Dang's biographical statement below appears as it was originally published in 2016
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jennifer is a freshman at SF State. She is originally from Orange County, CA, so moving up to San Francisco has definitely been a change in weather! She plans on majoring in English Education and has always seen herself as being a high school teacher. Between working two jobs and drowning herself with homework, she enjoys watching The Bachelor and listening to anything Kanye. She’s excited to continue studying at SF State and seeing where that takes her next. Go gators! COMMENT FROM GTA, DANIEL CURTIS-CUMMINS: “A Different Mirror” is Jennifer's response to a prompt which asked her to explore an educational issue that was interesting to her, and related to language, diversity, and issues of standardized education. This essay is the result of two essays combined: Essay 3 - where students developed an inquiry question and conducted scholarly research with at least three library sources; and Essay 4 - in which students interviewed a member of the SFSU academic community to add a second voice to their conversation.
Jennifer took this opportunity to explore her academic interests and future goals as a high school teacher, in which she hopes to promote Ethnic Studies. She researched the scholarly discussion surrounding Ethnic Studies inclusion in the high school curriculum and the efficacy of Ethnic Studies to create positive change, in general. She also connected with Dr. Eric Pido of the Ethnic Studies Department and learned through interviewing him that being an academic is a practical and meaningful way to make positive personal and social change. Her inquiry was particularly meaningful given the recent unrest on our campus regarding the future health, survival, and expansion of our historic Ethnic Studies Program at SF State. "A Different Mirror" is a model of the inspiration and lasting influence our students can share through assignments they do for our courses.
Now that I am halfway done with my first semester of college, I have to say it has been a whirlwind of emotions. Coming from a Vietnamese community, I have never been exposed to cultures other than my own. I have never been surrounded by so many diverse individuals who are passionate about different types of issues in society. Being constantly surrounded by these people has given me a chance to be able to develop my own thoughts and participate in a community of people that works toward empowering each other. If there is one thing I have become passionate about, it is Ethnic Studies.
Society constantly places stereotypes and judges people based on the color of one’s skin rather than treating people as individuals. Growing up, these words struck me: Race disappears when we see people as individuals. As much as I believe that people should be treated as individuals, I also believe that race and culture shape an individual’s identity. People should be able to live in a diverse world where an individual’s race and culture is valued and appreciated. Thus, Ethnic Studies courses play a major role in educating people; Ethnic Studies allows students to ask questions beyond the superficial level and allows them to engage with questions of race and culture.
The history of America taught in schools is incomplete because it does not expose non-white students to their roots. Cynthia Liu, a professor at San Francisco State University, discussed in a Washington Post blog her upbringing in an all-white community. The first time she read The Woman Warrior, a memoir that chronicles the experience of Chinese immigrants, it opened her mind. At last, she was exposed to the non-white history of the United States:
It was the first time ever someone had described the foods she ate, or the mildew-and-hempen smells that wafted out of boxes her family received from kin who lived in an Asian country overseas she had never visited. The book told secrets she thought were hers alone about distant women relatives with bound feet or who made and ate strange food or had relatives with names like Second Maternal Aunt or Tenth Paternal Uncle (Liu).
I can relate because the history of my Asian ancestors was not told through their point-of-view, but rather, through the point-of-view of white Americans. I did not learn anything about my culture at school; I only learned about it at home. I would take stories passed down from my family to me with a grain of rice, valuing stories that taught me what it means to be an Asian American. History is a mirror, and people need a mirror that reflects all experiences, not just the white experience. Through learning about different cultures and their experiences, people can shed their ignorance and unite together.
Ignorance breeds hate. A failure to understand another’s background and struggles can result in hatred and strife. As a society, people tend to have preconceived notions of gender, culture, and race; it is much easier to lump people together in groups rather than to get to know someone as an individual. In order to unlearn these preconceived notions, society must educate people at an early age: “Anti-racism can be learned and racism and bigotry unlearned. But first we have to set aside blinkered monocultural lenses” (Liu). To unlearn prejudices such as racism, Ethnic Studies can play a vital role in educating people about gender, culture, and race.
