Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Hello, Oregonians, and welcome to Life and Legislation with Lucetta. If you've ever wanted to get to know your politicians personally or understand what it is they are actually doing, then you're in the right place. I'm your podcast host, Jessica Campbell.
[00:00:17] Speaker B: I'm your state representative for House District 24, Lucetta Elmer.
[00:00:21] Speaker A: This podcast is a place for you to get to know Representative Elmer both personally and professionally.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: We want Oregonians to feel connected with and educated politics. So we're so glad you've joined us on a fresh new podcast adventure as we cover all things about life and legislation.
[00:00:42] Speaker A: Hi, Oregonians, and welcome back to Life and Legislation with Lucetta. If this is your first time joining us, welcome. We're so glad you're here because this is a place where we get to know Representative Elmer a bit more personally and have some conversations about legislation so that we know what's going on in our state government.
Now, sometimes we get to have special guests on this podcast and that is the case for this episode. So I'm so excited to introduce you to our guest, David, and he is joining us from the east coast, which is why we're doing this over zoom. And this is why this podcast looks a little bit different for those of you who have been following us for a while. So, David, welcome. Thank you so much for being willing to do this and just the flexibility of trying to work out schedules. I know everyone is super busy, but we appreciate your time and I just want to jump right in and have you introduce yourself to the listeners and tell them a little bit about what it is you do.
[00:01:37] Speaker C: Sure. Well, thank you, Jessica. Thank you for having me. It's a joy to be here. Although once you reveal to me that you're sitting in the heart of Oregon wine country right now, I'm pretty bummed that I did not get to come out there in person for this.
My name is David McCullough. I'm the co founder and CEO of an organization called the American Exchange Project.
And in short, our organization sends high school seniors on a free two week experience that has them travel to an American town that is radically different from the one that they grew up in, and then host students from towns across the country that are really different also from the town that they grew up in. It's basically study abroad, but rather than going to another country, you go abroad within the United States. Right.
[00:02:20] Speaker A: Because we, we essentially have, you know, 50 different countries here, literally.
[00:02:24] Speaker C: And, you know, unless, I mean, as long as you have your real id, frankly, you don't need A passport in your pocket as an American to see another country.
The difference between where you're sitting right now and where I'm sitting in Boston, Massachusetts, geographically, culturally, historically, are as large as the difference between where I'm sitting right now, where my pals are sitting in London, England, or Paris, France, or where my brother is visiting Tokyo right now.
And the edict of E Pluribus unum and the first clause of the preamble of our constitution to form a more perfect union, I think really requires that all of us as American citizens, especially our youngest citizens, contemplates how we can create some form of uniformity and cohesion out of all of this difference.
[00:03:19] Speaker A: You know, just listening to you talk about the difference between the west coast and the east Coast. My family's all from Tennessee.
[00:03:26] Speaker C: Wow, you went right into that Holy cow.
Whereabouts?
[00:03:29] Speaker A: Yes, bless your heart, I can go right into it real quick.
My mom was born and raised in Springfield, Tennessee, which is a real small town north of Nashville. And she went to the University of Tennessee and taught me to bleed orange and sing Rocky Top.
Now, I was raised in Orange County, California. Again, another completely different holy cow. Yeah, I'm a hybrid. So.
[00:03:52] Speaker C: But does this mean, I guess, that you can't do Valley girl too, then, can you?
Yeah, I can accent pretty, pretty far if you want to track like that too.
[00:04:02] Speaker A: Switch all the accents completely. Yeah.
We do have a lot of different cultures within the United States. And when you do take time to travel, you see that. And when we landed in Oregon eight years ago, I remember thinking that it was almost like California and Tennessee had a state baby and it was Oregon. There was such a blend of my two experiences of Southern California and small town Tennessee when we landed here, specifically in McMinnville in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. But that, that is amazing. And I imagine not a lot of people know that exists. So for anyone who just got super interested, we'll have links in the episode notes. So anyone who maybe wants to get connected with your organization or do one of these travel abroad,
[00:04:48] Speaker C: please get in touch. We've had 1,500 students travel on over 200 exchanges.
