ORIGINS

Two encounters. One enduring challenge.

LAVA-America’s origin story grew from two encounters that occurred in close proximity years ago and profoundly reshaped the direction of its founder’s post-retirement work.

The first involved an Afghan diplomat working to help ensure his country’s survival as a viable modern nation. The second was an encounter with an elderly woman nearing the end of her life.

The diplomat’s family fled the Soviet invasion and the subsequent extremism that engulfed Afghanistan during the 1980s and 1990s. After spending his formative years as a refugee in Pakistan, he eventually emigrated to Europe, where he received a life-changing education in science and technology, fields his country desperately needed.

The woman was born into a well-educated Jewish family in Germany in the 1930s. As a child, she was among the approximately ten thousand children brought to safety in the United Kingdom through the Kindertransport program.

As accomplished as each became, their influence on the idea that eventually developed into LEARN AMERICAN VALUES AGAIN® can be distilled into two simple statements.

The diplomat posed a direct question: “What are you and your organization doing to address the rising tide of Islamophobia in America?”

The answer, despite years of work promoting intercultural understanding, was equally direct: “More than most; but not enough.”

Soon after, during a symposium on human rights and genocide studies, a conversation with the octogenarian shifted to a broad discussion of prejudice and the cyclical rise of Islamophobia. The exchange also addressed antisemitism, racism, and other forms of bigotry and prejudice, all symptoms of the same destructive human tendency to fear, diminish, or condemn those perceived as different.

More personally impactful than anything discussed at the symposium was the preteen fear still visible in the eyes of this accomplished 89-year-old woman, who had lived safely in American suburbia for decades.

As the event ended and attendees began departing, the woman reached out, pulled her listener closer, and quietly said, “I have heard this talk before; you have to do something.”

A question from the Afghan diplomat and a command from the Kindertransport survivor became the moral foundation for LAVA-America and LEARN AMERICAN VALUES AGAIN®.

Their messages also set an important boundary for the LAVA idea: respectful dialogue does not amount to moral indifference. Americans can disagree vigorously while recognizing that extremism, entrenched hatred, antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism, and prejudice must never be dismissed as merely another point of view.

The diplomat asked what was being done.

The survivor supplied the answer:

“…you have to do something.”