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: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20405023 .
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 Education
Multicultural

The History, Development, and

Future of Ethnic Studies

Since their inception, ethnic

studies programs 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 had not
evolved.
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
the curriculum, the recruitmentof more 3. The Department of American Eth coming "colored"and increasinglymore
professors of color, and the creationof nic Studies at the University of Wash diverse - in race, ethnicity, religion,
ethnic studiesprograms.These programs ington, Seattle, was created in 1985 by language,music, art, literature,andother
were thebeginningof multiculturalcur bringing togetherprograms in African 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 for Studiesof Ethnicity glimpse of the nation's future. It will be
have survivedandproliferated through and Race in America an oxymoronic "majority
at the University minority" state
out the United States. 1After of Colorado, Boulder, was created in by 2050. The relativelyhigh birthrateof
serious cut
backs during thebudgetarycrises of the 1987 by 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 than ever. Ethnic studies adding new programs inAsian American increasingnumbers of people of color
programs have been revitalized, reor andAmerican Indian studies. 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
tionalized.The fieldof ethnic studieshas oldest ethnic studiesdepartments,which tic democracy, our education system at
produced a prodigious amount of new was founded in 1979. all levels not only must reflect the nation's
scholarship,much of which is good and During the decades in which ethnic diversity in its studentbody, faculty,and
innovative.However, as is truein all dis studies programswere established and curriculum,but alsomust seek to achieve
ciplines, some of the work is weak. 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 rightsmovementmight 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 influenceis beingwidely apartheidin theUnited States.However, tionof ethnicstudies into thecollege 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 five establishedprofessionalassoci CommissionReport,which spokeof two
- one rich, one poor; one THE NATURE OF ETHNIC STUDIES
ations: the National Council of Black Americas
Studies, theNationalAssociation of 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 than thebottom 90%. 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 disproportionatenumber of 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 susceptible topub 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 the U.S. had heavy economic and
growing and ethnically diverse popula white Europeanimmigrants political investments.Area studiesschol
outnumbered
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 theUniversity of 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 the nation'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 out of studentand communitygrassroots
parativeapproachandhas no ethnic-spe As a resultof these immigrationpat movements, challenge theprevailingaca

SEPTEMBER 1993 51
 demic power structureand theEurocen sume or take for granted the inevita establish alternativevalues and visions,
triccurriculaof our colleges anduniver bility and indefinitedurationof the institutionsand cultures. Ethnic studies
sities. These insurgentprograms had a class and colonial oppression that has scholarshiphas become a new discipline
marked Puerto Rico's history. All the
subversiveagendafrom theoutset;hence in and of itself. It is continuouslydefin
disciplinesthatwe aremost directly
they were suspect and regarded as illegiti ing and clarifying its own unique meth
drawingupon- history,economics,
mate even as they were grudgingly al sociology, anthropology,literature, odology and epistemology.
lowed into the academy.Definitions of psychology, pedagogy - as they are
ethnic studies vary from campus to cam practiced in theUnited States are deep
CURRENT DEBATES
pus and change over time. What the pro ly implicated in the construction of that
grams have in common is a specific or vision of Puerto Ricans as an inferior, Ethnic studies is not totally stabilized,
comparative focus on groups viewed as submissive on theun
people, trapped institutionalized,harmonious,ormono
"minorities"inAmerican society. Euro dersideof relationsfromwhich there lithic. It is in a state of transition struc
pean immigrantshave dominatedAmeri is no foreseeableexit.8 turally, intellectually,and ideologically.
ca and defined the national identity as There is littleuniformity among the ap
white andWestern. Groups of color have In short, the fieldof ethnic studiespro proximately700 ethnic-specificprograms
a shared history of having been viewed vides a "liberatingeducationalprocess"9 and departments in the United States. In
as distinctfrom theEuropean immigrants that challenges Western imperialism and part, thediscussionswithin ethnic studies
and their descendants. They are the "unEurocentrism, 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 among ethnic
A culturallynationalisticvantagepoint tives . . . are always partial and situated studies practitioners are not usually vi
characterized almost all of the early eth in relationship to power."'1 Putting it tuperativeor destructive, they are often
nic studies programs. This perspective concretely, "It is both practically and the heated and reflect the state of develop
still has enormous resonance in the Afro 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 studies scholars todayadopt 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
lookingat questionsof 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 proplications 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 location of ethnic
San Diego: and ethnicity play in the construction of studieswithin the academy. Should eth
American history, culture, and society. nic studies be an interdisciplinary pro
Focusing on immigration, slavery, Johnnella Butler, head of the Department gram that follows the model of area
and confinement, those three process of American Ethnic Studies at the Uni studies,drawing facultyfromestablished
es that combined to create in theUnit versity of Washington, Seattle, writes, disciplines?Or shouldethnic studiespush
ed States a nation of nations, Ethnic "Its interdisciplinarynature and simul for autonomy and full departmental sta
Studies intensively examines the histo
taneous attention to race, ethnicity, gen tus in view of the fact that the field has
ries, languages and cultures of Ameri
ca's racial and ethnic groups in and of
der, and class should provide the scholar developed as a discipline?Should ethnic
themselves, their relationships to each ship and teaching necessary to illuminate studies now concentrateon establishing
other, and particularly, in structural it as a specific field of study."'2 Butler is intellectual credentials and credibility,
contexts of power.7 a strong proponent of the comparative ap 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 groups and experiences. She proposes a As a program relying on departments
tal challenge to the dominant paradigms "matrix model," described as "looking at for facultymembers and courses, 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 al, political, social, and economic expres offerings. Thus it has little power to de
and director of Hunter College's Centro sion."13 fine itself intellectuallyand academical
de Estudios Puertorriqueflos,expressed Ethnic studies seeks to recover and ly. It becomes nearly impossible to build
guiding principles applicable to all eth reconstructthehistories of thoseAmeri a sound, coherent, and intellectually chal
nic studies: cans whom history has neglected; to iden lenging program through a rather haphaz
tify and credit their contributions to the ard sampling of whatever courses may be
We have set out to contest effective making of U.S. society and culture; to available througha numberof different
ly thosevisionsof theworld thatas chronicle protest and resistance;and to departments.

