we saw each other, we just started to cry.

00:37:31.571 --> 00:37:35.251
I did not expect that reaction. I thought I was going to be happy to see her.

00:37:35.451 --> 00:37:42.771
And we just, and so that just made it clear that we have something that we're

00:37:42.771 --> 00:37:45.031
carrying that we haven't even addressed yet.

00:37:45.918 --> 00:37:51.098
But I know that if I plan to make it to see my daughters have children,

00:37:51.378 --> 00:37:53.298
that I need to do something about it.

00:37:53.458 --> 00:37:57.478
I do spend a lot of time with them, you know, on the weekends.

00:37:57.738 --> 00:38:00.798
I try to do that.

00:38:01.678 --> 00:38:05.198
But it's so hard if something, if there's an emergency, you know,

00:38:05.298 --> 00:38:07.778
for you to, like, just completely disconnect.

00:38:08.838 --> 00:38:18.458
And then community. You find that in community, and I think you have to share what you're feeling.

00:38:18.798 --> 00:38:25.578
So finding a safe place, a safe people to share, I think is how I've made it this far.

00:38:26.258 --> 00:38:32.098
Yeah. Well, Lorena Quiroz, I commend you for doing what you're doing.

00:38:33.618 --> 00:38:38.518
I did some immigration legal work when I was in Mississippi.

00:38:38.518 --> 00:38:44.658
A lot of activism, whether I was elected or working directly with an organization

00:38:44.658 --> 00:38:46.958
or an ally organization.

00:38:47.398 --> 00:38:49.498
So I know it's not easy work.

00:38:50.138 --> 00:38:54.438
You know, in the Black community, we say, we're doing the Lord's work.

00:38:54.738 --> 00:38:57.978
And so I greatly appreciate you.

00:38:58.418 --> 00:39:03.278
And I pray that you continue to have the strength, not only to be a devoted

00:39:03.278 --> 00:39:06.838
mom, but to be a devoted worker in this.

00:39:06.838 --> 00:39:12.778
And I know it's going to be crazy over the next few weeks, but I hope that you

00:39:12.778 --> 00:39:16.938
can navigate through that and protect the people that you need to protect.

00:39:17.993 --> 00:39:25.853
If people want to support IAJE or reach out to you, how can they do that?

00:39:26.893 --> 00:39:35.373
Yes. So we are on socials. So Facebook, Instagram, we are, I don't know.

00:39:35.453 --> 00:39:38.973
We're not that, you know, that on X, we don't participate as much,

00:39:39.093 --> 00:39:47.953
but also our email info at IAJE.us. So that would be the general organizational.

00:39:48.373 --> 00:39:54.933
My personal email is my name, Lorena at iaje.us.

00:39:55.193 --> 00:40:01.853
We also have a number if someone wants to reach us and I can share that.

00:40:02.133 --> 00:40:11.713
It is 1-888-970-4253. We are doing a lot of fundraising at this moment.

00:40:11.713 --> 00:40:14.913
You know, our work exists through grants.

00:40:15.253 --> 00:40:20.273
Grants are usually attached to outcomes. So the fundraising goes directly to community.

00:40:20.533 --> 00:40:26.833
So on our social media, you can find a way to donate via ActBlue and other applications.

00:40:27.873 --> 00:40:31.913
But yes, that's how you can reach us, reach our work.

00:40:32.753 --> 00:40:36.413
And for the next couple of months, we're going to be working remotely to make

00:40:36.413 --> 00:40:40.393
sure that our entire staff is safe so we won't be at the offices.

00:40:40.393 --> 00:40:42.913
So that would be the best way to reach us.

00:40:43.693 --> 00:40:47.673
Well, Lorena, thank you for taking the time out. Like I said,

00:40:47.893 --> 00:40:51.333
I know this is a very, very hectic moment right now.

00:40:51.993 --> 00:40:56.473
And I appreciate you carving out the time to come on the podcast.

00:40:56.473 --> 00:41:00.833
And talk to the listeners about what you're dealing with in Mississippi and

00:41:00.833 --> 00:41:04.993
really what immigrants and activists are dealing with throughout the country.

00:41:05.913 --> 00:41:11.153
Thank you so much for having me and for making space today. All right,

00:41:11.253 --> 00:41:12.993
guys, and we're going to catch y'all on the other side.

00:41:33.342 --> 00:41:38.962
And we are back. And so it's time for my next guest, Anne Hand.

00:41:39.542 --> 00:41:45.402
Anne Hand was born in 1985 in New York and currently divides her time between

00:41:45.402 --> 00:41:47.562
Massachusetts and Mexico City.

00:41:47.822 --> 00:41:52.502
She holds a bachelor of science degree from McGill University and a master of

00:41:52.502 --> 00:41:54.602
education degree from Harvard University.

00:41:54.922 --> 00:42:00.042
She has spent her career blending research, policy and practice to create social

00:42:00.042 --> 00:42:02.102
impact in the Americas and beyond.

00:42:02.102 --> 00:42:07.342
A recognized expert in global education and development, she is frequently published

00:42:07.342 --> 00:42:10.262
on topics related to technology and society.

00:42:11.102 --> 00:42:17.222
Austrian, again, is her first book, and that's what we're going to talk about on this podcast.

00:42:17.622 --> 00:42:21.982
Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest

00:42:21.982 --> 00:42:25.562
on this podcast, Anne Hand. Thank you.

00:42:37.592 --> 00:42:41.872
Anne Hand. How are you doing, sister? You doing good? I'm doing awesome.

00:42:41.892 --> 00:42:43.992
It's Friday. Week's almost over.

00:42:44.392 --> 00:42:48.372
Thanksgiving's coming up. I'm just really happy to be here with you, Erik. I'm doing great.

00:42:48.752 --> 00:42:53.072
Well, yeah. Thanksgiving is always that time of year. And when this airs,

00:42:53.152 --> 00:42:55.672
we'll be right there at the doorstep of it.

00:42:55.752 --> 00:42:58.892
So I hope that you and yours have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

00:42:59.892 --> 00:43:03.572
I'm going to do my best to... I tell people, you know,

00:43:03.612 --> 00:43:06.332
when they ask me the question to watch my figure I said I see it

00:43:06.332 --> 00:43:09.612
every day so you know

00:43:09.612 --> 00:43:12.612
and thank you that's one of those holidays where it's like all

00:43:12.612 --> 00:43:15.292
that's out the window anyway so what I

00:43:15.292 --> 00:43:20.372
want to do is normally when I do these interviews I start off with an icebreaker

00:43:20.372 --> 00:43:25.392
period of the show and so the first icebreaker is a quote that I want you to

00:43:25.392 --> 00:43:32.012
respond to and the quote is home isn't just a place it is the heart of your

00:43:32.012 --> 00:43:34.012
story what does I quote me.

00:43:35.215 --> 00:43:38.695
I mean, home can mean so many things, and I think home is a feeling more than

00:43:38.695 --> 00:43:40.075
anything else, for me at least.

00:43:40.195 --> 00:43:44.995
For some people, home is that place where you grew up with, and your grandparents

00:43:44.995 --> 00:43:48.435
are there, and it smells a certain way, and it looks a certain way.

00:43:48.595 --> 00:43:52.995
And at the seasons, things change, or the sounds change, or whatever.

00:43:53.275 --> 00:43:57.555
Whatever gives you that feeling of like, yeah, this is where I'm supposed to

00:43:57.555 --> 00:44:01.295
be, and this is where I feel comfortable, and this is where I feel accepted,

00:44:01.415 --> 00:44:03.675
and this is where I feel loved.

00:44:03.675 --> 00:44:08.655
And, you know, for many people, home is really that physical place exclusively.

00:44:08.915 --> 00:44:12.055
And there are certainly for me places that feel like that.

00:44:12.195 --> 00:44:14.775
You know, I think of my grandparents' apartment in Brooklyn,

00:44:15.255 --> 00:44:19.115
you know, which they passed away years ago and the apartment's been broken up.

00:44:19.255 --> 00:44:23.775
But like that memory of home, you know, that's something that I always take

00:44:23.775 --> 00:44:27.935
with me. But at the same time, I really do feel like, you know,

00:44:28.015 --> 00:44:30.435
we make our home in a lot of different ways.

00:44:30.575 --> 00:44:33.675
You know, for many people, you know, you choose your family.

00:44:33.875 --> 00:44:40.775
You choose kind of where you spend time and where you really feel that same feeling, right?

00:44:40.875 --> 00:44:43.795
Where you're loved and where you're accepted and where you can grow.

00:44:44.355 --> 00:44:47.575
And that can mean a lot of different things to different people.

00:44:47.575 --> 00:44:50.755
And everybody has their own version of what that is and what that looks like.

00:44:51.115 --> 00:44:53.375
Yeah, yeah, that's very true.

00:44:54.115 --> 00:44:57.375
All right, so now the next icebreaker is what we call 20 questions.

00:44:58.075 --> 00:45:01.475
Okay, that's a lot of questions, not just one nice bigger question.

00:45:01.995 --> 00:45:06.535
Well, the thing is, I just need you to give me a number between 1 and 20,

00:45:06.695 --> 00:45:07.755
and then that'll be your question.

