‘On some level, we all just want to fit in’
‘Do you ever feel guilty?’
This is the second half of an interview with Dallas Nan, a founder and Co-chair of the Princeton Hidden Minority Council.
We’re about to get personal.
Photo credit: Thomas González Roberts,
What’s it like to go home?
It changes over time, but at first it was really difficult. As someone who had been away for months, I had an outside perspective. I think a lot of students can relate to that disconnect.
Do you ever feel guilty?
I used to spend a lot of time wondering, “Why me? Why not one of my brothers? Why am I different?” I did feel guilty. But once time passes, and you’re able to process this more, you realize that this is life. This is just how it is. What really matters is what I do with this opportunity from hereon out.
What would you say to people who think some students are poor because they aren’t spending their money responsibly? That maybe instead of joining an eating club or buying a Mac, they should be using that money towards tuition?
When you make judgmental observations like that, you reduce people to decisions that you don’t even understand. We’re always trying to work up to the middle-standard level of what people have here. Yeah, I have a Mac. I don’t regret that. A small change like getting a cheaper laptop isn’t going to help me long-term.
On some level, we all just want to fit in, to not constantly feel like we don’t belong. And you can’t know where people are getting their financial support from, what has been gifted to people. One of my graduation presents before Princeton was a winter coat.
Some students work 20 hours a week, on top of all the other academics everyone else has. Most are constantly sending money home to help support their families, to help pay mom’s medical bills. People who say, “Oh, well you have a job. Where’s that money going?” clearly don’t understand in-flow, out-flow of money. Students could be using that time to network or to study. The whole premise of work-study detracts from the Princeton experience everyone else is having.
Photo credit: Thomas González Robert
What did you think of the USG coat drive?
I think the coat drive penetrated campus with a reality check: some students here cannot afford to buy coats. People need to take a step back and see what others are going through. To avoid stigma, the coat drive wasn’t framed in a way that communicated its true purpose: it was for people who desperately needed coats.
Someone went as far as to say that people who took coats but maybe didn’t need them should be ashamed, but I don’t agree with that. Let’s not shame people for misunderstanding.
The University needs to do more, beyond covering the basics of tuition. There’s a huge demand here. Harvard has had a university coat fund for over 100 years. The Dean’s Emergency Fund isn’t allocated for costs such as these.
And why aren’t resources advertised more? I’m a go-getter, I have no issue actively searching for all possible funding opportunities, but a lot of people aren’t. The PHMC as a team puts in a lot of effort to make all opportunities known, but it shouldn’t be the students’ responsibility alone to tell everyone about them.