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be bold
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DIVERSITY Third-year international studies and poli sci major Nora Beik works to foster inclusion through donor-supported UCI community outreach program
M
ake two lists: one with your top three role models and one with the names of five people outside of family with whom you spend the most time. Now ask yourself: Are these people the same religion, race, ethnicity, education level and socioeconomic background as me? Nora Beik loves leading high school students through this exercise as part of UCI’s Diversity, Inclusion & Racial Healing Ambassador Program. “It’s such an eye-opener for them to see how the people they hang out with and aspire to be are, most often, just like them,” says the third-
year international studies and political science major. As the discussion turns to the comfort students feel when they’re with people like themselves, Beik’s opportunity to spark even the smallest sliver of change arises. “When you’re not in the majority, you feel small, unheard,” she shares. That’s an experience that goes back to her childhood. Beik was born and raised in Fountain Valley, the middle of three daughters to parents who immigrated to the U.S. from Damascus, Syria, nearly three decades ago. “Growing up as an Arab Muslim in post 9/11
America, I had an acute awareness of the fact that I was different from my peers,” she says. Saturday school to learn Arabic, summers in Syria with extended family and a holiday calendar that didn’t include Christmas, Halloween, or other typically “American” celebrations left Beik feeling like an outsider. Moreover, not having friends or classmates with whom she felt she could safely and unabashedly share her own traditions made her feel unrelatable and alone. So Beik kept her beliefs and culture confined to her home. It wasn’t until the end of her first year as an Anteater that she found her footing, thanks to a course she took on deconstructing diversity.
Nora Beik (left), an international studies and political science major at UCI and a student leader in the Diversity, Inclusion & Racial Healing Ambassador Program, chats with a local high schooler.
