In the context of discussions about anti-Asian hate at the end of last semester, one of my colleagues and I decided to write something about the predicament of Chinese students at The New School - which published today. She's a specialist in Chinese cities who also teaches our university's largest course on contemporary China; we know each other through India China Institute. She works closely with some of our university's many students from PRC, and has shared with me their particular anxieties and disappointments as US-Chinese relations have soured in recent years, and it seemed it might be valuable to share these more broadly in this moment - it was indeed helpful, if more complicated and challenging than I imagined, to give voice to them.
The key concepts in the piece come from my colleague's diagnosis of the traumas these students face. My contribution was to insist that The New School's legacies, as well as the reality of its significantly international student body, position it to address such pressures more fully than we currently do. These students are caught in the cross-fire of often ignorant and belligerent forces on both sides, but as the larger world slides into a new kind of "cold war" it seems more important than ever to support these students as a space of safety, recognition and encounter. Isn't that what we were meant to be?
