Idaho Listens

This program is made possible by the Friends of Idaho Public Television, the Idaho Public Television Endowment, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

ROD CARR: I've been a financial service professional for 28 years.

Me and Ellie get out at least once a week and hit the Foothill trails or along the river.

MICHELLE KWAK: I'm the pastry chef here.

I get to work with like, really incredible people.

More than our skills and our talents, we bring our personality into what we do.

JAROM JEMMET: My grandfather came to this valley and started farming out in Marsing.

Next year will be our 60th anniversary.

I'm just a regular guy.

Yeah, I go to church.

I have a family.

I love my wife, I love my kids.

I love what I do and that I can help feed people.

REBECCA EVANS: I am a warrior, a worrier, a mom, a voter, a veteran, a gardener, a poet, a writer, and a Jew, and more.

At sundown, we are all lighting Shabbos candles, all the women in Jewish households that practice.

There's a huge amount of light going into the world.

It is a really beautiful thing.

NARRATOR: We all have our own story about life in Idaho.

But we often don't stop to listen to those stories.

Or get to know each other beyond labels or superficial impressions.

KWAK: I don't need the people around me to agree with me.

What I really desire is just to be seen, for my experience to be validated.

CARR: I love this community.

I've loved it for over 40 years.

There was a time when we could be Democrats and we could be Republicans, but at the end we can go have a beer and still be friends.

Today we are just so divided.

I think a lot of that has to do with media, Internet, social media, but we have to find a better way to come together.

EVANS: A lot of times I feel like the labels we carry are the labels people have given us, and it has nothing to do with how we see ourselves.

JEMMET: I would say my positions are right-leaning, but I think that's where we need to listen to each other and understand why our positions are what they are.

We are all seeking the same outcome.

Happiness, joy, peace, love, and the politics today are driving a wedge further and further in between that.

NARRATOR: So what if we paused the shouting and the arguing?

What if we reserved judgment?

What if we just … listened to each other?

[LIGHT MUSIC] GREG CARR: What kind of a society do we want?

It's just getting outside of yourself and taking a broad perspective.

Well, where does that begin?

It begins by listening to other people's life story.

NARRATOR: There's no shortage of noise and nastiness in our lives today.

And the yelling and name-calling isn't confined to politicians or cable TV talking heads.

It's dividing our neighborhoods, our friendships, even our families.

Philanthropist Greg Carr and Boise State University wanted to test a different approach, to focus on listening instead of debating.

They invited an audience to come listen silently to a handful of everyday Idahoans talk about their Idaho lives and values.

NANCY BUFFINGTON: There's this magic that happens, right, when you listen to somebody.

Everything changes about them.

Their body language changes, their face changes, their voice, and this real sense of trust and that takes you really far.

NARRATOR: They called the project Idaho Listens, and the audience was challenged to do just that.

Not question, not interrupt, not cheer.

Just listen.

ANDREW FINSTUEN: Idaho listens is an experiment.

This is a chance to just hear and listen.

To hear the stories of Idahoans from a cross-section of professions and walks of life.

And it's simply about uninterrupted listening.

There's a lot of talking going on, sometimes even shouting.

Part of the vision is we're maybe rushing to solutions and rushing in ways that don't honor that we have such different perspectives.

So let's back up, talk, listen to one another, build trust and see what emerges from that context.

When you listen to someone, you are taking the time to acknowledge them as another human being.

And the respect and the dignity that goes along with that, people are hungry for and ready for.

GREG CARR: My grandparents came here more than 100 years ago.

I grew up with the lessons of my parents, which was to be kind to everybody, right.

Help your neighbor.

You don't ask what political party your neighbor's in in order to bring 'em some soup, right, if they're not feeling well.

And so it made me sad over the past five, 10 years to see the divisions and everybody thinking that they have to battle with everybody else or, or I've got to be on this side and you got to be on that side.

Instead of looking for differences, why not start with what we share?

[Voices as people gather] FINSTUEN: My name is Andrew Finstuen, I'm the dean of the Honors College.

