Introduction
We can see that more and more international students are coming to the U.S. to further their studies and that American universities are becoming multicultural gathering places. However, when different cultures mingle and collide, the results are not always satisfying. Racial discrimination is becoming more and more prevalent in universities, and international students encounter a variety of difficulties in this environment.
Difficulties International Students Face
Kaiyuan:”English is my second language and I am not proficient in speaking and listening. Once one of my classmates was handing out project assignments and when it came to me, he deliberately spoke very fast and at a low volume. After I explained to him several times that I couldn’t hear him and didn’t quite understand him, he expressed his disappointment with me in a mocking tone and stopped handing out assignments for me. Since then I have been very afraid of group projects.”
(Universities must stand with international students)
Ricardo: “I had four siblings that went to college before I did so I was offered a little help from them but they did not always know what to do. I believe that my guidance counselors from high school helped me out the most. They knew my story and where I came from. Both of my parents are only Spanish speaking so they really could not offer any help even if they wanted to. I had to rely on the help from my siblings and guidance counselors to make sure I was offered enough financial aid.”
Ricardo: “Coming from a household that only spoke Spanish made me have to work harder than I would have to if English was my first language. I was enrolled into ESL (English as Second Language) classes all the way up until seventh grade in middle school. These classes offered lots of help for struggling students. I used to struggle the first couple years of school, until I was able to fully understand the language. From my freshman year of highschool I challenged myself by enrolling into all honor and AP classes, I think that these classes improved my skills in many aspects.
Hailey: To comment on Ricardo and Kaiyuan’s past experiences, I believe that those students who do not primarily speak English have a harder time in school. Because English is their second language there is a significant learning barrier. This barrier ultimately impacts their grades and their ways of communicating with both professors and other students. Ultimately the barrier in communication negatively affects international students’ abilities to feel included and less isolated. International and native students have such significant differences in culture also making it hard for the two groups of students to relate to one another. Because the cultures are so different between an international and native student, it seems as if native students are more often unwilling to befriend international students and take an insignificant amount of time to learn about their background and interests.
Racial Discrimination Directed Towards International Students
International students have been the targets of various microaggressions over the years. “Microaggressions are defined as “brief, everyday exchanges that send denigrating messages to people of color because they belong to a racial minority group (Loo)”. These microaggressions include being continuously ridiculed for their accent, seen as less intelligent, as well as invisible in the classroom. Microaggressions like so, make international students feel as if they are “others” in society. The idea of otherness is an emotion in which many international students relate to due to their native peers continuously targeting and excluding them.
(Changing attitudes about studying in the US)
The Impact of COVID-19
Racial discrimination within universities has always been a prevalent issue, however COVID-19 seemed to negatively impact international students in this way. With COVID-19 cases increasingly rising for almost the past two years, international students have been continuously discriminated against. Remarks made towards international students are very stereotypical and often come from a place of racist nature. Many native students have the assumption that all international students are COVID-19 carriers despite their exposure to it. Because they have this assumption, native students have spent the entirety of the pandemic avoiding international students. Some native students also make racist remarks directed towards international students in regards to COVID-19 being the “China Virus”(Mittelmeier and Cockayne 2). These racist remarks and shunning of international students has made them feel unwelcome and isolated during their time spent at college.
(They can stand over there)
A Native’s Perception on International Students
Hailey: As a native student, I do not personally relate to much of the same difficulties that my international peers do. However, I do understand as international students and the effects of the pandemic, these obstacles have only been amplified. Racial discrimination towards international students is at an all time high because of the COVID-19 pandemic. During my time as a student at The Ohio State University, I have heard several discriminatory remarks made in regards to international students.
How Can Racial Discrimination be Addressed?
While racist and discriminatory remarks will never completely be eradicated, college students can work to improve their recognition of their own implicit biases. These implicit biases and assumptions that many native students have of international students often stem from their parents, guardians, and friends’ views of people of color, ultimately influencing native students to think similarly. The key to decreasing racial discrimination within a college campus starts with native students formulating their own idea of international students rather than taking on someone else’s preconceived and stereotypical idea of an international student. Therefore, native students must be self aware of the environment in which they grew up and the impact the closest people in their lives had on their perception of people of color. The people who raised us and surrounded us during our childhood are ultimately some of the most influential in our lives. Thus in order to decrease any racial discrimination directed towards international students, native students must take the time to engage, interact, and learn from their international peers. By doing so native students will be able to formulate their own opinions of these students and reject any preconceived stereotypes of these students.
