Junot Díaz Calls DREAM Act ‘A Tiny Little Bone’ for People Who Deserve More

Sep 20, 2012

"As a country when ever things get really hard instead of blaming the wealthy and blaming the people in power who put us in this terrible situation, we tend to afflict the very people who all the hard work to keep us afloat," Pulitzer Prize-winning author Junot Díaz tells a high school student interviewing him for [The Mash](http://themash.com/), the teen edition of the Chicago Tribune. "I think the DREAM Act is a tiny little bone that they throw in to a community that deserves a lot more, and certainly I think it’s nice and important but we should be able to recognize the community–the people who do the heavy lifting–and stop afflicting them." "I come from a family who had a lot of people who were undocumented and our contributions have to be honored," Díaz went on to say. Díaz, who is known for his bold, nuanced depiction of immigrants and people of color in his writing,[ will be the keynote speaker the Facing Race conference taking place November 15-17 in Baltimore. ](http://www.eiseverywhere.com/ehome/index.php?eventid=32931)Facing Race, the largest national, multi-racial gathering of leaders, educators, journalists, and activists on racial justice is organized by Colorlines.com’s publisher the Applied Research Center.