steak and who is in charge? [laughter] that's when the wheels fell off the wagon. the first segment was pretty good. the second was not so good. but it is fine. i don't really care but was a micro problem. if all goes on in this country everyday. when the left tries to shut down the right. you are not allowed to speak. you're not allowed to say something that is pro- trump, pro- american, pro- american flag, pro- law and order, anticrime, i don't know what happened. what happened to america? my father, a veteran of world war two, he was on the first shift to sake, he sold the bloom. he died very young. he had cancer. my grandfather was in world war two also. we believe in america and we believe in the flight.

we believe that no one is above the law. no one is below the law. >> good you can watch this and other programs online. booktv.org. >> beginning now, it's booktv's coverage of the texas book festival from earlier today. others discussed education, journalism, border suppression, economics and more. first up, a conversation about undocumented immigrants. >> thank you all for joining me. to celebrate these incredible books, a dream called home and dear america. think of a more urgent time for these books as our president that needs to take the

step of imposing the border. i'm going to introduce our authors. she's the author of the best-selling memoir. it's much anticipated sequels, i dream called home. other works include the novels across 100 mountains, and dancing with butterflies. she is the recipient of an american award, aet literary awd and in 2015, she was honored with an award with distinction in the tino literature. originally from mexico, she was nine years old when she crossed the border as an undocumented immigrant. to her work, she advocates for the immigrant community and hopes to change hearts andhe mis one at a time. a [applause]

is a prize-winning journalist. a leading voice for human rights immigrants. she is the founder and ceo of define american. the nations leading media and culture might organization. injustice and immigrant, power of storytelling. she's a reporter at the washington post, the huffington post, "the san francisco chronicle" and other meeting publication. she has produced and directed documented an automatic -- documentary that aired on cnn. hour-long special on what it means to be young and white and changing america. currently subject to deportation at any time, she has no permanent residence. welcome here. [applause]

i will be a moderator, i'm jean, investigator reporteril covering immigration media. my quest is to understand my father. josé, your books are truly revolutionary. america that has long rejected you. what is it mean to be undocumented in hison america? to force america to reckon with your existence by creating your own trail of documents. >> thank you so much. i'm going to say that my experience was different from his experience because when i came here, i knew i was undocumented. you didn't. i knew i wasn't documented because my father took me and my siblings to the border and he told us that we didn't have permission to come so we were breaking the law.

that was the only way that we could be together as a family since my father had left us in mexico for eight years. he had finally come back for us. so when i crossed the border as a nine and a a half-year-old, i knew i was receive my life, knew i was breaking the law but i also knew that the stakes were very high. it was not so much losing my life but losing my chance to have my father. when we came to l.a. and we were leaving here's every day of my life, i knew that we were not supposed to be here. that we were not wanted here. my experience a lot of rejection, especially in my school, and the community in which i live, was very difficult. to know that at any moment we could be deported. and we could be separated again as a family. so those were five years when we

were undocumented and it was a very traumatic moment for us. also, different from your experience, was that when i became a teenager, that's when we finally got our green card. when you became a teen, it came up that your undocumented. for me, from the moment i was 15 years old, i no longer have to be afraid. i wasn't living my life in fear after that. it was such a relief to know that finally i could start to build a future. to think of a future as a possibility, not just as something that could be taken away from me at anytime. by giving the opportunity to live a life my status, i was able to spend really going forward for all the dreams i had

for myself. it included higher education, having a career and being a working professional one day. so these are some of the things that i was able to do once i got my legal status. but for sure, i want to say that those five years of being undocumented was automatic that this is why i'm always writing about that experience of being here and feeling rejected and feeling homeless. emotionally. homeless as well. in terms of feeling bad that i didn't belong and that i wasn't enough, no matter how hard i tried. i couldn't be american enough. you heard about -- >> you heard dn about not findig yourself even after becoming a citizen. >> one of the things i do like to do in my writing, i like writing about this experience of

