Tess Clarke on the importance of empathy

Tess Clarke, director of We Welcome Refugees, shares her most impactful stories, and stresses the importance of putting yourself in the shoes of an immigrant.

Listen here, read the transcript below, or click here for the full video version.

George Mason:
Welcome to Good God, conversations that matter about faith and public life. I'm your host, George Mason. And as we continue in our series on immigration, a human story, we're delighted to have someone who is actually worth working with real human beings who are refugees here in Dallas, Texas, where we are actually recording at this time. Tess Clarke is with us. She is the director of We Welcome Refugees, a ministry and service agency here in Dallas. And Tess, welcome to the program.

Tess Clarke:
Thank you much for having me. I'm honored to be in any position where I get to share about the work that I've had the privilege of doing so thank you.

George Mason:
So we have this program called Good God, which is to say we're trying to make the connection between faith and work, right?

Tess Clarke:
Yeah.

George Mason:
And that's really true for you. This work of welcoming strangers and caring for refugees and asylees, this is really rooted in your own faith experience, although it isn't obviously true for everyone who came from your faith tradition. Tell us a little bit about that background and how you got connected and how that has changed your faith a bit.

Tess Clarke:
That's such a good question. And I feel like, I think, how far do we want to go back, but I'll give you just a little bit about me. I think as a girl growing up, I just always had a heart for people who were marginalized. I just could never stand to see anyone hurting or anyone being treated differently or sitting alone at the lunch table or whatever was. I was just moving towards the person that I felt like maybe didn't fit in, or maybe wasn't being given a fair chance, or always rooting for an underdog story. Those always moved me. And so I always thought at some point I would do something missional. I would live in another culture, in another context.

Tess Clarke:
And so I actually got the opportunity to live in China and I was engaged to my husband now, Jason, at the time. And he was doing humanitarian work in China and I got to go out there. And I think it was these moments where I was being transformed, right? I was being welcomed into a new culture in China. People were holding my hand along the way in this very confusing time for me of navigating a new culture and food and shopping and all of this stuff. And I just had people show me just kind of really radical hospitality, right? And welcoming me into their homes and into their lives.

Tess Clarke:
And so I think that just made an impression on me. And so when my husband and I moved back to the states, we were looking to get connected with an international community. And someone told us, we were talking, "Hey, there's this whole community of refugees down the street from where you live." We were like, "What?" We don't even know much about refugees or their plight or their story, but we found ourselves in that community. We moved into that community and really wanted to just become like students, right? And learn from the people who we were getting kind of the privilege to walk with. And as we began serving at an African church and getting involved with families, I think I just started to understand more about how things that were happening socially and things that were happening politically were affecting the actual lives of people who I was getting to know.

Tess Clarke:
And I think one of the most impactful stories that I'll share is that we were living in an apartment complex where we found out there was black mold. And I was pregnant at the time and I remember my husband and I going like, "We have to leave. We're breaking our lease. We're leaving the money on the table." We didn't have a lot of money at the time, but we had resources. We had family members we could stay with. We could do that. We could leave. And my neighbor two doors down for me was pregnant, and I remember my heart just breaking because she couldn't do the same thing that I could do. She was not in the same position. And I felt like that wasn't right, and I wanted to know what could I do to make greater change? It wasn't just about my family or one other family, but across the spectrum, she should have the same access and the same rights to protect her unborn baby that I had. And she didn't and there weren't laws in place to protect her.

George Mason:
So I want to come back to your faith in just a few moments, but I think you've just named something that we should really pursue just for a moment. And that is that what you identified is that your neighbor who was in the very same circumstances as you, did not have all the same options as you had. And when I think we talk about immigration and refugees and asylees, we have certain assumptions about them and what's going on in their lives. When they say, for example, that they are coming because they are fleeing persecution. They feel like their lives are in danger or they have to leave. They don't have all the options to stay or to go through all the processes legally that we would say they ought to. And then we question, "Well, why didn't they, or why wouldn't they?" And it reminds me of the problem of domestic violence.

Tess Clarke:
Right.

George Mason:
Where a lot of times we only have a legal definition of domestic violence when someone is struck by a partner or is physically in danger, but there's all the emotional danger that happens with outrage and with violence around a person that creates this environment. And we don't have a system to account for that.

