so my parents came to this country from
Pakistan not speaking a word of English
and they really did not had any idea how
the education system worked here as the
oldest child I became kind of the
experiment of the family figuring out
ways how to go about trial and error and
how to get about the school system here
in America now in third grade my my
teacher gave us a project of on
Penguin’s and I did not know what a
project really meant I took it home to
my parents and they were just as
confused as I was so we went to our
local library I sat down on the computer
and I typed in penguin one letter at a
time
in the search engine the first result
that came up was a Wikipedia page and on
it there were pictures and a great big
article on what penguins were so I
printed it out wrote my name on top and
handed it in now the reason I tell you
this story is because I had many
experiences just like that being a child
of immigrant parents who really didn’t
know the education system here I took
that experience and took the identity of
being a child of immigrant parents along
with me through many parts of my life in
high school I kind of figured out a
little more when I was applying and my
parents really didn’t know what it meant
to go to high school
same thing for college when I grew up in
Chicago diversity was all around me and
people were different and similar to me
so I really didn’t see that much of my
identity sticking out I started to
notice when I came to a school somewhere
in the middle of Ohio now
Denison University is a great school but
this is where I actually have started to
learn my how my how much my identity
really matters because my identity
contributes to the diversity we have on
campus at first I didn’t think that was
such a big deal but when I started to
look at the bigger picture of the United
States and how we have diversity in
every aspect of life race politic
opinions political opinions religion my
skin color my hair texture I started to
notice that we haven’t really been
taking advantage of the diversity the
way we should
so this is where my idea for pluralism
came about because I really wanted to
explore how do we go ahead and engage
the diversity that we have on campus and
worldwide the topic of pluralism came to
me from a role model of mine Prince had
prince highness
sorry His Highness Prince Ali Khan who
is elite a religious leader for 15
million people across the across the
world called his smiley Nazari Muslims
they are a small sect of Shia Muslims
including myself now aside from being a
religious leader Prince agakhan he has
developed many nonprofits including for
higher education education in the
third-world countries a disaster relief
and things like that so I really knew
this guy had a lot in him when he was
talking about pluralism and I wanted to
do more research on it and in 2006
Prince AVI Khan worked with the
Government of Canada to create the
global Center for pluralism in which he
incorporated working together and
fostering a nation hood and of all
people with race participation and being
together in a different way and I really
thought this was really interesting
because we often look at our identities
different from one another we seclude
ourselves because of our different
identities and we find ourselves within
different groups and although we
encourage people like hey look we have a
diversity on campus and it’s a great
thing we really don’t find ourselves
contributing to the engagement of it so
what I found were four points that
Harvard University came up with to kind
of talk about pluralism today and I’m
gonna be using those to kind of foster
my talk around the first one is an
energetic engagement with diversity
basically what this means is that we
know different races exist we know
different religions exist now it’s time
to kind of build those bridges and
figure out how we understand one another
a great example of this would be on
campus so we know that we have so many
great organizations across campus and a
lot of times we find collaborations that
come up with creative
you know it’s really well attended by
your student body and everyone really
likes attending them just in general but
have you guys noticed how many times the
same couple organizations collaborate
with one another it’s not a bad thing
it’s actually a really good thing that
we have collaborations but we don’t
often see different kinds of groups
interacting with one another and that’s
what that’s what the engagement with
diversity is just try to reach out to
different groups who are nothing like
you and this is why I’m kind of talking
about it in Denison’s terms because it’s
harder to kind of realize it in bigger
terms when we come to when we think of
maybe like a whole country like the
United States like how do we actively
reach across to people but that that
kind of comes across in my next point
which is active seeking of understanding
across lines of differences take for
example the refugee crisis that we are
seeing in our society today well it is
very evident that people have their
specific views on if they should or
should not be allowed into our country
and they have really valid points for
that for example people believe that
their family needs to be safe feel safer
and if we have people who we don’t know
