WEBVTT - “I Was A Stranger and You Welcomed Me” 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:21.116 Pushkin, Hey, Revisionist History listeners, I have something I want 0:00:21.116 --> 0:00:24.156 to tell you. This season, we're trying something different and 0:00:24.236 --> 0:00:28.316 releasing revisionist history episodes in two batches. You're about to 0:00:28.356 --> 0:00:31.756 hear the sixth and final episode of the first batch. 0:00:32.436 --> 0:00:34.476 Then we'll be taking a little break so you can 0:00:34.596 --> 0:00:38.996 enjoy your August vacations in peace. The last few episodes 0:00:38.996 --> 0:00:42.716 of the season will be released starting in September, but 0:00:43.596 --> 0:00:46.316 if you're a Pushkin Plus subscriber, which you should be, 0:00:46.996 --> 0:00:50.916 you'll get the last few all at once. Subscribe now 0:00:50.916 --> 0:00:54.196 on the Pushkin channel in Apple Podcasts, or at Pushkin 0:00:54.556 --> 0:01:00.956 dot fm Slash plus. Can we go around the table 0:01:00.956 --> 0:01:02.316 and everyone just say their name. 0:01:02.636 --> 0:01:03.516 I'm starting with your. 0:01:03.436 --> 0:01:06.316 Doors White from Alma, Alma United. 0:01:06.796 --> 0:01:10.436 Ian Rankin from Knox Presbyteria. 0:01:10.596 --> 0:01:16.076 John Carston's Gail Presbyterian Church in Elmira, and. 0:01:16.036 --> 0:01:18.756 I'm Lilianda Rankin, married to Ian rank. 0:01:20.356 --> 0:01:25.196 I'm Joyce Gladwell and unfortunately my husband is no long living, 0:01:25.236 --> 0:01:28.956 but he was very active. I'll be from Elmara in 0:01:29.076 --> 0:01:29.716 Gail Church. 0:01:32.236 --> 0:01:34.996 I went home to Canada to visit my mother a 0:01:35.036 --> 0:01:37.596 while back, and I asked her to invite a group 0:01:37.636 --> 0:01:42.356 of her friends over, so she did. They all showed 0:01:42.436 --> 0:01:46.676 up on a March afternoon. Three school teachers, a flight attendant, 0:01:46.916 --> 0:01:50.436 a family therapist, all somewhere between their late seventies and 0:01:50.516 --> 0:01:55.356 early nineties, all long retired. They sat drinking my mother's 0:01:55.396 --> 0:01:58.756 tea around her dining room table and tried to remember 0:01:58.796 --> 0:02:02.356 the time three strangers arrived in our little town in 0:02:02.436 --> 0:02:06.116 southern Ontario. You know the famous story about my father 0:02:07.276 --> 0:02:10.356 picking people up in Ordle make this up and driving 0:02:10.396 --> 0:02:12.756 so quickly from the airport that they were terrified by 0:02:12.756 --> 0:02:17.356 the time they rock. He was a man of a 0:02:17.396 --> 0:02:25.356 heavy foots, this crazy englishman. We were talking about December 0:02:25.476 --> 0:02:28.676 nineteen seventy nine, when my brothers and I were teenagers, 0:02:29.116 --> 0:02:31.356 too young at the time to truly understand acts of 0:02:31.436 --> 0:02:33.036 kindness and how they work. 0:02:33.676 --> 0:02:36.156 I think people stepped up when they felt there was 0:02:36.196 --> 0:02:38.836 something that they could do. And that's why, to go 0:02:38.956 --> 0:02:42.996 back to your other question, who helped? A whole bunch 0:02:43.036 --> 0:02:46.636 of people helped me, and they came up because they felt, oh, 0:02:46.756 --> 0:02:47.916 I can do it that I had. 0:02:50.796 --> 0:02:54.076 My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to Revisionist History, 0:02:54.276 --> 0:02:59.596 my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood This episode is 0:02:59.596 --> 0:03:01.676 about the time my parents and a group of their 0:03:01.716 --> 0:03:06.876 friends agreed to sponsor three refugees from Vietnam, a teenager 0:03:07.316 --> 0:03:10.916 named Vaughan, his older o King, and a young woman 0:03:10.996 --> 0:03:15.076 named Lelan. Three strangers who showed up on our doorstep 0:03:15.116 --> 0:03:15.516 one day. 0:03:20.876 --> 0:03:22.956 How many people were in your group in total? 