00:45:08.455 --> 00:45:13.915
Five. Okay. What do you think we should decide at the local or state levels

00:45:13.915 --> 00:45:15.795
as opposed to the federal level?

00:45:16.695 --> 00:45:20.155
That is a question. Okay.

00:45:23.071 --> 00:45:26.171
Oh, my goodness. I was not expecting that question.

00:45:27.071 --> 00:45:30.651
You know, I don't know. It depends on context, I think.

00:45:30.931 --> 00:45:35.251
And a lot of the time, you know, local people do know, you know,

00:45:35.331 --> 00:45:37.931
what's best for them and what's best for their communities.

00:45:37.931 --> 00:45:43.251
But I really think that there should be really clear guardrails and really clear

00:45:43.251 --> 00:45:45.991
kind of guidance from higher up to...

00:45:47.062 --> 00:45:49.862
Kind of figure out, you know, what fits within that?

00:45:50.022 --> 00:45:56.102
Like, what are the kind of standards or what are the ways that we see some of

00:45:56.102 --> 00:45:58.142
these things as really needing to be

00:45:58.142 --> 00:46:01.982
kind of knit together so that there's commonalities between communities?

00:46:02.662 --> 00:46:06.182
You know, some small countries, they do everything at the federal level, right?

00:46:06.282 --> 00:46:09.522
Because you're talking about something that's like the level of a state, you know?

00:46:09.622 --> 00:46:13.262
You're talking about a country that has maybe like 5 million people,

00:46:13.262 --> 00:46:16.442
which is, like, smaller than a lot of cities in the U.S.

00:46:16.502 --> 00:46:21.202
And so for them, it's sort of like the two are a little more intermeshed.

00:46:21.362 --> 00:46:26.302
But I think in the U.S., you know, when we're such a big country and it's so

00:46:26.302 --> 00:46:31.602
diverse, there needs to be, I think, like a lot more local ownership.

00:46:31.662 --> 00:46:38.162
But at the same time, these kind of broader federal just limits on what that can look like.

00:46:38.902 --> 00:46:45.222
And I think that there are things that, you know, people go and,

00:46:45.222 --> 00:46:50.522
you know, get master's degrees and doctorates, you know, for a reason.

00:46:50.522 --> 00:46:55.902
And some of that really is to sort of say, you know, this is really best practice. This works well.

00:46:56.102 --> 00:46:59.322
Here are ways that we know that we can support our communities best.

00:46:59.322 --> 00:47:03.622
And so that can also kind of shortcut, like, local communities needing to do

00:47:03.622 --> 00:47:07.182
all that research for themselves and, you know, kind of get to the same conclusions.

00:47:07.182 --> 00:47:11.402
So I sort of feel like as long as those bigger pieces are in place and,

00:47:11.402 --> 00:47:16.642
you know, there's a lot about equal opportunity and, you know, equal,

00:47:16.942 --> 00:47:22.602
I mean, just the ways in which some of these things kind of happen in practice.

00:47:22.602 --> 00:47:27.962
You know, there are real, you know, guardrails and orientation for what that needs to look like.

00:47:28.142 --> 00:47:34.642
So people, you know, people get, they have the opportunities that they deserve.

00:47:35.202 --> 00:47:39.962
You know, once that's kind of in place, then yeah, like, local and state.

00:47:41.193 --> 00:47:43.893
Decide about about kind of what happens with the rest of it.

00:47:44.633 --> 00:47:48.413
Yeah. So kind of like collaboration with sensitivity.

00:47:49.133 --> 00:47:53.093
That's a great way to say it. Yeah. Yeah. You've heard this question before.

00:47:53.213 --> 00:47:55.673
I haven't heard this kind of question for a long time.

00:47:55.853 --> 00:47:59.633
So you kind of like that's a big question, right? That's like what governments

00:47:59.633 --> 00:48:02.573
like that's that's that's what the debate always is.

00:48:02.673 --> 00:48:06.653
Right. Like and I think, you know, it's interesting because I've worked a lot

00:48:06.653 --> 00:48:11.773
internationally And over the years, I've really come to appreciate how much the U.S.

00:48:12.113 --> 00:48:15.753
Really is decentralized because you see other countries that have like federal

00:48:15.753 --> 00:48:21.393
systems, but they still have, you know, like a national education curriculum or something like that.

00:48:21.393 --> 00:48:25.893
And then so local, you know, state and, you know, county authorities,

00:48:26.173 --> 00:48:29.213
they have a lot less say in those pieces.

00:48:29.473 --> 00:48:33.213
And in the U.S., we sort of have it the other way, where most of the time,

00:48:33.413 --> 00:48:36.313
you know, the local authorities really do have most of the say.

00:48:36.633 --> 00:48:42.793
And then the sort of federal higher levels are oftentimes even less about the details.

00:48:42.973 --> 00:48:47.753
They're just about, you know, just really like financing or things like that.

00:48:47.753 --> 00:48:53.173
So, yeah, I can appreciate kind of both sides of the coin. And I think that

00:48:53.173 --> 00:48:57.073
the real answer kind of depends on the type of country and the type of place

00:48:57.073 --> 00:48:58.533
that you want to build. Yeah.

00:48:59.113 --> 00:49:00.793
Yeah. Because I remember going

00:49:00.793 --> 00:49:04.933
to Mexico. I'm not as world traveled as you or a lot of other people.

00:49:05.173 --> 00:49:10.773
But I did go to Mexico. And I remember it was kind of unique because I was a

00:49:10.773 --> 00:49:13.033
state legislator at the time.

00:49:13.573 --> 00:49:15.373
And I spoke to...

00:49:16.509 --> 00:49:21.269
Some state legislators in Mexico, but in Mexico, the state legislators are the

00:49:21.269 --> 00:49:24.149
equivalent of the House of Representatives to us.

00:49:24.489 --> 00:49:27.149
And they have federal senators.

00:49:27.689 --> 00:49:34.309
But, you know, it's like, I can't even imagine all of us in state legislators

00:49:34.309 --> 00:49:36.889
all traipsing up to Washington, D.C. to vote on something.

00:49:36.989 --> 00:49:44.729
I just, that's really crazy. But it works for them. and what we do allegedly works for us.

00:49:46.449 --> 00:49:49.949
It's a work in progress, right? It's always a work in progress.

00:49:50.109 --> 00:49:51.949
250 years, it always has been.

00:49:52.649 --> 00:49:57.969
So let's talk about this book, Austrian Again. Now, it's only two words,

00:49:58.229 --> 00:50:05.449
but that would catch, you know, if I was looking for some nonfiction to read,

00:50:06.580 --> 00:50:09.680
I would catch my attention of all the countries in the world.

00:50:10.160 --> 00:50:13.640
I would, I want to be Austrian again. I'd be like, all right.

00:50:13.780 --> 00:50:14.960
And what does that even mean, right?

00:50:16.380 --> 00:50:19.640
So what does that mean? What does the title of the book mean to you? Yeah.

00:50:19.780 --> 00:50:23.460
So, so Austria, just, you know, get everybody on the same page.

00:50:23.580 --> 00:50:25.620
It's a, one of these really tiny countries.

00:50:25.820 --> 00:50:28.960
It has like 9 million people in the middle of Europe, in the middle of the mountains,

00:50:29.180 --> 00:50:32.300
no coast, you know, no nothing. It's, it's all mountains.

00:50:34.620 --> 00:50:40.080
And for me, so my family, part of my family immigrated to the U.S. from Austria.

00:50:40.340 --> 00:50:45.320
My grandfather came when he was a teenager, sort of between World War I and World War II.

00:50:46.320 --> 00:50:51.540
And he and his siblings and his mother eventually, when she was able to come

00:50:51.540 --> 00:50:54.840
over, they were like, we're done.

00:50:55.000 --> 00:50:58.920
And part of that was out of necessity because it was for economic reasons.

00:50:58.920 --> 00:51:01.840
And then because of World War II and the Holocaust, you know,

00:51:01.980 --> 00:51:04.400
they were just like, no, we're done. There's nothing for us to go back to.

00:51:05.020 --> 00:51:08.100
So they, you know, turned their backs and they said, we're American.

00:51:08.180 --> 00:51:10.960
And that's, I think, one of the great things that the U.S.

00:51:11.020 --> 00:51:14.360
Can do because there was no opportunity for them in Europe at the time.

00:51:14.380 --> 00:51:16.240
And if they had stayed, they probably would have been killed.

00:51:16.340 --> 00:51:19.520
And that part of it is very, very clear to me after, you know,

00:51:19.600 --> 00:51:23.380
what I did, you know, for the book and doing this family research and stuff like that.

00:51:23.380 --> 00:51:29.180
But about five years ago, Austria opened up this citizenship policy,

00:51:29.620 --> 00:51:33.140
this reparation citizenship policy, restoration citizenship.

00:51:33.360 --> 00:51:37.220
There's lots of, I guess, different words that you can use to basically say,

00:51:37.400 --> 00:51:44.020
you know, for the descendants of people who were part of these persecuted groups

00:51:44.020 --> 00:51:47.300
in the lead-up to and then during World War II and the Holocaust,

00:51:47.540 --> 00:51:51.180
we're willing to offer the descendants citizenship.

00:51:51.620 --> 00:51:56.320
And and you know for me it was it was really interesting because I guess I never thought.

