Lost Corners: Understanding Climate Migration through Empathy and Advocacy

This transcription was made in part by an automated service. In some areas there may be errors. 

 

Verda: [00:00:00] Welcome to break some dishes, defying the rules to inspire design. I’m John Strauser. And I’m Verta Alexander. Hey, John Virta. What’s up? Oh, you know. Same old, same old getting by, you know, the year’s almost over. We’re down to our last few episodes of the season.

Jon: I like when you set the bar high like that.

We’re

Verda: just

Jon: getting by, man. It’s all about sustaining one’s self in this. It’s all

Verda: about sustainability.

Jon: Crazy world we’re living in, man.

Verda: Well, let’s talk about this crazy world. So we’ve got an interesting guest today. Her name is Tabitha Sudeo and she is originally from Guyana in South America. Now that’s way kind of up, up at the top to towards the East, right?

Not too far from where I was born in Central America. Okay. And she grew up on St. Martin. In the Dutch Caribbean, Tabitha completed her undergraduate studies in environmental justice at the Yale School of Environment, and she’s also at the Vermont Law School. She’s been very involved in urban farming, migrant farmers rights, and refugee resettlement.

She’s passionate about finding creative solutions for climate adaptation through a global environmental Justice Lenz. Now, John, you met her. This is another guest that you found and you met her in your own hometown.

Jon: Yeah. Met her in Connecticut. I was actually attending, um, something called the environmental voices summit.

over at Yale. Sounds interesting. Yeah, it was really cool. Um, it’s nice when you don’t have to travel too far to find inspiration. And, um, yeah, it was nice to find a fellow nutmegger, um, who, who shares our passion, Berta. And she was sitting on a, on a, a panel that was titled, uh, Climate, Displacement. And I thought, man, that’s, I found it to be a very intriguing title, and um, it really opened my eyes to some things that, you know, Have been going on for quite a while and like so many things, we just didn’t know about it.

Verda: Yeah. And you brought, brought it to me and said, what do you think about this? And I was like, wow, this might be a great person to round out our season. This has been an interesting season, a little different for us. We, and a little, I don’t want to say all over the place, but I guess I could say that loosely, loosely about people in their own communities.

doing stepping up and protecting their own environments. But what happens when your own environment or your own home just disappears due to no, nothing that you caused or created, but outside forces, right?

Jon: Yeah. And being that she was, um, an undocumented immigrant when she came over here to the U S I thought.

I don’t know how you felt, but I had mixed emotions. I was really excited to hear her perspective. Um, and then I also wanted to be very, um, genuine and sincere in the conversation, right. And, and, uh, empathetic to the struggle.

Verda: Especially since it’s such a hot topic, not just in the United States, but worldwide and it’s causing a lot of division and, and we do need to deal with it.

And I’m thinking just climate migration, even if you just look at it within our own country, right? You know, these hurricanes that have been devastating Florida, a lot of those people are not going to be able to go back to their homes. And we’re, we’re one in two. Americans are seeing serious, serious declines in the quality of their environments, whether it’s, you know, the air that they breathe due to wildfires and heat, drought, or horrible hurricanes.

It just happened way too often. And, and then you can’t get property insurance for your homes. Right. And so we’re going to be dealing with millions of Americans that need to relocate with just within America. And, um, I was reading. An article in ProPublica, it was from a few years ago, but it was talking about how this shift in population is going to most likely increase poverty, widen the gulf between the rich and poor, it’s going to accelerate the need to urbanize cities, and it may happen in a rapid and chaotic way if we don’t do it.

Plan for it. And there might be even a greater burden on on these urban places. It’s gonna just again, eat away at prosperity. It’s gonna continue to deal economic blows to rural towns, coastal towns, especially in the [00:05:00]southern in the south where it’s already happening. I mean, we’re also seeing Towns that don’t have an economy after this, right, or enough people have left where they don’t have an economy.

Now, this is already happening in South America and Africa and all these other places, but we’re starting to see it here. And so I think it’s North Carolina. Yeah. So I think it’s, I think it’s something we need to talk about.

Jon: Yeah. Yeah. It’s another piece of the puzzle, right? I’m excited to hear what.

Tabitha has to say about it.

Verda: Okay. Well, let’s welcome her. Let’s see.

Jon: I met Tabitha, um, at actually, uh, a really cool environmental voices summit. Don at New Haven at Yale, right? You were doing a panel discussion that was really, um, about climate displacement and I was really excited to be able to sit in and listen to that because climate displacement or climate migration is something that I’ve been kind of wrestling with for a while now, trying to figure out.

figure it all out. And so I was really excited when I, I got to meet Tabitha and she’s a local Connecticut. She’s, she’s from the nutmeg state here. So we’re local. You

Verda: guys are ganging up on us. Ganging up on little California in here.

Jon: I know we got numbers today. That’s

Verda: right.

Jon: So to be, to take a moment and just, there’s a lot to your origin story.

So I’d love for you to take a moment and tell us a little bit about yourself.

Tabitha: Sure. And thank you so much for having me. I’m happy to be here. And so I guess, I guess I shouldn’t say I’m a local Connecticut person, or a nutmegger. I guess now I can claim that, but I’m originally from the country of Guyana, and um, I was really just born there, but I grew up on the island of Sint Maarten on the Dutch side.

