Empowering Immigrant Voices: Tea Rozman’s Journey

Tea Rozman: [00:00:00] At the time that I started getting really interested in oral history, a new field was emerging because of the internet and social media and so forth, and it’s called digital humanities. So what happened all of a sudden is that you no longer needed a museum to, let’s say, find interest in a certain population and start a project and highlight those stories.

You could have community members. camera and microphone and a way to upload it on the website or YouTube or whatever, that was already enough to start uplifting those stories. Of course, my degree gave me a chance to really dig deep into how to do it in a way that’s trauma informed, how to do it in a way that’s respectful and really centered on the narrator and a lot of other great things.

And I think Just in the process learned what storytelling is. And what it [00:01:00] can do, it’s, we are wired for stories because that’s how we’ve been passing on information for thousands and thousands of years since language was first invented. So our brain takes in stories much more vividly and deeply compared to, for example, facts or numbers.

And it’s how we build, strengthen empathy towards one another too. It’s through stories. 

Mandi Morris: Welcome to the ML chat podcast. Today we talked with Tea Rozman from green card voices, and it was an incredible exploration of her story. so much. her experiences and how she’s going about amplifying other immigrants and bringing dignity and life to their stories.

She talks about teachers and how they are truly the champions of their students. She highlights how we can talk about. immigrant stories in a way that helps to bring deeper [00:02:00] connection and empathy. And she also really focuses in on how do we allow immigrants the platform to share their voice, to be in center stage of telling their own story.

I know you’re going to enjoy this podcast. Please welcome Tea Rozman. Tea moved to the U. S. at the age of 20 from Slovenia. Since working in refugee camps in the war torn former Yugoslavia in the 90s, Tea made a commitment to serve those whose lives have been unjustly disrupted by conflict. As part of her graduate studies at New York University and later the University of Novogorica, Tea realized the profound impact of first person digital story sharing.

In 2013, she received a PhD in cultural history, specializing in oral history, and since committed her life to healing trauma, empowerment, and amplifying the voices of immigrants and refugees. In 201Tea co-founded Green Card [00:03:00] Voices, an organization that combats stereotypes by empowering immigrants to tell their stories.

She and her team have recorded and shared stories of over 500 immigrants and refugees coming from 150 countries. Welcome to the ML chat. We are so excited to have you here today. What a wonderful opportunity to talk with you about your work. Thank you so much for 

Tea Rozman: having me and yeah, excited to talk to 

Mandi Morris: Tea.

You have a really interesting story and where do we even begin? I think we have to go back to the beginning. And tell us about your journey. What brought you to the U S at 20? And tell us what that beginning was like for you here. 

Tea Rozman: Yes, I grew up in what at the time was Yugoslavia. I was 15 years old when the war started.

And as a high schooler, I became volunteering in the [00:04:00] refugee camps in Slovenia for refugees that were mostly Bosnia, the Bosniak. Also known as Bosnian Muslims. And I worked there for many years. And after the war ended, I quite unexpectedly was asked to apply for a scholarship and never in, My wildest dreams thought I would get it or never had any aspirations to leave my country, frankly.

But I thought it would be a good educational opportunity. And I came first for a year and many other opportunities opened up, including a full ride to New York university. And I just was always hungry for knowledge and learning and understanding why wars happen, how we prevent them, how to build the empathy and, Connect with one another deeply so that there is no negative stereotypes and hatred towards one another.

So that passion always fueled my learning journey and ultimately also co founding Green Card Voices was part of [00:05:00] that. 

Mandi Morris: So you come to the States at 20. When you arrived to the States at 20 to study, did you speak English? 

Tea Rozman: Yeah, I did learn English in school starting grade five and I always say a huge benefit was that the country that I was coming from, movies and episodes, everything had subtitles.

So I just picked up a lot of English just by watching TV as a kid and teenager. But yeah, I never before that moment lived in an English speaking country and never really learned educational system that was outside of socialist former Yugoslavia. So there’s a lot of things that were very new to me and was a steep learning curve.

Eventually I learned and sometimes I feel all these years later, I’m still learning. 

Mandi Morris: Wow. I’m trying to imagine coming at 20 to a new country, to a new language that you have [00:06:00] some comprehension, but not at the academic level of studying at the university. And you were alone. 

Tea Rozman: Yes. Yeah, I was alone. And yeah, I still remember I never, at that point, never traveled to United States or another continent.

