This 90-minute documentary explores issues of faculty diversity in American higher education in the mid-1990s, focusing on the experiences of eight minority scholars in the humanities and social sciences at a wide range of institutions. The program illustrates ways in which teaching and research by these scholars -- who are Asian-American, African-American, Native American, and Latino -- affects students, university communities, and the academic disciplines in which they work, and the triumphs and disappointments they encounter in their personal lives and academic careers.

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SHATTERING THE SILENCES
takes a surprising and provocative look at the success and distress of minority scholars in the humanities and social sciences at universities from Seattle to New York. These scholars relate poignant stories about the obstacles and challenges on the journey to the ivory tower. There is both humor and pain as these minority voices in the academy tell a double-edged story.

Minority scholars are introducing new perspectives and fresh questions in university classrooms. While they have invigorated disciplines by contributing a wealth of new scholarship, the number of minority professors is still alarmingly small and the pipeline is fragile.Across all disciplines ninety percent of professors are white.

Opening up institutions doesn't happen easily. New scholarship is by definition challenging and minority scholars are constantly drawn into a debate over who defines truth and who decides what to teach. Answering to the needs of an overwhelmingly white institution, minority professors are also often overburdened by the demands put upon them.

The controversial issues of the Culture Wars and affirmative action are part of the atmosphere in which these scholars are trying to make a difference. Student voices are also heard in this passionate and fast-paced documentary.

The featured professors are African-American, Latino, Asian-American, and American Indian. They are superb teachers, riveting role models, and pathbreaking scholars in history, literature, sociology, ethnic studies, and political science.

Minority professors have worked primarily at historically black colleges and universities, Puerto Rican universities and community colleges. In 1941 a survey of predominantly white colleges and universities conducted by the Julius Rosenwald Fund found only two tenured Black faculty members -- both in non-teaching laboratory positions. Before world War II Hispanics were nearly invisible in academia.

From 1935 on. the NAACP's legal arm filed numerous suits contesting the failure of graduate and professional schools to provide equal opportunity to Blacks. Many universities and professional schools continued to oppose the admission of Blacks into their graduate and professional programs, despite court decisions ordering their admission.

The landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954 cleared the path for desegregation of American schools and universities. The civil rights movement and affirmative action legislation moved the project of ending discrimination in education forward.

The Black civil rights movement also stimulated a series of other movements demanding equality and justice: Mexican-Americans, American Indians, and Asian-Americans all began asserting their rights to be full participants in American society and that meant access to higher education as students and professors.

According to data from the American Council on Higher Education, during the early l960s African-Americans represented less than one percent of faculty at predominantly white campuses and, as recently as 1979, only two percent of all faculty in higher education . By the end of the 70's Hispanics only represented l.5 percent of faculty at the nation's colleges. By 1993 faculty of color represented 12.2 percent of all faculty. Minorities, particularly women of color, are clustered at the bottom of the professional ladder as assistant professors and non-tenure track lecturers. Twice as many men of color hold faculty positions as minority women. Faculty of color achieved their largest gains at full professor and associate professor levels from 1991 to 93.

Research by Gloria Cuadraz, who appears in the documentary, indicates that in 1966 12 percent of the California population was Hispanic yet less than a third of one percent of Berkeley's student body was Hispanic In the entire University of California system, less than one percent of students were Hispanic. By 1990 Chicano faculty members in the University of California system numbered 1.6 percent. By then almost one in four Californians was Hispanic.

By 1993 African-Americans represented 4.8 percent of all full-time faculty yet they represented 12 percent of the U.S. population.

• In 1993, persons of color represented only 12.2 percent of all full-time faculty and 9.2 percent of full professors. (Council of Higher Education)
• On most 4 year colleges and universities, less than 10% of professors are people of color.
• Some branches of the University of California system still have only one-Mexican-American on the faculty despite the fact thatMexican-Americans are now a quarter of California's population.
• At the University of Wisconsin fewer than 2% of the faculty are minority.
  
• At Stanford, 2.4% of all full time faculty are minorities.
  
• African-Americans comprise 1% of the nation's philosophy departments.
• Within a decade some 40% of college age youth will be fromminority groups. By the turn of the century college age youth inCalifornia will be more than 30% Chicano.
  
• American Indians account for less than 1 in 200 full-time faculty.
  
• Men both white and of color receive tenure at a higher rate than women.

• From 1982-92 American born Asians Ph.D.s jumped 83%, from 452 to 828;
• Hispanic Ph.D's rose 41% from 535 to 755;
• African-American's earned 9% fewer: 951 in 92 compared to 1,047 in 82.
• According to the National Research Council, African-Americans made up only 2.8% of those receiving doctorates in the arts and humanities last year and only 4.7 percent of those in the social sciences (1995 data);
• Blacks make up 12 percent of the U.S. population but only received less than 5% of the Ph.D.s. 1995 was the record year: 1,287; Black women received more Ph.D.s than black men: 805 compared to 482
  
• 86.3% of Ph.D.s were white
  
• 4.7% were Black
  
• 3.3% were Hispanic
  
• 4.1% were Asian
  
• 0.5% were Native American
  
• 44% of degrees awarded to African-Americans were in education
  
• 19% in social sciences
  
• 8 % in humanities
  
• Related to the issue of the hiring, promotion, and tenure of Ph.D.s is publishing: Scholarly publishing remains a largely white enterprise. University presses employ few or no minorities.

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  The Transcript

  OPENING: Music

  Narrator: FOR MOST OF THEIR HISTORY UNIVERSITIES IN THIS COUNTRY HAVE BEEN EXCLUSIVE PLACES. MANY WERE KEPT OUT.

  BUT TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO MINORITY PROFESSORS BEGAN TO BREAK INTO THE IVORY TOWER. BRINGING A MISSION OF CHANGE.

  OPENING UP INSTITUTIONS DOESN'T COME EASY. BECAUSE IT MEANS CHALLENGING TRADITION.

  MINORITY SCHOLARS ARE CREATING AN EXPLOSION IN THE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES. BY RAISING FRESH QUESTIONS THEY'RE BRINGING NEW LIFE AND KNOWLEDGE TO THE UNIVERSITY.

  BY DEMANDING THAT UNHEARD VOICES BE HEARDTHEY ARE... SHATTERING THE SILENCES. (Title Graphic)

  Music

  Narrator: FOLLOWING WORLD WAR TWO THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT AND LEGISLATION PAVED THE WAY FOR MORE MINORITIES TO ENTER UNIVERSITIES. TODAY THE NUMBERS ARE STILL ALARMINGLY SMALL. ACROSS ALL DISCIPLINES NINETY PERCENT OF PROFESSORS ARE WHITE.

  Student #1: All the professors that I've had have been predominantly white males and I'm only getting that perspective from them so I'd really appreciate a different perspective.

  Student #2: I've had women professors and I've had Jewish professors, but in terms of African-American or Latino professors, I haven't had them.

  Student #3: You just can't have a good faculty unless it's diverse.

  Narrator: THESE SCHOLARS ARE PART OF A NEW WAVE THAT HAS ENTERED OUR UNIVERSITIES BRINGING NEW CONCERNS AND NEW IDEAS.

  David Wilkins: (voice over) I'm a Lumbee Indian and I'm a human being and I'm inherently biased as are we all.

  Narrator: NEW SCHOLARSHIP IS BY DEFINITION CHALLENGING AND MINORITY SCHOLARS ARE CONSTANTLY DRAWN INTO A DEBATE OVER WHO DEFINES TRUTH AND WHO DECIDES WHAT TO TEACH.

  Robin Kelley: (Talking head) This is not the first time higher education has been challenged or overturned. I mean the idea of American literature period, whether it's white males like Mark Twain entering the canon. I mean that was a struggle.

  Narrator: BECAUSE THEIR NUMBERS ARE SO SMALL MINORITY PROFESSORS ARE OFTEN ISOLATED AND OVERBURDENED.

  Darlene Clark Hine: Most of my generation of Black women historians are unmarried, we'll never have children and we'll never have husbands.

  Narrator: THE ADDED PRESSURES TO DEFEND AFFIRMATIVE ACTION SUCKS AWAY THEIR TIME WHILE THREATENING THE VERY POLICY THAT HELPED THEM MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

  Nell Painter: So I think it's the sense that really white people belong on top. And they shouldn't have to give up anything for anybody.

  Alex Saragoza: We can't get away from an important issue. Why now? I mean we are nowhere near parity.

  Narrator: YET IT IS THROUGH A DIVERSITY OF IDEAS THAT SCHOLARSHIP IS ADVANCED AND CHANGED. IT IS THIS EFFORT TO BRING FRESH WORLDS INTO THE UNIVERSITY THAT IS SO VITAL FOR A FUTURE THAT INCLUDES AND EMBRACES EVERYONE.

  (Music ends)

  Narrator: TEACHING IS OFTEN LIKE GOING ON STAGE. A GOOD TEACHER MUST GIVE A NEW PERFORMANCE D AILY . DAVID WILKINS, A LUMBEE INDIAN FROM NORTH CAROLINA, REMEMBERS HIS FIRST TEACHING ASSIGNMENT.

  Wilkins: (voice over) I just felt petrified. I got throught the lecture, but my voice quavered the entire hour and fifteen minutes. And I still get very nervous in front of classes, especially in the beginning of the year. My routine is I prefer to be isolated, alone during the last 30 minutes before class.

  (Graphic: Tucson, Arizona)

  (Talking head): I walk into a bathroom, the nearest bathroom, and hopefully there's nobody in there and I look in the mirror and I stare at myself and I try to get myself calmed and focused and remind myself that I have to be on. (In Classroom): And this is an issue that minority faculty get all the time and majority faculty rarely get and it's a question of....(he's writing "insider vs. outsider" on the board)

  Narrator: WILKINS IS A PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA IN TUCSON.

  Wilkins (in classroom) The insider vs. the outsider perspective, alright?. That is I as an American Indian teaching about American Indians, I'm giving you an inside perspective. Someone from the history department teaching a course on Indian history is giving you an outside perspective.

  Clifford M. Lytle: He has a very delicate role to play; because unlike most political scientists who have one constitutency. He has two constitutencies. He's not only functioning as a political scientist. He's functioning as an expert in American Indian affairs as well. And sometimes these two disciplines are not harmonious.

  Wilkins: (in classroom): There's some people who presume that just because I'm an Indian that I'm naturally more insightful on Indian issues.

  (Talking head; photographs as a child): I didn't really have a consciousness of being a Lumbee. In fact for the first twelve/thirteen years I thought I was a Cherokee. I didn't know what a Lumbee was until my dad retired and we moved back home. And so that's when I began to understand that I was part of a larger group and the group was Lumbee.

  (In classroom): Everything I view I view from Lumbee eyes. Because that's who I am. That's the essence of who I am...

  Narrator: IN 1972 WILKINS LIFE WAS CHANGED BY VINE DELORIA'S LANDMARK BOOK, "CUSTER DIED FOR YOUR SINS."

  Wilkins (on camera): Indians that read that book when it first came out felt good to be Indian. And Lumbees like many people that have been colonized don't always feel good about who they are...about the color of their skin. And Vine's book emphasized how strong we were, how beautiful we were, how powerful we were despite what we had faced as tribal societies. And so you walked around you began to see people holding out their chests a little bit more, and people began to wear some outward symbols of what it means to be Indian. So I got my first Indian choker. I got me a nice hat. Started learning how to do some bead work. And we said heh we're somebody. And we had something to say. This is our country for God's sake, you know.

  (In classroom): You have the official version...alright?

  Narrator: DAVID WILKINS' WORK CENTERS ON TRIBAL SOVEREIGNTY AND WHY THE U.S. GOVERNMENT HAS BEEN INCONSISTENT IN RECOGNIZING NATIVE AMERICANS'AUTHORITY TO GOVERN THEMSELVES.

  Wilkins: You have to go into government documents and pull out the Congressional Record and Congressional hearings and read all that stuff.

  Narrator: WILKINS BEGAN BY INDEPENDENTLY RESEARCHING TRIBAL SOVEREIGNTY AND HISTORY AT THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES. TO HIS SURPRISE HE FELL IN LOVE WITH THE STACKS, THE BOOKS, THE RESEARCH.

