Why I started the Hidden Minority Council

Welcome to Princeton. Our endowment is over $20 billion. That’s a lot. But we put it to good use, right?

FACT: This year we spent over $140 million on financial aid on around 60 percent of our undergraduate population.

FACT: We have a no loans policy.

FACT: We’re by far the cheapest school in the Ivy League (on average), and definitely the best deal if your family makes $110,000+ per year.

FACT: For the Class of 2019, Princeton provided at least some aid for 40 percent of financial aid applicants whose families make over $250,000 annually.

And yet, as USG recently discovered, many of us cannot afford to buy a winter coat (Another fun fact: Harvard has had a university coat fund for over 100 years. But we’ll get back to that later).

This week, The Tab sat down to talk with with senior Dallas Nan, a co-chair and founder of the Princeton Hidden Minority Council, a campus network for low-income and first-generation students.

Below is the first part of the interview, stay tuned for part two.

Photo credit: Thomas González Roberts

Let’s start with the basics: what does it mean to be a hidden minority?

To be a hidden minority means to be subjected to certain life experiences, unlike the majority of those around you, who are not necessarily too conspicuous to you or your peers. First-gen or low-income students can blend in, but choosing whether or not to accept this identity is a troublesome and often anxiety-inducing task. As Vice President of Campus Life, Rachel Calhoun, said: “Even though your identity is hidden, don’t make it invisible.”

Every decision you make as a hidden minority student is charged by access to resources, whether it be access to financial security or access to a stable parental support system. However PHMC sees change where others see stasis. PHMC encourages students to come out of their hiding places, and to start making smart decisions toward embracing their identity.

So PHMC was founded in 2013, can you talk a little bit about where the idea came from, the reasoning behind it?

It started with seven or eight of us. We were already leaders in various groups on campus, like QuestBridge Scholars, LEDA Scholars, or Gates Millennium Scholars. We were ready to do more beyond those roles, and create an overarching avenue between our groups. What we wanted to do was to look beyond those different titles and create a space for low-income and first-generation students on campus. We wanted to take part in shaping the Princeton community.

Were you afraid of being judged by other students? Did you feel stigmatized?

Oh for sure. I personally had to become the face of low-income students at one of the richest schools in the world. And at Princeton it’s interesting, because no one ever comes up to you and says anything directly to your face, but I definitely noticed subtle social shifts. People I thought were my friends suddenly weren’t as friendly anymore.

We didn’t know whether PHMC would make it for very long. We were really nervous because this was an identity aspect people had never embraced here before. I remember our first open house, only two people showed up. Only two. But we understood this was a process. Slowly people became more attuned to embracing this part of their identity, it didn’t just feel like a burden to carry. Now we have over 500 people on our listserv, and other groups reaching out to us about conducting job info sessions, internship opportunities. We are a hub of resources.

Especially for a group of students set at a disadvantage from the start, PHMC includes a lot of big names: a former USG president and at least one current class president, not to mention officers and captains in nearly every group on campus.

Photo credit: Thomas González Roberts

It’s a process, realizing how to see your life experiences as valuable. Like Shawon [Jackson, Council Member], he got it a lot quicker then me [laughs]…and Chance [Fletcher, President of the Class of 2018] has this unique lens. He’s considerate of everyone. Like with this year’s class sweaters, he really tried hard to get the biggest discount he could, so as many people as possible could have them. I tried to explain to [a former class president] last year what all the sweater uproar what about, when there was no discount. He just didn’t get it. Chance gets it.

Just through our life experiences, we’ve built up resilience, determination. We take advantage of all opportunities. Those are definitely qualities of successful leaders. Our perspectives positively shape action, but we don’t have to be our stereotypes.

So last year PHMC launched the “Thoughts” campaign and this year you launched “Class Confessions.” What are those about?

With the “Thoughts” campaign, we put faces to our “hidden” students, to make people aware of how important the little things, the things most students take for granted, really are. We wanted to show other low-income and first-gen students that they aren’t alone.

My thought was related to eating clubs. Every time I ate at Terrace, I had to think about how each meal was costing me like $27, money I could be using to fly my family in for graduation. Ultimately, I chose to drop Terrace.

The Class Confessions page was modeled after existing ones at Stanford and U of Chicago. A lot of people want to express their stories, but aren’t comfortable putting their names on it because of the stigma that follows. It’s anonymous, a collection of thoughts free from judgment.