Content Warning: This article contains a reference to anti-Semitic violence. 

“Tara gets shit done!” reads one of Tara Nair’s ’21 several WesCeleb nominations.

It’s possible this is an understatement. Nair is a College of Social Studies (CSS) major and Education Studies minor writing a thesis on the role of education in Singapore’s post-colonial nation-building. Outside of class, Nair is a Center for the Humanities Student Fellow, an Office of Community Service (OCS) Coordinator for the program Julia’s Star, and a former ResLife student worker. Nair recently collaborated with Resource Center Director and Adjunct Instructor of Education Studies Demetrius Colvin to create an education studies class called Decolonizing Education. 

The Argus caught up with Nair on a sunny afternoon outside Olin to find out more about her efforts to reform Wesleyan’s curriculum, her post-grad plans to attend New York University’s (NYU) School of Law, and some of her favorite memories from the past four years. 

A: Can you tell me about what you’re involved with on campus?

TN: What I’ve mostly been involved with the past two years is education equity and reforming the curriculum here. I’ve had some unsuccessful attempts and some successful attempts. I was working with Demetrius [Colvin] in the Resource Center to form a class called Decolonizing Education. That feels like my baby that I’m leaving behind because it’s a culmination of everything I’m interested in. And then senior spring I’m really kind of chilling. Now I’m just focusing on my thesis. 

I’m also working with the CSS right now to talk about Ujamaa’s proposals and figuring out how the CSS can be a better space for people of color. 

A: That’s awesome. Can you talk a little bit more about how you came up with the course Decolonizing Education? 

TN: I proposed it as a student forum, initially. In junior year, I was actually pushing for this global studies minor to be created, sort of in reaction to what I felt was missing at Wesleyan, where we have all these clusters and regional studies, but there isn’t really a formalized plan of studying how our global, colonial, capitalist system functions and how that enforces all these inequalities. I’m originally from Singapore, so it was just very jarring, always being taught that U.S. perspective. I was going through the motions of trying to get a minor approved, and I had spoken to tons of professors about it, many of whom expressed interest, but understandably, a lot of POC professors have a lot on their plate already, and it didn’t really feel like a fair thing to ask them to shoulder the burden. The biggest obstacle of getting stuff approved is making sure there’s a faculty member who can continue with it after you leave. And then when COVID-19 hit, it just stopped being something that felt remotely possible.

But as a compromise for myself, I wanted to teach the student forum based on everything I’ve learned doing this research about how these education institutes in America and other Western countries reify all these unequal hierarchies. I approached Demetrius to just talk about it, and he was like, “I’ll be your advisor.” Over the summer, he got visiting faculty status, which is amazing, and he emailed me again and was like, ‘Hi, I just got faculty status. Are you interested in being my TA? We can make this a formal class.’ And I was like, “Yes, that would be amazing!” Because that’s really what I wanted: institutional continuation. And then we worked together. That was just such a long process that was so rewarding.

A: What were some of the main topics you discussed in that class?

TN: A lot of it was discussing and creating a base of knowledge around terms, like decolonization, decolonization thought, and colonial capitalism. But then we also had a lot of introspective assignments and discussions that really tried to get people to think about their education in relation to what we were reading about. A lot of it was about pedagogy, how teaching practices in and of themselves can be harmful or beneficial to students. I think a lot of the people who take the class are interested in teaching or in working in schools. So that was a focus: How are you, as somebody working in education, going to embody these values?

A: That’s so interesting. You also mentioned that you’re a CSS major. What has that experience been like?

TN: Very weird. I declared CSS as a freshman. Sophomore year was honestly very rough for me, because that experience is so immersive. You see everyone every single day. I like the people and I’m grateful I did it because I think it has helped me a lot. But, I felt really down on myself and out of place. I think that was the height of my imposter syndrome, feeling like I wasn’t connecting with anything I was reading. I often felt like we weren’t allowed to talk about things that were more related to my perspectives, like issues of gender and race. It was sort of alienating, but I think the actual skills I learned in CSS were really helpful even in forming a class, and having the discipline to do something like that, and in applying to law school.

I’m grateful for it almost because it pushed me towards the other end of the things I’m interested in. I was speaking to one of my professors in junior year when we didn’t have to do any CSS classes and I was like, ‘I just feel I don’t know what’s going on and I feel like a fool for not understanding these theorists.’ And she was like, ‘Maybe you don’t understand it because it was never written for you and they never wrote it with someone of your experiences in mind.’ And I was like, ‘You’re correct! I’m not dumb, it’s just when the school was made, they didn’t think of a Singaporean Asian girl as part of the curriculum.’

