Tracing Belongingness
Chinese international students' profiles in Isla Vista
Tracing
belongingness
Chinese international students' profiles
in Isla Vista
Isla Vista is a symbiotic community of UCSB. It consists of 90% UCSB students from all around the world. According to the UCSB campus profile, the number of new students from China increases from 127 to 2173 in the past 10 years. While the number of international students grows by years, their voice remains relatively small. Honestly speaking, the Isla Vista community has always been depicted as a place of youth, freedom, and openness. However, according to our interviews and , Chinese international students hold completely different impressions on Isla Vista.
Francie
Sara
Ziwei
Francie
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20 years old
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Born in Shanghai
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Sophomore in UCSB
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major in computer science
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Living in Isla Vista alone
Sara
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21 years old
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Comes from Shanghai
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Has Lived in IV for more than one year
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First year master student, also finished undergraduate study in UCSB
Ziwei
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21 years old
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Born in Beijing
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Has studied abroad for 3 years
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Living in Isla Vista
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Has Attended fraternity
Lonely are the brave
Francie
I Am Different
Though I have lived in this area for over a year, I still have almost no involvement in the local community. I always heard people around me say “you are an international student, and you need to have foreign friends” or “you are in America right now, you need to appreciate your chance to make foreign friends.” However, for me, I really enjoy being alone. I don’t want to be what so-called “majority”. And I also want to ask, what is the majority? We are all one of a kind on this planet, why should I force myself do something that I don’t want?
"I don’t want to be what so-called “majority.”
Modern technology dilute my desire to make friends here
I Have Friends
The biggest issue that people worry about is that will I feel anxious or lonely if I do not have friends and social activities in this community? I would say not at all because of my friends. It is 21 century. I can chat with people online. I can talk with my friends and have FaceTime with my family back in China.
I Tried
I joined a game club last quarter and quitted that club after the first meeting.The reason that I joined the club was that I want to meet more people who loves CS. However, when we met, I found that I could not understand what they were talking about or even the jokes they made. We played different computer games and we focused on different areas on the computer. This kind of social activity really brought me a lot of pressure. Thus, I quit that club.
I am not upset by having "barriers" with local people
I really enjoy this peaceful and relax life in Isla Vista
We Are One of A Kind
Now you might ask, “Francie, you said you had tried to make friends here, but you failed. Would that club thing be a catalyzer that makes you afraid to make friends here?” I would say I am not upset by having "barriers" with local people. I, actually, accept the truth that we are different. We all grow up in different environments. I don’t want to change myself to have friends. I also don’t want to change others. Thus, I enjoy living in my own world.
Enjoy Living Alone
Though I am live alone, I can live very well. The food is good here. I can buy my favorite clothes here as well. And not get involved in this community doesn’t mean I have to do everything by myself. If I have some problems and need some help, just with an email or text message, my classmates and professors will help me. Therefore, I can live very well without fitting into the community. I really enjoy this peaceful and relax life in Isla Vista.
Francie Interview Clip
Make My Own Choice
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Sara
Sara lives in the outer layer of IV: She only goes to the colored regions.
The outer layer of IV
“My first impression of IV comes from the music of parties in IV. In my freshman year, I lived in Manzanita, which is close to IV. I can literally hear the music of parties every weekend in my dorm. The seemingly ubiquitous parties is one of the biggest concerns that I have for living in IV. I moved to an apartment on the El colegio road in the summer of my sophomore year due to the invitations of my friends. I would say that I live in the outer layer of Isla Vista now because my activities in IV are restricted in certain regions. I usually have meals in Portola, a dining commons near Santa Catalina and sometimes I will go to my friends’ apartments in IV. I rarely visit other parts of IV.”
"The fluidity and depopulation of IV prevent me from getting a sense of belonging to this community."
A large part of nightlife in IV is missing.
Lackluster nightlife
Isla vista is a very special place that most people are students of UCSB. The highly homogeneous people here make the restaurants and shops be very similar in some sense. In my hometown, it takes me five minutes to walk to the nearest shopping mall. And it is easy for me to find entertainment after 9 PM in my home community. Moreover, I have been to Chongqing, a city in China before. There is also a symbiotic community to a university. I saw people hung out and had a kebab with friends after 10 PM. However, a large part of "nightlife" in IV is missing: I will not hang out in IV after 9 PM because the streets are dark, shops are closed and there is no entertainment. If you stay in IV in summer or Christmas, you will find that IV is a desolate place. During holidays and summer, the number of people in IV drops dramatically. The fluidity and depopulation of IV prevent me from getting a sense of belonging to this specific community.
