nationalism, that's from a conservative. >> guest: you think about the slogan, make america great again, i mean, different constituenties in the united states will hear that differently. when was america ever great? gratefully jim crow segregation, great when there were racial quotas on immigration? great when there was legal gender discrimination and wages? so, it's hard to claim that slogan really is representative of more than white people. only some white people experienced the united states. as a matter of fact, half or more than half of white people are actually poor working class or struggling to maintain their homes. they're not really living under great conditions e, the but the idea, make america great again -- frankly, think make america whole again, which is

hillary's slogan, is similarly problemat ying. when was the united states ever whole? >> host: why do you think bernie sanders faced so much backlash from the "black lives matter" group when he said, all lives matter? >> guest: well, he didn't really issue in that slogan. it was initiated by some people after the "black lives matter" hash tag got circulated. so he said it in one speech. but i think he has an understanding and he has had it consistently through his senate career, that we have particular challenges to the valuing and the equality of black and brown bodies in the united states, and native americans as well. so, we have of course, all lives matter but we need to redress the particular obstacles that

some of our citizens and other people living in this space faced in just day-to-day survival. >> host: the book is called the future of whiteness. the author is professor of philosophy, linda alcoff, and mike is in new york city, calling in. mike? good afternoon. >> caller: good afternoon. i'd like to pose this question. the illegal entry to the country across the border is affecting the middle class americans whether they're white, black, or hispanic. how -- it seems donald trump gains all the attention by speaking the words of the middle class, whether it's black, white, latino. i'm a native american myself. in past situations, the government always said it's going to take care of the problem but it always falls to the middle class and buries us deeper. in what context does you book

address this issue? illegal entry of any kind to anywhere is illegal, but it seems like the upper class or big businesses paying for this, driving it, and it's drowning out the voice of the middle class. >> host: mike, before we get an answer, who are you supporting for president? >> caller: i think the election is basically fixed because the dem -- democrats only have two people and the republicans put up 15, and they're not giving you a choice. i mean, i believe bernie has a great message. i believe hillary has been promised the election because she lost to obama. so i can't figure this out. makes no sense. >> host: are you feeling threatened by people coming across the border illegally? >> caller: it's not a threat. i believe in civility and following the rules and

regulations, and once the federal government changes those rules or once big business can change them to damper or dump down the wages -- dumb down the wages needed for survival, people don't realize that 11 million entries into the country will we beholding simply because they can get jobs and be treated with people of wages. >> host: thank you, sir. linda alcoff. >> guest: well, thank you for your question. i'd make two points. one is that economists are still debating whether or not immigrant labor in the united states is adversely affecting wages in the united states. i mean, it's weird to explain that rather than the difficulty often unionization the united states and the low level of unions that kind crease wages. a lot of things are causing the decrease in wages.

the second point i'd make is that when we talk about illegal immigration, we need to think about the relationship the united states has to the country that are producing such desperate refugees they're willing to leave their families and never sear their families again and take a peril journey into the united states. this isn't happen stance, this is something that has to do with just policy in mexico, and central america. for example, the united states, including hillary clinton, supported the coupe coup in mon tour ross -- honduras and labor leaders are been assassinated in the streets. so, the fact that these people are needing to leave their

countries and needing to go to a place where they might not be assassinated paramilitaries working with their government is to some extent caused by our own government policies. so we bear some responsibility for their condition, and i think it only makes sense we face up to truth of that and then come up with a policy that addresses it forth rightly and straightforwardly. >> host: kathleen from the florida keys. hi, kathleen. >> caller: hello. >> guest: hi. >> caller: hi. >> host: please go ahead. >> caller: so, my question may have been slightly dressed already but it's amazing to me the anger in this election cycle. it is shocking and i'm wondering in your opinion, do you feel that it's almost like the last gasp of whiteness? we are all on the way to brown, as you were discussing?

>> host: thank you, ma'am. >> guest: i think we're -- it's not really the last gasp. even after 2042 whited billwill be largest plurality and the largest voting electorate. but i think the fear and anger at the diversification of our public culture, the fact that you can't hold a white on racist rally anymore and not get protesters who come in and disrupt and-en masse and demand changes to your rhetoric. i think that is making some people -- it's not a political correctness. it's constituencies that cannot be ignored and the earlier civil rights movement was be civil and

be quiet and more moral, and i think the younger generation is feeling their power and feeling their oats and wanting to be part of the public culture in a more visible and strong way, and so white reactionaries or racists have to deal with that as they operate politically in the united states. >> host: also written books on gender studies and this book came out in september of last year, the future of whiteness. next caller is louis in san antonio. you're on booktv, please go ahead. >> caller: i want to buy your book, threat for sure. i like the way you -- [inaudible] -- in the country -- a lot of people threatened by

the fact that a lot of neonazis and people keeps on changing against minorities anywhere they go, even at basketball courts around the high schools. so, right now, everybody is threatened. so i like to respond. what we can do about this. thank you. >> guest: thank you. it's very disturbing to have people just spontaneously start chanting "build a wall" if they see some mexican americans walking into a stadium. it's a really scary atmosphere. especially for children. but i think one of the things we need to do is we need to provide a counter to donald trump's narrative about what the cause

of the problems are, and i think we need to -- what that means is that we really need to address the legitimate economic needs and fears of the white working class, and the white poor. this is a large constituency. they vote, they're obviously very politically active. they have largely been abandoned by the neoliberal free enterprise, pro corporate agenda of the democratic party. their livelihoods have been going down the tubes, and their segment of the labor market has been disappearing, and nobody is really addressing their needs except i think for families, and a few others who really are offering an alternative analysis of who is cause of their diminishing livelihood and who

are their allies other than the right wing. we need to find a way to address this large white constituency toes that every reason to downa coalition with people of color to change this country and to fight the finance capital that has put a chokehold on our democracy. >> host: do you acknowledge, though, that there is a white constituenty that feels threatened? >> guest: yes. i think they have some good reasons to feel threatened in the sense of they see their livelihoods dropping, and then what they're being offered as an explanation is that this is affirmative action or this is immigration, rather than the growing inequality and increasing wealth of the capitalist class. so, i think that the feeling of threat is real. the understanding what is

causing the threat is where we have some discussion that needs to happen, and some facts and figures that need to be shared. i also think, though, that some hoff the feeling of threat is just based on the mistaken idea that if you're not top dog, you're going to be the underdog. those are the only two choices for white people in this country, and you hear that a lot. we're going down the tubes, going to become a third world country, et cetera. i think white people are going to have to learn to take their place in line to be one among others, and lots of white people have already figured this out and are doing it perfectly fine. so it's not really a threat but if you feel like whiteness is about being on top, being the van guard of the human race, scientifically, militarily, politically, et cetera, then it's a big drop to lose that

vanguard position but doesn't mean becoming the underdog. it means becoming one among others to share the nation. >> host: related to that there's almost a class issue. some commentators are saying that donald trump could get up to 20% of the african-american vote. the other morning on our morning program, "the washington gorgeous" we asked trump supporters only why they're supporting donald trump. the first call was a black woman, unemployed, from georgia, who said he says what i feel. is it the class issue as well? >> guest: well, i think it is a class issue, but i think what you're pointing to has more to do with the universality of xenophobeia, the anti-immigrant and antimuslim views among all

sectors of the population, not just among white people, obviously, many latinos have antiblack prejudices. some african-americans have anti-muslim prejudices, and so i think as more and more of the -- become politically active and become voters, we're going to see differences and differences of view. as we already see some of the groups that will have to be addressed. i think xenophobe ya is not unique to the white population. unfortunately, i guess, it is something that one finds in every community. >> warren is calling from pasadena, california. warren, thank you for holding. go ahead with your question or comment for linda alcoff. >> host: i guess warren didn't hold after all. let's try dorothy in san

francisco. dorothy good, afternoon to you. you're on the air. >> caller: good afternoon. i was so glad to hear you talk about inclusiveness. i'm a recruiter and i place people in jobs, and i was noting during the protests about the academy awards, one african-american man said i want to be in the front row. i don't understand why the community leaders in the african-american community don't encourage their children to finish high school. to make a movie to learn how to do films, to learn all of the things you need to do to succeed in hollywood, takes a heck of a lot of hard work and education, and it just seems to me like a lot of the african-americans are pursuing a dead end road with culture and dress and something that's not going to ever get them a job, and i happen to be a

person who feels like you get self-worth and achievement and money from a job, and you can't get a job if you don't even finish high school. thank you. >> guest: well, i'm a high school dropout myself. i took the ged to finish my high school and was able to get to college, but i think high school can be very difficult, and our public school systems are crumbling, as i'm sure you're aware. there's a vast difference between the public schools in upper manhattan and in brownsville or east new york, which are very economically challenged communities. so, i think expecting success in those kinds of schools is so different from expecting success in other kinds of schools. let me just say something bet the oscars.

