Go Back to Where You Came From: An Evening with Wajahat Ali and Others
Monday, January 31, 2022
6:00pm PST
Now a Free Livestream
After you register, we will follow up with email instructions on how to redeem your ticket and access the online event. Please read your Eventbrite email confirmation carefully.
Support local bookstores by purchasing Go Back to Where You Came From from Skylight Books.
“Go back to where you came from.” It’s our guess that just about every immigrant and/or person of color in the United States heard, at one time or another, the insult hurled by someone who has lived here for, well, longer. But we all know that if we’re not Indigenous peoples, we all came from somewhere else.
Wajahat (Waj) Ali, humorist, NY Times op-ed contributor, lawyer, actor, and whatever else he puts his mind to, has written a guide for those of us who have come here from somewhere, called Go Back to Where You Came From. In Waj Ali’s case, he comes from the Bay Area. As in, California. It is satirical, hilarious, moving, and serious in intent.
Join us for an online discussion with comedian/actor/author Maz Jobrani (I’m Not a Terrorist But I’ve Played One on TV; Jimmy Vestvood), actress Shohreh Aghdashloo (The House of Sand and Fog), attorney Rabia Chaudry, and moderated by NPR journalist Tonya Mosley. Expect a lively discussion of racism, xenophobia, white supremacy, and good food.
Rabia Chaudry is an attorney, advocate, and author of the New York Times Bestseller Adnan’s Story, about the wrongful conviction of Adnan Sayed– a case that drew international attention from the podcast, Serial. She is the Executive Producer of the HBO documentary The Case Against Adnan Syed, and the producer and hosts of the podcasts Undisclosed, which is the biggest podcast in the world on wrongful convictions. Rabia is a founding board member of the Inter-Jewish Muslim Alliance, and the Muslim Jewish Advisory Council, both of which focus on building Muslim-Jewish coalitions around pressing policy issues, and educating across communities to break barriers. Her memoir will be published in the fall.
We thank the Ebell of Los Angeles for their partnership on this event.
