Photos by Tiffany Xiao/The Choate News
On Monday, January 17, Choate hosted its 31st annual Diversity Day, which offered both in-person and virtual workshops for all students and faculty members to share their experiences and learn about different facets of diversity and injustice. The day began with morning workshops, followed by a talk from reknowned activist and scholar Dr. Angela Davis, and ended with afternoon workshops and movie discussions.
After consulting with the Choate Diversity Student Association, Dean of Equity and Inclusion Dr. Rachel Myers and Associate Dean of Equity and Inclusion Mr. Camarotti designed the program to amplify student voices by making most workshops student-fascillitated. Community members had the option of attending a workshop or a movie session. This year’s workshops focused on how topics such as political division, mental health, socio-economic class, and environmental justice relate to identity.
Student facilitators helped in planning and overseeing each workshop, ensuring that community norms were followed and promoting meaningful discussions. Manuela Sepulveda-Cortina ’23 chose to co-facilitate a workshop on capitalism in the United States because “the intersection between capitalism and race is at the root of all that we do,” she said. “I not only wanted to become more educated on the topic myself but inform others on its importance in a thought-provoking and meaningful way.”
While Sepulveda-Cortina struggled to balance conflicting political opinions during the discussion, she believes that sensitive and controversial questions need to be discussed at Choate because they “are absolutely crucial from a self-reflection point of view. Difficult conversations are the segue to digging deeper into our identities and ultimate self-discovery.”
Third-form workshops provided tools for third formers to be active and knowledgeable participants in identity-based conversations. Third-form workshop facilitator Ixchel Hernandez ’23 said, “I think it was very enlightening to discuss with the third-formers very interesting and mature topics like how sexual orientation or racial identity affects student life at Choate.” She believes that workshops specifically designed for third-formers are important because “they are very new to this community and they don’t know each other very well. I think this was a great way for them to get to know what Choate is really about.”
Third-former Loulou Politi ’25 said, “My biggest takeaway was that I don’t have to have everything that’s happened to me in my life be part of my identity, that I could choose what partakes in my identity.”
As a participant of a workshop on relationships and stereotypes, Racquel Welcome ’24 was surprised by the active and thoughtful discussions held. She noted that many people seemed uninterested in her virtual third-form workshop last year; however, this year was different, “since most people went to seminars that they voluntarily choose to do, [so] the conversation flowed a lot more naturally.”
Many aspects of Diversity Day remained affected by the pandemic. “It’s definitely harder to facilitate a real conversation when everyone is on Zoom and their cameras are off. Being in person forces people to engage a bit more,” said facilitator Sedi Agyeman ’23 said.
Overall, Ms. Megan Shea, who facilitated the virtual viewing of the documentary “13th,” appreciated the discussions of Diversity Day. She said, “The immediacy of the film viewing, as the subject of our conversation, certainly helped to inspire a robust discussion and reactions in real time. We discussed what people learned, as well as thoughts on how we can end this cycle, because, as Angela Davis says in the film, ‘Historically, when one looks at efforts to create reforms, they inevitably lead to more repression.’”