the oscars are not pure meritocracy where those who work the hardest win the awards. to vote on the oscars you have to have won an oscar so it's kind of a -- it's a constituency of voters that is based on a long history of exclusion of women directors, of black and latino directors and writers and filmmakers. so, you have a gatekeeper problem. the gatekeeper is a constituency create on the basis exclusionary practices, and they're the ones deciding merit, and when you decide merit, as you know in deciding who will be able to be a good employee, it's a judgment call. you're making an interpretation base owned your own experience and your own knowledge, which may be somewhat limited in certain ways. so, the oscars are not a

meritocracy, society night meritocracy. the school system is not a meritocracy. it's not something we have achieved and when we look at the differentials of job success and different racial communities, we have to understand the realities. >> host: john from west palm beach. hi, john. >> caller: hi. all the fallacies -- i wish i had a half hour. first of all, hispanic, hispania, lat latin, spain, ruled -- the century before that the moores were a semitic describe, they're all caucasian, and so is spain, all caucasian, they're european americans on the iberian peninsula chris connected to europe. this fallacy that we're going to

separate all of us. you talk about inclusiveness. your book is a division, whites, hispanics. there's no such thing. hispanics are white. if you ever look at census. that's why i says nonhispanic white. blacks have been flatlined. they -- 12% of the population for the past hundred year and most of that is because of the 1970s abortions were most abortions are done by blacks. they're killing off their own race. if you want to talk about truth, let's get away from dividing people. we're all christians, we're all god's children. this idea that only whites can rule whites whites and blacks ce blacks and spanish people can only rule spanish people, it's a fallacy. >> host: all right, john, a lot of the table there professor alcoff. >> guest: well, i don't think i can do more than gesture toward the book. this isn't just a sales pitch

but i do address the history of the firm caucasian, the history of the term white, latino, african-american in the book, and try to talk about how to think about the meanings of those terms, given that checkered history and so i just point to that, because it's too much to think that you put on the table for me to try to address meaningfully. >> host: adrian from silver lake, indiana. you're on the air go ahead. >> caller: hello, can you hear me? >> host: we're listening. >> caller: hello. >> guest: yes. >> it's dan, diabetes look at your tv. listen to us through the telephone go ahead and ask your question or make your comment. >> caller: i have been watching the show today, sorry issue want to make sure i got the tv on mute here. a lot of history, a lot of

authors and everything, and there's nothing in the constitution about what race you are, what is white or black or whatever, and as a senior citizen and vice president of high school way back in 1964, i've seen this racial -- trying to put labels on and not sure how old i was when i learned there was a congressional black caucus. it's not about race. it's about what we do, and it's -- when are we going to start teaching the true history and getting away from the race issue period. >> guest: well, the true history is slavery, annexation of land and -- i would love for us to begin to teach the true history, but to do that we have to talk about the formations of racial groups and the amalgamation of some groups into races.

race is in the constitution. one of the first thingses that was passed in the united states after it was formed how to become a citizen, how people could become a citizen of the united states, and guess what you had to be white. and you had to own property and be free. whiteness was a category that was a criteria that was necessary for you to become a citizen of the united states, and it's been a law. history of further statutes and laws that have given racial preference and -- whether you could give testimony against a white person who was accused of a crime, your race had everything to do with that as well as your gender. so it's been written into law in the united states. just now we're beginning to

write some new laws to try to correct that history. >> host: and craig in tulsa, oklahoma, you're the last call for linda alcoff. go ahead. >> caller: yes. i really appreciate your effort as a writer, and i do -- everybody is trying to get to the same place, from different ways, and yours is unity, which i agree with. i think the country needs to be unified. i will say that the constitution did throw forward the gauntlet, all men are created equal. that meant men and win, endaleds with by the creator with a pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. you're aiming for unity, too. i would say that the thing is, i don't think you can equate any race with extra power. i've never experienced any special power. i've had to struggle and fight. i got my degree and worked hard in life. i don't think that's really

totally accurate. i think early on, the early laws you talked about maybeus, bet anymore mother since martin luther king marched and people got their heads straight and unified, i think we're in a good age where we going towards unity. i think it's possible. but i don't think it will be done by going and repicking people apart aspirate groups and then saying, we need to help these disadvantage those. we just need to work together for -- i believe power is in education. we need to help education in depressed communities. >> host: that's craig in tulsa, oklahoma. final word. >> guest: well, i think there's some advantages that white people have had that maybe they weren't aware of. there is implicit bias in deciding who gets a job. there's also homestead laws and home ownership and redlining and real estate that maybe you

didn't even know about, and that your ability to own a home and it affects the value that your home has, and home is the key differential between racial groups and the united states. ... author of this book, "the future of

whiteness." thanks for being on booktv. >> guest: thank you. >> host: and you're going to see the professor in about 30 seconds. she's going to be on the next author panel as well as we continue our live coverage here from the tucson it's value of books -- tucson festival of books, held on the campus of the university of arizona. and a couple more panels coming up. there's a -- we're in the gallagher neat or, and -- theater, and there's a whole outdoor festival going on as well. but we're in the gallagher theater. and there's a couple more author panels coming up this afternoon live and a couple more call-ins as well. and you can go to our web site at booktv.org, and you can get the full schedule of events there. and you can also follow us on twitter @booktv. and now our live coverage from tucson continues.

>> hello. hello, everybody. welcome to the the eighth annual tucson festival of books. my name is samara klar, i would like to thank dean j.p. jones for supporting this terrific event. thank you to c-span booktv and to cox communication for sponsoring this venue. i will begin by just reminding everyone that this presentation will last one hour, and we'll have questions at the end for probably the last 20 minutes of the hour. so, please, hold your questions if you can until the end of the presentation. immediately following the session, the authors will be autographing books in the university of arizona bookstore tent, that's booth number 153. that is sponsored by the university of arizona bookstore.

and felipe fernandez-armesto will be autographing his books at 4 p.m. because you are enjoying the festival, we hope you are a member of the friend of the festival program. your tax deductible donation allows us to offer festival programming free of charge to the public and to support this critical literacy program in the community. become a friend in person today by visiting the student union south ballroom or by going to our web site. out of respect for the authors and your fellow audience members, please turn off your cell phones now if you could. and i will now begin by introducing each of our authors today. we have a really terrific panel. our first author is lalo alcaraz, the author of the first latino comic strip. he's a leading figure in the chicano movement. he's received numerous awards including the la latino spirit

award and honors from the rockefeller foundation can. he has published two books, political cartoons on immigration. our second panelist today -- [laughter] our second panelist today is dr. lindaal cough -- lindaal cough. she specializes in race, theory and existentialism. she was recognized as the distinguished woman flosser. she also has several books including "real knowing," "visible identities," and her newest book, "the future of whiteness." our third panelist is dr. ed baptist, professor of history at cornell university. he specializes in american history with a particular emphasis on the south, the 19th century and the history of enslavement in america.

dr. baptist is also the author of numerous articles and books including creating an old south: middle florida's plantation frontier before the civil war, "new studies in the history of american slavery," and his newest book, "the half has never been told: slavery and the making of american capitalism." and our final panelist today, dr. felipe fernandez-armesto, the william p. renotledz professor of history at the university of notre dame. he studies the history of colonization and imperialism. he received a huge number of awards and honors in his career so far including the world history association book prize. he has written, i believe, over a dozen books including most recently amerigo, the man who gave his name to america, "1492: the year the world began," and "our america." so please welcome our four very distinguished panelists. [applause]

i'm going to again with a question for lola. >> lalo. >> i'm sorry. >> my sister couldn't make it. [laughter] >> well, in lola's absence, we will ask lalo, how do illustrations convey messages in ways that prose cannot? >> well, i'm glad you asked that. [laughter] we moved mountains to get the computers to work, and i brought a few cartoons to show very quickly. but, yeah, you know, illustrations, political cartoons are like the, you know, i think they're the ultimate sucker punch, you know? people can't -- when people send me hate letters, i've already won the argument, you know? [laughter] because unless they're sending me a hate letter with a better cartoon -- [laughter] you know, i'm already inside that person's head forever, you know? and i've already ruined their day -- [laughter] and, you know?

