The only reason I became a writer was so I could exist on a piece of paper.

America is White and Black and Latino and Asian. America is mixed. America is immigrants.

I have no control over what people call me. The only thing I have control over is my work, and that's really all I can be judged on.

Giving people like me a green card, a passport, and a driver's license? That's not going to be the end of the immigration conversation and debate in this country. It's like saying we elected Barack Obama president, so all of the racial problems are done. Right? I mean in some ways, the immigration conversation is just starting. Which is why when we started this campaign, we didn't call it Define Immigrant, we called it Define American. That's the question. That's what's at stake.

I feel like people expect me to give them easy answers, but there aren't really easy answers. There are only harder questions. And unless we get to the harder questions part, about what this conversation is really about...of course I want an immigration bill to pass. I want people to have a driver's license and work permits and green cards and passports. But this conversation transcends this bill. We're not going to have a perfect bill. This is politics. I feel like my job is instead of giving people easy answers, my job is to actually to ask people to probe deeper.

I think I've always been paranoid.

I grew up in newsrooms. I've been in newsrooms since I was 17 years old. Journalism has been like my church; it's been like my identity.