Yvette Cho is a 2019 Brandeis University graduate who served the last three of her four years as captain of the Judges’ volleyball program. She earned All-Association honors in her junior season. Cho currently works as a project associate at a public health research and consulting organization where she primarily focuses on health equity and policy work.
The UAA “Conversations About Race and Racism” series seeks to lift the voices of people of color and recognize the challenges faced in both athletics and academics at the collegiate level. By sharing personal stories, we hope to elevate the conversation about race to raise awareness and bring about change.
Aware of Race Early
“Race has been at the forefront of my mind for as long as I can remember. I grew up as a first generation American in an immigrant family. My first neighborhood was low-income families of color with very few Asians. Most families were Black or LatinX. My dad was taken by the criminal justice system for substance abuse and my non-native English-speaking mother had to work so much, sometimes three jobs at a time,” Cho recorded. “We were mostly surrounded by Black women and families of color who had our backs and supported us.”
Although her high school was not nearly as diverse as her neighborhood, it was compared to her sport of choice. “Playing volleyball was another realm from what I was used to. Nearly all the girls and families were white. I noticed, but never asked why,” she pointed out. “I was used to playing on YMCA teams, but I learned that if I wanted to play in college, I need to play on club or travel teams. I could only afford it by working multiple days of the week year around. I was proud of that fact, but should any teenager be subjected to working that much just to be able to play?”
Before going to Brandeis, she never thought much about what it took to play. “It was part of my life that I just took as life. I never asked myself why things were the way they were,” she commented. “The ‘why?’ started happening when I was taking college classes in economics, and health science and policy. It helped me frame my thinking around why working hard was never enough for the hardest-working people around me.”
Breaking Point at Brandeis
“The final straw for me was the firing of the men’s basketball coach in my junior year. I am hesitant to talk about it, but I shouldn’t be. Those types of conversations that are horribly uncomfortable have to happen and are necessary. Those conversations were not being held and the problems could have easily been swept under the rug again,” she lamented. “There had been a history of reports. It blew my mind to know that and confirmed a lot of my concerns.”
At the time, she was a student writer for BrandeisNow, the university’s official media outlet. “I wanted to leverage my voice for the first time and make the issues known beyond just the Deadspin story (that precipitated an investigation into the alleged racial abuses). I wanted to focus on the players affected and their athletic success despite it all,” Cho explained. “My boss was really supportive, but not everyone was. It got published, but no real conversation resulted from the piece with the athletics department or even with my team. It was my first experience wanting to vocalize about an issue involving race and racism in a very public platform. It was as if no one really wanted to talk about the issues anymore. Only my close friends would even talk to me about it. That only ingrained in my mind that I could not be silent any longer, regardless of the outcome. Being silent is being complicit. I would rather kick myself over failures when I acted, rather than over things I did not do.”
Read Yvette’s Story in BrandeisNow
She took that mindset into choosing a job in public health that addresses systematic shortcomings that disproportionately affect people of color. “All our liberations are linked together. Progress for one group is progress for all. I am indebted to movements led by the Black community that have granted me rights and opportunities,” she pronounced. “We don’t talk about Black women nearly enough. Those stories need to be shared. White people struggle to navigate these conversations to avoid sounding racist, but we need to talk about these issues.”
Model Minority Myth
“The ‘model minority’ myth is so harmful on so many levels. The myth is the notion that Asian Americans have achieved their socioeconomic success through hard work alone. Mainstream media rebrands us as a minority success story where you have two parents, a strong household, an emphasis on hard work and education, supportive social networks, and a sense of invisibility. It just says that you do what you are supposed to do, and everything will be fine,” she described. “That is not the reality. It is so embedded in the fabric of the U.S. and internalized by many Asian-Americans even though this proximity to whiteness means that violence against Asian bodies is not considered racism and it justifies anti-Black racism even further by creating a racial wedge. I never confronted this until the end of college when I really found my voice. I had heavily internalized the myth, but I was not conscious of it or self-aware for a long time.”
