Since the Donald Trump election victory, I have spoken to hundreds of students in my UCLA identity community. Most have expressed severe distress, telling me of their anxieties about the future. Young women and men seeking to work for environmental change, for racial and gender justice, or to pursue creative careers in the arts have been disheartened by Trump’s retrograde actions and appointments and his sexist, racist, and xenophobic rhetoric before and since his inauguration.
I share these reactions entirely. But these conversations have taken a far grimmer turn when I discuss Trump and his policies with DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) students, Muslim students, and others whose anxieties are more immediate and more intimately personal. Some examples are distressingly revealing about the state of anxiety at UCLA and probably hundreds of American college and university campuses.
Regularly, I hear about students, siblings, and parents who may soon...
