It’s Black History Month and St. Lawrence University is undeniably a PWI (predominantly white institution) and because of that, the different experiences of attending SLU between white students and students of color deserve to be recognized. Some students of color feel at times as if parts of their identities that they are able to share with other people of color have to be hidden or changed in order to assimilate.
While attending a PWI, it is almost inevitable that a person of color will code switch— change dialect or language spoken based on different social situations— in order to communicate. Manny Salazar, a first-year student, expressed his frustration with constant code switching. “I feel like I step aside from who I am,” he said. “That’s been a main problem, just trying to find people that will understand that main side of me.”
Many people of color may have different ways of speaking than white students because of various environments in which they were raised. However, instead of assuming that social interactions between you and people of color are normal and comfortable for everyone involved, first check your privilege and consider that they may be altering a part of their identity so that the other students around them feel more comfortable.
SLU has a lot to offer its students in terms of having a memorable college experience. But some students of color sometimes have difficulty adjusting to college during their first year.
Ariánda Tiburcio, a sophomore, described her experience starting at SLU. “When I came in the beginning I definitely didn’t fit in,” she said. “It was kind of difficult to adjust when everyone looked so different from me and I came from somewhere where everyone looked like me basically.”
It’s comfortable and familiar to be able to relate with those around you culturally, but, since SLU is a PWI, check your privilege and realize that this culture is not universally shared by all students. Although St. Lawrence administration and some students acknowledge that SLU is a PWI, there could still be more awareness by students to acknowledge that students of color and white students do not have identical experiences.
Tyler Senecharles, a junior, shared her opinion on whether white students understand if students of color have different experiences. “Some of them do, some of them don’t. I think from the outside looking in our experiences may not seem very different because we all wake up, we’re all late to the same classes, we all hate the same professors, but then there’s just certain little things that you wouldn’t realize.”
This Black History month, instead of offhandedly acknowledging the month’s significance, realize that students of color have experiences that are different from your own and check your privilege.