Culture Shocked: Experiencing Cal Poly as a person of color

This story originally appeared in The Peak, Mustang Media Group’s arts and student culture magazine. Check out more from “The Peak: Sh*t we weren’t told, the Adulting Issue.”

Culture Shock: Finding strength in community

By Rebecca Von Tersch

Coming to Cal Poly, there were a lot of things I felt prepared for: academics, social life and everything that I anticipated about college. Culture shock was not on that list.

While living in the San Francisco Bay Area, I was surrounded by Asian culture and community. My mom is Korean, so I grew up with significant exposure to the culture and traditions.

For most of my life, I spoke Korean with my family, ate tteokguk, rice cake soup, for Seollal, Korean Lunar New Year and took folk dance classes at my Korean school. I relied on my culture and the community that accompanied it.

San Luis Obispo was quite different. The Asian population is small, and cultural practices are limited. Cal Poly offers no Korean classes. The nearest Asian restaurants have few Korean dishes on their menus (shout out to Shin’s Sushi), if at all. There is only one small Asian grocery store, compared to the Hmart locations all over the Bay. Regular sights became shockingly rare, and the initial absence of community was pretty lonely.

As much as I love San Luis Obispo, finding my cultural community and fitting in has been difficult. I value sharing my culture with my friends, which I couldn’t do without a strong community. The scarcity of cultural essentials here only added to the struggle. 

The most obvious of these scarcities lies within Cal Poly’s food. There is a disappointing lack of Asian cuisine across Cal Poly’s dining halls, and when I miss Korean food, I can rarely find something to soothe that ache. The menu occasionally has Korean-inspired options — rice, bulgogi and something vaguely resembling kimchi. This is somewhat reminiscent of my favorite foods, but it isn’t enough. If I want more authentic dishes, I have to cook them or go off-campus — which were not regular occurrences in the last two years.

Sierra Madre’s tiny kitchen was not equipped for making complicated, shareable dishes, so I would cook in my friends’ dorms. My apartment’s kitchen in Poly Canyon Village made things slightly easier. But finding specialty ingredients was inconvenient when my dining dollars only worked on campus, so planning dinner hangouts required twice the work.

Because of these struggles, it was difficult to open up the way I wanted to. I know several people who had the same issues, unable to keep up traditions the way they would at home. We make do with what is available, but sharing memories is difficult without exact replications.

I learned about this shared struggle, and others, through conversations with friends about feeling out of place. It was relieving to know that the people around me had similar experiences, because we could help each other find the comfort we needed. 

This comfort was especially necessary when we noticed only a few other people of color in our classes and gravitated towards those with similar experiences. Being in a majority white major, I often find myself providing the sole voice of color — a contrast to my high school experience, where Asians were a majority group and I rarely had to awkwardly explain my ethnic background mid-conversation. When these experiences get particularly uncomfortable, I find peace in unwinding with my friends.

Finding spaces to practice my culture and form community also helped to relieve that discomfort. Joining clubs helped the most, especially Cal Poly’s K-pop dance team, Kaja Krew. It’s more than just a dance club — I found my strongest support system here, and I can bring different aspects of my culture to my club experience. 

These experiences led me to some of my closest friends and the best moments of my college life. Sharing our cultures has helped us grow closer, and that sense of belonging was crucial to helping me acclimate to college life. 

While cultural holidays and tteokguk are still rare sights, coming to Cal Poly made me realize I had to seek out the community I needed instead of just expecting it to find me. It’s important to learn to address your needs, even if you don’t experience culture shock like I did. But once you do, life becomes a lot more fun. 

Culture Shock: Transforming shock intro growth

By Kaylie Wang

Growing up in Orange County felt like growing up within a bubble. Living in a predominantly Asian community meant that being Chinese-American almost put me as part of a “majority,” where I never thought twice about the way that I looked, the food that I ate or the languages my family spoke. This bubble burst as I came to college.

At Cal Poly, I realized I was experiencing culture shock when I became hyperaware of my identity — something I took for granted in Orange County.

Knowing this, I chose to live in the Asian Pacific Desi American Islander (APIDA) learning community to have a built-in community. Living on the APIDA floor in tsɨtkawayu allowed me to meet people from other cultures, while also feeling connected to people who shared my cultural background.

I continued discovering cultural spaces throughout the year. I rushed for an Asian-interest sorority, Alpha Kappa Delta Phi. When I didn’t receive a bid, the rush process helped me meet girls I would later recognize in class and become friends with.

Beyond these strong connections, the most important community I discovered was through my elementary Mandarin classes. As an English major, my degree requires a foreign language curriculum. This was the perfect opportunity for me to learn Mandarin. 

Out of everything I accomplished during my first year of college, learning Mandarin is what I am most proud of. I have wanted to learn Mandarin my entire life, but I kept putting it off. While these classes have been the most challenging of my entire coursework, I have seen the most self-growth in them. 

These classes are the most important, rewarding and fulfilling because I have explored Chinese culture deeply. I’ve spent my time learning more than just useful expressions – like the meaning of superstitions that I’ve lived by since I was young (like avoiding the number 4 or never gifting a clock) and the history behind the deliberate strokes that create each Chinese character. 

Now, whenever I step into a space where I am the only Asian person (which is often), it’s something I immediately notice. These moments can feel uncomfortable, but I challenge myself to lean into that discomfort so that I can grow.  

I channel my discomfort into empowerment. When I am the only Asian person or person of color in a room, I feel proud of my identity because of the unique perspective and ideas I bring. If it wasn’t for my perspective change, I don’t think I would have ever given an informational speech in my COMS 101 class about tofu. My speech about agedashi tofu and sundubu-jjigae, my favorite tofu dishes, may have instead been about something that didn’t mean as much to me. 

My first year at college taught me how important my voice is. I loved watching my classmates take an interest in what I had to say – as I delivered my speech, my peers leaned in and engaged with my speech. They enthusiastically participated when I asked everyone in the class to close their eyes and visualize a steaming pot of Korean soft tofu stew.  

I also learned that my perspective is useful in journalism. When I discovered Sequel Tea was moving to campus, I wrote an opinion story and co-wrote a news article about it. I explored why Sequel Tea’s new location is so important, while drawing from my Asian-American background to craft a unique story, just as I am doing in this article.

Attending a predominantly white institution as a person of color is uncomfortable, but it has forced me to intentionally seek out spaces and communities that allow me to connect with my culture and people from similar backgrounds. I left my first year at Cal Poly with a greater appreciation for my hometown, a deeper sense of pride in my identity and a few more words to communicate with my grandma in Mandarin. Xièxiè dàjiā, xià cì jiàn! 

For more stories from “Sh*t we weren’t told, the Adulting Issue” check out the full edition.