by Wendy Willis, Director, Oregon’s Kitchen Table
By now it’s happened dozens of times: A first generation Mexican immigrant steps forward to testify at a city council meeting about the needs she sees in her community. The owner of a Western wear store puts on a pot of coffee and asks a gathering of Spanish-speaking men what they think about housing in their town. A group of Somalian moms discuss their neighborhood school boundaries over the whir of their sewing machines at their weekly stitching circle. A group of Asian college students—from many countries and backgrounds—gather over food from a local Thai restaurant to share when they feel safe and welcome on campus and when they do not. A Spanish-speaking organizer learns more about what families need and want from high schools while she gets her nails done at a Latina-owned and operated salon. A Ukrainian educator talks with Russian and Ukrainian immigrants about city council redistricting at a Slavic trivia night.
In the eleven years since a group of community leaders founded Oregon’s Kitchen Table (OKT) in the National Policy Consensus Center at Portland State University, Oregonians from all walks of life have discussed and weighed in on everything from the state budget to water conservation to the maintenance of public parks in an unincorporated corner of the state. In those early days of OKT, our purpose was clear and seemed fairly simple. There were hundreds of important decisions being made on behalf of Oregonians every year, and the opportunities for us to weigh in on those decisions were scattered and inconsistent. We wanted to change that.
Very quickly (and not surprisingly), we learned that the opportunity to influence important policy-making and community decision-making was not evenly distributed. Those of us who were white, middle-class, English-speaking, college-educated, registered voters, and over the age of 18 could usually find a way to make ourselves heard in the process. Those of us who could not tick all of those boxes were much less likely to be asked about our needs, values, or opinions, let alone about our policy priorities.
Eliminating that disparity became our most important work. We set out to partner with policymakers and public leaders—along with community organizations and advocates—to seek and consider the voice of every person in the decisions that affect them. But we know that one big invitation—all y’all come on down to City Hall and tell us what you think—never works. Similarly, while online tools can work well for certain people, the reach will always be limited and will skew toward those who have high-speed internet access and are literate in at least one language.
Over the years, the trajectory of Oregon’s Kitchen Table has been profoundly influenced by the work of Berkeley professor, john a. powell, who introduced a framework he calls “targeted universalism.” He and his colleagues developed it as a way out of the universalist versus targeted policy binary. Universalist programs are the ones that apply to everyone the same way, regardless of need or circumstance. Targeted programs focus on particular identity groups that policymakers determine have needs that are different from those of the general public. Both types of programs have their place, but they also each have significant disadvantages. Targeted universalism, on the other hand, sets a universal goal, and then uses targeted strategies to achieve it that are responsive to the needs, preferences, and circumstances of particular communities.
In our case, the universal goal is each of us having a say in the decisions that affect us. But the ways in which we want and need to expresses our preferences can vary tremendously based on the community or communities in which we find ourselves situated. So, while some people are perfectly happy to respond to an online survey written in English or Spanish or Arabic, other community members are much more comfortable participating in a small discussion with people they already know. Some people would rather meet one-on-one with an organizer and have the organizer fill out a paper survey on their behalf. Some people would rather have a community conversation in their church or at their workplace or at their local school. Some people would rather attend an event hosted by a trusted community organization.
We know that every day, people are discussing and deliberating and making important decisions in their own lives. They are weighing options and resolving tradeoffs for themselves, for their families, and for their communities. Our belief is that by reaching out and meeting Oregonians in the places where they are already engaging in those day-to-day deliberations, we can help connect public policymaking and decision-making to their most deeply held concerns.
Planning, organizing, and executing on all this, of course, is more art than science. From the outside—and even sometimes from the inside—an OKT process can look a little chaotic. There are sometimes dozens of people working on a single project. Organizers, facilitators, translators, interpreters, note-takers, and analysts—oftentimes working in several languages—are coming and going, picking up name tags and gift cards, setting out cookies and chips, convening conversations on Zoom, translating notes from one language to another, and trying to make sense of input from so many people and communities. There is a staff person designing, translating, and programming a survey, and then inviting people to join in. There are community-based organizations that offer wisdom, strategic advice, organizing capacity, and the occasional good scolding
In our minds, however, there is beauty in that chaos because the project is not just about the numbers of participants or what demographic categories they fill. For us, how we gather together is as important as what input we leave with. We believe that democracy is not purely transactional—tell your government what you want and hold it accountable if it fails to respond—but that it also can be connective and joyful. At base, democracy is simply how we come together to make decisions for the benefit of the whole, and in that coming together, there is the potential for each of us to develop lasting relationships while we strengthen and hone our sense of agency by listening, speaking, and advocating for our own needs. The OKT team also places a high value on fun. Now that the pandemic has loosened its grip on us at least a little, we hope to return to the joy of in-person gatherings, setting the stage for that magical combination of serious deliberation leavened with food and laughter.
We do not see broad and deep community engagement around public decision-making as a replacement for representative government. Of course, voting is a hallmark of a democratic society, and we fully support our colleagues and sister organizations that are working to ensure that full voting rights are preserved for all Americans. But, like all systems, representative democracy has its limitations. Most obviously, members of our communities who are not citizens, who are under the age of 18, or who are incarcerated for a felony do not have the right to vote. As a result, elected representatives are not formally accountable to any of those community members, and their needs often get overlooked.
In addition, representative politics is a blunt instrument. There are so many significant policy decisions that are not raised in the context of elections. There are hundreds of important decisions made every year by state agencies and local government departments that reside a long way from the give and take of electoral politics. Many of those decisions could be strengthened by broad and deep public deliberation and input. Far from being a threat to representative government, processes that include a wide array of voices from all corners of the community actually help public officials create more thoughtful and resilient solutions to public problems, increasing the credibility and trustworthiness of government across the board.
Of course, there is no perfect in this work. When you set out to hear from everyone, particularly those who have been excluded from public decisions, there is an understandable lack of trust. And as much as we want to hear from every last person, there are plenty of people who aren’t interested. They have other obligations and ways to spend their time. Their priorities and government priorities don’t match up. They come from countries where sharing too much with strangers—let alone the government—is dangerous and reckless.
In addition, this is slow, relational, and expensive work. Public budgets are strapped and public timelines are fast. So, we are constantly navigating the tension between what communities need and what governments can and will provide. We miss opportunities. We make mistakes. Every project has its disappointments and its failures.
But in all that, there is tremendous learning. In that shared learning, we forge new and deeper relationships, and in each project, our resolve to meet all Oregonians where they are is strengthened. This, in the end, is where the ongoing promise of democracy lies―in striving to connect with people’s real lives and real needs. In that spirit, as we begin each new project, we gather Oregonians with a serious purpose, but also with a light heart and a huge dose of humility, honoring the experience and knowledge that each community member carries with him or her or them and finding joy in bringing that collective wisdom to bear on the decisions that affect us all.
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* The opening line of Joy Harjo’s poem, “Perhaps the World Ends Here.” That poem has been both a beacon and an anthem for Oregon’s Kitchen Table since the beginning.