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Opportunity and Belonging with Ze Min Xiao · Partnership Work

0:18
Paul: Hey, welcome to Partnership Work, where we explore
0:17
Paul: The art and science of collaboration. I'm Paul Kuttner.
0:21
Paul: In today's interview, I talk with Ze Min Xiao, president and CEO of the Center
0:26
Paul: for Economic Opportunity and Belonging in Utah.
0:30
Paul: Ze founded the center just a few years ago with the goal of building “a Utah
0:34
Paul: where everyone can thrive and belong.”
0:37
Paul: As you'll hear, that means bringing community leaders and organizations together
0:41
Paul: with the highest levels of state government, businesses, nonprofits,
0:45
Paul: and funders to tackle economic and educational disparities.
0:50
Paul: Ze shares how her family and her many years working in immigrant and refugee
0:54
Paul: services shaped her belief in putting community wisdom first.
0:58
Paul: She talks about what it takes to build partnerships across lines of faith and
1:02
Paul: political party in deep-red Utah, even on major political lightning rods like immigration.
1:07
Paul: She opens up about the emotional toll this work can take, and where she finds
1:12
Paul: resilience and hope when things are at their bleakest.
1:16
Paul: Ze doesn't hold back in her assessment of where things stand right now,
1:20
Paul: but she leaves us with what she says good leaders offer us, a future vision
1:24
Paul: we can work toward together.
1:27
Paul: To start things off, I asked Ze about a recent rafting trip down the Green River.
1:31
Paul: And one small correction, the organization she worked with to run the rafting
1:35
Paul: trip is called Team Democracy.
1:37
Paul: I won't keep you any longer. Here's my conversation with Ze.
1:56
Paul: Ze Min Xiao, thank you so much for joining me on Partnership Work.
2:00
Ze: Thank you so much for having me, Paul.
2:03
Paul: Before we get into all of your amazing work, I understand that this summer you went on a rafting trip.
2:10
Paul: Why don't we start off with you just telling me a little bit about what happened on this rafting trip?
2:17
Ze: Yes. Okay, so first and foremost, I have to tell you, I don't know how to swim.
2:22
Ze: But this rafting trip came about, and I was like, I have to do it.
2:27
Ze: So this is a little bit background, the Center for Economic Opportunity and
2:31
Ze: Belonging, we just call it the CEOB,
2:33
Ze: One of the important piece of work we've been working on in the past two years is bridging.
2:38
Ze: And we define bridging as bringing two people or two groups of people who have
2:44
Ze: different perspectives together to have conversations.
2:46
Ze: And the goal is not to convince someone to believe in what you say or try to
2:52
Ze: turn their belief into yours.
2:55
Ze: The goal of the conversations is just so that you can listen and understand
3:02
Ze: from their perspective what it is and discover a shared humanity as human beings.
3:08
Ze: So with this rafting trip, there's a group called Democracy Now.
3:12
Ze: And it's fascinating. It was founded by a river rafting guy from somewhere in
3:19
Ze: the East Coast. And I don't remember what state.
3:22
Ze: And he realized that there's a lot of division and polarization happening.
3:26
Ze: And he thought, let's bring people together on a rafting trip.
3:31
Ze: Because then you're in a boat together. And you have to rely on each other to survive.
3:37
Ze: I mean, this is like a great idea, right?
3:42
Ze: And so what they do is they go around the country and they bring people together on a river.
3:47
Ze: And Utah has some amazing rivers, including the Colorado River and the Green River.
3:52
Ze: So they came last year, and this year they reached out to us because we've been
3:56
Ze: doing this bridging work, and they want us to be a co-sponsor.
4:00
Ze: And part of it is because the conversation they wanted to talk about was immigration,
4:04
Ze: which is another space that we're engaged in.
4:08
Ze: And it's an issue that are getting a lot of attention right now.
4:11
Ze: And lots of people are having conversations.
4:15
Ze: So, yeah. So, in September, early, no, actually it was early September,
4:21
Ze: August, in August, we brought 26 people, random people that we selected.
4:28
Ze: And we drove to Vernal, Utah.
4:32
Ze: I did not know how far Vernal is, which is like northeast and next to Colorado border.
4:38
Ze: Drove three hours there. And we did, we rafted down the Green River together with strangers.
4:47
Ze: And it was, it was phenomenal.
4:49
Ze: You know, when you're in the boat together, you have conversations.
