Drawing on his own experience as an Indian-born teenager growing up in New York City and on years of reporting around the world, Suketu Mehta presents an argument for why the United States and the West would benefit from accepting more immigrants.
In an age of brutal anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy, This Land is Our Land offers a meticulously researched and deeply felt corrective to the public narrative of who today’s migrants are, why they are coming, and what economic and historical forces have propelled them from their homes into faraway lands ... reads like an impassioned survey course on migration, laying bare the origins of mass migration in searing clarity ... The book makes a convincing argument that contemporary migration is a direct descendant of colonialism ...is, in large part, a case for reparations ... Must we read such obvious truths? Perhaps we must.
A stirring manifesto for immigrant rights, it's also much more. The book is an invaluable reference aid, compiling rich data and statistics on every angle of the refugee crisis – from the crime rates of undocumented migrants to the dollar value of their contribution to the economy. What's the price-tag of reparations? What's the cost of colonialism? The book is a relentless source of data which unpacks and refutes the thoroughly untrue arguments driving white panic about refugees ... an unapologetic, angry manifesto supporting the rights of migrants to move ... The unapologetic firmness of Mehta's articulate arguments is refreshing ... among the most comprehensive, clearest, lucid and persuasive arguments in favour of immigrant rights yet written. It's vital reading for anyone looking for arguments and data to unmuddy the rhetorics of white panic, and indeed vital reading or anyone who cares about the future of our world.
With scathing wit, [Mehta] points out hypocrisies ... moves at a faster clip, with arguments backed by examples that skip from country to country within a single chapter. With this overview, he’s covering much ground, literal and historical, and some readers may wish Mehta could have lingered in places or followed the fates of migrants we meet only briefly ... As the country heads into the 2020 presidential election, Mehta’s moving, cogent book can help us find a way forward.
