I think I've always been paranoid.

There isn't anybody I won't talk to about immigration - at least once.

No amount of success - whatever that means, quote-unquote success - no amount of success replaces the reality of being separated from my family for this long.

There's always to me a universality - one of the things I learned early on as a journalist and a writer is that there's a universality in specifics. The more specific you get, the more universal it can be.

I always felt like I had the word "illegal" tattooed on my forehead.

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

I'm not a politician. I'm not a policy wonk. I was a political reporter, but that's not really what turns me on. What turns me on is how people perceive the issue and how people see people like me.