A: Could you tell me a little bit more about your efforts within CSS to try and make it more inclusive and receptive to Ujamaa’s demands? 

TN: I had a meeting with Alice Swan ’21, who’s on the board of Ujamaa, where we talked about what the demands were and what the obstacles were. It became clear that—also through speaking with the women of color in my major—you can’t just attract underrepresented minorities and then not give any support. After that conversation, I sent an email to the CSS House Committee. I was like, ‘We need to talk about this.’ And we haven’t yet, but I think we’re planning on it. The department also recently hired a [professor of color], which I’ve never had in the CSS. I’ve never had a [professor of color], and I’ve only had one female professor.

I felt like I had to seek that POC mentorship on my own and specifically look for classes, and it kind of ends up where classes in my interest are generally taught by POC. And I was lucky, I love my thesis advisor. She’s the Chair of American Studies, Professor Indira Karamcheti. She’s amazing. And Professor Yu-ting Huang, they’ve been such good support for me outside of the CSS. I’ve also had professors I’ve really loved in the CSS. But in terms of that perspective and feeling understood as a student, I feel like it took me a while to find professors who could give that. 

A: Could you tell me a little bit more about your thesis too, and what the process of writing that has been like? 

TN: My thesis is on the role of education in Singapore’s post-colonial nation-building. I’ve actually loved the process. It’s definitely been really, really difficult, especially because I was doing a lot of the research here, so I could only really access certain archives. I had to change it a lot. Initially, I wanted to do interviews and write it in a more memoir style, which isn’t really a CSS style of writing, but is also kind of impossible during COVID. A lot of people I wanted to interview were elderly and, you know, technology and all of that. So it changed a lot from my initial idea to being more of a general archival history research project, but I’m still really loving the process. And again, I’m so grateful for my advisor, because I know she’s made it as low-stress as it can be. 

And it’s how I realized I did want to continue on with school after undergrad. I never really thought I could be in academia, and I still don’t really know, but now I’m like, that is an option maybe, because it’s just been such a fulfilling process.

A: How did you decide you were interested in going to law school?

TN: I want to work in public interest and in human rights work, and the internships I’ve done in that field—I felt like I wasn’t skilled enough to be taking on things with such a big impact on people’s lives. I’ve done a social work internship, an education advocacy internship, and then I did the University Network for Human Rights classes and human rights training program in Puerto Rico and Louisiana. That was super formative for me because we were on the ground interviewing people, doing archival research, and I was like, ‘Oh, this is actually what the day-to-day looks like.’ Then I decided—May of junior year, which is pretty late—that I was going to start studying for the LSAT.

I felt like law school was a really good way to gain more experience before delving into really big issues. Because one thing a lot of my experiences have taught me is that a lot of the times people who try to help can end up doing more harm, and I felt like I didn’t feel ready to go start working immediately, and it only made sense to get more background and skills.

A: Could you tell me a little bit more about your work for the Office of Community Service (OCS) and Julia’s Star?

TN: My freshman year they were looking for volunteers to help take over Julia’s Star when the previous coordinator Talia Kaplan ’18 left. In 2009, a Jewish student named Johanna Justin-Jinich was murdered on campus by an anti-Semitic person. It was very tragic. But she had written this book about inclusivity and acceptance when she was a kid for other kids. It was about her wearing her Star of David and being a minority and how people reacted to that. So I contacted the coordinator because it sounded like such a powerful project.  Since then, I’ve been working with the OCS to coordinate going into local schools. There are usually two volunteers who go into one classroom of fourth-graders and they read the book and do a little activity. 

We’ve gotten pretty good feedback, but we only were able to do it in person my sophomore year. Last year, we couldn’t do it at all. This year I’m working on digitizing the book. My friend Anna, who’s a really good animator, she’s animating it and I’m hoping to send it out with a little activity pack I’ve been creating. The plan is to integrate it more with other OCS programs. Because it’s a once-a-year event, it’s a little hard for people to commit because it just happens once, and then you kind of forget about it. I’m planning on emailing some of the other programs to see if they want to work together after I graduate so that it continues. 

A: Do you have any favorite memories looking back on your time at Wesleyan?

TN: I’ve had a lot of really lovely memories at Wesleyan. Kind of a random one, but last year on my birthday we were all masked up and everything, but it was just being able to be with everyone outside. My birthday was in October, so I had been alone at home for six months, and then I just got to be here with everyone I loved. That was such a nice experience, and I was so grateful that we were able to come back. Other than that, sitting on Foss, when we finished CSS comps in sophomore year, that was really nice. We were popping champagne. I can’t wait to pop champagne on Olin for my thesis!

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Claire Isenegger can be reached at cisenegger@wesleyan.edu or on Twitter @claireisenegger.