To my team
In my position as a Director Research at the University of Arizona, my official job description (if one was ever written) includes design, development, construction, and maintenance of our research facility. In order to accomplish this, a diverse and talented team is essential. Each of you brings to this growing project a unique and valuable set of skills, experience, and gifts.
I don’t always speak like this, describing each of you in this way. Rather, you most likely see me as the one who pushes hard to meet deadlines, the one who drives to Home Depot three times in one day to keep you engaged laying the foundation for world-class research; the one who insists that our measurements are accurate and our level-er is level to within 1/16 of an inch when in fact no one will ever notice–except us.
What motivates me to keep going, despite the challenges of the incredibly complex University bureaucracy and my long weeks is three-fold: a) to create novel, word-class research that helps our species become interplanetary; b) to bring attention to the ways in which we can be better custodians of our home planet; and c) to see each of us grow, to gain skills and knowledge, to accomplish things together we could not do as individuals.
Our current team of 18 includes five people of color and multiple gender identities. We have first and second generation family roots in six countries (Canada, India, Italy, Kenya, Peru, and the US). We are a living, breathing celebration of what it means to be international in a country that, while not the perfect “melting pot” symbol advertised in my childhood, does continue to support the creativity that can only come through the mixing of unique experiences and points of view.
As researchers we apply curiosity, observation, and reason in equal proportions. As custodians we apply self-awareness and good habits, recognizing that in fact everything we do shapes the world around us. And as members of this team, we embrace our quirks, uphold our skills, and celebrate our diversity through collaboration at work and friendship beyond.
With the abrupt change in the administration of the United States, I cannot sit idle and say nothing. I cannot just pretend that everything is going to be okay. While it is not my place to, in any shape or form, dictate your political views, what you believe, or who you engage—it is my duty to uphold and protect each member of my team and to continue to promote logic, reason, science education, and care for the very planet on which we live.
My world view has been shaped by more than thirty years in education and humanitarian work around the world: working at an orphanage in Baja Mexico with my parents when I was just five years old, building a half acre playground in rural Poland in my twenties; running water lines, installing electricity, and helping build a food storage system at an orphanage in Kenya; designing and building the first research-grade astronomical observatory in Tanzania; bandaging the feet of migrants on the US-Mexico border; and producing documentary films about the Israeli occupation of Palestine. I’ve dedicated my life to helping others through work, care, and education. Some of the most valuable things I’ve contributed are simply a new way of seeing the world, getting people to ask hard questions and then seeking the answers.
At the base of Mount Meru, Tanzania, students copy word-for-word every page of a single text book that the teacher reads aloud and writes on the chalkboard. That was in 2019. Rote memorization remains today the principal form of education. So when a student asks questions that the teacher cannot answer, they are often scolded, or in the case of the orphanage in Kenya (where I met my my adopted children) they were beaten with a cane. [My job, then, as a board member of a non-for-profit was to document the bloodied backs of the students, then work with the teachers to implement new teaching methods that did not involve corporal punishment.]
Why is it like this? Because in that culture the teacher is the keeper of the knowledge, and the students are to learn from the teacher. If a student asks a question the teacher cannot answer, it is seen as a weakness in the teacher’s position and title, the student is at fault. The concept of the teacher and student learning together, side-by-side remains, for the most part, elusive. In this paradigm, curiosity and asking questions are met with fear, anger, and pain. If you live your entire childhood in such a place, you grow up without what I believe is one of the most important aspects of being human–asking these basic questions: How? Where? When? and Why?
The ability to ask these questions is what makes our species unique. This is what enables us to look beyond our current situation and envision a future that is better. These simple, single syllable words are the most powerful words we can utter for they are at the foundation of every scientific discovery, every invention, and every aspect of our very being that has a chance to improve.
If curiosity is beaten out of us, if we are afraid to ask questions, if we shutter in the shadow of those who are in control for fear of retribution for the very questions we ask, then we are no longer free to be human, and we will have lost the core of our humanity.
In just the first three days of the return of the administration of Donald Trump, the United States was removed the US from the Paris Climate Accords; any and all efforts to provide a fair and equitable environment for those who for too long were afraid to express their sexual identity were removed from every single federal office; and people who have lived in this country for decades, and their children who are born on this soil are forcibly removed at the hands of armed and masked officers.
The subsequent three months has seen an unprecedented overturn of every social and legal norm for the office of the president, such that history books will see this as a turning point for whatever will next unfold.
Persons of color now live with a heightened sense of fear. Every member of the Navajo Nation has been advised to travel with their Tribal ID, a card that is not issued at birth for it is not required under any law but is now employed to reduce the chance of harassment or exportation as ICE raids expand and gain power.
Schools, places of work, and churches are bracing for armed raiders who forcible remove people, separated from their parents or children, held in detention centers, and then exiled to a country in which they might not have lived for decades, or never at all. This spring Arizona State University lost 80 students to Homeland Security. These are students, not spies, not conspirators—mere children who came to this country to learn. In May the University of Arizona was given warning of the same and we wait to learn of the outcome. For fear or retribution, no one, not even ASU’s powerful president Michael Crow has risen to take a stand.
Many of us have experienced violence in our lives with our parents or siblings, in the military, or in challenged neighborhoods. But this level of internal violence inflicts a wound not only on those who are directly affected, but across the entire nation. It will ripple through generations as a new norm, making it “okay” to take violent action built on false narratives, lies, and deception.
