I come to campus, not to work – I can do that at home.
I come to campus to feel alive. to see the energy of students, to remember being one at that age. to recall moments of the supernatural and the existential and pain and sadness, too.
I come to walk the orderly patterns of brick pathways among the trees of leaves and of needles and to watch the squirrels – hyped up on junkfood remains, darting among trees and trashcans.
I come to campus for College Hall to see its many gables peaking into blue skies, the circular windows atop Magnuson Theatre, where once, guns fired from soldiers in training.
I come to enter the Ad Building to climb the granite steps and open those thick, wooden doors and to enter a sacred space of possibility. To stare at the stairs with their crimson velvet carpet and the ornately carved wooden posts and rails. To view the light subtly knocking on the stained glass windows at the landing, and to hear the hurried voices of students from yesteryear on their way to classes. I come to wonder with the thousands like them, what does the world hold in store for me and where do I belong. I come to feel at home in the questioning of it all.
I come to campus to see St. Al’s, to see the morning light reveal the rose patterns on the windows facing south, and steeples rising, holding high the crosses of hope and love.
I come to campus to embrace it all, to feel alive, refreshed.
I come to campus to wander back to my car and find — again — a parking ticket.
Reflections on the Lesser-quoted refrains of “I Have a Dream”
I’ve had the opportunity to hear the Rev. Happy Watkins (a Black Spokane pastor) deliver portions of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech a few times. Happy pounds and whispers and yells with such emotion, it makes you think for a moment you’re actually seeing Dr. King himself.
But given the length of the original speech, most public presentations of it today are shortened. The pieces we hear are the riveting, driving, passionate portions that swell at the end of King’s longer message. And you know what? We are missing some very important pieces.
Here are a few that caught my attention in listening to his famous speech today.
“This is not the time to cool off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism…”
“Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood – to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.”
“It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of this moment. … This summer of the Negroes legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.”
“Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual.”
That was 1963. Nearly SIXTY years have passed, and it is clear that our nation did exactly what he warned against: took the tranquilizing drug of gradualism (an ideology that suggested perhaps poverty should be address apart from racism, for example); overlooked the urgency of the moment; returned to business as usual.
This is why there is uproar over continued injustice in our country. This is why violence emerges after another story of death of Black person at the hands of a white person in power. We have ignored the warnings that cost King his own life.
We can’t be complacent any more, and we certainly can’t sit by while white supremacists receive empowerment to raise the ugly head of racism to new heights. If we do, we’re complicit in ensuring that the suffering and death of an icon like Dr. Martin Luther King was in vain.
COML 530 | Women, Communication and Leadership 2020 Fall | C. Cunningham | Kate Vanskike
(Image: counter-clockwise from top left. Screenshot of Zoom meeting from the author; the letter C by artist Amber Hoit in Spokane’s Black Lives Mural; an event advertisement by University of San Francisco)
Angela Davis was a member of the Communist party and a Black Panther in the 60s. She was on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. She was arrested and incarcerated for crimes still debated today. She held a longstanding support of the Palestinian struggle in opposition of popular opinion. She was (and likely still is) considered a traitor by many.
Now that we have the obvious objections right up front, let’s move on.
Davis’ invitation to present at Gonzaga University in 2017 drew its own controversy; the university prepared for safety threats, knowing that many people in predominantly conservative communities see her only by the description in the first paragraph. This delighted her: “It’s been a while since I have encountered such controversies,” she exclaimed.
The very next statement out of her mouth was a sincere acknowledgement that the place where we gathered was indigenous land.
Such is the power of leadership. In her first breaths on stage, she made two things abundantly clear: She is comfortable with conflict, and she gives honor where honor is due.
In a crowded ballroom full of academics, Davis told the Gonzaga gathering, “I thought I would begin with a few words about the humanities and hopefully provoke some controversy there as well. In recent years because of obvious weaknesses in scientific education, we’ve developed a tendency to focus on STEM. But without the framework that the humanities can provide, knowledge can be generated in ways that are entirely disconnected from ideas and principles related to the human condition. …Dwindling support of the humanities has helped to create a crisis in democracy.”
