Punch Season: The Pudding

It is punch season again. 

Punch season at Harvard is one of most exciting times of the year for the seven or so percent of students involved in that social pursuit. It is strange to think that the majority of students who are not involved in the final club scene do not even know that it is going on. 

I dredged up an email from last year, when the Hasty Pudding Club had an open punch event. An email had been sent out that allowed others to invite a friend to the punch event. Naturally, many people forwarded the email around and the house, where the first event took place, was quite crowded. 

Also in the email was a short pamphlet with a brief overview of the Pudding. Here is an excerpt:

Initially founded in 1770 by Nymphus Hatch and fully codified in 1795, the Hasty Pudding Club holds a unique and distinct place in the history of Harvard College as the oldest collegiate social club in America. Well over two centuries on and the Pudding continues its fine tradition of fostering friendships and camaraderie, a club rich with tradition and as diverse as the College. The Pudding offers a phenomenal social space for freshman through seniors on a campus without a student center. At our home on 2 Garden St. members enjoy some of the best food in the square at lunches and Friday night dinners – many parties are also not to be missed. Beyond all these benefits, the HPC offers freshmen a unique opportunity to form deep and lasting friendships with a diverse group of their classmates for a full four years and beyond.hose in the Pudding often becomes friends with each other outside of the club (as they should). 

The Pudding, along with many of the male and female finals clubs we have on campus, exemplify many of the preppy values noted in The Official Preppy Handbook. The Pudding is one example of a club that "prepare[s] Preppies for one of the great traditions of Prep life: clubmanship" (Birnbach 94). The characteristics mentioned in the Handbook can be applied to all of the final clubs, but I will focus on analyzing the Pudding in this post. 

Togetherness. Membership in a club forms strong ties.

There is a definite emphasis on togetherness in the blurb the Pudding sent out. The blurb emphasizes the Pudding's "fine tradition of fostering friendships and camaraderie" and the "unique opportunity" for freshman to "form deep and lasting friendships with a diverse group of their classmates for a full four years and beyond." The Pudding is also seen as a gateway into getting into male final clubs for freshmen boys. 

Exclusivity. All of these clubs have ways of limiting their membership.

These clubs may say that they restrict membership on a "democratic" (94) basis, but knowing someone in the club who will vouch for you is key. Of course, all the boys I knew who were actually punched--not forwarded the email by someone else--were members of the crew team, the "sport of the preps" (101). 

Endowment. Most of these clubs posses enviable (and enviably managed) securities portfolios, as well as investments in the real estate the clubhouse sits on, and the art and antiques that furnish it. Real estate is a signal of power for clubs at Harvard. The Lampoon, the Crimson, the Signet, the Advocate, etc. all have club houses that they operate out of. Having a clubhouse is a powerful signal of economic and symbolic capital. There is a lot of old money going into those endowments, and a lot of status that comes with being associated with those clubs. 

Culture of Success/Insecurity at Harvard

Harvard students are very lucky to attend a school where structural advantages (such as a powerful alumni network, economic and academic resources, and status) allow students to positively adjust their aspirations to fit higher expectations upon entering Harvard. We do not lower our aspirations as a reaction to perceived lack of opportunity, as Bourdieu suggests disadvantaged communities do. As a result, most Harvard students students exhibit behaviors that propel them to success as a strategic response to perceived abundance of opportunities. In general, there is a culture of success at Harvard that comes from perceived structural advantages. We see classmates receiving internships at top firms like Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, and Blackstone which makes getting jobs at such firms seem attainable and even expected if you know the right people. Students are also surrounded by those with high financial and cultural capital, which allow them to raise their own social capital as well. Opportunities to interact with guests like the the former Prime Minister of Greece and key Washington strategists everyday gives students social connections most people never even imagine. 

For example, given my admittance to Harvard my senior year, I could have ostensibly been a competitive candidate for a summer internship at Google the summer before my freshman year. However, I never even considered Google a possibility because I had never heard of anyone from my school doing such a thing. Similarly, Bourdieu's explanation of actions as strategic adjustments of aspirations vs. expectations could explain why so few women have an interest in science and technology fields and even fewer are found in managerial positions at science and technology firms. Perhaps fewer women shoot for managerial positions they don't think they can break the "glass ceiling" which leads to women avoiding the field altogether because they don't see many women in those fields. The implication then is for women interested in science and technology to recognize their self-defeating behaviors and pursue their field of interest regardless of what they believe is possible for them.

At the same time, there is also a culture of insecurity at Harvard which students need to recognize as well. I see people around me becoming much more successful than myself, and it makes me doubt my own ability. This insecurity strikes many students while they are at Harvard and especially during their freshman fall. You compare you test scores or resume to your peers and think, "I guess I'm not as hard working as my peers" or "I'm not as talented as my peers". This language suggests that your lack of relative success stems from some flaw in your character (talent, work ethic, etc.). For some people, this belief leads to self-defeating behavior such as turning in mediocre work or not applying to a  certain firm because you doubt your merit. Students should learn to recognize this kind of thinking so that they may overcome it when it occurs. 

Habitus and Identity Formation

If you do not see an audio player, please go here to hear the audio. If that doesn't work, go here to download the audio.

