WHY WE CANNOT UNSEE OPPRESSION
All ethnic studies students can tell you about their moment of awakening — the moment when they learned something that changed the way they see the world.
For some students, that moment is learning that the people we now know as civil rights heroes, like Martin Luther King Jr., were so threatening to the American status quo that they were violently targeted by the FBI. For others, it’s understanding that the land our country occupies is a site of an ongoing Native American genocide. In my ethnic studies course, we call this adopting the ethnic studies lens because, suddenly, the injustices of the past become glaringly visible in our lives right now. We can see the same threads of injustice today as Black Lives Matter protesters are brutalized and alarming rates of COVID-19 cases impact the Navajo Nation.
I had my moment as a sophomore at High Tech High Chula Vista. I realized that the Eurocentrism in the history I had been taught my whole life was not an isolated phenomenon. Eurocentric curricula and colonized classroom structures perpetuate racism and harm generations of young people of color. Schooling that erases the perspectives of our communities is a product of institutional racism, colonialism and White supremacy.
I co-founded the ethnic studies course at my high school in 2016 with Izadora Mcgawley and Luz Victoria Simon Jasso. Our ethnic studies course is a completely student-run elective, where a team of student leaders design and teach the curriculum in our course from start to finish. We are committed to telling the stories of people of color from their perspective. We learn about ourselves and each other by sharing the histories of our communities.
Throughout the past four years, ethnic studies has deeply impacted so many students. Our class has become a community space rooted in truth, empowerment and justice. In high school, I walked into ethnic studies every day knowing that it was one of the few places on campus that I felt whole. In this space, my story mattered, my ancestors were valued, and we were each viewed with the strength and power that we are.
I learned that many of the struggles my Chicano community faces are mirrored in the Black, Filipino and Native communities. We were inspired by movements where our ancestors organized for our collective justice and liberation. In ethnic studies, we teach each other about personal empowerment and beyond that, we practice radical love and solidarity.
Learning about the struggles of people of color, historically and currently, builds critical consciousness about systems of oppression in our country. We start to uncover the ways that injustice is connected in different communities and expose patterns of oppression. We begin to develop the ethnic studies lens.
Ethnic studies manifests as personal empowerment, community solidarity and critical consciousness inside the classroom, but it lives on outside through the ethnic studies lens. When young people participate in ethnic studies and have their moment of realization, they are transformed. They cannot unsee oppression, and they cannot unlearn truth.
This lens lets us look at their neighborhoods and understand histories of racial segregation and poverty right here in San Diego. This perspective empowers students to imagine a world of liberation for all people and then motivates them to make it a reality. The ethnic studies lens means that young people walk through the world unafraid to question the racist status quo and with a commitment to creating justice in their community.
I believe that the movement to include ethnic studies in high school and university curriculum will empower Gen Z to change our country. In my ethnic studies course, I see a microcosm of what Gen Z could become: professionals in every field who are committed to advocating for anti-racism and justice wherever they are. I believe ethnic studies will empower young people to bring justice and liberation to every single community in America.
Gen Z needs an ethnic studies education. We are demanding it in our schools and we are making it ourselves. We’re ready. Are you?
De Almeida Amaral is 19 and a sophomore at Stanford University who lives in Chula Vista.