Blogs

Something that I would like to focus on is Customs week at Bryn Mawr. Last year  I was a customs person at Bryn Mawr and several very distinct conversations about Divertisy arose. The fisrt thing and something that has stuck with me since was a seemingly random questions about what populations were at group. The talk started off with asking about how many students of color attended Bryn Mawr. 60%, 50%, 40% or 20%. As it turned out most people who were people of color guessed lower than the actual percentage and the students who were not people of color guessed a higher percentage of attendence. This contuined until we had a real chance of looking at our preceptions and how they corresponded to our own backgrounds and identites. After about a half hour, they asked how many students who identified as 'full' native american had attended Bryn Mawr in the past five years. There was the option of 100, 20, 10 and 2. Most people guessed around 20... the actual numer was 2. two students in the past 5 years had identified as native american. Now I understand why this is such a low number as there are not large native american populations near or around Bryn Mawr, but this stood out to me. This fact shocked me as I grew up in New Mexico and have grown up with such integrated native american culture into my own, also for the fact that this is a population that contuinelsy is forgotten and overlooked and marginalized by society. I do admire that the customs week brought this up in conversation and was willing to really think about how weak our own diversity really is.

In The Ecological Thought, Timothy Morton argues that "Fixation on place impedes a truly ecological view," that "we want ecology to be about location, location, location. In particular, location must be local: it must feel like home; we must recognize it and think it in terms of the here and now, not the there and then" [but that] "ecological collectivity decisively can’t be rooted in 'place'....'my place in the sun' marks the beginning of all usurpation. 'Place' contains too much “at-homeness,” too much finality, for the ecological thought. Localism, nationalism, and immersion in the ideological bath of the lifeworld, won’t cut it anymore…We need collectivity, not community….it must be a collectivity of weakness, vulnerability, and incompletion."

What do you think? Post here a paragraph of your initial reactions to Morton’s idea, reflecting, from the p.o.v. of an environmentalist, on your own investments in and search for home. We’ll start class on Wednesday with these thoughts….PLEASE USE THE ECO-LITERACY TAG  "English" on these postings.

Reading through the tasks David assigned for this week, I was intrigued by his mention of alternative measures of welfare, including Bhutan's Gross National Happiness Index. My brother-in-law, an environmental consultant in Portland, Oregon, was happy to point out that ideas like this get taken seriously in Oregon (did you know this, Lisa?). Another brother-in-law, a Maine environmentalist, called my attention to two other rankings of national happiness, apparently inspired by Bhutan's index, but using different criteria. The "domains" used in the U.N. study appear to be primarily the conventional economic ones; i.e. rich and ecologically wasteful countries rank high (U.S. 17th behind other developed countries), while the New Economics Foundation's Happy Planet Index gives more attention to ecology; e.g. how much happiness is currently achieved at the expense of future generations (U.S. ranks 114th; 9 of top 10 are Caribbean basin nations, with Costa Rica #1).

One of my favorite meetings of ASA was when we were helping make posters for the ASA Culture Show. We all wrote quotes on papers referring to something memorable that happened to us or a stereotype that we wanted to disprove. When we were sharing these quotes that we made, someone talked about something that happens a lot. It’s when people ask us “where are you from?”

It's a difficult question to answer, and my answers vary depending on where I am and who I'm talking to. At Bryn Mawr, I always answer this question by saying “I’m from Taiwan,” just because it’s simpler than explaining how I’m American but moved around a lot growing up. But it’s also funny when people say “wait, but you don’t have an accent when you speak English…” 

My friends who is Japanese American grew up her whole life in California. She’s never been doubted for being from California until she came to Bryn Mawr. It’s happened multiple times where people ask her “where are you from?” And once she answers “I’m from SoCal.” They say, “no, where are you really from?” It always frustrates her when people doubt that she’s American, or when the question isn’t clear enough.

Are you asking where I grew up in? Or are you asking what’s my ethnicity? It sometimes feels like being denied of our own identity.

My freshman year at Bryn Mawr, there was a large controversy within the African American and Latino community. Bryn Mawr College decided not to renovate Perry House, which is home to three of the infinity groups on campus. Sisterhood, Mujeres, and BaCaSO decided to form a Perry House coalition and speak out about the issue that deeply affected them, us. We tried to involve the whole community, however there was resistance.