4:52
Ze: And one of the passengers, one of the participants said, it's just hard to like
4:57
Ze: get upset at someone because you're like in front of this majestic background.
5:04
Ze: For those of you who haven't been to Utah and haven't been to a national park, it's breathtaking.
5:11
Ze: And you are in this boat together that you're relying on the other person to
5:16
Ze: survive. We were rafting to a category two rapids.
5:21
Ze: And one of our participants in my boat actually fell off the boat and we had
5:26
Ze: to and all that stuff but but that is the the point is that it is an opportunity for you to discover
5:35
Ze: our shared humanity as human beings and that
5:37
Ze: at every stage of a society we
5:41
Ze: depend and rely on the other person more than we think we do and so we talk
5:45
Ze: about building the social fabrics, in many ways I think that we have lost a
5:51
Ze: lot of opportunities to build those social fabrics that we used to have in the
5:56
Ze: past with the advent of technology, the advent now of AI.
6:01
Ze: We just don't create those, we don't prioritize those moments where you’re just
6:06
Ze: getting together, right?
6:08
Ze: With Robert Putnam's book, Bowling Alone, he talks about the destruction of
6:14
Ze: that building that social fabric.
6:16
Ze: When's the last time you go to join a bowling league to bowl together?
6:21
Ze: The decline of joining the Lions Club or the Rotary Club or,
6:26
Ze: you know, just going into a place together.
6:29
Ze: And so part of what I think is important is that we have to be intentional in
6:34
Ze: building those social spaces, in those spaces where we can engage and build
6:39
Ze: those social bonds that are necessary.
6:42
Paul: You mentioned that you did this through the Center for Economic Opportunity
6:46
Paul: and Belonging that you founded and lead.
6:50
Paul: Could you just give us sort of the short and sweet version of what this center is and what it does?
6:57
Ze: Yeah, so the Center for Economic Opportunity and Belonging is a 501c3 nonprofit
7:02
Ze: organization located in Salt Lake City, and we provide services statewide.
7:07
Ze: We consider ourselves as a convener agency.
7:11
Ze: What that means is that we don't provide direct services, so people cannot come
7:14
Ze: to our door and try to get food or get counseling services, whatever it is.
7:18
Ze: What we do is really understanding that in a society, there's different stakeholders
7:26
Ze: that has to be working together collectively to build the systems,
7:31
Ze: to make sure that people are not being left behind.
7:35
Ze: And those stakeholders also includes the community, right?
7:39
Ze: The community who are most closest to the disparities. So what we do is we look
7:46
Ze: at data and we look at, hey, students are not performing at the level.
7:50
Ze: What is happening here? Who is in that space that are making the decisions?
7:55
Ze: Who is not in the space that are making decisions?
7:58
Ze: And how do we build a table where we can bring everyone together to co-design
8:04
Ze: the solutions and test them? And so we can say economic opportunity,
8:09
Ze: right, which is really important.
8:11
Ze: But belonging is the other piece that we live on. To us, belonging really is important.
8:18
Ze: It's a sense of feeling, but it's a lot more than that. And there's one of the
8:22
Ze: key piece of belonging that you feel like you belong is the sense of being able to contribute.
8:28
Ze: So that co-creation, being able to be at the table, to look at the problem,
8:33
Ze: to be able to work collectively with folks, to plan is a key component of belonging.
8:40
Ze: And so we really harnessed on the word belonging way before it was popular.
8:46
Ze: And we say this is important and being able to be your authentic self as
8:52
Ze: as the process of doing that so the center focus on two areas, we focus on k-12
8:57
Ze: education and economic mobility although sometimes there are intersection areas that we we also work in.
9:12
Paul: So you launched the center in its initial form in 2021 what were the experiences
9:18
Paul: that you had prior to that that led you to think that we needed a center like this in Utah yeah so
9:26
Ze: I had prior to that i have a 13 year career with Salt Lake County. I worked for
9:31
Ze: three mayors in a space of immigrant and refugee integration.
9:35
Ze: And it's interesting because I started as a refugee services liaison and refugee
9:41
Ze: resettlement traditionally, things are changing really rapidly, right?
9:45
Ze: But traditionally, refugee resettlement is a federal responsibility.
9:51
Ze: The federal government hires the resettlement agencies to resettle refugees in a certain community.
9:57
Ze: The state and local government plays a limited role, right?
10:02
Ze: What happened was that they only provide services for the first six months and
10:06
Ze: in some cases up to two years.
