Only in America with Ali Noorani

Brett Hunt is the executive director of the Public Service Academy at Arizona State University. Previously, he served as a U.S. Army captain & Foreign Service officer . Sara Nieves Pereia is a student & communications lead at the academy. Originally from the Azores, she recently became a US citizen after moving to Arizona in 2011. Ali spoke to Brett & Sara about the values the academy instills in students, the traumatic transition of immigration to the US, and what public service means to them.

Lalo Alcaraz is a nationally-syndicated cartoonist, writer and producer based in Los Angeles.  He is the creator of the first politically-themed Latino comic, “La Cucaracha,” the founder of Pocho.com and was a writer and producer for the 2016 Fox series Border Town. He was also a cultural consultant for the Disney Pixar feature Coco.  He is currently a consulting producer and writer for The Casagrandes, which will premiere this fall on Nickelodeon.

José Olivarez is a poet, educator and performer. He co-hosts the podcast “The Poetry Gods” and his debut collection, “Citizen Illegal,” received widespread critical acclaim and was a finalist in the 2019 PEN Awards. Born in Chicago to Mexican immigrant parents, José was raised with his three younger brothers in Calumet City. In this week’s episode, José recites his poems & talks to Ali about their meaning, how he uses them to communicate with his parents, and his mother’s solution for all

Ahead of this year’s Academy Awards, writer and critic Monica Castillo sits down with Ali to talk about immigration and movies. In her writings, she has called for more inclusion of immigrant stories in films. She talks to Ali about her cinematic influences, her Cuban roots and Hollywood’s missed opportunity to represent the stories of today’s immigration wave to the United States. Monica’s work has appeared in The New York Times, The Lily, and the Village Voice.

Harvard Professor Mary C. Waters talks with Ali about the progress made by immigrants learning English and integrating into U.S. society. Despite the current rhetoric surrounding immigration, Waters says that native-born Americans have a more welcoming attitude toward immigrants, and research shows that “Americans agree more about immigration than we do about a lot of issues that divide us.” Ali also discusses the Forum’s SONAW program with Jennie Murray, the Forum’s director of integration progr

The national conversation about our Southern Border doesn’t reflect the reality of border life. Ali heads to Nogales, Arizona and across the border to Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, to hear the realities of Arizona’s largest international border community. Guests in this episode are Ernesto Portillo of the Arizona Daily Star and La Estrella de Tucson; Monica Weisberg-Stewart of the Texas Border Coalition; and Juanita Molina, executive director of the Border Action Network.

Doug Holtz-Eakin is the president of the American Action Forum, a center-right economic policy organization located in Washington, D.C. Doug talks to Ali about the benefits of immigration, the impact of Pennsylvania steel mills on his family, and his crisis of confidence in his early career. Plus, the Forum’s policy and advocacy associate, Zuzana Cepla, discusses our new interactive map that provides information on career paths across the United States.

Laura Peña is a visiting attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project. Laura grew up in Harlingen, Texas, along the U.S.-Mexico border before working for two presidential campaigns, clerking for a federal judge, and serving as an attorney with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Laura tells Ali about the personal and professional challenges of working for ICE, how the border has changed since she grew up there, and why the migrant families she works with give her hope.

Doug Hattaway is a communications expert and the president of Hattaway Communications in Washington, D.C. He served as senior communications adviser to Hillary Clinton during her 2008 presidential bid and works with clients in government, advocacy, philanthropy and business. With the Ford Foundation, he heads American Aspirations, a project that helps organizations communicate in new ways, transcend social and political divides, and connect a cause to hopes and values that really matter to people.

Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha is a hero to many in Flint, Michigan and around the world for her medical research that helped uncover the alarming spike in blood lead levels of children during the Flint Water Crisis. She talks to Ali about her journey to the United States, her love of medicine, the importance of engaging in democracy and her new memoir, "What the Eyes Don't See."

PhD candidate, jazz pianist, entrepreneur, Dreamer activist, TedX speaker: DACA recipient Saba Nafees’ resume is chock full of accomplishments for a graduate student at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. Saba, who was born in Pakistan and moved to Texas at age 11, discusses her love of music, how she revealed her status to the world and what her father taught her.

This week, how Julissa Arce arrived from Mexico at 11 years old and rose to become a Vice President of Goldman Sachs. The best-selling author of "My (underground) American Dream," she tells Ali about her journey, and her leading role in the campaign for immigration rights. Her second book, "Someone Like Me," was published last September. Plus, Ali looks at the opportunity for positive U.S. immigration reform in the coming year. 

Happy Birthday to Only in America - we're one-year old this week!  In today's episode, under Dr. Michael Crow's leadership, Arizona State University has become one of the leading academic research institutions in the world. In his conversation with Ali, he talks about the importance of inclusion, the lack of empathy in contemporary life, and what he learned being roughed-up as a child who moved from city to city.

This week, Ali's conversation with two U.S. Senators on the cutting edge of the immigration debate - Republican James Lankford of Oklahoma, and Democrat Michael Bennet from Colorado. On November 15, they were honored with the "Courage to Lead Award" at our annual convening in Washington D.C., for their work across the aisle to advance bipartisan immigration solutions.

In our Thanksgiving Special, Ali travels from Indiana, to Idaho, to the southern border. Rafed Alsaad helped the US forces in Iraq, and had to flee his homeland to be welcomed in South Bend, Indiana. Priscilla Salant, a Professor Emeritus at the University of Idaho, tells Ali how immigrants have become vital to the state's farming communities. And Father Dan Groody, a University of Notre Dame Professor, finds the spirituality among migrants at the southern border.