<p>^^well danged! The brake cylinder on hubby’s tractor just went out and he’d love to get a lead on a good tractor dealership…no…not kidding…they really did go out this week…right in the middle of getting all the firewood moved. Ugh… Nothing like having to drag the bucket for braking ability.</p>
<p>When D was in preschool she said, “mom, I’m what races? All the kids are at least two, so what two or more am I?”</p>
<p>Since she is only one race, she decided to share with her classmates her race and religion, so she could be. There is a lot of mixed heritage in HI.</p>
<p>It is my understanding that at schools with a diversity gen ed requirement, there is no single class or group of classes that is used to fulfill the requirement. Instead, students choose from among a number of classes in several different departments. Students can choose to explore their own cultural background from a fresh academic perspective, or to learn about a new culture. ideally, I would like to see students get an opportunity to do some of each.</p>
<p>I would however imagine that students can self-segregate in classes that count for “diversity” gen ed requirements. Perhaps I am being shallow and racist, but it might be promising to know that classes offered through the African American Studies department, for instance, enroll students with a wide variety of backgrounds, including international students, white and Asian-American students, and African-American students. It would also be good to see that classes on Middle Eastern culture and politics enroll Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and agnostic students, and so forth.</p>
<p>I do not know how anyone would obtain this information without visiting a campus. Perhaps students and families can report back from their experiences on “accepted student days”, when at least some schools encourage prospective students to sit in on a variety of classes. Perhaps this is shallow and racist of me, but I might want to know if students are self-segregating by race in the intro classes in, say, African American Studies, or East Asian Culture.</p>
<p>I have some interesting bits to share as well. My D for her roommate selection in freshman year, decided to befriend an American Indian on College’s facebook page, not Cherokee but from India the land of Budhdha and Karma. And it did not turn out to be a very pleasant experience. It was a clash of value system. </p>
<p>My D is well travelled, lived in US for a while, lived in metros here in India, went to a Private world school, in an IBDP program, very cosmoplitan in her outlook, and dare I say very liberal upbringing in terms of tolerant religious views, eating habits, eats beef and anything that is served and a value system which is more spiritual rather than religious. The only rigid rule - Be a good human being.</p>
<p>The roommate on the other hand, was a confused person, with strict moral and cultural values at home and absolute freedom once they step out of the fourwalls. Lived in suburban America, visits back home in India were limited to villages and small towns, where womenfolk still keep their heads covered. Totally ignorant about the modern Indian city living and lifestyle. So the first time out of house was totally uncontrolled socialising without a care for the other person. Classic case of what we call ABCD - American Born Confused Desi.</p>
<p>Come Sophomore year and D decided to opt for random roommate selection. 5 girls in a 3 bedroom apartment. 3 American white females and 1 Yellow Asian from Hongkong-single room and 1 Brown girl from India, my D. </p>
<p>This year has been a very relaxed and chilled out experience so far. She and her American roommate get along fine. But the other 2 American girls for some reason kept picking on the Asian girl for every little thing, no guests, no music, no going out late night, expecting her to do their dishes and talking down all the time. The RA and dorm faculty had to intervene and now things have calmed down finally. </p>
<p>My D has on the whole is enjoying the experience we expected and she wanted to have in choosing NYC. She has friends from all over the world. It is fun when she visits us during holidays. She is a fantastic mimic and the way she regales stories about the French guy friend who is so in touch with his feminine side, The Syrian classmate, the Saudi Arabian Scarf clad rich girlfriend and friend with highly accentuated Texan drawl, is hilarious. She has made friends with so many from across the Border, while we here in the subcontinent do not enjoy any interaction with a neighbour with whom we share our past, thanks to dirty politics on both sides. I so much want to go visit the home where my father was born and which he left at the age of 10 due to partition. But alas will stay a dream only.</p>
<p>We feel so Blessed that she is able to connect and appreciate and accept all that the college is offering her in terms of Global Human Interaction. I think the college captures for her the spirit and the realisation that she expressed in her Commonapp essay as well, that we all want to be accepted for who we are and it does not matter where you come from. You just need to be a considerate, accepting and caring person and have little bit of sense of humour to fit in.</p>
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<p>I remember student protests in favor of such a requirement. The cynical saw it as a bunch of ethnic studies majors who wanted to be able to take their own ethnicity’s ethnic studies for the requirement while adding requirements for everyone else. But then the faculty implemented it but required that qualifying courses cover multiple ethnicities and cultures, eliminating most ethnic studies courses from qualifying.</p>
