Fear and Welcoming our Immigrant Neighbors

I've been following immigration reform closely this past year...and have felt both great disappointment and hope. Immigration reform is as much of a political issue to me as a theological/sociological/personal "issue" (issue doesn't seem to be the best word, but we'll keep it there for now). Politics, by its very nature affects people, but immigration policy seems like an even more people-related political issue than others that we see in the newspaper. Immigration policy has a million stories and faces -- sometimes these are well presented in DC, and others times they are not. I'm hopeful when I see the former but angry about the latter.

It is easy to paint the derogatory comments about immigration reform or the obnoxious statements by politicians as simply ignorant or hateful, but I think the better word to describe it is fear. Fear of the unkonwn, fear of a different language, fear of a different culture that expresses itself in dynamically different ways.

As my sociology professor at Gordon told us, the root of prejudice and discrimination is fear of difference. 

Social psychologist Christena Cleveland recently published a book called "Disunity in Christ: Uncovering the Hidden Forces that Keep us Apart". Cleveland is a scholar with experience bridging divides within the church and the focus of the book is helping us to know where our divisions come from and how we can proactively seek greater unity. A lot of her research proves some basic points that we already assume (like "birds of a feather flock together" logic), but she digs deeper and helps us (me) see the divisions that exist within our communities and how they are so easily perpetuated, even unintentionally.

In one of her chapters, Cleveland addresses the tensions we often feel when we are with those of a different culture than our own:

Why do cultural threats trigger such strong reactions from us? We'll look at three causes in particular. First, cultural threats increase ambiguity, which is unfortunate because we hate ambiguity. Second, cultural threats can confuse us, especially when they are caused by people who are supposed to be members of our group. Third, cultural threats are threatening because we fear negative consequences more than we seek positive outcomes. (126-7)

Ambiguity, confusion, and potential negative consequences cause us to flee from difference or to disengage from others who may speak a different language, embody different cultural values, etc. I think I can make the jump and say that within those three causes, fear is the underlying cause: fear of ambiguity (it's nice to know what's going on), fear of confusion, and fear of the future and the risks we have to take that may not turn out.

If you know me, or have read even a couple of my blog posts, you know that fear is not absent in my life (let's be honest: I just wrote about how hard being brave is).

And, yet,

I am confident that this fear is something we must fight earnestly against because it keeps us away from experiencing human relationships and experiences that will shatter our preconceived notions and move us in ways that we once thought unfathomable. Yes, that's a dramatic statement, but I totally believe it. I believe it because I have seen glimpses of bridging barriers between people of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds and it feels like standing on sacred ground.

For all of these reasons, immigration reform is essential. I believe that the biggest barriers that are blocking its passage stem from fear. I won't demonize this fear: I can empathize with fear and know that there are risks that are hard to take. However, I believe that if we let this fear set us back from embracing and loving our community, we will miss out on one of the most powerful expressions of love, hospitality, reconciliation, forgiveness, hope, and peace.

We just can't miss out.

I could tell you stories: stories about me, forced out of my comfort zone, conversing in a different language, confusing past tense/imperfect tenses, playing soccer, making prestiños, eating salsa that almost set my mouth on fire... In each of those places, in each of those homes or parks or wherever, I have been blessed abundantly, been taught patiently, and been humbled -- sometimes to a point of tears.

There has been freedom for me in embracing ambiguity and confusion and fear of negative outcomes, like Cleveland discusses. I'm not inclined to the ambiguity or the confusion, but there's something that beckons me to it and I know I have to keep following that path. I have much to learn in each of those areas (I'm a first born! You can imagine how against my nature ambiguity is!), and I'm thankful that the learning curve is wide enough for me, for us.

Jean Bethke Elshtain 1941-2013

photo courtesy of Chicago Tribune

Considering the fact that I have a rather small blog following (but I love the 10 of you consistent readers!! Thank you for reading!), I'm assuming that of those 10 readers, none have heard of this woman named Jean Bethke Elshtain before. She passed away earlier this week and I wanted to write about her because she had an impact on my studies in Political Science. And a year after graduating, I realize how much I miss reading her work, among others. It still blows my mind a little that I grew to love political theory (well, it's more of a love-hate relationship ...loving the class discussions, hating writing long papers), and she was one of those thinkers who helped me write papers and ask good questions in class.

