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Key points
- In the U.S., the term “first-generation student” refers to anyone who is the first in their family to attend college.
- Zero-generation students look and talk differently, because they are not just from another country but usually from a different continent.
- Zero-generation students share many of the same problems as first-generation students—but more.
- The struggle for zero-generation students begins the moment they step onto U.S. soil.
Coauthored with Edwin Banks
Picture the typical American college campus.
Whether public or private, research or liberal art, community college or four-year university, you likely conjure images of fresh minds full of promise—young and bright, anxious but hopeful. You might envision lush green lawns with immaculate landscaping. Or tall brick buildings of neoclassical architecture with steep steps leading to the higher education they promise in classrooms, libraries, lecture halls, and student centers. They are places teeming with life—professors and students zipping by, loaded with books and backpacks.
Here, ambition, determination, and initiative are at a premium, proving anything is possible. In this light, one hopes their campus is synonymous with forward thinking, where progressive ideas are born and developed, leading society to overcome archaic beliefs and barriers.
Unfortunately, not everyone shares the same experience. Foreign students—who are studying abroad in the U.S. and who are frequently mislabeled as first-generation students—oftentimes encounter the opposite.
In the United States, the term “first-generation student” refers to anyone who is the first in their family to attend college. Therefore, they navigate the process without the benefit of experiential knowledge—a guiding voice to offer advice, knowledge of what services to seek, or warning of potential pitfalls. Yet even without a parent’s previous experience in college, a first-generation student enjoys many advantages: no language or cultural barriers, familiarity with American classrooms, and proximity to loved ones without the obstruction of national borders.
Conversely, zero-generation students look and talk differently because they are not just from another country but usually from a different continent. Their body language is neither recognized nor understood. Their people or customs are stereotyped in popular culture, sometimes even mocked. English is not their native language; no matter how hard they try, certain words and phrases escape the efficiency of their tongue because their primary language is vastly different, based on unique rhythms, sounds, and syllables. These disparities create an ingrained sense of otherness, and no matter how hard they try to assimilate, they feel permanently cast as outsiders.
At times, it seems that to American students, zero-generation students are all Raj from the Big Bang Theory—a lovable, but a tokenized caricature of all foreign students. At first, in the early years of the show, Raj was a hero. In a nation whose culture resisted depicting foreign people of color in substantive roles, Raj was a relatable figure: he was far from home, trying to blend in while reconciling a distinct sense of otherness. But he was also a source of shame and frustration, as the show exploited his stereotypical trope in ways that are now universally recognized as textbook racism: regularly poking fun at his native culture, accent, and skin color, and taking every opportunity to make him the butt of a joke.
Raj’s inability to talk to women for most of the series resonated with zero-generation students—whose dating experiences are often complicated by trauma—because it translated directly to their romantic experience. In this case, situational comedy did not only borrow from real life but, in turn, influenced it—a perpetually troubling cycle.
Zero-generation students share many of the same problems as first-generation students—but more. First-generation students are American citizens, so they do not struggle with ongoing legal complications, such as unstable immigration status. First-generation students are native speakers of English, so they do not struggle with the language, which often makes course material even more difficult to comprehend. First-generation students are initiated in American culture since birth, so they understand how American social structures function, where they fit in, and how to navigate them. In each of these circumstances, zero-generation students are at a natural disadvantage, which exasperates an already difficult experience.
The struggle for zero-gen begins the moment they step off a plane onto U.S. soil. Many of them hail from environments swamped with poverty, war, and trauma, so they are excited to arrive. But then they encounter customs and security officials who may treat them as though they are unintelligent because they are not proficient with the language or need translators to negotiate the process.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) then scrutinize them more closely depending on their country of origin as though they pose some sort of threat, all before they even set foot on campus. From that point forward, the border always lingers, as though an invisible fence separates them from their peers. In this circumstance, they are expected to thrive as scholars in a new language and culture, while feeling as if they always have to explain themselves.
While many colleges and universities have implemented services to bridge the divide, most still address the issue as one for first-generation students, without understanding there is a deeper predicament faced by a significant portion of the student body—the zero-generation students.
Edwin Banks is an MFA candidate at the University of Minnesota.
