With the increased presence of ethnic and interdisciplinary studies concentrations at Northwestern and in academia, professors who devote their lives to these subjects are more committed than ever to collaborating and tackling questions of cultural differences.On Thursday evening, the Borders of Ethnic Studies roundtable featured professors from African American studies, Asian American studies, Latina and Latino studies, and Latin American and Caribbean studies who discussed ethnic studies in front of about 25 people gathered in Kresge Hall.
Luis Alvarez, a history professor at the University of California, San Diego and Nicole Guidotti-Hernandez, a professor in women’s studies at the University of Arizona, shared their experiences in ethnic studies and their opinions on the future of the programs.Alvarez described the benefits of teaching ethnicity in terms of transnationalism because he said it provides a broader view of ethnicity and race. Transnationalism is defined as an approach to social science that considers cultural relationships outside the traditional physical boundaries of nations and states.”There’s a question of whether ethnic studies is a discipline or not,” he said. “I do think that the distinctiveness of ethnic studies needs to be thought-out on a pedagogical and methodological train, and is inherently linked back to the relationship of the field of the study itself.”Guidotti-Hernandez also spoke about the transnational model of integrating the various areas of ethnic studies in addition to her research on American-Indian and Mexican ancestry.”I’m really invested in a transnational model by centering violence as a category … by looking to the past to show that these alliances were and continue to be highly complex,” she said.Both speakers then opened the floor to questions from professors and students. Many of the questions revolved around the problem of how ethnic studies is taught at universities.As a professor of Chicano and Latino and comparative ethnic American literature at NU, John Cutler questioned whether changing the way ethnic studies is taught would alter the way departments cooperate with each other.Other concerns included how conflicts between cultures have narrowed and restricted the ways in which ethnic studies is approached.”I saw some problems with the way in which the conversations about resistance produced an artificial binding with an exploitation on one end of the spectrum and confrontation on the other,” Alvarez said. “It often is framed as something that is overly defensive.”As a final point, John Marquez, a professor of African American and Latino studies, said he thought there was an ambiguity in defining ethnic studies.”There has to be a theoretical challenge towards not focusing on a specific minority but making race the central organizing principle of analysis,” he said. “We don’t necessarily have to hold true to any disciplinary methodology.”Prof. Geraldo Cadava, whose focus is on U.S. and Mexico relations andLatino populations in the U.S., organized the forum. He said there is a movement at NU toward creating more ethnic programs.”All of these individual organizations are trying to see how we can come together around conversation of race and ethnicity,” he said. “I would like to see more initiatives around ethnic programming.”[email protected]
