Graduation Edition 2022 — 9
Michigan in Color
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

As a person of color, any type of 
application, whether it be college, job 
or internship applications are always 
equipped with stress, self-doubt and 
insecurity. I feel alone in academic 
and social settings at the University 
of Michigan, with about 55% of the 
student population being white and 
the median family income being a 
staggering $154,000 for the Fall 2020 
undergraduate population. I, as a 
minority student who does not have 
the privilege of wealth nor whiteness, 
have had to endure a college experi-
ence overrun by feelings of imposter 
syndrome. Here at the University, I 
constantly feel the pressure of social 
and economic factors like race and 
social class that lead me to lose belief 
in myself academically and profession-
ally. I dream to go to law school and 
become a lawyer, which I know will 
force me to exist within more intimi-
dating environments of professional-
ism, whiteness and years of enhanced 
feelings of being an imposter. 
Interacting with students in my 
sociology, political science and pub-
lic policy classes has resulted in very 
interesting yet uncomfortable conver-
sations. It seems like almost every stu-
dent has been interning for their local 
congressman since high school and 
have parents who own their own law 
firm. Comparing my background and 
experiences to others, the overwhelm-
ing sense of competition makes me 
anxious and worried about my future 
at the University and beyond due to 
my lack of experience compared to my 
peers. When it comes to discussions 
surrounding internships or any other 
professional opportunity, the number 
of white students who seem to have 
been handed positions because of their 
family’s privilege is honestly astound-
ing. 
This past January, I started my 
application to the Ford School of Pub-
lic Policy. Even before the start of 
my freshman year, I already knew I 
wanted to apply to this program come 
the winter of my sophomore year, and 
I worked my ass off both academically 
and professionally to try to secure an 
acceptance. I completed the prereq-
uisites courses early, pursued intern-
ships that aligned with my political 
interests and became an involved stu-
dent at the University to solidify that 
public policy was my passion while 
proving to admissions that I was a 
dedicated student. I thought what I 
was doing would be enough and that 
I would stand out among hundreds of 
applicants all competing for a spot in 
the 70- to 80-person cohort. But when 
talking to other students who had the 
same dream of attending the Public 
Policy School, it seemed that their 
experiences, grades and accomplish-
ments were much more prestigious 

than mine. And when it was time to 
start my application, I needed to think 
of something that made me different 
from the rest of the applicants. There 
was an easy conclusion: my ethnicity. 
I am a Latino student at the Univer-
sity; I am a part of the mere 6.98% of 
the undergraduate population that is 
Latinx.
Diversity has been proven to be 
beneficial in the classroom. Whether 
it’s ethnicity, socioeconomic class or 
religion that sets individual students 
apart, learning in diverse environ-
ments improves students’ cognitive 
skills and critical thinking. By boost-
ing an individual’s abilities and intel-
lect, diverse classrooms nurture 
further academic success and inno-
vation. More diverse classrooms not 
only make me feel more comfortable, 
but they also create an open space for 
dialogue regarding important issues 
affecting various cultures and ethnici-
ties. I knew my ethnicity would ben-
efit the Public Policy School’s cohort, 
but I did not want to wonder if I had 
only been accepted for the sake of the 
school’s diversity numbers. My impos-
ter syndrome made me feel that my 
experiences and grades would not be 
enough for the acceptance email that 
I’ve been dreaming of since I learned 
about the Public Policy School. 
I had to come to accept that a major-
ity of the students applying, on paper, 
most likely appeared to admissions as 
identical. So many of us are pre-law, 
political science majors waiting on an 
acceptance to the Public Policy School. 
Most of us are politically active and 
involved in related organizations on 
campus, and some of us naively believe 
we can become president one day. Due 
to this, I knew the one place I could 
truly stand out would be in the applica-
tion essays. It felt like the three 300- to 
400-word essays would determine my 
future. 
After filling out basic demographic 
information in the early part of the 
online application, it was finally time 
to view the essay prompts. Unsur-
prisingly, the first one was the staple 
“diversity essay.” 
This year’s prompt started out by 
informing the applicants about how 
research has shown that diverse work 
groups are better at solving problems. 
They noted, however, that working in 
such groups can present considerable 
challenges to students who struggle 
to work with others from different 
backgrounds. The question then asked 
the applicants to write about an expe-
rience working in a diverse setting 
and specifically asked that the essay 
be focused around the challenges of 
working with differences. The final 
part of the prompt questioned the 
applicants to discuss in what ways one 
could improve on how productive and 
respectful they were to others of a dif-
ferent background. 
Though I was expecting at least 
one essay to prompt me about my 

