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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to “Amanpour and Company.” Here is what’s coming up.
A slew of new books portray a reckless foreign policy, the Trump administration hollowing out American diplomacy. I get the real deal with
the veteran U.S. Diplomat, William Burns.
Then, as America’s powerful reckon with the #MeToo tsunami, Sally Field, the Oscar winning actress, opens up about her own history of abuse.
Also, today, coming out as an illegal immigrant. Our Alicia Menendez talks to Pulitzer prize winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I’m Christiane Amanpour in New York.
There were hugs and handshakes in Pyongyang today as the South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, arrived there for his third summit with the North
Korean leader Kim Jong-un. The two Koreas are pushing ahead with their pursuit of peace on the peninsula amidst mixed messages from Washington and
facts on the ground that showed denuclearization talks are stalled and evidence that North Korea is still developing its nuclear weapons program.
Across all fronts from trade, to NATO, to the Middle East, American diplomacy under President Trump is unpredictable, to say the least. His
leader-to-leader personal negotiating style seems to be leaving some of his own senior staff scrambling and even undermining the president’s promises.
Veteran diplomat William Burns says the hollowing out of U.S. leadership risks undermining the very institutions upon which the international order
rests. Now, after a distinguished career serving at the highest levels of the foreign service, Burns is now president of the Carnegie Endowment for
international peace. And William Burns is joining me now.
Welcome to the program.
WILLIAM BURNS, FORMER U.S. DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE: It’s great to be with you.
AMANPOUR: So, I started by saying there’s a whole slew of books, as you well know, I mean, from Bob Woodward and many around, the anonymous
article, a lot focusing on national security and the Trump global agenda.
Do you agree that it portrays sort of a recklessness and that fear, according to Trump himself, is the guiding foreign policy agenda here?
BURNS: Well, I think one of the broad themes in this administration has been kind of a reckless detachment from the kind of responsibilities that,
you know, we exercised for a long time and a dismissiveness of institutions.
You know, the president, last year, when he was asked about the number of vacancies in the State Department said, “Well, I’m the only one who
matters.” And that’s a diplomacy of narcissism, not a diplomacy of institutions and alliances and coalitions, which is where our real leverage
and strength lies in the world.
AMANPOUR: So, you have talked, and I mentioned, about the danger of hollowing out American leadership. So, it’s not just foreign policy, it’s
actually American leadership which is at stake. Do you really see that happening or is America still leading albeit in a way you don’t think is
particularly constructive?
BURNS: Well, I think we are hollowing out. You know, what sets us apart from lonelier powers like China and Russia, and that’s alliances and our
capacity to build coalitions. And I think we’re also hollowing out institutions like professional diplomacy as well. And that, I think, comes
at a cost, at a moment on the international landscape when so many things are changing anyway and it’s important for the United States to exercise
disciplined leadership.
AMANPOUR: So, many, many people around the world praise President Trump for going the extra mile to meet with Kim Jong-un and to try to do
something that has failed American administrations today, and that is end the nuclearization of the peninsula, try to get Kim Jong-un back somewhere
around, you know, the community of nations.
Recently, there have been dueling comments from the president and his own senior staff, like National Security Adviser John Bolton about this.
President Trump praising Kim Jong-un, John Bolton casting doubts on his intentions. Let’s just play a couple of soundbites.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I just came on stage and I was told that Kim Jong-un said some terrific things about me. He said, “I have faith in
President Trump.” Think of this, you don’t hear that from them. And just moments ago they put on that he said, very strongly, that we want to
denuclearize North Korea during President Trump’s tenure. That’s a nice — he just said it.
JOHN BOLTON, U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: We’re still waiting for them. Now, the possibility of another meeting between the two presidents
obviously exists. But President Trump can’t make the North Koreans walk through the door he’s holding open. They’re the ones that have to take the
steps to denuclearize, and that’s what we’re waiting for.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So, I wonder how you read that. Because on the one hand if you’re North Korea and you get all these big promises from the leader of
the country, from the president himself, the leader of the free world, and on the other hand the much more hard line, hard core national security
adviser is seeking — looking like he’s putting the brakes on those promises, and we know he’s very disappointed that the North Koreans are not
actually denuclearizing.
Is there daylight between President Trump and John Bolton?
BURNS: Well, there certainly appears to be, just an eclipse that just you ran. And the problem with that is that it allows you to be manipulated.
If you’re Kim Jong-un, you want to focus on conversations with the president. I think the president prematurely declared mission accomplished
when he, you know, tweeted to Americans we don’t have anything more to worry about, when, in fact, we’re just at the beginning of a very hard
process.
I’ve never thought the problem was talking to Kim Jong-un. It’s not like the history of the last 25 years, you know, was filled with achievements
and Korea diplomacy. The problem is talking past one another and having much different views of what denuclearization is.
And the truth is, we haven’t seen any meaningful concessions on either nuclear missile programs yet from North Korea.
AMANPOUR: Did you think as President Trump tweeted that it was significant that their 70th anniversary military parade, which was just held, that
didn’t include the unusual ICBM drag past (ph) parade, do you think that was significant?
BURNS: I mean, I wouldn’t dismiss it nor would I dismiss the fact you haven’t had nuclear tests or long-range missile tests in recent months
either. But I think we have to operate without illusions. The tests here are significant concessions in rolling back North Korea’s nuclear missile
programs and that we haven’t seen yet.
And the danger is we’ll see the Chinese in the midst of a trade war with the U.S. taking their foot off the pedal and enforcement of sanctions. The
South Koreans moving off on their own pathway toward (INAUDIBLE). The Japanese unnerved by all of this. And what’s really at stake here is our
strategic alliances in Northeast Asia.
