About the Major

Ethnic studies is the interdisciplinary social and historical study of how different populations have experienced, survived, and critically engaged the United States nation-building project.

We analyze the social dynamics of race, racism, and various forms of institutionalized violence, including land conquest, racist state violence, Spanish and Euroamerican colonialisms, U.S. imperialism, systemic sexual violence, racial genocide, chattel slavery, gendered militarization, legalized discrimination (apartheid and segregation), white supremacy, and the internalized logics of gender/racial domination and assimilation.

We are especially engaged with the creative historical work of social movements, cultural and artistic productions, legal and public policy activisms, indigenous and liberationist epistemologies, community and identity formation, and radical social and political thought.

We examine how these different kinds of resistance, persistence, liberation struggle, and radical knowledge production both confront and transform oppressive conditions and create new possibilities for social change.

Our Faculty

See our faculty.

Major Requirements

To earn a bachelor of arts degree in ethnic studies, you must take:

Core courses required of all majors

  1. Lower-division requirements (12 units)
    1. ETST 001
    2. Two courses chosen from ETST 002, ETST 003, ETST 005, or ETST 007
  1. Upper-division requirements (40 units)
    1. ETST 101A or ETST 101B
    2. ETST 100 or ETST 131
    3. ETST 191R
    4. Three courses chosen from three of the following areas of emphasis:
      1. Africana Studies
      2. Asian American Studies
      3. Chicano Studies
      4. Native American Studies
    5. Four courses chosen from ethnic studies courses that are comparative in nature

Note: No internship courses may be counted toward the upper-division electives in ethnic studies

 Minor Requirements

To minor in ethnic studies, you must take:

  1. Lower-division requirement (4 units): ETST 001
  2. Upper-division requirements (20 units)
    1. ETST 100, ETST 131
    2. 12 additional upper-division units in ethnic studies courses that are either comparative in nature or focus on African Americans, Asian Americans, Chicanas/os, or Native Americans (courses must be approved by an ethnic studies advisor)
  3. Appropriate prerequisites as needed