  Wilkins: (voice over, on camera): Once I got into those archives and all around all those dusty old documents I felt completely at ease and I said, This is what I want to do. And that's what Vine had kick-started when he wrote "Custer Died For Your Sins." We could no longer rely on anthropologists, we couldn't rely on historians, we couldn't rely on non- Indian lawyers to do our own research. We were responsible for it ourselves.

  Music over still photos of ethnic studies protests.

  (Alex Saragoza opens office door, closes it behind and walks down hall intercut w/ stock footage of student protests)

  Saragoza: (voice over) I think the origion of ethnic studies on this campus, like other campuses was primarily based on political considerations; it had little to do with academics.

  (SOT): chant: "Power to the People"

  Narrator: IN 1969 STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY WENT OUT ON STRIKE -- NOT TO PROTEST THE VIETNAM WAR -- BUT TO DEMAND NEW COURSES. COURSES THAT WOULD EXAMINE THE HISTORY AND CULTURE OF RACIAL AND ETHNIC MINORITIES. THE NEW CURRICULUM WOULD REQUIRE A NEW FACULTY -- STRIKING STUDENTS DEMANDED THE UNIVERSITY HIRE MORE MINORITY PROFESSORS.

  (SOT): We're going to have a Third World College by the fall of 1969 by any means necessary.

  Narrator: AT THAT TIME THERE WERE ONLY SIX BLACKS AND ONE MEXICAN AMERICAN AMONG A FACULTY OF SOME FOURTEEN HUNDRED PROFESSORS. OUT OF THIS CONFLICT CAME THE FIRST ETHNIC STUDIES DEPARTMENT IN THE COUNTRY. AND THE HIRING OF PROFESSORS LIKE ALEX SARAGOZA, A HISTORIAN WHO TEACHES CHICANO STUDIES AS WELL AS COMPARATIVE ETHNIC STUDIES.

  (Graphic: Berkeley, California) Saragoza: (voice over) Because I am associated with Chicano Studies, where many people on this campus assume we do second rate scholarship and third rate research and that most of us are probably fourth rate teachers and so on. . .

  (on camera): . . . It's a continuous process of proving myself, including to students.

  (In classroom): So that people who live in Michoacan begin to see those kitchens in the United States, those people who go back to Mexico with those huge boxes filled with pampers.....

  Narrator: THIS IS AN ETHNIC STUDIES COURSE ABOUT MIGRATION.

  Saragoza (In Classroom): Why? Because it came from here.

  Narrator: MOST DEPARTMENTS REMAIN OVER WHELMINGLY WHITE AT BERKELEY. MINORITY PROFESSORS TEND TO BE CLUSTERED IN ETHNIC STUDIES, WHICH INCLUDE CHICANO STUDIES, AFRICANAMERICAN, ASIAN AMERICAN AND AMERICAN INDIAN STUDIES. THAT PATTERN IS REPEATED AROUND THE COUNTRY.

  Saragoza: (On camera): Most of us I suspect could have ended up -- and I certainly had job offers -- to end up in a regular history department but we felt we had a particular mission to play.

  (In classroom): You're Mexican, you're Mexican you're Mexican...That's the way I grew up. I'm Mexican, yeh, that's it.

  Saragoza (on camera): For someone like myself and I suspect this is true for most of my colleagues, are very concerned with the issue of democracy in part because we were part of that generation that really believed...that we were in fact the land of freedom, liberty, democracy and equality and when we realized that was not necessarily true, that there was a whole generation of us, I think, who made it our concern to try to even the plane as much as we could.

  Narrator: SARAGOZA'S RESEARCH AND WRITING HAS ROAMED BOTH SIDES OF THE BORDER. HE WRITES ABOUT MEXICAN POPULAR CULTURE AND ABOUT CHICANOS IN CALIFORNIA. NOT ALL OF HIS WORK IS AIMED AT AN ACADEMIC AUDIENCE. SOME OF HIS ARTICLES ARE FOR SCHOOL TEACHERS TO HELP THEM UNDERSTAND LATINO CHILDREN.

  Saragoza: (In classroom): Singing/mocking ÒQue la quieres!Ó laughter

  (Music over shots of the San Joaquin Valley)

  Narrator: JUST AS SARAGOZA BRINGS HIS EXPERIENCE AS A MEXICAN AMERICAN INTO THE CLASSROOM HE PERIODICALLY TAKES HIS STUDENTS TO THE GRAPE FIELDS OF THE SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY WHERE HE WORKED WITH HIS FAMILY AS A CHILD.

  Saragoza (walking in fields with student): There was a raid on the fields by the INS and they used to have these Cesna planes and they would fly over and I remember them saying, "Do not run; do not run" and most of us there were resident farmworkers and were citizens or were there legally and yet I remember everyone running like crazy.

  (over shots of his old neighborhood and old photos): Now this place looks a lot like the house I was telling you about -- the house I grew up in -- my mother, father, brother and sister all slept there . . . that grey one, the cinder block one, that's the one my father built . . . and my grandfather moved in with us. He lived in the back house. (Music)

  Gloria Cuadraz (voice over shot of her packing up her office): In my family if you worked in an air-conditioned place and you were not out in the fields and you were not out in the heat and doing manual labor . . . that was something to strive for. . . . (Family photos)

  Narrator: GLORIA CUADRAZ GREW UP IN ANOTHER AGRICULTURAL AREA OF CALIFORNIA. HER FATHER HAD MIGRATED FROM MEXICO AND HER MOTHER WAS A NATIVE CALIFORNIAN.

  Cuadraz: (voice over family photos): I was the sixth born. Seven girls, one brother. My father was a farm laborer in the Imperial Valley.

  Narrator: IN CUADRAZ'S LARGE TRADITIONAL FAMILY SHE'S THE ONLY ONE TO LEAVE HOME TO GO TO COLLEGE. NOW SHE'S A JUNIOR PROFESSOR IN THE AMERICAN STUDIES DEPARTMENT AT ARIZONA STATE UNIVERS ITY IN PHOENIX WHERE SHE TEACHES SOCIOLOGY.

  (Graphic: Phoenix, Arizona)

  Narrator: (over office scene) BUT CUADRAZ ALMOST DIDN'T MAKE IT. WHEN SHE WAS IN GRADUATE SCHOOL AT BERKELEY SHE RAN INTO TROUBLE AND DROPPED OUT.

  Cuadraz: (voice over and on camera): I did not feel like I belonged and I was struggling, I was struggling to connect and for someone like myself who has felt connected their entire life to be asked to survive in an environment where you do not feel that you belong, that you're part of that culture, it was too overbearing for me.

  Narrator: CUADRAZ'S REACTION TO GRADUATE SCHOOL WAS NOT UNIQUE. FIRST GENERATION MINORITY STUDENTS CAN ALSO STUMBLE OVER FINANCIAL AND FAMILY PRESSURES. FOR LATINAS, THE ROAD FROM HOME IS ESPECIALLY LONG.

  Cuadraz: I hadn't learned the ways how to be successful in this context and I hadn't learned how it works. The individualization of it was almost shocking to my system.

  Narrator : (photos of graduation; w/ mom): BUT CUADRAZ WAS DETERMINED AND RETURNED TO BERKELEY TO GET HER PH.D. IN SOCIOLOGY.

  Cuadraz (voice over and on camera): She once said to me that if she had known that when I went off to college that I would never come back, that she would never let me go. Because I was the only one that left. But -- at the same time -- when I filed my dissertation I called her from a phone booth and I said, Mom. I said, well, it's done. It's in. It's done. I'm finished. And she said, "I admire you. Gloria, I admire you." And it meant everything to me at that time. . . . (tears)

  (Madera High School grounds) Saragoza: (voice over): Well this is Madera High.

  Narrator: FOR ALEX SARAGOZA THE ROAD TO A PH.D. WAS ALSO AN OBSTACLE COURSE.

  Saragoza: (talking with student): Well I remember my freshman counselor trying to put me into auto shop, wood shop and mechanical drawing and this sort of thing and I was terrible at those things and I finally convinced her to put me into college prep. And if it wasn't for that I'm not sure what would have happened. And that's the sad thing about this is that the success of children should not depend on luck.

  Narrator: SO MANY OTHER MINORITY STUDENTS HAVE BEEN LESS LUCKY. LOW EXPECTATIONS BY TEACHERS OR COUNSELORS IS ALL TOO COMMON.

  Saragoza: (in fields with student): Right in front of me the teacher said "Oh, you know, the Mexican kids, they don't do well. They don't make it.Ó

  Narrator: YEARS LATER, AT HARVARD, SARAGOZA MET UP "WITH THE SAME PREJUDICE.

  Saragoza (on camera): And I remember a paper I did with two other students at Harvard and the instructor turning to the non-minority member of our trio and saying he really liked that part of the paper. And I remember his name was Steven Rosenholtz. And Steven turned to the instructor and said, Well I didn't do that, Alex did that. The professor assumed the part that had been very well done had been done by Steven.

  (In fields w/ student): What I remember about Harvard is that the most important asset that I had was these fields. Because these fields taught me how to work. (Music)

  Narrator: SARAGOZA AND CUADRAZ BRING WISDOM FROM THEIR JOURNEYS TO THE IVORY TOWER. A KNOWLEDGE THAT CAN'T BE ACQUIRED ANY OTHER WAY.

  Saragoza (in classroom): People in Mexico like in many other places feel that this is the only place to be, right, that this is the only place where you can live a good and abundant life, that this is the only place where your child can get a good education . . . see you next week . . . applause. (Parent approaches Saragoza): I'm a parent of Allona Guy (ph?) who is here. I have to tell you that you are absolutely the most engrossing, captivating teacher I've ever experienced. It was fabulous.

  Saragoza: Thank you very much.

  Narrator: IN HIS SPEECHES AND ARTICLES SARAGOZA EMPHASIZES OUR CHANGING DEMOGRAPHICS. WITHIN THE NEXT DECADE FIFTY PERCENT OF CALIFORNIA'S SCHOOL CHILDREN WILL BE LATINO.

  Saragoza: (on camera): If you loook at the curriculum, if you look at the reading assignments, if you look at the indexes of the books that are used on many parts of this campus, we might as well be in Sweden.

  Narrator: HOWEVER, THE TEACHING OF ETHNIC STUDIES REMAINS CONTROVERSIAL. JOHN SEARLE, A PHILOSOPHY PROFESSOR AT BERKELEY:

  John Searle (on camera): See I think that one of the chief aims of education is to tell individuals, Forget about the ethnicity and the social class and all that stuff you were born into. When you join the university we invite you into a membership of a universal human culture. Whereas what this representation culture tells you is you are essentially what people most hate in you. So if you've been discriminated against on grounds of your race you should define yourself in terms of your race. See, what I think we should tell people is, Forget about your race, it's largely irrelevant to your intellectual development.

  Student (on camera in classroom): There is no room for compromise. The American Indians compromised to give the white man a meal for Thanksgiving. The American Indians compromised to be on the reservations and look where they are now. We have to start somewhere. and if we are here demanding more classes like these classes then that's what we need to do . . . we're stuck in this tiny-ass classroom. excuse me . . . tiny classromm because there are no classes and there's no way I can appreciate a white man, a black man, a Latino American if I don't know who I am. And this is where I'm getting it from. Asian-american studies, American ethnic studies.

  Narrator: IN AN ASIAN-AMERICAN STUDIES CLASS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, STUDENTS REACT TO THE CRITICISM THAT ETHNIC STUDIES DIVIDES THE CAMPUS ALONG RACIAL AND ETHNIC LINES.

  Student #2: We have a.classroom which is not found anywhere else on campus here and you have a classroom full of people of color. We get to express our ideas and we don't have to worry about living up to some white aesthetic values. We actually get to challenge them and get to create our own.

  Student #3: I mean I love this class.

  Student #4: . Do you think it's been different for you being a European-American in a classroom full of Asian-American students? Do you think that's part of your learning experience?

  Student #3: I think so, Yes, I do. I think that's valuable but at the same time I think it's valuable to get a lot of Caucasion students in the classroom.

  Student #5: You realize that for a quarter of the people in this class your word doesn't mean jack because you're white. . . .

  Student #3: Yeh...(laughter)

  Student #2: Stop speaking for everyone!

  Student #5: Then you stop!

