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They say you can’t go home again, but two Tabor Academy (MA) alumni did something like that. Rick DaSilva, class of 1989, and Christian Garris, class of 2005, returned to their alma mater, bringing with them the perspectives gained from being among the few students of color and now among the few administrators of color. DaSilva, who returned a decade after graduating, is associate director of International Center, associate director of international recruitment, and a history teacher. He’s also a dorm parent and coaches lacrosse, among other sports. Garris is in his fourth year as associate director of admission, which includes a focus on multicultural outreach. He also coaches football, works in the dorm, and serves as adviser to seven students, officially, and to about 50 students, unofficially.When DaSilva started reflecting on the events of 2020, including the Black@ movement, he realized he’d spent just about all of his professional career in his hometown, in an independent school, mostly sheltered from the negative experiences of racism. And he recognized the need to have some tough conversations about Tabor’s history and culture. That’s when he reached out to Garris to reflect on their own experiences as students and employees, their work—official and unofficial—what their presence at their school means to them and their community, why they stay, and how being alumni of color adds a dimension to their work that goes beyond their job descriptions. An edited version of their exchange follows.
Rick DaSilva: What brought you back to Tabor in a professional capacity?
Christian Garris: When I was a student, I had great role models—male, female, coaches, teachers, advisers, dorm parents, you name it. It was a memorable experience, and I knew I wanted to come back—but not in the classroom. When a position in admission opened up, I saw it as the perfect opportunity. I knew I was coming in to promote the school and recruit kids.
It has evolved into a real deep dive into what it means to be a person of color in independent schools. When I took the job four years ago, I didn’t know that would become the focus of my work. I started to realize the kind of inequities people of color experience in these places, and once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it. My work has evolved into admission work specifically with students of color and also helping support our current Black and brown students on campus.
DaSilva: When we think of the faculty in boarding schools, it’s not surprising to see that often they’ve gone to independent or boarding schools themselves. But it’s not a common sight to see people of color coming back to their schools to work—for a lot of reasons. So when you think about your experiences at Tabor, how do you reconcile your experiences as a student and your experiences in admission?
Garris: The reason I’m back is because I knew a lot of my friends when I was a student, specifically students of color, who didn’t have a great experience. So, for me, I knew that I didn’t want to see anybody go through what some of my friends went through. I want to help flip that experience.
DaSilva: When you think about your identity as a student of color and now as a Black man in an independent school environment, how do you think you’ve changed over the years?
Garris: Before I came back, I was teaching at a predominantly Latino and Black public school, and we were the majority. I was never forced to think about race even through college. I was just coasting on the fact that I was in different experiences and doing my best wherever I was.
When I came back, I started to look around—there are only a few adults and a small percentage of students who look like me—and it started to click: It’s important to be a Black man at an independent school. Even before the events of last spring, I couldn’t walk down the hall without thinking about it. Outside of the Tabor bubble, I started thinking, “Wow, I’m the only Black person at this restaurant.” I became hyper-focused on it but in a good way. How do I leverage my experience and my position to be able to help others? I didn’t even pay attention to this when I was a teenager, so now I can help these students who might not realize how important it is for them to be Black and brown students.
DaSilva: That switch didn’t flip for me for such a long time, and it wasn’t for lack of being raised to understand and be comfortable with my identity and Cape Verdean ethnicity. But at Tabor, I was one of maybe four or five students of color in the mid- to late-’80s. There was a director of minority students, but that person’s role had nothing really to do with local kids of color. We learned to keep our heads down, not cause problems, to not be that squeaky wheel. Life at school was very different than the life I had at home. But after being here for such a long time, I weirdly got used to all these things.
It wasn’t until I attended my first People of Color Conference (PoCC) seven or eight years ago, when I was well into my 40s, that I’ve better understood my identity, not just for my own personal reasons, but for who I am or who I can be at Tabor. And my voice has changed in terms of what things I talk about and what things I stand up for. Some people who have been here for a while say, “Sure, that’s something to celebrate,” but in some ways, the institution is like, “Wait a minute. You haven’t been that person.” And then you worry about being seen as the angry person of color, the rabble-rouser. You begin to look at things with a different lens.
Garris: It’s interesting that you bring up that you don’t want to be seen as “the angry person of color.” I wonder when the reckoning happens for white people. I wonder when they decide to see that thing that they can’t unsee, and then they start to do the work and become the vocal white person who starts to see race. No one would ever look to them and say, “Hey, when did you start doing this work?”
DaSilva: Independent schools are predominantly white, and you’re looking at students and faculty of color and wonder about the potential for them to speak up. And it’s in the conversations that we’re having now with our faculty and students, but in independent schools, I don’t think that’s necessarily been the case or what’s been accepted. And I think that’s where it’s been interesting being on one side of the fence and now being on the other side—you see a different perspective.
What strikes me as funny is that there are probably faculty that I work with or people who had known me for such a long time who are like, “I don’t even think of him as a person of color.” And part of that is the familiarity of being at a school where you’ve grown up and people see you how they see you. But it’s interesting when you have that transformative moment when you’re like, “You all need to start seeing me how I see myself.”
Garris: What I didn’t realize until I came back is that’s a lot of trauma. You’re trying to fit in. You’re trying to be that chameleon, and at the time, it seems you’re getting it right. But now, I have to go and piece back my identity—who was that person before I came here, before I tried to fit in?
I was like a superhero because I could fit in in any of these white places. I was always mistaking it as a strength. But in reality, I’d rather bring my authentic Black self to these places than to try to fit in. But there’s a way you have to do it so that you don’t come off as the angry Black person.
DaSilva: What we’re talking about regarding identity and figuring this stuff out is interesting in terms of involving ourselves with our current students of color and being able to pass along those perspectives to help them make their way through Tabor now. We both know that my Tabor of the ’80s is a lot different than the early 2000s and now. I’d like to hear a little more about how you’re helping kids move through Tabor now, especially with the reckoning that we’re having and the racial issues that are going on in the world.
Garris: The kids are so smart, and they get to a point where they have so much vocabulary—they’re doing so much self-work from such an early age on race and identity that they come in ready to speak their minds. They’re ready to be a young activist, and my role is trying to help them not to go to either extreme. I want to help them when they need that push or when they need to be checking themselves. I know their frustrations. When they get upset, it’s my job to help them, to let them know that I hear them, that I’ve been in their shoes, but to also show them that they are doing such a great job.
DaSilva: I think that our students are appreciative and fortunate that they’re getting these connections from different faculty of color. We have different experiences and different perspectives. They might go to you for something, they might ask me something else, they might go to someone else for something else. We’re, of course, nowhere near to having enough Black and brown faces on our faculty, and I don’t know any school that is, but having faculty of color who are alumni is an extra bonus, because we’re not just helping them understand what it means to be a person of color, an adult of color, we also know this school.
Garris: There’s so many resources and so many opportunities. I’m really hopeful and excited about seeing our kids through.
DaSilva: I’d love to see more alums come back to work at and be part of the Tabor professional community, because I think it’s a game changer.