00:51:57.191 --> 00:52:00.851
Something like that would be available. And I remember like just reading the

00:52:00.851 --> 00:52:04.391
news online one day and kind of seeing the headline and being like, wait, like what?

00:52:04.591 --> 00:52:07.251
Because, you know, you read the news, especially like national,

00:52:07.451 --> 00:52:08.391
international news, and you

00:52:08.391 --> 00:52:12.331
never think that anything is going to like be directly applicable to you.

00:52:12.471 --> 00:52:16.171
You just read it because, you know, you want to know what's going on in the world and all that.

00:52:16.691 --> 00:52:21.551
And so, you know, the book is about my process, my family process,

00:52:21.971 --> 00:52:25.571
kind of understanding a bit more about these roots and where we came from.

00:52:25.891 --> 00:52:30.751
And then, you know, making the decision for some of us to, you know,

00:52:31.191 --> 00:52:34.971
see that the store was open and say, okay, yeah, like, I want to walk through

00:52:34.971 --> 00:52:36.651
that door and I want to see how it goes.

00:52:36.871 --> 00:52:42.071
So Austrian, again, you know, it's simple, but it sort of uncovers the story

00:52:42.071 --> 00:52:45.851
where you scratch the surface and you start to get into some of these thornier

00:52:45.851 --> 00:52:48.771
issues about identity, about belonging,

00:52:49.331 --> 00:52:54.511
about, you know where where is it that like i really fit in the world and what

00:52:54.511 --> 00:52:57.731
does that mean to me and and who i am and and how i see myself,

00:52:58.793 --> 00:53:04.593
So your family actually has some Czechoslovakian roots.

00:53:04.873 --> 00:53:10.273
So I guess my question is, why not Czech again? Why Austria?

00:53:11.033 --> 00:53:15.993
Why do we stop at Austria? Well, at first it sounds better, right?

00:53:18.693 --> 00:53:24.373
No, but it's because the Czech Republic, where my grandfather was born,

00:53:24.733 --> 00:53:26.873
they don't offer this kind of pathway.

00:53:26.873 --> 00:53:31.873
They don't have this kind of, you know, look back into the past to be able to

00:53:31.873 --> 00:53:38.433
say like, oh, we want to, you know, we want to make amends for what we did.

00:53:38.833 --> 00:53:42.893
And it's interesting because, you know, all of this 150 years ago,

00:53:43.193 --> 00:53:44.753
even 100, what year are we? 2025?

00:53:45.553 --> 00:53:50.013
So 110 years ago, all of this was still the same country.

00:53:50.153 --> 00:53:53.453
It was all part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. it had

00:53:53.453 --> 00:53:56.853
been one country for like hundreds of years at that point and

00:53:56.853 --> 00:53:59.633
then after world war one and and after they

00:53:59.633 --> 00:54:04.253
lost it was all split up into what's now parts of like seven or eight different

00:54:04.253 --> 00:54:08.193
countries so you know when we start to go into all these different countries

00:54:08.193 --> 00:54:11.293
and all that it's like yeah they're they were different but at the same time

00:54:11.293 --> 00:54:15.273
you know my family had family everywhere in in all these countries and what's

00:54:15.273 --> 00:54:19.153
now Slovakia and what's now the Czech republic and you know my,

00:54:19.653 --> 00:54:24.493
My immediate, you know, ascendance ended up in Vienna, which is the capital

00:54:24.493 --> 00:54:27.953
of Austria, which was the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

00:54:28.453 --> 00:54:31.393
And they went there for economic opportunity. You know, like,

00:54:31.453 --> 00:54:34.613
why does anybody, you know, migrate within a country when, you know,

00:54:34.673 --> 00:54:37.013
they've been settled in one part of it for a long time? Like,

00:54:37.093 --> 00:54:38.833
they usually do it for economic opportunity.

00:54:39.173 --> 00:54:42.493
And it was the same thing, right? It's the same story as what's happened in

00:54:42.493 --> 00:54:45.573
the U.S. for also, you know, a very long time.

00:54:46.767 --> 00:54:50.347
And to me, you know, it's interesting, right?

00:54:50.447 --> 00:54:54.567
Because each of these countries has its own way of like thinking about the past

00:54:54.567 --> 00:54:56.467
and dealing with the past or

00:54:56.467 --> 00:55:00.487
not dealing with the past or thinking about who belongs and all of that.

00:55:00.487 --> 00:55:07.327
And so, you know, so in this case, I feel like Austria has kind of done a lot more soul searching.

00:55:07.607 --> 00:55:09.987
They have this door that's open.

00:55:10.407 --> 00:55:13.707
And the other countries, you know, where my family came from,

00:55:13.827 --> 00:55:19.087
they just don't have this kind of, yeah, they just, they haven't done anything like this.

00:55:19.867 --> 00:55:26.127
Yeah, because, you know, you use the word reparations dealing with Austria and

00:55:26.127 --> 00:55:28.067
then just kind of talking to you before.

00:55:28.067 --> 00:55:34.967
Or do you feel that, and this is an aside from the book, do you feel that the

00:55:34.967 --> 00:55:40.507
United States needs to have a soul-searching moment, a discussion?

00:55:40.687 --> 00:55:42.167
Do you think that we're doing that?

00:55:42.847 --> 00:55:47.827
You know, because, you know, that's an important issue in the African-American

00:55:47.827 --> 00:55:49.507
community about reparations.

00:55:49.787 --> 00:55:57.127
What would you think a United States reparations process would look like?

00:55:57.127 --> 00:56:02.647
Like, what would, if you were asked, hey, well, you know, Austria's got this

00:56:02.647 --> 00:56:07.847
thing, you know, what would you suggest to people that want to deal with that

00:56:07.847 --> 00:56:08.727
here in the United States?

00:56:10.056 --> 00:56:14.116
So I think, you know, in the U.S., this kind of comes in fits and spurts, right?

00:56:14.376 --> 00:56:18.556
Like, when was it, like, 10 years ago when the whole case for reparations thing

00:56:18.556 --> 00:56:21.016
was, like, a really hot topic and all that?

00:56:21.456 --> 00:56:26.296
When you started to see, like, a few sort of smaller, like, counties or towns

00:56:26.296 --> 00:56:31.836
and cities, like, think about what monetary reparations could look like, right?

00:56:31.836 --> 00:56:36.236
For property that was confiscated over the years, for all the forced labor,

00:56:36.556 --> 00:56:43.216
all these different pieces of the same kind of puzzle of persecution and oppression

00:56:43.216 --> 00:56:46.716
that unfortunately happens in lots of places in the world, right?

00:56:46.856 --> 00:56:53.716
Like no country has a monopoly on any of this stuff, and it really pains me to say that.

00:56:53.716 --> 00:57:01.516
And I think it's rare in a way that you kind of see what happened in the U.S.,

00:57:01.516 --> 00:57:06.736
which is the first—so, like, from what I know about Austria and the U.S., it's sort of flipped.

00:57:07.276 --> 00:57:10.816
So what happened in Austria after World War II, after all this property was

00:57:10.816 --> 00:57:15.256
confiscated and, you know, basically people, they fled, they were deported,

00:57:15.616 --> 00:57:19.336
they were sent to death camps, they were sent to concentration camps, all that stuff.

00:57:19.336 --> 00:57:24.756
After the war, Austria gave financial reparations, monetary reparations for

00:57:24.756 --> 00:57:26.736
property that was confiscated.

00:57:26.936 --> 00:57:31.016
And it's related to the book because we found out that my great-grandmothers,

00:57:31.436 --> 00:57:38.256
my family imported liquor and spirits from different parts of what was then

00:57:38.256 --> 00:57:41.176
the Austro-Hungarian Empire and then all the different countries.

00:57:41.676 --> 00:57:44.476
So that was confiscated. That was confiscated.

00:57:46.492 --> 00:57:53.152
It was what they called Aryanized. The property was given, basically, to a Nazi party member.

00:57:53.452 --> 00:57:55.972
And they were like, you know, just get out of here if you can.

00:57:56.092 --> 00:58:00.432
And if not, well, we'll see. But they were lucky they were able to get out of there.

00:58:00.592 --> 00:58:03.692
And then about 20 years after that happened, after the war was over,

00:58:03.832 --> 00:58:08.212
after everything was signed, my great-grandmother did get money for what was taken.

00:58:08.292 --> 00:58:11.312
But at that point, you know, it was like you're out of there,

00:58:11.472 --> 00:58:14.112
you're out of society, you're building your life somewhere else,

00:58:14.132 --> 00:58:17.152
and there's no place for you back here. And that part of it was very, very clear.

00:58:17.492 --> 00:58:20.432
And so in the U.S., you kind of have that flipped, right? Where you have the

00:58:20.432 --> 00:58:24.652
citizenship piece as, like, really enshrined in the Constitution.

00:58:25.472 --> 00:58:29.872
And, you know, you're really saying, okay, like, you know, you belong here.

00:58:30.212 --> 00:58:35.472
But the monetary piece and the real sort of recognition of property and,

00:58:35.492 --> 00:58:40.132
you know, labor and all of that, that's not recognized in the same way.

00:58:40.412 --> 00:58:42.612
And so I think, you know.

