and i bought several stocks of varying degrees in the big banks and i will be showing up at the shareholders meeting financing private prisons. >> thank you. [applause] that is all we have time for today. i'm so appreciative of everybody's great questions. please go to the tent and buy these books and talk more with the authors. you are supporting the book festival which is not-for-profit. and thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> hello, everybody. how is everybody doing? thanks for coming out and bringing this weather. it is a beautiful day outside. we are in a nice shaded area. thanks for coming out and being with us today. i am so thrilled to be here with these two amazing ladies.

we are a civic engagement organization. especially thrilled to take a break to be with you all. with that, i would love to give a very brief introduction to these wonderful authors. we will talk a little bit about their book. i have questions i am dying to ask but i would also love to reserve the last 10, 15 minutes for questions from the audience. definitely if you have any questions save them to the end. we will make time for everybody to get to and talk to our friends here. without further do let's start by introducing sayu bhojwani, author of "people like us: the new wave of candidates knocking at democracy's door," served as new york city at first commissioner of immigrant affairs and founder of south asian youth action, a

community-based organization in queens. since 2010 she served as founder and president of the new american leaders project which i'm a huge fan of. thank you for everything you do which is based on new york city was an immigrant of indian descent she grew up in belize and lives in new york city with her husband and child. let's give a round of applause. [applause] >> next to my right we have >> next to my right we have laura wides-munoz, author of "the making of a dream: how a group of young undocumented immigrants helped change what it means to be american". previously she served a special project, and editorial project and was staff writer of the associated press for more than a decade where she got a lot of these stories and ideas from. she reported from cuba and central america and been published in the washington post, the guardian, miami

herald, los angeles times and many other outlets, and through 2013 harvard foundation journalism fellowship and currently resides in washington dc. with that we would love to keep -- thank you. round of applause for laura, thanks very much. with that i would love to give a little space to have you talk about your books and share where ideas came from. a bit about them and any insights you can share and where we won't find anywhere else. i would love to handed over to laura. >> thanks for being here on this very hot day. it reminds me of being in miami. in miami, that is where this book started. it was november 2009 and i was stuck in the office looking for ideas for the holiday season because new year's business was slow and i needed a story and i

got a press release about a group of young people who were going to walk from miami to washington dc in the middle of the winter and it sounded crazy but i decided to go to this church and check it out. i didn't expect much but when i got there and i sat there and heard these four young people start talking about feeling like they had grown up in this country and now that they were adults they were being turned into ghosts erased from their community, their neighborhood. one of my main characters had a determination, a little teenage bravado, swagger and vulnerability. i captured them walking, they didn't have coats. they had to stop a day or two in to buy winter coats and shoes. it was all a little bit spur of the moment but they end up in april, it had become a national story and reinvigorated the immigrants rights movement and by the end of 2010 they got the

first vote on the dream act in the senate and the house, it happened since it had been proposed a decade before, felt five votes short but in this movement again was able to get the obama administration to provide temporary protection so they could go to school, work and continue to live and not be turned into what they call ghosts. at that point i felt this is something i hadn't seen in a dozen and a half years of covering this in our country and i wanted to document it for posterity and not just because of the immigration connection but also because i saw in a way i had never seen before young people cynically engaged, trying to get involved in the political system and changing our cultural, civic and political dialogue and here we are. i don't think we give enough

credit to the dreamers when we talk about young people not getting engaged and not being involved and not voting the group of young people who don't have the ability to vote, seeing that political power and making a huge difference for themselves and all young people, for immigrants across the country. you have an equally inspiring and amazing story to share and look at political power in the immigrant community from a different angle. i also want to echo laura's thanks to you for being there and choosing this among many other exciting options. i myself am happy to be here, envious of the fact that kaori jones is speaking another tens. thank you for choosing us. the genesis of my book is 10

years old when i first started the organization i now run called new american media. the short version of what we do is recruit first and second generation americans to run for political office and in eight years i have been doing the work i became more and more aware of these amazing stories of immigrants who were involved in their communities and were deciding to run for office. i wrote the book for two reasons. one, because their stories are so inspiring and often what we hear about immigrants is they are taking something away from our country or they are making an economic contribution and there's so little told about how these candidates are inspiring new voters, fighting on behalf of immigrant communities and i wanted to lift up those stories but the format of the book which highlights some of the problems in our democracy came together after the 2016 election, in particular, what i started to

