This week has been full of spaces and perspectives that I find difficulty making sense of as a whole . . . the hope gained from the interfaith event planning on Tuesday, the communication workshops for freshmen planning on Wednesday, the reminder of the justice movement for human rights in Chile, the New Narratives and its highlights on the reality of where our campus is today. . . I want to work in all of these communities, but most of all I want to connect them together. This is all progress happening in different circles, but I feel these circles do not cross, the good people who work within them do not bridge across. Although Progress in each will have short term success stories, I am concerned that the long term goal of interconnectedness may drift further away. If I am missing anything or am clueless to the bigger picture, please feel free to give me a different perspective. Anyway, I will continue the work in all of these circles so long as others do. I hope we are open enough to work together in the weeks to come. I have a sense of urgency for it. I want to know that others do too.
The latest event on my mind is obviously the New Narratives event. I was actually looking forward to this event. Contrary to belief for some super optimist students at UC Irvine, there are still many students on campus who have no idea about the issues affecting students of color today. I am in no way suprised at this, nor will I ever be surprised because it has always been this way. This level of ignorance. There is no excuse for it. But what I want to do now is work towards educating others as much as possible. Anything that may help. I do not expect everyone to read a book on ethnic studies, I do not expect everyone to understand the immigrant experience, or the undocumented workers and the rights they still do not have. But what I do expect on my end is to continue to hold accountability for others when possible. And to continue to have conversations in understanding other perspectives. As much as my heart longs for advocating my own opinion whole heartedly, I cannot leave everyone else in an unknown. I cannot keep to those who agree with me or support me all the time. Otherwise, I would have no idea how others feel, what fears and worries and life experiences that they have, and how those experiences somehow keep them away from seeing that there are people suffering in this oppressive institution. But one thing I can never ever expect or ask for, is for other people to care. I cannot demand it. I can only hope for it. But what I can demand today and in the future is more transparency between students who disagree, people who share different world views. I can demand that we also learn better ways to communicate with one another. I think this is a very simple tool that can be taught. And it is NECESSARY if we ever want justice on a human level.