We have an experiment of sorts this afternoon.

We're not here to stop a smile or a nod.

But please do listen silently and listen reverently, whether you're in agreement or disagreement with what's being said.

BART DAVIS: One of my dearest friends said something like this: "Do you know what your problem is?

You've always been in the majority.

You're white, Mormon and a Republican.

Heck you're even the Senate Majority Leader.

You've never been divorced, you have money, you don't know what it is like to struggle or be in the minority."

Well there was truth in his words.

So do you think you have me pigeonholed?

More than 20 years ago, my 23-year-old son was shot and killed while attending this university.

MARLENE TROMP: It was when Bart Davis said my son died on this very campus and I felt an electric shock go through me when he said that.

So, to be reminded of our mutual humanity, in a moment when it's so difficult to even see one another as human, that's a part of what Bart did so effectively.

NARRATOR: Boise State President Marlene Tromp is a big believer in the Idaho Listens project.

Her tenure at Boise State has been an extended exercise in listening.

TROMP: When I first arrived in Idaho, I received a letter from 50 percent of the majority caucus of our House telling me that if I didn't cut our DE&I programming, that they would defund the university.

I was coming from UC Santa Cruz, which they saw as a place that was very left.

I have short hair, my ear is pierced a lot of times.

You know, I think they looked at me and they saw an outsider.

And the person who was the primary author on that letter, when I sat down with her, took an hour and a half to get to a place in which she said, "I fear that a young person from a rural community who's white is going to show up on campus, say the wrong things politically, and feel deeply ashamed and feel like they can't speak."

And I said "I don't want that either."

And it gave us a space to start.

[Conversation at table.

"What do they want to hear?"

"Yeah"] NARRATOR: Months before the Idaho Listens event, the speakers worked with coaches to identify and refine what they wanted to say with their five to seven minutes of time.

Each of the speakers had their own reason for wanting to tell their story.

LAURA ALVAREZ SCHRAG: I saw it as not only an opportunity, but I saw it as a responsibility.

While I don't speak for all Latino families, there is still a common shared experience there.

NARRATOR: Laura Alvarez Schrag recounted her struggle to find her own voice, and to learn to speak up for herself.

SCHRAG: My experience about being heard is very personal in that my parents not speaking the language, so not being heard not only because maybe they weren't being heard or listened to, but because they couldn't communicate.

The need and the responsibility to be there for them was stronger and more important than the fear I had in speaking and overcoming a painful shyness.

Not just shy, but painful shyness.

So I think for me that's why having a voice or being heard is so much more profound than just having, you know, being part of a conversation.

NARRATOR: Rebecca Evans shared her soul-searching as a mother of a disabled son, a writer, a veteran, a woman of faith and a survivor of sexual abuse.

EVANS: But these are my labels and sometimes they don't look like they fit all into one person but I'm complicated, and so are you.

I'm a mesh of all who came before me of every book I've ever read, of every movie I've ever watched, of every violent scene I've borne witness or endured.

And so are you.

The me you meet today will not be the me you see tomorrow.

I'm forming and shaping and molding based on my choices and sometimes my damage.

And so are you.

You're made of blood and bone and filaments and vessels just like I am, and you bleed if you're stabbed.

So let's just start there and let go of all that other stuff, right?

The whole conversation around identity and culture and who we are as individuals.

This Idaho Listens has brought up some really great questions I think I'm going to benefit from as a mother, as someone who's in service in her community, as a steward in my writing.

How can I use this to help create more awareness as well?

So, I feel like maybe I'm getting more out of it than they're getting from me.

NARRATOR : Jarom Jemmet grew up in a farming family in Parma.

He's shaped by his experiences as a farmer, father and LDS missionary in Mexico City.

JEMMET: And to go from a town that has 1,500 people to a city that has over 15 million was definitely a change of scenery, change of culture, but I learned a lot.

As an employer of local and migrant employees, I see the impacts that are felt amongst families that are divided by a border.

Currently we have eight contracted employees from Mexico that come here to work for eight months out of the year, leaving their families with the sole intention of earning as much money as possible to take home and improve their living conditions.