feel was people were connecting all the problems in our democracy to donald trump and it was clear to me and the people i write about in this book the problems in our system existed long before him and will continue to exist long before him. you ask about a couple insights and i will share one of the most striking things for me once i started working in this space was understanding how outdated our legislative system is for modern america. our founding fathers created a system where it made sense for example in texas, for a bunch of legislators to meet every 18 months and make decisions about the country and that is a formula that doesn't work for modern america. your legislators, you want them to be available throughout the year, fighting for you throughout the year but if we are creating a system in which

a bunch of folks come together every 18 months, who are those types of people who are going to be able to do that? who can take 6 months out of their job every 18 months, who can live on that salary and what decisions are being made by those people so for me the whole roll of money not just as related to campaigns but as dictate who gets to run and who gets to govern and what kind of policy is made was one of the most striking things and the more personal insight into how emotionally isolating it is that we see these, they have so much power and get to decide everything but a lot of the people in my book talked about a loneliness that comes from being the only person of their backgrounds in office or the only person in their family politically involved, the kind of personal attacks, incredibly

lonely experience and that struck me as a through line in the stories. especially when representation, our governments don't reflect what our country looks like. they are going back to the field, talking to constituents and not being able to have the same conversations. my next question is the political climate right now. immigration has become a dirty word. it is part of the foundation of this country. the country was built on and with immigrants as a backbone and it has been politicized. from daca being rescinded, the future of daca recipients up in the air to even right now,

refugee caravan of asylum seekers being politicized right ahead of the midterm elections. through your stories, through your conversations with these constituents in these groups, what narrative do you find, what narrative can help bring our country together and bring us to the idea that immigration is the backbone of this country and was we were founded on and it is a positive thing, not necessarily a negative thing? >> what kind of immigrant narrative do you get? >> one reason i wanted to write this book was i had seen stories about shining young immigrants who were leaders, dreamers, perfect immigrants, and i had also seen these long books on policy and it felt they were having two disjointed conversations and creating false narratives about perfect individuals who were making change is the kids in the book,

mary gonzalez from missouri, dario guerrero who gets into harvard, they are real people i identify with and hope you can as well. one of the reasons i wanted to do that is when we think about this issue we think of sort of political leaders you are talking about but they are human beings. i give one example of philly bay when they were done with as much to washington, they had national attention and going in and all along they got support from church groups and others who were volunteering to help them and give them a basement to sleep in and food and as they are in virginia, they come to this church where philip who has recently come out as gay is told i don't want to see you holding hands or any affection with your boyfriend who he had

been dating because it is upsetting to people in the church and you will alienate our supporters. this had been going on for a long time but they felt when they were coming out as undocumented immigrants and asking people to see them as humans, to be told to go back in the closet, even for the bigger cause felt destructive inside. this group of four people, gabby and isabel and philip and carlos sit together and we are going to speak up on this. gets up in church that morning and he's going to talk and the girl before him as a young woman whose family is about to be deported and she is standing up and asking the church community to support her and to write letters to representatives. philip is making a calculation in his head. if i tell my truth, if i speak out, i may alienate all these people who want to help. this girl's family, her life is in my hands and i can make a

great speech because i've done it all the way or i can be true to myself and my partner sitting right here. he gets up there and he doesn't speak up and he tells another story and the girl is very appreciative to him and as he walks back to his seat, his boyfriend looked at him and whispered quietly you betrayed me. i think that tells you the broad story of so many things happening in every calculation, every moment as young people are trying to engage and make change. >> i think there is no question we are in one of the most difficult periods of our political time and particularly as it relates to civil rights, very broadly, including immigration. when i thought about the title of the book you will see that

it doesn't appear, in case you're looking at it, it doesn't mention immigrants even though every story in the book is about someone who identifies very closely with the immigrant experience, so there are people whose true stories of people who are third and fourth generation latino. when i chose the title i really wanted to connect to everyone and i think each of these stories tells something that is very specific and individual but allows all of us to connect to everyday americans and the work we are doing in this book is our political leadership is not representing every day americans. with you identify with the immigrant experience or don't or url b gt q identified or not a male or female, anybody who

is not wealthy and well-connected doesn't see themselves reflected and represented on a daily basis. that is a common narrative of our american democracy. our system is broken, except for the types of people who are similar to who our founding fathers were. i think the other piece of this is to lift up the issue of resilience and commitment to american democracy. i always say immigrants are the most optimistic americans you can find because we are going through these types of things and are still willing to put ourselves on the front lines and still willing to put our families on the front lines in order to fight for what we believe in and for me, this is a narrative not about proving how american immigrants are but

