This year marks the 40th anniversary of UC Berkeley’s Ethnic Studies Ph.D. program, the oldest in the country. Since its founding in 1984, the program has graduated over 170 students, who have gone on to become professors, artists, elected officials and other leaders.
Rooted in activism, the program emerged from student-led protests in 1968, when a coalition of Black, Indigenous, Asian American and Chicano students advocated for UC Berkeley to take questions of race and racism more seriously.
Ethnic Studies Chair Keith Feldman explained how that movement laid the foundation for the program’s mission.
“The department arose out of that protest movement and has continued to deepen and expand that work over the decades,” said Feldman. “Our department prides itself on developing rigorous, ethical approaches to wrestling with questions of race, national belonging, immigration, state power and citizenship.”
Ethnic Studies Professor Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez aims to help her students build on that foundation of critical inquiry and activism. A 2004 graduate of the program, Gonzalez returned to UC Berkeley as a faculty member of the Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies Program and currently serves as the department’s Head Graduate Advisor.
“My experience teaching here has been really wonderful,” Gonzalez said. “I love the energy that Ph.D students bring. I feel like I’m always learning from my students.”
Gonzalez strives to build a sense of community that allows students to engage in discussions on pressing issues. Beyond fostering such discussions, she sees the program’s structure as key to student success. UC Berkeley’s Ph.D. program allows faculty to work closely with students to develop critical perspectives on both history and the contemporary political moment.
“UC Berkeley has a strong university-wide structure for supporting grad students,” she said. “Our cohorts in Ethnic Studies are fairly small, so we’re able to work with our grad students on a case by case basis to address their individual concerns.”
One graduate whose life was shaped by the program is Alberto Ledesma, now an assistant dean in UC Berkeley’s Division of Arts & Humanities, who graduated from the program in 1996. During his time at UC Berkeley, he spent years undocumented before obtaining citizenship, an experience that had a profound impact on his academic journey.
“As soon as my situation changed, I went from being a C student to an A student,” Ledesma said. “It had a lot to do with my sense of intellectual agency.”
Ledesma applied to the Ethnic Studies doctoral program to better understand those experiences and learn the tools necessary to help others in similar situations. Ledesma later returned to UC Berkeley as an academic staff member to provide that reciprocal support for his students.
“I see in my students the same transformation that I experienced, but they find their niche and become amazing scholars,” said Ledesma. “Part of it is just that they need someone to believe in them.”
To commemorate the program’s 40th anniversary, the department will host a gathering this spring to bring together alumni in conversation with current doctoral students. At the symposium, alumni will reflect on the social and political conditions that shaped their work as students, Feldman explained, and explore connections between those moments and current challenges.
“Ethnic studies has always been an interdisciplinary field tied to political and social justice issues. It’s always been responsive to historical issues like apartheid or the Vietnam War,” Gonzalez said. “The symposium is a way for us to think historically so that we can approach the contemporary moment with that insight and analysis.”
The event, entitled “Flashpoints in Ethnic Studies,” will take place on April 11 in the Multicultural Community Center. For more information and to RSVP to the event, click here.