Mar 28 2023
S3E6: Empowering Maine’s Women Through Community Leadership
Today, we will be following up on a 2018 Maine Policy Review article titled, “Our Path: Empower Maine Women Network and Leadership” by interviewing the authors Parivash Rohani, Oyinloluwa Fasehun, Ghomri Rostampour, Bethany Smart, and Laura de Does along with a conversation with Cathy Lee, co-founder of the Empower Network. Their article was published in volume 27, number 1, of Maine Policy Review, a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Policy Center.
The article can be accessed here: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1807&context=mpr
Link to "Justice for Women Lecture": https://mainelaw.maine.edu/events/justice-for-women-lecture/
Transcript
Welcome to Maine Policy Matters, a podcast from the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center at the University of Maine. I am Eric Miller, Research Associate at the Center. Today, we will be following up on a 2018 Maine Policy Review article titled, “Our Path: Empower Maine Women Network and Leadership” by interviewing the authors Parivash Rohani, Oyinloluwa Fasehun, Ghomri Rostampour, Bethany Smart, and Laura de Does along with a conversation with Cathy Lee, co-founder of the Empower Network. Their article was published in volume 27, number 1, of Maine Policy Review, a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Policy Center. The article can be accessed in the description of this episode.
In 2016, Mufalo Chitam (now the executive director of the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition) and Catherine Lee (founder of Justice for Women) created the Empower Maine Women Network, referred to as the Empower Network. Their goal was to address the isolation New Mainer women felt and to give women who have long called Maine their home the chance to interact with new members of their community.
Mufalo was unavailable for an interview, so we will do a reading of her section of the article:
On March 12, 2018, I stood in a room at the Maine State House in Augusta on behalf of my organization, the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition (MIRC), to testify against a bill, LD 1833 “An Act to Facilitate Compliance with Federal Immigration Law by State and Local Government Entities.” My daughter Grace was home on spring break, and while it was a privilege to have her there in the room to witness the work I have been so passionate about for much of her young life, it was also heartbreaking.
Eighteen years ago (Now 23 years ago), I met a young man in my African country of Zambia. He was on vacation, and we met just a couple months before my husband, my then 2-year-old daughter, and I were about to emigrate to America. His words to me were simple: “Please come to Portland, Maine. It is a safe place to raise your family and even though there are few immigrants, Mainers are very nice and welcoming.” If LD 1833 had passed, it would have changed not only this narrative, but also how my daughter feels about Maine, the only place she has called home.
That day I was upholding our humanity, a value my late father taught me at an early age, so that this bill would not make immigrants feel less welcome in Maine. I have spent my whole life constantly looking for small opportunities and for connections to improve someone else’s tomorrow. My role as executive director of MIRC grew from working with immigrant women from diverse countries, ethnicities, and religions. Leadership is seen in suffrage, shown in courage, tolerance, and kindness, and is driven by strength. End of passage.
Empower network met regularly in Portland to connect New Mainers with nonimmigrant women so they could talk about the challenges they face and how to help each other overcome these challenges, as well as to highlight opportunities for engagement in the community. The meetings offered a special presentation featuring women speakers making a significant contribution to the Maine community.
On March 24th, 2018, the women that penned the original piece sat down to discuss the concept of leadership and their definition of what makes a leader. They were asked to reflect on the idea of empowerment and specifically tie empowerment to kindness, suffrage, and tolerance. Now, we will catch up on the authors and hear their perspectives on the importance of community building and interpersonal relationships. Then we had an opportunity to talk to Cathy Lee, one of the co-founders of the Empower Network to speak about her journey and experience working and community engagement in Maine
Eric Miller:
Hello everyone. Thank you all so much for joining us on podcast today. To get us started could each of you give an overview of your experience of moving to Maine and how you all met each other? . Let’s start with you.
Pavarish: Okay. Before I just tell you how I got to Maine, I have to give you a little background.
I’m originally from Iran, so in 1979 when revolution happened, My house was burned down because I belonged to Bahai community and I had to leave the country. So really I became homeless overnight, and then I escaped Iran to India with two of my cousin for safety. We chose India because the proximity to Iran, and also because most people were Buddhist and Hindu, we felt that we were safer among that kind of population.
