Ethnic Studies In California: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

In the state of California, there has been a prolonged effort to adopt an “Ethnic Studies'' curriculum. Through this curriculum, California aims to represent a side of history that had previously never been taught in classrooms and will work to undo the “white-washing” of education in the state of California. History classes in the United States have been widely taught through a lens of white saviorism and oppression, ignoring the experiences and roles of marginalized communities in our history. As diversity in this country and in classrooms continues to grow, an efficient way to foster co-existence, respect, and understanding between culturally different students is to teach through a more holistic and diverse lens. This becomes especially important in a state like California, which has the highest rate of diversity relative to other states.

This curriculum was first proposed in 2016, and since then saw many drafts and revisions aimed at ensuring that all interested groups were satisfied with the content before it was finally adopted in October of 2021. California Governor Gavin Newsom signed this Assembly Bill with the intent of implementing the legislature in high schools starting in the year 2025. Since first being proposed, the curriculum has been the topic of countless discussions and some controversy, which we explore here. The curriculum stems from good intentions, but the same could be said for the road to Hell. So it bears the question, on what road is California set?

The Good:

Studies on the application of ethnic studies curricula in schools found that students show higher levels of thinking when presented with multiple perspectives, and an overall increase in reading and writing levels. The results of these studies quantify the benefits students experience when diversity is included in various academic subjects, and support the idea that ethnic studies facilitate well-rounded thinking skills that are widely applicable. It also gives students the foundation to be more inclusive and informed about ethnic and racial roles in history while teaching empathy. With this curriculum, students are exposed to the struggles and oppression that various cultural and ethnic groups have faced throughout history

Given how diverse the population of California is, it is likely that students of color will in turn see more representation of their own cultures taught in schools. The guidelines of the curriculum will reframe historical events to highlight the systemic problems that are at the center of so much of the world’s and America’s history, depicting history as less black and white and more of a gray area in terms of “Good Guys vs. Bad Guys.” Students will be taught to critique what they have been told about history from a lens that challenges colonialist and imperialist ideas that are rooted in racism and bigotry. Through doing this, students will likely gain a more comprehensive understanding of diversity and ethnocultural relations that they wouldn’t have otherwise gained.

The Bad:

With all that being said, the ethnic studies curriculum passed by the California legislature is not perfect. A lot of the criticism of the California Ethnic Studies curriculum has come from the Jewish communities in California, who pointed out a lot of implicit anti-Semitism in the curriculum’s guidelines. Examples of this include how the curriculum discusses the Israel-Palestine conflict while reinforcing stereotypes, and the general lack of specificity about bigotry towards Jewish people, which is concerning when Jewish people are targets of hate crimes in the state of California every day.

Beyond these specifics, there are broader issues that are created by this curriculum as well. Due to how flexible the teaching of this curriculum has the potential to be, it’s entirely possible that the content will be taught in ways that let instructors impart their own biases, intentional or otherwise, on the curriculum. This means that ethnic studies will be a subject that must be treated very delicately so as to prevent educators from feeding into already existing cultural marginalization or oppression. For example, using different language when speaking about ethnic minorities. An example of this is using the terms Latinx and Hispanic interchangeably, which can be problematic because the terms have completely different meanings. “Hispanic” refers more to the linguistic identity of Spanish-speaking people, whereas “Latinx” represents the cultural identity of those descended from Latin America. Though there is a demographic overlap, a lot of the time these terms are used interchangeably in an incorrect context.

The Ugly:

The ethnic studies curriculum has been revised time after time to the point that it is now almost unrecognizable in comparison to what it started out as. Each revision needed to accommodate for each criticism of the curriculum (like those from the Jewish community), and through all those accommodations, many changes were made to the initial curriculum, making it something that no longer reflected the intentions of the authors.

An issue that this has led to is that it gets hard to draw the line between incorporating ethnocultural diversity and normalizing it to the point where the uniqueness of diversity no longer exists, becoming an all-lives matter type of situation, which is exactly what one of the original authors of the curriculum, Theresa Montano, claims it has turned into.

An unrelated, key partisan criticism of this curriculum is the fear that it might teach white students to feel guilt as they learn more about oppression through the lens of critical race theory (or “CRT”). CRT has been the center of political controversy for a long time but has been highlighted frequently in recent years due to renewed mass interest in social justice reform. A similar criticism is that the ethnic studies curriculum fosters ideological indoctrination, which is the act of coercing people into adopting certain beliefs or ways of thinking. This brings up the question: “Why did efforts to teach history more accurately and comprehensively become about protecting white people from the consequent guilt?” Regardless, the California curriculum avoids this particular controversy altogether by instead opting for a framework that acknowledges some key points of CRT without calling it as such.

All Things Considered:

While the ethnic studies curriculum has potential benefits, a positive outcome is not guaranteed. Neither lawmakers nor educators on their own can ensure that this curriculum gets made and implemented properly. That can only be achieved through collaboration with each other and with the target ethnic groups that the curriculum aims to be more inclusive of. If one is being honest, it’s next to impossible for this curriculum to incorporate all ethnic minorities that exist—not only in the state of California but also in the United States as a whole. It’s also emerging at a time when race relations have just experienced a period of volatility, which adds to the stress of getting this curriculum adopted. Despite the hurdles and roadblocks, trying to implement ethnic studies into education is a step down the right path, and, if implemented properly, it is hopeful that the social and academic impacts of ethnic studies in California will replicate these same positive outcomes five or 10 years down the line.

Many question whether ethnic studies curricula like this even work, to which the answer is that they do. By teaching students to be more inclusive of cultures and to question current and historical structures that are rooted in systemic oppression, teachers are actively fighting against those same structures. Ethnic studies curriculum is so important for students of color to feel heard and understood as many of them are already aware of the inherent biases in Euro-American history—and teaching it to all students will make white students, who maybe aren’t already aware, more aware of these biases as well. All in all, the social and academic impacts of ethnic studies on students are undeniably positive, and hopefully states across the country will follow in California’s footsteps in the coming years.