Take Better Care: Is Self-Care Truly The Ideal?

Op-Ed

“Self-care is not selfish.” Since I first stepped onto the Wellesley College campus in the Fall of 2015, I have encountered this phrase everywhere I go. I’ve seen it in Orientation programming and on dining hall posters–I’ve even heard it from the mouths of my friends. Eventually, I began to say it myself. As a Resident Assistant, I talked endlessly about how to maintain a certain level of self-care, handing out advice and posting literal “how-to” sheets, as if there were some kind of magical formula. “Hey, you! Yeah, great, take care of yourself! Go take a nap”, one of my own posters basically read. How nice and encouraging.

And this obsession with superficial self-care is not just a Wellesley phenomenon. It’s recognized by numerous sources on the national level, including US News, Psychology Today, and Forbes. I agree that the practices the “self-care” mantra promotes are important. Everyone needs to take care of themselves in order to survive.

But here’s the catch: Self-care as an ideal mode of living is premised on an intrinsic mistrust of the community around you. Go take care of yourself, because no one else is going to do it! That will obviously make you feel loved.

This messaging becomes even more problematic when its source is a system of power. For example, when it comes from the college administration itself, the liability for students’ wellbeing is then shifted onto the students. Does the administration really believe that it’s enough to want the best for their students while not following through with serious action? Or is the college just too ill-equipped to be effective or even strategic in the first place? The school is basically telling students that they have to deal with their issues on their own, except it’s packaged in such a friendly manner that it hides the institution’s unwillingness to take responsibility for its students. This self-protective approach is exposed by the shallowness of #wellness events on campus. Have you ever had all your problems taken care of by going to a night of bingo? I sure haven’t.

It’s an unacceptable societal problem that the only care you’re receiving is from yourself. When life gets hard, you won’t necessarily be able to keep it up. Maybe you’ve done it–pulled yourself up by your bootstraps. If so, you probably don’t see it as such a happy, low-stress feat. It’s heavily taxing, because if we were meant to solve all our problems on our own, we wouldn’t be living in communities from the start.

I think a lot of this extreme focus on the self comes from living in our supremely individualistic society. Specifically in college, I feel like I’m constantly confronting the American ideal of lone ranger independence. A white American friend of mine from the Midwest told me how there’s no way her grandma is ever going to live with her parents–it’s a retirement village or nothing. What! Coming from a family with members who immigrated in later waves, I could never say these words to my parents, and they could never ever say them to theirs. In less individualistic non-American cultures, telling people to self-care is inherently selfish–on the part of the person doing the well wishing. It’s basically saying this community you have will cheer you on, but you’re the one who has to land the routine. However, if you love them enough to give them (unsolicited) advice, why aren’t you doing the routine with them?

Also, the meaning of self-care originally referred to therapy for people who either weren’t being sufficiently cared for or were so dependent that they needed to feel some autonomy. It’s about surviving. Not thriving. As Slate points out in an article on the history of the term, self-care was historically given as medical advice to dependent patients, a coping mechanism for those in trauma-related professions, and later as a resistance effort for marginalized groups. Nowadays it’s being tossed around casually, as for example in on-campus postering–“Self-care and Face Masks”, “How to Self-Care During Exams”, “Take Care of Yourself and Pet a Puppy”. These are fun things! But for me, it’s never been these events that have gotten me through. It’s the people around me who have actively made sacrifices to care for me, who have sat with me until 3 AM, who have never given up on me even when I gave up on myself.

I believe that in order to truly thrive we need to support and pour life into one another. That’s the world I want to live in–one where a college orientation doesn’t have to emphasize self-care, because it already consists of a community of people who will radically love each other without being instructed to do so. One where no one is using curt hashtags and administration waivers to shirk the responsibility of actually caring for one another, because the needs of the administration and the students no longer diverge. Instead, we’re all members of humanity, and we no longer need to rely on our singular abilities. With everyone working together, we can all help each other take better care.

Dr. Jane Orton: If Chinese Is Taught Well, We Can Learn It

Profile

Dr. Jane Orton’s early foreign language instruction research centered on the “Silent Way” methodology, a theory that limits a teacher’s voice in the classroom. Fortunately, she does not apply this practice to her own life. As evidenced in our thirty-minute-turned-one-hour interview, one question can prompt Orton to share a myriad of thoughts, and it’s evident from her voice that Orton loves what she does.