And then after few years being in India, The embassy of Iran did not actually renew our passport again because of our religious belief. So we had to convert and we refused to convert. So we became from being homeless in Iran stateless in India, and the only option we had to become a refugee. So we became a refugee and came to United States in 1986.
As you can imagine, coming to Maine, I felt I’m a kid in a candy shop, for the first time, I had identity, I had respect. I have freedom. Things that really, even today, people are living their country and giving their life to come to America for freedom. So I really found out my identity in Maine. As a human being and being respected and because of the climate,
actually, I felt at home, because I came from northeast of Iran, the climate is identical to Maine, so I immediately felt at home. I know many people are surprised when they hear, I’m from Iran and I live in a climate like this. But in the north we do have a similar really climate. I just wanted to mention, really it wasn’t the event that it brought me
to come to know Bethany, Laura, Ghomri and Oyi. It wasn’t one event. It was really the desire to serve our community and our intentionality that we wanted to group with people who were doing things in the community. And that’s how I feel, I came, I crossed path with all of these lovely woman that I have really learned a lot from them.
And I have so much respect and love admiration for them. And I think that’s the key. The love that we have for each other have made this connection so meaningful. It wasn’t the event because you can meet people at event. And then you go your separate way. So that doesn’t mean anything but our desire to be together and advance or community for better.
Eric Miller: That’s a very special connection and I am glad that you experienced some of the Maine style climate prior to getting there. Let’s go with Ghomri next.
Ghomri: Hi. Yes. I came from I grew up in Iran. Obviously as Parivash mentioned, just they had they executing them for different reason because of the religion, and they executed us because of all ethnicity, because of our language, because of our, just practicing even.
We are not allowed to practice our culture. And so I became a refugee and stayed in Turkey for -I think I stayed in Turkey for, yeah, so many months. And then I I came to USA and the reason that I ended up to Maine, one of my cousin was here. And at the same time, we have a similar climate, and we have a lot of snow and we have a lot of, just rain and obviously it’s a little different.
We have ocean here. We don’t have any ocean over there. And I miss mountains a lot because , we have mountain here, . I miss it anyway. And yeah, and feel very connected to Maine. I feel like that I am home, especially with the friendly environment and welcoming people here. And so yeah, unfortunately the thing that is just too much for us here,
it’s just when any kind crisis, any kind political turmoil or war is happened in in Iran or in region, in general, it’s it’s too much for us, and I know we have great friends and which is very thankful and always we have them here that they they’re out there for us always.
They’re out there for us. Yeah. And otherwise, yeah. And being free here and practicing my language, my cultural, my culture, my ethnicity, my identity. And imagine in country that even they are not giving birth certificate. They didn’t give birth certificate to,
our great parents, and yeah, it’s feel like that you are you’ll find yourself, and then you feel that you are at least belong to humans. You are a human and belongs to a community that you are getting support from. And then it was back in 2018 that we start to have empower the immigrant women.
And I I just became friends and not only as Parivash mentioned to -it’s just not like a group that we are meeting. We meet with each other and just everyone go back home and, just being on their own business now, we’re still friends. We are doing hiking together. We are going to restaurant with each other, we’re spending time with each other.
We eating, we are crying with each other. We’re celebrating with each other, and sometimes in the middle of night when I get so tired especially Laura , I pick up the phone and give us give her a call, and long conversation and not, and the other friends as well. Yeah.
Yeah. But at the same time, we are in general that, the role of a leader is to coach, guide, and inspire others and to motivate team through you, if you motivate the team through challenging the challenging time that you, they have and guide them. I was very active on so many areas, I should say, but mostly with women and especially Afghan women, I was able to establish the Maine Afghan woman community and which is running right now.
They have little by little at the beginning it was really, it was not easy for them to come along with each other, but I, we were able, to make this unity happen. And so at least, let to share their beliefs with each other, to be honest with each other and their integrity. And, just the influence that we had, kind of like building especially building the skills, acting women that they, when you know, when you are in, when you grow in a country that is dominate country and they’re not letting you to be out there it’s not easy to bring them, to the field.
It’s not easy, to inspire them. But anyway, so it was amazing and it’s running right now and I’m a member of I’m a member of housing Authority Board member, sorry, the board member of Housing Authority and Opportunity Alliance and Civil Commission. And at the same time, I’m a civic activist and happy, and excited and at the same time have my education and raising my two beautiful kids here in university, safe in environment.
