Course Outline for Ethnic Studies 1
Introduction to Ethnic Studies

Effective: Fall 2024
SLO Rev:
Catalog Description:

ES 1 - Introduction to Ethnic Studies

3.00 Units

An introduction to Ethnic Studies: an interdisciplinary and comparative study of race and ethnicity with a special focus on four historically defined racialized core groups: Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latina/o/x/e Americans. The course will review core concepts and frameworks from Ethnic Studies disciplines, such as racism, white supremacy, settler colonialism, imperialism, self-determination, liberation, decolonization, intersectionality, abolition, anti-racism, and more. Students will apply theories and knowledge produced by communities of color and typically studied in: African American/Black Studies, American Indian/Native American Studies, Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies, and Chicana/o/x/e and Latina/o/x/e Studies. The course will also examine examples of struggle, solidarity and resistance while engaging in current justice and equity movements focused on dismantling white supremacy, colonialism, imperialism, and other forms of oppression targeting communities of color.
2203.00 - Ethnic Studies
Optional
Type Units Inside of Class Hours Outside of Class Hours Total Student Learning Hours
Lecture 3.00 54.00 108.00 162.00
Total 3.00 54.00 108.00 162.00
Measurable Objectives:
Upon completion of this course, the student should be able to:
  1. Analyze and articulate concepts such as race and racism, racialization, ethnicity, equity, ethno-centrism, eurocentrism, white supremacy, self-determination, liberation, decolonization, sovereignty, imperialism, settler colonialism, and anti-racism as analyzed in any one or more of the following: Native American Studies, African American Studies, Asian American Studies, and Latina and Latino American Studies;
  2. Apply theory and knowledge produced by Native American, African American, Asian American and Pacific Islander, and Latina and Latino American communities to describe the critical events, histories, cultures, intellectual traditions, contributions, lived-experiences and social struggles of those groups with a particular emphasis on agency and group-affirmation;
  3. Critically analyze the intersection of race and racism as they relate to class, gender, sexuality, religion, spirituality, national origin, immigration status, ability, tribal citizenship, sovereignty, language, and/or age in Native American, African American, Asian American and Pacific Islander, and Latina and Latino American communities;
  4. Critically review how struggle, resistance, racial and social justice, solidarity, and liberation, as experienced and enacted by Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and Latina and Latino Americans are relevant to current and structural issues such as communal, national, international, and transnational politics as, for example, in immigration, reparations, settler-colonialism, multiculturalism, language policies;
  5. Describe and actively engage with anti-racist and anti-colonial issues and the practices and movements in Native American, African American, Asian American and Pacific Islander, and Latina and Latino communities to build a just and equitable society;
  6. Evaluate major issues, challenges, power imbalances, and institutional/systemic, legal, economic, and political barriers experienced by communities of color by applying and understanding theories of racism, white supremacy, anti-blackness, and eurocentrism;
  7. Assess the growth and diversity of communities of color;
  8. Analyze the importance of race, ethnicity, identity, and resistance in the creation of cultural/artistic expressions and movements;
  9. Apply theory and knowledge produced by the core four disciplines: American Indian/Native American Studies, African American/Black Studies, Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies, and Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x Studies that describes an understanding of epistemologies, cultural identities, cultural philosophies, generational trauma, and all manner of struggle and liberation.
Course Content:
  1. Fundamental values, concepts, and historical context, including the role of student activism and solidarity, in the development of Ethnic Studies as a discipline;
  2. Foundations, core concepts, theories, knowledge, experiences, and struggles in the four core disciplines:
    1. African American/Black Studies
    2. American Indian/Native American Studies
    3. Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x Studies
    4. Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies
  3. Origins of race, racism, racialization, racial formation and ethnicity in relation to white supremacy, racial capitalism, slavery, settler colonialism, genocide, mass removal, imperialism, persecution, internment, mass incarceration, heteropatriarchy, and other systemic, structural, and institutional forms of dehumanization experienced by communities of color;
  4. Cultural and/or religious expressions including art, film, literature, food, or music reflecting different communities of color;
  5. Critiques of capitalism and neoliberalism and its relationship with colonialism, slavery, immigration, labor, and racialization;
  6. Ethnic consciousness, social identity and self-determination;
  7. Struggles, movements, political engagement, and resistance:
    1. Labor movements
    2. Civil Rights Movement
    3. Prison Abolition
    4. Liberation efforts by groups like the Black Panthers, American Indian Movement, Brown Berets, etc.
    5. Solidarity struggles
    6. Decolonization/anti-imperialist struggles
    7. Anti-racist, anti-colonial, sovereignty efforts (ie Black Lives Matter, Landback, Free Hawai’i)
    8. Reparations
    9. How to actively engage in current campaigns for justice and equity
  8. Intersectionality of race, gender, sexuality and class with special emphasis on women of color
    1. Domestic worker movement
    2. Reproductive justice
    3. Third world feminism
    4. Transformational liberation struggles centering love
    5. Gendered violence (ie Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls)
  9. Theories of space and place
    1. Borderlands
    2. Indigeneity
    3. Diaspora