She looks back on her time in club volleyball through a significantly different lens. “There were so many jokes and microaggressions because I was the only non-white player. My teammates and coaches had an arsenal of jokes that they thought they could get away with. Jokes would be super ‘light’ like I would be too busy studying to go out or I was always thinking about homework,” she recounted. “They would ascribe personality traits to me that fit in with the model minority myth, that I was naturally quiet or understood the rotations better than other girls. I never lashed out because volleyball was my favorite thing in the world, but I have gained an understanding of the impact it had on me. I want to frame it as a growing experience in hindsight.”
Cho has been deeply affected by the recent violence against Asian people, particularly elders. “It has been a really unsettling time being an Asian American this past year with the scapegoating of the AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) community for the pandemic. All of which is fueled by xenophobic sentiment,” she stated. “The violent attacks are bringing a renewed focus on deep-seated anti-Asian racism that has existed since the arrival of the earliest immigrants to the U.S. Racial discrimination is woven into the fabric of this country and it would be remiss of me to not acknowledge that different communities of color experience discrimination in different degrees and forms. What has remained a common denominator historically, however, is how progress for one community leads to progress for all, and this lifts up the importance of all of us building solidarity together towards collective liberation. Although it is a deeply disturbing time, the amount of activism and heightened awareness happening is furthering the dialogue around how pervasive and damaging these longstanding prejudices are and I can only hope that this leads to progress.
Challenges at a Predominantly White Institution
“Academically, all my professors were white. White professors with white curriculums and white students. I went to college wanting to discover why my upbringing was how it was, why my neighbors had a different trajectory than I did and how we were treated differently despite growing up in the same neighborhood. A lot of that inequity has to do with race and racism, but you don’t learn that in traditional economics courses such as the ones I took,” Cho communicated. “As a non-white student, you are taking in the material differently. It makes them uncomfortable when you discuss that fact, making them want to get out of that stage of discomfort. We can’t go anywhere without being in spaces where we are uncomfortable.”
She finds that these issues are exacerbated in sports like volleyball. “Being a volleyball student-athlete, everything is centered around being white. I remember there being 10 recruits and all of them were white. I didn’t ask anyone about it,” she recalled. “People often say that the system is broken, but in fact, it is designed to produce exactly what they are producing. In athletics, if we are recruiting from white places, we will get white players.”
Race and Athletics
Cho admits she fell into the trap of separating race from athletics. “In the context of college and being a student-athlete, there is a tendency to just want sports to be about sports. I believed that for a long time. I wanted to believe that I didn’t have to think about anything else but volleyball, yet that was so false,” Cho expressed. “There is so much room for communities of color and student-athletes of color in athletics to come together and discuss these really important issues. Hopefully now these conversations are at the forefront of people’s minds.”
She notes that campuses already have resources that can be helpful. “Be intentional about using the resources at your school to embed these discussions about race into the student-athlete experience. It can’t just be a room full of your white teammates and coach. That is super uncomfortable for athletes of color at PWI’s,” she said. “Administrators need to be conscious of the role they play in how their student-athletes of color, particularly Black student-athletes, are treated. When you don’t confront the role you play, even if it was being silent, you won’t understand the effects of the harm you have caused.”
Cho saw a disconnect between being a student and being a student-athlete. “I brought my history into the classroom, but it disappeared in Gosman (Brandeis’ athletic center). No one knew why I am the way I am because we never discussed it,” she remembered. “There never seems to be an appropriate moment to be able to talk about how the student-athlete experience is different in a PWI when you came from a low-income area without many opportunities. There is a baseline assumption that you or your family did something wrong that led you into those situations, rather than an honest look at the structural conditions that caused it.”
Advice for Student-Athletes of Color
“As someone of color, you have a lot of power in your voice. The system may be designed to disempower you or make you feel like you are not heard, but you have so much power and ability,” she emphasized. “Understand, as a person of power, your story means so much. Your lived experiences matter and you are who you are today because of them. Give yourself more credit than you may have before.”
