Introduction to Ethnic Studies

Introduction to Ethnic Studies

Key Term: Double-Consciousness

Key Term: Border

Double-consciousness is a concept that was developed by W. E. B. DuBois in the aforementioned text The Souls of Black Folk. Writing specifically about African Americans, DuBois argued that "they possess 'a second sight' that results in a 'double-consciousness,' this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others" (The Encyclopedia of Literary and Cultural Theory).

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Double-consciousness is not a phenomenon that only affects African Americans, however. As the Dictionary of Race, Ethnicity & Culture acknowledges, "The condition of double belonging is...a common feature among many other members of American society, as clearly expressed by the need for such terms such as 'hyphenated citizen' and 'hyphenated identity.'" Double-consciousness, in some way, is present in all of our lives.

The final key term we will be discussing is border. In Ethnic Studies, borders can refer to physical borders, like the border between Mexico and the United States. However, it can also refer to "the psychological state of being torn between two places."

Constructing Identity

The very notion of what it means to be a person is cultural in context; moreover, without language, the concept of "identity" would not exist.

Many ethnicities find themselves psychologically straddling borders between different identities. The idea of borders very closely relates to double-consciousness.

In Ethnic Studies, critics ask "Who are you?" and "Where do you belong?" in terms of ethnicity. They also ask "What makes an ethnic group unique?" and "What are the characteristics that differentiate one identity from another?" (Shmoop).

Key Terms: Culture & Identity

Culture is "a set of beliefs, values, and practices" that an ethnic group shares.

Using Ethnic Studies to Analyze "The Lesson"

Identity, which became a central category of cultural studies during the 1990s, is a cultural construction. According to The Sage Dictionary of Cultural Studies, identity "concerns sameness and difference, the personal and the social." In cultural studies, "identity is a cultural construction because the discursive resources that form the material for identity formation are cultural in character. In particular, we are constituted as individuals in a social process that is commonly understood as acculturation without which we would not be persons" (The Sage Dictionary of Cultural Studies).

How are race and racial issues depicted in the text?

How are Sylvia and the other children forced to inhabit a state of double-consciousness?

Key Term: Race

Are the values of the dominant culture celebrated or subverted in the text?

Key Terms in Literary Theory draws upon the dictionary definition of "race" as "any of the major divisions of humankind having distinct physical characteristics" and as "any category, breed, or variety" of humans. For centuries, Western thought has been focused on the idea of race and, in its extreme, created damaging hierarchies based on racial characteristics.

What is the relationship between ethnic identity, class, and gender in the text?

Through examining genetics and DNA, 21st century science has proven that "race" does not actually exist; the genetic makeup of humans is all fundamentally the same. Race, then, is not a biological given but a set of cultural signifiers: "a constructed set of ideas and practices, wherein skin color, hair texture, eye shape, and other physical markers are linked with ideologies of behavior, social role, and human capacity" (Key Terms in Literary Theory).

Key Terms in Ethnic Studies

Defining Ethnic Groups

One important thing to keep in mind is that ethnic groups are groups that define themselves or are defined by others as unique because of their racial, cultural, or national characteristics (Shmoop). Ethnic groups are, therefore, subjective. As The Sage Dictionary of Cultural Studies states, "The formation of 'ethnic groups' relies on shared cultural signifiers that have developed under specific historical, social, and political contexts."

A Key Figure: W. E. B. DuBois

The first term essential to understanding Ethnic Studies is, unsurprisingly, "ethnicity." In its simplest form, ethnicity means "specific to a particular culture" (Key Terms in Literary Theory).

Even though we are living in an America that is more diverse than ever, the teaching of Ethnic Studies--as well as the philosophy behind the theory--is being eroded at many institutions.

Back to the '60s

Shmoop acknowledges that there are over 800 Ethnic Studies departments of "some sort or another" at universities and colleges all over the country...but many are under intense scrutiny or losing their funding. So what are the key ideas that are at the heart of this now-controversial school of thought?

Even before the Civil Rights Movement, however, William Edward Burghardt (W. E. B.) DuBois would lay the groundwork in the early 20th century for the interdisciplinary nature of African American/Ethnic Studies that would be established in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Crossing Boundaries: Within & Outside Academia

Fighting for Equal Rights in the 1960s

The Goal of Ethnic Studies

Among DuBois' many famous works is Black Reconstruction (1935), which was heavily influenced in many ways by Marxist thought. In the text, DuBois centralizes race in his consideration of the period after the Civil War, drawing upon a Marxist reading of how Reconstruction was sabotaged "[by] the consolidation of white power across class lines made possible by exploiting racial fear and hate" (The Encyclopedia of Literary and Cultural Theory).

Ethnic Studies

Today

DuBois' Marxist sympathies made him an eventual target of the House Un-American Activities Committee during the anticommunist purges post-WWII. After being denied entry into the U.S. in 1961, he decided to live and work in Ghana.

The longest student strike in U.S. history--and the first strike for an Ethnic Studies program--happened at San Francisco State University in 1968. The next strike took place at U. C. Berkeley in 1969. Both strikes were successful; a College of Ethnic Studies was established at San Francisco State and an Ethnic Studies Department was established at U. C. Berkeley.

Key Term: Ethnicity

What Is Ethnic Studies?

Ethnicity and Whiteness

During the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, African Americans (and other ethnic minority groups) demonstrated, marched, and engaged in acts of civil disobedience for their rights. This fight extended beyond the social, political, and economic realms and into the academy, where minorities protested that they were also being marginalized. They wanted to be represented in academia, where they felt like their views were not being heard and racism was not being acknowledged. So students went on strike against the university.

DuBois wrote The Souls of Black Folks in 1903, a collection of what are typically called essays but that shift between multiple modes: sociological analysis, history, politics, autobiography, and even fiction. As The Encyclopedia of Literary and Cultural Theory states, "At the center of the work is a desire to bear witness to 'the spiritual world in which ten thousand thousand Americans live and strive.'" By unveiling this world, DuBois argues that America has failed to extend its democratic ideals to African Americans, causing them "physical and psychic pain."

The primary goal of Ethnic Studies is to challenge the "Eurocentric" perspective of most academic disciplines in the U.S. and understand the world from the perspectives of those groups that have been historically marginalized by systems of oppression and racism.

The History Behind the Rise of Ethnic Studies

An Aside: An Interesting Intersection with Marxism

Ethnicity is not the same thing as race (which we'll talk about shortly). Ethnicity is "the people you grow up with, the world you first inhabit, your mother tongue, your father's folkways, what you learn you are like--what you identify with as a kid, as a family member, as a member of some kind of cultural group" (Key Terms in Literary Theory). Everyone has at least one ethnicity, whether one identifies as "ethnic" or not.

Sometimes ethnicity is thought of as something "different" from the standard. In America, for example, "white ethnicity" is often invisible; therefore, whiteness is taken as the norm. But white ethnicity is still an ethnicity! It is just, as Key Terms in Literary Theory states, "The hegemony of whiteness in the United States [that] has given the word ethnic the status of 'otherness.'"

Shmoop compares the term "Ethnic Studies" to "a giant umbrella under which a whole bunch of different disciplines and ethnic perspectives find shelter." In the U.S., the four main subfields of Ethnic Studies are African American, Native American, Asian American, and Latino/a Studies. Any ethnicity, however, can fall under the Ethnic Studies umbrella.