being an emigrant and being undocumented because i was growing up here, i always felt invisible especially in the books that i was giving them at school. i could never relate to any of those books. i would often ask myself, where my? where i might in these stories? why don't i exist in literature? it's in the immigrant experience part of the american experiencee and its if so, why am i as an immigrant, not reflected in the stories? now as a writer, that's what i have in the books i try to write because i do believe they do deserve a place in our literature. our experience is the american experience. [applause] >> for small, i wanted to just note that i really kudos to the

festival for doing this. [applause] reyna, is helping lead a really important literary ecosystem. when we look back, 20 to 30 to 40 years from now, we can actually look at books in terms of what happened. not just what happened on cable news, which is so numbing now, but what's happening here, interior. that's what books are. it's the most intimate experience you can have. to place yourself in someone else's place. i wanted to say that. as for what it's like, thank you for noting that. i didn't find out i was undocumented until i was 16. four years after i was brought here when i was 12. from the philippines.

i should also note, since i am in texas, about 40% of the undocumented population in this country overstate their visa. they didn't cross the border at least the southern border, because we never talk about the northern border, and i think i actually think, we owed the mexican people and apology for having racialized this issue as much as we have.e [applause] the journalist in me can't help but note numbers. there's not one point 8 million >>undocumented people in the ste of texas. you know them, you probably also should know that we are not allowed to drive in the state like texas. i live in california, it's one of the 12 states that allow people like me to drive. according to my lawyer's, and i do listen to them once in a while, my drivers license in california is not to be used in a state like texas where it's

not allowed. i don't know what hurts and all these car rentals think about that. i'd be contributing to your economy and wrecking her car but i can't. my question is, is there a subway system in the austin that i don't know about? how do undocumented texans get around? do you all drive them around? are you playing around and documenting the? it's kind of funny but kind of not. it's incredible, is there any are american than driving? it's incredible to think that this 1.8 million undocumented people in every time they get off, they drive off their house, dropping the kids off to school or to go to church, god forbid to go to walmart, do with a lot to do. to go to work, for some of you, they may actually get arrested just driving on the freeway. they get obtained and get deported. what it's like to be

undocumented, there's the legal part of it. and for me, in writing this book, i was interested in depression. i was interested because i heard so many undocumented people of all ages so i'm, i aged out of doctor. i was a dream before there was a dream act. before there was any linkage around it. i hear from so many undocumented people who feel like it's okay to walk in this country, exist. when you used to have a show, on fox, is to go on the show and i wrote in a book about one episode, i was glad they haven't deported you. i'm like, zero thanks, bill. then he said, you don't deserve

to be here that i started thinking, when a second. what did he do to deserve to be here? bill o'reilly and many other americans, especially white americans who forget their home immigrant back on, like to say that they are great-great-grandparents did the right way. when reality, there was no right way. w there was no green card, note there was no visa process. i don't know how much thousands of dollars they would have to pay to get here. but i think the narrative, i talk about this in the book, courtesy of 20 morrison, the master of how we talk about immigrants, how we talk about undocumented people, but that i, not the work like later in this book, how do we own, how do we take that away from what the master definitions have done?

own it and describe it in our own way and experiences? i also want to say, it is essentially american to be at this festival. near the capital. [laughter] as a journalist, i can hear her all around here. i'm happy to be here. thank you. [applause] >> i also wanted to talk to you about the trauma as families separation, you both experience. one before this became an issue along our border. or at least an issue causing so much outrage separating children from their parents. i really related to your description because of my own lifelong quest to search for a father who i felt wasn't there,

i grew up believing he had to get different. even when he was in front of me, i couldn't like grass can. you haven't seen your mother avnce you were a child. can you talk about that? >> no. [laughter] that's why i wrote the book. i wanted to -- the trigger for me was when i got arrested in mcallen. you all know what that is. i said that in wisconsin the other day and nobody knew it was. i got arrested there, i was m detained for eight hours. when they arrest you, they separate you by gender. i was with the boys. this was in 2014 when people didn't care. president obama was deported 3 million people and it wasn't viewed as a crisis. as it is right now. d let me know, this is been a bipartisan mess. they are both to blame for what has happened. let me get out of that.

