Eight student groups host first Tunnel of Oppression

By Gina Belmonte

Eerie whispers will express remorse in the darkness, sexist catcalls will bark loudly at passersby and startling images of sexual assault victims will stare students in the face as they make their way through a winding, in-your-face course of multi-media displays.

Sounds and images of social injustice will confront students head-on during this weekend's student-run event in the Benson Parlors. Friday through Sunday, Santa Clara will be hosting its first Tunnel of Oppression, a college event produced by universities across the nation aimed at exposing different types of oppression by providing students a first-hand sensory experience.

Eight student groups collaborated to bring the event to Santa Clara and tackle the issues of racism, sexism, homophobia, sexual assault and domestic abuse, body image pressures, and the suppression of an artistic education. The contributors divided Benson Parlors into several sections, each group representing a specific theme and making use of different kinds of media to produce an effect on the audience.

Upon entering the simulated tunnel constructed of pipe frames and draping, visitors will hear through the darkness the voiced-over guilty confessions of cheeseburger eaters in the first room, put together by the campus Peer Health Educators.

Floor-length mirrors, scales and displays of food's caloric content sprawled out left and right force students to scrutinize their physique and eating habits in the first room focused on media-perpetuated body-image pressures.

Post-its on a refrigerator remind participants to avoid the carbohydrate-ridden cookie and do 800 crunches instead, said Peer Health Educator Andrea Carlo. The display's goal is to portray how happiness and health are suppressed by the society-driven obsession to attain the perfect body, Carlo said.

The first room's pictures of bikini-clad models will then be replaced by simulated kitchen and domestic appliances in the room displaying sexism. Voiced-over catcalls and sexist jokes will spew out as students pass through the section prepared by Feminists United.

Next, students must dodge life-size cutouts of shadowy figures as they are forced to pass in a single-file line through a narrower tunnel lined with shocking statistics of sexual assault and domestic abuse, said Jessica Rice, a member of Every Two Minutes, a sexual assault prevention and education group.

At the end of the room constructed by Every Two Minutes and the male counterpart of the group, 1 in 4, visitors will encounter an area designated for purple ribbons -- the campaign color against sexual and domestic abuse -- on which students may wish to write down a personal experience or remark to show a connection to a victim of sexual assault.

Also striving for student interaction, homosexual support group Fine by Me and the Gay and Straight People for the Education of Diversity distribute in their assigned room a "straight questionnaire." The tables are turned as students fill out a form with questions usually geared at homosexuals, but with a twist, such as: "When did you find out you were straight?"

Bombarding students with overwhelming facts and figures about hate crimes and anti-same-sex laws, articles reporting discriminatory killings and profiles of fundamentalists who campaign against tolerance, Fine by Me hopes to capture the animosity toward homosexual and transgender citizens as they continuously struggle to attain equal civil rights, said group member Nick Sanchez.

The next room, created by the Justice and the Arts Initiative, aims to improve student appreciation of the arts by showing the effects of the deprivation of a basic artistic education. The goal is to show how much art contributes to one's development of imagination and other intellectual skills, said Erin De Martini, a member of the organization. The display will include different levels of artistic achievement, with sample work ranging from kindergarten to master works by Van Gogh and Degas. These professional works will be bordered off with barriers to represent what's unattainable without the elementary levels of art education.

Finally, the Multicultural Center will portray racism in reference to current events such as the Jena Six incident, in which nooses were hung on a tree known as a white hangout spot after a group of black students sat underneath. The display also features coverage on an event closer to home in a short video on the aftermath and controversy surrounding last year's south of the border theme party.

Like other Tunnel of Oppression events, Santa Clara's includes a debriefing session at the tunnel's end for students to discuss reactions and view various resources, including places to get help if experiencing these types of oppression, and movements students can join.

Unique to Santa Clara's Tunnel of Oppression is a "tunnel of hope," organized by Santa Clarans 4 Social Justice, that will lead the way to the debriefing room decorated with images of student efforts to combat oppression. Among the positive images are pictures of "Safe Space" stickers on Santa Clara office doors and students comfortable with their body image posing in their underwear.

"With the exhibit ending in the tunnel of hope, the lasting impact will be that there's a way for change, and students will see how change is happening on campus and where," said SC4SJ leader Annie Murphy-Hagan.

Originating in the residence halls of Western Illinois University, the Tunnel of Oppression is loosely based off the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, which houses exhibits on the Holocaust, the struggle for civil rights and human rights violations. Institutions like Pacific University in Oregon, University of Arizona and San Jose State annually participate in a Tunnel of Oppression, each choosing the themes that best suit its own campus environment.

Santa Clara's tunnel has been in the making since the 2007 winter quarter. What started as an idea for a residence hall activity grew to a campus event with the effort of students Elizabeth Iten, Laura Brown, Krista Frankovic and the support of several campus departments.

The idea for a tunnel of oppression sprang from Resident Learning Community advisor Jeremy Wang, who participated in a Tunnel of Oppression event at San Jose State University during his graduate studies. Wang came to Santa Clara last January, around the time of the south of the border theme party on Jan. 31, and it seemed to click that the tunnel would be a great event to host at Santa Clara, he said.

Wang spoke to Xavier RLC Resident Director David Daniels, who presented the idea to then-Community Facilitator Elizabeth Iten. After Iten did research on the event in other universities and realized how big it was, she sought support from the Housing and Residence Life office, the Office of Student Life and the Office of Multicultural Learning to execute the idea for a campus-wide event. The campus departments helped reserve the rooms and offered some financial support. But for the most part, the tunnel has been a student-initiated event organized by Iten, Brown and Frankovic, who reached out to peer organizations and clubs.

"Getting the clubs to collaborate was probably the hardest part of the process," said Iten. "A lot of clubs never responded, and many just didn't have time commitment," she said.

The few who did and were committed have successfully come together to create what will hopefully provide students an opportunity for reflection, she said.

"Our goal is to provide students, faculty and staff exposure to the reality that so many people live in, and maybe even inspire a drive for change," said Iten.

Contact Gina Belmonte at (408) 554-4546 or gbelmonte@scu.edu.