On a Friday night in the fall of 2012, many of the incoming freshmen were taking their first stroll down Webster Avenue, taking their turns checking out the Greek houses during their introduction to campus. For some, it was an exhilarating time — maybe a little scary. Yet the first few weeks of college are a time for reinvention, and it’s no secret that many students enjoy the opportunity to create new identities for themselves after stepping off the coach.
Daniela Pelaez ’16 had no such option.
Pelaez, an undocumented immigrant, made national news as a high school student when her school held protests for immigration rights after she was served with a deportation order. After becoming more active in the protests and eventually lobbying U.S. senators and meeting with several legislators, Pelaez said she became “the poster child of the DREAM Act.”
Before she had arrived on campus, The Dartmouth ran articles covering the path she had taken to come to the College and several national media outlets followed suit. By the time she began attending classes her freshman fall, many students already knew her name and story.
Although she calls her story “good conversation filler,” her acclaim around campus blocked her from enjoying the freedom of anonymity that most students enjoy upon setting foot in Hanover. When drunk students approached on the weekends and already knew who she was, Pelaez said she began to doubt whether she should participate in mainstream campus social life.
Sociology professor Janice McCabe, whose research addresses college friendships, distinguished “visibility” — what Pelaez experienced — and “popularity,” and said that being well-known does not mean you are inherently well liked. She said that greater recognition often comes with preconceptions of how you should behave and appear.
For her part, Pelaez felt that pressure — and she noted that many of her peers frequently locked her into an activist persona. Particularly during the most turbulent days of the DREAM act, acquaintances, she said, would frequently approach her to ask her opinion on the latest nuance in immigration law.
“You have no privacy,” Pelaez said. “Anyone can Google you.”
While she said she has not let it shape her identity, Pelaez said she doesn’t always enjoy the immediate connection her name brings to mind.
“Sometimes I wish I wasn’t tied to it,” she said.
Pelaez, however, is not alone in arriving on campus with a somewhat public persona, and I contacted a number of students who struggled with anonymity upon arriving. Students already cast in the public eye, however, are reticent to speak with a newspaper, perhaps understandably so. After all, to some extent newspapers require people to sacrifice privacy to print each day.
Emily Choate ’18 is a distant niece of Rufus Choate — yes, the Choate after whom the residential cluster and street were named. Her name follows her around campus, and it lends her a certain sense of pride — she is one of the first members in her family to attend since Rufus, she said.
Still, the family name carries a certain weight on campus. Most people around her do not know the connection, and she tries to keep it that way.
“I don’t let it define me,” Choate said, echoing Pelaez.
Although she does not consider her family to have ties to the College — Rufus Choate died more than 155 years ago — people have made assumptions about what the name implies about her character. One student openly asserted that her link to Rufus Choate aided her application prospects.
“It did undermine all the hard work I did to get here,” she said.
McCabe noted that visible students might be easier to target. More visible people’s “behaviors and motivations are criticized in ways that others’ aren’t,” she said.
Speaking of Choates (that’s a hard “c”), Marcus Reid ’18 — you may know him by his rap name Ill Fayze — has dealt with his fair share of negativity. Before he matriculated, he published a video on Youtube of him rapping about the McLaughlin Residential Cluster that circulated around campus before he arrived. He had to fend off a great deal of negativity in online comments. When he arrived on campus for trips, he lip-synced his rap with H-Croo on Dartmouth Outing Club First-Year Trips.
For many of us, freshman fall is a difficult enough time without having your reputation set. What is remarkable about these three students is they grew from the negativity.
Pelaez read hurtful comments on newspaper articles, including some on The Dartmouth’s website, where she said commenters wrote that she took a spot from a family member.
Pelaez, however, said she has grown from this negativity. Although she originally intended only to take science classes and complete pre-medical requirements, her situation inspired her to study anthropology.
Pelaez has also made friendships in places she did not expect, and she has enjoyed conversations with people, including more conservative people with different opinions than her own, that she did not expect.
Reid was not so lucky. The new friends he made were not always so genuine.
“They didn’t look to explore beyond Ill Fayze,” he said.
Although he is happy with his decisions and music career, he believes he might have found an easier time building strong connections with other students without his persona. Although he did not cite a specific negative incident, he said that the small campus made it easy to learn about people’s negative comments.
Reid is now more cautious about what he posts online, but he stays true to himself.
“They’re going to be looking to criticize you in anyway possible... I’m not going to hold back my beliefs,” he said.
McCabe stressed that being well-known brings both benefits and advantages.
“It could have both benefits in that it could make it easier to reach out…it could also pose a lot of challenges because people may think they know who you are ahead of time and not get to know you as a person,” she said.
Choate, Reid and Pelaez were all aware of the mixed bag that their campus acclaim presented.
Most of us enjoy at least some privacy at the College. We are not tied to a name, a past or a YouTube video.
Others don’t have that freedom. It is difficult to have privacy when people associate ideas with your name.
As Pelaez puts it, there’s a “third eye gazing at you constantly wherever you go.”