so i got arrested and i was detained, i look at those boys, ages like five, 214 and i saw myself in them because i started realizing that he didn't remember the last thing i'm on said to me when i left. she brought me to the airport, gave me a sweater and said it was going to be cold. that's all i remember. i didn't remember if i helped her. i don't know i said i love you, i don't know if i said any of that. when i was looking at those boys in the cell, by the way it is a jail cell, it's a jail cell. tat we as taxpayers, because we pay taxes as well. i should be a republican i pay so many taxes. we all pay to detained children. you pay to detained children. so when i'm looking at them and i'm realizing, i they going to remember with their parents said to them when they left? so that was the process of this book for me was like, almost,

the title is dear, america. it actually is the book as you know, start and end is her. she's the last person in the book to say anything because i thought she needed to be the last person you hear from. it's been 25 years. she can't come on s a visa becae she doesn't have a college degree. she doesn't own property. that's where class and rent comes into the equation here. if she were a frenchwoman and wanted to come over the weekend, she could buy a plane ticket and overstay her visa and that should be fine. two more years for her to come, legally, if you're from the philippines, india, that's how long the wait is. by the time she could come legally, president trump may have already cut legal immigration by half. since my mom is not what people would consider a good good immigrant, she's not a high skilled person, she may not make the cut.

the book is my viewing -- dealing with had a way talk about her? i don't know. i came up with the linkage for that. you have to read the book. >> reyna writes about how the trauma is even after she reunited. you wrote so beautifully the relationship about your father. you talk to us about that? >> my father left mexico when i was two years old..fa so in my earliest memories, i was a fatherless daughter. the only reason i knew i had a father was because we had a picture of him hanging on the wall. i had more of our relationship with a black and white photograph been with my real father. when i was four and a half, my mother also left and came here to look for work. so by the time i was five, i didn't have a mother or a father. my siblings were left behind in mexico for many years.

we fell through the trauma of separation and what i remember n, my childhood, was just living in fear, fear of being forgotten by my parents, fear of being abandoned by them. also fear of being replaced because it happened so much and families. when parents start having children here, when they still have children back home. not long after my mother immigrated, we found out that she is going to have a baby here. so my siblings and i felt so inferior to my american born sister and we were afraid that my parents whenever going to come back for us. that they didn't want us anymore. that is a really difficult thing for a child to feel. i wanted, that fear of being abandoned. unloved. when my father finally came back for us, when i was nine the

half, it was one of the happiest moments of my life. because i felt he hadn't forgotten me. he had come back for me. one of the things that i feel was very tragic was that once i got to the u.s., i realized the family we had in mexico no longer existed. my parents have split up, they had each remarried. we no longer had the family anymore. one of the biggest tragedies, probably the biggest irony in my family was that my parents immigrated to try to save the family and in the process, they ended up destroying our family. so we got here and we did the best we could to try to function as a family but we couldn't. eight years of separation had done a lot of damage. one of the discoveries that i i had as soon as i arrived, was

that immigration had turned my parents and me into complete strangers. so these are some of the things that i dealt with in terms of family separation. i have written extensively on family separation from the perspective of a child. that's how i experienced it as a child. i write about the border and immigration from a child's perspective but december, while we were touching in horror in the news as to what was going on at the border, with all of these families being separated by the trump administration, i felt the urge in this was my very first time when i felt the urge and this urgency to write about the parents. and to speak up for the pants. it was my first time ever writing anything from the.off view of what it's like to be a parent. putting in a situation where you either have to choose between