  Student #2: I don't know if you understand how much it hurts me to see you say those things.

  Student #5:. Like what did I say.?

  Student #2: Like what it is. . . .

  Student #5: What exactly did I say that hurt you that way?

  Student #2: A lot of time you're lacking. You're lacking on histories and perspectives of people of color. When you like, sometimes you speak of stereotypes, like the other day you talked about how all black people are muggers. And me being half black, being raised by a black family . . . .hey, that's pretty offensive because of some of the stereotypes you say.

  Student #5: Whoa . . . you're telling me to get rid of my labels? You're telling me to get rid of my labeling system and you're telling me I'm Anglicized? See, I came into this class with the view that everybody's an individual and if everybody behaves as an individual and gets to know one another as individuals there's no need for ethnic studies except for appreciation. That's my standpoint so don't you call me a white-washed twinkie mother (bleep)! What have I ever done to you that makes . . .

  Student #2 Because I sat in this class and had to listen to you say all black people were muggers. I sat there and had to listen to that crap!

  Student #5: You want to know why?

  Student #2: I don't care. I don't care whatever reason. I had to sit there and listen to that crap!

  Student #5: Don't you remember the professor and I were having that conversation? You're saying that deep in my heart I think the white man's better than me.

  Student #2: I think a lot of times what you say in class it comes out that way...

  Student #5: Professor Wong. What do you think.?

  (Shawn Wong enters scene): Hold it. I don't want to stop this conversation, but another group is coming into the classroom.

  Student #5: Can we yell in the hallway?

  Wong: You can yell outside, yell in the hallway, but probably a better more constructive way is to deal with it in class.

  Student #5: Because I feel I've done him a wrong.

  Student #2: You have.

  Narrator: SHAWN WONG IS ONE OF THE FOUNDING FATHERS OF ASIAN-AMERICAN STUDIES.

  Wong (over drag racing scene): You might say I've got the fastest cars in the English Department.

  Narrator: HE'S A NOVELIST, CAR RACER . . . AND RECENTLY PROMOTED TO FULL PROFESSOR IN THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON.

  Wong (reading from his novel) You know the sexiest thing about you Raymond? Ths was Aurora's trap. She told Raymond men were scum then pushed an idea towards him that he could not resist. She never asked questions that were soft and open ended like what are you thinking honey...

  Narrator: SHAWN WONG DIRECTS THE CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON. AND JUST AS ITS RARE TO FIND A CHINESE-AMERICAN PROFESSOR OUTSIDE OF SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING DEPARTMENTS, WONG HAS WRITTEN AN UNUSUAL NOVEL ABOUT LOVERS TALKING . . . ASIAN-AMERICAN LOVERS.

  Wong: (reading): Do you remember the first time we made love? On the phone. . . .

  Wong (voice over): The stereotype of Asians in America is that we are exotic, mysterious and silent. And so for the first time in literature we have an Asian man talking to an Asian woman about their relationship. What a concept. (giggle.)

  Wong: (voice over): If you look in the media, Asian men and Asian women don't talk about their relationships at all. Nor do we fall in love or have sex or have a normal relationship.

  Wong (voice over booksigning scene): "American Knees," by the way, comes from an expression I heard in growing up as a kid in the schoolyard. Kids would come up to me and say what are you Chinese, Japanese or Americanese.? . . . (.Priscilla) . . . I don't know exactly what that meant at the beginning but I thought whatever it is I didn't like it.

  Student: I did read "American Knees," actually, I didn't read the other two that were published, but I liked that you had one of the characters be biracial because that was something I could relate to. Another thing I'd like to point out is that the main characters don't only talk about sex, they actually have it.(laughter)..which is different.

  Narrator: IN THIS ASIAN-AMERICAN STUDIES CLASS STUDENTS WRESTLE WITH THE ISSUES WONG'S NOVEL ADDRESSES. COMPLEX ISSUES OF IDENTITY AND PREJUDICE.

  Student (continues): There seems to be a lot of argument about what it means to be Asian-American and I just wondered what your opinion of that was. What does it mean?

  Wong (in classroom): Asian-American is obviously a political term. It was a term of self-determination that described not only your sense of self but a political sense of self too . . . as a person that belonged to a larger community. One that is defined by your experience in America..

  Narrator: (over photo of him as student; photo at typewriter): THE TERM ASIAN-AMERICAN WAS BRAND-NEW BACK IN THE LATE 1960S WHEN WONG WAS THE ONLY ASIAN MALE AMONG A THOUSAND OR MORE ENGLISH LITERATURE MAJORS AT BERKELEY. HE WAS ALREADY WRITING FICTION AND DETERMINED TO FIND OTHER ASIAN-AMERICAN WRITERS.

  Wong: (voice over scene at computer): I decided I would major in something called Asian American literature except there were no teachers, no assignments, no credits, no classes...I just had to know if there was a generation of writers before me, because I wanted to learn from them.

  (In Classroom): What if there were no Asian-American studies classes?

  Narrator: WONG STARTED OUT ON A JOURNEY THAT WOULD OPEN UP A NEW FIELD OF STUDY.THE FIRST CHALLENGE WAS TO FIND ASIAN-AMERICAN AUTHORS.

  Wong (in classroom): I was the only Chinese-American writer I knew.

  Narrator: HE DID THE LOGICAL THING; HE ASKED HIS ENGLISH PROFESSORS FOR HELP.

  Wong (in classroom): So one of my professors thought, Well you know there are these Tang Dynasty poets that wrote in China in 5 million B.C. So I went to the library and I looked up the Tang Dynasty poets and I read their poetry. And they wrote about drinking wine and falling drunk into the river. And this was l969, I had already done all that already . . . (laughter)

  Narrator: WONG AND AN ASPIRING WRITER FRIEND, FRANK CHIN, SEARCHED USED-BOOK STORES FOR ANYTHING THAT MIGHT SOUND ASIAN-AMERICAN.

  Wong (in classroom): I found Fu Manchu books, I found Charlie Chan books, books called "Rickshaw Boy" . . . I have the largest collection of racist Asian books.

  Narrator: ONE DAY THEY DISCOVERED SOMETHING DIFFERENT.

  Wong (in classrooom): We found a book called "Yokohama, California" by Toshio Mori.

  Narrator: FINDING TOSHIO MORI'S COLLECTION OF STORIES WAS LIKE FINDING THE FIRST RELIC IN AN ARCHEOLOGICAL DIG, ONLY THE TOOL THEY USED NEXT WAS THE TELEPHONE.

  Wong: (in classroom): So he gets out the Oakland-San Leandro phone book, flips through the pages. There's Toshio Mori's name in the phone book So he calls him up. Is this Toshio Mori . . . the writer? . . . pause . . . Yes . . . then Frank says we just read your book, we'd like to come over and interview you. We couldn't believe we'd be the only people to actually sit down and write fiction or poetry or whatever. There had to be an older generation out there and Toshio Mori was our first discovery in that older generation.

  Narrator: WONG AND HIS LITERARY DETECTIVE TEAM RECOVERED, PUBLISHED AND CELEBRATED A SEMINAL GROUP OF ASIANAMERICAN AUTHORS WHO HAD LANGUISHED IN OBSCURITY.PEOPLE LIKE TOSHIO MORI, HISAYE YAMAMOTO, WAKAKO YAMAUCHI AND JOHN OKADA. WONG'S TEAM WAS ALSO WRITING AND PUBLISHING THEMSELVES.

  Wong: (voice over): It was important to me to find Asian-American writers to see if they wrote about the same things that I was concerned about growing up in America . . . did they write about an Asian-American sensibility in their literature?

  (In Classroom): This was our literary scholarship of the day. Find out where they live; Call them up on the phone go visit them.

  Narrator: WONG'S PERSONAL SEARCH FOR ASIAN-AMERICAN WRITERS HAS INTRODUCED NEW VOICES AND NEW KNOWLEDGE INTO UNIVERSITY CLASSROOMS ACROSS THE COUNTRY. AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-TWO HE TAUGHT ONE OF THE FIRST COURSES IN ASIAN-AMERICAN STUDIES. IT'S THIS WORK BY MINORITY SCHOLARS THAT INVIGORATES THE IVORY TOWER.

  Music over shots of students on various campuses.

  Darlene Clark Hine: (voice over, on camera in car): If we want a new world I think we have to make new people; and I look upon students as new people in the making; and we have to teach them a new history.

  Hine (voice over archival footage of Kent State campus violence): I was at Kent State. I was standing right there on that hill. I was a graduate student at Kent State when that happened. And I thought I needed to observe this because I thought, Well, you know, you're going to be a historian, you need to see things. You need to be a witness. And I never ever expected that the guardsmen would open fire and kill people. Kill people like me. (on camera): And I almost shut down emotionally, intellectually. It didn't make any sense. I went into exile into the library.

  Narrator: FOR DARLENE CLARK HINE THE LIBRARY AT KENT STATE YIELDED A DISSERTATION ON AFRICAN-AMERICAN LEGAL HISTORY.

  Student at convention: Hi, my name is Mathew Whittaker. I'm one of Dr. Wanda Hendricks's (ph) students at Arizona State. She told me if I came up here to make sure I got to meet you.

  Narrator: TODAY, TWENTY YEARS LATER, SHE'S AT THE TOP OF HER PROFESSION;

  Student (Mathew Whittaker): Actually, meeting you is one of the main reasons I came.

  Hine: Is that right?

  Whittaker: Yeh, I really admire your work.

  Hine: Well, thank you.

  Narrator: HERE AT THE CONVENTION OF THE ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN HISTORIANS SHE'S SOUGHT OUT BY A NEW GENERATION OF SCHOLARS. HINE IS PART OF THE FIRST GENERATION OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN SCHOLARS TO BREAK THROUGH TO A WORLD THAT IS STILL MOSTLY WHITE.

  Hine: (embracing a group of professors): All my Kent State professors.

  Narrator: IT IS THROUGH THIS WORLD THAT YOUNG AFRICAN-AMERICAN SCHOLARS MUST LEARN TO NAVIGATE, SEEK MENTORS, TO SEARCH FOR ALLIES.

  Whittaker (approaching another professor, Nell Painter): I just wanted to tell you that I really enjoy your work and everything and I just wanted to meet you, let you know I appreciate it.

  Narrator: HINE AND HER COLLEAGUES FIGHT TO INCLUDE AFRICAN-AMERICAN HISTORY AS AN IMPORTANT PART OF THE AMERICAN PAST. BUT IN HISTORY AS IN OTHER DISCIPLINES, CHANGE DOESN'T COME EASILY.

  Hine (voice over): It takes a long time for historians to embrace new interpretations of the past.

  Professor: He did a lot of the presidents.

  Whittaker: Hi. My name is Mathew Whittaker

  Hine (on camera at convention): People who have invested their life work in creating or constructing a certain vision of American history are not just going to lie back and die and say, Okay you're right, you Young Turks, just take it and go with it. I was wrong.

  Narrator: THE WAY IN WHICH HISTORIANS VIEW THE AMERICAN PAST IS SLOWLY BEING ALTERED; FOR HINE THE TRANSFORMATION BEGAN IN AUGUST 1980 WHEN SHE RECEIVED A PHONE CALL THAT WOULD CHANGE HER LIFE AND THE FIELD OF AMERICAN HISTORY FOREVER.

  Hine (on camera with photos of Mrs. Herd): And she said, Well I'm Shirley Heard and I'm a teacher in the public school system in Indianapolis, Indiana. And I'm calling because I want you to write a history of black women in Indiana. So I said to her, Mrs. Heard, you cannot call up a historian and order a book the way you would drive up to a Wendy's and order a hamburger. We historians do not work like that. And Mrs. Herd was undaunted. I said, Mrs. Herd, I cannot write a history of black women in Indiana because I don't know anything about black women. And she said to me in that black woman's voice and I knew that she had her hand on her hip. And she said. Let me get this straight. I said yes. She said: You are a black woman, aren't you? I said yes. She said you are a historian, aren't you? I said yes. And she said, Now you mean to tell me that you can't put those two things together and write a history of black women in Indiana? And I was dumfounded, stupefied.

