The History, Development, and Future of Ethnic Studies

The History, Development, and Future of Ethnic Studies Author(s): Evelyn Hu-DeHart Reviewed work(s): Source: The Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 75, No. 1 (Sep., 1993), pp. 50-54 Published by: Phi Delta Kappa International Stable URL: . Accessed: 31/03/2012 02:46 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@.

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MulticulturaElducation

The History,

Development,

and

Future

of Ethnic

Studies

Since their inception, ethnic studiesprograms have had to fight for academic legitimacy.

Now that they are winning it, Ms. Hu-DeHart wonders

whether theywill become

oblivious to the real-world

problems of people of color.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...........

BY EVELYNHU-DEHART

_

INSPIRED

by the civil rights move

ment and buoyed by the energy

of the antiwar movement, a gen

eration of American college stu dents invaded administrative of

fices 25 years ago, demanding fundamen

tal changes in higher education. The oc cupation of administrative offices by stu

dents of color and their white supporters

startled and terrified presidents, deans,

and professors. The faculty and adminis

tration were almost exclusively white and

predominantly male - and the student

body was predominantly white and pri marily male. The curriculum had been

fairly static since the first decades of the

century, and multiculturalism

evolved.

had not

Beginning in 1968 at San Francisco

State University and at the Berkeley and

Santa Barbara campuses of the Univer

sity of California, the movement spread

tomany onther schools throughout the na

tion. Studentsof color demandedbetter r

^

\

f H

EVELYNHU-DeHARTis aprofessor of his- A* _na

tory and director of the center for Studies of

_ ^A

as

I

Ethnicity and Race inAmerica at theUniver-Ca A

sity of Colorado, Boulder.

50

PHI

DELTA KAPPAN

Illustrationby Les Kanturek

access to higher education, changes in cific programs.

terns, theU.S. population is rapidlybe

thecurriculum,therecruitmenot fmore 3. The Departmentof American Eth coming "colored"and increasinglymore

professors of color, and the creationof nic Studies at the University of Wash diverse - in race, ethnicity, religion,

ethnicstudiesprograms.Theseprograms ington, Seattle, was created in 1985 by languagem, usic, art, literaturea, ndother

were thebeginningofmulticulturalcur bringing togetherprograms inAfrican culturalexpressions. In fact,with more

riculum reform in higher education. American,AsianAmerican, andChicano than half of its population already high

From theirorigins inCalifornia, eth studies.

ly diversified, California provides a

nic studies programs and departments 4. The Center forStudiesof Ethnicity glimpse of the nation's future. Itwill be

have survivedandproliferatedthrough and Race in America at the University anoxymoronic"majoritmy inority"state

out the United States. 1After serious cut of Colorado, Boulder, was created in by 2050. The relativelyhigh birthrateof

backs during thebudgetarycrises of the 1987by consolidatingexistingprograms minorityAmericans, aswell as theirlow

1970s and 1980s, they are back bigger in black studies and Chicano studies and er age distribution,will mean thatever

and stronger thanever. Ethnic studies adding new programs inAsian American increasingnumbersof people of color

programs have been revitalized, reor andAmerican Indianstudies.

will fill our classrooms and enter our

ganized, and reconceptualized.Indeed, Aside from theWest, Bowling Green work force.

they are increasinglybecoming institu State University in Ohio has one of the In order to bring about a truly pluralis

tionalizedT. he fieldof ethnicstudieshas oldest ethnic studiesdepartmentsw, hich tic democracy, our education system at

produced a prodigious amountof new was founded in 1979.

all levels not only must reflect the nation's

scholarshipm, uch of which is good and During the decades inwhich ethnic diversity in itsstudentbody, faculty,and

innovativeH. owever, as is trueinalldis studies programswere established and curriculum,butalsomust seek toachieve

ciplines, some of thework isweak. The grew strong,American society under comparableeducationaloutcomes for all

perspectivesof ethnic studiesare intend went dramatic changes that continue to groups in society.The educationreforms

ed not only to increaseour knowledge thisday.The civil rightms ovementmight known collectively as "multiculturalism"

base but eventually to transformthedis have removed the last vestiges of legal - one example of which is the integra

ciplines.Their influenceisbeingwidely apartheidin theUnited States.However, tionof ethnicstudiesintothecollege cur

felt and hotly debated.

