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<p>it’s harder for someone in a minority to keep cultural influences. a caucasian person trying to do the same is laughable, considering that this is America and society is mostly composed of Caucasians. so yes, a minority doing this makes much more sense.</p>
<p>Where does a kid go to housing and declare "my roommate can’t be (fill in the blank ethnicity, religion, etc) -?? In this case, seems the kids were blocked from voluntarily rooming together, buy I still wonder if op got the one true version of the story.</p>
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<p>Quite the non sequitur to my post, but fwiw that is not harder than for the Western majority to protect itself from potentially negative influences from other cultures.</p>
<p>The difference is the majority would quickly be accused of all possible sins.</p>
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<p>No, they do not. We’re talking undergraduates, not K-12 students here. As young adults, this should be strictly their decision and no one else.</p>
<p>And while this does have some “old world immigrant” vibes to it…at least the immigrants in OP’s account have adopted one recent upper/upper-middle class American custom…learning how to helicopter their young adult child with the best of them. :(</p>
<p>Back when I was in college, every undergrad I knew at my and other colleges dealt with matters such as roommate assignments/changes themselves. No one would have thought about involving parents.</p>
<p>I’m sorry the friends can’t room together if they want to. I do wonder how the parents could keep it from happening though. My daughter just switched rooms and told us about it afterwards. Her new roommate is her friend and of a different race/ethnicity and it never occurred to me that the other girl’s parents may not have wanted them to room together. We were happy our D could room with someone she considers a friend.</p>
<p>Imo, the parents are clearly racist, but they are within their rights to be racist. We don’t have “thought police” in this country; only one’s unlawful actions can be prosecuted. The parents won’t be able to force the college to comply with their racist requirements, but the college might accommodate them if another compliant student can be found.</p>
<p>xiggi - go support your home team!</p>
<p>The potential roommate is better off not rooming with a daughter whose parents are of the racist variety. No matter what the racist variety is. Nothing good can come of that. </p>
<p>let them go.</p>
<p>The girl may grow up to move away from her parents’ culture, eventually. But she isn’t going to do it now. White, black, native american, asian, pacific islander, latina/o, it doesn’t matter: a racist is a racist. Avoid.</p>
<p>“anyways, yes, Eastern culture in general is usually stricter about these things. parents usually want their children around people of the same background to preserve culture and whatnot.”</p>
<p>But doesn’t this fly in the face of the concept of diversity that our universities are trying so hard to create in their communities? And if admissions are sometimes based in part on racial and ethnic background to achieve the desired diversity, doesn’t this sort of attitude just say we will take advantage of the concept but not contribute to it?</p>
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<p>It’s my understanding that the friend didn’t want to go against her parents’ wishes.</p>
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<p>Not sure it’s just “Eastern culture”. Many hardcore “real American” evangelical fundamentalists also exhibit the same narrow-minded mentalities. </p>
<p>Heck, some evangelical fundamentalist colleges such as Bob Jones continued to enforce a rule against interracial relationships until a decade ago. They only stopped after a nationwide outcry about the fact such rules were still on the books and being enforced. Came across loud and clear with the way they stared at interracial couples dating…</p>
<p>I’ve also encountered a few folks in my college town area who’d probably take great umbrage if their “real American” kids were rooming with anyone who wasn’t of their race and/or having the same religious/political values.</p>
<p>“But doesn’t this fly in the face of the concept of diversity that our universities are trying so hard to create in their communities”</p>
<p>But we are not talking about rejecting a randomly assigned roommate. We are talking about a parent’s influence on a decision. (White) Mary’s parents could forbid her from rooming with (also white) Susie as sophomores because they think Susie is trash. Or Mary’s Christian parents could forbid her from dating a Jew. It seems to be the same difference here and it’s not for the university to get involved.</p>
<p>This angers me to such a great extent. I’m an Asian myself, and it seems like every Asian mom follows that stereotype of being controlling and having the impression that they are better than everyone else. It’s one thing if this mom was picking her own roommate, but her daughters at college? It’s like they only care about one thing, education, and disregard everything else that are vital in life like social skills and being independent. It’s ridiculous to think a parent has to go so far as to not let her adult 20 year old daughter who’s supposed to be becoming independent at college not even live in the same dorm as a white girl.</p>
<p><a href=“White”>quote</a> Mary’s parents could forbid her from rooming with (also white) Susie as sophomores because they think Susie is trash. Or Mary’s Christian parents could forbid her from dating a Jew. It seems to be the same difference here and it’s not for the university to get involved.
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<p>Some college housing departments also reserve the right to not honor such wishes as they may directly violate their own policies in areas such as roommate assignment or use of discrimination of protected classes as a factor.</p>
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<p>I’m Asian-American myself and in this area, my parents were completely hands off. </p>
<p>If anything, if I even bothered my parents or many folks in their generation about matters like this which were thought to be the complete domain of the student…they’d all be concerned about my maturity and fitness to be even attending college in the first place. </p>
<p>And I’m a thirty-something…not a current undergrad or recent college graduate.</p>
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<p>cobrat,</p>
<p>Your own racism is showing.</p>
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<p>Bay,</p>
<p>I’m just using the same language many American evangelical fundamentalists have used within the last few years. If you have an issue with it…take it up with them.</p>
<p>Only in CC can people make a big issue about “racism” about something some parent told some other parent about what her daughter said about a friend on why she does not want to room with her. :D</p>
<p>Yes because the majority is constantly committing these sins.</p>
<p>Also, who are you all to dictate what the parents may or may not with for THEIR daughter. Yes, she is an adult, but not every culture possesses the lackadaisical parenting styles of the west. To brand them “narrow minded” because of their beliefs is a cop out and rude.
Some in this country would not be Americanized. This is their prerogative.</p>
<p>"(White) Mary’s parents could forbid her from rooming with (also white) Susie as sophomores because they think Susie is trash. Or Mary’s Christian parents could forbid her from dating a Jew. It seems to be the same difference here and it’s not for the university to get involved."</p>
<p>Universities are not considering the above factors when making admissions decisions. But they may consider a Pakistani or any other Asian applicant more favorably in an effort to achieve their goal of a culturally diversified community. In either case I do not believe the university should get involved. I do believe however, that if this is truly the prevailing attitude then the universities should re-visit their admissions policies as they relate to diversity; seems they may only be achieving their goals in a very surface manner.</p>
<p>Does this even matter? if the parents don’t want that for their daughter, then respect it and move on</p>