0:03:25.516 --> 0:03:29.356 That's almost an impossible question to ask, because if you 0:03:30.236 --> 0:03:33.756 look at it, when we would have a meeting, what 0:03:33.956 --> 0:03:37.156 we might have ten people at the most. 0:03:37.596 --> 0:03:39.036 But he's the people who. 0:03:38.916 --> 0:03:42.236 Were out behind giving the money. 0:03:42.556 --> 0:03:44.836 The people who were there. 0:03:44.996 --> 0:03:49.996 When they came were totally different people. 0:03:50.996 --> 0:03:53.956 Their group didn't have a name. It wasn't a legal entity. 0:03:54.436 --> 0:03:57.276 Everyone said. The minister of my parents' church, a man 0:03:57.356 --> 0:04:00.636 named Jack Boyne, was one of the ringleaders. But Jack 0:04:00.676 --> 0:04:03.676 Boyne didn't do the paperwork acquired by the government. That 0:04:03.836 --> 0:04:06.916 was someone else, and lots of other churches were involved 0:04:06.916 --> 0:04:10.516 as well. Around my mother's dining room, the details were 0:04:10.596 --> 0:04:14.276 vague because they were vague back then. These were ordinary 0:04:14.316 --> 0:04:18.276 people going about a big task by ordinary means. 0:04:18.196 --> 0:04:22.276 And the potlarks and pot larks, and there were a 0:04:22.396 --> 0:04:24.196 lot of people there. 0:04:25.036 --> 0:04:28.476 In the small towns of southern Ontario. Nothing of any 0:04:28.516 --> 0:04:35.956 consequence is accomplished without potlocked dinners. There are an estimated 0:04:35.996 --> 0:04:39.076 twenty million refugees in the world whose lives had been 0:04:39.156 --> 0:04:43.596 uprooted by one crisis after another, the Russian war against Ukraine, 0:04:44.116 --> 0:04:48.876 the US retreat from Afghanistan, the obliteration of Syria. Every 0:04:48.916 --> 0:04:51.956 era has its own humanitarian crises, and in the late 0:04:52.036 --> 0:04:55.956 nineteen seventies, the attention of the world was on Southeast Asia. 0:05:02.796 --> 0:05:05.636 After the end of the Vietnam War, when the Communists 0:05:05.636 --> 0:05:08.996 took over what had been South Vietnam, the new government 0:05:09.316 --> 0:05:13.956 turned on the country's ethnic Chinese. Eight hundred thousand people 0:05:13.996 --> 0:05:18.236 fled Vietnam, escaping across the Gulf of Thailand in overcrowded boats. 0:05:18.876 --> 0:05:22.756 Somewhere between two hundred and four hundred thousand of them 0:05:22.796 --> 0:05:30.036 died at sea. The survivors were called boat people. In response, 0:05:30.356 --> 0:05:34.196 a group of Canadian religious organizations approached the Canadian government 0:05:34.316 --> 0:05:37.716 with an idea. The pool of people the Canadian refugee 0:05:37.716 --> 0:05:41.476 system deemed worthy of resettlement was clearly much larger than 0:05:41.516 --> 0:05:43.716 the pool of people the government was actually willing to 0:05:43.796 --> 0:05:47.596 let in. So why not let private citizens handle the overflow, 0:05:48.116 --> 0:05:51.636 Let small groups of people get together bring refugees into 0:05:51.676 --> 0:05:56.156 their communities and take responsibility for finding them homes and jobs. 0:05:57.036 --> 0:06:01.276 The idea wasn't to replace the government's own formal refugee system, 0:06:01.436 --> 0:06:02.516 but too augmented. 0:06:05.036 --> 0:06:07.636 That was a real sticking point in the early years. 0:06:08.236 --> 0:06:10.276 A lot of groups said, we don't want to do 0:06:10.396 --> 0:06:12.516 something that we think the government should be doing. 0:06:12.796 --> 0:06:16.116 That's Brian Dyke, who works with the Mennonite Central Committee 0:06:16.156 --> 0:06:18.756 and the Refugee Hub at the University of Ottawa. 