Dana Aika Miranda -- ASA 002 A04: Week 3

#EthnicStudiesNow

Why is it that while there are so many voices, people of color are unsurprisingly and continually ignored? Hxstory is not just written by the winners. I refuse to accept this. Hxstories are not always written in some communities and are hidden within the telling of intergenerational oral stories. Hxstories are picked and chosen by the oppressors to frame the, already, marginalized communities in a narrative that justifies injustices imposed onto them and in a narrative that contributes to the erasures of other truths to the same point in time. This documentary is so relevant to speaking on people power movements within the universities and higher education campuses where those in the administrative power would utilize their authority to bring in the national guard and used tactics like tear gas to violently try to shut down and stop students, faculty and community. But it was this and the arrest of many students at around 5am, in Berkeley, that gave them the leverage to be able to pressure the Chancellor into negotiating with the students. Their goal was to simply make the university and their education relevant to them and that was something that took numbers to make happen. It took undergraduates, graduates, faculty, and community members and violence to be able to challenge and make, what should have been easy, changes in the university. However, the defiance was simply because the university did not support it or its POC communities as it could threaten the heteronormative white powers.

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The twLF and movement for ethnic studies has transformed higher education forever, but like many in the documentary said, it should not and does not stop there. K-12 in California is just now going to incorporate ethnic studies into the curriculum, but the struggle will be to decide what is included into it. Would the student-led movements have been as successful if it wasn't for the violent responses that gave the people leverage over the institutions?

References

(1969, January 9). Many Voices at S. F. State. San Francisco Chronicle.

PeekMedia. (2018, November 1). On Strike: Ethnic Studies - 1969 1999 [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xovOLk9qE8.