Cuesta College Ethnic Studies Department Values and Acknowledgements
Our department is guided by four core values that shape our approach to education and community engagement: Liberation, Intersectionality, Transformation, and Resistance. By embracing these values, we aim to create an educational environment that empowers students, celebrates diversity, and instills a lifelong commitment to racial justice and decolonization. These values are a living commitment, and our department regularly discusses and updates our values.
Liberation: We challenge systems of oppression, fostering agency and autonomy. We equip ourselves and others to advocate for justice and equity.
Intersectionality: We recognize the interconnectedness of race, gender, class, sexuality, disability, and other identities. Advocacy and resistance are necessary to disrupt systems of domination.
Transformation: Education challenges our perspectives and inspires us to grow together. Through classroom teaching and community engagement, we cultivate critical thinking and social responsibility.
Resistance: We remain committed to the ethos and praxis of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the face of the evolving political landscape. We believe in the collective power of social justice and solidarity and affirm that Ethnic Studies is an outcome of student-led activism and third-world liberation.
We acknowledge that Cuesta College occupies the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary lands of the Salinan and Northern Chumash peoples, who have cared for this land since time immemorial and continue to do so today.
We recognize that the United States was built on stolen land and the uncompensated labor of enslaved Africans and Indigenous peoples. On the Central Coast, we honor the Chinese laborers who built the railroads, the Filipinx and Latinx farmworkers who sustain our agriculture, and the Japanese Americans who endured internment during World War II. We also acknowledge the incarcerated people at California Men’s Colony, who perform essential underpaid labor such as firefighting and manufacturing.
We stand in solidarity with all those resisting colonial occupation, who continue to face dispossession, state-sanctioned violence, and human rights violations. This acknowledgment is a call to action to collaborate with those most impacted by these systems of oppression as we work toward justice, equity, and liberation.
You can learn more about our Ethnic Studies program by visiting the Open House held each Fall semester and the Ethnic Studies Teach-In held in the Spring. For more information on these events, visit the Ethnic Studies Library Guide.
Why take Ethnic Studies?
Ethnic Studies helps you develop critical thinking, cultural awareness, and communication skills that are essential in today’s diverse society. Students learn to analyze systems of inequality, understand histories and cultures often left out of traditional education, and engage more effectively in their community and workplace. These skills are relevant whether you’re navigating personal relationships, working in teams, leadership, or contributing to civic life.
Graduates can pursue careers in teaching, community college or university instruction, nonprofit leadership, social services, law and public policy, public health, medicine and cultural institutions such as archives and museums. Many of these roles directly apply to the knowledge and perspectives gained from Ethnic Studies, with opportunities for meaningful work in advocacy, education, and social change.
Employers increasingly value graduates who can think critically, adapt to diverse environments, and bring inclusive perspectives to their work, all of which are core strengths of Ethnic Studies classes. The program maps below offer more information and insight into career projections and salary potential for Ethnic Studies graduates.
Student Leadership
Students in Ethnic Studies have a concrete impact on their campus and community. Students participate in engaged learning experiences, such as community-service learning, facilitated dialogues, creative expression, public speaking, and creating Open Educational Resources. For example, students in ETHN/EDUC 210 Ethnic Studies for Educators create Ethnic Studies Storybooks to convey concepts in age-appropriate manner through creative and touching narratives.
To learn more Open Educational Resources and reducing the cost of higher education, please visit the Academic Senate for the California Community Colleges Open Educational Resource Initiative website.
Students can get involved outside of the classroom by joining the Ethnic Studies Club! All current students are eligible to participate. If you are interested in joining the club or supporting students, please sign up at https://tinyurl.com/ESC-signup
Resources
For more information about Ethnic Studies, you can visit the following webpages from statewide leaders in the California Community Colleges:
Ethnic Studies | California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office
Rehumanizing Education: Ethnic Studies in the California Community Colleges | ASCCC
Ethnic Studies is comprised of multiple autonomous disciplines, each of which hosts
journals, newsletters, conferences, and other ways of engaging with cutting-edge disciplinary
work. You can find some relevant associations in the following list:
Association for Ethnic Studies
National Council for Black Studies
Native American and Indigenous Studies Association
Association for Asian American Studies
National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies
Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social
Association for Jotería Arts, Activism and Scholarship
National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education
Areas of Study
Areas of Study provide clear course-taking patterns that promote better enrollment decisions and prepare you for your future.
Find degree and certificate information:
Social and Behavioral Sciences and Human Services
People, Culture, and Society