Immigration

Journalist Soledad Santiago and her children were homeless fourteen years ago. From there she went on to become a journalist and she headed the press office for New York State Controller Ned Regan. She talks to Terry about her life, about raising children in a dangerous urban environment, and the difficult choices she's had to make. Her new novel is called "Room 9." (Perfect Crime Press).

Rock critic Ed Ward on the troubles of shopping in Berlin.

British-Asian film-maker Gurinder Chadha is making her feature-film debut with the new comedy-drama, "Bhaji on the Beach," a movie in the British social realist tradition, about three Asian women on a day trip to a working class resort in England. Chadha is of Indian descent; she was born in Kenya, but has lived in Britain most of her life. She formed her own independent production company, Umbi Films, in 1990 which produced three documentaries for television. "Bhaji on the Beach," has recently made the round of film festivals

Merchant Seaman Captain Rudolph Patzert. In 1947 he captained a ship that was part of a clandestine effort by the Jewish underground to smuggle Holocaust survivors into Palestine. Palestine at that time was under British rule, and a British air and sea blockade prevented immigration to the country. Patzert's ship, the Paducah, was a 45 year-old rundown converted gunboat, his crew inexperienced; and they were thwarted every step of the way: British intelligence hounded them, preventing them from refueling and re-watering.

The Cuban-born poet and essayist has just written his first novel, "The Marks of Birth." It explores the experience of exile through the eyes of a young character whose family is forced to flee the political unrest of a Caribbean island-nation, and begin again in America. Medina has also written two collections of poems: "Pork Rind and Cuban Songs" and "Arching into the Afterlife," and a book of personal essays entitled "Exiled Memories: A Cuban Childhood."

Keneally is best known for his novel, Schindler's List which was put to film, by director Stephen Spielberg. His new novel, A River Town, is based on the story of his grandfather who left Ireland for Australia at the turn of the century. But in Australia he became the outsider. Keneally has written over 20 novels. He is a Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine.

In 1995, Divakaruni's short story collection "Arranged Marriage" garnered three awards. Her new novel, "The Mistress of Spices," tells the story of a woman whose knowledge of the healing power of spices takes her on a supernatural adventure. Divakaruni teaches creative writing at Foothill College in California and is president of MAITRI, a support hotline for South Asian women.

Alibhai-Brown describes her family's experience as Asians in Uganda in her autobiography "No Place Like Home." (Virago Press) Alibhai-Brown's family, like many others, was forced out of East Africa by president and military leader Idi Amin, twenty-five years ago. Alibhai-Brown moved to England and earned an degree in English at Oxford. Her freelance work is now published in the "Guardian," the "Observer," and the "Independent."

Novelist Peter Quinn is the author of "Banished Children of Eve" about the Irish in New York City during the Civil War. He's also contributor to the new six-hour PBS series "The Irish in America: Long Journey Home" (January 26-28). There's also a companion book "The Irish in America" (Hyperion).

Peter Hessler is the author of River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze (HarperCollins). Its about his two years in Fuling, China as a Peace Corps volunteer, teaching English and American literature at a local college. The book was serialized in The New Yorker.

Han Ong, a Filipino writer whose debut novel is Fixer Chao.Its about a Feng Shui con artist operating on New York's elite. Ong is the winner of a 1997 MacArthur award. He is also a playwright.

Pakistani novelist and New Yorker Mohsin Hamid. His debut novel is Moth Smoke

Author Hanif Kureishi's new novel is Gabriel Gift, (Scribner) about a 15-year-old boy and his struggles with his artistic soul and restless parents. Simultaneously two of Kureishi works are coming out in a combined paperback edition: Intimacy: A Novel and Midnight All Day: Stories. (Scribner). Intimacy has been adapted to film. Several of Kureishi earlier novels, My Beautiful Laundrette, and Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, were also made into films.

Writer Bharati Mukherjee's new novel is Desirable Daughters (Theia Press). Mukherjee is an Indian-born writer who emigrated to the U.S. as an adult. Her new novel is about a traditional Brahmin family transformed by contemporary culture. Mukherjee is the author of five novels, two nonfiction books and two collections of short stories, including The Middleman and Other Stories, for which she won the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Writer Gary Shteyngart. His debut novel, The Russian Debutante's Handbook, is receiving critical acclaim. The main character of the book, like Shteyngart, is a Russian-American Jew who emigrated to the United States as a child. In a New York Times Magazine cover article, Daniel Zalewski wrote, "Gary Shteyngart has rewritten the classic immigrant narrative — starring a sarcastic slacker instead of a grateful striver. And after all his parents have done for him!"

Professor of Islamic law at the University of California at Los Angeles Khaled Abou El Fadl. He's the author of a number of books, including Conference of the Books: The Search for Beauty in Islam (University Press of America), a collection of essays about the problems and challenges that confront Muslims in the contemporary world.

His best-known films include My Left Foot and In the Name of the Father. His new film, In America, is based in part on his own experience immigrating to the United States with a family of four. They moved to Hell's Kitchen in New York, flat broke in the midst of the summer heat.

He writes about the Five Points neighborhood in Lower Manhattan which is the setting of Martin Scorsese's new film. Anbinder's book is Five Points: The 19th-Century New York City Neighborhood that Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections and Became the World's Most Notorious Slum. Anbinder is an associate professor of history at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews Dirty Pretty Things, directed by Stephen Frears.

Nigerian-born actor Chiwetel Ejiofor stars in the new Stephen Frears film Dirty Pretty Things. Ejiofor plays an immigrant former doctor who now must make his living in London as a cab driver and hotel clerk. Ejiofor graduated from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and was named Outstanding Newcomer in The London Evening Standard Awards 2000. He recently completed a sell-out run at London's National Theatre as Christopher in Blue/Orange. At the age of 19 he had a role in Steven Spielberg's film Amistad.