AMANPOUR: You mentioned something that is obviously front and center of everybody’s minds and that is the tariffs on China and the Tit for Tat
tariffs from China, a whole new slew put on by President Trump last night. Hundreds of millions of dollars.
Where do you think that particular strategy in terms of geopolitics in that region is going to lead?
BURNS: Well, I mean, the president is right, as his predecessors have been right, to focus on the importance of improving access to the Chinese
economy, of ending the practice of forced transfer of technology. The question is how you go about pursuing those aims.
The transpacific partnership, the big trade agreement negotiated in the last administration would have been a big asset in knitting together lots
of players who share our concerns. In pushing back against the Chinese on those issues, we have natural partners in the European union and Japan who
share many of those concerns.
But, instead, we’re embarking on second and third front trade wars with them. So, it’s not the goals that I take issue with at all, it’s how we’re
going about pursuing them.
AMANPOUR: So, you’re talking about second and third, you know, sort of trade wars with them, partly tariffs because of their exports, but also
particularly with regard to the Iran nuclear deal.
So, you know, Europeans stand to have sanctions put on them if they continue to do business under the deal with Iran and they’re very concerned
about it. You were there at the creation when Iran was brought into the fold to make this deal.
Where do you think this I headed? I mean, President Trump doesn’t want this deal, wants to collapse it, it seems.
BURNS: Well, I think it was a major mistake to abandon the deal for the United States to pull out and I think we have followed that step with what
I believe is a deeply flawed strategy.
I think, you know, the purpose of our policy, as I understand it, is not so much to produce a better deal, it’s to cause the Iranian regime to implode
or to capitulate. And I think we’re overestimating our ability to renew the kind of economic pressure that brought the Iranians to the table
seriously several years ago.
Simply because, again, in the midst of a trade war with China, it’s hard to conceive that they’re going to easily agree to cut their oil imports from
Iran as well. I think we’re adding to fissures between us and our European allies, in a sense, doing Putin’s work for him.
And I think, you know, we’re adding to the risk of escalation in a part of the world that already has more than its share of instabilities and
fragilities.
AMANPOUR: Can I be provocative for a second and throw a devil’s advocate question at you? Would I be correct in assuming and surmising that neither
the U.S. government nor the Israeli government under Benjamin Netanyahu actually fear an Iranian nuclear program, because if they did, they
wouldn’t have pulled out from this deal?
BURNS: Well, I think there’s been a genuine concern that an unconstrained Iranian nuclear program is going to add to risk in the Middle East, and
that was what I thought was the advantage with pursuing the nuclear agreement of President Obama and John Kerry achieved.
So, I think there was a real risk there. There continuous to be a risk in terms of Iranian actions to threaten our interests, the interests of our
friends in the Middle East. I just think there’s a smart way and a dumb way to go about pushing back against that behavior.
AMANPOUR: And this is a dumb way, why?
BURNS: Because I think what we’ve done is isolated ourselves rather than the Iranians, which is what we spent so many years trying to do. And I
think we have, in a sense, let the Iranians off the hook because I think it’s going to be very hard to rebuild the kind of economic pressure we had
before, and I think there is collateral damage as well.
You know, by pursuing sanctions in the face of so many other countries, including our closest allies, we’re going to increase their incentive along
with the Russians and Chinese to reduce their dependency on the dollar and the American financial system as well. And I already mentioned the problem
of, you know, adding to the fissures between us and the European allies.
AMANPOUR: The United States has done something, I mean, kind of incredible. It has withdrawn all its funding for civilian, humanitarian
programs that help the Palestinians, whether it’s the U.N.-related ones or whether its to NGOs, that means non-governmental organizations, programs
like helping Palestinian and Israeli girls play soccer together, in other words, bridge building, tension reducing kinds of programs.
How is that going to help bring the Palestinians to the peace table or tamp down the real tensions in that area, because Jared Kushner, he believes
that punishing the Palestinian civilians will enable peace not stall it.
BURNS: Well, I just think that’s flawed approach. I think it’s politically counterproductive and I think it’s morally bankrupt to cut the
kinds of assistance that you described before. I think it’s based on the false premise that you can punish the Palestinians into accepting something
less than a real state.
And I think it’s also based on a number of other notions that somehow, over time, you can rent the acquiescence of Palestinians by offering a sense of
economic possibilities to which the Saudis or others might contribute.
And as you know very well, that the court here has a sense of political dignity and I don’t think Palestinians are going to be bought off. There’s
also the flawed premise that somehow you can go over the headd of the Palestinians and at the Saudis and others in the Arab world who share
Israel’s concern about Iran are going to make concessions with regard to Israeli/Arab peace and kind of ignore the Palestinians. I think that’s
flawed too.
AMANPOUR: I mean, it does look and there’s plenty of articles around it and plenty of evidence around it, that this particular Israeli government
sees a sort of a light-minded, a kindred spirit in Donald Trump and is doing a lot to push American foreign policy, which is pushing America out
of the role of honest broker.
Where do you come down on this? How much o4 an influence does Benjamin Netanyahu have when it comes to Iran policy or, obviously, Israel Palestine
policy, the Gulf policy, you know, American policy?
BURNS: Well, I think there’s a confluence of interest, obviously, over Iran, over the Palestinian issue right now. But as someone who for a very
long time has been a very strong supporter of Israel, I think as friends, we need to be honest.
