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This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant’s Manifesto
An impassioned defence of global immigration from the acclaimed author of Maximum City.
Drawing on his family’s own experience emigrating from India to Britain and America, and years of reporting around the world, Suketu Mehta subjects the worldwide anti-immigrant backlash to withering scrutiny. The West, he argues, is being destroyed not by immigrants but by the fear of immigrants. He juxtaposes the phony narratives of populist ideologues with the ordinary heroism of labourers, nannies and others, from Dubai to New York, and explains why more people are on the move today than ever before. As civil strife and climate change reshape large parts of the planet, it is little surprise that borders have become so porous.
This Land is Our Land also stresses the destructive legacies of colonialism and global inequality on large swathes of the world. When today’s immigrants are asked, ‘Why are you here?’, they can justly respond, ‘We are here because you were there.’ And now that they are here, as Mehta demonstrates, immigrants bring great benefits, enabling countries and communities to flourish.
Impassioned, rigorous, and richly stocked with memorable stories and characters, This Land Is Our Land is a timely and necessary intervention, and literary polemic of the highest order.
Drawing on his family’s own experience emigrating from India to Britain and America, and years of reporting around the world, Suketu Mehta subjects the worldwide anti-immigrant backlash to withering scrutiny. The West, he argues, is being destroyed not by immigrants but by the fear of immigrants. He juxtaposes the phony narratives of populist ideologues with the ordinary heroism of labourers, nannies and others, from Dubai to New York, and explains why more people are on the move today than ever before. As civil strife and climate change reshape large parts of the planet, it is little surprise that borders have become so porous.
This Land is Our Land also stresses the destructive legacies of colonialism and global inequality on large swathes of the world. When today’s immigrants are asked, ‘Why are you here?’, they can justly respond, ‘We are here because you were there.’ And now that they are here, as Mehta demonstrates, immigrants bring great benefits, enabling countries and communities to flourish.
Impassioned, rigorous, and richly stocked with memorable stories and characters, This Land Is Our Land is a timely and necessary intervention, and literary polemic of the highest order.
Kindle Edition
First published June 4, 2019
About the author
Suketu Mehta
17 books219 followersSuketu Mehta is the New York-based author of 'Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found,' which won the Kiriyama Prize and the Hutch Crossword Award, and was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize, the Lettre Ulysses Prize, the BBC4 Samuel Johnson Prize, and the Guardian First Book Award. He has won the Whiting Writers Award, the O. Henry Prize, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship for his fiction. Mehta's work has been published in the New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, Granta, Harpers Magazine, Time, and Condé Nast Traveler, and has been featured on NPR's 'Fresh Air'.
Mehta is Associate Professor of Journalism at New York University. He is currently working on a nonfiction book about immigrants in contemporary New York, for which he was awarded a 2007 Guggenheim fellowship. He has also written an original screenplay for 'The Goddess,' a Merchant-Ivory film starring Tina Turner, and 'Mission Kashmir', a Bollywood movie.
Mehta was born in Calcutta and raised in Bombay and New York. He is a graduate of New York University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop.
Mehta is Associate Professor of Journalism at New York University. He is currently working on a nonfiction book about immigrants in contemporary New York, for which he was awarded a 2007 Guggenheim fellowship. He has also written an original screenplay for 'The Goddess,' a Merchant-Ivory film starring Tina Turner, and 'Mission Kashmir', a Bollywood movie.
Mehta was born in Calcutta and raised in Bombay and New York. He is a graduate of New York University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop.
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June 7, 2019
This Land Is Our Land is the book on immigration that I wish I had had written. Suketu Mehta has no qualms about digging deep and laying it all out there for everyone to see: the truths, the stories, the cover ups, and also, the lies. As an immigrant myself, with an immigrant partner who comes from a very different part of the world than I do, and three US-born children, this is the type of narrative that I think everyone should be reading. And while this book does focus on the US, it also focuses on Europe, which I think is very important due to the rise of anti-immigrant voices, and populist leaders there. I appreciated the stories on Algeria, and the Algerian War, as I grew up in France and most of it is completely glossed over in history books there at school.
Suketu Mehta, born in India and immigrated to the US in his late teens, has spent many years researching and reporting on the topics of immigration and displacement, and This Land Is Our Land is chock full of important information, history, facts, and stories. The history may not always be what you have learnt at school or in the press, but it is the true history of colonialism, slavery, and the beginnings of what we see as immigration today. The stories illustrate and humanize all of the facts, and prove that immigration is not an “issue” as some would like to see it, but a result of centuries of damage inflicted by rich Western countries on other countries. This book also proves that immigration should be seen in a positive light rather than the negative one that the current administration is intent on making you believe.
There is so much information in this book, and the author skips through time and place in a way that could be confusing to some, but that I thought worked really well. I consider myself pretty well-read in terms of history and politics (worldwide), but I learnt a lot reading this book, especially about the long-standing Western big business and country-level tax evasion loopholes in developing nations, and the ripple effects it has on those countries for decades. While I feel like this book really should be read in depth by those who believe Trump and his cronies’ lies, I doubt they will unfortunately. But for those looking to find some solid facts to counter anti-immigration zealots, there is a lot of meat to chew on.
Thank you Suketu Mehta for writing this book, and to the publisher and Netgalley for the copy!
Suketu Mehta, born in India and immigrated to the US in his late teens, has spent many years researching and reporting on the topics of immigration and displacement, and This Land Is Our Land is chock full of important information, history, facts, and stories. The history may not always be what you have learnt at school or in the press, but it is the true history of colonialism, slavery, and the beginnings of what we see as immigration today. The stories illustrate and humanize all of the facts, and prove that immigration is not an “issue” as some would like to see it, but a result of centuries of damage inflicted by rich Western countries on other countries. This book also proves that immigration should be seen in a positive light rather than the negative one that the current administration is intent on making you believe.
There is so much information in this book, and the author skips through time and place in a way that could be confusing to some, but that I thought worked really well. I consider myself pretty well-read in terms of history and politics (worldwide), but I learnt a lot reading this book, especially about the long-standing Western big business and country-level tax evasion loopholes in developing nations, and the ripple effects it has on those countries for decades. While I feel like this book really should be read in depth by those who believe Trump and his cronies’ lies, I doubt they will unfortunately. But for those looking to find some solid facts to counter anti-immigration zealots, there is a lot of meat to chew on.
Thank you Suketu Mehta for writing this book, and to the publisher and Netgalley for the copy!
May 26, 2019
Immigration memoirs and nonfiction, factual explorations are my jam. I add them by my shopping cart all the time and keep tabs on new titles coming out. When I saw Mehta's take on immigration was available for request, I immediately got excited to read it. Unfortunately, my expectations weren't completely met, despite this being a good book.
This Is Our Land has one big selling point: it brings personal experience and real interviews into the discussion about immigration. All the stories we learn of the author's past and present life as an immigrant, as well as the interviews conducted with immigrants from all walks of life based in different parts of the world, lend this book plenty of emotional strength and authenticity.
Where Mehta's work falls short of greatness is in recognizing other points of view. This book reads more like a vindication in favor of immigration rather that "an argument" (which it is marketed as). There is no exploration of what the arguments against immigration are besides the most basic and frankly outdated ones. Upon finishing this book, I am still unclear on the author's stance on immigration. Should countries vet applicants based on education level? Should all immigrants be allowed into the country? There are certainly good arguments against the latter, however, the author shies away from discussing them. This Is Our Land would have been much more relevant and interesting if it had explored the counter-arguments.
Lastly, I'm still not sure who this book is aimed at. It's definitely not meant for people who are on the fence or flat out against opening the borders to immigrants. It's too polarizing and, frankly, demonizing to appeal to those people. So that leaves us with people who are favorable to immigration, but it feels too "same" for this category. Besides the personal experiences and interviews conducted (awesome), it doesn't add much to what has already been said. Maybe had the approach been different, This Is Our Land would be a more relevant and original book.
Despite all this, I still maintain that this is an enjoyable read. It's emotional and factual, perhaps in disproportionate amounts, and an interesting read.
This Is Our Land has one big selling point: it brings personal experience and real interviews into the discussion about immigration. All the stories we learn of the author's past and present life as an immigrant, as well as the interviews conducted with immigrants from all walks of life based in different parts of the world, lend this book plenty of emotional strength and authenticity.
Where Mehta's work falls short of greatness is in recognizing other points of view. This book reads more like a vindication in favor of immigration rather that "an argument" (which it is marketed as). There is no exploration of what the arguments against immigration are besides the most basic and frankly outdated ones. Upon finishing this book, I am still unclear on the author's stance on immigration. Should countries vet applicants based on education level? Should all immigrants be allowed into the country? There are certainly good arguments against the latter, however, the author shies away from discussing them. This Is Our Land would have been much more relevant and interesting if it had explored the counter-arguments.
Lastly, I'm still not sure who this book is aimed at. It's definitely not meant for people who are on the fence or flat out against opening the borders to immigrants. It's too polarizing and, frankly, demonizing to appeal to those people. So that leaves us with people who are favorable to immigration, but it feels too "same" for this category. Besides the personal experiences and interviews conducted (awesome), it doesn't add much to what has already been said. Maybe had the approach been different, This Is Our Land would be a more relevant and original book.
Despite all this, I still maintain that this is an enjoyable read. It's emotional and factual, perhaps in disproportionate amounts, and an interesting read.
December 27, 2019
On the 30th of May, 2019, the President of the United States of America, Donald Trump threatened to apply a 5% tariff on all imports from Mexico. This threat which must have caused a significant amount of trepidation in Marcelo Ebard, Mexico’s Secretary for Foreign Affairs, comes as a direct follow up to Mr. Trump’s vow of ‘punishing’ Mexico for their ‘migrants.”
Hard retribution, if any. But can this harsh measure be even termed retribution? A topical subject that has spawned a vertical divide amongst policy makers, policy experts, economists and the common man is that of migration. This chasm has at one end of its continuum, fierce advocates rooting for the benevolent effects of migration, while at the other end of the continuum stand equally ferocious opponents who bemoan the ill effects of allowing foreigners into their territories. There does not seem to be any modicum of moderation between the two extremes of magnanimity and xenophobia. For example, according to economists Giovanni Peri and Vasil Yasenov of U.C. Berkeley, immigrants induce a positive effect on the local job market since they create a demand for services, from supermarkets to repair shops. However, economists such as George Borjas of Harvard, nurse a diametrically tangential opinion. According to Borjas, immigration is responsible for cutting the wages of American high school drop outs by 3 to 5 percent, an average of $1800 a year.
In his new and blistering book, “This Land Our Land: An Immigrant’s Manifesto”, Suketu Mehta, Associate Professor of Journalism at New York University and best-selling author disembowels the received wisdom and popular ideologies forming the backbone of the immigration issue. Dissecting the problem of migration, Mr. Mehta polemically rails against the countries that take an extremely negative approach towards the influx of migrants. Mr. Mehta should know, himself having made the journey from India to the United States many years ago. He has had the mixed fortune of having had to endure both the wrath of racism and enjoy the munificence of a welcoming brotherhood. Departing India with eighteen bags and a steamer trunk, Mr. Mehta’s family found themselves in a studio apartment in Jackson Heights where the television was broadcasting The Six Million Dollar Man. The building super disconnected the power to the apartment the very first night of the Mehtas’ stay on account of ‘too many people in one room.’ Mr. Mehta does not enlighten us as to how long his family had to endure this bout of induced darkness.
