Host Erik Fleming speaks with Lorena Quiroz about organizing after the 2019 mass worksite raids in Mississippi and efforts to prepare and protect immigrant communities, and with Anne Hand about reclaiming family history and pursuing Austrian citizenship through a restorative program.
The episode explores themes of belonging, due process, humane immigration policy, intergenerational history, and the role of community and kindness in political action.
00:00:00 --> 00:00:06 Welcome. I'm Erik Fleming, host of A Moment with Erik Fleming, the podcast of our time.
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00:01:12 --> 00:01:17 The following program is hosted by the NBG Podcast Network.
00:01:57 --> 00:02:03 Hello, and welcome to another moment with Erik Fleming. I am your host, Erik Fleming.
00:02:03 --> 00:02:08 And I want to, in advance, wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving.
00:02:08 --> 00:02:14 As this episode drops, it'll be approaching. The holiday will be approaching.
00:02:15 --> 00:02:20 And again, I just hope that everybody, you know, gets a chance to spend time
00:02:20 --> 00:02:24 with family and friends, enjoy some good football and whatever else y'all do
00:02:24 --> 00:02:26 for your Thanksgiving traditions.
00:02:27 --> 00:02:35 And so I think this episode is relevant because I want to entitle it Home and
00:02:35 --> 00:02:41 Heart, because, you know, there's an old saying, home is where the heart is.
00:02:41 --> 00:02:46 And my two guests come from two different perspectives of the issue.
00:02:46 --> 00:02:52 One has been an advocate for immigrants in this country, you know,
00:02:53 --> 00:02:56 making sure that people that want to come.
00:02:57 --> 00:03:03 Are given the opportunities not only to come, but to live and live abundantly
00:03:03 --> 00:03:09 and to fight for their rights and, you know, give them protections, all that stuff.
00:03:09 --> 00:03:16 And then the other guest wrote a book about her experience applying for citizenship
00:03:16 --> 00:03:23 in another country and what was her motivation and what was the experience like.
00:03:23 --> 00:03:28 And even though she doesn't live in the other country,
00:03:28 --> 00:03:38 just the journey to go through that process, I think, is very important.
00:03:39 --> 00:03:42 And it makes for a good book, by the way.
00:03:42 --> 00:03:48 So I hope that y'all get that sense of home and heart when you listen to these
00:03:48 --> 00:03:55 guests, because even in the struggles that immigrants in the United States are facing,
00:03:56 --> 00:04:02 part of the reason that they're fighting is because they want America to be
00:04:02 --> 00:04:05 their home and their heart is here.
00:04:05 --> 00:04:10 Even though they have connections with their native country and those will never be severed.
00:04:11 --> 00:04:16 They also have a heart and a desire to make America their home and to make the
00:04:16 --> 00:04:17 most of their opportunity.
00:04:18 --> 00:04:22 So I hope that gets captured in the interviews that you hear.
00:04:22 --> 00:04:32 Still trying to get people to make donations, and especially as this holiday season is approaching,
00:04:33 --> 00:04:38 you know, we've got supportjamaica.gov.jm.
00:04:38 --> 00:04:44 If you still want to make donations to those folks in Jamaica that were ravaged by Hurricane Melissa.
00:04:46 --> 00:04:53 And, you know, just in the holiday season, you know, we had this scare during
00:04:53 --> 00:04:58 the shutdown where people look like they weren't even going to have food or
00:04:58 --> 00:05:00 weren't going to be able to afford food for the holiday season.
00:05:00 --> 00:05:06 So that just highlighted the need for support for our community food banks,
00:05:07 --> 00:05:14 support for organizations that raise money to deal with hunger in this country.
00:05:15 --> 00:05:20 And so I just, you know, whatever you can do, I know that's asking a lot of
00:05:20 --> 00:05:26 people in this economic time that we're in. And it's not so much the struggle
00:05:26 --> 00:05:29 as it is the uncertainty, right?
00:05:29 --> 00:05:34 Because we're all making adjustments on the fly as the administration seems
00:05:34 --> 00:05:37 to be making decisions on the fly based on the economy.
00:05:37 --> 00:05:42 So I just want people to have a giving heart.
00:05:43 --> 00:05:46 And do what you can, whatever you can.
00:05:47 --> 00:05:52 You know, in the Christian tradition, we talk about the story of the widow's mite, right?
00:05:53 --> 00:05:59 And, you know, how that was all she had. And that caught Jesus' attention more
00:05:59 --> 00:06:05 than the folks that were giving their tithes or giving more than their tithes, right?
00:06:05 --> 00:06:09 The wealthy, you know. So just do what you can.
00:06:11 --> 00:06:17 And I can assure you that there will be somebody that will greatly appreciate what you did.
00:06:18 --> 00:06:22 All right, so let's go ahead and get this program started. And as always,
00:06:22 --> 00:06:25 we kick it off with a moment of news with Grace G.
00:06:33 --> 00:06:37 Thanks, Erik. The Republican-controlled U.S. Congress voted to force the release
00:06:37 --> 00:06:40 of Justice Department files on Jeffrey Epstein.
00:06:40 --> 00:06:45 A federal court blocked Texas from using its new congressional map,
00:06:45 --> 00:06:49 which was intended to favor Republicans and was drawn based on race.
00:06:49 --> 00:06:55 Indiana Republicans called off a legislative session meant to enact a new congressional
00:06:55 --> 00:06:59 map despite pressure from President Trump and his allies. A U.S.
00:07:00 --> 00:07:04 Judge questioned the validity of the grand jury indictment against former FBI
00:07:04 --> 00:07:09 Director James Comey after prosecutors admitted the final indictment was never
00:07:09 --> 00:07:11 presented to the entire grand jury.
00:07:12 --> 00:07:16 Federal agents arrested at least 370 people in Charlotte, North Carolina,
00:07:17 --> 00:07:20 escalating the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign.
00:07:21 --> 00:07:26 The Pentagon is withdrawing some National Guard troops from Chicago and Portland,
00:07:26 --> 00:07:30 weeks after President Trump deployed them to those cities to combat crime.
00:07:31 --> 00:07:36 Nearly two dozen people, including faith leaders, were arrested while protesting
00:07:36 --> 00:07:39 outside a federal immigration facility near Chicago.
00:07:39 --> 00:07:44 A state prosecutor in Georgia took control of the high-profile election interference
00:07:44 --> 00:07:49 case against President Trump and his allies, following a court ruling that disqualified
00:07:49 --> 00:07:51 the initial prosecutor, Fannie Willis.
00:07:51 --> 00:07:55 A resolution was filed to expel Democratic U.S.
00:07:56 --> 00:07:59 Representative Sheila Sherphilis McCormick following her federal indictment
00:07:59 --> 00:08:03 for allegedly misusing COVID-19 relief funds.
00:08:03 --> 00:08:08 New restrictions on student visas and other Trump administration policies contributed
00:08:08 --> 00:08:13 to a 17% decline in the enrollment of new international students at U.S.
00:08:13 --> 00:08:15 Colleges and universities this autumn.
00:08:15 --> 00:08:21 And a federal judge has ordered a dozen Texas public school districts to remove
00:08:21 --> 00:08:24 Ten Commandment displays from classrooms by December.
00:08:25 --> 00:08:28 I am Grace G., and this has been a Moment of News.
00:08:36 --> 00:08:40 All right. Thank you, Grace, for that moment of news. And now it's time for
00:08:40 --> 00:08:42 my guest, Lorena Quiroz.
00:08:43 --> 00:08:48 Lorena's journey began in New York City. She was born to immigrant parents who
00:08:48 --> 00:08:50 value cultural heritage and community.
00:08:50 --> 00:08:55 In Mississippi, she raises her children with values of resilience and community involvement.
00:08:56 --> 00:09:00 As executive director of the Immigrants Alliance for Justice and Equity for
00:09:00 --> 00:09:06 Mississippi, Lorena employs innovative strategies, amplifying unheard voices,
00:09:06 --> 00:09:09 and fostering recognition and respect for all.
00:09:10 --> 00:09:15 The many rich experiences and stories from her lived experience inform her resilience,
00:09:15 --> 00:09:20 innovation, and dedication required for the strong leadership in IAJ's fight
00:09:20 --> 00:09:22 for community empowerment.
00:09:22 --> 00:09:28 Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest
00:09:28 --> 00:09:32 on this podcast, Lorena Quiroz.
00:09:43 --> 00:09:47 All right. Lorena Quiroz. How are you doing, ma'am? You doing good?
00:09:48 --> 00:09:52 Well, as good as can be. I'm healthy and that's a beautiful thing.
00:09:52 --> 00:09:56 I understand. With the work that you do is jumping and we're going to get into,
00:09:57 --> 00:10:00 some of the urgent stuff that you're dealing with right now.
00:10:00 --> 00:10:04 But I want to start off the interview with the icebreaker portion.
00:10:04 --> 00:10:10 So the first thing I want you to do is respond to a quote that I'm going to read to you.
00:10:11 --> 00:10:16 It's a big piece of my heart because I'm not only an immigrant,
00:10:16 --> 00:10:22 but the daughter of an immigrant, a woman who migrated and left her entire family for years.
00:10:22 --> 00:10:27 To think that my mom sacrificed all of that so I could be talking to you,
00:10:27 --> 00:10:31 it's incredible to think that's the work they're doing for their children.
00:10:31 --> 00:10:34 What does that quote mean to you? It's my life.
00:10:36 --> 00:10:40 It describes my life. It describes me. It describes my work.
00:10:41 --> 00:10:48 It's my organization. It's the community that I've created, even within the organization.
00:10:49 --> 00:10:56 It's the way that I lead. It's forever present in everything that I do.
00:10:57 --> 00:11:02 Yeah. All right. So now the next icebreaker is what we call 20 questions.
00:11:03 --> 00:11:09 So I need you to give me a number between one and 20. Three. Three. Okay.
00:11:10 --> 00:11:13 How should we balance rights, freedoms, and responsibilities?
00:11:13 --> 00:11:19 I think freedom is what encompasses all the work that we do,
00:11:19 --> 00:11:25 whether it is migration, leaving one state for another.
00:11:26 --> 00:11:31 Oftentimes, as immigrant community, we talk about the migration that happened
00:11:31 --> 00:11:37 from the South to the North, whether it is going from one continent to another.
00:11:37 --> 00:11:44 It is about freedom, the freedom to make decisions, to have agency over your
00:11:44 --> 00:11:46 own life, over your body.
00:11:47 --> 00:11:50 And I think freedom, to me. And then you mentioned responsibilities.
00:11:51 --> 00:11:57 And what was the third one? It was balancing rights, freedoms, and responsibilities.
00:11:58 --> 00:12:04 So tied very heavily to that is our rights, the rights to choose.
00:12:04 --> 00:12:09 I think it is our responsibility, though. There's a lot of us that feel that we can be neutral.
00:12:10 --> 00:12:15 I think that a lot of people feel, and I heard it in a conversation yesterday, that I'm not political.
00:12:16 --> 00:12:18 I think our very existence is political.
00:12:19 --> 00:12:27 And so it is our responsibility to be where we can and the degree that we can,
00:12:27 --> 00:12:32 that we are responsible to being agents and promoters of freedom,
00:12:33 --> 00:12:35 right? to have the right.
00:12:35 --> 00:12:39 I think that those of us that sit in the background don't realize that.
00:12:40 --> 00:12:47 Our future is tied to our neighbor's future. So although I say freedom lies heavily,
00:12:47 --> 00:12:53 as I speak to you, I'm thinking of how, yes, it is our responsibility to make
00:12:53 --> 00:12:55 sure that we all have the right to freedom.
00:12:56 --> 00:13:03 Yeah, I got you. All right. So many Americans are experiencing the actions of
00:13:03 --> 00:13:06 ICE and the Border Patrol under the current Trump administration,
00:13:07 --> 00:13:09 including communities in Mississippi.
00:13:09 --> 00:13:14 But this is not the first time you and your fellow Mississippians faced an aggressive
00:13:14 --> 00:13:17 Trump administration policy, immigration policy.
00:13:17 --> 00:13:22 Talk to the leaders about the raids of August the 7th, 2019.
00:13:23 --> 00:13:29 So I was organizer and my phone just blew up.
00:13:29 --> 00:13:36 My emails and I was sitting, I can tell you, I was on the floor of our office on Congress Street.
00:13:37 --> 00:13:43 And everyone was sharing what was happening. I think it was maybe around 9.30
00:13:43 --> 00:13:47 in the morning and a lot of the family members were sharing.
00:13:47 --> 00:13:51 They took our people, they took our families, they took my mother,
00:13:51 --> 00:13:57 they took my children and they called me because I'd been in community for so long.
00:13:59 --> 00:14:02 And at first I froze, didn't know what to do.
