By The California State Senate passed Assembly Bill 1460 Thursday which will require all California State University students to complete three units of ethnic studies courses as a graduation requirement.
The issue of ethnic studies was a hotly contested one at Long Beach State after the Associated Students Inc. senators voted “no” on resolution #2020-13 in February, which was meant to show the university’s support for the assembly bill.
ChicanX and LatinX activists posed after speaking during the open comment section of the ASI meeting on Feb. 19, 2020. Madalyn Amato/Daily Forty-Niner
Student activists from different cultural groups, including Black Student Union, La Raza and even former members of ASI, came out in support of passing the resolution, something they said was long overdue.
Groups protested subsequent ASI meetings using the public comment section as a platform to voice their concerns over the governing body’s opposition to the bill, after having voted it down after its first reading.
Others shared their desire to see their identity reflected in the curriculum, staff and campus makeup.
ASI President Lizbeth Vasquez welcomes students to the forum addressing the topic of Assembly Bill 1460 Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2020. Madalyn Amato/Daily Forty-Niner
Eric Cota, a fourth-year communications major, was one of those student activists. He and many others attended an open forum hosted by then ASI President Lizbeth Vasquez.
“We’re a very diverse [school] that [ethnic studies] should be required,” Cota said. “I don’t think that they’ve done enough research in order to make that decision, I think that’s a way for them to kind of diminish ethnic studies.”
Two weeks after their initial dissent, ASI ultimately reversed their vote and approved support for AB1460.
Leen Almahdi, vice president at the time, had shown support for the bill from the start but said she was grateful for the discourse it had inspired.
“A lot of folks think that this is a divisive issue, but why were the Senate chambers created? They were created for us to author legislation, to debate them how to improve them, how to better them talking about what our constituents want,” Almahdi said.
Miztlayolxochitl Aguilera, fourth-year Chicano Latino studies major and member of the Tongva people, whose land CSULB’s campus was built on, spoke during public comment about the value of the ethnic studies requirement.
Miztlayolxochitl Aguilera, senior Chicano Latino studies major, addressed the crowd in Tongva, her native tongue, calling for the implementation of an ethnic studies requirement and emphasized its importance to the school, as it resides on native land at the ASI open forum Feb. 25, 2020.
“It doesn’t matter what major you’re in, if you’re doctors, if you’re lawyers, if you’re teachers,” Aguilera said. “[You all] are coming to our communities and talking to our kids and building the buildings that our children are going to live in and go to school in, so you owe it to us as the people who are going to live in the communities that you’re building.”
If signed by the governor, the ethnic studies requirement will be put into effect beginning the 2021-22 academic year, meaning those graduating in 2024-25 will have had to fulfill at least three units of an ethnic studies course to graduate.
In fairness, and this seems to get left out of the story a lot, the ASI Senate supported ethnic studies but believed the bill was weak and excluded some diverse student populations from consideration. And in fairness, prior to holding the Open Forum, members of the ASI Senate and the Execs had already come together and collaborated on a strategy to rectify the initial vote and now support the resolution in support of ethnic studies. So essentially, ASI knew in advance of the Open Forum that the Senate was going to pass the resolution, but kept silent; choosing not to publicize our collaboration during the open forum or prior to subsequent Senate meetings attended by protestors. I know, I was part of that collaboration.