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Thursday November 30, 2017 vol. CXLI no. 110
{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } STUDENT LIFE
U . A F FA I R S
U. employees concerned about immigration policy By Rebecca Ngu staff writer
COURTESY OF JORDAN THOMAS
Thomas plans to study social intervention at Oxford.
Thomas ’18 named Rhodes Scholar By Hannah Wang contributor
Jordan Thomas ’18 was one of 32 American students selected from a pool of over 2,500 applicants to receive a 2018 Rhodes Scholarship for postgraduate study at the University of Oxford. According to a press release from the Rhodes Trust, Thomas will be joining approximately 100 students from around the
world at Oxford. In the press release, American Secretary of the Rhodes Trust Elliot Gerson noted that the foundation seeks “outstanding young men and women of intellect, character, leadership and commitment to service” who “‘esteem the performance of public duties as their highest aim.’” At the University of Oxford, Thomas plans to pursue a Master of Philosophy See THOMAS page 2
A number of University employees could potentially be affected by the end of the Temporary Protected Status designation for Haitian immigrants, announced by Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Elaine Duke on Nov. 20. Come July 2019, these employees could be a few of the nearly 60,000 Haitians who would presumably lose their ability to legally live and work in the United States under TPS. A University employee in Frist Campus Center said that many of her friends, cousins, and fellow church members would be affected. “They’re feeling very discouraged,” she said. “They don’t want to come back because someone pushed them. They want to come back when they’re ready to go back.” She expressed uncertainty over the future, but was hopeful that people would rally against the removal of Haitian immigrants. “If they put their voice together, something will be done,” she said. The ‘Prince’ granted anonymity to several University employees due to the subject’s sensitive nature. Campus Dining administration told the ‘Prince’ in
ON CAMPUS
an email not to talk to its employees. In interviews with several Campus Dining employees who would be affected or had loved ones who would be affected by the termination of TPS, the employees expressed worry over their jobs and how to support their family. Countries are given a TPS designation if certain circumstances, such as a natural disaster or civil war, make returning to the country too dangerous. Congress gave Haiti the designation after an earthquake ravaged the country in January 2010. Under the program, Haitians who entered the United States up to a year after the disaster without authorization or who overstayed their visas could apply for temporary protection from removal and the ability to legally work and travel. TPS designation does not provide a pathway to legal permanent residence. Under the Obama administration, TPS designation for Haiti was renewed multiple times. The stated reason for the termination is the significant progress in the “stability and quality of life” for Haitian citizens, according to a press release from the Department of Homeland Security. It cit-
ed a 97 percent decrease in the number of displaced people in Haiti. Yet many Haitian immigrants remain worried about their future. The removal of TPS will force affected Haitians to either leave the country by July 22, 2019 or apply for another legal status. One Campus Dining employee mentioned that while he would not be affected by the policy change, he knew up to 10 of his colleagues who worked in the same dining hall with him would be. He expressed sympathy for his colleagues who work every day worrying about their immigration status. He expressed desire for the government to either renew the TPS status or, ideally, grant legal residency for immigrants simply “trying to find a new life.” Daniel Day, Assistant Vice President for Communications, wrote in an email to the ‘Prince’ that the University has “a relatively small number of employees who presumably would be affected by the end of the Temporary Protected Status program for Haitians. We are examining and monitoring the situation closely and will do our best to help our employees as appropriately as we can.”
ON CAMPUS
Fitzpatrick talks human nature post Russian Revolution contributor
IVY TRUONG:: NEWS CONTRIBUTOR
Alperovitz discussed how capitalism is not sustainable because it creates inequalities.
