OK, I've put off this discussion of Ethnic Studies for long enough, and it's high time to get my thoughts down on paper about it.
A housemate of mine, who goes by Sun, informed me that he was taking an Asian American Studies course here at Berkeley. I, with no sense of politcal correctness, decided to launch into my diatribe about why I think Ethnic Studies is stupid. Let's see if I can recreate it here.
Primarily, any department with the heading '_____ American Studies' doesn't quite fit in with the other departments. Let's do a side by side comparison. In the left corner, a strong contender, hated and feared by many, Physics, with the lofty goal of figuring out how things interact in a physical manner, ranging from points to planets. In the right corner, Asian-American Studies, devoted to...the Asian-American Experience. Can the validity of these two even be compared?
Now, I don't want to denigrate the existence of Asian-Americans, or their undeniably unique experience as an American minority. Anyone who knows me in person is familiar with my legion of Asian friends, and my general hope to not be racist. At the same time, how is putting a distinct focus on race moving forward at all, here? And for an entire department, an entire type of class devoted to this one race? How is this right?
It seems like a liberal attitude to increase sensitivity to a certain race. Sun's argument for the necessity of the department is that people don't know that the Chinese built the railroads, but they do know about the holocaust. I feel that any educated individual, especially in California, which has a historically large Asian presence, is familiar with the role that Asian-Americans have played in our nation. Unfortunately, as is empirically shown by Street Smarts, there are plenty of people who can't correctly identify the Vice President, let alone the driving force in creating the American railroad.
I guess what bothers me most is that Sun himself is taking the class, someone who is eminently familiar with the Asian-American experience. Why not broaden your horizons? Hell, anything seems better than learning what you've already experienced.
OK, before the flames fly from your fingers, I'd like to say that certain classes focusing on Asian-Americans are fine, but the entire department just irks me. There are things to learn from this community, how they were treated, why they are constructed as the other, and so on and so forth, but I think distilling it into a single department for purposes of conveying the experience to others is not necessary or pertinent.
Plus, Berkeley, of all places, is already so heavily Asian that the class seems redundant. Just going here is a bit of Asian-American studies. Of course, they're still oppressed by people like me, who aren't going to take any ____-American studies.
