- [Wu Fei] Welcome to Ear to the Common Ground.

Here we celebrate the power of music and food to bring Americans together.

Filmed from Historical Barn on Cash Lane in Music City.

Each episode features one musical artist, and a diverse gathering of eight of their fans.

Everyone brings a dish to the table and they talk about one of the issues of the day, face to face with compassion replacing contempt as they keep their hearts, ears and minds attuned to the common ground.

I'm Wu Fei, and these are eight of my fans.

Saba, Eva, Joshua, Gretta, Alex, Andrew, Kristin, and Jeremy.

Tonight we're focusing on immigration.

Let's celebrate America's greatest diversity, diversity of thought, and shine a light on some common ground.

♪ (playing guzheng) ♪ (applause) - As we all sort of know and understand.

This country was, you know kind of built up and is, you know, great because of immigrants and what they've provided for from, you know everything from startups and tech and going all the way back to music and everything else.

But yeah, so my father worked his way up from absolutely nothing to, he was a brilliant physicist and mathematician and he ended up being, running the you know, department in the radiology department the nuclear tech department in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

And I grew up in Little Rock and, you know so I just grew up in the south and had my own experiences with who immigrants were and what they were.

It was just part of my living.

My mom was from Western Arkansas, so I just grew up in a mixed household.

And you know, immigrants are just, you know I don't think of them as immigrants.

They're just people, you know?

Yeah.

It's like I don't under really get the whole concept.

Yeah, I get it.

But at the same time, it's, they're people they're coming here to make their lives better, so Yeah.

If anybody wants to expand on that maybe.

Yeah, I think the thing that's missing from the conversation really in terms of the media conversation is compassion.

I think if we look at immigrants as people that are just trying to make themselves better and make their families better and make their lives better they're coming to the best country in the world to do that - Right, I'm all for immigration because I am an immigrant and I believe the smartest and the most driven people should be in this country because this country is founded on some ideas and really appealing ideas.

But I am against illegal immigration, and it's because I think it violates the rule of fairness and cutting the line of a lot of smart and driven people.

I think one thing we don't understand, I don't understand is why we can't even say it's illegal.

I mean, you have to say it's undocumented.

I'm not saying the people are not illegal, but the behavior is illegal.

There is rule, there is principle.

And I, yeah, that's something I'm confused at.

I'm open to listen to different views.

- So I guess my question that I pose to you is like, what about people who are in situations of which the legal way of going about things is lines that are multiple years long and their lives are at risk to be here or to be where they're at.

Like, what about.

- Asylum?

You mean, asylum?

- Yeah, because right now.

- I am all for asylums.

I support extending humane support to these people.

But I also know loop holes in the Chinese community the nanny, personal story, of a neighbor hired lawyer and to seek political asylum and got her status here.

Right?

And that's fraud.

- I think there's also the danger, who is bringing illegal immigrants and who is making the pathway and what is the price of being illegal immigrant?

Because once you've come in illegally, then anybody who knows has something over you.

- [Joshua] Precisely, Yeah.

- And a lot of people are being manipulated.

So is there even a good way for people who came in illegally, whether they willed it or not, because there are other discussions of trafficking, that matter, human trafficking, drug trafficking.

- It's like the desperation of somebody to put their child in the hands of someone else to bring them here and not know for a very long time whether they even got here or not.

Not see, I mean, I think people think about the desperation of certain people that are living in really messed up situations.

It's the privilege of living in this country in a way to not have to even understand that.

But it's also, you know, there's a thing that we have to understand.

It's like people don't just want to, they wanna come here to make it.

They want come to this country to be better, do better for them and their families, and have.

- Then two question come out of that, why do we still have border?

It's not an open border.

- [Joshua] That's a great question.

- Second question, second question, second question.

Should immigration system be a merit based system?

And if being driven is one of the biggest merit, we.

Is being driven like the biggest merit we value in this country?

I just pose these questions.

- [Joshua] Can you define being driven?

- The gentleman just like desperately willing to be.

- [Saba] Being determined.

- I just wanted to be clear on.

- Come into this country and risk taking.

Risk taking and so I think without discussion of those two questions, a lot of those, of course you can tell a million story to get my compassion.

I practice mindfulness, I have compassion.

- [Joshua] Yeah, of course.

