Friday, 4/25/97 LETTERS
GSA candidate clarifies statement I am writing to express my
dismay at having been paraphrased and misquoted in Tuesday’s Daily
Bruin article on the Graduate Students Association (GSA) elections.
The quotes attributed directly to me are incorrect paraphrases of
statements I made to the reporter. Normally, I would chalk this up
to deadline pressure and let it pass, but unfortunately one
statement attributed to me cannot be so easily ignored. I am quoted
as saying that one reason that the GSA election turnout is low is
because,"there are many international students who are not very
concerned with GSA because all they care about it getting their
degree and going home." This statement is at best mean-spirited and
at worst xenophobic. Recent political decisions and events have
shown that there are many people in our society who distrust an
accent and who devalue the humanity of people born outside the
borders of the United States. The statement attributed to me sounds
too much like something that would come out of the mouth of one of
these ignorant people. I did not make this statement and I did not
imply what it seems to imply. As a resident of UCLA family student
housing and as a graduate student in a department with a number of
international students, I have gotten to know many international
graduate students. I know that they are concerned about much more
than just getting their degree and going home. They are concerned
with pretty much the same things that consume all graduate
students. We all care about the quality of our graduate program,
making ends meet, balancing a family life with graduate school,
living up to other people’s expectations, etc. What did I say to
the reporter, then? I said that one factor (I listed others as
well) in the consistently low GSA election turn out is that there a
number of international graduate students and many of them are
under a great deal of time pressure to get their doctorates and go
home. This leaves less time to be involved in other activities that
take away from research and family life. I told the reporter that
the pressure to finish sometimes occurs because international
students are getting assistance from their governments. I did not
mention, but perhaps should have, that other reasons for this
include visa restrictions and the financial pressure of having to
pay out-of-state tuition. As I said, most graduate students are
concerned about the same things. We all feel pressure to finish our
program and to move on to the next stage of our life. The fact that
many international students have additional concerns, which perhaps
keep them from being involved with GSA, is not a criticism. In
fact, GSA should be working harder to bring more international
students into the inner circle of the organization so that more can
be done to address the needs of all graduate students. Finally, one
of the reasons that UCLA is such a great university, academically
and in every other way, is because of the large number of
high-quality international students who come here from all over the
world. I hope none were offended by the inaccurate paraphrasing of
my comments in the Daily Bruin. Christine Wilson Graduate student
Slavic languages and literatures