0:06:18.876 --> 0:06:22.156 So they talked about what we often call additionality. This 0:06:22.276 --> 0:06:24.996 has to be in addition to what the government is 0:06:25.076 --> 0:06:27.716 doing already. It's a principle I think the Government of 0:06:27.756 --> 0:06:29.156 Canada continues to hold you. 0:06:29.956 --> 0:06:32.516 The result is that in recent years, the number of 0:06:32.556 --> 0:06:36.196 refugees who come to Canada with private support dwarfs the 0:06:36.276 --> 0:06:39.916 number who come in through official channels, and Canada currently 0:06:39.956 --> 0:06:43.596 resettles more refugees on a per capita basis than almost 0:06:43.636 --> 0:06:47.636 any other country in the world. The Vietnamese refugees who 0:06:47.676 --> 0:06:51.876 came to my hometown, Kang Vaughan and Lelan, were both 0:06:51.916 --> 0:06:55.316 people in nineteen seventy nine. They were all in a 0:06:55.356 --> 0:06:58.396 camp on a tiny island off the coast of Malaysia. 0:06:59.356 --> 0:07:07.076 This is about one kilomeda square and about forty thousand 0:07:07.276 --> 0:07:12.356 Vietnamese refuge I live in that island, so very small. 0:07:13.076 --> 0:07:16.476 That's Vaughan Wuyn remembering this story. How long were you 0:07:16.716 --> 0:07:17.716 in that camp. 0:07:19.196 --> 0:07:19.396 As? 0:07:19.476 --> 0:07:24.716 Then that came for ten months, from January until October. 0:07:25.636 --> 0:07:29.116 Then in the fall they got word they'd been accepted 0:07:29.116 --> 0:07:33.316 to Canada through the private route sponsored by the Rankins. 0:07:33.396 --> 0:07:37.116 Doris White, Joan Carstan's and my parents and all the 0:07:37.156 --> 0:07:39.636 others who came to the potluck dinners in our little 0:07:39.676 --> 0:07:43.876 town in southern Ontario. Tell me about arriving in Canada. 0:07:43.916 --> 0:07:44.516 What was that like? 0:07:45.676 --> 0:07:59.356 Happy, sad, loneley, and worry. Happy because I have a 0:07:59.436 --> 0:08:04.676 contree to accept me. So they opened the door and 0:08:04.916 --> 0:08:10.916 accept a refugee, and I can stack a new life, freedom, 0:08:11.036 --> 0:08:15.156 so I don't have to worry about my past in 0:08:15.316 --> 0:08:22.916 Vietnam or I live in the Kim Sad because I 0:08:23.076 --> 0:08:30.596 still help my father and my auther brothers and to 0:08:30.796 --> 0:08:34.116 assist those there and Vietnam. 0:08:34.156 --> 0:08:38.636 Happy, sad, lonely and worry. I remember Vaughn and his 0:08:38.716 --> 0:08:41.076 brother from that year. They ended up at my high 0:08:41.076 --> 0:08:44.116 school walking the halls in clothes they had been given 0:08:44.316 --> 0:08:48.356 for the unimaginably cold Canadian winter, both of them thin 0:08:48.596 --> 0:08:51.916 and quiet, trying to get an education in a language 0:08:51.916 --> 0:08:57.516 they had only started learning a few months before. King 0:08:57.556 --> 0:08:59.316 and Vaughan ended up going to one of the best 0:08:59.396 --> 0:09:04.036 universities in Canada got good jobs. Their friend the Land meanwhile, 0:09:04.276 --> 0:09:07.956 met another Vietnamese refugee while playing musical chairs at an 0:09:07.996 --> 0:09:11.236 event organized by one of the sponsoring churches. The two 0:09:11.276 --> 0:09:14.956 got married, had children who grew up Canadian. 0:09:15.716 --> 0:09:17.316 I think one of the most fondest memories we have 0:09:17.436 --> 0:09:20.116 with our mom was just a trip that we took 0:09:20.156 --> 0:09:21.076 with her to Ottawa. 0:09:21.676 --> 0:09:24.716 That's Leland's son, David Haw, who teaches at the University 0:09:24.716 --> 0:09:25.356 of Waterloo. 0:09:25.996 --> 0:09:28.596 So back in twenty twelve we went to celebrate Canada 0:09:28.676 --> 0:09:32.796 Day with her and just as a family, and she 0:09:32.996 --> 0:09:37.156 never stopped talking about that trip. So a year after years, 0:09:37.156 --> 0:09:38.956 shard to say, hey, do you remember that time when 0:09:38.956 --> 0:09:41.996 we visited the capital just to enjoy the fireworks and 0:09:42.076 --> 0:09:44.756 just to be with others that are just proud to 0:09:44.796 --> 0:09:47.076 be with Canada. 0:09:47.356 --> 0:09:50.316 I'm sharing all this not just because it's an immigration 0:09:50.476 --> 0:09:54.356 story with a happy ending. This is a certain kind 0:09:54.396 --> 0:09:58.716 of story, a kind that I think we too often overlook. 