10:09
Ze: And that is not enough time, right? So we see people falling off after the period
10:15
Ze: of time, but yet the local community is not stepping up to really help them
10:20
Ze: build on those other skill sets so they can succeed.
10:23
Ze: And so this is where a task force was formed back in 2017, no, 2007, sorry, 2007.
10:35
Ze: And they created a list of opportunities on what they need to do.
10:39
Ze: And part of it was hiring a position in the county level and one in the state level.
10:42
Ze: And I had the position in the county level to really carry what does that look like.
10:47
Ze: What that means is that I need to work with people.
10:50
Ze: I need to bring the stakeholders together. I need to understand the ecosystem.
10:53
Ze: I need to be able to say, this is how it's functioning right now.
10:57
Ze: This is who is missing in that system.
11:03
Ze: And so that provided me a very great preview into how do you build relationships,
11:09
Ze: how do you build structures, how do you work across differences,
11:12
Ze: how do you bring people together.
11:13
Ze: And the most important piece of that, the most significant important stakeholder
11:19
Ze: in that is the refugees themselves.
11:21
Ze: And so how do you engage with the refugees? How do you build up the capacity
11:25
Ze: so that they can truly be participants,
11:28
Ze: participatory architects in the space of building up the systems that would
11:35
Ze: benefit them and others in that community as well.
11:38
Ze: So that's like my beginning for the 13 years I worked for county government,
11:43
Ze: started tons of fun projects together with immigrants and refugees.
11:47
Ze: And then during the pandemic in 2020, I was tapped by Governor Herbert to co-chair
11:54
Ze: the Unified Economic Commission.
11:57
Ze: There were communities who were disproportionately affected by the pandemic,
12:02
Ze: both in the aftermath of the pandemic.
12:04
Ze: And the disparities was alarming.
12:07
Ze: The Latino/Hispanic community was affected three times the rate of the general population.
12:14
Ze: Those workers who are not able to work from home are being affected.
12:18
Ze: So the disparities is huge. Yet, the state and the leaders didn't know how to
12:24
Ze: fix it, how to understand what are the strategies to be able to save lives.
12:31
Ze: And so myself and my brother, I call him my brother, and my sister,
12:37
Ze: Byron Russell and Nubia Peña, we were appointed co-chairs of this commission.
12:42
Ze: One of the things we learned very immediately is that we need to listen to communities.
12:47
Ze: We don't know what's happening on the grounds. And the best thing we did was
12:51
Ze: that we brought together the highest level of government and community members
12:56
Ze: on the grounds every single Friday.
12:58
Ze: And we talked to them. We just implemented A, B, C, and D strategies with the
13:04
Ze: central command from the state.
13:06
Ze: Yet it's having opposite effects on what we anticipated.
13:10
Ze: And we provided such an environment that the community is able to speak to them without fear.
13:17
Ze: Right? And they listened and they pivoted.
13:20
Ze: And because of the process of listening, having humility, understanding the
13:25
Ze: community assets, and the people who have lived experiences on the ground level
13:30
Ze: to be informing the decisions, changed lives, saved lives.
13:35
Ze: And so post-pandemic, we thought...
13:37
Paul: Actually, I want to pause first. Tell me a bit about these Fridays.
13:41
Paul: How did you make that happen? how did you bring folks together in a way where
13:44
Paul: they were able to listen and learn from one another
13:50
Ze: So first of all, it's over Zoom
13:52
Ze: because no one is getting together at the point. So it was all Zoom calls.
13:58
Ze: We have great relationship with communities, with me being in the community
14:02
Ze: for 13 years. We know leaders.
14:04
Ze: We know community-based leaders. The first thing we did was actually do a survey
14:08
Ze: an assessment and ask communities, what are the gaps?
14:12
Ze: And through that, we say, we want to listen to you. And that is the first step
14:17
Ze: of saying that your voice matters in this process.
14:21
Ze: So we continue to build those relationships and we encourage them.
14:25
Ze: We say we want to invite you to be in this call with sometimes Commissioner
14:31
Ze: Anderson, who was in charge at the Central Command at the time.
14:35
Ze: The head of the health department sometimes comes to it.
14:38
Ze: Lieutenant Governor Spencer Cox at the time was Lieutenant Governor, joins the calls.
14:42
Ze: So we were able to bring the highest level of decision makers in community with
14:48
Ze: community health workers, faith
14:50
Ze: leaders, nonprofits like the University Neighborhood Partners in the call.
