From Missing Voices to Common Ground: The Power of Shared American Experiences
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I was caught between two worlds, a biracial Asian American child at an international school in Southeast Asia. Asian students conversed in their native tongues while the Western kids allied together, both groups entrenched in their own corners of the playground. As I sat alone, I longed to bridge the cultural divide so that I could have a voice in the social ecosystem. I remained in the middle — excluded, silent, and self-conscious about my mixed heritage.
I still regard my childhood experience as a metaphor for the ideological divide that plagues America's national discourse. Just as I wondered what potential was lost when I had no voice on that playground, I began to ask, what wisdom are we missing when loud voices on the fringes drown out middle viewpoints, creating a dangerous void in our national conversation?
The Missing Middle
The "missing middle" means many things. Middle spaces across America include rural communities in coastal states, working-class suburbs, and diverse small towns nationwide — places where pragmatic approaches often transcend partisan divides. This "middle" defies simple definition — it's simultaneously geographic, cultural, and ideological — representing communities and individuals whose complex realities don't fit neatly into our polarized national narrative.
These middle voices strongly influenced the outcome of the 2024 election, where Trump's victory over Kamala Harris hinged on voters who don't fit neatly into polarized political narratives (Navigator Research found "swing voters" broke for Trump by 8 percentage points in the 2024 election). As a Fellow in Harvard's Advanced Leadership Initiative, I initially launched the "Middle Voice Project" to focus on amplifying these overlooked perspectives. However, what I discovered was more profound: the issue wasn't just that middle voices were excluded; it was that we lacked the common ground necessary for them to be heard at all. It reminded me of what William Butler Yeats wrote in his 1919 poem, "The Second Coming" — "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
The Cost of Exclusion
This exclusion has tangible consequences. My research revealed how students from middle communities described feeling silenced when they expressed nuanced viewpoints that didn't align with perspectives common in centers of influence. As one Midwestern student stated in a focus group I conducted at Harvard in 2024, "…it sometimes felt [on campus] like the loudest voices were the ones telling you, you either had to believe all the way here, or all the way there, and there was no room for anything in-between…so the default was for me to not say my opinion at all."
Consider the current debates around tariffs and economic nationalism. What's lost in the discourse are the complex realities experienced in America's middle spaces — where manufacturing communities, agricultural regions, and small businesses feel the nuanced impacts of these policies differently from coastal financial centers. Their perspectives get flattened into simplistic for/against positions, despite the layered economic realities that prevail in these communities.
According to Harvard Assistant Professor of Government, Stephanie Ternullo, middle communities are "the product of an often-invisible web of social organization, social structure, and party politics that weave all Americans into the polity.” A prime example of their power arose in August 2022, when Kansas voters overwhelmingly rejected a constitutional amendment — a vote that defied both polling predictions and political expectations by revealing nuance beyond partisan labels.
Creating Common Ground Through Shared Experiences
These examples reveal a crucial insight: when Americans move beyond abstract cultural and political labels and engage with each other's lived experiences directly, unexpected connections emerge. Enter the American Exchange Project, where creating shared experiences bridges these divides — by design. At its core, the American Exchange Project fosters something increasingly rare in our national discourse: the willingness to truly listen to one another with respect and good will, seeking common ground.
Through immersive week-long exchanges, the program links 60 high schools in 36 states, enabling young Americans to experience life beyond their bubbles. Powered by a new $3 million grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, I’m excited to be working with the American Exchange Project to help escalate the number of students connecting across America's middle spaces and coastal centers.
Students don't just talk about differences — they live in each other's homes alongside peers from vastly different communities, places as opposite as New York City and Kilgore, Texas. They share meals, attend classes, and participate in local traditions. As Karlie DeFord, a student who traveled from Kingsport, Tennessee to Dodge City, Kansas, shared in a 2023 KCUR interview, "Just because you're from two completely different places doesn't mean you can't be friends and enjoy each other's company." Similarly, a New York participant noted, "Before this program, I had strong opinions about 'those people.' Now I have actual friends there." Another student from Palo Alto shared this statement after her week in San Angelo, Texas: "I was a lot more cynical about the state of our country before. The American Exchange Project taught me it's not that hard to find common ground if you're not trying to argue."
The American Exchange Project students participate in authentic local traditions that showcase each community's distinct character. Whether they're catching a fish, attending an outdoor concert, or sampling regional cuisine, these activities provide genuine immersion in their host community's culture. Similar to successful transnational programs like The Experiment in International Living, the project structures activities around cultural engagement, community events, professional development, and volunteer service. This ensures students gain insight into diverse American lifestyles while forming lasting connections — 90% of participants report developing close friendships that continue well beyond their summer experience.
The success of this initiative reveals a fundamental truth: finding our shared humanity requires creating experiences where people truly see and hear one another. As David McCullough III, CEO and Co-Founder of the American Exchange Project, recently shared with me, "The middle voice is the voice we all share, and we'll lose it if we forget to talk to each other. In the end, we're all in this together." By fostering these connections, we're cultivating spaces where all voices — from childhood playgrounds to national conversations — are not silent but thrive.
About the Author:
Katie Kwo Gerson is a Senior Fellow in the 2025 Advanced Leadership Initiative Program at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA. She is Chairman of the Board of University Academy, one of the nation's highest performing K-12 charter public schools, and founding member of C3KC, a collaborative conference that brings together civic, corporate, and nonprofit communities to spark change. She is co-creator of @Being_Hapa, a platform to lift voices of the Asian American experience, a producer of a 2023 Emmy Award winning documentary, and an active member of the Aspen Institute Society. After three decades in Kansas City, Missouri, she will join the American Exchange Project as Executive Fellow in 2025.
Acknowledgement:
This article is dedicated to the memory of Bob Rosenfeld, Harvard ALI Fellow 19, for his inspiration "to engage our young people in...revising the narrative of a broken nation".