According to Mr. Mehta, migration is not the fly in the ointment. The pernicious prelude that birthed many an exodus is the cause that needs dissection, distillation and dissemination. A prelude that has at its core, the rapacious lunges and thrusts of a colonial blade, a prelude that ravaged otherwise peaceful lands, plundered resources, pilfered wealth and pillaged unsuspecting people of their hard earned nest eggs. It is these same colonists who are crying foul when migrants make their arduous way to their shores. As Mr. Mehta compellingly argues, the travelers are merely “following their money.” No wonder Alexander Betts of Oxford University terms human mobility as “survival migration.”
Multinationals awash with money such as Rio Tinto and the hedge fund Och-Ziff Capital have been steadily exploiting the envious bauxite reserves, gold and diamonds that used to be the preserve of Guinea. The Guineans on the other hand are forced to lead an existence that is mired in poverty and deprivation. Even a 2017 Securities and Exchange Commission Report acknowledges the extent of corruption in Guinea. Och-Ziff was forced to pay a criminal penalty of $213 million to the US Justice Department in addition to a fine of $199 million to the SEC for bribery and corrupt practices.
If one is trying to come to grips with the shenanigans of Och-Ziff Capital, then he better ready himself in attempting to fathom the chicanery of the British during their two-odd centuries of ravaging India. As Mr. Mehta elucidates to his readers, the former United Nations undersecretary-general for communications and public information, politician and orator par excellence, Dr. Shashi Tharoor, provided a flavour of the colonial atrocities, as part of an arresting and eloquent Oxford Union speech. Consider these damning facts: “India’s share of the world economy when Britain arrived on its shores [at the beginning of the eighteenth century] was 23 percent. By the time the British left in 1947, it was down to below 4 percent. Why? Simply because India had been governed for the benefit of Britain. Britain’s rise for two hundred years was financed by its depredations in India.”
Forced famine, coerced import of raw materials from India and export of finished goods, manufactured using the very own raw materials back to India, and that too, at brazenly high prices, ensured that millions of Indians starved to death. The tally when the dust finally settled was an unimaginable 40 million! The writer Mike Davis termed it “the late Victorian Holocaust.” The most deified, revered and lionized icon of Britain, Winston Churchill was in reality a remorseless and ruthless butcher (reviewer’s own words). Nursing a feeling of revulsion towards India and Indians in general, he infamously remarked, “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion. The Indians deserved the 1943 famine because they were breeding like rabbits.” It is these very rabbits towards whose expertise Brits now swarm like locusts beseeching a cure for otherwise incurable illnesses and even to put on a false tooth unable to bear the monetary burdens imposed upon them by their own doctors at home! Britain left her ungainly imprints across the globe and not just on the sub-continent. Divvying up Jordan and Iraq and thereby creating a headache in perpetuity was again the brainchild of the presumptuous and egregious Churchill according to Warren Dockter, a Churchill scholar.
Britain also found able allies and perpetrators in crime in the company of France and Belgium. After milking Haiti of all its money by imposing extortionate payments, France reduced this nation to a failed state. In the year 2003, when the Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide demanded $21 billion in reparations, Napoleon’s beloved country feigned indifference.
According to Jason Hickel, an anthropologist in the London School of Economics (and I have to confess, one of my favourite authors), the amount of silver forcibly extracted by the Europeans from Latin America would tantamount to a gargantuan debt of $165 trillion at a nominal interest rate of 5% in today’s dollar terms! Hickel exclaims that “Europe didn’t develop the colonies. The colonies developed Europe.”
Migration is also an involuntary offshoot of the ubiquitous multinational corporation as per Mr. Mehta. Spreading its tentacles wide and deep, the multinational enterprise makes use of clever and esoteric tax structures devised by even cleverer tax professionals to siphon funds from the developing to the developed countries. As Mr. Mehta highlights, “The UK and its overseas territories host one in five of the world’s tax havens…They hold a combined pile of 1.4 trillion pounds that’s sheltered from taxes, according to a recent study by the University of California, Berkeley economist, Gabriel Zucman.” So naturally the people whose pockets have been forcibly picked will try to retrieve the same from the place where the robber resides!
Migration is also a direct consequence of displacements due to bloody civil wars and violent internecine conflicts. At the Munich Security Conference in February 2017, the UK defense secretary, Sir Michael Fallon, justified the ongoing, albeit limited, British presence in Afghanistan on the following plain speaking and matter-of-fact grounds “We here will feel the consequences, very directly,” he claimed. “There could be three to four million young Afghan men sent out by their villages to migrate westwards, and they are heading here.” However, as Mr. Mehta brilliantly points out in his book, these nations that fear an exodus of homeless people heading their way, are in many cases directly responsible or indirectly complicit in robbing the poor souls of their very homes. Take for instance, the United States’ support for the capricious regimes of Efrain Rios Mott and Somoza in Guatemala and Nicaragua respectively. Or the Reagan backed coup in El Salvador in 1981 where the Salvadoran army ran riot slaughtering approximately 1,200 men, women and children. It is only logical that such displaced Haitians, Salvadorans, Guatemalans and Yemenis will flee for their safety.
The West is not merely responsible for criminal complicity. Crony capitalism has wreaked havoc upon the only Planet that currently has been known to sustain and source life. The International Organization for Migration estimates that at least 200 million will be displaced by climate change by 2050. Aromar Revi, The Director of the Indian Institute for Human Settlements says, “in some parts of the world, national borders will become irrelevant. You can set up a wall to try to contain 10,000 and 20,000 and one million people, but 10 million.” As Mr. Mehta poignantly asks about the displaced populace, “And where should they move to? To their former colonizers, or to the country most responsible for the heating of the planet? Americans are only 4 percent of the world’s population but are responsible for one third of the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.” It is America which stormed out of the Paris Agreement in a huff when asked to curb emissions. Island states are in danger of being submerged on account of rising sea levels.
On the 20th of October 2009, the Maldives government made a spectacularly ingenious plea for climate change action by conducting the first ever underwater cabinet meeting. Politicians clad in scuba suits with oxygen tanks attached dove into the Indian Ocean ahead of December’s UN climate change conference in Copenhagen. The then president Mohammed Nasheed expressing concern over a potential swamping of the archipelago, courtesy rising sea levels, appealed for action on part of the industrialized economies. Ministers communicated using hand signals and white boards as they signed a document calling on all countries to cut their emissions. It read: ‘We must unite in a world war effort to halt further temperature rises. Climate change is happening and it threatens the rights and security of everyone on Earth.’ As President Nasheed exhorted the developed world, “you can drastically reduce your greenhouse gas emissions so that the seas do not rise much. Or when we show up on your shores in our boats, you can let us in. Or when we show up on your shores in our boats, you can shoot us. You pick.”
Incidentally, as Mr. Mehta educates us, in the 1800s approximately five million Bavarians fled the vagaries of climate change into the welcoming arms of America. Among the new emigrants was an illiterate sixteen-year old who spoke no English. He went by the name of Friedrich Trump. His grandson goes by the name of Donald Trump.
Thus the artificial fear mongering over migrants stealing the jobs of the local population, lusting after the refined women in a show of animal savagery and barbarity, and most of all, demonstrating a hopeless ineptitude to assimilate themselves to the culture of their host country is total hogwash, and bunkum. Such balderdash and malarkey obfuscate the follies of some of the richest regimes and detract from the public perspective, the need to analyse the question of migration in a holistic and untainted perspective.
These startlingly extreme narratives as Mr. Mehta points out have not been a conception of the present. The civilized world has been a silent witness to a raft of eugenicists and racists whose only avowed objective seems to have been the preservation of an unchallenged status of the imperial ‘white man.’ Leading the preponderance of the creatures have been the likes of Paul Ehrlich, an environmentalist and Stanford biologist and arguably the most infamous doyen of anti-immigration thinking, Jean Raspail. Raspail, a Frenchman and author of “The Camp of The Saints” reserves his choicest and vilest feelings for migrants. His despicable book imagines a boatload of eight hundred migrants setting sail from Kolkata (then Calcutta) in India, planning to disembark in France in the year 2000. On the way, they fornicate indiscriminately, including with their own children and eat each other’s excreta. As they prepare to land in France, the country faces a conflicting choice between liberals preparing to welcome the new arrivals and “the gallant native whites who have the moral fiber to fire on the unarmed men, women and children of the boat.”
While one would sensibly suppose that this reprehensible book would be relegated – and rightfully so – to the trash cans, the exact opposite happened. An ophthalmologist and a reprobate going by the name of John Tanton in Michigan not only reprinted the work but also went on to found the anti-immigration hate group, Federation for American Immigration Reform (“FAIR”), the Centre for Immigration Studies, and numbers USA. To complete the circle of insult and incredulity, a signed copy of this deplorable work sits on the desk of Marine Le Pen.
The Raspail Brigade seems to have garnered an unceasing legion of fans. The biggest proponent today of the anti-immigration movement is none other than the ever fulminating, tirade hurling grandson of an immigrant and the irreverent President of the United States, Donald Trump. “Haiti? Why do we want people from Haiti here? Then they got Africa. Why do we want all these people from all these shithole countries here? We should have more people from places like Norway.” People like Trump, his equally voluble advisor Stephen Miller and the motor mouth Fox TV host Tucker Carlson are all involved in setting off a dangerous game playing the poor against the middle class, the middle class against the upper middle class and the upper middle class against the rich. The unwitting scape goat in this game of snakes and ladders is the immigrant who is sandwiched in between. With no shelter in his home country and unwelcome in the host country, the immigrant is torn between the devil and the deep blue sea – literally.
According to Mr. Mehta, these ordinary migrants are the truly extraordinary heroes toiling away in the face of adversity and animosity to support entire families back home. “They send back some $600 billion in remittances every year, which amounts to three times more than the direct gains from abolishing all trade barriers, four times more than all foreign aid given by those governments, and 100 times the amount of all debt relief.”
Such remittances are sent by mothers who in the event wish to touch their child, do so through a double mesh – an arrangement at the Friendship Park along the US-Mexican border – that facilitates the passage of just the little fingers of the two people standing on either side of the fence. “This dance of the fingers, the pinky kiss, “Amargo y dulce” is how the migrants describe the experience.”
Meanwhile eight prototypes of a “wall” solely designed to keep people out are being readied.
“This Land Our Land” – a clarion call for humanity to dwell deep into their collective conscience. The Trump administration would do well to gift a copy each to every member constituting it.
Hard retribution, if any. But can this harsh measure be even termed retribution? A topical subject that has spawned a vertical divide amongst policy makers, policy experts, economists and the common man is that of migration. This chasm has at one end of its continuum, fierce advocates rooting for the benevolent effects of migration, while at the other end of the continuum stand equally ferocious opponents who bemoan the ill effects of allowing foreigners into their territories. There does not seem to be any modicum of moderation between the two extremes of magnanimity and xenophobia. For example, according to economists Giovanni Peri and Vasil Yasenov of U.C. Berkeley, immigrants induce a positive effect on the local job market since they create a demand for services, from supermarkets to repair shops. However, economists such as George Borjas of Harvard, nurse a diametrically tangential opinion. According to Borjas, immigration is responsible for cutting the wages of American high school drop outs by 3 to 5 percent, an average of $1800 a year.
In his new and blistering book, “This Land Our Land: An Immigrant’s Manifesto”, Suketu Mehta, Associate Professor of Journalism at New York University and best-selling author disembowels the received wisdom and popular ideologies forming the backbone of the immigration issue. Dissecting the problem of migration, Mr. Mehta polemically rails against the countries that take an extremely negative approach towards the influx of migrants. Mr. Mehta should know, himself having made the journey from India to the United States many years ago. He has had the mixed fortune of having had to endure both the wrath of racism and enjoy the munificence of a welcoming brotherhood. Departing India with eighteen bags and a steamer trunk, Mr. Mehta’s family found themselves in a studio apartment in Jackson Heights where the television was broadcasting The Six Million Dollar Man. The building super disconnected the power to the apartment the very first night of the Mehtas’ stay on account of ‘too many people in one room.’ Mr. Mehta does not enlighten us as to how long his family had to endure this bout of induced darkness.
