Color-Blind Campuses: (Un)Belonging in Higher Education in the United States for Somali-Bantu and Bhutanese-Nepali Students

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Abstract

Within the context of an increasingly globalizing society characterized by heightened migration and displacement, we know students with refugee backgrounds face formidable constrictions along their educational journeys to and through higher education. This dissertation ethnographic investigation analyzes 30 in-depth interviews and three focus groups to examine how young adults from Somali-Bantu and Bhutanese-Nepali backgrounds narrate and reflect upon their sense of belonging in higher education in the United States. Utilizing the works of Bonilla-Silva’s (2006) color-blind racism my findings indicate that participants experienced exclusions on campus in two main ways including 1) interpersonal exclusions of communication challenges, misrecognition, hypervisibility, and invisibility 2) institutional exclusions of metaphorical campus borders, curricular and pedagogical exclusions, and competitiveness.

Author

• Maureen McCarthy, University at Buffalo - SUNY