other ways have been invented to deny riculum - have as major goals the es

Today there are more than 700 eth equalopportunityto thehistoricallymar tablishmentof democraticpluralismand

nic studiesprogramsanddepartmentsin ginalized communities of color. In the 25 the achievementof educationalequity.

theUnited States.2They are represent years since the issuance of the Kerner

ed by fiveestablishedprofessionalassoci CommissionReport,which spokeof two

ations: the National Council of Black Americas - one rich, one poor; one THE NATURE OF ETHNIC STUDIES

Studies, theNationalAssociationof Chi white, one black - the gulf that divides What is ethnic studies?First, the field

cano Studies, theAsian American Studies the nation has grown wider than ever. is distinct from global or internation

Association, theAmerican IndianStudies Today 1% of the population of the U.S. al studies, particularly those programs

Association, and theNationalAssociation has "gained control" of more of the na known generally as "area studies," with

of Ethnic Studies. The Association of tion'swealth thanthebottom90%.This which ethnic studies is often compared

Puerto Rican Studies was formed in situation parallels the stark and painful and confused. Area studies programs

1992.

inequalityinmuch of theThirdWorld.3 arose out of American imperialism in the

A disproportionatenumberof ethnic Significantdemographicchangeshave Third World and bear names such as

studies programs are located in public also taken place in the United States in African studies, Asian studies, and Lat

colleges and universities because these the last 25 years. Since 1965, when U.S. in American studies. These programs

institutionsaremore susceptibletopub immigration laws eliminated the "national were designed to focus on U.S./Third

lic pressure than are private schools. origins" quotas that favored Europeans, World relations and to train specialists

There aremore ethnic studiesprograms immigrants from Asia, Latin America, to uphold U.S. hegemony in regions in

in theWest because of that region's fast and the Caribbean have for the first time which theU.S. had heavy economic and

growing and ethnically diverse popula outnumberewd hite Europeanimmigrants political investmentsA. rea studiesschol

tion. The biggest and most powerful pro to the U.S. The country's political and ars have become far more critical of

grams are found in fourpublic research military interventionssinceWorld War U.S./Third World relations since the

universities in theWest:

II have also boosted immigration from antiwar movement of the 1960s, and

1. The Department of Ethnic Studies Asia, Central America, and the Carib many have adopted Third World perspec

at theUniversityof California,Berkeley, bean. From 1965 to the 1990s, non-Eu tives. However, they are still predomi

has programs in Asian American, Chi ropeans have composed over 80% of all nantly white male scholars entrenched in

cano, and Native American studies and immigrants - almost nine million in a establisheddepartments,subscribing to

offers thenation'sonly Ph.D. in ethnic surge during the 1980s. This new wave and benefiting from traditional patterns

studies.

of immigration accounts for the doubling of distributing power and rewards in the

2. The Department of Ethnic Studies of Asian Americans in the U.S. popula academy.5

at the University of California, San Die

tion and the increase of Latinos by

Ethnic studies programs, which grew

go, was created in 1990. It takesa com

outof studentandcommunitygrassroots

parativeapproachandhasno ethnic-spe As a resultof these immigrationpat movements, challengetheprevailingaca

SEPTEMBER 1993

51

demic power structureand theEurocen triccurriculaof our colleges anduniver sities. These insurgentprogramshad a subversiveagendafrom theoutset;hence

they were suspect and regarded as illegiti

mate even as they were grudgingly al

lowed into the academy.Definitions of

ethnic studies vary from campus to cam

pus and change over time. What the pro grams have in common is a specific or

comparative focus on groups viewed as

"minorities"inAmerican society.Euro pean immigranths ave dominatedAmeri

sume or take for granted the inevita

bility and indefinitedurationof the

class and colonial oppression that has

marked Puerto Rico's history. All the

disciplinesthatwe aremost directly drawingupon- history,economics, sociology, anthropology,literature,

psychology, pedagogy - as they are

practiced in theUnited States are deep

ly implicated in the construction of that

vision of Puerto Ricans as an inferior,

submissivpeeople,trappeodn theun dersideof relationsfromwhich there is no foreseeable xit.8

establish alternativevalues and visions, institutionsand cultures.Ethnic studies scholarshiphas become a new discipline inandof itself. It is continuouslydefin

ing and clarifying its own unique meth

odology and epistemology.