The impact we have seen from our first five summers of operation has been nothing short of life changing. And it's landed me on the belief that a week in another town ought to be as much a part of the American high school experience as the prom. And very lucky recently. In fact, we've been very lucky within Oregon recently to have the funding opportunities to start dramatically scaling this program to hundreds of schools in all 50 states. And so if any listeners think that they might be interested in their local school or their kids taking part, please do let us know.
We're growing and we'd love to grow to wherever you are.
[00:05:31] Speaker A: And now it wasn't that long ago that Representative Elmer actually met you, heard about you because you came, as I understand, to the Capitol in Salem, Oregon.
[00:05:41] Speaker C: That's right.
[00:05:42] Speaker A: And when. So maybe you can share when you did that and what brought you here and what your purpose was for going to the Capitol.
[00:05:49] Speaker C: Yeah. It began a couple years ago when I spoke at a gathering in Washington, D.C.
of state legislators from across the country about our work and about what we were learning about our work. And after that event, I met Representative Ben Bowman from Oregon. And Rep. Bowman articulated for me just how diverse and divided the state of Oregon is and how different county to county your home state can be, east to west, north to south, one side of the mountain range to the other. And I did not know about that. And it was incredible to me to hear how certain parts of Oregon can feel so foreign to other parts of a single state.
And he initiated within the legislature last year a bill that would have dramatically scaled this program to about 60 high schools over two years and would have allowed a thousand students to take part in the program as a way not only to bring young Oregonians in touch with the rest of their country, but to get young Oregonians in touch with each other. And we would have specially designed a two part program that would have students travel within the state of Oregon on an exchange and then across the country on an exchange.
Unfortunately, shifting resources didn't get that bill as far as we wanted it to last year, but we're going to take another crack at it. And it raised a lot of interest among some funders in the state who are allowing us to expand the program. We'll have nearly 100 Oregon students from Springfield, Grants Pass and North Powder take part in the program this year. And we're hoping to have close to 20 high schools in the state participating next school year as well.
And through it all, I got very close with Rep. Bowman and he asked if I could come speak to his committee early in the year.
And I think, you know, doing the work that we do, we not only talk about the value of American Exchange Project and what it's offering students, but I think the lessons that our students are learning about one another and the experiences they're having become and can offer a very powerful counter narrative to one that seems to say again and again that we're so divided that has half of the country, more than half of the country now believing there's going to be a civil war in the next five years. That has 53% of Americans believing that the other, their fellow citizens are on the whole, morally and ethically bad people.
In a world like that, what our students are doing, what they're learning, bonds of friendship they are forming with each other can serve as a wonderful counter narrative to what we can do and reveal that it's not inevitable, this division. In fact, there's another road we could go down, one that looks at the period we're through now and takes it as a kind of sobering wake up call as to how difficult it is to form a more perfect union in a country as large as ours and launch some initiatives that can bring us together.
[00:08:53] Speaker A: Listeners, we get Representative Elmer here. Hooray. Good morning. Good morning. This is Life and Legislation with Lucetta. And you had some life this morning.
[00:09:02] Speaker B: I did have some life this morning.
[00:09:03] Speaker A: This morning.
[00:09:04] Speaker C: How are you doing?
[00:09:04] Speaker B: I'm doing well, thank you.
[00:09:06] Speaker A: Yes.
Good morning.
[00:09:08] Speaker B: How are you?
[00:09:09] Speaker C: Representative, thanks for being here. Appreciate it.
[00:09:11] Speaker B: Yeah, thank you for being here.
[00:09:13] Speaker C: Oh, I wish I was there there. I didn't know you were in the heart of Oregon wine country right now. This could have been.
I know. Bummer.
I'm in a co working space in Boston right now. Not quite where you get to experience
[00:09:24] Speaker B: not quite the same. And today actually is one of those beautiful Oregon Pacific Northwest days. The sun is shining, but it's a little crisp and you can smell the grapes on the vine.
[00:09:36] Speaker C: Rub it in, why don't you? Please.
[00:09:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
Well, we had a chance to cover just the diversity of America knowing that you can go really from state to state, even in some states, just from county to county. And you might as well have gone to another country.
