teenager. Perhaps as a result, she seemed unhooked from any single cultural
identity. People were drawn to Suzanne. It was hard not to be. She had a wide-
open smile and a slight island lilt in her voice that became more pronounced
anytime she was tired or a little drunk. She carried herself with what I think of as
a Caribbean breeziness, a lightness of spirit that caused her to stand out among
Princeton’s studious masses. She was unafraid to plunge into parties where she
didn’t know a soul. Even though she was premed, she made a point of taking
pottery and dance classes for the simple reason that they made her happy.
Later, during our sophomore year, Suzanne would take another plunge,
deciding to bicker at an eating club called Cap and Gown—“bicker” being a verb
with a meaning particular to Princeton, signifying the social vetting that goes on
when clubs choose new members. I loved the stories Suzanne brought back from
the eating-club banquets and parties she went to, but I had no interest in
bickering myself. I was happy with the community of black and Latino students
I’d found through the TWC, content to remain at the margins of Princeton’s
larger social scene. Our group was small but tight. We threw parties and danced
half the night. At meals, we often packed ten or more around a table, laid-back
and laughing. Our dinners could stretch into hours, not unlike the long
communal meals my family used to have around the table at Southside’s house.
I imagine that the administrators at Princeton didn’t love the fact that
students of color largely stuck together. The hope was that all of us would mingle
in heterogeneous harmony, deepening the quality of student life across the board.
It’s a worthy goal. I understand that when it comes to campus diversity, the ideal
would be to achieve something resembling what’s often shown on college
brochures—smiling students working and socializing in neat, ethnically blended
groups. But even today, with white students continuing to outnumber students of
color on college campuses, the burden of assimilation is put largely on the
shoulders of minority students. In my experience, it’s a lot to ask.
At Princeton, I needed my black friends. We provided one another relief
and support. So many of us arrived at college not even aware of what our
disadvantages were. You learn only slowly that your new peers had been given
SAT tutoring or college-caliber teaching in high school or had gone to boarding
school and thus weren’t grappling with the difficulties of being away from home
for the first time. It was like stepping onstage at your first piano recital and
realizing that you’d never played anything but an instrument with broken keys.
Your world shifts, but you’re asked to adjust and overcome, to play your music
the same as everyone else.