52 PHIDELTA
KAPPAN
 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 the most 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 that most 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 a marginal status within the academy.
The relationshipbetweenethnic studies 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
(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ movements are striving to integrate eth
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.
About five years ago campuses began
-The r f
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
port to these endeavors, the workshops
'Ais neve meaning to the vWord flunk . . . and to 24 other wordr. t
gives have become more ambitious and were

1993 53
SEPTEMBER
 recentlyredesignatedas "curriculum
trans in traditionalfacultyattitudes,behavior, 3rd ed. (Harper & Row, 1988). The Amerasia Jour
nal devoted an entire issue (vol. 15, no. 1, 1989)
formation" programs. 14This is good news and values? Vasquez does not think so.
to the struggles connected with the founding of
for ethnic studies.With institutionaliza Neither does Epifanio San Juan, Jr. Asian American studies. For a brief history of black
tion andwidespread influencecome re Trained at Harvard in Western litera studies, see Darlene Clark Hine, The Black Studies
spect and legitimacy. ture, San Juan has recently become one Movement: Afrocentric-Traditionalist-Feminist
Paradigms for the Next Stage," Black Scholar, Sum
In spite of the good news about ethnic of themost incisive and vociferous crit mer 1992, pp. 11-19.
studies, thesedevelopmentshave creat ics of U.S. racial politics as manifested 2. Johnnella E. Butler, "Ethnic Studies: A Matrix
ed some uneasiness. Does the push for through issues of multiculturalism and Model for the Major," Liberal Education, March/

multiculturalism on campuses threaten ethnic studies.He is concerned that the April 1991, p. 30.1 am including inmy discussion
of ethnic studies only those programs that focus on
to swallow up or co-opt ethnic studies? "gradualacademization" of ethnic studies
people of color. Thus I will not discuss women's
Will the fadingargumentbe revived that, will force it into the dominant European studies, even though that field was born at the same
once the campus is integrated, ethnic orthodoxy,which emphasizesethnicityto time as ethnic studies and grew out of similar dy
namics, generated in this case by the women's move
studieswill no longerbe necessary?Even the exclusion of race. Such an approach ment. The field of women's studies remains domi
as some applaud the inevitablespillover will "systematically[erase]from thehis nated by white, middle-class women academicians
of ethnic studies into the rest of the cur torical frame of reference any perception and students.

