[LIVE] Marina Budhos in Conversation with Council Member Shekar Krishnan
Marina Budhos, Shekar Krishnan
[LIVE] Marina Budhos in Conversation with Council Member Shekar Krishnan
Join us for a conversation on asylum and sanctuary between award-winning author Marina Budhos and New York City Council Member Shekar Krishnan about Budhos’ latest book, We Are All We Have.

When a teenage girl’s single mom is taken by ICE, everything changes. Seventeen-year-old Rania is shaken awake in her family’s apartment in Brooklyn. ICE is at the door, taking her mother away. But Ammi has done everything right, hasn’t she? In this vivid exploration of what happens when the country you have put your hopes into is fast shutting down, Budhos shows us how one girl bursting with dreams navigates secrets, love, and the lure of the open road.

This event is presented in partnership with the Brooklyn Public Library.

Marina Budhos is an author of award-winning fiction and nonfiction. Her newest novel, Watched, takes on surveillance in our post 9/11 world and is a 2017 Walter Award Honor and an Asian-Pacific American Award in Literature Honor. Watched is a companion book to Ask Me No Questions, which was an ALA Best Books and Notable, winner of the first James Cook Teen Book Award, and her YA novel Tell Us We’re Home is a 2017 Essex County Big Read YA pick.In spring 2017, Budhos also published Eyes of the World: Robert Capa, Gerda Taro & The Invention of Modern Photojournalism, co-authored with her husband Marc Aronson. Their previous book, Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom & Science, was a 2010 Los Angeles Times Book Award Finalist. Budhos’s other books include The Professor of LightHouse of Waiting, and a nonfiction book, Remix: Conversations with Immigrant Teenagers. Her short work has appeared in publications such as The Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, The Awl, The Nation, The Daily Beast, Marie Claire, Redbook, and in numerous anthologies. Ms. Budhos has received an EMMA (Exceptional Merit Media Award), a Rona Jaffe Award for Women Writers, and has twice received a Fellowship from the New Jersey Council on the Arts. She has been a Fulbright Scholar to India, given talks throughout the country and abroad, and is currently a professor of English at William Paterson University.Shekar Krishnan is the NYC Council Member for District 25, Jackson Heights and Elmhurst, Queens, two of the most diverse immigrant communities in the world. He is the first Indian-American ever elected to the City Council in NYC history. Shekar is also Chair of the Council’s Committee On Parks and Recreation. He negotiated the highest budget ever for NYC Parks. As Parks Chair, Shekar has approached access to parks and expanding green space as a key component of social, racial, and immigrant justice.

Jackson Heights and Elmhurst are home to thousands of essential workers—many of whom are immigrants—who have carried this city forward during the pandemic. Shekar has championed a number of issues affecting our most vulnerable communities. He has been on the front lines fighting to: make sure the NYC government protects our taxi workers; secure badly needed resources for public hospitals like Elmhurst Hospital; ensure that New York City treats housing as as human right; end the practice of solitary confinement at Rikers Island; and expand public space for neighborhoods like his own that lack it. Shekar has been a champion for the the 34th Avenue Open Street, 26 blocks of pedestrian space in Jackson Heights that is the gold standard of open streets across NYC.

Before his election to City Council, Shekar was a long-time community activist in Jackson Heights and Elmhurst and civil rights lawyer fighting housing discrimination. He co-founded the legal services organization Communities Resist, a legal services organization highly acclaimed citywide for its community-rooted, intersectional approach to housing and racial justice in North Brooklyn and Queens. Shekar began his legal career with the landmark Broadway Triangle fair housing struggle against the City of New York, a successful case challenging a rezoning under the Fair Housing Act. He also co-founded Friends of Diversity Plaza. Located on the border of Elmhurst and Jackson Heights, Diversity Plaza has become a national symbol of how public space can bring people together.

Shekar is the son of immigrants from South India who made enormous sacrifices and worked tirelessly to build a life for their family in this country. He is also a father of two small children, who can often be seen biking or scooting up and down the open 34th Avenue in Jackson Heights, and husband to Zoe, an immigration public defender and reproductive justice advocate.

[LIVE] Marina Budhos in Conversation with Council Member Shekar Krishnan

Marina Budhos, Shekar Krishnan
Thursday, December 1, 2022
6:30 PM
$0.00
Adams Street Library
9 Adams St
Brooklyn NY 11201
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