#YouAreWelcomeHere? The two faces of American higher education toward Chinese international students

Abstract Driven by neoliberal ideology and the enduring social imaginary of the West, international education and degrees from Western universities are often perceived by students and their families as ideal pathways to global citizenship, language acquisition, and enhanced employability. However, despite these presumed benefits, U.S. universities frequently implement homogenizing institutional practices that marginalize Chinese students within the very spaces that claim to empower them. The study adopts Derrida’s hos(ti)pitality (a blend of hospitality and hostility) to expose how U.S. institutions simultaneously welcome and exclude Chinese students. It identifies three dominant institutional orientations: one-way cultural socialization that privileges White, middle-class norms; deficit and culturalist ideologies that pathologize Chinese students, and institutional indifference towards their safety and psychological well-being. Grounded in a critical, equity-oriented perspective, this study employs interactional ethnography to examine how institutional structures and discourses influence the experiences of Chinese students in U.S. universities. Drawing on my own experiences, affective responses, and interactions with fellow Chinese students, I illuminate how racialized exclusions are embedded in both structural forces and everyday micro-level interactions. Rather than viewing contradictions between inclusive rhetoric and marginalizing practices as institutional inconsistencies, I argue these dynamics work in tandem to uphold the neoliberal edu-business model and sustain White/Western supremacy. Ultimately, this study reveals how U.S. higher education’s market-driven logic and colorblind multiculturalism render Chinese students hyper-visible as financial assets yet invisible in discussions about racial equity, underscoring the urgent need for anti-racist institutional accountability in internationalization efforts.