[00:09:51] Speaker B: Right.
[00:09:51] Speaker A: Because they're so, so different on so many levels. And talking about then just the division within the American people and what their beliefs are about the quote unquote, other side. And got to hear a little bit about how David made his way to Oregon because of Leader Bowman.
[00:10:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:08] Speaker A: And this is a good transition maybe for anybody listening who, who doesn't follow politics and state government regularly. Who is Leader Bowman and how did the two of you, maybe this might be something you both agree on. Yeah. Right.
[00:10:23] Speaker B: Yes. Majority Leader Ben Bowman and I, we came into the legislature as elected officials in. We were elected in 22 and then started in 23 together as freshmen. And so we sat in the higher ed committee together he had way more political experience because he'd worked in the building.
I was a brand newbie. So he helped me with some of just basic things on Olauss and the Internet of tracking my committees and bills. But on that committee, we.
It wasn't actually, it didn't actually have to do with the higher ed committee, but in that committee we started chatting and that's where we connected over the Dolly Parton Imagination Library and Early Literacy.
We both just have a passion for children and literacy, and so we connected on that and championed that bill together, and then came back this year both as minority House leader and majority House leader, and then championed the, the policy portion of that bill. So we got funding first, then policy.
Yeah, we work well together. And in the rules Committee is where I'm vice chair, Leader Bowman is chair. And that's where I met David.
I just thought you had such a refreshing perspective. And I immediately told Jessica on my team, track this gu down. I would love to just have him on the podcast because your voice and, and that message is truly what I'm trying to bring through the minority party to Oregon to get more balance. And I do believe that that leader, Bowman, I mean, he's shown over and over again that, you know, he loves to find bipartisan policy that we can work on together.
[00:11:58] Speaker A: Right. So there's an example of two leaders who, you know, are different on a lot of policy, a lot of political views, but trying to find a bridge, trying to find a common ground. And so much of what you've already shared, David, you would hope that a lot of people would get behind this and say, yes, this is a great idea. Let's get to know our neighbors and get to know other people and maybe find more in common than we are different.
[00:12:24] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. I mean, any exercise in self governance is a structure through which people are able to voice their beliefs and to turn those beliefs into laws and programs and innovations and developments that govern the way we live our lives.
There are wonderful examples throughout history of popular demand for social innovations becoming such a part of our lives. We don't ever think that they were a novel ideal. It turns out, for example, public libraries were once a crazy idea. Libraries were something that were in corners of the homes of wealthy people. On occasion, some wealthy people would open those homes up on Sundays for the folks in the town to come and peruse books. At the turn of the 20th century, inequality was high. So was illiteracy.
Andrew Carnegie, who had his life changed when a wealthy individual bought him a pass to the local Library had always felt that free access to books ought to be a universal right.
And toward the end of his life and early from the mid career to the end of his life from the 1880s until the 1920s issued a challenge grant to the towns of really began. It began in America and ended up spanning much of the world.
By which he said to communities, if you can prove to me that you can arrange and maintain the books and staff the facility, I will build the building. And over the course of 40 years, 2,500 libraries got built all over the world. And over the course of that same period, illiteracy went down.
I think we, we assume it to be a very normal thing for a town to have at its center a beautiful building with the word library written over the front door. We also are not sitting here bemoaning a high illiteracy rate in the United States as a barrier to a better life.
Over time, the upkeep of those libraries became more expensive than most towns could afford. But because they had become such beloved institutions in all of our communities, state policy and public dollars ended up funding a lot of our libraries today.
And good luck campaigning on a position to get rid of public libraries.
I think right now, as we are trying to find ways where we can come together across the aisle, we can do that by getting to know each other. But we can also do that by working on good common sense ideas, novel good common sense ideas that everybody can get behind and can grow very quickly from a crazy, wild, beautiful dream into something that's just the part of the way we live our lives today. And my great hope is that this notion of study abroad in your own country, a coming of age ritual that has students travel to another town, see the country, meet people from all over the United States, have an adventure or two, learn to swim, learn to ride a horse, see a mountain for the first time, go to the top of a skyscraper, can be this generation's contribution to the great and long list of social innovations that are the best of who we represent as Americans.
