The quad is alive with strikers and police officers with night sticks. In this unruly mob, African American students with free-flowing Afros and bell bottoms are joined by Asian American and Latino students and a few long-haired white liberals. Together they march and shout, even as they worry about what their parents will say if they are arrested. Broken glass is everywhere, and minor acts of violence explode all over campus: a firecracker in the Creative Arts building, a typewriter thrown out an Anthropology department window. More policemen arrive, this time on horses, and many students are arrested. Another wave of strikers flows in to replace them, and the confrontations continue. Welcome to San Francisco State College, November 1968. Five months later, after mediations, jail time and the longest student strike in history, the College of Ethnic Studies is born.

Although this scene seems utterly alien to students of today, we still live with its legacy. Forty years after the Ethnic Studies strike, the college remains the only one of its kind in the United States. Although other schools have Ethnic Studies departments, San Francisco State is the only one to elevate it to a college on the level of the College of Humanities or the College of Science. Despite its achievements, the College of Ethnic Studies still faces daily struggles, most recently the effects of the CSU budget cuts. As the College prepares to celebrate its fortieth anniversary this fall, faculty and students look back on the past and consider how to work towards an even brighter future.

Finding Our Community

As a young girl in San Francisco’s Chinatown, Associate Dean Laureen Chew grew up knowing “zip, zero, nada” about her place as a Chinese American in this country. Though surrounded by other Chinese Americans, she felt completely isolated: “I felt that the racism I had experiencedas a child was very unique to me. And me, and myself only,” she says. “I thought I was weird, to be honest.” Then she began college at San Francisco State. She attended student meetings and heard stories of the racism others had faced. “African Americans, who my parents taught me to be afraid of, they went through the same things we did,” says Chew. “Same thing with the Japanese Americans, and then Raza, and American Indians. It just blew my mind.” These stories made her passionate about promoting a curriculum that focused on all ethnicities, and soon she was caught up in a strike that had been brewing for several years.

“Exciting,” “invigorating,” “intense”- these are the words Chew uses to describe the campus at the time of the strike. “We were very audacious,” she says. “We had the audacity and the attitude to say we can change the world.” Chew eventually went to jail for twenty days for participating in the strike, but she downplays what she calls the “glory and the glamour” of being jailed, saying that the most important thing was the common spirit that the strikers shared.

Today, the College of Ethnic Studies and its four departments are interdisciplinary, vibrant and community-oriented. The college offers classes in sociology, psychology, philosophy, history, art and literature, all with a focus on the ethnic experience. Students paint murals, organize events, throw fundraisers and volunteer. “From the beginning, there was an understanding that Africana Studies would always be related to the community,” says Dorothy Tsuruta, department head of Africana Studies. Today, for example, Africana Studies offers a community service learning course, in which students are taught about the history of various ethnic organizations as they volunteer.

Much progress has been made, but due to the lack of ethnic studies education from elementary through high schools, many students are still coming to San Francisco State with the same sense of isolation that Chew felt growing up in the sixties. Mark Aquino, an Asian American Studies major at SF State, says he came to the school as a sociology major but “found his community” after taking a class called “Psyche and Behavior of Filipinos.” That discovery led to activism, and today he serves as an officer for the Pilipino American Collegiate Endeavor, a student group that has its roots in the strike. As PACE’s History Coordinator, Aquino teaches a weekly workshop on Filipino American history. PACE’s legacy as part of the Ethnic Studies strike “gives us a reference point to draw strength from,” says Aquino, who is also an active member of the League of Filipino Students. That strength through history is evident in PACE’s many activities, which range from activism on behalf of Filipino World War II veterans to the production of the nation’s longest-running Pilipino Cultural Night. “When we teach history,” says Aquino, “we look to our Filipino American heroes who have done a lot for the community. We really highlight those moments where Filipinos have assessed their situations and taken active steps to change them.”

An Established Department?

One major change of the last forty years is that the College of Ethnic Studies has begun to gain acceptance in a world of long-established academic disciplines. Immediately after the strike, says Chew, there was no established curriculum. The lack of material focusing on people of color had created a void; the field was wide open for anyone to teach. Today, Ethnic Studies has been “blessed” with writers, thinkers, and a large curriculum base, says Chew. “That’s a huge change; that’s not something any of us should take for granted.”

Dr. Tsuruta echoes this: “We are not an old, traditional department,” she says, “but we are an established department. After forty years, we are an established department.”

All this is threatened by the recent CSU budget cuts. Though the cuts do not target any specific department or program, Ethnic Studies is in a more precarious position than, say, English literature. Whatever may happen with the budget cuts, in the long run the study of Shakespeare and Chaucer will remain largely unchanged. In American Indian Studies, on the other hand, the newly created B.A. program is already threatened in its second year, as core and GE courses are given priority over courses in areas such as art and environmental studies. And as faculty point out, dropped sections and filled waitlists create additional hurdles for American Indian students, whose college dropout rates already average around 85 percent in some areas.

Breaking Through

Despite such challenges, the College of Ethnic Studies remains strong. Achievements have been made in key areas, including a plan for a new Ethnic Studies building by the year 2020. And the College continues to work towards its goals, which Chew summarizes as “making sure that we’re always on this plate of choice.” “Kids have no clue who they are or that studying themselves is even an option,” she says. “One of the best things that could happen is to disappear because we’ll all be so respectful and understanding of everybody’s contributions, we don’t need to be here.” She pauses, then laughs. “That ain’t never happening.”

It may yet, but in the meantime, plans are underway for a conference to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the student strike. Speakers are being scheduled, ranging from current professors to former students who participated in the strike, and students and faculty are gearing up to celebrate a rich history that remains ever present in all aspects of the College and its teachings. It all comes back to Chew’s belief that connection through narrative is the most important part of Ethnic Studies: “I hope what students and faculty will get on the Fortieth are people’s stories.”