riculum, they also note the tension be of race and racism as causal factors in 3. Salim Mukwakil, "L.A. Lessons Go Unlearned,"
In These Times, 27 May-9 June 1992, p. 3; and Syl
tween that field and traditional fields, "as the making of the political and economic via Nasar, "The 1980s: A Very Good Time for the
people try to locate the boundaries be structureof theUnited States."17 Very Rich," New York Times, 5 March 1992, p.
tween the two."15 If race and racism should remain the A-l.
4. The national media have been publishing numer
The dispute over boundaries raises a analytical core of ethnic studies, when
ous analyses of the 1990s census data as they have
larger issue that will be even more hotly would the total retreatof ethnic studies become available. A good recent analysis is the cov
"
debated in the future. In 1988 Jesse Vas into the academy not be a contradiction? er story by Margaret Usdansky, 'Diverse' Fits Na
"
quez, head of the Puerto Rican Studies How could the field separate itself from tion Better than 'Normal,' USA Today, 29-31 May
1992, p. 1.
Department at Queens College, noted the ongoing, real-life struggles of peo
5. For discussions comparing and contrasting area
that "even traditionalacademic depart ple of color in the U.S. today? That is studies and ethnic studies, see the articles by Shirley
ments, formerlyresolute in their refusal precisely the dilemma thatnoted ethnic Hune, Evelyn Hu-DeHart, Gary K. Okhiro, and
to includeethnic studiescourses in their studies scholars such as Henry Louis Sucheta Mazumdar in Shirley Hune et al., eds.,
Asian Americans: Comparative and Global Perspec
curriculum,now cross-list, and inmany Gates, Jr., head of the Black Studies De tives (Pullman: Washington State University Press,
instancesgenerate their own version of partment at Harvard, point out. His so 1991).
ethnic studies courses in direct compe lution, indescribinga black studiesagen 6. Mary C. Waters, Ethnic Options: Choosing Iden
tities in America of Califor
titionwith existing ethnic studies pro da for the 21st century, is "an emphasis (Berkeley: University
nia Press, 1990).
grams." Vasquez also warned that these upon cultural studies and public policy, 7. "Proposal for the Creation of a Department of
multiculturalcurricularreformsmay have as two broad and fruitful rubrics under Ethnic Studies at the University of California, San
"effectivelymanaged to co-opt some of which to organize our discipline."18San Diego," unpublished document, 25 January 1990.

the more socially and politically palata Juan also seeks to capture the "activist im 8. Quoted in Jesse Vasquez, The Co-opting of Eth
nic Studies in the American University: A Critical
ble aspects of the ethnic studies move pulse" that propelled the creation of eth in Ethnic Studies,
View," Explorations January
ment of the late 1960s and early 1970s." nic studies in the first place. He and oth 1988, p. 25.
He went on to say that er scholars characterize this challenge as 9. Ibid.

the integration of theory (or critique) and 10. "Proposal for the Creation of a Department,"
pp. 5-6.
these latest curricular trends seem to praxis. Others put it even more simply
U.E. Antoinette Charfauros, "New Ethnic Studies
be moving us away from the politi and directly: the challenge is to recon in Two American Universities: A Preliminary Dis
cal and social urgency intended by the cile the academic goal of ethnic studies cussion," unpublished paper, 1 July 1992, p. 20.
founders of ethnic studies and toward - the production of knowledge - with 12. Butler, p. 28.
the kind of program design [that] con its original commitment to liberating and 13. Ibid., p. 29.
forms to and is consistent with the tra the communities of color.
14. For example, Johnnella Butler and Betty
empowering Schmitz conduct "curriculum transformation semi
ditional academic structures.... Cer
San Juan wonders if ethnic studies will nars" at the University of Washington, Seattle. The
tainly, the struggle to legitimize these
return to its "inaugural vision" of being seminars are funded by the Ford Foundation for the
programs academically has taken the purpose of "incorporating cultural pluralism into the
a part of the 'wide-ranging popular move
edge and toughness out of the heart of undergraduate curriculum." See also Johnnella But
some of our ethnic studies curricu ments for justice and equality, for thor ler and John C. Walter, eds., Transforming the Cur
lum. 16 oughgoing social transformation."Or riculum: Ethnic Studies and Women's Studies (Al
will it settle for being just another re bany: State University of New York Press, 1991).

The question is, Does the drive for spected academic unit? These are the 15. Clayborne Carson of Stanford University, quot
ed in Denise Magner, "Push for Diversity in Tradi
legitimacy and institutionalization en questions, challenges, and opportunities tional Department Raises Questions About the Fu
tail tradeoffs for ethnic studies thatmay, that the field of ethnic studies faces as we ture of Ethnic Studies," Chronicle of Higher Edu
ironically, weaken the field in the long enter a new century. cation, 1May 1991, p. A-ll.
run? Should ethnic studies be "seduced 16. Vasquez, pp. 23-24.
17. E. San Juan, Jr., "Multiculturalism Versus He
and lulled" into believing that institution
1. There are several accounts of the founding and gemony: Ethnic Studies, Asian Americans, and
alization translates into full acceptance, histories of various ethnic studies programs. See, U.S. Racial Politics," unpublished paper.
and does thatacceptance signala change for example, Rudolfo Acuna, Occupied America, 18. Quoted in San Juan. Kl

54 PHI DELTA KAPPAN