The Cupertino Courier

Photograph by Robert Scheer

Monta Vista High School Senior Tejasvi Srimushnam addresses a student forum on race issues. He said the problem is so small it doesn't even need to be addressed.

Race to Race

Students confront race relations at Monta Vista

By Katherine Petersen

Some students at Monta Vista High School believe that race relations are a nonissue; others believe it's a problem that needs to be addressed. But all the students who participated in two diversity forums Nov. 6 agree there are no gangs on the school's campus as alleged by a recent daily newspaper account that questioned whether Asian Pride was a gang or a clique.

Dr. Lance Lee, a former Monta Vista student body president who is a family counselor, moderated both forums held during second and sixth periods.

"We do have some issues, but we don't have a problem like gangs," said Tejesh Mistry, a senior who sat on the 13-student forum panel. "The newspaper pulled a bunch of numbers and made up something that's pure bogus."

Monta Vista's population has changed since Lee attended the school in the early '70s, when he was one of about three Asian Americans. More than 40 percent of Monta Vista's students are Asian Amercian now, said Joanne Laird, one of the school's assistant principals.

"We don't know what Asian Pride is," she said. "We wanted to let the kids talk about it. We want to know if they think diversity is a problem on our campus."

The 13 panel members represented a cross-section of Monta Vista's student body, said Mike Ghaffary, a senior who is the student representative on the Fremont Union High School District board. Students on the panel represented different ethnicities, academic levels, socioeconomic backgrounds and levels of involvement in school activities, he said.

Students in the roughly 400-member audience pointed out that name-calling, racial jokes and cliques of a sort do exist on the campus, but Ghaffary said he hasn't seen an identifiable group calling itself that Asian Pride. While many groups are racially mixed, and interracial dating is common, Ghaffary added Asian American students are sometimes stereotyped as being bad drivers while Caucasians are characterized as lazy.

"Students will say stuff about other races sometimes when no one of that race is around," one student said.

Ghaffary said he could understand the community's concern because of the diversity of Monta Vista's population.

"We have to try and assess it and try to understand the concerns. Diversity is always an issue," he said.

Tejasvi Srimushnam, an audience member, couldn't see why the community should be concerned. "I think that the students here have no concept of what they have, and they're spoiled," he said. "You can walk around here at any time without worrying about being jumped. It's a non-issue."

He said the administration normally does a good job of confronting issues, but it overreacted on this one.

Another audience member disagreed, saying that the problem is more serious. "It may not be as widely known, but it is everywhere and it's here," she said. "We do have to deal with this here."

Monta Vista fares better than the outside community in how it deals with diversity issues, Ghaffary said. The school offers international assemblies; an International Day; Camp Anytown, where peer counselors learn about different races; and the peer-counseling class itself.

"We're doing a lot and have been doing a lot, and maybe that's why it hasn't caused big problems," Ghaffary said.

Jennifer Poon, a senior on the panel, agreed, adding that groups tend to form naturally according to a common background. "There might be a little tension between groups, but I don't think there's gang fighting."

Senior panel member Brett Allen said students don't know a lot about other cultures and tend to make judgments. "Everyone wants everyone else to melt," he said.

"Even if groups are not prejudiced, they can be prideful," said senior panel member Cherie Solorio. "A group of Caucasians or Mexicans might see themselves as proud or above others and form opinions about other groups, whether trying to be prejudiced or not."

One audience member said the solution boils down to two words: respect and tolerance.

Solorio pointed out that it's hard to respect someone if there's no attempt to get to know a person.

Allen agreed, adding that people tend to be nationalistic and prideful, and with the population explosion, they need to understand different cultures.

Ghaffary recommended that students try to make at least one friend in a different group before judging it. "It's a lot easier to stereotype something you don't know," he said.

While the forum didn't solve any problems, it did succeed in opening up a discussion on diversity. Students felt comfortable expressing their opinions and will hopefully take some of the suggestions to heart, Ghaffary said.

"I think getting people to think about diversity is one step toward a solution," he said.

The forum ended on an upbeat note with the Impressions, a 25-member choral group singing "Plenty Good Room." The spiritual depicts the route of the glory train whose next stop is paradise.

The audience began clapping in rhythm after the second verse, and nobody moved when the bell signalling the end of the period sounded. Two minutes later the song ended to deafening applause.

The Impressions, a racially diverse group, seemed to have brought people together, if only for a few minutes.

A similar forum for parents will be held in the Monta Vista library at 7 p.m. on Nov. 12.

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