Amy Furusho

As a chemistry major, there’s a lot of talk about synthetic pathways, organometallic reagents, buffers and what-not. I’ll admit there’s not much about learning about people, unless maybe we’re talking about the old white men who are in our textbooks who discovered the damn reaction or made some scientific discovery. So, you can imagine this research project to have been completely out of my comfort zone. And well, it was an interesting experience.

I was the group’s transcriber and trust me, it was not easy typing out three twenty-page transcriptions for each hour long interview. I spent wayyyy too long sitting in the science library furiously typing all the “ums” and “likes” in the interviews.

But it was rewarding. I was learning about someone in a different continent, and we lived in completely different worlds. Her educational experience, how she perceived the world around her, and her experiences in general were so starkly different from mine. One example, when she was asked to tell about an event where she had a bad experience with a teacher, she recounted the instance when she had written ill of a teacher in her notebook and had been confronted about it; she had felt bad because the teacher looked so upset that she apologized for her actions. While I was transcribing, I thought back to the time I locked my teacher outside of the classroom and decided to run the classroom with a group of friends. Not only had I been in second grade, but I remember refusing to apologize for all the trouble I had caused… In this way, this transcription process also allowed me to take a trip down memory lane and for me to reflect on my experiences.

Even though I had never met her, it felt almost personal. By the time I had finished transcribing the second interview, I was able to guess when she would say “um” or “like” or laugh. It felt almost unfair to know her so one-sidedly. Most of all, it made me hope that we would be able to accurately portray her given how there was so much more to her than these three interviews.

I have learned a lot from this class and it has made me reflect on my thoughts and experiences. I have come to realize privilege is a spectrum and the multifaceted nature of identities makes it hard to draw a definitive line in many instances. There were many times when I told myself ‘oh, they’re more privileged than me.’ And maybe in some cases they were. But my ability to look at others and say that they are more advantaged, without looking at those who have had fewer opportunities than I did, has been the most eye opening for me.

From our discussions in the past few classes, it is clear that homogeneity and lack of diversity are trademarks of elite schools and institutions. This refers not only to the lack of racial diversity, but also the socioeconomic homogeneity. The Chilean School is no different. After listening to the interviews, the lack of diversity and the consequences that this brought became more and more apparent. In our interviews, our interviewee mentioned her school environment to be “the same, most kids are from the city, only a small percentage is from other countries,  all the same socioeconomic [status].” She goes on to state how the uniform ethnicity of the Chilean School brings with it uniform culture, values, and ideas.

She distinctly described the social class tensions and the preconceived notions the wealthier groups had towards the less privileged groups and vice versa. She also documented the violence and the aggression the groups had towards each other. Interacting only with people of a similar socioeconomic class creates the bubble effect often described at Colby. This inevitably leads to the division and distinctive divide between those at the Chilean School and those outside of it.

From a social equality point of view, this “bubble” is detrimental as it serves to separate and further promotes the lack of integration. It also serves to narrow one’s perspective as being in a bubble seems to shut out everything else aside from what the individual is dealing with. However, within the elite circle, this “bubble effect” is a method of reproducing elites and maintaining socioeconomic superiority through keeping all forms of capital within the bubble. Additionally, this “bubble” may be a source of security for elites.

From listening to the interviews, one part that stood out to me was when our interviewee mentioned who made her most aware of her social class. She stated she had a friend who was very open minded and was friends with people all over Santiago. Our interviewee stated that this friend knew people even from the poorer communities and sectors of the region, which was not something that happened often. This too implies the lack of integration and stark separation of people in different socioeconomic positions.

The first time I checked out the school website for the Chilean School was during my biochemistry class. Being accustomed to seeing my school’s chemistry page and even my high school homepage, I was ready for information about the school. So when the school’s website popped up onto my screen, I was already expecting the classic large photo showing off the school’s aesthetic. What I was not expecting, was for their homepage to have so little information. In fact, the headmaster’s message was a sentence and most of the information pertaining to the school including the admissions info and policy documents of the Chilean School were in Spanish. 

I went back to see my high school webpage and it felt like I had been hit with a truckload of info…

I gathered two things from this. The first, was that in order to be elite, it had to involve the limitation of information in some shape or form. This seemed linked to methods of communication and demonstrated the hidden languages of the social classes. In this way, the elite implicitly conveyed their eliteness through exclusive “language.” Although the idea of elite is one of limitless possibilities as portrayed through the photos, in particular of the buildings and architecture, it demonstrates the lack of integration.  The second, is the difference in target audience and from this the competition. Although it is hard to say, as the admissions information for the Chilean School was in Spanish, the school seemed to be appealing to an international elite. By “international elite,” the focus seems heavy on those whose eliteness is transnational and almost transferable from one country to another, such as those who can speak English. In short, the Chilean School seemed to appeal to a global audience on an individual scale as people who wanted to attend were competing with one another for entry. On the contrary, my high school’s website seemed to be appealing to students from NYC, while simultaneously competing with the other Specialized High Schools in NYC. In fact, the high school I attended seemed more concerned with it’s public image and reputation. One thing in particular that struck out was the section of my high school’s website titled “In the News.” This section was dedicated to news articles on the school and notable students and alum entirely to promote the school image. In this way, my high school’s website appealed more to a local audience, such as NYC or the NYC Board of Education, which ultimately rates and ranks this school.

On the first day of class, when asked to explain what first came to mind or define “elite,” the first thing that popped into mind was the prep school that my parents had enrolled me in called Elite Academy. That cram school was the bane of my existence during my summer leading up to high school. I had to sit in a room that was the same shade of blue as the antiseptics used in hospitals alongside another thirty other students, predominantly first generation Asian Americans.

Cram schools like these are fairly common in New York City especially among the Asian population. These facilities are mechanical in that their goal is to crank out students with test scores high enough to enroll in Specialized High Schools of New York City and Ivy League schools. I had never seen that many Asian Americans in one place until I walked through the doors of Elite Academy. It was impressive – impressively homogenous.

What was even more impressively homogenous was the high school that I was accepted to. It was considered the second best public high school in the city and prized itself in having the most Nobel prize winning graduates of any school in the country. “Ivy League Machine” became a common phrase I heard the teachers saying. There I found myself one among several hundred Asian American students who had gone through the same cram school system with the same hopes that this school would be a source of social capital for the college application process.

The school fostered an extremely competitive environment, one I could safely say was unhealthy for any young teen. The workload kept students up until well past one in the morning with students skipping meals and cutting sleep to prepare for quizzes. Everything was dependent on grades, from rewards, amount of homework, and even teachers’ salaries.

That school, in relation to most of the schools in NYC and as a public school is considered “elite” based on the test scores and results it produces. Located in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city, it was interesting to see students from other, often times more safe, neighborhoods come flocking to this school. Many students from neighboring schools, on the other hand,  expressed interest in wanting to leave the area with their lives depending on it.

But would I call this school “elite”? At most, it felt pseudo-elite. The idea of “elite” gives an air of elegance and untouchability. My educational experience felt more like a sprint for the door and too competitive for me to actually retain any information after the exams were finished. So yes, my peers and I had the test scores and the extracurricular activities to be considered at the top, and maybe if test scores ruled the world we would be going places in life. But after graduation, it became apparent to me that as an Asian American, I would have to learn to translate the so-called “eliteness” from test scores to the standards of eliteness of White America.