Alperovitz says America needs to reform capitalistic economic system By Ivy Truong contributor
Gar Alperovitz believes that there’s a crisis in America, but it’s not a political crisis — it’s a crisis with the economic system itself. Alperovitz is the co-founder of the Democracy Collaborative, a research institute that aims to develop a more democratized economy. He was a professor at the University of Maryland and has served as a fellow at the University of Cambridge, Harvard’s Institute of Politics, and the Institute for Policy Studies. He was also a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution. On Wednesday Alperovitz gave a lecture about
In Opinion
capitalism in the United States and potential efforts to change it. The current system, Alperovitz explained, is a corporate one that has concentrated the country’s wealth in an elite minority. For instance, the 400 wealthiest people have more wealth than the bottom 61 percent of the country combined, which is over 194 million people. “It’s a medieval concentration of income,” Alperovitz said. He explained that this system, despite the wealth, has placed the United States at or near the bottom of the OECD Better Life Index in categories like infant mortality, mental
Senior columnist Leora Eisenberg challenges feelings of inadequacy and contributing columnist Dora Zhao discusses her own last name. PAGE 6-7
health, and obesity. Alperovitz said that these trends are indicative of a systemic crisis with roots from the 1930s through the 1970s. Though the wealth was held by corporations, he said, a “politics” was created to “countervail” against the corporation’s power with the rise of labor unions. In the 1950s, members of labor unions made up roughly 34 percent of the labor force. Today, they only comprise 11 percent, he said. The institution of labor unions no longer exists, Alperovitz explained, adding that within the next few years, there won’t be labor unions of See CAPITALISM page 5
In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, historian Sheila Fitzpatrick spoke to a group of University students and community members on changing scholarly approaches to the revolution, Soviet history in the last fifty years, and her accompanying work on these topics. Fitzpatrick began by recalling the story behind the stern profile photo of her that was used on the promotion poster for the talk. She jokingly said that The Chronicle of Higher Education, a newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for university faculty, asked her not to smile. “The whole point was so that [Russians] look to be very unhappy and hostile people, which of course may be true,” Fitzpatrick said with a smirk. Fitzpatrick spoke about her interest in the concept of original sin, which is the Christian doctrine of humanity’s state of sin resulting from the fall of mankind, brought about by Adam and Eve’s rebellion in Eden. Fitzpatrick is not Christian, nor was she brought up as one — her father was an atheist. However, the Christian concept of original sin shaped her thinking on human nature, which informed her
Today on Campus 4:30 p.m.: Doug Herrington ‘88, Senior Vice President of North America Retail at Amazon speaks on “Ten Rules of Innovating at Amazon.” McCormick 101
later academic work. Fitzpatrick claimed her interest in original sin came from “watching and being the victim of scapegoating” in her all-girl private school in Melbourne. “Scapegoating was popular in my school and they enjoyed the act of scapegoating on whatever grounds it may be,” Fitzpatrick said. While studying for a bachelor’s degree at the University of Melbourne, Fitzpatrick read English writer John Bunyan’s work on original sin and studied the 17th century English revolution, which portrayed human beings as lacking innate goodness, a view that she shared. Due to her negative view of human nature, Fitzpatrick explained that the failure of idealism, in the context of “the pathos of inevitable disappointment of those who have hope for radical change,” is prominent in her first book, “The Commissariat of Enlightenment: Soviet Organization of Education and the Arts Under Lunacharsky, 1917–1921.” She recalled one Soviet review of her book that disparaged her choice of 1921 as the end date of the book. Although she had material written up to 1929, Fitzpatrick chose to stop at 1921 due to a word limit. She acknowledged that the review pointed out that periodization deterSee RUSSIA page 3
WEATHER
By Isabel Ting
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The Daily Princetonian
Thursday November 30, 2017
Thomas: I want to have a positive impact on others in any way I can THOMAS Continued from page 1
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degree in Evidence-Based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation. He is currently a Wilson School concentrator whose independent work focuses on poverty, inequality, and social mobility. He cites his experiences growing up in Newark, particularly his transition to a low-income, minority-based high school, as important inspiration for his academic focus. “I saw so many people struggling. There were so many friends of mine who couldn’t go to the movies because they couldn’t afford a ticket or the Uber ride there,” said Thomas. “Seeing people who needed a lot of help out there — it really inspired me in a lot of ways to give back to my city.” Thomas is also pursuing certificates in African-American Studies and Portuguese Language and Culture, two courses of study that are linked