Members of the Asian American Student Union and Black Student Union spent Thursday night in the Multicultural Student Center discussing various issues faced by minorities on the University of Wisconsin campus.
Topics included interracial dating, relations between minorities on campus, stereotypes and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender issues within the community.
“Asian Americans and Africans on this campus — there is not a lot of interaction, especially when it comes to student organizations,” AASU co-founder and UW senior Duc Luu said. “Socially, too, there seems to be a disparity between our groups more than others.”
While Luu said he believed there was a little bit of intimidation and apprehension at first, he said the conversation produced by the two organizations was very valuable.
“I thought it worked together well and that’s why we came,” Luu said. “There were issues to address.”
Students who attended the meeting broke into four groups, where they voiced opinions and concerns on the different topics.
UW senior Phillip Lee and sophomore Althea Miller led the interracial dating group, which covered topics such as boundaries in relationships, differing standards of beauty and acceptance by society and families.
While several participants said they had been involved in an interracial relationship, many also said they had felt direct pressure from their friends or family to stick to their own cultural group.
The four groups later came back together to discuss different trends raised in their discussions, although dating remained a common topic for the rest of the evening.
UW senior Avery Jackson emphasized that she supports interracial relationships as she considers them natural, but she is uncomfortable with the idea that people sometimes date others solely because of their race.
“I find it troublesome if people are dating someone because of their race,” Jackson said. “I know it’s hard to believe, but it does happen. I think it’s natural, I think it’s OK, but I think it’s natural for me to raise an eyebrow.”
She went on to say dating within her own race is often preferred because “they can relate to me on things no one else can” because of a shared background.
Japanese American UW graduate Erica Nakanishi-Stanis said it hurts how difficult it is to find partners who come from the same background as her.
“I’m not going find that common experience,” she said. “I can’t find another half-white, half-Asian person to date. It’s just probably not going to happen, and to know I’m making other people uncomfortable by choosing who I date, it just makes you feel really trapped.”
In the end, UW freshman James Gavins pushed the idea that simply disregarding boundaries created by families and society can make dating easier for minorities.
“Life is so much easier once you don’t care about that,” Gavins said. “Once you realize they’re biases, it’s so much easier. I can move out, I can get a job, I can live. If you just [be] you and [girls] like you, that’s that.”