According to Mr. Mehta, migration is not the fly in the ointment. The pernicious prelude that birthed many an exodus is the cause that needs dissection, distillation and dissemination. A prelude that has at its core, the rapacious lunges and thrusts of a colonial blade, a prelude that ravaged otherwise peaceful lands, plundered resources, pilfered wealth and pillaged unsuspecting people of their hard earned nest eggs. It is these same colonists who are crying foul when migrants make their arduous way to their shores. As Mr. Mehta compellingly argues, the travelers are merely “following their money.” No wonder Alexander Betts of Oxford University terms human mobility as “survival migration.”
Multinationals awash with money such as Rio Tinto and the hedge fund Och-Ziff Capital have been steadily exploiting the envious bauxite reserves, gold and diamonds that used to be the preserve of Guinea. The Guineans on the other hand are forced to lead an existence that is mired in poverty and deprivation. Even a 2017 Securities and Exchange Commission Report acknowledges the extent of corruption in Guinea. Och-Ziff was forced to pay a criminal penalty of $213 million to the US Justice Department in addition to a fine of $199 million to the SEC for bribery and corrupt practices.
If one is trying to come to grips with the shenanigans of Och-Ziff Capital, then he better ready himself in attempting to fathom the chicanery of the British during their two-odd centuries of ravaging India. As Mr. Mehta elucidates to his readers, the former United Nations undersecretary-general for communications and public information, politician and orator par excellence, Dr. Shashi Tharoor, provided a flavour of the colonial atrocities, as part of an arresting and eloquent Oxford Union speech. Consider these damning facts: “India’s share of the world economy when Britain arrived on its shores [at the beginning of the eighteenth century] was 23 percent. By the time the British left in 1947, it was down to below 4 percent. Why? Simply because India had been governed for the benefit of Britain. Britain’s rise for two hundred years was financed by its depredations in India.”
Forced famine, coerced import of raw materials from India and export of finished goods, manufactured using the very own raw materials back to India, and that too, at brazenly high prices, ensured that millions of Indians starved to death. The tally when the dust finally settled was an unimaginable 40 million! The writer Mike Davis termed it “the late Victorian Holocaust.” The most deified, revered and lionized icon of Britain, Winston Churchill was in reality a remorseless and ruthless butcher (reviewer’s own words). Nursing a feeling of revulsion towards India and Indians in general, he infamously remarked, “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion. The Indians deserved the 1943 famine because they were breeding like rabbits.” It is these very rabbits towards whose expertise Brits now swarm like locusts beseeching a cure for otherwise incurable illnesses and even to put on a false tooth unable to bear the monetary burdens imposed upon them by their own doctors at home! Britain left her ungainly imprints across the globe and not just on the sub-continent. Divvying up Jordan and Iraq and thereby creating a headache in perpetuity was again the brainchild of the presumptuous and egregious Churchill according to Warren Dockter, a Churchill scholar.
Britain also found able allies and perpetrators in crime in the company of France and Belgium. After milking Haiti of all its money by imposing extortionate payments, France reduced this nation to a failed state. In the year 2003, when the Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide demanded $21 billion in reparations, Napoleon’s beloved country feigned indifference.
According to Jason Hickel, an anthropologist in the London School of Economics (and I have to confess, one of my favourite authors), the amount of silver forcibly extracted by the Europeans from Latin America would tantamount to a gargantuan debt of $165 trillion at a nominal interest rate of 5% in today’s dollar terms! Hickel exclaims that “Europe didn’t develop the colonies. The colonies developed Europe.”
Migration is also an involuntary offshoot of the ubiquitous multinational corporation as per Mr. Mehta. Spreading its tentacles wide and deep, the multinational enterprise makes use of clever and esoteric tax structures devised by even cleverer tax professionals to siphon funds from the developing to the developed countries. As Mr. Mehta highlights, “The UK and its overseas territories host one in five of the world’s tax havens…They hold a combined pile of 1.4 trillion pounds that’s sheltered from taxes, according to a recent study by the University of California, Berkeley economist, Gabriel Zucman.” So naturally the people whose pockets have been forcibly picked will try to retrieve the same from the place where the robber resides!
Migration is also a direct consequence of displacements due to bloody civil wars and violent internecine conflicts. At the Munich Security Conference in February 2017, the UK defense secretary, Sir Michael Fallon, justified the ongoing, albeit limited, British presence in Afghanistan on the following plain speaking and matter-of-fact grounds “We here will feel the consequences, very directly,” he claimed. “There could be three to four million young Afghan men sent out by their villages to migrate westwards, and they are heading here.” However, as Mr. Mehta brilliantly points out in his book, these nations that fear an exodus of homeless people heading their way, are in many cases directly responsible or indirectly complicit in robbing the poor souls of their very homes. Take for instance, the United States’ support for the capricious regimes of Efrain Rios Mott and Somoza in Guatemala and Nicaragua respectively. Or the Reagan backed coup in El Salvador in 1981 where the Salvadoran army ran riot slaughtering approximately 1,200 men, women and children. It is only logical that such displaced Haitians, Salvadorans, Guatemalans and Yemenis will flee for their safety.
The West is not merely responsible for criminal complicity. Crony capitalism has wreaked havoc upon the only Planet that currently has been known to sustain and source life. The International Organization for Migration estimates that at least 200 million will be displaced by climate change by 2050. Aromar Revi, The Director of the Indian Institute for Human Settlements says, “in some parts of the world, national borders will become irrelevant. You can set up a wall to try to contain 10,000 and 20,000 and one million people, but 10 million.” As Mr. Mehta poignantly asks about the displaced populace, “And where should they move to? To their former colonizers, or to the country most responsible for the heating of the planet? Americans are only 4 percent of the world’s population but are responsible for one third of the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.” It is America which stormed out of the Paris Agreement in a huff when asked to curb emissions. Island states are in danger of being submerged on account of rising sea levels.
On the 20th of October 2009, the Maldives government made a spectacularly ingenious plea for climate change action by conducting the first ever underwater cabinet meeting. Politicians clad in scuba suits with oxygen tanks attached dove into the Indian Ocean ahead of December’s UN climate change conference in Copenhagen. The then president Mohammed Nasheed expressing concern over a potential swamping of the archipelago, courtesy rising sea levels, appealed for action on part of the industrialized economies. Ministers communicated using hand signals and white boards as they signed a document calling on all countries to cut their emissions. It read: ‘We must unite in a world war effort to halt further temperature rises. Climate change is happening and it threatens the rights and security of everyone on Earth.’ As President Nasheed exhorted the developed world, “you can drastically reduce your greenhouse gas emissions so that the seas do not rise much. Or when we show up on your shores in our boats, you can let us in. Or when we show up on your shores in our boats, you can shoot us. You pick.”
Incidentally, as Mr. Mehta educates us, in the 1800s approximately five million Bavarians fled the vagaries of climate change into the welcoming arms of America. Among the new emigrants was an illiterate sixteen-year old who spoke no English. He went by the name of Friedrich Trump. His grandson goes by the name of Donald Trump.
Thus the artificial fear mongering over migrants stealing the jobs of the local population, lusting after the refined women in a show of animal savagery and barbarity, and most of all, demonstrating a hopeless ineptitude to assimilate themselves to the culture of their host country is total hogwash, and bunkum. Such balderdash and malarkey obfuscate the follies of some of the richest regimes and detract from the public perspective, the need to analyse the question of migration in a holistic and untainted perspective.
These startlingly extreme narratives as Mr. Mehta points out have not been a conception of the present. The civilized world has been a silent witness to a raft of eugenicists and racists whose only avowed objective seems to have been the preservation of an unchallenged status of the imperial ‘white man.’ Leading the preponderance of the creatures have been the likes of Paul Ehrlich, an environmentalist and Stanford biologist and arguably the most infamous doyen of anti-immigration thinking, Jean Raspail. Raspail, a Frenchman and author of “The Camp of The Saints” reserves his choicest and vilest feelings for migrants. His despicable book imagines a boatload of eight hundred migrants setting sail from Kolkata (then Calcutta) in India, planning to disembark in France in the year 2000. On the way, they fornicate indiscriminately, including with their own children and eat each other’s excreta. As they prepare to land in France, the country faces a conflicting choice between liberals preparing to welcome the new arrivals and “the gallant native whites who have the moral fiber to fire on the unarmed men, women and children of the boat.”
While one would sensibly suppose that this reprehensible book would be relegated – and rightfully so – to the trash cans, the exact opposite happened. An ophthalmologist and a reprobate going by the name of John Tanton in Michigan not only reprinted the work but also went on to found the anti-immigration hate group, Federation for American Immigration Reform (“FAIR”), the Centre for Immigration Studies, and numbers USA. To complete the circle of insult and incredulity, a signed copy of this deplorable work sits on the desk of Marine Le Pen.
The Raspail Brigade seems to have garnered an unceasing legion of fans. The biggest proponent today of the anti-immigration movement is none other than the ever fulminating, tirade hurling grandson of an immigrant and the irreverent President of the United States, Donald Trump. “Haiti? Why do we want people from Haiti here? Then they got Africa. Why do we want all these people from all these shithole countries here? We should have more people from places like Norway.” People like Trump, his equally voluble advisor Stephen Miller and the motor mouth Fox TV host Tucker Carlson are all involved in setting off a dangerous game playing the poor against the middle class, the middle class against the upper middle class and the upper middle class against the rich. The unwitting scape goat in this game of snakes and ladders is the immigrant who is sandwiched in between. With no shelter in his home country and unwelcome in the host country, the immigrant is torn between the devil and the deep blue sea – literally.
According to Mr. Mehta, these ordinary migrants are the truly extraordinary heroes toiling away in the face of adversity and animosity to support entire families back home. “They send back some $600 billion in remittances every year, which amounts to three times more than the direct gains from abolishing all trade barriers, four times more than all foreign aid given by those governments, and 100 times the amount of all debt relief.”
Such remittances are sent by mothers who in the event wish to touch their child, do so through a double mesh – an arrangement at the Friendship Park along the US-Mexican border – that facilitates the passage of just the little fingers of the two people standing on either side of the fence. “This dance of the fingers, the pinky kiss, “Amargo y dulce” is how the migrants describe the experience.”
Meanwhile eight prototypes of a “wall” solely designed to keep people out are being readied.
“This Land Our Land” – a clarion call for humanity to dwell deep into their collective conscience. The Trump administration would do well to gift a copy each to every member constituting it.
June 14, 2019
This is a book intended to advertise narratives of free immigration as grievance-payments. It is a polemical and ideological manifesto, not scholarly research on immigration.
To deliver his message, Mehta uses a mix of emotional (at times sanctimonious) storytelling, obtuse and partisan reporting of self-serving data & events, deliberate omissions of facts, frequent scapegoating and (at times) aggressively contentious rhetoric.
Some points:
1) Immigration to a developed country is touted by Mehta as a form of payment for perceived (though at times exaggerated) wrongs of recent times and, when those are not available, for historic wrongs (dating back as far as needed).