And so I made my way to the United States when I was 16 years old, to Jacksonville, Florida. And, um, I grew up as an undocumented youth, and so that has been a very interesting experience as an immigrant, and even more so as someone who didn’t have papers. And, you know, I have been an immigrant basically since I was born, and so I’ve just had that, you know, that context for the majority of my life.

How did you get into

Verda: the space of where you’re at now? And how did you get into climate migration and working with climate refugees?

Tabitha: So, you know, I’ve worked, um, within the refugee resettlement worlds, but if I back up even before that, uh, I should say that I’ve always been passionate about climate change and about environmental issues, right?

Immigration has been such a main part of my story, right? And part of my journey. And I didn’t realize that I could combine both of those things. And so in college, I kind of had a realization. I was like, wait a second, I can work on both of these things. They don’t have to be that separate, right? And where I had that, um, realization was by working on farms, right?

In, uh, in Nashville in Tennessee, where I went to undergrad, I studied social justice with, uh, with a focus in environmental justice and public policy. And I would meet migrant workers who would talk about their land no longer being arable in their home countries, right? They would be describing conditions of climate change, right?

But not saying the phrase climate change. And so that really, you know, put up some interesting thoughts in my mind. And after college, I, uh, I moved to Connecticut and, um, I eventually started off a school at the Yale School of the Environment and, uh, Vermont Law School. I’m doing a joint degree. And through my program, I’m looking at how do we.

find legal protections for folks who are displaced due to climate change. And so it’s just been a through line in my life.

Jon: One of the things that you mentioned when I was listening to your panel was that, I mean, you know, I, I think Verta, you and I talked about this too, but like nobody really wants to, To leave their home.

You know what I mean? Like, home is home. It’s where you belong. It’s where your culture lies and is part of the challenge that a lot of the immigrants that are struggling right now, they don’t really classify themselves as climate migrants.

Tabitha: Yeah, definitely. I think that’s right. I think to folks, you know, don’t have that vocabulary to use right about climate change.

Folks are displaced for any reason. number of reasons or any combination of reasons. And one of the things that the UN often talks about is the difficulty of classifying somebody as specifically having been displaced due to climate change, right? Usually it’s multifactorial, right? It’s the phrase that they like to use.

And so yes, like even if somebody, you know, who’s Yeah. who’s maybe they’re receiving too much rain on their farmland. Um, [00:10:00] they won’t say that it’s due to climate change, right? They’ll just describe the conditions that are happening. So yes, I would say so. So many things are

Verda: related to climate change. And I think it’s no coincidence that we’re having so many more of these wars, especially in parts of the world that are particularly impacted by climate change.

And so I think that’s, Gang violence, um, you know, a lot of these things that make it harder to live because maybe resources are more scarce are contributing to the problem, right? And they’re related to climate change.

Tabitha: Absolutely. Yeah, these things are compounded, right? And they all influence each other in this like positive feedback loop, right?

I think in some countries, you know, folks can point to issues perhaps in Syria, right? You know, there, there have often been this discourse about whether or not the conflict in Syria was caused due to violence, right? And economic instability, or was it because of famine? Right? And really, the answer is most likely that all of these things fed into each other.

So absolutely, it’s, it’s complicated. And how do you isolate one situation? Right? And the other thing I’ll say, too, is You know, we can literally connect lots of different things to each other. If there’s famine and if there’s not enough water, what happens? Folks start to get, you know, extremely conscious of, of their resources, right?

And violence can come out of that through migration after migration. If you go from an external, like let’s say you go from a rural area into an urban area, you then also have a Plethora of different issues that comes with that, right? Like maybe skills mismatch. If you’re from a rural area, you’re more likely to maybe have a farming experience, right?

You’re not necessarily going to be part of like white collar jobs and informational age careers. And so, you know, also human trafficking can come of that if you’re not then able to get a job, right? And when folks are disgruntled and they, they can’t find food to eat. There’s not a way to make money.

Violence tends to ensue from that.

Jon: Wow. I feel like the whole subject of climate has gotten so much more complicated just in the last few years. Don’t you think, Virta? I think that when we tell people that, you know, we have a podcast that focuses on climate and climate change. I think people are like, Oh, okay, so you’re talking about like how we can recycle and you know how we can, you know, keep plastic out of the ocean and maybe that’s how we started, but it really is.

It really has become a complicated storyline. It’s just a lot. To unwrap.

Verda: In the case of climate migration, specifically, why should we care here in America?

Jon: Why is it our problem? Right? That’s what people say.

Verda: We’ve created the problem, right? Uh, U. S. and other first world countries have been the largest emitters of CO2 historically, right?

In so many cases, those that cause problems don’t Ownership.

Jon: But, Virta, that’s because we’re so industrialized and, you know, we’re like a world superpower and, you know, it’s crazy, but you talk to people that feel like we have a right to be a heavy polluter because, you know, we’re so, we’re such an advanced nation.

Yeah.

Verda: But, you know, and, and even though, you know, we bear the responsibility for climate change, we’ve also benefited at the expense of these other countries. It’s a difficult way to sway someone to think that they need to do something about climate change. Nobody wants to take responsibility. Nobody wants to say, yeah, okay, we, we benefited by exploiting other countries.