00:14:02 --> 00:14:07 And then, you know, it hits you, hey, you're an organizer, you have everybody's phone number in your,
00:14:07 --> 00:14:11 if you're a good organizer, you have relational meetings, you have,
00:14:11 --> 00:14:18 you have people's phone numbers and we sent out a press release and Noel Ditla, my sister, Dorothy,
00:14:19 --> 00:14:25 this elder, civil rights actor, elder, and myself, we put together the press
00:14:25 --> 00:14:31 release and we had a response over 200 national partners, regionals, and locals showed up.
00:14:31 --> 00:14:33 And so I want to say that.
00:14:34 --> 00:14:38 As a child of immigrants growing up in New York, I want to say that I have a
00:14:38 --> 00:14:41 certain level of privilege, you know, having access to language,
00:14:41 --> 00:14:44 having access to even navigating the systems.
00:14:45 --> 00:14:51 But I also, you know, was that child, the oldest child that was next to my mom,
00:14:51 --> 00:14:57 saw what she faced, the hardships in getting employment and how she worked 12 hours a day.
00:14:57 --> 00:15:03 And so living in Mississippi and being faced with the fact that our immigrant
00:15:03 --> 00:15:08 communities have such little resources,
00:15:08 --> 00:15:12 how we are often overlooked and how people claim to be our voice.
00:15:12 --> 00:15:17 When we have a voice, there's just no platform.
00:15:17 --> 00:15:22 It was enraging, heartbreaking.
00:15:23 --> 00:15:27 And to think that the whole state of Mississippi, although this happened in
00:15:27 --> 00:15:33 central Mississippi, in five cities, six chicken plants, the whole state felt affected by it.
00:15:33 --> 00:15:40 So whether it was North Mississippi and the family of, you know,
00:15:40 --> 00:15:45 ranchers with a child who served in the Ivy League, who went to an Ivy League school,
00:15:45 --> 00:15:53 their family members was just as affected as the person whose wife was taken that day.
00:15:53 --> 00:15:58 So it was traumatic, to say the least. It was horrible.
00:15:59 --> 00:16:04 Also, the way that you got to see the cognitive dissonance, right?
00:16:04 --> 00:16:07 I got to interview because I was the organizer on the ground.
00:16:08 --> 00:16:12 I got to be connected to the entire world when it came to reporters.
00:16:12 --> 00:16:15 Korea was here. Paris was here.
00:16:15 --> 00:16:20 Telemundo. And some of the interviews were directed to business owners.
00:16:21 --> 00:16:23 And I want to say that a lot of them.
00:16:24 --> 00:16:28 They said, we love, and of course, they kind of, you know, put us all together as Mexican.
00:16:29 --> 00:16:33 We love the Mexicans, but hey, they're illegal.
00:16:33 --> 00:16:38 And I just could not understand business owners who pretty much paid their money
00:16:38 --> 00:16:44 off, you know, our immigrant communities, documented, undocumented,
00:16:44 --> 00:16:46 who could actually think like that.
00:16:46 --> 00:16:53 So I really got to see and experience, you know, firsthand what it was like.
00:16:53 --> 00:16:59 People who did not feel that they were racist, people who felt that they loved
00:16:59 --> 00:17:01 their brother and sisters in their faith,
00:17:01 --> 00:17:07 how they could agree with the dehumanation of these humans who had lived with
00:17:07 --> 00:17:11 them, who went to school with them, who went to church with them.
00:17:11 --> 00:17:17 And it was hurtful to say the least. I also saw something which a lot of people
00:17:17 --> 00:17:24 in one particular media outlet that came looking for the story of black and brown people.
00:17:25 --> 00:17:31 Separation to say the least. But what I saw was Black churches respond immediately.
00:17:32 --> 00:17:36 Black churches that were right next door to the schools, they were the first
00:17:36 --> 00:17:42 without any ask to deliver products to deliver. I mean, they just filled up
00:17:42 --> 00:17:43 their trucks and delivered.
00:17:43 --> 00:17:46 That wasn't covered. So I got to see that firsthand.
00:17:47 --> 00:17:50 I got to see community organizing themselves.
00:17:50 --> 00:17:56 I got to see also national response and how it can be extractive,
00:17:57 --> 00:18:03 although well-meaning, the phrase, the way to hell is paved with good intentions,
00:18:03 --> 00:18:05 stands out very, very clearly.
00:18:06 --> 00:18:10 But I also, for the first time, was othered.
00:18:10 --> 00:18:16 You know, I am an immigrant and my people are immigrants. And I remember stepping
00:18:16 --> 00:18:18 up to lead this coalition.
00:18:18 --> 00:18:23 My background is public health. I do organizing work because I organized as a young woman.
00:18:24 --> 00:18:29 But when people questioned my leadership, I saw it. I was just another brown
00:18:29 --> 00:18:31 person. I could have been picked up that same day.
00:18:32 --> 00:18:37 Who is she, right? When the immigrants' rights sector has been historically
00:18:37 --> 00:18:45 led by white folks who have no immigration experience except the desire to do good.
00:18:45 --> 00:18:49 And so simply to me, that was, I am an immigrant, And so I'm well fitted to
00:18:49 --> 00:18:53 lead this coalition work. So I got to see it.
00:18:53 --> 00:18:58 I got to experience it even by, you know, my social justice colleagues.
00:18:58 --> 00:19:03 The fact that we, you know, how we are seen, how we're perceived and how we
00:19:03 --> 00:19:06 have to fight really hard to change those narratives that, you know,
00:19:06 --> 00:19:11 that brown people have the capacity to lead and form coalitions and create organizations
00:19:11 --> 00:19:15 that are led by us for us. Yeah.
00:19:16 --> 00:19:23 And that particular raid, if I understand correctly, was the largest one in American history?
00:19:24 --> 00:19:30 So, yes. And what's interesting, recently, Atlanta, Georgia got raided and they
00:19:30 --> 00:19:31 are saying that it was the largest.
00:19:31 --> 00:19:38 That was the first that that was the largest one site, single site raid.
00:19:38 --> 00:19:42 Ours was the largest raid in the history of this nation.
00:19:42 --> 00:19:46 Unfortunately, in Mississippi, we are known for some of those,
00:19:46 --> 00:19:53 you know, where like we're the worst in the list of everything that is, you know, decent.
00:19:53 --> 00:19:56 And we are the first on everything that is bad.
00:19:56 --> 00:20:04 Unfortunately, yes, that was the largest worksite raid where 700 people were detained.
00:20:04 --> 00:20:09 About half of them were, three quarters of them were kept for,
00:20:09 --> 00:20:11 you know, an extended amount of time.
00:20:12 --> 00:20:19 Several hundred were deported and included women, you know, women that did have permits,
00:20:20 --> 00:20:26 residents, breastfeeding moms, and some of them were detained for over a year,
00:20:26 --> 00:20:29 even during COVID, right? Like we went right into COVID.
00:20:29 --> 00:20:33 So it was a time. It was a time.
00:20:33 --> 00:20:37 Yeah, it was the worst, the largest raid in the history of the nation right here.
00:20:38 --> 00:20:43 Yeah. So it was just reported by the Associated Press that Homeland Security
00:20:43 --> 00:20:50 is planning to deploy about 250 federal border agents to Louisiana and Mississippi,
00:20:50 --> 00:20:55 aiming to arrest about 5 people in the two states starting in December.
00:20:55 --> 00:21:03 So based on your experience dealing with 2019, how will your organization fight against that?
00:21:04 --> 00:21:09 One of the things that we've been doing is trying to prepare our community.
00:21:10 --> 00:21:19 What we know is with these large-scale tactics, people are going to get apprehended and deported.
00:21:20 --> 00:21:26 With some of the executive orders where we have little to no processing,
00:21:26 --> 00:21:32 we are getting people ready. So it's important that people not only know their
00:21:32 --> 00:21:33 rights, but also be prepared.
00:21:34 --> 00:21:38 There's nothing like your agency taken away, like feeling that there's nothing you can do.
00:21:39 --> 00:21:43 So making sure that families have, you know, have their affairs in order,
00:21:43 --> 00:21:47 have copies of birth certificates, have, you know, prepare their children.
00:21:48 --> 00:21:52 Because that can ease some of the hurtful trauma.
00:21:53 --> 00:21:57 Some of the things, again, that are like easy lifts are making sure that people,
00:21:57 --> 00:22:00 their cars are in order, their tags are in order.
00:22:01 --> 00:22:03 All of that is prevention and education.
00:22:03 --> 00:22:07 We do want to do a lot of bystander trainings.
00:22:07 --> 00:22:13 One thing that we are aware of being a national and regional calls is that these
00:22:13 --> 00:22:16 folks have been hired off the street.
00:22:16 --> 00:22:22 They're not trained to law enforcement and some pretend to be law enforcement. So we,
00:22:23 --> 00:22:28 We know that the legal system sometimes doesn't work. Sometimes it takes many years.
00:22:28 --> 00:22:31 We need to catch these mistakes.
00:22:32 --> 00:22:38 And we need to train anybody who has even an inkling of care,
00:22:38 --> 00:22:43 if they're passing by, to record what's going on.
00:22:43 --> 00:22:47 We need to have a record of these mistakes, whether it's, you know,
00:22:47 --> 00:22:52 actual mistakes by law enforcement or whether it's people pretending to be,
00:22:52 --> 00:22:53 you know, law enforcement.
00:22:54 --> 00:22:57 So we're doing some of that, these bystanders training.
00:22:57 --> 00:22:59 There's a lot of information gathering.
00:22:59 --> 00:23:05 There's a lot of resource sharing. We are trying to create small hubs of community.
00:23:05 --> 00:23:11 It has to be led by community that's preparing warning in case they see,
00:23:11 --> 00:23:12 you know, what's going on.
00:23:13 --> 00:23:16 We're making sure that restaurants know their rights.
00:23:16 --> 00:23:22 We're making sure, and even ourself, like our organization, we are,
00:23:22 --> 00:23:24 we're going to be working remotely, right?
00:23:24 --> 00:23:29 We're trying to make sure that people are aware of what's going on.
00:23:29 --> 00:23:33 We're also trying to make sure that like children are protected.
00:23:33 --> 00:23:37 And so that's another thing that we've been working with churches so that people
00:23:37 --> 00:23:44 have access to, we don't provide legal representation, but we're connecting
00:23:44 --> 00:23:47 them to our partners so that they can have access,
00:23:47 --> 00:23:51 so that they can have a number to call in case something happens.
00:23:51 --> 00:23:56 Right now is a time to unify community. It doesn't matter who, what,
00:23:56 --> 00:24:02 we just need to get together and get the folks that want to help trained because
00:24:02 --> 00:24:07 also there can be harm, you know, brought onto community if people are not aware
00:24:07 --> 00:24:10 of how to navigate the system,
00:24:10 --> 00:24:15 you know, in a way that it, that will protect them and the community that they're trying to support.
00:24:16 --> 00:24:19 Yeah. And so you had mentioned that.
00:24:20 --> 00:24:28 In 2019, a lot of black churches responded to help out families that were impacted
00:24:28 --> 00:24:30 by the raids and, you know,
00:24:30 --> 00:24:36 some of the some of the appeals that you've been working on to prepare for this one.
00:24:36 --> 00:24:41 How do you work to build coalitions with other social justice movements?
00:24:42 --> 00:24:53 So we have, 2024 was, you know, a year where we were planning in case, you know, the, what we,
00:24:53 --> 00:24:57 it happened, what we were hoping wouldn't happen, happened.
00:24:58 --> 00:25:04 And so we've been building a coalition of allies, but we're also part of other coalitions.
00:25:04 --> 00:25:09 There's also a Mississippi Rapid Response Coalition of allies throughout the
00:25:09 --> 00:25:13 entire state that although they're not immigration inclined,
00:25:13 --> 00:25:18 they're ready with resources, you know, they are citizens.
00:25:18 --> 00:25:23 So the privilege that a citizen has is in driving or picking up food.
00:25:23 --> 00:25:26 And so we are part of these coalitions in the state.
00:25:27 --> 00:25:31 We are also part of some other coalitions that provide some trainings.
00:25:31 --> 00:25:33 So how do these things intersect?
00:25:33 --> 00:25:37 So a climate justice coalition can find some readiness training.
00:25:37 --> 00:25:41 So we send our leaders over there, right? Like the Mississippi Repet Response.
00:25:42 --> 00:25:47 Again, they have been able to mobilize people and accompany people to court
00:25:47 --> 00:25:52 dates and that kind of thing. Our coalition gathers all of that and we do it
00:25:52 --> 00:25:54 through like a specific immigration lens.
00:25:54 --> 00:25:58 And so we're particularly creating committees where their education,
00:25:58 --> 00:26:03 so making sure that the school systems have the latest, you know, know your rights.
00:26:03 --> 00:26:08 We have a legal committee. So that way, because right now we are so short on
00:26:08 --> 00:26:13 immigration attorneys, a committee helps at least answer some basic questions.