00:58:43.562 --> 00:58:47.182
Don't know what I would advise people to do, but I think just understanding,

00:58:47.202 --> 00:58:50.722
like, what that means and what that looks like in different contexts can be

00:58:50.722 --> 00:58:53.942
really, really different. And in the end, I think it needs to be meaningful.

00:58:54.182 --> 00:58:58.462
Like, I don't know, you know, I was reading something about one of the cities

00:58:58.462 --> 00:59:02.602
that was doing reparations, I think it was in Illinois, and they were interviewing

00:59:02.602 --> 00:59:05.842
people who got reparations, like financial reparations, and they were like,

00:59:05.902 --> 00:59:07.662
it's, you know, it's nice, but it's not,

00:59:07.862 --> 00:59:10.002
like, a life-changing amount of money.

00:59:10.562 --> 00:59:17.222
And so, like, within all of that, like, I think that it has to mean something

00:59:17.222 --> 00:59:22.322
to the people who are receiving whatever this looks like.

00:59:22.442 --> 00:59:29.542
And so in my case, with interacting with people in Austria and the Austrian

00:59:29.542 --> 00:59:32.822
embassy in the U.S., everybody is incredibly kind.

00:59:33.182 --> 00:59:38.222
Everybody will go out of their way to sort of recognize this historical injustice.

00:59:38.222 --> 00:59:41.382
Everybody will really be kind

00:59:41.382 --> 00:59:44.182
and treat me well which you

00:59:44.182 --> 00:59:48.522
know you deal with any bureaucracy you're not necessarily expecting you

00:59:48.522 --> 00:59:53.722
know people to to be kind in the process and I think that that can go a really

00:59:53.722 --> 00:59:59.282
long way like it's it's not necessarily about like one concrete thing or another

00:59:59.282 --> 01:00:06.382
I think it's about that sense of belonging and acceptance and and feeling like you could,

01:00:06.922 --> 01:00:10.902
contribute and you could participate and that that would be valued.

01:00:10.902 --> 01:00:12.862
I think that that's the most important piece.

01:00:13.242 --> 01:00:16.982
Yeah, I think you touched on something very, very important.

01:00:17.142 --> 01:00:21.002
I know you feel as though, well, maybe I'm not the best person to say something,

01:00:21.182 --> 01:00:25.862
but the word kind is the key.

01:00:26.182 --> 01:00:30.282
I think when we do stuff in America that.

01:00:30.869 --> 01:00:36.689
It should be out of the kindness of our heart rather than feeling that we're obligated to do it.

01:00:36.969 --> 01:00:42.749
And I think that's where we need to get to, whether it's dealing with reparations

01:00:42.749 --> 01:00:44.649
or health care or any other issue.

01:00:44.969 --> 01:00:51.469
I think that there has to be a genuine kindness, a genuine joy inflected on it.

01:00:51.609 --> 01:00:53.849
But don't let me get into that sermon.

01:00:53.989 --> 01:00:56.609
Let's get back to you. Yeah, preach.

01:00:58.949 --> 01:01:02.049
Let's talk about, speaking about condos, let's talk about your grandfather.

01:01:03.601 --> 01:01:09.201
Obviously, he had a major influence in you reconnecting.

01:01:09.341 --> 01:01:13.181
I mean, I know you were going through the news, like you said, during COVID.

01:01:13.441 --> 01:01:17.541
And it's like, oh, this is being intriguing. But it wouldn't be intriguing if

01:01:17.541 --> 01:01:22.221
you didn't have that relationship or didn't have that understanding about your grandfather.

01:01:22.221 --> 01:01:28.041
So talk about him and what did he teach you and what did he instill in you that

01:01:28.041 --> 01:01:31.941
allowed you to make this decision, make this journey?

01:01:32.661 --> 01:01:39.781
Yeah, so he immigrated when he was 18. He left Vienna, he left Austria as soon as he possibly could.

01:01:40.201 --> 01:01:45.081
You know, his family was working class. His father had passed away a couple years before.

01:01:45.501 --> 01:01:48.481
And it was kind of like, there's nothing here for me. You know,

01:01:48.561 --> 01:01:49.541
they didn't have the connections.

01:01:50.041 --> 01:01:55.421
The country was in kind of an economic mess. And he applied for the visas that

01:01:55.421 --> 01:01:58.501
he could, and he left. And it took a while to get to the U.S.

01:01:58.561 --> 01:02:02.881
Because at that point, you know, that kind of five-year period when they just

01:02:02.881 --> 01:02:06.741
said, okay, you know, doors are open for anybody who wants to come over for Europe.

01:02:06.941 --> 01:02:10.881
Like, those doors had been closed, and so it took a while for his paperwork to come through.

01:02:11.461 --> 01:02:16.381
But he got to the U.S. when he was about 20, and he lived his whole life in

01:02:16.381 --> 01:02:19.061
the U.S. He was in the Army during World War II.

01:02:19.821 --> 01:02:24.361
After World War II, he was trained as a cabinetmaker with really,

01:02:24.561 --> 01:02:29.301
really old school, you know, like you were talking techniques from the 1700s

01:02:29.301 --> 01:02:31.541
and stuff like that, like really, really old school stuff.

01:02:31.741 --> 01:02:36.701
But what he did afterwards was he worked in furniture making and factories,

01:02:36.701 --> 01:02:41.781
And, you know, he ran these new factories that they were trying to get off the

01:02:41.781 --> 01:02:45.861
ground, you know, Massachusetts to ship stuff to New York and to other parts of the country.

01:02:47.541 --> 01:02:51.301
Things like that. And he was just one of those people who kept trying, right?

01:02:51.481 --> 01:02:55.641
Like he kept, you know, even if things didn't work out, he said,

01:02:55.781 --> 01:03:00.361
you know, like, okay, I have to, you know, take my time and sort of work through

01:03:00.361 --> 01:03:02.861
what happened and that I wish it could have been different.

01:03:03.081 --> 01:03:07.201
But, you know, like he didn't let that get in the way of what he actually wanted

01:03:07.201 --> 01:03:12.041
to do and the care that he had for his friends and his family and kind of the

01:03:12.041 --> 01:03:16.721
joy that he also put out into the world and the kind of life that he wanted to live.

01:03:16.861 --> 01:03:20.221
And after he retired, you know, a lot of the creativity that he couldn't,

01:03:20.681 --> 01:03:25.781
he didn't have a place for, you know, in furniture making came out through sculpture.

01:03:25.781 --> 01:03:29.741
And so he had this sort of second career in retirement as a sculptor and he

01:03:29.741 --> 01:03:33.501
won some local awards. And I think that that brought him, you know,

01:03:33.561 --> 01:03:36.881
a different type of, you know, recognition and joy.

01:03:37.261 --> 01:03:41.261
And to me, it just shows you that you can always do something else.

01:03:41.441 --> 01:03:42.761
You can always do something different.

01:03:43.481 --> 01:03:49.161
Things don't work out sometimes, and you can always find a way to really sort

01:03:49.161 --> 01:03:52.741
of wrap your head around it and then say, okay, but that doesn't define who

01:03:52.741 --> 01:03:54.861
I am. That doesn't determine who I am.

01:03:55.201 --> 01:04:01.801
And I think that a lot of that spirit, it must have come out of the way that he grew up.

01:04:01.941 --> 01:04:05.341
And there's a lot of sort of Austrian culture, Viennese culture,

01:04:05.501 --> 01:04:09.681
which has spread out into the world in a lot of ways that we don't necessarily

01:04:09.681 --> 01:04:16.381
like explicitly recognized it's just part of pop culture now but you know I grew up with with,

01:04:16.907 --> 01:04:19.647
Some of the food that he grew up with that he would make, you know,

01:04:19.747 --> 01:04:23.647
whipped cream everywhere, because Austrian pastries have whipped cream all over the place.

01:04:24.707 --> 01:04:30.107
And music and, you know, being sociable and, you know, knowing that the world

01:04:30.107 --> 01:04:31.847
sort of goes beyond your apartment door.

01:04:32.527 --> 01:04:36.127
And, you know, we had a lot of conversations, me and my mom,

01:04:36.187 --> 01:04:39.467
especially about kind of what he would have thought about the process.

01:04:39.767 --> 01:04:41.447
Because for him, that door was closed.

01:04:42.167 --> 01:04:46.647
But just because for him that door was closed, you know, it doesn't mean that

01:04:46.647 --> 01:04:51.627
he wouldn't have been curious for it to be open for people further down the line.

01:04:51.847 --> 01:04:55.587
So, you know, taking the world as it is, but also, you know,

01:04:55.647 --> 01:04:58.887
kind of wanting it to be a little bit different and pushing for it to be different

01:04:58.887 --> 01:05:00.887
and kind of doing what you can, right?

01:05:01.067 --> 01:05:03.427
Like within your little space in the world. Yeah.

01:05:04.127 --> 01:05:11.027
So that kind of leads me to this question about the influence of history.

01:05:11.447 --> 01:05:19.427
How much do you think that history influences our day-to-day life,

01:05:19.627 --> 01:05:25.927
and do you feel that your book highlighted that?

