By Menachem Wecker
Steven Roberts had been searching for a while for the perfect title for his new book about immigrant families when he was doing live commentary on the inaugural address for ABC Radio. When he heard President Barack Obama use the phrase “from every end of this Earth,” Mr. Roberts knew he’d found what he had been looking for.
Though Mr. Roberts, GW’s J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Media and Public Affairs, owed the title to the president, he dedicated “From Every End of This Earth” to his GW students, whom he credits with directing him to much of the book’s content.
The book, which was published in October, tells the stories of 13 immigrant families from across the globe, including Sierra Leone, India and El Salvador. At least half of the families profiled are connected to GW.
When Mr. Roberts started teaching a feature writing course at GW 12 years ago, one of the first assignments he gave students was to write about their own families. “Your grandmother never says, ‘No comment,’” he says.
When many students submitted papers on their own immigrant origins, they reinforced Mr. Roberts’ belief that immigrants carry a “wonderful treasure chest” of stories. Two of the families profiled in the book include Mr. Roberts’ students. Former students also acted as scouts; for example, a high school teacher in Philadelphia told Mr. Roberts about her writing class full of children of immigrants. Mr. Roberts asked for the best story and ended up with a chapter on a family from Sierra Leone. Another student wrote about a family from El Salvador that ran a restaurant in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of D.C.
Not all the stories came easily. Some immigrants from the Middle East wanted to keep a low profile because of what they perceived as anti-Muslim sentiments after 9/11. Mr. Roberts also had trouble finding a family from India until his former student Reena Ninan, Jerusalem correspondent for Fox News, posted an appeal on the Web site of the South Asian Journalists Association. A woman wrote back recommending her sister-in-law, and another chapter was born. “There is a deep involvement of my students in this project,” Mr. Roberts says.
Throughout his distinguished career – which includes working at The New York Times, U.S. News & World Report, and ABC Radio and occasionally filling in on NPR’s “Diane Rehm Show” – Mr. Roberts has been interested in immigration. He says that growing up in Hudson County, N.J., all of his friends had grandparents with accents. His own grandparents immigrated from present-day Russia and Poland, and Mr. Roberts brought his background and interest into his reporting.
“When I was based in California for The New York Times, everybody else was writing about Hollywood,” he says. “I was writing about the local Armenian and Portuguese communities.”
Though some things about immigration never change – it is the “most inherently dramatic” of all human experiences, Mr. Roberts says – modern technology has altered the experience in profound ways. For example, he says, by making it far easier to keep in contact with home countries, citing a family from India. The son, now a chemist in Ohio, talks regularly to his mother. Even though she lives in a tiny village without running water, she has a cell phone.
Globalization also affords many immigrants today unprecedented advantages, including language and cultural knowledge and contacts, if they choose to do business with their home country. One chapter in the book tells about a family that fled communist China and came to America via Hong Kong. The son went to a U.S. university, became an accountant and, through connections in San Francisco’s Chinatown, became a major importer of Chinese fireworks. “He spends two weeks a month in China, doing business with the very people his parents fled in terror from,” Mr. Roberts says. “Business is business. He virtually commutes to China. That is a new trend.”
The book is intended to be a collection of stories, Mr. Roberts says, and there are only three pages of policy. “I believe deeply in the virtues of immigration and immigrants,” he says. “I think there is absolutely no doubt that immigrants contribute enormously to the vitality and prosperity of this country.”
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On Tuesday, Nov. 3, Mr. Roberts will sign copies of his books and participate in "A Conversation with Steve and Cokie Roberts" from 8 to 10 p.m. in room B07 of GW's Media and Public Affairs Building. Rsvp: [email protected].