CoES Departments

Africana Studies

The Africana Studies Department offers both a Bachelor of Arts degree and a minor. The discipline of Africana Studies provides students with the experiences of challenging traditional thoughts and practices, and also gives them an opportunity to explore new and alternative paradigms and theories. It not only prepares students to understand the world in which they live, but to see where the world is wanting and to have the ability and the desire to make it better.

In studying Africana Studies, students are able to learn about critique, and be inspired by the accomplishments of Africans and African Americans who shaped and are shaping the moral conscience, artistic genius, scientific and technical achievements, and political activism of their time.  Students use the Black community as a classroom where lessons can be learned and taught.

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American Indian Studies

The Department of American Indian Studies (AIS) offers a major as of Fall 2007; it also offers a minor.  The Department's mission and objectives have a special responsibility to Native peoples of California and the United States.  California is the land on which the university and department rest; the CSU is a public institution in the U.S. education system. Therefore, significant aspects of the program are focused on Natives of California, US-Native politics and North American Indian Cultures. The program also includes a comparative and coalition-building perspective with Native peoples of US-occupied territories and, more broadly, the Americas and the Pacific. It balances classroom education with an active community participation component and prepares students for graduate work or a number of careers with Native peoples and urban communities in California, the U.S. and internationally.

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Asian American Studies

The baccalaureate major and minor in Asian American Studies offer unique opportunities for students to study and develop a greater understanding and awareness of Asian American heritage, culture, attitudes, values, and community perspectives. Through courses, guided research, field observation, and active participation by students in community-sponsored agencies, the Asian American Studies Department is committed to positive change in the general society and Asian American communities.  The curriculum includes experiences of Chinese Americans, Filipino Americans, Japanese Americans, Korean Americans, South Asian Americans, Southeast Asian Americans (Cambodian and Vietnamese), and Asian Americans of Mixed Heritage.

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Latina/Latino Studies

The Latina/Latino Studies Department is grounded in an anti-colonial perspective. We take into account the annexation of what is today considered the Southwest, the racialization of Latinas/os/x and the ongoing imperial expansionism that has resulted in Latin American and Caribbean migration to the United States.

The Department recognizes the historical resistance of Latinas/os/x and affirms ongoing struggles of self-determination that account for gender, sexuality, race, class, and the actual or perceived citizenship or immigration status of our students, their family members and other members of our Latina/o/x community.

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Race and Resistance Studies

In 2010, the College of Ethnic Studies formally established a comparative program: Race and Resistance Studies (RRS) was started as an interdisciplinary program program and recently became a full-fledged department, with four minors: QTES (Queer and Trans Ethnic Studies), CPIOS (Critical Pacific Islands and Oceania Studies), AMED (Arab & Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies), and the RRS Minor. Coursework focuses upon processes of racialization — how race-related discourses/practices create and perpetuate social problems — across diverse ethnic and racialized communities.  The core faculty in RRS provides students with tools for examining how institutions oppress communities of color.  Students explore the creative and complex ways in which communities of color express multiple forms of resistance.  In doing so, we further explore how domestic issues are shaped by transnational processes and how oppression and resistance are shaped by the intersections of race, ethnicity, class, gender and sexuality.

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