demonstrating the characteristics we want to see in our leaders, people who are resilient and accountable and willing to fight on behalf of their communities. those are the characteristics we want in our leaders and it is my hope if we can unify around problems that are affecting all of us and hurting all of us, we can create a more positive narrative for our country. a couple other things i want to say. there are two stories of people who are formally undocumented and benefited from the last big immigration reform in 1984. i always want to say 1986. i don't know why. both of them are now holding office. one is in san marino, who came to the united states at the age of 4. his parents told him, his family told him they were going to california to go to

disneyland and that is how they got him to leave mexico because he was tied to his family there. and in a story that can only happen in america, he went on to run for office in 2016 and was outspent by disney exponentially. they spent over $1 million trying to defeat him because of their corporate interests and their interest in proposing pro disney councilmembers. so that is quintessential story that can only happen in america. another woman in the book whose story i tell, she also was formally undocumented and was a republican because after she got elected, after she got her citizenship in 1984 or was on

the process in the process of citizenship, a bill signed by ronald reagan, she felt the republican party was the party that took care of her in america and it took years of anti-immigrant policy before she then decided to become a democrat and in 2016 she ran for office and is now in the state legislature in arizona and one of the things she talked about doing was bringing undocumented students into the state capital in phoenix to have them, to feel like this is a place that represents them. these are things that can happen, can happen here and that is a narrative we don't want to lose track of is no matter what is happening there with a comprehensive, not comprehensive but significant immigration reform bill passed in 1984 signed by a republican president and change the course of life for millions of americans. i will close with this. people ask me about the midterm

elections. whatever happens we are not going to change the system by this one election, but what we will see are people who get elected and those individuals although they cannot fundamentally change the system overnight, what they represent is the possibility of america like when i see that we are going to have two muslim american women, one from michigan and one from minnesota, they are he won the democratic primaries, they are in safe democratic districts, young muslim women around the country will succeed in office and feel there is a possibility and that is not something we can discount because the truth is the thing that keeps us going as americans is the possibility of america, not so much always the reality. >> great point about tying this to our future. what we hope to achieve.

in texas you mention the first muslim representative women in texas but in texas we never had a latina congresswoman. this year there are two running for office that could potentially, never in the history of texas, the two. one of the most latino heavy states in the country. you got to talk a little before about social movements and their impact on long-term civic engagement. >> one of the reasons i wrote this book is to dispel a lot of myths. we are talking past each other so many times and i got sick of talking to a certain group that was understood and one of the myths is how social change happens. it happens in lots of pockets and one part of my book is there was a young nursing

student who was tired of every time she and her friends would say why don't you take this internship or this job, i don't want to do anything in my off hours, i want to be a waitress or clean houses. she didn't have papers and she sent an email blast and was floored by the response, not the synthetic response from her friends but me too, me too, suddenly she had this group, one of the founding groups and there were sprinkles happening in california and all around. that change led some of the political change we saw, but for me what was interesting as a journalist is more than specific political changes, the cultural conversation has shifted. you are seeing mainstream media depictions of young immigrants 360 °, scenes on gray's in an

area about undocumented immigrants and the case in texas where they were trying to overturn or expand efforts by the obama administration to protect individuals, when they finally argued the supreme court, case brought i texas, antonio vargas who was here earlier was invited inside as in a document it immigrant to hear the arguments. there has been a cultural -- a huge deal because the white house can allow undocumented people lose they wouldn't even allow them until recently. even now people say another sort of myth i have encountered is these young people didn't get the dream act, that is over, the aca is on lifeline, temporary protection. what happens to this movement? what i have seen is the movement has transformed and it is working more strongly with

other groups that are fighting around the country for their rights but also they are the most active get out the vote folks who are going door to door. how can you argue with someone saying i can't vote, please use your constitutional right, exercise it and all throughout florida and other states where so many people are not registered or haven't voted these young people are knocking on doors and doing that and i don't see the movement going away anytime soon but i do see it evil think. the other thing that is interesting is even as the aca may end, the notion that these young people would be turned back into ghosts, i don't see them going quietly. not only do i see them not going quietly back into the shadows, i don't see their parents and families and friends going quietly back into the shadows. many of their siblings and

their parents were energized and empowered by seeing these young people and their involvement in our system and their efforts to contribute and not by faking votes. that now we are talking about, just doing what is legal in terms of knocking on doors, asking people if they are registered, getting them signed up, all the things anyone can do. i see those changes as a good thing for our democracy is more people living here are involved and typically engaged. i continue to see the movement, i look forward to seeing where it goes next. >> one thing i want to say is whatever happens in terms of major, historic wins in ten days, 9 days, it is largely going to be driven by grassroots activity. it is really when you look at florida or stacy abrams in georgia, the democratic party

of those states is somewhat involved, but really, there is this incredible movement by grassroots organizations to change the equation by bringing new voters to the table and that includes people who are family members of these undocumented folks and the majority of those organizers are young people who are immigrants and people of color and that investment is coming through the grassroots organizations rather than political party structure. >> regardless of party, 2014 had one of the lowest rates of participation from young people. >> how can we not want our young people to be showing up at voting and engaged. when i see a young group that is influencing that and encouraging it it is really interesting and encouraging. so many grassroots organizations.

