Often touted for the diversity and open-mindedness of its community, Tufts makes great efforts to provide for the variety of minority groups on its campus. But for Asian and Asian American students on the Hill, the university continues to fall short of its goal to be free of discrimination and stereotyping.
Most prominently, the bias incident involving the Korean Student Association (KSA) in 2009 has remained on the mind of the Asian and Asian American communities on campus.
"This drunk fraternity brother was in Lewis, where the Korean Student Association was practicing for a culture show," senior William Huang, who has served as the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate Asian American Community Rep for the past year, said. "He mocked them, and they asked him to get out, and then they restrained him when he started fighting them. He started yelling 'you [ethnic slur], go back to China.'"
Although the issue began with that incident, it only intensified after the confrontation.
"The worst part was that the administration did not react right away. They waited a week, even though there were so many eye witnesses, and even though the students performed all the right measures, like going through the RA system," Huang said. "The students felt disillusioned and that Tufts was trying to protect its reputation."
Although he was not present when the fight occurred, Huang still felt its effects.
"After the incident, I felt angry and isolated ... the institutional response was very disappointing," he said.
Huang added that the administration did not immediately condemn the actions of the drunk student but instead conducted a lengthy investigation. The entire situation led Huang to question the university's efforts to understand the Asian and Asian American communities.
"I definitely think that the campus is missing an educational component when it comes to issues relating to diversity, privilege and marginalization," he said. "It's important to put into context that the slurs uttered by the drunk freshman are consistent with the idea that Asian Americans are viewed as 'perpetual foreigners' and not authentic Americans."
Huang said that after the KSA incident, he didn't feel welcome at Tufts because other students were saying that the Asian community on campus was overreacting.
"After the incident I felt a little threatened, with no one to turn to besides the Asian American center, which was a good resource," he said.
Junior Alex Chan, program assistant for the Asian American Center's peer leader program, also mentioned the far-reaching impact of the KSA incident. According to Chan, sensitive topics like race are often sidestepped on campus.
"The first thing that was really shocking for me when I came to Tufts is that everything has to be so politically correct," Chan said. "There is some merit to that, but I think that it really shields Tufts from being completely open to a lot of issues, especially race."
Chan added that being an Asian American on campus is difficult because there are underlying racial issues and struggles that people don't recognize.
"One thing that was hidden was the KSA incident in 2009 and the fallout from it," Chan said. "The way the administration handled it reflects how the campus deals with racial diversity."
According to Chan, the fallout from the 2009 KSA incident is a reflection on the administration and its difficulties in dealing with with issues of diversity on campus.
"We say we embrace [racial diversity], but at the same time there's so much friction, and I think that's how it can be different," he said.
Chan also discussed the impact of an op-ed that recently appeared in the Daily that downplayed issues of race at Tufts.
"There was that Daily op-ed before Spring Break about how no one on this campus [is] racist, and I know from personal experiences that this is not the case," Chan said. "The feeling of getting on campus and not feeling completely safe, not feeling like you're home, really points to that."
Sophomore Samuel Daniel's March 14 op-ed entitled "No one at this school is racist" set off a flurry of responses from minority groups on campus as well as from individual students.
"The day that people saw that article, we had a meeting of many different communities getting together, brainstorming what is an effective way to respond to an article like that," Chan said. "Seeing so many people come together so quickly, that they had similar thoughts, that we need to do something about this but in a respectful and well-thought-out way I thought that was a very good way to respond."
Chan said he found the article so offensive because of how broadly it reached and because it attempted to speak for all communities at Tufts.
"I think what was so infuriating was that he made a generalization about the Tufts community. He felt like he could say ... something about somebody else," Chan said. "I feel like that's incredibly offensive, and I feel like that's silencing and taking the power away from someone else."
The op-ed also frustrated sophomore Jen Wang, who plans to live in the Asian American House, also known as the Start House, next year.
"I recently was agitated by [the op-ed] ... regarding race and racial humor on campus," she said. "The ignorant headline didn't help the content of the article itself."
Wang added that the op-ed was representative of commonplace naivet?© surrounding issues of race.
"The article was filled with some lazy assertions about post-racial spaces as well as a 'get over it' type of attitude," she said. "I was not fond of it."
The Asian and Asian American community at Tufts has been proactive in forming support systems for students, including the Asian American Alliance (AAA), the Chinese Students Association and the Hong Kong Students Association, among others.
For incoming freshmen, there is an Asian American peer leader program, in which sophomores and juniors can address both general college concerns and issues related to growing up as an Asian in America.