Like it’s, I think it’s just not going to be an argument.

Jon: What’s your experience, Tabitha? Why has it become so political worldwide?

Tabitha: Yeah, that’s, I feel like we can have another two hours just on that topic alone. You know, I think, uh, part of it is it’s, it’s difficult to, to measure. As an average person, right?

You live within your own world, and you’re caring about the issues that are in front of you. You’re not necessarily seeing, right, the effects of climate change and other countries. And so I think part of it too is, It’s, it’s this culture of convenience, right? I think folks who live in America, who come to America for the quote unquote American dream, it’s like this expectation of having everything at your fingertips, right?

So the United States is the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China and that was something that happened pretty recently in terms of dropping to number two, but we were number one, right? We’ve been number one for quite some time. And, uh, one of the largest categories of greenhouse gases comes from transportation, right?

And so when you think of the enormous infrastructure of highways, right, of just road systems in the United States, it all just kind of goes to convenience. I think when When one has to give up their, their privilege, right? [00:15:00]That’s often really difficult. And we can see this across different topics, right?

Not just about climate and having to use less, but also even around topics like race. Right. And so I think that’s a really big reason for one. And then for two, it’s sort of like, well, You know, I think it’s overwhelming for the average person to think of like, Oh, how do I emit less greenhouse gases? I think it’s just difficult.

Verda: Yeah. That’s a very good point.

Jon: Nobody wants to be inconvenienced, right?

Verda: Yes. Yes. I do feel like at some point we’re all going to have to figure out how to. work with climate migrants. They’re just, there’s just going to be such an overwhelming number of them, right? But it just feels like, and it’s not just America, we’re all trying to close our borders and it’s causing all kinds of really crazy political backlash.

It’s wild to me that this is harming innocent communities. And, and really fueling racist ideology. And it’s,

Tabitha: It’s concerning. It just is, right? Just these like waves of, of populism that’s popping up across the world. It’s definitely concerning. And I say this all the time. I think everybody at the end of the day, they want a place to lay their head at night.

They want to make sure that their kids are safe, that there’s food on the table. You know, as humans, there, there’s these fundamental needs that we all have and it’s. It’s disappointing and sad that it’s kind of come to this at where we are today, and so I think by having these kinds of, um, conversations and political orientations, it, it prevents us from having meaningful conversations about welcoming people, right, and about how we can actually help when it comes to climate migrants.

And so, uh, there’s just layers and layers, and like you all said, it’s getting more complex.

Jon: Is part of the challenge that when I look at climate refugees and climate migration, it’s, there’s nothing, um, it’s not nation to nation, right? It’s not, um, Ecuador reaching out to the United States and saying we have a region that is so non farmable now that we have to relocate.

So can we coordinate? Right? None of that happens. It’s these people that endanger themselves. They endanger their families. They get connected with smugglers and, and drug cartels. And it’s just such a wild, wild West. And it’s open to anybody’s interpretation. Anybody can assign facts to that situation whenever and however they want to.

Right. I actually

Verda: listened to another podcast. I hate when I have to, I hate when I have to admit that. Oh, what a traitor. How dare you? I hate when I have to admit that I listened to another podcast for my information, but it was about migration. And John, to some extent that is, that has become the norm and, and, but the truth of it is that there is an application process.

for migrants to come. And a lot of times it does originate in the country. So there’s a maybe some sort of field office or something like that, and they apply and all of that. But there, I think what has happened and why there’s so many, there’s been so many migrants coming to the border, the southern border of the United States is that there is this, this idea That has been propagated that they can cross at the border, but I think, ideally, that’s not where you would want anybody to, to make that application.

Tabitha: There are different ways that folks can migrate to the United States, right? I think that. What’s pretty common in the U. S. is family reunification, right? And so that’s usually what folks think about when you think about migration to America. To other countries, uh, it might be more skills based, right? Or like merit based is what it’s often referred to.

And so it’s always been about how do we get families to stay together, right? And so, uh, everybody has the right to make an asylum claim, right? And the way for you to make an asylum claim is to, you know, you can present yourself at the border. And I have to say, for you to get an asylum claim, it’s the same types of requirements that you would have to meet in order to be a refugee, for instance.

And so, uh, what’s difficult though, is that refugee processing times take so long, it can take decades. You have folks waiting in refugee camps for, you know, months. You know, 20 years, 30 years, you have kids who have grown up in refugee camps. And so the immigration system is quite broken. And what we’re seeing here, like what we’re seeing on the border is just a reflection of how outdated and broken the immigration system is.

So I think it’s absolutely relevant.

Jon: The crazy right now is just, you know, all of the, the storylines about What’s happening in Springfield, Ohio and stuff like that. I guess that’s [00:20:00] low hanging fruit in terms of what you can talk about. Like you can talk about that probably forever and the misinformation that just gets propagated and how hard that is to deal with.

But to beat that, when we talked with you earlier, you know, we did talk a little, I’m just thinking about solutions, right? We did talk a little bit about this concept of loss and damages, right? Is there something on the table right now that could be a solution to this? And maybe explain loss

Verda: and damages for us.

Tabitha: Sure. Yeah, definitely. I can, I can absolutely do that. Yeah. So this phrase loss and damages, it’s come up at the conference of the parties, right for the United Nations. And for folks who don’t know what that is, is that, um, it’s a group that came together, right. In order to pass the UN framework convention on climate change.