And they finished their education and they have their own career. And if you wanna be out there as a role model, just, it’s very important that someone who ensures their team has supported and tools to achieve their goals. You have to start it from your yourself. You have to start just the commitment, the passion, the confidence that you have, and how much you are able to give this to your community. It’s very important, either directly or indirectly or what kind of work vision that you have and the vision that is also managed, for the managing them deliver this vision and inspire them to achieve their goals.
Eric Miller: That’s great. Ghomri. Laura, how about you give me an overview of your experience and with this community?
Laura: Sure. I decided to attend the rather small meeting. It wasn’t a huge meeting of the empower of the immigrant women, and I hadn’t been a part of the organization at all, and went with Bethany and really didn’t know what I as a white Mainer,
I was born and raised in Maine, had to contribute, and I was amazed how all of us just really supported each other and we were there and talked around the room and we were each able to state our needs, something that we needed help with. I had taken in a young man from another African nation who was really struggling and I was trying to find ways to help him, assist him.
And so I brought that to the attention of the group and we just really all supported each other with whatever it was that we needed. And I’ll never forget at the end of the meeting, walking out to the sidewalk and just realized that we were all gathered together, a bunch of us, and just realizing that we had just made these incredible friends.
Now, some of the people I knew, but not, other than Bethany, not on that level. And it’s amazing that more than 50% of the people there I consider my very dear friends today. There was a conference that was put on in part of the Community Network conference that Ghomri and I, not really meaning to ended up co-hosting it.
So I was involved in it in that way too. And again, like as a couple of the women have said already, just the incredible friendships and the support that came out of that first meeting was just amazing.
Oyi: Yeah, I think what everyone has said so far, especially Parivash is actually true. I came into the country as a student, so my story is a little bit different, but and when I came into the country, I came into New York and I met my husband in New York and then he got his first full-time job with the university in Maine, and that’s how I found myself in Maine. Now, Maine was like definitely very cold compared to New York, but I can’t remember exactly how I found myself in the Empower Women Network, but I know Mufalo was the first person I met, and then I started attending the meetings, while I was in Maine, even though I came in as a student, I came in to do my master’s, but after my master’s was over, I needed to still find something to do to keep myself in status, immigration wise. That’s one of the things we have to deal with as immigrants. You have to, to stay legally, I had to do something like go to schools or something. So I went back to community college. I was actually attending Maine community college at that time.
But going to these meetings with these women, I’m like, I’m the youngest so everybody on this group is like my big Auntie , I – going to these meetings, meeting these people was like, it was really it was a great opportunity to just meet people and I found out that everyone was very supportive of where I was at that point in time, even though it wasn’t like I was working, but having good conversations with these great ladies and them supporting me. Even at that time I was even trying to like, get a job, get a job that could could file for me, that could give me like a work visa. And even though I didn’t get to that point, eventually everyone was supportive of me trying to get that including, especially like Mufalo. She tried to connect me with some law firms. ’cause I studied law. I have a legal background. So Mufalo was trying to connect me with people who could like, employ me and file a work Visa for me. And for me that’s like really part of what Empower Women Network is about, trying to ensure that immigrants find their voice, they find something, that they, they can get to do in Maine and Maine is very welcoming in that regard. And that’s just like the most welcoming place I’ve ever lived in so far. Yeah, they’re very welcoming of immigrants, which was what I appreciated about them. And the Empower Network and like Parivash said, everybody was intentional about building that bond, building that relationship.
I remember when I had to have my first child, Bethany was there. I had complications, bethany went through it with me. She cried with me. Parivash was also with me. Laura came to the hospital. Parivash came to the hospital. Parivash was like telling me,’causemy baby was in ICU for a period of time.
Parivash. I remember Parivash telling me to speak with her, even though of course she’s a baby. She couldn’t, but Parivash made me understand that, okay, she’s a baby, but she can hear your voice. You’ve carried her for a long time. And, eventually my child ended up doing great. She’s still a miracle to everybody today.
