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Columbus did it most famously in 1492, and ever since people from all over have been coming to America.

Every group had it challenges.

Arab-Americans have a story of their own. A story that’s gotten hotter with time.

In mosque and church and town hall, Arab-Americans have put down deep roots. But events have not made it easy. Arab-Israeli war. Iraq wars. Oil tensions. 9.11.

This hour, On Point: We’ll talk with civil rights lawyer and writer Alia Malek about her new look at the history, and reality now, of Arab America.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Alia Malek, author of “A Country Called Amreeka: Arab Roots, American Stories.”

In this July 13, 2003 file photo, Luis Alberto Jimenez rests in the Orthopedic General Hospital in Guatemala City following his deportation from Florida to Guatemala. Martin Memorial Medical Center in Florida chartered a private plane and sent Jimenez back to the Central American country without alerting his U.S. relatives, even as his guardian frantically sought to stop the move. (AP)

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This week, in a benchmark legal case that has riveted health care providers and advocates for immigrants, a jury ruled that a South Florida hospital acted reasonably when it deported Luis Alberto Jimenez, an undocumented worker with a severe brain injury, back to his native Guatemala — against the wishes of his guardian — and was not liable for damages.

The hospital cared for the brain-damaged man for nearly three years. The federal government helps hospitals cover emergency care for uninsured patients — but not long-term care for undocumented workers.

Some have called these kinds of cases “medical rendition.” Hospitals say they are justified in taking back beds for Americans who need them.

This hour, On Point: uninsured immigrants, hospitals strapped for cash, and a far-reaching deportation case in Florida.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Jacki Lyden, guest host

Tom Ashbrook is on vacation.

Guests:

Joining us from New York is Deborah Sontag. She’s a reporter for The New York Times and has been covering the deportation of immigrants from U.S. hospitals for more than a year. “Jury Rules for Hospital That Deported Patient,” “Immigrants Facing Deportation by U.S. Hospitals,” and “Deported in a Coma, Saved Back in U.S.”

Also from New York we’re joined by Adam Gurvitch, a consultant to the National Immigration Law Center and former director of health advocacy at the New York Immigration Coalition.

Joining us from San Francisco is Robert Margolin, a physician at the California Pacific Medical Association. He brought the subject of forced deportations before the California Medical Association, which went on to denounce them. As a result of his efforts, the American Medical Association has commissioned a study on the issue, which is due out in November.

June 6, 1993, on the shore of Long Island — an amazing, terrible spectacle. A leaky tramp freighter, The Golden Venture, run aground in pummeling midnight seas.

It had come from halfway round the world, by way of Africa, with a hold full of would-be illegal Chinese immigrants. Half-starved, disoriented, tumbling out in the surf. Some drowning.

They were just part of a huge trade, run out of New York’s Chinatown, smuggling humans into America. “Snakeheads,” the smugglers were called.

This hour, On Point: The snakeheads, underground Chinatown, and a wild chapter in pursuit of the American dream.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

We’re joined in our studio by Patrick Radden Keefe.  He has written for The New Yorker, Slate, The New York Times, and many other publications, and he is a fellow at the Century Foundation.  His new book is “The Snakehead: An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream.”

Read the first chapter of “The Snakehead” (pdf).

More links:

Patrick has been discussing the book in an extended online exchange with sociologist Sudhir Venkatesh at Slate.

The book’s website offers notes on the key characters, maps of the Golden Venture’s voyage and the Chinatown neighborhood, and links.

Here’s a video trailer showing Chinatown’s streets and the restaurant run by Sister Ping:

In an On Point blog post, Tom Ashbrook recalls his days on the “snakehead” beat as a rooking reporter in Hong Kong for the South China Morning Post.

Also check out WBUR’s “Inside Out” documentary “Snakeheads and Slavery.”

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Since Barack Obama’s inauguration, we know of only one work of fiction that’s made it to the presidential nightstand.

After the briefing books and security reports, President Obama has made it known, he’s been reading last year’s widely-praised “Netherland” by Joseph O’Neill.

It’s a maximally multi-cultural tale of New York life after 9/11. Of a new century’s immigrants making their way. The president has called it wonderful.

This hour, On Point: “Netherland” author Joseph O’Neill — and James McBride, bestselling author of “The Color of Water” — on President Obama’s first read in the White House.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joseph O’Neill joins us in our studio. His novel “Netherland,” now out in paperback, was a New York Times bestseller and winner of the PEN/Faulkner award.  His other books include “This is the Life,” “The Breezes,” and “Blood-Dark Truck.”

You can read an excerpt from “Netherland” at RandomHouse.com.

And joining us from New York is James McBride. A writer and musician, his memoir “The Color of Water” was a national bestseller. His new book is “Song Yet Sung.” You can hear his On Point interview from last year.

An immigration rally on July 27, 2008, in Postville, Iowa, held in protest of a federal immigration raid of the local Agriprocessors plant in May. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

For a tiny town of 2000, Postville, Iowa has been tagged with a lot of superlatives lately. The biggest immigration raid in American history. The biggest Kosher meatpacking plant in the country.

And now, maybe the biggest scandal over slaughterhouse work conditions since Upton Sinclair wrote “The Jungle.”

On May 12, federal agents swooped in to round up nearly 400 mostly Guatemalan immigrant workers for prison time and deportation. Now comes the inside story of coercion, child labor, and cattle guts — a meat hook beating, and workers who say they felt like slaves.

This hour, On Point: The uproar in Postville.

- Tom Ashbrook

* * *

Guests:

Julia Preston, national immigration reporter for The New York Times, she has been reporting from Postville, Iowa.

Erik Camayd-Freixas, a federally certified court interpreter, he served as translator for detainees arrested in the Postville raid.

Mark Lauritsen, international vice president and director of the food processing and packing division of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which represents 250,000 meat packers around the country.

Pastor David Vasquez-Levy, campus pastor at Luther College in Decorah, some 20 miles from Postville. He has ministered to the migrant workers at the Agriprocessors plant in Postville, and since the federal raid, he has worked with St. Bridget’s Catholic Church in Postville, the migrant workers’ church, to help the families of the workers now in jail.

* * *

Links:

“After Iowa Raid, Immigrants Fuel Labor Inquiries,” by Julia Preston (New York Times)

“An Interpreter Speaking Up for Migrants,” by Julia Preston (New York Times)

Read Erik Camayd-Freixas’ personal account of the Postville immigration raid (pdf format)

]]> http://www.onpointradio.org/2008/07/the-postville-raid/feed 1 http://www.onpointradio.org/2008/02/immigrant-children-in-america http://www.onpointradio.org/2008/02/immigrant-children-in-america#comments Thu, 21 Feb 2008 15:00:00 +0000 Wen Stephenson http://www.onpointradio.org/2008/02/immigrant-children-in-america/

One in five children in America today is a child of immigrants. And those numbers are only rising.

Yet as the immigration debate rages, the real lives of those children are too often invisible. Transplanted to a new country, they struggle to master a new language — and a new culture. Some will thrive in school. Others will drop out — or worse, end up in jail.

Now, two scholars argue that if these children don’t get the education and support they need, all Americans, not just immigrants, may pay a steep price.

Up next, On Point: Immigrant children and America’s future.

-Jane Clayson

Guests:

Marcelo Suarez-Orozco, professor of globalization and education and co-director of immigration studies at New York University, he’s co-author of “Learning a New Land: Immigrant Students in American Society.”

Carola Suarez-Orozco, co-author of “Learning a New Land: Immigrant Students in American Society,” she’s a professor of applied pyschology at New York University.