And this was put together in 1992. And, you know, this Loss and damages fund is to help nations that are struggling with climate adaptation, right? So for instance, you have islands in the Pacific that are going underwater, and who is going to pay for that, right? Although there are nations such as the United States, that have disproportionately contributed to greenhouse gases, right?

Does it mean then that the United States has to put a ton of money into this fund, right? That’s the fundamental question. And so last year, at the last COP, there was this discussion to actually implement this fund. And so this upcoming COP, it’s all going to be about Who has to put money into it, right?

And how do we actually get dollars into this fund? There’s a lot of talk about pledges, right? And so we need to see dollars. And I have to say, too, that this conversation is taking so long, right? And you have folks who are literally facing The implications of climate adaptation, right? And climate change.

And so what’s complicated here though, is, you know, should countries be the only ones that are putting money towards this fund or should businesses also put money in? And I’m thinking of, you know, major polluting businesses such as oil companies, right? Oil, like should gas stations such as Exxon, like should they have to be putting money into such a fund?

And so it’s a great idea and folks have been talking about it, right? the way of actually executing getting the funding out, I think it’s going to be complicated, right? It’s just like a giant grant making process. Essentially, do countries have to write a grant application? Do they have to justify who gets X amount of percentage, right?

So, um, it’s, it’s quite complicated, but it’s needed. Yeah, I first became

Verda: aware of this with Ecuador. And I guess this happened a while back over a decade ago, Ecuador tried to set up a fund. They, they, made their case to the United Nations that if you gave us 3. 6 billion, we will not drill for oil and we’ll protect, you know, the Galapagos is there and rainforests are there.

And, and a fund was created, but then nobody contributed to the fund. And now they’re Now they’re looking to China for a loan, which they’ll be paying back with oil, right?

Tabitha: Yeah, it’s a, it’s a good point. I think, um, even more specifically, if we want to talk about climate reparations, I think that’s a step further and as, uh, a third factor, right? And that has to do with slavery. Um, And so being someone who, you know, comes from ancestors who were formerly enslaved, uh, both from the African continent and also from the South Asian continent, I think that there’s, there’s a really important question here to be asked.

Folks who were brought over to the Caribbean, for instance, right, or to Guyana that’s under sea level and, and actively going underwater, especially the coastline, you know, who, is going to have to now pay for these sorts of environmental disasters, right? So, for instance, in Guyana, the majority of folks live on the coastline, right?

We have a lot of rainforests, but the reasoning as to why folks live on the coast is because, you know, the Dutch, they Took away all of the mangrove trees that was sort of like the natural, uh, barrier for like wave action, right? In order to, to help with flooding. And so now that’s gone, right? So, okay, that’s, that was a natural way in order for a country to protect itself.

And, um, The folks who live on the coast, it’s really the remnants of how plantations were set up, right? They were set up on the coast. And so once, uh, folks were given their freedom, they stayed there. And so now as these communities Are facing overtopping, right? So that means that the water is coming over the seawall, right?

And farmlands are getting completely inundated with salt water. That’s a problem because then you can’t farm anymore on that area. [00:25:00] Who’s going to pay for those damages, right? Is it the Guyanese government? Is it the former colonial powers, like the Dutch? Is it the British? Do they need to put something into a fund in order to help with this climate adaptation?

We didn’t choose to be brought to these climate prone areas, right? And so that’s something that I think is important to be part of the discussion. A

Jon: lot of people behave like isolationists and, and they’re like, well, The sea level is rising and it’s eroding your coastline and it’s making your population, you know, more susceptible to climate. Like that’s not our problem. That’s happening in your country. So you should fix it. Right. And what you just did in that paragraph that you just shared with us, that those thoughts, you, you peeled away three or four additional layers of that conversation that people don’t have with themselves.

Tabitha: Yeah, absolutely. And then if folks from my country, for instance, were to leave, to go to a different country, right? And then we are now migrants, right? It’s, then you have that other layer too, of having to deal with being displaced and being a migrant and, and often being scorned, right? That’s not fair.

Jon: You made a mess in your country.

And now rather than staying there and fixing it, you’ve come to my country to take care of it. My jobs, right? That’s unfortunately how it’s being politicized right now, I think. I don’t know. Virta, what do you

Verda: think? No, I agree. It’s disheartening and frightening too, right? And because we’re a country of immigrants, I mean, I’m I’m an immigrant, but I was born in another country and came here with my mom, who I guess I think of her as the immigrant, but technically I am too.

And so many of us are, and I think it’s what makes America an amazing place. I was with some, some people. In Europe, right? And in Europe, the cuisines are very specific. And it’s like, what’s your favorite cuisine from Galicia, Spain? And it’s something very specific, right? And they asked me, what’s your favorite cuisine in America?

And I was like, Oh, my God, Filipino food, Korean food, you know, like, that was what first came to mind, right? Not chicken and dumplings.

Jon: Fried chicken and waffles. Yeah, it’s just

Verda: it blows our mind that we We forget how, why America is just this amazing place and, and so diverse. And to me, that’s what makes America very special.

But I think if we can just stop with the misinformation and start accepting people, and I think you’re doing a lot of work with communities around getting. Acceptance and, um, assimilation and people to welcome others, right?