from a different country come that that
safety is kind of compromised but if you
take a look at the understanding across
the lines of differences you see that
the people on the other side want the
exact same thing they want their family
members to be safe they want their
children to be safe but when we think of
it in terms of individual we really
don’t think about how they want the same
thing so that’s where the active
understanding across lines of
differences comes in my third point is
encounter of commitments this pretty
much means that you are not changing who
you are you are not changing your
identity just to understand someone else
of a different identity a really good
example of this is in Egypt 2013 when
there are lots of crimes going on
against religion there were Christian
men being attacked by Muslims and Muslim
men being attacked by Christians so a
picture in 2013 went viral of Muslim man
holding hands outside of a church while
Christians prayed inside now you see
like they but they both have different
religions and a lot of times they don’t
seem to understand
on one another and a lot of violence is
speculated in that term but we still see
this really great picture going viral
because it is that seeking of
understanding and understanding that hey
they have the same point they want to
pray they want some peace in mind so why
don’t we help our brothers out and the
similar similar thing was reciprocated
when Christian men stood outside a
mosque one day while the Muslims prayed
the last point that Harvard University
seeked out was based on dialogue now
this is a little crucial point because
when we think of dialogue we think of
speaking but often times we forget that
dialogue is also listening and this is
where it’s really important when we
think of pluralism because pluralism is
the act of coexisting and understanding
if you’re not in the room trying to
solve a problem how are we ever going to
find a solution even if you don’t agree
with it the active participation of
being in the room to find out what’s
going on who it is even if you don’t
agree with it is the first step to
solving the problem now in in the end
what I’m really thinking about
immigration and my parents I know that
my identities play such a big role when
it comes to diversity but how can I be
comfortable with my identity if I’m not
getting the same comfort and if I’m not
getting the same acceptance from other
members what I really want to point out
today is that coexisting with other
people does not mean that you have to
change who you are and that’s what
pluralism is all about I know my talk is
a little short but that’s all I have to
say thank you
[Applause]
Pakistan not speaking a word of English
and they really did not had any idea how
the education system worked here as the
oldest child I became kind of the
experiment of the family figuring out
ways how to go about trial and error and
how to get about the school system here
in America now in third grade my my
teacher gave us a project of on
Penguin’s and I did not know what a
project really meant I took it home to
my parents and they were just as
confused as I was so we went to our
local library I sat down on the computer
and I typed in penguin one letter at a
time
in the search engine the first result
that came up was a Wikipedia page and on
it there were pictures and a great big
article on what penguins were so I
printed it out wrote my name on top and
handed it in now the reason I tell you
this story is because I had many
experiences just like that being a child
of immigrant parents who really didn’t
know the education system here I took
that experience and took the identity of
being a child of immigrant parents along
with me through many parts of my life in
high school I kind of figured out a
little more when I was applying and my
parents really didn’t know what it meant
to go to high school
same thing for college when I grew up in
Chicago diversity was all around me and
people were different and similar to me
so I really didn’t see that much of my
identity sticking out I started to
notice when I came to a school somewhere
in the middle of Ohio now
Denison University is a great school but
this is where I actually have started to
learn my how my how much my identity
really matters because my identity
contributes to the diversity we have on
campus at first I didn’t think that was
such a big deal but when I started to
look at the bigger picture of the United
States and how we have diversity in
every aspect of life race politic
opinions political opinions religion my
skin color my hair texture I started to
notice that we haven’t really been
taking advantage of the diversity the
way we should
so this is where my idea for pluralism
came about because I really wanted to
explore how do we go ahead and engage
the diversity that we have on campus and
worldwide the topic of pluralism came to
me from a role model of mine Prince had
prince highness
sorry His Highness Prince Ali Khan who
is elite a religious leader for 15
million people across the across the
world called his smiley Nazari Muslims
they are a small sect of Shia Muslims
including myself now aside from being a
religious leader Prince agakhan he has
developed many nonprofits including for
higher education education in the
third-world countries a disaster relief
