03/22/21 03/22/21 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> we have lived invisible. relegated as second-class citizens. and now in the wake of a violent shooting, white america is still trying to deny our humanity and

existence. amy: protests condemning racism and hate crimes against asian americans continue following last week's deadly shootings in atlanta, where a 21-year-old white government attacked three asian-owned spas killing eight people, seven of them women, six of them of asian descent. we will speak to the pulitzer-prize winning vietmese-american writer viet thanh nguyen. >> asian americans as a whole have admittedly concluded of course this is that shooting driven by racism and -- deep-seated. none of this takes us by surprise. it is still deeply upsetting at the same time but we point to a very long history of a tight asian -- anti-asian violence that has extended as long as there have been asian immigrants and asian americans. amy: viet thanh nguyen will talk about the mass shooting in atlanta, the link between hate crimes and u.s. foreign policy,

the plight of refugees, as well as his new novel "the committed," a sequel to his best-selling book "the sympathizer." all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. i'm amy goodman. protesters took to the streets of cities across the united states over the weekend to condemn racism and hate crimes against asian americans following last week's deadly shooting in atlanta which killed eight people -- seven of them women of them women of asian , six descent. the names of all the victims has been released -- xiaojie tan, yong ae yue, delaina ashley yaun, suncha kim, hyun jung grant, soon chung park, daoyou feng, paul andre michels. elcias hernandez ortiz, who survived the shooting, is in

hospital in critical condition. in new york, community leaders and elected officials gathered for a vigil friday evening. this is jeehae fischer of the korean american family service center. >> these women were our mothers, our aunties, our sisters, -- stop killing as. stop asian hate! >> stop asian hate! stop asian hate1 >> stop telling us to go back to china. we belong here. amy: four of the women were korean. president biden and vice president harris met with asian-american leaders in atlanta and addressed the mass shooting. this is kamala harris, the first asian-american and first woman

vice president. vice pres. harris: everyone has the right to go to work, to go to school, to walk down the street and be safe. and also the right to be recognized as an american. not as the other, not as@@ them, but as us. a harm against anyone of us is a harm against all of us. amy: president biden has urged congress to quickly pass the covid-19 hate crimes act. meanwhile, lawmakers and others have questioned fbi directory christopher wray's statement last week the shooting was apparently "not racially motivated." the senate judiciary committee will hold a hearing on a proposal to reduce gun violence tuesday. the atlanta mass murderer purchased a 9mm handgun just

hours before tuesday's massacre at the three atlanta area spas. the purchase was fully legal. we'll have more on all this as we spend the hour with celebrated pulitzer prize-winning author viet thanh nguyen. astrazeneca says its covid-19 vaccine showed 79% efficacy against symptomatic disease among participants in a large clinical trial in the united states. the vaccine was 100% effective in preventing serious illness and death. the findings pave the way for a fourth vaccine to receive emergency use authorization in the united states. the trial showed no increased risk of serious blood clotting, after more than a dozen countries this month suspended or delayed its use over such concerns. thcenters for disease control say one in six u.s. adults has now been fully vaccinated for covid-19.

mississippi and alaska have opened vaccine eligibility for anyone 16 or older. floridians over 50 can get vaccinated starting today. in education news, the cdc updated its guidelines to say three feet of physical distancing is safe in elementary schools, though teachers and other staff should still maintain six feet of distance and masks must remain mandatory for all. new york city high schools are reopening today, though officials warn infection numbers remain dangerously high in parts of the city, on par with this winter's surge. miami beach has imposed an emergency curfew after officials said spring break revelers brought chaos and disorder to the area and ignited fears of super-spreader events. "the intercept" reports pfizer, moderna, and johnson & johnson are planning to hike up prices on vaccines as soon covid-19 is no longer considered a pandemic.

