43. Storytelling as a Tool for Social Change – Dr. Pierre R. Berastain, Interim Executive Director at Centre for Public Impact

On the 43rd episode of Immigration Today!, Angeline Chen welcomes Dr. Pierre R. Berastain. Dr. Pierre Berastaín is the Interim Executive Director of the Centre for Public Impact (CPI). CPI was founded in 2015 as a not-for-profit foundation dedicated to improving the effectiveness of governments and public institutions worldwide. Dr. Berastaín joined the CPI team as Regional Director for North America in 2023. In 2024, he became the Interim Executive Director of the organization. He is also the Co-Founder at Caminar Latino – Latinos United for Peace and Equity, a culturally specific, national organization dedicated to working with Latino families affected by domestic violence. Previously, he was the Chief Strategy & Operations Officer for the District Alliance for Safe Housing, the DC’s largest housing provider for survivors of domestic and sexual violence. His work has appeared in national and international publications and books. From 2015–2018, he served on the board of MERGE for Equality, which works to engage men around violence prevention. He is one of the founders of Latinos United for Peace and Equity; and served on the Board of Directors for Transition House, a domestic violence shelter and social justice organization in Cambridge, MA. He currently serves on the board for ImmSchools, an organization that focuses on supporting immigrant students by ensuring schools are safe environments. 

In 2019, Dr. Berastaín was named Top 25 Most Influential LGBTQ People of Color in Boston. Originally from Peru, he immigrated to the United States with his family in 1998 and remained an undocumented immigrant until he received DACA in 2012 and later became a lawful permanent resident. He holds a B.A. in Social Anthropology from Harvard College, a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School, and a doctorate in Public Health (DrPH) from the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

From his former work advocating for survivors of domestic and sexual violence, Pierre now focuses on impacting systems and Federal government entities through the lens of communities directly affected by government inefficiency.  Dr. Berastain describes his path to doing this work and the importance of using storytelling in making social change.  CPI’s work creates system change by centering the most marginalized, such as low income, LGBTQ and immigrant communities. 

You can keep up with CPI’s work via their website, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter/X. Follow Dr. Berastain on LinkedIn and Twitter/X. Please subscribe to our immigration newsletter to stay up to date with any new episodes!

DISCLAIMER – This podcast is intended for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or a solicitation to provide legal services. The information in this podcast is not intended to create, and receipt of it does not constitute, a lawyer-client relationship. Listeners should not act upon this information without seeking professional legal counsel. The views and opinions expressed in the podcast represent those of the individual speaker only and are not necessarily the views of Clark Hill PLC.

Transcript

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Hello, everyone. It's Angeline Chen. Welcome to Immigration Today, where I interview leaders, advocates, experts, and volunteers in immigration and immigrant rights on the issues, their experiences, and how you can make a difference. This podcast is intended for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or a solicitation to provide legal services. The information in this podcast is not intended to create and receipt of it does not constitute a lawyer client relationship. Listeners should not act upon this information without seeking professional legal counsel. The views and opinions expressed in the podcast represent those of the individual speaker only and are not necessarily the views of Clark Hill PLC. Today we have Dr. Pierre Berastain. Who was the interim executive director of the Center for Public Impact. The Center for Public Impact, CPI, was founded in 2015 as a not for profit foundation dedicated to improving the effectiveness of governments and public institutions worldwide. Dr. Berastain, joined the CPI team as regional director of North America in 2023. In 2024, Pierre became the interim executive director of the organization. Dr. Perez Tayin is a co founder at Caminar Latino, Latinos United for Peace and Equity, a culturally specific national organization dedicated to working with Latino families affected by domestic violence. Prior to Caminar Latino, Pierre was the chief strategy and operations officer for the District Alliance for Safe Housing, the District of Columbia's largest housing provider for survivors of domestic and sexual violence. His work has appeared in national and international publications and books, including the Huffington Post from 2015 to 2018. He served on the board of Merge for Equality, an organization that works to engage men around violence prevention. He is one of the founders of Latinos United for Peace and