Spreading Diversity Beyond Middlebury College

Author: Yvonne Chen

April 5. It was an ordinary Friday afternoon. Cows were grazing in a pasture near here, a little school in Weybridge, Vt., surrounded by open pasture and endless roads. Thousands of miles from sunny Caribbean beaches and salsa- booming barrios, fourth and sixth graders in Weybridge Elementary School are learning about Puerto Rican culture. Six Middlebury first-year women — Dena Simmons, Alicia Hernandez, Christina Tolbert, Tina Velez, Melissa Liriano and Denise Leung — are testing the waters for a new club called MIX.

In its mission statement, MIX aims "to assist in spreading diversity within Vermont schools and within our College community." One way in which they do this is by educating young children in Vermont schools about outside cultures.

At MIX's first meeting at Weybridge, the student teachers sit cross-legged in a circle and introduce themselves. We learned that Liriano is a Dominican from Massachusetts. Hernandez is a Guatemalan native of the Bronx. Simmons has a Russian father and an Antiguan mother. Tolbert is Ghanaian. Leung is Chinese and from Seattle. Then, Velez, a Puerto Rican-native of the Bronx holds up a flag and asks the class "Does anybody know what country this flag belongs to?" The question is met with stark silence. Just as Velez lowers the flag to the ground, one of the kids bursts out "Don't! My dad told me that you're not supposed to put flags on the floor!"

After breaking the ice, the six students then introduce the class to salsa music and dance. Again the children are apprehensive. "No, I can't dance," one blond-haired boy keeps saying. But finally one by one the ten-year-olds ease into the new melodic rhythm. In fact, the youngsters say they like salsa so much that they ask their mentors to close se every visit with dancing.

But dancing is only one aspect of Puerto Rican culture. Next week they will meet again with MIX and learn about the musical instruments, music and traditional folk songs of Puerto Rico. In the coming weeks, the group also plans to teach the school students about Ghana, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam and what it's like to live in a city, in addition to many other cultures. For many of these children, who have never seen a person with Velez's skin color except on the television, this experience is truly important in shaping their outlook on the world at large.

"We all are socialized in a certain way. That's what we grow up with," said Simmons, who is co-founder and president of the club. "In going to these kids we want to reach them at an early age." MIX plans to continue to visit the children, in order to establish a deep bond between them and the College club.

MIX aspires also to "critically examine stereotypes and cultural assumptions and to demonstrate how diversity can enrich people's lives as well as discuss the negative effects of prejudice and of discrimination." When asked what she thinks about the validity of stereotypes, Simmons responded, "Well, you know what they say about rumors. Rumors don't start unless they are somewhat true." She explained, however, "The danger of stereotypes is that they are used negatively. On television black people are gangsters who smoke weed. When people who've never seen a black person before go out and see a minority they already have a first impression. They judge on appearance instead of character and might miss out on getting to know that person."

Afghani poet Sumir Ahmad notes that in the Oklahoma City bombings, we see that not all white men are tagged in this way but foreigners are. In the Columbine shootings, cultural critics and politicians scrambled for answers as to why two teenagers would open fire on their classmates, forgetting that the perpetrators were middle class Caucasian adolescents with a fascination with guns. Recently, the Department of State proposed to restrict noncitizens from working in some parts of the computer industry, targeting mainly South Asian tech workers in the Silicon Valley. The point is it's easy to make race a distinguishing factor when everybody you know is just like you and their race becomes invisible.

Diversity, of course, is a two-way street. "Diversity is not the color of skin. It's not necessarily a racial thing. Everyone's different and everyone must learn to respect that and appreciate each other," was a definition provided by one Middlebury student. When the women of MIX go to this dominantly white suburban school every Friday, they continue to learn from the kids themselves. They learn to confront their own biases and try to understand each other.

The group first formed back in September when together the six girls witnessed the Sept. 11 attacks. "After Sept. 11, we realized that these attacks caused people to discriminate against Middle Easterners, they were assumed by their stereotypes as terrorists."

They were together again for the "24 hours of peace" event held by a number of activist groups on campus a few weeks later. They went to every event, surveying the comedy skits, mosh pits, concerts and other diverse cultural venues that they had never before encountered. Later, Miguel Hernandez, professor of Spanish, invited Simmons, who is in his Spanish 103 class, to assist him in teaching the elementary school students some Spanish words. Inspired by the sense of unity from their new experiences and already sharing a love for kids, these six aspiring student teachers formed what they call MIX.

Tolbert explained the significance of the group's name: "It's sounds like a pop music group, but when you take a look at MIX it's really something deeper."

The club, which has already collected over 200 signatures and sixty of those from the February Campus Activities Fair, is waiting still to be approved by the Student Government Association. MIX hopes to spread its efforts to high school students in addition to recruiting many more Middlebury College students by next semester. First-year Hernandez, vicepresident of the club insisted that, "not everybody who wants to join MIX has to have an ethnically diverse background. Many people on campus take language or history classes dealing with diversity and everybody has different strengths and talents." Even if you know origami, it's something you can teach children and make it a meaningful experience. So when you see a MIX poster and are apprehensive about what you can offer, don't be afraid.

Just as the elementary school kids learned to love dancing salsa and six strangers, Simmons suggests that joining MIX is worth the time and effort and it will break your initial skepticism: "To teach kids at an early age, to actually try and understand each other's culture—unity and peace can be obtained in this way."