Alice and Diversity

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Alice's adventures in Wonderland are ripe with allegories and symbols of human interactions. It's multi-layered and wandering plot presents Alice in multiple situations which she is treated as an alien and her Victorian young girl ettiquete and mannerisms are confronted by the strange and often frightening inhabits of Wonderland.
Of particular interest in Alice's wonderings is the immense diversity which she encounters, both in the environments and inhabitants of Wonderland. A good majority of the inhabitants are anthropomorphic creatures, and Alice, while a little shocked by their existence, essentially treats them with respect and kindness in the same way she would treat a fellow human being. She is aware of their obvious emotional capacities and tries, although sometimes unsuccessfully, to not offend any of Wonderland's creatures. In one of the more humours scenes to me, Alice offers to not "talk about her [pet cat] more if you'd rather not" to a highly sensitive little mouse (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland). Really, in such a situation, who would be worried about offending a mouse? Clearly Alice is not at all disgusted by the mouse and would rather befriend him than offend him.
Through the Looking Glass has slightly more hidden themes about diversity. Like in the first novel, Alice is confronted by many strange creatures and inhabitants of Wonderland. She is not entirely welcome to her predicament, and at first tries desperatly to escape out of the same Looking Glass which she entered, "back into the old room -- and there'd be an end of all [her] adventures!" (Through the Looking Glass) But soon the splendor and wonder of this new place do not escape Alice. In a serious of barely connected and goofy events, Alice is eventually herself crowned a queen in Wonderland. Her fear of the unknown and uncertainty eventually gives way to appreciation, so much so that when she is woken by her cat she exclaims "You woke me out of oh! such a nice dream!" (Through the Looking Glass) As such, Alice finally embraced the initially daunting diversity and strangeness of Wonderland.http://etribute.lib.utexas.edu/media/ut/images/large/campus_aerial.jpg

Alice's journey through Wonderland are comparable to any college freshman's journey through his or her campus. They must be accustomed to accepting new things, to meeting different kinds of people, and being outside of their comfort zone. Here in Austin, where our campus is located in such a diverse and interesting part of town, I have learned to accept all walks of life. I have learned to walk past the residents of the drag without being scare for my safety, I have learned to accept the gay couple holding hands in front of me, and I have learned to appreciate the fact that there are vast numbers of foreigners and minorities that dot our campus (St. John's was a pretty homogeneous school. I was one of maybe 5 Latinos in our high school). While I never considered myself an Alice-like character, her trials in Wonderland are without a doubt analogous to anyone experiencing something completely different for the first time.