1970-2020 from The Black Studies Institute to Critical Ethnic Studies

In 1969 Sarah Fabio, as part of the CCAC Student-Faculty Institute, called for the school's increased responsibility toward "the people--all the people including racial minorities", for developing a new academic system that could provide the black students of CCAC with an education that would enable them "to move toward a sense of integrity"

This event introduced a black perspective on the arts and was coordinated by Sarah Webster Fabio. The program included prominent Bay Area Black artists and educators along with CCAC students. Fabio was a powerful voice in the advocacy for a black studies program at the college.

Black Studies/Ethnic Studies

Wright initiated the Black Studies Institute, founded in partnership with the Black Students' Union, under the newly created the Ethnic Art Studies division in 1970. The program was unique in that study generated from the art discipline, unlike the humanities root of university programs.

Shaping of the Ethnic Studies programs and the Black Studies Institute was inspired by the dramatic examples of the Third World Liberation Front led strike at San Francisco State College (now SFSU) and organizing at UC Berkeley that resulted in Ethnic Studies colleges and programs at both universities.

Newly appointed faculty Michael Wright developed courses in response to the civil rights movement and the Black Studies curriculum of neighboring universities. The aims and objectives were: to improve communications and human relations between black and white students at the college; to allow a guided confrontation and meaningful dialogue to exist between concerning America’s most serious internal crisis; to further the black student’s awareness of his own identity and history; to allow the white student to gain an awareness of the black man’s problems and aspirations; to correct inadequacies and imbalances propagated by our educational system.

“As a black studies instructor at CCAC, I must repeat, I am here because I feel that not only is the artist no freer than the society, but the society is no freer than the artist. I am here to free the Black artist so that he can go out and free society. We are a microcosm of society, whether you think so, or not.” Sarah Fabio

This exhibition announcement marks the historic moment when the first black student art show was organized and opened at the college.

The national demands for scholarly programs that focused on the understudied histories and situations of African Americans, Asian Americans, Chicanos, and Native Americans, as well as national and global decolonial uprisings outlined the contemporary definition of diversity in post-secondary education.

Pro-Arts Ethnic Scholarship winners, 1975

This on campus mural was produced in the Mexican and Chicano Public Art course, initiated by Malaquias Montoya. Students in the course created group statements on current issues and painted the murals on the Martinez building. The course reinforced the Ethnic Studies intention to introduce students to the “arts and cultures of ethnic minorities in the United States.”

In 2014 the SCC wrote a letter, which was endorsed with the signatures of students, faculty, staff and alumni across CCA, to take a stand in solidarity with "those working to undo all forms of systemic and structural violence" and sought to "push the college further...to help create progress that embodies the needs of those most marginalized here" by outlining specific goals relating to Campus Climate, Curriculum and Enrollment, that would "lay a foundation for and bring to light the need for greater support systems for students across all marginalized identities at CCA".

Black Lives Matter Teach-In on Race, Architecture, and the City, 2015

Destruction of Walking Stick mural, 2015.

The Walking Stick mural was created in 2003 by Greg Dalton and Jonah Olson.

The Califia Mural, completed over the summer of 2015 six months after the attack, was envisioned and created by Laila Guadalupe Espinoza Faik, Jacqueline Krase, Steven James Mayorga, Martina Miguens Casado, Ángel Jesús Perez and Eduardo Pineda.

Border/Fracture Culture Change and Resistance under the Narcotraffic Regime, Diversity Studies Symposium 2016

HOME Diversity Studies Faculty Exhibition, 2018

Women of Color from CCA reflects the experiences of students and professors of CCA in 2018.

Decolonize Your Syllabus Workshop, August 2019 In 2019 "Shylah Pacheco Hamilton and Juan Carlos Rodriguez Rivera, presented at Fall 2019 Faculty Week Decolonize Your Syllabus Workshop (August 2019)"

Shylah Hamilton with the Students of Color Coalition, 2018

In a written response to the events and sentiments of spring and summer of 2020, Ricki Vincent wrote “we exist in an environment of “anti-blackness” that inhibits our growth toward a truly inclusive and affirming community of human beings of equally infinite value...Until Blacks are free from oppression, and Black Lives Matter, no other lives will be free.”

Made in China satirical poster, by Yujia (Rita) Lei 2020

The Decolonial School is an interdisciplinary cohort of CCA faculty committed to building a new curricular model for art and design education that foregrounds Indigenous practices and acknowledges decolonization as a continuous process.

As Critical Ethnic Studies moves forward into a new chapter there are plans for a CES program that is highly respected, with increased institutional support for programming growth and additional tenured positions, with professional support for faculty in an environment where professors feel valued and where CCA students can earn either a major or a minor in Critical Ethnic Studies.