La Verne, Cali — The University of La Verne marches on after the announcement of the winner of this year’s presidential race.
The ULV is a private college on the outskirts of Los Angeles. It is situated in a liberal environment that strongly believes in inclusion, diversity, acceptance, and the freedom of different beliefs. The university is known for being home to a large population of international students, who expressed the most concern throughout the presidential campaigns.
It doesn’t come as a surprise that Hillary Clinton won California, since Trump’s ideals go against the shared social norms and beliefs of Californians. Nonetheless, the results had been announced, and the future president of the United States has been chosen by the people.
The ULV community expressed its concerns through peaceful demonstrations. The ideals of white supremacy, discrimination, racism, and sexism, which were represented throughout the new president’s campaigning process, do not appeal to the university’s community and the opposition is evident.
As such, four international students from the ULV have been interviewed in regards to what they think the new president should do to heal the United States of America.
“He needs to surround himself with advisors that’ll help steer him in the right direction that America needs to go. If he’s staying, there needs to be a change in how he’s approaching any issues prevalent in the society of America; he can’t just use accusations anymore. Running a country requires collaboration with the right people; the president isn’t alone in running America.”
— Jen Ning Quan, freshmen English and theatre major from Singapore
“He needs to identify the real issues and work on that. He can’t expect to govern America, a melting pot of cultures, with racism and misogyny-speaking from a practical sense, it isn’t feasible at all. So I think he needs to start collaborating with good people rather than working alone with people that won’t push the country any further, or even drag it back.”
— Charonne Razafindralay, sophomore biology major from Madagascar
“Being a person who first hand experienced the downfall of my own country because the population elected a famous rich business man as their president, I honestly have no clue how a businessman like Trump could ever do anything to “heal” America. If anything, with such a powerful and influential country in his control, I believe he will do everything but heal America. Especially in this generation where the war between races is out in the light even more than it has ever been with the exposure of sensationalism through social media. While I do believe Trump is a smart business man, I do not believe he has the credentials or the unbiased perspective to rule a country. The part that worries me the most is that it isn’t any other country like Italy, this is America one of the most powerful and influential countries in the world. I just hope that he surprises us all with being different from what I have judged.”
— Gaia Breccia, freshmen creative writing major from City?
“In order to reach a successful presidency and “heal this country” president-elect Donald Trump should understand that running a campaign and running a country are two completely different things. He should change his stance on small businesses and concentrate on them rather than bashing them in order to both help the economy and reach more jobs. I think that president Donald Trump should stop his racist/misogynistic comments for their impact not only in the American population but also foreign policy. Concentrating on the lower middle class would also be ideal and try to refrain from such extremist conservative viewpoints.”
— Vicky Peroni, freshmen international relations and business marketing and sales major from Paraguay