A Few International Students’ Take on Diversity at GFU

By: Zoditu Schwind

Photographed by: Maxine Parkin

In this piece, three international students at George Fox University (GFU) give their perspectives on racial diversity and challenge the way diversity is defined.

Susana Mendoza is a sophomore and interdisciplinary major with a focus in Economics and History. She grew up in Japan, but her mother tongue is Spanish. Mendoza is biracial and a dual citizen of both Spain and Japan. She received her academic education in English at an international Christian school. She chose to attend GFU because of its engaging great books Honors program. Outside of visa issues and distance from family, Mendoza’s transition to college “honestly hasn’t been too bad.”

Mendoza noticed that here in the U.S., people don’t ask where she’s from. Shrugging her shoulders, she said, “I just blend in a little too well here. It’s weird because this is the only place where I am actually a foreigner.” Compared to the homogeneity of Japan, she noted, the U.S. is racially diverse. Yet Mendoza has observed that there is an artificialness to how many Americans define this diversity. It has become “problematic because people are relegated into different groups under the assumption that all [people of a certain race] have the same shared experiences.” She has found it off-putting that her being a person of color is what people notice and comment on first. Focusing solely on skin color “is such a superficial aspect that doesn’t actually say much about someone’s experience as an individual. There is so much more to someone’s [cultural] upbringing than just what they look like.”

Two other international students, Tony Katabarwa and Brian Abine made similar observations as Mendoza. Katabarwa is a junior business administration major with a concentration in management, and Abine is a first-year Biology major and pre-med student. They are cousins and are both from Kigali, Rwanda. They chose to come to GFU because of the scholarships it offered as well as its small size. For Abine, the transition to the U.S. was smooth, but for Katabarwa “it was good but a struggle, especially with English as a second language. Trying to always keep up wasn’t easy.” However, about his adjustment to American culture, Abine added, “I have a big, stupid, and ignorant mouth back home. I’ve come to learn to filter it because the culture here is unstable, and people get offended easily.”

Tony Katabarwa Photographed by Maxine Parkin

When asked about the term diversity, Abine defined it as the inclusion of all people of “different races, colors, and mindsets all in the same place.” Both Abine and Katabarwa believe GFU’s endeavors towards more racial inclusivity is good, but they both remain confused as to how that diversity is tallied and who “keeps the scores.”

“We found out [on coming to the U.S.] that people care about the color you are,” said Abine. “It’s here,” added Katabarwa, “that people know we are black.” They’ve both struggled in feeling “expected to act like black Americans” though by nature of growing up in Rwanda, they cannot. There is no one mold of experiences that all black people can be lumped into. For Abime and Katabarwa, being forced into one generic category “gives [them] uncomfortable feelings.”

As international students, Mendoza, Katabawa, and Abine provide objective perspectives on American culture. All three advocate for diversity that focuses less on race and more on diversity of experiences. This type of diversity breaks stereotypes attached to racial categorization. In this way, each individual at GFU can participate in the diversity of campus by virtue of his or her own unique experiences.