Now 74 years old, Davis has been a political activist, philosopher, academic, and author for half a century. A stalwart feminist with an interdisciplinary interest, Davis has woven together many strands of oppression – not just women, but Black women, not just Black women, but poor Black women, not just poor Black women, but poor Black women raising men who are disproportionately incarcerated. Further, Davis acknowledges that her own ideas about addressing equality and rights for Black women focused entirely on those who were literate. “What about women who didn’t have the opportunity to learn?” she questioned. And thus began a study of the Blues as a way to “access the gender and race consciousness of poor women.”
She laid the groundwork for what Kimberlé Crenshaw ultimately labeled intersectionality, now a critical foundation for academic studies of the human experience and society. Davis clarified that when Crenshaw coined the term, she was addressing law specifically, and its inability to recognize the multi-layered experiences of individuals.
Interdisciplinarity, said Davis, is “to look in unexpected places for insights about the problems of our world.” As an example, she never imaging she would engage in anti-prison work so voraciously in her earlier years, but later learned that the knowledge produced by prisoners themselves has been the catalyst for new academic fields.
“The prison itself is an apparatus of racism,” Davis said. “That led many of us to examine how the institution of the prison became a structure that allowed many historical forms of racism not only to survive but to flourish.”
The timing of Davis’ visit to Gonzaga was just under a year into the Trump presidency. Davis reflected on the national women’s march that took place after his inauguration, the development of the Black Lives Matter network, antisemitism efforts, and the accountability of the police. She may not have imagined that those would be same topics she would address three years later, in October 2020, with another Jesuit community of learners, this time hosted by University of San Francisco.
This time, a topic added to that mix was the discussion of abolishing current criminal justice frameworks. “Many of us would never have imagined abolition would become part of a larger discourse,” Davis said via webcast during the COVID-19 pandemic, reflecting on the collision of a deadly virus and the public response to racially motivated police violence. “We would not have been able to take advantage of this moment if people had not been organizing for decades.”
“Sometimes, there emerge historical moments that one would never predict, but if one has not done the work, one would not be able to seize the time.”
In one fell swoop, Davis collected all the lessons of her years researching the most threatening social issues in America – from racism and sexism to poverty and punishment: “There are people who finally want to create a better USA.” “This is about political imagination.” “Citizenship is about community and creating new possibility for freedom.” “We would not be where we are today without the struggles of those who came before us. And therefore, we have a responsibility to those who come after us.”
Davis’ examples of leadership and style of communication have power. She challenges people to examine their beliefs and motives. She inspires us to move from thinking to acting. She reminds us that controversy is critical to our development. She shows us how to face criticism and emerge stronger.
If that isn’t empowered leadership, I don’t know what is.
They’re places we know – individually or collectively – as landmarks in the U.S. civil rights fight of the 1960s. Places where Black Americans put their lives on the line to end segregation and to take small steps toward equality, something their ancestors had envisioned 100 years earlier.
They’re cities I visited in 2017 during a weeklong experience with college students. We walked across that now-famous Selma bridge. We saw the bus Rosa Parks rode. We sat at the kitchen table where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had his midnight epiphany. But we stepped into the future as well. At organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Equal Justice Initiative, we saw the powerful undertakings of lawyers and citizens and students to confront racial injustice in the U.S.
The March Continues, read the t-shirt I bought in the Civil Rights Memorial gift shop. After returning home, I wore it occasionally but soon lost it in a pile of t-shirts reminiscent of other times and places.
Montgomery, Alabama: The top portion of this image shows a mural reflecting the Selma-to-Montgomery march with Dr. King. The bottom portion shows an exhibit at the Equal Justice Initiative: Each jar contains soil gathered at the spot where a Black person was lynched. Those jars fill shelves that line a broad wall in the EJI’s headquarters. Today, a new lynching memorial publicly draws attention to the horrors of racial killings in America.
Spokane.