One day, I was in the room with two of my roommates, both were white. They must have forgotten that I was in the room or a part of Sisterhood infinity group, for they spoke about the issue. One roommate said, “So what do you think about the whole Perry House thing?” My other roommate responded by saying, “ well, there isn’t a Turkish house, so why should there be a house for them, they aren’t special.” They both laughed. My other roommate responded saying it didn’t really relate to her so she had no opinion, and when they finally noticed that I was I the room, they said, “but it is sad they are closing it down.” I then laughed, but only because of their facial expressions when they finally noticed me sitting at my desk.

It's that time of year when everyone is scrambling to find internships. I was planning to apply to an internship in the field of education sponsored by Haverford. A few weeks before winter break this year, I had scheduled a meeting with the head of the Haverford program to talk about the internship. I told her my reasons for wanting to apply to the internship. She seeemed to be interested in my reasons and the experience I had with that field, but then informed me that the organization was looking for a person of color, so if I applied for the internship I probably wouldn't get it because I am white.

I was shocked. For one of the first times, my race was a disadvantage, not an advantage. I understood the reason why the organization would look for a person of color- because the intern would be working primarily with students of color, they wanted the role model of a successful college student who was also a minority. In my head, I understood this and it made sense, but in my heart, I was hurt and offended. As someone who wants to work in urban education, it is hard to hear that my race is a disadvantage. I have read articles in my eduation class about how minority students should have a minority teacher and how white, middle-class teachers cannot understand the needs and background of low-income minority students. Where does that put me? Should I limit myself to teaching in a predominately white, middle-class school? Is wanting to teach low-income students part of my white savior complex?

Before the break I overheard two friends discussing some facebook drama surrounding a status about teaching that a student posted. “Wait what happened?” I asked. My friend turned to me, “I didn’t tell you because I know how passionate you can get.” She said, “Just tell me, I wanna know!” She eventually paraphrased the status to me; the gist of the remark was a student said she needed to take martial arts classes before she began teaching at a school in an urban setting. This is not the first time I have heard an ideology like this and I can guarantee it wont be the last.

I believe that if this student enters a urban public school classroom with this attitude she is likely to reap what she sows. I don’t say this to be threatening or cruel, but realistic. I think there are no better detectors of authenticity and intention then children, and they deserve to be led by someone who has only the greatest expectations of them-not someone who expects disobedience, and worse, violence simply because of the location of their school, or the implied the race and class positions of such students.

Since the beginning of my sophomore year, I have worked extensively in Haverford’s Office of Admissions. My experience in these various roles and, in particular, my understanding of Haverford’s desire to attract and create a diverse student body—has led me to think much more critically about the types of supports we provide to students who actually enroll at Haverford. It is one thing to attract a diverse student body; it is another to support and cultivate that diversity.  

In particular, one thing that really concerns me is Haverford’s lack of explicit support for first-generation college students and students coming from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Haverford has clear support systems in place for students of color, regardless of class background, including special weekends for prospective students, affinity clubs, etc. But I worry that a comparable system of support is lacking for low-income white students.

This issue first really came to the forefront for me when I learned that one of my friends was a first-generation college student. He and I had been casually playing tennis over the summer, talking about our families, when I first learned about his background and his journey to Haverford. I’m embarrassed to say that because of the way he dressed and acted, I had always just assumed he came from a comparable class background to my own.

I'm never used to seeing too much extra money in my bank account, especially at the beginning of the semester with tuition payments, books, and supplies needing to be purchased. Because of this, I was very surprised to check my balance one day and see that I had over $5,000 dollars in it. I looked to see where it came from and it said "Bryn Mawr Direct Deposit" It wasn't payday, and even though I do work a lot on campus, there was still no way that it was a paycheck. My next guess was that it was somehow related to financial aid. I went to their office the next business day and learned that some people just don't have too much empathy or sensitivity.

I missed class on wednesday, so I took at look at the course notes and thought about some of the things I would have written/ would have said.

On Eli’s portrait:

*Kneeling but not quite… one foot poised as though ready to stand back up- reminiscent of movement, which characterizes Eli’s life and relationship to home/body/place/the environment ---> Movement also works w/ metaphor of taking the earth inside the self and letting it grow out; depicted by the tree which grows through Eli