00:26:13 --> 00:26:17 Again, we make sure that our members know that we are not attorneys,
00:26:18 --> 00:26:21 but we have a group of attorneys that can say, hey, if you haven't been here
00:26:21 --> 00:26:25 for two years, these are the things that you need to do.
00:26:25 --> 00:26:28 This is the right paperwork, you know, that you have to fill out.
00:26:28 --> 00:26:33 So we kind of do a triage and then we lead them to resources,
00:26:34 --> 00:26:35 you know, reputable resources.
00:26:36 --> 00:26:40 And so we are coalescing our folks and we're also coalescing.
00:26:41 --> 00:26:47 Because immigrant, the word immigrant is not clearly, it is clearly defined.
00:26:48 --> 00:26:51 Unfortunately, people do not understand the word immigrant.
00:26:51 --> 00:26:55 And it's perceived, you know, especially with the narrative,
00:26:55 --> 00:27:00 it's perceived as anyone who is undocumented is an immigrant.
00:27:00 --> 00:27:04 People don't realize that, you know, there's so many nuances.
00:27:04 --> 00:27:08 There's permits, there's temporary protective status, there's international
00:27:08 --> 00:27:10 students, there's residents.
00:27:10 --> 00:27:16 And so we are gathering the unusual suspects, right, and just getting them together
00:27:16 --> 00:27:21 and training them so that at least if they're moved to support that they can.
00:27:21 --> 00:27:29 Right now, we need everybody to do even, you know, even the tiniest bit in protecting
00:27:29 --> 00:27:31 our community and their own neighbors.
00:27:31 --> 00:27:38 So is the definition of immigrant the biggest misconception or myth that you
00:27:38 --> 00:27:42 you constantly fight against? It is one of them.
00:27:43 --> 00:27:50 And this criminal narrative, you know, not being documented is not a crime.
00:27:51 --> 00:27:53 And so that comes with that.
00:27:54 --> 00:27:58 I think that I can give you an example, something that has been floating around
00:27:58 --> 00:28:06 in social media is this particular sheriff who is saying that he hopes that I can look at it, right?
00:28:06 --> 00:28:11 But he hopes that he gets some access to something in the sheriff's department
00:28:11 --> 00:28:17 and the vitriol, the hatred, where people are like, well, how did he get a job if he's illegal?
00:28:18 --> 00:28:21 And then you see that people are saying, well, if he's a resident.
00:28:22 --> 00:28:28 He was well qualified. He applied for a job and he can work in the United States.
00:28:28 --> 00:28:36 So having to explain people when they're looking at a picture of a uniformed sheriff, right?
00:28:36 --> 00:28:42 Having to make those distinctions in 2025 to many people is surprising, but that's how it is.
00:28:42 --> 00:28:47 In a historically binary state where people don't really, you know,
00:28:47 --> 00:28:51 are understanding and immigrants are moving here because of,
00:28:51 --> 00:28:55 you know, you have cities from New York that are so expensive, so unaffordable,
00:28:55 --> 00:28:59 even, you know, Nashville, how it has boomed, people coming in and finding refuge
00:28:59 --> 00:29:06 in these places that are rural, you know, having, you know, easy access to employment.
00:29:06 --> 00:29:08 This has been blurred.
00:29:09 --> 00:29:13 Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, I get that.
00:29:14 --> 00:29:20 I think that, you know, the other thing too that came up during the campaign,
00:29:20 --> 00:29:24 you know, where they were going after the Haitian immigrants in Ohio. Oh, yeah.
00:29:25 --> 00:29:31 You know, it's just very easy to create these what we call boogeyman scenarios, right?
00:29:32 --> 00:29:37 Anybody that's not, as you say, in that binary, right, of black or white,
00:29:37 --> 00:29:38 it's like they're this other.
00:29:39 --> 00:29:44 And then you try to create, you know, you try to create villains out of other
00:29:44 --> 00:29:51 human beings when all they are are just people seeking the same thing that we all seek.
00:29:51 --> 00:29:57 And, you know, when we talked about freedom and opportunities to work in safe
00:29:57 --> 00:30:02 communities and all that, that's the reason why people come to America in the first place, because,
00:30:03 --> 00:30:07 that's what we advertise, that this is a land of opportunity, right?
00:30:08 --> 00:30:10 Correct, yeah. Yeah, okay. Okay.
00:30:10 --> 00:30:18 What does a truly just and humane immigration system look like in your ideal vision for the future?
00:30:19 --> 00:30:24 I think that seeking asylum is not illegal.
00:30:24 --> 00:30:29 I think that people who have proof, you know,
00:30:30 --> 00:30:36 to be members of communities by existing and creating and living a dignified
00:30:36 --> 00:30:44 life should have an opportunity to apply for a pathway to citizenship, whether it be,
00:30:44 --> 00:30:49 whether, and you know, I haven't even thought, I really, I think anybody that
00:30:49 --> 00:30:53 just comes in should be able to live. And that's just me, no borders, right?
00:30:53 --> 00:30:58 But if we're thinking about processes, there could be five-year temporary status,
00:30:58 --> 00:31:02 seeing how that works. You have had no misdemeanors.
00:31:02 --> 00:31:04 You move on to applying for residency.
00:31:05 --> 00:31:09 And so this right now, unfortunately, there is no such pathway.
00:31:10 --> 00:31:15 And even asylum, people don't realize that you should have, I mean,
00:31:15 --> 00:31:21 you should be able to apply for asylum. and then actually.
00:31:22 --> 00:31:28 Be able to have an opportunity. Right now, people who seek asylum are very unlikely to receive it.
00:31:28 --> 00:31:32 They pretty much have to have been attacked, right?
00:31:32 --> 00:31:39 And even then, the amount of what they need for you to prove is almost impossible to get.
00:31:39 --> 00:31:45 And then also, it depends on what region of the nation you're in, on the court system.
00:31:45 --> 00:31:50 Like we know there's court systems that like 99% of the time,
00:31:50 --> 00:31:52 they're going to deny you asylum.
00:31:53 --> 00:31:57 Incredible as it is, right? That we're thinking it's the same laws that apply to all.
00:31:57 --> 00:32:01 So I think something that would apply to everyone would be seeking a protected
00:32:01 --> 00:32:03 status once you've been here.
00:32:03 --> 00:32:07 I don't think having people wait 10 years is fair.
00:32:07 --> 00:32:12 I think that you can see people's intentions right away. I think if people are
00:32:12 --> 00:32:18 you know, seeking work and been able to show you for three, five years that
00:32:18 --> 00:32:20 you have been able to establish income,
00:32:20 --> 00:32:25 temporary status, moving on to residency, and then, you know, citizen.
00:32:25 --> 00:32:30 And even now obtaining citizenship, it is, it is, they're making it much more difficult.
00:32:30 --> 00:32:35 We know the applications are more expensive. We know like the processes are
00:32:35 --> 00:32:38 getting, but I really think that.
00:32:38 --> 00:32:44 The contributions that we make to this country are so much more than what,
00:32:44 --> 00:32:48 you know, this narrative is trying to portray, whether it's economic,
00:32:48 --> 00:32:50 cultural contributions.
00:32:50 --> 00:32:56 When I go to the university medical center, so many heads of departments are
00:32:56 --> 00:32:59 immigrants, so many, you know, neurologists.
00:32:59 --> 00:33:03 And so we are really benefiting greatly from this expertise.
00:33:03 --> 00:33:07 In a space like Mississippi, where we experience brain drain,
00:33:07 --> 00:33:09 you have immigrants that, you
00:33:09 --> 00:33:14 know, are reminded of home because of the climate, because of, you know,
00:33:15 --> 00:33:19 the rules, nature of the state. They are reminded of home.
00:33:20 --> 00:33:24 And these young people are choosing to stay here.
00:33:24 --> 00:33:29 So there are so many reasons why we should be creating these pathways.
00:33:29 --> 00:33:34 And unfortunately, we're making it worse and worse and much harder to achieve.
00:33:35 --> 00:33:45 So, Lorena, if you were given the power to reform something right now in immigration
00:33:45 --> 00:33:49 policy, what would be the most urgent thing that you would work on?
00:33:49 --> 00:33:53 The due process immediately.
00:33:53 --> 00:33:59 The fact that they removed due process for anyone that's here for under two years.
00:33:59 --> 00:34:07 I mean, you actually have to have your bills, you know, in order to qualify for due process.
00:34:07 --> 00:34:09 I mean, who has heard of that?
00:34:10 --> 00:34:15 Right. I think that immediately, like that's like the I mean,
00:34:15 --> 00:34:19 who even thinks of that? That's something that we need to ask for.
00:34:19 --> 00:34:23 But the removal of due process for our people that have not been here under
00:34:23 --> 00:34:25 two years, like there's really like
00:34:25 --> 00:34:30 no chance of you unless you prove that you've been here for two years.
00:34:30 --> 00:34:36 So I think that asylum seekers, be that as, you know, whatever it is,
00:34:36 --> 00:34:41 the North America has caused much of the conflict,
00:34:41 --> 00:34:46 including the climate change that is causing a lot of immigration up north.
00:34:47 --> 00:34:51 I mean, you have people from Central America, Guatemala, indigenous folks that
00:34:51 --> 00:34:54 cannot grow crops, that don't have access to food.
00:34:54 --> 00:34:59 And so if you're seeking asylum, I think also that would be the next thing,
00:34:59 --> 00:35:04 like, people should be able to seek asylum in this country.
00:35:05 --> 00:35:10 So the process to seeking asylum, we should remove a lot of those barriers.
00:35:12 --> 00:35:18 I know during the raids, I spent a lot of time with the indigenous women and I can,
00:35:18 --> 00:35:22 you would not know from looking at them, but I can sit in a space if I gather
00:35:22 --> 00:35:27 these folks again and I can name you 20 women in the room that were raped on
00:35:27 --> 00:35:31 their way or that have fled because they experienced sexual assault.
00:35:32 --> 00:35:36 And so the amount of suffering that our people are going through,
00:35:36 --> 00:35:42 and if we think about it, who wants to leave their homeland, right?
00:35:42 --> 00:35:47 A place like mango trees growing around the corner, like banana leaves, beaches.
00:35:49 --> 00:35:55 There's something that's drawing you to a place where you can seek better opportunities.
00:35:55 --> 00:36:00 And not necessarily for yourself or for your child. I know that my mom had to
00:36:00 --> 00:36:03 undergo so many hardships,
00:36:04 --> 00:36:09 leave her brothers and sisters and the beauty and the safety of that to come
00:36:09 --> 00:36:13 here and bring me and my sisters, you know?
00:36:13 --> 00:36:21 And so seeking asylum, it's something that we, yeah, it's a right.
00:36:21 --> 00:36:23 And they're trying to take that away from us as well. Yeah.
00:36:24 --> 00:36:30 All right. So my last question is, how do you cope with the emotional toll of
00:36:30 --> 00:36:34 fighting for families and individuals facing detention or deportation?
00:36:37 --> 00:36:43 I think that that is so honestly, I was going to I was going to say, how should I cope?
00:36:43 --> 00:36:47 But I, I just keep going. And that is not a good thing.
00:36:47 --> 00:36:55 I just keep going because there's always work to do. I have children of my own and.
00:36:56 --> 00:37:01 I just, when I see, like, women that remind me of my mother,
00:37:02 --> 00:37:08 all I can think of is what they're sacrificing so their children can be here.
00:37:09 --> 00:37:16 So it's hard. You know, I recently after the election, I saw a young woman who
00:37:16 --> 00:37:18 was one of our lead volunteers.
00:37:18 --> 00:37:21 You could call her 10 o'clock at night. If you needed someone picked up from
00:37:21 --> 00:37:25 the tension, you would call her and her husband.
00:37:26 --> 00:37:31 And I hadn't seen her in four years. And when we saw each other, we just started to cry.
00:37:31 --> 00:37:35 I did not expect that reaction. I thought I was going to be happy to see her.
00:37:35 --> 00:37:42 And we just, and so that just made it clear that we have something that we're
00:37:42 --> 00:37:45 carrying that we haven't even addressed yet.
00:37:45 --> 00:37:51 But I know that if I plan to make it to see my daughters have children,
00:37:51 --> 00:37:53 that I need to do something about it.
00:37:53 --> 00:37:57 I do spend a lot of time with them, you know, on the weekends.
00:37:57 --> 00:38:00 I try to do that.
00:38:01 --> 00:38:05 But it's so hard if something, if there's an emergency, you know,
00:38:05 --> 00:38:07 for you to, like, just completely disconnect.
00:38:08 --> 00:38:18 And then community. You find that in community, and I think you have to share what you're feeling.
00:38:18 --> 00:38:25 So finding a safe place, a safe people to share, I think is how I've made it this far.
00:38:26 --> 00:38:32 Yeah. Well, Lorena Quiroz, I commend you for doing what you're doing.
00:38:33 --> 00:38:38 I did some immigration legal work when I was in Mississippi.
