November 23, 1998
This week, we had two guest speakers come and talk about their life experiences and how they dealt with the fact that they were the minority. They both endured the challenge and have learned to deal with it well.
Our first guest speaker was Farrah, and she is a student at Cal and also a representative from South Asian Student Alliance. She stated that she was called a “wog” by a group of six guys right before she came to lecture. She explained that “wog” is a derogatory term used against South Asians and it originated from England. I was surprised that she encountered such a thing at Berkeley. I thought it was a place where multiculturalism is accepted and racial discrimination was not part of our vocabulary. I haven’t experienced any random racial slurs during my time here, but that might be because there are many Asians in Berkeley. However, there are a lot of South Asians in Berkeley, but not as much as Far Eastern Asians. I guess I am very lucky that I haven’t encountered that much hate since I grew up in a town where Asians were the majority and now I’m at Cal where it is the same situation. Therefore, I think if I get out of this bubble after I graduate from Cal, I might be traumatized since I might encounter a lot of discrimination because I am a minority even though I don’t feel as if I am. I just dread the day that it will come. However, I am glad that I am learning about these topics while I’m at APATH so I’ll be prepared for it and I’ll know how to deal with it when the time comes.
Farrah went on to talk about her background. She said that she grew up in Minnesota and she did feel like a minority since she was the only South Asian at her school. I don’t know if I would feel comfortable if I was the only person that was Asian at my school. I think that I would feel neglected and I wouldn’t know what my identity was since I couldn’t relate with anybody. Farrah also stated that that was the reason why she came to Cal. After she came here, she found a lot of South Asians and she was happy about that, but then she also encountered another type of discrimination. Since she is Muslim, she was different from many other South Asians. I could never relate to this since I have no religious affiliation.
Our next speaker was Michael and he is a young professor. He also grew up in the east in a city called Battle Creek, Michigan. He said that his family was practically the Filipino population in that city. That is why when he was a child, he identified mostly with his white friends. When he went to UC Davis, he really enjoyed this Native American professor and he began to identify himself as a Native American. I think that I am whitewashed sometime due to the mass media. I also think that I a try to identify myself as an African American when I’m joking around with friends and I try to act “cool”. However, I think I act like a white person or an African American because I still know that I can revert back to my Asian American self. I don’t think that Michael had the chance to do that since he grew up around white people. I guess I feel lucky in a way since I grew up around people that I could relate to.
He finished off his part of the lecture by saying that we should all experience a variety of people so we know which identity is most comfortable for you. I totally agree with his concept. I think that if I did stay in this bubble forever, I would feel comfortable, but I wouldn’t experience anything. I think that meeting a lot of people of different backgrounds is very important for me to learn about other cultures and beliefs. If everybody did that, I feel that we could relate to one another and we wouldn’t experience any discrimination.