Balancing Ethnic Studies

With proponents of ethnic studies at Harvard still pressing their demands (they've planned a "teach-in" for this Wednesday), now is a good time to take another look at ethnic studies.

For the record, I was staunchly against setting up an ethnic studies concentration at Harvard last year, writing in The Crimson ("Multicultural Malaise," January 27, 1993) and speaking during Junior Parents' Weekend on a panel entitled "Expanding the Academic Perspective."

Now, I realize that ethnic studies is not necessarily a bad idea. But a balanced and nuanced approach to ethnic studies is not what Harvard minority activists seem to have in mind. So for them I have five caveats:

1. Ethnic studies should be even-handed and inclusive in its study of ethnic groups.

As it stands now, the ethnic studies movement at Harvard is really not all that inclusive. What these activists really want are the studies of non-white ethnic groups--namely, Asian-Americans and Latinos. They are not clamoring for Harvard to tenure a professor of Jewish-American or Italian-American history.

These ethnic studies advocates tend to operate on the false assumption that "ethnic" is synonymous with "people of color" and the opposite of "white." They want ethnic studies to be a counterpoise to the traditional study of American history and literature, which to them is really just the history and literature of dead white males.

But they forget that every "white" person descends from an "ethnic" person. And as a recent study on European immigrants by Leonard Dinnerstein and David Reimers shows, many white immigrants faced a level of scorn that exceeds the discrimination Asians and Latinos face today.

Italian-American immigrants at the turn of the century were often beaten and called "just as bad as the Negroes." In 1875 The New York Times thought "it perhaps hopeless of civilizing [Italian-Americans], or keeping them in order, except by the arm of the law." Greeks were beaten and stereotyped as representatives of a lower species of human being. And Poles were called "animals."

Any proper ethnic studies program would see the experiences of these white immigrants as just as informative as the history of immigrants from Asia and Latin America.

2. Ethnic studies should not focus singlemindedly on discrimination and oppression.

Most ethnic groups in America have overcome discrimination, and there is no reason to assume that the most recent Asian and Latino immigrants cannot do the same.

As sociologist Christopher Jencks writes in a recent book, the "claim that many ethnic minorities overcame discrimination and achieved extraordinary affluence in America is clearly correct."

The best example is the Jews, who have historically suffered the most discrimination of any European group, yet are now by far the best-off ethnic group economically. Jewish households earn an average income that is 155 percent of the U.S. average. And at Ivy League schools, the gateways to success, Jewish students are overrepresented by a factor of ten.

There is little reason to suppose that the newest wave of Asian and Latino immigrants will not be able to repeat the success of their European forebears. The average Asian-American household income is now 127 percent of the U.S. average.

And according to a recent study by Linda Chavez, Latinos seem to be climbing and assimilating just the same. "Hispanics are succeeding as most other groups before them did," writes Chavez. "In fact, a careful examination of the voluminous data on the Hispanic population gathered by the Census Bureau and other federal agencies shows that, as a group, Hispanics have made progress in this society and that most of them have moved into the social and economic mainstream."

3. Ethnic studies should not overlook the sociological factors that underpin ethnicity.

Discrimination is only one of these factors. We should not overlook two others: assimilation and intermarriage. Ethnic identities are not permanent essences. They are--as social theorists would say--social constructs that pass away with certain structural factors. Black identity, which did not exist before the economic and political institution of slavery, is sustained by continuing socio-economic disadvantage and de facto segregation. Other ethnic identities, by contrast, are inevitably diluted as members of these groups move into suburbs, rise up the socio-economic ladder, attend college, and intermarry. This is what happened to the ethnic identities of descendants of European immigrants.

This is happening again with Asians and Latinos. A vast majority of Asian and Latino-American families now live among whites. Both groups are fast assimilating into the socio-economic mainstream. According to the Census Bureau, now almost a quarter of all Asian-Americans' marriages are marriages with whites (the rate is 65 percent for Japanese-Americans). In California, already half of all Mexican-Americans choose non-Hispanic spouses (the rate is 13 percent for Latinos as a whole). The Black intermarriage rate, by contrast, stands at only 2.2 percent.

4. Ethnic studies proponents should be wary of using the African-American experience as a paradigm for other ethnic experiences.

The African American experience is unique. It goes back over 400 years to the beginning of American slavery and continues through the legacy of segregation and Jim Crow. A distinctive African-American culture was born in this crucible of oppression. Just about all African-Americans today can see themselves as part of this common narrative.

It is not the same of immigrants like Asians and Latinos. Although there are a few cases where Asians and Latinos were subjected to dehumanizing treatment in the past (Asian-American activists often mention the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II), most Asians and Latinos are recent immigrants who don't inherit any legacy of past discrimination.

For African-Americans, by contrast, the socio-economic legacy of slavery and segregation continues to be passed generationally and manifests itself today in disproportionately high levels of Black inner-city poverty, crime, and illegitimate motherhood.

Many sociologists agree that the Black experience should be regarded as exceptional, whereas the case of Asian and Latino immigrants is more appropropriately compared with the history of other immigrant groups, such as Jews, Italians and Greeks.

5. As ethnic studies concentration should not cheat students of a liberal arts education.

An ethnics studies curriculum should not be substitute but a supplement to studying the recognized classics of Western civilization. We should continue to study the Great Books, not because they are products of the West, but because they have stood the test of time as the works of brilliant minds.

Some ethnic studies advocates openly admit that the primary purpose of ethnic studies is not to study great works but to engage in much-needed ethnic therapy. They claim that ethnic studies programs will promote racial harmony and equality. Ronald Takaki, an ethnic studies professor at Berkeley, writes in A Different Mirror that through the study of various ethnic groups, "the people of America's diverse groups are able to see themselves and each other in our common past."

Takaki advertise that ethnic studies will bolster the self-esteem of underrepresented minorities. Takaki thinks that history is a "mirror" in which we look to find ourselves ethnically represented. "What happens when historians leave out many of America's peoples?" he asks. Takaki thinks this is a psychologically damaging experience, "as if you looked in the mirror and saw nothing."

But this goes against the grain of a liberal arts education, which is not about immersing ourselves in our own ethnicities but about boldly transcending the particulars of our time, place, and culture to distill what is true, great and universally human.

W.E.B. Du Bois expressed this idea better: "I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not," Du Bois wrote. "Across the color line I move arm in arm with Balzac and Dumas, where smiling men and welcoming women glide in glided halls. From out of the caves of evening that swing between the strong-limbed earth and the tracery of stars, I summon Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul I will, and they come all graciously with no scorn or condescension. So, wed with Truth, I dwell above the Veil."