But yeah, we have that sisterhood, that bond and even though we’re miles away, we don’t call each other every. When we get to connect with each other, we share pictures. We connect with each other on Facebook. When I post something, Bethany, Laura, Ghomri, comments, and even though I haven’t been to Maine in a long time, I still plan to visit the place with my daughter and see everyone, I think it’s more of the fact that everybody was intentional about building this relationship, building this sisterhood, and I really appreciate. I really appreciate that network and I really appreciate everyone on this call for that.
Yeah. And since then we moved to Missouri. From Missouri. We’re now in Tennessee. Yeah. And like I said, it’s like the last move. And I’ve had another child. I’ve had another child in August, and so right now I am. Eventually my husband actually filed for me while I was in Maine to get a green card, but it wasn’t coming through on time, which was why I said I had to go to community college.
Eventually it came through in 2020 and I was able to pursue what I really wanted to do. Right now I’m working for a consulting firm working in the financial services space. I work in like the financial crime investigation side of it, and I work hundred percent from home, which, gives me the flexibility of being a mom, being a present mom, and, working at the same time.
Yeah. So that’s really a summary of, what has been happening to me.
Eric Miller: That’s a wonderful story. There’s so many beautiful memories and congratulations on, on acquiring Your Green Card, finishing school, getting the job, moving around all over the place successfully raising children. What an amazing experience.
And since you named dropped Bethany let’s round up getting to know everyone here.
Bethany: Hi, I’m Bethany Smart. I live in North Yarmouth I in 2018, but prior to the Pandemic was as a volunteer work volunteering through Hope Acts and Hope House as a mentor coordinator. So I would talk to people about Hey, would you like to connect with a new Mainer and help them navigate some systems, be their friend, show them around Portland connect and just listen over coffee, like to what their needs are and see if you can help or,
if Hope House can help or, getting the, we can get the word out to the community and see what folks need. I actually attended, like Laura said with Laura this first meeting I mean my first meeting of the Empower Women Network with, along with a young woman that I was mentoring from Rwanda. And I think my initial thought going was that like she would have a place to connect and that she would know this group existed. So it’s interesting how it turned out that really for me, here we are like all of us connected strongly. And she was even younger than Oyi. So maybe it was just an age factor, but but still I hope that she knows that, she has proceeded with her life here.
She has, sorry. She has I’m sure like, linked up with other friends and organizations in Portland and has the support that she needs. But as it turned out, as you’ve heard from everyone, we had a very strong connection. I mean, I do look at things from through my faith and a spiritual lens so for me, I just feel like it was just all of us coming with really open hearts to connect with one another. And Mufalo asking, like just saying, introduce yourselves and say who you are and say a need that you have. So all of us have multiple needs, right? But I think us coming from Oh, I’m from Nebraska.
I didn’t say that I moved to Maine in 1996, but coming, whether, from any place in the us as a white woman, like in that group, it can be really intimidating to express, like what can my need possibly be when I’m seeing people whose lives I’ve had to, be torn apart and start over.
But as Oyi said, we all rallied around each other’s needs. I remember Laura I think did some editing for somebody who said they needed some editing work, done for work. Maybe that wasn’t you, but I think it was. Yeah, and then the aunties, that’s what we called us planned a baby shower that was at Parivash’s house that she hosted.
And just we started, connecting. Laura and I had always for a long time prior to this been connected and trying to meet needs where we saw them. But this was just clearly just a deeper level of friendship and connection that kind of allowed us all to, I think, extend our leadership into our own spheres even more with the strength of knowing one another.
So I just saw Parivash last week at the State House and I realized later I think I said at the beginning to my husband I’m so glad I went to that meeting. I can’t imagine not having met those women like we were, like Laura said, there’s something about, I think it was supposed to be a one hour meeting and it ended up being three hours.
And then we were doing like selfies and the elevator on the way downstairs who does that when you’ve just met a group of people. But it felt like there was like a reunion and we’d known each other forever. So I realized later, had I not met Parivash that day, I would’ve met her eventually’causeshe’s everywhere all the time activating. But yeah, this has been a really amazing group and amazing friendship and amazing leaders.
Eric Miller: Wow, that I am blown away by the the strength of connection that just going to one place and all, having a collective goal and then letting your guard down and being okay to be intimate and how that builds this community is just such a wonderful thing.
