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With Cal State students now required to take ethnic studies, San Francisco State has launched a program inside California’s youth prisons. The educators behind it hope it will inspire incarcerated young people to pursue higher education.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
When Nate Tan, a professor of ethnic studies at San Francisco State University, logs on to virtually teach his 8 a.m. class, he sees several dozen students sitting at desks with laptops, some framed by towering bookshelves. But these students aren\u2019t Zooming in from campus dorms. Instead, they\u2019re taking classes in three different youth prisons scattered across California.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ethnic studies is having a moment in California \u2014 it\u2019s now required learning for students at California State University<\/a>, community colleges, and, soon, the state\u2019s high schools<\/a>. Now, San Francisco State University is pioneering the first ethnic studies program inside youth prison.<\/p>\n The educators involved say it provides culturally relevant curriculum to incarcerated 17- to 25-year-olds, inspiring them to envision themselves in higher education and check off the first few requirements toward a Cal State degree.<\/p>\n In today\u2019s class, students discuss a reading on the role of Black women in the Black Lives Matter movement, then watch a five-part docuseries<\/a> showcasing the 1Love Movement, a campaign against the deportation of Cambodian Americans. (The CalMatters College Journalism Network was able to sit in on the class after agreeing that students\u2019 full names would not be used to protect their privacy.)<\/p>\n One Asian American student says watching clips of the movement not only uplifted him, but made him reflect on the United States\u2019 role in deporting Asian families.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI just feel like the US government ain\u2019t doing enough,\u201d he says. \u201cJust deporting families like that, separating them from their families, is just messed up.\u201d<\/p>\n Ethnic studies \u2014 the social and historical study of race and ethnicity \u2014 was born in the Bay Area in the 1960s as a response from students of color who demanded increased access to higher education and new academic programs that centered their identities.\u00a0<\/p>\n San Francisco State\u2019s ethnic studies department offers concentrations like Africana studies, American Indian studies, Asian American studies, Latino\/Latina studies, and a comparative major called Race and Resistance studies. With its new collaboration with California\u2019s state juvenile justice division, which began this past fall, university officials want to broaden that mission to include youth directly impacted by the justice system. <\/p>\n It\u2019s the first time a four-year university has offered a certificate program in California\u2019s youth prisons. The state has required juvenile facilities to give incarcerated youth who have finished high school access to community college classes<\/a> since 2019.<\/p>\n