health experts say covid-19 will likely become endemic and people will continue to require regular shots, much like the flu. astrazeneca, which also vowed not to profit from the pandemic, could declare it is over as early as july. the pakistani prime minister imran khan has tested positive for covid-19, two days after he received a vaccine and as pakistan is faci a third wave of the virus. chile has recorded its highest daily caseload yet, and officials say over a qrter of deaths this year are due to covid-19. the surge comes despite relatively highly vaccination rates, with 15% of the population fully vaccinated. a health and human services report says u.s. health officials in donald trump's administration pressured brazil to reject russia's sputnik v

coronavirus vaccine, putting geopolitical concerns over saving lives. in japan, organizers for the july tokyo olympics are barring international spectators. after delaying the olympics one year, officials pushed ahead with the event this summer despite health experts warning against it. in europe, france and poland are the latest countries to reinstate partial lockdowns amid fresh coronavirus surges. department of homeland security secretary alejandro mayorkas appeared on multiple news shows over the weekend to say the u.s. border is effectively closed. >> the border is closed. we are expelling families, expelling single adult, and we made a decision that we will not expel young, vulnerable children. amy: over 15,000 migrant children are now in u.s. custody as the number of asylum seekers at the southern border shows no

sign of slowing down. over 5000 of those are being held in customs and border protection jails. axios reports over 800 children have been jailed for over 10 days -- more than a fourfold increase over the past week. pentagon chief lloyd austin arrived in afghanistan sunday for an unannounced visit with afghan president ashraf ghani and top u.s. generals. the trip came after president biden said last week the u.s. might not honor its agreement with the taliban to withdraw u.s. troops from afghanistan by may 1. secretary of state antony blinken is meeting top nato officials in brussels, belgium, today to discuss whether to cancel or delay those plans. the taliban have called on the u.s. to honor its commitments and warned of a reaction if the u.s. and its allies violate a peace agreement signed in

february 2020. about 3500 u.s. troops and another 6500 nato soldiers remain in afghanistan nearly 20 years after the u.s.-led invasion. human rights groups are condemning turkish president recep tayyip erdogan's decision to withdraw from the istanbul convention, the world's first binding treaty to combat violence against women and girls. nearly 40% of turkish women have been subjected to violence from their partner according to u.n. figures, and local rights groups say femicides are on the rise. in istanbul, women took to the streets this weekend to protest the move. >> i was not feeling safe as a woman even before this. and after this, i feel even more like i am in an unsafe situation. at least there was a law. and now i don't feel like i have any support.

i feel vulnerable. amy: in syria, at least six people are dead, including a child and medical workers, after syrian forces shelled a hospital outside the rebel-controlled city of aleppo on sunday. 16 civilians were also wounded in the assault, four of them critically. the attack came despite a ceasefire deal brokered by russia and turkey in march of 2020. physicians for human rights has documented nearly 600 attacks on health care facilities by syria's military and its allies since the start of the civil war a decade ago. in spain, a two-year-old girl who arrived with dozens of other refugees by boato the island --anary islands last week has died. the girl's nameas nabody. she was from mali. she was one of 10 people, over half of them children, who were taken to hospital with hypothermia after their boat was rescued. in israel, tens of thousands of people took to the streets saturday for some of the largest protests yet against prime

minister benjamin netanyahu ahead of tuesday's election. >> we are here to protest against netanyahu and his corrupt government. we want everyone to come and vote. vote to change this government. amy: israel is heading into its fourth election in two years amid netanyahu's ongoing corruption trial. protesters initially condemned the government response to the pandemic but netanyahu is hoping israel's rapid rollout of vaccines will help secure his win. in other news from the region, israeli troops fatally shot a palestian man, 4year-old atef yussef hanaysheh, friday during protests against illegal israeli settlements in the occupied west bank. in tanzania, samia suluhu hassan made history friday, becing the nation's first woman president. hassan was tanzania's vice president but will now finish the term of john magufuli, who

died suddenly last week. hassan will take on the national response to the covid crisis, which her predecessor denied, shunning any public health measures. a warning to our audience, the next stories contain descriptions of sexual violence and harassment. a pakistani court sentenced two men to death for a rape last year, which set off protests and national outrage. the men gang-raped and robbed a woman in front of her children after her car broke down. at the time, the lahore police chief blamed the woman for traveling at night without a male companion and not making sure she had enough gas in her car. in the united states, the fbi has opened an investigation into new york governor andrew cuomo's role in shielding nursing home industry executives from liability over the deaths of thousands of residents from covid-19. the liability protections came