0:10:12.316 --> 0:10:15.156 I have an older brother named Jeffrey, who lives in 0:10:15.196 --> 0:10:17.996 a town very close to where we grew up. In 0:10:18.076 --> 0:10:20.916 case you're wondering, my brother and I are very different. 0:10:21.556 --> 0:10:24.396 I like to talk about how to fix things. He 0:10:24.596 --> 0:10:31.196 actually fixes things. In a crisis, I waved my hands 0:10:31.196 --> 0:10:34.716 in the air. Jeffrey disappears for an hour and emerges 0:10:34.756 --> 0:10:38.196 with a solution on a desert island. Given the choice, 0:10:38.436 --> 0:10:41.196 you might pick me for company because I could amuse 0:10:41.276 --> 0:10:43.876 you for an afternoon with my theories. But when the 0:10:43.916 --> 0:10:47.276 sun starts to set and you're hungry and thirsty and 0:10:47.356 --> 0:10:51.516 have nowhere to sleep, you realize, oh, I picked a 0:10:51.556 --> 0:10:56.996 wrong Gladwell. Jeffrey was for many years the principal of 0:10:57.036 --> 0:11:00.396 an elementary school in a city called Kitchener. The school 0:11:00.476 --> 0:11:04.156 had four hundred students. If you're an elementary school principal 0:11:04.356 --> 0:11:07.356 in a country that lets in lots of refugees, chances 0:11:07.396 --> 0:11:09.716 are you'll have some of them as students in your school, 0:11:10.396 --> 0:11:13.716 and he did. I called up my brother to ask 0:11:13.796 --> 0:11:14.356 him about it. 0:11:15.236 --> 0:11:18.836 At one point we had I think twenty percent of 0:11:18.876 --> 0:11:22.276 our school population were Syrian refugees. 0:11:23.316 --> 0:11:25.516 You had, so if you had foreigner students are you 0:11:25.516 --> 0:11:28.756 saying you had eighty Syrian refugees in your school. 0:11:28.996 --> 0:11:32.836 Eighty Yeah, eighty Syrian refugees on top of probably another 0:11:34.276 --> 0:11:40.916 seventy to eighty ESL students, immigrants, refugees from other places. 0:11:42.196 --> 0:11:45.116 I think the biggest thing the first thing we saw 0:11:45.596 --> 0:11:48.876 was was trauma Like that was really where it kind 0:11:48.876 --> 0:11:52.196 of hit the idea of a trauma informed approach. So 0:11:52.316 --> 0:11:56.156 when kids are acting out, when they're being violent, or 0:11:56.196 --> 0:11:59.796 when they're crying, or they're withdrawing or you know, maybe 0:11:59.836 --> 0:12:03.956 stealing things, you have to look at their experience from 0:12:05.116 --> 0:12:10.236 camps or from war and say, Okay, maybe these learned responses, 0:12:10.276 --> 0:12:13.036 Maybe these are survival responses, and we have to look 0:12:13.076 --> 0:12:15.356 at them that way rather than looking at them as 0:12:15.476 --> 0:12:18.236 undesirable behaviors that you have to suspend somebody for or 0:12:18.316 --> 0:12:18.996 something like that. 0:12:19.916 --> 0:12:23.076 This makes sense. You're taking kids from troubled parts of 0:12:23.116 --> 0:12:26.356 the world. You have the obligation to deal with the consequences. 0:12:26.916 --> 0:12:29.596 Jeffrey said that when a Canadian kid and a refugee 0:12:29.676 --> 0:12:32.156 kid will get into a fight on the playground, you'd 0:12:32.156 --> 0:12:33.796 have to figure out how to make sense of what 0:12:33.916 --> 0:12:37.276 happened because only one of them spoke English. That was 0:12:37.316 --> 0:12:40.596 a little tricky, but not that tricky. The school board 0:12:40.676 --> 0:12:43.156 gave him lots of resources. He says, there was a 0:12:43.196 --> 0:12:47.476 really brilliant ESL teacher at his school. Plus these refugees 0:12:47.596 --> 0:12:48.436 were little kids. 0:12:48.756 --> 0:12:54.556 They adapted, They learned English incredibly quickly for the most part, 0:12:54.636 --> 0:12:59.676 and then you started to see their personalities coming through 0:12:59.716 --> 0:13:03.316 and it really enriched the school in that way. We 0:13:04.476 --> 0:13:10.036 had an incredible remembrance Day service with students who had 0:13:10.076 --> 0:13:13.476 experienced war and talking about what it means to experience 0:13:13.556 --> 0:13:19.876 war and showing their pictures of what it really is 0:13:20.116 --> 0:13:23.316 like to experience and this is my house, this is 0:13:23.316 --> 0:13:25.356 my house before it was bombed, this is my house 0:13:25.396 --> 0:13:29.076 after it was bombed. I mean, that was incredibly, incredibly 0:13:29.156 --> 0:13:34.036 moving and really sort of brought the whole experience that 0:13:34.076 --> 0:13:38.836 these students had home for the students in the school. 