Ethnic Studies

An interdisciplinary examination of major concepts and controversies in the study of racial and ethnic difference in the United States. Exploration of race and ethnicity as historical and contemporary categories of identification in the context of social inequality. Social movements and policy debates on racial equity will be analyzed. 

Exploration of the field of African American Studies: history, literature, the arts, and culture, as well as sociological, political, economic, public policy, and philosophical perspectives on the experience of peoples of the African diaspora in the United States. The values, experience, and contributions of Black/African American individuals in the United States will be identified, examined, and authenticated.

An exploration of the field of Latinx Studies: history, literature, arts, and culture, as well as sociological, political, economic, and philosophical perspectives on the experiences of Latinx people and the Latinx diaspora in the United States. An analysis of the relationships between distinct Latinx communities and identities, historical legacies, and contemporary issues and their impact, and socio-political and economic institutions and their effects on the Latinx individual. An examination of the values, leadership, activism, and contributions of Latinx peoples in the United States.

An introduction to interdisciplinary ethnic studies examining the history, culture, politics, issues, and contemporary experience of Native peoples. Specific attention to Native racialization, diverse ethnicities, and identities; and to decolonizing methodologies that have erased or misrepresented Native people in scholarship and cultural history. Emphasizes indigenous ways of knowing and being, including storytelling and traditional environmental knowledge, and explores applications to the sustainability of indigenous communities in the 21st century.

Introduction to Asian American Studies, focusing on Asian American experiences from the nineteenth century to the present. Includes issues of identity and positionality as they relate to race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, socioeconomic class and labor, national origin, mixed heritages, religion/spirituality, generation, and ability. Explores Asian American experiences via theoretical frameworks and historical, social, cultural, political, legal, and environmental contexts, including colonialism and decolonization, immigration, activism and resistance.

This introductory course examines the colonization, history, politics, identity, culture, indigeneity, diaspora, immigration, environment, contemporary social issues, and resistance to neo-colonialism experienced by peoples of Oceania. The focus areas of this course are the people of the Pacific Islands of Oceania regions, such as Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia. This course focuses on the experiences of Pacific Islanders from Hawai’i, Samoa, American Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, Guam, Palau, Marshall Islands, Tahiti, and New Zealand.

This course examines the relationship between the social construction of race and the production of social and economic inequality through the themes of land and labor. Beginning with pivotal historical events and their consequences that shaped land and labor in the United States' mainland and its empire and continuing to the struggle, resistance, racial and social justice, solidarity, and liberation experienced and enacted by Native American, African American, Asian American, and Latina/o/x/é Americans, we will seek to understand how old racial hierarchies manifest in current and structural issues in communal, national, and transnational politics and how these communities work to build a just and equitable society through anti-racist and anti-colonial practices and movements. Specifically, the course will cover settler-colonialism, chattel slavery, coerced labor, territorial and resource conflicts, labor recruitment, immigration, migration, globalization, U.S. transnational borders, and reparations. To better comprehend how systems of power and inequality controlling land and labor are constructed, reinforced, and challenged, we will root all analysis of race and racism in their intersection with class, gender, sexuality, religion, spirituality, national origin, immigration status, ability, tribal citizenship, sovereignty, language, and age within communities.