00:38:38 --> 00:38:44 A lot of activism, whether I was elected or working directly with an organization
00:38:44 --> 00:38:46 or an ally organization.
00:38:47 --> 00:38:49 So I know it's not easy work.
00:38:50 --> 00:38:54 You know, in the Black community, we say, we're doing the Lord's work.
00:38:54 --> 00:38:57 And so I greatly appreciate you.
00:38:58 --> 00:39:03 And I pray that you continue to have the strength, not only to be a devoted
00:39:03 --> 00:39:06 mom, but to be a devoted worker in this.
00:39:06 --> 00:39:12 And I know it's going to be crazy over the next few weeks, but I hope that you
00:39:12 --> 00:39:16 can navigate through that and protect the people that you need to protect.
00:39:17 --> 00:39:25 If people want to support IAJE or reach out to you, how can they do that?
00:39:26 --> 00:39:35 Yes. So we are on socials. So Facebook, Instagram, we are, I don't know.
00:39:35 --> 00:39:38 We're not that, you know, that on X, we don't participate as much,
00:39:39 --> 00:39:47 but also our email info at IAJE.us. So that would be the general organizational.
00:39:48 --> 00:39:54 My personal email is my name, Lorena at iaje.us.
00:39:55 --> 00:40:01 We also have a number if someone wants to reach us and I can share that.
00:40:02 --> 00:40:11 It is 1-888-970-4253. We are doing a lot of fundraising at this moment.
00:40:11 --> 00:40:14 You know, our work exists through grants.
00:40:15 --> 00:40:20 Grants are usually attached to outcomes. So the fundraising goes directly to community.
00:40:20 --> 00:40:26 So on our social media, you can find a way to donate via ActBlue and other applications.
00:40:27 --> 00:40:31 But yes, that's how you can reach us, reach our work.
00:40:32 --> 00:40:36 And for the next couple of months, we're going to be working remotely to make
00:40:36 --> 00:40:40 sure that our entire staff is safe so we won't be at the offices.
00:40:40 --> 00:40:42 So that would be the best way to reach us.
00:40:43 --> 00:40:47 Well, Lorena, thank you for taking the time out. Like I said,
00:40:47 --> 00:40:51 I know this is a very, very hectic moment right now.
00:40:51 --> 00:40:56 And I appreciate you carving out the time to come on the podcast.
00:40:56 --> 00:41:00 And talk to the listeners about what you're dealing with in Mississippi and
00:41:00 --> 00:41:04 really what immigrants and activists are dealing with throughout the country.
00:41:05 --> 00:41:11 Thank you so much for having me and for making space today. All right,
00:41:11 --> 00:41:12 guys, and we're going to catch y'all on the other side.
00:41:33 --> 00:41:38 And we are back. And so it's time for my next guest, Anne Hand.
00:41:39 --> 00:41:45 Anne Hand was born in 1985 in New York and currently divides her time between
00:41:45 --> 00:41:47 Massachusetts and Mexico City.
00:41:47 --> 00:41:52 She holds a bachelor of science degree from McGill University and a master of
00:41:52 --> 00:41:54 education degree from Harvard University.
00:41:54 --> 00:42:00 She has spent her career blending research, policy and practice to create social
00:42:00 --> 00:42:02 impact in the Americas and beyond.
00:42:02 --> 00:42:07 A recognized expert in global education and development, she is frequently published
00:42:07 --> 00:42:10 on topics related to technology and society.
00:42:11 --> 00:42:17 Austrian, again, is her first book, and that's what we're going to talk about on this podcast.
00:42:17 --> 00:42:21 Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest
00:42:21 --> 00:42:25 on this podcast, Anne Hand. Thank you.
00:42:37 --> 00:42:41 Anne Hand. How are you doing, sister? You doing good? I'm doing awesome.
00:42:41 --> 00:42:43 It's Friday. Week's almost over.
00:42:44 --> 00:42:48 Thanksgiving's coming up. I'm just really happy to be here with you, Erik. I'm doing great.
00:42:48 --> 00:42:53 Well, yeah. Thanksgiving is always that time of year. And when this airs,
00:42:53 --> 00:42:55 we'll be right there at the doorstep of it.
00:42:55 --> 00:42:58 So I hope that you and yours have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
00:42:59 --> 00:43:03 I'm going to do my best to... I tell people, you know,
00:43:03 --> 00:43:06 when they ask me the question to watch my figure I said I see it
00:43:06 --> 00:43:09 every day so you know
00:43:09 --> 00:43:12 and thank you that's one of those holidays where it's like all
00:43:12 --> 00:43:15 that's out the window anyway so what I
00:43:15 --> 00:43:20 want to do is normally when I do these interviews I start off with an icebreaker
00:43:20 --> 00:43:25 period of the show and so the first icebreaker is a quote that I want you to
00:43:25 --> 00:43:32 respond to and the quote is home isn't just a place it is the heart of your
00:43:32 --> 00:43:34 story what does I quote me.
00:43:35 --> 00:43:38 I mean, home can mean so many things, and I think home is a feeling more than
00:43:38 --> 00:43:40 anything else, for me at least.
00:43:40 --> 00:43:44 For some people, home is that place where you grew up with, and your grandparents
00:43:44 --> 00:43:48 are there, and it smells a certain way, and it looks a certain way.
00:43:48 --> 00:43:52 And at the seasons, things change, or the sounds change, or whatever.
00:43:53 --> 00:43:57 Whatever gives you that feeling of like, yeah, this is where I'm supposed to
00:43:57 --> 00:44:01 be, and this is where I feel comfortable, and this is where I feel accepted,
00:44:01 --> 00:44:03 and this is where I feel loved.
00:44:03 --> 00:44:08 And, you know, for many people, home is really that physical place exclusively.
00:44:08 --> 00:44:12 And there are certainly for me places that feel like that.
00:44:12 --> 00:44:14 You know, I think of my grandparents' apartment in Brooklyn,
00:44:15 --> 00:44:19 you know, which they passed away years ago and the apartment's been broken up.
00:44:19 --> 00:44:23 But like that memory of home, you know, that's something that I always take
00:44:23 --> 00:44:27 with me. But at the same time, I really do feel like, you know,
00:44:28 --> 00:44:30 we make our home in a lot of different ways.
00:44:30 --> 00:44:33 You know, for many people, you know, you choose your family.
00:44:33 --> 00:44:40 You choose kind of where you spend time and where you really feel that same feeling, right?
00:44:40 --> 00:44:43 Where you're loved and where you're accepted and where you can grow.
00:44:44 --> 00:44:47 And that can mean a lot of different things to different people.
00:44:47 --> 00:44:50 And everybody has their own version of what that is and what that looks like.
00:44:51 --> 00:44:53 Yeah, yeah, that's very true.
00:44:54 --> 00:44:57 All right, so now the next icebreaker is what we call 20 questions.
00:44:58 --> 00:45:01 Okay, that's a lot of questions, not just one nice bigger question.
00:45:01 --> 00:45:06 Well, the thing is, I just need you to give me a number between 1 and 20,
00:45:06 --> 00:45:07 and then that'll be your question.
00:45:08 --> 00:45:13 Five. Okay. What do you think we should decide at the local or state levels
00:45:13 --> 00:45:15 as opposed to the federal level?
00:45:16 --> 00:45:20 That is a question. Okay.
00:45:23 --> 00:45:26 Oh, my goodness. I was not expecting that question.
00:45:27 --> 00:45:30 You know, I don't know. It depends on context, I think.
00:45:30 --> 00:45:35 And a lot of the time, you know, local people do know, you know,
00:45:35 --> 00:45:37 what's best for them and what's best for their communities.
00:45:37 --> 00:45:43 But I really think that there should be really clear guardrails and really clear
00:45:43 --> 00:45:45 kind of guidance from higher up to...
00:45:47 --> 00:45:49 Kind of figure out, you know, what fits within that?
00:45:50 --> 00:45:56 Like, what are the kind of standards or what are the ways that we see some of
00:45:56 --> 00:45:58 these things as really needing to be
00:45:58 --> 00:46:01 kind of knit together so that there's commonalities between communities?
00:46:02 --> 00:46:06 You know, some small countries, they do everything at the federal level, right?
00:46:06 --> 00:46:09 Because you're talking about something that's like the level of a state, you know?
00:46:09 --> 00:46:13 You're talking about a country that has maybe like 5 million people,
00:46:13 --> 00:46:16 which is, like, smaller than a lot of cities in the U.S.
00:46:16 --> 00:46:21 And so for them, it's sort of like the two are a little more intermeshed.
00:46:21 --> 00:46:26 But I think in the U.S., you know, when we're such a big country and it's so
00:46:26 --> 00:46:31 diverse, there needs to be, I think, like a lot more local ownership.
00:46:31 --> 00:46:38 But at the same time, these kind of broader federal just limits on what that can look like.
00:46:38 --> 00:46:45 And I think that there are things that, you know, people go and,
00:46:45 --> 00:46:50 you know, get master's degrees and doctorates, you know, for a reason.
00:46:50 --> 00:46:55 And some of that really is to sort of say, you know, this is really best practice. This works well.
00:46:56 --> 00:46:59 Here are ways that we know that we can support our communities best.
00:46:59 --> 00:47:03 And so that can also kind of shortcut, like, local communities needing to do
00:47:03 --> 00:47:07 all that research for themselves and, you know, kind of get to the same conclusions.
00:47:07 --> 00:47:11 So I sort of feel like as long as those bigger pieces are in place and,
00:47:11 --> 00:47:16 you know, there's a lot about equal opportunity and, you know, equal,
00:47:16 --> 00:47:22 I mean, just the ways in which some of these things kind of happen in practice.
00:47:22 --> 00:47:27 You know, there are real, you know, guardrails and orientation for what that needs to look like.
00:47:28 --> 00:47:34 So people, you know, people get, they have the opportunities that they deserve.
00:47:35 --> 00:47:39 You know, once that's kind of in place, then yeah, like, local and state.
00:47:41 --> 00:47:43 Decide about about kind of what happens with the rest of it.
00:47:44 --> 00:47:48 Yeah. So kind of like collaboration with sensitivity.
00:47:49 --> 00:47:53 That's a great way to say it. Yeah. Yeah. You've heard this question before.
00:47:53 --> 00:47:55 I haven't heard this kind of question for a long time.
00:47:55 --> 00:47:59 So you kind of like that's a big question, right? That's like what governments
00:47:59 --> 00:48:02 like that's that's that's what the debate always is.
00:48:02 --> 00:48:06 Right. Like and I think, you know, it's interesting because I've worked a lot
00:48:06 --> 00:48:11 internationally And over the years, I've really come to appreciate how much the U.S.
00:48:12 --> 00:48:15 Really is decentralized because you see other countries that have like federal
00:48:15 --> 00:48:21 systems, but they still have, you know, like a national education curriculum or something like that.
00:48:21 --> 00:48:25 And then so local, you know, state and, you know, county authorities,
00:48:26 --> 00:48:29 they have a lot less say in those pieces.
00:48:29 --> 00:48:33 And in the U.S., we sort of have it the other way, where most of the time,
00:48:33 --> 00:48:36 you know, the local authorities really do have most of the say.
00:48:36 --> 00:48:42 And then the sort of federal higher levels are oftentimes even less about the details.
00:48:42 --> 00:48:47 They're just about, you know, just really like financing or things like that.
00:48:47 --> 00:48:53 So, yeah, I can appreciate kind of both sides of the coin. And I think that
00:48:53 --> 00:48:57 the real answer kind of depends on the type of country and the type of place
00:48:57 --> 00:48:58 that you want to build. Yeah.
00:48:59 --> 00:49:00 Yeah. Because I remember going
00:49:00 --> 00:49:04 to Mexico. I'm not as world traveled as you or a lot of other people.
00:49:05 --> 00:49:10 But I did go to Mexico. And I remember it was kind of unique because I was a
00:49:10 --> 00:49:13 state legislator at the time.
00:49:13 --> 00:49:15 And I spoke to...
00:49:16 --> 00:49:21 Some state legislators in Mexico, but in Mexico, the state legislators are the
00:49:21 --> 00:49:24 equivalent of the House of Representatives to us.
00:49:24 --> 00:49:27 And they have federal senators.
00:49:27 --> 00:49:34 But, you know, it's like, I can't even imagine all of us in state legislators
00:49:34 --> 00:49:36 all traipsing up to Washington, D.C. to vote on something.
00:49:36 --> 00:49:44 I just, that's really crazy. But it works for them. and what we do allegedly works for us.
00:49:46 --> 00:49:49 It's a work in progress, right? It's always a work in progress.
00:49:50 --> 00:49:51 250 years, it always has been.
00:49:52 --> 00:49:57 So let's talk about this book, Austrian Again. Now, it's only two words,
00:49:58 --> 00:50:05 but that would catch, you know, if I was looking for some nonfiction to read,
00:50:06 --> 00:50:09 I would catch my attention of all the countries in the world.