CURRENT DEBATES

Ethnic studies isnot totallystabilized, institutionalizedh, armonious,ormono

lithic. It is in a state of transition struc

turally, intellectually,and ideologically.

ca and defined the national identity as white andWestern. Groups of color have

There is littleuniformityamong the ap Inshort, thefieldof ethnicstudiespro proximately700 ethnic-specificprograms

a shared history of having been viewed vides a "liberatingeducationalprocess"9 and departments in the United States. In

asdistinctfromtheEuropeanimmigrants that challenges Western imperialism and part, thediscussionswithin ethnicstudies

and their descendants. They are the "un Eurocentrism, along with their claims are no different from the ongoing de

meltable ethnics,"or ethnicswithout op to objectivity and universalism. Ethnic bates amongbiologists, anthropologists,

tions regardingwhether to invoke their studiesscholarsrecognizethe importance and historians as their fields grow and

ethnicity.6

of perspective, believing that"perspec change.While discussions amongethnic

A culturallynationalisticvantagepoint tives . . .are always partial and situated studiespractitionersare not usually vi

characterized almost all of the early eth in relationship to power."'1 Putting it tuperativeor destructive, theyare often

nic studiesprograms. This perspective concretely, "It is both practically and the heated and reflect the stateof develop

still has enormous resonance in theAfro oretically incorrecttouse theexperience ment of a young discipline. The follow

centrism of some black studies programs. of white ethnics as a guide to comprehend ing comments by no means exhaust the

Most ethnic studiesscholarstodayadopt those of nonwhite, or so-called 'racial' list of issues but should convey some

a relational and comparative approach, minorities. "11

sense of the concerns in the field. This

lookingatquestionsof power throughthe As an approach to knowledge, ethnic discussion shouldalso suggest thedirec

prisms of race, class, and gender. One studies is interdisciplinary - and it is tions that the field of ethnic studies will

definition of the academic purpose of eth more than just a grab bag of unrelated ap probably take as it moves into the 21st

nic studies can be found in the 1990 pro plications of separate discipline-based century.

posal to create a Department of Ethnic methodologies. Ethnic studies scholar The key organizational issue seems to

Studies at theUniversity of California, ship focuses on the central roles that race be the structureand locationof ethnic

San Diego:

and ethnicity play in the construction of studieswithin theacademy.Should eth American history, culture, and society. nic studies be an interdisciplinary pro

Focusing on immigration, slavery, and confinement, those three process es that combined to create in theUnit ed States a nation of nations, Ethnic Studies intensively examines the histo ries, languages and cultures of Ameri ca's racial and ethnic groups in and of themselves, their relationships to each other, and particularly, in structural contexts of power.7

Johnnella Butler, head of theDepartment of American Ethnic Studies at the Uni

versity ofWashington, Seattle, writes, "Its interdisciplinarynature and simul

taneous attention to race, ethnicity, gen der, and class should provide the scholar ship and teaching necessary to illuminate it as a specific field of study."'2 Butler is a strong proponent of the comparative ap

gram that follows the model of area

studies,drawingfacultyfromestablished disciplines?Or shouldethnicstudiespush

for autonomy and full departmental sta

tus in view of the fact that the field has

developed as a discipline?Shouldethnic studiesnow concentrateon establishing intellectual credentials and credibility, while looseningor severing ties, forged

proach to ethnic studies, and she urges in the early days, with minority student

To most scholars in the field, it is the the examination of connections between services?

role of ethnic studies to pose a fundamen tal challenge to the dominant paradigms

groups and experiences. She proposes a As a program relying on departments "matrix model," described as "looking at for facultymembers andcourses, ethnic

of academic disciplines. While he was the matrix of race, class, ethnicity, and studies has no control over faculty re

specifically addressing the goals of Puer gender . . .within the context of cultur sources and minimal influence on course

to Rican Studies, Frank Bonilla, founder and director of Hunter College's Centro

al, political, social, and economic expres sion."13

offerings. Thus it has little power to de

fine itself intellectuallyandacademical

de Estudios Puertorriqueflos,expressed Ethnic studies seeks to recover and ly. It becomes nearly impossible to build

guiding principles applicable to all eth reconstructthehistoriesof thoseAmeri a sound, coherent, and intellectually chal

nic studies:

cans whom history has neglected; to iden lenging program through a rather haphaz

We have set out to contest effective

ly thosevisionsof theworld thatas

tify and credit their contributions to the ard sampling of whatever courses may be

making of U.S. society and culture; to available througha numberof different chronicle protest and resistance;and to departments.