0:13:39.476 --> 0:13:42.116 What about the teachers. Did you have any kind of 0:13:42.156 --> 0:13:47.476 interesting or unexpected reactions from the teachers who were teaching 0:13:47.516 --> 0:13:47.996 these kids. 0:13:48.556 --> 0:13:52.116 No, again, you don't go to that school. That's not 0:13:52.156 --> 0:13:55.076 what you want to do. My job was to say 0:13:55.116 --> 0:13:57.636 to these teachers, look, you need to just get these 0:13:57.716 --> 0:13:59.916 kids into the classroom. You need to make them feel 0:13:59.956 --> 0:14:01.756 at home. You need to make them feel loved, to 0:14:01.876 --> 0:14:05.556 feel welcome in the community, and we'll get around to 0:14:05.636 --> 0:14:08.876 learning when they're ready. That's that's the message you have 0:14:08.916 --> 0:14:13.756 to give, not you know, worrying about whether these kids 0:14:13.796 --> 0:14:14.596 can fit in or not. 0:14:15.996 --> 0:14:18.996 You need to make them feel loved, not worry about 0:14:18.996 --> 0:14:22.396 whether they'll fit in. Jeffrey didn't think that dealing with 0:14:22.436 --> 0:14:27.156 the refugee children required any heroics. It just required lots 0:14:27.156 --> 0:14:30.556 of people doing their bit. A generous school board, a 0:14:30.596 --> 0:14:34.316 really good eesl teacher, and parents who believe that seeing 0:14:34.316 --> 0:14:37.156 a picture of a classmate's bombed out house is a 0:14:37.236 --> 0:14:42.116 valuable learning experience. You open your mind, you open your heart. 0:14:48.836 --> 0:14:51.756 Once you start looking for this pattern of many small 0:14:51.756 --> 0:14:54.676 acts of kindness adding up to a lot, you start 0:14:54.676 --> 0:14:57.556 to see it in all kinds of places. I'm thinking 0:14:57.596 --> 0:15:00.276 about a very moving account that I stumbled across in 0:15:00.356 --> 0:15:04.076 the archives of the United States Holocaust Museum. 0:15:04.236 --> 0:15:05.796 What kind of clothes did you wear? 0:15:07.516 --> 0:15:13.676 I was wearing ordinary. They smelled, stink terrible. I didn't 0:15:13.676 --> 0:15:16.316 have anything except I was veering. 0:15:18.116 --> 0:15:20.796 It's the oral history of a man named chio Reichmann, 0:15:21.116 --> 0:15:25.076 who escaped the Treblinka concentration camp in nineteen forty three. 0:15:25.156 --> 0:15:26.876 He was part of a group that set fire to 0:15:26.916 --> 0:15:29.796 the camp and he slipped out in the chaos, which 0:15:29.836 --> 0:15:32.956 put him and a small band of other escapees in 0:15:33.036 --> 0:15:37.956 the middle of Nazi occupied Poland. Fugitives huddling in a forest. 0:15:38.356 --> 0:15:40.236 I looked like a living skeleton. 0:15:41.476 --> 0:15:43.756 Now listen to what happened next. 0:15:44.676 --> 0:15:49.796 And we decided during deny it to go to a farm, 0:15:49.956 --> 0:15:54.076 to a peasant and ask for food. Some decent people 0:15:54.196 --> 0:15:54.676 helped us. 0:15:55.756 --> 0:16:00.196 They were starving and someone gave them food. Reikmann decided 0:16:00.276 --> 0:16:03.236 that their best hope of survival was to walk to Warsaw, 0:16:03.796 --> 0:16:06.796 which was more than fifty miles away. He meets a 0:16:06.836 --> 0:16:10.836 second farmer who feeds him and give some directions to Warsaw. 