he is viet thahn nguyen, a writer, professor, and the winner of both the macarthur genius fellow ship and the pulitzer prize for his landmark novel "the sympathizer." and, yes, he was a refugee from vietnam. viet thahn nguyen, welcome to the program. >> thank you so much more having me. >> so you wrote, you know, an article. you're talking about refugees and migrants and it's caused a lot of, i don't know, controversy, let's say. what was it that sparked that from you? what moved you to get involved in this highly polarized debate? >> well, i've always been interested in refugees and immigrants because i am a refugee. and of course right now in the united states we're going through a moment of high anti-immigrant and anti-refugee feeling. so it was really recent actions on the part of the trump administration, john kelly calling undocumented immigrants uneducated and harm to american society, and jeff sessions arguing for the removal of children of undocumented immigrants. these are crises in our society that i wanted to respond to. >> before i play this john kelly sound bite to remin