So there was a lot of new things. The Open Society Institute that gave me the scholarship. They were great. And they had orientation. Before we went to the U. S. in Budapest for a week. So they did tell us a few things. It’s very similar actually to the orientation that refugees get in the refugee camp before they, they get resettled.

Things like traffic rules, how to open a bank account, a little bit about culture, holidays. Yeah, like a speed course, how to. 

Mandi Morris: So you got a crash course in how to open up a bank account, drive a car in the United States, get a cell phone, get an apartment. Did they provide housing? What was that [00:07:00] experience like for you?

Tea Rozman: Yeah, it was mandatory, a dorm. We had to be in a dorm because otherwise it was, I think, too much. Yeah, we got on a meal plan. So there was a lot of things that were taken care of. But yeah, what was really new for me was just wonderful relationship that I had with new professors because in the school that I was going to was a lot of memorization and students weren’t necessarily that respected and It was very engaging and I felt that professors were really curious about my background and what I’m thinking about on different topics.

So I absolutely loved educational system in the U S that was one of the things that kept on wanting me to stay and explore extremely supportive. It seemed that there was a solution for everything, but like I was writing essays, I very differently than Americans were writing essays. They were like, Oh yeah, there’s a writing center.

[00:08:00] Go there. They’ll help you. There’s tutors. There’s a lot of services. So if you ask for help, if you know how to advocate for yourself and ask for help, there’s a lot of help available. People are very kind. 

Mandi Morris: Wow. So not only are you in a new country studying at the university level at 20 years old, but you were really talking about.

Huge cultural differences and the way that you had gone to school versus the way that we do education in the United States I’ve seen this over the years in my own students being a an ML educator Sometimes that cultural divide it impacts Learning in ways that we don’t expect and from your experience what you’re sharing is that you really loved The experience that you had with your professors.

Can you compare and contrast that a little bit more? Tell us what was school like before you had that experience at 20 in the States? [00:09:00] 

Tea Rozman: Yeah. I always felt a little bit like a black sheep back home in my country because they would give us the information and we would have to memorize that information. We never were really encouraged to do critical thinking.

It was just like essentially memorizing facts. I wanted to know, Oh, where does that information come from? Who wrote it? The details of now analytical thinking in hindsight. Yeah, I had a lot of questions. It also, I had a huge passion for history and politics and trying to understand the events that were happening around me, reading books and so forth.

So I was really missing more critical debate and discussions, but there was never any debate or discussions in college back in my home. Yeah, It was really just more a very rigorous memorization and then very difficult quizzes. And you were always [00:10:00] feeling you’re not a really good student because the grades would be quite harsh.

Crushed your soul no matter how much you studied. But I felt in the United States, People really appreciated if you shared your opinion or if you did your reading and you expressed your concerns or thoughts. They actually thought that was a positive thing. They actually gave you a better grade because of it.

So I was like, wow, that’s how education should be, right? 

Mandi Morris: It’s like you, you had this experience, you loved learning and then you had this experience where you felt liberated that you could learn in a way that really spoke to your soul. So what do you do after that year? You’re 20, you have this incredible experience.

It sounds like it was a eureka moment for you in your life. Where does that take you next? 

Tea Rozman: Oh, it was just a year. So I had to return. I finished the degree in my country, continued working with [00:11:00] refugees. Time, like I said, the war has ended. So I worked on a lot of projects in Bosnia as part of repatriation.

So I was in Bosnia. Ultimately over the years, a total of two years on and off. So really know the country well, speak the language fluently, , worked in three major cities there with the Bosniak population, Sarajevo, Mostar and Srebrenica and in 99, there was even a war in Kosovo. So I worked there too.

Unfortunately, we’ve had a country that I grew up, Yugoslavia, over the course between 1991 and 2008. And Went from one country to seven countries, and we had multiple wars over the years that had to do with different things. 

Mandi Morris: So you, firsthand, you saw a lot of communities being torn apart. And I would imagine people having to resettle elsewhere, and you saw firsthand how that impacts people’s identity.

What did that do for you as a person? How did that fuel you [00:12:00] and how has that impacted how you think about identity and how people carry it with them? 

Tea Rozman: Yes. Oftentimes people say, Oh, you say that you grew up in Yugoslavia. Why don’t you just say Slovenia? My identity compared with when you were outside of the country, do you say I’m American or do you say I’m Minnesota?