leaving your children behind and leaving them to suffer without you were bringing your children with you and risking their life. for a chance at something better. in a way, when i wrote was an editorial for the new york times that was published in the sense of the parents. it was like a love letter to my father. it was really my first time acknowledging what a cruel world we live in that my father and fathers and mothers around the world are put in the situation where they have to choose between leaving their kids or bringing them along and now that i'm a mother myself, and my daughter is at ten years old, which is around the time when i crossed the border, i look at my daughter and i just cannot imagine me as a mother, having to make that choice.mo

i honestly don't know what i would choose. i don't know if i would choose to leave her or to bring her and fiscal life. i am so grateful to my father for what he did. because that means that i don't have to make that choice. i get to stay with my child, i will never be a stranger to my daughter, i will get to watch her grow up. and celebrate birthdays with her and holidays with her and i can be the parent that my parents could never be to me. be[applause] >> you write in a nuanced way about that paradox, discovering that because your father left, cou could be the parent, you said your parents left you could be the parent who stays. that was deep. one of the things that i love the most about your book, with how you call out mainstream media coverage of immigration issues, overly simplistic for

acting cowardly. can you talk to us about that? >> yes. i should probably say this, the only reason that i was not always in document it when i was 16 and the my english teacher that i ask too many annoying questions. i should do this call thing called journalism. i didn't know what it was, i come from a family of farmers in the philippines. commenters and construction workers, not writers. but i found out that when you become a journalist, you get a byline. you can be in the paper.alyo i figured there was no google, i couldn't google undocumented semi naïve 16 drilled thought, if i can't be here because i don't have the right papers, with my neighbor name was on the paper? the newspaper. that was literally the only reason why i wrote. to be on ther,ap paper. [laughter] so journalism is everything i've

always done. since i was 16. journalism is sacred to me. reporting is religion. that's why i know people like molly and i was growing up, i read all of the colonists. the journalistic responsibility that has happened for the past decade, i should also note that colleagues in my -- in the news industry, finally woke up to the fact that this was actually a crisis when trump got elected. i don't know why it took that long but it took that long. the simple fact that most americans don't even know that there is no process, the line -- this book came out last month, when the book came out, first question that the interviewer asked me was, why don't you just get legal? [laughter]

i was like, because i'm a masochist. this is so much more fun. [laughter] that i was thinking inside. of course, outside, there is no line. i think i should maybe just wear a shirt that says no i. no line, no process. that's why there is one button 11 million people undocumented. the fact that we talk about it every day, the fact that nativei american or african-american forced her to come here and wild this country, you are anil immigrant whether or not you want to recognize it. most newsrooms are filled with immigrants. they don't report on this issue with the contacts, not just a fax but the context that it needs. the humanity that it demands. it's what i find incredibly tragic. something as simple as a fact for example, undocumented workers back in 2005, i was with the washington post at the time, i light my way through all the jobs.

my lawyers didn't want me to say that but there it is inos the book. i like to through thero job, i t a letter from the social security administration, i was like, wait. how do they know i am here? i guess i found out. they were telling me that i i ws staying into socialin security. where they invalid social security number? that we had this understanding that so long as i paid the money, they didn't deport me. of course, later on i find out that according to the social security administration, undocumented workers like me in the past decade, have contributed $100 billion into the social security fund. according to the social security people, a primary source, the undocumented workers actually help keeps it solid. how often does the austin statement, the new york times, washington post, the npr, the left-wing media even, how often do you even hear that from them?

know. it is so cemented in people's psyche that people like me tax people like you when reality, that only do we contribute we've actually helped make sure the economy is dynamic and there is welfare. isn't that incredible? [applause] that is the fact that all of you snow. i am for everybody to get a chance. started organization called find american, holidays and defines american as a firm believer in comfortable compensations. you can download an entire pdf, share with your coworkers, and your family members, about what the facts are when it comes to this issue. >> this idea --wn [applause] this idea of forging an existence for yourself through the trail of documents that you