01:05:27.206 --> 01:05:33.586
That's a great question. So I think that history influences our lives in ways,

01:05:34.206 --> 01:05:37.886
like, because the world that we're in is totally shaped by history,

01:05:38.046 --> 01:05:41.466
whether or not we're explicitly aware of it.

01:05:41.586 --> 01:05:44.706
And something that was really interesting, the other day I was,

01:05:45.386 --> 01:05:48.326
talking to somebody who read the book, who's not Jewish,

01:05:48.786 --> 01:05:51.606
who was like, you know, it really

01:05:51.606 --> 01:05:55.026
made me think about how recent all

01:05:55.026 --> 01:05:58.426
of this stuff was like this was all like grandparent level

01:05:58.426 --> 01:06:02.126
right like it's not and and you know I'm 40

01:06:02.126 --> 01:06:08.546
now so you know we're also talking about sort of a period where at this point

01:06:08.546 --> 01:06:13.526
the grandparents are are all passing away and so I think that the question it

01:06:13.526 --> 01:06:19.126
becomes how do you take the lessons and and kind of reflect them back in a way

01:06:19.126 --> 01:06:21.546
that makes sense for our lives.

01:06:21.746 --> 01:06:28.066
And I am sad sometimes that it feels like a lot of history is relegated to a

01:06:28.066 --> 01:06:30.146
book because that's so not,

01:06:31.050 --> 01:06:35.770
world that we live in. I mean, even if you see a memorial for something that

01:06:35.770 --> 01:06:40.210
happened, you know, in the 70s or 80s and we're like, oh, that was a while ago.

01:06:40.250 --> 01:06:42.790
It's like, no, that wasn't. It really wasn't that long ago.

01:06:43.550 --> 01:06:49.710
I don't know. Maybe it's things looking very black and white or things actually

01:06:49.710 --> 01:06:55.430
just being in the history books. But so many of the ways in which,

01:06:55.750 --> 01:06:58.170
you know, the Holocaust or the civil rights movement.

01:06:58.670 --> 01:07:04.010
You know, these things are very, very recent. And when we put them sort of in

01:07:04.010 --> 01:07:08.130
the history book and then sort of, you know, lock that box in a way,

01:07:08.250 --> 01:07:09.930
we can say, okay, like now it's history.

01:07:10.390 --> 01:07:15.910
It's not taking people and sort of meeting them where they are and treating

01:07:15.910 --> 01:07:18.050
them sort of like they're intelligent people.

01:07:18.170 --> 01:07:21.630
And you can say, hey, this is what happened, you know, 50 years ago.

01:07:21.890 --> 01:07:24.330
What do you think's changed? Has anything changed?

01:07:24.710 --> 01:07:26.530
Here's what happened 70 years ago.

01:07:27.190 --> 01:07:33.410
And in the case of Austria, with this process of, I think, coming to terms with

01:07:33.410 --> 01:07:38.470
their past and their role, their very active role in World War II and within

01:07:38.470 --> 01:07:41.590
the Nazi regime once Austria was annexed by Germany,

01:07:41.870 --> 01:07:43.950
that took a very long time.

01:07:44.050 --> 01:07:47.030
That took a couple generations for people to really be like,

01:07:47.190 --> 01:07:52.910
oh, yeah, those stories that we're telling ourselves are not the true stories of what happened.

01:07:53.070 --> 01:07:57.810
And it's that kind of reflection about history and about our roles in it,

01:07:57.870 --> 01:08:01.830
even when they're difficult, that's so important, I think, today more than ever.

01:08:01.830 --> 01:08:06.650
And I wish that more people would be really thoughtful and have these conversations

01:08:06.650 --> 01:08:10.570
because they're so important to have, regardless of kind of what piece of the

01:08:10.570 --> 01:08:13.410
puzzle or piece of the pie you're looking at in these spaces.

01:08:13.990 --> 01:08:19.710
Yeah. Yeah. And I think you did a good job on that. I just...

01:08:20.490 --> 01:08:24.430
You know, it's just, you know, the author, to ask the author.

01:08:25.250 --> 01:08:29.110
You know, did you achieve what you wanted to achieve, that kind of thing,

01:08:29.190 --> 01:08:33.710
it's always interesting to hear people self-critique, right?

01:08:34.390 --> 01:08:38.830
Well, within this, too, I mean, that's a good question. There's no community,

01:08:38.990 --> 01:08:41.030
right, for people who are doing this kind of thing.

01:08:41.030 --> 01:08:47.210
And there are some Facebook groups out there, but there's no real way to ground

01:08:47.210 --> 01:08:53.650
the conversation about what is this restoration, reparation, citizenship thing.

01:08:54.010 --> 01:08:56.450
What does it actually mean to people who are doing it?

01:08:57.110 --> 01:09:00.290
And I've found I've had a bunch of in-person events at

01:09:00.290 --> 01:09:03.130
this point we had almost 200 people come to

01:09:03.130 --> 01:09:05.870
the Austrian embassy in DC just for a book talk when you know

01:09:05.870 --> 01:09:08.810
at the beginning when I was planning it with them they were like no you know we usually

01:09:08.810 --> 01:09:12.150
get like 25 people at book talks and I was like great you know we'll have an

01:09:12.150 --> 01:09:16.130
event at the embassy it'll be fun but they were they were blown away and and

01:09:16.130 --> 01:09:22.830
I think it speaks to the fact that like people are smart and engaged and they

01:09:22.830 --> 01:09:26.270
want to find a way to talk about the things that they care about,

01:09:26.410 --> 01:09:29.390
and they want to find a way to create community around that.

01:09:29.450 --> 01:09:33.370
And I hope that this is a way for people to do some of that.

01:09:33.490 --> 01:09:36.090
I mean, it's not going to be everything, but at least it's something to ground

01:09:36.090 --> 01:09:39.410
the conversation, whether or not you agree with what's in the book or not.

01:09:39.970 --> 01:09:42.370
All right. So I got a couple more questions for you.

01:09:43.270 --> 01:09:47.030
So, you know, a lot of people during the first administration,

01:09:47.290 --> 01:09:50.890
Trump administration, and now in the current one, first thing a lot of people

01:09:50.890 --> 01:09:54.870
were saying was like, oh, I got to get out of here. I got to leave. I got to go.

01:09:55.450 --> 01:09:59.750
And I've actually had a guest come on a couple of times who does that kind of

01:09:59.750 --> 01:10:05.530
work where she helps people repatriate, you know, in other countries.

01:10:06.230 --> 01:10:08.530
Having gone through that experience.

01:10:09.832 --> 01:10:17.072
Do you feel that is a good thing for people to do or, well, let me phrase it this way.

01:10:17.252 --> 01:10:25.432
Is it a thing that people should do out of fear or is it something that people

01:10:25.432 --> 01:10:30.232
should do, you know, with a clear conscience and a clear desire?

01:10:31.092 --> 01:10:34.492
That's a great question, too, Erik. You're asking me all the good questions.

01:10:37.512 --> 01:10:40.332
It depends. It's difficult. Thank you.

01:10:41.565 --> 01:10:46.485
So, you know, I'm not planning on picking up stakes and going to Austria.

01:10:46.765 --> 01:10:50.205
Like, that was never my plan. That was never the intention.

01:10:51.225 --> 01:10:56.025
There are some people who, you know, they have some things that,

01:10:56.385 --> 01:11:00.125
you know, whatever it is in their world where they say this is a non-negotiable

01:11:00.125 --> 01:11:03.605
and I want to live in a certain way.

01:11:03.965 --> 01:11:07.185
These are my values. I feel like they're not respected here.

01:11:08.225 --> 01:11:14.325
That's a different kind of situation. I think that with a lot of this,

01:11:14.685 --> 01:11:16.045
like, fear is never the answer.

01:11:16.405 --> 01:11:23.725
Fear is never a way to kind of move through the world with confidence and grace.

01:11:24.085 --> 01:11:33.185
And I think that oftentimes we, you know, people kind of panic or they think

01:11:33.185 --> 01:11:37.025
that things are going to potentially, you know, go off the deep end.

01:11:37.505 --> 01:11:41.125
And a lot of, sometimes I get these questions that are like,

01:11:41.245 --> 01:11:47.065
oh, well, you know, how did your family know that the Holocaust was coming and

01:11:47.065 --> 01:11:49.625
how did they know that they should leave? And they didn't.

01:11:49.785 --> 01:11:52.265
Like, that's the thing. Like, they really, really didn't. And,

01:11:52.265 --> 01:11:56.205
you know, there was no, like.

01:11:57.565 --> 01:12:02.145
Crazy, like, fear or anything like that, but they were in the kind of circumstance

01:12:02.145 --> 01:12:06.505
where things just, they kept getting worse and worse, and things just weren't

01:12:06.505 --> 01:12:11.025
working for them, you know, where they had called home for 30 years at that point.

01:12:12.047 --> 01:12:17.327
They left. And I think that, you know, that happens to a lot of people for different reasons.

01:12:17.727 --> 01:12:21.087
Usually, I would say mostly economic, you know, the political,

01:12:21.367 --> 01:12:23.247
like my family's case is a little weird where,

01:12:23.707 --> 01:12:27.347
you know, when you read about, you know, what happened in World War II and people,

01:12:27.667 --> 01:12:31.687
you know, the Nazis coming into Vienna and like going into these apartments

01:12:31.687 --> 01:12:34.127
and taking all this art and like, you know, all this stuff.

