The SSRC is an independent, international, nonprofit organization. It fosters innovative research, nurtures new generations of social scientists, deepens how inquiry is practiced within and across disciplines, and mobilizes necessary knowledge on important public issues.
In August I was on the phone with my mother, a 70-year-old Korean immigrant, to discuss the upcoming election. In the past, she had complained that President Trump was a lunatic, so I naturally assumed that she would support — or at least be neutral about — Joe Biden.“I don’t like him either,” she told me. “He’ll be soft on China. I know all about his son Hunter’s business dealings there.”Hearing her parrot a right-wing talking point was out of the ordinary. My mother doesn’t watch Fox News or any other English-language news. In her 40-plus years living in the United States, she has never voted. Alarmed, I began calling her more often to whack down spurious claims, as if I were playing a carnival game. Sick of my calls, my mother eventually registered to vote for the first time and voted for Mr. Biden.[…]