Tess Clarke:
Yeah.

George Mason:
And so what I'm I suppose getting at is the complexity of these people's lives that we overly simplify at times, don't we?

Tess Clarke:
Definitely. I mean I saw a quote and it said, "Advocacy at its core is an exercise in empathy." I think so often for people like us who haven't, I know I have not lived a hard life. I've never had to run for my life. I've never been afraid of gangs taking my children. I've never been afraid I couldn't feed my children the next meal. I have to actually practice visualizing that, putting myself in that position. What would that be like? When I hear these stories, what would I do? And moving towards people in compassion, right? Seeking to understand their plight and their story, because it's not something I've ever experienced. And I think so often that's the missing piece.

Tess Clarke:
And when I have conversations with people, it's that, "Well, why don't they just do that?" There's an air sometimes of arrogance in how they would address this person's situation.

George Mason:
Right.

Tess Clarke:
And I think, "Man, you haven't really taken the time to put yourself in their position." As much as you could, just imagine the worst scenario.

George Mason:
Right.

Tess Clarke:
The scenario that would make you, in the middle of the night, pack up your children, leave everything behind, your education, maybe the only investment you have, your home.

George Mason:
Right.

Tess Clarke:
Put the things you can carry in a backpack and leave. I mean there are stories of people, in all of the years I've worked with refugees, of women telling me, "I had to decide which children I would take and I couldn't take the ones that I had to carry."

George Mason:
Oh my goodness.

Tess Clarke:
It's unimaginable. It's gut wrenching. I have four kids. I have a baby that can't walk. I can not imagine ever being in a position so dire that I would have to choose which of my children I would bring with me on a journey that I know is going to be horrific, right? And so people only do that when they're desperate. And there's a poem by a Somali refugee named Warsan Shire, and she says, "No one leaves home, unless home is the mouth of a shark." And I think it's just so true. And I try to hold those words and remember those things because I can sometimes think I know the way they should have done it too, right?

George Mason:
Right.

Tess Clarke:
And I mean, just when it comes to my faith, I think I just grew up hearing about how radically Jesus loved people. And that's been some of the stripping away for me of some of the religion I grew up with, is because I've seen the same people who taught me that Jesus loved radically, not love radically.

George Mason:
Yeah.

Tess Clarke:
In these last few years. And that's been hard, and really tragic for me, honestly.

George Mason:
It is hard because you grew up an evangelical Christian, a conservative Christian, and all the things that you grew up reading about Jesus and understanding about how to love people, the very same people, even in your own family.

Tess Clarke:
Yeah.

George Mason:
Who have an equal love for Jesus and for God and for being faithful, nonetheless, have very different views about refugees. They support limiting refugees dramatically coming into this country and supported the policies of child separation. And think more in terms of law and order than whether a law is just or unjust. Things of that nature. How do you account for the fact that we have the same faith, generally, but we view something like this so very differently?

Tess Clarke:
I mean that's such a hard one because I can't see someone's heart. And I think often what I've found when I've really began to dig deep with people in those times I've had that opportunity, is that they're scared, that there is a place where fear is driving. There's a narrative that they've been taught, that they've bought into, that they believe that we are in an us versus them situation instead of an us and us.

George Mason:
Yeah.

Tess Clarke:
That we're free when we're all free.

George Mason:
Good point.

Tess Clarke:
And so there's a fear, but when you can start to address that and ask deeper questions and seek to understand what it is that is pushing against them, I've actually seen people change their minds. And I think that's been the most encouraging part of my work. Not everyone, I'll always tell people, when you get into this, I'm like, "Let's just say, okay, here's 100% of people. Maybe there's 20% with you, 20% who never will be, don't waste your time. But what about the 60 in the middle who aren't being discipled?"

George Mason:
Yeah.

Tess Clarke:
"Who aren't being asked hard questions? Who are just seeing one news source, who maybe haven't given much thought to this?" We need those people to raise their voices so that we can see change, right? We can see a refugee ceiling raise, so more people can come and find flourishing. So we can see laws change that are harmful to our marginalized neighbors. And I think going back to the story of living in the apartment, so when we moved out, my husband and I began working with the apartment complex to get this mold mitigated. And we actually brought in some lawyers to work with us, because for us, that was how we advocated for actual change.

George Mason:
Right.