It’s similar. Yugoslavia means Southern Slavs. In our language, Yugoslavia, people are very similar very similar languages, characteristics, history, behavior, music. I always felt in terms of identity that when I was 15 and the war started, that someone told me that from a house, let’s say of seven rooms, you, I had to live in a one bedroom apartment.

So it felt, Oh, we were in part of this. Big country, bigger country. And like I said, listen to music, watch shows, had friends, all our relatives and friends. We were very mixed. We inter, like our families intermarried and still to this day. So [00:13:00] I saw what it meant when you have one identity that’s broader and then because of the political and.

Other reasons, you have to redefine it to be something much smaller, but I, it really fueled my passion to connect to other people, especially the Bosnians who really were the most really affected by the war, just by the sheer number of the refugees, 2 million fled and a hundred thousand dead. And also the genocide that happened in July of 1995.

I tried to do the best. And the most that I could to bring some justice and alleviate some of the suffering in that community. Cause it was very overwhelming and it happened so close and it happened to people like me. So it was very disheartening and I really felt compelled to do something. 

Mandi Morris: So you’re impressed upon to be an activist to support people during this time of your [00:14:00] life after you were working in the refugee camps in the mid 2000s, where did your story take you next?

Tea Rozman: Yeah. And at the time I was always thinking if there would be ever opportunity to go back to the United States and continue studying, especially the graduate level, that would be an incredible opportunity because like I mentioned before, I only had that one year experience in the United States. It was short.

It was so interesting because they were like, you can take as many credits as you want. And I was like, are you serious? I still remember I took five or six classes in each semester. And everybody was like, Oh my God, you’re like studying all the time. But I was just so excited. So yeah. And then I got an opportunity to return to United States.

I got a, like I said, a full ride scholarship to go to New York university and continue studying more about the Balkans. And at that point about Bosnia and what had happened with the war and. [00:15:00] But yeah, that was incredible opportunity to live in New York City for five years. And I also firsthand experienced as an immigrant, how people treated me in New York City and how I was treated in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

And I think that’s when initially that first spark was born. I was like, wow, in New York, no one asks where you’re from in Wisconsin, small town, Wisconsin, you open your mouth and immediately, It’s like, where are you from? What brought you here? How come you’re here? How long are you going to stay here?

There’s just a million questions that are sometimes quite personal and they all have to do about you being an immigrant. And it just fuels a lot of feelings of you not necessarily belonging there. I was like, wow, interesting how it really depends on locality, where you are. New York has so many immigrants, it’s so diverse, and never ever you’re asked something like that.

Mandi Morris: And I’m wondering, thinking about [00:16:00] identity, and I love how you called out that being an immigrant can be a really different experience depending on where you’re from. where you land. I’m wondering that when you ended up in New York, did you find other people that shared your culture and your language that you could build community with versus when you were in Wisconsin, that wasn’t an option?

Tea Rozman: 100%. Yeah, there’s a huge community of people from former Yugoslavia in Queens Astoria neighborhood. In particular, I had many friends. Eventually I feel like there became family in New York city. I even for two years worked for a nonprofit that was serving people from former Yugoslavia. There’s restaurants, there’s all sorts of things.

Yeah, it was incredible. And unfortunately throughout the United States. It really depends where you land. I know that St. Louis has enormous population of Bosnians. It’s the largest [00:17:00] outside of Bosnia. And I know the same for Slovenians, I believe is Cleveland, Ohio and so forth. So it really depends. And when we do our work with recording the stories, we find the same thing.

When we did the recording in St. Paul was a lot of monk people. When we did the recording in Milwaukee, there was a lot of Rohingya refugees, which is the largest population of Rohingyas in Milwaukee. Rochester had a lot of Yemeni, so every community has its own, group, because as people migrate, they’d like to be close to people that share their culture and language.

So that’s how they turn into a cluster of one ethnic group. And of course, Minneapolis, where we’re from, it’s a very large community of Somali. And other East African immigrants and refugees. 

Mandi Morris: So you started to bring up Green Card Voices and I would love to go there next. You have your five years at university, you’ve built community, friends are like family.

And where do you go next and how does that bring you to Green Card Voices? 

