This course is an introduction to Ethnic Studies that will survey selected historical moments to explore the complexities of life in the United States. Analyzing the entangled histories of colonialism, slavery, imperialism, racism, disenfranchisement, and labor, we will examine how different peoples become "American." We will focus on the racialization of American Indians, African Americans, Chicanos and Latinos, and Asian Americans regarding conceptions of identity and citizenship across multiple categories of difference including gender, class, ethnicity, and sexuality. We will delve specifically into the histories of the Bay Area’s communities of color, and study their stories of resistance, struggle, and triumph. Critical Ethnic Studies 3000-level seminars deepen students’ knowledge of the fundamental theoretical and political questions regarding the social construction of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class from both domestic and global perspectives.
- Instructor: Sara Moncada