Racial Awakening, Pride And Fear: One Latino Perspective On ‘The Obama Effect’
*This is the kind of story that needs to face outward. It was published by an NPR program called Code Switch, so hopefully non-Latinos get to hear it and read it. It’s what we mean by changing the narrative, Latinos have become the American mainstream and these stories are American stories. VL
By Adrian Florido, Code Switch
Earlier this spring I met Pablo Ramirez, a Mexican-American, first-generation college student at San Francisco State University. I had gone to the campus on a day when hundreds of students, including Ramirez, were rallying to increase funding for the school’s College of Ethnic Studies.
That college focuses on the histories and contributions of people of color in the U.S., and it was among several that administrators had said would have to get by with less money. But students were having none of it. At a time that anti-minority sentiment seems to be pervading so much of the nation’s political discourse, they argued that having a robust ethnic studies department was more important than ever.
A racial awakening
Pablo told me that for him, ethnic studies is about rejecting the notion that to be truly American, you have to be white. It’s an idea that he believes too many Americans still embrace.
Ramirez, center, at a protest at San Francisco State University. Students were demanding more funding for Ethnic Studies, a field Ramirez says helped him better understand his Latino identity.
One of the first classes Pablo took at San Francisco State was an ethnic studies course, in which he learned about Mexican-American protest movements and other civil rights struggles. “And it really was the spark that lit the flame . . . READ MORE
[Photo by Adrian Florida/Courtesy of Code Switch]
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