Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Upon completion of the course students should be able to:

1. Articulate specific knowledge of the history of different ethno-racial groups in the United States, with an emphasis on African Americans, Native Americans, Latinas/os, and Asian Americans.
2. Identify and describe the relationship of race and ethnicity to power and inequality, with an emphasis on intersections with class, gender, immigration, indigeneity, and sexuality.
3. Analyze cultural production generated by and about communities of color, especially as they speak to relationships of power.
4. Analyze conflicts, tensions, and building of effective intra- and intergroup coalitions and alliances among racial groups.

To promote ethnic and multicultural knowledge within and outside of the United States, to prepare students to function effectively in a racially and culturally diverse community, and to contribute to a campus culture that respects and values diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

Class meeting time consists of lecture, collaborative projects, Socratic seminars, fishbowl discussions, structured debates, and student presentations. Meeting time may also include the following: writing; viewing relevant films and documentaries; listening to audio materials such as music or oral histories; hosting guest speakers.

Specific assessment strategies are at the discretion of the instructor but should include a variety of formative assessments to test student learning. Instructors are encouraged to integrate the following kinds of tasks that assess student achievement of course outcomes in a holistic and comprehensive manner:

• Short synthesis or analytical papers on specific concepts, issues and themes
• Research papers
• Oral presentations
• Group presentations of research or analysis projects
• Participation in small and large group discussions
• Admit and exit ticket assignments
• Hosted gallery walks
• Reflection journals
• Portfolios
• Digital media projects
• Oral histories and interviews
• Community or public history projects

Competencies and Skills

• Identify the point of view from which racial and ethnic knowledge emanates from.
• Examine U.S. colonialism historically, and how relations of colonialism continue exist.
• Examine the historical construction of race and institutional racism.
• Probe the meanings of collective or communal identities that people hold.
• Study the creative and intellectual products of racial and ethnic minorities.

Themes, Concepts, Issues

Instructors teaching ES 101 will focus on any combination of topics from the following list:

• The social construction of race
• Whiteness
• Settler colonialism
• Slavery and abolitionism
• Manifest Destiny
• Racial Capitalism
• Empire and imperialism
• Jim Crow
• Immigration and nativism
• Civil rights
• Black Power
• Indigeneity
• Identity politics
• Intersectional feminism
• “Color-blindness”
• Prisons and the carceral state
• Deportation and the legal production of migrant illegality
• Globalization and popular culture