While Orton claims to be retired and was thus unfazed by the overtime length of our interview, she is certainly far from unoccupied. When she answers my Skype call, I find she’s positioned in her living room with her laptop on her lap. The setting reminds me of my grandmother’s house, complete with a clock that chimes as I introduce myself. Orton is “delighted” to talk to anyone interested in Chinese, so we dive in.

Orton has dedicated her life to language instruction and education methodology research. Her skills as an educator, coupled with her personal history, have given her a unique perspective on the changes of Australia’s international engagement over the years. However, those skills would be meaningless without a fundamental love of learning. From the age of five, Orton kept a notebook to document every foreign word she encountered, and was “perfectly happy” learning French and German at school in a 1960s Australia where “Europe was the thing”. She went on to receive a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Melbourne with major studies in French and Philosophy and minor studies in German and Politics, but when cost limited her ability to travel to Europe, she embarked on a trip to Asia instead. She lights up as she discusses her love for Hong Kong, and it’s clear these early experiences significantly shaped the trajectory of her life.

Her first true encounter with learning Chinese came when she was working on the “Silent Way” in New York. As a guinea pig for that teaching method, she undertook an intensive Chinese course, which spurred a life-long dedication to the language. She returned to Australia to complete a four-year Honours degree from the University of Melbourne in Chinese Language and Literature, “the only way you could do it back then”. Orton then moved to Taiwan to further her studies, and later to Beijing to teach at the Beijing Teacher’s College (now Capital Normal University). After attending classes in psychology and the pedagogy of teaching alongside her own students, she returned to Melbourne to complete a PhD in Education at La Trobe University.

It’s certainly curious that Orton’s primary focus is on Chinese when she’s not Chinese herself, though being an outsider has given her a different perspective on the challenges of Chinese language instruction. Her background in languages shaped her interest in the actual process of language learning when she undertook Chinese for the first time, because it was “so different”. Similarly, her experience as an English Second Language (ESL) teacher, in France and in Australia, have educated her on the limitations of the native-speaker as an instructor, as “her students in France could have told her”. In Chinese, she explains that only a non-native speaker can understand the nuances of adopting a tonal language, something that is often overlooked in Chinese instruction. She believes that there is room for non-native speakers to advocate for cultures that are not their own, as she herself does everyday.

Orton is kind and eager to share her expertise with me, treating me as an equal with constant references to things she’s “sure I already know”. But she’s also firm. She prefaces our interview with a laugh, saying that she “can’t imagine” I’ll ask her anything she won’t want to answer, and she openly admits to getting herself into “hot water” when advocating for the importance of Chinese instruction in Australia. She explains that language instruction in Australia still comes from a very “white, male, Christian-backed” perspective, and her age has allowed her to see the impact of various government administrations on the resources allocated to Chinese programs. Yet, she’s adamant that her push for Chinese proficiency in Australia does not come from her personal “love” of Chinese culture; instead it arises from a purely strategic, political perspective. “When I pick up my newspaper, it’s not full of Italy, it’s not full of Germany, it’s full of China.”

While Orton has always been one to jump at the chance to take a class, to study a new topic or to learn a new subject, she doesn’t downplay the difficulty of learning Chinese. In addition to the lack of resources dedicated to Chinese study, the insufficient government backing of programs and scarcity of effective teachers and curriculum mean that Chinese is expensive and time-consuming to learn. It takes three-and-a-half times longer to learn Chinese than to learn another foreign language, and yet the same school time is allocated to Chinese as it is to French and Indonesian. While the outlook on Chinese instruction in Australia may seem bleak, Orton’s current projects are a source of optimism.  She currently consults a primary school whose students take classes in Chinese alongside their normal curriculum, and despite the obstacles, there is much in the program that brings her joy. Orton believes Chinese is not a lost cause in Australia: if it’s taught correctly, we can learn it.

That being said, Orton believes there is more to gain from learning a language than simply achieving fluency. In her current project, she sees children conquering the puzzles of learning different languages. “Why are there two words for brother in Chinese? Because age is the most significant social divider is all of Chinese society.” A child learns that in week two. You don’t necessarily “learn the violin to become a violinist”; similarly, by learning a language, especially one so different from English, you’ll learn much about culture and society in addition to mastering the code.

As for her retirement? From publishing new articles to hosting symposiums, it’s clear Orton won’t give up her passion for a while yet, and I’m grateful that she had an hour to set aside to talk to me. She still travels, though less frequently than she would like, and while it’s been her New Year’s Resolution to be even more disciplined in maintaining her Chinese, Chinese is still “a part of my week, every week”.

