When College junior Eduardo Orozco decided to leave his native Mexico
and attend college at Penn, he was looking forward to being a part of
the American political process.
"College in the U.S. offers an opportunity to be more engaged," said
Orozco, a double-major in Philosophy, Politics and Economics and Urban
Studies. "[American] students are much more politically active than
back at home."
Unfortunately, after three years at Penn, his expectations were not
completely satisfied. Most of the politically-oriented student groups
on campus tended to cater their initiatives to students who are U.S.
citizens, neglecting to include international students in their
political agenda.
The rationale for targeting only Americans is obvious. If international
students can't actually vote for candidates endorsed by groups like the
Penn Democrats or the College Republicans, then why bother spending
time and energy trying to persuade them to decide either way? And with
Pennsylvania's primary elections coming up in less than three weeks,
most groups have been focusing chiefly on voter registration and
turnout - initiatives that automatically exclude non-citizens.
"Optimally, everyone should be included in political programming and it
should appeal to anyone, American or not," College sophomore and
College Republicans president Zac Byer told me. "But this isn't a
perfect world, and just like minority programming doesn't appeal to me
most of the time, the College Republicans' and the Penn Democrats'
activity isn't the best in terms of outreach to international students."
Still, just because international students can't cast a ballot, doesn't mean they have nothing worthwhile to say.
For instance, "As a Mexican, I'm often confronted with misconceptions
on the actual effects of U.S. foreign policy," Orozco said. "I'm
definitely a source for unique perspectives that goes pretty much
untapped here on campus."
In fact, from debating American policy abroad to comparing health care
systems across the globe, international students can bring under- (and
often mis-) represented views to discussions about the election.
And while "I'm not sure what international students can add to an
organization that's trying to get a candidate elected," Penn for
Hillary spokeswoman and College junior Julie Siegel, a former Spin blog
editor, admits, "as far as campaigns create discourse, I think that
there's a great deal that they can contribute."
Moreover, because the United States political system is drastically
different from most other countries, the election season presents the
perfect opportunity to educate non-Americans about the ins and outs of
our government.
"I don't know what a superdelegate is and it's very mystifying,"
confessed College junior and International Student Council leader
Alexander Giannakakis. Instead of perpetuating this type of confusion
by ignoring foreign students, campus political groups should
collaborate with international groups to clarify the electoral process.
And given the rampant jargon and roundabout procedure of the primary
period, Elections 101 might not be a bad idea for everyone - not just
international students.
But despite a certain degree of bewilderment amongst internationals
concerning the American elections, there at least seems to be a similar
level of interest.
"I can't tell you the number of times where I've tried to register
people to vote, and they've said 'I wish I could, but I'm an
international student'" said College junior and Penn Leads the Vote
president Stephanie Simon. "That shows that there's definitely
enthusiasm there."
Regardless of whether campus political groups choose to hold
collaborative events with international students or to educate them
about American elections, there should be more of a concerted effort to
reach out to a population that constitutes over 10 percent of Penn's
student body.
After all, instead of only listening to politicians speculate about how
the rest of the world views America, why don't we just ask our peers
who are actually part of that constituency?
After all, "It'd be great if we could get some more international awareness on American politics," Giannakakis said.
"That would make the international students feel a lot more integrated
into the U.S. instead of always feeling like an outsider."
Including the Rest of the World
Many international students at American colleges want to learn about our political process, since the way the U.S. is run matters to them too, but many feel ignored. From The Daily Pennsylvanian.