Acclaimed Chinese-American master diversity trainer Lee Mun Wah spent Thursday in Hanover teaching students, faculty and community members how to better understand those who may come from different backgrounds.
In the student workshop, which eight students attended, Lee touched on each student’s cultural background and views on diversity at the College.
The student workshop covered topics ranging from the lack of faculty of color at the College to the demographic makeup of different departments on campus. Lee encouraged students to advocate for more dialogue and conversations on issues like racism and discrimination. Lee told students to say something now, because their child could be the one experiencing racism or discrimination one day.
Physics graduate student Yipeng Shi GR’17 said that the intimate questions Lee asked at the beginning of the event scared him slightly, but he became more comfortable after a while and started to face the realities and questions Lee brought up.
Lee’s personal experience has informed the work he does now.
Growing up, Lee said he hardly saw any teachers of color and was the only Asian student in his class. No one in his life ever told him that it was all right to just be who he was, he said.
“I think that we’re fearful of anybody who looks different than the white, heterosexual, male, straight, American-born, wealthy person,” Lee said. “All of my life, I’ve had to imitate and duplicate myself to be a white male to be successful.”
Lee’s other occupations include documentary filmaker, author, poet, storyteller, educator and community therapist. After working as a resource specialist and counselor in the San Francisco School District for over 25 years, he founded and now works as the executive director of Stirfry Seminars & Consulting — a diversity training company that provides workshops and produces films on diversity.
Lee hopes students will leave his workshop feeling curious and touched by others’ stories as well as willing to critically look at themselves. He wants students to learn how to understand and question the part they play in oppression.
“I think we all play a part in discrimination,” he said. “The work is whether or not we’re willing to take responsibility for it and change.”
Director for equal opportunity and affirmative action Beatriz Cantada invited Lee to campus after attending one of his workshops. When she signed up for the five-day intensive seminar, Cantada said she had no idea what to expect.
“It was just life-altering for me,” she said. “I’ve never found myself looking at racism, looking at my story and how that shapes how I view the world.”
Cantada said the workshop taught her the importance of listening, being curious and asking questions, in order to feel what other people are going through. She wanted to bring that back to Dartmouth so others could learn from the same experience.
In addition to the student workshop yesterday, Lee led a seminar open to the public and a seminar only for faculty. In addition, his latest film “If These Halls Could Talk” was screened last night.
Over 50 people attended the event in the morning that was open to the public, Cantada said, and 42 attended the afternoon faculty workshop.
Lee said that students at Dartmouth, which he described as insulated from the rest of the world, need to explore the ways racism, sexism and homophobia are reinforced at the College.
“Students need to demand their teachers talk about diversity,” he said, adding that professors need training in order to create safe spaces for students to have dialogues about diversity. Both professors and administrators must ensure they are practicing and living diversity, rather than just giving “lip-service” on the topic, he said.
“To me, when you celebrate diversity it’s not about the clothes, the dance, the music or the foods,” Lee said. “It’s the relationships and it’s whether or not you find culture is useful.”
Beyond college campuses, Lee pointed out a broader lack of conversation on issues of culture and diversity. In the 2016 presidential race, few of questions of diversity are raised on candidates’ agendas, Lee said, adding that none of the white presidential candidates are asked about their European heritage.
“Only people of color and women and immigrants get identified,” he said. “I think whiteness and white privilege are still going on and I think Donald Trump is one of the greatest, most polarizing type of depiction of somebody who is wealthy and who lives in a bubble and who sees anybody who is not white very differently and in negative ways.”
Lee said he perceives American understanding of other cultures as limited to celebrations, food and dance, rather than utilizing cultural differences to achieve societal advancement.
“When I became a teacher and a therapist, no one ever asked me how I would do it from a Chinese approach,” Lee said. “I think I could’ve told them a whole lot.”
In his work today, Lee says he emphasizes “using your eyes and your heart,” whereas most people learn to use their head and their ears, but never learn to how to relate to others.
Sonia is a junior from Ottawa, Canada. (That is the mysterious Canadian capital that no one seems to ever have heard of.) She is a double major in Economics and Government, with a minor in French. She decided to join The D’s news team in her freshman fall because of her love of writing, talking to people, getting the most up-to-date news on campus, and having a large community of fellow students to share these interests with.