00:50:10 --> 00:50:13 I would, I want to be Austrian again. I'd be like, all right.
00:50:13 --> 00:50:14 And what does that even mean, right?
00:50:16 --> 00:50:19 So what does that mean? What does the title of the book mean to you? Yeah.
00:50:19 --> 00:50:23 So, so Austria, just, you know, get everybody on the same page.
00:50:23 --> 00:50:25 It's a, one of these really tiny countries.
00:50:25 --> 00:50:28 It has like 9 million people in the middle of Europe, in the middle of the mountains,
00:50:29 --> 00:50:32 no coast, you know, no nothing. It's, it's all mountains.
00:50:34 --> 00:50:40 And for me, so my family, part of my family immigrated to the U.S. from Austria.
00:50:40 --> 00:50:45 My grandfather came when he was a teenager, sort of between World War I and World War II.
00:50:46 --> 00:50:51 And he and his siblings and his mother eventually, when she was able to come
00:50:51 --> 00:50:54 over, they were like, we're done.
00:50:55 --> 00:50:58 And part of that was out of necessity because it was for economic reasons.
00:50:58 --> 00:51:01 And then because of World War II and the Holocaust, you know,
00:51:01 --> 00:51:04 they were just like, no, we're done. There's nothing for us to go back to.
00:51:05 --> 00:51:08 So they, you know, turned their backs and they said, we're American.
00:51:08 --> 00:51:10 And that's, I think, one of the great things that the U.S.
00:51:11 --> 00:51:14 Can do because there was no opportunity for them in Europe at the time.
00:51:14 --> 00:51:16 And if they had stayed, they probably would have been killed.
00:51:16 --> 00:51:19 And that part of it is very, very clear to me after, you know,
00:51:19 --> 00:51:23 what I did, you know, for the book and doing this family research and stuff like that.
00:51:23 --> 00:51:29 But about five years ago, Austria opened up this citizenship policy,
00:51:29 --> 00:51:33 this reparation citizenship policy, restoration citizenship.
00:51:33 --> 00:51:37 There's lots of, I guess, different words that you can use to basically say,
00:51:37 --> 00:51:44 you know, for the descendants of people who were part of these persecuted groups
00:51:44 --> 00:51:47 in the lead-up to and then during World War II and the Holocaust,
00:51:47 --> 00:51:51 we're willing to offer the descendants citizenship.
00:51:51 --> 00:51:56 And and you know for me it was it was really interesting because I guess I never thought.
00:51:57 --> 00:52:00 Something like that would be available. And I remember like just reading the
00:52:00 --> 00:52:04 news online one day and kind of seeing the headline and being like, wait, like what?
00:52:04 --> 00:52:07 Because, you know, you read the news, especially like national,
00:52:07 --> 00:52:08 international news, and you
00:52:08 --> 00:52:12 never think that anything is going to like be directly applicable to you.
00:52:12 --> 00:52:16 You just read it because, you know, you want to know what's going on in the world and all that.
00:52:16 --> 00:52:21 And so, you know, the book is about my process, my family process,
00:52:21 --> 00:52:25 kind of understanding a bit more about these roots and where we came from.
00:52:25 --> 00:52:30 And then, you know, making the decision for some of us to, you know,
00:52:31 --> 00:52:34 see that the store was open and say, okay, yeah, like, I want to walk through
00:52:34 --> 00:52:36 that door and I want to see how it goes.
00:52:36 --> 00:52:42 So Austrian, again, you know, it's simple, but it sort of uncovers the story
00:52:42 --> 00:52:45 where you scratch the surface and you start to get into some of these thornier
00:52:45 --> 00:52:48 issues about identity, about belonging,
00:52:49 --> 00:52:54 about, you know where where is it that like i really fit in the world and what
00:52:54 --> 00:52:57 does that mean to me and and who i am and and how i see myself,
00:52:58 --> 00:53:04 So your family actually has some Czechoslovakian roots.
00:53:04 --> 00:53:10 So I guess my question is, why not Czech again? Why Austria?
00:53:11 --> 00:53:15 Why do we stop at Austria? Well, at first it sounds better, right?
00:53:18 --> 00:53:24 No, but it's because the Czech Republic, where my grandfather was born,
00:53:24 --> 00:53:26 they don't offer this kind of pathway.
00:53:26 --> 00:53:31 They don't have this kind of, you know, look back into the past to be able to
00:53:31 --> 00:53:38 say like, oh, we want to, you know, we want to make amends for what we did.
00:53:38 --> 00:53:42 And it's interesting because, you know, all of this 150 years ago,
00:53:43 --> 00:53:44 even 100, what year are we? 2025?
00:53:45 --> 00:53:50 So 110 years ago, all of this was still the same country.
00:53:50 --> 00:53:53 It was all part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. it had
00:53:53 --> 00:53:56 been one country for like hundreds of years at that point and
00:53:56 --> 00:53:59 then after world war one and and after they
00:53:59 --> 00:54:04 lost it was all split up into what's now parts of like seven or eight different
00:54:04 --> 00:54:08 countries so you know when we start to go into all these different countries
00:54:08 --> 00:54:11 and all that it's like yeah they're they were different but at the same time
00:54:11 --> 00:54:15 you know my family had family everywhere in in all these countries and what's
00:54:15 --> 00:54:19 now Slovakia and what's now the Czech republic and you know my,
00:54:19 --> 00:54:24 My immediate, you know, ascendance ended up in Vienna, which is the capital
00:54:24 --> 00:54:27 of Austria, which was the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
00:54:28 --> 00:54:31 And they went there for economic opportunity. You know, like,
00:54:31 --> 00:54:34 why does anybody, you know, migrate within a country when, you know,
00:54:34 --> 00:54:37 they've been settled in one part of it for a long time? Like,
00:54:37 --> 00:54:38 they usually do it for economic opportunity.
00:54:39 --> 00:54:42 And it was the same thing, right? It's the same story as what's happened in
00:54:42 --> 00:54:45 the U.S. for also, you know, a very long time.
00:54:46 --> 00:54:50 And to me, you know, it's interesting, right?
00:54:50 --> 00:54:54 Because each of these countries has its own way of like thinking about the past
00:54:54 --> 00:54:56 and dealing with the past or
00:54:56 --> 00:55:00 not dealing with the past or thinking about who belongs and all of that.
00:55:00 --> 00:55:07 And so, you know, so in this case, I feel like Austria has kind of done a lot more soul searching.
00:55:07 --> 00:55:09 They have this door that's open.
00:55:10 --> 00:55:13 And the other countries, you know, where my family came from,
00:55:13 --> 00:55:19 they just don't have this kind of, yeah, they just, they haven't done anything like this.
00:55:19 --> 00:55:26 Yeah, because, you know, you use the word reparations dealing with Austria and
00:55:26 --> 00:55:28 then just kind of talking to you before.
00:55:28 --> 00:55:34 Or do you feel that, and this is an aside from the book, do you feel that the
00:55:34 --> 00:55:40 United States needs to have a soul-searching moment, a discussion?
00:55:40 --> 00:55:42 Do you think that we're doing that?
00:55:42 --> 00:55:47 You know, because, you know, that's an important issue in the African-American
00:55:47 --> 00:55:49 community about reparations.
00:55:49 --> 00:55:57 What would you think a United States reparations process would look like?
00:55:57 --> 00:56:02 Like, what would, if you were asked, hey, well, you know, Austria's got this
00:56:02 --> 00:56:07 thing, you know, what would you suggest to people that want to deal with that
00:56:07 --> 00:56:08 here in the United States?
00:56:10 --> 00:56:14 So I think, you know, in the U.S., this kind of comes in fits and spurts, right?
00:56:14 --> 00:56:18 Like, when was it, like, 10 years ago when the whole case for reparations thing
00:56:18 --> 00:56:21 was, like, a really hot topic and all that?
00:56:21 --> 00:56:26 When you started to see, like, a few sort of smaller, like, counties or towns
00:56:26 --> 00:56:31 and cities, like, think about what monetary reparations could look like, right?
00:56:31 --> 00:56:36 For property that was confiscated over the years, for all the forced labor,
00:56:36 --> 00:56:43 all these different pieces of the same kind of puzzle of persecution and oppression
00:56:43 --> 00:56:46 that unfortunately happens in lots of places in the world, right?
00:56:46 --> 00:56:53 Like no country has a monopoly on any of this stuff, and it really pains me to say that.
00:56:53 --> 00:57:01 And I think it's rare in a way that you kind of see what happened in the U.S.,
00:57:01 --> 00:57:06 which is the first—so, like, from what I know about Austria and the U.S., it's sort of flipped.
00:57:07 --> 00:57:10 So what happened in Austria after World War II, after all this property was
00:57:10 --> 00:57:15 confiscated and, you know, basically people, they fled, they were deported,
00:57:15 --> 00:57:19 they were sent to death camps, they were sent to concentration camps, all that stuff.
00:57:19 --> 00:57:24 After the war, Austria gave financial reparations, monetary reparations for
00:57:24 --> 00:57:26 property that was confiscated.
00:57:26 --> 00:57:31 And it's related to the book because we found out that my great-grandmothers,
00:57:31 --> 00:57:38 my family imported liquor and spirits from different parts of what was then
00:57:38 --> 00:57:41 the Austro-Hungarian Empire and then all the different countries.
00:57:41 --> 00:57:44 So that was confiscated. That was confiscated.
00:57:46 --> 00:57:53 It was what they called Aryanized. The property was given, basically, to a Nazi party member.
00:57:53 --> 00:57:55 And they were like, you know, just get out of here if you can.
00:57:56 --> 00:58:00 And if not, well, we'll see. But they were lucky they were able to get out of there.
00:58:00 --> 00:58:03 And then about 20 years after that happened, after the war was over,
00:58:03 --> 00:58:08 after everything was signed, my great-grandmother did get money for what was taken.
00:58:08 --> 00:58:11 But at that point, you know, it was like you're out of there,
00:58:11 --> 00:58:14 you're out of society, you're building your life somewhere else,
00:58:14 --> 00:58:17 and there's no place for you back here. And that part of it was very, very clear.
00:58:17 --> 00:58:20 And so in the U.S., you kind of have that flipped, right? Where you have the
00:58:20 --> 00:58:24 citizenship piece as, like, really enshrined in the Constitution.
00:58:25 --> 00:58:29 And, you know, you're really saying, okay, like, you know, you belong here.
00:58:30 --> 00:58:35 But the monetary piece and the real sort of recognition of property and,
00:58:35 --> 00:58:40 you know, labor and all of that, that's not recognized in the same way.
00:58:40 --> 00:58:42 And so I think, you know.
00:58:43 --> 00:58:47 Don't know what I would advise people to do, but I think just understanding,
00:58:47 --> 00:58:50 like, what that means and what that looks like in different contexts can be
00:58:50 --> 00:58:53 really, really different. And in the end, I think it needs to be meaningful.
00:58:54 --> 00:58:58 Like, I don't know, you know, I was reading something about one of the cities
00:58:58 --> 00:59:02 that was doing reparations, I think it was in Illinois, and they were interviewing
00:59:02 --> 00:59:05 people who got reparations, like financial reparations, and they were like,
00:59:05 --> 00:59:07 it's, you know, it's nice, but it's not,
00:59:07 --> 00:59:10 like, a life-changing amount of money.
00:59:10 --> 00:59:17 And so, like, within all of that, like, I think that it has to mean something
00:59:17 --> 00:59:22 to the people who are receiving whatever this looks like.
00:59:22 --> 00:59:29 And so in my case, with interacting with people in Austria and the Austrian
00:59:29 --> 00:59:32 embassy in the U.S., everybody is incredibly kind.
00:59:33 --> 00:59:38 Everybody will go out of their way to sort of recognize this historical injustice.
00:59:38 --> 00:59:41 Everybody will really be kind
00:59:41 --> 00:59:44 and treat me well which you
00:59:44 --> 00:59:48 know you deal with any bureaucracy you're not necessarily expecting you
00:59:48 --> 00:59:53 know people to to be kind in the process and I think that that can go a really
00:59:53 --> 00:59:59 long way like it's it's not necessarily about like one concrete thing or another
00:59:59 --> 01:00:06 I think it's about that sense of belonging and acceptance and and feeling like you could,
01:00:06 --> 01:00:10 contribute and you could participate and that that would be valued.
01:00:10 --> 01:00:12 I think that that's the most important piece.
01:00:13 --> 01:00:16 Yeah, I think you touched on something very, very important.
01:00:17 --> 01:00:21 I know you feel as though, well, maybe I'm not the best person to say something,
01:00:21 --> 01:00:25 but the word kind is the key.
01:00:26 --> 01:00:30 I think when we do stuff in America that.
01:00:30 --> 01:00:36 It should be out of the kindness of our heart rather than feeling that we're obligated to do it.
01:00:36 --> 01:00:42 And I think that's where we need to get to, whether it's dealing with reparations
01:00:42 --> 01:00:44 or health care or any other issue.
