Let’s Dance Together! Bridging Cultural Siloes on Campus

I like to dance. But I have been met with amused bafflement at my two dance-related decisions on campus, from friends and strangers alike: one, my recent choice to join Candela, Harvard’s Latin social dance group, and two, the fact that I have not once been in the Asian-American Dance Troupe since I “seem like I’d be in AADT.”

Of course, these comments were made without malice. But the surprise that my (Asian-American) Candela dance partner and I would love to salsa, and my odd sense of shame at not being in AADT (like it’s some rite of passage for any Harvard east-Asian girlie who ever had a K-pop phase) made me cognizant of the unspoken cultural borders divvying up campus organizations.

That is, we could and should do better with intercultural dialogue — while protecting how Harvard student organizations cultivate their own flourishing spaces.

Why the emphasis on diversity? Well, it leaves a weird taste in my mouth to have to “prove” this claim, but having a wide variety of friends makes you a better human. Research has revealed that a lack of meaningful interaction with those of other racial groups leads us to be less open-minded, resort to stereotypes, and to assume everyone’s reality is similar to ours. In fact, one synthesis of 515 studies found that the more contact people had with those outside their racial group, the less prejudiced they were.

Unfortunately for us, one study based on 2007 national survey data found that friendships formed in college are among the least likely to be racially diverse compared to those formed in other environments. So even though Harvard admits a diverse pool of undergraduates, we (including myself, I admit) may be forming increasingly homogeneous social circles. (Though, it’s worth pointing out that people of color do a better job: According to a 2022 study from the Public Religion Research Institute, Hispanic, AAPI, and Black Americans are much less likely than white Americans to have racially homogeneous friendship networks).

Still, as mentioned, we should still protect enclaves at Harvard that allow students to embrace their identities and create community. This is especially true for smaller and/or historically marginalized groups where it may be harder to find others that empathize with, and don’t speak over, your nuanced experiences. Case in point: In 2019, students at a Harvard forum called “The Role of Asian Cultural Organizations on Campus” called out the overrepresentation of East Asians in “purportedly pan-Asian spaces” — implying that we shouldn’t broadly prioritize intercultural groups over smaller, but more empowering and safer spaces of belonging.

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You may argue that bridging cultural groups isn’t a huge problem, since we can meet friends unlike us in many ways, like classes or non-culturally-affiliated clubs.

However, even amongst diverse classmates, we often experience homophily, the tendency to gravitate towards those similar to us. Furthermore, our classes might not be representative due to histories of racial exclusion in certain fields. For example, in Harvard’s admitted Class of 2026, 15.2 percent of Harvard’s admitted class of 2026 identify as African-American and 12.6 percent identify as Hispanic or Latinx. By contrast, a 2022 survey revealed that each of these groups make up only 9 percent of undergraduates at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. So, given this self-segregation tendency and these patterns of historical underrepresentation, maybe your problem set buddies are more homogeneous than you realize.

Likewise, non-cultural organizations can still be dominated by certain identities, which may result in a feeling of implicit exclusion. No wonder our students have nurtured countercultural spaces to explore areas they’ve historically been unwelcome in from Lavender Room Magazine, which is centered on diversity in fashion; to LiFT, which represents Harvard Latinx in Finance and Technology; to HSBSE, the Harvard Society of Black Students and Engineers.

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So what do we do? We should be more open-minded, but we shouldn’t collect “diverse friends” like Pokemon, nor intrude on safe spaces that communities create for themselves.

Honestly, dance — and any cultural form of expression — is a great middle-ground to start dialogue. Harvard’s Ghungroo, a dance and music showcase centering South Asian culture and the diaspora, does this well: Not only is it a stalwart of South Asian belonging at Harvard, it also actively welcomes — and successfully includes — eager non-South-Asian students regardless of dance experience.

Still, when making these spaces open to genuine allyship and curiosity, how do we not have marginalized groups sacrifice emotional labor and their sense of safety to cater to outsiders that might harbor superiority complexes for being culturally woke? (I think of those self-satisfied white dude influencers that surprise Chinatown locals with fluent Mandarin.)

A potential answer is collaboration. Some clubs are doing it already — from Harvard Creative Writing Collective’s poetry reading last semester with the Black Arts Collective and the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, to a discussion of bodily femininity recently co-hosted by the Asian American Women’s Association and South Asian Women’s Collective. However, such collaborations take a lot of intentionality and resources to plan — so the Harvard Undergraduate Association or the Harvard Culture Lab Innovation Fund, which supports initiatives fostering diversity and belonging, should more explicitly fund and encourage intersectional events.

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As a first-year, I helped start The Wave Asian Arts Magazine, intended to pioneer pan-Asian creativity on campus.

But when it veered towards East Asian creators, and when that same year, Ghungroo created its own South Asian arts magazine, I felt like I failed. And I still feel that it’s important to strive for equitable representation, and to find collective empowerment through what we find in common.

But maybe I should’ve viewed that “failure” as a chance to converse with other groups. Communities have the right to forge their own spaces, so perhaps, proactive solidarity is just as important as inclusion: to have all our voices heard, the way we want them to be.

Anyway, I’ll be performing at Cultural Rhythms this Saturday with Candela (I’m nervous!). If you’re there, I’d love to bond with you over our familiarities or unfamiliarities with the merengue, K-pop dance, or the famous guest they have yet to reveal (I’m hoping it’s Lizzo).

And I hope that initial camaraderie we foster makes it easier to converse candidly when we meet again: about our hobbies, our histories, our hopes. After all, it’s always wonderful to find another friend to experience the world with.

Vanessa B. Hu ‘23-24 is a junior in Currier House studying Computer Science. Her column, “Hopes and Hypocrisies,” runs on alternate Mondays.