Monolid

Today I attended my first Student of Color Conference, it's an annual gathering for students from all the UCs and some from CCs and high school, and it's about activism and working together on the issues that affect our community. I was lucky because it was held on my campus this year, and I had a really great time. I definitely felt like a newbie being in a space like this because I wasn't involved at all during my first two years and I was studying abroad all of last year, so coming back for my senior year and starting my Ethnic Studies minor, being involved with student orgs and attending events like the conference, in this sense, I feel like a first year because this is all new to me.

Every time I go to something that discusses social and race issues, I'm so enlightened and I'm just absorbing all the information. I wish I had gotten involved earlier, but I'm trying hard to catch up right now. I'm new to all of this activist work and I'm still constantly learning, as everyone should be.

It was so interesting to see all the other UCs represented, the system is a community in itself and we're all dealing with how we can promote and energize the minority groups on our campuses, as well as educational issues such as pushing for studies about people of color and combating the tuition increases. And I think the most beautiful thing about it all is that everyone is working toward the same goals. Even though we come from such diverse backgrounds, we all want to create change in not just our own communities, but each other's communities also, because our struggles are not so different as many may want us to believe.

I'm so glad to have joined my campus' API student association, because these people understand why I'm doing a minor in Ethnic Studies and why we're working to make positive changes for our communities. And that's not to say that other people aren't, or that everyone needs to be an activist, but just that, if you have the resources and the ability to do something, especially for those who have barriers and can't, then hopefully your passions will translate into progressive work. After meeting all these groups and see them interact in solidarity, it really makes me want to stay for a fifth year, because then I could also turn my minor into another major and I could continue to connect and build alliances with students and orgs on my campus who have similar goals as me.

Because I realized today that, how the hell am I going to keep up the activist work once I'm out of undergrad? Who can I meet and talk to who have the same ideas and hopes as me for communities of color? And this scares me because I fear that I'm going to fall into the activist trap and learn all of these empowerment tools in the next year and then do nothing with them. Just throw my notes into the pile of papers sitting on my desk and then eventually forget about them. Because for me, meeting these students of color and with my API org, I'm constantly being reminded that there are other people who want to see the kind of change that I want to see and it's incredibly encouraging to have this support system to turn to. None of my close friends here or from high school are involved in the same sense that I'm trying to be, and that's not to say that what they're doing is any less worthy, but activist work is a battle and you're gonna need comrades.