THE UNDERGRADUATE The First Year Retreat and Experience, or FYRE, is a two-year pilot, a pre-orientation program designed to help students from “historically marginalized communities” Who Belongs transition to Harvard. It caters mainly to first-generation and low-income students, assisting them as they navigate the dizzy- at Harvard? ing array of acronyms on campus: BCS, OIE, OCS, CAMHS, FAO. There are icebreakers and academic panels, hip-hop yoga and si- by catherine zhang ’19 lent discos. All of the slippery, intangible “skills” that Harvard’s upper-middle-class he harry elkins widener  centuries-old eliteness that, until recent majority takes for granted, which its mem- Memorial Library houses 3.5 mil- years, didn’t accommodate individuals like bers believe makes them uniquely deserving lion books and 400 million docu- me. Walking by, you see crowds of excit- of success, are covered: how to cold-email ments in its cavernous limestone ed Asian tourists peering inside—and al- professors, request a tutor, or seek mental- Tchambers. It is the largest university reposito- though I know my public-radio tote bag, health care. As are the struggles that the ma- ry of books and manuscripts in the world, and white Birkenstocks, philosophy books, and jority doesn’t seem to face. Students ask how it sits in the middle of Harvard Yard, where Harvard ID will allow me to float through to get along with roommates whose Canada it serves as the sweeping backdrop for thou- the entrance freely, the wry symbolism feels Goose jackets may cost more than their own sands of starry-eyed tourist Instagrams and heavy at a time when Harvard is being sued entire financial contribution toward attend- glossy brochure photos. Widener functions for supposedly anti-Asian admissions poli- ing the College, or how to grapple with “sur- synecdochally, a grand, imposing metaphor cies. But at the beginning of this school year vivor’s guilt,” like how to eat full meals in for one of the most powerful brands in the I found myself walking there with a lanky the dining halls knowing that their families world. It is the centerpiece of the University, Leverett junior named Ben, trailed by 10 back home don’t have food. the axis around which Harvard grinds and wide-eyed first-years who chattered anima- FYRE is the result of years of concentrat- whirs, churning out computational problem tedly about whether to take Economics 10. ed activism by first-gen students. Blueprint- sets, completed bleary-eyed at 3 a.m., or scrib- Together Ben and I led our kids up the stair- ing for a pre-orientation program began bled annotations on the Frankfurt School, case of Widener, past the murals painted by when Primus (originally the First Genera- piled on top of secluded carrels: dog-eared John Singer Sargent, into the Loker Reading tion Student Union, FGSU) was founded in relics that’ll remind us, when we’ve made it, Room. There, the new University president, 2013. Two years later, Savannah N. Fritz ’17 that once we doubted we could. Larry Bacow, and the dean of the College, faced “resistance” from Dean Khurana, as For the past three years, I’ve avoided it. Rakesh Khurana, welcomed our kids, the she told The Harvard Crimson, when she pro- Its magnificence recalls an old Harvard, a inaugural class of FYRE, to Harvard. posed an eight-day “Freshman Enrichment Program” that she developed with the help of a $3,000 planning grant from the Undergraduate Council. But the efforts and rejections con- tinued: last year, Khurana and the administration were the subject of widespread anger (harvard- mag.com/firstgen-17) when they rejected another bridge program for first-gen and low-income students—a “First Year Insti- tute” proposed by Katie Steele, then of the Freshman Dean’s Of- fice (now senior director for stu- dent engagement and leadership in the Dean of Students’ Office), and modeled on Fritz’s initial proposal. But finally, after months of exhaustion and unpaid labor by student advocates, a program materialized—and was recorded by the Harvard Gazette photogra- phers hovering around our first-