In his masterpiece "Sapiens", the famed writer and Oxford historian Yuval Harari, had noted that following the beginning of the Scientific Revolution (16-17th Century), an unprecedented explosion in scientific and technological innovation has enabled a few nations to have a disproportionately large impact on the world (so vast that, as Harari noted, one could cherry pick "enough" of "evidece" to try and promote almost any point of view, from the fringes of exclusively highlighting only the good or the bad, to presenting more accurate interpretations). Mehta fits the former category and mostly cherrypicks the wrongs, trying to present not solid arguments but pretexts in support of policies he supports. Sure, there are plenty of (for example) Churchill's actions & policies which deserve criticism or worse (e.g.: his role in the Bengal famine of 1943) for the millions of lives destroyed. Yet, there were also people and developments like Norman Borlaug's (father of the Green Revolution, whose work is credited with saving over a billion lives from starvation especially in the developed world). One does not excuse or replace the other, and talking about historical "debts" while exclusively focusing on one and completely ignoring the other, is dishonest, at the very least.
In Mehta's view, the countries he's moralizing (some of which are deemed guilty by association for sharing the same continent with the UK, France & co) must accept any accusations brought their way (and open their borders) while the people who want to emigrate for economic or personal reasons don't share much responsibility for the state of their home countries or communities (be it Syria or Somalia, in Mehta's view, all the bad things happening there are the fault of rich countries ). Personal agency is ignored or denied by Mehta in several places throughout the book. For example the "best and brightest who have been educated at the greatest expense of the struggling states they come from" (according to Mehta) have been simply "took" by developed countries (it does't matter that the people in question, although "best and brightest" are free individuals who have made their choices and have selected those choices likely to deliver more personal and professional opportunities).
One theme put forward by the book, is that some immigrants are like "creditors": some colonial power came to their home country, took "wealth and diamonds", but now they, the "creditors", have come to collect. Mehta uses the example of one of his grandfathers (who immigrated to the UK) to illustrate the argument. The grandfather, however, did not seem to notice the symmetry of his argument: that creditors can have their own creditors (e.g.: in his case, the vast masses of lower-caste Indians, like the Dalit, who can claim millennia of oppressed status that have benefit upper-caste members like Mehta's grandfathers). But while the grandfather, and later Mehta himself, demand special treatment for the debt they think is owed to them, they never talk about the same type of debt they owe others (if one was to continue their line of reasoning).
2) Throughout the book, the US (and to some extent Europe) are blamed for conflicts, wars, pollution, and many more problems. Sometimes the criticism seems fair, often is exaggerated. For example: in Syria, the US has its fair share of blame for the war. So have other players (including Assad's dictatorial regime, its Iranian allies, Russia, ISIS and the other terror groups, etc) and is dishonest to put the entire cost of the war on US.
3) When discussing immigration numbers to the US, Mehta focuses a lot on smaller venues for legal immigration (e.g.: the Green card lottery - which currently offers about 50,000 green cards/year) and much less on the bulk, which is dominated by:
(a) illegal immigration, which currently averages more than 100,000 people/month at the Southern border alone, and has seen staggering numbers of 700,000 -> 1,600,000 people/year for 30 years since the 1970s;
(b) spouses, children, parents, and more distant relatives of legal immigrants/citizens who usually exceed 700,000/year;
etc
He (correctly) points that Irish immigrants have considerably benefited from the Morrison visa program (they got about 40% of the 120000 visas) but ignores programs that have benefited Latin American groups (e.g.:NACARA 202 and NACARA 203 which have granted permanent residency to 68000 Nicaraguans, 122000 Salvadorans and 55000 Guatemalans)
Equating the deportation of undocumented immigrants to "ethnic cleansing" (page 139) is also sensationalist and dishonest.
4) If a country decides to take in millions of migrants at some times, it does not mean it has the obligation to do the same every-time, for every given year. Mehta believes there are no arguments demonstrating long-term socio-economic damage to countries that accept immigrants, even in large numbers. This is currently a subject of debate among economists, with conflicting arguments that are being too often driven by ideology, not data. Currently among developed nations those having low immigration levels (South Korea, Japan, etc):
- do just as fine, if not better, economically when compared to countries with much large levels of immigration;
- rank at the top in terms of innovation (South Korea ranks 1st in the World; Japan 5-6th);
- have much lower crime levels across the board
- have much more social cohesion, and are less socially segregated.
5) The impact of immigration on crime is shallowly addressed in the book. Some studies show immigration reduces crime in some cases while other show that it leads to increased crimes in other cases. Crime levels also vary a lot among immigrant groups (some contribute far less crime than the native population, while other contribute much more). The studies are often dependent on the data-samples chosen, the geographic areas and the time-windows they examine, e.g.:
- in the US, some studies (e.g.: Reid, Weiss, Adelman (2005)) show that immigration to large US metropolitan areas does not increase, and in some cases decreases, crime rates
- other studies(e.g.: Barranco, Shihadeh & Evans (2017)) suggest that immigration does not play a significant part in lowering crime rates
- in Germany, things look different: studies and official statistics from 2017, 2018 & 2019 that look at the past 3-5 years have found that foreigners (overall 12.8% of the population) are over-represented in crime stats (e.g.: 34.7% of all crime suspects; 29.7% for murder and manslaughter; 41% burglaries; etc). Also in Germany, some studies show that while 1st generation immigrants did not have elevated crime rates (1950-1980), second- and third-generation immigrants had significantly higher crime rates.
- in Canada, most studies show that immigration has been more likely to reduce crime (the country's immigration point-based system that favors people of certain skills and educational background is given partial credit)
- in Norway, reports by the Norwegian statistics bureau found that immigrants are over-represented in crime statistics but that there is substantial variation by country of origin. Similar patterns have been documented in Switzerland, Spain and other countries.
6) When discussing global warming and the pollution of the environment as "arguments" to why developed countries should accept more immigration, Mehta uses similar double standards, blaming games and partisan editorializing. His arguments (e.g.: blaming the US and Europe for all the problems) fall short when one actually looks at data. For example: currently, 22 of the Top-30 most polluted cities in the world are in India. Not too long ago, the top spot was held by China, who has made significant progress towards improving things (e.g.: the average concentration of pollutants fell in Chinese cities by 12%, between 2017 and 2018 alone). While China saw improvement, however, many neighboring countries saw major increases in pollution, including Indonesia, South Korea, Vietnam and Thailand. Local institutions and policies can play, thus, significant roles in addressing or accelerating pollution problems throughout the World and the significant increase in worldwide pollution (e.g.: about 60% increase since 1990) has little to do with most Western countries which, with a few notable exceptions (US, Canada,Australia) have decreased their own emissions by considerable margins.
Regarding pollution, there're several ways to look at the problem quantitatively, a more popular one being looking at CO2 emissions (and even in that case multiple views that provide partial, incomplete perspectives are usually discussed in the research literature, e.g.: per capita emissions, emission intensity, increase over time, cumulative emission per year, etc). Mehta ignores most peer-reviewed literature which points to the massive shifts among major polluting countries that have dominated the past 30 years, as more and more countries industrialize across the world:
- UK, for example, was the 2nd largest polluter in Europe, in 1990. By 2017 its emissions have dropped steadily, reaching 64% of its 1990 levels. Since 1970, Iran, South Korea, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia have steadily increased their emissions, by 2010-2012 reaching comparable levels or even exceeding those of the UK in the 90s (and continue to grow, since)
- the global CO2 emissions in early 1900s were less than 2 billion tons/year (5% of what they are today); by the 1950s they reached close to 6 billion tons/year which is 15% of what they are today, less than the level of the 2004 emissions in China alone, and about half of what China was producing in 2017.
To deliver his message, Mehta uses a mix of emotional (at times sanctimonious) storytelling, obtuse and partisan reporting of self-serving data & events, deliberate omissions of facts, frequent scapegoating and (at times) aggressively contentious rhetoric.
Some points:
1) Immigration to a developed country is touted by Mehta as a form of payment for perceived (though at times exaggerated) wrongs of recent times and, when those are not available, for historic wrongs (dating back as far as needed).
In his masterpiece "Sapiens", the famed writer and Oxford historian Yuval Harari, had noted that following the beginning of the Scientific Revolution (16-17th Century), an unprecedented explosion in scientific and technological innovation has enabled a few nations to have a disproportionately large impact on the world (so vast that, as Harari noted, one could cherry pick "enough" of "evidece" to try and promote almost any point of view, from the fringes of exclusively highlighting only the good or the bad, to presenting more accurate interpretations). Mehta fits the former category and mostly cherrypicks the wrongs, trying to present not solid arguments but pretexts in support of policies he supports. Sure, there are plenty of (for example) Churchill's actions & policies which deserve criticism or worse (e.g.: his role in the Bengal famine of 1943) for the millions of lives destroyed. Yet, there were also people and developments like Norman Borlaug's (father of the Green Revolution, whose work is credited with saving over a billion lives from starvation especially in the developed world). One does not excuse or replace the other, and talking about historical "debts" while exclusively focusing on one and completely ignoring the other, is dishonest, at the very least.
In Mehta's view, the countries he's moralizing (some of which are deemed guilty by association for sharing the same continent with the UK, France & co) must accept any accusations brought their way (and open their borders) while the people who want to emigrate for economic or personal reasons don't share much responsibility for the state of their home countries or communities (be it Syria or Somalia, in Mehta's view, all the bad things happening there are the fault of rich countries ). Personal agency is ignored or denied by Mehta in several places throughout the book. For example the "best and brightest who have been educated at the greatest expense of the struggling states they come from" (according to Mehta) have been simply "took" by developed countries (it does't matter that the people in question, although "best and brightest" are free individuals who have made their choices and have selected those choices likely to deliver more personal and professional opportunities).
One theme put forward by the book, is that some immigrants are like "creditors": some colonial power came to their home country, took "wealth and diamonds", but now they, the "creditors", have come to collect. Mehta uses the example of one of his grandfathers (who immigrated to the UK) to illustrate the argument. The grandfather, however, did not seem to notice the symmetry of his argument: that creditors can have their own creditors (e.g.: in his case, the vast masses of lower-caste Indians, like the Dalit, who can claim millennia of oppressed status that have benefit upper-caste members like Mehta's grandfathers). But while the grandfather, and later Mehta himself, demand special treatment for the debt they think is owed to them, they never talk about the same type of debt they owe others (if one was to continue their line of reasoning).
2) Throughout the book, the US (and to some extent Europe) are blamed for conflicts, wars, pollution, and many more problems. Sometimes the criticism seems fair, often is exaggerated. For example: in Syria, the US has its fair share of blame for the war. So have other players (including Assad's dictatorial regime, its Iranian allies, Russia, ISIS and the other terror groups, etc) and is dishonest to put the entire cost of the war on US.
3) When discussing immigration numbers to the US, Mehta focuses a lot on smaller venues for legal immigration (e.g.: the Green card lottery - which currently offers about 50,000 green cards/year) and much less on the bulk, which is dominated by:
(a) illegal immigration, which currently averages more than 100,000 people/month at the Southern border alone, and has seen staggering numbers of 700,000 -> 1,600,000 people/year for 30 years since the 1970s;
(b) spouses, children, parents, and more distant relatives of legal immigrants/citizens who usually exceed 700,000/year;
etc
He (correctly) points that Irish immigrants have considerably benefited from the Morrison visa program (they got about 40% of the 120000 visas) but ignores programs that have benefited Latin American groups (e.g.:NACARA 202 and NACARA 203 which have granted permanent residency to 68000 Nicaraguans, 122000 Salvadorans and 55000 Guatemalans)
Equating the deportation of undocumented immigrants to "ethnic cleansing" (page 139) is also sensationalist and dishonest.