I am neither African nor American

Op-Ed

I often wonder why some people find the term “African American” so comforting. Does the repeated vowel sound have alliterative appeal? Has history made people afraid to say ‘the B-word’? Is it too harsh? Jarring? Abrupt? I have encountered an alarming number of instances in which people like me have been tossed into the African American box as though we B-words were some sort of monolithic group whose members could all be referred to by the same name. People like me aren’t a uniform group. Just ask the 1 in 10 people who are too-often identified as African American when they are foreign-born. This Jamaican woman is tired of being called African American. Here’s why.

Calling someone African American is reductionist. The complex reality of the personal significance of space and place is reduced to a label that is casually thrown around by persons who do not take the time to examine the words they are using.

Please tell me, dear white journalist/survey writer/commenter/friend, what is so scary about the B-word. Historically, yes, the B-word was considered offensive in the United States. So was interracial marriage. There are people alive today who were around when “negro” surpassed “colored” as the accepted term. “Negro” was socially acceptable for a very long time—in fact, until the Black Power Movement of the 1960s. The point is that this is a complex discussion that history cannot explain away. Historical context is no excuse for a lack of precision in the language we use. If the B-word is taboo, it shouldn’t be. No one should hesitate to say it, as though it’s something unkind or forbidden. There needs to be a paradigm shift in the way that we talk about the members of the incredible melting pot that is the United States of America.

Tell me why, when I fill in a demographic survey, there are still places in which the B-word is associated with that “African American” modifier. Tell me why my white friend from South Africa is less African American than I am. Consider for a moment the conflation of race, culture, historical context, and geographical location that has resulted in the absurd fact that the term “African American” is associated with skin color and not country of origin. I am sensing a double standard here.

Yes, I know, it could be argued that this is a simple question of usage or verbal habit that has nothing to do with semantics. Why does it matter what we’re called if the intent isn’t racist, bigoted, or ill-meaning? Answer: it matters because “African American” is not who I am. Even if I did have an American passport—which I don’t—what gives you the right to label me as African? What about all the uniquely Caribbean aspects of my culture that are distinct from those of my African-identifying counterparts? If your point is that my ancient ancestors came from Africa, then I have news for you: if you go far enough into the past, yours did too.

The fact of my African ancestry should not determine the term by which I am to be permanently identified. Don’t call me a negro. Don’t call me colored. Hell, you don’t even have to call me a person of color. Please, don’t call me African American. For crying out loud, just call me black.

The Inspirational Chuck Johnson

Profile

It’s always been an uphill battle. That’s the way it’s supposed to be though. If it’s easy, it means you aren’t challenging yourself enough.

Chuck Johnson is an international action film actor based in Tokyo, Japan. A native of Michigan, when he began training in Olympic Taekwondo at the age of 15 he would never have imagined where he was going to end up! In just 2 ½ years Chuck earned his black belt; 6 days later he was named Michigan State Junior Olympic Taekwondo champion in both sparring and forms. He went on to study the sport in its native Korea, while he attended Yonsei University, under the tutelage of a former Korean national champion. During this time, he also competed overseas in Tokyo and Hong Kong. In 2001, while completing a course at the University of Science and Technology in Hong Kong, he became the Inter-collegiate Taekwondo champion of Hong Kong even though he had originally come to the tournament just to watch.

During trips back to the U.S., Chuck also won the KTAA National Championship for sparring and forms and was a gold medalist at the State Games of America.

Inspired by a friend from Korea, moving to Japan was originally intended to be temporary—a gap year between college and the ‘real world’. After Chuck moved to Tokyo he worked an assortment of interesting jobs, including the standard work often taken on by expat Americans: teaching English. More unusual jobs followed: thanks to his physique, skill, and facility with English and Korean he was soon working as a bodyguard for visiting international celebrities such as Sylvester Stallone, Orlando Bloom, Jackie Chan, and Kim Sun Hee. However, the craziest job he says he had was work as a stripper.

I was doing fight choreography training during the day, so I needed a job that I could do at night; so that led me to that. Part of my work involved drinking with clients and customers though, so it was pretty tough. When I went to training, half or more of the time I was going hungover.

One of Japan’s first foreign stuntmen and today a film industry veteran of 15 years, Chuck started out on his action career in 2004 when his martial arts skill led him to be cast in Godzilla: Final Wars. The moment he walked onto the set, he knew that was what he wanted to do. It wasn’t easy though! At the time, he couldn’t speak a word of Japanese. Still, while he was on set he was able to meet the Japanese action director Yuji Shimomura (Devil May Cry, Metal Gear Solid V) and soon after began his study of East Asian-style fighting choreography. The first African American to make an international name for himself in the Far East’s action film industry, he is also the first American to have been trained extensively in the art of Katana Tate (Japanese theatrical swordplay).

