GATHERING OUR MEMORIES: REFLECTIONS OF MULTICULTURAL STUDENT LIFE AT CARLETON, 1874-2000
From its establishment in 1866, Carleton College boasted an ostensibly open enrollment policy: there was to be no discrimination based on race, nationality, or denominational affiliation. Yet the student population remained overwhelmingly white until after World War II, much the same as the makeup of the upper Midwestern states from which many of these students came. Even in the earliest years of the institution's history, however, students of color graced the campus.
In 1874, Franklin B. McDaniel became the first African American student to attend Carleton. He spent two years at Carleton's Academy, a preparatory school that was a part of the college campus from 1866 to 1906. Angelina Weld Grimke was the academy's first African American female student; she attended from 1895 to 1897. Nearly a decade earlier than Grimke, the first American Indian student, George Kidapisidus "Yellow Bull" Bassett attended the academy from 1887 to 1888.
The majority of the tiny population of students of color at Carleton from the 19th century through the 1930s hailed from outside the United States. Most came from China, Japan, and Turkey as the result of Carleton's Congregationalist missionary activities. Early Asian alumni included Tsune Watanabe, class of 1891, and Hisa Amaya, class of 1895, both of Japan. Victor Belina of Mexico was probably the first native Spanish-speaking student on campus; he entered Carleton in 1922. Armand "Mex" Miranda '37, born in Mexico, he grew up in St. Paul and was another early Latino graduate.
In 1937, Carleton trustee and former U.S. Secretary of State Frank Kellogg led the college to launch a concerted effort to ensure more consistent enrollment of foreign students. Kellogg established a foundation to provide scholarships for international students and to support the development of a department of International Relations. This program brought some additional students from the Far East, Latin America, and Eastern Europe.