and april 20 -- came in after april 2020 the greater new york hospital association and its executives gave over $2 million in donations to cuomo's campaign. the fbi is also investigating reports that top aides to cuomo pressured state health officials to falsify state data to cover up the true number of covid-19 deaths in nursing homes. meanwhile, an eighth woman has stepped forward to accuse governor andrew cuomo of sexual misconduct. alyssa mcgrath, one of cuomo's current aides, says the governor made numerous unwelcome sexual advances, ogled her body, and remarked on her looks. the latest accusations came as former aide lindsey boylan called on new york's legislature to impeach governor cuomo. boylan says cuomo worked to -- boylan addressed a crowd of anti-cuomo protesters in manhattan on saturday. >> i spoke truth to power.

when the governor should have been focused on leading us out of this pandemic, he was instead focused on covering up the deaths of 15,000 new yorkers and snaring me and my reputation. amy: in western new york, republican u.s. congress member tom reed has apologized to a female lobbyist who accused him of unwanted sexual advances. she says he drunkenly rbed her back, unhooked her bra, and moved his head to her thigh during a gathering at a minneapolis are in 2017. reid said he would not seek reelection next year. he is among elected officials: governor cuomo to resign over sexual harassment claims and said as recently as last month he would consider a run for governor in 2022. he now says he will not run. louisiana republican julia letlow has won a special election to replace her husband, luke letlow, who died in

december of covid-19 before he could take his seat in congress for what would have been his freshman term. meanwhile, louisiana democrats troy carter and karen carter peterson head to an april runoff to see who will fill the seat vacated by cedric richmond to become the white house director of public engagement. new york congressmembers nydia velázquez and alexandria ocasio-cortez introduced a bill that would allow puerto rico to determine its territoria status, inuding statood or independence from the united states. new jersey's bob menendez introduced the measure in the senate. "a colony is incompatible with democracy," said acosta cortez. youth climate activists staged a global strike friday after a year of scaled-down and virtual protests due to the pandemic.

"no more empty promises!" chanted climate strikers in kenya. youth activists from around the world called on their governments to treat the climate catastrophe as an immediate crisis and fulfill their commitments to cut emissions. and renowned egyptian feminist, writer, psychiatrist, and former political prisoner nawal el saadawi has died at the age of 89. el saadawi was the founder and president of the arab women's solidarity association and an outspoken defender of women's rights, campaigning against sexual oppression, imperialism, and female genital mutilation. she described her own experience with the practice in the book "hidden face of eve." in 2011, she joined the uprising in cairo's tahrir square which led to the ouster of president hosni mubarak. nawal el saadawi spoke to democracy now! during the egyptian revolution.

>> women and girls are beside boys and industries. we are calling for freedom and equality and real democracy and a new constitution, notice, nation between men and women, no discrimination between muslims and christians, to change the system, to change the people -- to have real democracy. amy: that was nawal el saadawi, speaking to democracy now! on january 31, 2011. she's died at the age of 89. to see all of our interviews with her, you can go to democracynow.org. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, the quarantine report. only come back, we spend the hour with viet thanh nguyen to

talk about the mass shootings in atlanta, the link between hate crimes and u.s. foreign policy, the plight of refugees,nd his new novel "the committed," a sequel to his prize-winning book "the sympathizer." stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. i'm amy goodman. protests condemning racism and hate crimes against asian americans continue following la week's deadly shoings in atlanta where a white 21-year-old gunman attacked three asian-owned spas killing eight people -- seven of them women of them women of asian , six descent. president biden and kamala harris traveled to atlanta on friday to meet with asian-american leaders.

vice president harris, who is the first asian-american and first woman vice president, condemned last week's attacks. vice pres. harris: whatever the killers motive, these facts are clear -- six out of the eight people killed on tuesday night were of asian descent. seven were women. the shootings took place in businesses owned by asian americans. the shootings took place as violent hate crimes and discrimination against asian americans has risen dramatically over the last year and more. in fact, over the past year, 3800 such incidents have been reported. two of three, by women. everything from physical assaults to verbal accusations. and it is all harmful. sadly, it is not new.