as somebody who does organizing, digital organizing in particular i've never seen this much excitement in my decade of doing this work as we are seeing now. the turnout in places like texas and other states that aren't even battleground states is above what the turnout was in the 2016 presidential. the fact that young people organizing, immigrant groups organizing, all these folks going to talk to their neighbors, talk to folks to get out the vote, is creating that investment where political party or candidate have not created that investment before because they think, falsely so, that these groups are not going to turn out, not that they are not going to turn out but our traditional system of politics don't talk to these groups. they put out a poll that said 60% of latinos had not been

touched or reached out to buy any campaign, politician, or party this midterm. that is a great point about the infrastructure being built by groups organizing on the ground, really doing it out of necessity. i will kick off with our last question and hand it to the audience. what role, since we are talking about immigration as one of the key points of this conversation, what role do you think that will play in the midterm elections coming up in 10 days? >> clearly it is on the news all the time. it is an emotional issue for many people in many sides and it gets played in a way that plays into fear. i hope if you think the system is broken you will want to take the time to understand how and why.

i feed that between the narratives in my book, but i also think there are two issues. there is the issue of what happens when people get to our borders, there is a lot to be said on that. that is another panel. there is also the issue of people who lived in our country for 20 years who have grown up here, speak the language, said the pledge of allegiance every day in our schools, have worked here, and those people are living and working without any legal protection here and it is not good for a country when you have people living in the shadows in so many layers. having our country try to get some kind of immigration reform, getting people on both sides of the aisle in congress who are willing to reach compromise is a huge part of that but the issue of those who are here and already part of the fabric and looking at ways to make that official is in some ways different than the

issue of how we march further and people come no matter what, because of outside forces and as we see right now with our crackdowns. >> i feel the ways enough obeah and racism is being used as a dog whistle is responding to a certain segment of american voters. a large number of voters including people who have not had a reason to vote or felt they had a reason to vote or were not motivated to vote are going to come out in response to the climate we see in our country. i also think immigrants who are running for office and turning out immigrant voters are going to play a big role in the election and already have,

talking about high voter participation in texas and georgia and it is not happening, because of the demographics of those states and whose motivating those people to run and so that is not going to change the policy environment that fundamentally. >> maybe not right away. >> not right away. and we need to be supportive of the people we elect, given the time it takes to turn things around. the men -- the main effect immigration is going to have on this is on turnout and who gets elected. >> thank you, give them a round of applause. [applause] >> with that. i would love to open it up to audience questions. if anybody would like to step up to the mic in the middle of the aisle here, anybody have anything they would like to ask about? don't be shy.

if you don't mind saying your name and where you are from. >> my name is carol butler. i came in after you started. it made me, just hearing the topic, made me think of an interview on public radio in the last week about research on factors influencing elections in this country and it sounded like a really thorough research and the conclusion of this author was immigration is the most important factor for citizens who are here and immigrants. their conclusion was that in the future, latin american immigrants who are here are

going to vote, being influenced by their experiences when they were here before now. that sets them up to favor people who were more favorable like democrats. i am a little skeptical because i think whoever the ruling party is might find different angles 20 years from now but i thought that was interesting that the most important factor they found in election was immigration. >> if you could turn that into a question. do you think immigration is the most important factor in the midterm election and what do you think it will play into in future elections? >> we talked about the current election. as far as future elections you raise an important point which is there is an assumption that

latino immigrants will vote democratic. but there are many reasons people vote. they vote for their interests, economic, social, etc.. the notion you legalize this group and they will vote monolithic from cubans to dominicans to mexicans. it is very simplistic and i don't think it holds up. dario wants to be a filmmaker. he went to harvard. you think, he could just -- someone could hire him and they could adjust his status and that would be fine. he can't. as people who couldn't even go to college and are here but once he is legalized my guess is he will end up voting like many people in film and doing those things and there's an incredible diversity of people and we shouldn't lose sight of that. >> i really mentioned one of the people i wrote about,