so both the questions you were going to ask me, one was what can illustrations convey, and the other is that prose can't and what are cultural influences in my work, and so if i get this magic mouse to work, i can show you. [inaudible] [laughter] [applause] you might recognize this is a cute version of the mexican -- [speaking spanish] [laughter] except that's a fascist up there. [laughter] and so, again, i use my cultural influences to draw from the rich visual, you know, the treasure-trove of visuals from mexico and also here's -- [laughter] when donald trump hosted "saturday night live" after

being fired by nbc. snl stands for still no latinos because there are no latinos on "saturday night live." [laughter] this one really doesn't need a caption or word bubble. the caption that you can't see down here says "mexico built the wall for free." [laughter] the historian knows exactly the boundaries of the map that i'm drawing from. it's around 1820, 1840, around there. and the number one pinata, of course, in mexico the trump pinata. [laughter] and the u.s., of course. finally, the best selling halloween costumes last year were donald trump and chap poe

guzman. chapo guzman. [laughter] and finally, i'll just leave you -- what you can say with a picture that you can't say with words. oh, no, this is the trump-a-cabra. [laughter] and then probably what you can see with pictures but you can't say with words -- [applause] done. oh, yeah. did i answer it? [laughter] 'cuz each of those was a 1,000-word answer, right? [laughter] >> thank you very much for that. we're going to turn to dr. alcoff whose new book is called "the future of whiteness." and i was wondering if you could comment on how the concept of whiteness has changed over time and what it means today. >> it's changed a lot over time over who is included, right?

i mean, we know that southern europeans and jews were not include. it's still uncertain whether latinos are included. some are, perhaps, some aren't. but the meaning of whiteness from the beginning incorporated an idea i call vanguardism, that whites were the vanguard of the human race scientifically, technologically, politically, militarily, aesthetically, philosophically, artistically -- [laughter] right? and that kind of idea that whites are the vanguard, that we are the leaders of the free world, we can teach the world what to do with, you know, how to build democracy is very much, i think, a feature of so-called american exceptionalism. i think it's really a white exceptionalism. what's changed today is that whites can no longer presume that their point of view will go unchallenged. our public cultures are more

diversified than they have ever been so that more and more white people -- because of the demographic changes that are happening, a lot of white people live and work and go to school in majority/minority areas or areas at least in which they hear from the points of view of others who are not white. so -- [laughter] >> oh. [laughter] >> that came down from white command. [laughter] ms. . [applause] >> you know, clearly trump, who is my brethren from new york, queens -- so don't have any illusions about new york city -- he doesn't represent all white people. the xenophobia and racism that he expresses is not uniform across the white population of

places like the united states today. so we have diverse public cultures and more and more white people -- what that means is that more and more white people know how events are going to be seen or might be seen by non-whites and not just by whites. and so there's a kind of double consciousness, i think, or triple or quadruple consciousness in the white population today in which you might tell a joke and then wonder how that might be seen by others, or you with might be aware that a slogan like "make america great again," what does that mean, again, right? be when was it great for african-americans when there were racial quotas on immigration or when there was legal gender discrimination? and more and more white people realize that a slogan like "make america great again" has a particular constituency in mind

and is fudging with the facts of history. and so it's that sense that these things, you know, have different meanings. and we're aware. we're all aware of those different meanings that these slogans have in our neighborhoods and our populations. it means that whiteness, i think, is enfir mate, it's changing sort of like a hundred years ago when southern europeans were let into the club, and there was a lot of ferment going on because some of those brits were not too happy about letting italians and jews into to their country clubs. it took a 50-year, you know, battle to really create a large enough white community that would be inclusive of those other kinds of whites or borderline whites. today we're in similar kind of ferment over what does it mean to be white and not be in charge, what does it mean to be white and not be able to assume

cultural dominance of the oscars or political dominance of the government? what does it mean to be white and be one among others? that's what's going on today. i think it's the elephant in the room of our political electoral debates and events like we saw the other night in chicago. i think there's a lot of avoidance and denial, there's a lot of people who are uncomfortable talking about race who are not sure how to talk about whiteness in a way that doesn't come off as anti-white. that's why i wrote the book, to try to make it safe for us to talk about these issues. and just, if i could say one last thing, i mean, i think the current situation and the demographic challenges that we're facing are causing sort of three elements, three sort of phenomenon. one is this sort of white hysteria and reaction that we see with trump and so forth, but that's not the only phenomena.

the other one is this diversification of the public sphere which is a good thing that so we actually can begin to talk across our communities and come to terms to a better understanding of what is the true history of the united states? how do we incorporate slavery and the annexation of mexico and genocide and all of these things into our collective history many a way that make -- in a way that makes sense for all? but i think the third element that's happening is that the wages of whiteness are falling, right? there's increasing unemployment, lower wages, more precariousness in the work force of even middle class jobs, uncertainty about people being able to keep their homes. the social contract that gave white people an advantage in this country and made them feel like they could have a decent

living and support their families is now under threat. and this is what people like trump are appealing to. they're promising -- he's promising to renegotiate the trade deals and to kick out the mexicans and to keep out the muslims. so he's offering a racist and xenophobic answer to the plight, the real economic plight of white workers and white poor. so i think this gives an opening. there needs to be a response, a counter, a counternarrative to trump that is directed at those large segments of the white population who are experiencing economic threat. but we need a counter-analysis that will show a way out of this without racism or xenophobia that tells a more honest story about how we actually lost that wealth and how they can make

coalition to improve their living conditions for the future. >> linda, what abouting self ab description to whiteness? the only examples you've given us are of people whose whiteness has been endorsed by others. but, i mean, i know you're particular with a lot of cases in the past of people who have ascribed themselves to this category going right back to one of the earliest arabs who traveled to the south of the sahara tells the story of his encounter with a black king who said to him, of course, the trouble with my people is that they don't understand white guys like us, says this thing who's black in the perception of the arab trader who in turn, i suppose, wouldn't be classified as white perhaps by mr. trump. offered himself as a recruit to

this whiteness. and to judge from what we -- i think if i remember rightly, to judge from the way he responded, he was very happy about this. he thought it was great. we've recruited another guy to our side, and hundreds of years later in senegal, a similar case happened when a detachment of british troops arrive with the french empire. the -- [inaudible] is in charge of this black sergeant who said i'm so glad you guys have arrived. although you're english, i'm so really glad to see you, because i've been the only white man here. and until he said that, he hadn't been perceived as a white guy at all. but then again they formed this sort of band together in spite of a very marked difference in their pigmentation. they were very happy to accept him. doesn't that happen -- it

doesn't happen so much now, but how does that fit into your picture? >> well, white is not about pigmentation. it is contextual, so you might be seen in one way in one community and in another way in another community. many latinos and mexican knows experience that. but it's not just about how the individual sees themselves. we could be mistaken about our history and how we actually operate in the social world. it's also about how you're seen by others. right? and sometimes others, you know, can see you better than you can see yourself. but the way others see you is going to have a huge impact on your job prospects and your educational success and so on and so forth. so i think we need both -- attending to the subjectivivity of whiteness but also the objectivity of whiteness. and one thing that's happened in

the last two decades is the wealth of social science research that has empirically measured whiteness so you can really see the structural differences of political power and economic power. and the social psychologists have been showing that there's a different way of interacting. we have -- with other people. that white people often have certain habits and practices just as all groups do that are group-related who we pay attention to, whose books we read, who we attend to, who we take seriously, who we give credibility to and just how we interact, sort of formally and informally. social psychologists can now document this to show even if you think whiteness really doesn't have anything to do with you, you can be operating in the world and interacting with others in a way that fits the pattern. so i think this has to be brought to consciousness so that then we can begin to unravel it

and change it. >> thank you so much. dr. baptist, i was wondering if you could draw on the research from your book to tell us how you think america would look today had slavery not been part of our history. >> so to answer this question i would really like to have lalo's map back. [laughter] that would really be helpful. so do you want me to answer just about the united states? do you want me to assume that the slave trade across the atlantic never happened? >> yeah, that would be great. >> okay. [laughter] all right. because, of course, slavery doesn't just take place in the new world, in the united states. it takes place in the caribbean and south america and every country that exists today in the new world, slavery existed. so if there had been no atlantic slave trade from africa to the new world in the years after 1492, it's certainly possible

that spanish colonization might have gone on for a while. but i think that the settlements in north america would have been a lot less successful. they were the second european incursion into north america, and the first one didn't last, if you know the history of the vikings coming to the new world. they're eventually driven back. and i think something like that would have happened in the new world. there might have been a few colonies that stuck, but the advantages of labor, the advantages of creating colonies that because of slave labor and the production of slave-made commodities made them an attractive site for investment, gave them more opportunities for people who were increasingly defining themselves by their whiteness, right? because this definition of whiteness really emerges in the united states in the context of slavery and the advantages of it. but i think that in the end the english settlements, if they'd taken place at all, would quite

