Interview: Asking Alice, Part I, education, transition, privilege

HS Senior Year Photo

Alice knows. In part one of her interview, Alice gives educators, parents, and students specific details about her journey from the US to Taiwan and then back to a highly selective research University in the States. While some might assume that her story would not ‘speak’ to them and their own personal life experiences, anyone reading her words will find out why she should be writing and speaking to groups around the country about education.

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·       Can you tell us about your background and secondary education? Where did you grow up and go to school?

I am a second-generation Taiwanese American that left the States when I was five years old. I was born in New Jersey and my family moved to Hsin Chu, Taiwan. I spent all twelve years in a bilingual school in Hsin Chu called National Experimental High School (NEHS). They recently got certified for being International Bilingual Schoolan international school and it is now named International Bilingual School in Hsin Chu (IBSH). The school prides itself in producing high-achieving students under an English-Mandarin curriculum.

·       Can you tell us about your school? It is one of the best in Taiwan and sends many to selective schools in the US. Did you like it? Was it incredibly competitive? What sorts of things did you get involved with?

My school has a very specific demographic of Taiwanese Americans like myself, with parents that are generally in the tech industry and/or are professors at universities in Taiwan. Our curriculum was largely based on the American system but we were also required to take Chinese, Chinese Social Studies and many of our teachers, especially during my elementary school years, taught in Mandarin Chinese. We are a very privileged and specific set of students that - due to the geographic isolation of our school, relentless parental pressure and general aspiration to learn, “excel”. I think most of our students go to the Top 30 schools in the US.

Overall, I had a pretty good time at my school. Our school is quite small; each grade has about 40-50 people. I think it helped that I hadn’t experienced any type of formal education in the United States; I only knew what NEHS provided. I had nothing to compare it to! I know many of my classmates that entered our school later struggled with the school culture. We spent a significant amount of time studying and talking about homework. You gained respect from your peers (and their parents) by doing well in school. Indeed, there was a lot of competition at our school to succeed through grades. And this is a negative side of our school, we weren’t really taught to be proud of anything else other than our academic achievements. We had pressure from our parents, peers and our school to get good grades and SAT/AP scores. 

I began thinking about going to college in first grade and started taking SAT classes in 7^th grade. I struggled too and I wasn’t the best but I wasn’t the worst. What I really liked about our school are my friends that continue to be my closest and most comfortable friends. We have an inherent understanding of each other and each other’s experiences during our formative years at NEHS. That type of community is very precious and rare.

Elementary School

In middle school through high school, I was dedicated to Yearbook. During senior year, I ended up being a burnt-out, stressed-out editor in chief! I was also very involved in Model United Nations, I may or may not have chaired one of our Taiwan conferences? I don’t even remember!

·       Did it help to have an older brother who led the way in going to the US? How much did he influence you I choosing schools?

Yes, it did! He helped me a lot in knowing what to do before applying to colleges; he looked over my essays and listened to me panic and cry. In choosing schools, I didn’t really ask him about much. I had a general idea of where to ballpark my expectations and I looked at schools in that range. My brother had positive things to say about his university and I was also able to talk to you. And of course, I looked up to my brother a lot and even though we are different – I strived to perform and excel in the ways that he had set. And although my brother already graduated by the time I entered my university, I felt a level of comfort and ease that he also went there.

School uniforms

•        Did you undergo culture shock when you came to the US? If so, in what form?

I grew up in a very sheltered, homogenous environment my whole life up until coming back to the United States. Even though I spent summers in the States, it was usually in similar environments (like nerd camp, SAT Prep camp, pre-college camp). So my experience with culture shock was pretty extreme and confusing. I was put in a traditionally white dorm, in which I was one of two Asians in my hall. I’ve never felt like a minority before and this experience really put me in my place. It was hard for me to make friends because it was hard for me to relate to my hallmates. I found small talk to be very fake and burdensome. There were a lot of things like how they dressed, how they put on make-up and what they found interesting, that were just completely foreign to me. I was never pressured to look, talk or act in a certain way. And then all of the sudden, all those expectations were just there! I didn’t understand that. I didn’t know anything about alcohol or drugs until I came to my university either. In addition, there were many misunderstandings between my roommate and I. This created a lot of tension and discomfort because even though the problems were between us, she was very close with our hall mates and confided in them. It is not necessarily that I felt excluded by my hall but it was more that I never felt included. And I wasn’t sure whether or not I was supposed to try harder, accept it or just not care. I went to college with many expectations and my dorm life fell horribly short. The cultural learning curve was high and it took me a long time to adjust. It always felt like I was supposed to “know” how to interact with these people and I really just didn’t. It’s definitely a learned skill – smile, pretend and talk about nothing!

·       Can you tell us what you chose to study as an undergraduate and why? Is there a favorite class or teacher you want to highlight? Did anyone change your life?

I studied Anthropology and Foreign Affairs in college. What I loved about Anthropology is that it challenges very traditional forms of thinking. It challenges power, norms, theories and its own history as a discipline. That type of critical thinking and creation of knowledge really drew me to the major. For Foreign Affairs, I was primarily interested in politics and international relations. I ended up focusing on East Asia. Surprisingly enough, I learned a lot more about the region I was from than when I was actually living there.