to his multicultural background and heritage. “Growing up in two different worlds and interacting with people from both of them had a huge impact on me, because I saw so many different perspectives and ways of navigating this world,” he said. These dual interests in civic and interpersonal engagement underpin much of what Thomas has accomplished at the University. He serves on the Community House Executive Board, the Office of International Programs Student Advisory Board, the U-Store Board of Trustees, and the Students for Education Reform Board, and he is also a fellow for the Pace Center for Civic Engagement and a Residential College Adviser in Rockefeller College. “I want to have a positive impact on others in any way that I can,” said Thomas. “I think that I have this macro-mission in my life to ultimately… effect change on people’s living situations through law and policy, but I also have a micro-mission in just interacting with people on a day-to-day basis,” he explained. “My motto is, ‘If I can make one person’s day better, then my day is made infinitely better.’” Associate Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs Elizabeth Armstrong, who advised Thomas for his junior independent work and is now advising his senior thesis, described his upcoming project in an email as “truly the culmination of earlier course work, independent work, and experiences.” “[Jordan’s thesis] brings together his longstanding interests in educational policy and educational equity, with newer interests in maternal and child health,” Armstrong wrote. She explained that Thomas interviewed college students about preconception health during junior fall and investigated prenatal care for women incarcerated on Rikers Island in his policy task force during junior spring. His thesis “explores programs for pregnant and parenting teens in Newark,” according to Armstrong. Armstrong added that Thomas is drawing on the work he did while interning at the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights as one of six Princeton students chosen for the 2017 Scholars in the Nation’s Service Initiative. Thomas said that the internship, like
his thesis, brought together multiple passions of his: in this case, it was education policy and civil rights. “[The internship] gave me a chance to have lots of one-on-one interactions with individuals in the line of work that I see myself possibly pursuing in the future,” said Thomas. “I really received inspiration from working with these people who are so passionate about making a positive impact on other people’s lives through law and policy.” When asked about the importance that he ascribed to education and education policy, Thomas responded with a quote from his father: “‘Remember, Jordan — they can take your house, they can take your car, they can take your job, but they can’t take your education away. If you work hard and get good grades, you can control your future.’” Jordan said that his interest in education policy was just one component of a broader commitment to promoting equal opportunity and justice. “I believe that education is a viable tool for social mobility, but at the same time, we see ways in which that has not necessarily manifested in society,” he added. “We see severe structural barriers and inequalities … If we can target those barriers and work to ensure that every student has equitable access and justice in education, we can ultimately get education back to serving that valuable role in society.” Armstrong noted that Thomas consistently brings “genuine curiosity” and “a seriousness of purpose” to all of his endeavors. “Jordan always takes the deep dive — he’s very committed to understanding the social world, and he’s a serious scholar.” True to this analysis, Thomas hopes to obtain a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree after finishing his studies at Oxford but emphasized his intention to avoid developing a narrow focus on law. “I view law as a tool for having a fundamental effect on people’s social situations and lives,” Thomas said. “My ultimate interest is in combining legal advocacy with policy advocacy … [and] in arming myself with the policy evaluation tools that I can use to complement the legal education that I have and ultimately have a more profound societal impact.” “It’s exciting to see [Jordan’s] potential recognized by the Rhodes Trust,” said Armstrong. “He is always looking for ways to make the world a better place, to amplify the advantages he has been given, and to help pave the way for others … I have long believed that he is going to make a big difference in the world.” Thomas named his parents as his inspiration, saying that they taught him how to carry himself through life with concern for others, with “a constant bit of frustration” over the state of the world, and with a persistent desire to change things for the better. He also extended his gratitude to his entire network of family and friends. “I couldn’t have gotten this far without my wonderful support base on campus and back at home,” Thomas said. “I’d just like to thank everybody who really helped me along the way, because they’ve all made this possible, and I can’t even begin to thank them all individually.”
Thursday November 30, 2017
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COURTESY OF CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
COURTESY OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Fitzpatrick believes that violence and bloodshed are not byproducts but motivations for a revolution.
