more stuff from colorlines

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Article from 1999 "Educate to Liberate!": Multiculturalism and the Struggle for Ethnic Studies

Thirty years ago, students of color at San Francisco State College called a strike demanding a Third World College. The authorities deployed up to ten thousand armed men almost every day for more than two months to crush the Third World strike, but the students prevailed—and Ethnic Studies was born. Similar battles erupted at Berkeley, Columbia, Cornell, and other white universities throughout the country.

Despite almost constant attacks by hostile politicians, administrators, and academics over the last three decades, Ethnic Studies has endured. As one of the few spoils of student wars that has been institutionalized, Ethnic Studies today probably occupies a more prominent place in U.S. academic and intellectual life than at any time in history.

But the years of struggle have also taken their toll. Lodged within white universities and bereft of powerful social movements, Ethnic Studies has increasingly submitted to academia’s elitist rules, rewards, and punishments.

How has Ethnic Studies survived? What remains of its original mission? What struggles shape Ethnic Studies today?MORE

Having their say

UNESCO lists almost 2,500 languages worldwide as “endangered,” meaning they are at risk of falling out of use and even disappearing as fluent native speakers die and younger generations fail to take up the language. A bulk of endangered languages are the tongues of indigenous groups who have been colonized or encroached upon by a dominant culture and forced or coerced to give up their native language. In the past, students were beaten for speaking their language in strict boarding schools in the United States and Australia. More recently in parts of the U.S. and countless other regions worldwide, people feel cultural and economic pressure to switch to the dominant language, seeing it as a means of opportunity and feeling a sense of shame in their indigenous identity.

But recent years have also seen a resurgence in the interest to preserve indigenous languages among academics, nongovernmental organizations and indigenous communities. In many cases, young people, who did not grow up speaking their native language, are now studying and embracing it as a way to understand and celebrate their heritage and connect with their elders.

Benjamin Young is a perfect example.MORE