Not American enough
“Maybe they just want their picture to be like nice and homogeneous and we're not part of that vision for them for their Instagram.”
With Voices True is an archive of personal narratives on race.
In partnership with University of Notre Dame Archives, the Klau Institute seeks to give voice to the Notre Dame community on issues of race and racial identity. Through written, spoken, or visual stories, our community reflects on how we experience race, how it shapes our lives, and how we navigate relationships within it.
We invite every member of the Notre Dame community to participate.
The Klau Institute seeks to advance the God-given dignity of all human persons through transformative education, innovative research, and meaningful engagement with students and with the broader community.
2022 Snapshot Summary Video (4:54)
The 2022 story archive presents students, staff, and faculty offering a wide range of perspectives and points of concern around race and belonging.
Stories from the Year
Below are highlights from the stories collected in With Voices True. This digest can be used in classrooms or discussion groups, as a tool for promoting conversation and discovery.
Full interviews are housed in the University of Notre Dame's Hesburgh Library Archives, where they serve as a tool for research. Access to the archive can be arranged by contacting University Archives at archives@nd.edu.
The importance of representation
"I do feel seen here. And that goes both ways, sometimes in a good way, in a positive way. And sometimes in a negative way.”
Real connection
“You know, so I think sometimes I feel with some people, can we get over this? You know what I mean? You know, can we talk about something else?”
Embracing his identity
“I knew the position I was in and what it represented, but I didn't necessarily let that deter me from who I am as a person.”
The luxury of forgetting
“I always feel like I need to make sure I always put my best foot forward in everything that I do, because I don't want these negative stereotypes that people have towards black people to be validated.”
Not being seen
“Especially my freshman year, when I was meeting so many new people, I didn't feel different, but I could kind of tell that they would look at me differently or they just wouldn't look at me at all.”
Living under pressure
“I can't not think about, oh, was this situation a microaggression? And then being told that, oh, no, you're just overthinking it.”
Gender and race connected
“Because I'm specifically Asian, and a woman, I've noticed I've experienced vulnerability because of that.”
Building intentional empathy
“That's the thing that you see we need more of throughout our entire country and our world – is that you don't always have to be right.”
Culture Shock
“You have to remind yourself that no matter how many struggles you go through, or how many times you do take a mental decline there’s always an opportunity to go back up.”
Measuring Blackness
“One thing I noticed when I got to Notre Dame was that people would almost discriminate against me for my lack of blackness.”
First generation tensions
“They would always ask me, are your parents legal or illegal? And I guess they're asking if I was too, but that always bothered me.”
The “good immigrant” trap
“Be nice to the people next to you before you start to worry about the guy who's across the sea.”
Adjusting to US realities
“I'm more than just a Black person, I'm a British Black person, I'm a British Black athlete. I'm a Christian, British Black athlete.”
Disappearing
“You can hide poor but you can't hide race very easily, at least blackness and some other ethnicities.”
A mixed tradition
“So I just found that really interesting, especially because out of all the like different ethnicities on campus that they did tell us to emphasize the Asian Allure show.”
Popular culture as a site of meaning
“This music and this type of performance is playing a much deeper role with respect to how people are imagining and thinking, and really lending meaning to their own migration and experience of migration.”
Blindsided
"I was in school, I passed my classes. Things that should be celebrated. But I felt like, in that moment, all that was taken away through his comments."
Racism ingrained in culture
"And they didn't have to say it, that's what's interesting, right? They didn't have to say you need to stop being friends with Mariam, because she's Black or African or whatever."
First generation experience
"I wouldn't say there's any sort of shame in being like, "oh, you're Whitewashed," or like, "Oh, you act so White now," or, you know, this and that, that doesn't really bother me."
Nuances of racism
"...there are different kinds of subtle confrontations with racism, both interpersonal and structural racism, that are just more complicated to talk about."
Misdefined by categories
"...like you make terrorist jokes and stuff like that. You're going to say terrorists are White? Like you're not - nobody believes that."
Gaining trust in a changing world
"It's just that the world changed, I think, and the world has been moving and changing in ways that maybe we took for granted..."
A Catholic approach
"In the Christian vision, we have this vision of restoring right relationships, of ultimately creating a community based upon friendship, where nobody feels like an outsider."
A complex identity
"So I just still hold a little bit of resentment of being forced to check boxes that I don't feel truly encompass who I am."
Taking responsibility for the conversation
"And so the onus is on me to not go days without thinking about race, because if I was a person of color, I wouldn't be able to do that."
Making race an issue
"...as I continued to attend Notre Dame race became such a prevalent issue in how people saw me somehow when race was never even a big part of my life."
Recognizing privilege
"And then the honest truth is that in many instances, including this one, there's a moment where everyone certainly isn’t healed..."
Wrestling with identities
"I think that's something that people don't realize with being mixed. It's like you can pass as maybe both if you want to, but at the same time you feel like you don't belong to either."
Being defined by race
"...you cannot go through life, you cannot go through a week, sometimes a day, where people don't remind you of your race. "
Culture and race
"Like sometimes you just need to ask the question because it's better to know then not to know."