And what I fail to see is how Israel’s long-term security interest, it’s interest in sustaining what’s so important, which is its existence and
health and prosperity as a Jewish democratic state can be preserved when Jews are in the minority in the land Israel controls from the Jordan river
to the Mediterranean. I just think, you know, demography and the politics that flows from that create realities we need to pay attention to.
AMANPOUR: And I guess the last question on this particular issue is, I assume that under international law, as an occupying power, Israel would be
forced to pony up to help the Palestinians with all of this international money or U.S. money being pulled out. Is that correct?
And I understand also that Prime Minister Netanyahu agreed to the U.S. pulling out this humanitarian aid and civilian aid against the advice of
his own security operations.
BURNS: You know, what’s striking is that in the past whenever in Congress movements would develop to cut off funding for UNRA or for economic or
humanitarian assistance for Palestinians, it was oftentimes the Israeli government quietly that would suggest this is a bad idea, which made a lot
of sense.
And so, what’s striking now is that you don’t have that view being offered. And as I’ve said, I think it’s both politically counterproductive and
morally bankrupt.
AMANPOUR: And then, going back to Iran, because they believe this kind of, you know, hardline pressure on Iran would change its behavior. President
Trump said, “Iran’s behavior has changed since I threatened or did pull the U.S out of the nuclear deal.”
But has it really? Because right now, we’re sitting on the brink of potentially a last offensive by Syria into the last sort of safe area,
which is Idlib and Iran, obviously, would be part of that, I guess, push. Do you see Iran having changed its activity in the region for the better?
BURNS: I don’t. I mean, it’s a healthy thing that Iran has continued to comply with the nuclear agreement. But in the region, I think their
behavior or their actions have continued to be threatening. And I think, in internal terms, what we’ve done, at least, in the short-term is
strengthen the hand of hardliners and the people like the supreme leader who have always been wanting to go say, “I told you so, you can trust the
Americans.”
AMANPOUR: And finally, diplomat to diplomat, current Secretary of State Pompeo has accused Former Secretary of State John Kerry of inappropriately
engaging with Iranian officials. Where do you come down on that?
BURNS: Oh, I disagree. I mean, I think there’s lots of precedent for, you know, former senior officials, whether Republicans or Democrats or
professional diplomats, like me, continuing conversations with people with whom they worked.
I think the problem in our approach to Iran now is not about those contacts, it’s about our policy.
AMANPOUR: And you, of course, have served many different administrations – –
BURNS: I have.
AMANPOUR: — Republican and Democrat.
BURNS: I have.
AMANPOUR: Ambassador Bill Burns, thank you for joining us.
BURNS: My pleasure.
AMANPOUR: Thank you.
BURNS: Thanks.
AMANPOUR: So, amidst those dramatic developments across the world, here at home, people are riveted by the drama that’s playing out on Capitol Hill.
Brett Kavanaugh’s fast track to confirmation as the next supreme court justice has stumbled on his own #MeToo moment, accusations, allegations
which he denies of sexual molestation dating from his high school days is the latest chapter in a public accounting that start this had time last
year in Hollywood and spread across the country and across the world.
Now, the celebrated actress, Sally Field, has come forward with traumatic stories from her own past. Field is one of Hollywood’s best-known
actresses with a career that stretches from teen stardom to her award- winning work.
Take a look at this iconic moment from her Oscar-winning performance in the 1979 movie “Norma Ray.” It’s a bit hard to hear under the factory noise
but you’ll definitely get the point.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Norma Ray —
SALLY FIELD, ACTRESS: Forget it. I I’m staying put right where I am. It’s going to take you and the police department and the fire department
and the national guard to get me out of here. I’ll wait for the sheriff to take me home and I’m not going to (INAUDIBLE) until he gets here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: And we’ll get Sally Field to describe that in a moment. She has written a new memoir coming out today called “In Pieces” in which for the
very first time, Hollywood’s all-American girl shares the dark secrets of her past.
Sally Field, welcome to the program.
FIELD: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: Now, before I get to the body of your book —
FIELD: Yes.
AMANPOUR: — which is really quite troubling, actually, and quite brave to recount, I just want you to remind us all of the drama of that moment in
“Norma Ray,” because it’s not only a great film performance but it was a real political, social and cultural moment.
FIELD: Made by a wonderful man who made films like that when they were done, Marty Ritt. It is the moment when she is willing to stand up for
what she really ultimately finally realizes she stands for, what she believes in, what she’s willing to lose her life, her job for, and that is
for — to be treated equally, to be treated fairly by management.
And she boldly stands up and refuses to be quiet. And slowly but surely, you see everyone shuts their machines down in support of her. And it
really it’s as her slow growth into finding her own voice.
AMANPOUR: Well, it leads me right into you finding your own voice. Because for a long time you felt invisible, as you recount in this book.
But also, the book is being published today. And I read that even ahead publication you still were quite nervous about it coming out, wondering
whether you would be heard, whether you’d done the right thing. Tell me about that.
FIELD: Constantly. It took me seven years to write it. I was impelled to write it because when my mother passed I was so disquieted by something
that I couldn’t find. I thought I had done all the right things. And there was this urgency in me growing that I had to understand something
that I couldn’t see in front of me.
So, I had to lay out all the pieces to see if I could put them in place for myself and for no one else. But I had a woman to support me that I have
reached out to early on in New York, a literally agent, who, you know, wasn’t sure I could do it but kept, you know, touching in and saying, “How
are you doing? How are you doing?” And I said to her, “Molly, I’m going to write this for myself but I don’t know I’ll ever have the guts to
publish it.” And she said — after she read 200 pages about three years ago, she said, “I’m going to be the one urging you to publish it.”