create, is so incredibly powerful. it's so necessary in our context and it's something that you do. you talk about coming of age as a writer. i was hoping youth could talk a little bit about some of the challenges and inspirations in unexpected places that you found a long way. >> inspiration and i had a lot of support. one of the things that i really loved about my father when i came to live with him was that my father was a big drinker. when we arrived, he said, i brought you to this country so you could get an education so that you could have a good career and be working professionals. and be home owners one day. he really had a lot of dreams for us. a lot of expectations and he demanded perfect grace from us. he would threaten to send us back to mexico. [if we didn't come home with

straight a's. so my siblings and i, we went to school everyday and worked really hard because we didn't want my dad to send us back. we were more afraid of my dad the border to patrol at that point. [laughter] my fathervery hardba in taught me how toso drink because as a little girl, i hadn't heard of the american dream. the only reason why i came here was because my only dream was to have my father back in my life. : : : and i said no, latino's

don't write books. [laughter] and it's because i had never read any books written by latinos, or latino, even though i love to write i never thought i could be a writer. so my teacher started giving me books written by latino's she gave bhee the house on mango street, and she gave me -- and she would say to me, well if they can do it, you can do it too. so she convinced me that i could. that i could pursue a career as a writer, and she also by introducing me to allin of these books, that i could finally relate to, she taught me that i had a lot of stories that i needed to write and to share with the world. p and she taught me how to celebrate my latino identity through literature. thanks to her, i went to university and i majored in

creative writing, and i had a difficult time there because my professors were not latino, and i was writing stories about what the it's like to grow up in poverty in mexico about broken families, and immigration, and the traumas of being an immigrant. and my teachers would say reyna, you have such a wild imagination. [laughter] and i had too fight so hard to get them to understand i was writing my truth, and my reality. so those were some difficulties that i had as a latino writer trying to write the kind of stories that i wanted to write. but i was grateful that i also made chick cono literature teacher who started to read my work, and encouraged me to keep writing and to not give up

because i was tempted to drop out of the creative writing program because i felt so out of place there. and thanks to her i stayed in the program, i graduated, and then when i went out into the real world to finally turn this dream into a reality, and become a professional writer, i got a lot of rejection there too from the publishing business. and one editor i submitted to went as far as telling me that nobody was going to care about a story of a mexican immigrant girl. >> host: he wanted you to change the charactering? >> reyna: he didn't want any stories about mexican immigration, he wanted me to change the story and write about american latino's he was born latino and he didn't want any stories that took place in mexico, he wanted the whole

story to take place in the u.s. for me what's so important to write about the stories, because i feel that it's so important to me that we hear from child immigrants, and that's what i mostly write about. it's important to also really understand these families and how immigration affects the entire family, not just the children but also the parents, and the family unit itself. i wanteddr people to really understand also that the reality of all of our undocumented youth, and who we are, and what we have gone through, especially the tromas that we go through even before setting foot in the united states. that was another thank that was important for me to write about. >> host: i really relate to this struggle of creating a home for yourself through writing, and i think that it's something we can

all relate to. i had the privilege to be born as a u.s. citizen, but my father who i loved very much was alwas an outsider, was always reject by society, and then i saw writing as a way of creating a home for him. so, i think that these books are so important for anyone whether you're an immigrant, or a citizen, and i want to give the audience an opportunity to ask questions of our two fantasticud authors. you'll need too come to the microphone, so please lineup to do that. in the meantime, while you think of your questions i'm bow just going to ask one final question to both reyna and jose. there's all this finger pointic about immigration, republicans and democrats, you have personally experienced the ermage done by people who call it our "broken immigration

policy" jose lived the horrors of the detention center, reyna who crossed the difficult journey of how they get here. can you see a white supremacist reading your book and changing his mind? >> jose: i actually think stories are probably what's going to change us. i think i'm saying this as a gay man. i'd have to come out of two closets. [laughter] i'm totally done doing that. if you think about it, we're not coming out, we're letting people in, right? so when i think about matthew shepherd was just in term