Racial and ethnic profiling holds society back and divides communities. Unlearning prejudices such as racism can help mend the years of hurt of pain that America has experienced as a result. Hence, it is increasingly important to unlearn racism in order to flourish as a society. From experience, I know that it is much easier to judge someone merely on their race. Growing up in an Asian household, my dad would perpetuate stereotypes when it came to whites, blacks, and Latinos. These stereotypes were the result of a closed-minded upbringing. This narrow-mindedness illustrates how Ethnic Studies is needed in order to improve our everyday life. It can teach others, like my dad, not to treat people as stereotypes.
Including Ethnic Studies in education has been a controversial topic since 1968 when students at San Francisco State University led a strike to establish an Ethnic Studies department. Students and faculty demanded a curriculum that would promote and embrace different cultures and be able to participate in a multicultural world. Ethnic Studies programs have been found to increase a student’s reading and math scores as well as to increase academic engagement (Springer). Bernadette Kelley, chair of the Florida School District, comments “If we teach students about where they come from, reading and math scores increase. Every group and every student must feel part of the education process – to reduce suspension rates and increase the graduation rates of all students, particularly African-American males.” In the same article, the school districts in Miami credit Ethnic Studies courses as part of the reason why they contain the highest performing urban schools on the NAEP exams (Wetschler). As more school districts incorporate Ethnic Studies courses, more studies are linking Ethnic Studies courses with higher academic achievement. Students tend to do well and respond better when exposed to a curriculum that reflects their own culture. It is important for students to be taught at a young age that their identity matters.
Exploring ethnicity and asking questions creates an environment where students can feel more open and prone to engaging in topics about race and culture. The Arizona Ethnic Studies Network states, “in a globalizing, diverse society, Ethnic Studies teaches students to ask questions and seek answers beyond what is simply presented as fact and to look beyond the accepted dominant narrative” (Arizona). People live in an interdependent society where they encounter different races and cultures on a daily basis; thus, a background and education in various cultures can only benefit people and allow them to better understand one another. Graduate student Meghan Mcdowell shares her experiences growing up in a white community:
I grew up in a rural, predominantly white agricultural community in northwestern Vermont. This meant that I was not taught about Cesar Chavez, Ella Baker, W.E.B. Du Bois, or the American Indian Movement. Instead, I learned about these individuals and the movements they were a part of in Ethnic Studies classes. These classes did not teach me to hate myself for being white. These classes taught me to advocate for a society that treats all people with dignity, mutual respect, and openness to personal and institutional transformation (Arizona).
This quote is particularly important to me because it is reminiscent of a moment in my Ethnic Studies class when my professor, Dr. Pido, asked the class whether or not they had ever heard of the name of Fred Korematsu. More than half of the class, including myself, have never heard of such a name. When we learned about Mr. Korematsu’s incredible journey of fighting injustice and standing up against the government’s internment camps, I felt confused as to why I was deprived from learning about an Asian activist in high school. Like the Arizona Ethnic Studies Network, I believe it is important for students to learn about people that they can relate to.
Whether they realize it or not, teachers tend to have a big impact on students. Personally, the reason I wanted to become an educator was largely due to teachers that have made an impression on me. Jeff Andrade believes that educators are the biggest influence on a student’s life: “As educators we tend to seriously underestimate the impact our response has on the other students in the class. They are watching us…[When we] punish youth who manifest symptoms of righteous rage or social misery, we give way to legitimate doubts among other students about our capacity to meet their needs…” (Duncan-Andrade 10). Educators who are open to the idea of teaching and talking about culture inside the classroom will positively influence how students perceive and interact with people from different backgrounds. In order to create a more peaceful world, exposing students to an open ethnic community in the classroom early will help students to better interact with a diverse world.
