Viet Thanh Nguyen

And, you know, you find all kinds of xenophobia and massacres and murders and demonizations taking place of people who are different from some other kind of people, what I would call the other.

So it's always existed throughout human history.

It certainly exists inside the United States today.

And at the same time, we go back to these narratives, whether it's the Bible or whether it's our own history as Americans, and we see other stories, not of xenophobia, but of hospitality, of welcoming the stranger, of taking care of the poor and the downtrodden.

That's a part of the Bible.

It's also a part of our American mythology.

And so we have to understand that these two impulses have always existed within human societies and American society.

We're never going to get past xenophobia itself.

It will always be with us.

But we have to understand why it happens and how we can solve it.

And I'm a believer in this idea that it's not simply hospitality that we need to extend, but that so many of the problems we face as Americans, it's about dividing and conquering.

It's like we think we have too little and we have to separate some people out and deport them or put them into prison and so on.

And I think if American society is as great as we think it is, it has enough for everybody.

It has enough to grow, room enough to grow so that everybody can have it, have things that they need.

But we're led by people, Democrats and Republicans, who show just a paucity of imagination and willpower and daring to make this country as beneficial as it could be for everybody.

Your wife is a poet, yes?

Yes.

And she's beautiful.

Well, I literally met my wife on a dark and stormy night at a poetry meeting that I organized.

And she showed up for the open mic as this beautiful poet.