tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987034451869317078.post8676824236020415042..comments2023-06-19T01:42:09.481-07:00Comments on D constructing D: The International Nature of Graduate SchoolDaktarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08291715601733518982noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987034451869317078.post-51563880100485461702009-05-30T10:40:16.495-07:002009-05-30T10:40:16.495-07:00Well, of course, I know plenty of white people lik...Well, of course, I know plenty of <EM>white</EM> people like that. People who separate "work friends" from "friend friends" -- and of course, those work friends that they feel share a background level of comfort are by default not "work friends" but "friend friends."<br /><br />It does sound a bit saddening -- but the first woman, from Senegal, sounds like an extreme case. But yeah, there are any number of reasons that they're keeping to themselves, and I wouldn't say it's something about Africa per se, or rather, it says something about a certain culture within certain Africans perhaps, but I've known many incredibly friendly, welcoming, and outgoing Africans -- as well as some painfully shy ones who wouldn't invite people out with them because they were intimidated -- so I still tend to think it's somewhat idiosyncratic. Perhaps the self-selection of Africans who choose to go to C-dale maps onto a group of anti-social Africans?Qhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10444952585830773530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987034451869317078.post-90829538705962334932009-05-28T18:40:19.328-07:002009-05-28T18:40:19.328-07:00No, they do not appear to be open enough to ask th...No, they do not appear to be open enough to ask them. We had a girl from Senegal have a baby and we wanted to throw her a baby shower and she refused to participate. She had her baby. We never saw a picture. She graduated and not one person knew that she had moved back to Senegal. She never said goodbye. Hell, she had never said hello.<br /><br />We have another girl from Senegal and at least she says hello to me in the hallway. But still, I never see her outside of her lab or outside her office. She has never once stopped in someone else's office just to chat. I just don't get it.Daktarihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08291715601733518982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987034451869317078.post-21048245922507567162009-05-28T14:07:07.505-07:002009-05-28T14:07:07.505-07:00Or I guess there's also possibility d) There is so...Or I guess there's also possibility d) There is something about the general cultures of their places of origin that is exclusionary; I see this as the least likely explanation, myself, but I'm looking at it all from afar.Qhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10444952585830773530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987034451869317078.post-80088764931933448922009-05-28T14:06:15.422-07:002009-05-28T14:06:15.422-07:00None of them appear open enough to talk about this...None of them appear open enough to talk about this with them?<br /><br />Ironically (in its juxtaposition), I was at the going-away party last night of a grad student's African boyfriend. J-friend BY had invited me, and observed that the party was the second most fun party she had gone to in grad school, after a previous party hosted by the same group of international students -- including Africans.<br /><br />As is my wont, I have three theories for you:<br />a) It's there: perhaps the culture/atmosphere of C-dale, the uni, the town, or the US period feels unwelcoming to them, so they have become unwelcoming to it, to a (from your point of view) perhaps unnecessary or excessive degree.<br />b) It's you. Not YOU you, per se, but perhaps, relatedly, it's rather something cultural akin to the Asian student's dislike of touching. The African students are responding to some unrevealed cultural offense/slight/discomfort more specific than the idea of general "unwelcomingness" in (a).<br />c1) It's them. They're idiosyncratically unfriendly.<br />c2) It's them. They're similar to BY's colleagues in her department, where she's found herself making friends predominantly with other white middle-class grad students. Talking yesterday night, I related to her how, in some experiences, I or an acquaintance of mine has been surrounded by international students, but only those representing, say, a country's elite, such that one of my friends felt like Brazilians were <EM>very</EM> unfriendly and snotty and libertarian, when in fact it was that all the Brazilians at the conference they were at were from the richest 1% of Brazilians, who own 80% of the resources in Brazil, and are quite different socially from the other social groups within the 99% of other Brazilians. Perhaps the students you're talking about are similar, in that we guessed two possible barriers in BY's case -- that the international students were unpleasant elites in general, or that they were unpleasant because she didn't share the same class perspective as she did with the other middle-class American whites (and a couple of other international students who were from more modest backgrounds abroad).Qhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10444952585830773530noreply@blogger.com