Jon: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love your, your term, intentional communities

Verda: or beloved or was it beloved communities or both?

Maybe both.

Tabitha: Both are applicable here. I would say. Intentionally beloved

community. There

Tabitha: you go. We’ll call it intentional beloved community. I love it. No, definitely. So right now I am the executive director of Connecticut Students for a Dream. This is a pretty new transition for me. I used to work at a refugee resettlement agency before this.

And, um, more specifically, I’m working with undocumented youth. So these are generally high school age students. You know, they’re between the ages of 14 and 20. And. These youth have The most inspiring stories I heard of someone talking about having to leave their country and literally walking through all of Central America, right, just to get to America for the hope of safety.

This is a kid. And that’s not to say only kids deserve to be able to have a place right that’s safe. It’s just jarring to hear about these kinds of stories and have to having to walk for thousands and thousands and thousands of miles. Uh, with one pair of shoes and one set of clothes and zero dollars.

Jon: How long of a journey is that? I’m just for perspective.

Tabitha: Yeah, months, uh, six months, seven months. And especially if you’re a youth, you know, if, if you’re younger and you’re not, you know, your body’s not fully developed, you’re, you’re tired. You get tired more easily, especially for if you have siblings. And some of these students talk about, you know, their siblings being with them also and sleeping on the side of the street and just hoping.

And dreaming to get to America. These are, these are their stories and I [00:30:00] think they deserve to be fully humanized, right? And to be seen as people, because I think the way that the media portrays immigrants coming across the border, it’s, it’s just abhorrent and unkind. And I think my work, why I really enjoy this work is because I get to highlight that, that immigrants have power, right?

It’s, it’s not, it’s not that. We have all of the rights, right, that’s afforded to us within America, but notwithstanding whether we have rights or not, it’s that we as individuals, right, have autonomy, and I really enjoy that. The other thing, too, is that I get to talk to communities that are, as I would describe it, to be host communities, right?

So let’s say New Haven. is, um, is the host community. I get to talk to folks and try to teach them about the cultures of, of folks who are coming in, right? And a lot of that is to ensure that there’s not xenophobia. I think if we’re knowing that people are coming into a community, it’s our jobs to make sure that we are informing folks of what’s happening, right?

So they don’t feel like, you know, they’re being attacked or their rights are being taken away. And ultimately, it is beautiful. It is a wonderful thing to see when a community member who is American, perhaps, meets someone from a different country, and that they are wanting to welcome them, right? Because they’re our neighbors.

No matter what, they’re our neighbors. And so, I think that’s important to do and to be in dialogue, uh, continuously. Because if we don’t talk to each other, how would we learn from each other? I love that. It’s

Verda: like,

Tabitha: Put a face

Verda: to it, put a story to it, and educate and inform.

Jon: Let it be emotional, but let it be emotional for all the right reasons.

I’m just curious, how is the media talking about immigration right now that makes it so abhorrable?

Tabitha: Yeah, it’s, you know, the last presidential debate was,

Verda: I was floored, we were all floored.

Tabitha: Okay, crazy.

Jon: Well, that’s fair.

Totally.

Jon: Well, now most presidential debates, there is a lot of conversation around eating pets.

So I wasn’t surprised by that part.

Tabitha: Hey, I guess, um, it’s, you know, we’re, we’re seeing these kinds of narratives And certain media companies latch on to these stories and are trying to find the folks who are quote unquote eating pets and eating animals. It’s like, why are we even entertaining this conversation? It’s just silly. Right. And it’s dehumanizing.

And I think what comes to mind are the youth, like for instance, Haitian youth, like how are Haitian children feeling right now? You know, when they’re hearing all of these kinds of soundbites and, and news and, and they’re in school and like, what are kids saying to them? It’s just awful. And that has a huge effect on one’s psyche, right?

There,

Tabitha: there’s so much happening right now in terms of youth feeling lonely, right? And these mental health emergencies that are happening, like, all of this does not make it any better. So that’s, I’m just, I, I’m saddened by that. I’m also saddened by the ways that black immigrants are portrayed. You know, I don’t know if you all know this, but black immigrants are also disproportionately detained and deported in this country.

And so, you know, when you see what’s happening and what’s being said about Haitian communities, it just really makes my stomach feel sick. And the last thing I’ll say about this too is, you know, Everyone has kind of, uh, stepped towards the right when it comes to, uh, talking about immigration. So not just Republicans, right, but also Democrats.

And so that is something that’s also quite surprising to me as well, because I, I didn’t think of that. I would see this happen.

Verda: Yeah. It’s a, it’s an interesting time. I do, I do feel like the, the narrative is just escalated and the way immigrants are described has just become so extreme and this, this othering, right, calling them criminals and savages and all of this stuff.

And it’s, it’s become

Jon: normalized. Just the terminology we’re using. Yeah. Yeah. Like border security. Like that’s. Border security. And it implies that the people that are coming across the border are dangerous.

Verda: Yeah, it’s very, it’s frightening. And I agree. I think a lot of us are for whatever reason getting on that camp.

I do think that we need good immigration policy. Absolutely. Oh yeah. Yeah. If it’s taking people decades. Because even one thing that bad immigration policy does is it fuels more people coming to the border and taking that dangerous dairy and gap, uh, journey, right? Exactly. But I think it just, maybe it means we need more projects like yours.

