Q&A with Leah Lax

 

 

 

Leah Lax is the author of the new book Not From Here: The Song of America. Her other books include Uncovered.

 

Q: Not From Here began with research for an opera about immigrants. Can you say more about that?

 

A: From the time I was first asked to write an opera based on immigrant stories for Houston Grand Opera, I knew I needed to listen to many voices before I could begin, and I soon knew I would be writing a book about the people I met and the stories they shared. That book is Not From Here.

 

I began networking almost at random, wandered areas of my city I had never explored before. For nearly a year, I asked anyone I met who wasn’t born here if they would tell me their story. That listening gave me a new understanding of who we are as Americans, and who I am in that context.

 

I crafted the opera from those voices. The Refuge, by Christopher Theofanidis and Leah Lax, was a hit, including a major review in The New York Times and a national broadcast on NPR.

 

Most important to me is how that year changed my understanding of the world. I held the many stories and the people who told them gathered inside of me for years. I felt a responsibility to them, but it took time to understand what I’d heard during that time, and how it was that they changed me so.

 

Q: How did you research the book, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?

 

A: A startling number of the people I met at random had been displaced by wars the U.S. had driven, or financed, or both. And those who had walked here and managed to survive the border crossing had powerful stories to tell. Despite the border wall and vigilante patrols, every year over a million people still make that crossing.

 

Women’s stories particularly stood out; for me I was shocked at the ubiquity of rape, and moved by efforts to protect their children, and by the broken families.

 

I had recently returned to secular society after years in a closed ultra-religious group. This amazes me today, but I didn’t realize during that year of listening that I was practically an immigrant myself, into my own society, sort of a Jewish Rip Van Winkle.

 

The people I met that year taught me about tenacity, vigilance, and practical faith. They inspired me with their insights into this country, which they looked at unblinking, and still loved. I found the American Dream very much alive, and it spoke with an accent.

I uncovered my grandparents’ hidden stories and finally understood who I am in this new context. I wove part of my family story into Not From Here as one more average American in this book of many voices.

 

Researching the background for the immigrant stories, I confronted my country’s behavior in the world. This began a new sense of responsibility as an American.

 

Q: The writer Chitra Divakaruni called Not From Here an “amazing and powerful book of the struggles and triumphs of people from far away who we might have dismissed as ‘other,’ except that Leah edges them dexterously into our hearts.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: Ms. Divakaruni is a National Book Award Winner and a professor in a prestigious writing program who came to the U.S. from India as an adult. Besides being an immigrant, she must have faced the additional challenges of integrating as a professional woman and a female writer.

 

To me, there was something personal in Ms. Divakaruni’s comment that hints at what she might have encountered when she came, coupled with, perhaps, a note of gratitude.

 

This saddens me a little. It should not be considered extraordinary that a writer got quiet and listened to many different people in our American cacophony. It’s our job to listen, and then do that deep dive to parse what we hear for meaning. Writers have to listen, from the heart. How else do we hear truth?

 

Q: Given the current debates over immigration, what do you hope readers take away from the book?

 

A: Immigration debates seem to be divided between those who see it as an “issue” and those who keep the individual human side foremost in their minds. Either way requires an act of imagination. I hope Not From Here will convey a simple answer to that debate: we need to stop talking and listen to the people involved.

 

Our country is constantly growing and changing, and that has always been fed by immigration – it’s a secret key to our economic dominance. The process seems to self-select people with initiative and stamina, and constantly feeds our labor force.

 

This is such a given that the cover page of our last Census reports population growth as flat (not good for the GNP) and assumes we need increased immigration to fix it.

 

After reading Not From Here, I hope readers will be inspired to see themselves and their families as part of this never-ending stream. Perhaps they will want to uncover their own family histories.

 

I hope they’ll feel they’ve grown a step beyond politics and labeling to see immigrants collectively as our truest majority.

 

And I hope they will be left with a bit of optimism about the future of our flawed country, however open-eyed.

 

Here’s the biggest takeaway: the arts, particularly music, gets to the heart of our times. That’s why the arts are vital to a healthy society.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m working on a historical novel that uncovers a sordid history of south Texas never featured in history books. This book, too, will be full of real voices.

 

I’m also working on a collection of essays for my forthcoming Substack that will do the same deep dive into more of the hundreds of voices I didn’t get to include in Not From Here. It will be a Substack that never features a famous person, or someone selling something, just average Americans from everywhere and their extraordinary stories.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Leah Lax.