Academics, Faculty, and Staff

Bowdoin’s history as an elite, white men’s institution is evident in its lack of representation and its incomplete and sometimes misleading documentation of women professors of color. One of the early professors in the Asian Studies department, Mariko Onuki, was a lecturer in Japanese from 1989 to 1991. She received a bachelor’s degree from Gakushin University in Tokyo, Japan, and she earned her master’s from the University of Illinois. Onuki was a member of the American Council of Foreign Teaching Fellows, and she wanted to teach at a small college where she could prepare her own material, which led her to Bowdoin.

One of the challenges in identifying people of color, specifically Latinx faculty and staff, is that the data is coded according to “race,” and a large number of the self-identified Latinx Bowdoin faculty, staff, and alumni are coded as white. This can lead to assumptions and superficial assignments of individuals to an identity on the basis of their given name, their surname, or even a photo. Inaccurate documentation can lead to the perpetuation of systems of oppression by silencing the voices of people of color.

Mariko Onuki, photograph, circa 1990