01:00:44 --> 01:00:51 I think that there has to be a genuine kindness, a genuine joy inflected on it.
01:00:51 --> 01:00:53 But don't let me get into that sermon.
01:00:53 --> 01:00:56 Let's get back to you. Yeah, preach.
01:00:58 --> 01:01:02 Let's talk about, speaking about condos, let's talk about your grandfather.
01:01:03 --> 01:01:09 Obviously, he had a major influence in you reconnecting.
01:01:09 --> 01:01:13 I mean, I know you were going through the news, like you said, during COVID.
01:01:13 --> 01:01:17 And it's like, oh, this is being intriguing. But it wouldn't be intriguing if
01:01:17 --> 01:01:22 you didn't have that relationship or didn't have that understanding about your grandfather.
01:01:22 --> 01:01:28 So talk about him and what did he teach you and what did he instill in you that
01:01:28 --> 01:01:31 allowed you to make this decision, make this journey?
01:01:32 --> 01:01:39 Yeah, so he immigrated when he was 18. He left Vienna, he left Austria as soon as he possibly could.
01:01:40 --> 01:01:45 You know, his family was working class. His father had passed away a couple years before.
01:01:45 --> 01:01:48 And it was kind of like, there's nothing here for me. You know,
01:01:48 --> 01:01:49 they didn't have the connections.
01:01:50 --> 01:01:55 The country was in kind of an economic mess. And he applied for the visas that
01:01:55 --> 01:01:58 he could, and he left. And it took a while to get to the U.S.
01:01:58 --> 01:02:02 Because at that point, you know, that kind of five-year period when they just
01:02:02 --> 01:02:06 said, okay, you know, doors are open for anybody who wants to come over for Europe.
01:02:06 --> 01:02:10 Like, those doors had been closed, and so it took a while for his paperwork to come through.
01:02:11 --> 01:02:16 But he got to the U.S. when he was about 20, and he lived his whole life in
01:02:16 --> 01:02:19 the U.S. He was in the Army during World War II.
01:02:19 --> 01:02:24 After World War II, he was trained as a cabinetmaker with really,
01:02:24 --> 01:02:29 really old school, you know, like you were talking techniques from the 1700s
01:02:29 --> 01:02:31 and stuff like that, like really, really old school stuff.
01:02:31 --> 01:02:36 But what he did afterwards was he worked in furniture making and factories,
01:02:36 --> 01:02:41 And, you know, he ran these new factories that they were trying to get off the
01:02:41 --> 01:02:45 ground, you know, Massachusetts to ship stuff to New York and to other parts of the country.
01:02:47 --> 01:02:51 Things like that. And he was just one of those people who kept trying, right?
01:02:51 --> 01:02:55 Like he kept, you know, even if things didn't work out, he said,
01:02:55 --> 01:03:00 you know, like, okay, I have to, you know, take my time and sort of work through
01:03:00 --> 01:03:02 what happened and that I wish it could have been different.
01:03:03 --> 01:03:07 But, you know, like he didn't let that get in the way of what he actually wanted
01:03:07 --> 01:03:12 to do and the care that he had for his friends and his family and kind of the
01:03:12 --> 01:03:16 joy that he also put out into the world and the kind of life that he wanted to live.
01:03:16 --> 01:03:20 And after he retired, you know, a lot of the creativity that he couldn't,
01:03:20 --> 01:03:25 he didn't have a place for, you know, in furniture making came out through sculpture.
01:03:25 --> 01:03:29 And so he had this sort of second career in retirement as a sculptor and he
01:03:29 --> 01:03:33 won some local awards. And I think that that brought him, you know,
01:03:33 --> 01:03:36 a different type of, you know, recognition and joy.
01:03:37 --> 01:03:41 And to me, it just shows you that you can always do something else.
01:03:41 --> 01:03:42 You can always do something different.
01:03:43 --> 01:03:49 Things don't work out sometimes, and you can always find a way to really sort
01:03:49 --> 01:03:52 of wrap your head around it and then say, okay, but that doesn't define who
01:03:52 --> 01:03:54 I am. That doesn't determine who I am.
01:03:55 --> 01:04:01 And I think that a lot of that spirit, it must have come out of the way that he grew up.
01:04:01 --> 01:04:05 And there's a lot of sort of Austrian culture, Viennese culture,
01:04:05 --> 01:04:09 which has spread out into the world in a lot of ways that we don't necessarily
01:04:09 --> 01:04:16 like explicitly recognized it's just part of pop culture now but you know I grew up with with,
01:04:16 --> 01:04:19 Some of the food that he grew up with that he would make, you know,
01:04:19 --> 01:04:23 whipped cream everywhere, because Austrian pastries have whipped cream all over the place.
01:04:24 --> 01:04:30 And music and, you know, being sociable and, you know, knowing that the world
01:04:30 --> 01:04:31 sort of goes beyond your apartment door.
01:04:32 --> 01:04:36 And, you know, we had a lot of conversations, me and my mom,
01:04:36 --> 01:04:39 especially about kind of what he would have thought about the process.
01:04:39 --> 01:04:41 Because for him, that door was closed.
01:04:42 --> 01:04:46 But just because for him that door was closed, you know, it doesn't mean that
01:04:46 --> 01:04:51 he wouldn't have been curious for it to be open for people further down the line.
01:04:51 --> 01:04:55 So, you know, taking the world as it is, but also, you know,
01:04:55 --> 01:04:58 kind of wanting it to be a little bit different and pushing for it to be different
01:04:58 --> 01:05:00 and kind of doing what you can, right?
01:05:01 --> 01:05:03 Like within your little space in the world. Yeah.
01:05:04 --> 01:05:11 So that kind of leads me to this question about the influence of history.
01:05:11 --> 01:05:19 How much do you think that history influences our day-to-day life,
01:05:19 --> 01:05:25 and do you feel that your book highlighted that?
01:05:27 --> 01:05:33 That's a great question. So I think that history influences our lives in ways,
01:05:34 --> 01:05:37 like, because the world that we're in is totally shaped by history,
01:05:38 --> 01:05:41 whether or not we're explicitly aware of it.
01:05:41 --> 01:05:44 And something that was really interesting, the other day I was,
01:05:45 --> 01:05:48 talking to somebody who read the book, who's not Jewish,
01:05:48 --> 01:05:51 who was like, you know, it really
01:05:51 --> 01:05:55 made me think about how recent all
01:05:55 --> 01:05:58 of this stuff was like this was all like grandparent level
01:05:58 --> 01:06:02 right like it's not and and you know I'm 40
01:06:02 --> 01:06:08 now so you know we're also talking about sort of a period where at this point
01:06:08 --> 01:06:13 the grandparents are are all passing away and so I think that the question it
01:06:13 --> 01:06:19 becomes how do you take the lessons and and kind of reflect them back in a way
01:06:19 --> 01:06:21 that makes sense for our lives.
01:06:21 --> 01:06:28 And I am sad sometimes that it feels like a lot of history is relegated to a
01:06:28 --> 01:06:30 book because that's so not,
01:06:31 --> 01:06:35 world that we live in. I mean, even if you see a memorial for something that
01:06:35 --> 01:06:40 happened, you know, in the 70s or 80s and we're like, oh, that was a while ago.
01:06:40 --> 01:06:42 It's like, no, that wasn't. It really wasn't that long ago.
01:06:43 --> 01:06:49 I don't know. Maybe it's things looking very black and white or things actually
01:06:49 --> 01:06:55 just being in the history books. But so many of the ways in which,
01:06:55 --> 01:06:58 you know, the Holocaust or the civil rights movement.
01:06:58 --> 01:07:04 You know, these things are very, very recent. And when we put them sort of in
01:07:04 --> 01:07:08 the history book and then sort of, you know, lock that box in a way,
01:07:08 --> 01:07:09 we can say, okay, like now it's history.
01:07:10 --> 01:07:15 It's not taking people and sort of meeting them where they are and treating
01:07:15 --> 01:07:18 them sort of like they're intelligent people.
01:07:18 --> 01:07:21 And you can say, hey, this is what happened, you know, 50 years ago.
01:07:21 --> 01:07:24 What do you think's changed? Has anything changed?
01:07:24 --> 01:07:26 Here's what happened 70 years ago.
01:07:27 --> 01:07:33 And in the case of Austria, with this process of, I think, coming to terms with
01:07:33 --> 01:07:38 their past and their role, their very active role in World War II and within
01:07:38 --> 01:07:41 the Nazi regime once Austria was annexed by Germany,
01:07:41 --> 01:07:43 that took a very long time.
01:07:44 --> 01:07:47 That took a couple generations for people to really be like,
01:07:47 --> 01:07:52 oh, yeah, those stories that we're telling ourselves are not the true stories of what happened.
01:07:53 --> 01:07:57 And it's that kind of reflection about history and about our roles in it,
01:07:57 --> 01:08:01 even when they're difficult, that's so important, I think, today more than ever.
01:08:01 --> 01:08:06 And I wish that more people would be really thoughtful and have these conversations
01:08:06 --> 01:08:10 because they're so important to have, regardless of kind of what piece of the
01:08:10 --> 01:08:13 puzzle or piece of the pie you're looking at in these spaces.
01:08:13 --> 01:08:19 Yeah. Yeah. And I think you did a good job on that. I just...
01:08:20 --> 01:08:24 You know, it's just, you know, the author, to ask the author.
01:08:25 --> 01:08:29 You know, did you achieve what you wanted to achieve, that kind of thing,
01:08:29 --> 01:08:33 it's always interesting to hear people self-critique, right?
01:08:34 --> 01:08:38 Well, within this, too, I mean, that's a good question. There's no community,
01:08:38 --> 01:08:41 right, for people who are doing this kind of thing.
01:08:41 --> 01:08:47 And there are some Facebook groups out there, but there's no real way to ground
01:08:47 --> 01:08:53 the conversation about what is this restoration, reparation, citizenship thing.
01:08:54 --> 01:08:56 What does it actually mean to people who are doing it?
01:08:57 --> 01:09:00 And I've found I've had a bunch of in-person events at
01:09:00 --> 01:09:03 this point we had almost 200 people come to
01:09:03 --> 01:09:05 the Austrian embassy in DC just for a book talk when you know
01:09:05 --> 01:09:08 at the beginning when I was planning it with them they were like no you know we usually
01:09:08 --> 01:09:12 get like 25 people at book talks and I was like great you know we'll have an
01:09:12 --> 01:09:16 event at the embassy it'll be fun but they were they were blown away and and
01:09:16 --> 01:09:22 I think it speaks to the fact that like people are smart and engaged and they
01:09:22 --> 01:09:26 want to find a way to talk about the things that they care about,
01:09:26 --> 01:09:29 and they want to find a way to create community around that.
01:09:29 --> 01:09:33 And I hope that this is a way for people to do some of that.
01:09:33 --> 01:09:36 I mean, it's not going to be everything, but at least it's something to ground
01:09:36 --> 01:09:39 the conversation, whether or not you agree with what's in the book or not.
01:09:39 --> 01:09:42 All right. So I got a couple more questions for you.
01:09:43 --> 01:09:47 So, you know, a lot of people during the first administration,
01:09:47 --> 01:09:50 Trump administration, and now in the current one, first thing a lot of people
01:09:50 --> 01:09:54 were saying was like, oh, I got to get out of here. I got to leave. I got to go.
01:09:55 --> 01:09:59 And I've actually had a guest come on a couple of times who does that kind of
01:09:59 --> 01:10:05 work where she helps people repatriate, you know, in other countries.
01:10:06 --> 01:10:08 Having gone through that experience.
01:10:09 --> 01:10:17 Do you feel that is a good thing for people to do or, well, let me phrase it this way.
01:10:17 --> 01:10:25 Is it a thing that people should do out of fear or is it something that people
01:10:25 --> 01:10:30 should do, you know, with a clear conscience and a clear desire?
01:10:31 --> 01:10:34 That's a great question, too, Erik. You're asking me all the good questions.
01:10:37 --> 01:10:40 It depends. It's difficult. Thank you.
01:10:41 --> 01:10:46 So, you know, I'm not planning on picking up stakes and going to Austria.
01:10:46 --> 01:10:50 Like, that was never my plan. That was never the intention.
01:10:51 --> 01:10:56 There are some people who, you know, they have some things that,
01:10:56 --> 01:11:00 you know, whatever it is in their world where they say this is a non-negotiable
01:11:00 --> 01:11:03 and I want to live in a certain way.
01:11:03 --> 01:11:07 These are my values. I feel like they're not respected here.
01:11:08 --> 01:11:14 That's a different kind of situation. I think that with a lot of this,
01:11:14 --> 01:11:16 like, fear is never the answer.
01:11:16 --> 01:11:23 Fear is never a way to kind of move through the world with confidence and grace.
01:11:24 --> 01:11:33 And I think that oftentimes we, you know, people kind of panic or they think
01:11:33 --> 01:11:37 that things are going to potentially, you know, go off the deep end.