4) If a country decides to take in millions of migrants at some times, it does not mean it has the obligation to do the same every-time, for every given year. Mehta believes there are no arguments demonstrating long-term socio-economic damage to countries that accept immigrants, even in large numbers. This is currently a subject of debate among economists, with conflicting arguments that are being too often driven by ideology, not data. Currently among developed nations those having low immigration levels (South Korea, Japan, etc):
- do just as fine, if not better, economically when compared to countries with much large levels of immigration;
- rank at the top in terms of innovation (South Korea ranks 1st in the World; Japan 5-6th);
- have much lower crime levels across the board
- have much more social cohesion, and are less socially segregated.
5) The impact of immigration on crime is shallowly addressed in the book. Some studies show immigration reduces crime in some cases while other show that it leads to increased crimes in other cases. Crime levels also vary a lot among immigrant groups (some contribute far less crime than the native population, while other contribute much more). The studies are often dependent on the data-samples chosen, the geographic areas and the time-windows they examine, e.g.:
- in the US, some studies (e.g.: Reid, Weiss, Adelman (2005)) show that immigration to large US metropolitan areas does not increase, and in some cases decreases, crime rates
- other studies(e.g.: Barranco, Shihadeh & Evans (2017)) suggest that immigration does not play a significant part in lowering crime rates
- in Germany, things look different: studies and official statistics from 2017, 2018 & 2019 that look at the past 3-5 years have found that foreigners (overall 12.8% of the population) are over-represented in crime stats (e.g.: 34.7% of all crime suspects; 29.7% for murder and manslaughter; 41% burglaries; etc). Also in Germany, some studies show that while 1st generation immigrants did not have elevated crime rates (1950-1980), second- and third-generation immigrants had significantly higher crime rates.
- in Canada, most studies show that immigration has been more likely to reduce crime (the country's immigration point-based system that favors people of certain skills and educational background is given partial credit)
- in Norway, reports by the Norwegian statistics bureau found that immigrants are over-represented in crime statistics but that there is substantial variation by country of origin. Similar patterns have been documented in Switzerland, Spain and other countries.
6) When discussing global warming and the pollution of the environment as "arguments" to why developed countries should accept more immigration, Mehta uses similar double standards, blaming games and partisan editorializing. His arguments (e.g.: blaming the US and Europe for all the problems) fall short when one actually looks at data. For example: currently, 22 of the Top-30 most polluted cities in the world are in India. Not too long ago, the top spot was held by China, who has made significant progress towards improving things (e.g.: the average concentration of pollutants fell in Chinese cities by 12%, between 2017 and 2018 alone). While China saw improvement, however, many neighboring countries saw major increases in pollution, including Indonesia, South Korea, Vietnam and Thailand. Local institutions and policies can play, thus, significant roles in addressing or accelerating pollution problems throughout the World and the significant increase in worldwide pollution (e.g.: about 60% increase since 1990) has little to do with most Western countries which, with a few notable exceptions (US, Canada,Australia) have decreased their own emissions by considerable margins.
Regarding pollution, there're several ways to look at the problem quantitatively, a more popular one being looking at CO2 emissions (and even in that case multiple views that provide partial, incomplete perspectives are usually discussed in the research literature, e.g.: per capita emissions, emission intensity, increase over time, cumulative emission per year, etc). Mehta ignores most peer-reviewed literature which points to the massive shifts among major polluting countries that have dominated the past 30 years, as more and more countries industrialize across the world:
- UK, for example, was the 2nd largest polluter in Europe, in 1990. By 2017 its emissions have dropped steadily, reaching 64% of its 1990 levels. Since 1970, Iran, South Korea, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia have steadily increased their emissions, by 2010-2012 reaching comparable levels or even exceeding those of the UK in the 90s (and continue to grow, since)
- the global CO2 emissions in early 1900s were less than 2 billion tons/year (5% of what they are today); by the 1950s they reached close to 6 billion tons/year which is 15% of what they are today, less than the level of the 2004 emissions in China alone, and about half of what China was producing in 2017.
January 12, 2021
I want to kiss the hands that wrote this book. These words.
What is the first image that comes to your mind when you think of an immigrant?
Ponder upon that thought.
I am a Pakistani, a Muslim and a female migrant.
There is nothing in this book that surprises me. It angers me. It swells my heart with pride. It gives me solace. But no surprises.
This book is thoroughly researched. People should read it if you have any niggling thoughts about immigrants.
The number of times I have been asked 'to go back to your fucking country', 'but where exactly are you from?', 'do you speak English?' (sometimes I pretend I don't) is ridiculous.
I have been an immigrant for 17 years. I have tried to strip off my thick accent. I think in English now. I am a citizen of a Western country. I am a professional. I pay my taxes. But I am still Pakistani. A Muslim. A female migrant. My kind is feared.
But my son is born here. What will I tell him when people ask him 'to go back to your fucking country?'
Suketu Mehta talks about why we immigrate? what do we bring? why do people fear us?
It is brilliant. It is provocative. It is a conversation that cannot stop.
I love this quote from the book:
'I claim the right to the United States, for myself and my children and my uncles and cousins, by manifest destiny. This land is our land, this land is our land, it belongs to you and me. We're here, we're not going back, we're raising our kids here. It's our country now. We will not reassure anybody about their racist fears about our deportment; we're not letting the bastards take it back.
It's our America now.'
What is the first image that comes to your mind when you think of an immigrant?
Ponder upon that thought.
I am a Pakistani, a Muslim and a female migrant.
There is nothing in this book that surprises me. It angers me. It swells my heart with pride. It gives me solace. But no surprises.
This book is thoroughly researched. People should read it if you have any niggling thoughts about immigrants.
The number of times I have been asked 'to go back to your fucking country', 'but where exactly are you from?', 'do you speak English?' (sometimes I pretend I don't) is ridiculous.
I have been an immigrant for 17 years. I have tried to strip off my thick accent. I think in English now. I am a citizen of a Western country. I am a professional. I pay my taxes. But I am still Pakistani. A Muslim. A female migrant. My kind is feared.
But my son is born here. What will I tell him when people ask him 'to go back to your fucking country?'
Suketu Mehta talks about why we immigrate? what do we bring? why do people fear us?
It is brilliant. It is provocative. It is a conversation that cannot stop.
I love this quote from the book:
'I claim the right to the United States, for myself and my children and my uncles and cousins, by manifest destiny. This land is our land, this land is our land, it belongs to you and me. We're here, we're not going back, we're raising our kids here. It's our country now. We will not reassure anybody about their racist fears about our deportment; we're not letting the bastards take it back.
It's our America now.'
May 6, 2019
Undoubtedly the most important book I've read this year (and am likely to read this year).
August 8, 2021
During the last election, I fantasized about moving to Canada if necessary. I got as far as looking into it, but discovered that I would probably not earn enough points for a move to be realistic.
This is context for my read of This Land Is Our Land, Suketu Mehta's analysis of immigration in the US and Europe. I (naively) believed I should be able to move wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted, when I have the money to do so. And, as a well-educated, well-off white woman, that is more possible than many people with more legitimate need find it. I should check my privilege at the door.
But as the migrants see it, the game was rigged: First, the rich countries colonized us and stole our treasure and prevented us from building our industries. After plundering us for centuries, they left, having drawn up maps in ways that ensured permanent strife between our communities. Then they brought us to their countries as “guest workers”—as if they knew what the word “guest” meant in our cultures—but discouraged us from bringing our families. (Kindle loc. 40)
Interestingly, moves from one country to another were much easier two hundred years ago – except for the travel.
Other books I've read have focused on the individual's experience of being an immigrant, legal or illegal. Mehta considers a broader spectrum of reasons why immigrants consider leaving their country and why natives want to refuse those immigrants. These reasons include exploitation of resources and environmental damage by multinational corporations and other countries, war, global warming, and destabilization of local governments. Mehta argues that legal and illegal immigration is something that the US and Europe have brought upon themselves. They move—as my grandfather knew—because the accumulated burdens of history have rendered their homelands less and less habitable. They are here because you were there (Kindle loc. 848). Allowing immigration would be one piece of the retribution that we owe.
Migration is al also driven by the search for opportunity. When we have the opportunity to move where our children will have safe housing, clean air, and good schools, that is an opportunity, an investment that we take. As Michael Clemens (2016) argued:
What country you live in is more important in determining your life outcomes than anything else about you. In fact, what country you live in is more important than everything else about you, combined. This inequality of opportunity is driving the current migration crisis. It means that economic opportunity and personal security are handed out mostly by lottery: a lottery of birthplace. (Kindle loc. 1186)
This Land Is Our Land is not an exploration of the arguments in favor and against immigration. Mehta identifies some of the arguments against immigration (mostly economic or political), although he quickly dismisses these. As a result, readers who are currently opposed to immigration are likely to throw this book against the wall and review it after 20 pages. It will be more appealing to people like me, people who are already in favor of immigration but looking for a fuller articulation of those reasons.
And, I appreciate Mehta's systems perspective: But let’s not just blame it on Trump or the Republicans; all of us Americans are complicit. (Kindle loc. 1456)
This is context for my read of This Land Is Our Land, Suketu Mehta's analysis of immigration in the US and Europe. I (naively) believed I should be able to move wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted, when I have the money to do so. And, as a well-educated, well-off white woman, that is more possible than many people with more legitimate need find it. I should check my privilege at the door.
But as the migrants see it, the game was rigged: First, the rich countries colonized us and stole our treasure and prevented us from building our industries. After plundering us for centuries, they left, having drawn up maps in ways that ensured permanent strife between our communities. Then they brought us to their countries as “guest workers”—as if they knew what the word “guest” meant in our cultures—but discouraged us from bringing our families. (Kindle loc. 40)
Interestingly, moves from one country to another were much easier two hundred years ago – except for the travel.
Other books I've read have focused on the individual's experience of being an immigrant, legal or illegal. Mehta considers a broader spectrum of reasons why immigrants consider leaving their country and why natives want to refuse those immigrants. These reasons include exploitation of resources and environmental damage by multinational corporations and other countries, war, global warming, and destabilization of local governments. Mehta argues that legal and illegal immigration is something that the US and Europe have brought upon themselves. They move—as my grandfather knew—because the accumulated burdens of history have rendered their homelands less and less habitable. They are here because you were there (Kindle loc. 848). Allowing immigration would be one piece of the retribution that we owe.
Migration is al also driven by the search for opportunity. When we have the opportunity to move where our children will have safe housing, clean air, and good schools, that is an opportunity, an investment that we take. As Michael Clemens (2016) argued:
What country you live in is more important in determining your life outcomes than anything else about you. In fact, what country you live in is more important than everything else about you, combined. This inequality of opportunity is driving the current migration crisis. It means that economic opportunity and personal security are handed out mostly by lottery: a lottery of birthplace. (Kindle loc. 1186)
This Land Is Our Land is not an exploration of the arguments in favor and against immigration. Mehta identifies some of the arguments against immigration (mostly economic or political), although he quickly dismisses these. As a result, readers who are currently opposed to immigration are likely to throw this book against the wall and review it after 20 pages. It will be more appealing to people like me, people who are already in favor of immigration but looking for a fuller articulation of those reasons.
And, I appreciate Mehta's systems perspective: But let’s not just blame it on Trump or the Republicans; all of us Americans are complicit. (Kindle loc. 1456)
July 27, 2022
A blistering account on the interpersonal history and impact of immigration.
Whilst commenting on both EU and American polices/reactions to immigration - it is much more American heavy (which from my local English library app I wasn’t expecting so just a heads up!)
