Our cohort, our stories
This is a piece that has an accompanying sound file! It's best for listening, but you'll find the transcript below for reading.
All the opinions stated in this piece are those of the speaker.
Michelle Lee: Oh shit.
An Bui: Oh. I think it’s working.
M: Yeah, it’s totally working.
A: Is it?
M: Yeah, yeah, yeah,
A: Yeah, it’s totally working. [laughs] ok, so we’re just watching this go.
A: [narration] Hi, I’m An. These are some of my friends.
M: My name’s Michelle Lee.
Krista Kraskura: Hey, I’m Krista Kraskura.
Tatum Katz: My name’s Tatum Katz.
A: [narration] We’re all first years in the department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology here at UCSB. As it turns out, the way we think as scientists is shaped by the way we are as people. Science doesn't happen in a bubble.
--
T: I am a white, cisgender woman. I’m Jewish. I’ve got some physical mobility issues? Disabilities? It’s very… that’s a complex one.
I did not think I was gonna do ecology until my senior year of undergrad, and I came straight into graduate school specifically because I had these mobility issues. So I never thought that ecology would even be open to someone like me. I thought, “No, I’ll just sit behind the computer, and I’ll be the support person on the headset while everyone else is out on the mission.
M: I am an Asian American. I am female. My pronouns are she/her.
I didn’t feel like I was different than these people, but I knew that I was different. Ecology is very woman heavy, so in that sense I’ve never felt like a minority – I haven’t felt discrimination as a woman, but perhaps I’ve felt discrimination as an Asian American.
A: Yes.
M: Does that make sense?
A: Yeah, that does make sense.
K: I am originally from Latvia, and I’ve been here since my undergraduate time, so I guess we’re gonna go with that.
I come from country where racism is not a thing, so then I really got to experience that – an environment where it is a thing. And I think I learned so much, and I gained so much respect to people, and I changed the way I think and I try to approach - always - people differently now because of that experience.
For white people it’s typically like, “You can get a job. You can go to school.” You can do this, you can do that. There’s… there’s no obstacle.
A: How do you think your experience at your university and working with your advisor, how has that shaped, in the future, how you want to construct your lab family?
K: Oh yeah, absolutely. That has huge influence.
I do want to run a lab eventually, and I will definitely encourage students from all backgrounds, any country, any school, any previous experiences to at least have a chance – an equal chance to explore.
M: Looking around, I don’t see a lot of people who look like me. Sometimes it’s hard to feel like I have someone to look up to and be like, “Wow! What an awesome person, what an awesome career they’ve had, I want to be just like them.”
I will say like, looking at papers coming out of China, it does mean something different. Looking at those names, I’m like, “Yeah. Asians. Awesome.”
A: Right.
M: But Asian Americans? It feels so… it’s unique.
A: How would you like to see the community change?
T: I feel like people, especially our age, do a lot of work on educating themselves about all different kinds of allyship, and I would like to see religious allyship and disability allyship be included.
K: Action matters! [laughs] Yeah. It’s a really hard statement, it’s a hard task when the majority of people here are white people that you’d not put in underrepresented class.
You can’t read their minds, right? But you can always ask, and they can be like, “Oh, thanks for asking.” Then you actually do something.
It’s so… and what it takes? It takes you to just like, “Oh you know. Have you thought about working in a lab?”
A: Yeah. Yeah, just ask.
K: Yeah. I think that we have to seek that, and not wait for that to come to us.
A: I think that in science, the assumption is that if you’re stoic and you don’t talk about your feelings, then it’s like you’re a “good scientist” and you’re a “fantastic researcher.” But you you think a community is made richer when people share things?
K: I think so. Any diversity contributes to open-mindedness. Stories also really matter. [laughs] I think good labs and good communities are built on actually sharing some part of humanity.
M: Um, at one point in elementary school – I was a huge dork – but I would spell my name, I’d spell it and I’d make a tree out of the two ‘l’s.
A: That’s so cute, Michelle. Stop.
M: Because I’m a freak. [laughs]
A: That’s adorable.
M: I’d bring home shoes full of sand, because I’m just in the sandbox all the time, bring home leaf collections because leaves are beautiful. [laughs] “Mom, Dad, did you know that leaves are beautiful??” [laughs] At this point, they knew it was coming.
There was this one course that our senior class would take. Some people would go to Olympic National Park, hang out for a week. But I was like, “So. I’m gonna go on this trip. And I’m gonna learn about this potential field that I’m interested in.” Very pragmatic. “Mom and Dad, if I’m interested in doing this, I need to know what it’s like.”
They were like, “Ok. Go.” [laughs] No, they were so supportive, and my sisters give me shit all the time.
T: I have instructors who… I had one instructor. I was so emotional because she did this – she came around and asked every single person if they had any injuries. She came down and shook your hand, introduced herself, said, “What modifications do you need?”
And I was like, “Fuck! This is the safest place in the world!”
A: Right.
T: And so I seek out those instructors.
K: My grandpa – I would follow him every single place he went. So I would just be that kid that walks around and like, “Hey grandpa, what are you doing? Why are you doing this? What’s going on?” And all the time, he had answers! [laughs] Which was amazing!
And then from one answer, it would lead to all these stories. I’m like, “Oh wow, this is really cool!” And I just always followed whatever he was doing. And I felt like I’m gathering all these really cool things like, “Wow! You really understand how things work! You understand this tree! This pond!” [laughs]
And I realized, “Oh my god! This is research! This is what people do! They actually study and answer questions, just like my grandpa did.” But actually designing something to answer those questions, which was really cool.
M: I feel like, because we are children of immigrants, we’ve been given everything and that gives us a certain sense of accountability. We have someone to report back to, someone bigger than our advisor. But with more unconditional love.
A: Yes.
M: I think that’s something that a lot of people don’t feel if they’re not children of immigrants.
T: With any identity that is hideable, or more fluid – I wish there were more spaces for the in-betweeners, maybe. [laughs]
A: Yeah, absolutely.
T: Maybe all the in-betweeners can get together, even though we all have different identities. Maybe we could all be like, “Wow this sucks.”
A: Right, yeah.
T: I dunno.
M: I think about these things every day. And I am learning how to talk about it. And I’m still trying to find the words and the ways to express myself.
It means so much to hear how people are feeling. So much of where we are is fueled by the same kind of experiences, kind of thoughts.
A: Absolutely. At the base, we’re just two people trying to make our families proud. [laughs]
M: [laughs] Oh my god you’re going to make me cry!