AMANPOUR: Well, I mean, it is, as I said, really troubling but it’s amazing that it comes out at this time when it seems like the world is
ready to hear these stories and ready to hold the, you know, perpetrators accountable. And you tell very, very painful stories about your
stepfather, known as Jocko, and we’re going to show some pictures of you and your family when you were younger, and that you suffered sexual
molestation at his hands. Can you describe that?
You know what, I want you actually to read from your own book.
FIELD: Oh, boy.
AMANPOUR: And if it’s too much, I’ll read it for you.
FIELD: No, no. No. Okay. I walked on his back until he rolled over, commanding me to keep going, one foot in front of the other up his chest,
his hands slid over my legs then moved up. I walked on this much-loved nonfather of mine carefully trying to avoid where he was aiming my feet.
AMANPOUR: So, how did that affect you? What — I mean, he did not rape you but he molested you. How did you cope with that as a kid?
FIELD: You know, it was my whole life and it, you know, grew and grew and grew into more kind of erotic play as I got older and older. And as a
child at 7 and 8 and 9 and 10, I knew that there was something inside me that wanted it to stop, but I didn’t know it was any different than any
other child. I didn’t know that it was something I had a right to scream about and that this feeling wasn’t just because I was wrong.
And, you know, the complication of — one of the complications of child abuse, whether it’s, you know, sexual or physical or verbal, is that you —
the child is so complicated in its need to be loved. And certainly, I was mixed up in how much I adored him and how much he terrified me. And what
wired in my brain is that, therefore, what love was is that you have to also be terrified. You were seen and somehow valued but you were terrified
and deeply felt were you were in danger.
So, the patterns that get set in a child’s mind then is that forever after you are looking to that kind of example is love? No. And I think as
adults, our whole lives we’re trying to undo some of the webs that are holding on to us from childhood.
AMANPOUR: So, when you see what’s going on right now today with Brett Kavanaugh and these allegations, which he denies —
FIELD: Yes.
AMANPOUR: — but, you know, allegation that come from the 1970s or a long time ago when they were 17 years old.
FIELD: Yes.
AMANPOUR: And people say, “Oh, well, it was a long time ago and –”
FIELD: Yes. And it no longer counts, and that’s not right. Trust me, it never goes away. It never goes away. Whether it’s, you know, an abusive
stepfather that is throughout your childhood or it’s in your young adulthood, when, you know, somebody believes they have rights that aren’t
theirs, and it never goes away.
I believe that these women have lived with it and swallowed it and tried to submerge it and forget about it, you don’t forget about it, and it colors
your relationships. Trust me, trust me, I trust no one, and that’s the truth. I have a very difficult time really letting down and saying, “OK, I
trust you.”
AMANPOUR: Well, the book makes it very clear that you had very troubled personal relationships and you had a very difficult relationship with your
career as you moved from, you know, teen actress to then TV and films and all this. And finally, yes, you won two Oscars and it’s brilliant. You
have great films to your name and you’re iconic in America but the journey was very, very difficult for you. Yes?
FIELD: No. Yes, absolutely. And that, you know, what I also wanted to point out that journey, that handed down pattern in my life never went
away. So, it was hard for me to see any success. It just — it never penetrated my mind.
AMANPOUR: Well, you know what, I mean, you write about that as well, about the difficulty in seeing the success. But first, I just want you to read a
little bit and then I promise I’ll stop making you read. But one of the things that really, for want of a better word, saw your career soar to
great heights was “The Flying Nun.” I saw it when I was a kid overseas. I mean, we loved it. And I was shocked to read how much you didn’t love it
and how ridiculous you felt doing it.
FIELD: Yes, yes.
AMANPOUR: I mean, read that, because it is quite profound.
FIELD: I couldn’t tell if “The Flying Nun” was the joke or I was. Couldn’t distinguish between the bell of my past and the chimes of my
present. I felt deeply disgraced as if everyone was laughing at me. It was all gibberish, not inspired, comedic nonsense but meaningless twaddle
with nothing real to relate to.
AMANPOUR: How long did it take you to get over that feeling? Bout — not just — not “The Flying Nun” but everything, your work?
FIELD: I was lucky enough to be taken during “The Flying Nun,” in the first year of “The Flying Nun” when I was terribly depressed by Natalie
Sherwood, who played mother superior, literally stuffed a note in my hand one day and said, “Meet me there Tuesday night. You have no excuse. I’ll
see you there, the Actor Studio.” And it began to transition my life, because I met and started working with Lee Strasberg, so that I then could
reach out for what I really wanted.
When I was 12 years old, it was the first time I stepped on a stage. And at that moment, something happened, it’s the arts. And that’s why the arts
should be in every school. For a troubled child, the bells rang, the fog cleared. I could hear myself, and then it was gone and I was still — I
was just then a kid and didn’t know what to do with their hands.
But I found at the Actor Studio, for the first time, I had — there was a method that I could learn, techniques that I could learn to take me where I
wanted to go.
AMANPOUR: It is a remarkable transformation. And then, of course, you did, as I said, films that have stuck in our memories. I want to play a
little clip, fast forwarding many years after “The Flying Nun” of “Forrest Gump” where you were tom hanks’ mom.
FIELD: Yes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FIELD: Well, I happen to believe you make your own destiny. You have to do the best with what God gave you.
TOM HANKS, ACTOR: What’s my destiny, mom?
FIELD: You’re going to have to figure that out for yourself. Life is a box of chocolates, Forrest. You never know what you’re going to get.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: That’s so cool. Life is a box of chocolates. Everybody quotes it.
