Sidelined: Navigating Colgate as an Outsider

Amidst a Colgate-related existential crisis, my sister said to me, “You need to stop feeling bad for yourself, Hope. You’re basically culturally white.” 

Being half Korean and half Caucasian, I’ve always felt like my perceived racial identity depended on my environment’s demographic. At Colgate, where most of the student population consists of wealthy, white upstate New Yorkers, I had never felt so ostracized. However, as my sister bluntly noted in her pointed comment, I was the epitome of privilege. Sure, I was raised in Baltimore – a city notorious for its crime rates – but I lived adjacent to the affluent neighborhood of Roland Park. The closest I’ve come to a crime was the reflective vest my mother forced me to wear when running in the evenings. Moreover, any affinity I might have had for my Korean identity didn’t survive my mother’s trip across the Pacific when she was adopted at age five. And my father’s side of the family pretty much makes a bacchanal out of their annual “LobsterFest” – which is all one needs to know to understand where I’m coming from here. Still – coming to Colgate was nothing short of a shock.

I came from a high school where the majority of students were people of color. In this environment, I often did not associate my identity as someone of color. I was considered ‘white’ by my peers in this space – in most spaces – for most of my life. There was this strange sort of white solidarity at my high school because of how little attended, and the few Asian students were also lumped into this group. Colgate wasn’t merely a culture shock because of its whiteness – it was a culture shock because how I and others perceived my identity changed overnight. For the first time, I was considered a person of color. Here, I feel unwanted in Greek life and similar social spaces where I don’t fit the monocultural beauty standard of whiteness.  

So what’s keeping me here? Most arguably, my friendships with students who feel similarly countercultural and are not typically welcomed by the hyperwhite social spheres on campus. My closest friends I have made here don’t give a damn about status, Greek life affiliation, race, sexuality, place of origin, etc. Olivia and Arnab are two of my close friends at Colgate. They are both international students from Switzerland and India, respectively, living substantially farther than my six-hour car ride home.

I didn’t know that Olivia was an international student when we first met; she’s white, and you can only hear her accent in the affirming inflection at the end of her sentences. But for Olivia, who is thousands of miles from a place she considers home, being an international student is a major part of her identity. It doesn’t help that many Colgate students have the unavoidable tendency to fetishize international students’ quality of worldliness. Most of the students here were born and raised in white suburbia. Most of Colgate's students also don't care much to venture outside their homogenous environments at Colgate, which is why our study abroad rate is so high. Even for students like Olivia, who frequently pass as American, this sense of displacement is hard to shake off. With my involvement with the Career Services Office and Student Government, I think I give off the impression that I’m on the inside – but I still feel isolated. I thought becoming very involved on campus would make me feel less of an outsider, but I still didn’t feel like I found my place. 

I met Arnab this year when he moved into my building, La Casa. We were two of the few Asian students living there, so I reached out to him, expecting a friend who might sympathize with the same identity-based isolation. But soon after meeting Arnab, I realized he had adjusted far better to Colgate than I had despite coming all the way from India. Colgate was a “culture change, not a culture shock,” he said. He said that U.S. culture is fairly dominant in India and on social media, so he was prepared. However, Arnab also has found a community on campus; he surrounds himself with other international students, creating a space that is understanding and welcoming. After talking with Olivia, we both realized that she was missing out on that similar community of international students that she had experienced during orientation week. Moreover, I hadn’t found my own non-white community within Colgate that could act as a sanctuary.

Unlike Arnab, Olivia is half-American, which she thought would make it easier for her to adjust. She told me that she thought she would “have more in common with Colgate students” before she came here. Olivia quickly realized that Switzerland has a very different culture than America. She explained one of the differences best: “In Switzerland, we’re all very straightforward with each other. We’re not pretending to be anyone we’re not. One of the weird realizations I’ve had coming here is that everything is very transactional.” 

When it comes to lack of authenticity, Olivia feels that Greek organizations often play a significant role in creating this atmosphere. “It’s based on the principle that everybody comes to America to seek these grand opportunities for personal or career reasons.”  It took her a while to get used to this, along with the fact that the U.S. itself is very self-centered; stating, “there are some global issues that students do not know about at all because all of the problems in the U.S. are the first things on the agenda. So, as a result, many Americans don’t consider how other countries are affected.” For me, it’s always felt like a normalized quality of our generation to promote and cultivate certain images of ourselves online. This is why I was surprised to hear from Olivia that she felt like it was an American conception. 

Having these conversations led me to ask myself, why do I seem to gravitate towards people who don’t fit the Colgate stereotype, and why do I prefer to keep it this way? Talking to Olivia and Arnab confirmed my feelings of isolation, whether through Olivia’s confirmation of American obliviousness or Arnab’s ease in accessing his niche campus community. Why does this school have such a small demographic that holds a monopoly over social life? You would think international students would feel like they fit in more, but they get pushed to the backburner or feel more comfortable with other international students than the dominant Connecticut elite. 

I have spent my Colgate experience trying to find my place on campus: living in La Casa, going to OASIS+ meetings, joining a sorority. It doesn’t change the fact that like many other students of color and international students, I still can’t fit into the dominant culture.  How much longer will students like me flatten our experiences for the sake of fitting in? Or talk about the damaging environment here to our other marginalized friends without loudly vocalizing it? We shouldn't back our countercultural students into the corner. Home should be more than searching for the small affinity groups on campus.

On the phone with my sister, I say: “You just can’t understand it until you’re here. This school is like the pinnacle of whiteness.”