As part of its civic strategy, Interfaith America hosts conversations with faith and civic leaders about their perspectives on religious pluralism and religious freedom – two values that IA empowers leaders to support and promote.
Interfaith America Senior Director of Civic Strategies Chris Crawford interviewed Laura Maristany, CEO of Prospera Insights LLC, where she consults on tech-enabled economic growth and workforce innovation, and the founder of Katch Skills, a technology startup redefining how real-world learning is captured, measured, and valued.
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Chris Crawford: I’d love to start with a little bit about your work and how you’ve gotten to where you are today.
Laura Maristany: I have been in the [Washington] D.C. area for about 20 years. I landed here from Puerto Rico as soon as I finished college for a job on Capitol Hill [and] I’ve been here ever since. I have worked across Congress, philanthropy, civil rights organizations, and some years ago I landed at a tech company that was helping to build tech economies in underestimated cities. [After that job,] I launched two businesses: one of them a consulting firm where I work on all the issues I think matter, and a technology company which I feel has one of the solutions that can help us build more opportunity in communities across the country and globally.
Crawford: Why does pluralism matter to you?
Maristany: To solve problems, we need to have different perspectives. That means that we need to have the tools to actually engage. So often across my career, and in different settings, we talk a lot about pluralism. We talk about belonging. We’re humans. We have to work a little bit harder not to be tribal and to open up in an abundance state of mind to actually solve problems. I care deeply about doing that across issues. It takes a lot of self-reflection and it’s difficult work, because it’s not something that you can impose on people. It’s something that people have to want to do.
When we have talked about division and the U.S. becoming increasingly polarized, the tools that we had at our disposal to be able to connect across difference were really only two: we either teach ourselves to debate, or we teach people to be civil. And there’s problems with both of those. So, one is “fight, and someone has to be right” and the other one is [tamping] down who you are. The problem with that, again, is you can’t truly have a collaborative society if you’re asking people to try to communicate through those two lenses. So, I spent a lot of time looking at where we could build better tools for people to communicate across difference.
Crawford: Interfaith America has our Respect, Relate, Cooperate model for engagement. How do you think we can do a better job of respecting diverse identities?
Maristany: I think respect is definitely core in that you can’t really practice the other two [without it] …
The assumption for many of the rooms that are created to bridge is that our difference is very one dimensional. We’re red or we’re blue, or we’re Catholic and we’re Jewish. The assumption is that it’s as simple as that. But if I show up in a room and — let’s say that I’m Republican — that’s one element, that’s one layer. But then I’m Latina and I’m waving my hands and I’m being loud! You could be employing tools of civility, but it may be hard if you don’t understand that culturally I engage in a specific way and that may trigger you, right? That could be something that stands in the way of us communicating. Those are the places where that self-reflection is important because you have to be constantly questioning in order to understand … And to do that, you have to have a certain level of respect.
Crawford: We hear a lot of people refer to the “Latino community”, and it’s actually made up of countless diverse, distinct identities and backgrounds. How do you think we can do a better job in the democracy space of respecting diverse backgrounds and perspectives of these communities, our fellow Americans?
Maristany: You have to take the time to understand that community.
One, we come from very different backgrounds, depending on what kind of community you are. My family, for example, is Cuban. They came here in the early [19]60s, so right when Fidel Castro took over, and they have a certain lived experience because of that. They’re different than Cubans that have arrived more recently, and those are different than maybe the grandkids of those folks that had come in.
The bottom line there is you cannot create a blanket approach to any one community of people. The best messengers are going to be people that understand them and that can connect on a deeper level. That doesn’t always mean they have to be from those communities, but you have to be very intentional.
Crawford: We’re coming up on the 250th anniversary of the founding of our country. How are you thinking about this 250th anniversary and what comes next for our country?
Maristany: [I’m] proud to be American. Not everybody knows this, but Cubans are super Americanized even before we got to this country. But I am really excited. You know, I have an Italian husband who comes from a very old civilization. When you compare America to that, it’s just a slice — we’re just getting started.
What’s coming can be great and I’m really excited to see it. I work with a women’s group and we’re going to be celebrating as many other organizations [are]. And one of the things we keep talking about is the women’s movement throughout that time and how much more we can do, particularly in public office. I think it’s a great moment of reflection on the things that we’ve done really well and where we can continue to build this amazing country, continue to welcome all of the differences that have made it great, and continue to lean on that as we think about the future in the next, not 250, [but] the next 500,000 years, I hope. Why not?
