The catalog describes it like this:
Ethnic Studies at XXXX Community College was created over 35 years ago. The discipline strives to provide for the interdisciplinary study of the histories and experiences of the four major racial minority groups in the United States: Americans of African and Asian descent, Chicanas/os and Latinas/os, and the indigenous peoples of the Americas, Caribbean, and Pacific Islands. In addition, Ethnic Studies provides space for students to critically analyze the intersections of race and ethnicity with other variables such as: gender identity, sexuality, disability, class, nationalism, and globalization.
I kind of figured it was going to look at modern issues, cultural differences, how people express racism in modern culture...and it did on the first week. I'm halfway through the term now and we've only rehashed how terrible European settlers treated everyone that wasn't a European settler of English, French or German origins.
I already know that slavery was a horrendous thing in America's history. Ditto with the genocide of Native Americans. Go ahead and throw in the Irish, Italians, Polish and Scandinavians mistreated by "true Americans" when they emigrated to the US in 1800-1900's. The treatment of the Chinese immigrants in the 1800's was deplorable as well. How horrible has the American government treated Hispanics throughout this country's history? Despicable! So was the internment of the Japanese-Americans in concentration camps during world war 2. This thread can be followed right up to modern day abuses of people within our borders for reasons of race or ethnic background.
My question is where is the lauding of achievements of racial or ethnic minorities? Everyone except the original 13 colonies' white population are being depicted as helpless victims. This really pisses me off, because I know that minorities are anything but helpless. This teaching of only the victimization of minorities without balancing out the achievements of minority leaders appears to have the effect of further marginalizing minorities.
This is a required class, too. I live in a VERY white part of the world. Like 95% of the residents are white. If this is a required class for this region, what exactly are we supposed to learning?



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