Diversity Week is “dedicated to celebrating and understanding the importance of diversity” on Texas Tech’s campus.
Roberto Gomez
What are the qualities that you feel make you unique?
RG: I was born in Mexico but lived the most of my life in the bottom of Texas. I am mostly reserved and quiet. I think most of it is because of my sexuality because I identify as a homosexual. So growing up it was like, I’d rather keep to myself so I don’t get discriminated. As I got older and I met more people, I realized that what matters is not what other people think, it’s what I think of myself so now that I’m here at Tech I just express the way I am. Mexican, American, Homosexual and I’m proud to be who I am.
Elyssa Berney and Ivana Igbeka (Left to right)
Do you think diversity is important? And if so in what way?
EB: Our entire society is structured in a way where it advantages some people at the expense of others. Diversity is good in an awareness point of view both first again to encourage and make people aren’t status quo culture to feel important and valued especially in a place like Lubbock. Just as importantly it teaches people there is a whole world out there they may not understand and make them want to learn more.
Do you think that Texas Tech is doing a good job in promoting diversity or could we do more?
II: I think we can always do more. We can do more to incorporate all the broad and different ethnicities and groups. We can always do more to be more welcoming.
What do you think that Texas Tech can do to promote diversity more next year?
II: I think having more events in general throughout the year, not just diversity week. It’ll really bring all the different groups together.
Paul Yacoub
Do you think diversity is important? If so in what way?
PY: I think diversity is important because you get to understand different cultures. For example if you’re going to another country and if you’ve never seen or experienced that, how are you going to be able to say what is right and what is wrong? Or what they’re doing is socially different from what we are doing socially. And it’s also important to have different minds in the room.
Jocelyn Sanchez and Komal Bhakta (Left to Right)
What does diversity mean to you?
KB: it means that everyone is different in your own way.
JS: it means to express yourself differently from others.
Tyler Bark, Matt Salvana and Casey Lim (Left to Right)
Do you believe diversity is important? And if so in what way?
CL: I believe that diversity is very important. I come from a split background. I have two foreign parents and so diversity to me personally is very important. And I just believe that being diverse or being diverse minded just breaks down barriers and allow us to bond instead of separating ourselves into multiple categories.
MS: I believe that diversity is important because you’re going to work with all kinds of people no matter what your background is, no matter what their background is. So being diverse in a place like college will give you the tools to function in the real world.
TB: I too believe that diversity is important. Growing up in a military town we always had different students from everywhere come in and it was really cool to be a fellow student with them and learn their backgrounds. And like Matt said you don’t know whom you’re going to work with. People come from all over and it’s good to know how other people are and how to work with them.
Aaron Ellis and Will Brown (Left to Right)
What are the qualities that you feel make you unique?
WB: So I’m actually from Lubbock, born and raised. I wasn’t actually exposed to a lot of diversity culturally or racially at all until probably my freshman year of college I played baseball at Midland College. And we had a whole bunch of people from other nations on our team. And now I work for an organization called Every Nation. And so one of our core values is diversity. Basically we’re a Christian organization so one of the things we say is “if you don’t like diversity, you’re not going to like heaven.” So you better get used to it here. So now we are extremely intentional and something that’s an absolutely quotable phrase that I say is “we’re not racist we’re embracists.” I think it’s wrong to, diversity in the sense of color, say that you’re colorblind. Because I believe that God created everyone individually, and he created everyone to look a certain way and we should celebrate that.
AE: I was born in a town called Little Elm and I was there most of my life, and it’s really a quiet culture, next to the lake and nothing really going on there. And so my first real taste of life was when I moved out here to West Texas, to Snyder and I played soccer and so our soccer team was very, very diverse. I think I was probability the minority there. It was really different growing up in a small town to getting out here. It was crazy but it was awesome just to see how much of life I was missing and how much difference there was from person to person. And I’ve always wanted to travel a lot so it was really cool to see all of the travel come to me. And then I moved out here to Lubbock, and I’m training to be a missionary now and so I’m meeting a whole bunch of people groups. So hopefully in about three years I’ll get out and be a part their culture.
Tereso Guardado
How important is diversity to you?
TG: Diversity to me, especially in college means a lot because that’s one of the things I looked at. It’s because it plays a big part in joining certain groups and being able to see your culture mix with other people’s culture. My heritage would be from a small town in Mexico called Zacatecas. That plays a huge role in what I think because I’m representing my culture whether it’s the cuisines or sports.
Hridoy Haq
What does diversity mean to you?
HH: Diversity to me would mean the acceptance of other people, in the sense that a lot of people nowadays are looked at differently because of their physical appearance without getting to know who they are as a person. Being able to understand people will greatly increase diversity everywhere in my opinion.
Do you think Texas Tech does enough to promote diversity or could it do more?
HH: Tech does a fairly good job promoting its diversity. Many of the graduate school programs are filled with people from all sorts of backgrounds. As for what Tech could do to increase promoting diversity, well I would say the visibility of it. But I suppose that tends to become on the students to take responsibility. So not so much a diversity week but a continuing spotlight on say spotlight on a random student. The student population is fairly diverse, so randomly picking will give you different sorts of people.
Carla Romero and Andrea Rodriguez (Left to Right)
Can you talk about what makes you unique?
AR: My heritage is definitely not same as how other Hispanics grew up like. I feel like I wasn’t raised to speak Spanish, thinking about it, I asked myself why my mom didn’t raise me to speak Spanish. But thinking back on it now she didn’t want it to be hard for me while growing up having to transition because that’s how she was raised and she saw how difficult it was. And so I’d say that I grew up in a Hispanic background but without a lot of the traditions. But I still consider myself Hispanic; I don’t try to veer away from it. I studied Spanish here at Tech and I want to stay true to who I am.
CR: I’m actually the opposite compared to Andrea. I actually grew up in a very traditional Hispanic household. We actually grew up with a lot of the Hispanic holidays and I really enjoyed it. Yeah sure, it was difficult being bilingual, school wise. But I actually found a benefit out of it, because it opened more opportunities for me so I mean I see better things ahead because of it.
Gabriel Franco
What does diversity mean to you?
GF: Diversity means to me basically to have representation. To me diversity is important because you start to have different views. Before I lived here, I only knew Dominicans therefore you only have narrow views of what everybody goes through. Once you join a group that’s diverse enough you get different points of views and you start to get in touch with the whole world in a sense. You just begin to understand that everyone is human and equal.
Aicha Fokar
What makes you feel diverse?
AF: Diversity means incorporating individuals from different backgrounds, schools of thought, and religions. That’s essentially what diversity means to me. I feel what makes me diverse is being from North Africa, and also Arab decent. I cover my head, I’m a Muslim, but when I’m back home in Morocco it’s not considered diverse because it’s not very diverse over there.
Do you think Tech does enough to promote diversity?
AF: I think recently, I have seen a lot of campaigns and lot more push towards incorporating and recognizing diversity on campus. I think it’s doing a great job in where it’s placed in West Texas. In terms of improvement have more events encouraging people of diverse backgrounds to get together. I know there are a lot of departments at Tech that encourage that, so maybe fund those departments more and focus on that.
Noel Bongam
What does diversity mean to you?
NB: I was born in West Africa, Cameroon. When I was ten years old my dad he transferred me over to Germany. I lived in Germany for six years and went to high school over there. When I was choosing high schools, I chose Texas Tech and came here in 2013. I feel diversity is good because traveling to different areas around the world has exposed me to have a good time here. Because I do not look at race or color, I try to look at people who they are as a person.
About Alen Jacob
