‘Other side of the story:’ Ethnic studies to be a Fresno Unified school requirement

High school students in Fresno will have to fulfill an ethnic studies requirement to graduate starting next school year, a move that teachers pushed for.

Fresno Unified School District trustees unanimously voted Wednesday night to make ethnic studies a graduation requirement. Students will need to take a 10-credit, two-semester course beginning in the 2021-22 school year.

“This is overwhelming,” said Uziel Jimenez, an ethnic studies teacher at Sunnyside High. “From May 28 to today I feel like we changed the trajectory of 70,000 students.”

The Fresno Ethnic Studies Coalition is a group of Fresno Unified teachers that was formed in May with the goal of making ethnic studies a graduation requirement. Jimenez, who was part of the coalition, said he didn’t have the opportunity to learn about ethnic studies until college.

“I don’t want any child to hate themselves like I did,” he said. “I felt as though the only way to be as successful as possible in a white-dominated world was to be as white as possible and that’s not the world we live in, in 2020.”

The graduation requirements start with students entering high school during the 2021-22 school year, said Lauren Beal, a teacher at Edison High who piloted the African American studies class.

Beal, who is also part of the coalition, said she is working with a group of district teachers to create curriculums in the high school, middle school and elementary levels. As of now, there are only nine schools in the district that offer some type of ethnic studies class.

“I think that just because of the time that we are in that helping to create greater understanding and appreciation of each other’s cultures can help to mitigate a lot of the intolerance and racism that unfortunately we still experience to this day,” Trustee Veva Islas said during the meeting.

The Fresno requirement comes as California makes plans for statewide ethnic studies curriculum. And beginning in 2023, California State University must take an ethnic studies or social justice course to graduate.

Many of the 17 people who submitted a public comment in support of making ethnic studies a graduation requirement wrote about how the curriculum could help students understand minority perspectives and the racism and discrimination they still experience.

“I believe ethnic studies is necessary because we live in a society that continues to grapple with racial/ethnic differences and discrimination that many K12 schools similarly perpetuate,” Dr. Patricia D. López wrote. “These courses center the experiences of historically racialized groups and provides a safe space for students to examine racism and the institutions that uphold it.”

Students welcome change

Fresno Unified students who spoke to The Bee all said ethnic studies classes allowed them to understand other cultures and the importance of seeing history through the minority perspective.

Thairu Moore-Petinak, an Edison graduate, took an African American studies class and “for the first time I got to see history through my perspective.

“I think that generally in every other history class that some people take is from the European perspective and what that means for them,” said Moore-Petinak, who is now a student at Eastern Michigan University. “This is the other side of the story. In order to understand that you have to look through other minority perspectives.”

Adrian Gonzalez, now a freshman at Fresno City College, said that when he was a kid his parents would tell him the “do’s and don’ts,” like being aware of police because they tend to treat minorities differently.

“You kind of accept it as a little kid but I was still interested and still pondered why these rules are here,” said Gonzalez, who is Mexican-American. “When I went to high school I saw an opportunity to take these classes and these classes helped open my eyes not only to my ethnicity but to respect other peoples.”

The former Sunnyside student said he remembers his teacher made a joke in class while organizing a classroom potluck. Gonzalez said his teacher looked at the one Black student in the class and said, “you’re bringing the watermelon, right?”

“In the moment it seemed like a funny joke but when you think about it you realize that it’s kind of messed up,” Gonzalez said. “We thought about it as a joke because we’ve been used to that and immune to that.”

Gonzalez said if every student had to take ethnic studies classes, then maybe comments like these wouldn’t be tolerated.

The Education Lab is a local journalism initiative that highlights education issues critical to the advancement of the San Joaquin Valley. It is funded by donors. Read more from The Bee’s Education Lab here.

This story was originally published August 14, 2020 at 5:00 AM.