New Ethnic Studies class uncovers different perspectives
Nationality, race, ethnicity, identity, culture, and citizenship: students at Southwest High School are beginning to discover some of the many contributing factors to the perception they and others have of different people and the social groups they belong to.
Governor of California Gavin Newsom passed legislation that required schools across California to add a course on ethnic studies by the year 2025. Southwest High School has begun implementing this requirement into its curriculum through a pilot class named Ethnic Studies. Additionally, alongside the class came a new addition to the SHS faculty, Blake Barker.
“(Ethnic studies is) an academic discipline that looks at the different ethnic and racial backgrounds in the United States and really examines the history of struggle and the history of opportunity and contributions that different ethnicities have made to our society,” said Barker.
Barker said that as her undergraduate major, she studied sociology and Black studies, and because of that experience, she went on to study border culture for her graduate degree. She would then make use of such knowledge by teaching various levels of social studies.
“I started to teach college and my emphasis was always examining racial inequalities and cultural dynamics,” Barker said. “It was always really incredible to hear the stories of students and to allow them to share and feel seen in the course curriculum.”
Some of the themes that ethnic studies touch on are exemplified by Danielle Ostermann, a junior taking Ethnic Studies, who wrote a paper examining the history of oppression within the United States.
“Many history textbooks tell the story of American soldiers entering into the concentration camps and getting rid of the nazis and freeing the Jewish and helping rehabilitate them,” Ostermann said. “In truth, we had our own Japanese internment camps at home. We knew about the holocaust and we continued to ignore it until it became beneficial for us.”
Danielle Ostermann said she also believes it is a good idea to make Ethnic Studies a graduation requirement because it teaches students how to improve their society.
“Not only do you learn about yourself, but you learn about others,” Ostermann said. ”As our society and our environment become increasingly interconnected, like we learned with the project about Hawaii and the diversity within Hawaii, we learned how interconnected our society is. Many diverse cultures are beginning to be brought under the same household, and I think it is important to learn about that so that we can respect others and we can live as a more loving and happy society.”
Andrea Gomez, a junior at SHS, said she began to uncover some of the limitations and struggles within the women’s suffrage movement.
“I didn’t really know about the history of the women’s suffrage movement (In the United States),” Gomez said. “Then I learned about the movement and then I learned about the other perspectives about how black women would be sent to the back of the parades even when they supported the same cause.”
Additionally, Gomez said that thanks to this class she was able to further engage with one of her potential future fields of study.
“I was already thinking of doing sociology and that type of thing because it is in my field of interest,” Gomez said. “I haven’t decided but I think I might, especially if it’s like this class.”
Mickaelle Bonfils-Roncal, the assistant principal of curriculum and instruction, said she is also excited about the addition to the curriculum because it would open up a safe space for discussions.
“We wanted the students to feel comfortable talking about racism, marginalization of certain groups, and what students of color experience,” Bonfils-Roncal said.
Bonfils-Roncal said she was most likely going to make it a social studies requirement that most people will take their senior or junior year of high school once ethnic studies turns into a graduation requirement in 2030.
“It is so special for me to be back here,” Barker said. “I graduated from here in 2007 and I haven’t been back since I was 18 years old; It’s really special for me to raise my child here and to bring these ideas to my own community.”