How Applying to Grad School Becomes a Display of Trauma for People of Color

[Adelaide9216]

https://electricliterature.com/how-applying-to-grad-school-becomes-a-display-of-trauma-for-people-of-color-7bccd68103bb

Has anyone else experienced what's being described in this article?

A few weeks ago, I got asked by another woman of color sitting on my graduate committe at university "Why aren't you doing research on black women since you're a black woman yourself?" And after thinking about it, it bothered me because I have other research interests than studying my own community and my own experiences.

[MarineBluePsy]

I'm not surprised that applicants and current students that happen to be minorities have experienced this.  When I applied I declined to talk about my personal life because it was no ones business and had nothing to do with the work I am pursuing.  Instead I focused on my research interests, what led me to them, current experience, and my career plans.  I had one sentence that explained the time between undergrad and grad school was spent working full time in industry and being older made me a nontraditional student.  I did not discuss my ethnic background, any hardships, or traumas.  Thinking back I didn't do that when I applied to undergrad either.  I just didn't want to be admitted because the committee was moved by my struggles.

Regarding your experience of people asking why you don't research your own community, this too is unfortunate.  There are so many understudied groups and not nearly enough researchers addressing them.  There are plenty of benefits to studying one's own community, but there are also a lot of benefits to studying different communities.

[fuzzylogician]

44 minutes ago, Adelaide9216 said:

A few weeks ago, I got asked by another woman of color sitting on my graduate committe at university "Why aren't you doing research on black women since you're a black woman yourself?" And after thinking about it, it bothered me because I have other research interests than studying my own community and my own experiences.

Not the same, but. I'm a linguist who doesn't study her own native language. I get asked if I plan to/want to study my language (or: why I don't) all the time. I don't really take it as anything other than curiosity at what seems like an "obvious" choice I could make. You can already see how the story tells itself. I just reply that maybe in the future, but right now my research has taken me in other directions, and that's always where the conversation ends. I know that the background isn't quite the same, but it seems to me that these questions aren't malicious, at most they are ignorant or just plain curious. So I take it as such and move on. 

[jocorac]

1 hour ago, Adelaide9216 said:

https://electricliterature.com/how-applying-to-grad-school-becomes-a-display-of-trauma-for-people-of-color-7bccd68103bb

Has anyone else experienced what's being described in this article?

A few weeks ago, I got asked by another woman of color sitting on my graduate committe at university "Why aren't you doing research on black women since you're a black woman yourself?" And after thinking about it, it bothered me because I have other research interests than studying my own community and my own experiences.

I think a lot of this comes from the idea of you have experience in being a woman of color, so why not talk about women of color. I feel that people expect you to talk about the issues you face because you can give better background and knowledge than what they can. It's the same thing with a lot of people and the subject of HBCU histories, which I'm currently studying. With the recent documentary that came out, there was no one from an HBCU that spoke on the history of the schools. This, of course, caused a lot of people from the HBCU community to be upset, even though the information presented was 100% correct. In their minds, who better to know than that person who attended and/or taught at the school. People fail to realize that there are many other things that can be discussed and shouldn't have to be a specific race to tell the story. As for the article, I went through the same thing. Although my experience wasn't a traumatizing one, my friend, who is already in her Ph.D. told me to write about my struggles and not to focus so much on my successes. To my surprise, that essay got accepted. But I felt like they played on what my struggles as grad student instead of looking at me through a bigger lens. Even though I am a black woman, I still get the same questions of why are studying people who look like you? And my answer is still the same because I choose too. 

[Carly Rae Jepsen]

For sure, I mentioned in your other thread how as a Latino I'm expected to study Hispanic rather than French literature by a lot of people. 

As for the article, I avoided that route in my personal statements. A couple of schools had some kind of diversity statement requirement and I filled that out, but in my personal statement I restricted the content to my interests.

Now, of course when I tell my story my status as an ethnic minority comes up, but I don't like reducing myself to just that. It's an essential part of who I am, but not the entirety of me. I like that universities consider my story in context (an immigrant, etc.) and decide then that my accomplishments are more meaningful because of it, but I wouldn't want that to be why I got admitted. I got admitted because of my strong background in my field of choice first and foremost.