Tea Rozman: Yes, [00:18:00] part of my PhD, my, it started with the graduate school and then I continued with my PhD. I really became passionate about oral history. Oral history is a concept. It’s also known as history from below. It’s giving voice to people that have been historically erased or just not included in history books.

And at a time that I started getting really interested in oral history, a new field was emerging because of the internet and social media and so forth. And it’s called digital humanities. So what happened all of a sudden is that you no longer needed a museum to, let’s say, find interest in a certain population and start a project and highlight those stories.

You could have community members, camera and microphone and, A way to upload it on the website or YouTube or whatever. That was already enough to start uplifting those stories. [00:19:00] Of course, my degree gave me a chance to really dig deep into how to do it in a way that’s trauma informed, how to do it in a way that’s respectful and really centered on the NAR narrator and a lot of other great things.

And I just in the process, learned what storytelling is. And what it can do, it’s, we are wired for stories because that’s how we’ve been passing on information for thousands and thousands of years since language was first invented. So our brain takes in stories much more vividly and deeply. Compared to, for example, facts or numbers.

And it’s how we build, strengthen empathy towards one another too. It’s through stories. So when I was working in Bosnia and working with genocide survivors, I could see firsthand the more information you had about another person the more you could [00:20:00] connect meaningfully, the more the stereotypes you perhaps had or the negative feelings you perhaps harbored against someone or biases that you had, the more that melted away.

And I saw the incredible power. 

Mandi Morris: So you have this.

Mandi Morris: Desire from all of your experience of seeing trauma, seeing people who have experienced trauma, and you’ve come upon this platform for digital humanities. It’s like the Internet’s here. We have a whole new way of communicating with people. How do you take that thing in your head?

How did you turn it into what it is today with over 500 stories recorded and literature? 

Tea Rozman: Yes, it was a lot of people and it was so many of us building this over the past 11 years, but in a nutshell, All of us really knew it was important that we [00:21:00] build a platform that is immigrant run, immigrant centered, that shares authentic first person stories.

At a time we really saw that there was a lot of stories of immigrants, refugees told by other people. And there was a lot of narratives that were negative or just false, or there was a few positive stories, but there were usually a rags to riches. Type of narratives always included a pocket and some change like they’re, Oh, this person came to America with 5 in their pocket and look at him now.

Which also wasn’t helpful because a lot of this immigrant narratives were rooted in this American dream. And I always say immigrants are people like everybody else who happened to migrate. And these are the type of stories we like to say. That’s why we use life narrative, which is a oral history method [00:22:00] that encompasses the entire life and not just one event.

So to really emphasizing, we are people who over the course of their life, for whatever reason, during different stages of their life, decide or were told, younger people, they were just told, we’re moving. And then they have to face that transition and put roots down somewhere else. 

Mandi Morris: Something that I’ve experienced over the years as an educator is an opportunity to hear stories firsthand from families and the challenges that they experienced in their home countries that drove them to the United States.

And in 2018, I had the opportunity to visit Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. And it was my first time. At that point, I’d been a teacher for many years, and it was, It was so powerful to me visiting Ellis Island. My great grandfather came through Ellis Island from Greece in the early 1900s, but it was this really incredible experience walking [00:23:00] through and they have stories from immigrants.

And it was like this light bulb went off for me that immigrants have been coming to the States for similar reasons for Generations and my students that I’ve heard their stories and their family stories, and it has built in me empathy over the years. Exactly like you spoke about when you hear those stories firsthand, it builds that deep connection that empathy and seeing stories from people hundreds of years ago who had immigrated and they came for similar reasons because there was war in their country or poverty or lack of stability or access to food, access to education.

I wonder, how do you feel now about immigration and how it’s perceived in the United States? What’s something that you wish you could share with everyone that they could understand better about immigrants? 

Tea Rozman: Yeah, thank you for mentioning the Ellis Island. I always say, and I’ve been there several times, now [00:24:00] Ellis Island has a beautiful museum, and it’s, I believe, part of the National Parks or National Monument, so it’s really well funded, and it has, Millions of your visitors annually.

And it’s challenging because one of the things that we are trying to highlight is that a lot of education that happens in schools about immigration happens through a historic lens. And Ellis Island is a great example. And it really centers immigrants that came to United States 120 years ago, who Five plus percent European.

