By Justin Fox, Staff Writer
On Friday afternoon in the CUB Junction, Allison Pitinii Davis, a professor of poetry at The Ohio State University, presented selections of her poetry along with thoughts for discussion on the first-generation college student experience. Students and staff, some of whom also live the first-generation life, gathered to hear her insight and share ideas on purposes that must be fulfilled by those who are the first of their family to go to college or enter professional settings.
In her opening, Pitinii Davis shared her personal background of being in a family that owned a trucking motel and a laundry in Northwest Ohio. She recalled the very specific occurrences of these places and noted how dear those memories are to her. The seemingly mundane parts of operating a trucking motel, such as preparing rooms and labeling beer cans, were rather significant learning experiences for Pitinii Davis.
(By Audrey Blaszak/The Gettysburgian)
Part of the learning also came from the stories that visitors would tell. The front desk of her family’s motel was met with people who just wanted to talk after long days of driving and without cell phones. She considers herself fortunate to have been able to be around this storytelling and share it through her poetry, which also stands for how she wants to present the genre as an accessible medium that can represent all social classes. “It’s so important to bring poetry down,” she said. “I think that’s really important to make it accessible.”
Pitinii Davis read excerpts from her collection “Line Study of a Hotel Clerk.” The poem “Greetings from Across the Counter” spoke to intergenerational work and the blending of lifestyle between family members and other individuals. “Inheritance,” inspired by the work of poet Charles Reznikoff, is about that lifestyle being passed down from one generation to the next. It simultaneously explored how the younger generations “inherit the sweat” of the lifestyle and document activity, thus is the necessity of having a “keeper of language.”
Following Pintinii Davis’s reading of her work, Mauricio Novoa, Associate Director of the College’s Office of Multicultural Engagement, read the poem “Callouses” from his own poetry collection, “Memorias from the Beltway.” The poem followed his mother’s life balancing work in hotel housekeeping and caring for her sons, with the callouses of both the mother and the boys symbolizing different aspects of their life.
(By Audrey Blaszak/The Gettysburgian)
The readings followed an in-depth discussion between Pitinii Davis and college community members, in which several participants shared the backgrounds of their own first-generation lives. They commented on several challenges they have faced, one of which being the pressure to succeed and give support to their families after graduating, and how they use their own ambition to lead a meaningful life. Many of those who spoke also commented on code-switching, or the tendency to “perform a different class than the class you came from,” as Pintinii Davis put it. Code-switching is the suppression of identity done as a result of feeling a need to fit in. However, there is hope that these barriers will be broken and the struggle will lighten.
(By Audrey Blaszak/The Gettysburgian)
Two student-employees from the Office of Multicultural Engagement relayed what spoke to them most about the reading and discussion. “What stood out to me the most was the disparities in first-gen itself,” said Ashley Vizhnay Jimenez ’27 “It’s really beautiful to see that there’s a variety of what first-gen means for people.”
Angelin Segura ’27 said “I loved seeing the conversation continue outside of just the office… It was important to have this conversation and see how we all look different.”
Pinitnii Davis wanted to leave listeners with the reminder that colleges are lucky to have diversity and must embrace it and learn that diversity is the best attribute a campus can have.