On a Sunday in May 2020, I found that t-shirt and wore it proudly. I intentionally determined what items to stuff in my jean pockets, prepared for the possibility of pepper spray, and carefully selected where I would park my car for an easy exit. My law-abiding husband reviewed the rights and rules of protesting with me, and then I was out the door to join a friend and a few thousand others protesting in Spokane, Washington, one of many cities where people gathered in response to the murder of George Floyd by a cop in Minneapolis.
We were an eclectic group, marching to the courthouse. I recognized former congress people in the crowd, university leaders, teachers. People wore their face coverings or kept safe from the threat of COVID in their cars, creating a parade through downtown. One feisty older white woman honked and pointed out her window to the sign duct-taped to the side of her car: “White Apathy = Racism.” There were young people and old people, white and Black and other people of color, making up the single most diverse group I have ever seen in Spokane.
We chanted and raised our hands in the air: “Hands up, don’t shoot.” And “I can’t breathe” – the famous last words of George Floyd before he died under the knee of a policeman. “Black Lives Matter” and “Our Lives Matter.” “When you can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.” We knelt in wet grass, facing officers suited up in riot gear, some also kneeling in solidarity.
Protests, marches, and educational gatherings took place in Spokane, Washington, several consecutive weeks in the summer of 2020. A beautiful Black Lives Matter mural – featuring the talents of 16 local artists of color – adorns a downtown building. It was promptly vandalized with red, white, and blue paint.
I’ve never been a protestor. I haven’t even participated in many marches. For someone who cares deeply about justice, the problem is, I haven’t done much to advocate for it. The extent of my care has been reading and learning more about racism and privilege, following local and national organizations working toward change, and trying to raise my teenager to pay attention and help lead the next generation. But to put myself out there in public, where there could be violence … that wasn’t so much my thing.
I admit it – I eventually moved to the sidelines. When people yelled obscenities at the police, I watched cautiously, looking for any clues that the air of the moment might change. Damage and looting would take place by white supremacists later in the evening, but I would watch that unfold on TV at home, in my unsoiled t-shirt.
Across the U.S. & Inside Myself
Through the summer of 2020, racial tensions still flare and demonstrations continue in cities across the nation – some with increased volatility and violence. The killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery have resulted in more white activism than any of the previous racial incidents in the last decade or more. I mean, look at the Wall of Moms in Portland – women locking arms, practically demanding that they take a beating in place of yet another Black person.
There’s speculation as to why we are all of sudden angry enough to join the protest. Is it the impact of COVID-19 and months of quarantine? Is it the 8-minute video we watched of that cop with his knee on the neck of George Floyd until the breath of life was extinguished before our eyes? Is it the cumulative effect of the vitriol spewed from our current commander in chief? Maybe it’s none and all of those things.
Regardless, the top-selling books on national lists are about white privilege, white supremacy, anti-racism, and exposing a racial history many of us never learned. Organizations like the YWCA began hosting 14- or 21-day challenges to provide people with daily activities to engage more in the conversation and the learning. In Spokane, there were educational and informative rallies in public spaces over several consecutive weeks. The lessons of widespread racism inherent in our nation’s systems of economics, justice and education (among others) are louder and clearer than ever before. Even mainstream churches that typically steer clear of anything remotely political from the pulpit are now examining what their faith calls them to believe and do. White pastors are gathering with Black pastors and asking questions, sharing ideas, coming to terms with just how segregated the church has been.
I’ve been chewing on it all. The articles, documentaries, podcasts, conversations. I’ve also finally engaged with white friends and family who don’t have the same opinions, and this is admittedly hard. But I continually hear the admonishment of people I respect who are far more acquainted with these tough conversations, people like Raymond Reyes, an educator and champion of diversity, equity and inclusion, who calls this work “productive discomfort.” In talking about race, the discomfort is guaranteed: How we choose to deal with it determines whether it’s productive.
I want it to be productive. I want to ask questions and make comments that call others to share how they came to a certain understanding or why they believe what they posted or shared is true. I want to foster a healthy dialogue that pushes politics out of the way and gets at the heart.
Ah, the heart. It can be such a fickle thing sometimes. We must also tackle what’s in our heads. What has formed our thoughts and opinions? What did we once learn that now we have to unlearn?