  (v.o. over photographs; music) Because historians can write a history of anything of anyone but the key is the historian must decide that that thing, event or person or group is worthy of historical investigation, and apparently no one had ever thought black women in Indiana were worth studying. . . . And it was as if I had entered another universe. A universe that I had never known existed. . . . And that was the beginning of my commitment to telling the truth, to lifting the veil, to shattering the silence about black women in American history.

  Narrator: BY LISTENING TO VOICES THAT HAD NOT BEEN HEARD HINE HELPED TO CREATE A FIELD THAT DID NOT EXIST FIFTEEN YEARS AGO -- AFRICAN-AMERICAN WOMEN'S HISTORY.

  Scene at convention: Woman: I just love the sassiness.

  Hine: Black women with an attitude.

  Narrator: SHE'S WRITTEN THREE BOOKS ON THE SUBJECT AND EDITED THE FIRST MAJO ENCYCLOPOEDIA ON BLACK WOMEN IN AMERICA.

  Another woman professor at booth: I've used your materials. . . .

  Narrator: HINE'S WORK IN MAKING AMERICAN HISTORY MORE INCLUSIVE IS ECHOED BY OTHER MINORITY SCHOLARS. FOR EXAMPLE, SHAWN WONG'S LITERARY MISSION SPILLED OVER INTO HISTORY AS WELL.

  Librarian: About 450 cubic feet of records from INS

  Narrator: HE HAS CONTINUALLY ENCOURAGED STUDENTS TO DO ORIGINAL RESEARCH ABOUT ASIAN-AMERICANS.

  Student: Well it's a forged document.

  Narrator: RECENTLY, WONG HELPED TO RESCUE THESE IMMIGRATION DEPARTMENT FILES. THEY DOCUMENT THE FIFTY-YEAR PERIOD WHEN CHINESE IMMIGRANTS WERE ROUTINELY DENIED CITIZENSHIP IN THE UNITED STATES.

  Wong (voice over photos in record book): The pictures themselves tell an interesting story. We're so used to -- especially in history books -- not seeing individuals. We hear about laws and periods of history but we very rarely focus -- other than famous people --we rarely focus on the average immigrant. We can see what a great record this is and we can begin to put together our story of Chinese in America.

  Hine: I think scholars of color have enriched just about every discipline because of the new questions they have asked and the new approaches they have undertaken.

  Music and scenes of West Side of Chicago

  Hine (in Classroom): Just off the top of your head. What are the dangerous populations in American right now?

  Student: The unwed mothers living in inner cities living off the public dole are a dangerous group.

  Hine: We're talking about perceptions, stereotypes...

  Narrator: TODAY HINE IS THE JOHN HANNAH PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AT MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY. IN THE CLASSROOM SHE CHALLENGES HER STUDENTS TO USE THEIR OWN EXPERIENCES TO LOOK AT HISTORY IN NEW WAYS.

  Hine (in classroom): Gangs, adolescents; young black males in hooded t-shirts and sweatshirts. . . .

  Narrator: RECENTLY DR. HINE WENT TO THE WEST SIDE OF CHICAGO TO REVISIT HER OWN HISTORICAL ROOTS.

  Hine (on camera on street): 2141 West Warren Boulevard. Here we had an extended family; it was more like a community, a family compound, a collective. We had all of these adults around us. Our mother and father, our aunts and uncles. The only one left is my uncle Tip . . . (greeting at door).

  Narrator: FOR HINE GROWING UP IN THE 1960'S CHICAGO WAS A DIFFERENT PLACE...IT WAS A COMMUNITY OF NEIGHBORS . . . A COMMUNITY THAT CARED.

  Hine (to Tip): You look a little like Uncle Remus . . . (laughter. driving): I remember walking down this street; this short street; the houses were so well kept and so beautiful. (Greeting Sunday-school teacher).

  Narrator: THE METROPOLITAN BAPTIST CHURCH WAS A CORNERSTONE OF HINE'S COMMUNITY.

  Hine: My sunday school teacher! I have not been back in 30 years. Can you forgive me?

  Narrator: BUT IN THE 1960'S HINE -- LIKE MANY OTHERS -- WAS TORN BETWEEN THE TRADITIONALISM OF THE PAST AND THE RADICALISM OF THE TIMES . . .

  Hine: When I was searching for some way to make a contribution to the whole movement for social justice I came across the Black Panther Party's Ten Point Program. It was the fifth point that really struck me. The fifth point said we want a true education for our people. And I said. Wow! That's it!

  (In classroom): At some fundamental level we have to discover what unites us as human beings and I hope that this is what history ultimately will teach.

  Music and home movies of Robin Kelley as young boy.

  Kelley (voice over): I grew up in a household where my mother encouraged me to do whatever I wanted to do. If you want to be a poet, an artist, a writer, she always encouraged me. My sister and I were first generation college graduates and that has a lot to do with my mother's upbringing. She said do what you want to do. Narrator: ROBIN KELLY IS A RISING STAR IN AMERICAN HISTORY. AT THE AGE OF 34 HE HAS PUBLISHED THREE BOOKS OF GROUND-BREAKING SCHOLARSHIP.

  (Preschool children dancing to music) Kelley: How you guys doing today?

  Narrator: KELLY'S WORK RANGES FROM HIP-HOP CULTURE TO BLACK COMMUNISTS IN ALABAMA; FROM MALCOLM X TO SOCIALISM IN AFRICA.

  Kelley: Does anyone know what a professor does?

  Child #1: Sometimes they do magic tricks like magicians who are professors.

  Child #2: They write books.

  Kelley: I went to my daughter's school to share my work with these kids. And I thought it would be fun to let these kids know what I do for a living; (I teach history); and also convey a sense of what history is to young people.

  Child #3: What happened a long time ago.

  Kelley: (on camera): In high school I was a mediocre student, I used to hang out with my friends all the time; my car was more important than anything else; my hair was really important, but school was not.

  (In preschool): This is a picture of me bald . . . (laughter).

  (Voice over): I hadn't the slightest idea that professors actually wrote books, I thought they were extensions of high-school teachers.

  (In preschool): Sometimes professors who are historians which is what I am, write books about history.

  (Voice over): I wanted to write about strategies of resistance and strategies that can change America.

  Narrator: IN THE UNIVERSITY, PUBLISHING A FIRST BOOK CAN MAKE OR BREAK A CAREER. FOR KELLY THE MENTORSHIP OF NELL PAINTER -- AN ESTABLISHED SCHOLAR -- WAS KEY.

  Painter: Robin first came into my life in a dissertation about this thick.

  Kelley: And I sent her this huge 690 page dissertation. It just came out the blue and she's a very busy person.

  Painter: And I read the big thing and I made some suggestions.

  Kelley: She took time to not only read it but to put multi-colored post-its on each page.

  Painter: And I made some suggestions for publication as well.

  Kelley: She's responsible for virtually every good thin that happened to me in the academy.

  Painter: I am not responsible for all the good things in Robin Kelley's career. RK is wonderfully able and he's just a terrific historian. (Classroom): re really isolated.

  Student: Sopme of the middleclass black leaders.

  Narrator: KELLEY IS COMPLETING HIS SECOND YEAR AS THE YOUNGEST FULL PROFESOR AT NEW YORK UNIVERSITY.

  Kelley (In classroom): It is truth though, the people who bought the "Negro World," who paid their dues. . . .

  Narrator: HE IS ONE OF ONLY THREE AFRICAN AMERICANS IN A FIFTY-MEMBER HISTORY DEPARTMENT.

  Kelley (voice over): I think you have to do what you want to do and do what is engaging to you. (on camera): Part of my interest in going into academia was reform. I've seen too many students in huge classes just going through the motions without any intellectual engagement at all.

  (In classroom): What was the attraction to Garvey? It wasn't the genetic link that when you're on a dance floor suddenly your African instincts come out.

  Student: ****** freedom for them.

  Kelley (in classroom): Brilliant. You know what you did? You just answered the first question I asked.

  Kelley (voice over): I like to think that my own work has kind of forced historians, irrespective of race, to sort of rethink our assumptions about politics, about resistance, whatever, I think that's one important reason for us being here as scholars.

  Man at conference: And I wanted to ask if you draw some kind of distinction or connection...

  Narrator: EVERY YEAR KELLY GIVES MORE THAN EIGHTY SPEECHES AROUND THE COUNTRY TO TAKE HIS WORK BEYOND THE CLASSROOM.

  Kelley (at panel): My main mentor was social movement. I think if it wasn't for politics I wouldn't be a faculty member. I wouldnt be anything but working with my colleagues at McDonald's.

  (voice over): It's hard to say no to events and projects with which I'm politically sympathetic. Part of it has to do with coming from a working class family, you know, in trying to bring in the voices of ordinary people and their struggles into the story.

  (At another panel) And I also hope we might think about bringing back that old slogan: the abolition of every possibility of oppression and exploitation. Thank you . . . (applause)

  Narrator: KELLY'S WORK HAS FOCUSED ON NEGLECTED POLITICAL MOVEMENTS IN HISTORY. HIS WORK OFTEN CHALLENGES THE ESTABLISHED SCHOLARSHIP IN THE FIELD. BUT IN THE WORLD OF THE UNIVERSITY IT IS OFTEN ESSENTIAL THAT CHALLENGING IDEAS NOT BE COUPLED WITH A CHALLENGING PERSONALITY.

  Kelly (at lunch): I'm working harder now than ever in my life.

  (voice over): A lot of colleagues -- white colleagues, they feel that I'm safe. I speak their language. Because of that level of comfort it leaves in me a certain sense of discomfort. A discomfort with myself for not being as threatening and challenging as I'd like to be. Because I really want to be more of a threat. I want people to be afraid of me. Oh yeah, that's Robin Kelley coming down the street. He's the one. He's the one that wrote that book. But they don't really have that attitude toward me.

  Narrator: BECAUSE THERE ARE SO FEW YOUNG MINORITY PROFESSORS THE DEMANDS CAN BE OVERWHELMING. AT THE SAME TIME, EVEN THE MOST SUCCESSFUL ARE SOMETIMES HAUNTED BY SELF DOUBT.

  Kelley (on camera): But that's part of the drive. Constantly trying to prove to my colleagues that I do deserve to be a full professor,that I do deserve whatever I've got. But the mere fact that I bring it up means I'm not really sure.

  Music and shots of students

  Darlene Clark Hine: There is a very real cultural war going on in this country right now and we're all part of it.

  Narrator: NEW SCHOLARS BRING NEW IDEAS TO UNIVERSITIES. IDEAS THAT CAN CHALLENGE THE VERY FOUNDATIONS OF THE IVORY TOWER. TODAY THE BATTLE OVER WHAT STUDENTS WILL BE TAUGHT HAS ERUPTED INTO AN ACADEMIC WAR.

  Robin Kelley: (on camera) The cultural wars started as a reaction to multiculturalism. Multiculturalism was an effort to revise the curriculum. To think about what makes up great literature . . . people would try to introduce other writers and other voices. To say that the creation of western culture or world culture includes Africans and Asians or Asian-Americans and Latinos.

  John Searle (on camera): I think it's a good idea to include excellent works from any tradition if we're trying to give our students a sense of intellectual quality. By all means. Let's bring in works from other traditions. But the idea of teaching works just because they are representative, no. Then you've shifted the conception of education from the humanistic to the anthropological.

  Kelley (on camera): This is not the first time higher education has been challenged or overturned, you know. The idea of American literature period, whether it's white males like Mark Twain -- entering the canon -- that was a power struggle.

  Searle: I think the idea of opening up area studies is terrific. But you have to make it clear. These are area studies. They are not political causes to be advanced, nor are they a means of providing employment for people who would otherwise have difficulty getting academic employment.

  Kelley: The point is, Who makes the determination as to what is great literature or great scholarship. America is becoming more of a non-white country. And the more it does the more intense these battles will be.

  Hear chanting over shots of the Lower East side streets.

  Miguel Algarin: Chanting . . . It's the chant. It's the Nuyorican Poets' Cafe chant. (More chanting) . . . Our first poet for the evening is . . .

  (at microphone in cafe): My name is Miguel Algarin

  Narrator: MIGUEL ALGARIN TEACHES IN TWO WORLDS -- HERE ON THE LOWER EAST SIDE OF NEW YORK CITY HE INSTRUCTS AND INSPIRES YOUNG WRITERS AT THE NUYORICAN POETS CAFE. AT RUTGERS UNIVERSITY HE IS A PROFESSOR IN THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT. BORN IN PUERTO RICO AND RAISED IN NEW YORK; ALGARIN BEGAN HIS COMMITMENT TO THESE TWO WORLDS OVER TWENTY YEARS AGO.

