The most active, the most public, and possibly the most sustained discourse on race and ethnicity in the university has come from those in ethnic studies.
We offer this not as a self-congratulatory homage but simply as a reminder of a time in the university, not too long ago, when the only muted discussions around these concepts were to be found primarily in anthropology and sociology departments and, in very restricted ways, a few other social science departments.
The fact that there was such an intellectual and curricular vacuum made it necessary and possible for us to demand and secure a place in the academy for this long overdue discussion on ethnicity and race in American society. There was a great treasure that needed to be unearthed and shared, and ethnic studies provided the intellectual framework for that excavation.
Parched Landscape
