Ethnic studies more timely than ever

Jesse M. Vazquez

The most active, the most

public, and possibly the most

sustained discourse on race

and ethnicity in the university

has come from those in

ethnic studies.

We offer this not as a self-congratulatory

homage but simply as a

reminder of a time in the university, not

too long ago, when the only muted

discussions around these concepts were

to be found primarily in anthropology

and sociology departments and, in very

restricted ways, a few other social science

departments.

The fact that there was such an

intellectual and curricular vacuum made

it necessary and possible for us to demand

and secure a place in the academy

for this long overdue discussion on

ethnicity and race in American society.

There was a great treasure that needed

to be unearthed and shared, and ethnic

studies provided the intellectual framework

for that excavation.

Parched Landscape

The activist critics and reformers

(students and faculty) of this parched

landscape in the academy saw precious

little as they looked around for anything

that might have resembled a comprehensive,

systematic, and interdisciplinary approach

to understanding ethnicity

and race in American society. And indeed,

there was nothing interdisciplinary

that addressed the historical and

contemporary concerns of

ethnic-specific communities in the

United States.

Repeated studies left very, little in

their wake after research teams abandoned

communities in crisis, leading to

a widespread distrust of social scientific

models that failed to engage the community

in some fundamental and practical

way. Where were the connections

that should exist between the models searching

for theoretical explanations and the

right of communities to expect another level

of engagement and responsibility on the

part of the researchers?

In its more radical form, ethnic studies

sought to effect social and structural change

well beyond the boundaries of the institution.

Perhaps at this point the line between

the objective and the subjective in scholarship

and teaching was being tested by this

way of doing ethnic studies.

Making a Difference

In many instances the communities that

supported the creation of ethnic studies in

the distant academy saw these as places that

could make a difference on many levels.

There was now the possibility of recovering

a history that had been all but neglected and

pushed to the fringes by mainstream scholars

and disciplines. An ethnic studies presence

in the academy also held out the

promise of applying what we learned through

research to communities in crisis. The idea

that social science research could and should

be applied for the transformation of our

communities became a common concern of

researchers and teachers, in ethnic studies.

The classroom provided a similar crucible.

We needed a place where the issue of

race and ethnicity could be discussed openly

and freely, studied without encumbrances

of embarrassment and self-consciousness. It

is our contention that ethnic studies programs

opened the possibilities for scholars

today to examine their own personal, ethnic

and gender histories in relation to

the work that they are doing.

Over and over again, ethnic

studies instructors share a whole

range of pedagogical concerns that

address the fundamental challenges

that we face daily as we grapple

with subject matter that is both

volatile and emotionally loaded.

Whether we want to admit it or not,

the ethnicity and "race" of the instructor

will in some way shape the interaction

and the dynamics in that classroom. The

possibilities are endless in this regard,

and we have been aware of these dynamics

since the earliest days of ethnic

studies. But few of our colleagues outside

of ethnic studies have bothered to

engage us about these issues of pedagogy.

Today's ethnic studies programs, in

the courses offered at both the undergraduate

and graduate level, and in the

research that has proliferated in a great

variety of fields as a result of the ethnic

studies initiative, are ample evidence

that this field was well worth the struggles

of the late 1960s and 1970s. We argue

that ethnic studies laid the foundation for

today's cultural and multicultural discourse

in the American university, yet

too often we have been silenced in that

exchange.

But despite the continuous sniping

and undermining of ethnic studies, we

persist in our work and continue our

struggle to preserve a space in the academy

for our programs, departments and

research centers.

COPYRIGHT 1996 Cox, Matthews & Associates
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group