17 Comments

Also, "...between the rock of white nationalism and the hard place of having a brown wife and children" is a delicious and spicy bit of word smithing!

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Easily my favorite turn of phrase in this piece.

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What an exquisite piece, so moving and mouth watering all at once.. So gentle in its admonition.

Anand writes so elegantly.. His language resonates for me, as his descriptions of lebaneh, and sukkah, and hummus, and the spices he so mouthwateringly describes.. A Brilliant piece so appreciated being to listen to it. My vision is poor, and I have turned my interests to podcasts. thank you,

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Anand, you are so astute in your presentation of the immigrant i.e. American palate.

Your deep dive analysis on every topic, and they are all critical to the survival of the American experiment, is a wake-up call. Let the fossils of white supremacy defer to the dawn of inclusiveness.

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There is a school of thought that holds that the (almost neo-fascist) times we live in depend on 'keeping everyone anxious.' And before Kamala Harris entered the arena, that argument looked like it was winning!

The argument goes something like this: If ... most people are kept in a state of anxiety and threat (of climate change, flooding, fires, storms, etc) as well as of dissolving personal identity, we may all end up not knowing who we 'are' - males or females, or a mixture of both!!), as well as schizoid about what nationality we are (mixed, multi-passport, etc, or as Theresa May infamously put it: "Anyone who says they are a citizen of the world is a citizen of nowhere") ......

Then ...it follows that we will all need some big strong (man preferably) to tell us who we are (in short, a fascist dictator). So there's an (admittedly warped) 'logic' in there, somewhere ...

We have to reclaim diversity - acknowledge it as a fact of life, and celebrate it. That's the real choice - to live in a seriously 'weird' / delusional 'purity,' or somewhere (over the rainbow?) in a wonderful, multi-faceted spectrum - of all aspects of our being. (My wife and I only recently found out that we both have fairly recent 'first nations' ancestors, just for starters.)

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Wow. This is just a spectacular essay, covering so much cruel ground with a sense of humor and hope for a less cruel, more delicious future. Thank you for writing this and sharing it with the world.

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So beautiful. As the son of an Italian immigrant family this piece sings like a songbird.

Anad is one of the best thinkers in the country today. I watch him on Morning Joe when ever I can . The two best public intellectual in the U S today are Anand and Ezra Kline.

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As always, I so appreciate your insight and love your narration! May I have some more please?

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A yummy word salad, stew, ratatouille, bulgogi, curry, etc. I will definitely have seconds.

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💖💖💖.

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Thank you for the real-voice, in-person narration!

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Beautiful piece. It made me think of a sign I saw during the protests against the Muslim ban in 2017 that read, "We gave you hummus. Show some Respect." It's at once poignant and hilarious.

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Beautiful and elegantly stated. Thank you for taking the time to respond to the malicious terrorism that is being perpetrated on immigrant populations and destroying communities.

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Brings tears to my eyes. So beautiful, so compelling, so astute. Thank you.

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I love this essay so much. Thank you for articulating this with such humor and grace and glorious craft of language.

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Thank you Anand. Hard to believe we have to defend even what we eat. Vote democracy everyone! Vote Harris/Walz!!

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Brilliant. Thank you. And, yes, I do appreciate the mini-podcast format.

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