Diversity is a term celebrated at Tufts not only in its mission statement but on its campus as well. The senior class is made up of 15 percent international students and 26 percent students of color, according to Jane Etish-Andrews, director of the International Office. One of the most popular undergraduate majors is International Relations. The university plays host to numerous student groups devoted to the concerns of various cultures, nationalities and religions.
But a devotion to diversity, some say, does not necessarily result in a devotion to integration. Many students feel that while Tufts can boast a multifarious roster, demographics on campus tend to keep to themselves, leaving individual students' social experiences anything but diverse.
When sophomore Porakrit Leophairatana from Bangkok arrived on campus his freshman year, he immediately befriended several American students. He also sought out students of heritages similar to his own. In the past year, however, the Asian students he once regarded as a pleasant safety net have become his singular social life, while his American friends seem to have lost touch.
"[Among us] Asian friends, we're still more confident and comfortable talking to each other," Leophairatana said. "I see [the cultural separation] happen everywhere. The International kids seem like they exist in a different world."
Similarly, senior Danna Solomon from New Jersey said that she came to Tufts hoping to meet students of many backgrounds and did — but rarely saw them after Undergraduate Orientation.
"I met a lot of international students and was very friendly with them, but after that short period, I felt it got harder and harder to stay in contact with them," Solomon said. "All of my friends seemed to peel off into groups of culturally, religiously or politically alike people."
In many cases, the cultural organizations that attempt to help international and minority students adjust to college actually make it more difficult for students to branch out, some students say.
Solomon suspected that the main reason she grew apart from her international friends was because many of them got involved — and swept up — in various special interest groups ,through which most of their lasting social groups were formed.
"On such an involved campus, students of different nationalities, including Americans, tend to join organizations that consist of people similar to them, and they hang out mostly with each other," she said.
Leophairatana agreed. He joined International Orientation (IO) to meet students who could understand the difficulties he was experiencing. The program, however, had an unintended result: It encouraged him to form friendships with students almost exclusively from Asia.
Junior Phichaya Manathanya, who also participated in IO, felt the program gave him most of his close friends — almost all of whom are international.
"All my friends are from IO," Manathanya said. "I do hang out with some American kids, but, mostly, I still stick to my own kind."
Often, ties to cultural student groups begin early on and lay the groundwork for students' social networks for the next four years, Senior Lecturer of Chinese Jinyu Li said.
"Once a student arrives from Hong Kong, it is very likely that people from an organization like the Hong Kong Students Association will meet him or her, and they become friends," Li said. "One student from Hong Kong who just graduated recently told me that one of the regrets he had was [not] mixing with more students other than those from Hong Kong. I asked him [whether] he had any friends who are Americans. And the answer, he said, was obviously no."
Often, the homogenous social networks created by special interest groups extend into living quarters as well. The Tufts campus is home to 15 special interest houses, including the Africana, Asian American Culture, Chinese Language, French Language, German Language, International, Japanese Language, Jewish Culture, Latino Culture, Muslim Culture, Spanish Language, Rainbow and Russian/Slavic Culture Houses, and while these houses are not exclusive to any one demographic, they often attract a uniform group.
The residents of the French house, its advisor, Emese Soos, said, do not have major issues meeting American students, but they are drawn mostly to one another. That's part of the philosophy behind joining the house in the first place, she explained.
"They like to seek out their own people," Soos said.
While the main objective of theme houses is to bring like people together, Soos said that some houses, as well as special interest groups, are also taking measures to mix with other communities, be they international or American.
Li agreed, noting that the Chinese House encourages Chinese-speakers who are not necessarily of Chinese nationality to live in the theme house.
"Chinese House itself is not really a tool for diversity," Li said. "But we also try to have different [residents] like Koreans, Chinese-Americans and even Americans who lived in China."
The International House and International Orientation are looking to do the same.
"We invite Americans to [take part in] IO, and over 50 percent of participants are Americans [who are either] permanent residents or who have lived overseas," Etish-Andrews said.