there's another one in the book, sam park, a state representative in georgia who because he grew up in the south, and his family voted republican, he voted republican, many vietnamese americans are republicans so asian americans and other people of color vote along individual, social, and economic interests. to the extent that immigration is a big issue, first of all we say immigration. it means so many things. it means the immigrant experience, immigration policy. many people who became legalized in 1984 under president reagan's bill and feel allied with the republican party and i would echo what laura is saying. it is a fairly complex issue and one of the reasons when i started the organization i wanted to be nonpartisan because i don't think we can take party affiliation for

granted especially for newcomers because i heard someone say we don't necessarily know the difference between elephants, we are thinking, i was appointed by a republican mayor, i was a registered democrat. what does that mean? it means i want to work on immigrant issues and i did that in the way that i could. there's a lot more complexity and nuance we are going to discover once immigration stops becoming the one thing that is so prominently dividing the republican and democratic parties. >> another question here. >> on fitzpatrick. when i think of the last 60 years of the civil rights movement and other movements of disenfranchised populations, there have been a couple

different venues, strategies, and opportunities. there have been universities, university students, there has been churches, there's been nonprofits and there has been organizations around schools, around the environment. there's been a lot of different vehicles and topics. when you think of this generation that is coming up now, do you see any particular type of way they are organizing themselves, any specific topic separate from immigration that is impacting their lives that you would project over the next decade or two? >> if you are talking about venues i would say social media. that is where so much happens and in fact the other day, the brett kavanaugh hearing, jeff flake stopped in the elevator, that tactic reminded me of the early tactics used to call attention when they couldn't get mainstream media when they

stopped a lawmaker. that is a huge one. if you are talking about issues, there are certain issues that will be common because of age but it is really diverse. the one thing that is changing is this generation is in some ways more segregated but in some ways just because of the way the country is. there is much more, people are more used to talking to people who look slightly different from them who came from somewhere else that isn't the same place they are from so i do think overall some of this is generational and as younger people are elected to office that doesn't mean they will change their immigration policies but their perspective is shaped by their lived lives. >> i would add to that around this generation is the most

diverse especially generation the, born after 2000, voting for the first time this year in 2018, the most diverse generation and they are on track to be bigger than the baby boomers. the fact they are growing in this politicized environment, a diverse range of issues but you can take the parkland kids as a great example of taking from an issue that directly affect them and really becoming leaders in that space. the point we were talking about in terms of grassroots organizations and infrastructure leading the way for this movement, parkland is an example of a well resourced school that had an incredibly powerful successful debate program where they talked about control recently and that has been a topic of conversation. when the moment came for them

for them to become leaders in this space they were prepared. they had the talking points, and had their personal narrative. and a lot of these books, introducing you to the people behind these issues but i completely agree, these are issues, people are stepping up around not just immigration, gun control, the environment, reproductive rights. >> interesting they used their voice in areas of chicago where people have been talking about gun violence for years and no one was paying attention because it was not a well resourced community. you do see that in this generation. >> thank you for your question. anyone else.

i have one more question. in terms of the census, that is an issue i am working on. and how our congressional lines are redrawn after the 2020 census and a question around immigration status proposed to be on the census that will be debated in court to be believed. what kind of effect you think that will have as another form of being cynically engaged. we talk about undocumented people being able to turn out

people for elections, running for office, all these other things. how do you think that might affect turnout in the census and do you think it will be important? >> i think we are going to see underaccounts in communities that are undercounted. and talking about the census earlier, i don't remember the foundations having these conversations 2 or 3 years before the census in 2010 so i think we are all preparing the ground for it in terms of grassroots organizations and funding but we will see an undercount and it is not unintentional. if we are going to draw districts based on who is in those districts and people in those districts are scared to be counted it will have an effect on representation.

what it calls on all of us to do is to be good neighbors and it will take everybody paying attention like it is doing with voter suppression and voter purges, and to be supervigilant in order for people to feel supportive and get more people to vote and more people counted. >> i don't cover this as much and there is a legal process that fits has to go through as it works its way up and it will be interesting to see in the coming two years where decisions come out, likely the supreme court. >> great. on that note, thank you also much for being here. a huge round of applause for our authors again. [applause] >> if you want to catch them,

get their book and have it signed, they will be in the author's book signing 10 shortly. thank you for being here, really appreciate your time. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> okay. welcome, everybody, to this session for the texas book festival. the session is called keeping score and calling foul. sports journalism in 2018. if you are a sports fan these