Campus Minority Groups: Looking Inward and Outward

At Harvard College, there is "every type of group imaginable for every type of person imaginable," says Olivia D. A. Fields '93.

Among such groups are those which cater to minority students--groups which provide important social and support networks. And the roles they play are as diverse as the student body they serve.

Sometimes, the services they provide are perfectly mundane. The Undergraduate Council this year offered bus service to New Haven for the Harvard-Yale game. Black and Jewish students on campus had other options: a Black Students' Association (BSA) bus and a bus sponsored by Harvard-Radcliffe Hillel.

Other times, the groups serve as specialized magazine publishers. Diaspora deals with issues of concern to Black students. Mosaic is a magazine about Jewish issues. Korean-Americans founded Yisei, "the Korean cultural and literary magazine at Harvard," and Chinese-Americans have a special forum in East Wind. Do minority students read each others' magazines? And do white students read minority magazines?

The groups also serve as patrons of the arts. In addition to singing and acting with the rest of the community, Harvard Jews and Blacks have their own singing groups and their own drama groups.

Finally, minority communities serve as social scenes. The Bisexual, Gay and Lesbian Students Association (BGLSA) has its own dances, as does BSA and the Asian American Association (AAA).

The proliferation of ethnic and racial groups has led to what University of California at Berkeley sociologist Troy Duster has called "the Balkanization of the university." Each group wants its own building, its own programs, its own dances, even its own a capella singing group.

Duster notes, however, that while Hillel and the Newman Foundation for Catholic Students have been around for years, "it's only when we get people of color doing this that we begin to talk about Balkanization."

The contemporary university, then, may be something like an old-time American city. If ethnic organizations serve as neighborhoods, then the Chinese Students Association might be San Francisco's Chinatown, Hillel is New York's Lower East Side and the newly formed Italian American Association is Boston's North End.

Why do some people choose to live in ethnic neighborhoods, and why do others avoid them? Why do some Harvard students join organized minority groups, and why do others steer clear?

Mario F. Delci '94 says that "even in the minority community, [there are] two different groups: those who are active, and those who aren't."

"Both sides will list lots of reasons," Delci says. "It's their choice."

Those who choose not to get involved list a variety of reasons, from personality of the individual to reputation of the group.

For Ronetta L. Fagan '94, who is Black, it was a simple question of character. "I've never been sort of a group joiner," she says.

Other times, there are no reasons other than the obvious. "I just didn't feel the need to be in the group," says Asian-American student Edward C. Yim '94. "I didn't feel the need to surround myself with Asians all the time."

Eugene H. Chung '94, who is Korean-American, says he avoids minority organizations because "they're too isolationist for me."

"To maintain diversity, you have to get out there and associate with everyone else," Chung says.

In some cases, a few early encounters with a campus minority group can turn a student off. Fagan went to a few Freshman Black table and BSA meetings during her first year here. "It was very cliquish," she says, adding that she found BSA "too politicized," plagued by "too many factions." As a result, she chose not to get involved.

And there is also a "phenomenon" of "minority students who don't necessarily identify with the dominant minority culture," and therefore shy away from organized minority groups, says Olivia Fields. Fields describes herself as one such student. Joining a group is a matter of identity, and Fields says she identifies more with being a woman than with being Black.

Finally, some minorities don't even have a choice about whether to join a group. Manuel S. Varela '94 was born in Spain. At Harvard, he found organizations for Mexican-Americans (RAZA) and Puerto Ricans (La Organizacion), but not for students from Spain. "To some extent I was turned off by that," Varela says, and as a consequence, he "didn't really get involved" in any Hispanic groups.

Those who choose not to become involved with their ethnic or racial communities are often sensitive to reaction from members of those groups.

"I guess a lot of people would say that they didn't consider me a real Black person," says Pamela D. Meekins '94. Meekins says her friends come from a variety of backgrounds, and that she does not let her race become a defining factor in her identity.

Yet Meekins says she is sometimes accused of neglecting her background. "This is something you hear a lot if you're a Black person who is not stereotypically Black."

Eugene Chung says he experiences the same problem with fellow Asian students. "I'm sure some feel that I'm shirking my identity or that I'm trying to be more white," he says. "Some call it the banana syndrome."

But there is no consensus about the extent of such intragroup resentment at Harvard. Fields, for example, says that while she felt "animosity" from Blacks at her high school, she has experienced nothing of the sort at Harvard.

Students, however, list just as many reasons favoring involvement in racial or ethnic organizations as they do for avoiding them. For many, the groups play important social, political and cultural roles. Anton N. Quist '92, co-president of the Harvard African Students Association, says the groups help minorities feel more at home and allow them to interact with students from similar backgrounds. The groups also help unify a minority community in case it "is the target of some sort of injustice," Quist says.

Muneer I. Ahmad '93, co-president of the South Asian Association, also cites a variety of reasons for being active in an ethnic group. The Association, he says, celebrates ethnicity and serves as a support and networking group. Getting together with other South Asians makes it easier for Ahmad to share his culture with others. And the organization itself provides an institutional basis for interaction with other groups, he says.

Hillel serves a unique role for Orthodox Jews on campus. Religious law says the students must pray twice a day and eat kosher food. So Hillel, with its religious services and kosher dining hall, becomes a necessity more than a choice. Approximately 120 students, mostly Jews, eat dinner at Hillel every night, according to Rabbi Sally Finestone.

The ethnic, racial and cultural groups function as support networks for many of those who belong to them. Nelson B. Boyce '92, a BSA member, says, "the common thing at the base of the whole matter is that we're all Black and in that, we should come together and celebrate Blackness, and look out for one another and make sure that not only do we graduate, but that we all graduate with honors."

