STEVE INSKEEP, host:
This Thanksgiving week we've been talking with writers about becoming American. They are immigrant writers, and we've heard about their experiences coming to the U.S. And now those experiences inform their writing. Throughout today's program, we're going to hear memories of their early Thanksgivings.
Junot Diaz was six when he moved with his family from the Dominican Republic to New Jersey. Do you remember what your first Thanksgiving or your first few Thanksgivings were like in the United States?
Mr. JUNOT DIAZ (Author, "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao"): Oh sure, man. It was still in the period of pilgrim nostalgia, you know. It was - you would cut out all sorts of things for pilgrims. It was still this unequivocal good that the pilgrims had come. The funniest thing is that I remember a teacher making me play the part of the Indians in the little shows that they would do.
INSKEEP: Oh, because you needed somebody with a little darker skin to...
Mr. DIAZ: Yeah, they needed a brownie. And it was only later that the kind of genocidal holocaust became clear to me. And I was like, oh, my God, you know. But as a kid, man, you're a kid. It was just a great excuse to run around and do all this kind of kooky stuff.
Then our Thanksgiving would be a turkey surrounded by every Dominican food imaginable: mofongo, bayo maduros(ph), bayu moro(ph), byun pastelon(ph). And a pastelon is kind of like a Dominican meat pie, but made from the sweet plantings, the maduro. And inside there's this wonderful ground beef with raisins and olives. It's just a remarkable dish. And when I think of Thanksgiving, it was an excuse to us to celebrate ourselves.
INSKEEP: So do you like Thanksgiving?
Mr. DIAZ: Well, I mean, I like Thanksgiving because there is always a cost for someone to be somewhere. I know that my presence in the United States as an immigrant is predicated on the catastrophic suffering and the catastrophic sacrifices of the indigenous community here.
INSKEEP: Can I ask one more question about that?
Mr. DIAZ: Of course.
INSKEEP: Because you've taken such a detailed look at the grimmer side of American history and of this particular tradition, does it make you love America any less?
Mr. DIAZ: Why should it? I've always thought that you don't love a country by turning a blind eye to its crimes and to a problem. The way that you love a country is by seeing everything that it's done wrong, all of its mistakes, and still thinking that it's beautiful and that it's worthy. My greatest responsibility is to acknowledge the mistakes and the shortcomings of the country in which I live, to acknowledge my privileges, and to try to make it a better place.
In fact, looking at the darkest sides of the United States has only made me appreciate the things that we do right, the things that we do beautifully. We are for all of our mistakes and all of our crimes a remarkable place.
INSKEEP: Junot Diaz is author of "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao." He's one of three immigrant writers sharing their experiences of Thanksgiving with us on this holiday. This is NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.