I'm back after a few years from blogging. Hopefully I will be able to restart my blog to a weekly post. But this weekend, I had 2 events/pieces of art that made me think of the current discussion of institutional racism and exclusion within our society, institutions, and politics.
My friend and research collaborator, Dr. Marilyn Easter, has written a novel (Resilience: Bravery in the face of Racism, Corruption, and Privilege in the Halls of Academia). This is a piece of fiction based on her own experience in becoming the only African American full professor in the school of business at her university. The day after I finished reading Marilyn's book, I saw the film In the Heights, based on the community that Lin Manual Maranda grew up in. Both works have shared themes of inclusion and resilience when the social systems are stacked against the main characters. But more importantly, both show the importance of family, community, and key mentors/allies in confronting the barriers built by those in power. Power vs. Power-Less (In the Heights).
In Resilience, Emma, the main character decides as a child that she wants to be a teacher. While those in a position of power found excuses to prevent her from being a teacher, key people in her life, like her mother, her husband, her daughter, mentors and acquaintances encouraged her to find a way around those barriers. Sometimes they would counsel her to give up the fight so she could achieve a victory down the road. But she always persevered, eventually becoming the teacher she always wanted to be.
In the Heights, Nina is a college student at Stanford, living away from her family in New York City and the community in which she grew up. While at school, she feels excluded. At a school function, a professor assumes she is part of the wait staff. Her father, without even a high school education, sells his business to send her to school. He wants her to have the opportunities he never had. So if she fails, she feels as if she lets down her community and family as well as herself. But her father and community have an idealized notion of college. They don't have to deal with a complex political and social system that is academia for first generation students. Without help, first generation students get lost in the labyrinth of college.
Like Nina's story in In the Heights, Emma is always made to feel an outsider in Academia. She too has a parent who never received her high school diploma so Emma is on her own for navigating her education. Throughout her life, people step up to give her advice, but she soon learns that she can't always trust those people who are supposed to know what they are talking about. Those that she can trust, just don't know how the system works because they live outside the power structure.
Emma and Nina both are straddling two worlds and at times they feel they don't belong anywhere. But then, family and friends step in to make them realize that their place in the world is just where they are, with people that love them and believe in them.
In both works, structural racism is the most difficult to fight. The unwritten rules are stacked against them but it also makes it difficult to prove that racism is at the root. Emma's mother and Nina's father believe that their daughters "can do anything they want to" with the help of education. Both women are hard working, successful students, kind and well-liked, but it seems as if the rules for success were written to exclude them from the place they deserve in society because of their accomplishments.
However, Emma and Nina never appear to be hopeless victims of discrimination. Emma surrounds herself with allies and fights back legally, publicly, and politically, working at changing the system so that her students, young colleagues, and daughter will not have to suffer from the system of exclusion (based on race, sexual identity, gender, or disability) she had to fight in academia. At the end of the film, Nina decides to stay in college and work in advocacy to represent those in her community. My only criticism with In the Heights was that Nina goes back to Stanford. I would have liked for her to go to Columbia just up the street from Washington Heights. Unlike Nina, Emma always finds an alternative path, even when she feels like giving up. She won't give into to those that want to keep her down. But also recognizes that at times, she needs help in fighting the fight.
At the end of both of these works, there is not a "happily ever after" as much as hope for the future. This hope is for the generation that comes after them. Both Emma and Nina are living fulfilling lives which will always be a struggle, but with a supportive life outside of their struggles. They surround themselves with optimistic, supportive people, but also give as much as they receive. They focus on how much they have accomplished, the people in their life that lift them, and a sense of contentment with the decisions they have made in their life.
I would highly recommend reading Resilience. I read it in 3 days, wanting to know what would happen next (although after 30 years in academia, I was afraid I would know). In the Heights also left me with a happy feeling, especially after the community musical scenes. Both left me with the sense that community, love, and music makes everything in the world better.
Note: I feel the Resilience should be a must read for all first gen students, any BIPOC considering or already in graduate school, and anyone interested in mentoring BIPOC students.
