African-Americans studying abroad still a minority within a minority

Jacketus Presswood became a citizen of the world as a child.

Watching documentaries, reading books and seeing the many travels of his older brother left an indelible mark on Presswood, a Chicago native who is now a senior at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

“From an early age I knew that I was going to go abroad. I had an inherent interest in history. I remember watching my father’s videos and documentaries about Far-East Asia. So I started reading books on these far-away places, and I just fell in love with wanting to go see the world,” Presswood said.

For many African-American college students, going to a foreign country is a far-away dream instead of a priority, making students like Presswood who do study overseas a minority within a minority.

“Open Doors,” an annual publication of the Institute of International Education, reported that the percentage of African-American college students in study abroad programs increased less than 1 percent (2.9 percent to 3.5 percent) from 1995 to 2006. Between the 1999-2000 school year and 2006 alone, the percentage remained at 3.5 percent for five out of seven years. The other two years saw it decline to 3.4 percent. During the same time period, Caucasian students averaged 83 percent of those studying abroad.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, African-Americans are more than 12 percent of U.S. higher education enrollment,

These figures go against the rapid growth in study abroad participation overall. Students going abroad have more than doubled since the mid-1990s. Less than 90,000 students took part during the 1995-1996 school year. By 2005-2006, more than 220,000 students were getting their passports stamped.

The disparity is not lost on Joseph Kinsella, associate vice president of international programs at DePaul University on Chicago’s North Side. Just weeks ago Kinsella led an outreach effort targeting what he calls underrepresented students to apply for the school’s study abroad program.

As with the national totals, DePaul’s study abroad numbers have skyrocketed in the past decade, but African-American participation has been slow at best, beating the national average by less than 2 percent.

Kinsella’s goal is to make study abroad totals more reflective of DePaul’s enrollment: African-Americans are 8 percent of the student population. Caucasian students, who make up 72 percent of DePaul’s study abroad program, are only 55 percent of total enrollment.

“We have had a lot success in both recruiting and nurturing a warm environment for students of different backgrounds and different belief systems,” Kinsella said.

“One of our challenges is that because statistically students of color are from lower economic backgrounds, we have trouble with the study abroad hump. Study abroad is always perceived as an add-on to education, which, in this globalizing world, I think we do our students a disservice by not building it more thoroughly into our curriculum.”

Similar efforts are in place at UIC, where low numbers for African-Americans enrolled in study abroad contrast with a higher than average enrollment of total minorities.

Citing an increase – albeit very slow – in African-Americans in study abroad, UIC Study Abroad Director Chris Deegan has turned to students who have done study abroad to help attract new participants.

“As students return from abroad they tend to be the best sources of information for their peers,” Deegan explained. “Focused outreach by the study abroad office has also helped students move beyond some of the preconceptions they might have about studying abroad: ‘It’s not for me. I can’t afford it. I don’t know a foreign language.’”

Always loved learning about different cultures

For Vaughn Kimmons it was her mother, not her peers, who helped foster her interest in learning about different people and places.

“Growing up, I was exposed to so many different types of people. My mother took me to every museum and every cultural festival in the city. My experience taught me how to appreciate and respect – not tolerate – people of other ethnic groups,” Kimmons said.

Kimmons, who graduated from Loyola University-Chicago in 2006, attended the school’s Rome campus as a junior. She described her experience as good, but was disappointed about not meeting more students who were into learning instead of partying.

She took advantage of the cheap travel within Europe to visit various parts of Italy and London before trekking south to Tunisia in North Africa. Kimmons called the visit one of the best experiences of her life, saying that she enjoyed it so much that she didn’t want to return to Rome.

“This trip meant so much to me because it was the first time I ever visited Africa. I was so overwhelmed with joy because I was visiting the place of my ancestors,” Kimmons said.

Many African-American students see more reasons not to go rather than reasons to go when it comes to traveling overseas. According to college administrators, affordability tops the list of reasons students decide not to study abroad.

“Cost is always a deal breaker. For many of our students generally, even if programs were free, they would need replacement income from the jobs they can’t go to while they are abroad. Many are supporting themselves and/or their own extended families,” Deegan said.

Colleges point to funding sources like the National Security Education Program, the Rotary International scholarships and the Woodrow Wilson International Fellowship Foundation as examples of organizations that dedicate money to minority students. Donors and corporations are some of the additional resources schools such as DePaul are seeking to help students’ financial needs.

While not paramount to finances, but not surprising, students’ fears and preconceptions of race in other countries factor into the decision not to study abroad.

Given America’s troubled history with race and race relations, some students are afraid that other countries will be as hostile – or more – toward African-Americans.

Presswood tells students that there’s no guarantee they won’t experience racial discrimination, but, most times, it depends on the country.