This is where it gets personal for me. Wobbly and confusing and emotional and personal to the core.
Perry.
I have great stories of growing up in a small Missouri town during the 1970s and 80s. It was idyllic in a way – a place where kids played in the streets and parents never worried where they were, and we left our houses and our churches unlocked. When I speak of childhood memories, it has always been with fondness. But …
Me. Just a small-town girl.
I had been oblivious to the inherent racism. I had no understanding that Black students generally were expected (or at least assumed) to be good athletes, and I wonder now: Was that because it may have been considered their primary opportunity to excel, despite also doing well academically? In our friendly town, neighborliness was a staple, but clearly meant for whites only. There were no Blacks from Perry in my county-wide high school; they lived in one of the other two towns, and they knew that Perry once had an ordinance forbidding “colored people” from staying after dark – what we refer to today as a Sundown Town. One of my brothers recalls how a Black friend was scared to come to our home for fear of staying too late, because that old ordinance* had never been forgotten. During the development of the local lake, several St. Louis families purchased homes in this cute little rural setting as a get-away from the city. I distinctly recall hearing someone say that the lone Black urban couple wouldn’t last one year in Perry. That proved to be true.
St. Louis, Compton Heights
From Perry with its 710 white people and one adopted Hawaiian, I spent the summer of 1991 in an inner-city section of St. Louis where, one block away from a perfectly manicured boulevard of stately old homes was “the hood.” In Compton Heights, there were rows of brick apartment buildings, every-other one with boarded up windows and spray-painted graffiti. The residents were 100% Black and 100% poor. Mothers sat on the concrete porches and their children kept cool playing in the spray of a fire hydrant. We offered to take their children to the church to play and have snacks, and they gladly let us walk away with their kids. Sometimes we visited with mothers inside their hot apartments, and choked back the sights and smells of abject poverty. This was my first up-close and in-depth encounter with a Black community, and now I ask myself:
How did that shape my racial views as a teenager and into adulthood?
A couple of years later, I had the fortunate experience of living for a summer in the Philippines, in a remote barrio where I was the only white person present and the only white many of the local residents had ever seen. The following summer, I lived in Chad, West Africa, and while I was by no means the only or first white to be seen, there was a distinct mistrust of whites (specifically, anyone who could be mistaken as French). These were fortuitous experiences that helped me – without me even recognizing it – to reshape race in my head.
North Idaho.
After moving across the country to the Inland Northwest in 1998, I married a proud redneck (his term) and relocated with him to North Idaho. I had no understanding the history of Aryan Nations prevalence there; the name Richard Butler meant nothing to me. But there I was, living again in a predominantly – and proudly – white community, one year after Butler’s final white supremacy parade took place and his compound shut down.
The family I married into had relocated to North Idaho from Southern California, in part because of racial mixing that occurred when schools began bussing in members of communities that had been segregated. I was in the car when my father-in-law pulled into a turning lane to get out of traffic for the express purpose of demoralizing a person of color very publicly. I was horrified. That traffic incident still haunts me today, not only because of what I witnessed but because I never felt safe enough to speak up or to question this behavior. It further reviles me to know how racism seeped into (or out of?) me; on one occasion in my professional setting, I uttered a slur related to people of the Jewish faith. Gratefully, a colleague called me out on it.
As soon as I divorced and returned to Washington, I felt as though I needed a cleansing – not just from the influences of North Idaho, but, I realized over time, a mental, social and spiritual purification from ALL experiences that contributed toward my implicit biases.
Inside.
The greatest work to take place in me along those lines has been fostered by intelligent and thoughtful people who are educators by trade and by practice. They challenge and push and inspire, they offer guidance, and they demand personal accountability, which is admittedly painful.
Being the named party in a bias report was the most devastating experience in my 20-year career as a writer and editor. But … as I am still exploring the various manifestations of white privilege, I’m learning to accept the fact that I am white and that I publish a publication reaching 50,000 homes indeed carries an influence others may never have.
