Junot Díaz on the Dominican Republic, Xenophobia, and Obama
The New Yorker Radio Hour | Jan 22, 2016
The fiction writer Junot Díaz was born in the Dominican Republic, in 1968. In 2009, he was awarded an Order of Merit by the Dominican government. But recently he was stripped of the medal for speaking out against the country’s policies toward people of Haitian descent. In a wide-ranging conversation with David Remnick, Díaz discusses his complicated relationship with his native country, his experiences of xenophobia and racism as an immigrant growing up in America, and his conflicted feelings about the legacy of President Obama, who has sometimes been referred to as the “deporter-in-chief.”
You can read Díaz’s fiction and criticism on The New Yorker’s Web site.
Produced by Sharon Mashihi.
