By Tanzila Malik

Growing up as a second-generation Pakistani-American, I never had a strong connection to my culture. My dad’s family immigrated to Nebraska from Pakistan in the early 1970s when he was just a year old. My mom lived in Pakistan until the age of eight. Then she moved to England, and then later to Germany. Neither had many memories from their time in Pakistan, so I was never exposed to my culture or in touch with that side of me the same way as other Pakistanis I know.

I grew up around my dad’s family, who had spent their whole lives in the US, chasing the American dream, and leaving behind their lives in Pakistan. They assimilated themselves into American culture, including religiously watching Sunday night football like most other American families I know. But I’ve always felt too Pakistani for the Americans, and too American for the Pakistanis.

I grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood, and my elementary school was the same. Although I made really good friends throughout my years there, I was still always made to feel like the “other.” Whether it was the fact that none of my teachers looked like me, constantly having to correct peoples’ pronunciation of my name, or that people would automatically assume I was related to one of the few brown kids in the school. The list is endless. Because of this, I always felt ashamed of my background, and like I had to prove that I was a “normal American” like my peers. The one attempt my school made to be culturally inclusive, was the annual “Family Heritage Night.” During this, people set up tables with artifacts from their cultures including clothes, food, games, etc. Despite my opposition, my mom insisted that we set up a table to showcase our Pakistani culture. She tried to make me wear our traditional clothing, but I refused and tried my best to be anywhere but where our table was.

These feelings continued throughout my years in elementary school but shifted once I got to high school, where the population was significantly more diverse. I met so many people from different cultural backgrounds, including my own, and felt empowered enough to begin reclaiming my cultural identity. This feeling didn’t last long though. Soon, I began to realize that I didn’t fit in with my South Asian friends either. People would poke fun at me for not knowing their references to Bollywood movies or other aspects of Pakistani popular culture. I began to feel like an outsider again, even among people from my own culture and I projected their perception of me onto myself. In my head, I thought that since I couldn’t always relate to my culture the same way as my Pakistani friends, that must mean I’m not really Pakistani.

As I’ve gotten older, and have been exposed to different cultures and ways of thinking in college, I’ve realized that there is no “right” way to “do” culture. Culture is constantly changing, and is whatever we make it. This is still something I work through every day, through my interactions with other people, experiences at school, work, etc. But I’m learning that I don’t need to force myself to fit in with one group or the other and that how I perceive my identity is the only thing that matters.

By Ash Acuña

When I first joined the team at the Women’s Center, one of the very first things we covered were Brave Space guidelines. The three core tenets of Brave Spaces—challenge yourself, respect others, cultivate community—invite curiosity, learning, and safety to improve. Brave Spaces, at times, feel like a replacement for what educational spaces are supposed to represent. Growing up in a time of social media, it feels like everything is at risk of being recorded and put on the internet for others to dissect. Having Brave Spaces reminds me that real life is often not like that—and yet, the anxiety carries over.

I find it odd that my peers will often soften their opinions in class. Classrooms should be a place for learning, but I have heard classmates say, “I don’t want to get canceled for this,” far too many times (and on relatively cold takes, too). They share their thoughts with hesitancy, putting literal disclaimers out ahead of their speech, afraid they will be ostracized for participating in a discussion that is intended for all of us to learn from. Rather than be wrong and grow from it, we live in an age where being wrong in the wrong place can send a hurricane of hate your way.

I feel the same anxiety my classmates do. I see the same people they do get canceled on Twitter and fear my words could also be virally twisted to the point that nobody will listen when I try to defend myself. My own fears stem from the physical world; in 2020, stuck in quarantine with my family, I was verbally attacked by loved ones for what was perceived to be performative activism (rather than burnout and the personal trauma I was sorting out). Unable to defend myself, isolated from a support system, it felt like one wrong move would send me straight to hell. If I didn’t act the exact right way, or didn’t say the exact right thing, then I was a performer, a bad person, a liar who cared more for themself than for the people who they claimed to want to help.