She wrote about pluralism. She wrote about gender. She wrote about the common good. She wrote about politics and ethics and so many important things in a way that kept political theory sort of "grounded"...what I mean by that is you can easily make political theory something so distant from reality, or you can think about political theory in the ways it touches all aspects of our social order. Elshtain went with the latter which is probably why I liked her so much. She was also easier to read than Plato, but equally brilliant. 

One of the last papers I wrote in college was for my "Justice" class, taught by one of my favorite professors who always encouraged me to read Elshtain for my papers. In the paper I used some of her works such as Public Man Private Woman, which challenged the idolatry of reason and hte separation between the public and private spheres -- as well as men's isolation to the public and women's isolation to the private

Thinking about her work, and now her death, I realize that good thinkers pass away. That's a strange thought, but I wonder what was on her computer before she passed away -- what was she writing about that she didn't get to finish? 

Thinking about her death also makes me nostalgic for college days. But in reflecting on some of what I learned from Dr. Elshtain, I am encouraged to keep thinking, to keep asking the questions and writing the papers, and challenging the assumptions of society. It means I must always be a student in some capacity, and I really like that. 

justice // justicia

Justice is a complex word for me. It feels sacred and seeing it all over Facebook and online news sources these past few days has left me feeling a little bit empty and sad...and I'm still trying to understand why.

I was first rocked by this word in Costa Rica, when I learned that the Spanish translation of righteousness and justice is the same - justicia. While in English we have both "righteousness" and "justice"; in Spanish, there is only "justicia." That was huge for me. I believe righteousness and justice are both holy and important words, but I usually associated righteousness in a more individual sense, and justice was more all-encompassing.

Justice got bigger for me, right then and there, with that big 'ole Spanish/English Bible in the beautiful country of Costa Rica.

And the questions? They got bigger too. What does justice require of me? Who am I in the midst of a very unjust and broken world? How do I perpetuate systems of injustice? How do I participate in the pursuit of justice?

The word justice was imbedded in my Poli Sci major, actually it's probably one of the reasons my mind was drawn to that department as a freshman. I learned that the task of the state, the task of government is to do justice. I had never thought of politics that way before, that government serves a very important purpose in every person's life (the questions and controversies over limited government versus larger government can stay at bay for right now). Like all parts of life, government is a broken institution, but is in the process of being redeemed. My professors taught me to study government with a hopeful mind searching for justice and truth within political systems. Maybe that seems impossible at times, (I certainly went through periods of disillusionment with the idea that political systems could be effective participants in the pursuit of justice) but I still hold to that important truth and don't want to lose sight of it.

My last semester in college I took a class specifically called "Justice." We read excerpts from John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx, John Rawls and Reinhold Niebuhr. We had conversations about justice and the public good, about liberation theology and utilitarianism, about how fairness and equality relate to justice. I loved that class and learned so much in it. I learned that understanding and pursuing justice requires our minds and hearts. It was a class where the experiences I had in Costa Rica came to life through philosophical writings, and where philosophers' work seemed so relevant to the issues of everyday life.

I will spend the rest of my life trying to understand what justice is, and what it means to me and to the communities I am a part of. Justice is complex, it is deep, it requires all of us. This is what I know to be true.

Because this word carries much weight with me, I am saddened by headlines that say: "Justice for Boston!" when a man who killed and injured many innocent people is caught. I certainly believe in fair trials and the judiciary system where evil is destroyed and the good wins.

But justice is so much bigger than this, bigger than what happened when a man was captured in Boston. Justice is shalom -- flourishing. The state is a part of this, communities and churches are a part of this, we are a part of this. If I pray for justice for the city of Boston, I don't want it to look like what I see on the news. I want it to encompass more than capturing one person who committed an evil and horrific act. I want it to encompass healing the broken neighborhoods, feeding the starving communities, giving hope to the hopeless individuals on the T every morning, freeing women caught in sex trafficking, exhibiting mercy to the immigrants who lack legal status and are abused every day in their workplaces.

I want justicia, the word that first shocked me with how big and unfamiliar it was, that transformed the way I thought about Jesus and the gospel, that changed the way I see the world. I want justice for the city of Boston, for my home city of Santa Barbara, for the whole world. And I am so grateful that justice can't be captured in news headlines or Facebook statuses, because it is a thousand times greater than what the media can capture.

¡Ya se te ha declarado lo que es bueno!

Ya se te ha dicho lo que de ti espera el Señor: 

Practicar la justicia, amar la misericordia, y humillarte ante tu Dios

Miqueas 6:8

//

He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? 