We just so many more projects like yours to just [00:35:00] work on, just chip away at, I think it’s mostly misinformation. Yeah. And again, I do think it’s partially the United States is also affected by climate change. I mean, we’ve got some major, major hurricane issues over there in North Carolina. And, and I was just looking at a map about where climate climate issues are.

And a lot of the United States, Texas and parts of California. And, and of course, a lot of the South is, is going to be hit. Yeah. Is going to continue to be hit with climate issues. And, and I think that there is dawning sense of limited, whatever jobs, resources, eggs and milk. I don’t know, right. That is in some ways fueling this protectionism, I guess.

Tabitha: Yeah. I mean, to John’s question, John’s like, why, why is this happening? I think it has to do a lot of with fear.

Verda: Yeah.

Tabitha: And, um, I think too, folks are concerned about the economy, and immigrants have been used as scapegoats for centuries, right? You need someone to blame for financial issues, right? For increased drug use in the country.

I think because, and I’ll speak for myself, like as an immigrant, I think oftentimes like for my family, like we kind of stuck to ourselves, you kind of stay in the shadows, you don’t bother people. Right. And so I think one lesson that I have learned is to, to. be myself and to come out of the shadows and just to have conversations, right?

Because I think unless people get to know you, it’s difficult for them to really understand what’s happening and who you are. And that’s not to say that immigrants owe it to anybody to tell their stories, but that’s just something that I choose to do and how I choose to live my life. Because I want to be intentional with people.

I want to learn about them and I want them to learn about me. And um, the other thing I’ll say too is there’s this really cool program called Welcome Corps. It’s um, A federal government program, and it allows for community members to come together and to say, I want to welcome a refugee family. You get training about how to do that.

You know, you have to do some fundraising, but your community can help to welcome a refugee family. And I think that’s absolutely incredible for folks to make that choice. Right. Intentionally, unapologetically to say, I welcome refugees. I welcome immigrants in my community. And I think that’s something that’s, uh, more powerful than perhaps maybe the government saying like, Hey, here’s, you know, here, here are a few hundred, uh, families, you know, deal with it.

I think it’s a lot more powerful when community members come together and actively say I volunteer, you know, to, to help a dozen families and, and not, it’s not about the numbers. I think it’s about people. actively volunteering and, and being, um, public stewards, right? Like you’re being engaged, right? I think it all comes back to democracy because that’s like your vote.

You’re voting to say, yes, I want to welcome immigrants.

Verda: I love that, John. We need to put that in the show notes and that’s something that our listeners can, we can do. We can do something, right?

Jon: Yeah.

Verda: And it just, even if we welcome just one family, right?

Jon: Yeah. The welcome core. Yeah. Love it.

Verda: Mm hmm.

Tabitha: Are they all over the country?

Yes, definitely. It’s a State Department program, and so folks can just look it up, and they can sign up, and, and there’s a beautiful process. where there’s teaching and they just walk you through the whole thing. So we’re running out

Verda: of time, but we’d love to either hear either something, a project that you’re working on now that you’re really excited about, or maybe a future project that you’re concocting that you’re excited about.

Tabitha: Thank you. Yes. So in Connecticut, at least we’re working on, um, this. Coalition that’s called Husky for Immigrants and Husky is our state Medicaid here in Connecticut. I actually don’t know why we’re obsessed, but Huskies must have something to do with University of Connecticut and basketball teams. I suppose.

I don’t know. I don’t know why it’s called. Americans love sports. I don’t know. Um, and so we are working to ensure that all immigrants, right, regardless of status have access to state Medicaid and One of the things we were learning about from our youth members is that their parents need to be healthy, right?

For you to develop as a youth, right? You need to ensure that your parents are also being taken care of. And so one thing that’s important for folks to realize and to remember is that immigrants Undocumented immigrants contribute to taxes, right? Not just federally, but also on a state level. There is an individual tax paying number that you can apply for.

Undocumented immigrants specifically do this and [00:40:00] voluntarily pay taxes to the IRS. Folks can look this up. You know, there’s just billions, billions with a B as in boy. of tax dollars that are contributed to the American economy. And so, you know, I sometimes folks say this, like if, if a certain president, um, wanted to do mass deportations, they could subpoena the IRS for the information of all of these folks who are paying billions of dollars into the tax system.

And so that’s something I just want to highlight and not only say that You know, we are humans as immigrants, and also we contribute immensely to this country because we love it and we love this community. And

Verda: I think that is an important point because I think one of the negative, one of the reasons there’s such a big negative backlash is that, uh, people think that undocumented immigrants are getting handouts or getting federal funding programs and things like that, which as you point out.

Maybe not so much, and maybe they’re actually contributing to, to our coffers.

Jon: What a thought though. I, I, I have to say that I’ve never, it’s never occurred to me that the parents of, um, these children that are of immigrant families need to have, physical and mental health in order to raise these families, probably more than the rest of us, based on what they’re undoubtedly going through on a daily basis.

That’s a really interesting perspective or an additional perspective for sure. So that’s a pretty good note to end on. Yeah, I love it. Not mine, but, you know, I love it.

Verda: All right, John, that was your guest.

