ON IMMIGRATION & ENSLAVEMENT

RACHEL L. SWARNS is a journalism professor at New York University and a contributing writer for The New York Times. She is also the author of American Tapestry: The Story of the Black, White, and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama and a co-author of Unseen: Unpublished Black History from the New York Times Photo Archives. Her work has been recognized and supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Ford Foundation, the Biographers International Organization, the Leon Levy Center for Biography, the MacDowell artist residency program, and others.

SAKET SONI is a labor organizer and the author of The Great Escape: A True Story of Forced Labor and Immigrant Dreams in America (Algonquin Books). He is also the founder and director of Resilience Force, a national nonprofit that advocates for the rising workforce that rebuilds after climate disasters. He was profiled as an "architect of the next labor movement" in USA Today and named in 2022 as one of Fast Company's Most Creative People in Business. His work was also the subject of a major feature story in The New Yorker. Soni has testified before Congress and at the United Nations. Originally from New Delhi, India, he lives in Washington, D.C.