Dear Readers,

It brings me enormous pleasure and great honor to coordinate the publication of IMAGES 2009. I hope that this year’s issue inspires, renews, and reflects insight into a portion of ALANA Center community voices. IMAGES has always celebrated the existence of the oftentimes shrouded cultural “other” within mainstream visual and written cultural discourse. I have been thrilled to participate in such celebration!

The ALANA Center has always drawn me. As an anthropologist, I can never get enough cultural perspective, knowledge, and understanding of human difference. Cultural differences often separate us but they also distinguish us from the greater bunch and help us form our own identities. But it is also important to realize that cultural and ethnic variation are not means by which to be separate. We will only truly co-exist with one another when we cast away social structures such as race, sexual orientation, creed, etc. in the name of true human unity.

During Focus Weekend 2005, I didn’t think that the ALANA Center would end up being a place where much of my time at Vassar would be spent. However, my three years working for the ALANA Center have been quite noteworthy. Through my interactions in the ALANA Center, I have met many great friends and have been involved in and exposed to so much more on campus than I could have ever imagined. Though the road to ALANA fruition at Vassar was difficult, the work that students, administrators, faculty, staff, and friends put into making the ALANA Center what is is today has been more than worth the effort. I am proud to say that I am a current element of such significant beginnings.

My Vassar career and my work within the ALANA Center would not have been possible without the extensive love, support, and encouragement of my closest friends, the Campus Life Office, my family, and many others. I encourage all of you, through reading IMAGES 2009, to always consider contrasting voices, appreciate others, and amicably understand foreign lifeways and frameworks of thought. The sweetest qualities of a human being are often overlooked quickly by simple exterior judgement. As you keep all this in mind, read on, think, profitez... and ENJOY!

Yours,
Frank E. Tate, IV ’09

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