I have three favorite classes and teachers I want to talk about! The first one is Introduction to Anthropology, which I took with Professor Richard Handler. I remember that after the first lecture, it was the first time at my school I really thought, “Wow, I’m going to be learning something new.” Professor Handler can be provocative in explaining his approach and this class taught me a lot about humility when it comes to studying other cultures, politics and histories. The second class is Introduction to Asian American Studies with Professor Sylvia Chong. Professor Chong is great at articulating knowledge and logic. She is sharp and won’t take your bullshit. This class was my first exposure to really studying a particular minority, their struggles and their voice. I would say this class was very important in forming my ideas about racial and social justice. The last class I want to talk about is Modern Germany History with Professor Alon Confino. My favorite History lecturer! And my TA, Oscar Ax, was also great. In that class, we looked at a certain part of history through alternative narrations. What is missing in history? Stories from ordinary people. There was incredible depth and contextual understanding of the Third Reich/Post WW2 Germany and what Confino calls “the culture of memory”. I had an incredible learning journey at my school and all three professors have profoundly shaped the way I view the world.

·       What activities were important to you in college? Would you advise international students to join mainstream activities?

The activity most important to me in college was the Asian Pacific American Leadership Training Institute. It was a weekly training program for Asian and Asian American student leaders. I was a participant my second year and became a facilitator for the next two years. This was a really important activity to me because it fostered a lot of discussion about tough topics as well as incorporating professional skills as a speaker, networker and listener. The population I was able to befriend and learn from was an incredibly passionate and thoughtful set of peers.

I feel really ambivalent about mainstream activities. I was able to participate in a so-called mainstream activity as a Fourth-Year Trustee. I wasn’t very present but I also think that part of it was because it just wasn’t a priority to me. I would advise them to check it out for the sake of trying new things. But I do want to stress that they shouldn’t feel bad for not wanting to participate. It’s not fun when you feel pressured or excluded.

·       Who did you hang out with? 

I had a great set of supportive friends! I met a couple of friends during international orientation and we remained close as our social circles expanded and became more involved in other things. I’m not sure if we all experienced the same type of culture shock but we related on homesickness and eating Asian food. I joined an Asian American sorority during my second semester and my sisters became a very important social component for me during college. I also made friends through my study abroad program at Oxford. It was hard to meet people in my social circles interested in similar academic disciplines and I am so grateful to have met them abroad. 

Asian Sorority Sisters

·       Do you think people stereotype Asians in college and if so what are the common misperceptions? Do you self-segregate and if so why?

Yes, I do think people stereotype Asians. I learned a lot about the stereotypes about my race by experience. For example, someone in my first-year hall asked me to tutor her Calculus, “Asians must be good at math”. I received a lot of “compliments” on my English even after I explained that I went to a bilingual school and English was my first language. “People who look Asian can’t speak English”. A lot of people asked me if I knew this or that person, who also happened to be Asian. “All Asians must know each other!” I wasn’t able to articulate how I felt at the time because I didn’t know how to process it. Thinking back, all these comments were quite dehumanizing. At some point, I played into those stereotypes, which was stupid because I was only fuelling ignorance.

Because I had a difficult time relating to people in my dorm, I definitely fled from that environment in seek of people whom I felt more comfortable with. I think self-segregation is always seen as quite a negative thing – there was a lot of self-blame. I never thought that I would have a hard time just trying to hang out or relate to other people. So, I thought maybe I’m not trying hard enough or I’m not normal. It’s an awful thing to feel when you’re just trying to make friends in your hall and the only natural way of coping is to seek those people who will embrace you rather than make you feel invisible. Also, we are only seen as self-segregating because we are a minority. White people all hang out with each other and that’s considered normal. While when minorities hang out together, we are seen as aloof and exclusive.

·       If you had another chance to do undergraduate would you change anything about what you did? What advice would you give administrators about how best to support international students?

I think I would have sought resources earlier that would lead me to a community where I felt safer. My advice for administrators is to give minority groups more funding and attention. Encourage and not shame/guilt minorities to participate in mainstream activities. And when encouraging us, be very frank about the type of culture the organization or group inhabits. It’s not only about us not trying hard enough; it’s also about them creating barriers. Diversity training and talks were not very constructive because they didn’t tackle real topics on white privilege and class. It’s all about hiding, rather than exploring and understanding, your prejudices.

One of the paradoxes of great writing and speaking: the more specific the story the more it ‘speaks’ to everyone. Great novelists, poets, and essayists prove this, and now Alice does too. Her ability to put her experiences, good and bad, into details means that the bland generalizations and abstractions disappear. We learn about a life and in doing so learn about education and transition, the very abstractions that are so hard to put into useful words. Her class in Modern German History clearly taught her about stories and Alice's stories have taught me.

Tomorrow, in Part 2 of her interview, Alice will continue to chart her journey through graduate school and into the world.