Transforming, Making Connections, Improving Lives

Why does A Christmas Carol prompt me to cry? I know the story; I’ve seen it many times, in various formats. So, as I sat at the Guthrie Theater a few weeks ago, I asked myself: Why do tears drip down my face?

Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly misanthrope at the beginning of the play, receives in a dream insight from his departed business partner and three spirits, with the result that he sees the world through a different lens. He transforms himself. He realizes the good that existed right before his eyes, in plain sight, to which he had blinded himself.

Perhaps it’s the wonder of witnessing transformation, coupled with hope that such transformation can last forever. Doesn’t such optimism, even in the face of great challenge, establish a basis for what we do at Wilder Research and at other community-serving organizations as we endeavor to improve our communities?

Scrooge enquires of the spirit who foretells the future: “Are these the shadows of the things that will be, or are they shadows of things that may be, only?” The ensuing plot provides a message of hope: Individuals can change; by implication, social systems can change. But such change requires deliberate and concerted effort. Charles Dickens’ allegorical appeal for justice for all applies as much today as it did in 1842.

Simple actions – an attitude change, a charitable act, a social greeting that leads to a new relationship – can be powerful and transformative.

A few days ago, I spoke with a white police officer as he escorted a group of African-American young people around the Science Museum in Saint Paul. He said he likes to do this for two reasons. First, it gives these young people a worthwhile learning opportunity outside of school. Second, he wants to promote connections between young people and the police – connections which can develop deeply and solidly only if the two groups mix with each other in informal, social settings. He feels that black lives do matter, and to that end, he strives to build relationships.

Creating a better quality of life for all requires one-to-one interaction – parents nurturing children, neighbors supporting neighbors, public officials experiencing the life conditions of their constituents; it also requires collective action – our communities’ leaders, residents, organizations from all sectors joining in pursuit of a common vision, mindful of our shared humanity and common destiny. Dickens emphatically reinforces the necessity to see one another as fellow travelers on planet earth.

So, as we conclude the end-of-year holiday season, celebrate the new year, and move into 2017, my advice: Make a New Year’s resolution to reach out – both to those you know and to those you want to know or ought to know. Forge the one-on-one connections and the organizational connections necessary to build strong communities. If Scrooge could make the leap, we all can.

Happy New Year!

Immigration, Communities, Foundations

All communities experience immigration. No question whether it will occur, just when and how much. Some of us arrived as immigrants ourselves to a new nation; the rest of us descended from ancestors who came from somewhere else, to settle in a land still pristine or already inhabited.

Political events, economics, wars, environmental changes, and other events cause people to move, voluntarily and involuntarily. Worldwide trends suggest that immigration will continue on a major scale, with implications for nations and for their constituent regions and communities. Since 1990, the immigrant population in the United States has doubled; in Minnesota during that same period, the immigrant population quadrupled.

Speaking for Ourselves study

Using newly gathered information from the Wilder Research “Speaking for Ourselves” study, in combination with data from Minnesota Compass, Nicole MartinRogers, Ryan Evans, and I contributed an article to The FoundationReview to offer foundations around the world a bit of insight in deciding how best to partner with immigrant-led and immigrant-serving organizations. We sought to identify some of the benefits and the challenges that immigration brings to communities.

This research can help support foundations and their grantees to understand how to improve a community’s quality of life for immigrants and refugees – to the benefit of all residents. By understanding demographic trends and cultural nuances, organizations can increase awareness, access, and trust among immigrants and refugees, and can influence public policy.

“Speaking for Ourselves” is a community-based effort that looked at the experiences of Hmong, Karen, Latino, Liberian, and Somali immigrants and refugees living in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul region of Minnesota. We collaborated with an advisory group for the study, comprised of individuals from these five cultural communities as well as professionals in organizations of many types that serve immigrants and refugees.

The results of the research suggest focal points for foundation grantmaking, for example: support for secondary refugees; early childhood education; postsecondary education and employment training; long-term care planning; and capacity building.

Tips for foundations working with immigrant populations

But perhaps more importantly, the research suggests attributes of an effective style for foundations to work with immigrant populations. We made three recommendations in this regard.

First, foundations, along with any other organizations intending to provide resources to immigrant communities, should take a balanced approach. They should consider needs as well as strengths. Funders should determine whether an immigrant community itself considers something a need, and if so, they should explore together whether that community’s cultural assets and other resilience factors might constitute part of an optimal solution in the eyes of both the funders and the community.

Second, funders should work with immigrant communities in an authentically collaborative manner – ensuring that the presumed beneficiaries of an initiative actually participate in defining the benefits. We encourage a judicious start to any new initiative within a cultural community, with full appreciation of the time and resources necessary to cultivate community engagement and collaboration. Flexibility, willingness to revise plans and start over, and openness to working jointly constitute characteristics of successful efforts.

