Dear Editor,

Today, I have finally decided to bring up a topic that really angered and disappointed me. I am currently a senior who just finished studying abroad in Japan and in my entire time at Loyola, I have never been so insulted in my life before. I was just walking back to my dorm from eating lunch with my friend and passed through the Danna Center. There were four white guys who just shouted at me “Four dollar!” in a stereotypical and insulting Asian accent and laughed at me afterwards. What day and age are we living in? Is the generation gap between my senior class and the new freshman class that large already?

Firstly, I do not know these people nor wish to. I had no business with them and they with me. Therefore, I fail to understand why I was the target. I just surmise that I was at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Secondly, this is a Jesuit liberal arts school where everyone, regardless of race, ethnicity, background, etc. is supposed to be accepted with open arms. Is it not inherent within the Jesuit foundation? For my entire time here at Loyola, and even in Japan, I have been welcomed with open arms and am grateful that an event like this has not happened until now, though it is still really unfortunate that this had to happen.

Thirdly, seriously, were they so racist that they needed to essentially bully some stranger of another race/ethnicity to feel better about themselves? It may seem funny to them, but this is the kind of racism that can drive one into a desperate corner in life. Would you feel okay with your conscience if you one day pushed someone as far as suicide?

Fourthly, even if I were not an American citizen – I was born and raised here in New Orleans – I still would have demonstrated a lot more guts than they did to even go abroad and study in a setting where my non-native language is used. I experienced this myself when I left the U.S. to study abroad in Nagoya Japan, for the past spring semester. I started a new life with barely any Japanese under my belt. People did not speak English at all, but I gave it my best to learn the language and survive there. Notice the key word I used there: survive.

Loyola also accepts a large number of international students who come here to learn and improve their English. They are showing more guts than these four for putting themselves in a completely unfamiliar, and sometimes even hostile, environment. All they are trying to do is to survive in America and make a better life. They chose to leave the comfort of their own country to come here and experience something new. How would you feel if you went to a non-English speaking country and were battered down by racial remarks? Angry? Sad? Both?

Finally, get out. Our campus does not need your kind here. The Loyola community is a welcoming community that accepts anyone of any background into the family. I am certain that my English is definitely better than yours, because I scored a 35/36 on the English section in the ACT years ago, am an Ignatian scholarship recipient, currently tutor English to international students and just took the MCAT. Let us not even get into the vocabulary and scientific verbiage I needed to know for the exam. In addition, as you can see, I can speak and write in English just fine. I can pronounce “four dollars” in a normal American English accent or in the other five languages I know, and I am proud to represent Loyola as an Asian student.

So, Loyola community, before you decide to throw out a racist remark like that as a joke, think about the type of person you are portraying yourself as: the ignorant and uneducated student. Loyola community, what do you think? For Loyola and America to progress into a globalizing future, are you going to be a part of the problem? Or are you going to become the solution?

Jonathan Lam

Biology and Japanese senior