Written to ensure it packs a punch and delivers facts alongside anecdotes ensures the listener is thoroughly engaged throughout.
Whilst commenting on both EU and American polices/reactions to immigration - it is much more American heavy (which from my local English library app I wasn’t expecting so just a heads up!)
Written to ensure it packs a punch and delivers facts alongside anecdotes ensures the listener is thoroughly engaged throughout.
October 13, 2019
Everyone needs to read this book!
May 10, 2019
This Land is Their Land is more a vindication for why immigration can be awesome rather than an argument. Anti-immigration pundits are mentioned in the negative (especially those from the super conservative Christian circles), and there are few mentions regarding the flaws of immigration.
In the face of so much evidence, can you blame Mehta? Follow the money, follow the people in charge, and the corruption speaks for itself. Think the North American government is fair in the face of international blame? Research the colonization of Hawaii and Alaska, the history of Cuba, the invasion of the Philippines, or the many military bases scattered across the world for "surveillance." Heck, if you want to take other cultures out of the equation, research the disingenuous history of taxes and banks, the hushed misdeeds within the prison system, or the War on Drugs.
Mehta touches the tip of the iceberg in attacking populist rhetoric. I think if he wanted to tackle the ills of colonization all around the world, it'd detract too much from his main point regarding the current head-turning headlines about America's national borders and immigration policies. His passion is woven throughout the text with cited sources, personal anecdotes, and firsthand accounts from refugees. One of my favorite examples was the summarization of South America's history in the '80s.
Unlike other pro-immigration books, Mehta surprised me by tying immigration to global warming, both as a reason why refugees are affected by it and why they remain a world issue. Too often we focus on the immediate humanitarian and financial concerns for mass migrations while the oceans get warmer and the crops get drier. Out of sight, out of mind for many outside the Third World countries. It's a sobering reminder that our natural resources are heading towards a slow death.
If I were to nitpick This Land is Their Land, I think Mehta could have gone further in addressing the dangers of living with drug cartels and the irrational paranoia that spreads because of them. Survivor stories are powerful. Getting opinions from the community that accepted survivors along with them is blooming with prosperity. That's why I liked how he included New York so much since it marries the two with irresistible pride for humanity's strengths. More examples like that could have strengthened his ending statements. Mehta's immense New Yorker pride may be misconstrued as offensive vanity (like all of those unfamiliar with New Yorkers), so that might unfortunately prevent select readers from finishing the book.
This Land is Their Land is a must-read for anyone in the dark about current immigration issues. Would I recommend it to the conservatives being criticized? For once, maybe. Depends on the person. Mehta dismantles their popular reasoning with factual evidence that is hard to dispute, and his tone isn't as radical as other books on this topic. Denial and ignorance are the true foes, really. Any attempt to remove them may do us all a favor in finding solutions together. And that's what matters the most.
Thank you, Mehta, for sharing your life and your view. Here's hoping that one voice is heard.
I received the book for free through Goodreads Giveaways.
In the face of so much evidence, can you blame Mehta? Follow the money, follow the people in charge, and the corruption speaks for itself. Think the North American government is fair in the face of international blame? Research the colonization of Hawaii and Alaska, the history of Cuba, the invasion of the Philippines, or the many military bases scattered across the world for "surveillance." Heck, if you want to take other cultures out of the equation, research the disingenuous history of taxes and banks, the hushed misdeeds within the prison system, or the War on Drugs.
Mehta touches the tip of the iceberg in attacking populist rhetoric. I think if he wanted to tackle the ills of colonization all around the world, it'd detract too much from his main point regarding the current head-turning headlines about America's national borders and immigration policies. His passion is woven throughout the text with cited sources, personal anecdotes, and firsthand accounts from refugees. One of my favorite examples was the summarization of South America's history in the '80s.
Unlike other pro-immigration books, Mehta surprised me by tying immigration to global warming, both as a reason why refugees are affected by it and why they remain a world issue. Too often we focus on the immediate humanitarian and financial concerns for mass migrations while the oceans get warmer and the crops get drier. Out of sight, out of mind for many outside the Third World countries. It's a sobering reminder that our natural resources are heading towards a slow death.
If I were to nitpick This Land is Their Land, I think Mehta could have gone further in addressing the dangers of living with drug cartels and the irrational paranoia that spreads because of them. Survivor stories are powerful. Getting opinions from the community that accepted survivors along with them is blooming with prosperity. That's why I liked how he included New York so much since it marries the two with irresistible pride for humanity's strengths. More examples like that could have strengthened his ending statements. Mehta's immense New Yorker pride may be misconstrued as offensive vanity (like all of those unfamiliar with New Yorkers), so that might unfortunately prevent select readers from finishing the book.
This Land is Their Land is a must-read for anyone in the dark about current immigration issues. Would I recommend it to the conservatives being criticized? For once, maybe. Depends on the person. Mehta dismantles their popular reasoning with factual evidence that is hard to dispute, and his tone isn't as radical as other books on this topic. Denial and ignorance are the true foes, really. Any attempt to remove them may do us all a favor in finding solutions together. And that's what matters the most.
Thank you, Mehta, for sharing your life and your view. Here's hoping that one voice is heard.
I received the book for free through Goodreads Giveaways.
December 25, 2019
4.5 stars
Right before I started with this book, I read a back-issue of the National Geographic Magazine, from August 2019, one that deals with the refugee crisis. What Nat Geo awakened, Suketu Mehta in his book gave a voice to, and backed with copious research.
This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant's Manifesto is somewhat provocatively titled — and rightly so. Here, the author familiarises readers with the lies, hypocrisy and counter-productivity of the global Far Right's anti-immigrant stance. The soup of Mehta's argument focuses on all kinds of immigration: forced, voluntary, legal, illegal, and even the kind carried out before nations were anywhere near being born, before such sanitised concepts as passports and immigrations existed. Some may be shocked when Mehta points West with regards to responsibility and comes off as angry, but there is infact no reason for him to mince his words. As a manifesto, This Land Is Our Land does exactly what it claims to: makes immigration understood, without attempting to expressly appease its more affluent, first-world readers, as authors usually have to do in order to gain attention in those parts.
Despite having lived in Mumbai for over 6 months now, I have never read Maximum City and therefore have nothing else of the author's to compare this book to. But to Mehta's credit, both anecdotal and statistical data here are put together here into a lucid work that reads well without becoming dry, and debunks popular anti-immigrant propaganda (especially in Chapter 16, "Jobs, Crime and Culture: The Threats that Aren't"). He argues passionately for embracing diversity in a world that is shrinking away from it despite the inevitability.
My one point of complain is that Mehta, perhaps unknowingly and in a manner typical of NRIs (you'll see what I did there) reproduces some of our homegrown Indian prejudices and political-incorrectness: while he refers to the other authors in his coterie as simply 'Indian' or 'Pakistani', he mentions the poet Agha Shahid Ali as someone who only identifies as Kashmiri (while Kashmiri nationhood is a completely valid argument). Similarly, while describing an accident his mother got in while pregnant with him, he mentions how a 'drunk Marwari came speeding down' and caused it. Even as he writes this very Indian collar-calling into his book, he may be (albeit unconsciously) driving across a point about how this takes place vis-a-vis immigrants in specific and the 'other' in general on a global scale.
This Land Is Our Land is an immensely important book, perhaps one of the most important ones this year. It is pertinent, well-argued, and very outspoken about the lasting damage of Colonialism — something well worth reminding ourselves of amidst all this hullabaloo with white supremacy and revisionism.
Right before I started with this book, I read a back-issue of the National Geographic Magazine, from August 2019, one that deals with the refugee crisis. What Nat Geo awakened, Suketu Mehta in his book gave a voice to, and backed with copious research.
This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant's Manifesto is somewhat provocatively titled — and rightly so. Here, the author familiarises readers with the lies, hypocrisy and counter-productivity of the global Far Right's anti-immigrant stance. The soup of Mehta's argument focuses on all kinds of immigration: forced, voluntary, legal, illegal, and even the kind carried out before nations were anywhere near being born, before such sanitised concepts as passports and immigrations existed. Some may be shocked when Mehta points West with regards to responsibility and comes off as angry, but there is infact no reason for him to mince his words. As a manifesto, This Land Is Our Land does exactly what it claims to: makes immigration understood, without attempting to expressly appease its more affluent, first-world readers, as authors usually have to do in order to gain attention in those parts.
Despite having lived in Mumbai for over 6 months now, I have never read Maximum City and therefore have nothing else of the author's to compare this book to. But to Mehta's credit, both anecdotal and statistical data here are put together here into a lucid work that reads well without becoming dry, and debunks popular anti-immigrant propaganda (especially in Chapter 16, "Jobs, Crime and Culture: The Threats that Aren't"). He argues passionately for embracing diversity in a world that is shrinking away from it despite the inevitability.
My one point of complain is that Mehta, perhaps unknowingly and in a manner typical of NRIs (you'll see what I did there) reproduces some of our homegrown Indian prejudices and political-incorrectness: while he refers to the other authors in his coterie as simply 'Indian' or 'Pakistani', he mentions the poet Agha Shahid Ali as someone who only identifies as Kashmiri (while Kashmiri nationhood is a completely valid argument). Similarly, while describing an accident his mother got in while pregnant with him, he mentions how a 'drunk Marwari came speeding down' and caused it. Even as he writes this very Indian collar-calling into his book, he may be (albeit unconsciously) driving across a point about how this takes place vis-a-vis immigrants in specific and the 'other' in general on a global scale.
This Land Is Our Land is an immensely important book, perhaps one of the most important ones this year. It is pertinent, well-argued, and very outspoken about the lasting damage of Colonialism — something well worth reminding ourselves of amidst all this hullabaloo with white supremacy and revisionism.
August 24, 2020
There is a lot of misinformation and fear these days about immigrants. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in a thorough assessment of what it's like to be an immigrant, why they leave their countries, the impacts they have, etc. Mehta provides an in-depth analysis that simply isn't provided by any of our news outlets, and whereas the 24/7 news cycle is built to create fear and hysteria, Mehta writes about realities. Three key facts that he writes about in detail are:
1) The vast majority of migration around the world is caused by people fleeing instability created when the U.S. government topples foreign governments, funds radical groups, supports harsh regimes, etc., especially as it relates to Central America and the Middle East.
2) Immigrants and particularly illegal immigrants cause far less crime than citizens.
3) Immigrants, including illegal immigrants, give more into the economy than they take out.
When you understand these things, much of the noise and false claims regarding immigrants fades away and you're left with the fact that these are people trying to stay alive and find a better life for their families.
We understand people by being able to empathize with their plights, and Mehta has written a book that makes it very easy to empathize with immigrants. Everyone should read this.
1) The vast majority of migration around the world is caused by people fleeing instability created when the U.S. government topples foreign governments, funds radical groups, supports harsh regimes, etc., especially as it relates to Central America and the Middle East.
2) Immigrants and particularly illegal immigrants cause far less crime than citizens.
3) Immigrants, including illegal immigrants, give more into the economy than they take out.
When you understand these things, much of the noise and false claims regarding immigrants fades away and you're left with the fact that these are people trying to stay alive and find a better life for their families.
We understand people by being able to empathize with their plights, and Mehta has written a book that makes it very easy to empathize with immigrants. Everyone should read this.
July 3, 2019
Suketu Mehta dazzled beyond comparison in his 2004 published 'Maximum City' the story of Mumbai, a book which is peerless in its category.
With that kind of adulation I approached this new book of his 'This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant's Manifesto' and I enjoyed reading it. Its definitely a page turner, though gets a little repetitive and slow towards the later chapter.
