To gather tidbits of outsider wisdom, traveling to a new geographic region isn't necessary – the perspective you need could be down the road or across town. Let's say you've had it with your toxic workplace environment. Spend some time with people from another workplace that had similar problems, but now has happier employees and a higher productivity level thanks to a different approach to conflict and a culture that fosters positive attitudes. You may even find that the workplace next door has much more severe problems than yours, but its employees have skills that allow them to reinvent themselves and bounce back stronger.

The ability to bounce back points to another perspective I gained while visiting Colombia: Deciding to be happy regardless of your past. On our first full day in Medellin, we joined a city walking tour where our guide, Julio, explained that Colombians refuse to suffer emotionally despite the country's violent and unstable history. As an example of how tragedy can change someone's perspective on future events that are still tragic but less so than those experienced in the past, Julio explained that if asked about a grenade explosion that took place fairly recently in a Medellin plaza and killed a few people, most locals wouldn't even remember the event. That's because compared to something like the Armero tragedy of 1984, a volcanic eruption that killed more than 20,000 of one town's 29,000 inhabitants, news of a small-scale attack was irrelevant.

One more life lesson from my Colombia visit: Never draw conclusions about a group of people without doing your research. Outside of Latin America, mention Colombia once and the conversation will inevitably lead to something about cocaine, drug cartels or Pablo Escobar. Therefore, some tourists in Colombia think it's OK to bring up any of these topics with the locals, when in reality they're very offensive and should be considered off-limits. During the city tour, in fact, Julio only referred to Escobar as "P.E." because the tour was conducted in English, and he feared that if non-English-speaking by-passers heard the full name without being able to put it into context, they might think he was speaking positively of the late narcoterrorist.

Without educating yourself on what an outsider group has endured and why they think they way they do, it's easy to dismiss or draw negative conclusions about them. One area where some credit unions display hesitance to embrace outsiders is ITIN lending – an opportunity that allows credit unions to grow their membership and business by lending to immigrants without a Social Security number. Instead of using a SSN as proof of identity, ITIN lending uses the borrower's individual taxpayer identification number, plus proof of name, date of birth and address. The unique risk with this type of lending is the potential for the borrower to be deported to their home country before the loan is repaid. But, many credit unions may find the reward of expanded business opportunities in a new market outweighs this risk.

I would encourage any credit union leader hesitant about working with immigrant members to listen to the Filene's Research Institute podcast "Is Your Credit Union Ready to Welcome Me?" (episode #44, available at filene.org/filene-fill-in). In it, Dreamer and Coopera Client Relations Director Kenia Calderon, who credits her ability to graduate college and get a job to her credit union's willingness to lend to her, explained why more CUs need to serve the immigrant community and put the risk into perspective. "Sometime I hear misconceptions about, well, what happens if they're deported? And I ask them, well, what happens if one of your members commits a crime and goes to jail? How do you address that?" she asked.

In the end, those who alienate outsiders are doing themselves a disservice, because they could end up being alienated themselves. "If credit unions don't serve [immigrants] right now, the community will never begin that process of building trust with them," Calderon said. "And when it's too late, when the demographics in the United States look very different, we'll be a little skeptical. If a credit union comes to me 10 years from now because over 50% of the residents in their field of membership are Latino, I'm going to think, you're just trying to make money off of me because you see my face more often now. But where were you when I needed you?"

Natasha Chilingerian

Natasha Chilingerian is managing editor for CU Times. She can be reached at [email protected].