Bloomington and Palo Alto, Calif., hosted the first of three joint town halls as part of the Sibling Cities USA initiative last Sunday. The first town hall focused on bridging regional divides as both individual cities and a nation.
Even though the cities are over 2,000 miles apart, residents gathered in their respective libraries and connected with each other via Zoom.
The Inaugural Sibling Cities Agreement was signed in February of 2022. The agreement states the cities “share a common interest in promoting understanding, friendship, and relationship with their fellow Americans across the miles.”
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To bridge divides, participants submitted words on their conceptions of either city. Aside from group discussions, three panelists who have connections to both cities talked about how the areas shaped their lives.
Vicki Veenker, Sibling Cities USA founder, said sibling cities are crucial for forming bonds across regional divides.
“In order for our daughters and sons to live full lives in a functioning democracy, we need to restore our public square,” Veenker said. “And that is our mission.”
Faith Veenker spent one year in Bloomington and is currently attending the University of California - Los Angeles. She grew up in Palo Alto. Veenker said when she returned to Palo Alto after her year in Bloomington, her classmates didn’t know where Bloomington was.
“It made me a little sad,” Veenker said. “People were so unaware of some of the other great things that this country has to offer and of in parts outside of this state.”
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Another panelist, Kaisa Goodman, recently moved from Bloomington to attend Stanford Law School. She says although people have been nice in her time in Palo Alto, there are many misconceptions about Indiana.
“I think that the most common reaction is a free flow of conversation that suddenly kind of stops when I say I'm from Indiana, simply because people don't have any reaction to it,” Goodman said. “They really don't know anything about it, or maybe they have a negative connotation and their frustration that has them trying to be polite. And I think a lot of that comes down to even pop culture.”
A participant in Palo Alto said both cities sit on a spectrum, and there isn’t just one idea of what the cities are.
“We just kind of assume that everybody [in Palo Alto] is sort of like-minded,” she said. “And that may or may not necessarily be true.”
There are two more town halls planned for this fall. “Climate Action” will take place on Oct. 8 and “Race & Belonging” will take place on Nov. 12. The town halls are hosted in the Monroe County Public Library from 4-6 p.m..