It has been an uphill battle with an assortment of highs and lows, but Chuck Johnson is the sort of man who knows how to face those challenges with humor and firm determination. Good-natured and quick to laugh, this father says his biggest advice for people is to remember:

Life is really, really going to test you. Know that. Own it. Push through it.

Chuck has over 25 years of martial arts experience. In addition to holding the rank of master in Olympic Taekwondo, Chuck is ranked in Capoeira, Karate, Kobudo, and Judo. Additionally, he has studied Wing Chun Kung Fu, Hapkido, Hanmudo, Krav Maga, boxing, Kickboxing, and Tai Chi. He is also the chief developer of Phat English, a system which uses hip-hop music to teach the subtle nuances of English pronunciation, a prize-winning writer, and founder of the Tokyo-based company Quiet Flame Productions. He also runs the Quiet Flame Stunt Team, Asia’s first all-English speaking multi-ethnic stunt team.

Chuck has appeared in over 50 dramas, films, commercials, and video games in Asia and the United States. In 2012, he even became the face of Village Vanguard’s Gachi Muchi brand curry. In addition to his native English, Chuck speaks, reads, and writes Chinese and Korean, languages in which he’s self-taught.

 

 

 

 

Continue reading The Inspirational Chuck Johnson →

Roland Pellenq Wants You to Know That Concrete Isn’t Cement (and Vice Versa)

Profile

Roland Pellenq’s office is both tidy and cluttered. It’s built around the centerpiece of a stack of papers and manilla  folders that sits one foot high on a corner of his desk, right next to his Mac desktop. On the windowsill is a variety of interesting trinkets—a mug, an hourglass filled with black sand, a replica of what looks to be a fanciful tower of some kind—and opposite the small, round table I sit at is a wall of books. The organized chaos reminds me of someone who makes a mess when working and then cleans up before they leave, enacting the process so consistently and repetitively that they end up with a perfectly efficient system.

On paper, Dr. Pellenq is an accomplished academic. Beyond a Master of Science from Marseilles in France and a doctorate from London, he is the director of the CNRS branch at MIT—a joint lab effort that links MIT to Marseilles, where they study complex porous materials. He’s also one of the founders and leading researchers at MIT’s Concrete Sustainability Hub (“Not cement,” he interjects quickly ), but he assures you right away  that he isn’t the only one, and he’s  happy to talk about the people who work for him or who have helped him in his career. He’s published several papers over the years, some under the auspices of industry giants like Shell, and, although modest, he enjoys pointing out how his research has led him to meet some of the top leaders in the gas and cement industry.

Such is  the man who greets me outside of his office. I had knocked on his door and hadn’t gotten an answer, but Pellenq emerged minutes later from the office just next door to his, apologizing for not realizing I was there. He’s dressed in jeans and a gray sweater,  with a blue scarf wrapped loosely around his neck, and he balances the hanger holding his suit jacket on  bookshelf before he ushers me to a seat.

“The reason I’m here is kind of random,” he tells me with a laugh as he eases into his office chair. He pauses to consider this. Then:  “Well, not random. What happened is that I work for CNRS. Do you know what that is?”

As happens with most of the questions he asks me, Pellenq gives me no chance to respond before launching into an answer: CNRS is the largest governmental research agency in France—“probably the biggest one, actually,” Pellenq adds—and he is one of its most productive members. (In fact he was Director of Research there from 2002 to 2007.) It’s clear that this is a man who loves his work and loves explaining to others what he does, and it takes very little prodding for him to jump on a new story or explain another process. I barely even ask how he ended up at MIT before he launches into the tale of working with a fellow MIT civil engineering professor, Franz-Josef Ulm, when he first arrived in the States.

“We were still smokers back then,” he says with a laugh, as if that has everything to do with the story. He tells me how the CNRS approved his visit to the US and sent him on his way, and how he bridged the gap between MIT and CNRS to create a joint lab. I press him for details, and it’s hard to hold back a laugh at his earnestness when he says, “I sent a text message congratulating Alain for the new job, blah blah blah blah. And then I say, ‘What, by the way, why don’t you come to MIT,’ and he said, ‘Yes, okay, alright, okay,’”—as though texting Alain Fuchs, then acting president of CNRS, was no big deal.