Fitzpatrick: Violence is the purpose of revolution RUSSIA
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mines the story one tells. After her first book, Fitzpatrick became even less idealistic. “I decided that violence and bloodshed are not accidental products, but the very point of revolution for many of those who participate,” Fitzpatrick said. “In other words, revolution is inseparable from the arousal of base passions.” In her eyes, people join revolutions because they “want to commit violence against the people they don’t like,” and this is especially true of the young men who were the main recruits for the Communist Party in the Russian Civil War. Such an opinion placed her on a collision course with revisionists — socialist historians in the 1970s who studied Soviet history. An argument between Fitzpatrick and these revisionists arose in the 1980s when she pointed out that no sooner had the Bolsheviks taken part in the revolution than the proletariat disappeared because the soldiers and sailors were demobilized. Another disagreement that arose between her and the revisionists was her conclusion that workers are more interested in rising out of their class than being part of the uplifting proletariat class. Due to her sympathy toward the discussion about the proletariat, she became interested in how there was a general understanding that the “proletariat” was synonymous with “communists.” “It seemed ironic to me that policies of affirmative action for workers, or allowing individual workers to rise into the elite, was a way of fulfilling the Marxist promise that workers should become masters,” Fitzpatrick said. When writing about the proletariat, Fitzpatrick was advised not to use the phrase “upward mobility,” since using such an “American” phrase would be covertly suggesting that the Soviet Union was as democratic as the United States. In 1967, while studying the topic of education — what she called “the most innocuous topic one can study according to the Soviet point of view” — Fitzpatrick concluded that bureaucratic conflict is reflected in a bureaucratic archive. “[This observation] may not be [worth recognizing] now, but it was certainly worth saying back in the 60s, because the assumption was that bureaucratic conflict was not a part of the Soviet system,” Fitzpatrick said. She witnessed constant fights in policy between institutions, which often resulted in appeals, adjudications, and extensive lobbying. Moreover, it became clear in the late 60s and early 70s that bureaucrats and officials in the ministries found themselves uncomfortably under pressure, not only by occasional interventions from above but also radical pressure from below. Fitzpatrick addresses such pressures
in her book, “Cultural Revolution in Russia, 1928–1931.” “The question that arose in the heated discussion of that book was a question of initiative, or in other words, ‘Did pressure from below arise when signals from above gave the green light to put on pressures of a certain type?’” Fitzpatrick said. The Great Purge, which lasted from 1936 to 1938, prevented Fitzpatrick from fully uncovering the answer, since deductions about that era could only be made through the limited information the
government allowed to circulate. While many were pleased with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Fitzpatrick “was not enough of a socialist” to share that perspective. Instead, Fitzpatrick remembered experiencing intense interest and curiosity, wondering ‘Who would have thought this would happen?’ and ‘What happens next?’ The collapse of the Soviet Union and the opening of previously classified historical archives provoked Fitzpatrick to think more about historical
methodology. Also, through increased access to these archives, historians were able to learn much more about how the Soviet society functioned. After moving to the University of Chicago in the 1990s, Fitzpatrick became interested in writing about denunciation — when one writes a statement that is damaging to the authorities and is subsequently punished for its publication. Twenty years of work on denunciation culminated in the 2015 publication of “On Stalin’s Team: The
Years of Living Dangerously in Soviet Politics.” Fitzpatrick’s current projects focus on social history, including the displacement of Russians after World War II and the reasons why displaced persons do not wish to return to the Soviet Union. She also plans to collaborate with British anthropologist Caroline Humphrey to write about Soviet society. The lecture, titled “Writing the Russian Revolution,” took place in the Louis A. Simpson International Building on Tuesday.
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Thursday November 30, 2017
Alperovitz: No obvious alternative to the old tradition of capitalism CAPITALISM Continued from page 1
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any significance anymore. Alperovitz said that the same goes for small businesses and small farms, although ownership and property had often been cited as a means for liberty of expression. “[Now] the only people who have freedom to say what they want are people with tenure,” Alperovitz said. “A secure job or a small farm to stand on is a requirement for liberty.” In the design of a new system that uses a more democratic ownership of wealth, Alperovitz urged the audience to think about the role that liberty will play. Similarly, he asked the audience not to be afraid of attempting to design a new system, no matter how daunting the task might sound. He said his personal heroes were the civil rights workers in Mississippi in the 1930s, whose efforts to change the system often resulted in torture and hanging. These people, Alperovitz explained, had set the groundwork for the civil rights movement of the 1960s. “It’s easy to join a movement when a movement’s moving,” Alperovitz said. “The really interesting time is in advance when you begin to say, ‘What can be done?’” To move beyond traditional state capitalism, Alperovitz said we would need more democratic ownership of wealth. He listed two current projects that are currently making efforts to change the traditional, capitalistic system: the New Economy Movement and the Cleveland Evergreen Cooperatives. The New Economy Movement aims to use worker cooperatives as a basis of the political-economic next system where companies are owned by the workers. The Cleveland Evergreen Cooperatives is similar with its use of worker cooperatives. The CEC are a connected group of several smaller worker-owned cooperatives in low-wealth neighborhoods in Cleveland, Ohio. Alperovitz also mentioned land trusts — where nonprofit organizations own the land for the benefit of the neighborhood in an effort to resist gentrification — as an alternative. He noted that all of these projects are just experiments to test out different alternatives, but they are united by the same ideas. “What’s driving the whole thing is pain, a growing social and economic pain that is producing very great difficulties and a sense that there is no obvious alternative out there to the old tradition,” Alperovitz said. To move these projects and a new democratic system forward, Alperovitz said that a new institutional basis in politics must be created by electing candidates who can overcome opposition to these alternatives. Alperovitz encouraged the audience to play a part in this change and start by performing a simple task. “When you get up in the morning, look in the mirror and say, ‘Who? Me?’ Who else is going to do this but us?” Alperovitz said. The lecture was organized by Princeton Social Sustainability and was sponsored by the Program in American Studies. It was held in Guyot Hall at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday.