30 January - February 2019 Illustration by Michael Parkin/ Folio Art

Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 John Harvard's Journal years as they unwrapped new books that pendent thinking and bravery. “Asianness” exceeded its utility. In college, the people had been recommended personally for them was so tightly circumscribed in the suburbs around me were unlikely to make these by professors. On stage, President Bacow of Dallas that the only way I knew how to be mistakes. The majority of my close friends slipped a FYRE T-shirt over his button- my own person was to disavow the whole. were multiracial—half black, one-eighth down. Watching my first-years at Widen- So I railed against the never-ending race of Hawaiian, all somewhere on the spectrum er, enraptured by this display—the moti- skipping math levels that placed seventh of “progressive”—and thus unlikely also to vating speeches by Dean Khurana outlining graders in pre-calculus, and the SAT prep see this close-minded view of “Asianness” the mission of the College, before they’d centers that constituted their own industry. as constituting me. Even as I’ve begun to become a trite punchline—I remembered There were 1,556 seniors in my graduating realize, since freshman year, how much di- what it was like standing on the steps of class and I wanted to be an individual. versity at Harvard can be cosmetic, I still Widener during my Freshman Convocation, I received my acceptance letter from Har- look around the room at parties, where my intoxicated by the potential of my whole vard in March, despite an SAT score below black roommate is getting sloppy to Katy life ahead of me. 2300 and several Bs, not to mention dozens Perry in a velvet top they borrowed from me, But after the kids shuffled back to Wig- of high-school classmates more disciplined and feel sentimental about the realization, glesworth to sleep or share a few late-night than I. At the time, it was evident to me that albeit temporary, of my post-racial dreams. revelations with friends, I began to worry I was selling my kids a dream of Harvard Harvard wanted personality, and from the it could not live up to. A few days later, I saw my FYRE family featured in the Gazette, warm, chipper note my admissions officer front and center on the page—the face of the diversity statistics, the face of thousands of wrote praising my activism, I undeniably had it. high-school students’ wildest dreams. “Harvard belongs to you,” Khurana had I deserved it. Harvard wanted personality, and The brutal reality is that I still derive most told us. In the moment, we believed him. from the warm, chipper note my admissions of my esteem from being “not like the other officer wrote to me praising my activism, Asians.” Only now, the “other” Asians are Lately, we’ve all been thinking about who I undeniably had it. Anyone who wonders not in my classroom solving calculus prob- Harvard should belong to. A lawsuit against whether they should be here gets reassured lems faster than me. They’re the ones out- the University alleging discrimination against that the masterminds in the admissions of- side of the red-brick confines of Harvard, Asian-American applicants has produced ficedon’t make mistakes—they can detect hid- arguing for a race-blind vision of equality. bruising details about the College’s confiden- den potential; they can whiff out inauthen- The Asian Americans supporting Students tial admissions process, and forced many of ticity. For most of my time in Cambridge, I for Fair Admissions view equality as en- us to reckon with our place here. believed in Harvard’s infallibility. titlement to the privileges, the fullness, of Harvard is a college where a visit from Freshman year was magical, a dazzling whiteness—there’s so much about the law- Colin Kaepernick or the Secretary of En- rotation of things I had never encoun- suit that feels selfish. But it’s easy to criticize ergy is just another event you blow off for tered. In high school I knew only one gay when—as a Harvard senior—this fullness a problem set; where your journalism pro- classmate, but at Harvard all of my male has already been afforded to me. fessor is the former managing editor of The friends had their nails painted and pre- New York Times; and where your section mate ferred the term “queer.” We hung out in One of the first lectures I attended at is an Obama or a Kennedy. To be one of the large groups, sharing greasy scallion pan- Harvard was the introduction to “Money, 5 percent of applicants admitted to Har- cakes on a comically large plush beanbag, Markets, and Morals,” an Ethical Reason- vard is to be catapulted automatically into and screamed along to Carly Rae Jepsen’s ing general-education course taught by Bass the elite. To say that all of this is deserv- EMOTION. I took the T into Chinatown professor of government Michael Sandel. As edly ours because of the choices we made for soup dumplings with a former circus the University’s reigning moral philosopher, before we turned 18—no one, not even the performer who loved European languag- Sandel has been instrumental to projecting international-science-fair champions, can es, and scream-whispered Paramore lyrics the image of a progressive, socially enlight- prove that with certainty. in Lamont with kids in the punk division ened Harvard into the online stratosphere. of the college radio station. Diversity, the His course “Justice” was the first Harvard In high school I was one of those self- backbone of the University, for me was no course made publicly available for millions righteous students who derived significant longer a suburban dream. online. Standing in front of hundreds of ea- esteem from not being like the other Asians: for Until this year, Harvard made it easy for ger undergraduates, Sandel posed a question: having white friends who’d drive me into me to avoid reckoning with the most diffi- how would we feel if 10 percent of the seats Dallas, to the Deep Ellum entertainment dis- cult parts of my identity. In my hometown, at Harvard were reserved for the children of trict, for live jazz and spoken-word poet- Asian boys would make fried-chicken jokes wealthy donors? The majority of us sitting in ry; for writing songs as my assignments; for and complain that they’d automatically be Sanders Theatre were aghast. Did that not caring about local elections and municipal admitted to the Ivy League if they were undermine the foundation of meritocracy, the policy. I liked to insert myself into conversa- black: this always struck me as not only of- idea that we got here because we deserved it? tions I didn’t belong to, an outspokenness fensive but unthinking, as if blackness is mere- But it turns out the question wasn’t really my teachers interpreted as showing inde- ly a veil that can be disposed of when it has hypothetical. Internal documents released