And Oyi you answered this question a little bit already, but that article was published in Maine Policy Review about five years ago, a lot has transpired since then. So I’d love to hear about where people are at now and if Bethany, you mentioned you and Parivash spend time at the State House, if you like to mention other advocacy group or other organizations you’re part of be happy to share that or just general life updates.
Oyi’s been very busy.
Pavarish: Yeah, so I mean, Everybody who is really here in this podcast, we are all involved and we feel, women in general, it is in our DNA to try to make our community a better place. From the unit of home to, you know, local community, national and international. It’s just that, I don’t know how to say it.
We don’t think that we are alive if we are not doing something for somebody or making changes in our community. So yeah, if there are things that, need support at the policy level, look, as Bethany mentioned, it was a day of advocacy in the state house. So we all rallied around Wabanaki people, because we believe in justice. So the justice cannot be discriminated. If you feel everybody have to have a equal, right, then you have to be in forefront of that fight for those people who are really fighting it. And beside that, I do a lot of advocacy around the homelessness and also that recently we had 55 family move to South Portland.
So the, interfaith group decided that, there were items that they needed. So we wrote a email, like I forwarded the email to the Maine ___, and I was overwhelmed with their response of items that had to be delivered to South Portland for the asylum seeker. And I’m not the only one. Every one of these women who you see here, they are involved in many level with that because we all think that it is important.
And I’m among few of the board in Portland Family Promise Board and Portland Park Conservancy that, just doing different thing. It is not maybe so much gear towards the immigrant and asylum, but it is geared towards environment and conserving parks in Portland.
Eric Miller: It’s wonderful. Yeah, you are certainly busy.
As Bethany said let’s go with Ghomri. It’s, it is five years later.
Ghomri: Five years later, yes. As I was my official position was a refugee and immigrant resettlements through Jewish Community Alliance. And when, as you know that how they fragile when they come into this country and we house them when we provide them what food with clothes and reach out to so many organizations, other non-profit organizations, and even, just volunteers that they come out and regardless of color, ethnicity, identity, you know, they house and we were able to house 100 in total. I think in total we had 150, but 50 of them were Afghan community, Afghan families.
And in addition of this one, as I said, I was very involved, to establish empower I mean empower the Afghan woman and, just establish their community. They had community, but it was not very active community. It was not like they didn’t have structure and they, especially the women were not involved at all.
Not at all. I remember at the first meeting that they had only males and they were there and I said, what are the women? And they said, no, we don’t have any woman here. And I said, I’m gonna cancel it out. So then for the next one, we had only two women, and for the third one we had just three women.
And for the fourth one that we had it here in housing Authority, we had 25 women, Afghan woman. So luckily right now, and they are very happy and they’re running their organization. We choose the name for them. Maine Afghan Women and at the same time, civic activist as well and working on my degree to finish it and hopefully another, just the 40 units left to get my master degree from our university international violations.
And the job that I recently, they offered to me, which is, I did not announce that because I have one more exam that I have to take, became a foreign service general. So I know that it’s not an easy job. But anyway, I’m very excited and hopefully to be in the office officially by the August at the end of the August.
And at the same time, I’m a very active member of Worldly Woman. Worldly Woman is under the World Affair Councils here in Maine. The same thing that Empower Immigrant Women did it. We are going out and Laura actually participate in one of our meeting because we are very new and we are still reaching out, just kinda like international women from different group, from different, background and to participate and share their memories and, just supporting each other.
And we have empathy for each other and. So yeah, that is five years later and hopefully in another five years, be president of Iran . We need a woman, yeah.
Bethany: We’ll need a new podcast then.
Eric Miller: Congratulations on making it to this point. Good luck on your final exam there. I have little doubt and how that’ll go for you. I’m sure you’ll pass it without a question. Let’s go to Laura next.
Laura: So I’m trying to think from five years ago how things have changed and I’m not involved in too many direct organizations yet I kind of dabble in a few different ones. And I had a friend, an African friend, tell me not too long ago that,’causeI was trying to find my place in helping in certain situations and he’s, he said to me, you’re a connector. That’s what you do. You connect people. So I’ve kind of taken that and run with it and felt like, that, that is a purpose to connect people that whether it be, to services or that they are trying to better their career or better.
