Ethnic Studies
UC Santa Cruz is strongly committed to the educational value of multicultural perspectives, as demonstrated by the diversity of our faculty; the breadth of our curriculum and library holdings; the extent of the involvement of our students in field study, community work, and study abroad; and the community-centered work of many thousands of our alumni globally. The campus integrates multicultural perspectives into the curriculum as a whole, rather than establishing them as the responsibility of a separate department or departments. Students interested in comparative ethnic studies or in the study of Chicano/Latino, African American, Asian American, Jewish American, or Native American experience in particular have, therefore, a wide range of curricular options.
More than 45 faculty from 18 departments have ethnic experience within the United States among their teaching and research specialties. These faculty offer at least 80 courses each year that focus on race and ethnicity as concepts and that deal comparatively or specifically with Native American, Jewish American, Asian American, African American, or Chicano/Latino experience. Many other courses in this catalog deal with these issues in more general contexts. In addition, many UCSC faculty are concerned with the histories, cultures, and societies of the other countries of the world, which are places and cultures of origin for the diverse ethnic communities of California and the United States.
Students with a special interest in ethnic studies should consult offerings in American studies, anthropology, community studies, East Asian studies, education, film and digital media, global economics, history, history of art and visual culture, history of consciousness, language studies, Latin American and Latino studies, literature, music, politics, psychology, sociology, theater arts, and women’s studies. A list of U.S.-centered ethnic studies courses offered each quarter is published in the Schedule of Classes. A list of faculty for whom these studies are a professional specialty is published on the UCSC catalog web site: reg.ucsc.edu/catalog.
Curricular and Extracurricular Options
Students can pursue their interests in ethnic studies in a number of curricular and extracurricular ways:
- by taking one or more ethnic studies courses to meet the campus’s general education requirements, in addition to the one selected to meet the campus’s U.S. Ethnic Minorities/Non-Western Society (E code) course requirement for all students;
- by taking several ethnic studies courses as part of any one of several majors. For example, a student majoring in sociology can take such courses as Ethnic and Status Groups, Twenty-first Century African American Social Structure, and Social History of Asian Americans. A student majoring in literature can pursue courses in African American, Asian American, Jewish American, or Chicano/Latino literature as well as courses in Latin American, African, Chinese, or Japanese literature;
- by choosing a major that offers a formal or informal concentration in ethnic studies. American studies offers a formal pathway in ethnic studies, and within that pathway, students can focus primarily on a specific ethnic group. Women’s studies offers two formal concentrations: race, class, and ethnicity (within the U.S.); and nations and cultures (outside the U.S. or comparative with the U.S.). Community studies and Latin American and Latino studies enable students to undertake extended periods of fieldwork in U.S. ethnic communities or in Latin American communities as an integral part of their academic study;
- by taking such courses independently (in consultation with an academic adviser), as part of developing a systematic cluster of elective courses. In rare cases, this option may lead to the construction of an individual major;
- by regularly attending the array of talks, exhibitions, and performances focused on ethnic experiences and perspectives and by taking advantage of opportunities to participate in cultural, journalistic, and community activities with this focus.