Loyola is a diverse campus, right? Right?

Well not according to many students on campus: In fact, Bridging the Gap, a student organization, has been revitalized this semester to solve the problem.

So what is the problem? After all, the university has good diversity numbers when compared to other institutions of a similar type.

“The big problem is that if you don’t experience what a minority does (and not necessarily a racial minority), you don’t realize a problem exists,” says Caryn Winters, political science and communications junior and president of Bridging the Gap.

The problem is important enough to motivate students to organize a forum Monday evening. The forum consisted of six students from different backgrounds speaking about their experiences at Loyola. The students spoke of growing up Latino, black, Asian or white in the United States, of coming from another country to a U.S. school, and the complications involved in being different than the majority.

Dennis Nguyen, a communications senior and Asian-American, said that he’s always encountered racism in his life, and figured that people in college would be “a little more open-minded.”

He says this has not always been so. He and many of his friends in the Loyola Asian Student Organization are called “The Asian Mafia” by some students on campus.

“It’s not that we’re [self] segregating,” says Uyen Phan, a communications junior and secretary of LASO, “but people tend to flock with the people most like them.”

According to Phan, LASO has done a great deal to make the organization seem less insular.

“We have a new mission statement. . . All of us are in at least one more organization,” says Phan.

In addition, the group has begun a database for all cultural groups on campus in the hopes of co-programming.

This year, says Phan, “Our membership is very, very diverse . . . We encourage other people to join our organization, and we’re joining theirs.”

“There are [different] ways to label people,” says Nguyen, “than outright slurs like ‘Asian Mafia.’

His feelings, especially after 9/11, have been very empathetic toward Middle-Easterners and Muslims who have encountered a great deal of racial bias. Nguyen compares it to the reaction some U.S. Americans had during the Second World War, when many Japanese-Americans were put into internment camps on the West Coast.

Laura Sanchez, a political science sophomore and first generation Mexican-American, spoke of her experience as a Latino in college.

“I felt lost at Loyola,” she said, adding that she often wished for a niche where she could feel comfortable. There was the International Student Association for students from foreign countries, but nothing for Latinos from the U.S.

That’s why Sanchez and others have begun a new student organization, LaGente.

Francisco Fernandez, a communications junior from Albuquerque, is president of the fledgling group this year:

“I would like people to know that . . . we’re open to everybody, not just the Hispanic community. . . We want everyone to know they’re welcome,” he said. Such groups are important, says Fernandez, because they are forums for students to share their heritage and culture, and learn of others.

This semester, the group hopes to sponsor a salute, a Latin form of dance akin to step. La Gente also participates heavily in Project Esperanza, a Loyola University Community Action Program activity for tutoring disadvantaged Latino children in New Orleans.

International student and political science sophomore Fernando Bautista is from El Salvador and spoke of the hardships international students face when they come to the United States.

Such students, he said, cannot get cell phones or jobs because they don’t have a social security number; cannot give blood, and are often ineligible for scholarships.

Bautista said he often has encountered frustrating ignorance and bias. Leslie Mills, an African-American political science senior, has experienced prejudice of a subtle kind at Loyola.

“There’s a certain feeling when you walk into a room. There’s a certain way people look at you,” said Mills.

The Black Student Union has created for Mills a place to feel comfortable about her background in an often uncomfortable environment.

But forums like those of Monday night are only scratching the surface. Much more needs to be done, Mills said. “Many people don’t want to go there. We need to take it there.”

Many audience members had something to say in response to the speakers.

Comments varied in perspective and tone, with the general consensus that racism is a problem and that the university has been reactive and not pro-active in dealing with it.

Many audience members seemed to agree that an institutional change is necessary, and that diversity should be just as important to Loyola as academic excellence.

But the question Mills and others raise is: How is this done?

“Change begins with [the] self,” said Nigerian student Iffiok Inyang, who said that minority students tend to self-segregate because they are intimidated.

He then pointed out all the empty seats in the room.

If only about fifty people attended the forum, then less than one percent of Loyola believes the issue is important enough to attend, he said.

“Racism is stupid,” says Winters. “The challenge that we left for everyone is to take action. . . . It’s going to take the entire Loyola University community to push diversity issues on campus.”