She encourages student-athletes of color to balance speaking out with prioritizing their mental health. “It takes so much self-care and self-compassion to be able to balance all that is going on in the world. Living through this time is not easy, especially if you don’t have the privilege to opt out of being a part of this movement towards racial justice. Practice whatever self-care looks like to you,” she remarked. “I have never been the type of person to intentionally do things for myself that fed into my happiness. It has always been go, go, go,” she disclosed. “I never had things built into my life to make me feel better. That wasn’t my reality and likely not for others with similar upbringings as me. It is not easy, but practice being mindful of your feelings. Do things frequently, habitually, and intentionally that bring you joy.”
The Harm of Inaction and the Role of Allies
“It is what people don’t do that is often most harmful. More than ever, we are realizing that silence is being complicit. One thing anyone can do is advocate for colleagues and students of color. Understanding is one thing, but actually vocalizing that support shows you understand the power and privileges you are afforded in the U.S. As a result, you have a role in all of this, whether you want to confront it or not. That role does not include being silent,” she remarked.
She believes the starting point for allies should be to look inward. “Reflect on the role you play. How active were you around racial issues previously? How active do you want to be and what does it mean to do it genuinely and not in a way that is performative? This is a journey of learning and unlearning. For many people, it is hard to comprehend unlearning. A lot of what you were taught was wrong,” she deemed. “Before engaging in dialogue, it is important to do that reflection and then move forward. Educate yourself without asking people of color to teach you. It is easier now than ever. Seek out the resources that are available to you.”
Cho stresses the importance of having meaningful discussions within the context of family, but also in the workplace. “As a young professional, I was hesitant to speak up to a higher-up or supervisor, but now, more than ever, is the time to get into these conversations. Most organizations are doing an internal review of their own equity, diversity, and inclusion policies,” she stated. “It is imperative to have young voices in the discussions about outdated systems. I have had the chance to talk about these things on a corporate level with a task force at my company, where we are looking at things through a racial equity lens. Invest energy in hearing from the people you need to hear from.”
Roles of Teams and Coaches
“Being a student-athlete gives you the ability to build a formidable connection as more than just teammates. It shouldn’t take something extraneous to happen for us to talk about important things. We never discussed race on the volleyball team,” she revealed. “I was in Sweden studying abroad when everything happened with the men’s basketball coach. It felt necessary to have a conversation about what happened so I video-called in and the team had a discussion that grazed the surface of this issue, but it ended there. You have to continue these conversations and get uncomfortable, and that is something we just didn’t do.”
Cho stresses the importance of white teammates speaking up and out for people of color. “It takes more than just acknowledging what is going on, but also getting an understanding of why it is happening. Challenge and question things. If not you, then who? Will you wait until another Black man gets murdered on camera? You shouldn’t have to wait for that,” she described. “Conversations should be normalized without some event preceding it. I hope that is the impact of all this. Tragedy should not be required to get us there. Communication should be embedded into the fabric of the team.”
She believes coaches should play an integral role in normalizing conversations about race. “There are so many opportunities for head coaches to embed this work into their day-to-day interactions with their players and in the athletic department. They have a great deal of power, but some coaches live in an insular bubble, saying they aren’t trained for equity work or that racial justice is not part of their job,” she communicated. “Coaches’ work has an impact on their players’ lives and they need to have an understanding of the holistic approach student-athletes seek.”
Cho would like to see more student-athletes of color in college, but also greater opportunities to play long before that. “If a coach is recruiting from predominantly white tournaments and clubs, it follows that their team will be predominantly white. Find places where more non-white athletes are playing,” she recommended. “I would also like to see coaches create opportunities for young girls and boys to be able to play sports that are financially out of their reach and that I could not afford. Run clinics for underrepresented young students that are sustainable, not just for a few days. If that happens, the diversity and inclusion in your program will improve in the long term.”
She stresses that administrators should expect coaches to talk about race. “Your wins or years of experience don’t mean much to me as a person of color compared to how competent you are in dealing with situations outside of the sport. Failure there is failure. It is far more important than practices and matches,” she articulated. “One of the best accomplishments a coach can have is a student-athlete who is willing to come to you to talk about race, upbringing, or any obstacle they have had to confront which impacts them today. That trust is amazing. Those real discussions will become the catalyst of change.”