likely have failed. and even if they had lasted for a little while, i think in the broader context without slavery -- and particularly slavery in the caribbean, but even more so in the u.s., ultimately -- i think in the broader context european imperialism would have been a lot less powerful, a lot less lasting of a force in the world. because without cotton slavery in the u.s., i think you don't have the industrial revolution. it's not the only necessary factor for the industrial revolution, but i think it is a crucial factor that removes some of the limiting factors on economic growth, and thus, makes europe and european settler societies like the united states much more powerful. so in the end, i think the map that lalo showed maybe, you know, the mexican wall would have been, you know, even further north and east than you actually saw if there was even any american territory for it to

go into at all. and so most of what we think of as the united states would have continued top dock nateed -- to be dominated by the people who had inhabited it for so long before 1492. >> what about the other side of the picture? what about the effects in africa if there hadn't been a slave trade? >> yeah. i mean, that's an interesting question too, you know? there's a great deal of -- there has been a great deal of debate about the long-term impact, but most of the evidence is that it was profoundly negative. i mean, we know today that the areas in africa where there was the greatest impact from this slave trade are the areas where you have the most distrust of government, the most distrust of other ethnic groups. you have the greatest levels of inter-ethnic violence, and in some of those areas you have significantly high levels of poverty, right? so we don't know how things would have turned out without the slave trade to africa if trade had not happened at all or

if trade had been peaceful rather than primarily violent, devoted to either kidnapping people or convincing africans to kidnap other african people. but i think we can safely guess that the situation would have been better for africans in 2016 if slave trade had never happened. >> my next question is for professor fernandez armesto. >> oh, i was afraid -- [laughter] i was trying to postpone it by asking the questions myself. [laughter] i guess i've got to submit -- >> you can't avoid it. drawing on your book, you explain that the narrative of english colonization that we're familiar with -- >> i'm sorry? >> the narrative of english colonization that we are familiar with has been misleading. could you explain why that is? >> well, i don't think it's necessarily been misleading as a narrative about english colonization, but it's been misleading as a narrative about

how the united states came to be what it is, because it undervalues the contributions of other communities that have contributed to the making of the united states. obviously, it undervalues native americans, it undervalues blacks, it undervalues all the communities who join this country relatively late in its making but who nevertheless refashioned it and reformed it into what it is today. but, i mean, in my book i focus on one really glaring omission in the traditional narrative which is that of the community of european origin which has been in what is now the territory of the united states the longest. and that's the community which is now designated in the census as hispanic.

because spanish -- [inaudible] in the territory of what is now the territory of the united states for a hundred years before anybody spoke english in what are now the limits of the territory of the united states. and people practiced catholicism for a hundred years before anybody practiced protestantism. and people followed laws based on the civil code for a hundred years before anybody introduced the idea of common law. and you can't have a total picture of the making of this country if you only understand it as something made in a white anglo-saxon, protestant image from east to west without taking account of the fact that it's like every fabric, the fabric of the stars and stripes has waft and warp. it's made in multiple directions

with plural contributions. and in particular you can't understand the making of the united states without talking into account the south/north history of that making in which spanish people, hispanics, were the effective force, not just the vanguard. but, i mean, yeah, the makers of the entire story of the south/north history of the making of the united states. >> thank you so much. finally, i'd like to ask ask lalo a question. you've been documenting the political and cultural landscape through your illustrations, and i was wondering if you could comment on race relations in the united states recently. do you think they have improved as our country's become more diverse? have things been stable, or have you seen a situation that's gotten worse? >> oh, they're great. [laughter]

do you want to read my hate mail? [laughter] before the internet i used to get hate mail from white supremacists, and they would actually -- this was, you know, remember mailing letters, they would mail them. and i swear they would write them practically in crayon. [laughter] or very thick pencils. and they were always misspelled or whatever. but they always conveyed the message that, you know, i didn't belong and, you know, i should go back to where i came from, san diego, california. [laughter] and that, so, you know, i really, i get depressed when i look at cartoons sometimes that i drew back in 1992 during -- we had this thing in california called the proposition 187, and it's kind of like the granddaddy law to your s.b. 1070 here.

and it, you know, i could almost take those cartoons, change the date, 2016, and they still apply. i mean, like the xenophobia comes in cycles, you know? we're at a really bad cycle right now, you know? thanks to orange hitler. [laughter] and so, you know, they come and go. so, i mean, i feel, yes, there's more diversity where, you know, brown people are creeping into more establishment places like in hollywood and and in politics, but it's really, really slow. i mean, i'm just happy i made it this long to see at least one of the good cycles come up. but i think it's gotta improve down the road because, yeah, you know, people gotta deal. you know, i remembered this marine recruit that got let go from the marines when he was

spotted on -- at a trump rally screaming and almost hitting this young black protester, you know? and i thought like, you know, i'm not a militaristic guy or anything, but i thought good job, marines. that was a good, sane work decision right there. that guy, that kid was not fit to protect his, what was going to be his diverse, you know, fellow soldiers, you know? i mean, if we could find another, you know, young man better qualified, i'm sure it would be kind of easy. but that's someone that's not ready to play, you know, with the rest of us, you know? so, i mean, that's the reality now. we are diverse, and we know, like, i know i've always been diverse, right? [laughter] i always grew up, you know, i grew up in san diego with asian, black, mexican and white, you

know, people. and it just -- sometimes when i hear comments from some of these zien phobes, i just wonder, you know, did you grow up in a bubble on jupiter? [laughter] you know, we're not, the country's not that 100% white that you have in your imagination. so -- so the answer is, eh. [laughter] >> thank you. dr. alcoff, could you comment on whether there's a lesson that you think can be drawn from your book? what lesson do you wish people would learn after reading your book. >> and i'm speaking specifically on your book, "the future of whiteness," because i know you have several. >> well, i think we have to start talking about it. [laughter] a that's what i'm trying to do, is make it easier for us to talk about our differences. i think the language of universal humanism, the attempted hashtag all lives matter, the attempt to say race

is a thing of the past or postracialism, you know, really are bankrupt methods of dealing, as lalo puts it, with the realities in the united states. so we have to find a way to talk about it. and i think also i'm trying to really think about whites who are struggling in the united states and have long struggled but some who are struggling even more today and not write those people off, not write off the -- in some cases the legions of trump supporters who have been led to believe that he's going to change their situation and improve their economic livelihood. so i think we have to -- the book ends with i try to put in some stories in there, but the book ends with a story of a klansman who was the grand

wizard of the klan in durham, north carolina, for a number of years. he'd been a mill worker, and he'd experienced identity-based discrimination. they were called hillary clintonheads -- lintheads if you worked in a mill. his father died of brown lungs in the '40, and he'd been working since the eighth grade to try to support his family, struggling his whole life. and through the experience of the '60s he came to have a conversion experience x he figureed out that he was on -- he figured out that he was on the wrong side. and he came to realize that african-american kids had it as bad as his own poor white kids did, that he had a lot in common with the poor african-americans of durham, north carolina. and he had the zeal of a convert. when he figured this out, he thought he was going to go to his klan group, and he was going to tell them -- [laughter]

you know, what he'd learned. talk about hate mail or death threats, you know, they wanted to lynch him, right? so he lost -- and what was interesting in this case, his name is c.p -- [inaudible] studs terkel wrote about him, it's a great story to read. but what was interesting about him was that he had really had no place in his society when he was a linthead, right? as a mill worker. he'd felt that he had no place in town, he had no respect from anybody. everybody made fun of him because he dressed poor, and his kids dressed poor, and he saw that they had no place in society. the klan gave him a place. they gave him a uniform that then would hide his poor clothes, they gave him a title, they gave him respect from the political leaders who would call him secretly at night and tell him what was going on. and when he had his conversion and he had to give up his white

supremacist views, he lost his place. he lost his place in the white community of durham, north carolina. and, you know, he didn't exactly have a place in the black community of durham, north carolina, although he developed really strong friendships. but he died, you know, he got a job as a maintenance worker at duke university, joined the union, got elected as shop steward and with a constituent city that was majority african-american at the end of his life. so he -- but he struggled. he converted, he figured out the truth, and then he had no place. and that's what we have to address, and that's what we have to change in this country if we're going to make social progress. nobody's going to be able to do it alone. nobody's going to be able to change the conditions of their own group's economic livelihood alone, not in coalition with others. so we have to find a way to make that coalition even with the white poor and the white

workers. >> can i say something about that? because i'm actually from durham, north carolina. [laughter] >> wow. you know this guy, right? >> i know of him, yeah. i probably have worked with some people who are in the union with him. i grew up in the '70s and '80 in north carolina, in durham, and went to for the most part majority black schools, and most of my teachers were black which is, i think, part of how i ended up writing a book about how slavery shaped american capitalism. if you go back far enough to my early teachers. but i remember an incident in 1979 when i was in, i think, the fourth grade. and in 1979 in greensboro, north carolina, there was an anti-klan rally, and klan and american nazi party members descended upon it. stopped the cars, there were

