Department of Ethnic Studies

The Ethnic Studies Department at Mt. San Antonio College uses a wide range of materials, from literary and musical works, to sociological, anthropological, political, philosophical studies and historical texts, in order to interrogate systems of power, race, ethnicity, indigeneity, and social movements, past and present. We trace the ways these categories shape and are shaped by a variety of complex issues, such as colonialism, military conflict, and the relations between capital and labor. Our courses examine social categories of identity and difference, and how they are produced, resisted, internalized, embraced, and mutate across time and space.

By familiarizing students with social, cultural, and political forces and their connections to other axes of stratification (gender, sex, citizenship status, age, religion, etc.), while prioritizing the voices and perspectives of non-dominant individuals and minoritized communities, we open up a critical and intellectual space with which we have the opportunity to deconstruct the term “Ethnic” in “Ethnic Studies,” while simultaneously and intentionally affirming it.