And if we are going to put our beliefs into conversation with one another, and it's really important we get to know a little bit about each other. It turns out that most of our political views and most of our beliefs generally don't come from research or a lot of watching of the news or deep reading on specific topics. They actually come from our lived experiences. And those lived experiences are deeply shaped by the circumstances in which we live our lives. If I'm sitting in Boston traffic every day or driving Two minutes in my small town from spot to spot, where not even a stoplight is preventing me from going from A to B. My views on transportation policy are probably going to be really, really different. And I won't understand someone who comes from a different place from me if I don't actually get to see where they're coming from. And if we live in a country as large as we do, and if we come from backgrounds as diverse as ours are, and if we are as exposed to. To a modern environment that is pushing us towards silos as often as it is today.
For example, if you are someone who watches CNN every day, you not only see a different take on the same stories as someone who watches Fox News, you live in a different world from someone who watches Fox News. If we spend most of our time on social media, which today's kids are spending upwards of seven hours a day on social media alone, then you are exposing yourself to an information ecosystem that is sharing information with you based on your prior behavior.
It's almost like saying, jessica, tell me exactly what you're like, and that's exactly what I'll show you. It's not saying, jessica, tell me exactly what you like, and I'm going to share with you the things you might be missing.
That's not rounding anybody out. And so if we live in silos in a huge country that's really diverse, we run the risk of not bumping into people who are very different from us and not understanding what it's like to talk about transportation with someone who takes 45 minutes to drive four miles versus someone who takes four minutes to drive four miles. And that is true in every single policy and issue area. And I would argue that when one has experiences, deep experiences where they can put their lives into conversation with the lives of other people, they develop social muscles around empathy and curiosity and courage that allow them to be fully functioning and happily functioning adults and citizens, where suddenly you can put yourself into conversation with all sorts of people and realize that it's a big world out there, a broad mind is better than a narrow one. And that ignorance really isn't bliss. It's just naivete.
[00:18:24] Speaker B: I love to.
I call them field trips and invite my colleagues across the aisle to come out to rural Oregon and have a field trip on things that, you know, have been super controversial in the building, obviously. Well, maybe not obviously because you don't know me, but I. I try to build the relationship as much as I can to set that foundation and then, you know, entice them with Wine or whatever to get them here. But. But go on some field trips to talk about things like energy or.
Energy has been the big one. We had a bill that we passed to this session around farm stamp and farm stores. So coming out to. To more rural farmland and talking about how the farmers are pivoting a bit to try to make up some income that they're losing in other places.
And then. And then likewise, like, if I get invited to go into the metro area, into Portland and. And visit, you know, whatever, I try to take opportunity in that, too. Because you're sp. I mean, the perspective is lived experience. And. And when you only stay in your own little bubble, you don't have that opportunity.
[00:19:35] Speaker A: Well, the other day, and our legislative leaders were explaining some of the wins that they had, and they were talking about the Japanese beetle. And most people are going, what. Why. Why are we talking about a bug when we're talking with politics? What does this have to do with anything?
And it was a very, very big, relevant deal to all of agriculture, really. But if you don't live in that world, that. That is right over your head and you're wondering, why would anybody need money for a beetle?
[00:20:06] Speaker C: Yeah, why would anyone need money for a beetle? As someone who doesn't live in that world?
Yeah. I mean, that's. Yes. I grew up in a. In a neighborhood, and I grew up in Hawaii. And then when I was young, we moved to the suburbs of Boston, and there's a very nervous, jittery fox in the neighborhood, which is probably the biggest threat to anyone in the entire neighborhood. It was. It was so safe. It was boring.
And I grew up not really understanding why anyone would. Would want or need a firearm until I went to South Texas and became great friends with a. With a buddy of mine who still remains one of my best pals to this guy, a guy named Kevin, we all call him Hornet, who owns a ranch that's 100 miles from everything and not very far from the Mexican border. And he would regularly have drug smugglers running product across his property, and those individuals would carry machine guns. And because he was so far from any semblance of law enforcement, he had to protect himself. And he would get shot at on occasion, and I can't imagine what that would be like. And I also can't imagine that my opinion about firearms should have any relevance to the way Kevin was living his life down in South Texas, because I was referring back to a world that was so different from Kev's.
