How did international students view U.S. policy in Vietnam, the civil rights movement, or the presidential election of 1968? To answer these questions, twenty international students gave interviews for Director of Mount Holyoke College News Bureau and Professor Elizabeth Green’s course “Problems in Contemporary Newswriting and News Reading” in the spring of 1968. The class created a survey which was completed by fifty-three international students in total. Their responses offered a sobering counterweight to the idealism of a country promoting itself as the “leader of the free world.” Complete versions of these interviews can be found in the Mount Holyoke Archives and Special Collections. The following four quotes of those interviewed are from “As Foreign Students See Us.” Alumnae Quarterly, Summer 1968.
“The fact that you discuss all these problems in the dorm makes you interested. On the issue of Vietnam, I found that I could no longer defend my original position, so I developed a new one from the arguments that others presented.”—Sophomore from Latin America
“When I came I looked on things as black and white, but now I’m more willing to accept the gray.”—Ramona Chao (Vietnam), class of 1969.
The Asian Student Association was formed in 1974 to promote the understanding and solidarity between all Asian and Asian-American students at Mount Holyoke, serving as an integral space of support at a predominantly white institution.
“We are beginning to understand the common cultural, social, and political burdens that we share by just being together. We draw strength from each other and can say we are proud to be Asian, we are proud to be women.” —Third World Voice editorial, Choragos. September 20, 1979.
International and domestic students frequently joined forces for global activism. In 1980, the Coalition for a Community Forum met in Gamble Auditorium to discuss the necessity of Mount Holyoke’s divestiture from apartheid-affiliated stocks in South Africa. Sixteen campus organizations spoke at the event. Nomvuyo Qubaka or Quebaka (spelling varied) (South Africa), class of 1983, detailed her personal experience living under apartheid for seventeen years at the forum. By 1985 the student organization Action South Africa, which included many international student leaders, succeeded in urging Mount Holyoke’s Board of Trustees to divest the College’s endowment from South Africa. In 1989, the student body voted to boycott Coca-Cola amidst a wave of similar activist efforts at colleges across the U.S protesting corporate complicity.
“The student referendum to boycott Coke on this campus was the first such referendum in the country. The attention we received from the media has caused this issue to spread to nearby colleges, high schools, and beyond.” —Reehana Raza (Pakistan), class of 1989, chair of Action South Africa and editor of Third World Voices.
Pictured above, members of anti-apartheid student group Action South Africa in 1984-1985, including member Meskerem “Lily” Mulatu (Ethiopia), class of 1986 (back row, on the right, wearing glasses). Lily was a leader and member of various student organizations, such as Action South Africa, Association of Pan-African Unity, Five College African Students Association, and the Mount Holyoke International Club.
“We come here to learn the ‘arts that foster humanity and civility of spirit,’ ‘freedom, learning and community of purpose,’ those arts that Mount Holyoke College places at the center of its life. Yet, these are all made invalid if, at the same time, the college continues to invest in these companies and therefore supports a system that denies 87% of the people even the basic rights to life.”— Gibwa Kajubi (Uganda), class of 1980. Choragos, September 27, 1979