Tess Clarke:
And again, you still have that gap and that disparity, that I could leave while everyone else had to wait for this to be fixed, and that's not lost on me.

George Mason:
But it does seem that, to use Brian Stevenson's phrase, "Proximity to pain," is so important if you're going to begin to change your mind about something.

Tess Clarke:
Yeah.

George Mason:
Here you are actually living in this environment and are knowing the stories and recognizing the lives of people around you. So many people, I think, have a hard time changing their mind because they have a hard time actually meeting people or putting themselves in a position of relationship with refugees, with people who are struggling. And you yourself had an experience when you went and saw child separation happening yourself at the border during 2016, I believe it was, or '17 maybe. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Tess Clarke:
Yeah. Right after families were being separated, and then President Trump signed an executive order, again, because of advocacy from people, I'd say, on all sides saying, "This is unacceptable," right? To end child separation, we still had a lot of children who had been separated from their families. We were still holding families in basically jail cells. And so I had the opportunity to go in and see what was happening.

Tess Clarke:
We were told when we got there, we were not allowed to talk to any of the families. They didn't really want us to look at them. It was one of the most odd experiences, because I had been in refugee camps, and there was always a humanity we were sharing, right? I could sit down in a tent of a refugee and they could still serve me something. Their dignity was still there. We could drink tea together and try to communicate.

Tess Clarke:
But walking through the holding cells where we had these families, it was just like they had been completely stripped of their humanity. I've never been a part of anything like it. There were children in there, one years old, two years old, not moving, sitting so still. And I just thought, "What have they been through? What traumas has this two year old experienced?" I was trying to make eye contact with some of the kids, it's not doing that back. I have children, they don't sit still.

Tess Clarke:
But we did have the opportunity, at one point, to meet with some men and women who were there. And we were told we could talk to them for 10 or 15 minutes. And so I got to talk to a woman, and I just asked if she was open to sharing her story and how she ended up in Ursuline, in the detention center where she was. And she said she came to the US, she was undocumented. She was young, she was a teenager when she came. She ended up getting married and having kids. She was from Guatemala and ICE had been just kind of routinely raiding the community where she lived.

Tess Clarke:
And so she was home one day, ICE came in and she didn't have the right documentation. They arrested her, her daughters witnessed what happened. She was deported back to Guatemala. I mean, she's telling the story with so, as you can imagine, so much emotion. And she said, "And I had to get back to my daughters, even if I didn't make it across the border. They had to know I'd came for them."

George Mason:
Wow.

Tess Clarke:
She was saying how she would talk to her girls on the phone, her daughter who I believe was nine at the time, or maybe 11, tried to commit suicide after all of this happened. And so she just said, "I had to get back. She had to know she was worth me coming back for." And so she began the trek from Guatemala to the United States, again, to get back to her family, and was picked up at the border. And that's why she was in Ursuline. And I mean just what we wouldn't do, right? To be with our kids. And I remember just being so compelled at that time to hold her, grab her face, which I wouldn't recommend, but I just felt moved by the holy spirit. We always want to ask someone, "Can I grab your face?" And just to tell her she was a really good mom.

George Mason:
Nice.

Tess Clarke:
Like, "You're a really good mom," and I'll just get emotional thinking about it. And we just cried together. And then I got kicked out because I touched her and I was told I couldn't touch anyone. But I think too, sometimes I wonder if people don't enter into these hard situations because they don't think they're going to have the answers and they can't fix it and they can't change it.

George Mason:
Right.

Tess Clarke:
And I think that story for me, it was a gift. It was a hard story to hear and to still know she exists in that space and I couldn't do anything about it, but I got to be with her. And did I get to remove some aloneness in that moment? Just like Jesus does with us, so often he doesn't fix my problems.

George Mason:
Right.

Tess Clarke:
But I feel less alone when I come to him. And when I share in my community what's happening, no one can necessarily change my circumstance, but can I feel loved and cared for? Absolutely. And isn't that what God's asked us to do? He's like, "Hey, enter into the radical brokenness around you, come alongside people, immerse in their story, listen longer than feels comfortable." Jesus left heaven, the most perfect place, and entered into the radical center of our broken world and contended for us and came alongside us as human beings and showed us a better way to live. And I think he's asked us to do the same thing.

