Cultural Integration in Campus Subcultures: Where the Cultural, Academic, and Social Spheres of College Life Collide (original) (raw)

White. Then, the summer before 10th grade, I joined the Coalition for Asian Pacific American Youth (CAPAY) at UMass Boston. The first field trip I went on with CAPAY was to Mount Hope Cemetery. There was a stark difference between a majority of the cemetery and the back section, where we were going. In the back, there was trash everywhere. Headstones were broken, crooked, and covered by un-mowed grass. It looked like an abandoned field. We gathered around a man in shorts and a t-shirt, who I later discovered was Peter Kiang, the Director of the Asian American Studies Program at UMass Boston. He told us the story of Mount Hope cemetery. The back section was the Chinese burial ground, dating back to the 1930s. Those buried there were the first Chinese to settle in Boston. Now they lay forgotten and neglected. We picked up trash around the graves and pulled up weeds where we could. We burned incense and prayed to show our respect for these men who lay forgotten there. As we were working, a truck came up. Several men came out with clippers and mowers to cut the grass. I was told that the cemetery had sent people to clean the back sections today because they were informed that we'd be coming. When the men finished, one guy stepped on the face of a headstone while walking back to his truck. Shocked, I told the coordinator of CAPAY that this had happened. She asked me, "And, how does that make you feel?" This trip made no sense to me up until that moment. I stood there unable to answer her as the blood rushed to my face, "I don't know…" This was my first of many lessons in Asian American Studies. My family is refugees from the Vietnam War, and I was born in the refugee camps in the Philippines. In Asian American Studies, I learned about the historical contexts of my family's stories. They were too painful for my family to tell me and too insignificant for the public school system to teach me about. The lessons that I learned through the Asian American Studies Program at UMass Boston were not always in the classroom, but I carry them with me wherever I go. It is these connections that are made between education and students' lives, communities, and histories that leave lasting marks on us.-Son-Ca Lam This opening narrative illustrates how ethnic subcultures within our educational institutions can and do validate the lives of students of color. In the story, Son-Ca experiences an awakening as a result of an extracurricular fieldtrip that was organized by two ethnic subcultures at UMass Boston-the CAPAY youth organization and Asian American Studies programs. She develops a bond with these programs that leads to greater connections to the historical and social contexts in which she exists. And, those bonds engage Asian American history and communities, thereby stimulating her identification as an Asian American and validating that identity. In the following section, we synthesize literature on campus subcultures in higher education and success among diverse student populations. Specifically, we highlight the power of ethnic subcultures in fostering cultural integration-the integration of students' cultural backgrounds and identities with the academic and social spheres of students' lives-and the role of such integration in validating students' cultural backgrounds and identities (Museus, in press). Then, we illustrate how such cultural integration and validation shapes students' experiences through the voices of three students affiliated with Asian American Studies. We conclude the chapter with implications of this discussion for college and university leaders who are interested in fostering success among racially diverse college student populations. Campus Subcultures and Cultural Integration There is a substantial body of scholarly literature that underscores the reality that students of color often encounter unwelcoming or hostile environments at predominantly White institutions