and things like that so I really knew
this guy had a lot in him when he was
talking about pluralism and I wanted to
do more research on it and in 2006
Prince AVI Khan worked with the
Government of Canada to create the
global Center for pluralism in which he
incorporated working together and
fostering a nation hood and of all
people with race participation and being
together in a different way and I really
thought this was really interesting
because we often look at our identities
different from one another we seclude
ourselves because of our different
identities and we find ourselves within
different groups and although we
encourage people like hey look we have a
diversity on campus and it’s a great
thing we really don’t find ourselves
contributing to the engagement of it so
what I found were four points that
Harvard University came up with to kind
of talk about pluralism today and I’m
gonna be using those to kind of foster
my talk around the first one is an
energetic engagement with diversity
basically what this means is that we
know different races exist we know
different religions exist now it’s time
to kind of build those bridges and
figure out how we understand one another
a great example of this would be on
campus so we know that we have so many
great organizations across campus and a
lot of times we find collaborations that
come up with creative
you know it’s really well attended by
your student body and everyone really
likes attending them just in general but
have you guys noticed how many times the
same couple organizations collaborate
with one another it’s not a bad thing
it’s actually a really good thing that
we have collaborations but we don’t
often see different kinds of groups
interacting with one another and that’s
what that’s what the engagement with
diversity is just try to reach out to
different groups who are nothing like
you and this is why I’m kind of talking
about it in Denison’s terms because it’s
harder to kind of realize it in bigger
terms when we come to when we think of
maybe like a whole country like the
United States like how do we actively
reach across to people but that that
kind of comes across in my next point
which is active seeking of understanding
across lines of differences take for
example the refugee crisis that we are
seeing in our society today well it is
very evident that people have their
specific views on if they should or
should not be allowed into our country
and they have really valid points for
that for example people believe that
their family needs to be safe feel safer
and if we have people who we don’t know
from a different country come that that
safety is kind of compromised but if you
take a look at the understanding across
the lines of differences you see that
the people on the other side want the
exact same thing they want their family
members to be safe they want their
children to be safe but when we think of
it in terms of individual we really
don’t think about how they want the same
thing so that’s where the active
understanding across lines of
differences comes in my third point is
encounter of commitments this pretty
much means that you are not changing who
you are you are not changing your
identity just to understand someone else
of a different identity a really good
example of this is in Egypt 2013 when
there are lots of crimes going on
against religion there were Christian
men being attacked by Muslims and Muslim
men being attacked by Christians so a
picture in 2013 went viral of Muslim man
holding hands outside of a church while
Christians prayed inside now you see
like they but they both have different
religions and a lot of times they don’t
seem to understand
on one another and a lot of violence is
speculated in that term but we still see
this really great picture going viral
because it is that seeking of
understanding and understanding that hey
they have the same point they want to
pray they want some peace in mind so why
don’t we help our brothers out and the
similar similar thing was reciprocated
when Christian men stood outside a
mosque one day while the Muslims prayed
the last point that Harvard University
seeked out was based on dialogue now
this is a little crucial point because
when we think of dialogue we think of
speaking but often times we forget that
dialogue is also listening and this is
where it’s really important when we
think of pluralism because pluralism is
the act of coexisting and understanding
if you’re not in the room trying to
solve a problem how are we ever going to
find a solution even if you don’t agree
with it the active participation of
being in the room to find out what’s
going on who it is even if you don’t
agree with it is the first step to
solving the problem now in in the end
what I’m really thinking about
immigration and my parents I know that
my identities play such a big role when
it comes to diversity but how can I be
comfortable with my identity if I’m not
getting the same comfort and if I’m not
getting the same acceptance from other
members what I really want to point out
today is that coexisting with other
people does not mean that you have to
change who you are and that’s what
pluralism is all about I know my talk is
a little short but that’s all I have to
say thank you
[Applause]
Please follow and like us: