Panelists

Alexandria Bako (Moderator) is a junior majoring in English at UAA. She is an intern and student editor for Understory.
 
Anthony Taylor is a junior majoring in English. In addition to being an intern and editor of Understory, he is also the Executive Secretary of the Black Student Union and a member of the Latino Student Union and the Creative Writing Club.
 
Antionette Street is a senior majoring in English. She has been the President of the Creative Writing Club for one year, and was a student editor for last year’s edition of Understory.
 
Mia Sison is a senior majoring in English. She is a member of the Emerging Leaders Program and a 2016 AHAINA Women of Excellence finalist.
 
Aaron Tolen is a junior majoring in Anthropology, minoring in Alaska Native Studies and Alaska Native Business Management. He is the President of the Native Student Council and a Cama-I Room Peer Mentor.
 
Discussion
 
An audio recording of the discussion is available in Understory’s digital edition.
 
Alexandria (Moderator): Welcome everyone! I’m Alexandria Bako and I’m the moderator of this panel in my role as one of the two interns and editors for the 2018 edition of Understory, the English department’s annual undergraduate anthology of achievement. We’re holding this panel discussion entitled, “Are Students of Color and the LGBTQ+ Safe at UAA? Our Answers” in conjunction with the Creative Writing Club. Eric Baldwin of Academic Innovations and eLearning is recording this session with the goal that we’ll produce a dialogue that we’ll publish in Understory’s print and online versions. I’d like to start by directing the first question to Anthony Taylor: With your perspective in mind, what is your definition of safety?
 
Anthony: With my perspective in mind, as a gay Black Latino with generalized anxiety disorder who is the son of an immigrant, it is very easy for me to feel unsafe just about anywhere. I would have to say that one of the biggest aspects that goes into my sense of safety is whether or not I am isolated. I don’t like being the only black person in the room, and I especially don’t like being the only person of color in the room. When I am the only person of color in the room, I sort of feel like I have to be hypervigilant of my surroundings because if something racial does happen I will very likely be the only one who notices it, and I won’t have anyone to back me up. That is something that is very important, just having another black person in the room to suffer in silence with can go an incredibly long way in making the experience much better.
 
Antionette: My experience is a little different. I do feel uncomfortable when I am the only person of color in the room, but I don’t feel completely unsafe. I have felt that being the only person of color in the room, especially the only Black female person in the room or even the only black gay person in the room can be a little bit daunting. Sometimes I’ll notice that some of the reading we have in one of the classes is racial and I get to class and I have to wonder: Is somebody going to say something? Is there anybody in class that I need to keep an eye out for? Is there anything that the professor might say that will immediately put me in a sense of discomfort? And so I have not felt unsafe on campus, but my definition of safety is very different from anybody here at this table. So, I said that my definition would be that I feel comfortable and okay with being myself, or at least not feeling like I need to hide physically. So if I feel the need to get out of the room, that’s when I immediately start thinking, this is an unsafe situation, I need to remove myself in some way or another.
 
Anthony: To sort of go back to what she said about being in an English class, I feel like as English majors we are in a bit of a unique position where our culture can be represented directly in the curriculum that we’re being taught. I think that in those moments, it is very dependent on the professor. If they teach the work well, then it’s a great experience with no problems, but if they teach it terribly it can ruin the entire class.
 
Mia: You know, I think my definition of ‘safety’ is really simple. It revolves around feelings of security and feelings of confidence and the fact that no harm will be inflicted upon me emotionally, mentally or physically. In terms of stepping into a room and noticing whether or not I’m the only Asian in there, I don’t really think about that at all when I enter a room, and I don’t necessarily think about safety either when I enter a room and I’m the only Asian.
 
Aaron: I kinda agree with what they have to say. I do notice a lot that when I step into a room I want to be able to feel open, having an open atmosphere and having it be a safe atmosphere where I can share my thoughts and have my thoughts be appreciated. I’ve grown up in public schools so I have developed a little bit more of a thicker skin than some other people.
 
Alexandria (Moderator): So Mia, I’m going to direct this next question to you. How welcomed did you feel when you first started here?
 