14:55
Ze: And then we set up subcommittees to address different topics.
14:58
Ze: The key was that we were able to build trust on both sides.
15:03
Ze: As conveners, we built trust with the decision makers on one side and we had
15:08
Ze: trust with the community. And we were able to bridge it together and set a space.
15:12
Ze: I think it has to be actionable, right? So you used to sit down and tail and they
15:18
Ze: just listen and doesn't act.
15:20
Ze: Then you lose your trust on the communities. What happens during the pandemic is that you have to act.
15:26
Ze: You have to act, right, to save lives.
15:29
Ze: And so they see immediate impacts. The community who provided their input see
15:34
Ze: things changing because it has to. Because we are in such a rapid phase.
15:39
Ze: And that was, I think, one of the very key reasons why it was successful,
15:44
Ze: is that people actually see the impacts immediately in their communities.
15:49
Ze: After the pandemic, it wasn’t the end of the pandemic, but, you know,
15:54
Ze: when things cooled down a little
15:55
Ze: bit, we decided that someone has to be waking up thinking about this.
16:01
Ze: Direct service providers, they're all so busy to just survive through it.
16:09
Ze: Government is not going to do it. We need an intermediary whose job is really
16:13
Ze: to understand and to bring people together based on data and facts and build those relationships.
16:20
Ze: So that is how the Center for Economic Opportunity and Belonging was formed.
16:24
Ze: You know, we went into this with three funders and just me, myself, And, of course,
16:30
Ze: a community of supporters who help inform and guide the development of the center
16:37
Ze: and the evolution from beginning to where we are today.
16:47
Paul: So I do want to get into some of the projects y'all have been working on,
16:50
Paul: but if you don't mind, I want to go back a little bit and learn a bit more about
16:54
Paul: you and how sort of what brought you here.
16:57
Paul: So to start, I'm curious about young Ze Min Xiao.
17:01
Paul: Do you feel like your family or your early experiences helped shape you into
17:08
Paul: the kind of person who wants to be this intermediary and do this kind of partnership work?
17:14
Ze: I think if you asked me when I was little, I would say no. I was really shy.
17:18
Ze: I don't like to talk. I don't like attention.
17:21
Ze: Well, maybe that's why I'm being an intermediary because I don't have to be at the forefront.
17:25
Ze: But I think that my upbringing really brought me to this place of justice.
17:33
Ze: And building community. So I grew up in rural China.
17:38
Ze: I was raised by a grandma who survived the Cultural Revolution.
17:44
Ze: And a lot of, I think, my resiliency, the way that I hold myself with dignity
17:51
Ze: and respect is because of my grandma.
17:53
Ze: She never gave up hope. I mean, she was a single mom with four kids during the
18:00
Ze: Cultural Revolution, taking on the blame for the whole family.
18:03
Ze: My whole family just left them to take the blame of the family because we were rich.
18:09
Ze: And the Communists came and they were taking away everything.
18:12
Ze: But she was so resilient that she's able to raise the four kids, all four of them
18:19
Ze: survived through it, but in a way that gives her so much dignity at the same time.
18:25
Ze: I remember going back after we immigrated, she didn't want to come.
18:29
Ze: She's like, I was born here, I’m going to die here, you want to see
18:31
Ze: me, you come back and see me. So I used to go back.
18:35
Ze: And just seeing the level of respect from the neighbors for her,
18:40
Ze: because she's this really subtle peacekeeper in the community and that place
18:47
Ze: that always keep things open.
18:50
Ze: Not to make it too dramatic and to make sure things are stable and calm things down.
18:57
Ze: And I think that is a lot of, I think, my personality came up,
19:03
Ze: came from my grandma's upbringing.
19:06
Ze: I think this kind of social justice end of it from my grandma too,
19:11
Ze: but more so from my parents as they're immigrants to this country.
19:16
Ze: And growing up, my parents owned these restaurants.
19:20
Ze: And I've been working, doing dishes, scooping food since I was like nine years old.
19:26
Ze: Being a cashier, just seeing the injustice that they experienced during
19:34
Ze: that time also really defined who I am and what I want to do.
19:39
Ze: So when I was growing up, I wanted to go to law school. I was like,
19:43
Ze: I'm going to finish school in three years, get my law degree in a year and a
19:49
Ze: half, and then I'm going to go work at the United Nations and save lives.
19:54
Ze: But long story short, that didn't happen. And I'm here in Utah.