<p>I think colleges differ in how much diverse students are integrated, and it can be hard to tell from a distance–part of it is just going to be the ethos of that particular school. So asking people who go there is the best approach–but you may have to read between the lines. “People of all races are welcome in our group” is different from “There are people of all races in our group.” You can also look at housing–ie., are there fraternaties and sororities that are race-specific? How many? You might look at other race-specific organizations, but I think that’s less indicative–even if there is an African-American association, that doesn’t mean that students don’t mix.</p>
<p>Let me sum up the Diversity and Integration, in this case, (post 65)</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Two Brown girls found it a challenge to live together, same but not integrated.</p></li>
<li><p>The White girls and the Yellow girl had issues, Diverse and not integrated.</p></li>
<li><p>The Brown and the White girl are friends, Diverse and integrated.</p></li>
<li><p>The Brown girl and the White girl and the Yellow girl are friends, Diverse and integrated.</p></li>
<li><p>No formula really. Every individual, with their own burden of limitations and conditioned according to their upbringing, will have to find a way to fit in, if they want to be happy.</p></li>
</ul>
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<p>Out of curiosity, were those two “American” girls punished for their actions…especially forcing her to do the dishes and talking down to her?</p>
<p>At my LAC, the last two would have violated community rules on respecting other students and harassment and got them brought before the judicial board. And that’s not the end of it. Most of the campus would be in an uproar if it took place when I attended. </p>
<p>The racial and American/international differences would have worsened matters as the campus community would clearly see this as an instance of a privileged person taking advantage of a less privileged person.</p>
<p>My D did not disclose the details of how it was handled. But they were all called in. And there was a long enquiry, that is all I know.</p>
<p>She is not very forthcoming in these kind of situations, finds them very unpleasant to deal with. In fact the freshman year challenges, she shared the amount of stress she was undergoing, only when she came home during the summer. But it did tell on her academics and health both. Sophomore year we could see the difference roommate equations can have on our kids.</p>
<p>I have to say that my D did say once to me in passing, “ma it does not pay to be nice and good in this world. You don’t know how mean some people are.” And I just told her do not allow the nastiness of others to change the goodness within you. The good is always more powerful and gives one peace of mind. Nastiness has no end.</p>
<p>By the way the International students are the ones who get there only because they can afford to as they are not entitled to Scholarships and FA in this college. So actually they go from homes where they have not really had to do any chores whatsoever and have led a very protected and privileged life. So it is surprising that people would think they are any less. But I guess it is because of very limited knowledge about other cultures the Americans are encouraged to explore or exposed too. </p>
<p>I do not mean it is an offence to anybody. Apologies if anyone feels that. But I have lived in US for sometime and I was very amused when our American friends would express surprise at how articulate I was or my 7 year old was while speaking in English. But I understand that. We here in India are exposed to so much diversity through all kinds of medium - movies, TV, Books, Magazines. The schools encourage reading of history and politics of various countries in the world. So it is in our blood, kind of second nature to be in the know of things, be accepting, adjust. We have so much of diversity within our own country.</p>
<p>So really I understand when people feel threatened by others who are not like them. It is ok. Once they get to know us they will know we really are no different. I am only talking about the ones who feel threatened and we have them here at home in India as well, who cannot see beyoond their caste, creed and religion. Education and knowledge are powerful tools and we must use them to change that.</p>
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<p>First, some international students at my college are given college scholarships equivalent to FA/scholarships lower-income US students receive…especially at the Conservatory. </p>
<p>Second, none of that is relevant to the fact that what those two American girls did to the Hong Kong international student is abhorrent and horrid. </p>
<p>If this incident came up at my LAC, there would be many college admins, adcoms, Profs, and most of the students would be wondering how in the world people who are that nasty and lacking in basic decency were admitted. </p>
<p>In fact, there were many conversations on the alum forum along those lines when the cumulative vandalism and physical assaults targeting those who are Jewish, African-American, and GLTBQ since the start of this spring semester in February became recent national news.</p>
<p>cobrat</p>
<p>I absolutely agree with all that you say. See that is the Indian in me. I am sure the University has some procedures in place. As far as I know they have zero tolerance policy for this kind of behaviour. But I guess someone has to raise the issue in order that it can be dealt with. I think that is exactly what happened here.</p>
<p>I also have to say that I absolutely love how passionately concerned you are about the events that I shared just to reflect on diversity and integration on campus. It is good to virtually meet people like you here on CC.</p>
<p>Interpretations can be so important, too.