racism israel in america and it has always been. xenophobia is real and in america, and always has been. sexism, too. for the last year, we have had people in positions of incredle power scapegoating asian americans. people with the biggest pulpits spreading this kind of hate. amy: on saturday, hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the georgia state capitol in atlanta. speakers included georgia state representative bee nguyen. >> we have lived in the shadows, invisible. stereotyped and relegated as second-class citizens. now in the wick of a violent shooting, white america is still trying to deny our humidity and existence.

a 21-year-old white man targeted three asian businesses, traveling 40 minutes from one suave to another -- one spa to another. he shot and killed eight people. six of them being asian women, close range, and it ahead. a matter how you want to spend it, the fact remains the same, this was an attack on the asian community. amy: the reverend william barber, co-founder of the poor people's campaign, also address the protest in atlanta. >> let us not forget, white supremacists are not just against black people, but humanity itself. let us remember that white

supremacist is a form of self worship and idolatry. and whenever it is pushed and promulgated by presidents and politicians and preachers come in can cause strange justification for the taking of life this world has ever seen. white supremacy is promulgated, he will try to justify taking black lives, taking brown lives, taking indigenous life, taking indian life, taking asian life, taking muslim life, palestinian life, and gay lives. what supremacist is a life taker. amy: as we continue to look at the mess shootings in atlanta, the spike in hate crimes targeting asian americans and

the broader issues, we are joined by the pulitzer prize-winning vietnamese-american writer viet thanh nguyen. his new novel "the committed," a sequel to his best-selling book "the sympathizer." his other books include "the refugees" and the displaced: refugee writers on refugee lives," which he edited. viet thanh nguyen came to the ited states as a refugee when he was four years old. he is a professor at the university of southern california. he recently co-wrote an article for "the washington post" headlined "bipartisan political rhetoric about asia leads to anti-asian violence here." professor, it is great to have you back on democracy now! congratulations on your new book and condolences on the horror that has taken place in atlanta, which is not just a horror for the asian-american community but clearly for all of us. if you can talk about the

significance of what happened and also the point you make in this op-ed in "the washington post" where you say bipartisan political rhetoric about asia leads to anti-asian violence here. >> thank you so much for having me back again and speak on this really tragic topic. i spent the last week talking to a lot of fellow asian americans. i think we are all in a state of anger, despair about what happened. partly because for many of us, we recognize this is not anything new, as i have spoken about repeatedly as have so many others. the history of anti-asian violence goes back t asian immigrants that have been brought here to have their labor exploited and it is often couched in the language and justification of racism and sexism. that is also tied to the united states attitudes toward asia as

a whole, that the u.s. has ever since the 19th century, focused on spending westward into asia, china, to reach asian resources. and this has had a distinct relationship in terms of pulling asia immigrants to the u.s. either on economic relationships or wars the u.s. has fought with many asian countries. for many of us, i think turn the last chair of the pandemic, to hear president trump and many of his supporters talk about covid-19 as the come flu and china virus was a recent manifestation of a deep held into asian racism that when people say things like kung flu and china virus, there tapping into this anti-asian feeling. that combined with the obvious stresses of the pandemic has a direct relationship to the significant rise in anti-asian violence and rhetoric that many people have experience in the last 12 months.

outside of that immediate trigger, i think the bipartisan rhetoric i mentioned, these have both democrats and republicans have focused on china, the major threat and competitor to the united states, number one, this concern with asia that has been present throughout american history, the keeps china in the foreground of the american imagination as a country to be feared. i think inevitably whether this is said with explicit racism or just a latent and implicit xenophobia, cannot help but to aggravate the suspicions and the feelings of many americans about people of asian descent. amy: as we speak in this past week, secretary of state anthony blinken and the pentagon chief lloyd austin have been traveling the world and fully taking on china come you will. secretary of state blinken had

his first face-to-face made with top chinese officials in alaska during a press conference before that with japanese officials earlier in the week, lincoln warned china not to use " aggression." >> we are united in a free and open it pacific region. were countries followed the rules, cooperate whenever they can come and resolve their differences peacefully. in particular, we will push back if necessary on chinese aggression. amy: in this is lloyd austin. >> i know japan shares our concerns with china's stabilizing actions. as i have said before, china is a phasing challenge for the department of defense. amy: so you have austin and biden, not just talking about trump using terms like the china