some confrontations, some shouting, and they went in the trunks of their cars and got out shotguns and rifles. and when they got done shooting, six individuals from the anti-klan march were dead. several of them were from durham. durham had a very active sort of black militant tradition, and some folks had gone over to join this march including the mother of one of the kids in my class. and i believe the march was on the class, and on monday she was back in class. her mother had survived the march, but as you can imagine, she was really upset about the fact that her mother had been shot at. she was so upset, in fact, that she put up a poster from this anti-klan march in the little bathroom that was attached to our classroom to. and this caused one of the students in class, one of the white students to become very angry. and he, he talked to me about it, and he said my father's in the klan, my uncle's in the klan. this girl would be so scared of

them. and i remember thinking, you know, in my 9-year-old head this person is insane. [laughter] and i talked to my parents about it, and i said, well, this is, this is wrong. surely, you know, the people who did the shooting are going to be punished. and, in fact, they were exonerated. they had felt their lives were threatened, you know? sort of an early stand your ground type of ruling. and eventually, they all got off. but i remember this as a very formative event. and i bring it up now to say that, you know, i agree that we have to address the legitimate economic grievances that all americans who aren't part of the top 4 or 5% have, right? because we know that median incomes for most people have not risen in real terms, you know, adjusted for inflation since the

early 1970s while the cost of many other things has gone up in real terms; college education for your kids, a house to live in, the cost of retirement, cost of health care. it's all gone up. we've all got, or most of us have legitimate economic grievances that have to be addressed. but we also have to address racial and political violence. we have to address it. and we have to, we have to do so because otherwise we cannot actually solve the problems that we have. we can't solve them together. and that's what's particularly frightening about this moment. today in talking points memo, i don't know if you read this, a great sort of open source reporting site, josh marshall wrote: somebody's going to be killed at a trump rally, it's just a matter of time. and that poisons our discourse. it poisons our ability to come together and actually solve our problems. and this is not to disagree with anything that professor alcoff

said, but to remind us we have to say no to this kind of political violence. >> at this time we're going to start taking questions from the audience, so if anybody has a question for any of our panelists, you can make your way up to the microphone on either side. yeah, please. you can just line up at the microphones. thanks. >> my name's mike -- and i would like to give you my personal thanks for being here and letting me learn a bit more about race in america. i thought i knew quite a bit. i'm a '60s child and have been happily married to an african-american woman for 49 years, so i paid my dues, we've paid ours. and, again, i want to thank you for being here. i want to read a list of names.

henry louis gates, belle hook, cornel west, ta hi city coats, eric holder, congressman watt, congressman lewis, jesse jackson, toni morrison. that's only a partial list that i brainstormed for a couple minutes. the reason i'm reading the list is to ask you a question. how come they're not here? [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> well, as a person who arranged and invited all the authors -- i'm just kidding. [laughter] good question. >> [inaudible] because as an author of nine novels and a memoir, i've just written an article for poets and writers which hasn't been published yet, it will be

published, saying how exhausted i am, how totally exhausted i am that every time i have to go from the bottom to try to pull myself up. see, i'm a writer. i'm going to write the best book. the publishing industry is totally white. and, i mean, on every aspect of it. the publisher, the editor, the agent, the marketing person, the distributer. i go very often to big literary organizations and see all these people from the publishing industry, and you can count op one hand the people of color. now, if these are the gatekeepers of books just right here, i've within here for -- i've been here for two days just going around, i can see the result of it. how then do you learn about the black experience? how then are you exposed to the black experience?

i mean, bernie sanders, i'm not -- i mean, he's a well-intentioned man. but to make the mistake to think of african-americans only living in the ghetto is not his particular problem, it's the problem because we don't have access to the likes of or we don't know about the black experience. we have these stereotypes running around even in the best-intentioned people. so that i find myself, i'm a distinguished professor at hunter college, the city university of new york. i have a ph.d.. i have written many, many scholarly books as well as novels. but every time i go to pick up my granddaughter from her school, the parents, the teachers, everybody thinks i'm her nanny. so i have taken to using props. i was telling a friend of mine how humiliating it is that i -- she's there now for her fourth year, that i go there with

props. "the new york times." [laughter] well, if i'm reading the new york times, i'm not a nanny. or i go with a prop, the new yorker. well, if i'm reading the new yorker, i'm not a nanny. [laughter] or i go correcting papers. but the minute i put those things down, those props down, i'm a nanny. >> thank you so much. would any of our panelists like to comment on your own experiences, especially with diversity in publishing? [applause] >> i'd just like to say that i've never been handed the keys to valet park a car while i was at any place in the hood or the barrio, but in beverly hills it's happened a couple times. [laughter] i mean, but we all -- you know, mexican-americans, chicanos and latinos, i've -- every, you know, i know every male has that experience of either being

handed the keys to park a car or being asked if you're the gardener of this beautiful home, how much do you charge, you know? they're, like, cliches. we have all those stories. and latinos, i think, sometimes, you know, go shopping -- i did a comic strip about this where my female character goes shopping and, you know, every white lady's asking her could you help me with that? would you help me with this? where's the restroom? >> do you mind that? i mean, i just have a slight ang ang -- anxiety that there's a tendency -- i detect a tendency here to substitute a discourse of class for one of race. i mean, i'd be very proud to be mistaken for a nanny. [laughter] because it represents attainment in a skill set which i know is beyond my competence.

[laughter] i wish i could do it, you know? and it's the same, i mean, if somebody -- >> i could see you -- >> hands me the keys of their chevrolet, i'd be -- [inaudible] let me park that car. [laughter] i kind of think, i mean, i absolutely sympathize with the question, and my -- i kind of wish that i could share these deprivations and these humiliations, although i've, you know, suffered plenty of my own -- [inaudible conversations] is to substitute a discourse of class and one of race. >> [inaudible] if you're perceived as a nanny, a black nanny, there are treatments that --

[inaudible] you can't imagine it. you can't imagine what humiliation it is every time to say to yourself -- [inaudible] i have achieved -- [inaudible] you have no idea. [applause] >> that is, that is -- that's the result of being mistaken for a nanny. see, i think that's a result at least as much of class prejudice as race prejudice -- >> but, but -- >> and i just want us to be aware that there are two problems here. both of which we have to address, and we mustn't take refuge in class prejudice as an escape route from race prejudice. both kinds are extremely deleterious to the dignity of the individual, and we should resist them both. >> well, i think they're connected. to be seen as a nanny is a

segment of the labor force that's both racialized and has a class identity both. but i think don't put so much weight on the examples. i think the issue is that you're seen as not necessarily having a ph.d. when you stand in front of a college classroom, that you're seen as not having as smart an argument when you give a paper at your scholarly conference. so the implicit bias that works on the basis of racism, class and gender and other vectors of identity undermines our, the perception of the merit of our work and the quality of our ideas on a daily basis. and has to be addressed in a serious way. [applause] >> let's take another question. we'll go here and then go back in the back. >> hi. my name's john, native californian. live in the san francisco bay area. one thing i wanted to ask can the panel or get their comments

on, we have tremendous asian diversification happening in california and, of course, on the west coast. and even in our high school district we see more and more like students are being encouraged when the german teachers retire, they now have imagined run they're teaching besides spanish, of course. and the impact is becoming higher and higher for someone, a professional in the 21st century to learn mandarin also. thank you. i'll take my answer from the floor. thank you. >> does anyone want to comment on -- [inaudible] >> well, as the only mandarin speaker up here -- i'm just kidding. [laughter] >> well, let me just say one thing. i mean, i think we devalue spanish vis-a-vis french or

german, because i work in philosophy, and if you come into the classroom with a french accept or a german accent, students strain to understand what you're saying and give you enormous amount of credit. but if you come in with a caribbean or spanish accent, forget about it. you get bad evaluation withs. clearly, it's an advantage to have more than one language for every language, and we have to stop ranking the hierarchies of languages that are worth having and those that aren't worth having. >> thank you. [applause] >> my name is mike, and i guess my comment is -- question my conversation level. welcome to tucson which you call tucson. i say that, i say that as a public comment that this is --

[inaudible] because if we x this is where my chicano brothers and sisters, we need to revisit that. because aslan is a form of colonialism. you name it, you claim it. and i think that we, you know, i've had this discussion, and quick news law has to revisit and challenge four decades of chicanese law. this is our land. this isn't -- [inaudible] because if we agree that this is aslan, as one of your maps shows, what does that say about

us? as native people -- [applause] >> no, no, no. the map doesn't show that at all. the map reflects the borders of the spanish monarchy -- >> i'm talking, sir. sir. may i finish? >> has no borders. it's a completely mythical and -- >> may i finish? thank you. this is the form of imperialism that i'm talking about. he sees the color of my skin. >> no, no, it's a -- [inaudible] >> -- intellectual superiority, obviously. respectfully, we can disagree. but i think we have to have that discussion. mi hermano. >> i agree, and i'm down. [applause] i also agree that, yeah, that that was not intended to be the map of aslan. it was -- the conversation in the cartoon and the one that trump has been making is the one

between the international relations between u.s. and mexico. as they are. i mean, we can have a discussion all day long about whether mexico should exist, you know? because there's a lot of indigenous nations there that have, obviously, been colonized, whatever. so it's a snapshot. it was not aslan. >> and forgive me, but i do have to respond to the gentleman's accusation that i'm an imperialist and that i have a particular perception of the color of his skin. one doesn't advance dialogue by uttering those kinds of childish insults. and when you make a mistake and you are corrected, that is not imperialism, that's a promotion of rational discourse. because unless we have our discussions on the basis of fact, we will never get anywhere. [applause] >> we'll take the next question from this woman right here. >> hi, thank you very much. >> you're welcome.