Harvard Magazine 31

Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 John Harvard's Journal during the admissions trial illuminated “The mission of Harvard College,” as Dean special privileges for applicants related to Khurana likes to remind us, “is to educate the wealthy donors, who are often placed on a citizens and citizen-leaders for our society.” On confidential “Dean’s Interest List” or “Di- social media, the College features activists rector’s Interest List” that has an accep- with cystic fibrosis, global nonprofit found- tance rate of 42.2 percent—eight times the ers, and recent graduates teaching in under- regular admissions rate. More than 10 per- served communities. In speeches, Khurana cent of my class of 2019 are members of the emphasizes that Harvard has more Medal of special lists. But this fact does not seem so Honor recipients than any other institution egregious when you consider Harvard has of higher education except the U.S. military always skewed wealthy. Two-thirds of Har- academies. The 5 percent of applicants ac- vard students, myself included, come from cepted by Harvard are supposed to steer the families in the top 20 percent of the income globe toward a better future, hence the need distribution. The median household income for moral signaling. The University’s prestige, of Harvard undergraduates is three times the not to mention the justification for its exclu- sivity, depend in part on its ability Harvard’s prestige depends to keep people believing. It’s often said that Harvard’s ac- Harvard in part on its ability to keep ceptance of wealthy students pro- vides greater opportunities for people believing. its low-income students. But the Authors! presence of low-income students national average. Even then, the sheer wealth protects opportunity for the wealthy, too. I and elitism present at Harvard can be so suf- remember Savannah Fritz’s righteous anger focating that even those normally considered when the First Year Institute was denied: privileged feel excluded. I identify as neither “Dean Khurana, you brought us here. You flaunt us first-gen nor low-income, but I applied to in your diversity statistics.” team-lead for FYRE because I was tired of “Diversity,” as I’ve come to understand it, the exclusionary culture of the arts commu- is the apparatus which sustains the preser- Showcase your book nity. My public high school didn’t have much vation of the elite. It keeps us believing that in the Harvard arts programming, which made me feel con- the system is fair and that we’re here be- Authors’ Bookshelf - stantly behind during my first two years in cause we earned it. The past few months I’ve Cambridge. I wanted to help other people grown uneasy knowing that the bargain that Summer Reading List. who didn’t go to private school or perform- students of color at Harvard must make to ing arts academies to be able findtheir voices protect affirmative action is to pretend that THE DEADLINE IS: in creative writing or comedy also. “diversity” has always been a top University MARCH 14, 2019 Slowly, after my first year, I learned about priority. After half a century of student activ- the corners of the University where I didn’t ism, Harvard still doesn’t have a multicultural Reach 258,000 Harvard belong. There was that dystopian night I’d center. FYRE’s undergraduate co-chairs had alumni, faculty, and staff. spent at a final club, watching silently as to request compensation for the hundreds of broad-shouldered men slipped their arms hours they spent organizing it. Change often Your book ad will include: around girls and disappeared to places where comes at a cost to student activists who help a book jacket photo, your the regular guests were forbidden. Rowdy make it. A Crimson feature published after the name and Harvard class year, partygoers gyrated to Kendrick Lamar’s “Al- release of the College’s Working Group on right” on wooden tables and popped yet an- Diversity and Inclusion report in 2016 under- and a short description – other bottle of champagne. I had a hard time stated a grim reality: “Here, change doesn’t totaling 8 lines of text. remembering I was in my own body. Within happen overnight.” Your ad will appear both 20 minutes, I had slipped out the door. “Harvard belongs to you,” Khurana had in print and online. An upperclassman I knew was a member said. I’m reminded of the disconnect between of The Harvard Advocate had been there, flirt- the Harvard I envisioned, standing for the For information about pricing ing with me. “Isn’t it such a strange experi- first time on the steps of Widener, and the ence being in final clubs as Asian people?” Harvard I know now in its flawed actuality. and ad specifications, go to: I asked him later, walking with my friends That belonging is not only a privilege, but an harvardmagazine.com/hauthors down Mount Auburn Street toward late- extraordinary responsibility. contact Gretchen Bostrom night pizza, past the party. He agreed: “So at 617-496-6686, or e-mail different from the world I grew up in.” Berta Greenwald Ledecky Undergraduate Fellow [email protected]. We were almost at Pinocchio’s when I Catherine Zhang ’19 is still waiting for a multi- reminded him. “You went to Exeter.” cultural center.

32 January - February 2019

Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746