Tufts Hapa, a Tufts student group for part-Asian students, presented its first-annual Loving Day Rally on the upper patio of Mayer Campus Center yesterday afternoon to celebrate the 1967 Supreme Court decision for Loving v. Virginia, which declared anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional.
Loving Day is a part of a national movement initiated by Graphic Designer Ken Tanabe in 2004.
The Tufts celebration featured student speakers alongside activities such as tie-dying and a bake sale.
Tufts Hapa President Kathryn Li explained that club members decided to bring the rally to campus after one of them participated in a separate Loving Day celebration and wanted to share the idea.
We have two messages, Li, a junior, said. Its kind of this idea that you should be able to love who you want ... and the idea that cultures can coexist together without conflicting with each other.
Joseph Wat, a member of the Tufts Hapa, opened the rally, providing a background on the relatively young club and an explanation of the Loving v. Virginia court case.
Wat, a senior, praised the rallys message of diversity, reminding audience members how far the country has come in just a few generations.
Next, Nishant Saharan discussed the subtle obstacles that still prevent people from entering interracial relationships, using information from a survey of Tufts students and statistics from OkCupid, a dating website. Both sources showed that many people have racial preferences in relationships and feel influenced to pursue ideal white standards of beauty.
Its time for us to start having conversations to understand the different perceptions and the fears that exist within our community, Saharan, a junior, said.
Tufts Asian American Alliance adviser Alex Chan quoted one of the Supreme Court judges of the Loving v. Virginia case who believed that races were geographically separated because they were not supposed to intermarry.
Obviously weve come a long way since then, Chan said. In our society today, we have the opportunity for different cultures and different ethnicities and races to mix, and for us to learn more about each other and become a stronger community.
Katie Hegarty, an intern at the LGBT Center, illustrated similarities in the struggles that interracial and queer couples face.
We understand your frustration of having your love be labeled as less than, but we also understand how much stronger love is when its fought for, Hegarty, a senior, said.
Yirat Nieves, the former public relations co-chair of the Association of Latin American Students (ALAS), spoke about mestizaje, a term used in Spanish-speaking countries to label people of mixed race.
Nieves, a sophomore, also joined with other members of ALAS in creating a separate presentation on mixed-race individuals and their history in Latin America.
Rally attendees were then given the chance to speak. Senior Sophie Dover spoke about the comments she received from childhood peers about her being a biracial mix of Sri Lankan and white. Senior Suyu Zhang discussed how being attracted to a certain ethnicity of people was often associated with having a fever, a word he disapproved of.
Junior Walker Bristol and senior Tabias Wilson were the last two planned speakers.
Love isnt a political tool, Bristol said. Its integral to all of us, and it supports us all. Romantic or not, it is what gives us strength in numbers.
He believes that love transcends the political institutions that currently bind it.
We have to remember that we are empowered to shape our culture, Bristol said. When we speak with sexism, or heterosexism, with shaming language, we are creating, we are reinforcing the foundations of an unloving culture.
Wilson spoke about the importance of self-love in creating a diverse and tolerant community.
Without such an appreciation and commitment to loving ourselves, to becoming our highest, most dynamic and loving selves, we forfeit our ability to love others and form community bonds necessary for the eradication of subordinating structures, Wilson, a senior, said.
