In one month I’m headed off to my first year at The Schreyer Honors College at Penn State. Yet whenever I’m asked what school I will be attending in the Fall, as recent high-school graduates are invariably asked, I usually just say Penn State, leaving out Schreyer altogether. While I certainly recite that entire title in a business or professional environment, I find it a bit pretentious to include “Schreyer Honors College” in social settings. This may be especially so because I am not trying to imply to the 60 other kids from my school going to Penn State that I am better or smarter than they are. So I resolved to say that I just go to Penn State, at least in social settings.
But when one parent asked me what school I was going to, something surprising occurred. Arriving at my friend’s house one day, I greeted his father who was gardening outside. After exchanging pleasantries, the conversation shifted to my future school as I had expected it to. “So where will you be going next year?” Without hesitation, I responded: “Schreyer Honors College at Penn State.”
What had just happened?
Why, after deciding that including Schreyer sounded pretentious, did I say it? I felt the words form in my mouth but was powerless to stop their emancipation. And it did sound a little pretentious. I thought at the time that because my friend is going to an Ivy League, I had included Schreyer to give Penn State more comparative weight. But this exact same scenario happened again with another friend’s parent, and this friend was going to a school similar to Penn State. I anticipated the question and tried to suppress the response, but Schreyer fumbled gracelessly out of my mouth like a barrel crashing down a waterfall. Why was I suddenly losing power over how I wished to describe my school?
After mulling this over, I finally understood why I think this happened: the parents, like my friends, were Asian.
As I’m sure you all know, one of the stereotypes surrounding Asians is that they are smarter than the average person, especially in mathematical and scientific areas. I certainly am not saying that I believe those to be true, or that I am racist or biased towards Asians in any way. Rather that just the knowledge and presence of those stereotypes induced me to expect those parents to have higher standards to which I should appeal to—prompting me to include Schreyer. Even before speaking to the second parent, I consciously reminded myself of the previous outcome, but Schreyer came out regardless. I succumbed to these stereotypes just as anyone else could have.
This is not a testament to my individual beliefs, but rather to the powerful implications of stereotypes on behavior and thought. Even though we may not believe these stereotypes, we need to acknowledge that these stereotypes exist and that, no matter how much we believe we don’t, we act upon them. Only then can we begin to overcome them.
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