01:11:37 --> 01:11:41 And a lot of, sometimes I get these questions that are like,
01:11:41 --> 01:11:47 oh, well, you know, how did your family know that the Holocaust was coming and
01:11:47 --> 01:11:49 how did they know that they should leave? And they didn't.
01:11:49 --> 01:11:52 Like, that's the thing. Like, they really, really didn't. And,
01:11:52 --> 01:11:56 you know, there was no, like.
01:11:57 --> 01:12:02 Crazy, like, fear or anything like that, but they were in the kind of circumstance
01:12:02 --> 01:12:06 where things just, they kept getting worse and worse, and things just weren't
01:12:06 --> 01:12:11 working for them, you know, where they had called home for 30 years at that point.
01:12:12 --> 01:12:17 They left. And I think that, you know, that happens to a lot of people for different reasons.
01:12:17 --> 01:12:21 Usually, I would say mostly economic, you know, the political,
01:12:21 --> 01:12:23 like my family's case is a little weird where,
01:12:23 --> 01:12:27 you know, when you read about, you know, what happened in World War II and people,
01:12:27 --> 01:12:31 you know, the Nazis coming into Vienna and like going into these apartments
01:12:31 --> 01:12:34 and taking all this art and like, you know, all this stuff.
01:12:35 --> 01:12:39 You don't really see cases like my family's case that was working class.
01:12:40 --> 01:12:44 My grandfather and his two older siblings left before for economic reasons,
01:12:44 --> 01:12:47 just because they really had no opportunities there after World War I.
01:12:48 --> 01:12:52 And we qualified for this pathway because my great-grandmother had stayed.
01:12:52 --> 01:12:57 That's the only reason. And so we found family letters that we didn't know about.
01:12:57 --> 01:13:00 The family in the U.S. had been trying to get them to leave for a long time
01:13:00 --> 01:13:03 because basically they were like, you know, we're here now.
01:13:03 --> 01:13:05 We're established. We can make it work. You know, you should come.
01:13:06 --> 01:13:09 You should come. They didn't want to. They really, really didn't want to. Their lives were there.
01:13:10 --> 01:13:14 And my great-grandmother at that point, by the time she left, she was in her 60s.
01:13:14 --> 01:13:19 I mean, what 60-something wants to pick up and go to another country where they
01:13:19 --> 01:13:21 don't speak the language that you've spoken your whole life?
01:13:21 --> 01:13:24 Or I think she spoke three languages fluently, so they don't speak any of those
01:13:24 --> 01:13:29 languages, you know, and really have to start over again at that point.
01:13:29 --> 01:13:30 Like, that's not something that,
01:13:31 --> 01:13:37 anybody would really willingly want to do, but it wasn't based on fear.
01:13:37 --> 01:13:42 It was based on kind of more of a, I would say, a pragmatism more than anything else.
01:13:43 --> 01:13:48 I don't know, you know, for all these people who talk about it,
01:13:48 --> 01:13:50 who say like, oh, we got to go to Canada.
01:13:51 --> 01:13:55 We got to, you know, we're going to get one of those investor visas to New Zealand
01:13:55 --> 01:13:57 if you have money to do that or all that.
01:13:58 --> 01:14:03 It's really hard to uproot your life, especially, you know, when you're older,
01:14:03 --> 01:14:07 when you're more established, when you have your roots in a place for so long.
01:14:07 --> 01:14:13 And, you know, so it's really hard. And I think it's important to understand,
01:14:13 --> 01:14:16 like, really how difficult it is. It's not just the language.
01:14:16 --> 01:14:22 It's really saying, like, okay, no, I have to sort of make that mental adjustment
01:14:22 --> 01:14:28 and say, you know, this piece of my life that I thought was very solid for so
01:14:28 --> 01:14:30 long. It's not like that anymore.
01:14:30 --> 01:14:34 And I don't know how many people are actually doing it.
01:14:34 --> 01:14:37 You know, how much of it is just talk, how much of it is really,
01:14:37 --> 01:14:42 like, you know, people making plans.
01:14:42 --> 01:14:47 Like, I have no idea. But I think, like, my bottom line is that a lot of this
01:14:47 --> 01:14:51 is a lot more difficult, maybe, than people think that it is.
01:14:51 --> 01:14:59 And, you know, so it's also kind of what really is the push and pull and how
01:14:59 --> 01:15:05 much can you stay rooted and fight for what you believe in?
01:15:06 --> 01:15:09 Because in my family's case, if they had stayed, they would have been killed.
01:15:10 --> 01:15:13 And that part of it is very clear in retrospect, but at the time, nobody knew that.
01:15:13 --> 01:15:17 So there's all this history didn't have to happen.
01:15:17 --> 01:15:21 Going back to the history question, history didn't have to happen the way that it turned out,
01:15:22 --> 01:15:26 Nobody expected it to happen the way that it turned out, at least when they were living through it.
01:15:27 --> 01:15:31 And I think a lot of, you know, my own family's story in many ways,
01:15:31 --> 01:15:34 it was about a lot of luck one way or the other.
01:15:34 --> 01:15:39 And it's important to recognize that, too. Like, luck plays such a big role
01:15:39 --> 01:15:45 in how things work out, especially when these kinds of situations,
01:15:45 --> 01:15:48 like, really start to get hairy.
01:15:48 --> 01:15:55 Yeah. All right. So my final question is, you said in the book that you grew
01:15:55 --> 01:15:59 up with a mindset that America is always about moving forward.
01:16:00 --> 01:16:07 Now that you're, do you feel that your child is going to have that same experience about America?
01:16:07 --> 01:16:13 Or is there something that you're seeing now that's like, I don't know.
01:16:13 --> 01:16:18 So it's like, as you stated that, you know, now your child has options because
01:16:18 --> 01:16:22 you have, you know, the dual citizenships and all that.
01:16:22 --> 01:16:26 But the moving forward was very intriguing because it was just like,
01:16:26 --> 01:16:30 that's just being what American is about.
01:16:31 --> 01:16:37 So do you still kind of feel that way? And like I said, do you think that America
01:16:37 --> 01:16:43 that your child is going to grow up in will be in that same mindset?
01:16:44 --> 01:16:47 Have to think about this one because a lot of it's going to depend on him
01:16:47 --> 01:16:50 right and his personality and and how much he
01:16:50 --> 01:16:53 he pushes right the moving
01:16:53 --> 01:16:55 forward thing i think can be really hard too i mean
01:16:55 --> 01:16:58 when when the u.s is just go go
01:16:58 --> 01:17:02 go because that's just the way it is i
01:17:02 --> 01:17:05 think it can be really exhausting for a lot of people and i think we're
01:17:05 --> 01:17:09 seeing that more and more where where
01:17:09 --> 01:17:11 everybody like people they work their
01:17:11 --> 01:17:15 butts off and they try their best and you
01:17:15 --> 01:17:18 know the the story that you hear about that being
01:17:18 --> 01:17:22 enough like maybe that was never actually the case maybe maybe there's it's
01:17:22 --> 01:17:27 always been kind of like the situation where people work their butts off and
01:17:27 --> 01:17:31 some people do well and other people's people just don't they don't feel like
01:17:31 --> 01:17:35 they're moving forward in that way but you don't really hear about that as much
01:17:35 --> 01:17:36 just because of the way the U.S.
01:17:36 --> 01:17:42 Is and this like push around go, go, go and, and, you know, build and do and
01:17:42 --> 01:17:44 move and, and all of that.
01:17:45 --> 01:17:48 So he, you know, his personality, like he's got a ton of energy.
01:17:48 --> 01:17:52 He's, he's going to be, he's going to be two pretty soon.
01:17:52 --> 01:17:55 And, you know, he's in that like toddler phase of just like,
01:17:55 --> 01:17:58 you know, you take him out of the stroller and he's like running around the
01:17:58 --> 01:18:01 room and like grabbing pillows and like doing all those things.
01:18:01 --> 01:18:08 So, you know, I hope he has the energy to, go, go, go and make the world,
01:18:09 --> 01:18:14 you know, more of a place that's aligned with, you know, the values that,
01:18:14 --> 01:18:15 you know, we want to give to him,
01:18:16 --> 01:18:21 you know, this idea that, you know, the world can be as big as you want it to be.
01:18:21 --> 01:18:24 I think that's also a very American thing where it's, you know,
01:18:24 --> 01:18:27 it's not scary to, you know, go and take these opportunities.
01:18:28 --> 01:18:33 I mean, one of the Austrians was saying to me that she really admires that,
01:18:33 --> 01:18:38 like, for the kids who can, you know, who are able to, they go away for college.
01:18:38 --> 01:18:41 You know, you're 18, you're gone. You're not, you know, staying at your parents'
01:18:41 --> 01:18:42 house until you're in your 40s.
01:18:43 --> 01:18:46 You know, at least that's the ethos that people take with them.
01:18:48 --> 01:18:51 It's complicated because so much of this is about personality.
01:18:51 --> 01:18:56 It's about circumstances that are kind of beyond your individual control.
01:18:56 --> 01:18:59 It's about, you know, what interests you, what intrigues you,
01:18:59 --> 01:19:01 you know, do you want to stay close?
01:19:01 --> 01:19:03 Do you want to go out and see what else is out there?
01:19:04 --> 01:19:09 Does the world let you do that? And so I hope in his case, the world lets him do that.
01:19:09 --> 01:19:15 And I hope the world lets him go as far as he can go. And I hope that we set
01:19:15 --> 01:19:20 him up to be able to, you know, to put out good and make the world,
01:19:21 --> 01:19:23 you know, a better place than the one he was born into.
01:19:24 --> 01:19:28 Well, Anne Hand, I have no doubt. It's been, you talk about two,
01:19:28 --> 01:19:30 it's been 20 years since I've had to deal with that.
01:19:31 --> 01:19:36 But I still remember. Oh, my God. Do I still remember it? So enjoy that moment.
01:19:36 --> 01:19:39 But Anne, I've enjoyed having you come on.
01:19:39 --> 01:19:43 If people want to get the book, how can they get that? If people want to reach
01:19:43 --> 01:19:44 out to you, how can they do that?
01:19:45 --> 01:19:49 Yeah, so the book's on the online places. It's on Amazon.
01:19:49 --> 01:19:52 It's on Bookshop. If you want to support your local bookshop,
01:19:52 --> 01:19:56 it'll order it there. It'll get shipped to an independent bookstore close to you.
01:19:56 --> 01:19:59 It's on Barnes & Noble, so it's on those websites.
01:19:59 --> 01:20:02 If you want to get in touch with me, I'm on Facebook.
01:20:02 --> 01:20:07 I'm on Twitter X. I'm on LinkedIn, so any of those, I'm super easy to find.
01:20:07 --> 01:20:11 It's just different, you know, versions of my name, like with an underscore
01:20:11 --> 01:20:15 on one or with a dot on the other one, whatever, whatever the platform kind of makes you do.
01:20:16 --> 01:20:20 But I'm super easy to find. And I'm always happy to, you know,
01:20:20 --> 01:20:24 just chat with people who are interested in having these conversations.
01:20:24 --> 01:20:25 So really don't be a stranger.
01:20:26 --> 01:20:29 All right. Well, and again, thank you for doing this.
01:20:31 --> 01:20:34 So you know when you decide to write your next book
01:20:34 --> 01:20:38 understand that the rule is that you have an open invitation to come back on
01:20:38 --> 01:20:44 the show so oh gosh thanks Erik i really appreciate that thank you so much yeah
01:20:44 --> 01:20:48 so when you when you decide to do that just just let me know we'll make that
01:20:48 --> 01:20:51 happen but again i just want to thank you for doing this interview,
01:20:52 --> 01:20:56 Yeah, thank you, Erik. Thanks to everybody listening. It's just been such a pleasure chatting.
01:20:57 --> 01:21:02 And I hope the themes of the book, you know, really resonate with people in
01:21:02 --> 01:21:05 different ways and just get people thinking about things a little bit differently.
01:21:06 --> 01:21:08 All right, guys. And we're going to catch y'all on the other side.
01:21:21 --> 01:21:30 All right, and we are back. So I want to thank Lorena Quiroz and Anne Hand for coming on the podcast.
01:21:31 --> 01:21:37 Those two women, you know, they're from different perspectives,
01:21:37 --> 01:21:39 doing different kind of work.
01:21:40 --> 01:21:47 But I hope you understood the context about home and heart from those two interviews.
01:21:47 --> 01:21:48 It was Lorena, of course.
01:21:48 --> 01:21:53 It was really, really good to be able to talk to her prior to what's getting
01:21:53 --> 01:21:56 ready to happen down in Mississippi.
01:21:57 --> 01:22:02 And I wanted to bring some context because she was there on the ground when
01:22:02 --> 01:22:05 the big raid happened in 2019.
01:22:06 --> 01:22:13 And it really kind of got her really started in the community organizing.
