Far from being a centralized organization, a C.S.S.A. is a collection of shifting participants. Most chapters change leadership annually. Some student officers genuinely devote themselves to helping their compatriots; others simply want to pad their résumés to help them land jobs as state functionaries upon returning to China.

The undisputed highlight of the C.S.S.A.’s role is hosting the annual Lunar New Year dinner and show; second to this is the Mid-Autumn Festival gala. Most Chinese students’ sole contact, if any, with their local C.S.S.A. is through those events. Some have no contact at all — quite a few of my friends and I did not bother to attend those gatherings; the programming was known to be overblown and amateurish.

But for many, especially freshmen and sophomores away from home for the first time, these functions offer a precious space to celebrate Chinese holidays. For a few hours, wayfarers abroad become insiders rather than outsiders. Those at big Midwestern universities like mine get some respite from their status as foreigners who don’t frequent bars or play beer pong.

The current narrative posits a close relationship, shrouded in secrecy, between the C.S.S.A. and Chinese consulates. In fact, this affiliation is not much of a secret. C.S.S.A. leaders may meet occasionally with consular officials for briefings on employment laws or safety issues. Some C.S.S.A.s receive funding from consulates for things like new student orientations or galas.

And yes, some of their contact with consulates is indeed political. But C.S.S.A.s recruiting students to welcome visiting Chinese officials is hardly proof of government manipulation. Students may sign on for these events out of genuine patriotism or curiosity or boredom, or they may ignore the invitations, as most do. For many students like Vivian, welcoming Mr. Xi was hardly different from attending former President Barack Obama’s speech on campus later that same year. Even those who turn up to protest against the Dalai Lama may well do so out of a sense of patriotism, not because they were mobilized by the C.S.S.A.

In some respects, the C.S.S.A. resembles a microcosm of Chinese officialdom, complete with petty bureaucrats, political infighting, and even occasional malfeasance. But that is precisely why most Chinese students put little stock in the organization. These days, like Chinese citizens generally, most Chinese students prefer to steer clear of politics. They view the C.S.S.A. as an arena where a handful of ambitious souls can practice vying for power, while the rest go about their daily lives.

Do C.S.S.A.s make some Chinese students studying overseas uncomfortable? Yes, sometimes. A growing number of Chinese students avoid the organization out of concern that it does harbor informants and spies (and there are almost certainly some on U.S. campuses). Or, they simply keep it at arm’s length because they worry about coming under suspicion of being spies or infiltrators themselves. Caught in the crosscurrents between their host country and their home country, such students are trapped in a Catch-22, where they have no spaces where they feel they truly belong.