Everybody remembers that scene in "The Wizard of Oz" when Dorothy says, “Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
I had a Dorothy moment during my orientation session at Ithaca College. I looked at the monotonous whiteness and whispered to my dad, “We’re not in Jersey anymore.”
As the three-day session progressed, it became more and more prevalent that indeed, we were not in Jersey anymore. It hit me every time an announcer was trying to break us up into groups, and he’d go down a list of Sams, Alexes and Maries, and then stumble or pause at my name. It hit me when every time I introduced myself to someone they’d say, “Wow, that’s a pretty name.” It hit me the time someone asked me if my name was “ethnic,” if it had any meaning and "wow, your hair is so curly" and "wow, you’re like the perfect shade of caramel."
Certainly, this was not Jersey.
***
I grew up in a big, diverse town, constantly surrounded by all different shades of humanity. My high school reflected my town’s diverse population; in fact, there was no clear ethnic or racial majority. There were still prominent groups, however, primarily Southeast Asian, East Asian, black and Latino. Asians were so prominent that of my 30-student A.P. Calc B.C. class, 28 were Asian, one was white, and one was black.
For years, I took my town’s remarkable diversity for granted. When I was younger, I thought everything around me was normal. It was normal that one of my neighbors was Nepali, the other Chinese, another black. It was normal that one of my friends was white, another Sri Lankan, another Singaporean. Diversity was normal.
Even when my eyes were opened to the realities of whiteness, I still took my town’s diversity for granted. I still took for granted that when I complained about the smell of haldi (turmeric) that clung to my clothes after my mother cooked a meal, my mostly Southeast Asian friends could understand. I still took for granted that my name was not unusual and that my curly hair was not an anomaly and that my face was nothing unlike what everybody had seen before. There was something comforting about the sameness of my school, of my town.
College is not normal to me. I knew it would be white — but not this white.
I often feel like I’m that one spot of chocolate ice cream that gets onto the vanilla when whoever’s serving it doesn’t get all the chocolate off the scoop. I am a small smudge of color in an institution that has been criticized for its lack of diversity.
(Ithaca claims that 70 percent of its student population is white, but I am convinced that that number is higher.)
Before sending me off to college, I expressed my discomfort to my parents. They told me, “This is good, you can get different perspectives on everything,” and “Use your uniqueness to your advantage,” and other stuff like that.
I have been exposed to different perspectives. I have taken advantage of my “uniqueness,” in some ways. But for the first time in my life, I am struggling to hold onto my identity in ways I never had to before. I must now suddenly hold onto my ground roots whereas before I forgot they were even there. I am now hyper aware of how my background has shaped how I think and approach the world. I am suddenly more aware of my own unique background, more aware of what it means for me to be a Pakistani, a Muslim, a woman and above anything else, not white.
The transition from my colorful suburban high school to this monotonous institution on a hill has been both smooth and rocky all at once. I have already formed lifelong bonds and found my passion. But I have also struggled with homesickness, longing to complain to someone about how my winter coat still smells like haldi even though I’ve washed it a million times. I have struggled with understanding why I think the way I do and whether or not my ideas are justified. I have struggled, and I have thrived.
Regardless, I am optimistic.
Being a student of color at a predominantly white institution, for me, has been a unique and challenging experience, but I am sure it will change me for the better.
