PERSPECTIVES ON UCLA’S ETHNIC STUDIES DECISION : Con: Studying the Parts Explains the Whole

A Chicano studies department at UCLA would set a trend in the definition of what academics means. In a Los Angeles where all of us are trying to understand everyone’s differences amid the smog of rhetoric and ignorance, this could be a sigh of relief.

The new perspective in academics would be one in which each culture must be studied as a whole so we can understand all of society. Not just a curriculum that is implemented as an afterthought because a professor wants to make up for his/her guilt or be part of the multiculturalism fad. Curriculum would be generated from issues and struggles in the community at large, and thus the curriculum would be held accountable by the community.

A place would be created that would link the Latino community, UCLA, Latino students and faculty. Currently, Chicano/Latino students don’t have a space in this university. We have some Hollywood front that can be carted away or torn in pieces whenever the university deems necessary.

An argument has been that departmental control over faculty will allow political activists--the dominant culture’s term for supposedly unqualified professors--to teach. Research comes from the questions brought by the professor. The direction the questions go comes from the professor’s perceptions and biases. Since the questions would come from the community, research would be more accountable to the community as well. Students would go into the Chicano community to understand the urgency of the issues, and how their work as students can be a resource to help solve them.

Why does the chancellor’s office still claim that a Chicano studies department is not academically viable? They worry about the future: that other communities will ask for departments. What’s wrong with that? We all want to understand different communities in L.A. because we must relate with different cultures on a daily basis. If we continue to have our history, our experiences related to us as an afterthought, then we will not get the complete picture, and will perpetuate the same biases that have separated this city since its inception.