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Opinion
Thursday November 30, 2017
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Overcoming rejection
Leora Eisenberg
I
senior columnist
t’s only Thanksgiving season, and I’ve already been rejected by three academic conferences, three a Capella groups, two fellowships, two summer internships, and one guy I really liked. I’m not even done yet; I’m applying for a multitude of other programs, with the hope that maybe I’ll be accepted to one for the summer. I once thought that rejection meant other people didn’t find me good enough — my voice doesn’t blend enough; I don’t have enough experience writing policy memos; I’m not pretty enough. Living with this idea can make life look pretty grim. Whenever I see an email from an internship/fellowship/campus group whose opening line is “Thank you for…” I prepare myself for the worst. Sometimes, I don’t even read the email. I know what’s coming: I’m just not good enough. I was getting very frustrated around Thanks-
giving time, precisely because groups kept saying “thank you” for just about everything; why did I need to be thanked for being rejected? Were my essays not good enough? Was I a bad writer? Were my grades unimpressive? Various judgments on myself came f looding forth. Then came the conspiracy theories. Maybe they were all misogynists, I thought. Or even worse, maybe they were anti-Semites. These ridiculous notions didn’t help me feel any better. Over Thanksgiving — a time when we are supposed to feel grateful for what we have — I’ll be frank in saying I didn’t feel very grateful at all. Nothing I wanted wanted me. My mom, oblivious to my perceived worthlessness, still texted me one morning to say hi. My friends still cared about me. Some of my professors (probably) thought I was cool. A high school teacher of mine texted me — very fortuitously — to wish me a happy Thanksgiving,
and say that “you’re not measured by your resume; you’re measured by who you are.” At a time when I felt as if “who I was” just wasn’t good enough, there was a reminder that it probably was. If others found enough worth in me to call me their friend and be invested in my life, I haven’t been rejected by everything. That said, it was natural (and healthy) on my part to be upset about not getting a position, whether as a summer intern, presenter, or girlfriend. It’s normal to feel hurt by rejection, and accepting and learning from it is far easier said than done. I watched last semester as friends of mine were rejected by three, five, and even 10 internships. In situations like those, it’s hard to want to learn from anything when you feel like everything is out to get you. It’s really hard to feel thankful. But even when some don’t want you, others really do. Your intrinsic worth is not measured by
vol. cxli
the amount of rejections you’ve had, but by how many successes you’ve achieved. Sure, it’s a cliche, but every relationship you value and find meaning in is a victory in and of itself. Just because there was no application for a meaningful role in life doesn’t mean you weren’t accepted for it. You’re a friend to many, a child to some, and a treasured individual to surely many more. No matter what you’ve been rejected from, it’s important to remember that you haven’t been rejected by everyone. I expect to receive many more emails beginning with “Thank you for your application,” but I also expect to live much of my life being thankful for the roles I play that haven’t needed an interview, a resume, or an email rejection. Leora Eisenberg is a sophomore from Eagan, Minn. She can be reached at leorae@ princeton.edu.
food for thought nathan phan ’19
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Sarah Sakha ’18
editor-in-chief
Matthew McKinlay ’18 business manager
BOARD OF TRUSTEES president Thomas E. Weber ’89 vice president Craig Bloom ’88 secretary Betsy L. Minkin ’77 treasurer Douglas J. Widmann ’90 Kathleen Crown William R. Elfers ’71 Stephen Fuzesi ’00 Zachary A. Goldfarb ’05 John Horan ’74 Joshua Katz Kathleen Kiely ’77 Rick Klein ’98 James T. MacGregor ’66 Alexia Quadrani Marcelo Rochabrun ’15 Richard W. Thaler, Jr. ’73 Lisa Belkin ‘82 Francesca Barber trustees emeriti Gregory L. Diskant ’70 Jerry Raymond ’73 Michael E. Seger ’71 Annalyn Swan ’73
141ST MANAGING BOARD managing editors Samuel Garfinkle ’19 Grace Rehaut ’18 Christina Vosbikian ’18 head news editor Marcia Brown ’19 associate news editors Kristin Qian ’18 head opinion editor Nicholas Wu ’18 associate opinion editors Samuel Parsons ’19 Emily Erdos ’19 head sports editor David Xin ’19 associate sports editors Christopher Murphy ’20 Claire Coughlin ’19 head street editor Jianing Zhao ’20 associate street editors Lyric Perot ’20 Danielle Hoffman ’20 web editor Sarah Bowen ’20 head copy editors Isabel Hsu ’19 Omkar Shende ’18 associate copy editors Caroline Lippman ’19 Megan Laubach ’18 head design editors Samantha Goerger ’20 Quinn Donohue ’20 cartoons editor Tashi Treadway ’19
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Thursday November 30, 2017
Opinion
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the pull of entropy Sophia gavrilenko ’20 ..................................................