I know I was not the only one who experienced this kind of anxiety; many of my friends stayed silent for fear of saying the wrong thing and getting blasted on Facebook or Instagram stories. I watched as people who seemed to be making honest efforts to improve got dragged for posting about their learning. I have found myself to be in the position of a crusader, having shamed a past partner for not voting when they were able (shaming someone is different than sharing different values; voting was, and is, important to me, but it was not to my partner. Rather than understand that, I tried to coerce—shame—them into believing what I wanted them to). Even though situations are often more nuanced than they appear to be, nuance is not, it seems, easily translated or understood in mob thinking. The social pressure to think like everyone else, at risk of ending up on the side of the attacked, is great enough to cause an emotional spiral.

What I know now is that shame does not work to create change. It is a spiteful, coercive tactic to manipulate people into doing or believing what you want them to. It also does not leave room for learning. Rather than understand why what we did or said was wrong, when we are shamed, we fixate on how to avoid being rejected by our community. Cancel culture necessitates that we publicly shame others into believing they were wrong, but it does not actually teach the wrong-doer how to change their behavior. Cancel culture is operating under the name of “accountability” when it is in reality just a substitute for public shaming. Shame, as Brené Brown puts it, is the feeling that something is wrong with ourselves. Remorse, on the other hand, is understanding the harm our actions have caused.

Cancel culture is often justified by suggesting that the person being canceled should know, or is old enough to know, better. But how do we judge that, without knowing all that a person has experienced? Knowledge is not inherent; we all learn it from someone or something. With my personal experience of having grown up in a highly conservative area, I have seen how the echo chamber of the community you live in is one that could very easily never challenge your beliefs. Let us not forget that higher education is a privilege; even publicly available literature is often inaccessible to those not familiar with academic jargon.

We cannot cultivate community when we are looking for reasons to oust people from it. We are not respecting others when we don’t give them the benefit of the doubt. We cannot challenge ourselves when we don’t feel safe enough to do so.

People are wrong. Frequently. What matters isn’t that we are wrong, it is how we handle it. It is impossible to know everything, especially when the world changes so quickly. A community that will guide us and continue to treat us as humans when we are led astray is the best way to combat ignorance. It helps no one to launch into an immediate attack, throwing inflammatory labels onto someone who, for all we know, may have been truly misguided. And if we are so easily ready to throw stones at those who are wrong, it may be worth looking inwards and treating others with the same grace we should be affording ourselves.

Applications for the Spring '24 MLE Cohort can be found HERE. 

The Multicultural Leadership Experience (MLE) is a collaboration between Campus Life and Initiatives for Identity Inclusion & Belonging (i3B), that seeks to: 

Engage participants in a multicultural development and leadership learning program; 
Enhance participants' understanding of their social identities, leader identity, as well as their capacity to lead; 
And enable participants' development through authenticity, self-awareness, relationships, and capitalizing on difference. 

Diwali, also known as "The Festival of Lights", a celebration that lasts for 5 days beginning on November 12, 2023 symbolizes the victory of light over darkness, knowledge over ignorance, and good over evil with family gatherings, traditional foods, colorful lights, and fireworks. With the use of “diyas” (lamps), households are all decorated in this celebration. Diwali is both a religious and cultural celebration. 

Diwali is primarily celebrated by those of Hindu, Sikh, and Jain faiths, along with some Buddhists, while also is a large cultural celebration by people throughout the world. Along with the light of diyas, fireworks are set off on the night of Diwali as a representation to ward off evil spirits. Family is another large aspect of Diwali with the gathering of loved ones while eating sweets and other foods.

The 5 Days of Diwali: 

1. Dhanteras

2. Naraka Chaturdashi or Choti Diwali

3. Lakshmi Puja

4. Goverdhan Puja, Balipratipada, or Annakut

5. Bhai Dooj, Bhai Tika, or Bhai Bij

Traditions of Diwali can be found here.

All from i3b are wishing that Diwali brings warmth and peace.

Have a joyful Diwali!