Word: choi
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...courses related to Ethnic Studies, which Choi argues are sufficient to quell any need or desire for an Ethnic Studies program or department, lists only two courses which relate to Asian American Studies. These two courses, to be taught by a visiting professor, were postponed until the '93-94 academic year, and no move was made to replace them. Hence, the token courses offered were taken away, by chance, more or less, and there were no Asian American Studies courses offered for the '92-93 academic year--a concrete program would have prevented this...
...Choi then challenges the "insinuating assumption that 'race' and 'ethnicity' are the critical lenses through which one must view everything social, political, and historical." Yet isn't that "insinuating assumption" true? Aren't social aspects of life, such as going to school and going to work, profoundly influenced by affirmative action, for example, and hence by race? Aren't political aspects, like President Clinton's cabinet, which he promised to make as diverse as America, determined by race? Finally, hasn't our history, stretching from the slave history to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1865 to the Chicano-led migrant...
Furthermore, Choi seems to have forgotten that the notion of a well-rounded liberal arts education, especially here at Harvard, which supports a Core Curriculum, is to foster the multiplicity of approaches to knowledge. To establish an Ethnic Studies department is merely to allow the approach through the "critical lens" of race to stand equal to those which have been taught for years in traditional departments. Ethnic Studies would be another offering in the curriculum--it does not force Choi or anyone else to adopt that critical lens of race which he finds so offensive...
...Choi then contradicts himself by saying that African-Americanists and Women's Studies feminists make similar assertions that race and gender can be the determining factors in individual and group experiences. They are justified in that they admit to their assumptions, while Choi claims that multiculturalists "cravenly hide behind the fuzzy epistemological and moralistic cove of diversity." Precisely whom Choi is referring to is unclear. I, as one of the "officials of campus ethnic organizations" which Choi refers to, have never claimed that the need for Ethnic Studies is merely a need for diversity. He cannot be referring...
More important, and much more disturbing, is Choi's argument that the "many Chinatowns and barrio border towns in America...are not germinating places for Latino and Asian American cultures that are strongly felt by most Latinos and Asians in America." First, this statement reflects a narrow perception of the lives of Latinos and Asian Americans. Choi can only be describing his personal experience--even here at Harvard there are dozens of students who have grown up in and around those very Chinatowns and barrios. Simply because his personal experience is not touched by Asian American culture does not mean...