As the new year approached, I started thinking about what I have
achieved during my academic career.
I am a graduating senior at UCLA, one of the nation’s most
prestigious universities.
I will almost certainly finish my academic career with an
advanced degree that will place me in a very stable job
position.
I will probably be able to afford a car and a house in a good
suburban middle-class community and never really have to suffer
economic troubles.
These attributes are not in any way unique to myself, but are
the common benefits of receiving such a prestigious college
education. UCLA students are typically upwardly mobile following
graduation and have a good chance of living a very economically
stable life. But we are a minority within our country and within
this world. Most people are considered working poor. So the
question must be asked: What makes me more competitive than others
in the United States?
Perhaps it’s because I worked my ass off. Maybe it’s
the result of all those days I spent studying and memorizing random
facts.
That is certainly the first way we justify our success; we tell
ourselves we worked harder than everyone else. However, the
implicit assumption in that idea is that we live in an equal world
where we all have the same choices and opportunities.
In my case, I think there have been other factors that have
helped my “success.” For example, even though I am
Middle Eastern, my skin color is very light. I have never been
looked at with suspicion or prejudice. I don’t wear a large
beard, so no one suspects I am a terrorist when I walk into
airports. No one thinks that I made it into UCLA due to an
affirmative action program; everyone believes it was my merit.
Thus, psychologically or otherwise, my skin color was never a cause
for exclusion.
Additionally, both my parents have post-bachelor’s
education. This assisted them in creating a comfortable,
middle-class lifestyle. Though I had to suffer through a short
period of fiscal difficulty in the years immediately following my
immigration to the United States, for the most part I’ve
lived with economic ease, never having to worry about how my family
was going to survive the next day or year. And, I have the security
of knowing if I couldn’t get a job, my parents could help me
financially.
Further, my parents value my education. I didn’t have to
work during school. My parents paid for Kaplan and Testmaster, and,
most importantly, they have been able to afford to pay my tuition
at UCLA despite the continuing rise in fees.
Another factor in my success could be that I am a man and have
not had to face the many prejudices that women face in our society.
I don’t have to worry about being objectified as I walk up
Bruin Walk. I don’t have to worry about slimming down or
spending hours in front of the mirror to look like the new fad
that’s hit Westwood. When I walk into meetings I can always
count on being in the majority of men (not to mention white men) so
I never have to feel uncomfortable.
Or maybe the reason that I’ve been more successful than
others is because I’m straight. Unlike my homosexual friends,
I never had to worry about not being viewed as “normal”
or “natural.” I never had to fight the idea that
somehow I chose my sexual orientation.
Essentially, I have been the beneficiary of many of our
society’s divisions ““ race, class, gender and sexual
orientation. It makes me wonder if I would still have made it to
UCLA without having inherited such attributes.
Reflecting upon my own experience, my environment has allowed me
to have a variety of choices, which might not have otherwise been
open to me.
I think this is an important issue that each of us needs to
address. How much of who we are is due to the choices we make, and
how much has taken shape due to the environment in which we have
lived? Whether you are conservative, liberal, progressive or
radical, you have to agree that our environment does at times limit
the choices available to us. The lesson is to see how this
phenomenon plays out in larger society. Can this phenomenon give
some an unfair privilege and others a disadvantage?
If we want our system that is idealistically based on
meritocracy and competition to work, the first step is to make sure
everyone has an equal chance at “winning.” So if we are
serious about making this system work then we must strive to level
the playing field, and make the privileges we have as UCLA students
common rights for all who live among us.
Tajsar is a fourth-year political science and Asian American
studies student.