Mia: Well, funny story. When I first came here, you know part of coming to UAA as a freshman you have to go through a New Student Orientation. I was led by Antionette here and she was very energetic and very nice and I felt welcomed at the student orientation, I felt welcomed at the student kickoff, but other than that you know the welcoming here… it wasn’t above average. It was pretty much just average.
 
Antionette: To jump off Mia, the reason I actually became an orientation leader was because I did not feel welcomed at UAA. That wasn’t because of my race, or because of my sexuality. It was mainly because when I got to UAA, I had an advising appointment and it took, like, a week for me to get in contact with this advisor in the English Department, and when I did get in contact with her all she did was say, meet me at the Administration/Humanities building, this is the room, you need to be here by this time in order that we can talk and I can get you your classes.  I could not get the actual address of the building, it only gave me that general one, that 3211 Providence Drive, which leads you to nowhere. I couldn’t get the address to the Admin building, so we eventually we found the Admin building and when I got in there I only had five minutes for the advising appointment. She just sat me down and scribbled really messily on  a sticky note, and was like, I have another advising appointment who was here on time, you can come back later, and that was what started my college career, was getting this sticky note and having this woman tell me be here on time next time.  So I did not feel welcomed at all.
 
Anthony: I would have to say when I got here, I didn’t feel particularly welcomed just because of the lack of a larger campus community that I was looking for. When I was a freshman, I felt like nobody was really looking to connect with each other, and I have to say that I didn’t actually have a genuine conversation with another student about something outside of class until my sophomore year. Looking back on it, I realize that I was part of the problem as well because I wasn’t trying to connect, and I couldn’t expect people to give me more than I was willing to give, and that sort of taught me that it takes everyone to build a greater campus community, and it takes everyone to feel safe, and it takes everyone to feel welcomed.
 
Aaron: So my senior year of high school, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do after I graduated. I was thinking about just getting a job, until finally in my last semester I decided I wanted to go to college. It was a little bit of a rough start getting here. I went and talked to my assigned counselor at Dimond and I asked him, ‘Can you help me get registered for UAA? That’s where I want to go.’ He said, I’m sorry, I can’t help you. And so it was a little hard hearing that and I went back and the superintendent referred me to the Indian Ed counselor, Shirley Reeves. I owe a lot of my success to her, because as soon as I walked into her office and said I wanted to go to UAA, she sat me down, helped me complete my registration for UAA. When I came here she connected me with Native Student Services. I would say I was welcomed by the Native Student Services staff, but professors and other faculty, I wasn’t too welcomed by them. For Alaska Natives, we’re really quiet. We like to observe before we say anything, we like to think before we make any action, and that hurts us a little bit but at the same time there’s other stuff that professors and faculty could be doing to engage us, to get us to open up more and to make us feel comfortable. I’m a Cama-I Room Peer Mentor, I have a drive to create that welcoming atmosphere for students.
 
Alexandria (Moderator): So since feeling welcomed is going to be a big part of safety, the flip side of that will be feeling unsafe and unwelcome. What were some moments that you felt unsafe here on campus?
 
Anthony: I would say that during my years at UAA, there’s only been one really big incident that made me feel unsafe directly as a result of my ethnicity, and that was my freshman year. I was in a 100-level English class. It was my first English class at UAA and we got an assignment to write about an event that defined our lives. I wrote about my father’s deportation. It was honestly the most personal paper that I’ve ever written in my life. One day we were having a class discussion about the subject of immigration and deportation, and there was a lot of talk about how useful immigrants were to America and whether or not we should allow them to stay because of that, specifically, and there was a wane in the discussion so my professor, who remembered my paper, thought that I would be a good person to specifically call out and ask for my thoughts about the subject of immigration and deportation. I felt very betrayed in that moment because I don’t think that my professor understood just how deeply traumatic the subject of deportation, and having somebody in your family be deported, is. It’s not just a talking point to bring up in class to put forth a discussion and it’s not just an abstract concept that solely exists in a vacuum. There are millions of people in this country who live in deep, guttural fear that one day they’re going to come home and their loved ones just aren’t going to be there anymore, and that fear became my reality, and I didn’t appreciate having that reality be called upon to use in class. I can talk about it now, because that is a conscious choice that I made for myself. I had time to prepare myself to talk about this. But, in that moment, it was not my choice, it was something that he put upon me. From that point on, I never really felt safe in that class. I talked a little bit about how in an English class our culture can be directly represented within the curriculum and how it often depends on the quality of the professor’s teachings and in that moment, the quality was very low, and it did ruin the class.
 