IV as a subcommunity of UCSB
I never worried about my engagement or involvement in IV, because I always treated IV as a sub community of UCSB. I think that I fully engage in this whole community though my engagement in IV is relatively low. I communicate with my classmates and professors and interact with other people in UCSB. I also have done some part-time jobs in UCSB since I was an undergraduate student in UCSB. When I go back to IV, I can have some private time. I could choose to play games with my friends or stay alone reading some books. I also like having meal in Portola, a dining common in IV. In Portola, I can meet my classmates and make new friends.
Sara feels more affiliated with UCSB than IV.
My own lifestyle
It is my choice that I do not go to parties in IV and I also think that there is no need to go to parties in order to fit into the "mainstream culture". In fact, I think parties in IV is kind of stereotypical. This kind of lives in IV is easily noticed by others because parties are loud and obvious. There are a lot of other "quiet" lives in IV which are not determined by people. I spend most of my time on study and my research since I think those are the most import things in my current life. Everyone has his or her own life in IV and every lifestyle should be respected. We should not narrow down the definition of involvement in a community.
Ziwei
A PUSH
Click
the beginning is a step out
a push
During freshman year I was pretty isolated, not because of others but me myself. I didn’t figure out how to deal with my new life, and I rarely spoke due to lack of confidence with my English. I felt depressed in that whole year, and that’s why I pushed myself to attend a co-ed fraternity. After that I started to hang out with locals, tried to fit in the local culture. Honestly speaking I did change a lot, including my lifestyle and way of thinking.
Ziwei's desk top
Interviewing Ziwei
a mini city
Now IV is a mini city to me. Although it is small, it offers me all I need to live free and comfortable. My apartment is where I sleep and study, but besides that, I spend my time everywhere in IV, such as restaurants, boba tea houses, markets, laundry shops, clinics, and beaches. IV is my home and represents my lifestyle. In this small community, you can have all kinds of choices you live. For example, you can study day and night, or you can think YOLO and go out for parties. No one would judge your choice and all of them are respected.
a new self
However, it is not appropriate to describe it as "fit in", because later I understood I could never become others. I am just a girl who was born and grew up in Beijing. That’s my culture and that’s who I am. There is no need to be like them. When you try new things, you could find out more perspectives of the world and become a new you. I would say I enjoy living in between two cultures. The most important thing I have learnt is how to fully accept myself. While we are thinking about how to respect others and their culture, the hardest thing is to respect ourselves.
"I would say I enjoy living in between two cultures."
When first moved to Isla Vista, Francie worried about living alone and thus compel herself to fit in the mainstream. But then she realized that there was no need to fit in the majority and she has been really enjoyed staying alone in IV.
Sara’s first impression about IV comes from the parities. Although immersed in the music over a year, she has not been to any parties and decided not to go to parties anymore. Sara devotes most of her time on study in UCSB. She made this decision because she thinks study and her research is the most important parts of her life now.
When just came to this new community, Ziwei was stressed by the unfamiliarity and the lack of social life. She decided to push herself to try some new things and thus became a member of a co-ed fraternity. It turns out that she fits in this new life very well and never feels isolated again.
On the way of tracing belongingness
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We cannot rank their ways of living in IV, since their engagements are quite different and all of them have found their own positions in IV. As international students, many of us feel isolated and find it is hard to engage in a local community due to the culture shock, pressure from study, and so on. According to a psychology research paper, international students are more likely to feel isolated because of lacking local support of families and they are more psychologically vulnerable than their domestic counterparts due to the accumulative stress. To engage in this relatively unfamiliar community, we can try new things or strike for our own goals. Moreover, social media might be a useful tool to ease us into the local community. When we interviewed Francie, she mentioned that social medias connect her with her friends in her home country and provide an easy way for her to find people with the same hobbies, thus relieving the pressure of her social life in IV. Francie's experience exemplifies the findings in the research paper about social media's effect on international students.
However, there is no standard answer for the problem of inclusion, and we should not narrow down the definition of engagement to merely social lives. We hope our article could appeal more thoughts about engagements in IV and hope everyone can find his/her own position in Isla Vista.
--Lingxiao Zhou, Siyuan Xia, Wuchang Guo