Environmentalism should not be so white

Environmentalism should not be so white

an asian female teacher.susta

A big part of the master’s application process is researching the professors in your program to find an advisor or talking to someone to learn more about the program. I vividly remember scrolling through countless pages over the last year, browsing the environmental faculty in schools across the US and Canada.

At Duke University, one of America’s leading environmental schools, I found only one female Asian American professor in a program I was interested in.

I was applying to graduate school when Biden was elected. As a Chinese American and soon-to-be international student in the US, it’s hard for me to ignore the “Kung Fu Flu,” the “Chinese Virus,” and the increased violence against Asians in my decision making these months.

The relationship between academic supervisors and graduate students is accompanied by very strong power dynamics, which often lead to the exploitation of graduate students. Therefore, it is very important for graduate students to find mentors they are willing to work with.

Because Asian Americans are generally highly represented in other STEM fields, they are underrepresented in environmental fields such as ecology and earth sciences and are not often mentioned.

For example, in 2018, Asian Americans made up 5.6 percent of the population, but only 3.0 percent of ecology PhDs that year. Asian Americans are also very limitedly represented in environmental science societies such as the Ecological Society of America.

Underrepresented in the environmental field not exclusive to Asian Americans. In 2021, career development platform Zippia reports that only 6.9 percent of environmental science professors are Hispanic or Latino, only 5.1 percent are Black or African American, and only 0.3 percent are American Indian or Alaska Native.

What does it mean to change these numbers so that the makeup of environmental scientists reflects the real world?

I met my friend Naomi in my sophomore year of environmental science class. She was the only black person in the room in that class and every class we took during our undergraduate years. Now, she’s preparing her application for a master’s in environmental science and has finally found a mentor at the University of Manitoba. I remember her telling me on our phone last month, “My new supervisor is black, which is great because there are basically no black researchers in agriculture!”

Maybe, just maybe, this will be an opportunity to experience environmentalism through a non-white lens.

The environmentalist movement that many of my friends and I have experienced is not inclusive because it was primarily created by white people for white people.

Even now, as a sustainability graduate student at Columbia, I often find myself in classrooms that are mostly or entirely white, taught by white professors, and dealing with racist microaggressions from white peers and mentors.

My own race has and will continue to make my experience as an environmentalist totally different from my white counterparts.I can’t think of a word or phrase to adequately describe the incredible anxiety I’ve been experiencing, not only because I’m an environmentalist at such a disturbing time, but also because I’m an environmentalist Asian environmentalist.

What words can I use to describe the fear and anxiety I feel when another lecturer can’t distinguish me from one or two other Asian women in the class?

What term would explain my intense discomfort in class when my white professor involuntarily singled out his lecture on ethical supply chains to talk about human rights in China?

When my white classmates condescendingly suggested that we need to “educate the global south” on climate change, what is the word for my frustration?

With every condescending comment and every microaggression, I hear the same voice tell me, “You don’t have a place here.”

When I ask myself what I’ve learned as an environmentalist, my first thought is the scientific theories and jargon I’ve learned over the years. I don’t know the first thing about being an Asian environmentalist and how to amplify my own voice, let alone the voices of others, in this wave of whitewashed environmentalism.

From Black Lives Matter to Stop AAPI Hate, pressure from social movements over the past few years has forced many academic institutions to commit to investing in diversity and inclusion. Specifically, for the environment, delivering on these promises must mean combining Asian perspectives with other minority perspectives.

At Columbia, I didn’t find an Asian female advisor as I hoped, and I probably won’t be taught by an Asian professor during my time at Columbia. However, I hope that the space I occupy in the classroom will allow me to help open the door to academic environmentalism to people who look like me and my friends.

Beverly Teng is a student at Columbia University Master of Sustainability Management program.