– WRITTEN by Toni Clark, Executive Director and Co-Founder

We were talking as people do when their flight is delayed nearly 24 hours. Grzerorz Kalicy and I were both waiting for a flight going east from Denver to Washington DC. That’s home for me as it is for him, a professor of physics at a local university. He is a Polish citizen who has worked in the US for several years. We spoke of the nastiness of politics in the US now. He said our polarization and the push for nationalism is similar to what happened in Poland. He said he was saddened by it and felt discouraged about the future of the US as a country. I told him I think that because we work with young people—him at a university and me with iBuildBridges—we cannot afford to be cynical. I suggested we need to lead the way to participation and activism in the political process. He agreed, though he said remains cynical in his predictions.

I was reminded that we all have a story and a set of feelings, thoughts and beliefs based on what where we were raised, what we have experienced and what we have learned along the way. This is our diverse and remarkable US culture.

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