By Angel Trazo
AsAmNews Intern
Colgate University is investigating the anti-Asian vandalism on the door decoration of two Chinese International students.
“Ching Chong Mother F****” was graffitied on the decoration displayed on the dorm door of two Chinese International students on Tuesday. They had posted the decoration in celebration of Lunar New Year.
This vandalism did not go unnoticed.
Campus officials were made aware of the incident on Tuesday night at about 9 p.m., New York Upstate reports.
While Colgate officials have yet to take action, they have vocalized their stance to continue promoting an inclusive campus climate. “Vile and racial statements will not be tolerated by our community and are the complete antithesis of Colgate’s steadfast values of diversity and inclusion,” Dean of the College Paul McLoughlin stated.
Meanwhile, Asian international students, Asian American students, and allies alike took to social media to vocalize their concerns regarding this discriminatory event.
One Facebook post in particular, depicting a photo of the vandalized door decoration, was shared over 160 times and garnered widespread awareness of the incident.
The Facebook post’s author, Wangying Yang, a Chinese international student at Colgate, expressed her concern regarding the racially-charged slur and profanity scrawled on her peers’ dorm room.
“I cannot speak fully for the two Chinese students directly affected by this incident, but I know they are deeply offended, traumatized, and hurt by such racist threats and that they no longer feel safe living among people who explicitly dehumanize, discriminate, and possess harmful thoughts against them based on their race and nationality… just as I am feeling right now.
“Many of us in the international student community left our homes and traveled thousands of miles to come to upstate New York, expecting that we would have a great experience on this beautiful campus and be welcomed by domestic students who are as eager as us to create an awesome college experience, like the poster kids advertised on Colgate website,” she explained. “Yet we came here finding that we have to deal with racial threats and slurs and discrimination in almost every space on this campus, even in our residence halls where we are supposed to feel safe and protected, among these supposedly ‘highly educated and upper-middle class elites,’ some of the ‘brightest’ in this country,” she stated. “I don’t care what your upbringing or neighborhood is like. You should know how to respect other people because it is basic human decency. Nothing could be a reason or justification for perpetuating hate crimes.”
Other students followed suit, sharing the photo post as well as their demands for action, hopes for the future, and personal stories.
“Listen. Most international students engage with language and its capabilities more strenuously than domestic students—they have to,” stated a Chinese international Colgate alumnus. “But this isn’t just a question of citizenship—this is also about race. Ironically, I don’t have the language to articulate the depth of my hurt seeing this slur that’s, at the most superficial level, a mockery of language. Asian Americans have to grow up in this country amid precisely this racist vitriol. Do better, Colgate.”
“These racist slurs are things that people of color and international students have to go through every single day. In their dorm rooms. Where they are supposed to sleep and feel at home,” expressed Woohee Kim, a Korean senior at Colgate. “We are devalued every single day just for who we are. How am I supposed to write my honors thesis when things like this always come up? How are students supposed to act like nothing has happened when things like this are written on their room doors? How can you dismiss xenophobia and racism when they are rampant in our everyday lives?”
“We should all be treated with decency and respect,” said Summitt Liu, a Chinese American senior at Colgate University. “I will be graduating soon, and I want to leave here knowing that Colgate is a safe place for Asian-identifying students. I am female. I am Asian. My intersectionality is my power.”
“Colgate sucks the life out of me every day, but I’ve never been closer to my roots,” said Victoria Kwong, a Chinese American senior at Colgate University. “I thank my brothers and sisters of color for their love and resilience. Our fight for equity does not end here. Do not let [the university] stop you from speaking your truths.”
“Do better, Colgate. Please actually care about the international students and the other people of color who go here,” expressed Leslie Subaldo, a Chinese-Filipina American senior at Colgate University. “Don’t just accept us to contribute to your ‘diversity’ statistics, photos, etc. and toss us aside.”
Colgate’s student body of 2,922 students (2016) is comprised of 22% domestic students of color, 11% first-generation college students, and 15% international students.
Colgate’s Mission Statement is “to provide a demanding, expansive, educational experience to a select group of diverse, talented, intellectually sophisticated students who are capable of challenging themselves, their peers, and their teachers in a setting that brings together living and learning.”
Despite commitments to diversity and inclusion, universities like Colgate continue to grapple with the racist and prejudiced incidents that occur on their campuses.
Some students used the hashtag #RacistColgate to share their experiences.