- But statistically you also look at, you know it's a fairness issue too.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I'm just posing these.

- [Saba] I agree totally.

Like, because it's unfair in one sense, but it's I think it's you need to be compassionate when you consider that if their lives were perfectly comfortable at home, they would not risk life and limb to, with kids in tow sometimes to make this treacherous journey through the desert with no guarantee they're gonna make it or not.

- Well there's a frustrating thing with also the concept of asylum which I think if that system weren't also broken, then maybe I would feel differently on the matter.

But like the US denies asylum to a lot of people, very consistently from a lot of situations.

Like it is so unbelievably impossible to get from like the southern border.

Like getting up from getting up from Mexico or anywhere in central South America is so difficult to do within that system because they're just mostly denied and detained.

Like, that's just kind of what happens.

And like there's a similar situation with this all the with like, you know, Syria and a lot of stuff that happens in the vague idea of what the Middle East is, where you know, they don't have 12 years to get in here when the country just says no.

Even though they, for all sense and purpose should be granted asylum because of their situation.

So I think, yeah, I think my circular point there is just, I feel like that system also needs to be fixed for me to have kind of different views on immigration.

Cause I think the immediacy of needing to not be where you are, for myself personally, supersedes, you know, trying to do it the right way or whatever that means, I guess.

- So what would a fixed system look like or begin to look like?

- Not denying asylum to people who are war refugees.

- I mean you go back to, it was Eva, right?

I'm going back to Eva's question about should borders be open?

I think that, like, when I think the tension I think with immigration is the tension I feel when I think about that question.

Because if I think of it as just a basic human right should people have the right to live where they choose?

And I wanna say yes, but I also understand that, so my initial tendency would be the borders should just be open.

If you want to come here, you should come here you should get to choose where you live.

Cause borders are artificial anyway.

But I also see the other side that people say that you know, is can we do that?

Like what would happen if you had an open border?

- [Eva] Is it practical?

- Is it practical?

And I'd like to say it is because, you know this is a very rich country.

We have a lot of resources, but you know that's the tension.

I think that people feel that if we were to open the border, what would happen?

What sort of disasters would we have?

- But that's where I kind of feel the whole debate is is completely wrongheaded.

Because I don't think there's enough immigration illegal or legal here.

We need more people.

Have you ever tried to get anything built in Nashville?

(laughter) Like there's not enough people here.

I mean, I lived in China for 20 years before I came here, so maybe I'm slightly biased about population numbers but we don't actually have enough people here.

And you know, on the high end of course, you know, 80% I dunno, you know, I made that number up a huge percentage of the people who invent things, start companies, win Nobel prizes, run the science and math departments at the best universities are immigrants.

And of course, but also the people who do a lot of the you know, what we've now called frontline work, you know the worst jobs in the whole world but that somebody has to do and they're immigrants and we actually need more of them.

So I mean, I think sure, the idea of just like open the border and just let anybody in I mean that doesn't seem at all practical in.

- I think it's like a, it's a term that's used by people who don't want immigration to stoke fear into the eyes and brains of people who don't understand the issue itself.

Yeah.

- But I mean, I almost feel they should be a guy at the border with a clipboard saying, 'So okay, you want to come in?

Great, great.

Tell me about' you know, there should be a salesman like yeah, yeah, you want to come here.

We need actually people in like the middle of nowhere in you know, somewhere in Arkansas in a small town but there's nobody, we need somebody to go there.

- It's such like there's not many places where like you can you can have like this kind this food, you know, and like just the music and the culture that has been created in America?

- [Joshua] No.

- Through, you know, through immigrants is just.

- [Joshua] I will tell you in a second.

- Through immigrants is just like, so amazing.

- So this is my take on jambalaya.

and the reason, first of all, it's yummy.

Second, it's an unexpected encounter for me.

When I taste this, it reminds me of my childhood dish of a (Chinese) in Shanghai.

Like my Shanghainese mom (speaking Mandarin).

So in Shanghainese, you know, Shanghainese household, you just throw a bunch of leftover and put rice and you know, and next day you have a, you know dish for breakfast or lunch.

And then when I tasted it was like, oh it's like a twin sister of, in a parallel universe.

It makes me feel like that cultures aren't that different after all.

It's like we're all one.