FIELD: Yes, I know.
AMANPOUR: How do you feel seeing that? How do you enjoy that role?
FIELD: You know, it’s funny, I see it right now and I never look at this – – because at the time when we were doing it and I was in my 40s, I guess, and I thought, boy, they really aged me. I just look so old. And I look
at it now, boy, do I look young. You know, now I could be doing it.
It was certainly a wonderful experience in my life to have the opportunity to play that character. And to age like that, it was, for an actor, to be
able to experiment starting with younger than what I was. And then, without prosthetics even to age some unknown age that when Momma Gump
leaves him and —
AMANPOUR: Yes. I mean, it’s really sad and —
FIELD: — to be with my Tom boy, you know, anytime.
AMANPOUR: Yes. Really quite poignant but it was such a great film. But, of course, you know, right now since Burt Reynolds died, the focus has been
very much on your relationship with him and, of course, with your book and you write about it, which is, again, really interesting.
I’m going to read this from your book about Burt Reynolds who you dated a long time. Burt started to fill me in about his life, the kind of thing
you do when you want someone to know who you are, and I started to tell my side. Little bits of me. I began to get subtle or not so subtle hints
that he didn’t want to know. I had found someone to love, to pour my heart into, someone I felt frightened of, and I was seeking to be loved in the
only way I knew how, by disappearing. He died before this book came out.
FIELD: Yes.
AMANPOUR: Are you pleased, not pleased, that he didn’t get to read what you felt?
FIELD: Probably, if I were to be really honest, I would say I’m pleased he didn’t read it. Because I didn’t — it would have hurt him probably, even
though I don’t think that I paint an egregious picture of a terrible guy; I paint a picture of my own process and not being able to get out of it. But
it would have hurt him. Because he wanted to be a hero and he was a human. And that’s, I think, sometimes more important than being a hero. Or maybe
what I mean is that real humans and being able to be vulnerably, wrongly flawed human is a hero.
AMANPOUR: You met him on the set of “Smokey and the Bandit” —
FIELD: Mm-hmm.
AMANPOUR: And he is quoted as saying that, you know, it was love at first sight, he said, “She’s the girl for me,” I mean, he says that he really
sort of fell head over heels for you. But you describe, not just this paragraph, but in some of the roles you chose, some of the award ceremonies
you wanted to go to — him not being supportive. Walk us through some of those.
MALE: Sensitive.
FIELD: You know, I think I describe it in the book, a relationship that we just fell into; like we’d known each other all of our lives. It was pre-
formed in my road. Literally. It was a pattern I was destined to just repeat and he, I just began to take care of him and look out after him; as
if he were much more important than anything I had to do. And so if he needed me, then it meant drop everything that I valued, so that I could be
there and be kind of diminished. And in reality I was kind of asking to be diminished. Because I was diminishing myself, so.
AMANPOUR: And he didn’t believe in the “Norma Rae” script, did he? He didn’t think that you could do it, that it would be any good and —
(CROSSTALK)
Then you got a lot of kudos.
FIELD: It wasn’t — he never said, you know, he thought I couldn’t do it. He just thought it was a piece of trash. And thought it was, you know,
that I would be playing a whore and — which she isn’t. And I honestly think he didn’t — and I’m speaking for him and he can’t speak for himself
— he didn’t want to lose this little helpmate that I was, with unconditionally loving him. I needed nothing in return. I was asking for
nothing and just doing it, you know, being everything he needed me to be.
Because somehow that’s what I was taught to be. So I think he didn’t want to lose that little, that little helpmate. But the one part of me that I
would not tamper with was that part of me. And when that got threatened, when he insulted Norma, I stood up for Norma and not myself.
AMANPOUR: And then Norma, you, Sally Field, won an Oscar for that role.
FIELD: Yes.
AMANPOUR: And it was remarkable. And then you won another Oscar for “Places in the Heart” in 1985.
FIELD: Mm-hmm.
AMANPOUR: And that was when your Oscar speech went viral, if it could have gone viral in those days. There are these amazing pictures of you just
exultant. And we’re not allowed to play it, because we have restrictions from Oscar Films —
(LAUGHTER)
But I can say, “I haven’t had an orthodox career,” you said, “And I’ve wanted more than anything to have your respect,” you told the audience,
“The first time I didn’t feel it, but this time I feel it and I can’t deny the fact that you like me, right now you like me.”
FIELD: Right.
AMANPOUR: How did you feel at that time, when people thought you’d gone over the top?
FIELD: You know, I think I did, I had a survival system that, you know, my childhood both harmed me with and helped me with, in the profession I
chose. Because I have an ability to dive into a fog bank, where I just choose not to see what overwhelms me. And it’s what I learned to do as a
child. I think it’s what I’m probably doing right now in my life. But I think I did it then. I just said, well, (INAUDIBLE) conscious thought. It
just, I feel overwhelmed with something and then I just sort of fog everything out.
Also you know, you read it so accurately, of what I said. It’s that they immediately categorized it and misquoted it and to say that I had said
something I hadn’t said —
AMANPOUR: Which is what?
FIELD: Well, they always say that I said, You like me, you like me, you really like me. And I never, I didn’t say that.
(CROSSTALK)
AMANPOUR: No you didn’t. I just read exactly what you did say.
FIELD: I said, “Right now, I can’t deny that right now you like me,” meaning this could leave tomorrow, but I want to own this second, because
these are fleeting moments, for anybody in the arts; they are fleeting moments and right now I own this.