“When I was in China, that was a very hard landing. You can’t blend into Chinese society no matter how good your Chinese becomes. You’ll always be a foreigner,” Presswood recalled. “For most Asian people, an American or European is white, blue-eyed, blonde hair, so if you don’t fit those particular criteria, you may experience some discrimination.”

Kimmons experienced some of those same fears before arriving in Rome, in addition to being around only one familiar face.

She found Rome to be very welcoming, but encountered stares from locals. She believed it was because they didn’t know how to categorize her, since many of the black people who live in Rome come from Senegal.

“I think my appearance puzzled Italians because I have a light complexion and my hair is not very coarse,” Kimmons explained.

She recalled a similar incident when registering at a local police station for temporary residence.

“As he [the police officer] was filling out my paperwork, I noticed he wrote down that I was ‘mulatta.’ I thought this was very funny because he thought that I was biracial simply because I didn’t fit his idea of what a black person is.”

A history well-traveled

The argument can be made that African-Americans traveling abroad dates back to the Underground Railroad, during which slaves journeyed to Canada to gain something more important than studies: freedom.

Throughout the first half of the 20th century, African-Americans went overseas, finding other countries more tolerant of different races than those in the U.S., which was still going through Jim Crow.

It was in the 1910s that civil rights leader Marcus Garvey gained recognition for his advocacy of Pan-Africanism and working to reconnect African-Americans with Africa.

By the 1930s, Josephine Baker became the most successful American entertainer in France, achieving in a few years what it took African-American entertainers in the U.S. several decades to attain.

France was also where writer James Baldwin moved in 1948 to escape the intense intolerance in the U.S. toward African-Americans and homosexuals. Paris later became the backdrop of Baldwin’s 1956 novel “Giovanni’s Room.”

Dr. Jacqueline Howard-Matthews, a former director with the United Negro College Fund Special Programs Corp., also traces interest in global issues to historically black colleges and universities in the 19th century.

“If you had the opportunity to visit the archives at almost every historically black college or university, you would find that there was a discernable interest in the global system in the 1800s. Many of these institutions supported the efforts of faculty, missionaries and students to go abroad for a purpose,” Howard-Matthews said.

Howard-Matthews used this example as a model of how international education should be taught to students, with study abroad being only one component.

Other components would include courses directly and indirectly related to international education, participating in activities that focus on international issues and volunteering with community service groups that help refugees or recent immigrants to the U.S.

“I hear very few people really giving those particular components any kind of weight. So my question is, why do we focus so much on study abroad? I think that is because study abroad is big business,” Howard-Matthews said.

One of the big misconceptions of study abroad is that it is solely run by the school, when in fact at least several companies or non-profit organizations will run study abroad programs at many colleges. Some colleges have been accused of taking advantage of the perks and bonuses given for signing up students.

Presswood, whose brother runs a study abroad organization targeted to African-Americans, agreed that more can be done on the part of the industry to reach out to minority students, but not before the industry, itself, diversifies.

“Who better to sell ice to an Eskimo than an Eskimo,” Presswood asked. “This is a multibillion-dollar-a-year industry. Certain people are accustomed to things running a certain way. For the longest time, there was no conversation about minorities going abroad.

Widening the doors

Amid the debate over the study abroad industry, Washington and Springfield are trying to ignite a conversation to get more minorities involved in study abroad and international education.

Up for consideration in Congress will be the Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act, which is based on recommendations by the nonpartisan Lincoln Study Abroad Commission.

In the proposed bill, $80 million would be spent to expand study abroad opportunities to students considered underrepresented, and to increase the number of students in non-traditional areas, such as the Middle East and Africa.

Introduced by U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Norm Coleman, R-Minn., the legislation made it through the House and was approved by the Senate foreign relations committee, but it has yet to be brought before the full senate.

At the state level, Illinois state Rep. Maria Antonia Berrios, a Chicago Democrat, recently co-sponsored a resolution to put together a committee to look into increased study abroad funding for state universities. Berrios sees the bill as a first step in bridging the gap between many communities and the global economy.

“It gives you a different perspective on where Illinois is and where the United States is, compared to other countries. I think that is definitely helpful when they get into the [workforce],” Berrios said.

The many Latino students in Berrios’ district are among the number of Latino students across the country who also find themselves underrepresented in study abroad programs, averaging just above 5 percent during the past decade.

DePaul has seen its efforts to reach Latinos prove more successful. Latinos were 13 percent of its study abroad students, more than double the national average.

While the effort to change face of study abroad and international education will have its ups and downs, those on all sides see its benefits when students like Kimmons and Presswood return home, eager and more comfortable communicating with people from different cultures and backgrounds.

Although speaking about African-Americans, Kimmons could also be talking about Latinos, Native Americans and other underrepresented groups when she said:

“As a people I believe we can progress if we expand our thinking. International travel allows us to better understand how the world works. Knowing what else is out there motivates people to do more in their lives.”