In this particular case, my friends and artists and he just needed to connect with people to Lead to jobs that he has picked up since then. So whether it be people, just needing clothes, I have a couple families right now that are two women are having babies and just even finding some of the basics for some people when they’re new here and they don’t know the language, they don’t have transportation is a struggle.
So anything that we can do, all of us to help make their make their settlement here a little bit easier is what we can do. So I also am on the board of directors of ___ African Newspaper, which is an African newspaper here in Maine. Started in 2018, and the main goal of the newspapers to really connect africans here with Mainers here and also provides news back in Africa for folks settling here so they don’t lose the connection with their homeland. And it also teaches us why a lot of new Mainers are here from African nations, mostly asylum seekers and what might have made them flee and why they’re here and what things are like in their country.
So that’s been really near and dear to my heart. I have an African son, so when I first heard about this newspaper, I thought this is something I really wanna be involved in. So that has helped me connect to other people and just become more and more part of the immigrant community. And, but we’re all Mainers now, so we have to support each other.
Eric Miller: Yeah, that’s absolutely fantastic. Bethany, how about you?
Bethany: So I would say I’m also not, like directly involved like on boards and things like that. But I think just, again, I think my description of leadership in the article like five years ago was just like more pushing myself to do new things. Pushing myself to step outta my comfort zone. To make, always be making new connections, to always be trying to build awareness of what’s happening in Maine, but what’s happening in people’s lives that is important to them. And I think for me it’s allowed me to have conversations on a more informed level than just here’s a general idea of justice.
Everybody should have these basic rights or everybody should be able to do X when they come to the United States and not have all these hoops to jump through kind of thing, but even with family members, with other friends, having like just a greater understanding of the struggles and to say, my friend’s going through this like this, we, we all need to be supporting one another.
So I think, I’d say like Laura’s a major connector. I’ll take minor connector. I’m a connector as well. And I just going back to the spirituality and faith piece, I just look at leadership, not so much as being out front and center as standing my integrity and like doing small things and trusting the ripples that we don’t see.
And yeah, just gaining awareness and it’s it’s like more of a scaling in then scaling up kind of perspective.
Eric Miller: Absolutely. That’s great. So a lot of these points that you all have made actually feeds really nicely into the next question because Parivash in the article in 2018, you mentioned often grassroots leaders making seemingly small decisions have a huge impact on the lives of ordinary people.
Would you mind providing some examples of some of these small decisions? It seems Laura, Bethany have captured these small decisions in small actions and there’s large ones serving on boards. Would you like to elaborate on that a little bit?
Pavarish: Yeah. So really in general, I don’t feel that this, we have this conception of leadership that we think leadership is some alien or coming out of a space and making things work better or we have this complex, I don’t know, idea, and to me leadership is not complex because leadership is about others. It is not about the leader, it is not about us, it is about other people. And I always feel there are so many unsung heroes that they, doing a small thing, but do a small thing or organically changing your community. Sometimes when we talk about complex thing, it’s very disappointing because when you want to take a big, have a big goal. Sometimes it is not possible to fulfill it, but if you make small changes, it is encouraging because you see the result. Like what all the stories that Laura, Bethany and Ghomri share, these are little changes that they are all making and making our community a better place.
So I have an example that I mentioned earlier, like just sending the email, it wasn’t a big deal, but the response that I got was so overwhelming to me. And it wasn’t the leadership because it was about orders, but people were generous. They stood up and, really contributed. But I have, few years ago, I went visiting this family in Lewiston from Congo, and I was visiting them with one of my friends who was from Paris. She was from France. So she was able to translate, all of our conversation. And I casually ask the woman why she’s at home and she is not taking English classes because everybody in her household was gone for, the class except her. And she said, because she cannot see. And I was very surprised because I didn’t see any disability with her sight. And I mentioned to her, I said you can’t see what you mean. She said, I cannot read. I cannot see, to read right. And I had over counter glasses that I bought from Dollar Store, so I thought, okay, I’ll just try to give her this reading, over counter reading glasses.
And she had a paper in front of her and she started reading and she started crying because she was overwhelmed that her problem was just, was solved with reading over counter reading glasses. It wasn’t a big deal that I offered to her, but just being intentional to make sure what is her problem, and if there was anything that I could do to make a difference, which I wasn’t sure that it would make a difference, but just being intentional.
