Observe, wait, listen: How to bridge our differences in D.C. and in WA

I have no official credentials that qualified me to be in the offices of U.S. Sens. Chuck Grassley and Amy Klobuchar discussing immigration reform the week after the Nov. 5 election. Yet I found a seat at their large oak tables discussing policy. I shared the stories of countless families from Somalia, Sudan, Myanmar, Iraq, Afghanistan, Venezuela and Ukraine who have stayed in my guest bedroom over the past 15 years. My faith motivates me to “welcome the stranger.”

As part of We Choose Welcome, which mobilizes women of faith to build a movement to aid refugees, I went to Washington, D.C., to advocate for sensible bipartisan immigration reform. We made policy requests (protect Dreamers, support the Afghan Adjustment Act, set a floor for refugee admissions). We received non-answers regarding “mass deportation plans.”

The most discouraging conversations came when we asked about policymaking over the next four years: “What is this senator willing to do to work for bipartisan legislative solutions to increase legal pathways for immigration?”

In both Republican and Democratic offices, empty answers reverberated through the halls: “We are ready to work for bipartisan reform. The other side won’t work with us.” How strange to be in the halls of power where there is so much talking and no listening; just echoes that lead to injustice.

As I confessed, I have no experience in politics. My technical credentials are in the field of speech-language therapy. My work as a speech-language therapist confirms that talking can be hard. Listening is harder. Over the years, children, families and colleagues have taught me there is no such thing as a language “disability”; there are only people trying to communicate. One pivotal language therapy intervention is to slow people down when communication is hard. Caregivers are coached in the foundational skill of OWLing, which stands for Observe, Wait, Listen. 

I practiced OWLing in Washington, D.C. I witnessed two different worlds. I listened to the impotent conversations of practiced politicians, in contrast with my observation that unlikely bedfellows of entrepreneurs, people of faith and security officers are all working to advocate on behalf of immigrants and refugees. 

Together, we wait to see the waves of devastation from anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy. To find solutions, we must listen well. As I teach caregivers, “It takes two to talk.” This is our civic responsibility. I am certain that inaction, lack of consensus-building and inability to listen to “the other side” contributed to the election’s outcome. Tragically, the new administration promises action and power without compromise. 

I am not confident that the senators will be moved to action by my stories of compassionate welcome or the thousands of other stories of ordinary people working for flourishing communities. If one is unpracticed in listening, these stories can go only so far toward policy change. It becomes our job, as ordinary citizens, to practice OWLing in our own contexts to nurture a culture of democracy in our neighborhoods.

We Choose Welcome offers this advocacy practice when listening to someone with whom you disagree: Ask them to tell you their perspective on an issue. Listen deeply and well. Retell what they have told you with such integrity that they reflect back, “Yes, you have heard me well. That is what I think.” Deep listening will point toward common ground. Our work as neighbors is to find unlikely bedfellows, with whom we may have little in common save our shared commitment.

We must remind our leaders of these basics. As systems and structures break down over the next four years, much will be required of ordinary people. My OWLing tells me there are many invested in helping our immigrant neighbors flourish, and they are not necessarily working in halls of power. May we cultivate the soil from which healthy conversations around flourishing and love of neighbor can grow.