This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant’s Manifesto

Few subjects prompt more discussion and controversy than immigration. But do we really understand it? In This Land Is Their Land, the renowned author Suketu Mehta explains why the West is being destroyed not by immigrants but by the fear of immigrants.

Drawing on his family’s own experience emigrating from India to Britain and America, and years of reporting around the world, Mehta subjects the worldwide anti-immigrant backlash to withering scrutiny. He juxtaposes the phony narratives of populist ideologues with the ordinary heroism of labourers, nannies and others, from Dubai to New York, and explains why more people are on the move today than ever before. As civil strife and climate change reshape large parts of the planet, it is little surprise that borders have become so porous.

Mehta also stresses the destructive legacies of colonialism and global inequality on large swathes of the world. When today’s immigrants are asked, ‘Why are you here?’, they can justly respond, ‘We are here because you were there.’ And now that they are here, as Mehta demonstrates, immigrants bring great benefits, enabling countries and communities to flourish.

Impassioned, rigorous, and richly stocked with memorable stories and characters, This Land Is Their Land is a timely and necessary intervention, and literary polemic of the highest order.