The above is an interview with Sarah Foo, a first generation immigrant who is currently a freshman in college. Sarah Foo moved to the US with her mother and her sister on April 14, 2008. Her family settled in Tampa, Florida where her mother knew someone in the community; there was a strong Thai community where they moved because of the Thai temples located in Tampa. The family came with visas and applied for permanent residency as soon as they were able to. Sarah and her sister enrolled in public high school. She was 14-years-old at the time and spoke very little English. The above excerpted audio focuses on Sarah's first experiences in the US and her feelings on her own identity.

Sarah describes her first experiences in the US as alien and overwhelming primarily due to the culture shock she faced upon arrival. Sarah had come to the US with a worldview and set of cultural practices formed by the structures she had grown up with in Thailand. The habitus that she internalized was clearly very different from the habitus of her American peers, as evidenced by the differences in dress and social interaction that she saw. The interview shows that her habitus was in conflict with the habitus she saw around her, and it is not clear that her habitus has changed significantly as a result of assimilation. Though Sarah later described becoming more comfortable living in the US, with regards to language and picking up social norms, Sarah still identifies as Thai, and not American "yet".

Sarah’s connection to Thai culture fits well with Bourdieu’s concept of habitus as a theory of culture. All of Sarah's early socialization experiences were informed by Thai culture. As a result, by the time Sarah moved to the US, she had internalized much of Thai culture and formed her primary disposition. “More than half of my life took place somewhere else,” she explains. Assimilation occurred gradually and naturally over time because “[h]abitus is fairly resistant to change, since primary socialization in Bourdieu’s view is more formative of internal dispositions than subsequent socialization experiences (Swartz, 1998:107). Coming to the US meant that Sarah's habitus necessarily changed as it encountered new situations. However, Sarah seemed to internalize American practices as elaborations to her habitus, rather than fundamental alterations to her cultural disposition; when she overcame the culture gap, she was adding American practices to her habitus, rather than altering her internal disposition as a Thai person. Thus, Sarah's habitus informed her identity as fundamentally Thai.

What Sarah was used to: a typical classroom in Thailand

What Sarah experienced: a typical classroom in America

Cotillion

In the spring of my junior year, I was in invited to a cotillion hosted by the Junior League. The Junior League is an an organization of women committed to improving the community. Its purpose is exclusively educational and charitable. The Junior League in my area had many qualities of the upper class as they were discussed in class and in the Birmingham reading, The Right Kind of People.

First, its members consisted of the well-connected and well-to-do in the area. I was an outlier who was attending cotillion on scholarship. It was quite a shock to realize that many of these girls were paying a over $600 to participate in one cotillion. My family was unable to afford the cost, and I was lucky enough to have part of my dress and attendance fee covered by generous sponsors. For many of the other attendees, cost was not as much of a concern because they came from upper class families or from families that had been sending their daughters to this same cotillion for generations.


My parents were certainly outliers compared to the other invitees. I remember going to a tea held for all the mothers of the girls participating in cotillion. The house we entered was huge; there was catered food and cloths on all the dining tables. My mother and I didn't think it would be as formal as it was, having never been to a tea before. In fact, I didn't tell my mother to dress up at all, and was mortified when I arrived at the tea and realized just how out of place she looked. I attribute this social gaffe to class differences between the girls invited to the cotillion and myself. I think this picture exemplifies the class differences found between my mother and the mothers of the tea.

My mother, as you might have guessed, is the Asian woman in shorts.

This is an abridged description of the ball, as found on the event page:

JLWJC’s 60th Annual Community Ball and Cotillion One of Kansas City's most prestigious fundraising events. This year's Community Ball and Cotillion will be held at the Kansas City Marriott-Downtown on Saturday, December 4th, 2010. The Community Ball and Cotillion recognizes outstanding high school seniors who are actively involved in their school and community. We will be honoring 72 young men and women from 15 area high schools. For more than 75 years the Junior League of Wyandotte and Johnson Cos. has provided assistance to create change in the lives of women, children, and families. Our 2009-2014 signature campaign is Safety Network – Each One Reach One for Safety. The JLWJC will align its training, volunteer and funding efforts with programs and initiatives focused on safety. Tickets to this event are $150 per person. Sponsorship levels are also available

Similar to debutante balls and cotillions held in high society New York, our cotillion operated as a fundraising event; several girls had fathers paying on sponsorship level. Our cotillion took place in a grand ballroom in a hotel. There was a dance floor in the middle and tables with white clothes around it. All the girls wore custom-made, long white ball gowns. 

Sadly, this isn't the picture from my year, but the year after. They took down the picture from my year before I could save it to my computer.

We also had a portion during which each girl and boy were "presented". The emcee would say our full names and our parents full names. The girls would be escorted by their father to the middle of the stage. The father would leave and then the girl would be escorted the rest of the way by her dance partner. After being presented, the boys and girls who were presented performed a dance that we had been taught before the ball. All in all, it was a fun experience, though I never realized all the social nuances that occurred until now.

This is me being presented during cotillion. The dress was actually excruciatingly heavy.

I think we made this exact formation at some point during the dance. Some things really don't change.