  (on camera): I was living on 6th Street and friends were collecting around my house. It would be three or four o'clock in the morning and I would have an 8 o'clock class at Rutgers. So oftentimes I wouldn't even be going to bed. I would shower, get dressed, take a train and teach. I realized I had to get these people out of my living room; I was truly physically and mentally exhausted. That's how this thing happened. I wanted to get myself some rest.

  Narrator: IN 1974 ALGARIN FOUNDED THE NUYORICAN POETS CAFE. HE'S NURTURED A NEW GENERATION OF POETS AND HELPED TO CREATE AN EXPLOSION OF INTEREST IN THE SPOKEN AND WRITTEN WORD.

  Young woman at microphone: Good evening everyone; welcome to the open slam at the Nuyorican Poets' Cafe.

  Poet #1: Your children think everything is fine under the sun, so long as they have their 40 ounce of malt liquor and gold teeth in their gums . . .

  Poet #2: Ranging with brilliance, forever lost.

  Algarin (voice over): I think that what you're seeing is young people using language to express the stress of living on the tar and concrete of the cities.

  Poet #3: I am the silencer on the gun that will eventually shoot you dead. I am the claw that will scratch you from existence. I am the emotion moving over you like pestilence. I am you. I am you. I am you. My name is loneliness . . . (applause and yelling) . . .

  Narrator: ALGARIN'S MISSION WITH THE NUYORICAN POETS' CAFE IS TO BRING HIS WORK FROM THE UNIVERSITY TO THE COMMUNITY. HE REVERSES THE PROCESS BY BRINGING EXCITING NEW POETS TO HIS ETHNIC LITERATURE CLASS AT RUTGERS.

  Graphic: New Brunswick, New Jersey

  Algarin (in classroom): Carl Hancock Rux is the recipient of the 1994 Fresh poetry award...He was selected by the New York Times Magazine critics as one of the thirty artists under the age of thirty likely to influence culture over the next thirty years . . . so ladies and gentlemen I leave you with Carl Hancock Rux . . . (applause)

  Rux (reciting): Dancing to your earth, to your wind, to your fire . . . hopping back to you . . . you and me twist a lime in a drop, a Corona and a dime in our pockets . . . suck them lips.

  Algarin: By bringing in the live writer is a question of demonstrating that literature can lift off the page onto the body and be performed.

  Rux: You was a red light district, borders of my mind . . . I was up, up, up . . .

  Algarin (voice over): So that the idea of this course is to enliven literature.

  Rux: Soon baby soon. You said soon baby soon..Now circa 1989. The only erection to enter your flesh was a syringe ejaculating AZT going all up up up in you . . . (applause)

  Narrator: AFTER THE ETHNIC LITERATURE CLASS ALGARIN MOVES UPSTAIRS TO TEACH HIS SECOND CLASS OF THE DAY.

  Algarin: Now is one of the great moments in literature.

  Narrator: ONCE AGAIN HE INSPIRES HIS STUDENTS TO DISCOVER THE POWER OF THE WRITTEN WORD.

  Student #1: Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The noble Brutus told you Caesar was ambitious . . .

  Algarin ( v.o): Slower.

  Student #1: If it were so, it was a grievous fault.

  Algarin (on camera): I tell them something very simple. Look at Shakespeare not as impenetrable but penetrable. Remember, a classic is a classic not because it's difficult but because it has been able to be read year after year after year. Therefore, it's a classic because it is transparent. It is clear.

  Student #1: You, who you all know are honorable men.

  Algarin: Okay. Stop. Take it from the beginning. Because,you know that was off. You know that was off.

  (on camera): They have to hit an emotion. If they don't hit an emotion, I stop it and have it done again. The moment they hit an emotion, I don't have to philosophize about what Shakespeare meant. Because they hit the emotion and the emotion is the philosophy, is the understanding.

  Student #2: If thou consider rightly in the matter, Caesar has done great wrong.

  Student #3: Has he masters? I fear that a worse come in his place.

  Student #4: Mark ye his words, he would not take the crown. Therefore it was a certain he was not ambitious.

  Student #5: If it be though so . . .

  Algarin (voice over): There's nothing in Shakespeare that is not translatable to human terms.

  (on camera): Othello, which is our next Shakespeare production, who is Othello? Well he's O.J. Simpson. You know, I'm not making it up.

  Student #6: Here comes his body. . . . borne by Mark Anthony, though he had no hand in his death, shall receive the benefit of his dying.

  Algarin (in classroom): The moment that you decide to let him talk, you have given your enemy the weapon most useful in the world. The tongue. The capacity to sway the passions of men. (voice over): I came from a family where culture prevailed. My mother was a composer of music, torchy passionate songs about love. I would say, Mom, where does it come from? My folks gave me a love of culture; culture existed in my house.

  Algarin: So that there is nothing surprising about Shakespeare being in my life; It would be surprising if he weren't. And he works for me and I work for him.

  (In classroom): Oh yes, he wants to do Hamlet; she wants to do Hamlet. Can the two of you get in touch and split it?

  (voice over): Both Shakespeare and, if I may use my name in the same sentence as old Willy, the great Bard. He wanted to have a place to tell the story of England . . . (on camera:): . . . so I wanted to have a place in which to tell the story of the Lower East Side.

  Affirmative Action rally at UC Berkeley:

  Speaker at podium: This is a national issue as well as a local issue . . .

  Narrator: DESPITE THE SMALL NUMBERS OF MINORITY PROFESSORS, THERE IS AN EFFORT TO ROLL BACK AFFIRMATIVE ACTION.

  Speaker: It is not a quota system

  Narrator: THE DEBATE RAGES ON CAMPUSES ACROSS THE COUNTRY.

  Speaker: Affirmative Action has been good for minorities and women . . .

  Narrator: IT'S AN ISSUE THAT ROBIN KELLEY THINKS IS MISUNDERSTOOD.

  Robin Kelley: . . . Affirmative action which is very short lived. And if you think about the history, It hasn't been around that long and it's about to be eliminated; it wasn't about promoting or providing opportunities to students who can't compete. On the contrary it's about policing institutions that would not allow students of color who can compete into those institutions.

  Narrator: AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA THE REGENTS HAVE ALREADY RADICALLY ALTERED AFFIRMATIVE ACITON. ALEX SARAGOZA SEES THIS AS PART OF THE MASSIVE ASSAULT ON SOCIAL PROGRAMS THAT IS SWEEPING THE COUNTRY.

  Alex Saragoza: We can't get away from an important issue and that is why now? We're having this struggle over issues of race and so on because of the times . . . (chiming of clock)

  Narrator: WITHOUT AFFIRMATIVE ACTION THERE WILL BE FEWER MINORITY STUDENTS IN THE PIPELINE; CONSEQUENTLY FEWER MINORITY SCHOLARS IN THE FUTURE. SARAGOZA SEES THE DISMANTLING OF AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AS COMING TOO SOON.

  Saragoza: I don't think it's a coincidence. I mean, we are nowhere near parity. I mean, if people would tell me that we are, in fact, at that point now where the Univesity of Califronia reflects its population in terms of numbers of graduate students, undergradutes, faculty and so on, then I'd be the first to say we don't need affirmative action.

  Narrator: AT PRINCETON, NELL PAINTER HAS SEEN HOW THE PERCEPTION OF AFFIRMATIVE ACTION CAN BE MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE REALITY.

  Nell Painter: I remember being at a history meeting a couple of years ago and a couple of white men, graduate students, standing up saying they'd never get a job because there was a black woman and she'd get all the jobs or they'd get all the jobs. And I looked back at the figures and there are more white men getting Ph.D's every year than there are black women ever. So it's like there are all these black women out taking the jobs from them and the worst thing is that all those black women are unqualified and all those white men are qualified. So I think it's the sense that really white people belong on top and they shouldn't have to give up anything for anybody.

  John Searle: What has evolved is very simple. If you're given a choice in faculty hiring between a superior white male let's say and a not so good minority, member of a targeted minority. you're supposed to choose the less qualified person. That I think is outrageous. There's a name for that. That's called discrimination. That's racial and sexual discrimination and that's what affirmative action has come to mean.

  Narrator: FOR THOSE AT THE UNIVERSITY -- SO CLOSE TO THE DEBATE -- AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IS OFTEN SEEN THROUGH THE LENS OF THEIR OWN EXPERIENCE.

  Gloria Cuadraz: I am a beneficiary of affirmative action programs. I believe in them. They do work. And I would say if I had to bet on it, we're not all that bad. We become good citizens. We pay taxes. We buy homes. Why wouldn't they want to create more of us? That's the question I ask myself. The scholarships, the state aid that I've received I think has paid off. I give it back and then some.

  (at night, giving tour of university): It was built in 1990

  Narrator: IT IS SEVEN OCLOCK AND GLORIA CUADRAZ IS GUIDING A GROUP OF HISPANIC HIGHSCHOOL GIRLS AND THEIR MOTHERS AROUND CAMPUS. IT'S PART OF HER MISSION TO EXPAND THE PIPELINE OF MINORITY STUDENTS.

  Cuadraz (to girls): So you're all first generation, then, college students? (in library): Can you explain the facilities here? (voice over): I'm very concerned with the low number of students we have, for example, students of color at ASU West; and that's the case anywhere and that's what needs to change and that's why our presence is important, to the extent that we serve as role models.

  (walking with two women): So I was your first Chicano professor?

  Narrator: CUADRAZ ALSO PUTS IN EXTRA HOURS TO MENTOR MINORITY STUDENTS. ALICIA GARCIA AND BELINDA QUINTANA ARE GETTING HE LP FROM HER WITH THEIR APPLICATIONS TO GRADUATE SCHOOL

  Alicia Garcia: Just by happenstance I found a notice on the bulletin board out by the parking lot and I went home, called the number and they said as a matter of fact we're looking for one more person to be mentored with a Doctor Gloria Cuadraz. And I said a female? A Chicana? Wonderful! Where do I sign?

  Cuadraz: We spent the first meeting talking about the similarities between her background and mine. It's about humanizing the institution. And that's not something I think that's a cultivated value in the academy. And if there's a difference we make it's being able to make that connection with students.

  (in Classroom): What I ended up with was a case study with Chicanos and Chicanas who had . . .

  Narrator: THE NEAR MISS THAT CUADRAZ EXPERIENCED AT BERKELEY INFLUENCED HER RESEARCH AND WRITING. IN STUDYING THE RECORD OF MEXICAN AMERICANS AT GRADUATE SCHOOL SHE DISCOVERED THAT ALTHOUGH THEY COMPRISED MORE THAN TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT OF CALIFORNIA'S POPULATION, THEY WERE RECEIVING ONLY 1 PERCENT OF THE PH.D.'S.

  (in classroom): One hundred and twenty were awarded to people of Mexican descent. (sigh) Now it's a little hard to believe because of the fury over the debate about how much progress has been made and how many jobs have been taken away.

  Narrator: TO INCREASE THE NUMBER OF MINORITY PH.D'.S CUADRAZ WORKS ALL STAGES OF THE PIPELINE. . .

  Cuadraz (in meeting): How is it that you can have a pool of candidates. . .

  Narrator: . . . FROM GETTING MORE MINORITY STUDENTS INTO THE UNIVERSITY, MENTORING THOSE THAT ARE THERE AND LOBBYING FOR MINORITY ADMINISTRATORS.

  Cuadraz (in meeting): . . . nine Latinos in the pool and not have one surface?

  Narrator: HAVING MINORITIES IN SENIOR POSITIONS CAN PROVIDE CRUCIAL SUPPORT FOR STUDENTS AND FACULTY.

  Professor: We dont' have anybody at the level of chair, dean...

  Narrator: CUADRAZ'S SPECIAL CONCERN IS THAT LATINAS ARE IN THE RUNNING.