>> lalo, you're so cool. [laughter] actually, i want to thank all of you on the panel. i'm the daughter of -- [inaudible] and to those that don't know what that is, that's when my father was invited to come to the united states to work. his hands were hired. so fell in love with a beautiful woman in arizona. they went to colorado. they worked on thed are. my mom created the very first potato chip. what i'm saying is i'm also a documentary filmmaker. and what i find really disgusting is the type of moves that we have today -- movies that we have today. i was an independent producer for nbc in denver for about 12, almost 15 years. our stories were special stories about community, they were about art, culture, language, politics, sports, and it was done through a coalition through that time through the chicano movement when they were saying,

look, we don't have any representation here, media, television, film, theater, art, all of that. that was in the late '60s, '70s. i'm 65 years old, and i'm still trying to get my documentaries on the film circuit or in television even though i produce many on t. but what i'm finding is social media, i produced one story and had 11,000 hits within three days. so what is wrong with media? lalo, i mean, you're on tv, and i think what helps a lot of people in this country is actually two things, i think, music and humor. when we can laugh at each other, when we can laugh with each other, i think that's the most powerful medicine here. and i'd really like to applaud your -- and i'd like for you maybe to just discuss a little bit about your, what you were discussing at the other, you know, the whole idea of humor and how we look at each other and we make fun of it, but we love it at the same time.

so can you -- not taking too much time. >> we have about a minute left, so if you want to comment, that would be wonderful. >> you know what? i'm going to reduce that to a plug and say if you want to see some political satire that's current, funny, vital, smart, watch my show that i work on called "border town "on -- tonight at 7:00 on fox. it's the funniest animated show you're going to see. >> all right. thank you. and, unfortunately, we are going to have to end this session now. i just want to thank all of our panelists today for participating. [applause] and do not forget to become a friend of the festival to insure that our festival remains a free event. mr.all audience members are askd to, please, continue on with your day and vacate this venue. thank you very much. [inaudible conversations]

>> and you're watching booktv on c-span2 live from the tucson festival of bookings on the campus of the university of arizona. now, if you've been watching that last panel, we want to get your reaction to it. the numbers are up on the screen, so you can dial in, and one of the panelists, felipe fernandez-armesto, will be joining us to take your calls following that panel in just a few minutes. we've got a couple more hours of live coverage. the next author panel in about a half an hour will be on politics, and then a final call-in talking about independent voters and the importance of independent voters. so that's what's coming up this

afternoon from tucson. you want to see some behind-the-scenes photos, etc., you can follow us on twitter @booktv is our twitter handle or follow us on facebook as well, and that's facebook.com/booktv. and now joining us is author felipe fernandez-armesto. "our america is hispanic: history of the united states," is his book. professor, first of all, what's your reaction to the panel and the audience interaction? >> guest: oh, well, thank you very much. well, obviously, on journalism you want conflict, so i did my best to provide it. you know, i hope the event wasn't too erudite. it was very frustrating as large panels with big audiences always were because people can't get a chance to ask the questions, so i'm so pleased that you've given me a chance to answer questions from viewers now.

that will be great. that will help to make up for the lack of time that these panels inevitably involve. >> host: but there seemed to be a conflict between the audience and some of the statementses from the panel. >> guest: i think i was the only person who provoked any such reaction. [laughter] and that was because i corrected an error or in a question. you know, there's a terrible tendency now, sort of a postmodern feebleness which makes people think that it's kind of rude to put people right when they make a mistake. it's actually the kindest thing you can do. because if you leave people in ignorance, then, you know, you get, you get peanuts back. and ignorance is one of the, you know, things that's distorting american politics at the moment. and it's the feebleness commentators and presidential

candidates challenging some of the factual errors and the platforms of a particular caught whom i won't mention because i don't want to swamp your switchboards with one kind of call. [laughter] unless you challenge ignorance and try to advance the debate on the basis of fact, you're never going to get -- anyway, i think we've got to get much more robust. we've become feeble in recent years in being willing to tell people, no, that's wrong. here are the facts, let's start with the facts and go on from there. >> host: well, in your book, "our america," you write that in order to know our future we have to rethink our past. particularly when it comes to latino america. >> it's really important for america. i have to tell you because i'm, you know, a weird foreigner with a strange accent that i'm really grateful and proud, you know, to be able to work in the united states. and i know the country's got a

lot of problems, we've got a lot of stuff to fix. but i think the contribution of america to the world has been on balance really phenomenal. and i want to go on seeing that happen. i want to go on seeing a great america doing a lot of good stuff for the rest of the world. but in order to do that, you have to be strong, you have to be prosperous. and in order to be strong and prosperous, you've got to collaborate with your neighbors throughout the hemisphere. because why is america great? why have we become the great world power that it became in the late 19th and early 20th century? you had such a big population, you had so much muscle power, you had so many resources underground, particularly the end of the 19th century. and because you had so many resources on the surface, you had great american prairies which were turned in the 19th century to the bread basket of

the world. it's that resource space that elevated america to greatness. and you've used all that stuff up pretty much, and where are all the resources in this hemisphere which are going to do in the 21st century what those resources did for the united states in the 19th? well, now, you know, they're in the canadian arctic, the canadian oil sands, am sonya and the chilean and argentine january, antarctic. you've got to collaborate with those guys on the mutual respect and quality if you're going to sustain the greatness of the united states in the future. and in demographic terms, you've got to welcome and accept the fact that you need a lot of immigrant labor. the indigenous population of the united states is not capable of reproducing naturally without adding immigrant labor at successive stages whenever you're in a sufficient economic position to absorb them. you absolutely need them because if you don't have them, you're going to lose ground to

demographics in more buoyant societies and competitors in china, india, brazil, even in a different way the european union. it's because i want a great america that i want an open, welcoming, friendly and accepting america which values its neighbors including especially its hispanic neighbors. >> host: do you think that we take for granted our southern neighbors? >> guest: i'm so sorry? >> host: do you think we take for granted our southern neighbors? >> guest: yeah. well, it's worse than that. i think you are still locked -- i think many americans, and i don't want to take mr. trump's name in vain here. but i think there are a lot of americans that haven't adjusted to the fact that we're in the post-american century. america is no longer, you know, the global muscleman, the hegemon who can just boss everybody else around. and the rest of the americas are no longer uncle sam's backyard.

they're potential friends who can be, i don't know, kind of mobilized on behalf of a common hem sneeric enterprise if the united states treats them right and welcomes them in a decent and equal fashion to the table. >> host: well, our viewers have been listening to the possible it's last -- to the panel for the last hour. let's take some questions for professor fe be -- philippe per man december armesto, and the first call comes from victor in dallas, texas. hi, victor, you're on the air. go ahead. >> caller: hi, i'm from dallas, texas -- >> guest: hi, victor. >> caller: hi, how you doing? my question is because, you know, i'm mexican-american, and, you know, i kind of feel like a lot of my fellow mexican-americans, we kind of feel alienated in the united

states especially here in texas because, you know, a lot of the white people here they feel like, you know, they're native, that they're the dominant race. and it's kind of like, for me, my question to you is, you know, do you really think they should respect us? because every day we're walking around, and i'm dark as can be, you know, i look more native american than anything, and i know i've got the blood in me, but i'm starting to see my brothers and sisters, and they're saying that they're white. i'm like, man, y'all need to be smarter, because that's kind of ignorant to say that you're white when you're dark-skinned. so i was just wondering do they really need -- gfd. >> guest: yeah, sure, victor. >> host: go ahead. >> guest: no, thank you very much for the question, it's a really important one. and i mean, obviously, everybody should respect everybody, the basic answer, how people classify you, everybody should respect everybody else on the basis of common humanity, and nerve the same country -- and everybody in the same country

and the same state should collaborate with everybody in the common interests, and it's very sad they don't always do so. but i guess the best recommendation i can make for your personal predicament as a mexican-american in texas is you've got to be frank with people. you've got to put them right when they're wrong x you've got to remind them that texas was part of the spanish monarchy and the mexican republic long before it became part of the united states, that spanish-speaking people, people whom we would now call mexicans were living in texas long before there were any anglos there, that when you say that, you're not claiming that it's your country, you're just saying that it's our country, it's the country that both the anglo and the hispanic communities, together with all the others -- especially, of course, the native americans, everybody -- that they all got, you know, a genuine state in the -- stake in the place. and the best way to advance the progress of texas is for them to

collaborate together. i'll tell you a story of my first visit to texas. i went to austin to give a talk at the university, and afterwards, you know, it was a kind of drinks reception i was throwing for some of the faculty there. and a young man tells me i was mexican and, of course, you know, i fell into the trap. i asked him, oh, great, you know, how long has your family been here? he said, oh, well, we came around 1747. and that's the kind of experience that you've got to share with your neighbors who don't appreciate the length, the importance, the profundity and the contribution which hispanic people, mexicans have made to the making of texas and, by extension, to the united states. keep, you know, harping on about that point, and maybe it'll get through a few thick skulls. >> host: professor, your name is felipe fernandez armesto. what is your heritage?