In the same article, Andrade admits that incorporating Ethnic Studies into a curriculum is not without its difficulties. Educators and schools must be willing to embrace the difficulties of implementing an Ethnic Studies program. After all, it was Socrates who said, “all great undertakings are risky, and, as they say, what is worth while is always difficult” (Plato 220). As educators, we must take great risks. We must accept great challenges if we are going to make a difference. We must confront our failures. Because, regardless of what we do in our classrooms, there will still be forms of social misery that affect our students.
I recently sat down with Ethnic Studies professor Dr. Eric Pido to discuss his views on Ethnic Studies and how it can benefit students in the long run. I asked him how his interest in this field first began and why he chose to dedicate his career on this timely, ongoing issue. As a Filipino boy, Dr. Pido developed personal issues due to racism. In high school and much of his early college years, he felt ashamed. It was not until he discovered social work that he thought of himself as a human being with something to offer people (Pido). Similarly to Cynthia Liu, Dr. Pido believes that incorporating Ethnic Studies into the high school curriculum would help students develop a positive identity. He contends that people develop at different paces, but once students reach high school, an individualizing process occurs where students have a need to establish an identity that is different than their parents.
Thus, Ethnic Studies will help remind students about the context of their individual race and culture. For example, for first-generation children born to Asian parents, they may not be aware of the obstacles their first-generation immigrant parents faced. While their children may want advice on life and relationships, their parents want them to have a better education and career so that they do not have to suffer the hardships of immigrant life. Being Vietnamese, Chinese, or Filipino is not just about eating certain kinds of foods or taking off your shoes when you go into a house. Ethnic Studies give students an identity that strengthens them and teaches them to appreciate the history of minorities in America. It is a vital course to have in high school because it allows students to appreciate their own race and culture as well as others.
My interview with Dr. Pido answered a lot of questions I had growing up. His class has been a life changing experience for me because it helped me realize that there were many people who had the same background as me and were going through the same experiences that other people could not relate to. There is this invisible struggle that only Asian people would understand such as being raised with higher expectations, wondering why Asians are so underrepresented in the media, and being imitated by strangers when I choose to speak my primary language out in public. It was not until I took this course in college that I realized that there were many individuals just like myself who were also going through these confusing experiences. What Dr. Pido and the previous authors stated was that: Ethnic Studies can only benefit students and open doors for them that they thought were never there. It has done that for me.
Mirrors reflect everything. Depending on the angle, they can reflect multiple perspectives. This is true for Ethnic Studies. It can transform the way people see America and themselves. There is a lot more to race and culture than meets the eye. Compassion and understanding allows people to live in an interdependent society, united together, working side-by-side. America needs a different mirror that reflects many cultures. A mirror that allows people to learn and appreciate the important contributions of various races and cultures. Incorporating Ethnic Studies into the school system will allow students to discover diversity and culture at a young age and prepare them for an open society where culture is appreciated and valued.
Works Cited:
Arizona Ethnic Studies Network. “Why Ethnic Studies Matters.” The Feminist Wire, 15 Mar. 2012, www.thefeministwire.com/2012/03/why-ethnic-studies-matters/.
Duncan-Andrade, Jeffrey M. R. “Hope Required When Growing Roses in Concrete.” Harvard Educational Review, vol. 79, no. 2, Summer 2009, pp. 181-194.
Liu, Cynthia. “The Case for Requiring Ethnic Studies in High School.” Washington Post, introduction by Valerie Strauss, 8 Dec. 2014, www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/12/08/the-case-for-requiring-ethnic-studies-in-high-school/.
Pido, Eric. Interview by Jennifer Dang, 4 Nov. 2015.
Plato. The Republic. Translated by D. Lee, Penguin, 2003.
Springer, Denize. “Campus Commemorates 1968 Student-led Strike.” SF State News, 22 Sept. 2008, www.sfsu.edu/news/2008/fall/8.html.
Wetschler, Ed. “After 50 Years, Ethnic Studies Still Controversial.” District Administration Magazine, July 2009, www.districtadministration.com/article/after-50-years-ethnic-studies-still-controversial.