Note: This is an encore edition of Reader's Corner. This episode originally aired in February 2021.
In "This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant's Manifesto," an NPR Best Book of the Year, renowned author Suketu Mehta draws on his own experience as an Indian-born teenager growing up in New York City and on years of reporting around the world, Mehta subjects the worldwide anti-immigrant backlash to withering scrutiny and explains that the West is being destroyed not by immigrants but by the fear of immigrants.
Mehta juxtaposes the phony narratives of populist ideologues with the ordinary heroism of laborers, nannies, and others, explaining why more people are on the move today than ever before as civil strife and climate change reshape large parts of the planet. Impassioned, rigorous, and richly stocked with memorable stories and characters, "This Land Is Our Land" is a timely argument for why the United States and the West would benefit from accepting more immigrants.
Suketu Mehta is the author of Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His work has been published in the New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, Harpers, Time and GQ. He has won a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Whiting Writers Award and an O. Henry Prize.