0:16:11.116 --> 0:16:13.116 On the way, he runs into a third man. 0:16:16.716 --> 0:16:19.796 The men passed and asked me, are you a Jew? 0:16:21.476 --> 0:16:26.796 I said yes. This Christian man, who was working in 0:16:26.836 --> 0:16:32.316 the opposite direction from where I came, turned back and said, 0:16:32.436 --> 0:16:35.996 I'm taking you to my home. His wife looked at me. 0:16:36.916 --> 0:16:41.076 She ordered me to take off my shild shirt and 0:16:41.156 --> 0:16:45.316 gave me a clean one. You know what she said 0:16:45.396 --> 0:16:50.196 to me, this is my husband only extra sheild. They 0:16:50.276 --> 0:16:53.076 gave it to me. They gave me a hurty meal 0:16:53.876 --> 0:16:55.756 and inquired about my plans. 0:16:57.276 --> 0:17:00.596 Reichman stayed with the family for two weeks. Gaining strength, 0:17:01.116 --> 0:17:04.076 he left them and met a smuggler. The smuggler gave 0:17:04.116 --> 0:17:07.196 him a ride. He got to Warsaw, went to see 0:17:07.236 --> 0:17:09.476 someone he knew from before the war who was in 0:17:09.516 --> 0:17:13.236 the Polish resistance. His old friend was petrified. 0:17:14.476 --> 0:17:17.116 He wasn't able to sleep or even because of fear 0:17:17.236 --> 0:17:18.676 that he is hiding a jewel. 0:17:19.916 --> 0:17:22.996 Reikman told his friend, I can't blame you, But as 0:17:22.996 --> 0:17:26.276 he was leaving, his friend gave him papers identifying him 0:17:26.276 --> 0:17:29.636 as an employee of the railroad. Now Reichman could pretend 0:17:29.676 --> 0:17:30.396 he wasn't Jewish. 0:17:31.276 --> 0:17:35.476 This document saved my life. I used it all the time. 0:17:36.876 --> 0:17:39.476 The story keeps going on and on. A woman and 0:17:39.556 --> 0:17:42.436 her husband let him sleep under their bed. Someone else 0:17:42.436 --> 0:17:45.116 had a fallen down shack where Reikman stayed for a bit. 0:17:45.676 --> 0:17:48.556 Someone else knew an empty apartment in Warsaw and let 0:17:48.636 --> 0:17:52.116 him stay there. He met a watchman befriended him. The 0:17:52.156 --> 0:17:55.036 guard invited him home for dinner, gave him a job 0:17:55.516 --> 0:18:01.116 a place to stay. It was winter, freezing cold the 0:18:01.156 --> 0:18:05.076 final days of the war. Warsaw was in chaos. Reikman 0:18:05.356 --> 0:18:08.156 was huddled with a group of people in an abandoned building. 0:18:09.116 --> 0:18:12.796 We almost did not survive. We were hungry, cold, desplendent. 0:18:13.036 --> 0:18:15.676 But one a night a men discovered a hiding place. 0:18:16.396 --> 0:18:19.196 The man asked them, are you hungry? He took them 0:18:19.236 --> 0:18:21.276 to a warehouse and opened the door. 0:18:21.556 --> 0:18:24.756 And we cared of a couple of hundred pounds of 0:18:24.876 --> 0:18:28.796 food and clothes that lasted this until the day of liberation. 0:18:30.476 --> 0:18:33.916 By my count Cheo. Reichman survived the war because of 0:18:33.956 --> 0:18:40.756 eleven acts of kindness. The keyword here is kindness. The 0:18:40.796 --> 0:18:45.156 biggest act we can perform for another is sacrifice, where 0:18:45.156 --> 0:18:48.436 we surrender something important for someone else, where we take 0:18:48.436 --> 0:18:53.196 a risk for someone else. The step below that is generosity, 0:18:53.796 --> 0:18:56.636 where we surrender some share of our time or resources 0:18:56.676 --> 0:19:02.956 for another. Kindness is entry level caring. Kindness is just 0:19:03.036 --> 0:19:08.196 a temporary suspension of indifference. The biblical story of the 0:19:08.196 --> 0:19:11.956 Good Samaritan is a story about kindness. The Good Samaritan 0:19:11.996 --> 0:19:14.796 finds an injured man by the side of the road, stops, 0:19:15.156 --> 0:19:17.396 bandages him up, and takes him on the back of 0:19:17.436 --> 0:19:20.436 his donkey to a nearby inn, where he gives him 0:19:20.436 --> 0:19:23.076 to the innkeeper with some money to pay for his care. 0:19:23.956 --> 0:19:26.436 The good Samartan doesn't fight off a band of hoodlum's 0:19:26.596 --> 0:19:30.796 single handedly or sneak the injured man past an enemy checkpoint. 