Jon: What do you think? She was amazing as I, as I knew she would be. So much energy. God, youth. It’s the youth, Verna. I know. It’s these young people that are doing 17 million things at once. I mean, you look at her, her resume, you know, she’s so accomplished at such a young age.

Verda: They’re so smart. I was never that smart when I was that age.

Jon: I’m not that smart at this age. But, you know, I love her enthusiasm and I love her perspective. I was really interested in hearing from somebody who experienced life as an undocumented immigrant, right, um, to sort of see how that. How that changed or how that reframed, um, how she began her life here in the U.

S. And it was, it was remarkable. And I wanted to point out a couple of things that we really, we talked a lot about migration and, and you know, how politicized it’s become and, um, how, It’s just been, it’s just a hot, hot topic right now. Of course, with election season going on, um, it, it feels like we’re blaming, you know, immigrants for everything these days.

And it’s, um, it’s a horrible thing that’s happening, but I wanted to, I found a couple of things that I wanted to share after talking with Debita. There’s actually climate, Migrants and climate refugees. Did you know that there was a difference between the two?

Verda: Yeah, she talked about that a little bit, but tell us again.

Jon: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, let’s, let’s just reiterate. So, um, a climate migrant is somebody who is dealing with climate change and a climate refugee is somebody who’s dealing from an extreme weather event. Right.

Verda: Oh, and she did not mention this. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I have to absorb that for a minute. Yeah.

Jon: Yeah. So, I mean, if you’re a migrant, right, you are either running from a situation at home that’s no longer livable due to climate change, or you’re fleeing an extreme weather event, like you, by the way, let’s just put this out there.

We have. Climate refugees here in the U. S. Right now, right? Who are who do not have a home in North Carolina who do not have a home in parts of Florida. And as you and I record this, we have a category five hurricane speeding towards the Gulf Coast of Florida, and scientists have offered a lot of explanation into why this hurricane is so deadly and why I mean, it’s absolutely a climate event, which is crazy.

But, Berta, think about this for one second. I just wanted to put this out there. The World Bank in 2018 said that over a billion people will cross the border because of climate. And, you know, the US, [00:45:00] we have, there’s a lot of people here that don’t want to welcome, um, those, those immigrants, but imagine if all of these All of these climate refugees that we have in Florida and North Carolina, imagine if the only place they had to go was across an international border.

They’re very lucky. They they’re only crossing state borders to find safer places, but not everybody has that luxury, right? Nope, not at all.

Verda: Absolutely.

Jon: Yeah. Kind of sobering to think about. Right.

Verda: Yeah. And I want to add to that, that we need, we do need to acknowledge the United States complicity in the climate crisis, right?

The United States historical emissions. So that means all the emissions that are, that have already are built up already up in the atmosphere. We have contributed more than any other country since 1850, 20 percent of the global total. And the, the second highest contributor. China is not even half, barely half of that.

Jon: Yeah. Yeah. And, and now we want everybody to join us in, you know, in, um, reducing our carbon footprint and there’s some countries out there that have found that they now have oil reserves that they can drill for, right? And we benefited from our oil reserves. Why can’t they benefit from theirs? So that’s a really difficult conversation.

Verda: Yeah, probably another, probably one for another episode. That’s

Jon: a whole nother season, man.

Verda: Yeah, exactly. Let’s

Jon: not get

Verda: off. Let’s not

Jon: get off topic with. But she was awesome, you know, and I

Verda: do think that, you know, I know you were drilling in on, you know, these people didn’t want to leave their homes. And I know a family that left, they were excited to sell their home here in the East Bay where I live in California and moved to Tampa.

And guess what? They’re in a car right now driving away from the hurricane. No way.

Jon: Yeah. So

Verda: who knows if they’re going to have a home to go to. Right. They are climate refuges. Crazy. At the moment. And if their home is gone, they’re going to be a climate migrant. I think the bottom line is we’ve got to prepare for this and we have to have empathy for everyone that’s dealing with their homes disappearing because of climate change.

Climate change

Jon: will be and we can’t look at these these these migrants. We can’t look at them as somebody who’s crossing a border because they want to take something from us. You know, nobody wants to leave their home with the clothes on their back. And, you know, Not enough money to survive, right? Nobody wants to do that, so Empathy, I think, is a good word.

That’s the word of the day, I think, Berta. Absolutely. So.

Verda: Alright, well, listeners, I hope you enjoyed that episode. And we’ve got our Hot Seat coming up right now. Hot Seat coming up!

So, John, what time is it of the day? My favorite time. Oh, man. It’s the best time of day. It’s time for the hot seats.

I am so excited. I’m especially excited because this is somebody in my local pond over here in San Francisco. Somebody who I’ve admired and respected, worked alongside for many, many years here in San Francisco. We are here with David Galullo. Now he is the star Chief Creative Officer of Wrapped Studio, an incredible firm doing amazing design, not just here in San Francisco, but all over the world.

And most excitingly, he has just been inducted into the Interior Design Hall of Fame. Can you believe that? Yeah, I can. I know, right? And he’s doing a hot seat with us. Jeez. I’m hoping to be there, crossing fingers. I’m going to be in D. C. the week before, so trying to figure out how I can just stay on the East Coast for, you know, a week.

We’ll see.