Equity and served on the board of directors for Transition House, a domestic violence shelter and social justice organization in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for M Schools, an organization that focuses on supporting immigrant students by ensuring schools are safe environments. In 2019, Pierre was named Top 25 Most Influential LGBTQ People of Color in Boston. Originally from Peru, Pierre immigrated to the United States with his family in 1998 and remained an undocumented immigrant for 14 years until he received DACA in 2012. Dr. Pierre holds a BA in Social Anthropology from Harvard College, a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School, and a Doctorate in Public Health from the Gillings School of global public health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Berestain, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for your time. And I know you're incredibly busy, so really appreciate it. I'd love to hear a little bit about your background and your immigrant story and how you came to the U. S. Would you be open to sharing that with us? Of course. Absolutely. Um, my family's originally from Peru. I was born in Peru in the eighties, and my family left if, if you know anything about the history of Peru in the eighties and and nineties, we went through an internal war. Um, there was a, a social that, it was social, political. It had quite a, uh. Tremendous amount of violence, uh, for the population. And those were push factors that led my family to leave Peru in, in the nineties, in, in the late nineties. So I came to the United States. I remember the day, December 18th, 1998. And it, I, I hadn't, it was the first time in, um, not in the United States, but it was the first time that I had seen my dad. Uh, after six months he had come. six months prior. And, um, and then that started kind of our journey, uh, in the United States, and it was her first Christmas here. But my family again left because of social, political, economic reasons and out of fear, uh, that my parents had for the safety of my sister. And I think that as so many immigrant stories, there was the desire to both protect your children, but also give them a better tomorrow, the possibility of of achieving different dreams than they were able to, um, so we stayed here in the United States afterwards and, um. From there. Um, I, you know, I did relatively well in school. I, I, I, I, I felt, I think the pressure when I was a kid, not for my parents, but just internal of if I don't get a, a full ride somewhere, if I don't, um, get into a good school, then their kind of sacrifice would've been worth for or not. Mm. And so my getting into Harvard, I think was not a success for me as much as it was. A collective success of the family and, and that just beautiful kind of story of resilience that I think it made my parents quite proud. Um, and I, I still think that they are. So that's, that, that's a, the immigrant story in, in brief, if you will. Yeah, that's amazing. They must be so proud of you and, you know, everything that you've done. When you were a child kind of growing up here, did you, did you feel fear in general, um, because you're undocumented? Was there, or was a sense of, like, did they talk about it? Or how was it kind of, was it always in the background? How did, how did you grow up kind of with that? Yeah, you, you learn, you know, I worked in domestic and sexual violence for over 15 years. And, um, we have a concept there of safety planning, right? You proactively plan for your safety as a survivor of domestic violence. Um, Um, either to escape to protect yourself from, um, to have a contingency plan to protect yourself from violence, to know where you go in case something happens. And through my childhood and in my adulthood as well, I realized that I had been making and my family had been making safety plans and the safety plans consisted of things like who do you call. Right. Who are the media contacts that you that you put in an email to, um, if you were to get, uh, into trouble or in deportation proceedings? Um, what happens if you have a medical emergency? Right. I mean, immigrants oftentimes fear that if you have a medical emergency and you go to the emergency room, you may get deported, which is not not true. Right. Um, but my father, I mean, after 20 years of living here in the United States, a few years ago, recently, he had a heart attack, and he was in the, in the hospital. In the parking lot of the emergency room thinking I don't want to go in because if I go in, um, I can become a public charge, right? I, I, I can be, uh, it might jeopardize my, my ability to become a permanent resident and he, when, when we finally forced him, my sister forced him to go in, uh, because she was on the phone with me and I said, He's having a heart attack. Every symptom that you're telling me indicates that he's having a heart attack. Force him to go in. So he goes in and the doctors immediately rush him to the operating room because, you know, they put a stent in his heart. He needed bypass surgery and they said he's been having a heart attack since the pain started, which was an hour and a half ago. So my father was going through an