Meet Rinku Sen, activist and author of "The Accidental American"

Last week, I had the chance to catch up with my friend, Rinku Sen. She's the President of the Applied Research Center, a true activist and an author. Her new book, The Accidental American, was published last month. It takes a critical look at immigration policy. It's a readable take on the immigration debate because it's told through the stories of real people, including Fekkak Mamdouh, who wrote the book with Rinku. He was born in Morocco who worked as a waiter at the World Trade Center.

Most of us have immigrant stories and to some extent, those of us who do are accidental Americans. In my case, my mother's parents emigrated from Ireland. They met here although they're from towns not too far apart in rural County Galway. Irish immigrants weren't beloved back when they came in the early 1900s. My grandfather came in 1910 and became a citizen by serving in World War I. My grandmother came in 1911 with her brother, John. A little known family fact is that because of some age requirement, my grandmother lied on the paperwork so her younger brother could travel with her. He was too young so they both lied about their ages on their immigration forms. Nowadays, for doing that, she probably would have been caught, prosecuted and put in jail, then deported. Instead, she made it, met my grandfather a couple years later and married him. Lucky for me.

I did a short interview with Rinku to provide some context for her book. Rinku is both smart and fun: