When my high school counselor suggested Penn as my first-choice college, one of her main points that stuck with me was the idea that it had a very connected Black community both through academics and extracurriculars. Having spent my entire life in predominantly white and Asian spaces, the opportunity to connect more with my Black side as a biracial person felt unfamiliar, yet exciting. So when I applied early decision to Penn and got in just a few weeks later, I was prepared to be woven seamlessly into the strong fabric that is Black Penn.
Coming to Penn, or any college for that matter, most students recognize the importance of immersing themselves in affinity spaces. But what if you end up feeling ostracized in a group you were so adamant about being a part of?
Since being admitted to Penn, I’ve become familiar with other Black incoming first years at Penn — both in person and through social media. The students I met were almost entirely born and raised on the East Coast, which immediately revealed a geographic difference for me as a Californian. I met many first-generation Black Americans as well as immigrants, many of whom exhibited a deep link to their African roots through music, language, and dance. I couldn’t relate to this at all, as my family doesn’t even know our African country of origin. Other dissimilarities regarding class and gender began to surface as I faced the reality of Black Penn truly being much more culturally engaged than I had ever personally felt.
After getting to know many Black students from various backgrounds, I’ve slowly begun to face the harsh truth that hadn’t even crossed my mind when I applied to Penn: your race isn’t automatically your community.
Understanding that simply sharing a race didn’t correlate with a definite ability to “click” with everyone, I began naively losing faith in my capacity to thrive in Black Penn. The only way to do so, I thought, was to change my interests, like the music I listened to or the cultural activities I engaged with, to fit in with the Black Penn that I had too broadly generalized.
Especially as a biracial person, it can be difficult to feel fully one race. The commonly shared sentiment among mixed people of “not being Black enough” stimulates a pressure to assimilate and cling to the race most visible to others. Fully engaging with my Black identity by changing aspects of myself, however, is something I feel I can’t fully accomplish, with the guilt of “leaving behind” my Asian side. But my troubles with navigating a mixed racial identity were rooted in how narrowly I was choosing to understand race as a whole.
Affinity spaces like Black Penn are a mosaic, not a uniform entity. While affinity groups often convene under a single label, they should serve as spaces for self-empowerment of the whole person by celebrating diverse hobbies, career interests, and life experiences that shape each individual. In doing so, recognition of intersectionality, the overlap of identities, can flourish. To truly be inclusive to all members, individuals need to feel that their whole person belongs in affinity spaces.
People mistakenly group individuals of the same race into a stereotypically monolithic image when, in reality, there is immense diversity. Differences in gender, sexuality, socioeconomic status, and more make people of the same race very distinct from one another. Sharing the same race can come with experiencing similar joys or struggles, but intersectionality makes for a more complicated experience. The complexity of oneself cannot be acknowledged when we use race, or any single identity factor, as an umbrella to group people under, leading to the assumption that everyone will get along and relate to each other. At the end of the day, we are all individual people with various labels that make up a multifaceted identity.
While it is true that affinity groups foster inclusion, they shouldn’t be relied upon as a means of guaranteeing belonging. By setting aside the expectation that community equals instant rapport, one can resist the urge to assimilate to achieve that unrealistic goal of complete acceptance.
Possessing a sense of communal acceptance provides college students with a greater well-being, and should certainly be striven for, as the workload is heavy and academic pressure can often get the best of us. When navigating the social scene in college, stop framing “belonging” as finding an absolute community, but rather, focus on building individual bonds and appreciating the nuances of each person’s personality.
As the new school year rolls in, don’t expect spaces to immediately validate you. Instead, take the time to appreciate the highs and lows of building relationships person-by-person.
Prioritize connections that are guided by you, not simply our labels.
Carina Thomas is a rising first-year studying sociology from Berkeley, California. Her email is carinath@sas.upenn.edu.
