Race, Identity & Culture

Martinez was born of Mexican-Salvadoran parents and raised in Los Angeles. His new book, "The Other Side," is a collection of reports, interviews, diary entries, photographs and poems that reflect living on the border between the "first world" of Los Angeles and the "third world" of El Salvador. He speaks with guerrillas in exile, earthquake survivors, war orphans and linerationist priests, which he juxtaposes with accounts of racial tension in the schools, Latino Graffiti art, and hip hop.

Smith will discuss her one-woman show, Fires in the Mirror, which is currently playing to sold-out audiences at the Joseph Papp Public Theater in New York. It's about racial and ethnic tensions between African Americans and Hasidic Jews in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

John Lee is a first-generation Korean reporter whose beat at the Los Angeles Times has been Koreatown during and since the riots. Many Korean merchants were targeted, and many wielded guns to defend themselves. He feels that the Korean side of the conflict hasn't been accurately portrayed by the media.

Book critic John Leonard reviews Studs Terkel's new book, "Race: How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About the American Obsession." (The New Press)

Terry talks with two Iranian exiles who are working to lift the fatwa off of Salman Rushdie: Journalist Huma Sarshar, who lives in L.A., helped to organize a statement of Iranian exiles artists and intellectuals in support of Rushdie; and film maker and playwright Parviz Sayyad who signed the statement.

Writer and radio talk show host Studs Terkel. His new book, "Race: How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About the American Obsession," (The New Press) is the latest in his series of collected oral histories. He won a Pulitzer prize for his collection "The Good War," about World War 2. His other books include "Working," "Hard Times," and "Division Street: America."

Political Science Professor Andrew Hacker. His new book is "Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal" (published by Charles Scribner's Sons) about race relations in the United States.

Social Worker Sattareh Farman-Farmaian (sa-TAH-ray FAR-mahn far-m'YAN). She's the daughter of an Iranian prince of a fallen dynasty. She spent her childhood in a harem in Persia in the 20s and 30s. She's 70 years old and has spent a life time challenging Iran's conventions. She became the first Persian to study at the University of Southern California where she earned an advanced degree in social work. Returning to Iran she founded the Tehran School of Social Work.

First-time novelist Cristina Garcia. Her book, "Dreaming in Cuban," as about three generations of women who are each haunted by a different dream of Cuba. A New York Times review says the book, "announces the debut of a writer, blessed with a poet's ear for language, a historian's fascination with the past and a musician's intuitive understanding of the ebb and flow of emotion." (published by Knopf).

Author Norma Field. Field teaches Japanese literature at the University Chicago and was born to a Japanese mother and an American father. Her new book, "In the Realm Of A Dying Emperor," tells the true stories of three Japanese who went against the ultra-conformist Japanese society, and the condemnation they suffered. (It's published by Pantheon). (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane)