Though I later found a career as a journalist and an essayist, fiction is my first love and I never left it, even though there was no easy way to make a living from it.

Today, more people are crossing various borders in order to survive, thrive, change their lives. Even if you don't cross the border, with demographic shifts, the border sometimes crosses you.

In the war on terrorism, the immigrant is often the scapegoat.

America's story is largely an immigrant story. That hasn't changed since the Pilgrims ate their first turkey some four hundred years ago, and they were the original boat people.

It's unfortunate that the country of immigrants has turned its back on immigrants. The atmosphere after 9/11 is toxic.

[The immigrant] becomes a kind of insurance policy against the effects of the recession. By blaming him, the pressure valve is regulated in times of crisis ... What we have now is a public mindset of us versus them, and an overall anti-immigrant climate that is both troubling and morally reprehensible.

I think in a larger sense, immigrant narrative is comprehensive and speaks to the core of human experience.