But for Pellenq, it isn’t a big deal.  His relationship with his home country and the people there is one of fondness and familiarity, though after eleven years of living here he’s very comfortable with his situation in the United States. Perhaps a little too comfortable, even—at one point he says excitedly, “What we have,” only to stop and correct himself by saying, “Or rather, what you have,” before going on to explain that while at MIT he has plentiful resources, it’s in Marseilles where some of the really snazzy tech work  like three-dimensional imaging takes place.

Pellenq’s openness isn’t limited to the candor with which he speaks of his own work and life. At the end of the interview, he pelts me with questions about my interests and majors and plans for the summer, suggesting several places that I might find good to work at and encouraging me to apply. I laugh and thank him as I leave his office.  Then I recall that we hadn’t shaken hands or even introduced ourselves.  He had simply checked that I was who I said I was before he settled in to speak. Clearly, the niceties of formal introductions are, for him, unnecessary.

If You Want Diversity, Open the Gates

Op-Ed

Computer science is hard. That’s what everyone says, and they’re right. It’s not just because you’re learning an entirely new language with its own rules, syntax, and semantics, and it’s not because programming doesn’t click right away for everyone. It’s not even because it can be a struggle to find teachers to help you learn it. The real reason that computer science is so hard isn’t even related to the study itself; it’s because if you aren’t a White or Asian man, you’re in a field where the odds are stacked against you from the very beginning.

I walked into my first computer science classroom my junior year of high school and was one of three women in a class of thirty people. Then I went to my first computer class at Wellesley with no cisgender men in sight. At last, no working with just select, trusted male friends, carefully vetted before the class; at last, no men trying to explain something that I already knew better than they did; and at last, no more enduring the endless comments about how easy something must be if she can do it. It was a breath of fresh air.

But one thing didn’t change: the gatekeepers were ready and waiting.

The majority of students who graduate from college with a computer science degree are White or Asian, and the majority of those students are male. Studies point out numerous reasons for this, from the cultural stereotypes that surround computer science to the sexism that pervades the field in companies and universities. But the crucial element that discourages diversity in computer science? Gatekeeping—that is, controlling and limiting access to something. It’s not just the big companies that do this—it starts with schools failing to reach those who need the most help.

You’d think a place like Wellesley College wouldn’t have this problem. Yet last year, a CS professor at Wellesley accidentally sent out to the CS student body a document meant for faculty. It contained a list of “problem students” who, according to a subsequent faculty explanation, were struggling in class and needed to have a watchful eye kept on their progress. While we’ll never know for sure the list’s exact purpose, some students correctly identified it for what it was: a key component of gatekeeping. Just by seeing their names, the listed students were discouraged from continuing their classes because they were taking more time to program than they should. This document heightened awareness of how professors and lab instructors keep each other informed of which students are doing poorly. Ostensibly, instructional faculty do this so that those students can receive more help, but it’s unclear how many students received that help and how many dropped their major after the list was circulated.

CS faculty are the first to welcome anyone into the department, but   the gatekeeping at Wellesley is much more overt than the professors think. The first two introductory classes for CS have long been known for “weeding out” students who want to go into CS; discouraged by their difficulty and the time sink required for a passing grade, many drop the courses and pursue other interests. Even as the department is growing as interest in coding increases, these two classes prevent too many students from experiencing the fascinating aspects of computer science.

It shouldn’t be this way. Programming and the knowledge surrounding it should be accessible, especially since the world around us is becoming increasingly reliant on computers—your smartphone has artificial intelligence built into all of its core systems, and in the last ten years, virtual reality has left clunky machines behind and moved to affordable headsets. But gatekeeping keeps computer science out of reach for students who don’t meet the minimum requirement (read: White or Asian cisgender male). The assignments for many CS classes list the number of hours it takes to complete them; go over that hour limit and you are supposed to seek help from faculty or peers. Imagine how demoralizing it is to see some peers breeze through assignments when you have to constantly go to the help room and office hours. For some, it’s easier to just give up and take different courses. Who wants to spend fifteen hours on a single problem set?  Who wouldn’t rather do anything else?

Help room and office hours can be intimidating for a first-year student, particularly for first generation students and students of non-White and non-Asian descent. No one should be ashamed of how long it takes to learn to program. It’s time for colleges in general—and Wellesley in particular—to have a more robust program in place to catch students who slip through the cracks. It’s time for them to promote the diverse environment they claim to support.

Shima Khan: Advocating for other cultures in the classroom

Profile

For Wellesley High School (WHS) English teacher Shima Khan, teaching English is about more than just assigning essays and quizzing students on vocabulary. It’s about helping students understand the power of the human experience and exposing them to narratives of those who come from other backgrounds.