hour and a half of heart attack. Um, he ended up with a stent for a for an artery that was blocked at 100 percent and a triple bypass. So he, he had four arteries that were clogged at 95%, 98 percent and 100%. So by all intents and purposes, he should have died right there in the parking lot. Right. And my point in telling that story is that My, um, my entire life, I think my family, I have been making safety plans as survivors of trauma do, um, because you just don't know when the system's going to come for you. My, I have a friend, um, that she and I used to joke and say, like, when we go to the airport, we dress up because if we're going to be deported, we're going to go out in style. And of course you make these jokes in order to live in order to kind of go through your life to life. Sure. But. The reality is that underneath the joke, there is a tender, um, spot that comes from trauma or that comes from the fear of being separated. So, yeah, I hope that answer your question. It does. No, I think, you know, you've been so organized, even, you know, growing up as a young person, and then now kind of, you know, Doing that for others in in making sure other people have these plans. And that's that's really really amazing. And it's so important. Is your father better? He is he he had thankfully to the doctors He had the surgery right and we were able to work with a hospital so that He didn't have to tap into kind of public benefits and the doctors were, um, I think he would say they were angels sent by God in that they forgave actually a lot of his his bills and the hospital itself forgave his bills. And, um, but I think that is such a powerful, I think, story because so many immigrants would rather die than, yeah. Then face some of these systemic pressures. And by the way, my dad had been paying taxes, social security, Medicare, Medicaid, like that since the moment that he landed in this country, every, you know, he has his tax returns from every single year and proudly. So he's a permanent resident now, but you know, that's, yeah. Yeah, I think a lot of people don't realize that a bit more undocumented, actually, a lot of them paid taxes. The U. S. Government makes it very easy for people to pay taxes. That part is very easy. Um, Oh, yes. It. So, yeah, I mean, having these safety plans is incredibly important and more and more people are talking about now and, uh, plans in case they get deported plans in case ice comes over, um, in, in medical emergencies. All of those are in incredibly, incredibly important. Um, so, so when you were growing up, you were studying hard, you wanted to help your family, you wanted to, you know, make them proud, you and, and. When did you decide that you wanted to help people like you wanted to help people in need and help people who have, who've been victims of trauma and domestic violence? How did that, how did that come about? I'm not sure whether ever, whether there was a defining moment. Um, if anything, the defining moment was when, um, We were on the plane leaving Peru to Dallas, Texas. And I thought I, there was a reason my family had to leave our homeland. There was a reason my sister had to leave her dolls, her favorite dolls behind. And that's, you know, the scope of the world as a kid. And I thought I was very excited to see my dad and very excited to be in a new country, but I made it almost an obsessive mission to understand the pull and push factors. And I didn't call them that at the end, but you know, at the time, but I call them the reasons for why we left. And so in, in middle school, in high school, in college, I became obsessed with human rights and I became obsessed with understanding, um, processes of violence and reconciliation and. And, and immigrant stories. And, and, and so in, in college, I ended up, uh, majoring in anthropology and human rights, and all my work was around violence and a lot of it was around gender based violence, understanding the political violence in Peru and in Latin America, how governments failed and how governments, uh, became. can be agents of reconciliation and change as in the case of South Africa, right? Um, and I studied it from every angle possible from poetry to film to political science and anthropology and theology. And that's why I went to get my master's in theology. And so it just became not a decision point of I want to help people, but it became a vocation of I want to dedicate my life to working to changing the social conditions that give rise to violence, not just domestic violence, but that give rise to systemic violence. Yes, yes, yes, yes. That's amazing. Um, in Now you're at the Center for Public Impact. How did you kind of end up there? What's the road to that? What's the road to that? Because I came, as you, as I mentioned, right, from domestic and sexual violence work, both working directly with survivors to working with systems and, and with federal government entities that were working to change entire ways of providing services to survivors across the nation. And, and that was kind of, That was kind of my jam, if you will, right? That was that's what I did. And I realized that I had done quite a bit of systems change work. And I thought, I