19:59
Ze: And so I think that a little bit shaped like my, as who I am.
20:06
Ze: And I think in Utah, too, I had so many mentors. I learned on a constant basis.
20:13
Ze: I learned from individuals who came before me. Judge Raymond Uno really put
20:18
Ze: me under his wings in the very beginning, you know, Archie Archuleta,
20:22
Ze: these are like the legends, right, of Salt Lake, and just seeing how they work.
20:28
Ze: Archie and Judge Uno never scream.
20:33
Ze: They always bring people to the table. They always build those coalitions.
20:38
Ze: They build, they always see what is possible, right?
20:43
Ze: Not to deny that there are challenges, but you have to, as a leader,
20:47
Ze: you have to find a way to see the positive because others are relying on you to be able to do that.
20:55
Ze: And I think that is so important.
20:58
Ze: You have to articulate a vision of the future that you're building together
21:02
Ze: in a way that people can aspire to.
21:05
Ze: If all you talk about is negative, negativity, negativity, how we can fight,
21:09
Ze: fight, fight, fight, you're not providing that hope.
21:12
Ze: And the journey of the space, you have to, especially if you're the underdog,
21:17
Ze: you have to provide that hope.
21:19
Ze: And I think they do it in such a way that really bring people together.
21:23
Ze: They do it in such a way that is not like, let's go and, you know, break things down.
21:29
Ze: Let's think about how we can build things together.
21:32
Ze: And I think that is a very different perspective than some of the other leaders
21:37
Ze: that are in the community.
21:39
Ze: And so I want to thank them for teaching me that and having the patience to
21:43
Ze: navigate the spaces that are necessary and given also being able to forgive.
21:50
Ze: Judge Uno's family was put in a camp during World War II.
21:56
Ze: You know, yet, he fought for the U.S. He went and joined the military.
22:00
Ze: He came back and he became a judge and gave back to the community it takes a
22:05
Ze: certain level of forgiveness but also temperament like how do you hold on to
22:10
Ze: those things about yourself that you're able to continue to survive and give
22:15
Ze: so much of yourself after what is done to you as well.
22:29
Paul: So I want to back to kind of your earlier work in this area.
22:33
Paul: I think one of the first big projects that you were a part of that was kind
22:38
Paul: of in the same vein as the work you're doing now in terms of convening and bridging was the Utah Compact.
22:45
Paul: I was hoping you could share a bit about what the Utah Compact was for folks
22:50
Paul: outside of Utah and the role you played in it.
22:53
Ze: Yeah, so I want to say that the first version of the Utah Compact,
22:57
Ze: I play a very small role in it.
22:59
Ze: I play a bigger role in the renewal of the compact in 2017.
23:03
Ze: So just want to make sure that it's communicated. But the Utah Compact is a document.
23:09
Ze: This was early 2000s, and there was a wave of anti-immigration sentiment throughout
23:16
Ze: the United States, especially in Arizona at the time.
23:21
Ze: And Utah leaders, like, we do not want to be like that. They could see it coming
23:25
Ze: this way, like the wind is coming.
23:27
Ze: And so it was a group of business leaders, faith leaders who got together.
23:33
Ze: And for those of you who are not in Utah, I think Utah is relatively unique
23:39
Ze: in the sense of who we are and how we position ourselves in the nation.
23:44
Ze: As a conservative, pretty conservative
23:47
Ze: red state, Like, I would take on immigration has been different.
23:52
Ze: We, I think that Utahns, especially those who's been here in multi-generation
23:58
Ze: that came over as part of the wave of the Mormon,
24:01
Ze: the pioneers that came through the plains and settled in here,
24:05
Ze: they see their journey and their story as an immigrant story.
24:08
Ze: And so when you see all this rhetoric and that policy that are affecting immigrants,
24:15
Ze: they're like, wait a minute, that could have been us.
24:19
Ze: We have to be different because of our history. And so that kind of frames it.
24:25
Ze: And what is interesting is that the document was really value-based.
24:29
Ze: They talk about these are Utah values, right?
24:32
Ze: They believe in strong family, free economy, the obedience of law and law order,
24:38
Ze: and that immigration is a federal policy so that the state should not pass any laws.
24:42
Ze: What was so great about that particular document, the Utah Compact on Immigration,
24:47
Ze: was that that set the tone of how our leaders proceed with immigration.