Originally from Hyderabad, India, Khan explains that she hadn’t always intended to become an English teacher. “Within the immigrant community, there’s this idea that you go into a field that gives you immediate returns. My parents were encouraging me to go into the sciences,” she says. However, after her freshman year of college at University of California – Irvine, Khan decided she couldn’t stand the “vapid lectures” of her physics classes. To her, the sciences were so constrictive because there was always only one right answer. “There was too little conversation and critical thinking happening for my taste,” she says bluntly, “and I changed my major from physics to English.”

After getting her teaching degree, Khan worked in an inner-city school in Houston, Texas, teaching students who were primarily from diverse, low-income backgrounds. She found this experience highly rewarding because she felt that the students valued her care and appreciated her reliable presence in their lives. When she came to WHS in 2012, Khan discovered it was a stark contrast from the school district she worked at in Houston. WHS was composed of an affluent, predominantly white student body and a mostly-white faculty as well.

Khan’s first year was difficult, to say the least. “Everyone here is white and privileged. They have the resources they need to get what they want. I didn’t feel that there was a need for me as a teacher,” she recalls. However, she soon learned that the students at WHS did need her; just in a way that was different from what she’d experienced in Houston.

During Khan’s first year at WHS, she realized there was a void in the units taught in English classes. Most courses didn’t incorporate multicultural literature and very few authors of color were included on course syllabi. These voices played an important role in the social fabric of the American experience, and Khan felt the students needed to be exposed to them. “Reading The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri is just as important as reading The Great Gatsby,” she says. “That is also an American experience.” To address this gap in representation, Khan co-created the senior English course “Diverse American Voices,” co-taught by a white teacher and a teacher of color. Their course documents the experiences of minorities living in America and features books ranging from Eddie Huang’s Fresh Off the Boat: A Memoir to Alice Walker’s The Color Purple.

Khan also created the elective course “World Literature,” which promotes other cultures through literature and features classics from Egypt and India to indigenous populations in North America. Each year, Khan changes the curriculum to reflect the cultural identities of students who are taking the class. “Whoever is taking the course, I want to make sure that their identity is represented. To hear your peers talk about your identity with you is very powerful,” she says.

Khan appreciates that teaching English, as opposed to another subject, has offered her the space to advocate for other cultures and accommodate the whole student. “Humanities classes give you the space to think differently [from STEM courses]. It also gives me, as a teacher, the space to appreciate what students are bringing into the classroom,” she says. “If you take [my] classes, I hope it instills a love for appreciating other cultures without appropriating them.”

Khan doesn’t just advocate for other cultures through literature; she also recognizes the need to increase teacher diversity, a matter that is particularly relevant given WHS’s lack of diverse students and faculty. Khan was recently quoted in the school’s newspaper, where she explained that the gap in cultural representation among teachers is just as much a loss for white students as it is for those of color. “Being in the presence of someone who looks different helps [white students] realize that the world is not a reflection of who they are,” she stated. “There are different people and you have to know not just how to tolerate them but to make meaningful connections with them; to celebrate their individuality.”

When foreign language instruction is cultural appropriation

Op-Ed

I remember the first Spanish class I took in middle school. The teachers gave us a handout outlining the benefits of learning a foreign language. Enhancing memory, preventing cognitive decline, and improving job prospects were all listed on the sheet. Determined to learn something useful, I felt eager to learn Spanish, my first acquired language that wasn’t native, after Urdu and English. In reality, I was enticed to learn a new language primarily for the sake of advancing my own prospects. I’m sure I wasn’t alone. When this happens, it isn’t the learner who is to blame. Certain approaches to foreign language instruction are in fact based on principles of cultural appropriation.

Cultural appropriation is the adoption of another culture’s elements, practices, or customs in the absence of an understanding of the context behind them and with the intent of benefiting an interest that is often unconnected with the culture. We’ve seen cultural appropriation before. Take Beyoncé and Coldplay’s music video “Hymn for the Weekend,” a clip that depicts India as an exotic land and features Beyoncé appropriating traditional Indian dance moves while dressed in Indian-style garments. Produced more for revenue than for spreading cultural awareness, the video takes advantage of another culture and uses it to attract more video views. It also demonstrates a lack of understanding of Indian culture by trading on stereotypes in the form of levitating holy men and people dancing in the streets.

Though acquiring a new language is advertised as the key to connecting with people from other cultures, cultural appropriation occupies this domain too, and its claims are just as seductive. That middle school handout reappeared again when I was taking Spanish in eleventh grade and yet again in twelfth grade. These constant invitations to learn a language for solipsistic benefits, a passport to personal advancement, prompt the question, are we really teaching students how to understand and appreciate other cultures? Or are we encouraging them to take advantage of another culture and language in order to flaunt multilingualism on a résumé?

