Friendships at Princeton

On a frigid Thursday night, I donned my gloves and buried myself in a thickly knit scarf and began my trek up campus to Witherspoon Hall. I was coming down with the flu, but I went anyway. I could practically hear my upperclassman friends chuckling, “Oh, freshman,” as I shivered and power-walked toward my reward for a week of 4 a.m. bedtimes: passes to Cloister’s Two Articles Night. As much as I, a California native, had trouble fathoming why my boots were crunching through the snowy debris in the middle of February (just a few hours earlier I had a high fever!), I loved it. I knew that my friendships were bolstered by more than colored squares of paper, but I still felt fortunate to have connections with others that enabled me to enjoy these theme nights. This was — in part, of course — what college was about.

I had joined several South Asian organizations — the South Asian Students Association, Princeton South Asian Theatrics, Naacho, Princeton Bhangra — that led others to jokingly nickname me “the brown queen.” I wore the crown gladly. These groups didn’t exist to me before, so I chose to become as involved as I could. At my high school, I was just the “brown one”: the single token Indian in my grade, at a place that touted its diversity as an integral part of its motto. At Princeton, I met other people who knew about Shahrukh Khan — every ’90s kid’s favorite Bollywood actor — and the real way to enjoy a samosa (no, not the Girl Scout cookie, and yes, soaked in chutney). I was absolutely thrilled, until I arrived back at my room that night with the passes I had obtained.

As I handed one to my friend, she nonchalantly said to me, “I wish I could be ethnic like you so I could get passes to eating clubs.” She wasn’t joking. When I asked her what she meant, she continued, “I just feel like you have so many brown connections that can get you into places. It’s not fair. I wish there were a White Student Association.”

With these statements, she made me question all of my South Asian friends at Princeton. I understood her hunger for passes — it’s no secret that passes serve as an epicenter of freshman nightlife at Princeton. But her final comment unleashed a slew of questions in my mind. Did I only have close friends or feel a sense of community on campus because I was Indian? Were all of my connections solely based on the commonality of our ethnicity, not on similar values or personalities? I remembered an excerpt from a book I had read for my freshman seminar: In his collection of essays called “White,” Richard Dyer talks about white people’s perceived lack of shared identity and cultural belonging. I thought about what it was like to be on the other side of this situation. Was it harder to fit in and find a niche as a white student at Princeton?

Admittedly, I was angry and bitter about my friend’s comment. I reflected on the reason why I was in these student groups and why they existed in the first place. They were designed to allow students like me — who didn’t necessarily have groups to express their identity, whose names were always accompanied by a pause in roll call, who had to explain in kindergarten that they were not the Native American Indian but the “other” type — to finally belong. The undeniable sense of shared identity in these groups let me know that I was not alone in my experiences and that they add a richness and depth to my story that I should appreciate rather than scorn.

But if you — yes, literally any of you, regardless of race, culture or ethnicity — wanted to join our groups and learn about our traditions, you could. Given the number of student organizations we have here that aren’t based on race or cultural identity, I am certain that you do not have to be “ethnic” to find your place here. I don’t just have friends because I am “brown.” I have friends because I have interests: being a cultural leader, volunteering, dancing, acting. Every member of these cultural clubs and organizations has different hobbies and interests. You don’t have to be “ethnic” to fit in with us because we don’t label ourselves that way. Before “Indian,” we are athletes, artists, scholars and more.

Getting over the automatic assumption that you don’t belong in certain cultural groups is not a simple feat, but from what I have seen, we appreciate non-South Asian members to an even greater extent for their interest in exploring our movies, music, food and lives. Although I can’t speak from their perspective, non-South Asian members seem to enjoy being in these organizations as well, immersing themselves in new traditions and historical fabrics. We all can learn something from those who already understand that, when it comes to Princeton’s student groups, cultural barriers are simply imagined.

Prianka Misra is a freshman from Castro Valley, Calif. He can be reached at pmisra@princeton.edu.