24:55
Ze: Since that document was signed, any time there's an anti-immigration legislation
25:01
Ze: come up in the state legislature, it was like, no, we cannot touch that.
25:06
Ze: That is against the values that we set aside. This is the standard of how we approach immigration.
25:13
Ze: But I play a role, a much stronger role, I was in the county at that time, in 2017.
25:19
Ze: Of a renewal of the compact, just to remind people how important it is.
25:24
Ze: We're actually working on another version of that right now.
25:27
Ze: It's not the Utah Compact of Immigration
25:29
Ze: anymore. It's actually a campaign called the Utah We Believe In.
25:33
Ze: Again, it's the same thing, providing a positive future that people can lean
25:38
Ze: onto that is that centers around our shared values.
25:42
Ze: But again, that has to be a bipartisan effort. It's not about politics.
25:48
Ze: It's, you know, regardless of your ideology on certain points,
25:52
Ze: those are shared values that I think we all can agree on. Right.
25:55
Paul: So living under the original compact, being part of the renewal,
26:00
Paul: starting to work on this new version, what lessons have you learned about bringing
26:05
Paul: people together across difference along the way?
26:10
Ze: A couple of things I think that I am observing and that is important to me as
26:14
Ze: we put together this new version. I'm not going to call it a compact.
26:19
Ze: New campaign to bring people together. One is that I think the last two versions
26:24
Ze: did not involve communities at the community level.
26:29
Ze: It was mostly decision makers. And I think that you have to balance it, right?
26:35
Ze: Community engagement is important, but that is an ongoing process where you
26:39
Ze: should be building those community relationships before you act on a campaign like this.
26:45
Ze: And so for folks who haven't done this work in the community with communities,
26:51
Ze: I think that they need to find someone who has those connections and understand
26:55
Ze: the community and have that because starting from scratch does not work.
27:01
Ze: So I think that's one lesson, is that we have to engage the community more in terms of it.
27:07
Ze: The other one is that that pioneer story is not the only story.
27:12
Ze: The pioneer story is one story of many stories in Utah.
27:17
Ze: And I'm more specifically referring to the Indigenous community who has been here.
27:22
Ze: Then the story, not the story, but the fact that this actually was a Mexican
27:26
Ze: territory before it became the United States. The border crossed the people.
27:33
Ze: The people did not close the border.
27:34
Ze: So those are multiple stories that we have to be able to acknowledge and share,
27:39
Ze: but also do it in a way that is, everything has to be balanced.
27:44
Ze: You have to be very intentional in terms of how you move forward to build consensus,
27:50
Ze: move forward on a campaign like this.
27:53
Ze: And a couple of thoughts that I share with my team on this.
27:56
Ze: One is that it's going to be difficult.
28:00
Ze: To please everyone at all times. And that should not prevent you from doing the work, right?
28:08
Ze: I think people are just like, I can't do anything because I can't please anyone.
28:12
Ze: I was like, the urgency requires you make decisions and tough decisions.
28:16
Ze: And it's important for you to understand that when you make those decisions,
28:21
Ze: you understand the consequences, right?
28:24
Ze: You have to be okay and say, I make this consequence. I knew coming into this,
28:29
Ze: that this is going to be something that is going to hurt one community.
28:33
Ze: But how are you going to support those communities and help them understand
28:38
Ze: this is why I make the decision?
28:40
Ze: So it's about transparency.
28:43
Ze: It's about being able to explain why you make the decision that you make the decision too.
28:48
Ze: It's about building those relationships that when you tell someone about it.
28:52
Ze: You know, they might be mad at you, but they understand where you're coming
28:55
Ze: from and how we can work to like, this is not the end, right?
28:59
Ze: Everything is evolving.
29:00
Ze: It's always, it's evolving all the time.
29:05
Ze: And so you might not please everyone at the moment that you launch this,
29:10
Ze: but it's important that you're engaging with those communities,
29:13
Ze: helping them understand why you make the decision you're making.
29:16
Ze: And how we might be able to work to address some of those gaps that you have.
29:22
Ze: And so I think that is a really important piece.
29:25
Ze: I think one thing that we want to be very cautious on It's the unintended consequences.
29:31
Ze: I think that the known consequences, you could prevent how you could address those.
29:39
Ze: It's the unintended consequence because you forgot to ask yourself,
29:44
Ze: oh, I haven't thought about it that way.
29:47
Ze: That causes more harm in the community.
29:50
Paul: Coming back to today, Can you tell us about one or two other projects that you've
29:58
Paul: been involved in through the center?