Tess Clarke:
And then if you look at Isaiah 43 is like, "Hey, and when you do these things, you will be blessed. Your light will break forth like the Dawn." Like, "Hey, if you come alongside people, work towards bringing justice to the earth, I'm going to bless you. I'm going to do it, and then you're going to also be fulfilled." And I don't know, it's just mind blowing when I think about the fact that we get to partner with Jesus and what he's already doing. He was already in the Ursuline Detention Center. He's already at the border. He's already in the refugee camps, but we get to go meet him there too.

George Mason:
"And in as much as you have done it unto one of the least of these, my brothers or sisters, you've done it unto me," Jesus said.

Tess Clarke:
Yeah.

George Mason:
So we have a phenomenon about refugees, that we seem to make differences in our mind to decide that some of them are worthy of our care, and others not so much, right? And you and I were talking before we started this podcast about the phenomenon that's taken place with resettling Afghan refugees after the US has decided to pull out our military forces. But we went into Afghanistan and we have been present there as a nation and at war against the Taliban until we finally made the decision to come out. And so part of it was a sense of moral obligation on the part of our nation to resettle those who were going to be persecuted if left behind.

Tess Clarke:
Yeah.

George Mason:
Because of their relationship to us. Now you had, you told me, a whole lot of your more conservative evangelical friends who are desperately interested in helping with Afghan refugees, maybe not so much with those at the Southern border. And then you told me that you have a lot of more progressive Christian friends who were passionate about the Southern border, but not so much rushing to help Afghan refugees, because probably they didn't like that war to begin with.

Tess Clarke:
Yeah.

George Mason:
And they didn't feel the moral compunction as much. Can you make sense of that in your mind, in terms of how we carve up the good refugees and the bad, when their life stories are just their life stories?

Tess Clarke:
I've gone back to this a lot. And I think so often, and so much of it, and if I dig down deep again when I'm talking to people, it's about what people think right versus wrong. And there's something, I think, in that evangelical culture and the way that we've been raised, with the sin kind of part of it, I always hear this part about legalities and, yeah, what you deem right. Well, the Afghan people helped us in our war. They're the good refugees, where these people are storming our Southern border and taking our jobs and taking our resources.

Tess Clarke:
And it's like we've gotten these narratives that have been painted, when like what you're saying, these are just people in need. They're in need for different reasons. And I actually, in the work that I do on a national scale, I get to do some advocacy, is really trying to kind of draw that similarity for people, to see like, "Hey, gangs in the Northern Triangle are like the Taliban in Afghanistan."

George Mason:
Right.

Tess Clarke:
And really everyone's running from their own version of the Taliban.

George Mason:
Nice.

Tess Clarke:
And we have a lot of compassion for people, because we saw, and I think seeing the visual too in Afghanistan, we saw what they were running from.

George Mason:
Right.

Tess Clarke:
We saw the Taliban invading. We saw people hanging on airplanes. It was like the desperation was so poignant at the moment.

George Mason:
Right.

Tess Clarke:
Where we don't see those things when people are coming from Central America and South America. And it's hard for us to wrap our minds around. And so there's been, again, a lot of it's about what are we reading? What news sources are we listening to? Because there is a narrative that's being pushed for us, that a lot of times we internalize as truth and we don't kind of dig a little bit deeper.

George Mason:
And I think that's true on both sides in a way.

Tess Clarke:
100%.

George Mason:
I don't typically do the both sides sort of thing, but I do think that we have a kind of innate loyalty to a political position and we want to advance that with our faith. Even though in theory, we want to say our faith comes first, our faith is what drives us.

Tess Clarke:
Right.

George Mason:
But I would say a whole lot of what actually happens is that we want our faith to support the political narrative that we're committed to. And to some extent, it's how we think about the nation that we live in, the country we live in. I was listening to you talk to your dad on The Daily podcast, the New York Times Daily, a couple of years ago. And he made an interesting point. He said you were trying to challenge him about, "Doesn't our faith sort of say that we should welcome the stranger and all of that?" And he was saying, "Yeah, but how many can we take? If we keep doing this, we're not going to have a country."

George Mason:
And I think there's a certain real politic about that, but I also think, but isn't our faith supposed to come first? Right? And isn't it supposed to be the kingdom of God, not the United States of America and the border that drives our reasoning?

