‘There’s still a lot of work to do…’
Amalia Julien, Webster Groves High School, Class of 2017, attends St. Louis Community College where she is studying surgical technology. When Julien was seven years old, her family moved from south St. Louis to Webster Groves where she started at Bristol Elementary, and went on to Steger Middle. Now, 21, Julien joined a group of Webster alumni that presented a list of demands to both the school district and the community as a whole. In late July, Richard Weiss spoke with Julien about her experience in Webster. This is an an edited transcript of the interview.
Richard Weiss: Can you tell me just a little bit about how you got going with this? What was it that galvanized you to spring into action? Maybe you were already an activist even before this.
Amalia Julien: I was a little bit. I did some things here and there with using poetry and just started to express those things that were important to me. But I’m friends with one of the organizers and I thought that it would be a good idea for me to reach out and really try to use my voice because I was having a lot of strong emotions about everything happening.
Julien: So both my parents are immigrants. They came here when they were in their teens. My mom is from Mexico and my dad is from Haiti. So both those cultures are very much part of my childhood growing up They’ve always had very strong political leanings, and we were always talking about social issues and staying aware of things in the world. So I think that’s part of what drives me to speak up about these things. I’ve got very vocal parents.
Richard Weiss: How do you identify yourself when people inquire about your race/ethnicity.
Julien:I describe myself as a Black person. And then if I want to explain more, I’m like, well, my background is I’ve got two different ethnicities kind of converging.
Weiss: Describe your experience as a young person in Webster Groves. If you agree that there is systemic racism in the Webster Grove School District, how did it impact you personally?
Julien: I think I didn’t quite start noticing things until maybe when I got to high school. There were certain classes – Advanced Placement classes – where I can remember being maybe one or two people of color within the class. It had always kind of confused me because I knew there were Black kids and there were other kids of color who are smart and who could be in these classes, but for some reason, they weren’t.
Weiss: Did you feel any particular animosity from your teachers or another way of looking at it would be, did you feel like they had lower expectations for you because you were Black?
Julien: I’m not sure about me personally, but I feel like maybe across the board, that is something that comes up. It’s just something is sort of an internal bias that sometimes you really can’t help having.
Weiss: How about so-called microaggressions, anything that you experienced?
Julien: Those were the main things. People would kind of not necessarily pick on me, but they would touch my hair or be very curious in a way that wasn’t, I guess, essential. Sometimes you would hear white kids say the N word a lot of times. It was a sort of commonplace. People weren’t really shocked by it.
Weiss: Yhey wouldn’t be directed at you personally. You would just overhear it?
Julien: Yeah. I would overhear those things.
Weiss: Did you ever report this to teachers saying, You know, this is going on and why don’t you do something about it?
Julien: For me, no. I never actually did. I think I was at that time a little too timid. I was quite a shy high schooler and tried to keep to myself. I now have a stronger voice in saying, “You know what?, Some of those experiences I had were not okay.
Weiss: Your group came up with a list of demands. How many of you got involved with it?
Julien: I think it was about maybe around 10 of us total helped organize, and contacted community leaders to get it all set up.
Weiss: Your group presented a long list of demands. Which are the most important to you?
Julien: Providing instruction around micro aggressions and inclusion because I feel like that’s still something many aren’t aware of especially school age kids. It’s also important to create an environment in schools where students of color feel welcome and where racism and hate isn’t tolerated or swept under the rug.
Weiss: Are you aware that the school board just last week approved creating the position of director of diversity and inclusion?
Julien: I was aware of that. Yes.
Weiss: What do you make of that? I mean, did you feel gratified by the board and administration moving in that direction?
Julien: I feel like it’s a good thing. But I also recognize that there is still a lot of work to do and I just hope that it’s not a stopping point where someone says, “Look, we did this so we can kind of lay back and you can get off our backs.”