They want to succeed, they want to excel, they want to work hard and be rewarded for it.

[Conversation on tractor in Spanish] JEMMETT: They want to give their children more than what they had.

And that's exactly what we want to do here.

For me I do feel like the immigration issue is critical.

And so I feel like there's a lot of people that are unaware of what it takes to raise food nowadays.

REBECCA MILES: I am a citizen of the Nez Perce tribe, and I was born and raised on the Nez Perce Indian Reservation.

NARRATOR: A fellowship abroad revealed for Rebecca Miles the parallels between her people and Europeans who witnessed death camps and genocide.

MILES: I thought of my own history and of my ancestors where similar piles of bodies of my people were often proudly piled in similar fashion in an effort to tame the West.

NARRATOR: It took a trip to Spain for this Idaho native to understand the Basques of Idaho – and to fall in love with Basque history and culture.

MILES: I realized we were we were the same people.

We were a country living in a country that's trying to survive.

We're a government within a government trying to save our way of life, save our language.

And that was what the Basque people were all about.

NARRATOR: Rod Carr grew up and went to school in Los Angeles, but learned the values of education and family in Idaho.

ROD CARR: And when you're scared you're never ever going to learn.

I graduated with people that could not read or write in 12th grade, and when I went to college I was on academic probation within six months.

But I didn't quit.

When I got the job at, in financial services I went and I talked to my mom about it and I said, "Mom I have this wonderful opportunity" and she looked  me in the eye and said "Those people will never give you money, Rod," which is a racist statement today.

And I looked her in the eye and I said, "Mom they will give me millions."

There was never a time that I felt unwelcome in Idaho.

I truly believe that people see the best in the opportunities and the community they have here.

Idaho is a great place to live, and a great place to raise a family.

And family can be complex and communities can be complex, and many of you have heard me say racism is not the problem in my community.

The problem is lack of fathers and mentors and financial literacy.

That's what's hurting us the most.

But what is constant is family, hope and faith.

And my children have taught me if your dreams don't scare you, they're not big enough.

NARRATOR: Soon after Shadi Ismail came to the U.S. from Syria, a ride-share customer told him he didn't belong in America.

SHADI ISMAIL: To be honest I was so angry and I felt so hole in my heart, so I parked the car and I let her go.

I told her "Please leave my car."

NARRATOR: But getting lost on the way to his first English-language class taught him a different lesson.

ISMAIL: In that moment I started panicking, truly truly panicking.

I have no phone, nothing.

But you know universe always work with magical way, for real.

A lady walked to me like with a smile on her face so I got the courage and I said "Hi," with the address in my hand.

She looked at it, looked at me and she said "Come on," grabbed me by my hand, walked with me behind the post office because the school was on that time behind the post office, told me, "You see this door?

Good luck."

For real.

That moment I felt happy, I felt safe.

Before I come to Idaho, I had people told me "Why you're going to Idaho.

It's very redneck and scary place.

They hate Arabic people, gay people."

I'm like, Oh my God, what I am putting myself into?

But then I had, this is what I want to share my story with with Idaho Listen, because I have found experience and like changed my whole perspective of Idaho in general and opened my heart to it.

So sometimes we have so much label put on us or idea from other experience, and this is what we see the world through.

But then when we have our own experience, that's change the whole world.

I do believe and I feel Idaho opened their heart to me, and now I have been doing, open my heart back.

NARRATOR: Michelle Kwak drew knowing chuckles when she talked about her new eyeglasses … and the lenses through which we all view our lives.

KWAK: Like many of you the glasses I'm wearing today -- I just got these like a week ago – are not the same ones I wore when I was 17.

The lens through which I perceive the world now is a little bit different than it was before.

But my parents, namely my mom, keeps comparing me, keeps comparing who I am now, to who I was when I was 12.

"You were so sweet, kind and obedient," she would say.

I lived much of my life through the lens of what a good Christian woman is supposed to do.

And made choices based on how Korean-American Christian culture dictated that I behave.