30:02
Ze: Yeah, one that I'm just so proud of, and really I'm on the sidelines,
30:08
Ze: is the Young Professionals Bonding and Bridging Group.
30:12
Paul: What's that?
30:14
Ze: It all started, we brought a scholar from UC Berkeley here for a conversation, a guy named Dr.
30:22
Ze: john powell from UC Berkeley, the director of the Othering and Belonging Institute.
30:28
Ze: We brought him here and I said to John, I was like, John, could you meet with
30:33
Ze: a group of young leaders in the community? Because they're needing some direction.
30:39
Ze: And he actually changed his plane ticket, he was teaching a class at
30:44
Ze: Berkeley, and was late to his class so that he could meet with this group of
30:48
Ze: about 18 young professionals.
30:52
Ze: And he inspired them to form this group called the Young Professionals Bonding and Bridging Group.
30:57
Ze: It started with 20, and now it's close to 250 young professionals.
31:04
Ze: And they define young professionals as anyone who's, I think, 18 to like 35.
31:09
Ze: So I'm not allowed to join.
31:13
Ze: But it's been so amazing to see how they're able to grow.
31:18
Ze: The work that they center on is about bridging.
31:23
Ze: They intentionally try to bring people of differences together.
31:27
Ze: As the future, it gives me hope, especially in the past year where we're seeing so much division.
31:36
Ze: All we talk about is let's other the other person, let's other them.
31:41
Ze: And having a new set of leaders who are coming in to say,
31:46
Ze: maybe we should think differently.
31:49
Ze: Maybe you guys are doing this wrong.
31:52
Ze: When you're building divisions, when you do all this, it's harming the future.
31:57
Ze: And there's like, we need to do something differently. It's powerful.
32:01
Ze: So they convened after our events last month.
32:07
Ze: Actually, there's an event at the Alta Club.
32:10
Ze: And for those of you who don't know, Alta Club is like the men's prestigious club in Salt Lake.
32:16
Ze: Women and people of color were not allowed to go in there for a long, long time.
32:21
Ze: And so for this group of very diverse young professionals to host an event there,
32:26
Ze: was very telling and it was really fun because many of them don't know
32:29
Ze: what it is or it's history.
32:32
Ze: And, you know, they're really interested in civic engagement.
32:35
Ze: They're really interested in just being leaders in the community.
32:40
Ze: And so that has been just so great for me to see.
32:44
Ze: And so a member of my team, Bailey Rivera-Wymes, and a member of a partner's
32:50
Ze: team, which is the Division of Multicultural Affairs, co-leads that,
32:54
Ze: and both of them are young professionals.
32:56
Ze: And what they have indicated to us is that there's a lot of support in colleges,
33:00
Ze: universities. You have clubs, you have things.
33:03
Ze: The minute you graduate, you lose that.
33:07
Ze: Yeah. And so they need an environment where they can bring people together and they created this.
33:14
Ze: So that's very exciting. And it gives me optimism for the future.
33:19
Ze: It's like, you guys need to leave out now.
33:22
Ze: The world is a mess. And it's our fault that we put you in a mess.
33:34
Paul: So you move between a lot of different spaces, working with the governor,
33:38
Paul: working with the nonprofit sector, working with businesses and funders,
33:43
Paul: working with community groups.
33:45
Paul: I don't quite know how to ask the question, but how do you do that?
33:48
Paul: Like, what makes you able to move between those places and gain the kind of
33:53
Paul: trust that you were talking about?
33:55
Ze: I think just being very authentic, right?
33:59
Ze: I mean, I might use different words differently, but I don't think I present
34:03
Ze: myself differently in any of those spaces.
34:06
Ze: I'm still myself. And I think that is really important because people trust
34:11
Ze: you if you show up as yourself.
34:15
Ze: And so, you know, whether I'm talking to the governor, I'm talking to a community
34:19
Ze: advocate, I want to make sure that I'm still me and that, I mean,
34:25
Ze: there's things that you have to nuance, right?
34:27
Ze: I mean, especially in certain spaces, you kind of have to do that.
34:31
Ze: But I think that's first and foremost is be true to yourself.
34:35
Ze: And second is that it's not easy.
34:39
Ze: You get headaches. And so it's not for the faint of heart.
34:45
Ze: And there are some times where I am in meetings where I'm the minority.
34:50
Ze: I am a woman of color in Utah who speaks with an accent.
