Junot Diaz Tells a Story of America

Posted on Jan 1, 2013

Moyers & Company

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author and MIT creative writing professor talks with Bill Moyers about race politics after Obama’s re-election and the change he’s witnessed in the attitudes of college students in recent decades.

“[O]ne of the things I’ve seen and plenty of people talk about it is the sort of way that economic forces have saturated education,” Diaz said. “I mean, my kids sound more, all of them, like business majors more than they sound like students. The idea was you went to college so that some sort of educational experience would transform you. The majority of my kids act like they’re in medieval guilds. And that when they finish the four years, they’ll be given a piece of paper that allows them to enter into the economic sort of circuits. And I think that’s real weird. ‘Cause when I went to college, you know, we knew college was going to help us for a job, but there was that belief and the idea that education was just good for you. It was part of being a citizen. It was part of transforming into being an adult.”

—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

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