In high school, I had one particular black friend that wanted to date only white girls. He confided in me that if one he asked out turned him down, that he would use what we now call the race card- “It’s because I’m black!” he’d say. Often times putting the girl in a position that made her feel or led her to believe others would feel she was an awful racist. Someone overhearing part of the conversation might unfairly think poorly of the girl. Sometimes, a girl would relent, and go out with him. Just his plan to date white girls. After all, it was just high school.</p>
<p>As a side note, one girl did put a stop to it. Once after his loud comment about turning him down because he was black, she responded "“No! It’s because you’re an a$$hole!”</p>
<p>The schools my kids applied to and attended all pride themselves on being diverse, but nonetheless seemed to believe that some degree of self-segregation was what students were looking for. I found that really odd. They enthusiastically pushed their X Student Organizations and Y Student Houses, not only to the kids but to the parents as well. Their mailings implied they understood that we’d feel so much more comfortable about S or D attending there, knowing there were “others just like him or her,” and that there existed organizations and affinity houses where s/he could “feel at home.” The schools also made a number of stereotypical (and mildly insulting to DH) assumptions about what the parents of an X student might be concerned about regarding the residential college experience. They also assumed we required the mailings to be written in our supposed native language.</p>
<p>S’s college, especially, was relentless about wanting him to be part of the relevant ethnic organization on campus. He didn’t identify with that group at all, and asked three times to be removed from the mailing list. They never did comply with his request. I guess they thought that one day he’d realize he actually did need his fellow X students? It really annoyed S.</p>
<p>In high school, I had one particular black friend that wanted to date only white girls. He confided in me that if one he asked out turned him down, that he would use what we now call the race card- “It’s because I’m black!” he’d say. Often times putting the girl in a position that made her feel or led her to believe others would feel she was an awful racist. Someone overhearing part of the conversation might unfairly think poorly of the girl. Sometimes, a girl would relent, and go out with him. Just his plan to date white girls. After all, it was just high school</p>
<p>^^^^
This was an episode of 30Rock with Wayne Brady & LL Cool J. 
[30</a> Rock, Season 1, Episode 16: The Source Awards](<a href=“LINK ALTERNATIF Demen303 | Judi Slot Online 24jam Indonesia Terpercaya 2023”>LINK ALTERNATIF Demen303 | Judi Slot Online 24jam Indonesia Terpercaya 2023)</p>
<p>I think size has a lot to do with a perfect fit depending on your other interests.
International students benefit from having a home base to help deal with transitions and to stay in touch with their families, but are attracted by resources that help support their interests and generally seem more interested in assimilating than in remaining apart.</p>
<p>I have observed high schools with roughly mirror image students ( economic level & race) behave very differently socially depending on the dominant group, or even whether there is a dominant group. However as colleges are generally larger than high schools ( these high schools are about 1400 students), I would think that you could ask 10 different university students and they each would have a different opinion of the chemistry of the campus.</p>
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<p>Anialway can you elaborate on how this makes her a confused person? Many kids rebel against strict rules at home once at college wherever they are from. It could be that she’s trying to find herself. Why does this necessarily make her “confused”? And I fail to see how her not being well-traveled or knowledgeable about society and culture in urban India (which is a foreign country for her) is relevant to her social life in America. </p>
<p>Also I’d be careful about labeling this one experience as characteristic of all ABCDs…</p>
<p>sciencenerd</p>
<p>I am also very careful with generalisations and labelling. If you read my post carefully I am just writing about my impression and opinion based on what I know. The ABCD is just one way of addressing it. ABCD ia well known phenomenon. I did not make it up.</p>
<p>On wiki,</p>
<p>“ABCD or American-Born Confused Desi has become a polarizing factor in the South Asian diaspora in the US, with first-generation immigrant parents and young South Asians of second or latter generations. Though the term was originally coined in reference to Indian-Americans, it has been adopted by the South Asian community at large.”</p>
<p>And it is true for the young here in India as well. They get mixed signals one at home and completely different when they step out of the house. The statement is for those who are confused. Also my D did not go with the chip on her shoulder. It was the other way around. There are some desis who have the same issues with Indians that the two White girls had with the yellow girl. Go figure. It is a fact. And like I said I understand people feeling threatened.</p>
<p>And let me say being well travelled and being flexible, being exposed to other cultures and not being judgemental about the other people’s religious views, cultural and moral values and accepting of others does make adjusting in another culture easier, whether you agree with or not that is your prerogative. And it could be America or UK or Australia or Timbuktu, it does not matter.</p>
<p>Anyway this was not passing judgement on anyone, just sharing of my opinion. And for the record my D has great set of American Indian friends as well. This opinion was only for what she had to go through the freshman year roommate experience. I am sorry you feel offended with this.</p>
<p>Also sciencenerd I am an Indian and a very proud one at that. While I salute Indians all over the world who work hard and are making a name for themselves and trying to give a their families a better life, I am not blind to to the fact that there are issues as well. And this is not an article or a documentary on Indians. It is what it is, my D’s experience.</p>
<p>Sorry for the typo read commentary not documetary.</p>
<p>Anialways thanks for clarifying. I just find it annoying if people assume things about others esp a group that I am a part of. It’s unfortunate your daughter had such a experience with the roommate.</p>