would love to now work for an organization that brings those skills around systems change around, you know, Storytelling around centering people most impacted by government inefficiency, um, in in my work. And so I ended up finding this organization CPI, whose mission is, um, as a global nonprofit, um, to reimagine government to engage in systems change so that it works for everyone. So we are, we dedicate ourselves to sparking, um, Um, that change, uh, the local state and sometimes national levels and and we really believe that 21st century challenges cannot be solved with 20th century systems. So we work with, um, with governments and we want to reimagine governments as a force that values human relationships that foster a culture of learning and that feels, um, empowered to tackle complexity. And, and, and that's really exciting, uh, for me. Yeah, that sounds amazing. And just the impact that you can have, it's really about the systems that I think are the problem, right? Sometimes. Um, could you give us an example of maybe like a state or government that you, that you're working on or that you, you have helped just to, to give us kind of an idea of what that means. Cause it's hard to, Imagine what it really means that you're doing. Yeah, totally. So, um, King County, Washington state is engaging in a systems change initiative in which they are trying to reach a goal of zero emissions by electrifying their bus fleet, for instance, they want to become the first county in the United States to do that. And they've partnered with us. We've partnered with them to go through a learning journey around how to do that. Most, uh, most effectively. Um, and we center concepts like equity, you know, very strongly. So I'll give you an example, right? When you look at, um, at pollution maps in King County, you realize that the areas that are most marginalized are the ones that are most impacted by pollution and, um, By by by air pollution and so one feasible answer would be well let's just pilot all of those electric buses in those areas, but the unintended consequence of that when you step back and you look at the entire system is that inevitably buses will break when they're in the piloting stage, right? Weather will end up affecting the ability of those buses to to to to move to to operate. And so. When you're in a pilot stage, if you end up piloting those buses, uh, those prototypes in the most marginalized communities that you're trying to help, you might inadvertently end up hurting them because they are the ones who depend on the buses the most. Right, they gotta go on them. That's right. They gotta go on them. And so, and so that's an example of how we kind of take a whole systems approach. I'll give you another very quick example. Um, we're working with the federal government in the United States and with a few other partners to do a five year pilot, um, around changing in, in, in 12 different states and in one, uh, tribal community to change the child support system to make it safer for survivors of domestic violence. Right. And so it's a, it's a demonstration project to see how can we improve the child support system. That's the system wherever, you know, parents, for example, are separated and one of them has custody. The other one, um, doesn't, but still has to pay something to that parent in order to, to, uh, support the child. Well, for survivors, that can be, you know, A really, really, um, dangerous experience, right? So, for example, if you end up, um, as an enforcement mechanism, and one of the parents doesn't pay, and then the government says, well, we're going to take the driving license away. That might, not be as problematic as for instance, we're going to take their gun license away. And if you do, you know, some states do that. Uh, and some of those actions in some instances might create a really horrible situation for the survivor, the other parent, right? Some, some punitive actions might trigger a certain type of escalated violence, um, than, than other compared to other, uh, actions. And so our work in governments or in work with different systems, um, in the child support system allows us to kind of. Test and and and reveal what are the best practices to work with survivors, all kinds of survivors. So that's another example of of systems change where we partner with governments. And we center the most marginalized. That is fascinating. That's going to be a lot of work. That's a good thing for us, I suppose. I know, it's good. Yeah. So, do these governments find you or do you find them to do these projects? Right. It's a little bit of both. Sometimes a government will come, let's say a local public health department or state health department will come and say, we have this wicked problem, and we don't, you know, we need help in kind of figuring out our strategy to solve it, right, around public health, for instance, or maternal health. And, but we have no money. Right. Or in some cases they have money and they can, they can pay us for it. And sometimes they say we have no money. Um, so we, we have the privilege of being part of, of how being part of having access to a large network of funders, philanthropy, right? Where we can go and