01:12:35.167 --> 01:12:39.967
You don't really see cases like my family's case that was working class.

01:12:40.307 --> 01:12:44.067
My grandfather and his two older siblings left before for economic reasons,

01:12:44.067 --> 01:12:47.387
just because they really had no opportunities there after World War I.

01:12:48.087 --> 01:12:52.187
And we qualified for this pathway because my great-grandmother had stayed.

01:12:52.527 --> 01:12:57.547
That's the only reason. And so we found family letters that we didn't know about.

01:12:57.807 --> 01:13:00.927
The family in the U.S. had been trying to get them to leave for a long time

01:13:00.927 --> 01:13:03.387
because basically they were like, you know, we're here now.

01:13:03.547 --> 01:13:05.947
We're established. We can make it work. You know, you should come.

01:13:06.047 --> 01:13:09.387
You should come. They didn't want to. They really, really didn't want to. Their lives were there.

01:13:10.087 --> 01:13:14.027
And my great-grandmother at that point, by the time she left, she was in her 60s.

01:13:14.107 --> 01:13:19.047
I mean, what 60-something wants to pick up and go to another country where they

01:13:19.047 --> 01:13:21.727
don't speak the language that you've spoken your whole life?

01:13:21.787 --> 01:13:24.467
Or I think she spoke three languages fluently, so they don't speak any of those

01:13:24.467 --> 01:13:29.407
languages, you know, and really have to start over again at that point.

01:13:29.587 --> 01:13:30.927
Like, that's not something that,

01:13:31.789 --> 01:13:37.249
anybody would really willingly want to do, but it wasn't based on fear.

01:13:37.449 --> 01:13:42.309
It was based on kind of more of a, I would say, a pragmatism more than anything else.

01:13:43.489 --> 01:13:48.509
I don't know, you know, for all these people who talk about it,

01:13:48.709 --> 01:13:50.809
who say like, oh, we got to go to Canada.

01:13:51.029 --> 01:13:55.269
We got to, you know, we're going to get one of those investor visas to New Zealand

01:13:55.269 --> 01:13:57.729
if you have money to do that or all that.

01:13:58.709 --> 01:14:03.529
It's really hard to uproot your life, especially, you know, when you're older,

01:14:03.689 --> 01:14:07.309
when you're more established, when you have your roots in a place for so long.

01:14:07.689 --> 01:14:13.589
And, you know, so it's really hard. And I think it's important to understand,

01:14:13.829 --> 01:14:16.209
like, really how difficult it is. It's not just the language.

01:14:16.449 --> 01:14:22.869
It's really saying, like, okay, no, I have to sort of make that mental adjustment

01:14:22.869 --> 01:14:28.609
and say, you know, this piece of my life that I thought was very solid for so

01:14:28.609 --> 01:14:30.129
long. It's not like that anymore.

01:14:30.829 --> 01:14:34.109
And I don't know how many people are actually doing it.

01:14:34.309 --> 01:14:37.809
You know, how much of it is just talk, how much of it is really,

01:14:37.809 --> 01:14:42.009
like, you know, people making plans.

01:14:42.289 --> 01:14:47.149
Like, I have no idea. But I think, like, my bottom line is that a lot of this

01:14:47.149 --> 01:14:51.089
is a lot more difficult, maybe, than people think that it is.

01:14:51.249 --> 01:14:59.529
And, you know, so it's also kind of what really is the push and pull and how

01:14:59.529 --> 01:15:05.689
much can you stay rooted and fight for what you believe in?

01:15:06.649 --> 01:15:09.969
Because in my family's case, if they had stayed, they would have been killed.

01:15:10.129 --> 01:15:13.329
And that part of it is very clear in retrospect, but at the time, nobody knew that.

01:15:13.509 --> 01:15:17.249
So there's all this history didn't have to happen.

01:15:17.489 --> 01:15:21.469
Going back to the history question, history didn't have to happen the way that it turned out,

01:15:22.300 --> 01:15:26.860
Nobody expected it to happen the way that it turned out, at least when they were living through it.

01:15:27.240 --> 01:15:31.460
And I think a lot of, you know, my own family's story in many ways,

01:15:31.620 --> 01:15:34.540
it was about a lot of luck one way or the other.

01:15:34.860 --> 01:15:39.900
And it's important to recognize that, too. Like, luck plays such a big role

01:15:39.900 --> 01:15:45.420
in how things work out, especially when these kinds of situations,

01:15:45.420 --> 01:15:48.140
like, really start to get hairy.

01:15:48.820 --> 01:15:55.240
Yeah. All right. So my final question is, you said in the book that you grew

01:15:55.240 --> 01:15:59.760
up with a mindset that America is always about moving forward.

01:16:00.080 --> 01:16:07.440
Now that you're, do you feel that your child is going to have that same experience about America?

01:16:07.440 --> 01:16:13.400
Or is there something that you're seeing now that's like, I don't know.

01:16:13.400 --> 01:16:18.700
So it's like, as you stated that, you know, now your child has options because

01:16:18.700 --> 01:16:22.580
you have, you know, the dual citizenships and all that.

01:16:22.720 --> 01:16:26.840
But the moving forward was very intriguing because it was just like,

01:16:26.960 --> 01:16:30.820
that's just being what American is about.

01:16:31.880 --> 01:16:37.900
So do you still kind of feel that way? And like I said, do you think that America

01:16:37.900 --> 01:16:43.220
that your child is going to grow up in will be in that same mindset?

01:16:44.473 --> 01:16:47.353
Have to think about this one because a lot of it's going to depend on him

01:16:47.353 --> 01:16:50.333
right and his personality and and how much he

01:16:50.333 --> 01:16:53.173
he pushes right the moving

01:16:53.173 --> 01:16:55.833
forward thing i think can be really hard too i mean

01:16:55.833 --> 01:16:58.593
when when the u.s is just go go

01:16:58.593 --> 01:17:02.493
go because that's just the way it is i

01:17:02.493 --> 01:17:05.293
think it can be really exhausting for a lot of people and i think we're

01:17:05.293 --> 01:17:09.053
seeing that more and more where where

01:17:09.053 --> 01:17:11.693
everybody like people they work their

01:17:11.693 --> 01:17:15.653
butts off and they try their best and you

01:17:15.653 --> 01:17:18.573
know the the story that you hear about that being

01:17:18.573 --> 01:17:22.633
enough like maybe that was never actually the case maybe maybe there's it's

01:17:22.633 --> 01:17:27.493
always been kind of like the situation where people work their butts off and

01:17:27.493 --> 01:17:31.993
some people do well and other people's people just don't they don't feel like

01:17:31.993 --> 01:17:35.093
they're moving forward in that way but you don't really hear about that as much

01:17:35.093 --> 01:17:36.873
just because of the way the U.S.

01:17:36.873 --> 01:17:42.693
Is and this like push around go, go, go and, and, you know, build and do and

01:17:42.693 --> 01:17:44.173
move and, and all of that.

01:17:45.053 --> 01:17:48.413
So he, you know, his personality, like he's got a ton of energy.

01:17:48.633 --> 01:17:52.013
He's, he's going to be, he's going to be two pretty soon.

01:17:52.173 --> 01:17:55.153
And, you know, he's in that like toddler phase of just like,

01:17:55.533 --> 01:17:58.093
you know, you take him out of the stroller and he's like running around the

01:17:58.093 --> 01:18:01.113
room and like grabbing pillows and like doing all those things.

01:18:01.893 --> 01:18:08.813
So, you know, I hope he has the energy to, go, go, go and make the world,

01:18:09.073 --> 01:18:14.153
you know, more of a place that's aligned with, you know, the values that,

01:18:14.413 --> 01:18:15.753
you know, we want to give to him,

01:18:16.073 --> 01:18:21.153
you know, this idea that, you know, the world can be as big as you want it to be.

01:18:21.273 --> 01:18:24.353
I think that's also a very American thing where it's, you know,

01:18:24.413 --> 01:18:27.893
it's not scary to, you know, go and take these opportunities.

01:18:28.053 --> 01:18:33.253
I mean, one of the Austrians was saying to me that she really admires that,

01:18:33.373 --> 01:18:38.273
like, for the kids who can, you know, who are able to, they go away for college.

01:18:38.473 --> 01:18:41.373
You know, you're 18, you're gone. You're not, you know, staying at your parents'

01:18:41.573 --> 01:18:42.993
house until you're in your 40s.

01:18:43.133 --> 01:18:46.953
You know, at least that's the ethos that people take with them.

01:18:48.075 --> 01:18:51.815
It's complicated because so much of this is about personality.

01:18:51.895 --> 01:18:56.095
It's about circumstances that are kind of beyond your individual control.

01:18:56.235 --> 01:18:59.655
It's about, you know, what interests you, what intrigues you,

01:18:59.855 --> 01:19:01.455
you know, do you want to stay close?

01:19:01.655 --> 01:19:03.875
Do you want to go out and see what else is out there?

01:19:04.215 --> 01:19:09.475
Does the world let you do that? And so I hope in his case, the world lets him do that.