The reason of race issue
The injustice between races is partly a result of school policies that prevent international students from being treated the same as local students, and partly a result of racial discrimination between faculty and students.
Although schools have many policies that are the same for international and local students, the same policies can have very different outcomes for international and local students because of the different resources available to them. As discussed above with regard to applying for admission, the school’s policies for local and international students are almost identical. But international students with limited language skills and parents who have no experience applying to U.S. colleges can experience very great hardship. The programs created by the school, especially those requiring writing, are very unfriendly to international students. International students often face difficulties in writing, cannot read the questions on tests, and think the teacher speaks too fast in class. These factors all contribute to their limited performance in some subjects. The fairness and equity that the university values does not work as it should. International students are likely to become subaltern in this case. What they need such as financial aid or help with language and applications is not taken seriously. Schools continue to treat diverse schools with the normal educational approach and school policies for local students. The impact of international students speaking out is very limited.
The problem of racial discrimination in college can be traced back to the time when American universities began to increase their diversity. Race-based classifications emerged when multiculturalism made its way into American universities(Loo 5). Students were often distinguished by their physical appearance and given race-specific labels and rankings. Labels and rankings are often determined by people based on information in the media and on social networking sites. The research also shows that international students typically have their own views on other races. According to Ritter’s study conducted at UCLA,13 East Asian international students appear to have developed a certain sense of global racial hierarchies: whites, followed by East Asians, Latinos, and finally African Americans14 and Southeast Asians at the bottom. The bottom ranking of the last two groups tends to be attributed to their darker skin color(Loo 14). Each race, to a greater or lesser extent, considers other races to be the other. One race perceives the race that ranks higher than them as hostile and the race that ranks lower than them as inferior. This multi-layered overlapping duality leads to discord between the different races within the university.
(International Students and Experiences with Race in the United States)
What do we do when me meet them again? What solutions do you prefer?
Ricardo:”Many universities now offer financial help for international students, which is not difficult to find on the university’s official website. Federal aid and international organization aid are also available, and these resources can address the issue of expensive tuition for international students(Source of finance aid 4). But the system is not perfect, aids are limited and international students are much less likely to receive scholarships in school than local students. I wish the university had a better solution to the problem of expensive tuition for international students, such as special grants.”
Kaiyuan:”I think there are many ways to deal with racial discrimination as far as international students themselves are concerned. For example, building a supportive network, getting together with people who have the same issues as yourself and supporting each other(Recommendations 2). We also need to actively develop a cultural identity and try to promote a friendly exchange between cultures(Recommendations 4). Cultural identity is very important to us, it gives us confidence and hope to progress with different cultures. It is difficult to solve learning problems, which takes more of our time, and I think it is very unjust. I hope that the school can introduce some policies similar to international students can get special help in language similar to clubs and special open classes.”
Hailey:”As a local student, I think it is more important for us to be inclusive and agreeable to international students. Recognize their culture, be tolerant and help them when they have language difficulties. We should also intervene and discourage discrimination when it occurs. We also need multicultural courses to understand the seriousness of racial issues.”
Sources
Jenna Mittelmeier and Heather Cockayne, “Combating discrimination against international students”, 10 Oct 2020, University World News, retrieved from: https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20201009142439903
Bryce Loo, “International Students and Experiences with Race in the United States”, Mar 26 2019, WENR, retrieved from:https://wenr.wes.org/2019/03/international-students-and-experiences-with-race-in-the-united-states
“Source of finance aid”, International Students, retrieved from: https://www.internationalstudent.com/study_usa/financing/sources/
“Recommendations for coping with race-related issues”, California State University Monterey Bay, retrieved from: “https://csumb.edu/pgcc/coping-racism-discrimination/”
Donna Orem, “Changing attitudes about studying in the US”, National Association of Independent Schools, Sep 17 2018, retrieved from: https://www.nais.org/learn/independent-ideas/september-2018/international-students-you-are-welcome-here/
Tartan board, “Universities must stand with international students”, Feb 12 2017, retrieved from: https://thetartan.org/2017/2/13/forum/columbia
Zoe Case, “ ‘They Can Stay Over There’: Our Discrimination against International Students”, Medium, Aug 1 2020, retrieved from:https://medium.com/the-humanities-in-transition/they-can-stay-over-there-our-discrimination-against-international-students-337b03a3e6a6