Daniela DeSousa is statistically not your average Quinnipiac student. She is half Portuguese, half Venezuelan, and she is gay. Coming from a community that was highly accepting of her “out-of-the-norm” differences, DeSousa has struggled to find peace with the level of acceptance here on campus.
While many students know DeSousa through her involvement in numerous student organizations, including the Latino Cultural Society, GLASS, and through her role as a Resident Assistant, she feels that there are still many students in the Quinnipiac community that do not have awareness of other ethnicities or groups of minorities.
Since coming to Quinnipiac, DeSousa has made it a personal mission to spread the awareness around campus of groups that are of a minority. DeSousa has been a member of the Latino Cultural Society since her freshman year, and since then has dedicated a big chunk of her time in planning and putting on events here on campus.
While the Latino Cultural Society is most recognized for its events such as their “Copa Cabana” night, DeSousa feels that they do not receive the attention that they need to fully succeed as an organization.
“It’s frustrating when groups like SGA (Student Government) or the SPB (Student Programming Board) get thousands and thousands of dollars to put on events and we can barely afford to bring a speaker to campus,” DeSousa said.
Another frustration of DeSousa’s is the fact that although their budget is distributed through SGA, she feels that the events that LCS puts on every year are not well attended by SGA members.
“It would be nice for them to see where they are putting their money, and the events that we put on,” she said. “We work our butts off on these events and it’s frustrating when we don’t get a lot of support from the people who actually give us the money to put on the events.”
And it’s doesn’t end with the money.
It seems that attendance to LCS events are the least of DeSousa’s worries, as she struggles on a daily basis to understand how little students on this campus are aware of the level of diversity on campus.
DeSousa said that especially in light of the recent hate crimes, now, more than ever, is the time to promote more awareness and to encourage students to take a risk and step outside of their comfort zone.
Unfortunately for DeSousa, in attempting to try something new and attend an event that she has never attended in her four years at Quinnipiac, Midnight Madness, she discovered that sometimes when you step out of your comfort zone, it may not always be a positive experience.
She told a story of getting on the shuttle to the TD Banknorth Sports Center and overhearing a girl a few rows behind her referring to lesbians as “creepy.” While the girl on the shuttle was unaware that DeSousa is in face gay and was unaware that she would be offending anyone, DeSousa said that the girls’ comments did not sit well with her.
“It was a good thing that I was wearing my Res. Life sweatshirt,” she said. Otherwise I really would have just knocked her flat on the ground.”
While moments like these are not uncommon anywhere else, DeSousa feels that there are still actions we can take within our own community to put a stop to the negativity towards what we are not comfortable with or what we do not understand.
“It doesn’t matter if the situation has anything to do with you,” she said. “If you hear something and you know that it’s wrong, don’t just sit there. Do something about it.”
Nicolette Yevich, associate director of the student center echoed DeSousa’s feelings and said that she felt that students in all parts of the Quinnipiac community can do their part by venturing out and attending an event that they may not feel comfortable with and may not know anyone else.
“I think that going to these events will really provide students with a sense of community,” she said. “It’s a risk that they are taking and they may be in a room of people that they don’t know, but it’s a small step that they can take to broaden their horizons and to try something new.”
Yevich also recognized and commented on the fact that sometimes it can be two sided.
“No matter if you’re a student of color and you feel welcomed, there’s the other side of the coin. It’s really hard to tell people to be accepting of everyone,” she said. “It’s just not an easy line to walk.”
As many Quinnipiac students are aware, the school is often referred to as a safe “bubble” that keeps students from being exposed from the real world and that doesn’t portray a true picture of what the world is like. DeSousa said she agrees with this idea to an extent.
“I wouldn’t say the school is a bubble, I would say that the people that attend this school choose to be apart of that bubble,” she said. “I think the people that attend this school purposely don’t try to become aware of what’s going on.”
“Change is slow and we always want it to happen yesterday and two weeks ago,” she said. “I think that Quinnipiac will get there as other institutions have.”
While Yevich and DeSousa both have high hopes for the future of campus diversity and awareness, both expressed that it will be a struggle to convince students to come out of their comfort zone and expose themselves to different cultures.
Currently, according to recent studies (and based on students that agreed to report their race), out of roughly 7,341 students, about 5, 717 of those students are white, and only 203 students are black and 308 are Hispanic. These are astonishing gaps.
One can only hope that in the years to come, Quinnipiac will find a way to create a community that is more of a representation of what the real world is really like. Otherwise, its students will continue to live outside of reality, and will not receive the necessary exposure to have the ability to have awareness and be accepting of the minorities around them.
