PLENARY: BRAIDED DIALOGUES

Written Up By: Matthew R. Mock

When I was growing up in my Chinese American family we had rituals that sustained us and brought us through difficult times. As a family of 7 children, and 2 parents—my mother worked hard in the home and my father worked overtime to make ends meet—we often had little in terms of material resources but we had the richness of each other. My own parents’ ritual at dinnertime was that we would only begin eating when everyone was at the table and leave only when the last person was finished and ready. I recall sitting around the table sometimes until it was quite late. But everyone had a place and their voices would not be denied no matter how young or old, loud or soft-spoken, or facile with English or Cantonese dialect.

The seeds of this Braided Dialogue Plenary began in a similar fashion. It began as a pondering, a reaching out for "kitchen table wisdom" in trying to understand AFTA, in its origins, changes, connections and transitions, fractures and joinings. In setting up this complicated, delicate and intricate braiding process, the rich guidance, wisdom and insights of the facilitators, Dick Chasin, Jodie Kliman, Matthew Mock and Elaine Pinderhughes was utilized for the months leading up to the AFTA meeting. Others such as David Trimble and Jane Ariel were key in situating the entire process with the right atmosphere and tenor.

Our focus in posing questions for the braiding of dialogues was centered in looking at AFTA as a family of sorts, with its histories, developments, tension and accomplishments. With a focus on its identity groups, it was quickly clear that many had several things in common: that many identity groups thought of themselves as being in a marginalized or problem position relative to another in society. The AFTA identity groups listed were: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Group; Men’s Institute, Women’s Institute, People of Color Network, Elder’s or Senior’s Group; Jewish Families Group, and White People’s Conversation. The groups were described, "Like some families, AFTA has grown, changed and in some ways become more complex. Different groups in AFTA have created specific, boundaried places for their voices to be heard and to have honest conversations about marginalization and privilege. Sometimes these groups were created out of pain and conflict, and sometimes they were formed to have open conversations about common experiences and cultural identities in a safe, trusting, validating environment of like people.”

Speakers from the AFTA identity groups were invited to participate through consultation with other members of their respective groups. Each final speaker was endorsed by other members through their depth and breadth of their involvement with that group. It was understood from the outset, that each of these "informed and endorsed voices" was to speak about their identity group from their own personal place. That is, they were not expected to be in an especially expert or representative place. In this way they were to be seen as an important personal reflector of their group experience not as the sole voice or "expert."

In setting up the "strands" of remarks that each group participant was to make, we asked each of them to reflect on a series of questions to inform others about the formation and evolution of the group and to provide texture by describing where the group had been and where it was heading. The speakers, in turn, were to turn to other members of their respective groups to further sculpt and inform their experience and perspectives. After bearing witness to each of these reflections, the audience, along with the speakers, was given an opportunity to engage in smaller conversations with "strands" of these dialogues being brought forward and braided. Rather than a finished or completed "product," it was understood that the process was to stimulate thought and reflection for future, ongoing dialogues within AFTA between and at the annual meeting. As we sometimes might say as parents to our children, “Rather than just teach you safe answers, we hope you will learn and appreciate educated questions.”

The "endorsed voices" for each of the AFTA identity groups in alphabetical and speaking order were Jane Ariel (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Group), Robert Carroll (Men’s Institute), Rachel Dash (Women’s Institute), Nydia Garcia-Preto (People of Color Network), Kitty LaPerriere (Elder’s and Senior’s Group), Don-David Lusterman (Jewish Families Group) and David Trimble (White People’s Conversation).

Questions originally posed to these participants for consideration in their 8 minute remarks included: 1) On what basis or through what history were these identity groups formed? 2) What purposes, including benefits, have they served for members? 3) How have these groups evolved, changed, transformed AFTA or vice versa? 4) How are these groups held in relation to the others? In society at-large? In AFTA? 5) What were struggles that most engaged you? 6) What process or steps in the group’s evolution were dismaying or delightful? 7) How have the groups contributed to AFTA’s sense of continuity and discontinuity? Other questions posed included: Do we want to continue to meet in conversations separately or begin talking together? What do we want to be moving towards? Are we getting there? If not, why not? Why have some people left and why would they want to return? How can we engage new members with renewed passion and vision? How do each and every one of us look back to move forward? It was even asked "Imagine two futures for AFTA five years from now. In one future, the identity groups continue to meet separately. In the other, they do not. What would you expect the implications to be for AFTA from each scenario?”

The AFTA audience was also able to share reflections through a response sheet. The questions asked were 1) reflecting on the seven voices, what moves or challenges you the most? 2) Considering the future of AFTA, what specific ideas, questions or suggestions would you like to contribute?

The Strands of Reflections for the Braid

After a brief introduction by Matthew Mock, Jodie Kliman set the rich backdrop for how the Braided Dialogues began and evolved during the past year. This set an important grounding for the prepared presentations which followed. It is hoped that the entire texts of each of the presenters from each identity group will be published and circulated within AFTA. What follows is a sampling of some of their comments. While this will not do justice to their contributed "braids" it will provide a sampling of the richness and diversity voiced.

