Ethnic clubs should welcome, not reject, people from different backgrounds

BY Sana Khalid

As I was reading the Daily Bruin last week, I was both shocked yet unsurprised. A columnist, Jessica Lee, decided to check out a meeting for the Latin American Student Association because she wanted to expand her horizons. Unfortunately, other students did not take her interest of Hispanic culture seriously. Her article was responded to by another student, Carlos Juarez, who expressed a desire to maintain the Hispanic homogeneity with Hermanos Unidos and LASA. I am appalled at such sentiments.

He states that “cultural organizations may be exclusive to an extent, but this doesn’t mean we are or should be intolerant.” But how do you bring tolerance when you don’t welcome people of other cultures to your general meetings? You want people to be tolerant of your culture, but if you don’t welcome them, how are you being tolerant yourself?

What about people who are not Hispanic but look it? I am of Pakistani and Indian descent, but I am always mistaken as a Mexican American. People who mistake me for Hispanic are often angry at the fact that I do not speak Spanish, since that is what my dark complexion gives away.

But imagine if I had mistaken them as Indian and began speaking Hindi and Urdu to them. How would they feel? How would you feel?

I, for a fact, know how it feels when the media portrays your culture to be something that it is not. I am a Muslim American who is very proud of my country, America. Yet the media portrays all Muslims as unpatriotic terrorists who want to destroy America. I know that my religion is a religion of peace, but you wouldn’t know that if the media was your only source of information.

Though I have my religion, I accept people of all religions so much that I am currently taking a Jewish studies class in order to learn more about the similarities that Islam has with Judaism and Christianity. Rather than focusing on the differences among religions, I focus on the similarities.

I became involved in Project Hope, an organization at my previous community college that emphasizes helping students of Hispanic heritage in their pursuit of careers in the medical field, because there is a lack of Hispanic doctors. But they didn’t reject me because of my heritage. In fact, students who were white, Asian and black were also involved.

Because of their involvement, they became knowledgeable about the hardships of Hispanics, and now, many of them want to work in those communities where health care disparities exist. If non-Hispanics were not involved in this organization, how would they know that these struggles and disparities exist?

Please, allow people from other cultures to explore your organization. In fact, maybe you can create a “bring a non-Hispanic” day, where all of your members are required to bring a friend who is not Hispanic. The purpose of this event would be to educate non-Hispanics about the disparities in society between Hispanics and non-Hispanics. By educating people about your culture, people will learn that the Latin American culture is more than what the media portrays. It’s a culture that is rich with music, food, language and many other wonderful things that I only know because of my experiences.

Do we really need to be segregated, in this day and age?

This is the time that we, as Bruins and people, must unite, not as whites, or blacks, or Mexicans, or Asians or any other groups. Don’t make this into “us versus them.” We must unite as people. We must unite as Bruins.

Khalid is a third-year history student.