So when I left there, I was thinking really many of the problem that people are dealing with is not a big problem. They are a small problem is just that we are people who are connecting with other people, whether they are immigrant, asylum seeker. If you are intentional in our day-to-day work, we would be able, with a small decision, make a change in people’s life.
So this intentionality is very important and doing something about the problem that we are facing and not saying, oh, okay, so what, they are dealing with this for a long time and nothing has changed, so just let it be. I think that’s the important, really lesson for all of us, that the small changes can be perceived big from the point of view of the person who received that small change.
It can impact their life.
Eric Miller: Yeah. Thank you. For expanding on that point in intentionality is a very special and powerful thing and can be channeled into, I like how you framed as it be channeled into as small or as large as an act as what is in front of you in that moment. And so as leaders and yourselves and as immigrants or have worked intimately with new Mainers yourselves can you all speak to how leadership and community networks can help individuals and families that call Maine their new home?
Pavarish: Yeah, I would like to say because I’m immigrant, what am I offering is not some vague, something in a vacuum because I live the immigrant life and I know what was important to me was learning the language was one of the really the most important thing that you need to learn the language of the country that you reside in because that could also improve your own life, if you are fluent in the language.
The second thing is, I think the attitude or attitude towards getting job, because most immigrants who come here, they are highly educated. So if we want to wait for that perfect job that pays $150 an hour, it’s very hard . So we have to have a different attitude towards job. And I share a little story after I say this. That’s very important.
The another point is that as immigrants, we should not take everything and anything that people say and put it in a category of discrimination that, oh, these people tell me this because I’m from another country, so you can’t take everything as discrimination because that would make our life very hard.
Another point that I really want to make sure that as immigrant, the immigrant are paying attention to that, is just that we need to take the first step. If we want to become friends with other people, we need to take the first step. I remember when we moved actually to Maine, it was winter and people hibernate in Maine, so you can’t connect with anybody.
And I remember, my neighbor heard that we are from Iran and they thought this terrorist family moved next door to them. They were worried about their children and all of that. And I was alone. I left everything that I was familiar with in Iran. I didn’t have family. When I came to Maine, it was only me, my husband, and my daughter.
So I needed connection, but my neighbors didn’t need connection because she already had relative, friend, well established, community. But I didn’t. So I couldn’t sit home and say, oh, I’m waiting for my neighbor to come say, hi, Parivash, how are you? I’m glad to meet you. If I would have that attitude after 30 some years, I still would not have any connection with anyone.
So I say that we really, as immigrant, we have to take that step. I want to tell you the story. My husband was doing his PhD in India. So when we came, he was working two jobs as a stock clerk in 7-Eleven, and he was also as a stock clerk in L.L. Bean. So the first job, the first week we were in Maine, got a job in L.L. Bean
I remember when he would go to job, I would sit and cry because I was thinking, oh my God, he’s so intelligent. He has done all of this PhD work and now he’s stocking, somewhere in 7-Eleven and I don’t know, in L.L. Bean, and I would not let him know that I was worried about that. So I remember one day he came home and I was crying.
I would make sure he doesn’t know that I cried because I thought he’s working hard for me and my daughter. There is no reason that I should show him that I’m distressed. So I remember he came home sick and he saw me crying and he thought something happened to my parents. So he said, something happened to your parents?
I said, no. He said, please tell me why you are crying. I said, I’m crying because you are an intelligent man. You have did your, pre PhD and all of this work while you are now folding clothes at night in a L.L. Bean. My husband got mad at me. He said, what is the use of PhD if I cannot put food in front of you and my daughter,. He said, still whatever I’m making is better than $0.
And because I’m working in L.L. Bean actually I’m aware of other opportunities because if I am not working in L.L. Bean, most of a job are posted within the company. So the fact that I’m there as a stock clerk makes me aware of the posting. So I have the ability to apply for better job. So really these all the advice that I’m offering humbly if, because we went through that as an immigrant, it’s not some abstract something out there that I have no clue or I didn’t go through that hardship.
So I feel these are something that we need to remember. Or attitude need to be very positive and not, because I have PhD, I’m not going to work here, I’m not going to work