say, look, we have gotten this request from a local government that, um, They don't really have the funds and they're able to put X amount of money. CPI is able to pro bono make, you know, put this much in. Are you as a philanthropic partner willing to kind of cover the rest for us to do this project with the government? Um, and, and so, and again, we have the privilege of being able to go to a number of funders and kind of propose this. This type of funding model, um, and that way partner with governments. And I think that a lot of governments at the local and the state level right now are really interested in figuring out what can we do in our own spheres of influence to protect the rights and to advance the rights of the residents citizens within our Within our jurisdiction because they're seeing what are some of the shifts that might be happening at the federal government. And they're saying we want to take matters into our own hands as well. And so they want to partner with organizations like us to make that happen. Wow. And, and then does it matter in terms of the political landscape? If people are switching city council, the state level, the federal level, does, does that affect the work that you're doing? Mm hmm. I think it does, inevitably, right? I mean, we, we partner with anyone who wants to improve government systems, regardless of political affiliation, who wants to improve government systems for the benefit of all residents, so that it works for everyone. And the key piece here is everyone. So we would say no to projects that, you know, that they ask us to, um, to. To create a system that that, um, targets a specific population, for instance, I mean, that that would make no sense for us. Um, so does it change with elections? Yes, because every time when people when when you people get into power, obviously, their priorities and I'm not talking here federal, right? I'm talking about city council to your point, school boards, etc. Um, those individual priorities, become part of the democratic process and become part of the negotiation of what gets prioritized for that agenda. And so is it possible that we start in a project and a new city council, right? Says, you know, right now we're, we're going to kind of stop that and we're going to shift priorities here and there. Sure. Um, but you know what, that's the nature of, of democratic process. That's the nature of how we make change, right? Sometimes we progress 10 steps and sometimes we we take a couple of steps backwards, right? Right. I guess it's like it's anything we do Yeah, and and you mentioned that part of the mission in terms of systems change or using storytelling. How are you? storytelling In in your work. Yeah, it's storytelling. Uh, I don't want to get too philosophical, but storytelling, um, is a powerful, um, focus for CPI because stories serve in my mind as portals into the experiences that, uh, we might have never imagined, right? And they're imbued with meaning and they offer insights that can challenge our assumptions and expand our understanding. So at their core, for me, stories are Tapestries of human experience. They're woven with threats of emotion and resilience and shared humanity. And they reveal our interconnectedness and they remind us of our common ground. But oftentimes we think that storytelling is a one way street. And for me, it's not just about transmitting information. Storytelling is a dialogue. And through storytelling, we don't just share our perspectives. We, again, And cover new ones. And it's that exchange of stories of narratives that can shift mindsets that can spark empathy and even catalyze action. And so in this sense, um, stories just become agents of systems change, right? They allow us to see the world through the eyes of others, to question the status quo, to imagine what could be different. And so at CPI, storytelling is essential because meaningful change begins with. Understanding and stories are one of the most powerful ways to foster that understanding. That is the best explanation of storytelling I've ever heard. You know, that that's that's amazing. So well put. And, you know, for us, we use storytelling all the time because the people that we interview, it's really about their story. That is. impactful as opposed to just giving statistics, right? And, and statistics can are helpful, but it don't hit the heart so much, right? It's really about having somebody feel like that, that, that something can happen to them as well. And being, finding similarities in, in, in other people. I feel like storytelling is incredibly important and to have And I have personally changed people's minds from telling stories. So I think, um, yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's great. So at CPI, it seems, you know, you're doing systems. It's, um, it's, it's, it's really important and amazing. Do you kind of miss the, you know, the day to day working with, with, uh, domestic violence survivors and kind of the one on one with, with individuals or, uh, you know, Or is it like all kind of similar? Well, it's definitely not similar, right? There is, I think, a little bit of a difference between working in, uh, sometimes in crisis