Heart and Other Obligations
Choosing for Myself
I admire my coworkers a lot. The way they speak to community members, the effort they put into uplifting others, and their tireless advocacy is full of sincerity that is not just caring but deliberate. This summer, I supported community organizing in Chinatown and the Greater Boston Area. I want to continue pursuing public interest work after graduation, but I don’t know if I’ll feel the same way in a few weeks. There will be law school info sessions, recruiting nights, and long phone calls home about post-graduate plans. Then, what I want to do might not seem so clear. I feel like I need to choose between serving others and making life easier for myself and my family. I don’t know if I’m ready to make that choice.
To me, the suffering and injustice in the world demand action. From the tragic mass shootings in El Paso, Dayton and Chicago this past weekend, to the affordable housing crisis that forces Chinatown residents out of their homes every day, there are so many people hurting across the world. No one deserves to be a victim of gun violence, and I adamantly believe that many other harms are arbitrary and unjust as well — after all, numerous factors completely out of a person’s control like one’s race affect one’s life opportunities. When there’s so much wrong with the world, something needs to be done.
Owning My Privilege, Owning My Pain
When I talk about my mental health, I still feel uncomfortable. I feel heat wash through my cheeks. “I think I definitely overcommitted this semester but I really enjoy my classes.” I feel my heart pumping faster and I choke before I say more.
I want to talk about what it’s like to walk into class an hour late because I’ve been crying on the phone with my parents. I want to tell them that for me, college includes the shame of asking for extensions since I’ve been staying up till sunrise obsessing over my mistakes. But I catch myself. It’s easier, for them and for me, to not make a scene.
To Be Inclusive, Asian Affinity Organizations Should Be More Political
How do we create an inclusive Asian American community at Harvard?
This past spring, anonymous posts on the Harvard Confessions Facebook page sharply criticized several Asian affinity organizations at Harvard over their perceived exclusivity. In April, these online arguments prompted a wide range of students to come together for a discussion on the role of Asian affinity organizations on campus. Today, the task of building an Asian American community seems especially urgent as the Harvard student body continues to change: For the Class of 2023, slightly more than one in four students are Asian American, a record high at Harvard.
Stop Overvaluing Sports: How Harvard Can Grow
In April, Harvard got its own entry in college athletics admissions scandals as it began investigating head fencing coach Peter Brand over financial transactions involving current and former members of the fencing team. This news made me uneasy, not because of the scandal itself, but because of how little it seemed to me that the campus reacted to it. Just months before, the court case Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, challenging the College’s consideration of race in its admissions process, engulfed the start to my junior year as I worked alongside countless students to prove the importance of diversity and affirmative action. Lawsuits and scandals are not the same, but when the national conversation shifted from affirmative action to recruitment, I realized I could never imagine student athletes feeling obliged to fight for their place at this University as so many students of color have. I wondered why.
As a non-athlete, I know I’m biased. I’ll never know what it’s like to spend a lifetime training in one sport, to learn and grow through playing it, and to work as hard as I can to keep playing it in college – even as a full-time student – because I love the sport so much. Instead, I know what it’s like to be a non-athlete at a university that invests millions into its sports programs, and I feel that, in the context of numerous other meaningful student activities and organizations, Harvard overvalues athletics through disproportionately high funding and athletic recruitment.