And for Mario Delci, when it came time to choose a concentration, it was RAZA people who convinced him that he would be able to write an honors thesis for Social Studies. "That's where the support came from," Delci says. "Not from the University, but from RAZA."

Ellen I. Smith '92, a co-president of Native Americans at Harvard, calls the group "a real support system."

"For those people who are coming from reservations, or places with high Native American populations, it's very important to have that kind of support system here," Smith says.

Some students overcome initial aversion to the groups and eventually join after the group--for whatever reason--undergoes a change of character or composition.

Sharmila Sen, for example, went to the South Asian table in Adams House once during her first year at Harvard, and was "turned off by it." She says it was "mainly people who had just come over [to the U.S.]" She did not have much in common with them, and was not interested in their discussion, which she says focused on pre-med issues.

Later, after taking a Hindi language class, Sen met more South Asians. She became more active in the South Asian Association after many of the people who once frequented the South Asian table had graduated.

Ahmad also overcame an initial negative experience before becoming active in a group. Ahmad says he went to his first Asian American Association (AAA) meeting and was given a form with different regional groups to check off, such as Chinese or Korean. The form had "no spot for South Asian," says Ahmad, who quickly left the meeting.

Then, Ahmad says, he went to AAA meetings and people asked him what he was doing there. Today, the South Asian student sits on the AAA steering committee.

Ahmad's experience points to the vast diversity that exists within the boundaries of ethnic groups that are sometimes mistakenly perceived as monolithic. Every group, it seems, has factions and subdivisions. And increasingly, inter-racial marriages yield offspring with complex identities. In short, even minorities have minorities.

Hillel Coordinating Council Chair Daniel J. Libenson '92 says "there's a tremendous amount of division within Judaism, both religious and nationalistic."

Among Black students, there are variations in skin color. There are also Caribbean Blacks with a different culture from African Blacks or African-American Blacks. Hispanics include those with Mexican, Puerto Rican and Spanish parents. Native Americans have tribal differences.

And within AAA, there are Chinese-Americans, Indians, Pakistanis, Philipinos, Japanese, Koreans, Cambodians, Vietnamese and others, all with historical alliances and antipathies. Even within subgroups, there are generational differences and distinctions between those whose families immigrated at different times.

Do these organized ethnic groups work together and talk to each other, or do they end up in conflict? Most students agree that there is some basic level of cooperation, but there are doubts about how far it goes.

"SAA [South Asian Association] is showing a movie with BGLSA [Bisexual, Gay and Lesbian Students' Association]," Sharmila Sen says. "What does that mean? I'd love to see when this movie is being shown. Who will sit where?"

One group that has had trouble coordinating with other organizations is BGLSA. "We've had problems with other groups," says former Co-Chair Sheila C. Allen '93, while lauding Hillel, which she says "has been really, really good on gay issues."

At times, many say, it seems as though the groups exist in a vacuum. "I don't see any interaction between the various communities," says, Zaheer R. Ali '94, who is vice president of BSA.

BGLSA Co-Chair Sandi DuBowski '92 agrees. "I think a lot of communities at Harvard look inward and don't seek to link up with other communities," he says.

During the controversy that developed last year after a student hung a Confederate flag from her window in Kirkland House, "people were marching here and there and never had a discussion," Ali says of the event, which prompted a coordinated Hillel/BSA response.

Natosha O. Reid '93, who is also Black, agrees with Ali that in many cases, the groups shout past each other. "I don't see a true interaction or alliance of different racial groups on campus," Reid says.

Even groups that are designed to foster interaction sometimes seem to act in ways that prevent it. When the Harvard Foundation held a recent panel discussion on "The Challenges to Race Relations at the Ivy League and Public Universities," on a Friday night, Jews who attend Friday night Sabbath services were effectively barred from the event.

Moreover, says Fields, when groups do get together, they are often dismissed as "just another minority group having just another beef."

One issue that has served to unify the minority groups is that of faculty diversity. The Minority Student Alliance (MSA), a student coalition of representatives from campus minority groups, has been fighting for five years to bring more minority faculty to Harvard.

But the Alliance has been more successful in gaining the allegiance of its representatives than it has been in gaining the support of the entire community. In addition, gays and Jews are not officially represented in the Alliance, which says it is open to any group that sends a representative.

Clearly, Harvard lacks what Dartmouth Senior Associate Dean of Students Ngina Lythcott calls a "cross-cultural coalition" of feminists, Jews, gays and students of color--a coalition that makes for "a sophisticated level of student politics," she says of the campus that, of course, is also home to the Dartmouth Review.

The MSA is still struggling to define its role, attract more student participation and develop an agenda that goes beyond advocating more minority and women faculty. This October, for example, the group held a meeting entitled "Can There Be a Minority Students Alliance?"

But that question is only one among the many that minority students organizations are currently grappling with. While recognizing that they play an important part in creating a niche for many minority students, the organizations must also deal with those students who do not feel comfortable joining organizations based only on race or ethnicity.

Minority organizations, play a unique role among campus extracurricular groups, providing an opportunity for students to make sense of their own identities while celebrating the diversity of the community.

But to succeed, many say, such groups must turn their attention both inward and outward. Of course, they must create an atmosphere where all members of a particular group feel comfortable. But perhaps the greater task is ensuring that such groups do not exist in a vaccum, that each individual group plays a constructive role within Harvard's community of difference.

COMING TOMORROW IN THE CRIMSON'S FOUR-PART FEATURE SERIES ON DIVERSITY AT HARVARD:

* WHAT THE UNIVERSITY AS AN INSTITUTION CAN DO TO IMPROVE MINORITY RELATIONS AT HARVARD.

DEALING WITH DIFFERENCEPhotoJonathan Wade Goldman