A narrative study was conducted to investigate why a Chinese female international student keeps silent in her American classes. This study found that because of her silence, the participant internalized a deficient self-perception as a useless person in her group discussions and perceived that a deficient identity was attributed to her. Because the participant's American classmates' ideology of cultural homogeneity made her disempowered in her classes, the participant became the victim of the disempowering American higher educational setting. Therefore, this paper suggests that educators of American higher education should not attribute Chinese international students' silence to only their ethnic culture influences or personalities and should not overlook the possible disempowering nature of higher educational settings.