Tracing Hopes of Racist-Free and Multicultural-Friendly Campuses: A Phenomenological Exploration on the Lived Experiences of Blacks in the National Capital Region Universities (Philippines)

In the Philippine campuses nowadays, the presence of foreign students is a common sight, making our academic communities one of the most culturally diverse universities in the world. This requires us to provide necessary local environment appropriate and ready to attend to multicultural sensitivities. Thus the research aimed to look at how well-prepared Philippine universities are in terms of having multi-cultural friendly campuses. Through in-depth interviews and phenomenological method, the researcher explored the lived experiences of Black African students in their respective campuses. The results showed that (a) the participants’ decision to study in the Philippines was based on factors such as the hassle-less application process, cheaper yet of quality education and the image of Filipinos as being friendly and kind (b) the common, though very light, concern was not racism nor discrimination, but speaking in the local language in their presence made them feel sometimes isolated or insulted and (c) that racism and discrimination against blacks were not an institutional reality, though unfriendly encounters with Filipinos were also recorded, those were not seen as serious cases of racist behavior.The study suggested that since blacks’ experiences are generally devoid of racism and discrimination, school administrations do not tend to formulate explicit policies and enough activities to ensure racist- free campuses and inter-cultural inclusiveness among Filipinos and the blacks. In any case, the black students were determined to obtain their degrees here no matter what and such a goal was made easier because of the kind of tertiary academic communities their respective schools offer.

Keywords–Black Africans, Philippine Universities, Racism