    4. Migration
    5. Transnationalism 
  10. Theoretical perspectives of power, inequality, and racial hierarchy
Methods of Instruction:
  1. Guided Discussions
  2. Films and videos
  3. Lecture/Discussion
  4. Class and group discussions
  5. Community activities/civic engagement projects
  6. Group Presentations
  7. Field Trips
  8. Guest speakers
  9. Distance Education
  10. Research Report
  11. Presentation
  12. Textbook reading assignments
  13. Oral and Written Analysis
  14. Written assignments
  15. Lecture/Discussion
Assignments and Methods of Evaluating Student Progress:
  1. Group work: review the student demands from the Third World Liberation Front and create a poster addressing whether any of the demands resonate with your experience on our own campus. What demands would you make of your administration? How would you modify or update these demands for your own context?
  2. Essay prompt: Define Ethnic Studies: what is it about, who benefits from it, how did it come about? Then analyze 2 examples of why students fought for ethnic studies or defended ethnic studies, comparing struggles from the 1960s with struggles from the 2010s and 2020s.
  3. Oral history: Interview a family member, neighbor, classmate, teacher, or community member around themes of racial/ethnic identity, racism, immigration, solidarity, self-determination, decoloniality, and/or racial justice.
  4. Community engagement: review a summary of contemporary social movements and struggles for racial and social justice (i.e., undocumented farmworkers, Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, Black Lives Matter, Landback) and apply what you learned to brainstorm ways you can make a difference in your community. For example, what can everyday people do to demand changes to how communities of color are policed? How can consumers support a labor strike? How can you advocate for immigrant and refugee rights? Try one of the brainstormed methods (i.e., join a protest, write a letter, lobby at Congress, make a list of demands, boycott a product, etc.) and reflect on its impact. What are short-term vs. long-term impacts? How sustainable is this level of involvement? How can we make activism and organizing accessible to all?
  5. Guest speaker from a community organization: Invite a guest speaker from a community organization like Mujeres Unidas y Activas to learn about their participation in local and nation-wide campaigns around workers rights and immigrant rights. Students should write a paper on what they learned from the guests and make connections to what they learned in class about immigration policies, impacts on communities of color, and/or examples of other labor movements such as the farm workers movement or domestic workers movement.
  6. Field Trip: Visit the Black Panther Party Museum and the Women of the Black Panther Party Mural in Oakland, CA. Related, students can research and present on the role that women played in the Party, both as leaders and rank and file members. Or research the history and impact of the Black Panther Party, including their community service work in education, feeding children, offering medical services, and fighting against police violence.
  1. Exams/Tests
  2. Quizzes
  3. Class Participation
  4. Class Work
  5. Critical reviews on written texts and articles on ethnic groups and their depiction in American society
  6. Oral Presentation
  7. Research Projects
  8. Papers
  9. Final Examination or Project
  10. Online Assignments
Upon the completion of this course, the student should be able to:
  1. Apply theory and knowledge produced by one or more of the core four disciplines: American Indian/Native American Studies, Chicana/o/x or Latina/o/x/ Studies, African American/Black Studies, and/or Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies;
  2. explain the significance of the study of racial/ethnic groups in the United States;
  3. Describe and actively engage with anti-racist, abolitionist, anti-colonial, and anti-imperial thought, issues, practices, and movements.
Textbooks (Typical):
  1. Fischer, K., Espinoza-Kulick, M.A.V., Acevedo, U., Hodges, T., Leal, M., Chesire, T. (2023). Introduction to Ethnic Studies LibreTexts, CC BY-NC 4.0 https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Sandboxes/kfischer_at_chabotcollege.edu/Introduction_to_Ethnic_Studies.
  1. Kendi, I.X. (2023). The Black Campus Movement: A History of Black Student Activism (2nd). Palgrave Macmillan.
  2. Alexander, M. (2020). The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (Anniversary edition). The New Press.
  3. Ginwright, S. (2015). Hope and Healing in Urban Education Routledge.
  4. Choy, C. C. (2022). Asian American Histories of the United States Beacon Press.
  5. Acuña, R. (2011). The Making of Chicana/o Studies: in the Trenches of Academe. (2011). Rutgers University Press.
  6. Zavala, M. (2018). Raza Struggle and the Movement for Ethnic Studies: Decolonial Pedagogies, Literacies, and Methodologies. Vol. 17. (Series: Education and Struggle, Volume 17). Peter Lang Publishing, Incorporated.
  7. Risling Baldy, C. (2018). We Are Dancing for You: Native Feminisms and the Revitalization of Women’s Coming-of-Age Ceremonies University of Washington Press.
  8. Omi, M. and Winant, H. (2015). Racial Formation in the United States (Third). Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.
  9. Molina, N., Martinez HoSang, D., and R.A. Gutierrez, Eds. (2019). Relational Formations of Race: Theory, Method, and Practice University of California, Press.
  10. Ortiz, P. (2018). An African American and Latinx History of the United States Beacon Press.
  11. Andersen M.L. and P.H. Collins, Eds. (2020). Race, Class and Gender: Intersections and Inequalities (10th). Cengage Learning.
  12. Golash-Boza, T.M. (2021). Race and Racisms: A Critical Approach (third). Oxford University Press.
Abbreviated Class Schedule Description:
An introduction to Ethnic Studies, an interdisciplinary and comparative study of race and ethnicity in the United States. The course will examine core frameworks of Ethnic Studies disciplines: African American/Black Studies; American Indian/Native American Studies; Chicana/o/x/e and Latina/o/x/e Studies, and Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies.
Discipline:
Ethnic Studies*