In addition, the Start House provides a space for learning about the Asian American experience and hosts activities including art exhibits, food fairs, informal afternoon gatherings with faculty and discussions and talks on Asian American issues.
"I feel that AAA has done such great work in being active in regards to discussing Asian American identities," Wang said.
She added that one event that served to address issues pertinent to the Asian American community was an open mic night on April 18 that discussed the KSA incident.
"By continuing to reflect and discuss incidents such as the 2009 bias incident, the Asian American community maintains campus awareness surrounding issues of racism and ethnicity," Wang said.
She also discussed the AAA's involvement in improving the curriculum that Tufts offers.
"They've also been integral to the implementation of the Asian American studies program," Wang said. "It's been a lengthy struggle for Asian American studies and AAA's work in generating a dialogue about the importance of ethnic studies as a whole [being] recognized."
Several students also stressed the importance of the uphill battle to move the focus of Tufts curriculum away from an overly Eurocentric focus.
"I worked on a resolution in Senate to focus on Hindi," Huang said. "We actually have a center for South Asian studies, so why don't we offer Hindi?"
The only new programs confirmed so far are an Africana studies major and minor and an Asian studies minor, according to Huang.
He said that although change is happening, it is not occurring quickly enough and that the administration has not been active enough in the process.
"The push has been going on for decades now. Sometimes it's frustrating to see the administration reacting," Huang said. "I'd like to see them proposing."
According to American Studies Lecturer Thomas Chen, it is important in the discussion of implementing new programs at Tufts to know the difference between Asian studies and Asian American studies.
"Asian American studies is an interdisciplinary academic field dedicated to the examination of all aspects of the historical and contemporary experiences of Asian Americans," Chen said. "A crucial distinction is that Asian American Studies is focused on the histories, communities, cultures and experiences of a racialized minority population in the American context while Asian studies is focused on Asia and the study of Asia."
Chen explained that the foundation of Asian American studies as an academic discipline can be traced back to the national movements for racial and social justice during the 1960s and 1970s.
"In this tradition, Asian American studies also has a focus on addressing social disparities in the U.S. and the world as they relate to Asian Americans," he said.
In terms of bringing a robust Asian American studies program to Tufts, students like Chan are still working tirelessly.
"We're trying really hard to put this together because we think it's important for Tufts to have an Asian American studies program," Chan said. "Right now we're only talking about a minor, and to only look at it as a minor is a big issue."
Despite the progress that an Asian American studies minor represents, Chan is disappointed that the administration has put more effort into implementing an Africana studies program, while only using enough resources to establish an Asian American Studies minor but nothing beyond it.
"I'm sad that Tufts is doing this to just check a box, when there's really more than just that," he said. "It's not reflective of the passionate students that are here ... we are 17 percent of the student body, and we're very underrepresented in terms of education, the course work that's available [and] support services."
Chan added that these support services are necessary so that they can cater to specific issues that students face, such as international students who have a difficult time adjusting to Tufts' culture.
However, Prashant Shah, a freshman from Nepal, reflected on his first year at Tufts positively.
"I guess a lot of other people already knew other people here, but I was by myself," Shah said. "Of course it takes time to make new friends at a different place, but now it's pretty good."
Shah is one of only three Nepalese students who currently attend Tufts, although there are two more freshmen coming next year. He said that he and his friends here speak lightheartedly about race, culture and stereotypes but without being offensive.
"Once we acknowledge the differences and joke about it, it's good to talk about it. It creates a more open atmosphere," Shah said. "I've met a bunch of people who've asked me if I've been to Mount Everest, but that's just the more unaware people. At Tufts people are generally pretty aware and educated."
Shah said that most Tufts students tend to form tight-knit groups after the first month or so of freshman year. He said he has tried to keep his circle of friends open and accepting, but that he misses the attitude that permeated Tufts in September.
"The first couple weeks, every person going up Packard Avenue to class was saying 'hello' to everyone else, but then that was gone," Shah said. "I got the hang of talking to random people, and by the time ... I did, it was gone."
This idea of connection between groups, of stepping outside of one's comfort zone, is a concept vital to promoting understanding between different racial groups on campus, Chan said, and he believes that Tufts has not yet reached this point.
"I feel like everything is so split up at Tufts, although we're a small campus, and we're supposed to be really interconnected," Chan said. "I feel like a lot of things block people from interacting with each other and getting an understanding of people's communities."
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This article has been modified from its original version.