How I should live.

But this tame lifestyle felt limiting and oppressive and not authentically me.

And after 39 years in the church I decided it was time for a new prescription.

I don't need for anyone to agree that it's been challenging being a minority or Asian or a person of color.

But I would like for people to see that this has been my experience, and this has been my story.

And to validate that.

I think this Idaho Listens thing and listening is important because it puts us in a space where our story is told and as an individual, we're seen.

GREG CARR: At the event in Boise State, something I saw that I didn't expect – it's exciting – is the power of silence.

[Speaker: Thank you] Now, I knew we wanted to create a conditions for listening.

[Speaker: My name is Laura Alvarez Schrag] But how about the conditions where you're just sitting there quietly, and you have to actually think and process what's just happened?

[Speaker: Thank you for listening] Let's face it, that's not a new idea.

For thousands of years, really wise people, sages, you know, and saints, have used silence, haven't they, to sit and think and calm down and get the roar out of your head.

So, I think that's going to become an important part of every Idaho Listens event.

[Applause] FINSTUEN: Thank you all for being here.

Let's give one more round of applause to all of our speakers.

NARRATOR: So, after you've asked an audience to be still and quiet for 90 minutes, what do you do?

You let everybody eat!

[MUSIC] In fact, encouraging deep conversation over a family-style dinner was designed into the Idaho Listens project.

CARR: I thought, well, what if we had a dinner afterwards and everyone sat around like a family and passed the brussels sprouts.

And, you know, people tend to relax a little bit when they've got some food.

They're often in a better mood.

[Chuckles] And I thought, well, maybe people will just start talking.

And I think it worked.

SCHRAG: It was just us getting to know each other and everybody was just kind of sharing who they were in sharing a meal and sharing conversation.

And that was just a beautiful, unexpected takeaway.

I didn't know what to expect.

EVANS: Normally it would have been a little awkward and it was not.

And I felt like people were just super ready to engage.

GALEN SCHULER: I thought it was profound, really.

All grown-ups, talking about really important ideas and about the ability to have conversations around values.

And it carried on at the table, too.

Like, this… this is how it ought to be.

We ought to be able to have these kinds of conversations with people we don't know, and may not agree with.

But we should be able to talk about these things.

FATHER GERM Á N OSORIO: I just loved and appreciate the respect that all of us here in this room showed to each one of the speakers.

I think nowadays we have to learn and practice more of that: Listen carefully and learn from each other.

TAYLOR JEPSON: Honestly, just how much in common we all have.

I mean, all the speakers were telling all of these incredibly unique stories, but we all really do have so much in common.

SHANNON MCGUIRE: The best part was sitting to listen to the stories and really take it in and not form an opinion, not judge.

Just, just listen.

So that was powerful.

I absolutely believe that this format is what we need, to be able to get in a room with differing views, perspectives, and just listen and figure out a way to understand and perhaps see our lives through the other person's life.

That shared human experience, I think, is so important.

So, I believe this should be replicated.

Absolutely.

I think we could do this.

NARRATOR : Greg Carr and Boise State are hosting additional Idaho Listens events, under the auspices of the university's new Institute for Advancing American Values.

TROMP: It is fundamentally the work of higher education to bring people together in this way.

I believe dialogue is possible.

I think people stop talking to one another when they don't believe there's a reason to hope anymore.

And if we help people see that there's still reason to have hope, it opens up the door to new possibilities.

CARR: I mean why can't there be an Idaho Listens type of event, you know, 10 times a year forever, moving around this state?

And these things tend to spread, right?

Somebody has a nice experience, and then the next day they're somewhere else and they're talking about it.

I mean, you know, good ideas have a way of finding their way.

DAVIS: I frequently learn by listening.

There's a difference between listening to repudiate, listening to agree and listening to understand.

Listening doesn't always lead to agreement, but it often leads to understanding and frequently to respect.

[APPLAUSE, UPLIFTING MUSIC] This program is made possible by the Friends of Idaho Public Television, the Idaho Public Television Endowment, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.