virus. can you respond to what they have been saying? >> during the period of the cold war and afterward, foreign policy has depended on a foreign other, whether it is soviet union or china -- in those years. it is obvious we need a foreign other in order to target our political rhetoric and justify our vast expenditures in terms of our military-industrial complex. so china has resumed that position for the united states was to pressure, too, to a certain extent. but china because of its -- this set of expectations we have that china is going to be menacing, owing to all kinds of calculations going on strategically and economically that we have to worry about -- all of this is being put forth by various people in both parties. i think one of the things to stress here is of course there

are things about china we should be concerned about. i think we should be concerned about human rights abuses that china has undertaken but often times this kind of rhetoric of what china is doing is being used to justify an american militaristic stance against china instead of the was wearing about how we can compete with china economically but in a nonviolent and nonthreatening manner. of course, our outge about the depredations of china gets his own people is sometimes a little critical because we are still -- hypocritical because we are still struggling with our own capacity to take care of americans. amy: last week, public and congressmember chip roy of texas was rebuked for using a house judiciary committee meeting on the rise of anti-asian violence to glorify lynchings and use rhetoric about china that stokes racism toward asian-american communities. this is a small part of what he said.

>> are old things in texas about find all the rope in texas and ingot atoll oaktree. now we are talking about whether talking about china, the chinese commonest party, whatever phrase we want to use, and some people are saying, hey, we think those guys are the bad guys, for whatever reason, let me say clearly, i do. i think the chinese communist party running the country china, i think they are the bad guys. and i think they are harming people. amy: so that was texas congressmember chip roy speaking using the term "chicom." this was the response from new york democratic congressmember grace meng. >> your president and your party and your colleagues can talk about issues with any other

country you want, but you don't have to do it by putting a bull's-eye on the back of asian americans across the country. on our grandparents come on our kids. this hearing was to address the hurt and pain of our community and to find solutions and we will not let you take our voice away from us. amy: if you, professor, could respond to what he said and what this means? >> the reflexive term to talk about anti-asian violence within the u.s. directed against asian americans suddenly being undertaken to do a pivot toward this fear of asia, but also the rhetoric of law and order, of violence, of using lynching -- it demonstrates what the william barber said and it is speech you talked about, which is these manifestations of anti-asian racism are a must inevitably tie toward other islands in this

country. in these domestic manifestations of anti-asian and anti-black racism are tied together with justifications for american foreign policy. the term the reverend barber used was white supremacy to connect all of these manifestations that i think that is correct. that perception people in the united states, talking about anti-asian violence means it allows them to deploy other methods of violence directed against other kinds of populations, whether it is populations abroad or in this ca, the idea that african or blood people also need to be suppressed in this country. i think one of the points we as asian americans must insist on is our efforts are tied together here. our efforts to highlight in combat anti-asian racism also need to go hand-in-hand with addressing antiblack racism as

well. amy: professor nguyen, i would ask about the media coverage that has happened in atlanta. inhe first police news conference last week after the deadly shootings, cherokee county sheriff's department spokesperson captain jay baker said the 21-year-old shooter, robert aaron long's killing spree, was not racially motivated and instead stemmed from his sex addiction. he said the young man himself said it was not racially movated. now, he has been removed as a spokesperson now because they're such outcry over what he said. but it has framed the discussion and the issue of hate crimes has yet to be raised -- he certainly has not been charged with them. if you can comment on that and also comment on this issue -- i mean, his church apparently has disowned him. but talk about this

sealization of asian women, seven of the eight victims were women and six were of asian descent. >> 70 asian-american women have already spoken about the question of racism and sexism cannot be separated. even if you might have been sexually addicted, etc., this idea this somehow is removed from any kind of racist pre-application -- preoccupation is absd. if you look at the way asians have been exploited in th american imagination, and as i was always with the intersection of racism, sism, and labor exploitation. we see that in this context that he deliberately -- the shooter deliberately picked not just any type of place where he might have expected sexual activity but very specifically asian massage parlors. and asian-american women have always existed as objects of racialist sexualized fantasies for men of many different kinds of backgrounds but deep roots of

