Week 1 — Readings & Resources

Introduction to Ethnic Studies Free sample edition

Your primary reading is Chapter 1 (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer — pick what helps, skip the rest.

How to use this page

This page has 10 items (4 readings and 6 videos). Allow 73–96 minutes for everything. Each group points back to the matching chapter section and class-session segment, so use the full menu when you want more, or take the quick path below.

Every video here has captions: turn them on with the CC button in the player. The chapter covers the same ideas in text.

Pick-one quick path (15–21 min total)

① Where the field came from

Chapter 1, Section “Place the origins: the 1968–1969 student strikes” · Session 1, Segment 2, “Where the field came from” · Remember: students from several groups organized together, from November 1968 into the spring of 1969, and won a new college built around four departments.

Ethnic Studies: Born in the Bay Area from History's Biggest Student Strike — KQED — a public-media explainer that answers a listener's question about how the field began, with the voices of people who were on the picket lines; as you read, note who made each decision and whom it affected. Its opening lines mention a then-pending state bill, and its closing lines give one scholar's case for requiring ethnic studies in elementary and high schools, with no opposing case; that is one side of a current policy debate this course does not argue, so read the strike's story between them. Use it while working through the Week-1 module overview. (reading, 12–18 min)
The Longest Student Strike in History — PBS Origins — a ten-minute documentary episode on the Black Student Union, the Third World Liberation Front, the demands, and how the strike ended; check each date it gives against the chapter's timeline. Stop at about the 7:30 mark, when the first College of Ethnic Studies is up and running: the minutes after that argue one side of present-day debates over ethnic studies programs and campus diversity offices, contested current questions this course does not argue. (video, 8 min) (captions: creator)
The Legacy of the Third World Liberation Front student strike at SF State — Kapwa Kollective — three Filipino American participants look back on the picket lines, the coalition, and the departments the strike won; one remembers the strike starting in October, so compare that memory with the dated record of November 1968 and notice how a remembered date can drift. (video, 9 min) (captions: automatic)

② Interviewing with care

Chapter 1, Section “Meet the archive: seven excerpts, five rules, one consent script” · Session 2, Segment 6, “The archive” · Remember: an archive earns trust through consent, the narrator's choices, and privacy, and this course reads narrators by role and decade.

Oral History Best Practices — Oral History Association — the professional association's guide to preparing for, conducting, and preserving an interview, including informed consent and a narrator's right to refuse topics or restrict access; match each point you find to one of the archive's five intake rules. (reading, 10–15 min)
Smithsonian Folklife and Oral History Interview Guide — Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service — a short guide to interviewing family and community members about traditions, foodways, and everyday life, with sample questions and a sample release form; notice how many of its question topics fit the course consent script's list of non-sensitive topics. (reading, 20–30 min)
Oral History at Home: Five Easy Steps — Smithsonian Institution Archives — a two-minute walk through asking permission, preparing an introduction, listening actively, recording, and thanking the narrator. The video records audio and states names; this course's optional interview records nothing and writes down no name. (video, 2 min) (captions: creator)
Quick Guide: How to conduct an oral history interview with a family member — Chronicle 5 WCVB — a public library archivist's tips: start with simple background questions, move to open-ended ones, do not interrupt, and define local names a future listener might not know. For this course, keep to a topic the narrator chooses and skip any question about immigration or documentation status, as the consent script requires. (video, 2 min) (captions: creator)
Quick Guide to Oral History with a Smart Phone or Zoom — Central Arkansas Library System — a library's guide to recording an interview in person or online; notice that it asks for full names and signs agreements after the interview, then compare the archive's rules 2 and 4, which require consent before recording and identify narrators by role and decade only. (video, 4 min) (captions: creator)

③ Whose account counts

Chapter 1, Section “Name your positionality: everyone reads from somewhere” · Session 2, Segment 5, “Positionality” · Remember: every reader and every narrator speaks from somewhere, and naming that position is part of reading fairly.

1.) Why do Oral History? — Minnesota Historical Society — four young historians explain why first-person accounts matter, including that they capture voices often left out of written histories and that an interviewer hears how something is said as well as what is said; ask what each speaker's own position lets them notice. Stop here before definitions of race and ethnicity; next week takes those up. (video, 3 min) (captions: creator)

Optional one-stop reference (free online reference)

Our History — ethnic studies program history page — the program's own short account of the strike, who led it, and the four departments the strikers demanded; read that account and skip the program links below it. Notice that it gives the strike's length its own way, which is why this course says it in words. (reading, 3–5 min)

Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move or rename pages. If a link ever fails, tell your instructor and use the reference above in the meantime.

Provenance: Built with The Course Maker · samples.thecoursemaker.com