The Unseen Foreigner

During the past month, the American press has given considerable publicity to the recent African student riots in Bulgaria. Reports have implied that this one incident in Sofia represents a universal discontent of foreign students within the Soviet block The reports seem to imply, in addition, that such a situation could hardly exist in the United States.

However, although our government makes no attempt to indoctrinate foreigners who study in America, they have severe, if different, problems. Students from abroad are often so ignored and isolated in the United States that they react quite bitterly to their stay. Harvard offers many examples of this reaction.

There are currently 1137 foreign students enrolled at Harvard. Of these, only 125 are undergraduates--within this relatively small bloc, isolation is quite often overcome by the mere existence of the dormitory and House systems. Contacts are easily made, activities are easily entered, and the notion of being a foreigner is some-what overshadowed by the "esprit" of belonging to the residential unit.

On the other hand, the problems of the 1,000 graduate students are much more acute. With the exception of those from the British Commonwealth, most foreign graduate students come to Harvard with rosy expectations. Many look forward to an easy, unrestricted life, with little financial hardship. They picture the United States as a fluid yet very integrated society.

Once the graduate students arrive in Cambridge, however, they encounter innumerable difficulties. Three seem particularly severe: the housing problem, the unfamiliar academic system, and the retention of their "foreign-ness."

On the surface, housing is perhaps the most irritating of these difficulties. Although University housing cases the alienation of some foreign students, the number who live in such housing is surprising small. About three quarters of the students live "off-campus", primarily in isolated apartments, and often have no American contacts. If the foreign student is accepted to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences later than May, it is too late for him to apply to either the graduate dormitories or to the Harvard Housing projects, and he must search for an apartment of his own.

In addition, many choose to avoid the dorms voluntarily. Those coming from the Middle and Far East--about 50 per cent of GSAS foreign students--prefer to live in apartments, since this allows them, for instance, to cook their native dishes. Of the 100 GSAS students who do live in the graduate dorms, a large majority are Europeans.

Outside the dorms, the word "ghetto" is not uncommon among the foreign students. With apartment rentals as expensive as they are, five or six graduate students often crowd into one apartment, dividing the costs. Us-usually they stay with their own nationality.

At 355 Massachusetts Avenue, near Central Square, a large apartment building houses over 100 foreign students in close quarters. The proprietors realized several years ago that foreign graduate students, discriminated against by other landlords, would provide a lucrative market; they have since run an exclusively international business.

Housing problems are especially irksome for married students. In many cases, such students come from highly aristocratic backgrounds in their native countries, but are forced into suddenly humiliating conditions. Under student visas, wives are not normally allowed to work, and in most cases do not speak English as well as their husbands. They are forced either to remain at home, or to associate primarily with people from their own country--in either case, they have little chance to form friendships with Americans.

Perhaps the only housing unit which avoids these difficulties is the School of Public Health's experimental Shattuck House--a cooperative apartment complex that houses both American and foreign research fellows and students. Of the 63 apartments in the project, 37 are occupied by foreigners, 21 of whom are married. The necessity of washing clothes collectively alone has caused foreign students to make numerous close American friends.

The second problem--that of an unfamiliar academic system--stems primarily from the GSAS course system. Foreigners who have become accustomed to specialization and even academic tenure in their native countries find Harvard's graduate courses insulting and sometimes puerile. With so much emphasis on courses, exams, and papers, the students have less time to gain academic contacts. Although they admit that they learn more here than abroad, they regard such methods of teaching as suitable for a high school, not graduate study.

Housing and academic difficulties both contribute to the third problem--that of "foreign-ness." By the end of their stay here, many foreign students still feel isolated and culturally segregated. Many students blame American insensitivity for this feeling. They claim that nothing is more irritating than being asked: "How do you like America?" They seek not superficial cordiality but a few genuine American companions with whom they can discuss the very problems of adjustment which housing and academic tensions create. Of the many students encountered by the Reverend Reginald Smart of the International Ministry, "not more than one quarter have any kind of real friendship with any American."

This lack of "real friendship" is the central problem of the foreign graduate student. However, the organizations which try to case his problems have failed to provide such friendships. Virtually all the programs which exist at Harvard for the foreign student offer only artificial contacts with Americans, contacts which do not generally develop into the close relationships desired by foreign students.

This failure is especially evident in the International Students Association at 33 Garden Street. Although their dances are often attended by as many as 200 students, the ISA has had little regular response from those foreigners who consider themselves too "sophisticated" to be thrown into contrived companionship. They have also been unsuccessful in generating interest among American students in their programs.

Even the Family Host Program, run by the University International Students Office, has had little success in reducing the isolation of the foreign students. Although host families help the students during their first weeks in Cambridge, only in exceptional cases do they maintain contact with students after these opening weeks. In the similar host program run by the International Ministry, no more than 10 per cent of the contacts have been lasting.

The results of such failures and of such isolation are difficult to ascertain. No one knows how many foreign students return to their native countries with bitter memories of Harvard and the United States. It seems apparent, however, that the numbers are not insubstantial.