By Megan Roush
Having grown up in a predominantly white community, I had few
opportunities to interact with individuals outside of my own race.
Now, as a UCLA student, I find myself interacting with members of
many different races and ethnicities every day. While we are
fortunate to have some racial and ethnic diversity on our campus,
division is so apparent among groups that racial interaction
continues to be limited, as well as completely avoidable.
That is why I believe an ethnic or gender studies General
Education requirement would benefit undergraduates on our campus.
In spite of the diversity represented on our campus, there is an
enormous tendency for students to avoid interracial interaction and
to cling to members of their own group for the sake of comfort, and
because of fear and ignorance. This reaction is completely
understandable. The fears of rejection and misunderstanding, as
well as the stability found in maintaining stereotypes, far
outweigh the desire to learn from people outside their own
cultures.
An essential part of an undergraduate education should be having
to feel and experience social and intellectual discomfort. My
opinion stems from my own experiences in taking ethnic studies
courses. Last quarter, I decided to take an African American
literature class to fulfill one of the requirements for my major,
thinking that it would be an interesting variation in my English
studies.
While I considered that there would be a number of African
American students in the class, nothing could prepare me for the
surprise I felt when I was, for one of the very few times in my
life, a minority in a social and scholastic situation. To add to my
discomfort, the texts we were assigned exposed the injustices,
hatred, racism and ignorance of members of my race toward African
Americans.
In class, I felt too intimidated to speak during our
discussions, worrying that my interpretation of the texts was
incorrect, or that I might be labeled a racist if I said the wrong
thing. I struggled to understand the passionate poems written by
authors I had never heard of and whose experiences I could not
identify with. Yet, I was intrigued by this course more than any
other I had ever taken at UCLA.
While I found the class material engaging, it was truly my
fellow classmates who made my experience in an ethnic studies
course worthwhile. I had the opportunity to interact with African
American students and to hear their interpretations of the texts.
Listening to their comments during class discussions not only
helped me understand what I was reading, but it also helped me
understand how some African American students feel about attending
a university like UCLA, where they make up a very small percentage
of the student body.
I also made friends. The classroom facilitated something that
our imposed (and sometimes, enforced) cultural barriers prevented
us from doing in the “real world.” I don’t claim
to understand the whole of African American culture just because I
took this course, but I believe I experienced something
valuable.
Although my own experience was beneficial, it is with a wave of
caution that I recommend a G.E. requirement for ethnic or gender
studies at UCLA. The question itself is more complex than whether
the requirement should exist; of course it should.
But the question entails myriad other questions: What should
students be studying? Should students be allowed to study their own
ethnicity or culture? What will be the goal of these courses? The
list of problems is a long one. Ideally, everyone would take
courses that would in some way open their minds, or make them learn
about a culture or people they know little about.
Considering the diversity of our student body and its tendency
to divide itself on any line it can find, I do fear that an ethnic
studies G.E. requirement may actually further divide our campus. I
assume that two goals of having such courses available are to
promote tolerance and to dismantle ignorance. But considering that
the majority of individuals who choose an ethnic studies major
usually come from the very ethnic group they are studying, these
goals may not be achieved.
My fear is a “preaching to the choir” system in
which students do not make the effort to feel the social and
intellectual discomfort that I believe is so important. I think
that if students are given the choice, they will inevitably choose
to study their own cultures. And while that may be a valuable
experience for that person, it may not benefit the UCLA community
as a whole with any sense of unity and understanding. For example,
how can sexism be overcome if it is only women who take
women’s studies courses?
Perhaps I am dwelling too much on the complexities of the
question, for there is probably no way to regulate what courses
certain people can take based on their race, ethnicity or sex
without breaching some kind of freedom of choice or discrimination
laws. Nevertheless, I feel the university should take these
complexities into account when deciding how to organize an ethnic
or gender studies requirement, and how to avoid deepening the
divide between groups on campus.