Index of University Press Releases

Feb. 6, 2009

Author: Americans ‘more alike than we are different’

The Daily Republic

Laura Wehde/Republic • Dakota Wesleyan University students and faculty walk the perimeter of campus during a Memory March, a walk to recognize the struggles of people of color and to honor the experiences of African-Americans in the Dakotas. About 25 people participated in the walk.

When she was growing up in rural South Dakota, Betti VanEpps-Taylor recalls, America was widely considered a melting pot.

But even as a child, she realized it truly wasn’t. That moral dilemma bothered her as she passed into adulthood.

“With a melting pot society, we could all forget our differences and just be Americans,” VanEpps-Taylor told a gathering Thursday at Dakota Wesleyan University. “Unfortunately, the Sioux families in our community, or the few African-Americans, or the even fewer Asians and Hispanics never seemed to melt. They just remained indigestible chunks in the stew … the rest of us tried to ignore.”

VanEpps-Taylor, raised in several South Dakota towns, now lives in Idaho and teaches English at the College of Southern Idaho. The author of “Forgotten Lives: African- Americans in South Dakota,” she was the featured speaker at the event, which was organized by the college’s Multicultural Committee and designed to recognize the struggles and experiences of blacks in the Dakotas. The event was held during Black History Month.

Following her speech, a dozen people — among them students and staff — participated in a “Memory March” around the campus.

Along with her job as a college instructor, VanEpps-Taylor also is an independent scholar, speaker and writer on black history and culture. Her speech Thursday intertwined memories of growing up in South Dakota with the struggles some people have recognizing minorities as friends and fellow Americans.

She discussed a rural South Dakota icon —fences — and how fences can be emblematic of some race relations.

“Fences can be a great conversation starter,” she said. “Whether it’s a matter of farming vs. open-range grazing, or my yard vs. your yard, or my side of town vs. yours — which is of course across the tracks — or my country vs. your country … humanity does love to segregate itself. A lot of times, that may be for good reasons, and a lot of times, it may be worth revisiting.”

She said it’s important for people of all races to remember that “we are more alike than we are different.”

The early part of her speech led to her memories of living as a child in the great “melting pot,” the popular metaphor used to describe the intermingling of immigrants from many countries who coursed across the United States’ borders over the past century.

The parents of VanEpps-Taylor’s classmates came from many European lands, but were overwhelmingly white. The melting pot, she noticed, seemed to only apply to those who looked alike.

“The question that was never asked, at least in my circle, was ‘Where do you fit in and how do you feel about it?’ ” she said. “We just assumed we were all Americans and that was that. The fact that those folks might have seen it differently wasn’t something that we ever considered.”

That “haunted” her, she said, and it led her to eventually become a speaker and author on black relations.

VanEpps-Taylor was the perfect choice as speaker at Thursday’s event, said Anne Kelly, associate professor of psychology at DWU and an event organizer.

“We were looking for ways to celebrate other cultures and the way other cultures, particularly African Americans, have contributed to our country as a whole,” Kelly said. “Her work experiences have related so directly to the topic.”

She said VanEpps-Taylor’s speech “really gave us an opportunity for reflection about what each of us contributes to society as a whole, and the value of each person’s contributions and each culture’s contributions.”