Listening to Junot Diaz and Francisco Goldman in conversation with Daniel Alarcón today on Radio Ambulante's podcast. A great conversation.

Daniel Alarcón mentioned two premises of Radio Ambulante:

1) Political borders may be real but cultural borders are much more fluid. 

2) With 55 million Latinos in this country, the United States is a Latin American country as well.  

And Francisco mentioned a quote from Roberto Bolaño (translated by Laura Healy):

Latin America is the insane asylum of Europe. Maybe, originally, it was thought that Latin America would be Europe's hospital, or Europe's grain bin. But now it's the insane asylum. A savage, impoverished, violent insane asylum, where, despite its chaos and corruption, if you open your eyes wide, you can see the shadow of the Louvre. 

It brings them to the question of whether the U.S. then has become or is a also an insane asylum. And they answer yes. Without any hesitation.

And it brings me to think about how the presence of so many Latinos in the U.S. changes all of us—us understood in its broadest post-national meaning—how we are being changed, perceptibly and imperceptibly.

It brings me to think.

Me lleva a pensar.

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