What a letter can mean
Dora Zhao
contributing columnist
F
or 18 years, I have mispronounced my own last name for convenience. My last name is Zhao. It is a gift passed down from my grandfather to my father and now to me. It is the first last name listed on the Hundred Family Surnames — the traditional 100 most common Chinese surnames — and one of the few connections that I have to my parents’ homeland. But, more than anything, “Zhao” has been a burden. While it slips out naturally when speaking in Mandarin, my last name becomes cumbersome once it crosses the threshold into English. The sound “Zh” is not common, a confusing combination of consonants not usually found in English. So, rather than going through the hassle of correcting others
and pronouncing my name the way I had been taught (and the way I said it in my head), I westernized it. It was a simple swap,trading the “Zh” for a more accessible “Z” sound. Losing a letter had been a small price to pay for acceptance. Before coming to Princeton, I had never questioned giving up a piece of my culture. It had always been a constant battle between being Asian and being American. These identities were mutually exclusive, and I had chosen the easier of the two options. Growing up as an AsianAmerican in Newtown, Pennsylvania — a town that is only 1.2 percent Asian — was not necessarily a difficult but certainly a different experience. Even though I never experienced blatant racism, there was always a feeling that I somehow did not belong. Vivid memories from elementary school include being interrogated about the contents of my packed lunchbox or having my
classmates tell me that my words sounded like “ching chang chong” whenever I spoke to my parents. From a young age, I learned how to mask my culture to fit in. Homemade lunches were traded for disgusting but wholly American lunches from the cafeteria. I changed myself to be more acceptable. While I still spoke Chinese with my parents, celebrated traditional holidays, and watched China Central Television at night, my school life was different. I learned to deny my Chinese culture and wear my Americanness as a shield. Coming to Princeton uprooted this entirely. I have been thrown into an environment where the idea of mutually exclusive identities no longer exists. Beyond the simple demographic shift from a mostly white high school to a much more diverse student body, the academic structures and organiza-
tions here have created a space for Asian-American students to thrive. This semester, I have been taking HIS 270: Asian American History. It is the first time that I have been in a history class learning about people like me, understanding my family’s narrative, and recognizing that I am not alone within the course of American history. At the end of lecture on the first day of class, I went up to my professor and introduced myself, telling her that I had been waiting my whole life for this class. It sounded glib, even when I said it. It was something your typical overeager freshman would say, but it was the truth. I had spent my childhood grappling with, and ultimately denying my racial identity. Both at Princeton and in that class, I felt that I could settle easily into my own skin, not sacrificing any part of myself. More so than any program or organization, though, it has been the
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smallest of actions that has made me feel comfortable with my identity. When I arrived on campus, I found that my friends pronounced my last name accurately, without any correction. Even if it was just a letter, I felt that I did not have to give up any part of myself to belong here. Here, I can be Dora Zhao — no needed distinction between first and last name. I wasn’t forced to choose between being Chinese or American, nor was I constantly concerned about acting in a certain way to maintain one part of my identity. As I shed away the years of repressing my Asianness, I am becoming a more complete person, accepting all parts of my identity — not just the ones that made others comfortable. Dora Zhao is a first-year student from Newtown, Pa. She can be reached at dorothyzhao@princeton.edu.
Thursday November 30, 2017
Sports
page 8
{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
Tigers vs. Wildcats 59 – 62
ALEX ROGERS :: SPORTS PHOTOGRAPHER
Women’s basketball suffered a narrow loss to the Villanova Wildcats on Wednesday.
Tweet of the Day “Jadwin Gym will be the site of a huge opportunity for Princeton as we take on 5th ranked Lehigh Friday on the @IvyLeagueNet” Princeton Wrestling (@tigerwrestling) Wrestling
Stat of the Day
29 points Sophomore Bella Alarie scored a career high 29 points for the Tigers in their narrow defeat vs. Villanova
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