Junot Díaz: Rewriting the Story of America

LIN@RBy LIN@R

The life and work of Junot Díaz contains many worlds. His books, including National Book Award finalist This Is How You Lose Her and Pulitzer Prize-winner The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, journey between the old and the new, and between the America that was and the America we’re becoming. Born in the Dominican Republic, but raised in New Jersey and American to the core, Junot Díaz is a spotter of the future, a curator of the past, a man of the here-and-now.

junot_diaz_sliderDíaz joins Bill Moyers in his TV show: Moyers & Company, to discuss the evolution of the great American story. Along the way he offers funny and perceptive insights into his own work, as well as Star Wars, Moby Dick, and America’s inevitable shift to a majority minority country.

There is an enormous gap between the way the country presents itself and imagines itself and projects itself and the reality of this country,” Díaz tells Bill. “Whether we’re talking about the Latino community in North Carolina. Whether we’re talking about a very active and I think in some ways very out queer community across the United States. Or whether we’re talking about an enormous body of young voters who are either ignored or sort of pandered to or in some ways, I think that what we’re having is a new country emerging that’s been in the making for a long time.”

For more information: Moyers & Company website.

This article was first published in LIN@R.

LIN@R is an archive of the most comprehensive collection of materials relevant to the Latino experience in the U.S. — a national and international combination of Rutgers scholarship in tandem with news stories, studies and reports from reputable news organizations, non-RU-academics and think tanks pertaining to Latino-related research.

[Photo courtesy Rutgers University]

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