01:19:09.555 --> 01:19:15.035
And I hope the world lets him go as far as he can go. And I hope that we set

01:19:15.035 --> 01:19:20.835
him up to be able to, you know, to put out good and make the world,

01:19:21.115 --> 01:19:23.935
you know, a better place than the one he was born into.

01:19:24.495 --> 01:19:28.335
Well, Anne Hand, I have no doubt. It's been, you talk about two,

01:19:28.555 --> 01:19:30.815
it's been 20 years since I've had to deal with that.

01:19:31.655 --> 01:19:36.695
But I still remember. Oh, my God. Do I still remember it? So enjoy that moment.

01:19:36.835 --> 01:19:39.515
But Anne, I've enjoyed having you come on.

01:19:39.755 --> 01:19:43.675
If people want to get the book, how can they get that? If people want to reach

01:19:43.675 --> 01:19:44.995
out to you, how can they do that?

01:19:45.735 --> 01:19:49.135
Yeah, so the book's on the online places. It's on Amazon.

01:19:49.515 --> 01:19:52.515
It's on Bookshop. If you want to support your local bookshop,

01:19:52.675 --> 01:19:56.435
it'll order it there. It'll get shipped to an independent bookstore close to you.

01:19:56.635 --> 01:19:59.015
It's on Barnes & Noble, so it's on those websites.

01:19:59.395 --> 01:20:02.455
If you want to get in touch with me, I'm on Facebook.

01:20:02.595 --> 01:20:07.755
I'm on Twitter X. I'm on LinkedIn, so any of those, I'm super easy to find.

01:20:07.755 --> 01:20:11.635
It's just different, you know, versions of my name, like with an underscore

01:20:11.635 --> 01:20:15.835
on one or with a dot on the other one, whatever, whatever the platform kind of makes you do.

01:20:16.075 --> 01:20:20.055
But I'm super easy to find. And I'm always happy to, you know,

01:20:20.495 --> 01:20:24.355
just chat with people who are interested in having these conversations.

01:20:24.355 --> 01:20:25.755
So really don't be a stranger.

01:20:26.615 --> 01:20:29.915
All right. Well, and again, thank you for doing this.

01:20:31.055 --> 01:20:34.035
So you know when you decide to write your next book

01:20:34.035 --> 01:20:38.415
understand that the rule is that you have an open invitation to come back on

01:20:38.415 --> 01:20:44.615
the show so oh gosh thanks Erik i really appreciate that thank you so much yeah

01:20:44.615 --> 01:20:48.135
so when you when you decide to do that just just let me know we'll make that

01:20:48.135 --> 01:20:51.615
happen but again i just want to thank you for doing this interview,

01:20:52.792 --> 01:20:56.832
Yeah, thank you, Erik. Thanks to everybody listening. It's just been such a pleasure chatting.

01:20:57.132 --> 01:21:02.032
And I hope the themes of the book, you know, really resonate with people in

01:21:02.032 --> 01:21:05.772
different ways and just get people thinking about things a little bit differently.

01:21:06.312 --> 01:21:08.672
All right, guys. And we're going to catch y'all on the other side.

01:21:21.140 --> 01:21:30.940
All right, and we are back. So I want to thank Lorena Quiroz and Anne Hand for coming on the podcast.

01:21:31.740 --> 01:21:37.420
Those two women, you know, they're from different perspectives,

01:21:37.740 --> 01:21:39.680
doing different kind of work.

01:21:40.000 --> 01:21:47.420
But I hope you understood the context about home and heart from those two interviews.

01:21:47.420 --> 01:21:48.720
It was Lorena, of course.

01:21:48.920 --> 01:21:53.780
It was really, really good to be able to talk to her prior to what's getting

01:21:53.780 --> 01:21:56.180
ready to happen down in Mississippi.

01:21:57.500 --> 01:22:02.980
And I wanted to bring some context because she was there on the ground when

01:22:02.980 --> 01:22:05.420
the big raid happened in 2019.

01:22:06.600 --> 01:22:13.040
And it really kind of got her really started in the community organizing.

01:22:13.220 --> 01:22:16.020
I mean, she had been doing some work, but,

01:22:16.999 --> 01:22:24.099
to get to this place now with her organization IAJE to be ready for this raid

01:22:24.099 --> 01:22:27.179
that's coming the next few days.

01:22:27.739 --> 01:22:33.459
So the fact that she was able to set aside some time to talk about that and

01:22:33.459 --> 01:22:37.899
to do this podcast interview, I am very, very grateful to her for doing that.

01:22:38.159 --> 01:22:43.639
And I meant what I said that, you know, she's doing the Lord's work and hope

01:22:43.639 --> 01:22:48.039
that she continues to have a hedge of protection around her to keep doing that.

01:22:48.939 --> 01:22:56.919
With Anne, you know, a personal book that she wrote has an incredible amount

01:22:56.919 --> 01:23:00.579
of impact on a lot of people because, you know,

01:23:00.759 --> 01:23:04.699
all of us want to reconnect with our history.

01:23:04.999 --> 01:23:07.579
You know, I'm a big proponent of history.

01:23:07.899 --> 01:23:14.879
I believe that you have to understand history in order to understand what's going on now.

01:23:15.779 --> 01:23:21.559
And the way that she was able to tie in a lot of things that we're dealing with,

01:23:21.879 --> 01:23:27.239
you know, just from her personal journey of reconnecting with our Austrian roots.

01:23:27.739 --> 01:23:30.739
And just to kind of, if you read the book,

01:23:30.899 --> 01:23:36.279
you'll understand just kind of, you know, her experience having to apply for

01:23:36.279 --> 01:23:43.759
citizenship in another country and all that, and then counteract that with what people that Lorena,

01:23:44.519 --> 01:23:50.299
you know, who the people that Lorena are fighting for, all they want is the

01:23:50.299 --> 01:23:52.919
same ability and access,

01:23:53.659 --> 01:23:58.199
you know, the same opportunity to live where they want to live,

01:23:58.219 --> 01:24:04.879
to be citizens or just, you know, be able to travel, be able to work,

01:24:05.119 --> 01:24:07.239
whatever they want to do, go to school.

01:24:07.979 --> 01:24:19.039
You know, nobody wants anarchy when it comes to policies, whether it's immigration or others, but.

01:24:20.474 --> 01:24:31.834
At some point in time, we have to be humane and we have to use our humanity, use our our joy,

01:24:32.014 --> 01:24:40.994
use our kindness to start putting together policies rather than political expediency or cruelty.

01:24:41.634 --> 01:24:47.314
Right. Because, you know, that's that's where we are now. We are in a very,

01:24:47.494 --> 01:24:53.134
very, and people can make the argument that America as a society has been cruel for a while.

01:24:53.994 --> 01:25:00.914
And as somebody that is speaking about history, who is, you know,

01:25:01.054 --> 01:25:02.334
descendant of black people,

01:25:02.754 --> 01:25:10.174
you know, we can we can cite all of the different things that have happened even in my lifetime.

01:25:10.174 --> 01:25:16.634
To show how America can be cruel to its fellow citizens or fellow residents.

01:25:18.089 --> 01:25:25.369
And so I just think that if we start really defining true American leadership,

01:25:25.369 --> 01:25:30.689
it's more than just the progressiveness or the innovation.

01:25:30.949 --> 01:25:36.149
There has to be some heart behind it. There has to be some kindness.

01:25:36.489 --> 01:25:41.949
Because you can change things and be evil. Because that's exactly what we're dealing with now.

01:25:41.969 --> 01:25:47.789
We're dealing with a political climate that rewards vindication.

01:25:48.089 --> 01:25:55.729
That rewards cruelty, that rewards pettiness, and it really shouldn't be like that.

01:25:57.789 --> 01:26:03.429
Politics, and I guess you can judge me for being biased, but I think politics

01:26:03.429 --> 01:26:06.109
needs to be more egalitarian, right?

01:26:06.309 --> 01:26:11.529
I think politics needs to be at a different level where the people that have

01:26:11.529 --> 01:26:17.189
been given or entrusted positions of leadership should be more benevolent,

01:26:17.429 --> 01:26:19.969
should be more considerate,

01:26:20.349 --> 01:26:25.609
should be doing things that will benefit all instead of trying to figure out

01:26:25.609 --> 01:26:31.769
who they can eliminate so that a few can reap the rewards, right?

01:26:32.249 --> 01:26:36.049
Just think that's where we need to be. So.

01:26:37.461 --> 01:26:40.741
Home and heart fits because this is my home.

01:26:41.261 --> 01:26:45.701
I have had a privilege to travel to a couple of countries.

01:26:46.221 --> 01:26:51.641
I've had a privilege to travel across the nation, and there's no other country

01:26:51.641 --> 01:26:54.561
I would rather live in than the United States.

01:26:55.161 --> 01:27:00.581
So this is where my heart is. But just because my heart is in this place and

01:27:00.581 --> 01:27:06.741
this is my home doesn't mean that I am satisfied with everything that happens.

01:27:07.461 --> 01:27:12.861
And one of the unique things about this nation is that the experiment was set

01:27:12.861 --> 01:27:18.781
up so that when it got to a point where it was intolerable, when it got to a

01:27:18.781 --> 01:27:20.821
point where it resembled a tyranny,

01:27:21.201 --> 01:27:29.021
that we had the vehicles and the wherewithal and even the tradition to fight against that.