So for sure its no-where near the charisma that shone in his Mumbai Book. So folks, who would be expecting a Maximum City would feel dejected.
The book by itself, seems like a collective print of immigrant-related stories/articles that the author must have penned in his last 10 years. So you have the story of the excesses the Indian Labourer faces in the Gulf countries, as well as the atrocities that African/Hispanic face in the mid-west American states. So lack of a coherent narrative story board is definetly missing. Also there is so much reiteration of the migrant's contribution in making USA great, no denying that. But wish the author had beena little more critical of his home-origin country's decline from an immigrant-welcoming state to immigrant-blocking status.
Wasn't it the the author's own state of South Gujrat, near Sanand, where the Hindu King gave asylum to the fleeing Iranian-Zorashtrians in the 12th century, a non-Hindu community which by the turn of the 17th century, blossomed into one of the most iconic super-prductive entrepreuner communities of modern-India? Where had India been, had the Gujrat-King closed his doors to these escaping migrant boats of Iranians running away from the Islamic Conquest of Persia. The famous Freddie Mercury (belonged to this same community of Gujrati-speaking-Zoarashtrain-faith-Indian guy, whose original name was Farukk Balsara) Where would all the best-modern English songs would have come from, had the King not granted asylum to his great ancestors?
Even before that, wasn't it a Indian-Hindu-King from Sindh (Raja Dahir) who gave asylum to the escaping family of the Prophet Muhammed's excaping persecution from the Ummaiys Arabs?
More recently wasn't it again the first Prime Minister of India, Nehru, who was delighted to welcome the Tibetian Dalai Lama and a whole group of Tibetian refugees in the 1950's, when marauding Chinese-Communist-regime under the crazy-fanatic Mao tried to almost eliminate Tibet?
Wonder, why didn't the author invoke their stories in his very timely-book.
And also why India now chooses to be a Islamophob and perecute the Muslims by closing its door on both Bangaldeshi-immigrants as well as the Rohingya crisis, where India didn't open its door for any of them. What a shame!
The author reserved lot many portions in this book narrating his family story and his journey from south Gujrat to Queens NY to New Jersey, which is all fine, but wish he had also mentioned, how and why a large fraction of Indian-Americans in his beloved NJ and other states actually supports and votes for anti-immigration poclicies of the current regime. The Indian-American community is not as holier-than-thou, but have their core-inbuilt-racsim in built from their birth and upbringing in India. Wish the author had mentioned a more critical details of them.
Other than that, this is a good book.
With that kind of adulation I approached this new book of his 'This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant's Manifesto' and I enjoyed reading it. Its definitely a page turner, though gets a little repetitive and slow towards the later chapter.
So for sure its no-where near the charisma that shone in his Mumbai Book. So folks, who would be expecting a Maximum City would feel dejected.
The book by itself, seems like a collective print of immigrant-related stories/articles that the author must have penned in his last 10 years. So you have the story of the excesses the Indian Labourer faces in the Gulf countries, as well as the atrocities that African/Hispanic face in the mid-west American states. So lack of a coherent narrative story board is definetly missing. Also there is so much reiteration of the migrant's contribution in making USA great, no denying that. But wish the author had beena little more critical of his home-origin country's decline from an immigrant-welcoming state to immigrant-blocking status.
Wasn't it the the author's own state of South Gujrat, near Sanand, where the Hindu King gave asylum to the fleeing Iranian-Zorashtrians in the 12th century, a non-Hindu community which by the turn of the 17th century, blossomed into one of the most iconic super-prductive entrepreuner communities of modern-India? Where had India been, had the Gujrat-King closed his doors to these escaping migrant boats of Iranians running away from the Islamic Conquest of Persia. The famous Freddie Mercury (belonged to this same community of Gujrati-speaking-Zoarashtrain-faith-Indian guy, whose original name was Farukk Balsara) Where would all the best-modern English songs would have come from, had the King not granted asylum to his great ancestors?
Even before that, wasn't it a Indian-Hindu-King from Sindh (Raja Dahir) who gave asylum to the escaping family of the Prophet Muhammed's excaping persecution from the Ummaiys Arabs?
More recently wasn't it again the first Prime Minister of India, Nehru, who was delighted to welcome the Tibetian Dalai Lama and a whole group of Tibetian refugees in the 1950's, when marauding Chinese-Communist-regime under the crazy-fanatic Mao tried to almost eliminate Tibet?
Wonder, why didn't the author invoke their stories in his very timely-book.
And also why India now chooses to be a Islamophob and perecute the Muslims by closing its door on both Bangaldeshi-immigrants as well as the Rohingya crisis, where India didn't open its door for any of them. What a shame!
The author reserved lot many portions in this book narrating his family story and his journey from south Gujrat to Queens NY to New Jersey, which is all fine, but wish he had also mentioned, how and why a large fraction of Indian-Americans in his beloved NJ and other states actually supports and votes for anti-immigration poclicies of the current regime. The Indian-American community is not as holier-than-thou, but have their core-inbuilt-racsim in built from their birth and upbringing in India. Wish the author had mentioned a more critical details of them.
Other than that, this is a good book.
August 20, 2019
***I won this book in a Goodreads Giveaway***
In my experience, there are two types of books on political issues. Those that are data based and those that are emotion based. While I have a preference for data and research, I think there's a place for both.
This book stands out because it is definitely grounded in data and research, it does not shy away from emotion. There author drops some F bombs and does not mince words when discussing the president of the U.S.A. There are pages where you can feel the rage dripping through.
It's compelling. And it makes for a really tough read sometimes. To look at the statistics and understand the data...and then realize how all of it feels to an immigrant...it's a lot. Sometimes I had to take a break to calm myself down.
At the end of the day, this book makes it clear that we cannot let fear make decisions for us. Immigration is the story of human history, from our first steps out of Africa til today. We won't stop it and we shouldn't. The data points to immigration being a boon for any nation that takes it seriously. I highly recommend this book.
In my experience, there are two types of books on political issues. Those that are data based and those that are emotion based. While I have a preference for data and research, I think there's a place for both.
This book stands out because it is definitely grounded in data and research, it does not shy away from emotion. There author drops some F bombs and does not mince words when discussing the president of the U.S.A. There are pages where you can feel the rage dripping through.
It's compelling. And it makes for a really tough read sometimes. To look at the statistics and understand the data...and then realize how all of it feels to an immigrant...it's a lot. Sometimes I had to take a break to calm myself down.
At the end of the day, this book makes it clear that we cannot let fear make decisions for us. Immigration is the story of human history, from our first steps out of Africa til today. We won't stop it and we shouldn't. The data points to immigration being a boon for any nation that takes it seriously. I highly recommend this book.
January 3, 2024
Un libro ben strutturato (in 4 parti) che tratta le radici storiche dell'immigrazione sia quella per motivi economici che l'immigrazione per rifugiarsi e scappare dalle persecuzioni, violenze ed altro. L'autore stesso è un immigrato indiano diventato cittadino statunitense e discendente di una famiglia di immigrati in Africa, regno unito, America e Australia, e così il libro è stato arricchito dalle esperienze personali dell'autore e di altre storie di famigliari e amici e persone che ha incontrato durante i suoi viaggi e spostamenti per lavoro giornalistico.
Ciò che lo rende un libro da 5 stelle:
1- lo stile di scrittura, scorrevole, diretto, che dice le cose come sono, soprattutto quando tratta la puzza dell'ipocrisia occidentale, dalla prima pagina menziona subito gli effetti devastanti colonialismo europeo, la deportazione degli africani schiavizzati...
2- mi sembra un'autore onesto e attento alle proprie dichiarazioni e alle fonti, menziona sempre i nomi, cognomi, nomi dei giornali. Dopo la fine del libro potete trovare 36 pagine di note sulle fonti per chi vuole indagare.
3- ha mostrato l'umanità delle persone che si spostano raccontando le loro storie sia nelle frontiere fra Usa e Messico che Tangeri in Marocco, l'ultima tappa prima di arrivare in Europa e altro. Molte parte erano emozionanti.
4- la terza parte intitolata perché gli immigrati fanno paura è super interessante. Spiegando certi pensieri sulla sostituzione etnica, l'invasione
5- ha detto molte verità: l'immigrazione è circolare e non una freccia. Gli immigrati non arrivano a mani vuote. Perché dovrebbero essere i benvenuti.
È un libro che può essere super interessante per chi studia l'immigrazione e ovviamente può aprire gli occhi alle persone che si allarmano a causa della propaganda d'odio dei politici e media che promuovono stereotipi negativi sui immigrati.
Seguitemi per altre recensioni sui libri.
Ciò che lo rende un libro da 5 stelle:
1- lo stile di scrittura, scorrevole, diretto, che dice le cose come sono, soprattutto quando tratta la puzza dell'ipocrisia occidentale, dalla prima pagina menziona subito gli effetti devastanti colonialismo europeo, la deportazione degli africani schiavizzati...
2- mi sembra un'autore onesto e attento alle proprie dichiarazioni e alle fonti, menziona sempre i nomi, cognomi, nomi dei giornali. Dopo la fine del libro potete trovare 36 pagine di note sulle fonti per chi vuole indagare.
3- ha mostrato l'umanità delle persone che si spostano raccontando le loro storie sia nelle frontiere fra Usa e Messico che Tangeri in Marocco, l'ultima tappa prima di arrivare in Europa e altro. Molte parte erano emozionanti.
4- la terza parte intitolata perché gli immigrati fanno paura è super interessante. Spiegando certi pensieri sulla sostituzione etnica, l'invasione
5- ha detto molte verità: l'immigrazione è circolare e non una freccia. Gli immigrati non arrivano a mani vuote. Perché dovrebbero essere i benvenuti.
È un libro che può essere super interessante per chi studia l'immigrazione e ovviamente può aprire gli occhi alle persone che si allarmano a causa della propaganda d'odio dei politici e media che promuovono stereotipi negativi sui immigrati.
Seguitemi per altre recensioni sui libri.
December 9, 2020
3.5 really. This book left me with more questions than answers. I was looking for facts, yes, but the author throws so many percentages at the reader that I sometimes felt the points he was trying to make got lost. The author makes a lot of statements but I have no reference points for their validity. He did make one statement that I found to be very open to interpretation. On page 196 the author states “The United States ranks 191st in the world in terms of density, its most crowded state, New Jersey, comfortably accommodates 1,200 people per square mile”. Having lived in NJ most of my life I would definitely not say it “comfortably accommodates” the population density. As a matter of fact congestion and high taxes have taken their toll and more people are leaving the state of NJ than any other state in the US. This might be a minor statement, a small example but, for me, it called into question what other statements might I not agree with had I more context.
I applaud Mr. Mehta’s efforts. He has certainly written a thought provoking book. There is no question that we need to take the fear of immigrants out the equation if we are ever to resolve this issue and have equitable societies and a healthy planet. Hopefully this book can be part of a healthy debate toward that end.
I applaud Mr. Mehta’s efforts. He has certainly written a thought provoking book. There is no question that we need to take the fear of immigrants out the equation if we are ever to resolve this issue and have equitable societies and a healthy planet. Hopefully this book can be part of a healthy debate toward that end.
June 20, 2021
A good book on a fascinating, divisive topic.
My quick thoughts:
1. The book is very well structured with four distinct parts: a summary of the status quo around immigration, what led to this, why immigrants are feared, and why they should be welcomed instead.
2. One thing that the author does really well : dispel myths (e.g. the fact that immigrants take more than they create). He uses the right mix of stats vs examples/parallels, the latter including some very poignant stories.
