Ethnic studies unveil one's true self

I used to question the value of ethnic groups, thinking that somehow they fostered separatism and bitterness toward mainstream society.

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Linda Prendez

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But that changed when I embarked into the real world, and needed someone and something to identify with.

I am a typical Chicana - I speak broken Spanish and I have light skin. I grew up in a predominantly Mexican-American neighborhood. At my high school, whites were the minority.

I did not realize how isolated my life had been until I left Los Angeles to attend school in Colorado. Sure, I had seen drugs, gangs, homeless people and the hings that some people only see in the news. But I never knew what it was like to be on the outside looking in.

In the years I spent in upper-middle class, privileged Boulder, I realized how foreign my world must seem to those who have never been marginalized by society.

The lack of familiarity, the absence of things like menudo and pan dulce, made me really think for the first time why people like me did not have a large presence in places like Boulder, or for that matter, in entertainment or politics.

It was not until I took a Chicano studies course that I began to fully understand the plight of immigrants and the indigenous inhabitants of this country, whose dark skin color, language and culture were degraded and almost destroyed.

I began to understand what made me different and special. And I learned to value my uniquely American identity - one of two conflicting worlds and cultures.

I also learned an academic approach to explaining to others why people like me are they way we are and why we think the way we think. Programs like this can eradicate racism by helping people understand the sociology of ethnic Americans and the consequences of conflicting cultures.

An ethnic studies program was valuable to me, a Chicana, but it can certainly be of value to those who chose to assimilate long ago. After all, are not we all immigrants?