Third, funders should beware of providing funding to organizations unless those organizations have made a special effort to understand and respond to the specific needs and preferences of the cultural communities they seek to serve. Funders should insist that potential grantees enlist the participation of cultural communities in the design of proposed programs, including collaboration in the adaptation of existing program models to fit a new context. Attempts to adapt an existing program to fit different cultural communities should consider language (oral, written, both formal and casual), values, customs, and the suitability of the program’s goals and methods, along with other features that affect the transferability of the program from one culture to another.

Some insights useful for all of us who want to strengthen our communities, regardless of whether or not we do grantmaking.

The Clown vs. The Liar

That’s how my almost 90-year-old mother characterized her 2016 Presidential voting options. After attaining voting age in 1948, she cast her first vote for Harry S. Truman. Knowing that she might not live until the 2020 election, she laments this year’s choices, feeling that she really does not have a choice.

Her words came to mind as I read statements recently by two African-American women of the millennial generation, one who described her decision about the major party candidates for President as the process of choosing between a racist and a liar, and the other who described the prospect of casting a vote in the upcoming election as the choice between “being stabbed and being shot.”

Those comments, from an old white woman and two young black women, illustrate the cynicism and frustration of voters. Surveys reveal that close to two-thirds of potential voters do not “trust” either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.

Meanwhile, disenchantment among Americans about their government runs deep. A 2015 analysis of surveys of the United States public by the Pew Research Center showed that, “Currently, just 19% say they can trust the government always or most of the time, among the lowest levels in the past half-century. Only 20% would describe government programs as being well-run.”

Three ways to build

We owe it to ourselves and future generations to enable voters to feel that they have many good choices, and that they have sound information and understanding to make the best choice. To that end, three types of “building” seem worthwhile.

Build processes to inform the electorate. Provide individuals with the information and tools they need to make informed decisions. While the news media might like to focus on attention-grabbing topics such as Donald’s obsession with President Obama’s nativity, or Hillary’s characterization of her opponent’s supporters as “deplorables,” other issues of much more significance deserve intense consideration: child care; education; poverty; public safety; and the list goes on.

Voters deserve objective, understandable information on such issues. At Wilder Research we strive to provide this, by documenting and interpreting community trends through Minnesota Compass, for example, and by conducting research to shed light on which programs and policies actually work to improve the quality of life.

Build multi-partisan collaboration. Political parties serve a valuable purpose. However, if allegiance to a party (or to oneself) becomes overly rigid, partisanship becomes counterproductive. As one researcher who studies political polarization noted, problems arise not when political parties disagree, but when the disagreement devolves into “partisan warfare” in which “combatants question the motives, integrity, and patriotism of their opponents.” Unfortunately, we see a lot of that today – from both of the major parties.

We need leaders, from local to national levels, who have a commitment to fixing problems and to working with partners of all political persuasions, not just their own, to move our communities forward. At Wilder Research, we attempt to foster such collaboration by engaging people with varied perspectives in the design of our major initiatives. In that way, we build ownership across political lines to nurture jointly-crafted understanding and problem solving on significant community issues.

Build good leaders in all parties. Integrity and competence do not have just one party label. Regardless of our own political leanings, we should champion the development of skills among candidates in all parties and thus create a body of legislators who will engage in robust consideration of issues, just the way that the creators of our democracy intended, and then make decisions and move forward in a positive spirit of compromise. Many such elected public officials now sit in our executive and legislative branches; we need more of them.

Senseless Killing, but Hope Exists

Philando Castile, driving with two passengers, including a four-year-old child, is shot during a police traffic stop. He dies. It’s senseless.

What can we do about this? How can we prevent it from happening again?

In 2013, when police in the United States committed 461 “justifiable homicides,” police officers in England and Wales killed exactly zero people. Do we in the United States have violent tendencies so much worse than residents of England, so that shooting us becomes necessary in order to maintain the peace?

In the Falcon Heights, Minnesota incident, the police officer seems like an upstanding community member, dedicated to helping others. He likely did not go to work expecting or intending to kill someone. Did sufficient information exist in that officer’s mind to justify a split-second decision to fire a gun at another human being? Whether or not the facts of this situation justified a killing by the police is not the most important question we need to answer. We could misguidedly expend a lot of energy addressing that question, but our efforts would not have long lasting value.

I can’t pretend to know everything we need to accomplish in order to move forward as a united community. However, as of now, I am fairly certain about three things we should do.

First, we should ask why our culture promotes the use of guns – by police and by civilians – for resolving conflicts. Why should the police ever shoot an unarmed person? If the Ferguson event happened in London, the police officer would most likely have waited for backup and then physically restrained the unarmed suspect. Here, we shoot people. Why? Can we change the accepted protocol?

