Minorities Within Minorities

Tatiana H. Chaterji ’08 was startled by the role she was cast to play in the between-acts skit of this year’s production of Ghungroo, the hugely popular annual cultural fest put on by the South Asian Association (SAA). Chaterji, whose father is Bengali and mother Finnish American, was slated to play “the white girl” who is rejected by her boyfriend’s traditional Indian family. She turned down the role.

“I feel like I have to prove my brownness,” says Chaterji of her involvement in Harvard’s South Asian community.

Weijie Huang ’08, who says his Asian identity has been central to his college experience, says he feels misplaced among his Asian friends at times because of his sexuality.

“There was this whole other level I couldn’t relate to them and they couldn’t relate to me because I’m queer,” Huang says.

While some minority students say they turn to ethnic communities for a sense of belonging, those who fall between the cracks of traditional racial boundaries often feel they have to fight for their place on the Harvard campus.

These students with intersecting identities—whether racial, sexual, or political—are carving out niches by creating groups specific to their status as minorities within minorities.

‘THE OTHER MINORITY HALF’

Huang, an animated student who seems like he could strike up a conversation with any stranger, is ubiquitous in the Asian communities on campus. He sings in the Asian a capella group C-Sharp, directs the tutoring program Chinatown Afterschool, and helps out at events held by the Chinese Students Association (CSA), Taiwanese Cultural Society (TCS), and Asian American Association.

But for Huang, this involvement in the Asian community has forced him to choose one identity over another.

“It felt like coming in [to college] as a queer Asian, you had to choose one or the other,” he says.

His freshman year, Huang recalls, there was a senior involved in the Asian community who he heard was also queer, but the two never spoke to each other about their other identity.

“You don’t talk about the other minority half of yourself that you’re hiding or putting away for the purposes of this community...When you assimilate into one group you forget about the other one,” Huang says.

These experiences led Huang to create the Queer Asian Forum (QAF) last semester.

“I just felt totally disconnected, which is why I chose to talk about these things and create a community here for that,” Huang says. “The issue of having two intersecting identities is something important that needs to be addressed, especially if they’re both minorities.”

He co-founded the organization with Ana Huang ’08, who says she came to feel the need for an organization like QAF from a different perspective, outside the realm of Asian organizations. As an active member of the Harvard Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, and Supporters Alliance (BGLTSA) and the progressive community on campus, she says she knew mostly white people freshman year, and has yet to find her place in Asian American organizations.

“I’m trying to see if I can find a space in them,” she says.

But QAF—which she hopes will be a place “where queer Asian identities are not in the background but in the center focus”—is creating an unprecedented space for queer Asians by marrying the two identities, Ana Huang says.

“There’s definitely the unique experience to have people that you can identify with in a certain way...because it’s such a minority in a minority, it’s something that’s really rare and precious for those of us that are minorities within minorities.”

‘JUST PICK ONE IS A LITTLE MUCH’

Nearly all students of mixed race say they share Chaterji’s experience of having felt out-of-place in ethnic communities.

Paloma A. Zepeda ’06, who is half-Mexican and half-Russian, says when she showed up at meetings for the Mexican American student group RAZA, people often reacted by saying “Look, white people come to RAZA.”

“I am a member of the Hispanic community, but I don’t think that’s the sum total of everything. There’s the Russian heritage....To say just to pick one is a little much,” Zepeda says.

The same was true for Yalun H. Tu ’06 when he went to events hosted by CSA and TCS freshman year.

”They would talk about how Chinese mothers are overbearing and strict. But my mother is Caucasian and relaxed, so I couldn’t empathize,” Tu says. “I just didn’t feel that communal bond that I think often binds these groups.”

Samantha J. Parker ’08, who is half-Indian and half-Jewish, says she felt “inadequate” to become a part of SAA, explaining that she often missed cultural references that the other members shared.

Katharine E.S. Loncke ’08, who is half-black and half-Jewish, says that the intersection of race is something that comes up constantly in her life—and something she appreciates talking about with other multi-racial people.

“I have found that I feel a more immediate connection with mixed people. There’s a certain commonality in experience with people of mixed heritage. It’s nice to be able to relate on that level.”

In spring 2004, some students with these experiences of feeling out-of-place instituted the multiracial students’ organization ReMixed.

“It’s awesome...I walk into those things and not have to explain everything. I feel so much solidarity with other mixed people,” Chaterji says. “When people’s identities intersect in the same way, when you have enough people like that, it’s enough to form a group.”

The group’s first president Ndidi N. Menkiti ’06 says members “were generally very excited and thankful to finally have a space where they could talk openly about their experiences being of mixed race.”

Tu says he revived the defunct Half Asian People’s Alliance (HAPA) a year ago for similar reasons.

“I can usually tell from other people’s physicality that they’re hapa [Half-Asian]. I thought other hapas would share that bond,” Tu says.

ZEROING IN

“These groups keep getting more specific. The more specific you go the more comfortable it gets,” Chaterji says of groups such as Remixed or South Asian Women’s Collective, of which she is a board member.

Others echo the feeling of comfort within the specific communities of intersecting identities.

“It was central to my queer Asian experience that there were other queer Asians around,” Weijie Huang says.

Ana Huang says she shares the feeling.

“There’s a difference in support, in empathetic support and common experience,” she says.

“I don’t have to be fighting all the time, don’t have to be explaining all the time,” Chaterji says.

But the specificity can also translate into exclusiveness.

Chaterji says there is a “strict cultural divide between East Asians and South Asians,” which made her feel “uncomfortable at some events intended to target all Asians which realistically only involve East Asians.”

Parker says she felt the “obvious difference” at HAPA events, where students discussed East Asian identities and went out for dim sum, “which I enjoy, but don’t identify with culturally,” she says.

Differing political views within ethnic groups have also marginalized certain members.

For Zepeda, her politics made her a minority within the Mexican community.

Zepeda, who always has been active in the Hispanic community as a board member for RAZA, Latinas Unidas and Concillio Latino, says she constantly had to defend her identity as a political conservative.

“I was confronted with people that feel absolute hatred for minority conservatives, because they think of them as traitors, as absolute sell outs,” she says.

COMFORT ZONE

Chaterji recalls how in the beginning of her freshman year, she rarely ventured outside the South Asian community.

“It was very easy to stay in that zone,” she says. “These communities can be really warm to freshmen...I used to hang out with only South Asian people.”

But Chaterji says she realized her identity did not depend on taking part in a particular ethnic community, and she chose to break out of her comfort zone.

“I had to stop feeling like I have to prove I’m South Asian. I care, I know I care. I don’t have to go to events and things to prove that I am,” she says.

—Staff writer Victoria Kim can be reached at vkim@fas.harvard.edu.