Since I'll be tagging along on the Dreams Train from L.A. to D.C. next week as the tour's unofficial blogger, and everyone is going to be hearing from me a lot over the next couple of weeks, I thought I'd take a little time to introduce myself.

My name is David Neiwert, and I run a blog called Orcinus, which is named after the killer whale you'll find at the site as its emblem. Yes, I do sometimes blog about killer whales, though really not all that often; it's more of an outgrowth of my earlier work as an environmental reporter. That, and my earlier work as a cops-and-courts reporter and news editor at papers in Idaho and Montana, also led me into writing about right-wing extremists in the Northwest: neo-Nazis, Freemen, militias, "Patriots." Over the years, and especially at my blog, I've found myself writing about related subjects quite a bit: hate crimes, the creep of far-right politics into the mainstream, and especially immigration.

I've written about the latter especially because immigration has been such a significant recruitment tool for the racist and extremist right over the past twenty years and more. Hatred of nonwhite immigrants is standard fodder for far-right propaganda, and it has been dismaying watching their ideas and agendas -- from claims that Mexicans are engaged in a secret "invasion" of America, or "Reconquista," to accusations that they are bringing waves of fresh disease to our shores, -- be increasingly parroted in the mainstream media as though somehow accurate or truthful.

I've also seen the militias of the 1990s mutate into the Minutemen of this century, and watched agape as media figures from Lou Dobbs to Sean Hannity tout them as just a "neighborhood watch." It's become abundantly clear to me that the immigration debate has played a watershed role in this century in transmitting extremist beliefs into the mainstream and advancing the agenda of the far right.

Unfortunately, the terms of the debate so far have largely been set by the conservative right, which is split into two antagonistic factions: the pro-business right, which advocates guest-worker programs that would be worse than the status quo; and the nativist right, which encompasses a range of paleo-conservatives, (highly selective) populists, and outright white supremacists and similar extremists.

Liberals and progressives, by and large, have been standing on the sideline, in large part because they understand that the problem is a complex and difficult one, and easy and ugly solutions like those proferred by the right are worse than the existing problems, which are considerable. I have argued for some time, however, that it's not only possible to elucidate a progressive agenda on immigration, but it's imperative we do so in a way that's consonant with our values not just progressives but as Americans.

I have long believed that a key to making this happen is to take the human element into full account -- something decidedly lacking on the right, with its constant manipulation of statistics and reduction of the issue to one of pure numbers. We need to be listening to people on all sides, but especially we need to be listening to the people affected: the immigrants themselves.

It's in this regard that I also bring something to the table, as it were: During the 1990s, I embarked on journalistic project exploring the history of the Japanese American community that once existed in what is now suburban Bellevue, across the lake from Seattle. Along the way, I interviewed a couple of dozen elderly Nisei who grew up in that farming community, and they told me their Issei immigrant parents' stories as well as their own, which included incarceration in concentration camps during World War II. I also embarked on a decade's worth of research into the story, including a great deal of research on immigration law and its history. And I conducted more interviews.

Along the way, I learned how to listen to immigrants and get them to tell their stories, at least as well as any white guy from Idaho can, I suppose. So as I'm riding along the Dreams Train, I'll be interviewing various participants and getting them to tell their stories. I'll put their pictures up along with transcripts of the interviews, and if I can figure out audio capability we'll post that too.

Before we go, I thought I would post transcripts of some of my old Nisei interviews, because I think we'll find that their stories resonate with some of the contemporary stories we'll hear next week. Look for those in the next few days.

In the meantime, I'm very much looking forward to coming along for the ride. Hope you join us.