Why All Schools Should Have an Ethnic Studies Requirement
A recent high school grad’s perspective on what’s missing in education
Earlier this year, when the murder of George Floyd reawakened the fire of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and brought demand for change in the form of protests, social media was fighting for the movement in its own method: online resources and posts.
Nearly every person I followed on Instagram was sharing BLM posts on their Instagram stories, giving links to petitions, and providing sources where we could learn about the history of police brutality, minorities, and systemic racism. Because of the power of social media, people were learning things that they hadn’t known before, and we no longer had an excuse to be clueless about the situation of the black community.
As I was doing my research on the situation, reading excerpts from books and posts about oppression and white privilege, and the overall history of minorities, there was one lingering thought in the back of my mind:
Why didn’t I know about this sooner?
As a high school student, I received the bare minimum of what there was to know about the black community. I listened to Dr. Martin Luther King’s I Have A Dream speech every time I took a U.S. history class; I heard over and over again the story of Rosa Parks, and how she began a boycott by refusing to give up her seat to a white man; I learned about the history of slavery, the Jim Crow Laws, and how before our current society, black people suffered racism in many forms, including violence. I learned about how the government has tried to make up for that, and that actions have been taken to ensure equality for people of color.
Now, don’t get me wrong, all of that information is certainly important. However, I was never given an opportunity to learn in depth about the black community beyond that, and even less about other marginalized cultures, throughout my years in high school; the fact that much of the information I was learning through Instagram posts was new to me made this clear.
Did you know that in 1904, Mary McLeod Bethune opened the Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School of Negro Girls, paving the way for young black girls to flourish in a segregated city where Negro students had much fewer opportunities for quality education? I hadn’t known of such a powerful accomplishment. Did you hear of the story of Sylvia Mendez, an eight year old Mexican-American girl who played an integral role in desegregating California schools a decade before Brown V. Board of Education? I hadn’t learned of this story in any class in my school.
I learned about the history of the United States solely from the glorified perspective of white people. And I don’t think that’s how I should have learned it.
For having lived in such a diverse country my entire life, and for being a minority myself, I think it’s ironic that I know little about the black, Latino, Vietnamese, and many other minorities that have made their mark on our society, but much more about white people, and what white people have done to make the U.S. what it is today.
How can we expect to make progress if our education is biased like so? How can we ever expect the word “equality” to have meaning when our education system, the thing that most strongly impacts the future generation’s minds, doesn’t tell them about the inequality that so many communities have suffered?
That’s why I believe that in order to take action against the racist system, one of the steps we need to take is to implement an ethnic studies requirement in our high schools.
Ethnic studies is defined as “the interdisciplinary study of difference — chiefly race, ethnicity, and nation, but also sexuality, gender, and other such markings — and power, as expressed by the state, by civil society, and by individuals.” In other words, an ethnic studies class addresses racial issues, analyzes the impact of different minorities on fields such as law, literature, and political science, and teaches students to appreciate other cultural identities, as well as their own. It covers the history, traditions, and experiences of different communities.
On first thought, it might just sound like more work for the future generation of students; just one more painstaking GE requirement that they have to clear in order to graduate. However, having an ethnic studies requirement would give students a more accurate account of the United States’ past; after all, learning about the U.S. only from the perspective of one race would naturally create a very different, and even biased, view of the American society. By taking an ethnic studies class, students would be aware of what minority communities have experienced, and what they have contributed to our society. Students who are part of minorities would see themselves and their own communities as a more significant part of our history.
An ethnic studies requirement would also encourage the concept of diversity, and teach students about important concepts like oppression, white privilege, and inequality. Students would be more aware of the systems of oppression that have and still do plague our institutions.
Actions have already been taken to implement such a requirement in our colleges. For example, UCLA implemented a Diversity GE requirement in 2015, and in August of this year, California State Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill mandating that all students take an ethnic studies course as a graduation requirement for California State Colleges. However, most recently, Governor Newsom rejected a bill mandating the same thing in California high schools. His reasoning was that he wanted to ensure that the curriculum would “[achieve] balance, fairness, and is inclusive of all communities.” Although I understand the reasoning behind his caution, I still strongly believe that after the necessary revisions to the curriculum to be inclusive of every group, that ethnic studies will highly benefit the future generation if it is taught as soon as high school.
As people who will be entering the workforce, where they will encounter many people of different backgrounds, it is essential for all students, including the white population, to be aware of other minorities and be open to cultures other than their own. Being able to work with others requires respect for their cultural backgrounds and beliefs. The future generation will not be prepared to enter a world of diversity without knowing and appreciating the value of diversity themselves. With cultural appreciation and historical information circulating through the roads of social media, and with ethnic studies gaining traction in our schools, I am beginning to have hope that the future of the United States will be bright with minority empowerment and social justice, and that the students after me will gain a better, more encompassing understanding of our country’s history and cultures than I did.
Linda Tran is an upcoming freshman at UCLA who is passionate about making societal change through the power of words. In her free time, she enjoys playing the violin and binge-watching anime to her heart’s content.
