Hello and welcome to Episode Twenty Five of Page Turn: the Largo Public Library Podcast. I’m your host, Hannah!
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The Spanish Language Book Review begins at 44:00 and ends 48:03 at
The English Language Transcript can be found below
But as always we start with Reader’s Advisory!
The Reader’s Advisory for Episode Twenty Five is Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher. If you like Dear Committee Members you should also check out: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon, The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin, and Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn.
My personal favorite Goodreads list Dear Committee Members is on is Interesting, Well Written Books That Are Not By Dead Old White Men.
Today’s Library Tidbit is an interview with Holocaust survivor Marie Silverman.
You can find more information about the Holocaust by visiting The Florida Holocaust Museum.
You can find more of Marie Silverman’s testimony here.
And now it’s time for Book Traveler, with Victor:
Intro: Welcome to a new episode of Book Traveler. My name is Victor and I am a librarian at the Largo Public Library. Today I am going to talk about a nonfiction book that we have in the Spanish collection entitled Stranger: The Challenge of a Latino Immigrant in the Trump Era by Jorge Ramos.
Synopsis: Jorge Ramos, an Emmy award-winning journalist, Univision’s longtime anchorman and widely considered the “voice of the voiceless” within the Latino community, was forcefully removed from an Iowa press conference in 2015 by then-candidate Donald Trump after trying to ask about his plans on immigration.
In this personal manifesto, Ramos sets out to examine what it means to be a Latino immigrant, or just an immigrant, in present-day America. Using current research and statistics, with a journalist’s nose for a story, and interweaving his own personal experience, Ramos shows us the changing face of America while also trying to find an explanation for why he, and millions of others, still feel like strangers in this country.
Opinion: If you are not a Univision viewer, you may not be familiar with Jorge Ramos. He is a news anchor and reporter. Ramos became famous in the Anglo-Saxon public for having been expelled from an important press conference during the Iowa Caucus season for asking candidate Donald J. Trump too many specific questions about the central element of his campaign: the wall.
Ramos was born and raised in Mexico City, but moved to the United States to receive additional journalistic training and looking for the opportunity to be freer in his journalistic practice. He was lucky in television journalism, but he has succeeded and has done quite well. He has also become a US citizen.
In the book, Ramos addresses the story of the press conference immediately. It is not as dramatic as it looked on television, because the future president allowed him to return to the press conference and made a private interview with Ramos later. This moment set a couple of precedents, however. Trump and the press have had a difficult relationship, to put it mildly.
Another precedent was also established. As Ramos cooled his heels outside the press conference, a Trump supporter, wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat, told Ramos: “Get out of my country!” Ramos informed him that he was a US citizen, just to be told: “Whatever!” For the first time in years, Ramos felt that he was really a stranger in his adopted country, hence the title of the book.
Ramos builds on this latest incident for a while, discussing how the President’s behavior and comments have encouraged many to act, feeling a change in the political climate. He also talks about civil rights inequalities for Hispanics, his own mostly positive experiences and how the current political climate is disorienting for a man who has lived more than half of his life in the United States and thought he knew it well.
Ramos also talks about how he lives in two worlds: with dual US and Mexican citizenship. He frequently covers Mexico for his network and spends whole days speaking only Spanish or only English. Most of his family is in Mexico, but his children were born and raised in the United States. Ramos also includes several essays he has written for other publications on this subject. For those who think that Ramos only criticizes President Trump and nothing else, he also criticizes the (now) outgoing president of Mexico.
Ramos concludes his book with an extensive set of end-notes. Overall the book is a great story about Ramos and his first-hand experience with racism, discrimination, and Trump politics.
Outro: That is all for today. Until the next edition of Book Traveler. Goodbye.
Stay safe and healthy everyone we hope to talk to you again soon!
For everyone interested our intro music is by Break the Bans and the outro music is by Jahzzar, both artists can be found on Free Music Archive.
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