0:19:31.316 --> 0:19:35.476 He's kind, not brave. Of the eleven acts that saved 0:19:35.596 --> 0:19:39.876 Chio Reichman's life, almost all are of the good Samaritan variety. 0:19:40.316 --> 0:19:44.276 His rescuers aren't brave. They're terrified. They give him some 0:19:44.316 --> 0:19:47.716 food and a temporary place to stay because they think 0:19:47.756 --> 0:19:50.996 it's too risky to do anything more. This is why 0:19:51.076 --> 0:19:54.476 I think it's so easy to feel underwhelmed by kindness. 0:19:54.956 --> 0:19:58.996 It feels so inadequate, so random. Reikman sounds like he 0:19:59.116 --> 0:20:05.516 just got lucky. When it comes to helping people in 0:20:05.556 --> 0:20:10.356 dire need, we prefer organized, big time, high commitment acts 0:20:10.356 --> 0:20:15.876 of generosity, where we don't leave things to chance. For example, 0:20:16.436 --> 0:20:20.556 America's refugee policy, which is the perfect illustration of the 0:20:20.596 --> 0:20:24.796 anti good Samaritant approach. Nothing is left to chance. Helping 0:20:24.956 --> 0:20:30.356 isn't informal and personal, it's systematized in order to ensure 0:20:30.556 --> 0:20:33.116 that only the most deserving of displaced people come to 0:20:33.156 --> 0:20:37.796 the US. The American Refugee Resettlement Program mandates a health check, 0:20:38.116 --> 0:20:42.436 a background check, an eligibility check, and multiple interviews. The 0:20:42.516 --> 0:20:47.516 Department of Homeland Securities involved, the State Department, the intelligence community, 0:20:47.796 --> 0:20:50.916 all of whom weigh in. The parents get interviewed, then 0:20:50.956 --> 0:20:54.796 the child separately to make sure their stories match. And finally, 0:20:55.116 --> 0:20:58.516 for those few refugees who do trickle through this process, 0:20:59.156 --> 0:21:03.596 there's another layer of bureaucracy to protect them against the 0:21:03.596 --> 0:21:07.716 potentially nefarious intentions of whatever group may be taking them in. 0:21:10.516 --> 0:21:13.156 There's a grave concern that people are going to be 0:21:13.156 --> 0:21:15.636 brought over here and they're not going to be supported 0:21:16.796 --> 0:21:20.316 the way that we would want people to be supported 0:21:20.356 --> 0:21:21.276 in the United States. 0:21:21.716 --> 0:21:25.276 That's David Beer, an immigration policy analyst with a Cato 0:21:25.356 --> 0:21:26.956 Foundation in Washington, d c. 0:21:27.516 --> 0:21:31.316 That they would be you know, living in squalor in 0:21:31.356 --> 0:21:37.476 somebody's basement, or you know, not have enough spoons for 0:21:37.556 --> 0:21:39.876 everyone in the family, so they be sharing spoons. 0:21:40.516 --> 0:21:44.836 You're serious. There is a regulation about the minimum number 0:21:44.876 --> 0:21:46.356 of spoons necessary for us. 0:21:46.716 --> 0:21:53.996 Yes, everything is very carefully monitored. And you know, God 0:21:54.036 --> 0:21:57.076 forbid that you are so lax. It's only to bring 0:21:57.156 --> 0:21:58.836 four spoons to a party of five. 0:22:00.996 --> 0:22:03.396 You can do things that way and tie yourself in 0:22:03.476 --> 0:22:06.436 knots and end up barely letting in any refugees at all. 0:22:07.076 --> 0:22:09.516 Or you can just have faith in the good that 0:22:09.556 --> 0:22:12.356 can come out of the other end of the generosity scale, 0:22:12.956 --> 0:22:15.796 the way it did back in my hometown. When Kang, Vaughan, 0:22:16.076 --> 0:22:24.836 and Leeland arrived, someone with a big house and lots 0:22:24.836 --> 0:22:26.956 of empty bedrooms took the three of them in for 0:22:26.996 --> 0:22:30.436 a few weeks. An apartment was found for them in Elmira, 0:22:30.756 --> 0:22:33.396 a little town where I grew up. Leeland said she 0:22:33.436 --> 0:22:35.796 wanted to get a job, so Joan got her job 0:22:35.836 --> 0:22:39.636 at a local clothing factory. Everyone, including my own family, 0:22:39.876 --> 0:22:42.476 took turns in the early years inviting them over for dinner. 