yesterday at the national cathedral, when i think about how the lgbt rights movement and how that changed from ellen degenerous on the cover of time magazine, to will and grace being the number one show on television. now you have twrans women leading the story telling on television. and it wasn't until we saw lgbqt people as people then that became more important than what the politics and policies are. so i believe that cumulatively the stories we tell on books, the stories we tell on television and movies, the stories we tell each other about whol we are, is really the only way forward. writing this book i had -- because i wrote it while i was traveling, after trump was elected president, the building manager i was living in la said we're not sure what happened if ice showed up, you may want to

move out and find a place. this was february 2017. i packed everything i owned and was thinking of leaving. i was thinking if you all don't want me here, i've done enough, canada seems great, my mom's waiting, let me go do that. and then i went through the book, and it wasn't until i wrote the book that i gave myself permission. thto stay. because i owe it to what my mom did, and i owe it to what the history calls us. i want to note that, i think it's incredible to note that undocumented people, especially in a state like texas could wake up every day, right? go to work, live their lives, and not succumb to what this is. i think that's a miracle. i think it's miraculous. [applause] i think it's because of the stories we tell each other, lastly, when i wrote the book i

had tony morrison at the top of my computer screen. she gave probably the most important speech in the power of language when she won the nobel prize for literature in 1993. which capped to be the same year i came to this country. it's on google and youtube. she said narrative is radical, creating us at the very moment it is being created. i think at a time like this we need more radical creative story d telling to create what we need to be. [applause] >> host: i >> reyna: i had a really interesting experience with my mother. through the years i tried to tell my mother what my life had been like while she was gone. and what my siblings and i had gone through. i would tell her stories, and it

just never really seemed to penetrate. and she never really seemed to understand and capture what i was trying to tell her. and when i wrote my first memoir, the distance between us, which is about that experience of when my parents left and everything we went through while they were gone, i gave a copy of the back to my mother. read it, and she called me, and she said now i understand. and it really showed me the power of story telling and the power of books because i have spent years telling her, and yet once i wrote the book, and she read it, and by her reading my book, was she had to live through a lot of those moments that i was writing about, so i went from telling me mother to actually showing my mother. and it was such a powerful moment for me to know that finally my mother understood me,

and that she understood my pain, and she also understood my resentment because there was resentment too. and that's something that i think about with my readers. whenever i write, i think of that moment because i know that we could talk all we want and just talk and tell you, and tell you about our struggles and our ultrauma and pain and emotions, but once we put them down on paper, and we invite you to walk in our shoes, and to see the world through our eyes, i feel that that's such a powerful connection. that's something that as a writer i want to keep doing. i believe that what i do as a writer is i build bridges with words. i tear down walls with my pen. is hope that you continue to rd these books and i hope that you continue to really make that effort to see the world through

our eyes and to understand and comprehend, and to think of this situation that we're living through right now, through more compassionate and deeper understanding of who we are as a society. and that you become more welcoming and inclusive and that finally, everybody here in this country can finally feel that we belong here and that we are enough. [applause] >> host: your books really are an example of the power of story telling. one of my favorite scenes in your book reyna is when you talk about your mother asking you all of the same questions you'd been asked by the audience for so many years. for the first time showing yoursity after reading hebook it looks like we have a

question. please go ahead. >> guest: ikfirst of all, thank you very much for a wonderful presentation. i think that -- we agree the system is broke. i'm wondering if from your perspectives, that you have some kind of policy ideas that would be new and innovate as to how we work at better intentions in washington, d.c. how the system of dealing with immigration could be improved, the business and policy ideasit are -- what kind of things would you see -- inaudible.