>> guest: i'm spanish. >> host: and when you say spanish, you mean spain. >> guest: spain, yes. >> host: next call for our guest is from wynn in mount pleasant, tennessee. good afternoon. go ahead. >> caller: hi. i just want to thank him -- oh, hi. i just want to thank you for your speech and stuff, but i got a little upset early when the guy was speaking to you, and i think you didn't understand him right. i'm african-american from the state of tennessee, and we love everybody in tennessee, you know? we're not like the rest of america, you know? we get talked about the worst because we was in the civil war, and we were on both sides. just our heritage -- [laughter] we're proud to be tennessean. >> guest: yeah. >> caller: i just want to see better relationships between the hispanic people and the white people because i don't think, i

don't think african-americans having a problem with hispanics at all. but we don't see, sometimes hispanics treat us like we're nobody, but we're not the enemy. we're not trying to get rid of 'em or anything, you know? we just want to love each other and get along. >> guest: well, i'm glad to hear you say that, wynn. that's great. so, no. of course, the trouble is as we heard from victor that people don't always have experiences that reflect those feelings in some of your fellow citizens. and, you know, i hope you'll continue to do your bit to encourage everybody to treat each other right. i think we should stop classifying each other in these -- i don't know why people, you know, want to call themselves white or black or latino. i mean, these things really don't matter. we shouldn't need to identify with that kind of

self-description in order to have a useful place in the country. i think the important thing in america is are you making a contribution, and are you trying to do your best, are you trying to live consistently with american values and realize the american dream not only for yourself, but for all of your fellow citizens? not self-classifying themselves into mutually rival, mutually hostile groups. i think that would be -- if we could only achieve that, that would be a great step towards civil piece -- >> host: as you can see, our viewers were watching that panel rather closely. ronald's calling in from eureka, california. go ahead, ronald. >> caller: yes, hi. you mentioned about class. i just wondered if you know about this gentleman named david eid can e from england. >> guest: sure, ronald, i do know -- >> host: what do you want to comment on, ronald?

>> caller: i would say he's a working class guy. he says that the royal families of europe actually have lizard-like blood. what do you think of the theory -- are you connected with the royal families of europe at all? >> guest: well, not by blood. [laughter] and i didn't know that david had said that. but he is, i think, the mildest word one could use about david is he is a great eccentric. i think it might be a waste of time to try to make sense of the stuff that he says. >> host: is he a historian or a commentator? >> guest: no, no. he's the, he's a kind of cult leader. [laughter] i mean, i'm probably going to get the whole network into trouble by saying he's a failed cult leader, because he may be able to point to some minor success which makes that a libelous statement. no, he's, i don't know, i

think -- i wouldn't say this myself, of course -- say this myself, of course, but i guess most people would say he's a crazy guy. i gets the serious point behind ronald's question is about the republican ethos of the united states. i know that's really kind of the subtext of your question, ronald. but if it is, the way you choose your head of government there are lots of good ways of choosing your head of state. and monikers choose it by a common method which is called he ready. only here you do it by election, and that's great in principle. but the if you look at the way the primaries are going now, i'm not sure that you would say it's necessarily all always the best system. but in some societies, you know, we've had traditional monarchies, the it's a perfectly workable and very often highly

positive way of choosing the head of state because it mean that is the head of state doesn't have to engage in election nearing, doesn't have to appeal to the common denominator, can rise above the political fray. and on the rare to occasions when the monarch has to make a political decision, can do that in perfect freedom and obedience to the constitution and to his or her conscience alone and without being beholden to anybody, the plutocrats or the electors. >> host: next call for our guest, felipe fernandez-armesto whose book is called "our america: a hispanic history of the united states," maria's calling in from bonita, california. maria, go ahead. >> caller: hello? >> host: hi, maria. >> guest: hi, maria. >> caller: hi. actually, i'm from boulder, colorado. i'm from boulder, colorado.

>> host: i apologize. >> caller: okay. so i find the title of your book very interesting. i'm probably going to buy it. i'm a descendant -- >> guest: thank you very much. that's very kind. [laughter] >> caller: yeah. i'm a descendant of some of the early spaniards that arrived in what is now new mexico, you know, the santa fe area/taos area. but i was the first born in colorado. all of my, my mother, father, grandparents and great grandparents, etc., were born in new mexico when it was still part of spain. and so when i was in elementary school, i could never figure out how it is that, you know, where i came from or where my ancestors came from, because it wasn't in history books.

i just learned about pilgrims in plymouth rock. and i knew that we, you know, that my family had not migrated across the united states and ended up being in new mexico or colorado. so it wasn't until really, i mean, until i became an adult that i started learning about -- well, although i had oral history, you know, from my family -- >> host: maria, i apologize. can you bring this to a conclusion? we've got a lot of callers on the line. >> caller: yes. so actually, i just wanted to thank you. i am going to get your book, and i'm assume toking that there's a lot of -- assuming that there's a lot of early history of spaniards arriving in what's now mexico and then coming up the coronado trail and stuff, is that correct? >> guest: yes. well, it's a great privilege to speak to you, maria. you know, it's a treat, you know, to be talking to somebody

whose ancestors who have been here a long time because you exemplify the thesis of my book, you're the living proof that this hispanic past has a long history of making a contribution to the united states which goes back way before the anglo contribution began. and i don't say that to belittle the anglo contribution. united states, the culture of this country has been predominantly forged on the basis of models of english origin. but the contribution of the people who have made the country has been fundamental in the south, north since our contribution made by your ancestors and other people like them. so that's, yeah, that's what the book's about, and you exemplify it perfectly, so i'm very pleased you called in. thank you. >> host: professor, what is the drawing on the front of your book? >> guest: i'm sorry? >> host: what is the drawing on the front of your book? >> guest: well, it's meant to represent the diverse, teeming

character of the hispanic presence in the united states and also to hint at its religious culture which is historically predominantly catholic, although there are lots of latinos -- [inaudible] >> host: john is in san francisco. john, good afternoon. >> caller: hello, c-span, felipe. pleasure to talk with you. >> guest: hi there. >> caller: i, probably like a lot of people, have been very upset about the recent trend and, you know, past trends of somewhat demonizing people south of the border. and as you've touched on before with the first caller from texas is, like a friend of mine said, there are a lot of people of hispanic heritage where as my friend said, we didn't move over the border, the border moved over us. so in light of that, it seems

that a lot of americans are under the misapprehension that all mexicans want to do is become americans. and i think that a lot of their problems and the reason they want to come to the united states is economically based, it's not based on the fact that today want to be americans. -- they want to be americans. if they had, you know, like so many people across the world that migrate places, they wouldn't leave their place unless they had to. most people. so my question to you -- >> guest: yeah, sure. >> caller: -- if we, i like your approach on history. if americans understood the history better, i think that there'd be less antagonism. and here is a little proposal, see what you think of it. what if we were to more or less open the borders which are, by bilateral treaty. let's say if you were in mexico and you wanted to work in the united states, let's say you paid $2,000 a year just like a visa, you pay for that work

visa, you come to the united states, you're completely legal, you get a social security number, then there's no -- and it would, in a sense, force those people who are illegally here, if they had a way out where they just said, hey, if i pay my $20,000 a year, and -- $2,000 a year, and that would in a sense go to -- and then if i'm an american and i want to go to mexico to work, i pay my $2,000 like a bilateral type of arrangement, and no -- a lot of the mexicans that come here, they come here and want to become citizens because they can't go back and forth through the border. so in a sense, back in the '30s -- >> host: all right, john, a lot there on the table. a lot there on the table. professor? >> guest: yeah, sure. well, thank you as very much. again, a really important question. i think in the first place it's slightly deceiving to talk about the border passing over mexicans because a lot more than that