Tess Clarke:
Yeah.

George Mason:
And yet those of a more progressive faith might not be willing to acknowledge that we can't process everyone, there are limits to what we can do, and setting reasonable goals about that is not an unwise thing.

Tess Clarke:
Right. I definitely agree with you. And I think this space that I'm in, we're really trying to bridge some of that gap. It's been interesting, I've been kind of thinking about this a lot after everything was happening in Afghanistan, and the people who were reaching out to me, and the people I wasn't hearing from. And I thought, I wonder too if kind of that political position sometimes is like, the democratic position is often like, "The government's taking care of it. We're paying taxes. And the government is now taking care of resettling these refugees, and they're doing this." Whereas maybe the more Republican stance would be like, "Hey, small government, people should be doing it. And especially if you're a Christian, the church should be doing it." And I saw some of that action and momentum.

Tess Clarke:
And I really think, "Man, isn't there a world where we can exist with both?" Right? And I've been to the border several times and we always visit with border patrol when we take a trip down because that's important. That's an important part of the perspective. A lot of these people got into this work to catch the bad guys. They're like, "I don't want to catch a mama and her baby either. I want to catch the drug smuggler." And you hear their story and it humanizes them.

George Mason:
Right.

Tess Clarke:
But one of the things they're saying is, "Hey, we don't need a huge border wall. We need faster computers. We need more immigration judges."

George Mason:
Right.

Tess Clarke:
"We need social workers. If we're going to spend money, spend it on the things that help us actually do our job and process people in a more humane way. I'm not a trained social worker, I shouldn't be having to decide if someone has an asylum claim."

George Mason:
Right.

Tess Clarke:
"I'm not a lawyer," but those are the things that they were being asked to do. And you've always got good guys and bad guys in all of these places. And I'm sure some people who were happy to say, "No stamp and turn around," and other people who were really moved towards compassion with people. And so a lot of this kind of bipartisan work that I'm trying to do and bring people to raise their voices. Whether you're on the left or the right, call your senators, call your congressman. You're a person of fait first, tell them what you care about. "Hi, Ted Cruz. I'm a Republican. I voted for you and I don't like the way people are being treated at the border because I care about their humanity and dignity and I believe they were made in the image of God. And if you want my vote again, I'd love to see you do something different." We need people on every side.

George Mason:
Right.

Tess Clarke:
Wherever they land politically, to raise their voice.

George Mason:
You actually have a success story to tell about that kind of calling project and advocacy. And that everybody's voice doesn't say the same thing, right?

Tess Clarke:
Yeah.

George Mason:
It's based on what their story is, but I know that you were deeply disturbed when President Biden had promised that he would raise the 15,000 refugee cap to 125. And in the early months of his presidency, kept it at 15,000. And that was deeply disappointing to you. And so you became part of this advocacy effort to change his mind and help him to hold him to keeping his word.

Tess Clarke:
Yeah.

George Mason:
And so tell a little bit more about that, because we actually now are at 125,000.

Tess Clarke:
Yes, which is so great. We ran a campaign called Keep Your Promise, and we just asked the President to keep his word. We said, "You campaigned on this. There's a lot of people who are waiting on this. There's a lot of agencies who resettle refugee who are in limbo, like, 'Can we stay open?' They were really waiting on you to come into office and send some funding their way." And so we just rallied a whole bunch of people. We opened a phone line for people to leave voicemails for President Biden, which was really incredible to get to listen to those messages of people calling in and letting him know why they wanted him to raise the refugee ceiling.

Tess Clarke:
And I would say people had all different reasons, but a common theme was they were compelled by their faith. And also they had had a relationship with the refugee in the past and it was some kind of transformative time in their life, or they were still in a relationship with them now. And they just know what a richness these people bring to their communities. And they wanted us to open our doors to more of them. Most of the refugees I know, know more about America than I know. They are thankful to be here. They mourn leaving their country. They wish they could go back under another circumstance, but they are here to make the best life they can here and to make the life for their children. And then for the people around them, they are just some of the most generous people that I've ever known in my whole life.