>> reyna: well, i'm going to say that two of the things i want to see changed are right now you know trump is constantly saying that he wants to cut down illegal immigration, but at the same time he's cutting down on people immigration. which is the opposite he wants to do because the one way you cut down illegal immigration is by increasing legal migration, and giving moree and more people like jose's mother to come to the united states legally. that i feel is missing from our conversation most of the time is the role that the united states has played in the displacement of all of these people that have been coming throughout the years that are coming today even. that literally at this moment they're walking to the border to ask for asylum, and we need to

ask ourselves what did we do as a country. what have we done through the years that have caused this displacement and what is our responsibility to all of those people who have been forced to leave their homes? and i really do believe that the u.s. makes migrants and then we punish them for migrating. and we need to stop that. [applause] >> jose: somethingus simple, something we have to do is -- we have spent $100 billion in border security since 9/11 protecting you from mexico. i don't know how many more billions you want to spend locking us up. so the first thing i would do id get rid of the detention system that profits private company. [applause] now, sir i used to be a political reporter for "the washington post," so i've

studied what congressional partisanship looks like and we know we're living through the worst kind ofio it, so i don't know what policies i could offer ouat would work. i do know more than ever local all politics must be local. so right now, for example, if the state of texas decided that you're going to give 1.8 million people driver's licenses, i can tell you that would do a long ways in improving people's quality of life. why can't we do that? [applause] something like that in a state like this could be done. >> host: it looks like we have metime for one more question. >> guest: i have a question -- do you guys from your perspective do you think that undocumented immigrants can achieve the american dream?

>> jose: -- douglas achieved the american dream and he wasn't considered an american. all the women who fought for wowomen suffererage achieved. the japanese were intender in the 1940s during world war ii were more americans than anyone could possibly imagine. i would actually argue that the people who fight for full citizenship, may it be by legality or dignity, that's what the whole black blieives matter movement is about. i would offer that all of us who are fighting for full citizen citizenship are defining what america is in this country. >> reyna: yes, i agree with jose, and i really do think that

we have the power to make sure that everyone in this country reaches their full potential and that they live the life that they deserve. and i really do hope that you keep working hard towards your dreams, that you don't give up, and that some day very very soon we're all going to do the right thing for you and support you and continue to make sure that you do achieve that dream that you are working so hard for. [applause] unfortunately i think we only have time for one more question but there will be a book signing at 11:00 on congress avenue. >> host: thank you both for sharing your really very powerful stories with us. in addition to the question regarding policy, i was wondering what would you recommend for activism among the

citizenry of the population in the united states? i think one of the things that justst strikes me -- and we have so many issues, this being among the more important ones, especially with the children being detained and separated from parents, and i just don't see enough activism, and i'm asking you for your ideas. thank you. [applause] >> reyna: there is an election coming up so -- go out and vote, that's the first thing. [applause] >> jose: letet me just contextualize that more. i'm undocumented and i can't vote. i was just in mississippi, and it was wonderful and this young woman who where i met at the university of southern mississippi her mouth just kept dropping wherever i fer whenever i started talking about what i was, and who i was.

and finally she pulled her phone and she goes can you go talk to my dad? can you tell him that you can't vote? because her dad thinks people like me vote. with what? my bank of america debt card? with this book? i'm undocumented which means we don't have the right kind of documents to vote. that'sm the whole point. i'm saying this because i would argue that yenning -- i would think personally that you are not really doing your job if you're not uncomfortable. if you're not confronting that friend or coworker or relative who says that think about "illegal people" or about mexico, orr foreigners, whatev, if you simply walk away because you don't want to engage then you're not doing your job. [applause] if i can go talk -- >> reyna: i think that's why it's so important for people to vote. those who can vote go vote.

especially for people like jose who can't do it, you go do it then. you have to take charge and stop taking your vote for granted. it matters so go do it. [applause] >> host: unfortunately we have run out of time but i do want to remind everyone again that at 11:00 these authors will be signing their books on congress just around the corner, and please join me in giving a round of applause for reyna and jose. [applause] it>> you can watch this and all

other book tv programs from the past 20 years auto booktv.org. type the author's name and the word book in the search bar at the top of the page. >> and barbecue tv's coverage of the texas book festival from this weekend continues. >> >> welcome. >> welcome to the -- this section of