By Jackson Wedel, Staff Writer
As of October 2021, California has become the first state to ensure that students must take an ethnic studies course in high school. While the decision has gotten mostly positive responses, there are still several common misconceptions about the course. So why is Ethnic Studies such an important course, and what purpose does it have?
The concept of a social science course focusing on human diversity emerged nationwide in the 1960s alongside the myriad of other civil rights movements at the time. Not only did schools consistently exhibit discriminatory behavior towards students of color, but they also educated their students on the humanities (a category including subjects like history and literature) purely from a white American perspective. However, it was not until San Francisco State University students protested at their school demanding a more inclusive education that the modern idea of “Ethnic Studies” was born. San Francisco State soon established its own College of Ethnic Studies, and similar programs began forming across America.
The class, at its most fundamental level, revolves around the various cultures that make up the world – particularly marginalized groups that are often overlooked in most academic settings. The curriculum highlights the contributions, experiences, and achievements of African Americans, Asian Americans, Latino Americans, and Indigenous Americans. On a broader level, it emphasizes the impact forces like racism and colonialism have on communities and the world as a whole today.
C.K. McClatchy High School has had a fairly long history with Ethnic Studies classes. Introduced in 2001, the program was intended to help focus on voices and identities that often went unheard. “Ethnic Studies came out of that desire to have something that students of color would feel connected to,” argued Bridget Martinez, one of the school’s original Ethnic Studies teachers.
Ethnic Studies is a constantly relevant course, in part because of how malleable it is to fit current events and related discourse. “The fun thing about Ethnic Studies is that it could be different every time you teach it,” Martinez claimed. “There’s a few basic core concepts, but you can really shape it to what’s going on in the state, in the country, on the campus.”
According to Martinez,the overarching theme of the course is exploring diversity of all kinds. “Identity is the one constant theme that we weave into everything, because the point of Ethnic Studies when it first started at San Francisco State was that students didn’t feel like they had a voice, and didn’t feel like their issues and their concerns were being talked about in academic settings. I kind of stick to that and use it as an opportunity to give students a chance to find their voice.”
Martinez believes that Ethnic Studies is so crucial because it gives students the opportunities to explore otherwise-overlooked perspectives. “Kids start to think about things beyond just themselves and their own experiences,” she noted. “To get them to see that there is a connectedness – that it doesn’t have to be about you for you to care about it, I think is one of the biggest benefits.”
Ultimately, it seems likely that Ethnic Studies will continue to flourish at McClatchy. The school has perhaps one of the most diverse student bodies in Sacramento, so such courses will undoubtedly help exemplify and celebrate those inter-student differences. On a wider scale, now that both the Sacramento City Unified School District and California as a whole have made Ethnic Studies a high school graduation requirement, it seems likely that these courses will continue to bolster students’ intercultural understanding long into the future.