0:22:43.156 --> 0:22:47.556 Was that sacrifice, please? My father had an endless stream 0:22:47.596 --> 0:22:50.596 of grad students from overseas who were always coming over 0:22:50.636 --> 0:22:51.676 for dinner on the weekends. 0:22:53.236 --> 0:22:56.716 It was just to have the people around her like 0:22:56.796 --> 0:23:00.876 your parents, like Graham and Joyce, just to kind of 0:23:00.916 --> 0:23:03.476 welcome her in and to bring her to community events 0:23:03.516 --> 0:23:06.916 and help her learn the language and things like that. 0:23:06.916 --> 0:23:10.476 That's David Hoggin remembering what all those invitations meant to 0:23:10.516 --> 0:23:10.916 his mother. 0:23:12.236 --> 0:23:14.396 For me, you need just to hear stories from my 0:23:14.636 --> 0:23:17.436 mom of just the small things, those mundane things that 0:23:17.516 --> 0:23:20.396 really stood out to her that I don't think people 0:23:20.436 --> 0:23:21.476 would normally even talk. 0:23:21.316 --> 0:23:27.716 About little things, mundane things, not big things. But remember 0:23:27.756 --> 0:23:31.596 the lesson of ChIL Reichmann. Lots of people doing little 0:23:31.636 --> 0:23:35.676 things can very quickly add up to a lot. When 0:23:35.756 --> 0:23:38.836 King and Vaughan were finishing high school, my mom remembers 0:23:38.836 --> 0:23:40.956 that the guidance counselor called my dad. 0:23:41.036 --> 0:23:43.636 And he said, what are you doing with these boys? 0:23:44.676 --> 0:23:47.116 They are in grade twelve. They have to go to 0:23:47.316 --> 0:23:53.276 university because they have got eighty percent in calculus and 0:23:53.316 --> 0:23:54.836 we don't give marks away. 0:23:56.436 --> 0:23:59.116 Just so you know, eighty percent in calculus at my 0:23:59.196 --> 0:24:01.356 high school in those years put you near the top 0:24:01.396 --> 0:24:02.156 of the class. 0:24:02.556 --> 0:24:05.796 Well, Graham had the inside knowledge of where to get money. 0:24:05.796 --> 0:24:09.116 You see, you can get you can get bursaries, scholarships, 0:24:09.276 --> 0:24:12.756 things like that. You know where to look, and so 0:24:12.876 --> 0:24:15.236 he must have pulled a number of strings. Because they 0:24:15.236 --> 0:24:20.276 were both at Waterloo with Graham, and they got their bas. 0:24:20.156 --> 0:24:24.036 Graham had inside knowledge. But then again, Graham was a 0:24:24.036 --> 0:24:27.716 math professor at the University of Waterloo, and here his 0:24:27.836 --> 0:24:30.516 task was to help two young people who were really 0:24:30.516 --> 0:24:33.676 good at math get into the University of Waterloo. This 0:24:33.796 --> 0:24:36.676 was not a heavy lift. And before any of this, 0:24:37.076 --> 0:24:39.956 there was the problem of bringing Vaughan King and Leland 0:24:39.996 --> 0:24:42.396 to Canada in the first place. Someone had to do 0:24:42.436 --> 0:24:46.036 the paperwork. Now, if my mom had to do the paperwork, 0:24:46.316 --> 0:24:48.796 that would have been an act of courage. But Ian 0:24:48.876 --> 0:24:50.196 Rankin does the paperwork. 0:24:50.676 --> 0:24:54.436 I remember having to go down and interview or be 0:24:54.596 --> 0:24:57.436 interviewed by somebody in Duke Street. 0:24:58.436 --> 0:25:01.276 I'm sure it was a complicated process that took many, 0:25:01.316 --> 0:25:04.236 many hours. But my sense is that Ian Rankin is 0:25:04.276 --> 0:25:07.636 the kind of person for whom successfully navigating a complex 0:25:07.676 --> 0:25:09.796 bureaucracy is a of pleasure. 0:25:10.956 --> 0:25:14.996 None of that stuff was anything that's sort of the 0:25:15.156 --> 0:25:21.956 organizing committee delegated. It just was who could do it. 0:25:23.196 --> 0:25:25.876 I'm learning for the first time what your role is 0:25:25.876 --> 0:25:30.076 and I have wondered many times, how was this engineer? 0:25:30.276 --> 0:25:32.916 Do you know? And what were the links with the government? 0:25:33.076 --> 0:25:35.156 Now I'm learning for the first. 0:25:34.836 --> 0:25:37.516