3. A few things that this book lacks : diversity (it's almost completely focused on Europe and America, despite the fact that non-Western nations probably house far more migrants), a balanced narrative (the tone is very self righteous and the author spends barely any time exploring valid counter arguments against immigration)
4. An interesting concept the author brings up: immigration as reparations. Western nations exploited the global south via imperialism, got rich as a result and then meddled in their internal affairs (e.g. via coups) to maintain the status quo. It's only fair that the people from the latter get a chance to share the wealth.
My quick thoughts:
1. The book is very well structured with four distinct parts: a summary of the status quo around immigration, what led to this, why immigrants are feared, and why they should be welcomed instead.
2. One thing that the author does really well : dispel myths (e.g. the fact that immigrants take more than they create). He uses the right mix of stats vs examples/parallels, the latter including some very poignant stories.
3. A few things that this book lacks : diversity (it's almost completely focused on Europe and America, despite the fact that non-Western nations probably house far more migrants), a balanced narrative (the tone is very self righteous and the author spends barely any time exploring valid counter arguments against immigration)
4. An interesting concept the author brings up: immigration as reparations. Western nations exploited the global south via imperialism, got rich as a result and then meddled in their internal affairs (e.g. via coups) to maintain the status quo. It's only fair that the people from the latter get a chance to share the wealth.
February 21, 2020
I was very optimistic about this book. I read a lot on immigrant experience - I even have a Goodreads 'shelf' for the topic. I knew Mehta as the author of a well-regarded book about Mumbai. And when I started reading I thought it had a great tone of voice.
The problem was, that wore off way too quickly.
I felt like I was being beaten about the head with his opinions, that he was going on and on and on like a drunk in a bar who won't let you leave until he's told you EVERYTHING he knows about EVERYTHING.
I abandoned the ebook about 2/3 of the way through because I was getting bored, I was fed up with the blame culture and his sense of entitlement. The moaning about how everything was so unfair combined with all the showing off about how amazingly successful immigrants from India are in USA just didn't sit comfortably together.
I tried and I gave it my best shot, but in the end I was running out of time on my Borrowbox loan and had to send it back. I felt relieved that I could step away from Mehta's anger and pick up something more entertaining.
The problem was, that wore off way too quickly.
I felt like I was being beaten about the head with his opinions, that he was going on and on and on like a drunk in a bar who won't let you leave until he's told you EVERYTHING he knows about EVERYTHING.
I abandoned the ebook about 2/3 of the way through because I was getting bored, I was fed up with the blame culture and his sense of entitlement. The moaning about how everything was so unfair combined with all the showing off about how amazingly successful immigrants from India are in USA just didn't sit comfortably together.
I tried and I gave it my best shot, but in the end I was running out of time on my Borrowbox loan and had to send it back. I felt relieved that I could step away from Mehta's anger and pick up something more entertaining.
September 9, 2020
Kind of picked this up not knowing much about it, as it was chosen for me, and I was expecting a memoir-type book. It is so much more. While not comprehensive, this is an excellent primer on the history and sociology of immigration - why people move from one place to another, why they're an asset, and why they're often not met with warm welcomes. Mehta includes some of his own experience, alongside others' stories, showing there is no one immigrant experience and bringing nuance to an issue that desperately needs it. And if you're a numbers fan, there are a ton of interesting statistics, as well.
September 15, 2019
Thoroughly enjoyed this book. Informative and well researched without becoming dry and unapproachable. The kind of book that practically begs you to read segments aloud in order to share what you’re learning about immigration. I devoured it in one sitting. Highly recommended.
October 13, 2022
4,5 stars! Loved the concept of immigration as reparations
June 24, 2019
This was really good - Mehta is a quick, engaging author who knows how to plead a point (though obviously there were some things I disagreed with). The singular issue is his random insertion of expletives & vulgarities into an otherwise professional, brilliant work. They were random & useless, too, almost as if he’d write 100 pages, realize they were all perfectly acceptable, and throw in the two censored words in the same sentence, & then continue along his merry way until he found he’d gone another 100 pages professionally. Ugh. Why is this fashionable. Your kids should be able to read the same nonfiction as their parents. I did.
August 28, 2019
This Land is our Land is a timely book discussing why western countries can benefit from accepting immigrants.
The author Suketu Mehta is born in India and grew up in New York City. He draws some part of this book from his personal experiences and does not hold back putting any facts, stories, truths, and lies for the world to see. The book focuses on the history of immigration in the world, many well-researched stories to support that and also a few loopholes which are inflicted upon common man by the media.
The book speaks a lot about rich countries exploiting the other countries and hence the ripple effect of that on countries for decades. The author also highlights the human part of the stories, making you think beyond laws, borders, and nationalities 🌎
There is an overdose of information and constant switching between time and place in a way that it can confuse people. My only complaint was that the author conveys his point in a very blur and oscillating manner and leaves it up to the reader to take away any conclusion.
As an immigrant myself, I was a bit skeptical that I may be a bit biased towards the book but I uncovered so many new things which now makes me empathetic towards all the immigrants in this world.
Thank you, Suketu Mehta, for writing this book. I think this will be an eye-opener for many who think that immigration is an “issue” and help them see it in a positive manner, not falling prey to what the current administration wants everyone to believe.
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The author Suketu Mehta is born in India and grew up in New York City. He draws some part of this book from his personal experiences and does not hold back putting any facts, stories, truths, and lies for the world to see. The book focuses on the history of immigration in the world, many well-researched stories to support that and also a few loopholes which are inflicted upon common man by the media.
The book speaks a lot about rich countries exploiting the other countries and hence the ripple effect of that on countries for decades. The author also highlights the human part of the stories, making you think beyond laws, borders, and nationalities 🌎
There is an overdose of information and constant switching between time and place in a way that it can confuse people. My only complaint was that the author conveys his point in a very blur and oscillating manner and leaves it up to the reader to take away any conclusion.
As an immigrant myself, I was a bit skeptical that I may be a bit biased towards the book but I uncovered so many new things which now makes me empathetic towards all the immigrants in this world.
Thank you, Suketu Mehta, for writing this book. I think this will be an eye-opener for many who think that immigration is an “issue” and help them see it in a positive manner, not falling prey to what the current administration wants everyone to believe.
Blog | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | YouTube
December 26, 2021
3.5/5 A well-argued case for much more immigration which sometimes bordered on being polemic. The key arguments - colonialism, humanism, economic, and the overall win-win was extensively argued. Alongwith dispelling myths on jobs, assimilation and crime. Since this is a political issue on which I have read a bit, my observations:-
A) Brain-drain :- The negative effects of brain drain on countries like India has been overlooked. Compare them to remittances.
I studied in a govt-funded college. Personally, most of my batch-mates are abroad. I would have preferred to emigrate like them but had to stay back in Surat (India) bcoz of family and built a software company from scratch. What is better for my country India ? Think !
Let me be honest. I may still prefer for my children to emigrate but my selfishness doesnt define what is right and a long-term solution.
B) White-focused - The author forgot that there are rich, developed countries outside North America, Europe and Australia. Infact, at one place he justifies the brutally inhuman policies of the Middle East by saying that the migrant workers were better off economically atleast !
As in “Maximum City”, sometimes I felt that he had a rather elitist and inhuman streak in him.
C) Assimilation - What is multiculturalism ? Diff food, dress, language, festivals, family values or does it include moral relativism too ? The former are totally fine. But is it Ok for immigrants to reject liberalism, gender equality, freedom-of-expression and secularism in the name of Westernism ? Only to set progress back by 1400 years.
Since the author brought up Muslims again and again, wonder what he has to say on the above.
Also, I think assimilation is not optional. And countries are still working out on levels of immigration.
——————————
But whatever your views, a book worth reading. Just ignore it when the author gets polemical and read a sensible counter-view too later.
A) Brain-drain :- The negative effects of brain drain on countries like India has been overlooked. Compare them to remittances.
I studied in a govt-funded college. Personally, most of my batch-mates are abroad. I would have preferred to emigrate like them but had to stay back in Surat (India) bcoz of family and built a software company from scratch. What is better for my country India ? Think !
Let me be honest. I may still prefer for my children to emigrate but my selfishness doesnt define what is right and a long-term solution.
B) White-focused - The author forgot that there are rich, developed countries outside North America, Europe and Australia. Infact, at one place he justifies the brutally inhuman policies of the Middle East by saying that the migrant workers were better off economically atleast !
As in “Maximum City”, sometimes I felt that he had a rather elitist and inhuman streak in him.
C) Assimilation - What is multiculturalism ? Diff food, dress, language, festivals, family values or does it include moral relativism too ? The former are totally fine. But is it Ok for immigrants to reject liberalism, gender equality, freedom-of-expression and secularism in the name of Westernism ? Only to set progress back by 1400 years.
Since the author brought up Muslims again and again, wonder what he has to say on the above.
Also, I think assimilation is not optional. And countries are still working out on levels of immigration.
——————————
But whatever your views, a book worth reading. Just ignore it when the author gets polemical and read a sensible counter-view too later.
July 10, 2019
This book made me want to punch the air with rage, so blinding was the hypocrisy exhibited by anti-immigration politicians and citizens of Western countries that Mehta so expertly spotlights in this book. At its heart, This Land is Our Land is a call for reparations, reparations from European colonisers who have irrevocably changed the face of the now "third-world" countries they plundered, invaded and stole from. Mehta loses me towards the end when he veers too much towards justifying the humanity of people of colour in a way that white people are never required to do – for instance, he cites a statistic that says places with more migrants have less instances of crime, but so what? – but all in all, this is a really strong book. I'll be keeping it up my sleeve for when I have to quote instances of the irreparable damage colonisation has done and continues to.
February 9, 2020
I almost didn't finish this book because it was a bit overwhelming, people are bad, the government's bad, the world is bad, but then the second half got better. There was more about what should be done and how immigration is a good thing and can improve things for everyone. One paragraph that resonated with me was about how Americans don't want to move. They don't want to leave for other and better opportunities and even fewer it seems will leave the country except to vacation. Most immigrants who come here, on the other hand, are left no choice. I have thought of this phenomena before. It wasn't always this way. Why are Americans no longer willing to move to where things are better, rather than suffer and complain about how it used to be?
October 26, 2020
This book is about immigration and how countries are branding migrants as the problem. Especially the developed countries raging against the migrants and refugees. It argues that those migrants/ refugees are there because the developed countries looted and plundered their countries through colonisation or contributed heavily through global warming which resulted in climate change affected displacement. Other factors that are associated with this phenomenon are also explored in depth. Very interesting perspectives and arguments.
I think I like this book by Suketu Mehta more than Maximum City.
I think I like this book by Suketu Mehta more than Maximum City.
December 23, 2019
This is VERY well-argued and I enjoyed it a lot. An important book for this time in our history. I was already predisposed to regard a pro-immigrant argument favorably, but hopefully even someone who was not so inclined could be swayed. I picked this up because I intended to read it, but never got around to it, and then it showed up on the NPR best of the year list and I decided I needed to read it--I'm glad I did.
January 19, 2020
This is a great book. It starts with looking at migration, and the roots of migration, located in colonialism, neocolonialism, climate change and war. It discusses and dismantles the populist anti immigrant stance and clearly demonstrates how migration benefits societies. And it ends with a lovely evocation of family and community support, belonging and courage that celebrates the heroic tenacity of migrants everywhere.
August 1, 2019
Just excellent. Even if you remain unconvinced about reparations, Mehta cites numerous pieces of evidence that cite the benefits of immigrants in our society. Lower crime, higher economic growth, the renaissance of dead communities, etc. Everyone should read this.
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