Jon: Very exciting.

Verda: Yeah. Okay. So we’re going to start with our first question.

Jon: Be kind. Well, just remember, David, we, we don’t want you to think very hard about these. So, you know, we’re hoping that

Hot Seat: there’s no issue with me thinking too hard. I gave it up years ago.

Verda: Love it. All right. Perfect. First question.

What’s your spirit animal? Uh,

Hot Seat: hippopotamus.

Verda: Wow. That was fast.

Jon: I love it.

Hot Seat: Oh my God. You know what? Those things are dangerous, David. They’re, they’re amazing because there’s this soft, cuddly, big, fat, you, you think, Oh my God, they’re so cute. And then they have the power of like a billion. They’re really [00:50:00] dangerous, but cute.

Jon: I

Hot Seat: like

Jon: it. They’re angry. I think they kill more people than like anything else.

Verda: Have you seen the viral, the baby mini hippo? that’s gone viral on TikTok and Instagram. It’s

so

Verda: cute. But it snaps it, it snaps it, everybody.

Jon: Mean little bastard. Yeah. All right, David. So we learned something out about David.

He’s very cute, but he’s a little aggressive. Oh, shoot. And

Verda: we need a little less. Shop talk in between. Okay, John next question.

Jon: Yeah.

Verda: Yeah. Okay. Okay,

Jon: David, electric cars, electric bikes, or Waymo’s?

Hot Seat: Uh, yes, all three.

Jon: Oh,

Verda: what? Well, I’m sorry. You don’t allow that. That’s a good answer. No, that is a good answer.

All

Hot Seat: three. Two electric cars, two electric bikes, and I use Waymo when I’m in the city.

Verda: There you go. Oh, all right. All right. Okay. Alright all David, what in your view, what is the number one problem facing our planet? And that’s a hard question ’cause there’s so many

Hot Seat: there are, there, there are so many, um, a pretty broad spectrum of, uh, a lack of education.

Everything we deal with is, can be tracked back to a lack of education of the populace

Verda: that is a. Actually, a really great answer. What is the, um, organization that has ranked all the things that you can do to help the world and they rank number five, educating women and girls and. The Global South as one of the top things

Jon: that actually helps address climate issues.

It

Verda: does help. Yeah.

Jon: Crazy.

Verda: So education.

Jon: There you go. Good answer. Good answer. We like that. Okay, David, uh, what’s one change that you’ve made to your lifestyle or work to help save the planet?

Hot Seat: Um, I, uh, and this is, this came out of obviously came out of COVID, but I fly a lot less and I rely on virtual meetings a lot more.

Verda: Hmm. All right. Yep. I

Jon: like that.

Verda: Good answer. Another tough one. What material in our industry should just absolutely not exist?

Hot Seat: Oh, um, that’s a tough one.

Verda: Yeah. There’s a lot. And in some cases it’s hard to eliminate. Some materials, even though they’re terrible, completely.

Hot Seat: Yeah, I mean, we, we, we try to stay away from, uh, from a lot of materials, but we in general just try to use a lot less of everything.

Verda: Oh, that’s, yeah, that’s a great answer. Actually,

Jon: everything I like. I can’t blame him for that.

Verda: Yeah. David’s kind of skirting the rules a bit, but, but they’re good answers. They’re good answers.

Jon: He’s pushing the envelope, but we can’t, we can’t really get them on it. All

Verda: right. That’s why he’s winning this award here.

God, he really is

Jon: a hall of famer by God. Um, all right, David, um, moon colony. Bunker,

Hot Seat: uh, moon colony .

Verda: All right, so you would, you would forego the earth, the planet, just get on, abandon it, get on a SpaceX and go to the moon. All right. God

Jon: abandon all those little baby hippos, okay? I

Hot Seat: don’t do well in enclosed spaces or on boats.

I don’t, I, I, I don’t do well in any place. I can’t. Leave when I’m ready.

Verda: That’s true. And who wants to be in a bunker anyways? Yeah. Eat nothing but canned food. All right. One more. Last question. It’s just what gets you out of bed? What is one thing that gives you hope?

Hot Seat: I absolutely love what I do, not because I’m a designing fool and have to draw things, but because what we do pulls people together.

Um, you know, my staff pulling together, learning how to collaborate and, and, uh, you know, really listen, um, and the spaces we design pull. people together and around, uh, uh, both a place and a thought that they’re part of something larger. And I think right now we absolutely need that. So that what’s getting me out of bed every single day.

Verda: Love that answer. That’s actually exactly what John and I have been talking about this whole season. So wonderful answer. And I hope to see you in New York. Congratulations again.

Hot Seat: Stick, stick around on these shows, I want to see you.

Verda: All right. Sounds good.

Jon: Thanks to Tabitha Sudeo for joining us today.

Verda: We’d love to hear about the issues that you’d like us to address. Be sure to let us know by leaving a positive review wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also ask your hot seat questions there.

Jon: Break Some Dishes is a

Verda: Surround Podcast by Sandow Design Group.

Thanks to the team behind the scenes. This episode is produced by Rob Schulte and edited by Rob Adler. Thanks to

Jon: [00:55:00] Master Dynamic for the official headphones of the Surround Network.

Verda: You can hear other podcasts like this one at surroundpodcast. com.