01:22:13 --> 01:22:16 I mean, she had been doing some work, but,
01:22:16 --> 01:22:24 to get to this place now with her organization IAJE to be ready for this raid
01:22:24 --> 01:22:27 that's coming the next few days.
01:22:27 --> 01:22:33 So the fact that she was able to set aside some time to talk about that and
01:22:33 --> 01:22:37 to do this podcast interview, I am very, very grateful to her for doing that.
01:22:38 --> 01:22:43 And I meant what I said that, you know, she's doing the Lord's work and hope
01:22:43 --> 01:22:48 that she continues to have a hedge of protection around her to keep doing that.
01:22:48 --> 01:22:56 With Anne, you know, a personal book that she wrote has an incredible amount
01:22:56 --> 01:23:00 of impact on a lot of people because, you know,
01:23:00 --> 01:23:04 all of us want to reconnect with our history.
01:23:04 --> 01:23:07 You know, I'm a big proponent of history.
01:23:07 --> 01:23:14 I believe that you have to understand history in order to understand what's going on now.
01:23:15 --> 01:23:21 And the way that she was able to tie in a lot of things that we're dealing with,
01:23:21 --> 01:23:27 you know, just from her personal journey of reconnecting with our Austrian roots.
01:23:27 --> 01:23:30 And just to kind of, if you read the book,
01:23:30 --> 01:23:36 you'll understand just kind of, you know, her experience having to apply for
01:23:36 --> 01:23:43 citizenship in another country and all that, and then counteract that with what people that Lorena,
01:23:44 --> 01:23:50 you know, who the people that Lorena are fighting for, all they want is the
01:23:50 --> 01:23:52 same ability and access,
01:23:53 --> 01:23:58 you know, the same opportunity to live where they want to live,
01:23:58 --> 01:24:04 to be citizens or just, you know, be able to travel, be able to work,
01:24:05 --> 01:24:07 whatever they want to do, go to school.
01:24:07 --> 01:24:19 You know, nobody wants anarchy when it comes to policies, whether it's immigration or others, but.
01:24:20 --> 01:24:31 At some point in time, we have to be humane and we have to use our humanity, use our our joy,
01:24:32 --> 01:24:40 use our kindness to start putting together policies rather than political expediency or cruelty.
01:24:41 --> 01:24:47 Right. Because, you know, that's that's where we are now. We are in a very,
01:24:47 --> 01:24:53 very, and people can make the argument that America as a society has been cruel for a while.
01:24:53 --> 01:25:00 And as somebody that is speaking about history, who is, you know,
01:25:01 --> 01:25:02 descendant of black people,
01:25:02 --> 01:25:10 you know, we can we can cite all of the different things that have happened even in my lifetime.
01:25:10 --> 01:25:16 To show how America can be cruel to its fellow citizens or fellow residents.
01:25:18 --> 01:25:25 And so I just think that if we start really defining true American leadership,
01:25:25 --> 01:25:30 it's more than just the progressiveness or the innovation.
01:25:30 --> 01:25:36 There has to be some heart behind it. There has to be some kindness.
01:25:36 --> 01:25:41 Because you can change things and be evil. Because that's exactly what we're dealing with now.
01:25:41 --> 01:25:47 We're dealing with a political climate that rewards vindication.
01:25:48 --> 01:25:55 That rewards cruelty, that rewards pettiness, and it really shouldn't be like that.
01:25:57 --> 01:26:03 Politics, and I guess you can judge me for being biased, but I think politics
01:26:03 --> 01:26:06 needs to be more egalitarian, right?
01:26:06 --> 01:26:11 I think politics needs to be at a different level where the people that have
01:26:11 --> 01:26:17 been given or entrusted positions of leadership should be more benevolent,
01:26:17 --> 01:26:19 should be more considerate,
01:26:20 --> 01:26:25 should be doing things that will benefit all instead of trying to figure out
01:26:25 --> 01:26:31 who they can eliminate so that a few can reap the rewards, right?
01:26:32 --> 01:26:36 Just think that's where we need to be. So.
01:26:37 --> 01:26:40 Home and heart fits because this is my home.
01:26:41 --> 01:26:45 I have had a privilege to travel to a couple of countries.
01:26:46 --> 01:26:51 I've had a privilege to travel across the nation, and there's no other country
01:26:51 --> 01:26:54 I would rather live in than the United States.
01:26:55 --> 01:27:00 So this is where my heart is. But just because my heart is in this place and
01:27:00 --> 01:27:06 this is my home doesn't mean that I am satisfied with everything that happens.
01:27:07 --> 01:27:12 And one of the unique things about this nation is that the experiment was set
01:27:12 --> 01:27:18 up so that when it got to a point where it was intolerable, when it got to a
01:27:18 --> 01:27:20 point where it resembled a tyranny,
01:27:21 --> 01:27:29 that we had the vehicles and the wherewithal and even the tradition to fight against that.
01:27:29 --> 01:27:37 And that's what we're doing now. You know, for a president to say to congressmen
01:27:37 --> 01:27:39 and women who actually served in the military,
01:27:40 --> 01:27:46 to call them traitors for reminding men and women who are currently serving
01:27:46 --> 01:27:51 in the military that you don't have to follow an unlawful order,
01:27:51 --> 01:27:54 you know, speaks volumes about where we are.
01:27:54 --> 01:28:01 The fact that those men and women who served, who are now in another level of
01:28:01 --> 01:28:06 service through their elected positions felt that they even needed to say that.
01:28:07 --> 01:28:13 Should make people uncomfortable. You can be angry, but you need to be angry
01:28:13 --> 01:28:20 at why those folks felt they needed to say that rather than be angry at the messengers, right?
01:28:20 --> 01:28:26 And then they say, well, they're being seditious and they're traitors and all
01:28:26 --> 01:28:28 that stuff. It's like you have no concept.
01:28:28 --> 01:28:35 You have no self-reflection. When people that supported you were willing to
01:28:35 --> 01:28:39 vandalize the Capitol building and do harm to members of Congress,
01:28:39 --> 01:28:42 and all you can say is that you love them?
01:28:42 --> 01:28:46 See, that's where sedition comes in.
01:28:46 --> 01:28:53 January 6th was an act of sedition, not a commercial reminding people of their
01:28:53 --> 01:28:56 military obligation, right?
01:28:56 --> 01:29:04 That's where the confusion is. It is not patriotic to kill your political opponent.
01:29:04 --> 01:29:09 It's not patriotic to threaten your political opponent with violence.
01:29:09 --> 01:29:12 It's not patriotic to threaten your political opponent. It's not patriotic to.
01:29:12 --> 01:29:17 Actively seek to vandalize the people's house.
01:29:18 --> 01:29:25 And it's not patriotic to tell military personnel to go after fellow citizens.
01:29:25 --> 01:29:32 That's not what they signed up to do. That's not what they are designed to do, right?
01:29:32 --> 01:29:38 The fact that you as a president felt that you even had the temerity to ask
01:29:38 --> 01:29:41 a general, is it all right if we shoot a protester in the leg,
01:29:42 --> 01:29:48 tells me that you don't have a true grasp or concept of what your position is
01:29:48 --> 01:29:51 or what America is really all about.
01:29:52 --> 01:29:58 If you don't believe me, ask Bull Connor. If you don't believe me, ask Goon Jones, right?
01:29:59 --> 01:30:04 Those are people that didn't grasp the concept either, and history did not look
01:30:04 --> 01:30:06 at them kindly in the aftermath.
01:30:08 --> 01:30:16 So, you know, you can support in politics who you want to support based on ideas
01:30:16 --> 01:30:24 and concepts and solutions toward our nation's problems and issues.
01:30:24 --> 01:30:32 But I question supporting anyone doesn't understand what America is about,
01:30:34 --> 01:30:41 whose vision of the world they live in is encased in a mirror that they acknowledge
01:30:41 --> 01:30:45 exists but don't really look at the real reflection.
01:30:46 --> 01:30:50 You know, I just think that we can do better.
01:30:51 --> 01:30:59 You know, we have had our political disagreements, but you cross the line when
01:30:59 --> 01:31:04 your disagreements stifles, my right to disagree.
01:31:04 --> 01:31:11 And it puts the institution that we know as America in jeopardy.
01:31:12 --> 01:31:20 That's a fundamental problem to me. You want to base your economic policy on tariffs?
01:31:20 --> 01:31:23 That's fine. We had people do that.
01:31:23 --> 01:31:28 And we saw the result of that. You know, there was a major depression.
01:31:28 --> 01:31:34 They called it the Great Depression because the country never recovered, right?
01:31:34 --> 01:31:45 Not right away. And so that's an economic argument. That's a policy argument, right?
01:31:45 --> 01:31:56 But, you know, the smallness, the pettiness, the desire for revenge is not what we're about.
01:31:57 --> 01:32:01 We seek justice, but justice is not revenge.
01:32:01 --> 01:32:09 If you commit a crime and you have gone through the process and the process
01:32:09 --> 01:32:16 was fair and you are found guilty, then you've got to deal with the consequences, right?
01:32:17 --> 01:32:24 Regardless of whether you relate to the perpetrator of the crime or not, right?
01:32:25 --> 01:32:30 We've got to fix a lot of things. And we've got to fix a lot of things because
01:32:30 --> 01:32:32 we're humans. We're not perfect.
01:32:34 --> 01:32:40 The goal is to seek a more perfect union. America is an ideal that we have to
01:32:40 --> 01:32:43 live up to every day. But there has to be an effort.
01:32:44 --> 01:32:48 And when I see people in this current political environment.
01:32:49 --> 01:32:51 They're not giving any effort.
01:32:52 --> 01:32:57 They're doing the bare minimum if you give them credit for that.
01:32:57 --> 01:33:06 You know, we shouldn't be worried if our children are going to have better lives than we have.
01:33:06 --> 01:33:10 We shouldn't be making decisions whether I'm going to go to the doctor or whether
01:33:10 --> 01:33:13 I'm going to pay my rent or eat.
01:33:14 --> 01:33:20 We shouldn't be worried if our children not only have a safe environment to live in,
01:33:20 --> 01:33:26 but that they have access to the best education possible to achieve the enlightenment
01:33:26 --> 01:33:30 that human beings are supposed to achieve.
01:33:31 --> 01:33:39 You know, it's good to make money. It's good to make enough to afford the lifestyle
01:33:39 --> 01:33:43 you want to live, take care of the things you need to take care of.
01:33:44 --> 01:33:50 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 --> 01:33:55 And I'm not trying to begrudge people that, for whatever reason,
01:33:55 --> 01:33:56 are fortunate enough to do that.
01:33:57 --> 01:34:01 But I just think that America is bigger and better than that.
01:34:02 --> 01:34:08 I think that if we're going to have a trillionaire in the United States,
01:34:08 --> 01:34:10 then no child should be hungry.
01:34:13 --> 01:34:21 No military veteran or really anybody should be homeless. if we're going to have a trillionaire.
01:34:22 --> 01:34:27 That, if we're going to be the wealthiest nation in the world,
01:34:27 --> 01:34:28 then we need to show that.
01:34:29 --> 01:34:34 And we need to stop spreading the gap between haves and have-nots.
01:34:35 --> 01:34:39 If it was up to be, there wouldn't be such thing as a have-not. Everybody would have.
01:34:41 --> 01:34:50 So, you know, I just implore us to continue to do better, especially in the choices that we make.
01:34:50 --> 01:34:57 I see that there are some people that may be coming around and understanding
01:34:57 --> 01:35:00 that the extremism is not the point.
01:35:00 --> 01:35:03 It's the exceptionalism that is.
01:35:04 --> 01:35:08 And so we'll continue to watch that journey as those people evolve politically.
01:35:09 --> 01:35:15 But I think we as citizens need to demand better of our people.
01:35:16 --> 01:35:19 We're trusting them to govern. and if we're trusting them to lead,
01:35:20 --> 01:35:22 then they should do better.
01:35:24 --> 01:35:32 I mean, it sounds obvious, but it's apparent that a lot of people haven't gotten a memo.
01:35:33 --> 01:35:36 All right, guys, that's all I got. Thank you all for listening.
01:35:37 --> 01:35:38 Have a happy Thanksgiving.
01:35:40 --> 01:35:49 You know, however you celebrate it, the important thing is family and love and human connection.
01:35:50 --> 01:35:54 And so I just hope that everybody, as we enter this holiday season,
01:35:55 --> 01:36:00 if you know some people that are, you know, they call it the holiday blues,
01:36:00 --> 01:36:04 but, you know, if you know some people are struggling, reach out to them.
01:36:04 --> 01:36:07 If you know some people that need some help, help them.
01:36:08 --> 01:36:13 And just remember what America is about because there are people who are fighting
01:36:13 --> 01:36:22 every day to get here and to stay here because of the opportunity and the hope that we advertise.
01:36:23 --> 01:36:25 Again, thank y'all for listening. Until next time.