And really it's the other thing is like, it really, it's an ultimate fusion to me, because Cajun food, it has French, right?

French.

- [Alex] Oh yeah.

- Spanish, African.

A lot of influence.

And it's a pot, right?

It's, you know, when I grew up thinking America is this melting pot, right?

It really like melts.

Yeah.

So I I think it's an embodiment of American, you know, idea.

- I think that's part of what the issue is now.

It's not that we think immigration, it's bad it's that there's a disagreement on what the measures should be.

So you mentioned the merit system.

How do you, how do you measure merit?

Is it somebody who's coming in for their PhD or is it a single mom who's coming in who's willing to work her fingers to the bone to take care of her kids?

- [Eva] That's the hard part.

It cannot quantify.

It cannot be all PhD and STEM, no.

It's gonna be so boring.

(laughter) Sorry, yeah it is.

- [Gretta] No, you're not wrong.

- Don't take that the wrong way.

- It would be very interesting for them.

- Whatever has to change, it has to be all encompassing.

It can't, I mean, I don't if you can necessarily try to just single out one section of it at a time, you know, regardless of the level of skill.

You know, I also feel like that's somewhat relative too in a way.

But it's just, it's, I don't know.

You have, Yeah, I feel like you have to cause immigrants are immigrants.

They're people.

It's not like a, it's not like a you're this immigrant or you're that immigrant, you know, maybe what the only thing is different is where you're coming from.

Right.

You know?

Yeah.

That's maybe the only difference, right?

- [Saba] And that's the history of US immigration.

Like if you guys, I dunno if, you know, if you go back far enough, 1790s, you couldn't even naturalize if you weren't a white person and reformed a little bit when you had more Asian, I guess migration to the US.

- [Kristin] Yeah, but they didn't allow Asian women to come.

- Correct, right.

- [Jeremy] Exclusion Act.

- Right?

So there's this tradition of exclusion.

And what we have now was established in 1965, the nationality, I'm gonna get the name wrong, somebody fact checked me.

Nationality Act, Immigration Nationality Act 1965.

Anyway, how about 1965 where to remove the exclusions that existed on Asians, Africans, Southern Europeans, and made it more fair in, in a sense.

And then it introduced things like preference for immigration by our relatives, right?

That all came in place in '65.

They didn't eliminate the quotas, they had like a quota system before, but they said, well, you know, we'll open it up to everyone.

But it was like a slow progression of allowing, of peeling back favoritism from just Western European immigration to everyone in the world, right?

If you're gonna say you're the fairest country in the world, you have to actually prove it.

- Yeah.

There could be some that has to do with some cultural fragmentation.

But I think the greater part, at least that I see, is the divisions between our two political parties and those are not, those divisions are not just grounded in the immigration issue.

- [Kristin] I would.

- The immigration issue is just another football that they're using.

- But what's sad to me is while it's easy it's easy to do the division by political, but what I'm finding more is that there's division among who feels like they have the right to be in charge and who should just work and stay in their place.

And that's the one that disturbs me the most.

- One thing I've been seeing is a lot of families and a lot of churches and a lot of individual communities sponsoring immigrants and bringing them in.

So is there a way to shift the focus of immigration from the government doing it all to kind of spreading the burden out a little bit more among communities?

- So my grandparents on my dad's side they both had to have four sponsors on each side.

But our little, little city of Clemson, South Carolina is sponsoring 20 Afghanistan refugees.

- [Alex] Yeah, that's great.

- And the family units and different whether they're churches, or community organizations are taking ownership for making sure that those families get connected with doctors and get to dentist appointments and get enrolled in schools.

And so it's communities like, I mean Clemson, South Carolina is a little city.

I mean it's a university city, but it's a little city.

But it's extending, it's definitely expanding itself cause there's not a whole lot of Afghanistan people.

- [Eva] Is it mostly church based programs?

- Mostly churches, but there's also Sertoma and Rotary Club.

I mean Rotary's an international group that works, but it's I think that's the exciting part to me is if we can transform from having to be personally sponsored, to then having a group, which is to me a bigger safety net.

Right?

Because if you come and your uncle who sponsored you drops dead, you gotta go back.

- [Alex] Sure.

- But if it's a whole organization that's sponsoring you.

And maybe you didn't get along with your uncle but you do get along with these other people over here.