Jane Ariel had us very quickly acknowledge personally and organizationally how we still have very little representation of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender members. She reminded us how the LGBT group started around the same time when homosexuality came out of the DSM as a disorder. There was also precious little in regards to articles and books on lesbian and gay family issues back in the ‘80s when the LGBT group was initiated. The LGBT group has been important for multiple reasons including a place to come together, to insure that LGBT issues were addressed in AFTA and a place of both shared scholarship and community within and between the AFTA meetings. With an increase in the out lesbian and gay families, there are many more couples seeking therapy and both gay and straight therapists need to be helped to understand issues and to hone their skills.

In addressing the history of the Men’s Institute, Robert Carroll referenced two sources of its establishment. First, there were some of the AFTA men’s reactions to the AFTA women’s embracing of feminism at the organizational level and their forming the Women’s Institute. There was also awareness among the men they wanted to understand what it meant to be a man and its ways that it impacted on our interactions. While some of its impetus was growing out of reaction to the women, Robert pointed out how it became an important place for the men to come together each year to share personal and often touching stories. He noted that topics and formats have varied each year but the consistency was the men who attended adding testimonies and bearing witness to each other.

In her remarks on the Women’s Institute which followed, Rachel Dash recalled the marginalization of women and women’s issues within AFTA that led to the first Institute. These initial presentations were met with some aggressive responses from some men. These initial Women’s meetings led to a concentration on power and gender issues as well as other issues that AFTA women cared about. The challenge of holding each other and themselves accountable in a respectful rather than hurtful way was significant. Connection, nurturance, having fun, addressing power and marginalization, racism and patriarchy as societal influences and activism have also been examined.

From the People of Color Network perspective, Nydia Garcia-Preto noted its initial meeting in 1997. The call for networking was referenced as being based as in the words of George Fraser a "Networking Movement that will hopefully deliver you to a destination called ‘Success’ in both your personal and professional life. This success was to be marked by compassion and striving for the enrichment of all people." To this end, the People of Color Network meeting was to provide a sacred space to break our isolation, to feel connection and validation, to share ideas, struggles, and solutions in a supportive way without having to justify ourselves or teach the dominant group. The group has looked at the intersection of class, race, skin color and ethnicity among ourselves.

AFTA Elders’ group was started about 10 years ago, as Kitty LaPerriere reminded us. It was in response to a variety of concerns including a number of members leaving AFTA, feeling like they had lost their place in it, or that their concerns were not being adequately addressed. There was even an initial questioning of their name as "seniors" which confounded the issue and their place within AFTA. The group that kept meeting touched on personal issues such as the effects of growing older on health, on finances, on self-evaluation. There were also two foci, as it transitioned into the Elder’s group: what the group needed from AFTA and what it could deliver. Another idea centered on fundraising or other helpful services performed in a volunteer capacity.

The Jewish Families Interest group was the focus for Don-David Lusterman. The group was formed out of a sense of invisibility that many Jews felt within the AFTA family. As a cited example of this, there has been an absence of plenaries in AFTA devoted to Jewish family issues. There is a feeling that there is, perhaps, in society in general and in the AFTA family specifically, a denial that there is an ethnic Jewish identity. Many Jewish and non-Jewish therapists are in need of a higher level of consciousness and awareness of Jewish ethnic issues and their impact. Continued ignorance is likely to lead to therapeutic errors. It has been in the Jewish Families Interest group where there has been an exploration of the many different, sometimes complex ways, in which Jewish identity is experienced.

Lastly, the origins of the White Member’s Conversation were recalled by David Trimble. Historically, he traces its origins back to the domination of the conversation by white participants during the interest group on Black families in San Francisco in 1996. Even the first meeting of the Interest Group on Racial Domination and Privilege replicated some of the problems of white privilege including conversation domination and unwitting recruitment of People of Color to educate and challenge White members. One of the important purposes of the White Member’s Conversation has been to take responsibility for addressing racism without relying on People of Color and those with less institutional power. Unlike some of the other groups, this group does not have "safety" as an issue or struggles in being marginalized.

The brief snippets above to not do justice to all that was fully addressed in each presenter’s brief time. Following these rich and full seven perspectives from AFTA identity groups, the audience was clearly ready to discuss their reactions and to "braid" what they heard and experienced into the fabric of what they experience AFTA to be and where it may be going. There was rapt attention, laughter, shock, sadness and inspiration. Each of the facilitators made comments to move each and every person forward. There were also some 60 written responses submitted to be reviewed and considered between and for next year’s AFTA meeting. There seemed to be an overall feeling that rich conversations had been generated that there were many strands that need to be looked at and braided in AFTA’s future.

Matthew R. Mock is Director of Family, Youth and Multicultural Services in Berkeley, California where he also has a private clinical and consulting practice. He is also Director and Professor for the Cross Cultural Program at John F. Kennedy University in Orinda, California and adjunct faculty at the California School of Professional Psychology, Alameda. At the present time for AFTA, he is serving as the Chair of the Cultural and Economic Diversity Committee.