Don’t get me wrong, I love Kenyon. However, as with any educational institution in America, Kenyon is not perfect—far from it actually. In my first few weeks here, I was whisked away by how much I love it here, and how I really felt like I belonged. But what I had failed to take in here was the lack of diversity in Kenyon’s student body.
Every college I applied to last year was majority white, so in some way that wasn’t the surprising part. What actually surprised me was the fact that at Kenyon only 4% of students identify as Asian. Most Asian students that I’ve encountered here are actually international students, while I’m a first-generation Pakistani-American, and that makes all the difference.
This is the first time I had encountered anything like this in my life. While I went to a majority white high school where people of color were also poorly represented in the student body, most of my friends were those who were the people of color. I had surrounded myself with other first-generation students and people who were of South Asian or Asian descent so much so that I hadn’t noticed those who were white. Now, the only other Pakistani girl I know in my class is my roommate and she’s an international student whose experience differs entirely from mine. Now, all of my friend groups are consistently white, and while I’m not uncomfortable with that, there are some things that they will never understand about my life and about how I identify myself culturally.
The truth is that Kenyon recognizes the lack of diversity and is trying to put in more effort into diversifying their student population, especially with their new campaign. But are Asians a part of this equation? I feel like in today’s climate, and with my own experiences applying to college scholarships when colleges talk about diversifying their campuses they usually are speaking to minority groups that aren’t Asian. Perhaps it’s because, like a lot of America, they don’t quite believe Asians to be a minority—which I totally disagree with—or they have larger populations of Asians at their schools, but at Kenyon, this is far from the case.
The lack of Asians—specifically South Asians—at Kenyon had a bigger impact on me than I thought it would. Being Pakistani-American has influenced my life greatly. Years of discrimination and constantly having to educate people about my culture have in ways molded me into the person I am today. When I walk into my home every day after school I had walked into another world, and it was hard to forget that I live between two worlds. But at Kenyon, I’ve had my own friends tell me that sometimes they forget that I’m first-generation. And while I appreciate the fact that for once in my life I’m not being singled out as the incorrectly identified “Indian girl,” I feel as if I’m losing or forgetting a part of myself—the part that speaks Balochi with my mom and watches Bollywood movies, or the part that eats naan with my meals, and dances to songs in urdu in the kitchen. I’m losing the part that balances the Pakistani with the American.
While at Kenyon, I know that I’m starting fresh, making a name for myself and developing who I am away from home. But with that, I fear that because there’s hardly anyone here to remind me of who I am, I’ll lose the culture that makes me, me.