Asian American Alliance Calls for College Support

To the Editors:

We express our sorrows and offer our support in the wake of Tuesday’s tragic events that ended so many lives. The many heroic efforts and great risks taken in the past days and those still under way deserve to be recognized and commended. We join with others across the nation and around the world in expressing hope to bring an end to such violence.

We are concerned and saddened by the delay in the issuing of an official administrative statement regarding racial harassment on Oberlin campus. Throughout these horrific events, our communities of color are enduring lack of representation through popular media. Our voices and pain are not visible on the TV screens in Wilder or Mudd. Our fears of being seen as the suspect were not addressed. As we waited for an official statement, we were not assured of our physical safety even on this campus. Although we now have an official statement from the administration, we still feel an acute sense of fear. The program sponsored by the MRC for students of color and allies provided the first and only supportive College space for students of color to discuss and commemorate this week’s events.

We call on the United States government not to answer the violence of Tuesday’s attacks with more senseless violence against innocent civilians of other nations, even though they may be of the same nationality, faith or ethnic group as the alleged perpetrators. We extend this concern to protecting the safety and the rights of people here in the United States. Many of Islamic faith, Middle Eastern decent and others who fit racist stereotypes are now becoming the focus of suspicion or the subjects of persecution in this country. We will not condone hate crimes and racialized harassment committed in the name of justice. We encourage students of Oberlin College to speak out against such persecution.

Finally, although we cannot condone the violence of the suicidal attacks, we recognize that the people who planned them reflect a deep anger and resentment against the United States. This sense of anger exists within and outside of the Unites States, in both Americans and in people of other nationalities. It is important that we in the United States self-educate to understand the sources of such anger. In order to bring a true end to violence, the roots of this anger –– poverty, injustice, and hopelessness –– must be addressed.

–clara hiroshi hatanaka
College senior

–Maricar Camaya
College sophomore

–Sharon Tantoco
College senior

Asian American Alliance Officers