im a WOC and i live/work in southeast idaho. its relatively progressive since its a national lab but its predominantly white. in my division of about 100 people im the only woman of color and i think im the only hijabi in the entire site. its been about a year now and ive really been struggling with this. its exhausting being the only one because i have no one to talk to and the other women engineers dont really understand what its like. any advice on dealing with this? im starting to get burnt out and as much as i love my job im starting to dread it because of how lonely it feels. i cant leave until i graduate from my masters program next summer…
Oof.
INL.
I did a 3 month internship there last summer and it was wild as hell. I played a little game whenever I met new people. Mormon or Navy? Your have to guess which one they are. (They're at least one about 99% of the time!)
I felt so isolated until I met this rad young scientist from Bangladesh, working on her PhD. She was the most open minded person there, and she was a Muslim woman in a head scarf!
We hung out every day and almost fooled ourselves into thinking it would be a nice place to live... Before a truck full of white boys screamed ”sandn*****” at her as we were walking down the road.
Neither of us followed up after our internships.
That place is fucked up. Moral to the story: try to make just one friend. Even a single person can make your life so much better while you're stuck there. Then get outta that awful place. Women and people of color are not safe there.
omg that’s horrible im so sorry ive been lucky in that i haven’t had any experience like that but i do get death stares everywhere i go. but yeah ill definitely try and be more open with my coworkers and try and build on our friendships. thanks! and im sorry you both had to experience that!