Director's Message for December

BUILDING COMMUNITY AROUND THE DISSERTATION

My species is not extinct
But we have been told
Not to look for each other anymore
From: "Living On What" by Nikky Finney

One of the fundamental aspects of SisterMentors is the building of community among women and girls of color across several lines including race, ethnicity and nationality. Community is not a noun, it's a verb. We have to struggle to build it and struggle even harder to maintain it. SisterMentors' women and girls are Latina, African American, Asian American and women and girls who are immigrants. We are women and girls who are diverse in our life experiences: who lived through segregation in America, who were born in refugee camps, whose parents fled persecution in their homeland, and who speak one language at home and another in public.

My own sense of community comes from growing up in a small village in southern Trinidad and Tobago where my grandparents and other relatives lived a few streets away and where everybody knew everybody else. Neighbors looked out for each other and when my father was not at home when I came home from school I went to our neighbor's house. Our community was built on caring, trust and a shared sense of values. We were however, not racially or ethnically homogenous since Trinidad and Tobago is a heterogeneous society. I am not wallowing in nostalgic indulgence for a "lost paradise" or "l'âge d'or." I recognize that, in our village, we displayed a certain level of ignorance and that our narrow mindedness brought pain and suffering to some in our community. But what stayed with me from those defining moments in my life was the practiced belief that, despite our differences, we were all interrelated and interconnected. I was taught early to look beyond race and ethnicity for the humanity that exists in others.

Helping each other complete the dissertation is a wonderful place for women of color to create community. I urge women of color doctoral candidates to reach out to other women of color of different races and ethnicities so that we can all begin to help each other deal with the racism, sexism, xenophobia and other isms and phobias that prevail in the academy and which prevent us from completing the dissertation and getting the doctorate. A group that focuses on the completion of the dissertation while addressing the unique challenges that women of color face in the academy will provide you with invaluable life lessons.

Diversity is indeed our strength. Forming coalitions with other people of color is not to deny our own individual histories of oppression and discrimination. We should not spend our time fighting each other over which of us is the most oppressed group in America. None of us has a monopoly on oppression. The reality is that statistics show very low numbers of women of color Ph.Ds during a twenty-five year period in the late 1900s, specifically, Latina, African American, Asian American and Native American (see box).

Low Numbers of Women of Color Doctorates

Based on data from the National Science Foundation here are some statistics on women of color doctorates: In 1973, 33,755 doctorates were awarded nationwide to women and men of all races and ethnicities. Of that number, Black women doctorates were. 0.5%, Hispanic women doctorates were 0.13%, Asian or Pacific Islander women were 0.6% and American Indian or Alaskan women were 0.006%.Twenty-five years later in 1998, 42,683 people received doctorates. Black women doctorates were 2.5%, Hispanic women doctorates were 1.9%, Asian or Pacific Islander women doctorates were 5.9% and American Indian or Alaskan women doctorates were 0.2%.

The academy does not encourage us to reach out and help each other to succeed. Instead the prevailing paradigm is that of the lonely, isolated scholar who sits in the library or at her computer working on the dissertation. We can change that paradigm by introducing collaboration and cooperation in the learning process so that the dissertation writing process becomes a community project. Let us start looking for each other to work together and bring about change in the academy and our communities.