George Mason:
Well, so I think we should say that We Welcome Refugees works in a direct way with people and charitably and seeks to address the actual needs that they have on the one hand. But then also in terms of moving along the spectrum toward how to help them become stable and to be here on a legal basis. And then all the way to this matter of influencing policy and becoming involved as a political activist. That's scary to a lot of people of faith in a way. The charity part and the personal part, they'll go out of their way and buy things and clothes and furniture and help make all the connections necessary to do something charitable. But calling your senator, taking a political position, trying to change policy, it feels like you're wandering out of your lane if you're a certain kind of person of faith, right?

Tess Clarke:
Yeah.

George Mason:
But on the other hand, sometimes that doesn't even take as much work as the charity part, but why leave that to just the forces that would not agree with your faith position?

Tess Clarke:
There's some kind of convoluted messaging that's happened in the evangelical church that said social justice is not the gospel.

George Mason:
Right.

Tess Clarke:
And there's a quote, and I'm going to have to come back and tell you who said it, but I think it was Micah Bournes, but they said like, "How can I love my neighbor while accepting systems that crush them?"

George Mason:
Yes.

Tess Clarke:
"How can I love my neighbor and accept less for them than I accept for myself?" And isn't Jesus good news for the poor and the marginalized? Isn't that what he came to do is break the chains of oppression? So if I'm okay with you being over here oppressed while I'm flourishing, I don't know how I'm living out my faith. To me, it goes hand in hand. And I also have so much grace for people who don't see that and understand that, because I also was that person.

George Mason:
Right.

Tess Clarke:
I mean, I was doing some local things like calling an apartment complex saying, "Hey, you've got black mold," but was I politically active until 2016? I wasn't. And I had been working with refugees since 2008.

George Mason:
Right.

Tess Clarke:
And sometimes I'm embarrassed to tell that story a little bit. And I think I talked about that on the New York Times podcast, because I really want people to understand that it can be a process. It's seeing that connection. But for me, when President Trump instituted the travel ban, which also became known as the Muslim ban, I was like, "Hold on. These are people that I love, coming from countries where I know a lot of people from there. These are not dangerous people."

Tess Clarke:
My husband and I were going on a date, I remember so distinctly because we heard it on the radio. He makes a U-turn, goes home, puts a suit on, and we drive to the airport. And so he looked very important. People kept interviewing him. They're like, "Are you a lawyer? What are you doing here?" But we were just like, "Oh my gosh." We started to see the connection. An executive order comes down and literally people were stuck on the other side of the airport. Husbands and wives were separated, the entire time President Trump was in office, who had already gotten their papers to come and be together.

Tess Clarke:
Would you accept that for your family? Wouldn't you want someone who had a stake in the politics in that country to advocate for you? I mean, these people can't vote. They can't call the senators. They're not constituents yet. They don't have green cards. But we do, we hold so much power. And something that I've been taught and began to see over and over again is like, "Hey, my representatives work for me."

George Mason:
Ah.

Tess Clarke:
It's not scary. It's not scary when you start to think about it like that. But somehow we've been, well, one, from the church standpoint, you shouldn't do social justice. Just buy the things, give the goods, bring the meals, which are all great things, and we're meeting felt needs, but don't get involved in politics because that's not where Jesus would want you. Where I'm like, "I think it's a both and."

George Mason:
Right.

Tess Clarke:
For me it is.

George Mason:
Well, and I think anyone who wants to get involved in the Dallas area with this should contact you. And I think if your spirit is any indication, and it's contagious, we're going to make progress in all of this, Tess.

Tess Clarke:
Yes.

George Mason:
So thank you so much for what you're [crosstalk 00:33:00].

Tess Clarke:
Wechoosewelcome.com, and I'll send that to you.

George Mason:
Okay.

Tess Clarke:
Because we're doing so much work on the immigration front, as well as with refugees, we really wanted a more encompassing name. So we're We Welcome and we're wechoosewelcome.com. So people can find us there.

George Mason:
Great, wechoosewelcome.com.

Tess Clarke:
Yeah.

George Mason:
Tess Clarke, thank you so much for being on Good God and for all that you are doing. God bless you.

Tess Clarke:
Thank you, George.

Speaker 3:
Good God is created by Dr. George Mason, produced and directed by Jim White, social media coordination by Cameron Vickrey. Good God: Conversations with George Mason, is the podcast devoted to bringing you ideas about God and faith and the common good. All material copyright 2021 by Faith Commons.