The Department of Ethnic Studies at Western Washington University is expanding its class offerings this spring.
Along with ETHN 201: Intro to Ethnic Studies, the department also offers ETHN 316: Contemporary African American Issues: Black Middle Class, ETHN 318: Contemporary Arab American Issues: Palestine and Transnational Solidarity, ETHN 319: Indigenous Feminisms and ETHN 321: Policing and Abolition.
The department is waiving all prerequisites for ethnic studies classes this spring, inviting students across all programs to apply.
The Department of Ethnic Studies’ launch in fall 2024 has roots in the former College of Ethnic Studies. The college was established in 1969 but closed in 1978 due to budget concerns, enrollment decline and high faculty turnover, among other factors cited by the Program Study Committee at the time. The new department is a result of student activism, not unlike the college was.
In spring 2018, 1,804 students voted in support of an effort to revive the College of Ethnic Studies, and in spring 2019, the Students for Ethnic Studies Coalition began holding club meetings.
In spring 2024, the WWU Divest Apartheid Coalition presented five demands to Western’s administration, one of which was to increase funding for the ethnic studies program.
“Our department builds on the legacy of the former College of Ethnic Studies by serving minoritized communities, promoting empowerment and liberation, and integrating theory and practice throughout the curriculum,” wrote the department in an Instagram post from May 24, 2024.
Rick Bonus, chair of the Department of American Ethnic Studies at the University of Washington, noted how the discipline’s history is tied to social movements and racial reckonings of the 1960s.
“I believe in the vision and in the mission of ethnic studies, in terms of producing scholarship that’s meant to be transformative and meant to be public-facing and community-engaged,” Bonus said. “It’s one of those rare programs in an educational institution that grew out of student protests.”
Ethnic studies draw from historical records to understand contemporary issues.
“We’re a nation of painful histories about dealing with difference, but we’re also a nation of so many ways that people have resisted that pain,” Bonus said.
Maya Yeoman, an ethnic studies major and Spanish minor at Western, appreciates how ethnic studies is “comprised of marginalized people telling their own histories, which is unlike anything we have in other fields a lot of the time.”
Yeoman declared the ethnic studies major on the first day of fall quarter 2024, the same day the department launched.
“I wanted to find an area of study that I could see my own thoughts in,” Yeoman said.
Violet Hollander is a philosophy major and religion and culture minor. They took two ethnic studies classes in the fall and are currently taking ETHN 301: Ethnic Studies Theory with Professor Nada Elia.
Arab American Studies with Professor Nada Elia “was one of the best classes I’ve ever taken,” Hollander said.
Hollander stressed the importance of conversations about race and identity in the current political climate.
“Continuing to talk about things that come under fire and to say ‘no’ is a form of resistance,” Hollander said.
Both Hollander and Yeoman think the material they encountered in ethnic studies can be beneficial to any student.
“Even if the things we learn make us uncomfortable, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t learn them or shouldn’t engage with them … They give us context for the way things are now and the way things have always been in this country,” Yeoman said.
Bonus has found that the value of ethnic studies is teaching students “how to recognize the value of difference, how to not be afraid of difference and how to engage with inequality because of difference.”
Bonus believes going beyond oneself is necessary for understanding the world as it is now.
“That’s what I enjoy the most — seeing the students get transformed and discovering larger worlds that they did not even know existed around them, and seeing the students connect their individual or family lives with the lives of others, of other collectives, and realizing that we have very common stories,” Bonus said.
Class registration for spring quarter is open until Monday, March 10. Questions about the ethnic studies classes or major can be directed to the department.
Josh Hernandez (he/they) is a campus news reporter for The Front this quarter. He is a third-year journalism news/ed major. Outside of journalism, his other interests include literature, geography, and music history. You can reach him at joshhernandez.thefront@gmail.com.