To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God

Micah 6:8

You are dearly missed, Dr. Lumsdaine

I love words. But right now I'm sitting and wishing for words to express all that I want them to -- words to express thanks, words to express sadness, and words to express how wonderful a person was -- and will always be.

My beloved professor, Dr. Lumsdaine, passed away this morning. I remember Dr. Lumsdaine for many things -- he was quirky and funny in class, he often came in to the classroom looking a bit disheveled and about 5 minutes after class was supposed to start. His lectures often went way over my head (because he was perhaps one of the most brilliant people I have ever met. Studying math, then economics, then international affairs is part of that reason). But Dr. Lumsdaine's head wasn't just in the books, his head and heart were given freely to his students. Every syllabus invited student conversation beyond the classroom for his office hours. Dr. Lumsdaine's office hours were different than most professors. He invited students to come to Gillies (a lounge in our student center) and would be there often times way beyond his time slot (I know he was sometimes there until midnight talking with a student). He looked at me in the eyes and told me that he cared about me and was always willing to talk more -- about anything from Latin American politics and American foreign policy to his life and faith. He asked students to call him "Dr. D" and to think of him as more than just a professor, but a brother in Christ. I remember him telling me that he felt he had a unique gift to be a mentor to students -- I know he lived that out in every way.


His death came too soon. There are too many more students who needed to hear his voice, who needed to hear the way he said "welllllll..." and "mmmmhmmmmmmmm", who would have learned about international relations and diplomacy and a God who loves and works amidst these broken systems. There are too many more students who needed his listening ears and his compassion and generosity. There are many more seniors who needed to hear him humming a song or hymn as he walked with the faculty out of our Baccalaureate service. More people who needed to read excerpts from his book Moral Vision in International Politics and tell them that the book mattered to them personally, like it did to me.

When I was given the opportunity to speak at our Baccalaureate service, it was a gift to me because it gave me the opportunity to express (although inadequately) the impact of my college experience. Professors were one of the biggest impacts, and Dr. D was one of them:

I fell in love with a process of learning where I am able to ask the hard questions to people who don’t run away from me, but embrace me in their office with an open chair, a crowded bookshelf, piles of papers, and sincere ears to listen.

Dr. D was one of these professors who eagerly listened to the hard questions, embraced a stressed-out and confused 21 year old who was trying to connect the dots after a semester abroad. And he again listened to her during her last semester of college, and again as she prepared to go home to California.

I regret that I didn't get to send him the proper thank you he deserved. The best thank you I think I gave him (surely insufficient, but nonetheless, something to show that his work was meaningful to me), was a reflection I wrote in the room I shared with my host sister Barbara in San Jose de la Montaña, Costa Rica during my study abroad experience as I was processing books and conversations and a hundred questions spinning in my head. The reason I wrote this reflection was because I was thinking about an excerpt from Dr. D's book on international politics, specifically foreign aid. I was pretty depressed thinking about world affairs and country interactions and felt pretty hopeless. Then I came across these words Dr. D wrote in the conclusion of his book:

It is by a life of love, of community, of reaching out to others whether we find them useful or attractive or not, that we come to open our hearts to what it truly means for us to be human. We are not very good at doing it; but, as with every task which requires inspiration, we can but work away at what we can do while we wait and hope. We cannot command our human destiny, but perhaps events will turn out graciously for us if, aware of our weakness and limitations, we set our sights on what is good” (293)

This excerpt deserves more context, and I apologize that I can't flesh that out better here, but I can tell you what I took away from this, and why I thanked him for these words. I wrote:

I’m a Political Science major – and maybe that will at times come in conflict with Christian principles as my host father told me in Nicaragua. But I’m hoping that Dr. Lumsdaine is right: that politics doesn’t have to be all lies and corruption – that moral vision does make a difference and doing what is right can actually be in the “best interest” of a nation. Getting that passed in the house of congress or the Supreme Court might be a different story and a high task, but it’s worth fighting for. It may be idealist, opportunistic, romantic – but if it’s what is right, I need to fight for it, no matter what the cost. 

I was encouraged when I read his words and they gave me a glimmer of hope as I was sitting in a foreign country wondering if seeking the good of others didn't have to be trumped by power and greed. I was encouraged by a political scientist and expert in international diplomacy who believed in the Good, who believed in a God who is The ultimate good and that this goodness can impact the world around us.

Dr. D, you are missed. I look forward to the day when I hear you sing again and read your brilliant writing and hear your stories and political ideas. Until then, I know I'm blessed to have been your student and I hope to live out, however small or big, your compassion and love for politics and people.

