Ethnic Studies experts share insights

Sarah Siegel Guest Writer

Ethnic Studies has been one of the most dynamic issues surrounding Vassar curriculum over the past several years. This Friday, March 30 and Saturday, March 31 mark another step forward as Vassar will host a symposium entitled “Ethnic Studies NOW” that will bring together some of the most influential scholars in the discipline with backgrounds ranging from sociology to music journalism.

The Ethnic Studies Coalition (ESC) began last year after Jason Wu ’07, who designed an independent major in the discipline, decided to take action about what he saw as lacking in the Vassar faculty and course offerings. He described the ESC movement as an “awareness and education campaign, as well as a desire to push for more hires in the field of Ethnic Studies.”

After noting student interest in the area of Ethnic Studies, Visiting Instructor in English Rani Neutill, who specializes in Asian American and Ethnic Studies, said that she decided to organize a conference that would highlight current works in the Ethnic Studies field, inviting both established and cutting-edge scholars.

The symposium will kick off in Rockefeller Hall 200 with a 1:30 p.m. lecture entitled “The Unbearable Whiteness of Being: Situating Asian Americans” by Michael Omi, a Berkeley professor whose Racial Formation in the United States is considered a seminal text for both Ethnic Studies and critical race theory. Berkeley Professor José David Saldivar will then present a lecture on Sandra Cisneros’ Caramelo at 2:15 p.m. Anne Cheng, an English Professor at Princeton University, will speak next at 3:15 on “Deep Skin: Josephine Baker, Sexuality, and Visual Culture.” The lecture portion will end with Jeff Chang, a hip-hop journalist and author of Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation at 4 p.m. The symposium will end with a round-table discussion on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. moderated by Berkeley Ethnic Studies Professor Neldon Maldonado-Torres.

Wu praised the lineup of speakers, stating, “I am amazed that we were able to bring these people. Some of the most influential people in the humanities and social sciences are coming...I can’t wait for the opportunity to speak with them and perhaps exchange ideas.”

University of California, Berkeley was the first university to create a Department of Ethnic Studies in 1969 and, according to Neutill, the field has been growing ever since. While it is still mainly concentrated on the coasts and in Texas, Neutill said that “more and more universities are trying to hire within the field of Ethnic Studies.” After study into the Ethnic Studies movements of the 1960s, Wu noted, “I realized that schools on the East Coast are [now] making demands that were fought for nearly 40 years ago. I realized that this was a big problem, a gaping hole in our educations at Vassar.”

At Vassar, the most famous manifestation of the Ethnic Studies movement occurred in the early 1990s, when students stormed Main Building in an initiative that eventually led to the creation of the African American/Black Latino Asian/Asian American Native American Center, Blegen House, and the Bayit House.

According to Wu, campus debates often suffer because students don’t have a clear idea of what ethnic Studies actually is. Wu said that Ethnic Studies classes are not the same as language classes or classes that focus on the history of a particular group in foreign context. There is a crucial “difference between courses on Japan and courses on Asian-Americans,” he said. Ethnic Studies offers the latter.

Neutill said she believes that the field is “no longer constituted by activist movements—[it has] moved on from that nationalist sort of standpoint.” The aim of the symposium, she said, is to explore how Ethnic Studies has evolved.