52

PHIDELTAKAPPAN

The unfortunate result of such efforts, grams sufferdisproportionatelybecause sight bodies. This is a long, drawn-out

well-intentioned though they may be, is they are the weaker member of the part process that can become contentious. A

that they fuel the argument of skeptics nership. During periods of financial con program is still themost common model

and critics that ethnic studies programs straints, ethnic studies programs can eas for ethnic studies because it is the easi

lack rigor and legitimacy. Hence in prac ily be cut back or disbanded. This hap est and least costly way to accommodate

tice such programs at best function as pened to many of them in the 1970s.

a new discipline. Tight budgets and pro

mere coordinatingbodies, organizing a Departments, on the other hand, con gram retrenchment are likely to increase

set of loosely related courses around an trol budgets, hire their own faculty mem

in the mid-1990s because of the limited

ethnic-specific or comparative theme. bers, and, most important, determine the resources thatmost colleges and univer

They must rely on the good will, sym course of study. Hence they define the sities will have.

pathy toward their mission, and posi field, setting standards for pedagogy, re

On those campuses where adminis

tive attitude of traditional departments.

search, and publication. In short, they trators have yielded to the department

Most often, the relationship between eth have status and, at least structurally, en model, ethnic studies departments usually

nic studies programs and departments is joy equality with other disciplines. De have few faculty members, and most of

tenuous and uneasy, if not outrightly hos partments can also readily create and them are untenured, which reduces them

tile.

sponsor graduate programs. Not surpris to amarginal status within the academy.

The relationshipbetweenethnicstudies ingly, there is little dispute within ethnic Nevertheless, seeing it as an easy way to

programs and traditional academic de studies about the theoretical desirability make a positive statement of their com

partments becomes unmanageable be of establishing departments rather than mitment to diversity, administrators are

cause it raises issues of turf protection, programs.

often eager to establish some kind of eth

competition for scarce resources, and ra

But political expediency and practical nic studies presence on their campuses.

cism on the part of traditional scholars. financial matters often dictate the less They also know that, if they can go the

Traditional scholars find it difficult to ideal course of action. In public institu extra mile and create an ethnic studies

shake off their preconceptions about the tions, a program can be created by ad department with its own faculty lines, it

illegitimacy and inferiority of ethnic ministrative fiat, whereas the creation of will be the fastest route to diversifying

studies programs and, by extension, eth a new department requires extensive re the faculty. Ethnic studies scholars and

nic studies scholars. Ethnic studies pro view by the faculty and by other over supporters, having been stranded on the

margins for so long, see any movement

toward the inside as acceptable - hence

their tendency to settle for less.

Undeniably, the field of ethnic studies

is being institutionalized. In addition to

the creation of ethnic studies programs

or departments, there is a general push

toward multiculturalism on the nation's

college campuses. Curriculum reform

(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~m~o~ve~me~nt~s ~~are~s~tr~ivi~ng~~to~in~teg~ra~te~e~th~~~~~~~~~~ nic studies perspectives and scholarship

into themainstream curriculum. This goal

entails more than hiring ethnic studies

scholars in traditional departments such

as history, sociology, psychology, polit

ical science, and literature. Ethnic studies

scholars must be encouraged to integrate

their discipline's scholarship and perspec

tives into other university courses. A cur

rent debate among students and faculty

members on many campuses concerns the

desirability of requiring an ethnic studies

course as part of the core or general un

dergraduate education program.

-The

r f

About five years ago campuses began offering faculty members voluntary in

service training workshops typically de

scribed as "curriculum integration proj

ects." Now that organizations such as the

Ford Foundation have added their sup

'Ais gives neve meaning

to the vWord flunk . . . and to 24 other wordr. t

port to these endeavors, the workshops have become more ambitious and were

SEPTEM19B9E3R 53

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