This summit will bring faculty, staff, students, and community members
into shared dialogue about the significance of Ethnic Studies across our district and region.
Sponsored by: Office of the President, Office of Equity and Inclusion and LMCAS.
In this address, Dr. Sanchez will discuss how dreaming is something we learn to do while surviving oppressive situations and systems to give ourselves and others hope, but in Ethnic Studies we also learn the tools that we can use to continue to practice dreaming while actively resisting on a daily basis beyond the classroom. By sharing our stories and connecting with one another we can continue to build solidarity, trust, understanding, and communities of mutual care, and support, that we need now more than ever. This address invites students, community members, and educators to think of ways in which we can make space to talk about the past and present struggles and resistance of our communities, but also invites us to collectively work towards building a better tomorrow today in the classroom and beyond. Irene Sanchez, Ph.D. is a Xicana educator, poet, and writer. Born in Southeast LA and raised in the Inland Empire region of Southern CA, she started her education at Riverside City College, and continued her studies at UC Santa Cruz and the University of Washington-Seattle. Her commentary has been featured in multiple public media outlets. Her creative work was selected and is currently on display until March at the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art and Culture in Riverside, CA as part of an exhibit titled Black and Brown in the IE and Beyond. Her poetry was most recently published in Somos Xicanas, an edited anthology from Riot of Roses Press. Dr. Sanchez is also the author of the blog Xicana Ph.D. She has been involved in all the communities she has lived in as an activist and advocate for over 30 years and continues to remain active in the communities she is a part of. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at San Bernardino Valley College and lives with her family in Riverside.
In this workshop, Prof. Colin Masashi Rohahiio Ehara will facilitate activities that ask participants to identify and analyze the causes and consequences of “Formal/Standard/Academic” English supremacy in U.S. Schooling. We will explore how legacies of colonialism have and continue to devalue forms of communication emerging from historically dispossessed Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color, particularly in the “Urban” social context.
In this interactive workshop, Dr. Dani Ahuicapahtzin Cornejo will use autoethnographic storytelling to as a pathway towards acknowledging the violence of colonization, advancing a methodology of healing, and exorcizing the disciplinary voice of the missionary within. Through this process Dr. Cornejo will exemplify the ways in which storytelling lies at the heart of producing grounded theory that betters serves marginalized communities and communities of color.
In a time filled with uncertainty and fear, choosing connection and showing up for one another even when it’s hard can become the force that transforms fear into courage and hope, reminding us why community matters now more than ever.
In recent years, Ethnic Studies scholars have found themselves working in increasingly contentious political climates marked by censorship, surveillance, and attacks on ethnic studies curricula. At the same time, new digital platforms have opened opportunities to reach broader audiences beyond the traditional classroom. This workshop explores what it means to be a public intellectual in the age of social media, and how podcasting, short-form video, and digital storytelling can serve as tools for teaching, archiving, and amplifying local voices. We will also have some time to get into the nuts and bolts of producing content.
Hosted by community organizer, creative, and scholar Delency Parham, this workshop engages the work of the Black youth-led, Oakland-based organization People’s Programs as a case study through which to examine the historic role of grassroots organizing in the struggle for Black liberation. The session further seeks to provide students with conceptual clarity and practical insight into effective modes of participation in contemporary liberation movements.
Faculty member Lorena González (Counseling, La Raza Studies, Ethnic Studies) will share Ethnic Studies community-centered teaching and learning educational practices grounded in HSI Servingness research and pedagogy from her CCC LARAZ 141: Intro to Psychology of La Raza course that served as foundational for the emergence of Contra Costa College’s newly formed Concilio de La Comunidad student club. Concilio de La Comunidad students will discuss their experience as student leaders engaged both on campus and in their community in fulfilling the club mission of promoting awareness and active involvement in social injustice issues impacting the Raza community, civic engagement, cultural identity empowerment, building community and a sense of belonging while simultaneously developing leadership skills that nurture scholar activists who give back to, impact and transform their community. Join us in learning more about Concilio de La Comunidad- more than just a club, somos un Movimiento porque La Lucha Sigue!
The future of Ethnic Studies depends on solidarity—especially the kind built across student organizations and Ethnic Studies that represent distinct histories, struggles, and cultural worlds. This workshop centers the BSU and TWLF legacy as a living blueprint for coalition-building today, connecting it to contemporary campus groups (BSU, MEChA, AAPA, PACE, ASU) to past groups such as BSU, LASO, ICSA, MASC, PACE, AAPA and others.
In this session, the Department Chair of Ethnic Studies and Social Justice Studies will share her journey from earning more traditional degrees in English and History to pursuing her passions—an advanced degree in an Ethnic Studies field, Chicana and Chicano Studies, at the first graduate department in the discipline at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Dr. Simone will share her personal journey of “falling in love” with a field that centers transformative praxis and community activism—the beating heart of social change