[Editor’s Note: For the last six months, Kaethe Weingarten, PhD, Director of Witness to Witness has focused on the impact of anti-immigrant rhetoric on the health of migrants and immigrants through her monthly blog post. This work culminates in our Words Matter webinar series, that started October 17th. Visit our Words Matter page to read Dr. Weingarten’s recent series of articles on the health impact of anti-immigrant rhetoric, watch video stories on immigrants’ lived experiences, support the work, and sign up for webinars on the topic.]

I recently returned from rural Maine, where I spend each summer. My tiny outpost is part of the 2nd Congressional District – the second most rural district in the country. One town in this district is Unity, population 2300, and a recent news article about the town reported that in 2020, the difference in votes between the two presidential candidates was 11 votes, for the losing candidate. Residents who were interviewed for the article said the best policy for getting along is to talk together, but never discuss politics. The reporter wrote this: “Residents last week were quick to agree that national politics seem divided. But locally, they said their town appears to be living up to its namesake. It’s important to get along when you have to share the same grocery store or library. Social media can be contentious, but in real life, it’s easier to have a conversation.”

While neighbors may not agree, they are unlikely to “other” their neighbors when they regularly engage with them in their small community. The process of perceiving and treating an individual or a group as fundamentally different from oneself is called “othering.” The language that is often used to “other” a person or group is often dehumanizing and is meant to lead to exclusion, since the person or group is considered unworthy of acceptance. Historically, most societies have had practices of othering, and using practices of othering during times of elections is also common, both in the United States and in other countries. While the groups who are “othered” may change over time, seeking to marginalize one or another group is a recurrent political strategy that takes advantage of a fundamental characteristic of people to define themselves along dimensions of sameness and difference. Most people know that this tactic was used by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis to demonize the minority Jewish population. Over time, the dehumanizing rhetoric, calling Jews “vermin” for instance, laid the groundwork for exterminating Jews throughout Europe. 

In the last few months, the “othering” that focuses on Springfield, Ohio has been the focus of much attention. The specific claim, that newly arrived Haitians in that community ate long-time residents’ pets, shocked people across the political spectrum for different reasons: the cruelty of the false, hateful claim or the perversity of immigrants. It’s not a new concept, not even in Springfield: a recent article about Springfield, Ohio notes that: “In 1911 a Brooklyn man accused ‘a gang of foreign laborers’ — ethnicity unspecified— of catching and eating his three cats. Then, as now, the provenance of the account was indirect; the story was thirdhand by the time it was printed.”

The absurdity of the charge aside, there have been many poignant accounts of the impact on Haitians in Springfield of these false charges. One leader in the community described the situation as “overwhelming, shocking, sad. It creates so much anxiety and fear.” The situation has not only been about words. Haitians have had their cars and homes vandalized, with threats that if they don’t leave the community that things will get “ugly.” Some Haitians have in fact left in fear, believing that Springfield is no longer safe for their families. All of this is connected to anti-immigration rhetoric and policies, the intensity and scope of which is escalating.

In my last five blogs for the Words Matter series, I have written about the negative physical and mental health consequences of anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies. These are outcomes of othering. To recap, practices of othering can produce chronic stress for those who are marginalized. Chronic stress takes a toll in both physical ways, like cardiovascular and immune system changes, and emotional ways, increasing anxiety, depression, and plain old fear. At the institutional level, othering can reduce utilization of health care as marginalized groups fear they will be met by hostility or culturally incompetent service. This can lead to poorer health outcomes for groups that are subject to othering. At the community level, practices of othering often manifest through practices of “spatial exclusion,” such that those who have been othered are segregated in inferior locations in a geographic area, have access to inferior housing options and attend poorly resourced schools.

In each blog, I have offered ways of countering the negative effects of anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies. In this blog, I offer additional ideas, focused specifically on how to reduce othering, which these rhetoric and policies contribute to and strengthen.
 

Build Skills To Be A Better Listener:

First, as the people of Unity, Maine have discovered, it is very difficult to “other” someone you have come to know. Most of us are more alike than we are different. Most of us fundamentally care about very similar things, like the health and well-being of those we love and of ourselves. There are an astonishing number of resources whose goal is to help us come to understand each other better. Listening well is key to understanding another person and there are excellent guides to help people learn to listen deeply.
 

One such Guide is a resource with a suggested use for Grades 6-12 developed by Making Caring Common Project. They describe the Guide’s purpose like this: “Students learn about and practice three listening skills: body language, focus, and expressing empathy. In a series of lessons with different conversation starters, they will practice being active, authentic listeners with a partner– listening to make the speaker feel heard without reciprocating in the conversation. Speakers will also become more comfortable sharing about themselves and expressing feelings.” While readers may scoff at my suggesting a Guide for youth to adults, the Guide’s simplicity, specificity and brevity make it an ideal tool to use as a starting point for helping communities we are in learn an all-purpose skill that is helpful in personal, family, neighborhood and work contexts.
 