  Cuadraz: And they had left out the Latina again. (on camera) One of the difficulties here has been having minority candidates seriously considered for positions. And so part of the inivisible work are the calls that you have to make. Getting on the phone and saying, Look I really would like you to take a look at this pool of candidates. (on telephone): This is my co-chair. (voice over): It's lobbying. It's political work. It's making the calls to make sure that certain things are represented. And that's where the invisibility comes in. Everyone serves on committees. Some more than others. Okay. But the invisIble work comes in when you take some of this work seriously. And you really want to see some things change and move. (on camera): Twelve o-clock class.

  Narrator: THE LONG HOURS OF THIS INVISIBLE WORK COMBINED WITH THE VISIBLE WORK OF TEACHING EATS AWAY AT THE TIME CUADRAZ NEEDS FOR RESEARCH AND WRITING.

  Cuadraz (voice over): . . . presentation from candidates for provost serach and then at about 2 oclock . . .

  Narrator: IN THE WORLD OF PUBLISH OR PERISH IT'S HER WRITING THAT IS VALUED WHEN SHE COMES UP FOR TENURE OR PROMOTION.

  Cuadraz: I have seen colleagues, Chicanas, Latinas, constantly working and so in demand by the needs of the insitution that they are not able to submit their research in time to get tenure.

  Narrator: ALL THE MENTORING, LOBBYING AND COMMITTEE WORK THAT FALLS ON THE SHOULDERS OF THE FEW MINORITY SCHOLARS CAN TRANSLATE INTO THE LOSS OF A PERSONAL LIFE. FOR WOMEN IT OFTEN MEANS A LIFE ALONE.

  Cuadraz: (voice over): I found hin in Colorado. But he doesn't know how to come or stay. (on camera with dog): I told her that we were waiting for his blanket. Because when I talked to her last week she said she was making baby blankets. And I said Mom, where's Tito's blanket.?He's a baby too?

  Women w/ Cuadraz in kitchen: I want to share some of that food now. We're multicultural. (lots of laughter)

  Cuadraz (voice over; on camera): My family of friends is as important to me as my family of origin. Because I'm the only one that left my hometown, I'm the only one that never got married, that never had children. And that's in a family of eight, seven girls, one boy. As traditional as you can get.

  Celia Alvarez: How many times did my dad sit me down at Christmas to give me the rules to get a man.

  Laura Rendon: What we have to do is construct a new family.

  Narrator: CELIA ALVAREZ AND LAURA RENDON ARE COLLEAGUES AT ARIZONA STATE..

  Rendon: And that's the kind of family for example that I find with you because if I go home to my real family in Laredo, I remember when I was there this Christmas and I took copies of my book, my first book that I'm very proud about and my dad took a look at it and said okay, Let's go eat. (laughter). And my mother said, Oh this is very nice but I can't read it, I don't know how to read English. I said I know, Mom. That's okay. I just wanted to bring it to you so you kind of know what I do.

  Narrator: ISSUES OF FAMILY VS. SCHOLARSHIP CONFRONT ALL FACULTY, BUT MINORITY WOMEN ARE ESPECIALLY VULNERABLE.

  Cuadraz (voice over): I have the tenure clock ticking the same time I have the biological clock ticking and I may be forced to choose and I think I know which one I'm going to choose. The tenure clock.

  Darlene Clark Hine (on camera): My generation of black women academicians and women of color acamedicians is really a sacrificial generation. (voice over): You're isolated in terms of geography very often; most of the colleges and universities, especially the big ten colleges and universities are located in small white towns. (on camera): Most of my generation of black women historians are unmarried and the possibility of finding someone to share the life on a personl, intimate, sensual level is not there for them. And we'll never have children; and we'll never have husbands or significant others in that traditional, idealistic way. (with students in cafeteria): How has . . . how has having a baby affected your work?

  Student: Well it's been harder than I thought, because I thought when I had the baby that she'd just lay there for the first six months and I'd get a lot of work done..(laughter) . . . You had kids, you could have told me this. (laughter).

  Hine: So you become happy by working and being successful but the profession at some level can't provide it all so you need not only the sensual, but you need the spiritual. Blues, for example, I love blues, and I play blues a lot. I think blues is about the best thing black people ever created and blues has really sustained me so when I go home and put on Coco Taylor, Albert King, Bo Diddley. It's alright. It's alright.

  Narrator: THE PROXIMITY OF RUTGERS UNIVERSITY TO INNER CITY NEW YORK HAS ENABLED MIGUEL ALGARIN TO AVOID THE ISOLATION THAT IS SO COMMON TO OTHER MINORITY PROFESSORS.

  Miguel Algarin: (voice over): I'm not isolated. I live in my community. This is my place.-- toma, toma --I walk outside and I talk to the people.

  (voice from street): Get outta here!

  Algarin (on camera): What we do here continues into the academy. Art does not get removed. Art, great literature lives. It's not between covers. It lives. (voice over): The spark that keeps me going is that I enjoy the morning light coming up and that I can go to school and teach the children of the janitors, the judges, the lawyers and doctors of Jersey their culture and then come back and create mine.

  Music and images of students

  Cuadraz (voice over): I think if we're talking about an institution that's going to meet the needs of the 21st century we're talking about institutions that need to care more about the students.

  Music: Graphic: Office Hours

  SOT: We're not going to make it on this elevator

  Robin Kelley (voice over): I get a lot of students coming through my office hours . . . ("What's Up?") A lot of African-American students, of course, who kind of identify with me as a role model. I get a lot of white students. For me, I think, part of it has to do with age. ("Who's next?"). These students sort of see me as a peer. (on camera): They show no deference. Not that I want them to but they don't really care. They're like, What's up, homey? ("Hey, What's up?") (voice over): And they feel very comfortable talking to me about the most personal things.

  (SOT): I don't think this is for film.

  (voice over): A professor might say to them oh you should talk to Professor Kelley. As if I am an expert on everything that has to do with black people period.

  (SOT): Talk to Walter Johnson about that.

  (voice over): What it means is that my office hours are often like a circus.

  (SOT): Negroes with guns.

  Student: This field has always interested me but I just don't know if I'm very good at it. It's really pulling some strings and its making me think about things in a different way than I ever have.

  Kelley: Have you ever thought about academia, a university professor? That sort of thing?

  Student: As becoming one?

  Kelley: Yeah.

  Student. No.

  Kelley: Well, what do you think about that idea?

  Student: I don't know. I never thought of myself as a teacher . . . a professor.

  Kelley (voice over): A lot of students of color, African-American students, come to us for assistance. They can't imagine that intellectual work is something they can aspire to. The tragedy is there are so few. It increases the workload . . . the burden of being a black presence falls on a handful of people. At NYU just within the university alone I'm chairing the Latin-American Search Committee.

  (SOT) I'm finally turning in this final search report. I worked on it all night last night. Good riddance to the Latin-American search committee. (voice over): I'm on the American Studies search committee. I'm on the graduate admissions and fellowship committee. I'm on the third-year review committee. I'm on the graduate exam committee. I'm on the minority recruitment and retention committee. Because that's what we're supposed to do. I have articles coming out in places like The Nation, the Village Voice, Against the Current. We speak. . . . (on camera): I also teach two courses a semester -- a graduate course and an undergraduate course. (voice over): And I take care of my five year old daughter. I have to get her to school. Get her breakfast and take her to have fun. That's part of my life.

  (SOT): Okay, this is hot. . .

  Kelley (voice over): I'm very fortunate to be married to the most wonderful patient person on earth.

  (SOT): You know, school's almost out.

  (voice over): Someone I've known for fifteen years.

  (SOT): That means after April 26 I have no more trips.

  (voice over): Given my pace, my schedule it makes the duties of running a household difficult.

  Wife: You're always reaching towards finishing that last thing . . . project.

  Kelley: That Maoism essay is done.

  Wife: Life begins after the essay

  Kelley: I don't have anyting else on deadline.

  Wife That makes you open for new ones.

  Kelley: Especially lately there are a lot of tensions in our household.

  (SOT): That leaves me open to take up a whole lot of the slack so you can have more time in your studio without stress.

  Wife: That would be nice.

  Kelley (on camera): It's very hard. It's hard to be a father and husband. It's hard to do that and survive in this world and to be effective and that's why to be able to expand the pool of faculty and to give many of us a break and share the workload would make it better for everybody.

  Wife: Well I've had to learn to sleep with the light on.

  Kelley: Yeah, my computer's in the bedroom. Though when I get up in the morning, I won't turn the light on. I'll just have the computer on. That's gonna change. Cause I can't live like this.

  Wife: (Laughter) Oh, I've heard this before. I wouldn't care so much if he was doing all this stuff and he was happy. But increasingly he seems not happy.

  Kelley (on phone): I guess...actually you gave me this advice about twenty times.

  Nell Painter (laughing; on phone)

  Kelley: At every stage. The days at Emory, the days at Michigan. I just want to hear you say it again. Because I need you to tell me to say no to these people.

  Painter: You should just say no. The line is so clear: Oh Robin, you're the only one who can do this.

  Narrator: A SELF-TAUGHT PIANIST, KELLY'S NEXT BOOK IS ON THE JAZZ MUSICIAN THELONIOUS MONK.

  Kelley: Moving into this study of Monk is brining a certain level of peace to my own l !ife and work that's part of the goal. I decided to write this book sitting in a hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan. When I got very sick, being very run down. Sitting in a hospital. 104 Fever. Convinced me that I need to change my life. I can't live like this. And I need to work on something that brings me peace. So if there's ever a project that's not for other people and that's for me it's this project.

  Music, images of students:

  Kelley (voice over): The work we do makes a difference in terms of the overall scholarship. We function in terms of making this place a more diverse -- a more interesting place -- I think it's very important to have us and have more of us.

  David Wilkins (voice over): It's been my experience on occasion, not consistently across time, but on occasion, that I can't let down my guard. That I need to keep my door closed. It's just a sense that the work that I do . . . is not considered quite as valid as some of the research that some of my other colleagues do. I never felt completely welcomed by the department at any particularly point. In fact I've been there for five years now and I've only had dinner at two of the faculty's homes.

  Narrator: ARIZONA HAS ONE OF THE LARGEST CONCENTRATIONS OF INDIANS IN THE COUNTRY. THIS HAS ENABLED MANY NATIVE AMERICANS TO HOLD ONTO THEIR TRADITIONAL CULTURES AND VALUES

  Wilkins: We decided to homeschool our children because they're our children and we didn't want the state to raise our children.

  Evelyn Wilkins: I homeschool because I want them to know first of all their language

  Narrator: EVELYN WILKINS WAS RAISED IN A TRADITIONAL NAVAJO HOUSEHOLD ON A RESERVATION IN ARIZONA.

  Evelyn Wilkins: There's what we call our own Wilkins philosophy. . . . a little bit of what my grandmother taught; a little bit of what my husband's family taught him.

  David Wilkins: In tribal societies historically there was a natural understanding that older people, more mature people would be instructors and guides and assistants for the younger ones that are coming up. And Vine filled that role for me.

  Narrator: AS A GRADUATE STUDENT WILKINS HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO WORK WITH VINE DELORIA -- WHOSE BOOK HAD BEEN SO IMPORTANT.

  Wilkins: And neither one of us used the word mentor until it became a popular concept in the late nineteen eighties. It just evolved out of our friendship.

  (on phone): Deloria: As you continue your academic career we're going to have to teach you to go to the library.

  Wilkins (in classroom): The contrast is that with the outsiders there's the notion that somehow because they're pn the outside looking in they're more objective.

  Narrator: BY GIVING VOICE TO NEW IDEAS FILTERED THROUGH THEIR OWN CULTURES, SCHOLARS LIKE WILKINS ARE TRANSFORMING THE UNIVERSITY.

  Student: At least you know my personal experience is that I've had the outsider view for so long that it's nice to see what Native Americans are thinking about or what the other perspective is.

  Wilkins: ! I'm biased. I'm a Lumbee Indian and I'm a human being. And I'm inherently biased as are we all. But the point I try to raise to my students is that every professor and the very concept itself, professor, is based on the root word, profess. And to profess something is to expound one's views. And hopefully one's views are steeped in the literature, in the documents, in what we want to call the truth. And what I try to do is bring some balance. Because the system has not been balanced. It is still not balanced . . . And that's certainly what I'm about . . . is trying to educate the students about indigenous issues from an indigenous perspective but a perspective that is rooted in the actual data and not from simply my own opinion. But it's rooted in the laws, in the treaties and the documents themselves.