mode, right? With people who are, I mean, I remember getting a call in Christmas, um, one year and it was, um, a partner organization saying we have a survivor of sex trafficking who has two hours to extract from that house and can you help us Transcribed Think through how to do it. And, you know, coordinating with the police. And this is, I'm excusing myself from the Christmas evening, uh, dinner table in order to kind of safety plan and, and, and, and respond to the situation that has been escalated. Um, I, I don't have those kinds of emergencies that at CPI, right? Um, and it's the difference between being in an emergency room versus being in the, um, in the administration of the hospital, if you will. And, um, So it's quite different. Do I miss it? I think that the skills that I learned, still apply, right? In terms of how do we make systems safer? How do we help people navigate really complex, intricate, um, Messes of a system that make no sense to even the people within the system who have created it, right? Uh, and you know this as an immigration lawyer yourself, that, that, you know, you look at a provision of the law, and if X applies, then Y gets triggered, but if A or X. 1 applies, then this other thing gets triggered, and it's just, it's just so confusing. And, and so. I think that the skill that I have learned over the years that I think I'm, I could say, I can say this, that I'm proud of, is my ability to kind of look at a system, dissect it, and say, here are the levers that we can pull to, to improve it for, you know, for people. Um, and that, that practice and that skill hasn't really changed, to be honest, that, you know, I did that at the individual level with survivors, I know I do it with governments. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's really important to have your background right to have the experience with working directly with people on the ground in the community and then creating and helping systems, you know, above that affect them. I think it's it's difficult if you don't. I'm sure. People can do it, but it's difficult if you're so far removed from the people and don't have the experience and then to kind of create change and, you know, these systems. So I think you're a very unique, um, in special place that you're, this is absolutely perfect for you. Um, and so, you know, you are, or you were still a DACA recipient. Can I say that or no, or you're a green card holder now? I'm not sure. Yeah. I'm a green card. I actually just submitted my application for citizenship. I got married four years ago. I was a DACA recipient until then, um, and then I met, um, Paul, whom I fell in love with and you know, I resisted marriage at first and then we said, let's do it. It'd make, you know, we are, we are right for each other. And so, uh, so I just submitted my, my paperwork, I think last week in the last two weeks. Oh, congratulations. You'll be a citizen very soon. That's fantastic. Thank you. And then being a DACA recipient before that, like, how did you feel about DACA and do you have any concerns about the future of DACA? At the time, DACA was a lifeline, right? I, I'm going to go back to a dark place in graduating from, Uh, college when I was a senior, I had mental health issues. I had depression. I, I remember sitting in my, um, on or laying on my bed in my college dorm and looking outside the window. And the first thought that came to mind was, I think I understand people who want to jump out of that window because it would be easier for those around them. And, and I, you know, there was no action there, but that in itself became a red flag for me of like, whoa, you have, you're having suicidal thoughts, right? And that was because the weight of where am I going to go? My entire life has been here, right? I considered going to Canada. I considered going to back to Peru, right? And, um, and I just remember being in an incredibly depressed state in which, you know, my, my school at the time really didn't know. Like they accepted undocumented students, but they didn't know how to deal with them. Uh, and now they're, they're better, but there were really no supports for undocumented students. And so I, I was in the ivory tower of academia and I was, you know, graduation was the precipice upon which, um, my life would end or radically change. Right. And so four years, they had four years of, of a fairy tale, uh, relatively speaking and at the end, and, you know, come at the end of May for in graduation that was all about to change. And so when DACA, then I, and then I got into grad school and I went to divinity school and that's when DACA came to be and immediately upon receiving it. I, I, I started working, right? I, I, I wanted to, to, to work for an organization and started working in domestic violence and sexual violence the moment that I got DACA. And it was like a, like a huge boulder just lifted off my shoulders in that I could now feel that I could, you know, 10 for myself, I could send money to my parents in Dallas. I could help my sister, right with, with a number of things, expenses. And it just felt great, right at the time, even though Instinctively, I just knew that it was going to become a tactic or