And then that burden, I have friends that live in Texas and they're just overwhelmed in Texas with the, not that they don't care about the people or they don't wanna take.

- [Alex] Yeah, so many.

- There's just too, the capacity's not there.

But if other places in the country, whether it's Arkansas or I'm trying to think where you lived before.

I'm sorry I lost it.

- Well LA, but Indiana.

- Indiana, yeah.

You know, if communities started saying, 'hey we want you here,'.

- Well Nashville has kind of done that with the Kurdish population.

And it has been, I think a lot of it has been sort of community or church based organizations doing it.

Which.

- I've worked with a lot of, I've worked with a lot of organizations in town and which is in various ways connected with some of the different refugee and immigrant communities we have, there are some really good Nashville based organizations that do that work.

- We're getting more that also aren't religious based which is kind of important when like, if anything it's like exclusionary like that, then we get into other problems.

- I look like this, and I speak like this and she's Chinese and we arrive in West Nashville.

And like everybody who's been living there has been living there for sometimes several generations and they're like old school Tennesseans, and we suddenly arrive speaking funny and asking weird questions and building a funny house and like doing weird things and they're kind of looking at us like this.

And I totally get it.

You know?

So I mean, I think, you know and the identity thing, like, I think for, and you know just to add a layer on I buy a lot of books for my kids.

I have two kids, we have two kids, seven and nine.

So we buy a lot of books for them.

And sometimes I get the book catalogs, and everything looks like it's been designed by a professor at a liberal arts college in New England in terms of like the racial and gender mix.

- [Eva] And it's for adults and not for kids.

- Everything to make the adults feel good about themselves.

And if I was like some dude living in a holler in Tennessee and suddenly my neighbor is like this weirdo and then my kids' books, like they, there's what happened to Dr. Seuss and like, then suddenly you hear on Twitter you got canceled and you know, you're freaking out about this stuff.

And I don't think like liberal America is compassionate enough about that identity crisis.

- [Saba] Hundred percent.

- [Kristin] Hundred percent, - I think I can understand their frustration.

But I think they're blaming immigration is the they should blame the unfair distribution of profits from globalization.

The concentration of wealth the of the top 0.1%.

That's blaming the wrong target.

But it's natural because that logic hasn't been really well explained.

My former boss wrote a whole book about that.

But it's really that globalization that people you know, really wealth concentration in the top, very top.

And now of course a lot of other things are happening.

Immigration, and of course it's easy target.

- I think another thing you mentioned earlier, why is the media so polarizing and why is it all these sound bites?

Well cause that's what sells.

Fear mongering and muckraking has been around for.

- [Kristin] Also social media, also Facebook.

- Oh, and the social media.

- [Kristin] Because fake news travels faster.

- And the idea that, hey, I'm gonna have an argument with you, but we're only gonna communicate in 280 characters and I'm gonna fire this off without spell checking cause because I feel like I have to defend myself and not disengaging.

So the conversations like this are wonderful.

If I could talk with anybody about anything in this setting, I'd be great.

- [Saba] This is special.

(all cheering) - [Wu Fei] Big happiness to all of you.

Food happiness, yes.

- [Kristin] But did you make it yourself Fei, or did mama help you?

- [Wu Fei] Yes, mama helped me, sure, and papa too.

(laughter) Is a sweet, sticky rice with the red bean paste in the middle and with the dates that made the character Happiness.

So we gotta stick together and have some happiness.

- [Gretta] It's a happy date.

- [Wu Fei] Yes, it's a happy date, yes.

♪ (Wu Fei singing in Mandarin) ♪ ♪ (Wu Fei singing in Mandarin) ♪ ♪ (Wu Fei singing in Mandarin) ♪ ♪ (guzheng) ♪ ♪ (guzheng) ♪ ♪ (Wu Fei singing in Mandarin) ♪ (applause) ♪ (guzheng) ♪ ♪ (guzheng) ♪ ♪ (guzheng) ♪ ♪ (guzheng) ♪ ♪ (guzheng) ♪ ♪ (guzheng) ♪ ♪ (guzheng) ♪ ♪ (guzheng) ♪ ♪ (guzheng) ♪ ♪ (guzheng) ♪ ♪ (applause) ♪ (guzheng) ♪ ♪