  Narrator: TEACHING OUR SONS AND DAUGHTERS IS WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT. BUT WHO SHOULD TEACH AND WHAT WILL OUR STUDENTS LEARN? AS WE ZOOM INTO THE 21ST CENTURY OUR COUNTRY, OUR WORLD, IS QUICKLY CHANGING. WHO WILL BE THERE TO HELP STUDENTS SHAPE THEIR QUESTIONS AND EXPAND THEIR IMAGINATIONS? WHAT VOICES WILL BE HEARD?

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  Production Credits

  Produced, Directed & Written by: Stanley Nelson & Gail Pellett
  Editor: Elizabeth Ackerman
  Camera: Michael Chin, Robert Shepard, Rick Butler
  Narrator: Lynne Thigpen
  Executive Producer: Gail Pellett

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  Stanley Nelson has been an independent filmmaker for two decades producing films in the United States and Africa for both commercial and public television. His public television credits include the award-winning documentaries: Two Dollars and a Dream: The Story of Madame C.J. Walker; Puerto Rico: Our Right to Decide; Methadone: Curse or Cure; Freedom Bags and Art and Affirmation produced for the National Museum of American Art at the Smithsonian. He was a producer for Bill Moyers' What Can We Do About Violence and Listening to America.

  Nelson has received numerous prestigious awards including Best Production of the Decade (l980s) from the Black Filmmakers Foundation, Best Documentary 1989 from the National Association of Black Journalists, Best Documentary 1991 from Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame; three Cine Golden Eagles and a Western States Research award.

  * * *

  Gail Pellett has been a producer and reporter for more than twenty years in radio and TV. For eight years she produced documentaries and public-affairs programs with Bill Moyers for PBS. She was a producer and reporter with MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour, National Public Radio, and WBCN-FM in Boston; in the mid-Õ70s she was Public Affairs director at WBAI-FM in New York. In addition her radio documentaries and reporting have aired on CBC (Canada). Her feature articles have appeared in The Washington Post, Mother Jones magazine and the Village Voice.

  For Bill Moyers, Pellett produced the following award-winning docu-mentaries: The Battle for the Bible part of the God and Politics series; Consuming Images part of the Public Mind series; The Songs are Free with Bernice Reagon; Spirit and Nature; Families First, The New Holy War. In addition she produced fourteen episodes of World of Ideas I and II; two hours of Listening to America (a weekly studio series tracking the issues of the 1992 election) and two public policy hour specials: Money Talks, and The Great Health Care Debate.

  Her awards include: National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Emmy nominations; George Foster Peabody; National Education Film and Video Festival "Gold," "Bronze," and "Silver;" the Wilbur from the Religious Public Relations Council Inc; the American Women in Radio and Television; the National Women's Political Caucus; The American Film & Video Festival "Red Ribbon"; The New York Festivals award; "The Chris" from the Columbus International Film & Video Festival; the Georgi award for writing.

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  Major funding for Shattering the Silences was provided by The Ford Foundation.

  Additional funding was provided by The Florence and John Schumann Foundation.

  Back to Top

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  The Issues

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  The Culture Wars and the Great Conversation

  An Idiosyncratic Web Essay
  by Ron Dorfman
  This page is best viewed by reading through first and then exploring the links.
  But if you can't resist . . . click away.

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  With titles like Richard Bernstein's Dictatorship of Virtue and James Davison Hunter's Before the Shooting Starts screaming at us from bookstore windows and "Mercenaries of the Culture Wars" trumpeting from the magazine racks, we ought to know what it is we are about to die for before we salute any of the contending Caesars. The term "Culture Wars" refers here to debates over the past twenty years or so about a variety of discrete but related issues, among them:

  • the establishment of ethnic, women's, and gay and lesbian studies programs in colleges and universities
  • the attempt to define a "canon" of works from the Western tradition and the question of whether such a canon should form the basis of liberal education in America
  • "deconstructionism" and other tendencies in contemporary academic literary criticism
  • the notion of cultural or moral relativism as applied not only in anthropological studies of pre-literate societies but in thinking about the divisions in modern American life over religion, race, ethnicity, art, entertainment, sexual behavior, child-rearing, psychosocial norms, public-school curriculums, immigration, language, and the proper forms of patriotism.
  • In sum, the question of what "we" in America mean when we speak or write about "us" and "them."

  These "culture wars," however, are only the current incarnation of what in gentler times (the 1950s!) was called "The Great Conversation," an argument about education and citizenship, and about individual freedom and social order, stretching back over the centuries at least to Socrates's strictures on what the poets should and should not say about the gods. Interestingly, in the 1950s Robert M. Hutchins -- president of the University of Chicago and the Founding Father of the integrated core curriculum based on the great books of the Western tradition from Homer to Freud -- was attacked, along with his sidekick, the philosopher Mortimer Adler, as subversive if not outright Communist for spreading the Great Books program from his own campus to adult discussion groups across the country. Alan Filreis, an English professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has come up with what are in retrospect hilarious documents -- scary at the time -- from the secret files of the Commie-chasers infiltrating Great Books discussion groups.

  Late in that decade, when the graduate faculties of the University of Chicago sought to abandon or de-emphasize the core curriculum for undergraduates, it was left-wing students who led the resistance to change. Allan Bloom, who was there at the time (Ph.D. 1955, lecturer 1955-60), was not on the ramparts. (He may have been behind the arras.) Similarly, 30 years later, according to Stanford historian Barton Bernstein, when it was proposed to drop the Western Culture course (Stanford's comparatively truncated survey of Western civilization) for lack of student (and faculty) interest, it was the two leftist members of the history faculty who were the strongest proponents of keeping the course intact. The great sin of the Great Books, it seems, was the insistence of Hutchins and his followers that in America everyone should have the kind of education reserved in more formally hierarchical societies for the offspring of the ruling class.

  In his essay on the debates at Stanford hyperlinked in the previous paragraph, Herbert Lindenberger, the Avalon Professor of Humanities at Stanford (and the current president of the Modern Language Association) observes that the historical origin of Western Culture courses is in the War Issues course taught at Columbia and other universities in 1918 for American bumpkins going off to fight in Europe during World War One; the courses have always been inspired as much by politics and nationalistic concerns as by intellectual or cultural concerns. Ron Grossman, former professor of ancient and medieval history at Lake Forest College (and now a reporter for the Chicago Tribune) makes the further observation that the whole question is a quintessentially Western [or even peculiarly American] one that is not tolerated in, for example, Islamic societies. But Japan, China, India, and other societies, including Islamic societies, have historically debated the question, and still do, as a consequence of their forced encounters with each other and with the West. The difference is that in some of these places you get your head chopped off for advocating the teaching of other cultural traditions or incorporating other traditions into one's own.

  In The Great Conversation: The Substance of a Liberal Education (the introductory essay to the 54-volume set of Great Books of the Western World, Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 19th printing, 1971), Hutchins addressed a question frequently asked today in debates about multicultural education: "How can comprehension of the tradition [these books] embody amount to participation in the world republic of learning? How can such comprehension create world community, since great books of the East are not included?" His answer to that question puts to shame the most self-assured voices on both sides of today's debate:

  "The Editors [Hutchins and Adler] are impressed by the many reminders given to the West by Eastern thinkers that the parts of the Western tradition that are now the least known and the least respected in America [presumably referring to the Plato/Augustine line as opposed to the Aristotle/Aquinas line -- rd] are the very parts most likely to help us understand the deepest thought of the East. On the other hand, the Editors are convinced that those aspects of the West which the East finds most terrifying, its materialism, rapacity, and ethnocentric pride, will get no support from the great books which illustrate the main line of the Western pursuit of wisdom. The Editors believe that an education based on the full range of the Western search is far more likely to produce a genuine openness about the East, a genuine capacity to understand it, than any other form of education now proposed or practicable."

  One of the things that made other forms of education impracticable, Hutchins noted, was that there were not many people in American universities qualified to teach the great books of the East. And the students in those universities ("The president and the students are wonderful," Hutchins remarked of the University of Chicago, "but the faculty are a bore") were overwhelmingly Euro-American and it was not a priority in those days to attract Native American, Hispanic, African American, or Asian American youngsters to the campus. Chicago's strongest effort at undergraduate diversity, for a university community in which, it was more or less accurately alleged, "atheist professors teach Thomas Aquinas to Jewish students," was the Small Schools Talent Search, an outreach program to find promising students from exotic places like North Dakota. (When I was at Stanford in the late 1960s and saw those thousands of blond, tanned, physically perfect, and nearly naked specimens of youthful humanity cavorting on the quads, I instinctively understood that the Farm was the Northwestern of the West -- Northwestern in those days being a place where students were more concerned about fall fashions than the fate of the Earth; that these great white gods and goddesses could not be, like my dark and stunted New York Jewish classmates at Chicago, intellectually acute and politically committed. I was wrong. Pace, David Harris.)

  But part of the core curriculum at Chicago -- which billed itself as "the teacher of teachers" -- supporting and surmounting the tripod of cross-referential three-year sequences in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences, was the study of at least one modern foreign language -- many were offered -- and a year-long course in one of several non-Western civilizations: Russia, East Asia, etc. (The State of Illinois, following Plato's Socrates, also required proficiency in gym class as a condition for the baccalaureate. Hutchins, uncharacteristically abandoning the Ancients, said that whenever he felt the need for exercise, he would lie down until it went away.)

  Times have changed. The "one world" Hutchins wanted has come to be, fractionated as he predicted it would be if his prescription were not followed. The Western canon is now championed by cultural and political conservatives, and disparaged by many on the Left who espouse multiculturalism. Unlike the students of the 1950s, American college students today are a motley and polyglot lot, increasingly likely to be heirs or claimants to traditions other than that of the Graeco-Roman-Judaeo-Christian West. They insist on respect for their ancestral cultures within the context of American pluralism. In a parallel development, in the late 1960s, graduate students and junior faculty in anthropology, sociology, history, and other disciplines began asking: On whose behalf, and to what ends, do we study the people of Papua-New Guinea or Bedford-Stuyvesant? Who is empowered by these studies, and who is marginalized? Ann Maxwell Hill of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in a paper given at the 1995 meetings of the American Anthropological Association, recounts her own odyssey as a student at Columbia and a teacher at Oberlin and Dickinson of the introductory course in anthropology. Once reluctant to apply the insights of "village studies" ethnography to the world that her mostly white, suburban students came from, she arrives today at this pedagogical conclusion: "If, in the political climate of the nineties, diversity at home has become more problematic than our differences with strangers, then our commitment to our discipline and our students compels our attention to our own neighborhoods and communities."

  Garry Wills, the journalist and professor of American Studies at Northwestern University, makes the interesting observation in a New York Times Magazine article ("There's Nothing Conservative About the Classics Revival," Feb. 16, 1997), that cultural collisions and dislocations have been at the heart of every revival of the Western classics. "Eurocentrism," he wrote,

  "when it was embedded in the study of the classics, created a false picture of the classics themselves. Multiculturalism is now breaking open that deception. We learn that "the West" is an admittedly brilliant derivative of the East. Semites created the stories the Greeks revered in Homer -- just as Jewish scholars brought Aristotle back to the West from Islam in the Middle Ages.

  "Multiculturalism, far from being a challenge to the classics, is precisely what is reviving them. If there is a resurgence of interest in the classics, it is because we are making them our classics -- as the Renaissances of the 12th and 15th centuries did, as the Enlightenment and the Romantic period did. But do we want the classics to be like Clinton's first Cabinet and 'look like America?' Whether we want them to or not, that is the only way the classics have ever been revived. The classics are not some magic wand that touches us and transmutes us. We revive them only when we rethink them as a way of rethinking ourselves."

  So the Culture Wars rage, fueled by munitions imported from Burke, Foucault, and Fanon. As the hyperlinks in this essay suggest, the great conversation is now on the Internet, which will reward the interested Nethead with days, weeks, or years of stimulating information and argument. For context, one might check out the syllabus and reading list of Robert Bannister's course at Swarthmore College on American Intellectual History in the 20th Century. The Columbia Journalism Review has an excellent website of resources, on the Web and off, on topics related to the Culture Wars. Useful recent books include:

  La Belle, Thomas J. and Christopher R. Ward: Multiculturalism and Education: Diversity and Its Impact on Schools and Society (Albany: SUNY Press, 1994)

  Goldberg, David Theo: Multiculturalism: A Critical Reader (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, 1994) (Includes articles by Charles Taylor, Raymond Gutierrez, Barbara Christian, Henry Louis Gates, Michael Eric Dyson, Michelle Wallace, and others.)