this in american and european culture. and as has come to light, many of these women who are working in these massage parlors, we do not know if there were six workers were not if they work, does not validate the fact they were also victims of racist and sexist violence, but many appear to be women of marginal economic class who were living and working in these massage parlors -- in effect, they were exploited laborers. all of these things were happening at the same time. it is enormous like frustrating the police response and the fbi response has been to compartmentalize what has taken place under one category only of sexual exploitation when in fact all of these things were happening at once. amy: i want to read from a statement by kimberlé crenshaw and the african american policy forum. she writes -- "to say the murderer's actions were about sexual desire, and therefore not about race, is a fundamental intersectional

failure -- it denies the racial dimensions of the hyper-sexualization of asian women, and reproduces the environment that makes asian women particularly vulnerable to harassment, abuse, and murder." professor nguyen? >> absolutely. i think professor crenshaw is right. for many asian-american women, they have a long litany of experiences being subjected to harassment, catcalls, sexual invitation, and then of course also to rape, sexual violence, and marginalization due to their experiences, representations of being asian-american women. it is pervasive in american popular culture as well. certainly come the figure of the asian-american woman as a sexual object or prostitute in american cinematic fantasy has been with us for a very long time. many people have talked about this infamous moment in a

stanley kubrick's "full metal jacket" were marines go to vietnam and encounter a vietnamese prostitute who says "me so horny." that became the line of a song. and a line that many asian-american women have been subjected to. racism and sexual exultation have been usually experienced by asian-american women. amy: viet thanh nguyen, if you can talk further about the history targeting asian americans and the violence targeting asian americans going back me than a century? >> i am coming to you from los angeles most of one of the worst mass lynchings happen here in downtown los angeles in 1871 when a mob of about 500 white men murdered 17 chinese men and

boys. this was not an isolated incident. this has taken place throughout the western united states. even i have learned recently about an incident in oregon in 1884 were 34 chinese miners were murdered. what happened was chinese immigrants that come to the u.s. to work on the transcontinental railroad and when the usefulness was expired, there were let go and had to make a living for themselves in the american west. anti-chinese fervor among the white working class was encouraged by the media and politicians, again, scapegoating and asian other in the united states to deal with white working-class economic frustration. other asian populations that came after the chinese were also subjected to these kind of feelings. there was the japanese-american internment when 120 thousand japanese-american people, many citizens, were put into concentration camps even though people of german and italian is that were not.

racist incidences, adding 82 was a chinese-american was taken for japanese by two detroit auto who are frustrated by competition and they beat him to death with a baseball bat. they did not spend any time in jail. in a 1989, 5, he and children --, he told were shot by oh white gunmen. in 2012 -- i'm sorry, 2002, six sikh worshipers were killed by white gunmen. throughout american history in the 19th and 20th-century up until t 21st century, we have seen repeated incidents of both singular and mass anti-asian

violence taking place periodically. amy: do you think would happen in atlanta has to be immediately labeled as and the alleged shooter charged with hate crimes? >> i certainly think so. again, it was shocking to me to read yesterday in "the guardian" christopher wray said it is not conclusive this was a racially motivated crime. and rev. warnock said it is a hate crime when we are looking at this targeted attack against asian massage parlors in which six of the victims were asian women who were deliberately tracked down. it looks like a hate crime. is not like a hate crime. it is a hate crime. i think overwhelmingly the asian population believes that. amy: let me go to what fbi director christopher wray said on the investigation at the mass shooting in atlanta and his

thoughts about the motive. >> while the motive remains still under investigation at the moment, it does not appear the motive was racially motivated. i really would to for two the state and local investigation on that for now. amy: that was fbi director christpher wray and this, professor nguyen,alked about georgia senator reverend raphael warnock's response. >> law enforcement will go to the work they need to do but we all know hate when we see it. it was tragic that we have been visited with this kind of violence yet again and i will be doing everything in my power as a united states senator to make sure families don't have to endure this kind of violence in the first place. amy: that is the new georgia senator reverend raphael warnock. you're going to gotta break and, to our discussion with the pulitzer prize-winning writer