And while I don't think My view has changed entirely on the topic by being able to see the way Kevin lives and by being able to just sort of be his friend. Because I'm his friend.
I have, I think, a more nuanced opinion on the topic than most of the people in my neighborhood back in Boston.
I'm really worried today. Too many young people are growing up in an environment that tells them to stay away from strangers and to judge them with a little bit of skepticism and not curiosity.
I believe very deeply that none of us have ever met a person who didn't have something to teach us.
And imagine how much your life can grow if you treat every person you meet as a learning opportunity and not as a threat to be assessed.
[00:22:18] Speaker B: How many states are you guys in? And what's the next chapter look like for the organization?
[00:22:24] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you for the question.
We began seven years ago as a research project into what great big idea could bring the divided country back together again.
And during that eight month research period, we heard teenagers all over the country voicing a common complaint. We heard them say over and over again and again, I feel like I'm growing up in a bubble and I've never seen life outside the bubble. And so that's when the light bulb went off and we launched the idea I've been talking about today.
Right now, we will be sending about 750 students on nearly 100 exchanges to 39 states across the country this summer.
Next summer, we are drawing up plans to BE in all 50 states and over 200 high schools across the country, which will have us sending thousands of students through exchanges. Right now, our team is on a three year timeline to scale the program to 1,000 high schools in all 50 states across the country. Our hope is that 10,000 students can start traveling through the program.
The biggest reaction or critical reaction we get is people say it sounds too good to be true.
And my Hope is once 10,000 young people are charging all over America, people realize, oh my God, it is actually true. The program really is free. There really is no merit based admission criteria.
For the last two years, we've been asking our students how many, what percentage of them would recommend it to a friend. The Average has been 100% scale, 0 to 10. The strength of that, yes, has been 9.7.
Sometimes it's hard to see the roses right outside your window.
We're tapping on the window and hoping people can come to their town. If anyone hears this, you know, and they reach out to us and say, hey, can you bring this to my Community, I promise you our answer will be yes.
The problem that we're working on is really bad right now. And we need solutions not just right away, we needed them six years ago. And so the pace to scale is going to be very aggressive.
And that I think, representative is going to be the next chapter of the American Exchange Project growth.
[00:24:29] Speaker B: I would love to connect you with our local high school and see that here. Yeah, right.
[00:24:34] Speaker A: And it sounds like there are some, some hopes to maybe get this back through the Oregon state legislative world maybe in the next session and try and get that across the finish line.
[00:24:45] Speaker C: Yeah, fingers crossed. I mean, I think this could be an extraordinary opportunity for Oregon to be the first in the nation to really go statewide and to show what it looks like when a whole state sends their kids through an experience like this.
We're not about any kind of endorsing any kind of political perspective. We're really not about rote civics education of any kind. We're about giving young people an experience that'll broaden their minds and be kind of like this multi dimensional friend making factory.
And at a time when we hear that the secret source of mental health crisis among kids today is loneliness, when we see that connections across socioeconomic classes help economic mobility for poor kids, and when we see that a lack of relationships across political divides are the source of our political divisions, we believe that it's a moment for reigniting our social relationships.
And just the way during the period of industrialization 150 years ago, we protected green spaces and national parks, public parks and cities as a way to say that nature is part of humanity.
We right now need to foster social relationships not just for young people, but for all people in this country, as a way to say that our friends are a really big part of our future.
[00:26:11] Speaker A: Yeah, well said. That is beautiful. And I loved the example of you going to Texas.
[00:26:19] Speaker C: Yeah. This was inspired by a road trip I took, actually.
[00:26:22] Speaker A: Right. And because it, you know, as I'm hearing you, it's not like your goal is to necessarily take one person from one side of the aisle to the other. The goal is for people to actually hear each other understand that there are differences and can maybe understand. Oh, I actually see why you would think that. I see why that would be your perspective because you have a completely different life and geography and go down the list.
