De/Constructing America: Part 1

By Amanda Xu and Jeremiah Kim

Amanda:

For many Americans, we can trace the origins of our family tree to an immigrant story. One of hardship, sacrifice, and — for the lucky few — bittersweet triumph over circumstances. If our nation is shaped by diversity, how have we ended up in such a problematic time marked by extreme divisiveness and inequality? We may never know where the origin of our racism and systematic disadvantage…

Jk it’s slavery. Jk again (kind of) — the relationship between race and disadvantage is extremely complex because the tentacles of systematic disadvantage extend far beyond individual cases.

BETWEEN BARS | Out of Necessity

When the cart rolled into the classroom, several of the students immediately left their seats and walked over. I followed suit. It was a steel double-sided cart, the kind that librarians use for shelving books. A few titles caught my eye: a complete encyclopedia of African American culture, Drown by Junot Díaz, and Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The students and I shuffled about the cart to get a closer look at the selection.

SERENDIPITY | A Societal Necessity: Women’s Diversity Programs

As an Asian male, it’s quite safe to say that my peers and I get the shortest end of the recruitment stick. It’s no secret that we’re perceived as the meek and subservient types that belong in the professional friend-zone. I’m not complaining — simply framing. What I mean by this, is that based on what I face when it comes to finding jobs, I should be incredibly angry at the world of diversity programs. When thinking of white males getting the inherent recruitment benefits stemming back from the pilgrimage days and women and underrepresented minorities getting the recruitment benefits of decades worth of guilt, I was formerly angry. Amidst my mound of salt, I never really stopped to empathize and examine the other side of things.