Ethnic Studies — Identity, History and Community Action is a one-semester UC A-G area G elective for grades 9-12, built on the California Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum’s guiding values and outcomes, the Historical and Social Sciences Analysis Skills and the CCSS literacy standards for history/social studies.
Four units: Identity, Community and Key Concepts, Land, Citizenship and Equal Protection (Native California, Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x and African American Californians), Exclusion, Incarceration and Belonging (Asian American and Pacific Islander communities, with Jewish, Arab, Armenian, Sikh and Hmong Americans) and Movements, Civic Participation and Community Action. Students read laws, treaties, executive orders and court opinions in the original, hold structured dialogues on contested questions, and build a Community Action Project in four phases across the semester.
Local knowledge. Every unit contains a marked space for the history of the communities your school serves. The school completes it with community partners; the course never invents a community’s story.
Balance and the law. The course follows the guardrails of AB 101 (2021): it does not reflect or promote bias, bigotry or discrimination against any person or group, and it does not teach or promote religious doctrine. Contested questions are presented through multiple attributed perspectives, and no student is ever required to adopt a position. Antisemitism, anti-Black racism, anti-Asian hate, anti-Indigenous and anti-Latino discrimination, Islamophobia and every other form of bigotry are treated as harms. Family-history work is always optional, with an equal alternative.
Sources: public-domain federal and state laws, treaties, executive orders, congressional resolutions and court opinions; OpenStax U.S. History (CC BY 4.0) as the reference text; and scholarly works described and attributed, not reproduced.
Curriculum
- 4 Sections
- 20 Lessons
- Lifetime
- Unit 1: Identity, Community and Key Concepts5
- 1.1Who Am I, and Who Decides? Identity, Ethnicity and Race50 mins
- 1.2Race in the Law — Who Counted as a Citizen?50 mins
- 1.3Dialogue Lab — Systemic Racism and Intersectionality50 mins
- 1.4Writing Workshop — Community Cultural Wealth and Asset Framing50 mins
- 1.5Community Action Project, Phase 1 — Community Asset Portrait150 mins
- Unit 2: Land, Citizenship and Equal Protection5
- 2.1Native California — Nations, Missions and the Gold Rush50 mins
- 2.2Treaty Promises — Guadalupe Hidalgo and the Land Act of 185150 mins
- 2.3Dialogue Lab — How Should California Name and Remember Its Early Violence?50 mins
- 2.4Writing Workshop — Black and Mexican American Californians and the Courts50 mins
- 2.5Community Action Project, Phase 2 — Documented History Brief150 mins
- Unit 3: Exclusion, Incarceration and Belonging5
- 3.1Gold Mountain to Angel Island — Chinese and Japanese Californians50 mins
- 3.2Executive Order 9066 and Korematsu — Reading the Order and the Court50 mins
- 3.3Dialogue Lab — Many Communities, Distinct Histories, Shared Harms50 mins
- 3.4Writing Workshop — Empire, Migration and Pacific Islander and Filipino Americans50 mins
- 3.5Community Action Project, Phase 3 — Multiple-Perspectives Issue Brief150 mins
- Unit 4: Movements, Civic Participation and Community Action5
- 4.1How Movements Work — Delano, Alcatraz, San Francisco State and the 504 Sit-In50 mins
- 4.2Apology and Redress — Reading the Civil Liberties Act of 198850 mins
- 4.3Dialogue Lab — Race-Conscious Policy From Proposition 209 to 202350 mins
- 4.4Workshop — The Tools of Civic Participation and the Action Plan50 mins
- 4.5Community Action Project, Phase 4 — Action, Showcase and Reflection200 mins
Instructor
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