a, a, a mechanism by which people said, well, you know, we've given some immigration relief. And so we're just going to punt the immigration overhaul down, down the hallway indefinitely. And we are still in that situation, right? Like we, we haven't even addressed it. And now we've stopped, we stopped issuing DACA. Um, right. The new DACA. The new DACA in 2017. And so, at the height of the program, there were over 800, 000 people who had DACA. Now we have 530, 000, right? And, and in, in, with the new administration, we might see that end. And my concerns for the future of DACA, DACA is not about the concerns for a policy, but the concerns for the people who have it. And it takes me back to that experience in college. And I fear for so many of my fellow DACA recipients who I hope they don't, but who might end up in that similar headspace that I was. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. That past, and it's very real, you know, where we get a lot of calls of, of, you know, people just not sure what they can do next. You're not sure if they can get their green cards or if, uh, if DACA is over. And so we just have to see what's going to happen next year. And I just hope people have the support around them. Right. And, and, uh, Yeah, we're, we're afraid of it too. You know what, more than DACA or immigration, you know, what, what, what really worries me about our political, uh, our current political temperature and polarization is that we are as a society actively losing our muscle to become problem solvers. And we have become so obstinate that our point of view is the only possible valid one that we have shut down the possibility of creating a different world because the only permissible world is the one that I have imagined in my limited individual capacity to imagine, right? So in other words, the story that I have created in my mind is the only possible story. And so the prevalent story that I sadly hear in the media, the national rhetoric is that immigrants are criminals and rapists and murderers. And those here in the United States came here because their own countries, quote unquote, send their wars. And when that story becomes the only possible story, it begins to shift the way we treat our neighbors. It begins to insidiously creep into the self esteem of a child who feels not only afraid, but just ashamed of who they are. And I remember the writer Joan Didion said, um, she's one of my favorite writers and she said, we tell ourselves stories in order to live. I love that quote. And it's a, it's a beautiful sentiment. It's a truth, I think, but it has a really perverse side as well. I think people are telling themselves stories of criminal immigrants who are stealing their jobs because they fear the other stories, the stories of their own inadequacies in the workforce, the stories of a government that has failed them. And so instead, we scapegoat our problems as a country on immigrants. And the more we do that, the more we're able to ignore that we have one of the highest maternal mortality rates for a developed country. Right? That we don't have living wages for a larger percentage of the population. Right. That we have a gun violence problem. And so a scapegoat allows us to ignore the more shocking reality of where we live. Of what, of what we're experiencing with. You're so right. You're so right. I wish the federal government would hire you all or work with CPI to change the immigration system. That would be amazing. If anyone can do it, you guys could do it with them. Oh, yeah. We're coming on some interesting times. I don't want to lose hope. Life goes up and down. Um, I think organizations like yours is, is, is incredible. Um, it's great that you're, you're around to, to change and improve systems. I'm glad you're in your position because this is, to me, this is great. Sounds great for you as well with your experience. Um, I'd love to hear, I'd love to have you come back in the future just to update us on how you're doing, how the CPI is doing. Yeah. And, uh, and, and I, I, I'm just, I'm just so happy to hear, you know, that how far you've come and how successful you become. So thank you so much for coming on our show. And, uh, I, I really appreciate your time and you're so inspiring. So thank, thank you so much, Pierre. And thank you. Thank you for the work that you do as a lawyer. I think I told you earlier that, um, one of the most beautiful stories I think that I remember from my childhood is when lawyers came to my school and A volunteer to offer their time to tell us about protections to tell us about possibilities to tell us about what was our disposal. And so the work that you do as a lawyer, as an immigration lawyer is, is equally inspiring and transformative. So thank you. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. I'm glad sometimes when our, when, uh, Us lawyers are talking. It's positive because sometimes lawyers get a bad wraparound here too. Anyway, thank you so much, Dr. Pierre. Have a wonderful day. This podcast is intended for general education and informational purposes only and should not be regarded as either legal advice or a legal opinion. 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