Consider The Language:

Another way of approaching how we can come to understand each other better is to take a closer look at the meanings different groups attach to, or attribute to, certain words and concepts that are frequently used to separate us. Not all differences fall along a political spectrum that has been color coded, with Red signifying a person or idea that is associated with views held by the Republican Party and Blue associated with people and ideas associated with the Democratic party. However, many conflicts and ways of othering do align with a Red-Blue divide.
 

All Sides is a group that has developed a Red Blue Translator™ that “cuts the confusion by revealing how people across the political spectrum think and feel differently about the same term or phrase. Understanding these terms from all sides gives you a broader understanding of the issues and helps you effectively communicate.” The Red Blue Translator™ provides definitions or in some cases short essays on over 200 terms that often divide individuals across political parties. 
 

Have a Conversation, Or Just Listen:

Many people are familiar with StoryCorps that reaches over 12 million listeners on NPR each week. StoryCorps believes that understanding each other matters and that hearing each other’s stories is a way to appreciate our common humanity – what unites us, more than what divides us. Since its founding in 2003, StoryCorps has recorded more than 700,000 people in the US have a meaningful conversation about their lives. Archived in the US Library of Congress, it is now the largest single collection of stories ever gathered.

One story that has particular meaning to MCN is that of Emma Torres and her husband Rogelio. Torres, co-founder and executive director of Campesinos Sin Fronteras in Arizona, is a long-time ally and friend of MCN. Their short recording tells how they met each other more than 40 years ago and built a life together with a shared purpose of helping fellow farmworkers at the US-Mexico border. Their heart-warming story, and the way they talk to each other in this recording, might make it difficult for those who dehumanize immigrants -- who make them “other”– to do so with regard to these lovely people.

A recent offshoot program of StoryCorps that was piloted in 2017 and launched in 2021 is One Small Step. This program, (OSS), “brings strangers with different political beliefs together to record a 50-minute audio-only conversation — not to debate politics — simply to get to know each other as people. Rooted in contact theory, the goal of OSS is to reduce political polarization by making these kinds of conversations across the divide normal again. …In 2024, we are scaling OSS nationwide with the launch of a public service campaign and the public roll-out of our new digital platform, OSS Connect, which allows anyone, anywhere to participate in a conversation. To date, thousands of people in over 40 U.S. states have taken part.” OSS connect is a digital portal that allows anyone to sign up to be matched with someone who has different political views. The website provides step by step instructions as to how to have a meaningful virtual video conversation. The entire experience, after you have filled out the questionnaire and been matched, takes 75 minutes. 
 

Build Belonging:

The antidote to “othering” is to create belonging. john a. powell (who spells his name in lowercase in the belief that we should be "part of the universe, not over it, as capitals signify") is the Director of the Othering & Belonging Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, “a research institute that brings together scholars, community advocates, communicators, and policymakers to identify and eliminate the barriers to an inclusive, just, and sustainable society and to create transformative change toward a more equitable world.” He believes that the only sustainable solution to the practice of othering is to practice belonging. By belonging, he and his associates mean many things, but feeling welcome is one and distributing the goods that go along with membership is another. By “goods,” they mean all the societal goods that are material, emotional and spiritual. 

The people who disparaged the Haitians in Springfield, Ohio were denying them a place in that community, they were disrupting their sense of belonging. The false claims attacked them at their core, by devaluing their dignity and attempting to say that the Haitians were people with no worth. However, as community leader, Viles Dorsainvil, who runs Springfield’s Haitian Community Help and Support Center, a nonprofit that was founded last year, said, the events in Springfield not only showed him the “worst of America,” it showed him the best. In an interview in The New Yorker Magazine, he says, “I’ve been experiencing the worst of America, in terms of how a leader, through his speech, can denigrate or marginalize or divide a community and create harm to a vulnerable group of people by firing up his base for his own political ends. That’s what I’ve been experiencing. But, at the same time, I’ve been experiencing the best of America where there is solidarity, where there is love. Last Sunday, in an English class that I had with some Haitian students, some Americans from the community came with candy, with flowers, and some kids came with drawings, with words of love and encouragement. The people were saying, ‘We love you. We welcome you here. We stand with you.’”

These Americans were using the “goods” of welcoming to extend belonging to their Haitian neighbors. The gestures were meaningful. All of us can play a part in denouncing practices of othering by shifting to practices of belonging. Practices of belonging can be simple. Yesterday, I was driving through a new community and stopped at a large supermarket to seek the restroom. I asked the youth who was bagging groceries directions to the restroom and he made me feel welcome. He smiled at me, his directions were clear, and he walked a few steps with me to be sure I headed in the right direction. I was not from there, but I felt cared for.

Whether we work at a front desk or we take someone’s blood pressure or we do a thorough medical exam, we can extend a sense of belonging to anyone we are with. All of us have a part in creating, as Dr. Martin Luther King envisioned, a “Beloved Community.”