Interesting points

• Civilization begins with the first cemetery
• Coming to America is coming to the language.
• People don’t have to learn the language to speak the “language” of the culture. He spoke of his friend who, after twenty years here, still speaks no English. But when she arrived she didn’t know what a washing machine was, and now she does: that is, she knows the ways of the culture.
• In speaking of a native English-speaker who sent him a letter full of typos and other mistakes, he said, “He let me see his language in its underwear.” Context: he had written a letter to this guy in painstakingly perfect English, yet the response was sloppy. It reminded me of when I was a hippie, when people of my class ran around in torn-up jeans, while people from lower classes wouldn’t dream of such a display of poverty. We had nothing to “prove” because we were the dominant class. We could afford to be sloppy. The people in power weren’t going to judge us along class lines based on our dress.
• Two books he recommended, written by immigrants or children of immigrants.—The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wilde. Won last year’s Pulitzer. Written in fearless mix of English and Spanish.—Mother Tongue, Amy Tan.
• In 1910 the US had peak immigration of 9 million people. It’s dropped since then… until now, nearly 100 years later. Once again we have 9 million. People squawk about how many “foreigners” are coming in, yet proportionally this peak is much less than the first one. We now have 310 million people in the US.

His new book, not officially released, is about stories from immigrants and their children: Becoming Americans: Four Centuries of Immigrant Writings.