And who am I, anyway, that I should deserve to have more influence than them?
Also – true confession – I rewrote this section after realizing that my original version had cast me as the victim of the bias report. Some lessons take more time than I’d like to admit.
Everywhere.
On March 31, 2020, thousands of Spokane area residents joined together in a peaceful march to bring light to recent hate crimes and to demand change in law enforcement policies and systems. That’s me in gray; what doesn’t show is my t-shirt reading The March Continues.
And so, whether I deserve it (I do not) and whether it is easy (it is not), I must stand with and for Black lives and Latinx and Native Americans and others.
Amid the riots and demonstrations – even the looting and destruction – more white voices must speak up in solidarity with those whose skin tone is darker, more white fists must be raised alongside others. We should shout until our voices are gone, until people of color are free of being targeted, free of danger in traffic stops, free of unnecessary retaliation, free of the obligation to teach their children how to protect themselves from white people in positions of authority and influence.
For many of us, that requires a willingness to deal with the uncomfortable realities of bias in our own hearts. It may unfold through more uncomfortable conversations, or giving up long-held beliefs that simply don’t stand the test of truth anymore. It necessitates asking why our history lacked the richness of diversity in places of power and authority. For us to be the kind people many of us believe ourselves to be, it’s time to dismantle the stronghold of prejudices that stand in the way of justice. Or if justice is too hard a fight, then for the love of all that is good, let’s start with simple dignity for all people.
It’s time for more productive discomfort. Because The March Continues.
Kate Vanskike is an occasional blogger and full-time university magazine editor in Spokane, Washington. All views expressed here are hers alone and don't represent any named or unnamed organizations involved in her story. She has future hopes of running a coffee shop that only serves fair-trade, sustainably made java, and maybe a limited selection of ice cream for making cafe affogato. Or maybe she'll be a "jammer," driving old-timey shuttle busses full of tourists gawking at mountains inside Glacier National Park. Or maybe she'll be an old hippie woman chaining herself to trees and city hall doors, protesting for positive change.
Ferguson, Missouri. In 2014, Michael Brown was shot by police and left dying in the street in a St. Louis suburb called Ferguson. During a 2019 trip to my home state of Missouri, my husband and I visited the site. Just past the market from which he fled, there was a beautiful, shiny, modern Boys & Girls Club to serve the local population. We were impressed: This, we thought, heralded positive change and growth. Then we turned on to Canfield Avenue through a set of apartments and saw the makeshift memorial on the sidewalk. Teddy bears and stuffed animals and artificial flowers, all faded and dirty. Why wasn’t there a proper, “official” memorial? A plaque with Michael’s name and a brief story or a mention of his death as another unnecessary incident of lethal police response?
Here on the banks of the Mississippi, in Hannibal where I lived two decades ago, I wonder:
How much time has really passed? Have I grown up enough? Too much?
This river, these tracks, all the trees along the winding path to get here – they know me. They remember watching me weep, laugh, pray, sing.
Those tracks – even after a million train cars have squealed by, they sense me and draw back to the time a thoughtless (soulless?) boy ripped the pantyhose off a 17-year-old girl in a black skirt with pink flowers.
The river – down the way by the old ice factory – remembers its heavy ice blanket in the winter of ’96 or so, holding up a recent college grad as she tested the frozen bay and traversed to the opposite shore.
These mighty oaks and maples, they remember my love – how I adored them, especially in fall when they showed off their talents, and a few weeks later, showered me with floating leaves they’d discarded, and a few weeks after that, listened as I crunched over those lifeless leaves blanketing the pathway.
They all – the river, the tracks, the trees – watched with delight as my dog ran free, and chuckled to discover I had no control over my furry friend when it was time to go back up the bluff toward a truck that would take her home.
Up above at the stone wall overlook, I would sit for hours, days, months, years – the river, tracks and trees still collecting my thoughts. From there, they would see me scratch out bad poems in journals, watch over my arguments with a guy – a different one, one who definitely had a soul – who would push me to discover more of the world, of myself, of truth. They would nod in recognition that this was good, even as I drove away from a heated discussion, crunching new glasses beneath the tires of a little blue car.