AMANPOUR: But you know what? Reading your book, I fully understand why you said that, even without the clarification. Because you’d gone through
such hell on the way to that point — and you had such little confidence in yourself, that it seems to me it was just this amazing recognition.
FIELD: It wasn’t that I — I had a lot of confidence in myself in reality. There was a part of me that felt unstoppable, but they were the, I had
warring factions in myself. You know, pieces of myself that were not connected to each other. So one part was terribly confident and would not
be stopped. And the other part wanted to hide.
AMANPOUR: Well, the warring factions appear in your book by their absences, because you’ve dodged the good bit, so to speak, of your life in
your book. You’ve written, “Why is it easier for me to write about the times in my life that felt humiliating or shameful? Is it because those
are the things that haunt me? Do I hold onto those dark times as a badge of honor? Are they my identity?”
FIELD: Mm-hmm. Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
I questioned it.
AMANPOUR: Do you know the answer?
FIELD: I think, I tried to answer my own question in there. Because I think to a degree they have been. I think I talk in one point how I became
my own lore, to myself. Like my own fatal, you know, this is who I am. And in having to write this and forcing myself to go to the places I didn’t
want to go, just as I, as an actor and really trying to do a character, I would go to places I didn’t really want to go and unearth things.
And so I think it forced me to look at the places that I had been culpable in really harmful activities.
AMANPOUR: And finally, your life forced you to confront your mother, as she was dying and you had all of these horrendous feelings about the abuse
that you’d suffered and her role in at least — I mean, not owning it —
(CROSSTALK)
FIELD: Or my not knowing what it ever was.
AMANPOUR: So tell me, how did you make piece with that?
FIELD: Well, the tail end of the book, I think the real reason I wrote it is to put all of that together, which culminates with the last conversation
that I had with her, the last real conversation where I tell her and you know, things that she had mentioned that I, throughout the years, that I
wrote in my journal, that I kept journals for 40 years and immediately erased from my mind; that I had gone back because I was writing this book,
to uncover — things I didn’t know. But I asked her, I told her what had happened and ultimately what she did in return is simply triumphant.
AMANPOUR: And what did she do?
FIELD: Well, if I tell you that, it will spoil the end. (LAUGHS) You’ll know whodunit. (LAUGHS)
AMANPOUR: All right, Sally Field. I’ll let people to read it. But it’s a really compelling book and it’s clearly taken a lot of you and a lot of
years — thank you.
FIELD: Thank you. Thank you so much, Christiane.
AMANPOUR: Thank you very much (INAUDIBLE).
(CROSSTALK)
FIELD: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: And now we turn to the immigration crisis that continues to tear at America’s soul. The U.S. government is now holding a record number of
immigrant children in custody; 12,800, to be precise. This broken system is unsparing, from the most vulnerable children to those closest to power.
Jose Antonio Vargas was already an accomplished journalist when he wrote a blockbuster essay for the New York Times; “My Life as an Undocumented
Immigrant”. He’s now the founder of the nonprofit Define American, trying to reframe the conversation and even the terms we use — and he’s author of
a new book, “Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen”. He told our Alicia Menendez his amazing story. She teamed up with him to start that
organization, Define American. Here is their conversation.
ALICIA MENENDEZ, CORRESPONDENT: What I remember most about your coming out was that you were very prepared for what those who are anti-immigrant
would say.
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS, JOURNALIST: Oh, very prepared.
MENENDEZ: Less so prepared for what members of the Immigrant Rights community would think about you.
VARGAS: And progressives in general. Because you know, as a journalist I never identified as either. You know, I’m gay, I’m undocumented; I’m
Filipino. I mean, for some people that would just automatically mean I’m a Progressive. But since I never have voted. I just — I never really
claimed a party in that way. So being thrust into this immigrant rights, racial justice progressive movement was really new to me. Especially on
the other side. Right?
MENENDEZ: What was new to you and there were people who were very resentful —
(CROSSTALK)
— about the fact that you had not shown up sooner.
VARGAS: Yeah, no, they’re like, we’ve been protesting since we were in high school.
(LAUGHTER)
You know, while you were lying and making money, you know, at the Washington Post and the Chronicle and all those sort of places that you
were working at. Right. And so there was a lot of. not only resentment, but I think just uncertainty about what is he going to do?
MENENDEZ: Was that fair?
VARGAS: You know, look, like was it fair? I don’t — no, personally for me it wasn’t. People cling onto what they fear because it’s a lot easier.
And in college I majored in African American Studies and Political Science and so like — so much of what I learned about America was from kind of the
perspective of people who had always, were challenging America.
So I was coming from this place of, no, we’re actually challenging the definition of it. This is not some blind patriotism. Right? And
patriotism — what is wrong with patriotism? You know, there’s nothing wrong with saying, I think, right, that I am proud to be an American. I am
proud of it. But I think with that pride comes the criticisms and the fact that this country is not only imperfect, right, but we’re living in a
crisis. Our democracy is in crisis. Right? I think those two things can coexist.
MENENDEZ: Bill O’Reilly called you “the most famous illegal in America”.
(LAUGHTER)
Despite the juxtaposition of words, how has your notoriety, though, protected you?
VARGAS: Oh, I’m sure it’s protected me. Oh, I’m definitely sure of that. And I think the guilt that I carry because of that, right, you know, in the
book I write for the first time about what happened when I was arrested in Texas, summer of 2014. And how I got out. Right? I was detained for
eight hours in McAllen; the same place where the kids are being caged and locked up with families, well, separated from families. And I got out
after eight hours. And I didn’t really want to know how I got out. But in writing the book I had to figure out who we called —
(CROSSTALK)
— and why and all of that.