01:27:29.481 --> 01:27:37.321
And that's what we're doing now. You know, for a president to say to congressmen

01:27:37.321 --> 01:27:39.841
and women who actually served in the military,

01:27:40.321 --> 01:27:46.381
to call them traitors for reminding men and women who are currently serving

01:27:46.381 --> 01:27:51.061
in the military that you don't have to follow an unlawful order,

01:27:51.081 --> 01:27:54.521
you know, speaks volumes about where we are.

01:27:54.521 --> 01:28:01.221
The fact that those men and women who served, who are now in another level of

01:28:01.221 --> 01:28:06.141
service through their elected positions felt that they even needed to say that.

01:28:07.575 --> 01:28:13.055
Should make people uncomfortable. You can be angry, but you need to be angry

01:28:13.055 --> 01:28:20.115
at why those folks felt they needed to say that rather than be angry at the messengers, right?

01:28:20.775 --> 01:28:26.175
And then they say, well, they're being seditious and they're traitors and all

01:28:26.175 --> 01:28:28.095
that stuff. It's like you have no concept.

01:28:28.875 --> 01:28:35.315
You have no self-reflection. When people that supported you were willing to

01:28:35.315 --> 01:28:39.635
vandalize the Capitol building and do harm to members of Congress,

01:28:39.855 --> 01:28:42.355
and all you can say is that you love them?

01:28:42.955 --> 01:28:46.255
See, that's where sedition comes in.

01:28:46.855 --> 01:28:53.035
January 6th was an act of sedition, not a commercial reminding people of their

01:28:53.035 --> 01:28:56.095
military obligation, right?

01:28:56.595 --> 01:29:04.255
That's where the confusion is. It is not patriotic to kill your political opponent.

01:29:04.395 --> 01:29:09.655
It's not patriotic to threaten your political opponent with violence.

01:29:09.875 --> 01:29:12.055
It's not patriotic to threaten your political opponent. It's not patriotic to.

01:29:12.904 --> 01:29:17.444
Actively seek to vandalize the people's house.

01:29:18.204 --> 01:29:25.284
And it's not patriotic to tell military personnel to go after fellow citizens.

01:29:25.724 --> 01:29:32.084
That's not what they signed up to do. That's not what they are designed to do, right?

01:29:32.624 --> 01:29:38.204
The fact that you as a president felt that you even had the temerity to ask

01:29:38.204 --> 01:29:41.744
a general, is it all right if we shoot a protester in the leg,

01:29:42.064 --> 01:29:48.764
tells me that you don't have a true grasp or concept of what your position is

01:29:48.764 --> 01:29:51.604
or what America is really all about.

01:29:52.364 --> 01:29:58.764
If you don't believe me, ask Bull Connor. If you don't believe me, ask Goon Jones, right?

01:29:59.784 --> 01:30:04.684
Those are people that didn't grasp the concept either, and history did not look

01:30:04.684 --> 01:30:06.924
at them kindly in the aftermath.

01:30:08.284 --> 01:30:16.464
So, you know, you can support in politics who you want to support based on ideas

01:30:16.464 --> 01:30:24.624
and concepts and solutions toward our nation's problems and issues.

01:30:24.924 --> 01:30:32.844
But I question supporting anyone doesn't understand what America is about,

01:30:34.384 --> 01:30:41.664
whose vision of the world they live in is encased in a mirror that they acknowledge

01:30:41.664 --> 01:30:45.164
exists but don't really look at the real reflection.

01:30:46.384 --> 01:30:50.364
You know, I just think that we can do better.

01:30:51.544 --> 01:30:59.764
You know, we have had our political disagreements, but you cross the line when

01:30:59.764 --> 01:31:04.304
your disagreements stifles, my right to disagree.

01:31:04.824 --> 01:31:11.384
And it puts the institution that we know as America in jeopardy.

01:31:12.796 --> 01:31:20.516
That's a fundamental problem to me. You want to base your economic policy on tariffs?

01:31:20.856 --> 01:31:23.076
That's fine. We had people do that.

01:31:23.616 --> 01:31:28.256
And we saw the result of that. You know, there was a major depression.

01:31:28.256 --> 01:31:34.256
They called it the Great Depression because the country never recovered, right?

01:31:34.896 --> 01:31:45.016
Not right away. And so that's an economic argument. That's a policy argument, right?

01:31:45.556 --> 01:31:56.836
But, you know, the smallness, the pettiness, the desire for revenge is not what we're about.

01:31:57.356 --> 01:32:01.216
We seek justice, but justice is not revenge.

01:32:01.996 --> 01:32:09.036
If you commit a crime and you have gone through the process and the process

01:32:09.036 --> 01:32:16.236
was fair and you are found guilty, then you've got to deal with the consequences, right?

01:32:17.156 --> 01:32:24.896
Regardless of whether you relate to the perpetrator of the crime or not, right?

01:32:25.916 --> 01:32:30.696
We've got to fix a lot of things. And we've got to fix a lot of things because

01:32:30.696 --> 01:32:32.596
we're humans. We're not perfect.

01:32:34.240 --> 01:32:40.560
The goal is to seek a more perfect union. America is an ideal that we have to

01:32:40.560 --> 01:32:43.740
live up to every day. But there has to be an effort.

01:32:44.340 --> 01:32:48.820
And when I see people in this current political environment.

01:32:49.940 --> 01:32:51.920
They're not giving any effort.

01:32:52.240 --> 01:32:57.060
They're doing the bare minimum if you give them credit for that.

01:32:57.700 --> 01:33:06.180
You know, we shouldn't be worried if our children are going to have better lives than we have.

01:33:06.780 --> 01:33:10.780
We shouldn't be making decisions whether I'm going to go to the doctor or whether

01:33:10.780 --> 01:33:13.460
I'm going to pay my rent or eat.

01:33:14.340 --> 01:33:20.160
We shouldn't be worried if our children not only have a safe environment to live in,

01:33:20.160 --> 01:33:26.980
but that they have access to the best education possible to achieve the enlightenment

01:33:26.980 --> 01:33:30.560
that human beings are supposed to achieve.

01:33:31.260 --> 01:33:39.380
You know, it's good to make money. It's good to make enough to afford the lifestyle

01:33:39.380 --> 01:33:43.680
you want to live, take care of the things you need to take care of.

01:33:44.180 --> 01:33:50.520
I don't think we need to have a trillionaire, you know. I don't think you need to have that much money.

01:33:51.280 --> 01:33:55.280
And I'm not trying to begrudge people that, for whatever reason,

01:33:55.440 --> 01:33:56.700
are fortunate enough to do that.

01:33:57.020 --> 01:34:01.660
But I just think that America is bigger and better than that.

01:34:02.280 --> 01:34:08.200
I think that if we're going to have a trillionaire in the United States,

01:34:08.400 --> 01:34:10.940
then no child should be hungry.

01:34:13.480 --> 01:34:21.340
No military veteran or really anybody should be homeless. if we're going to have a trillionaire.

01:34:22.978 --> 01:34:27.078
That, if we're going to be the wealthiest nation in the world,

01:34:27.178 --> 01:34:28.418
then we need to show that.

01:34:29.058 --> 01:34:34.378
And we need to stop spreading the gap between haves and have-nots.

01:34:35.298 --> 01:34:39.998
If it was up to be, there wouldn't be such thing as a have-not. Everybody would have.

01:34:41.078 --> 01:34:50.878
So, you know, I just implore us to continue to do better, especially in the choices that we make.

01:34:50.878 --> 01:34:57.578
I see that there are some people that may be coming around and understanding

01:34:57.578 --> 01:35:00.418
that the extremism is not the point.

01:35:00.858 --> 01:35:03.198
It's the exceptionalism that is.

01:35:04.238 --> 01:35:08.378
And so we'll continue to watch that journey as those people evolve politically.

01:35:09.758 --> 01:35:15.778
But I think we as citizens need to demand better of our people.

01:35:16.418 --> 01:35:19.978
We're trusting them to govern. and if we're trusting them to lead,

01:35:20.358 --> 01:35:22.958
then they should do better.

01:35:24.238 --> 01:35:32.758
I mean, it sounds obvious, but it's apparent that a lot of people haven't gotten a memo.

01:35:33.458 --> 01:35:36.758
All right, guys, that's all I got. Thank you all for listening.

01:35:37.298 --> 01:35:38.898
Have a happy Thanksgiving.

01:35:40.278 --> 01:35:49.798
You know, however you celebrate it, the important thing is family and love and human connection.

01:35:50.418 --> 01:35:54.858
And so I just hope that everybody, as we enter this holiday season,

01:35:55.658 --> 01:36:00.598
if you know some people that are, you know, they call it the holiday blues,

01:36:00.878 --> 01:36:04.078
but, you know, if you know some people are struggling, reach out to them.

01:36:04.338 --> 01:36:07.478
If you know some people that need some help, help them.

01:36:08.618 --> 01:36:13.518
And just remember what America is about because there are people who are fighting

01:36:13.518 --> 01:36:22.518
every day to get here and to stay here because of the opportunity and the hope that we advertise.

01:36:23.318 --> 01:36:25.938
Again, thank y'all for listening. Until next time.