Emphasis on learning a language solely to enhance one’s prospects isn’t the only way cultural appropriation can affect teaching approaches. Any pedagogy that devalues the relationship between culture and language in the service of some other goal is evidence of cultural appropriation as well. In early March, April Rose, a state delegate in Maryland, proposed a bill authorizing county boards of education to allow computer programming to fulfill students’ foreign language graduation requirements. Rose told the Carroll County Times that allowing computer programming to satisfy foreign language requirements would “provide more access to … classes that really provide true workforce skills.” While coding does involve gaining fluency in programming vocabulary and syntax, it doesn’t replace learning about another human culture. Languages are not just for communicating; they are also for understanding. Stripping students of exposure to another form of human connection gives the impression that it’s not necessary to learn how to exchange ideas with people from other cultures. Furthermore, while learning to code may prepare students for getting a job after they complete their education, there’s no guarantee that they will thrive in that workplace if they do not know how to establish relationships with people from other cultures.

Does this mean that all foreign language instruction programs are guilty of cultural appropriation? Not necessarily. Programs that teach learners to appreciate the cultures associated with a language are not examples of cultural appropriation; on the contrary, they incorporate forms of cultural education in order to teach language. It isn’t enough to simply learn the vocabulary and grammar rules of a language; it’s also essential to learn cultural context. Take the “you” pronoun in Urdu, a language commonly spoken in Pakistan, as well as parts of India, Bangladesh, and the Middle East. In Urdu, there are three forms of “you” — one extremely informal form reserved for animals or those who are “inferior”, another relatively informal form used to address children or close members of a family, and a very formal form that signifies respect. A speaker ignorant of the cultural context denoting when to use each form could easily misuse it and offend someone.

Promoting cultural education goes quite naturally with teaching a language. Teaching students about the countries a language is spoken in, incorporating literature and film into instruction, and offering travel experiences are all ways that foreign language programs can help learners appreciate and acknowledge the culture of the language they are trying to learn. This value and respect for other cultures is what will enable them to more easily connect with others, understand and accept cultural differences and become global citizens.

Nicola Orichuia: Bringing Italian Literature to Boston’s North End

Profile

I AM Books is housed in a four story red brick building in a quaint area of Boston’s North End, the epicenter of Italian culture in Boston. Inside, the store is small, taking up the basement and ground floor of the building, with the basement level devoted to offices and overstock, and the ground floor as the actual sales floor. The bookcase greeting customers at the entrance contains books written in English that take place in Italy, and as one walks deeper there is an English section, a bilingual section, a grouping of works by Italian authors translated into English, and Italian authors in Italian—many of the most prolific authors get an entire shelf to themselves, including Italo Calvino, Elena Ferrante, Andrea Camillieri, and Dante Alighieri. The children’s section has books in both languages, including English classics such as Harry Potter and Dr. Seuss in Italian, as well as Italian classics.

Nicola Orichuia is the young, charming co-founder of the store, so enthusiastic that he apologized for talking too much during our conversation. A journalist originally, Nicola moved to the United States from Italy in 2008 and from Chicago to Boston in 2010. Sitting with me on a small couch tucked between bookcases in the store, he told me that before opening I AM Books, he had never worked in retail or the book industry. During his first years in the United States, he was a founder and journalist of an Italian American online and print magazine, but when a friend was leaving a storefront in the North End, Nicola felt called to put a business there. At first, he admits that he didn’t even know what he wanted to do with the space, but eventually his passion for books gave him the idea for the bookstore, and four months later, the store opened. Nicola firmly believes that every community needs and deserves its own bookstore, and since the North end was without a bookstore at the time, he saw this storefront opening up as the perfect way to fill that void. He had never dreamed of opening a bookstore; the opportunity simply fell into his lap, and he took it.

Having had no experience in the book industry or even in retail, he faced a steep learning curve to get a bookstore on its feet, but with his passion for books and community building, it came together. This passion was evident throughout our conversation in his bright eyes and long answers to my queries. He apologized more than once for talking too much, but to me it was simply clear how much he cares about what he’s doing.