viet thanh nguyen, author of the new book "the committed," a sequel to his pulitzer prize winning book "the sympathizer." we will talk to him about his new book and also about his use of the word "refugees," whether cr're talking about his family coming to this country from vietnam or refugees from honduras and guatemala or el salvador. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. i'm amy goodman. we are spending the hour with the pulitzer-prize winning vietnamese-american writer viet thanh nguyen. his new novel has just been published. it is called "the committed." it is a sequel to his 2015 pulitzer prize-winning novel "the sympathizer." both books share a narrator, a half-vietnamese and half-french communist spy who refers to

himself as “a man of two faces and two minds." professor nguyen is the chair of english and professor of english and american studies and ethnicity at the university of southern california. his other books include "the refugees" and "the displaced: refugee writers on refugee lives," which he edited. with his new book, "the new yorker" says pfessor nguyen has established himself as a "conscience of american literature." professor nguyen, i want to go to "the refugees." two of your books use the term up and got refugees" in the title. as we speak today, you've got the mass killings in atlanta and you have this massive number of unaccompanied children, of children on the southern border, upwards of 15,000 right now, not to mention the number of adults who are being turned away. can you talk about why you choose to use the term "refugee"

? and tell us your families own story in that answer. >> i think there are official refugees and unofficial refugees. in our case, my family's case, we were official refugees. we were south vietnamese and on the losing side of the vietnam war. in 1975 along with 130,000 other vietnamese people, we've led to the u.s. we were luy because the united states had an interest in accepting refugees from a new economist country that was useful pr for the united states. we ended up in pennsylvania. i was four years old. my own experiences or that i was taken away from my parents at that age to be resettled with a different sponsor family that my parents. it was dumb but definitely because my parents were -- it was done benevolently. i only remembered it as a.

i was comparatively lucky. i was renowned with my parents after a few months. what is happening at our border, children being forcibly taken from their parents not for benevolent purposes. i know those families will be permanently scarred by what happened to them there. at the current moment we have unaccompanied minors, sending help for much longer than has been mandated -- some help for much longer than mandated, will be deeply traumatic for them as well. i think this is oftentimes very political. why are people coming from the south? oftentimes it is due to political and economic circumstances that the united states has had a role in playing and u.s. has any interest in not

classifying them as refugees because that would obligate the u.s. to welcome them in but also it would highlight the ways by which what we do here in the united states and other countries and creates conditions for people wanting to flee. amy: and that story of fleeing from a place the u.s. has been involved with -- i mean, with vietnam, laos, to say involved with is putting it mildly. bombing the country continually at war with. the significance of how that shaped your view of the country you came to grow up in an culturally in this country, for example, you talk about being steeped in films like "apocalypse now" and what that meant to you, what people in this country who were born here understand and what you felt coming from vietnam? >> i feel myself to be an

american. i have grown up your since i was auto and i think i deeply understand american culture and feel i am an american. i love many things about the american culture, including movies. that includes "apocalypse now." wahing it was ite shking tching it at or becse i fe myselto be anmerican oting fothe ameran ldiers uuntil th point the kill or massacred vietnase civilis. then i felt melf sit in two. to me it ia very bas questi that apies to many the circumances myork address, but think t mos portanthing aut this th is not st a pernal ise fore and n just a feeling beingivided a culturally dided thamany azed- asiaamericanhave spoken about. what is also important is my very existence and that many other vitamins and asian-americans in this country, we are here because of wars the united states fought in asia. this to a bifurcation in

american history and culture that is true for so many people. on one hand this is a country of high ideals, democracy and opportunity. on the other hand, a country rooted in warfare and conquest which has manisted itselin wars in asia. we have an obligation as americans to recognize the colications of this. both responsibilities of this country and its roots and continuing immersion in warfare genocide. amy: congratulations on your new book . it begins on refugee boat. you severely objective people being called boat people but you point out that, oh, ulysses was on a boat five we cast him in heroic terms. pilgrims of the u.s. work both people, but we called them founders. talk about the difference in how