How democracy falls and dictatorships rise
- Create an enemy within your own borders by ethnicity, religion, or color of skin;
- Convince the public that the “enemy” is not deserving of due process, not treated as human;li>
- Engage a police or military force that executes your policies when votes fail, then remove the non-human “enemy” by force;
- Establish a framework for retribution such that even those who are strongly opposed to your motives will stand at your side, afraid to go against you, hoping instead to gain your favor;
- Impose your will through fear of retaliation such that association, even conversation are controlled.
- Erode the framework of democracy in the name of “safety” from the very horror you have created.
The vast majority of Germans were not against the Jews, but those same people were afraid to stand up to Hitler as he gained control. The CEO of Apple Computer, the president of the Navajo Nation, and Jeff Bezos were all at the presidential inauguration. I cannot claim to know their belief systems, but I do know that Apple Computer has long stood as a company that embraces diversity, long before DEI was a policy and norm. While the more than 500 recognized Native American Nations in this country stand to gain nothing but ridicule and pain under the Trump administration, gaining favor of the new leadership is safe, even if it echoes the very history that decimated Native American populations and moved who remained to designated reservations.
Facts matter
Do your best to not repeat what you hear unless you have substantiated the facts and figures from reputable sources. There is truth. Not alternative facts but real, solid truth, some of which I would like to share with you here to get our brains engaged and intelligence churning.
“All who cross our southern border are rapists and murderers and drug dealers.”
Before 9/11 the US had for more than 100 years welcomed more than 250,000 undocumented workers to cross the border, work in our fields to harvest crops such that our fruits and vegetables could come to our kitchens at an incredibly low cost. For the first time in US history, the border was shut down for “fear of terrorists” entering through Mexico, when in fact the pilots who flew the planes into the twin towers and Pentagon came into the US through Canada several years earlier.
There are approximately 11,000,000 undocumented workers in the US today [Pew Research]. in 2024 9,949 arrests were made by the US Border Patrol (not including 10,000 re-entry arrests), of which only 221 were for a sexual offense [CBP]. I heard that 47,000 total arrests of undocumented residents [NPR] were made in the US last year which equates to 0.4% (0.004) of the population.
According to the FBI 73.5 million out of 249.4 million Americans have a criminal record [Politifact], as many as have a diploma [Brennan Center]. That is roughly one-third or ~30%. This means that the undocumented population has a 75x lower criminal record than documented America. Even if this number is off by a factor of 10x, the original statement is completely false.
“Build the wall!”
Q: How do you go over a 20′ border wall?
A: With a 21′ ladder.
During the first Trump administration the head of the US Border Patrol took a reporter to the back lot of a border station and showed her hundreds of ladders, confiscated at the foot of the wall. It takes less than $30 (or something home made) to beat a billion dollar fence.
“The cost of power is too high in the US.”
The United States has a lower cost of power, across the board, than just about every country in the world. Why “Drill, baby, drill!” when the US produces more oil than any other country in the world? We are already paying far less than more than 2/3 of the countries on this planet [globalpetrolprices.com].
Deep sea oil is too expensive. The only way new oil discovery will happen is if the US government subsidizes the process, which it has been doing for decades. Remember, oil companies don’t want the cost to be low, as they make less money. The only way to bring the cost of power down is to invoke renewable energy which beat the cost of coal-fired power over a decade ago.
“We’re going to reduce the cost of living.”
No president, not a single one in history has control over the price of fuel at the pump, or eggs, or bread anymore than he does the cost of a computer or cell phone or any other item produced by publicly traded companies built on publicly traded commodities. It’s impossible.
The reason the Chairman of the Federal Reserve and his (or her) body of advisors is intentionally isolated from the President, Congress, and the Supreme Court is so that no body of power can control the financial reserves or interest rates. These are experts who manage this important function of our country’s financial foundation, and who have in the past five years demonstrated an exemplary recovery from a very, very difficult financial situation. Despite the COVID recession, American spending is at an all-time high with salary increases surpassing inflation by an average of 2% in 2024.
“The illegals are taking our jobs! Ruining our economy!”
In Arizona alone, the undocumented residents contribute a net gain of more than $1B per year through purchase of fuel, food, disposable goods, rent, and paying taxes. As they are undocumented, they do not gain Social Security when they retire or receive any health benefits at their places of work. They are, from this point of view, the most advantageous contributors to our economy who demand the least, who use the least (not the most) resources. Anyone can do the math. It’s simple.
When I was a kid many of my classmate in Columbus Nebraska walked beans and detasseled corn every summer. Now, most white kids do not walk beans or work in the fields. Most of that labor is done by our neighbors to the south. If the US sends them home, then we need to prepare for union labor and the cost of corn, oranges, apples, spinach, potatoes—all of it go up by 2x, 5x, or 10x at the store.
In our hotels and at our construction sites, it is people of color that continue to do most the work. Undocumented workers are not competing for positions in schools or hospitals or law offices or most any occupation, rather, they fill a growing niche as the social-economic foundation as this economy continues to evolve.
In closing, again, it is not my place to motivate how you vote or who you support. But as we build a platform for research and science education we embrace and uphold who we are as individuals, and who we represent in the greater world. Your knowledge represents the knowledge of my team. Your ability to engage in critical thinking is a reflection of the very reason we have labored for five years to build this platform for research and education.
I ask that you move through these next four years with diligence, with commitment to challenging false narratives and spreading fact-based truth. I invite you to do your own research, to build a vocabulary of justice that celebrates all humans independent of the color of their skin, sexual orientation, or place of birth.
We can each fight back against a regime of fear by asking questions, challenging false narratives, and being prepared to provide research-based facts.
Ask yourself, “How have your own life experiences shaped your world view, and what do you bring to this team?”
Thank you.
Kai Staats, MSc
Director of Research for SAM at Biosphere 2
University of Arizona