Even Mark Twain himself, made of granite, towering over the river he loved (and maybe hated, too), observed as friends gathered beneath his gaze, taking stupid photos that one day would be prized possessions. Did the river know, or the tracks, or the trees, that one of those giggling friends would die too soon, would crush our spirits, and yet, even in death, make us laugh again?
What did the river, the tracks, the trees think when I visited for the last time before a journey 2,000 miles west, to take photos of my dog and my truck? What did they think of my urge to leave this place behind and to find myself somewhere else? Did they know I would settle along another river, other tracks, among other trees, ones that would never shower me with falling leaves? Did they send wishes through the wind to their distant friends the pines, to be gentle with me, to allow me to continue my journey of discovery? Did the Mighty Mississippi send currents of encouragement through tributaries that would find their way to the Pacific Northwest to say, “Watch this girl. Support her when she walks on your thin veneer in winter”? The iron tracks, did they reverberate codes along rails that traverse the Rockies, and say, “Be steady for her. Be still when she navigates the paths of loneliness, and failed marriage, and parenting alone”?
Did these old friends from Missouri – the river, the tracks, the trees – send me off with well wishes that I didn’t hear? Did they know that someday almost 30 years later, I’d return to feel their presence again? Did they sense – or at least hope – that this time I’d come with a soul mate who would never threaten my trust, who would support me in continuing to grow and learn and search and be myself? And that he would love this river, too – for different reasons, but nonetheless would honor all that my friends, the river, the tracks, and the trees had meant to me?
They may not have known. They may not have planned it or even guided the journey, nor sent good intentions. But it seems they rejoice, today, that all this has come to be.
On November 17, I hit my four-year anniversary at Gonzaga University, a place I had my eye on for a few years before the perfect job opened for me. I remember going to campus with my mom and having her take a photo of me in front of the iconic statue of St. Ignatius by College Hall, and claiming that the job was mine before it was actually offered to me. I remember the two goofs hanging out in my office when I moved in, who instantly made me feel it was the right move. I’d always known I wanted to return to higher education, and being at Gonzaga has confirmed why.
#1.College students are optimistic, not yet so jaded by “the real world.” And when they do see a depressing reality, they respond with, “What can we do to change this?”
#2. There is positive energy on a college campus … all the time. At Gonzaga, music blares from dorm windows on Friday afternoons, students hang from trees in hammocks, they come up with creative inside jokes to just about everything.
#3. College basketball is fun. Who knew? Sports in general aren’t my thing, but the Kennel during basketball season is a ball (get it?) to watch.
#4. Jesuit students are impressive young people who naturally want to serve the greater good and not focus so much on what they will achieve for their own personal benefit. Learning and contemplating among them is a gift.
#5. Lifelong learning is never in question. When you’re surrounded by so many incredibly intelligent people, how can you not be learning constantly?
#6. A campus is a mixing bowl of art and music and meaning and growth that never ceases to produce a craving for more. #magis
#7. Jesuits are cool, thoughtful people. And their tradition of self-examination makes a significant difference in the life of a workplace.
#8. Creating a magazine chock full of examples of all these things is the best job ever.
#9. Doing that with an amazing team that has fun doing the work is icing on the cake.
Seven hundred. That was the population of Perry, Missouri, the town I lived in from age 3 to 20. It had one blinking stoplight and one non-white family, a couple that didn’t stay long. Legend says that a century-old city ordinance forbade blacks from being in town after dark, and we knew people of neighboring communities who still heeded the warning even in the 1980s.
What impact may that have had on my implicit bias, even within a home that was loving and kind toward people regardless of skin tone? What notions lingered in my mind after seeing every black student in our county-wide school succeed as an athlete, perpetuating the notion that sports are the only way for them to achieve?
The first summer I escaped the small town for the metropolis of St. Louis to serve inner-city ministries, I was surrounded by children of color who came from homes of addiction and poverty. How did that influence my notion of race?