this different desk country looks at different refugees. >> one of the reasons i, suffer refugee is it is a stigmatized term in the united states. americans know what to make out of some and who calls himself an immigrant. i think a refugee often brings a very negative image in the american imagination. the term "boat people" illustrates is, that after the vietnam war, tens of thousands of vietnamese people did flee by boat and the media called the boat people, which is a way of trying attention to them and ever successful way. but it means vietnamese have been fixed in the american imagination as both people and the images are that these are desperate and frightened people. that is true. they were desperate and frightened, but there are heroic because many new their chances of survival once they took to the open these on rickety boats

were going to be very slim. i have asked myself why do we cast certain people as heroes and others as not heroic? i think in the case of refugees coming easier to cast them as desperate and frightened that her rug because if they were seen as heroes, would have to incorporate them into our own stories, feel more obligation to them, and we might have to see them as human beings rather than as these pathetic objects that need to be rescued. part of the project of the novel like "the committed," which begins on refugee boat that idea liberally call an ark is to reframe the experience of refugees, whether they are fleeing from vietnam or south of the border to the north or from africa to the mediterranean, to recast theseeople as heroes undertaking very difficult journeys with enormous obstacles . and that if they succeed, we

should treat them as heroes rather than as desperate and frightened objects of our pity. amy: tell us about your protagonist, i named in "the committed." >> he is unnamed because he is in every man. he is vietnamese but in every man in terms of these adventures and misadventures yes to go through. he is of mixed dissent. his father's her fridge p -- french priest and his mother is of vietnamese descent. is a man of the two faces and tw mines. he sees every issue from both sides, which makes him a perfect figure for a writer. but he is caught up in his era of the vietnam war and the cold war, able to see through the oppositions and the polarities

that countries and cultures typically deploy to make things easier to understand. going back to this idea of east and west and anti-asian violence, disease or to understand the world we see it split into two. he himself does not have that luxury. he is always going be on the surface to look underneath. it allows him the capacity to satirize our hypocrisies and make some kind of a tragic figure because in a world in which most people want to choose one side or the other, he can't choose. amy: professor nguyen, i was listening to your interview on the radio and entities that americans don't think of themselves as colonizers. the word for colonization is the american dream. can you elaborate on this? >> we asmericans believe in american exceptionalism, that we are the greatest country in the world. no other country has been like ours.

when we think about colonization we think, it is the europeans who did the colonizing but we never did that. of course that is factually wrong. this country has been founded -- characterized as brutal and so on, those are the very terms we should be using to describe our american history as well. a lot of americans would object to this kind of characterization. i think ms. americans are like every other country. we want to see our own history in the best because of a light. that inclination is not unique at all. part of my work is to say we as americans need to be able, like this if that's her, hold two different thoughts at the same time. this is something that f scott tzgerald said as well.

many americans can't do that, which is why they would rather say when someone like me brings of these kinds of criticisms, "love it or leave it." since i do love this country and don't want to leave ed, i think what we should do is embrace the complexities and the brutal contradictions of our history. when i say that successful colonization , i think what i mean is the rhetoric of the american dream allows us to forget the history of our colonization and the ongoing fact of our colonization. many indigenous peoples would say they're still being colonized today. what alexandria ocasio-cortez said is it is a colony right now, puerto rico. the very opposition to the idea that our country can be a colonizing country blinds many americans to what is actually going on in our country at this present time. amy: i was wondering if you could talk about the asian american writers who most influenced you?

you're a student of the great chinese-american writer kingston? >> so many great asian american writers. i'm lucky to come late in the game. i think about tunnel caught up writing about the japanese-american internment. and maxing kingston, she had faith in me and i over a great deal. amy: a very poor student who just one appeal it's a surprise. we thank you so much for spending time with us. viet thanh nguyen, author of the new novel "the committed," a sequel to his pulitzer prize winning book "the sympathizer." professor at the university of southern california. we will link to the "washington post" piece you co-authored "bipartisan political rhetoric about asia leads to anti-asian violence here." that does it for our show.

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♪ glad to have you with us. from our studio in tokyo, this is nhk "newsline." the european union is imposing sanctions on four chinese officials for human rights abuses in the uigher aon the mouse region. the an shsanctions are the firs against china following the 1989 crackdown at beijing's