On decolonizing Bowdoin, welcoming people of color and women

Say It Like It Is: Bowdoin community shows its international support to Ecuador

Last Saturday night I was walking to Smith Union with one of my best friends when I heard the news. We were eagerly chatting as we made our plans to go to My Tie after doing some homework, but everything at Bowdoin went out of focus when I heard about the 7.8 earthquake in Ecuador, my home. I barely mustered the energy to say, “I’ll call you back” when my mother gave me the news. I wondered if my partner who lives in the coast, the area most affected by this tragedy, was alive. I wondered how bad it was across the country and not just in the epicenter of the earthquake. Were my brothers who lived more than five hours away from the coastal region affected too? Were my high school friends okay? I frantically messaged and called everyone I knew in Ecuador.
My family and friends are fortunately doing well and I thank everyone who has expressed concern, but I am luckier than many people who have lost loved ones. There are over 500 people who have died and even more who are wounded and homeless. Some are still trapped under collapsed buildings. The long term implications of this for Ecuador will be devastating as well. The low price of oil already had Ecuador in a tough spot economically before the earthquake. On top of that one of Ecuador’s main exports is seafood and the earthquake destroyed many coastal towns, affecting Ecuador’s largest city as well which is in the coast, Guayaquil.
As Ecuador deals with the impact and aftershock of the earthquake – a magnitude 6.2 earthquake shook Ecuador again on Wednesday, April 20, 2016 – I begin to ask myself what I can do while being here at Bowdoin, which if you know me is the question that has daunted me during my four years here. What can we do as an international community in times of crisis like these? How can we show solidarity in a place like the US, which has shown it has problematic ways of helping? Despite the fact that Bowdoin is an isolated liberal arts school, it is an international community. We have students who come from many different countries and we deal with subjects outside the US in most of our classes. But what does this mean in terms of our responsibility not only to the US, but to the rest of the world? I don’t have the perfect answers to all of these questions, but I encourage all of us to begin asking ourselves how to create an international solidarity support network and want to invite you to join a small campaign that Ecuadorian students in our very own school are starting.
Our objective is to raise $5,000 for Ecuador’s Red Cross by May 6th. We’re doing this by individual donations and bake sales. Check out our donation site at: https://www.gofundme.com/2ms6yj6k. And keep your eyes open for people selling food in the union and other locations with an Ecuadorian flag. We’ve already raised close to $1,000 since the campaign started on Wednesday. Thank you to everyone who has come out and supported Ecuador’s victims, volunteered to help with this initiative, or just asked somebody from Ecuador if they’re family members are safe. I’m not sure what an ideal international community would look like, but the type of international solidarity I’ve seen at Bowdoin gives me a little bit of hope in this very dark time for my country.

Say It Like It Is

On decolonizing Bowdoin, welcoming people of color and women

This piece represents the opinion of the author:

May 6, 2016

In the past week I’ve had several people ask me if it was worth coming to Bowdoin. “Do you regret it? Did it become your home?”

Four years ago I chose to come to Bowdoin because I wanted it to be my new home. I wondered if it could be my home. “Where is home?” isn’t an emotional or existential question. It is a political question. As a bisexual, immigrant Latina woman with no money, I wondered if this country, if this state, if this college, was a place for me.

As soon as I got to Bowdoin, my existence here felt odd. I didn’t want massages during finals, chocolate-covered strawberries for special events and talks about self-care. I wanted to see myself and what I cared about here. I didn’t want men to grab me at college house parties without asking me. I wanted to feel like a respected individual in my own Latina woman skin. The majority of buildings, named after white men, with the exceptions of Russwurm and a few women, did not seem welcoming with their elegance. They seemed imposing. As I walked through the second floor of Hubbard Hall and saw paintings of all the important white men at Bowdoin and pictures of soldiers who had fought in the Middle East, I wondered what it would be like to see something else. What if there were paintings of radical women of color all across Hubbard Hall? What if there were pictures commemorating non-U.S. citizens who had died at the hands of U.S. soldiers? It would seem out of place at Bowdoin. And that is a problem.

We need to recreate Bowdoin as if we were engaging in a deep decolonization project. We need to embrace the people of color who came here and their wisdom and contributions to the world. We need to include the voices of people of color and women in all our departments, not only in Africana studies, Latin American studies, Asian studies and Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies. I don’t just want representation—a text or picture of one person of color who managed to become powerful and rich. I want to hear and feel the struggles of people of color and women across the world. Only then will we be able to say that Bowdoin is a home for people of color and women, but right now these walls at Bowdoin are silencing with their overwhelming whiteness.

Next year many first years will be coming here and they will be asking the same question: can this be my home?

What will be Bowdoin’s answer? It doesn’t matter that we say “welcome” with words if in action, we are saying that this is not the place for people of color and for women. No fancy food or destressing event is going to calm this hunger down and answer the home question in a satisfying way.

I don’t regret coming to Bowdoin, but I don’t feel like it is my home. Like many people of color and women on this campus, I’ve carved out spaces, had fun times, and made demands, but to say this place is my home now would have a strong and positive political meaning that Bowdoin doesn’t match up to. Bowdoin is not there yet, but it can get there.

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