And part of that is actually the modes of transportation, right? Like people were coming by ship and they had to disembark and there was quarantine and so forth. And on, on this part of the United States, it was Ellis Island. And that probably on, on the West coast was Ellis, was Angel Island, which again, a lot of [00:25:00] people don’t know.

People migrate two ways. One is taking a plane that lands in multiple destinations around the United States, and there’s no museum like Ellis Island in each of those locations. They just land or through the Southern border or sometimes through the Northern border. So I feel because we don’t have that one focal point perhaps, or It’s so different now and we don’t have museums or places where we really talk about present day immigration.

It’s sometimes hard in educational settings to talk about present day immigration. And I feel that’s why the books we started to publish, the Green Card Youth Voices became such a hit. And so many teachers loved them and love using them because they were like, for years we tried to find resources that our students could relate to.

That were about present day immigrants that were authentic, that were [00:26:00] multimedia, because we have videos and written stories and pictures and yeah they love them in part because I feel a lot of curriculum is too saturated with Ellis Island and such. 

Mandi Morris: I really appreciate you calling that out and it also brings to light that history is impacted The people who are telling it and by the people who are perceiving it.

And Ellis Island story of immigration is very different from today’s. And I think the resources that you’re creating and sharing with educators are so valuable and depending on where you are nationally, talking about immigration as an educator can be difficult. I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about the resources you have and how teachers are utilizing them and where they can find them.

Tea Rozman: We have multimedia ontologies. It’s called Green Card Youth Voices series. We started creating them in a way they are something that we call hyper [00:27:00] local, which means they are immigrants and refugees at our teens or early twenties attending high schools in a certain city. Cause we wanted to create books that other peers could read in the city.

And feel, Oh, this is my new neighbor. I want to get to know them. And we started in Minneapolis and then spread to Fargo, North Dakota, Georgia, Wisconsin, upstate New York. And we’re going to be working with Hawaii and Chicago next. And they’re very unique because the way we produce them, we share six open ended questions with teachers.

And it’s usually teachers that work with immigrants and refugees, and we train them how to prep the students going through these six open ended questions. It’s a life narrative, guided life narrative. And then we do the recording in schools with videos, repeating those six open ended questions. So no other questions are asked.

So it’s a guided life narrative and [00:28:00] we transcribe it and give it back to the students. So they are in a way writing their own biography. using the transcript that they shared orally because their oral English is much better than their written English. And we then publish this written story of each student.

It’s always 30 in a book, a portrait, so a photograph, and then a link to a five minute video that we added down from a full recording so that someone that wants to understand better who immigrant students are can both hear them, see them, and learn. Read about it. And it’s very empowering for students too because they produce their own writing, but we are focused on making sure that they do not feel like they need to quote unquote correct their essay of their or their language by following, oh, this is how you have to write an essay.

No, it’s, we believe it’s a vernacular [00:29:00] English that is of immigrants new to the country and it’s beautiful and It’s more of who they are. 

Mandi Morris: It almost feels like a diary entry. This is where I am right now in my story. This is authentic me on my journey and it doesn’t need to be corrected. It doesn’t need to be edited.

And how incredible. I wonder, have you had any students that you’ve done those for that have reached out three or four or five years later? And have given you an update or said, I re listened to my story and 

Tea Rozman: Many of them have gone on to become public speakers. It really empowered them. They saw the power of their story.

Of course, they did events with us at some bookstores, libraries, various panels at conferences. But some of them went on and spoke at United Nations or their local school board or conference. So it has [00:30:00] been very empowering. A few of them went on to publish their books on their own, but interesting that you mentioned the updates we have created for each of these books, various Facebook groups.

So the students have stayed in touch over the years and on March 2nd. So just in a couple of short weeks, we are having a reunion. So it’s going to be an eight year reunion since we created our first book. A lot of them have gotten married, went on to finish college, some even master’s degrees. Some have multiple children, so it’s going to be very exciting to see.

Would be a good question to answer after the reunion, because they’ll have more updates. 

Mandi Morris: Tea, I’m really struck by something that you’re doing in your work. You’re giving voice to students and you’re allowing them to be seen in a way that empowers them. What [00:31:00] advice could you give to teachers who have these students in their classroom?

What’s something a teacher could do to replicate what you’re doing in a way that brings humanity and voice to the stories that these students are bringing with them? 