Second, what really does happen in encounters between police and community residents? We should find out. We lack good information about this, although we hear many claims, some based on sound evidence, some not. Little research exists. Results may surprise us. For example, a very good recent study produced unexpected results: “A new study confirms that black men and women are treated differently in the hands of law enforcement. They are more likely to be touched, handcuffed, pushed to the ground or pepper sprayed by a police officer, even after accounting for how, where and when they encounter the police. But when it comes to the most lethal form of force — police shootings — the study finds no racial bias.” We need the facts as a foundation for discussion, decisions, and action.

Third, the solution of problems related to race and violence will require us to engage in one-on-one respectful treatment of our fellow human beings, to overcome deeply embedded elements of our culture. As Melvin Carter, Executive Director of the Minnesota Children’s Cabinet recently wrote, we need to keep “our eyes and our hearts open to seeing one another’s humanity”.

A picture and related story in the Washington Post brought Melvin’s words to mind. Many observers expected riots in Cleveland. Instead, in at least one significant instance, they found a block party. Black Lives and Blue Lives joined one another. People with differing political views danced together. As one dancing Cleveland resident said, “Stop all the white against black, black against white. It’s all about love. This is what Cleveland is about. This is what the world should be about.”

I hope that, in the coming months, we identify a means for Wilder Research to address this issue and assist in moving our community forward. Our community needs to collaborate to build a common framework and take real action. In the meanwhile, we must acknowledge that we won’t achieve our dream of an equitable society unless and until we accept one another, interacting in genuine kinship with others who differ from us on the surface, but who underneath share the same dreams, the same desire to build a just world for themselves, their children, and for all human beings.

"Speaking for Ourselves" - Collaborative Research with, for, and about New Arrivals

All large communities experience the arrival of new people. Sometimes the newcomers arrive from nearby; sometimes they arrive from afar. Sometimes newcomers and longer-term residents have similar languages, customs, and cultures; other times, they differ, at least on the surface. The constant blending of people from different places constitutes a regular aspect of life in most parts of our globalized, modern world.

In Minnesota in the 2010s, the migration of people into the state is not just something that happens to occur. It’s something that needs to occur. In 2013, the Minnesota State Demographic Center indicated that “greater numbers of migrants, both domestic and international, will be necessary to meet our state’s workforce needs and to buttress economic activity.”

Here in Minnesota, we have the opportunity to welcome newcomers and to maintain a high quality of life for all residents, new and long-term. To accomplish that effectively requires that we learn what’s working for our new arrivals, along with what issues and challenges they face.

For that reason, Wilder Research carried out a major study – Speaking for Ourselves – to focus attention on foreign-born people who have settled in Minnesota’s Twin Cities region. We wanted to learn about their lives – their families, education, jobs, health, and engagement in their communities.

The findings confirm some notions and challenge others. You can find easy-to-read summary reports on our website. For most topics, the research reveals a blend of positives and negatives. For example:

Health. About three-quarters of those who participated in the survey consider their health “excellent,” “very good,” or “good.” However, these ratings fall slightly lower than the health self-ratings of other Minnesotans. Health care, employment assistance, housing, and food assistance were all identified as helpful resources. Yet lack of health insurance, cost of health care, and cost of insurance create barriers to obtaining needed health care – despite federal and state initiatives intended to make health care more accessible.

Education. Parental encouragement helps to keep children in school, and about three-quarters of survey participants feel “fully able” to provide a home environment good for studying. On the other hand, only about one-quarter feel “fully able” to help their children with homework in English. Nearly all believe their children will go to college, but about three-quarters consider financial issues a barrier to obtaining post-secondary education.

Connections to mainstream institutions. Almost all of the immigrants and refugees who participated in Speaking for Ourselves had heard about or visited a public library. However, large proportions had not heard about or visited some major cultural institutions, such as the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Minnesota History Center, and the Minnesota Children’s Museum.

Civic and social participation. Survey respondents frequently offer assistance to neighbors, family, and friends. Yet, they tend not to volunteer their time in formal volunteer programs.

Those few findings illustrate the social assets existing among immigrants to our region; they also illustrate some of the challenges immigrants face. It is important to consider both the needs of these newcomers as well as the assets and resilience factors they possess, and to engage with these newcomers about their experiences and preferences, as we discuss and decide on programs and public policies to meet their needs.

A hopeful sign: organizations in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul region, as well as members of immigrant groups themselves, have begun to follow up on the study’s findings. Anna Bartholomay’s blog highlights some of this activity, as does one of the study reports. Cultural institutions who have had some successes in attracting visitors and recruiting volunteers from immigrant communities have embraced the study’s findings to formulate new plans of action to increase their appeal to, and relevance for, the region’s newest arrivals.

Our work on this study involved representatives of immigrant groups as partners, as well as representatives of some government and nonprofit organizations. This collaboration produced relevant and important findings useful for improving our quality of life in Minnesota, as well as useful for educating other communities around the world.