Being mindful of representation
"I think it's important to call attention to Whiteness as a constructed category of identity ..."
Getting to know the unknown
"I think people are worried about saying the wrong thing. And I think that does come from a good place..."
Resisting White normativity
"...I want to free others to be their authentic selves, too, and not feel as if they have to wear so many different masks..."
Unequal playing field
"And she said, I think you guys need to realize that I am a Black woman in a position of leadership."
Meaningful symbolism
"...both our own identities and our position in relation to other cultures affects how we interpret what we see."
Engaging with lived experience
"It's not a matter of data. It's a matter of listening to what people have to say and how they have lived their lives. "
Having the difficult conversations
"...I want us to be okay with sitting in discomfort because the people around us struggling are sitting in discomfort, and they want to be able to come to us with these things."
The good and the bad
"But that's just something that in my head processing, like, oh, like, I'm different from the people around me."
The slow pace of progress
"But they didn't say any of that, they said it in such a way that was intended to help not offend their White peers surrounding them."
Singled out
"...when people first look at me, they never think, oh, look at that American girl. Even though I am. They’ll always be like, oh, the Asian girl."
Making space for dialogue
"I wanted them to have a chance to feel at peace where they lived."
Protest fears
"But then the police showed up, and everyone, the energy obviously shifted. And most of it was fear."
Navigating racial lines
"So that's, that's how it worked out with race – I worried about it. The other person worried about me worrying about it."
The emotional violence of stereotypes
"And here I am having to have the police escort me out of my hotel to a new one because other people can't do their job, and because they think that I'm obviously doing things that I shouldn't be as a Black person."
Advocating for herself
"If I didn't know any better, I'd have been sitting in a class that was not challenging me, that I did not need, and it was putting me on a track that I did not deserve."
Building a life on shared experience
“…and so they had learned something from each other, you know, and shared something. And that's important.”
Connecting the past with the present
“…racism is one of those things that fades and you think it's getting better, and then it rears its head.”
Challenging racial stereotypes
"I use every moment that I can with the kids as a teaching opportunity.”
Appreciating the diversity of experience
“…you can't tell people their experiences with race aren't valid, because everybody's experience with race is completely different than somebody else's.”
Taking time to consider the other
“And when they hear other people's stories of their experience, a light bulb goes off, and oh, that's what it is…”
Bringing a world view
“I think everybody - at least you should be more curious and not treat other people like an alien if we're not an American.”
Framing a positive story
“But what's even better is… they get to create a story that's never ever existed here on campus.”
Fighting for identity
“This is something that I've dealt with most of my life, and the fact that people trivialize it is - that's also what kind of annoys me too.”
Balancing perspectives
“I don't know if people just wanted to be nicer as a response, at least people who probably don't support that rhetoric, that kind of a statement.”
Facing harsh realities
"The fact that nothing happened to either the man who killed Trayvon or the man who killed Michael just…I don't know, it made me really upset."
Confronting the complexities of race
“I was called a settler of color once and it still hits me really hard to think about the complexity of that concept.”
Bridging the divide
"We need to learn and we need to listen to other people and their stories, and we can't just avoid other people because they're different from us because we're too scared to talk to them..."
Exploring the possibilities of a "melting pot"
"For example, the guy who lives next to me is from Mexico, and I think that just experiencing, interacting with people from different places has helped me have a better understanding of what he's from."
Seeking common ground
"I have a lot of very interesting conversations about race with my freshman and which...really stemmed out of me growing comfortable with the people that weren't like me."
Bringing himself to the role
"I don't need you to be my voice, I just need you to pass the mic that you're hoarding right now."
Thinking about the people around us
"I think a lot of people kind of assume that people are ignorant because they want to be. I think sometimes people are ignorant because they don't have any other exposure to anything."
Experiencing the culture of separateness
"But over time I would say in the span of an hour that table became what my friend called an ethnic table. It was just me, the Asian kid, and the black kids."
Taking a step beyond bias
" I think we all have fear of engaging in conversation with another group of people or raise whatever we want to describe the categories as."
Making an effort to be seen
"...if you're an international student, if you're a black student, if you're an Asian student, you are an Asian student first. You have that adjective that comes first..."
Seeking diversity of viewpoint
"Why should you care if you're with 10 black people versus 10 white people? I don't think that's what counts."
Finding a place to share viewpoints
"It is really nice having someone, having people that you can talk to who kind of know what you’re doing or what you’re going through I guess."
Looking for a genuine commitment to diversity
"You can diversify campus all you want, but if people don't feel included, we're not making progress. Diversity is being invited to the party, but inclusion is being asked to dance."
Confronting the national discourse on campus
"I never felt like I was in any danger, but then after the 2016 election, it was just like, will I be told this on my way to class? In my class?"
Navigating moments of tension
"...and, you know, a kid said, like he was talking about the St. Mary’s shuttle and he was just like, “Yeah, like, St. Mary’s girls...they’re kind of part of Notre Dame...it’s like the 3⁄5 Compromise.” And it just got like dead silent in the room."