My Philosophy of History and Ethnic Studies integration
My class is a combination of Ethnic Studies and US History. It follows the model curriculum for Ethnic Studies developed by UC Berkeley. As such it should emphasize the contrasts between the dominant historical narrative and counter narratives which include populations such as Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, African Americans, and Amerindians.
The narrative of any historical period must include a variety of people in all their intersectional identities. However, it is difficult for teachers and students to focus on multiple counter narratives at the same time. Our district has decided to focus on the experience of one ethnic group at a time in history. This is a conscious effort to make sure we don’t continue with an unexamined historical narrative of white US Americans with a “token” non-white person added occasionally at the margin.
The evidence for these counter narratives is difficult to present in ways that are easily accessible to high school students. My hope is this unit will enable teachers to talk about the period of mining in the western US with Chinese people always exerting agency, not as a token marginal presence.
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