UCR Department of Ethnic Studies

About Us

The Department of Ethnic Studies has been interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary in orientation with the social sciences, the humanities, and the arts. As a department, its genesis dates back to 1969 when separate programs in Chicano and Black Studies were established. In October 1982 after independent reviews of the two units, the Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences abolished both programs. In July 1985, the Academic Senate merged Chicano and Black Studies and established Ethnic Studies as a program. When the Ethnic Studies Program was established, joint majors with Anthropology and Sociology were approved and a mandate given to develop additional joint majors with other disciplines. Subsequently, a freestanding major was introduced.

In 1991, Ethnic Studies expanded its curriculum in African-American Studies and Chicano Studies to include Asian American Studies and Native-American Studies. The inclusion of the Asian American and Native American components served to strengthen the capacity of Ethnic Studies to offer "cross-cutting" comparative fields of study and intellectual discourse. The Academic Senate voted in 1992 to transform Ethnic Studies from a program into a department. Six years later, the Academic Senate approved majors for each field of study.

Today with rapidly expanding Latino, Asian/American, African/American, and Native/American populations at the national, state, and regional levels, the importance of Ethnic Studies continues to grow. At the national level, according to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, people of color by the year 2050 will comprise the nation's "new majority." People of color now constitute the new majority in California and Latinos by the year 2030 will make up California's majority population.

The demographic future enhances the ever growing scholarly importance of the interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approach of Ethnic Studies which includes the disciplines of history, political science, sociology, comparative literature, and ethnic studies. The study of ethnicity, race, class, and gender has become imperative. Within this unique intellectual template, the Department of Ethnic Studies for 2001-02 has twelve faculty members, of which five are full-time in Ethnic Studies and four have joint appointments in sociology, psychology and women's studies, and three are lecturers.

The Department of Ethnic Studies is striving to become the preeminent institution in the state specializing in the study of race, class, gender, ethnicity, and the interchange between these significant entities in our society. By offering increasingly sophisticated and comparative perspectives, our courses challenge simplistic or stereotypic notions of cultural identity, upward mobility, and race relations. Students develop a more complex understanding of what shapes their own attitudes and beliefs, where their own cultural traditions and those of others came from, how they interrelate, and the consequences of particular actions, policies, and practices.

The Department of Ethnic Studies offers five majors leading to a Bachelor of Arts degree in Ethnic Studies: African American Studies, Asian American Studies, Chicana/o Studies, and Native American Studies, and Ethnic Studies. Students may develop a general emphasis in Ethnic Studies or a concentration on a specific group. The major prepares students for graduate or professional school and for careers that require knowledge and expertise in the history, culture, and socioeconomic status of racial/ethnic groups in contemporary society, such as education, corrections, law, human services, social welfare, urban planning, at the local, county, state, and federal government levels.

While Ethnic Studies Department is exemplary in terms of its interdisciplinary nature, and focus on race, gender, ethnicity, and class, there are common threads that link the faculty in terms of scholarship, research, and community activity. These common threads are public policy/social change, culture, and diaspora studies.

We would be glad to hear from you if you have inquiries about our program, and hope you will find the information provided here useful. Feel free to drop us a line.

Atentamente,

Alfredo Mirande, Chair