[00:26:50] Speaker C: Yeah. And we're not a red to blue program. We're not a political program. And you know, if you look at voting patterns, more people in this country don't vote at all. Than vote for one party or another.
I think, you know, our political party of choice for most Americans ranks probably between 15th and 30th on their list of identities about who they are.
You know, we are spouses and siblings and children and aunts and uncles and sometimes grandparents and friends and Red Sox fans and, you know, hikers and bikers and mountaineers and music enthusiasts. Long, I think, before we would say we are Democrats or Republicans or not that. Sure. It all sounds like chaos to me right now.
And for that reason, I think it's really important we get to know each other as people.
Frankly, at the constitutional convention 250 years ago, that's what the founders had. They knew one another as people that allowed them to make the really tough decisions they had to make when they put pen to paper and decided who we were, what we stood for, and how this idea of democracy could manifest itself in a country like ours.
And if we don't know each other as people, we're just, just kind of inhibiting our ability to negotiate and work through issues together. And we're just kind of limiting our lives.
I don't know, when I think back to the best things in my life, I can. I can usually attach it to an experience I had with a friend.
And I don't know who I would be if I didn't have those people in my life or where I would be if I didn't have those people in my life. My 8th grade teacher, Mary Mahoney said, show me your friends and I'll show you your future.
And I've learned in the last seven years of running this organization that is not only predictive of an individual's future, it's predictive of the future of a nation.
And so I think right now it's a moment for social relationships. It's a moment for the protecting the sanctity of our social relationships and diversifying them. Because right now, birds of a feather are flocking together a little too much
[00:28:57] Speaker B: in our society, in a sense reminds me of another political passion that I've tried to embrace and have policy around. More, more just work groups and listening sessions. But it's multi generational learning or multi generational child care. And it's the youngest and pairing them with our oldest, you know, people, seniors that are maybe in a senior living facility, preschoolers that are in childcare setting and bringing them together to plant a garden or read a book or hang out. And you know, studies have shown that those two segments of our population are often the loneliest and feel Maybe unseen, but bringing them together, there's purpose. And you have one that's a sponge for learning and you have one that has a lot of time and wants to feel needed. So again, just.
[00:29:51] Speaker C: It works well.
[00:29:52] Speaker B: Yeah. Bringing people together from different perspectives and. And it does. It works so well. Friends or, or littles and olders. As a kid growing up, I always engaged in the pen pal program.
[00:30:04] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:30:05] Speaker B: Pen pals from all over. That was the thing. You know, we couldn't go do an exchange. Well, until I got older. And then there was like a foreign exchange student. You know, there was that program. So we hosted one when I was a senior. My family hosted a girl from Germany and she still, in fact, I just saw her last year. She came to the Capitol and brought a group of students and so, you know, lifelong friends. So. Yeah, it's valuable.
[00:30:31] Speaker C: Yeah. The one thing I would say to that point, Representative, there's a pattern in, across history of ideas that were once regarded as an extraordinary life changing privilege becoming an extraordinary life changing norm.
And I don't know anyone who's ever been on some type of study abroad experience that hasn't said it changed their lives.
And wouldn't it be wonderful if we could democratize that for everybody? Much the way that once upon a time people said learning to read was a privilege. That changed my life. And we thought, well, let's make sure everybody gets that privilege.
[00:31:07] Speaker B: Right?
[00:31:07] Speaker A: Amazing.
Thank you so much, David. I wish we had two more hours to talk with you. I think so much. Maybe we can have you come back for a sequel episode. But I really appreciate your time.
[00:31:18] Speaker C: Oregon wine, please.
[00:31:19] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:31:20] Speaker B: In person.
[00:31:20] Speaker A: Yes, that would be great.
[00:31:24] Speaker B: Awesome.
[00:31:24] Speaker A: Thank you. And thank you for all of your work. I'm so glad we got to make this connection. Oregonians, we hope you were just engaged by this conversation. Hopefully it ignited some ideas. And again, we'll have links in the episode notes if you want to learn more and get connected. And we hope you come back and join us next time for the next episode of Life and Legislation with Lucetta.
