While on Nov. 6 Americans across the 50 states woke up with a variety of feelings about what a second Trump presidency meant for their country’s future, people across the world are wondering what it means for their own.
International students in the United States are thinking about the results of the election in a different way. Though they are unable to vote, many followed the campaign trail of both candidates closely.
“I was invested in the election because most international students who come to America to study also plan to work here after their studies. All politics in this country will have some sort of effect on me,” said Hannah Goeke, a sophomore journalism student from Germany.
In 2022, 16% of first-year students at Emerson were international students—almost triple the national average percentage.
With Trump set to take office in January, international students are getting increasingly worried about the president-elect’s anti-foreigner sentiment. After seeing the election results, Noah Thibault, a freshman journalism student from Qatar, is considering canceling a trip to Florida to visit his girlfriend in the spring.
“Even traveling inside the country, I know that racism is going to increase a lot in so many states. I’m really worried. My mom even told me, ‘There’s a chance you might get deported,’” he said.
Thibault is not alone. In their interviews with The Beacon, all of the international students expressed fear about what a Trump presidency meant for their ability to study and live comfortably in the United States.
“I’m worried about my safety,” said Qinlei Li, a sophomore journalism student from Sichuan, China. “I’m really worried that there’s many people that would do something bad because of Trump that will interfere with our life. I just want to graduate and go back to my country.”
Li also worries about Trump’s foreign policies—especially his relationship with China. She believes the U.S. and China’s relationship will “undoubtedly get worse and worse.”
“[Trump] will build America by inhibiting the development of other countries. Although there are 200 countries in this world, all of us are human so we should help each other. But Trump doesn’t think that,” she said.
Students like Li and Thibault have reason to fear increased anti-immigrant violence.
FBI crime statistics showed that in the year following Trump’s election in November 2016, hate crimes spiked abnormally.
It was the second-largest spike in hate crimes since the FBI started collecting hate crime data in 1990, second only to the uptick in attacks after 9/11 in 2001.
“It’s just not very hopeful to look at the situation in the U.S. I start thinking, ‘What is my place here, really? What do people who voted for Trump think of people like me?’” said Miguel Nieves, a visual media arts student from Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico, the largest and most populous territory of the United States, became the center of attention in the final week of Trump’s campaign, when comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, a speaker at Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 27, called the territory a “floating island of garbage.”
“It makes us angry because here you have this person on a huge platform saying these things about us, face nothing in terms of punishment or being reprimanded, and then the candidate who had him on his platform is suddenly elected [president],” said Nieves.
Ali Alatas, a junior VMA major, empathizes with Emerson students who feel devastated by the election results, because like them, he was hopeful the latest election in his home country of Turkey would bring about change.
Through organizing with the leftist party during Turkey’s last election in May 2023, Alatas volunteered to watch the counting of ballots in his local polling places to make sure every vote was counted. Still, conservative president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was re-elected.
“I was so hopeful. Then we lost. And I think I cried that night because you expect to win when everyone surrounding you is supporting the same goal. It was a shocker,” Alatas said.
Diya Garg came to Emerson to study VMA from Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. Originally from India, Garg is one of the first women in her family to receive a higher education, the first to do so in the United States.
“Now earlier it was sure, I’m here to study, I can get along with my day,” Garg said. “Under Trump’s administration, I feel like the bullies will have so much more freedom to do whatever they want and get away with it. And that just scares me.”
Garg explained that she is also worried about Trump’s ability to conduct himself as the leader of the United States in international relations.
“Trump’s presidency is going to affect a lot of other countries, but he only thinks about what’s benefiting him,” Garg said. “He cares for the people who align with his values and that’s it, which is a very harmful stance to take, especially in a world like this where hate is so easily spread.”
Rodrigo Bueno Lacy is originally from Mexico City, but has lived in the Netherlands for 14 years. At Kasteel Well, Emerson’s campus in Limburg, he teaches a class on migration, anthropology, and the formation of the European identity.
He explained that for the European political class, Kamala Harris represented a “more predictable partner to negotiate with.”
“[During his first presidency] there was an unpredictability to Trump on many issues that Europeans were used to not worry about. For example, [U.S.] support of NATO that had always been unwavering changed with Trump,” said Bueno Lacy.
Since Election Day, European nations have already started preparing for the uncertain years ahead.
“We must not delegate forever our security to America,” French President Emmanuel Macron said at a European summit on Thursday.
“[Donald Trump] will defend the interests of Americans,” he said. “The question is are we prepared to defend the interests of Europeans?”
Through the heartbreak and division this election cycle has sewn, Bueno Lacy is encouraging people to try to empathize with Trump voters and seek out unity.
“I think the problem is that people are learning to see one another as part of boxes that do not have [a] connection with one another. Of course that is not true. Anthropologically, we’re all the same,” said Bueno Lacy.
“If you want to change things, if you do not want people like Trump to come to power, you need to understand why people vote for them,” he added.
