General Education: Area F. Ethnic Studies Requirement

This 3-semester unit requirement fulfills Education Code Section 89032. The requirement to take an approved 3 semester unit lower or upper division course in Area F shall not be waived or substituted. The purpose of the Area F Ethnic Studies requirement is to implement the above cited law which was created by the passage of AB 1460, in accordance with CSU GE Breadth Requirement. The policy, commencing with students with catalogue rights starting with 2021-22 academic year, adopts as an undergraduate graduation requirement, the completion of, at minimum, one 3-unit course in Ethnic Studies, as specified. Ethnic Studies programs came about from students of color demanding them. On November 6, 1968, a coalition of student groups at San Francisco State University demanded that the university institute an Ethnic Studies program. Ethnic Studies is an interdisciplinary and comparative study of race and ethnicity with special focus on four historically defined racialized core groups: Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Chicanxs/Latinxs.

Area F Criteria: What to Know

To be approved for this requirement, courses shall have the Ethnic Studies prefix ETHN. Courses that are approved to meet this requirement shall meet at least 3 of the 5 following core competencies:

1. Analyze and articulate concepts such as race and racism, racialization, ethnicity, equity, ethnocentrism, eurocentrism, white supremacy, self-determination, liberation, decolonization, sovereignty, imperialism, settler colonialism, and anti-racism as analyzed in any one or more of the following: Native American Studies, Pan African Studies, Asian American Studies, and Chicanx/Latinx Studies.
2. Apply theory and knowledge produced by Native American, Pan African, Asian American, and/or Chicanx/Latinx communities to describe the critical events, histories, cultures, intellectual traditions, contributions, lived-experiences and social struggles of those groups with a particular emphasis on agency and group-affirmation.
3. Critically analyze the intersection of race and racism as they relate to class, gender, sexuality, religion, spirituality, national origin, immigration status, ability, tribal citizenship, sovereignty, language, and/or age in Native American, Pan African, Asian American, and/or Chicanx/Latinx communities.
4. Critically review how struggle, resistance, racial and social justice, solidarity, and liberation, as experienced and enacted by Native American, Pan African, Asian American and/or
   Chicanx/Latinx communities are relevant to current and structural issues such as communal, national, international, and transnational politics as, for example, in immigration, reparations, settler-colonialism, multiculturalism, language policies.
5. Describe and actively engage with anti-racist and anti-colonial issues and the practices and movements in Native American, Pan African, Asian American and/or Chicanx/Latinx communities and a just and equitable society.