MENENDEZ: Because of the guilt.
VARGAS: The guilt about — I get arrested; it’s breaking news on CNN, right, and people care. You know, people are getting arrested and detained
every day (INAUDIBLE) —
(CROSSTALK)
MENENDEZ: Where a mom gets her kid ripped from her at the border and she’s anonymous.
VARGAS: Right. She’s anonymous. And I think we’re getting at a point now in this country where I don’t know about you, but it’s just so much that I
can’t process everything, and yet I have to keep looking at it; I have to keep reading it, I have to keep watching. We should not be desensitized
from it. Right. So that has been hard. And you know, when Bill O’Reilly said that, I think in the same interview he said to me that I don’t deserve
to be in America. Right. Which again, gets us to this question of wait a second, like you know, what does Bill O’Reilly, what has he done to deserve
to be in America? Too? I think that’s, you know, just kind of flipping the question around.
So when I wrote that, I really wanted to pose the question really to readers and the audience about this process of earning and what that’s
about. Like you’re a U.S. citizen because you were born here. Right? So is that it? Congratulations. (LAUGHS) The accident of birth. And then
we’re telling people all across this country that, you know, they have to earn their citizenship while we talk about them like they’re insects off
our backs and we treat them like criminals — what are we doing?
I have three questions. Where did you come from? How did you get here? Who paid? If you can’t answer those three questions, you have no right to
talk to anyone about what borders they cross, right, or what laws they’re breaking.
MENENDEZ: So really break it down for people. You’re 12 years old. Your mom takes you to the airport in the Philippines and she puts you on a
plane. Why were you not able to come to the United States legally?
VARGAS: Ah, because my grandparents could not petition me, so it’s not considered a close enough of a relationship for my grandma or my grandpa,
even though they were U.S. citizens, to petition a grandson. Right?
MENENDEZ: Do we know how much your mother paid that smuggler to take you on that plane?
VARGAS: My mother couldn’t pay; it was my grandfather. Right. It was $4,500.
MENENDEZ: How did you get that money?
VARGAS: Saved. Can you imagine? Can you imagine how much time was spent trying to save that money? When I think back on it now, I’m trying to
understand like how long they had planned it. And how much my mother, who didn’t have the money, really understood what she was doing. Like when she
said, “Yeah, he can come,” did she really know what that meant? I don’t know. Like you know, my grandmother was the food server; she made maybe
$4.50 an hour when I first got here, or five dollars maybe. My grandfather was a security guard; he made a little more, like six or seven dollars an
hour.
And so you know, it was really interesting when you add it up, the fact that he had to take care of a family here, including me and then at the
same time provide for a family back in the Philippines, which again, is the reality for so many immigrants in this country, right. And then the kind
of cycle of dependency that it’s created, right, that they take care of my mom, so now I take care of my mom and then the cycle goes on and on and on.
MENENDEZ: How long did it take before you realized she was never coming?
VARGAS: Oh, I didn’t realize that until I found out I was here illegally, which was four years later, when I tried to apply for a driver’s license,
right, which is like, is there anything more American than driving? So I was 16. My friend Arvin Murphy was like, I’m getting tired of (LAUGHS)
driving you around; in the nicest possible way he said that and that’s when all the lies that I had been told started kind of unraveling.
And that’s why, for me — you know, in writing the book, look, there are 11 million undocumented people in this country, although I would argue that
there’s far more than 11 million people — I mean, if we counted all the undocumented white people, the undocumented black people or undocumented
Asian people that we rarely talk about, I think it’s more than 11 million people.
But in writing the book, I really struggled trying to figure out, how do I write this in such a way that other people who may not share my specific
circumstances, right, could relate to it and so coming up with this idea with my editor, actually, that you know, these phases that we live through,
which is we lie, we pass, we try to pass and we hid. So —
MENENDEZ: But up until 16 you’re not lying. You’re in the dark and I think that there are people who will watch and say, but Jose, you’re very
smart. How did you make it to 16 and not put all the pieces together?
VARGAS: How could I — at that point, that was four years of probably the most innocent time (LAUGHS) I had for myself. Like when I look back at
that time, you know I mean, I was a sponge. I used to like just absorbed everything and I — no one around me was undocumented. In my view, at that
time there was no social media, there was no Internet — whenever anybody said anybody was “illegal” or whenever anybody talked about the wall or the
border or immigration, it was always about Mexican people.
And so this was never — I just never thought of it as “my problem”.
MENENDEZ: You came out. There was response from those who are anti- immigrant, the response from the Progressive Movement and there was a response from your peers, your journalist peers.
VARGAS: Oh, yes.
MENENDEZ: And the fundamental question was, can you write about politics? Can you write about immigration? When you have such a personal story
(INAUDIBLE) at the heart of the issue.
VARGAS: That was certainly the question back in 2011. Originally my coming out, essay was supposed to come out in the Washington Post, not the
New York Times and the Washington Post ended up killing the story and I had to like, you know, rally and get it to the New York Times and — and the
Washington Post, of course, had to write a story about why they killed my story and (LAUGHS) the headline was “Why Did the Washington Post Deport
Jose Antonio Vargas’s Story?” I had to read it. I hadn’t read it since —
(CROSSTALK)
— till I was writing the book. Because — I read it when it first came out seven years ago, but I didn’t want to read it because it was so
painful. (LAUGHS) Journalism is sacred to me. Journalism is why I exist. Right? Like it’s the way I’ve been able to write myself into America. And
I felt at that time that I was deported from my own industry. Right? It was so painful. And then to have all these people that I respected say
that, you know, how do you trust a liar? Back then people were saying that this was a conflict of interest.
