By Emily Nixon
On Feb. 25, the Bangladesh Student Association (BSA) held the grand reopening of its clubroom in the West End Building (WEB). The clubroom, room 135, has been with BSA since the club’s founding in 2019 and has been passed down to new members since the e-board changes.
“We’ve had the room since 2019,” said BSA Vice President Raisa Jereen. “It’s kinda just been passing on to us.”
“We are basically all about spreading the culture of Bangladesh to the BC community, and a lot of our events, even though we try to highlight mainly Bangladeshi culture, we get a lot of people from all different countries and ethnicities who like to come and support and enjoy our few events,” said Jereen. “So, we try to emphasize different cultural events and highlight our culture.”
BSA advocates the importance of representation and creating a voice for marginalized communities.
“For BC, I feel like another reason why we have the BSA is […] because to know that the students in BC, the Bengali students, they will have a place to be, to have something – that representation when it comes to minority countries like Bangladesh,” said Marowa Begum, social media assistant manager of BSA. “We’re spreading more awareness, and our club is getting more popular. […] I feel like it is more for them […] than it is for us.”
Creating community is the driving force behind the BSA’s actions, from their club directives to their cultural values.
“With these smaller events, we’ve been having, like Adda Nights for the past few semesters now, is to introduce BSA and […] just create more friends and more people and welcome them to the community,” said Begum.
BSA also intends to collaborate with other BC organizations to unify the community around them.
“We’re gonna collab with MSA [Muslim Students Association] and other clubs as well,” said Shabrin Juthi, BSA secretary. BSA’s events, past and present, usually align with Bangladesh and Muslim holidays and their respective values.
“This event is basically to hang out. It’s very common in Bangladesh, in Bangladeshi culture, to have ‘Adda,’” said BSA co-president Faria Prova. “It’s a simple hang out, nothing crazy, nothing fancy, just to get together more.”
The words themselves hold more meaning than meets the eye.
“‘Adda Shadda’ means just to have fun. It’s a very loose [translation],” said Eva Chowdhury, a self-proclaimed cheerleader for BSA. “We’re [Bangladeshi] very much people that go with the flow. We like to rhyme the words. We change the words to make them rhyme.”
Community inside and outside of the club meetings is stressed in every generation of the club.
“All of these,” said Prova, pointing to a picture collage on a wall of the BSA clubroom that was filled with Polaroids and printed pictures. “[…] are our past hangouts; we even go to each other’s houses just to hang out. That’s how comfortable we are with each other.”
In agreement, Chowdhury added more context to the cultural values that drive such close-knit groups.
“It’s so Bengali of us,” said Chowdhury. “Whenever we tell our parents that ‘Oh, we’re gonna meet with someone,’ their answer is just ‘bring them home, let’s eat, I’ll cook.’ Let’s get to know each other and stuff like that.”
Students who attend the events, like Kashfi Siddique, a junior sociology major at BC, are proof that the BSA is achieving its goals of creating a sense of community.
“I’ve never had friends from my own country,” said Siddique. “I’m a fully westernized guy, but my heart is still ‘Bengali.’”
BSA members are often found in the clubroom during common hours or hanging around campus. The clubroom itself has its limitations on how many events and people the club can host at any specific time.
“We asked for a bigger room, [we were told] ‘Oh, you’ve got to share like all of [the WEB building],” said Prova. “We have a lot of people. This is like not even half of the people that usually show up.”
The room being small isn’t the only limitation the BSA faces in keeping its members comfortable.
“There’s no proper ventilation, which is a problem,” said Prova. “We don’t have windows. The windows are on the other side of the building.”
BSA reached out regarding controlling the temperature in the WEB building, but they had yet to get a solution, only a promise to look at the problem. Another issue BSA had was the lack of a kitchen area to warm up food for events or make tea.
“The clubroom area should have a kitchen area,” said Prova. “The only thing we have is the microwave.”
Despite all these challenges BSA faces, the members strive to create a relaxing environment where all are welcome.
“Every day, at least one of us must be [in the clubroom] […] depends on if people want to come and join, and sometimes we do common hours,” said Juthi. “We just meet and chat, so if anyone else wants to join, they’re more than welcome.”
Students interested in upcoming events from BSA can visit their Instagram page at @bsa_bc.