Antionette: I have never felt unsafe on campus. I’ve felt uncomfortable, I’ve been prepped for feeling unsafe, but I’ve never had a moment on campus in which my racial identity made me feel unsafe. There have been moments where I’ve been walking in the dark and I’ve felt unsafe because of that, but there have never been moments in which I felt like I needed to get away or get out because of my race. But I have felt uncomfortable in classrooms. There’s always some writer out there in the English department who has to talk about race in a big way, and so things like saying “nigger” in a paper or speaking specifically about moments of blackness that a lot of white people don’t know about will make me feel uncomfortable.
 
Mia: I feel pretty much the same way as Antionette. There have never been any times where I felt unsafe per se (maybe walking in the dark), but uncomfortable, yes. I work at the Writing Center with Anthony and there have been times when students have tried to make small talk with me and sometimes the first thing they bring up has to do with Asian culture, or the fact that they’re also Filipino, and that’s the only way that they can somehow speak to me, if it has to do with my ethnicity and my culture. So just periods of uncomfortable feelings in moments where they felt like the only way that they could start up a conversation with me was if it had to do with something relating to Asian culture.
 
Aaron: It would be the same for me. I’ve never felt physically unsafe, but maybe a little bit mentally unsafe. There were two times on campus now where I was studying in the RH building, and there was a call in for a drunk person that was running around the building. The cop, the first person he walked to was me, assuming it was me that was drunk. I got questioned whether or not I drank that day or the night before, if I was on any other substance. The only other time would be a time I was walking through campus and one of the cops stopped me and asked if I was intoxicated and I said, no I’m not, and then he let me go. The other time was, it was in class, it’s usually in class, some of the professors are like fifty-fifty on acknowledging Native culture and the Native side of the perspective. Sometimes it’s hit or miss with them. They support it or they don’t wanna acknowledge it at all. I remember I wanted to write a project for my communications class on how Native corporations are hugely influential here in Alaska, and how the Native hospital is leading healthcare here in Alaska, and my professor said no, you can’t, I don’t believe in that, and kinda just put it down.
 
Alexandria (Moderator): So, I’m going to direct this to you, Antionette, to begin with. During this time at UAA have you noticed any significant changes in the way students of color or LGBT+ students are treated?
 
Antionette: I’ve seen lots of student life groups come in that I haven’t noticed before, and a lot of projects revolving around making sure students of color and of all diverse backgrounds are involved. I have noticed that there’s a real physical presence on campus to make sure these students who express their sexuality openly or don’t express their sexuality openly at least have a space, or know of resources available to them, so that they do feel comfortable, which has been really exciting.
 
Aaron: I can speak to that a little bit. I’m the president of the Native Student Council and we do a lot to promote and engage Native culture on campus. We host events like regalia shows, we host our annual Giving Thanks dance festival and potluck. As far as other representation on campus, I met some of the people who just started the Black Student Union here and we’re helping them out, they’re actually going to volunteer at our events, and we’ll volunteer at their events. For the LGBT club, we’re gonna partner with them in the spring for a suicide walk to bring awareness to suicide, because suicide is a huge problem here in Alaska. I do see a lot more representation around campus and a lot of people being more proud. I do it myself now, I wear my regalia, any small things I can.
 
Antionette: If you attended orientation we have a segment called “Everyone Counts” and it was started because my boss, Theresa Lyons, wanted a segment at orientation which encouraged students to acknowledge the diversity on campus, and it talks about ethnic and cultural backgrounds, religious backgrounds, even economic backgrounds. That is something that I like when I started orientation, that was something that was really exciting for me. Students got the chance to express themselves this way and look around the room and see that it’s not just a bunch of eighteen-year-olds straight out of high school, that this community is made up of so many different people who have so many different identities besides being black, or Filipino, or Alaska Native, or things like that. So it’s really touching any time to see people get up and be smiling when they recognize that not only are they white, but they also consider themselves Hispanic, and a Native, and all these different things.
 