 

[smallaxe]

7 hours ago, Adelaide9216 said:

https://electricliterature.com/how-applying-to-grad-school-becomes-a-display-of-trauma-for-people-of-color-7bccd68103bb

Has anyone else experienced what's being described in this article?

A few weeks ago, I got asked by another woman of color sitting on my graduate committe at university "Why aren't you doing research on black women since you're a black woman yourself?" And after thinking about it, it bothered me because I have other research interests than studying my own community and my own experiences.

I'm curious what your response was... It's one thing to ask why you're studying a particular topic, but to ask it that way seems pretty reductionist. Although there is some truth to the idea that people's research interests are about them (ha!), it doesn't have to be connected to a person's racial identity.

As for the article, I can't say I've felt any pressure to do that. I didn't fill out the diversity statements for any of my applications and talked about my intellectual interest in the subject in my SOP. Also, not being American and living abroad for several years means I haven't felt a heavy weight of racial tension and marginalization that was palpable in my campus visits. I think that will be a big adjustment moving forward.

[dr. t]

On 4/18/2018 at 8:49 PM, Adelaide9216 said:

A few weeks ago, I got asked by another woman of color sitting on my graduate committe at university "Why aren't you doing research on black women since you're a black woman yourself?" And after thinking about it, it bothered me because I have other research interests than studying my own community and my own experiences.

Well, I'm a straight white dude, but I have a couple of POC friends who are also medievalists and... yeah. "Why don't you work on your history"  is a question they get asked a lot. 

[hats]

@Adelaide9216 I read that thread, and I thought that comment to you was somewhere between microaggression and straight-up aggression. No matter the identity of the person saying it, I think "you should just study your own [not straight-white-cis-male] community"* is wrong and essentializing to scholars of color, female scholars, etc.

*I have heard of communities that cannot be ethically studied by outsiders, or certain kinds of outsiders. Sure. However, that only requires saying, "you can't study us, I would suggest you find some other topic." And that is a VERY different statement than, "you can't study us, you should just go study other black people because you're black."

Although I am white, this 'mining your trauma' is something I have been very angry about as it pertains to me as a queer, disabled woman. Most of the time, I would prefer my work just stood on its own, you know? I don't want to have to talk about just the degree of trauma being queer caused in my family relationships or whatever to get into graduate school. It often feels like, or is actually, required, however.

[Adelaide9216]

On 4/20/2018 at 9:29 PM, hats said:

@Adelaide9216 I read that thread, and I thought that comment to you was somewhere between microaggression and straight-up aggression. No matter the identity of the person saying it, I think "you should just study your own [not straight-white-cis-male] community"* is wrong and essentializing to scholars of color, female scholars, etc.

*I have heard of communities that cannot be ethically studied by outsiders, or certain kinds of outsiders. Sure. However, that only requires saying, "you can't study us, I would suggest you find some other topic." And that is a VERY different statement than, "you can't study us, you should just go study other black people because you're black."

Although I am white, this 'mining your trauma' is something I have been very angry about as it pertains to me as a queer, disabled woman. Most of the time, I would prefer my work just stood on its own, you know? I don't want to have to talk about just the degree of trauma being queer caused in my family relationships or whatever to get into graduate school. It often feels like, or is actually, required, however.

That is very fair. Maybe I was overly sensitive. I couldn't wrap my head around how I felt about it. I basically responded that I wanted to study that topic because I had interest in it for a long time and had seen potential to become an ally, but that answer wasn't valid enough to her at the end of the day. 

[MarineBluePsy]

2 hours ago, Adelaide9216 said:

That is very fair. Maybe I was overly sensitive. I couldn't wrap my head around how I felt about it. I basically responded that I wanted to study that topic because I had interest in it for a long time and had seen potential to become an ally, but that answer wasn't valid enough to her at the end of the day. 

There is no pleasing people like that and in my experience it is better to direct your attention elsewhere.  Every group needs allies and every group needs to be studied.  The more willing everyone is to learn about those who are different the more inclusive our world will become.  Idealistic I know....but a girl can dream.....