background, this question was the 
most difficult one to write, taking me 
weeks of constant drafting and edit-
ing. I think it’s important for admis-
sions committees to ask questions 
which allow students to vulnerably 
talk about their identities, but when 
it comes to this specific question, it 
seemed that the committee was only 
trying to see how white students have 
been able to interact in diverse set-
tings. Instead of just asking about an 
experience in working in a diverse 
community, they asked about how the 
environment was challenging. After 
rereading the prompt over and over, I 
began to get angry. In what environ-
ment at the University have I had the 
opportunity to even work in a diverse 
setting? To me, this question asked, 
“How, as a person of color, have you 
faced challenges working in a diverse 
environment despite never being in 
one?” I’m almost always one of about 
three Latinx students in 300-person 
lectures, the only person of color in 
discussion sections and one of four 
brown students crossing the entire 
Diag, the center of the University. In 
all of my group projects and breakout 
rooms, I often find myself having to 
settle without having my ideas appre-
ciated, being talked over and feeling 
stupid. I wish I had the opportunity to 
work in a diverse group setting so that 
I could finally be listened to, not doubt-
ed or ignored, but that is simply not the 
reality here at the University. 
I reflected on the final part of the 
aforementioned prompt: “Are there 
things you wish you had done differ-
ently or might do differently in the 
future to work more respectfully and 
productively with people who dif-
fer from you?” No, but this question 
caters to white students who trample 
the minority students at this school, 
creating a welcoming prompt for them 
to ease their way into. When talking 
to older friends in the Public Policy 
School who helped edit my essay, we 
all agreed that this prompt seemed 
to be purposefully phrased so that 
admissions would be able to see which 
white students were “woke” in appre-
ciating diversity and understanding 
its importance. These students are 
obviously necessary for a holistically 
diverse environment, but the ease of 
being able to discuss working with 
people of different backgrounds pro-
vides advantages to white applicants 
over actual students who would con-
tribute to a diverse cohort. I am a 
person of color who has solely been in 
majority-white environments, I could 
not think of a time where I faced a 
challenge working across differences, 
because I have rarely been presented 
with differences in my work environ-
ments. A challenge I have to constant-
ly deal with is not being valued as a 
thinker and student within the class-
room. It’s not my duty to respectfully 
and productively work with students 
who can’t see past my skin color. 

When I sat down with Moon Choe, 

owner and operator of Moon Cafe, a 

Korean restaurant and frozen yogurt 

shop on State Street, for a 40-minute 

interview, I’ll admit I expected some-

thing of a sob story: a few cliché sen-

timents about being down on his luck 

and needing students to stop by so he 

can pay the bills. What I got instead 

was a chance to gain new insights 

on laissez-faire parenting, the subtle 

racism that is a hallmark of the immi-

grant experience and the private 

joys he is able to embrace from the 

COVID-19 pandemic, among other 

topics of discussion. Choe is full of 

surprising wisdom, which he dishes 

out freely, sans condescension.

As soon as you walk in, Moon Cafe 

comforts you. The walls are painted 

yellow and purple, clashing with the 

black-and-white checkerboard floor. 

Large-framed, abstract art prints 

hang on the walls, and the entire 

stretch of a mantel piece is lined with 

small figurines. The eclectic interior 

reminds me of the yummy hole-in-

the-wall eateries my friends and I 

frequented during our high school 

years back at home and immediately 

assuages those requisite nerves I 

feel as a newcomer to the journalism 

scene.

Choe is in his early 60s and, despite 

his gray hair, looks much younger 

than his years. On the afternoon that 

I walk into his shop, he wears wire 

glasses, a yellow University of Michi-

gan hoodie (like the true Michigan 

dad he is) with a few sauce stains, 

comfy sweatpants and padded slides 

with Puma socks. He’s dressed, in 

other words, for a long shift at the res-

taurant. Choe is thoughtful and very 

eloquent. Though he gestures for me 

to take a seat at the booth in front of 

him, he never quite settles into the 

bench facing me. Instead, he hovers 

by it, always ready to take a call or 

hand a customer their order.

I’m caught off guard when Choe 

begins the interview by throwing me 

the first question: he wants to know 

what my position at The Michigan 

Daily is. I tell him I’m a Senior MiC 

Editor, and he nods and replies that 

his daughter, Gina, also used to hold 

a Senior Editor position at The Daily 

during her undergraduate years. In 

our brief conversation, he mentions 

his children’s academic achievements 

several times. I can tell by the way he 

casually namedrops “neuroscience at 

Princeton” that he speaks of his son 

and daughter fondly and often.

Much of Choe’s identity is, in many 

ways, tied to his role as a father and 

husband. Shortly into our conversa-

tion, Choe takes a phone order and 

calls out to the kitchen: “Yeobo? Spicy 

pork!” (Yeobo is a pet name, roughly 

translated from Korean to “darling” 

or “honey.”) Later, she calls him dang-

shin — another sweet term of endear-

ment — when they’re working in the 

kitchen together. While trying to 

put into words what it’s like to work 

with his wife, he chuckles and says, 

“I cannot think of any bad things. 

Just wake up early in the morning, eat 

together — we always eat together … 

there’s no special meaning, we’re just 

married … and then we spend time 

together. That’s it.” The restaurant 

is a two-person operation. Last year, 

they employed a couple U-M students 

part-time, but now, since business is 

slower than usual, it’s just Choe and 

his wife, Yoon, running the cafe.

Choe and Yoon, along with their 

son and daughter, immigrated to 

America from South Korea nearly 15 

years ago and eventually settled in 

Ann Arbor, Mich. During his career, 

Choe worked in the automotive 

industry for 32 years. (His engineer-

ing background shows in the way he 

tends to speak in exact figures, pre-

cise times and percentages.) When 

he retired a couple years back, he 

decided he wanted to take on “fresh 

and new” work. “My (children) grew 

up here in Ann Arbor … so it is our 

town,” he tells me. He decided to open 

a frozen yogurt shop to meet new stu-

dents, and he calls this new job a dif-

ferent type of “good stress.”

The “diversity” question

Moon Cafe and kindness during COVID-19

 HUGO QUINTANA
2021 MiC Columnist

JESSICA KWON
2021 Senior MiC Editor

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