It’s so interesting. After Trump’s election, those same people now I think are finally understood that we’re actually talking about a human rights
issue. Right? Like you’re actually —
(CROSSTALK)
MENENDEZ: Do you really believe, though, that journalists have changed their stance? That now having a personal experience in something does not
prohibit you from writing about it?
VARGAS: I think that process has started. I think that process, which is the same process, if you think about, that we went through during the Civil
Rights Movement, you know, in the ’50s and ’60s. And during the Gay Rights Movement, right, that just happened and is still happening. Right?
Journalists have to figure out, what are we really talking about here? Why are people’s existence being politicized?
I think you’re seeing now more journalists and more institutions like the New York Times, NPR and Washington Post question their own newsrooms and
still at this time, the New York Times and Washington Post, which helps set the agenda for many news organizations, still refer to people as “illegal”
— they still used “illegal immigrant” and so that hasn’t stopped yet and absolutely we will keep pressuring them to do that.
MENENDEZ: For much of your life you defined yourself by your writing, defined yourself by journalism.
VARGAS: Yeah. In a way it became kind of my own wall. It was easier to write about other people than have to deal with myself. Right? So when I
was “I wasn’t that anymore to people” — all of the sudden I’m like, well, who am I? (LAUGHS) So that I have to deal with that and I would arge —
(CROSSTALK)
MENENDEZ: And after you lie and pass and hide for so long, how do you answer that question?
VARGAS: I think you answer it by being as uncompromising — being as uncompromising as possible in trying to understand what motivates your
actions and why you do what you do. But why do I do what I do? Why haven’t I just left? You know, sometimes people on Twitter, God, I love
people who take time to like write you emails, you know. Right? You know, they see something on Twitter and they hate me or whatever and they write
me an email and one time someone actually said, “You know, you’re being really selfish. Your mom may die sometime soon and if she dies you’re not
there,” right?
Or when somebody says, why don’t you just leave? And then I actually ask myself, yeah, why don’t I just leave? Well, because — this where I’m —
America is where I became who I am. Migrating to this country is not only as simple as looking at that Statue of Liberty and you know, wanting the
American dream. Many of us come here because you’re in our countries. Right? Like what has the United States done to El Salvador, Honduras and
Guatemala? Like what does U.S. foreign policy and U.S. trade agreements have to do with migration patterns?
Some people in the news media would call it a global migration crisis. I actually consider it a natural progression of history. Right. If the
western world can come to our country, so those countries, right, and move to those countries, forcibly move to those countries, to build their
economies — so why can’t people move now?
MENENDEZ: I want to read from the book. You write, “The truth is if Mama had known then what she knows now, that calling her on the phone is
difficult because I can’t really pretend that I know the voice on the other end of the line. On one of our rare phone calls she said, and look at you
now, the person you’ve become and how can I have any regrets? I’m sure she meant it as a statement, but it sounded like a question. The truth is,
there’s a part of me, I’m not certain how much, who is still on that airplane wondering why Mama put me there,” have you forgiven your mom?
VARGAS: Oh my God, yes. (LAUGHS) I actually think the question now is — I wonder if she’s forgiven me. Like I wonder if — I wonder if she
understands that it’s more than the money the send or the clothes or the Lancome makeup things, (INAUDIBLE) that she likes from Macy’s, that — that
I don’t make sense without her. Right? And that the sacrifices — and really for a mother, it was the ultimate sacrifice that she made, is
something that I’m trying to honor by doing what I do.
I have to tell you though, I can’t wait to like see her in person and say thank you in person, without any cameras or without anybody else seeing it.
MENENDEZ: I want to ask about that. Because at the end of the book you do give her the last word —
(LAUGHTER)
And she says, maybe it’s time to come home.
VARGAS: No.
MENENDEZ: And I wonder if you are a person for whom there is a home.
VARGAS: I think defining “home” is something that’s going to be the work of my life. I think defining “home” for people who feel like they’re not
at home — you know, we live in a, we’re in New York — we live in a country where Puerto Ricans in this country, after that hurricane feel like
even though they’re citizens and in the country legally, they don’t feel like they are. I would argue that the Black Lives Matter Movement is a
question of citizenship. Right? Like (ph) Elisa Garza, one of the cofounders of the movement said that, that this is actually about
citizenship and who gets to belong in this country and who gets to call it what it is. I think that question of home is something that all of us
grapple with and I think that is going to be the work of my life, is figuring that out.
MENENDEZ: Jose, thank you so much.
VARGAS: Thank you for having me.
AMANPOUR: And the sacrifices for citizenship that Antonio talked about are so poignant. His unresolved relationship with his mother and how they can
be together and of course, reminding everyone here in the United States that so many of the refugees and immigrants that come here are because of
what U.S. foreign policy was towards their own country historically. It’s a really important point.
And the question of home is even more pressing, as with millions of displaced people all over the world, the Trump administration plans to
slash the number of refugees allowed in the U.S. to just 30,000 — it’s kind of a record low that — at a time when the U.N. is saying the crisis
of refugees, the surge in the number of refugees around the world is unprecedented.
On that note, tomorrow I’ll be talking to the head of the U.N., the Secretary General Antonio Guterres, as heads of state prepare to gather in
New York for this year’s U.N. General Assembly meeting. For now though, that’s it for our program.
Thanks for watching Amanpour and Company on PBS and join us again tomorrow.
END