happened when anglos took over the parts of the country that were already populated by hispanic people. you know, there was a tremendous lot of persecution and expropriation which is, generated a lot of tragic stories which are in my book and are, i think, a part of the background of the antagonism that you describe and you rightly deplore. i think you're absolutely right. but the driving force behind the recent history of cross-border migration is economic. sometimes, you know, in the history of migration it's impelled by some disaster back in the migrant's homeland. we're having a big phenomenon of that in europe where there's a huge kind of pushback to driving migrants, refugees. but normally, i mean, normally in the history of migration it's pulled, it's pushed. it's induced. it's drawn, not driven. and it's drawn, as you rightly

say, by economic disparities. so, you know, two things that might endue about this. i mean, i appreciate your idea about creating a new kind of path to citizenship. i think there's a big consensus in this country in favor of creating a path to citizenship for imperfectly-documented migrants. obviously, in the long run there are two things that can obviously help. the first is more economic equality across the border: as the rest of the americas grow richer, those economic disparities will disappear, and you'll cease soft a migrant problem. -- cease to have a migrant problem. i think the other thing that might help is that people in the united states -- you're right to say that they need to understand the history, and that will happen. but if they also understand the economics, if they understand that migrants come to this country in order to fill jobs, jobs that people in the united states need to be filled, if they understand that what brings migrants here is demand for labor and that whenever the

economy is in recession, the migration figures go down can, if people could understand that, i think they'd be much more willing to understand there's always a time lag and that they've got a case with a certain surplus of underemployed immigrants when the economic cycle undergoes -- i think people need to understand the economics as well as the history and then, you know, a lot of the tensions -- well, they won't vanish because many are irrational anyway, but at least they'll diminish. >> host: nancy is in georgia. what do you think of our conversation so far, and what do you want to say? >> caller: good evening. i've been enjoying this. this is cool, because i thought it was very ironic that this gentleman says he has spanish heritage, but he's got a british accent. and i think it's really funny that people who live on an island would tell -- and have dominated the world for so long would tell somebody else how to get along with their neighbors, especially after the way australia was founded with

prisoners, which is something that has been alleged recently in -- >> guest: a health care, sure. nancy, you're not going to blame me for that. [laughter] yeah. it's nothing to do with me. >> caller: and i was also intrigued by what you had to say about the arctic oil. i'm a jeffersonian, and -- >> guest: i missed that, forgive me. >> host: she's a jeffersonian. >> caller: the number one stockholder of british petroleum which is elizabeth of windsor. do you know what gandhi said about the british after they left india? he said -- >> guest: well, of course, yes. [inaudible] >> caller: he said we just wanted to bring you to your -- [inaudible] [laughter] but thank you. >> host: all right. professor, what do you want to say -- >> guest: well, i'm not going to vindicate the british empire. it is, the british and the spanish both are curious cases

of people whose influence in the world has been hugely disproportionate to their numbers. and those british, you know, they really are a dangerous bunch of guys. they had an empire in the 12th century which they lost in the 13th, they built another in the 14th which they lost in the 15th. in the 17th century they built an empire in the united states that they lost in the 18th. if they leave the european union, we should all watch out. [laughter] i sympathize with nancy's anxiety about the british. >> host: professor fernandez-armesto, your previous book is called "1492: the year the world began." what do you mean by that? >> guest: well, i mean that the world we live in now, the world we now inhabit has critical -- i mean, we think of it as being made by, you know, the industrial revolution and nationalism, a lot of 19th century stuff. but really critical things are what made the world we live in

now; the environment, global warming environment, the ecological, global eke cloj call environment which we have the same crops the same life forms, the same diseases all across the world, and a world of states which was formed as a result of imperialism, a globalization of trade and economic interdependency which began with the reforging of communications between cultures across the continents separated by oceans. all of those things, all those huge changes that we don't often take into account when we try to understand what -- [inaudible] can be traced back to 1492 or thrash, and i chose 1492 because that's when columbus came to america and began a continuous history of trans-atlantic

communication and really the modern world taking shape around that atlantic axis which came very suddenly to being in that year and also in 1493 columbus started the ecological exchange which reversed millions of years of evolution because it introduced instead of the divergent model in which you get different life forms in different parts of the world, since then we've had a convergent model in which you get, ultimately, the same life forms all across the globe. and it's very rare in history for such huge changes to be traceable to a single year or just a couple of years. so that's why i called it the year the world began. >> host: and kathleen in long island, you are the last call. go ahead, kathleen. welcome oh, okay. well, thank you very much. i loved the whole program today. i was going to also comment on some things that are obvious like felipe has the british accent, and he is from spain,

and we had the mexican caller earlier, mexican-american who has a southern accent. and i am, like, from new york area, i probably have a bit of a new york accent. and just, you know, we're all a reflection of where we're raised, and there is cultural diversity. i guess we should have an appreciation, is what i think, for cultural diversity and economic equality instead of seeming to have in this other or the maybe powers that be somehow want economic diversity or disparity, you know? difference. and cultural to be the same across the whole country. >> host: all right. we're going to have to leave it there because we're out of time. professor, if we could hear the last word from you. >> guest: well, thank you very much, kathleen. you didn't tell us much about yourself, but you're right. i mean, i think if one does have a very diverse cultural

experience, it kind of helps. it puts all these questions we've been discussing today boo perspective. and as, you know, a spaniard -- and, actually, you mentioned where you were brought up as being crucial. i was, of course, brought up in england, that's why i speak the way i do. my mother-in-law, god rest her soul, who traveled in spain with me, in spain i become equally unconvincingly spanish. i kind of belong nowhere. you can appreciate the kinds of dilemmas of cultural identity that we've been, that we've been talking about. not everybody has the advantage of that experience, but everybody, you know, can take advantage of the opportunity to learn the facts and start from there in constructing a better, more amicable, more peaceful and more collaborative teacher. >> host: and the book is called "our america: a hispanic history of the united states." the author is notre dame

professor felipe fernandez-armesto. ..

>> so glad to be able to moderate and be invited to do so. we want to thank c-span, which is actually broadcasting this panel live as we speak and also book tv and cox communication for sponsorship of the venue. the presentation will probably last about an hour and the last 15 or 20 minutes we will reserve for questions and answers from our panel and i know you've probably all have questions and even more after you've listened to this very distinguished group of panelists but we ask you to hold your questions and make sure we give 20 minutes to your question. right after the session, the panelists will be available to sign or autograph their books and their books, of course, on

sale, you go for that booth 153 which is sponsored by the university of arizona bookstore. the books as i said will be available on that location. if you like to meet all of the panelists, interview with c-span following with c-span so she will be late, but hold on, she will be there in due course, and because i think owe are all enjoying the festival, i assume you are. [cheers and applause] >> it's one of the real treasures that we have here in tucson and i just want to acknowledge, i think he's still in the room, bill binder was here a minute ago. where is he? [applause] >> there he is. bill, bill and brenda are just the critical players in making this event happen with lots of volunteers and other members in

steering committee and she had acknowledged the great work that they have done and because you are here and enjoying the sessions and the whole event, that you will be a member of the friends of the festival program, you can make a tax deductible donation which allowed the programming to go on, free of charge to the public and my phone is ringing, of course. next warning is turning off the cell phones. [laughter] >> it's donald trump calling in. >> he heard that we were having a civil discussion and decided to disrupt it. >> unlike meet the press, we are going to go on with the program. >> well, that was timing and let me finish, though, about the friends of the festival program

if you make a tax deductible donation will allow the fest call continue without charging the public and as you probably know the festival donates literally thousands and thousands of dollars to local charities and that's another reason that hopefully you will donate. to do so and become a friend in person, student union ballroom where you can go to the website for the festival. so now the warning which i was going to -- should have given myself, out of respect for everyone in the audience and panelists, please turn off your phone, if you have it put it on vibrate or turn it off for the duration. now it's my honor and pleasure to introduce our panelists and to have this discussion start. first of all, next to see me is ark ry burman. he's a political correspondent for the nation and he has

written articles in a variety of outlets with magazines, rolling stones and new york times and you may have heard him, someone heard him on mpr. sitting next to him is john nichols, john is -- is coming back to the festival. he was here last year and i was able to be a moderator for his panel too. john is correspondent, reporter, rather, and a writer with many, many publications and the one we will be discussing today, people get ready, you may have heard of the song and this is essential very provocative book about where we are in the democracy. lastly, samara clark. >> you got it. >> she coached me on how to pronounce the name. assistant pss