Central to Nicola’s passion for the store is his commitment to its mission. I AM Books wants to be more than “just” a bookstore. Nicola views it as both a bookstore a cultural hub. Critical functions of the store, he feels, are providing opportunities for others, including first time and self-published authors; opening doors and opportunities for everyone; giving people a physical space to come together and meet. Nicola is firm in his conviction that bookstores are vital to a community because they offer a physical space that brings people together. He also stressed the store’s importance as an Italian-American space—blending both cultures together. Italian-American culture is a unique culture with its own identity separate from Italian culture itself, and the store tries to maintain a balance between the two. There is an Italian bookstore in San Francisco that sells purely Italian books, but I AM Books is not that—and it doesn’t want to be. Nicola told me that he believes bookstores allow people to get a deeper understanding of who they are, where they come from, and where they’re going.The Italian angle of his store thus impacts people’s perceptions of themselves in a unique way. He loves getting to know customers, new and regulars, and he loves the way the community has welcomed the store. The growth of the store and the expansion of its community, the regulars who stop by to say hi, the Italian literature festival he will be organizing for the second time this year—all of it makes Nicola feel like he is succeeding at his job.

When asked what a bookstore needs to be successful today, Nicola told me that nothing is more important than having a strong soul and identity. That’s the key, and without it, customers will know there’s something off. He told me that ultimately, if you build it, they will come, as long as you understand and honor your mission. There are always challenges, and no one goes into the bookselling industry to “get rich,” but if customers leave satisfied and you’re carrying out your mission, you are succeeding. And I AM Books certainly is.

Dorothy Roberts and Her Fight for Social Justice

Profile

Dorothy Roberts is George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology and the Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights at the University of Pennsylvania. She has gained international recognition as a scholar, focusing on the areas of reproductive health, child welfare, and bioethics. Recently she visited Wellesley College as their 2019 Betsy Wood Knapp ‘64 speaker to discuss issues involving race-based medicine.

Roberts grew up wanting to become an anthropologist. Her father, an anthropology professor, and her mother, who gave up on her anthropology PhD when she gave birth to Roberts, encouraged her from a young age to enter academia. But during her undergraduate senior year at Yale, she suddenly decided to apply for law school. “I wanted to do something more concrete in terms of advocating for social justice and I didn’t really have any role models, as anthropology professors who did that. And so I switched gears and turned from anthropology to law and went to law school.”  In 1980 she graduated with a JD from Harvard. After practicing law for a number of years, she realized that her true passion lay elsewhere: in academic teaching, writing, and research of academia.

“ I figured out that I could be a social justice advocate while doing those things in academia so I became a law professor, and have always tried to merge my interests in social justice with the work of a professor in academia.”

Now as a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, she continues her work in social justice through her writing, sitting on boards, and advocating for others. She started out focusing on reproductive health, which led to her first scholarly article “Contesting the Prosecutions of Black Women Who Use Drugs During Pregnancy”. “That topic lead me to think about multiple ways racism and sexism are intertwined in the regulation of women’s childbearing, especially black women’s childbearing” says Roberts. Her book, Killing the Black Body, traces the restrictive and oppressive reproductive methods used to control black women’s childbearing from the era of slavery to today. While following the stories of black women’s childbearing Roberts discovered that newborns of black women who used drugs during pregnancy were immediately placed in foster care. This lead her to examining the child welfare system. In this area she noticed the same systematic black oppression she encountered in reproductive health. “As I start to understand it not as a system that benevolently saves children but as a system that is very oppressive and rife with racial discrimination, I decided to write a book on that topic.” That book, Shattered Bonds: the Color of Child Welfare, is an account linking the origins and impact of the unequal representation of black children in the child welfare system to racial injustice. Roberts identified both these areas of reproductive justice and child welfare as having systems rooted in the devaluing black women’s childbearing – first punishing black women for having children, then taking them away.

“Even though my conclusions are sometimes depressing, I think ‘oh, all these forms of oppression work together in these particular ways’. I still […] get satisfaction out of helping to figure out how oppression works. The reason I get satisfaction out of it is not just because it’s an intellectual exercise, but because I work with people who are parts of movements to end it.”

Roberts is affiliated both with a national panel for foster care reform in Washington state, and with the Standards Working Group for stem cell research in California. The intersectionality of the diverse work she does can appear daunting for those wanting to follow in her footsteps.  But her advice to younger generations looking to change systemic injustice is to follow their passion.

“[…] the silver lining of the fact that there’s so much wrong is that there’s so much you can do! And there’s such a variety of things you can do. […] Pick a field that you enjoy working in and then find people of like mind you can work with. […] I think that a student graduating from college can find their way into one of those movements. Or find their way in whatever they want to do into collaborating with a movement that is working towards change in an area they’re particularly interested in, or feel passionate about.”