Colgate students have used this incident as platform for sharing their experiences as Asians and Asian Americans at a predominantly White, elite and private university. Stories of Asian students, which had been held back due to self-silence or fear of judgement from the wider community, began to surface on social media in the hours following the discriminatory graffiti incident.
“‘There are Asians living in our building?’ That was one of the first sentences I heard at Colgate at the entrance of East Stillman [an on-campus dorm for first year students],” expressed a Chinese senior at Colgate University. “I came to Colgate and the US for the first time in August 2014. Now, [in 2018], I think I can sort of process some of my experiences and feel the confidence and necessity to speak up and to be heard.”
“One night during my first year at Colgate, I went to the common room in East Hall to study only to find, ‘Nobody cares about your Asian s**t,’ written next to the Japanese hiragana characters that somebody probably practiced earlier on the whiteboard,” recalled a Vietnamese senior at Colgate. She added, “One summer day, before my last year [at Colgate], I was alone on the cruiser going to the Townhouse. Then, three White guys got on. Even though I had my headphones on, I could still hear one of them yell loudly, ‘Those f***ing Asians,’ as the other two giggled. I wish I could still feel disappointed by Colgate or just surprised that this incident happened today.”
In addition to storytelling through social media, students have organized events to enhance the visibility of Asian voices on campus.
One initiative included Chinese international students distributing copies of the same Lunar New Year decoration piece that had been vandalized and posting them across campus. The decoration is a red piece of paper with the Chinese character “福” (fú) on it, meaning “fortune” or “auspiciousness.” Many Asian families put it on doors and around houses to celebrate the festival, wishing the arrival of good fortune in the upcoming year. In this context, it demonstrates support for those directly and indirectly affected by this incident and promotes the awareness of cultural diversity on Colgate’s campus.
Other students demonstrated at a dining hall through song, changing the lyrics of The Little Mermaid’s Part of Your World to express the emotional impact of this racial slur and incite others to demand change.
In addition, the Organization of Asian Sisters in Solidarity (OASIS) and Colgate International Community (CIC) facilitated a speak-out event to “discuss racism and xenophobia facing the Asian and Asian American and international student communities and what we can do to stand in solidarity with students who have been targeted with racial slurs.” Though amassing an attendance of roughly 100 students, some felt that this support was not enough to solve the core issues of racism on campus.
“My questions to you all, and to Dean McLoughlin is, how many more gatherings, how many more talks do we have to do to stop this?” a Vietnamese student stated during the speak-out event. “I’m sure we see the same faces going to these events. We should not be the number one audience for this. It’s everyone else that’s outside this room right now who should be listening to these stories. It’s not fair that only 100 of us here spending 2 hours discussing our struggles with racism at Colgate, while everyone else is out there having fun, eating dinner. It’s not fair that we have to devote our time and effort fixing something we did not cause. Is there any way we can bring this to the entire campus [together] and have everyone listening?”
Tuesday’s Chinese-slur vandalism on a dorm door at Colgate is reminiscent of the incident at Columbia University in February 2017 when several Chinese students’ door tags with names in Chinese spellings were vandalized.
This incident also comes less than a year after Colgate University’s “glue gun” incident which occurred in May 2017. An active shooter scare and campus lockdown revealed itself to be the racial profiling of a shirtless African American student holding a glue gun for his Education Studies course project.
It occurs less than four years after 350 students occupied Colgate’s admissions building while hundreds of others showed support by attending speak-outs and trending hashtags such as #CanYouHearUsNow #SoThisIsColgate. The “Colgate For All” initiative in 2014 was created in response to this week-long sit-in protesting Colgate’s lack of inclusivity, yet it remains evident that the sentiment expressed by its title “Colgate For All” has not been actualized.
As a recent alumna from Colgate University, I am torn. I remain grateful for the opportunity to have graduated from a prestigious institution which afforded so many educational opportunities and fostered lifelong friendships. However, incidents such as this remind me that there is still so much more work that needs to be done in order for a university campus to feel like home for many fellow Asians, Asian Americans, and students of color.
There is no question that the administration can hear the voices of Asian and Asian American students on campus. There is no question that many in our community stand in solidarity against prejudice, bigotry, and racism in the many shapes and forms it continues to take everyday. The question is, how will Colgate, as well as other institutions across the United States, respond, take action, and foster spaces of genuine diversity and inclusion for all.
Colgate University is a small private liberal arts college in Upstate New York. Annual total cost of attendance is $65,000.
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