Goodbye Election Shenanigans (for now)

November 4th came...and went. And I am so thankful for that fact.

I have had some really good conversations about the election, the issues most commonly discussed, and the candidates themselves. I have also read many disheartening commentaries and comments from people that have made me frustrated and sad. Unfortunately I think election season can bring out the worst in us...but hopefully the future will prove that wrong (I'm really, really hoping).

I graduated from college with a degree in Political Science. It's funny the reaction many people (and for good reason) give me when they hear this. They think I must be super excited about the election, about American political dynamics, what the candidates said in the debates, etc. etc. And all of this is somewhat true -- I did watch the debates (and live tweeted too!), I am interested in political dynamics and what candidates are saying and doing. However, being a political science major made me want more from political discussion -- and that "something more" continues to be absent in the political discussions I read about in the newspapers and on BBC.com.

In my Poli Sci classes we talked about the state and society -- what is the purpose of government? of social structures? of communities, organizations, families, schools? How do these different entities fit together? How do they support each other/relate to one another? We talked about the public good, about justice -- and how the the state, organizations, and families should seek to pursue justice in their respective capacities (and those pursuits will look different from one another).

When my aunt visited my family after my sophomore year in college, she asked me what I had learned in college so far and I said something along the lines of "life is complex" -- and studying politics was one of the most vivid example of that to me. I have taken classes emphasizing the importance of free trade, listened to Latin Americas who have been abused by unfair fair-trade policies, and interned at a think tank that strongly emphasized private markets in the healthcare sector. And I see truth in these varying view points: truth in the purpose of the market, but truth in its abuse and the heartbreaking reality that people do suffer when the market is abused or misused.

But when I open the newspaper to read about political discussions happening, we're avoiding the complexity -- we're not talking about justice and fairness, but instead individualism versus conservatism. It's pro-market or pro-government, which is robbing both the government and the market of their important role in society. When we talk about complex issues like immigration, taxes, education reform, health care policy, the solutions involve more than a "left" or "right" answer. When we talk about fiscal responsibility, we have to move beyond simply taxes and welfare programs and look at the broader purposes of government and social structures -- and how the two ought to interact. When we talk about winning the women vote, we cannot just focus on abortion rights but must consider gender discrimination and the public sector which still does not adequately reflect women voices (but yay for the now 20 women senators voted into office! we're getting there!). When we talk about welfare programs, we have to think about the individual, social, and global causes of poverty and what role government and other social structures should play. When we talk about immigration, we have to move beyond the "legal versus illegal" categories.

Those are the conversations I want to be having. Those are the conversations I want to read about and engage with people who disagree and agree with my thoughts. And perhaps if our conversations were about justice and fairness in the political arena, more people would engage instead of labeling politics as "so above their head." Politics is about people -- and while I know it's complex and difficult to understand, our shared humanity should prompt all of us to engage in political conversations -- and hopefully elevate them to a higher level instead of the right versus left that plagues the newspaper pages.

I chose to study political science because I was fascinated by the dynamic of government, social insititutions, and individuals -- and how this can function together under God's sovereignty. I didn't choose to study politics because I love politicians or have the Constitution memorized. I chose to study politics because political systems have profound implications in all areas of life -- in a very, very complicated way :) I hope that more people will join that conversation with me -- more business-minded people who can talk about economic justice and business practices that are fair and right. I hope more social workers join the conversation and talk about poverty and how welfare programs can be supported by government effectively. I hope more teachers enter the conversation and voice their ideas about education funding, wages, and access to resources.

And I hope we're willing to listen -- really listen -- to what they have to say. It's easy for me to jump on someone whom I know I won't agree with (especially when it comes to an issue I'm particularly passionate about) and then I stop listening to their argument. But I hope that if we elevate the conversation to talk about the complexity of these issues -- and listen to each other tell the other about the complicated and messy problems they find themselves facing in their fields -- hopefully we can listen better and work towards comprehensive solutions. I definitely need help in this listening arena.

I'm hoping for those conversations to come sooner rather than later (And there are some AWESOME blogs out there that do host these conversations and I'm really, really grateful for them! Check these articles out to know what I'm talking about: "Establish Justice: Reflections on the 2012 Election" by Hilary Sherratt, "When Issues Don't Fit Into Labels" by Melissa Steffan, "Immigration Debated, Not Much Said" by Danielle Huntley, "Questions on Christians and Politics" by Stephanie Summers)