Tea Rozman: So many teachers are already doing all this. Oftentimes the teachers that reach out to us and say, we want to do a project like this are usually the teachers who themselves have started something on their own, maybe it turned out to be something they printed and they spiral bound or something that they printed professionally, but it was like 300 copies when you cannot buy it in a bookstore or library.

I think teachers are doing so much of this because they know the students really well. And they know how amazing they are, how hard workers they are, and they also know the environment and the context in which they live. So oftentimes the teachers are saying, oh, I wish the people that are so anti immigrant knew about [00:32:00] my students stories, because they would probably change their minds.

So a lot of teachers that work with immigrant students firsthand are passionate about storytelling and about amplifying their students stories. because they see the potential and they see a lot of ignorance and misunderstanding of immigrant groups. But yeah, so much can be done. And frankly, a lot of the teachers that I talked to, they love starting with personal essay at the very beginning, sometimes in September October, because.

They want to maybe learn more about the different students, and students like to engage with personal essay because they like to share where they’re from, about their culture, background, and it’s a great way to also build connections with other classmates, right? So a lot of them are already doing that in various formats.

And some, like I said, go on and, Publish it or one amazing teacher at Rochester that we had an [00:33:00] honor to work with, they created physical books. You can also do that with a collage and cardboard and you can write things, print them, paste them inside. So much can be done with creativity too. 

Mandi Morris: I think an important takeaway that I have is It’s allowing the student’s voice to be the center part.

And I think I’m not an immigrant. I don’t have an immigration story or myself. And I think sometimes that could maybe be a barrier because, I’m thinking for myself, like, how do I know that I’m doing it right? That I’m not putting the spotlight on me or my work, but I’m putting the spotlight in the right place.

Is the advice that you would give to really make it about the student having the opportunity to share his or her story, what advice could you give about the way that the teacher elicits that story to make sure it’s really about the student’s experience? 

Tea Rozman: From the moment [00:34:00] immigrants and refugees come to United States they’re asked, they open their mouth and they’re like, Oh, where are you from?

And how long have you been here? And although there’s curiosity, there’s also microaggressions. And that othering, like I was telling you earlier, and one thing that I’ve been doing is, first of all, to tell all the immigrant and refugee kids, students, that them being immigrant is their superpower. That them speaking multiple languages is an incredible gift that, So many Americans can only dream of them.

Having an accent is the most incredible thing. I oftentimes go to the classrooms and I say, who has an accent when they’re speak English and they look at me. I raised my hand and they slowly raised their hand. And then I asked them. What is the most common language in the world? And they usually say Spanish or Chinese or they mention different languages.

And it actually is English with an accent. . [00:35:00] It’s not English, It’s American English. It’s British English. It’s Australian English. It’s Ghanaian English. It’s Kenyan English. It’s all of these Englishes. And they’re all different accents. So I tell them, you actually speak the number one most common language in the world.

Just building that power and confidence back is really important. Teachers that can do that, and if they do a storytelling project, to tell them, this is such a big gift that you’re giving to our community, thank you. To really honor their time, their energy, their effort. It’s not easy to share your story.

Especially if it’s about moving from one place to another, you have probably left loved ones behind. It’s always difficult to perhaps revisit some of those memories. So storytelling is a gift to the community of their students and appreciation needs to [00:36:00] be expressed. 

Mandi Morris: Tea, thank you so much. This conversation with you today has been such an honor.

I’m really thankful that you’re here with us. If you could just tell the teachers and administrators listening to this podcast, where can they find these incredible resources that you and your team are developing? 

Tea Rozman: Yes. So go to our website, greencardvoices. org. We have a green card youth voices series. We have started a brand new graphic series.

That’s all bilingual. We’ve produced now books in English, Spanish, Arabic, Kamae, Hmong, and more to come. Because again, immigrant and refugee students come alive when they see languages of their country of birth. It’s part of their identity. They feel seen, they feel power. And we have StoryStitch. It’s a card game, conversation card game, that’s also really beloved by teachers.

We have a course that you can take online or in person to help you use that. But you can also just use it. [00:37:00] It’s a way for students to share stories. But then there’s that stitch card that actually allows you to facilitate a conversation without a facilitator. And it really is very helpful because the stitch card means that everybody has to participate and you can’t really be quiet.

And it really encourages speaking 

Mandi Morris: greencardvoices. org Tea Rozman. Thank you for being here with us today. We’re so thankful for your story and your time.