These are questions I pondered while gathering with 10 Gonzaga University students in Montgomery, Alabama. Our spring break Mission:Possible immersion experience placed us in the nation’s most historical sites of the civil rights movement, and after long days in museums and lectures, we gathered for even longer evenings of reflection and conversation. These were tough talks where the mostly white participants challenged themselves to face their implicit biases, and where the one black student opened our eyes to her world.
“It sucks to be honest with yourself, doesn’t it?” she said. It wasn’t a question.
In a world where people often approach tough topics in the shadows of online environments, we find face-to-face discussion to be uncomfortable. As a result, the divisive nature of online dialogue has led many of us to stop discussing our views on these social matters.
And yet, we know that the ugliness of racism – in the past as well as the present – must be addressed.
We must be willing to have meaningful conversations that seek understanding and reconciliation. I liken this process to forcing myself to the gym after months of laziness. Setting the alarm extra early. Pulling on exercise clothes. Setting the treadmill at the slowest-possible speed on a zero incline. Eventually, the routine gets easier and I feel better, even craving it.
I hope you’ll read Gonzaga Magazine’s coverage of racism and diversity with the goal of enjoying that kind of mental and emotional exercise. Because as we open ourselves to the sometimes arduous exercise of getting honest with ourselves, we discover a greater hunger for truth and equity.
[The following letter was sent to Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who represents Eastern Washington in the House of Representatives. It was sent following a visit to her office by a group of Gonzaga University students which I was proud to accompany. In light of the approaching deadline for Congress to reach a bipartisan response to immigration reform and the path to citizenship for “Dreamers” under DACA, I wanted to share this more broadly. Please reach out to YOUR representatives and plead for reform that is centered on human dignity.]
Dear Congresswoman McMorris Rodgers:
Thank you so much for making time in your hectic schedule to visit with students from Gonzaga University and to hear their stories about a recent trip to the Mexico border to learn more about immigration. One central theme we heard during the many facets of our time there – visiting with both government officials such as Border Patrol, as well as humanitarian agencies and migrants themselves – was just how complicated this system is. We understand there is no easy fix that will alleviate all the concerns from all the involved parties and from the broader public.
We want to thank you for listening to our students’ personal perspectives from their families’ experiences as well. You may recall Lydia sharing about the misconceptions of “chain migration” and her family trying to bring an aunt here multiple times through proper legal channels. Rani also shared about her mother’s joy in being able to see a child graduate from college for the first time in her family’s experience, as well as the poignant question Rani raised about the parents of DACA students: it’s awesome to open a channel for those students to work toward citizenship, but what of their parents who sacrificed so much to bring them here?
Our students shared many other perspectives based on the things we witnessed at the border. Francesca mentioned the opportunities we had to see the real struggles with human dignity, and Cameron shared his concern for the environmental impact of expanding a physical wall at the borderlands. Participants in Gonzaga’s Justice in January program have written a number of short blogs to capture these sentiments, and we hope that you might be able to take a few moments to read these stories and to reflect on how they might inform the common sense immigration reform you and your colleagues in Congress are seeking to achieve during these last few days before the President’s deadline. You can find those here.
We remain hopeful that Congress will achieve a bipartisan resolution to immigration reform that:
protects all people from the dangers of gang and drug activity;
allows for DACA dreamers to achieve citizenship;
supports a simplified process for immigrants trying to come to the U.S. legally – including “family reunification” as an alternative to “chain migration”; and
advocates for the type of infrastructure our Border Patrol agents have indicated they need, which is for properly trained agents and technology rather than additional physical Wall extensions that not only endanger ecosystems but actually do little to achieve the goals of protecting our border.
This, as you know, is a critical moment for the current Congress and we think it’s one of the most important issues of our day. You have our prayers for meaningful dialogue not only with fellow Congress members but also with your constituent base here in Eastern Washington.
Thank you again for your time.
Kate Vanskike
On behalf of these four fine Gonzaga students, pictured left to right:
Cameron Marsh, Francesca Nevil, Amayrani Chavez and Lydia Lopez,
as well as other members of the 2018 Justice in January cohort of Gonzaga’s Center for Community Engagement.
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