Anthony: I’d have to say one of the positive changes that I’ve seen is in the class selection, this year in particular. I started taking a class called “The Black Literary Diaspora” and honestly it’s the greatest class at UAA that I’ve ever taken in my life. every semester when I start an English class I kinda go through this thing where I really hope that there’s going to be, at least one good story that we read by a black author, just one really good story, but with this class I didn’t have to do that because they’re all really good stories by black people. That was great.
 
Alexandria (Moderator): So Aaron, I’m going to direct this one to you, just based on what you said about the positive change you saw with representation of Native students. What kinds of changes would you like to see beyond what you’ve already seen?
 
Aaron: Just more acknowledgment to the Native people and realizing that we’re not the same as everybody else. A lot of us come from rural backgrounds, so we need more of a personal connection. A lot of us come from small communities, so coming to a big city is just so new to us and we’re so overloaded, that even just on the campus alone we get overloaded. It’s a lot for us to take in and it’s definitely culture shock for us. We go from a community where everyone in the town knows us, they always check in on us, make sure that we’re doing well, that we’re succeeding, to then coming here, where we maybe have one or two friends who check in on us regularly, but they don’t check in on us as much as we need them to. We’re fairly quiet, we don’t like to put ourselves out there or whenever we need help, we keep it in and we hold it against ourselves. I think that’s a value thing, we don’t want to burden people with the things that we’re going through. We’re slowly learning, I’m slowly helping the Native Students open up more, and I do feel like seeing more Native peers or mentors or faculty on campus would help out a lot with that. I notice that a Native student won’t go to their advisor to talk to them about classes, they’ll come to me and start opening up to me and I’ll say, ‘Well I’m not even a health major, I can’t direct you, I can’t be a professional in that and tell you what classes you need to take or how you should go about taking classes.’ So it’s interesting. I try to help as much as I can, saying ‘Look, I can go there with you if you want but I can’t tell you how to take classes and all that.’ So it’s definitely interesting trying to help out with that. I do see changes with the Diversity Action Council and what they’re doing. I work closely with Maria Williams and Beth Leonard, and we’re working on getting more Native acknowledgment and knowledge into the UAA system. I recently put a policy through student government to recognize Indigenous Peoples’ Day last year and it got passed, then I just found out that that helped push UAF put one through student government, and then UAS put one through student government as well, and we all got it passed and the Board of Regents recognized it and then that further pushed it at the state level and got it passed so I think there’s some positive movements for Native Students. I see that there’s more push to help Native Students because we’re the largest minority on campus right now. I think it’s hugely beneficially to help out students from other backgrounds. I know I try to do that as much as I can and I notice that students who are from foreign countries and from rural backgrounds will come and talk to me because I have an understanding of that sense of community and camaraderie. It’s interesting hearing their stories and I try to share them as much as I can to other people because they’re a little shy to come out with their stories.
 
Anthony: I would have to say that I completely agree with what Aaron has said, particularly about more faculty of color. I think that if we feel represented by the people in this institution who are teaching us, who are helping us grow and molding us as students and people who are going out into the working professional world, it goes a long way to help us feel more comfortable and to help us feel like we can do more. Just being in Dr. Ward’s class and helping with the Black Student Union (BSU), and working in the Multicultural Center with people like Dr. Thorne and Mrs. Tamika and Leo Medal and all these people who are doing wonderful work at UAA, makes me feel very hopeful for the campus in general. I would also like to see more classes that represent the diversity on campus, a class such as Africana studies or Latino studies or more classes about Alaska Native cultures. I think they would go a long way to bettering the campus as a whole.
 
Alexandria (Moderator): Those are all the questions we have. Thank you all for being panelists. Thank you all for coming to listen to us and hear what these students have to say. And thank you, Eric Baldwin.

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