34:57
Ze: And that comes with a lot of, I think people see you very differently and you're
35:02
Ze: constantly needing to prove yourself on what you do.
35:06
Ze: But it's about also resiliency to continue to step in and say, I'm going to go back.
35:16
Ze: It's about patience. It's about forgiveness that some of my mentors have taught me long ago.
35:23
Ze: And it's just like, try not to take it. too personally, even so.
35:29
Ze: You can tell yourself that, but it's hard, right? Last week,
35:33
Ze: I was in a, I'm on a cohort learning leadership thing.
35:38
Ze: And I'm not an emotional person. I am, I'm ver good at like holding on to my emotions, not showing it.
35:46
Ze: And the first question they ask is, how are you doing? And out of nowhere,
35:50
Ze: I just start sobbing and crying.
35:52
Ze: It was an emotional week last week with everything that went on in Utah.
35:56
Ze: And I couldn't control it. And I was like, this never, ever, ever.
36:01
Ze: Oh, one time that happened to me was during a pandemic where people were dying
36:05
Ze: and I was just like out of it and I was screaming at people.
36:08
Ze: But I never have done that before.
36:10
Ze: But all that to say is that this is not easy work. And what I have learned is
36:15
Ze: that you have to find a level of balance and it's okay to be vulnerable sometimes.
36:20
Ze: It took me a long time to be okay with the vulnerabilities.
36:26
Paul: Well, thank you. Just one last question.
36:30
Paul: Right now, the divisions between us are very much at the forefront of people's minds.
36:35
Paul: You know, political violence and, I mean, there's just so many examples.
36:40
Paul: People are really feeling disconnected.
36:43
Paul: You talked about the importance of hope early on in our conversation.
36:46
Paul: What is giving you hope in this context right now?
36:53
Ze: I truly believe that we have the power to build a community that we believe in.
37:03
Ze: And there are setbacks, right? What we're seeing all around us,
37:08
Ze: that's the threat to freedom of speech, freedom of association,
37:13
Ze: like all of the concrete things.
37:15
Ze: What gives me hope is that we're still here.
37:19
Ze: And we still have the power to continue
37:22
Ze: to work on what we think is right because if we don't we're just going to be
37:26
Ze: giving up and that is not an option and I believe in humanity enough that I
37:34
Ze: think we can we can we can survive through this and I think what's more important is that.
37:42
Ze: I'm trying to be very,
37:44
Ze: I don't want to use the word optimism because I think it's been overused.
37:50
Ze: But a friend told me one time, he's like, I was like, this is terrible.
37:54
Ze: Everything is dismantled.
37:57
Ze: All systems is broken apart.
38:00
Ze: And he writes me, he's like, many of those systems actually were not working
38:03
Ze: for people in the first place.
38:06
Ze: So instead of thinking that you have to build it to the system maybe this is
38:10
Ze: an opportunity to invite people who have never been at the table to build the
38:16
Ze: new system that actually works for everyone so instead of seeing it as this dismantling.
38:24
Ze: Maybe you can see it as an opportunity to rebuild it better. So that resonated
38:31
Ze: with me what keeps me up at night though is that,
38:36
Ze: through this process, there are lots of families and individuals who will be the victims.
38:44
Ze: They have to sacrifice, and those will tend to be the ones, I'll be okay.
38:49
Ze: You’ll probably will be okay too, Paul, right?
38:52
Ze: But we know that a lot of families is not going to be okay. And I think that
38:56
Ze: is what keeps me up all the time.
39:00
Ze: I could be optimistic. I hope I could see this in a different way than what
39:06
Ze: we're seeing right now, but also acknowledge that through this process, while we are rebuilding
39:13
Ze: There's a lot of families who's going to be hurt from it.
39:18
Ze: And what do we need to do in the same time that we're rebuilding the system
39:23
Ze: to minimize the harm as much as possible?
39:28
Ze: And that is hard. That is very hard to do.
39:34
Paul: Thank you so much for such a thoughtful, engaging interview.
39:39
Paul: I just really enjoyed talking.
39:41
Ze: No, thank you for the opportunity. And it's great to talk to you.
39:48
Paul: Thank you all for joining me today. To see the episode transcript and show notes,
39:53
Paul: head over to partnershipwork.org.
39:56
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39:59
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40:04
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40:08
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40:12
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40:16
Paul: wonderful organization Urban Media Arts here in my home town of Malden Massachusetts.
40:19
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