With Harvard University so prominently in the news in recent days, my memory has been sent back to the years I lived in Cambridge, in various places on the Harvard campus. One of the buildings that has found itself in the background of many news photos and video footage is Matthews Hall, where I lived for the last year I served as an in-residence academic advisor for first year students in Harvard Yard. The statue of John Harvard (which we all know, of course, is not really John Harvard) also sits in the background of a lot of photos and videos. That’s the location of my favorite wedding photo, taken just after our marriage ceremony in Memorial Church.

Given the current news, I’m thinking a lot about when I first moved onto the Harvard campus, into Divinity School housing (which has not been in any news photos or video footage!). My assigned roommate was a young woman from China. She wasn’t there for move-in day. Or the day after. Or the day after that. There were a lot of questions swirling around about her arrival, and whether she would arrive at all.

It was 1989, just a few months after Tiananmen Square, where a massive and violent government crackdown followed large demonstrations the previous spring. The demonstrations protested against such things as: government corruption; economic policies that benefited some but harmed many others; and, restrictions on political participation. The demonstrations also called for democratic processes, due process, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and greater political freedom in general. It’s still unclear how many demonstrators were killed in the crackdown.

Eventually, my roommate arrived and so began a year of considerable learning about many topics, both in and outside the classroom. In Divinity Hall, in addition to my Chinese roommate, there was a woman from Africa next door, and a Buddhist monk from Vietnam down the hall. There were other international students as well, and students from all over the United States. We were a building of people with various shades of skin color, many nationalities and religious affiliations. There was also a variety of sexual orientations and ages.

In addition to the chapel in which Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered his famous “Divinity School Address,” Divinity Hall featured, when I lived there, fairly traditional dorm rooms as well as a large communal kitchen in the basement. At the beginning of the school year, students living in the building were invited to sign up for the Monday Supper Club. Those in the Club were then paired up and each Monday one pair would make dinner for the entire group. I don’t remember a lot about the dining adventures that I experienced, although I remember being introduced to kimchi (wasn’t a fan) and a remarkable array of dishes that featured tofu.

That all happened a long time ago, but now I can’t help but pull up those memories from that year, from way back in the memory vault. I remember the discussions that took place as we waited to see if my roommate would be allowed to leave China and start a graduate program at the Div School. The events that took place in Tiananmen Square the previous spring seemed so alien and strange. How could a government respond so violently to its own people, especially when so many of them were so young and were demonstrating for things that seemed so basic to human existence and flourishing? How could a government send troops and tanks not only to intimidate but to shoot without warning? How could it be that a people gathered to inspire freedom, only to find brutal repression instead?

With all that is now happening in the United States, as we see our rights and freedoms chipped away, as the government seizes more control over the people, and as we witness the baffling attacks on world-renowned universities, like Harvard, should we start wondering when there might be a similar crackdown in the U.S, akin what happened at Tiananmen Square? Will we, at some point, see a violent confrontation between the military, sent by government authorities, and American citizens? Are all of those things that seemed so alien and strange to me back in 1989 soon to be not so alien or strange in this part of the world, that has for so long been a beacon of freedom and democracy?

I know that some who read this will consider it an exaggeration, and an over-reaction, to what is happening. I hope I am over-reacting. But, so many of the things that have happened in the last not even six months are unsettling and alarming. And, with so many in the government— Congress, in particular— going along with the Administration on almost every matter, twisting democratic institutions and norms so much that there’s not much democracy left, it’s no wonder that my head is going down roads it never has in the past. I’ll hope that I’m just engaging in a little doom-dreaming, but I’ll also continue to pay attention, and pray that it doesn’t go nearly as far as I fear.