  Fiol-Matta, Liza and Mariam K. Chamberlain: Women of Color and the Multicultural Curriculum: Transforming the College Classroom (New York: City University of New York, The Feminist Press, 1994)

  Jacoby, Russell: Dogmatic Wisdom: How the Culture Wars Divert Education and Distract America (New York: Doubleday, 1994)

  Gitlin, Todd: The Twilight of Common Dreams: Why America Is Wracked by Culture Wars (New York: Henry Holt, 1995)

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  Affirmative Action

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  One of the knottiest issues in American life today is affirmative action. Stanley Fish, professor of English and law at Duke University, has argued forcefully on the op-ed page of The New York Times that it is especially troublesome because the debate has been framed (by those opposing affirmative action) as an issue of principle: race neutrality -- rather than as an issue of policy: how should we address the very real practical legacies of historic racism in American institutions?

  The Web has copious resources for those interested in exploring both the theoretical and practical aspects of the issue. The most comprehensive site is AAD -- Affirmative Action and Diversity Project: A Web Page for Research, maintained by Carl Gutierrez-Jones and Rita Raley, both English professors at the University of California at Santa Barbara.. AAD includes a subpage devoted exclusively to California's Proposition 209 banning affirmative action, passed by the voters in November but later put on hold by a Federal court. The Prop 209 page encompasses the briefs filed and the court's decision, news reports, policy statements from the University of California system, and other up-to-date material. There is also a useful link to other websites dealing with the issue, both pro and con.

  Carl Irving, a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner, has a lengthy and good discussion of the debates over affirmative action in the University of California system, published in the April 1995 issue of CrossTalk, the magazine of the California Higher Education Policy Center.

  Most university websites have descriptions of their admissions policies, but some are more explicit than others about diversity issues. See, for example, the million-dollar Berkeley Pledge to maintain diversity at the University of California in the wake of the Regents' decision to abandon affirmative-action programs; or the University of Chicago's more oblique outreach evidenced in the brochures published and posted on the Web for Spanish-speaking parents of prospective students.

  The White House has posted the text of a staff report ordered by President Clinton in 1995 that reviews all Federal policies and programs that take race and gender into consideration. It discusses the statutes, executive orders, departmental policies, and court decisions and makes recommendations in each area. The document is comprehensive and exhaustively footnoted but is difficult to navigate on the Web, since its eleven sections are not linked to one another. The user must manually alter the URL in the Location line to move from one section to another. Only the numerals need to be changed. Thus, to get from the Introduction (/aa01.html) to section 2, "History and Rationale," change the "01" to "02" -- and so on through the document. The sections are:

  01 -- Introduction
  02 -- History and Rationale
  03 -- Empirical Research
  04 -- The Justification for Affirmative Action
  05 -- The Varieties of Federal Programs
  06 -- Office of Federal Contract Complicance Programs
  07 -- Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity in the Military
  08 -- Federal Civilian Employment Affirmative Action
  09 -- Federal Procurement Policies & Practices
  10 -- Education & Health and Human Services Policies and Practices
  11 -- Other Federal Policies
  

  For further reading, consult The Affirmative Action Debate, edited by Steven M. Cahn, New York: Routledge, 1995.

  Back to Top

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  The Scholars

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  Miguel Algarin

  MIGUEL ALGARIN is a poet, editor, theater producer and Associate Professor of English at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He is also the founder of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe on the Lower East Side of New York City, where he has nurtured the spoken and written word for more than twenty years.

  QUOTE: I came from a family where culture prevailed. My folks gave me a love of culture. So there is nothing urprising about Shakespeare being in my life. It would be surprising if he weren't. I work for him and he works for me. He wanted to have a place to tell the story of England; so I wanted to have a place in which to tell the story of the Lower East Side.

  Selected Bibliography

  Editor, with Bob Holman, Nuyorican Poets Cafe Anthology (Henry Holt, 1994)

  Time's Now/Yaes (Arte Publico Press, 1985)

  On Call (Arte Publico Press, 1980)

  Body Bee Calling (Arte Publico Press, 1982)

  Mongo Affair (Nyorican Press & Book Arts, 1978)

  Translation & Introduction, Song of Protest by Pablo Neruda (William Morrow & Co., 1976)

  Editor, with Miguel Pinero, Nuyorican Poetry: An Anthology of Puerto Rican Words and Feelings (William Morrow & Co., 1975)

  Spread Your Cheeks (short stories) (Nuyorican Press, 1975)

  Realidades (poetry, Nuyorican Press, 1970)

  Plays written and directed, Nuyorican Poets Cafe:

  Body Bee Calling From the 21st Century, 1982

  Sideshow, co-written by Miguel Pinero, 1975

  Apartment 6-D, 1974

  Olu Clemente: The Philosopher of Baseball, 1973

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  Gloria Cuadraz

  GLORIA CUADRAZ is Assistant Professor in the American Studies Dept. at Arizona State University West in Phoenix. Her research focuses on the experience of Mexican-Americans in graduate school.

  QUOTE: I did not feel that I belonged and I was struggling to connect and for someone like myself who felt connected my entire life to be asked to survive in an environment where you do not feel that you belong, that you're part of that culture, it was too overbearing for me.

  Selected Bibliography

  The Making of a Chicano and Chicana Professoriate and Professional Class (Forthcoming)

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  Darlene Clark Hine

  DARLENE CLARK HINE is the John A. Hannah Professor of History at Michigan State University in Lansing, Michigan. A pioneer of African-American women's history, Hine has authored three books in that field and co-edited numerous anthologies as well as the two-volume encyclopedia, Black Women in America. In addition she is co-editor of a 16 volume series on African-American history.

  QUOTE: Historians can write a history of anything or anyone but the key is the historian must decide that thing, event, person or group is worthy of investigation and apparently no one had ever thought Black women . . . were worth studying. . . . And it was as if I entered another universe. A universe that I had never known existed. And that was the beginning of my commitment to telling the truth, to lifting the veil, to shattering the silence about Black women in American history.

  QUOTE: There is a very real cultural war going on in this country right now and we're all part of it. People who have invested their life work in creating or constructing a certain vision of American history are not just going to lie back and die and say, Okay, you're right, you young Turks, just take it and go with it.

  Selected Bibliography

  Speak Truth to Power: The Black Professional Class in United States History (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Carlson,1996)

  Editor, with D. Barry Gaspar, Black Women and Slavery in the Americas (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996)

  Editor, with Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham and Leon Litwack, The Harvard Guide to African-American History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, forthcoming)

  Editor, with Wilma King and Linda Reed, "We Specialize in the Wholly Impossible": A Reader in Black Women's History (Brooklyn, New York: Carlson Publishing, Inc. 1995)

  Hine Sight: Black Women and the Re-Construction of American History (Brooklyn, New York: Carlson Publishing, 1994).

  Editor, with Clayborne Carson, Milestones in African American History, 16 Volumes (New York: Chelsea House, 1993).

  Editor, Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, Volumes I and II (Brooklyn, New York: Carlson Publishing, Inc. 1993)

  Editor, Black Women in the United States 1619-1989, 16 volumes of articles and dissertations (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Carlson Publishing, Inc. 1990).

  Black Women in White: Racial Conflict and Cooperation in the Nursing Profession, 1890-1950 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989).

  Editor, with Clayborne Carson, David Garrow, Vincent Harding, and Gerald Gill, Eyes On the Prize, History of the Civil Rights Era, A Reader (New York: Viking Press 1987, revised & expanded 1991).

  Editor, The State of Afro-American History, Past, Present, and Future (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1986).

  Editor, with Patrick K. Bidelman, Black Women in the Middle West Project: Comprehensive Resource Guide, Illinois and Indiana (Indianapolis: Indiana Historial Bureau, 1985).

  Editor, Black Women in the Nursing Profession: An Anthology of Historical Sources (New York: Garland Publishing Co., 1985).

  When the Truth is Told: A History of Black Women's Culture and Community in Indiana, 1875-1950 (Indianapolis: The National Council of Negro Womnen, 1981)

  Black Victory: The Rise and Fall of the White Primary in Texas (New York: Kraus-Thomson Organization, 1979).

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  Robin Kelley

  ROBIN KELLEY is Professor of History and Africana Studies at New York University. One of the youngest full professors in the country, at the age of 34 he's published three books including Race Rebels: Culture, Politics and the Black Working Class.

  QUOTE: I like to think that my own work has forced historians, irrespective of race, to rethink our assumptions about politics, about resistance. I think that's one important reason for us being here as scholars.

  Selected Bibliography

  Race Rebels: Culture, Politics and the Black Working Class (New York: The Free Press, 1994)

  Into the Fire: African Americans Since 1970, Volume 10 of the Young Oxford History of African Americans (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995)

  Editor, with Sidney Lemelle, Imagining Home: Class, Culture and Nationalism in the African Diaspora (New York/London: Verso, 1994)

  Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990)

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  Nell Painter

  NELL PAINTER is Edwards Professor of American History at Princeton University. She is author of four books and many articles in American History including Standing at Armageddon: The United States, 1877-1919 and Sojourner Truth: a Life, a Symbol.

  QUOTE: I remember being at a history meeting a couple of years ago and a couple of white men, graduate students, stood up saying they'd never get a job because there were these Black women and they'd get all the jobs. And I looked back at the figures and there are more white men getting Ph.D.s every year than there are Black women ever. So it's like there are all these Black women out taking the jobs from them and the worst thing is that all those Black women are unqualified and all those white men are qualified.

  Selected Bibliography

  Sojourner Truth, A Life, a Symbol (New York: W.W. Norton, 1996)

  Standing at Armageddon: The United States, 1877-1919 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1987; Norton paperback, 1989)

  The Narrative of Hosea Hudson: His Life as a Negro Communist in the South (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979; Harvard paperback, 1980; Norton paperback, 1993)

  Exodusters: Black Migration to Kansas After Reconstruction (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976; Norton paperback, 1979; University of Kansas Press paperback, 1986; Norton paperback, 1992).

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  Alex Saragoza

  ALEX SARAGOZA is Associate Professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies/ Chicano Studies Program at the University of California, Berkeley; he is also Chair of the Center for Latin American Studies. His research and writing roams both sides of the Mexican/U.S. border.

  QUOTE: Most of us [in ethnic studies] could have ended up -- and I certainly had job offers -- in a regular history department but we felt we had a particular mission. . . . [We] are very concerned with the issue of democracy . . . there was a whole generation of us who made it our concern to try to even the plane as much as we could. Because I am associated with Chicano Studies, where many people on this campus assume we do second-rate scholarship and third-rate research and that most of us are probably fourth-rate teachers . . . it's a continuous process of proving myself, including to students.

  Selected Bibliography

  The Monterrey Elite & The Mexican State (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1988)

  Mexican Immigrant Children in American Schools: An Update (San Francisco: Many Cultures Publishing, 1994)

  Central American Immigrant Children in the Classroom (San Francisco: Many Cultures Publishing, 1995)

  Fresno's Hispanic Heritage (San Diego Federal Savings & Loan Association, 1980)

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  David Wilkins

  DAVID WILKINS is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Arizona in Tucson. A Lumbee Indian, he is co-authoring a book with Vine Deloria about tribal sovereignty. During the academic year 1996-97 he is a post-doctoral fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford.

  QUOTE: I'm biased. I'm a Lumbee Indian and I'm a human being, And I'm inherently biased as are we all. But the point I try to raise to my students is that every professor, and the very concept itself, is based on the root word, profess. To profess something is to expound one's views. And hopefully one's views are steeped in the literature, in the documents, in what we want to call the truth. What I try to do is bring some balance. Because the system has not been balanced.

  Selected Bibliography

  The Masking of Justice: The U.S. Supreme Court and American Indian Tribal Sovereignty (Austin: University of Texas Press, forthcoming)

  Dine' Bibeehaz'aanii: A Handbook of Navajo Government (Tsaile, AZ: Navajo Community College Press, 1987)

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  Shawn Wong

  SHAWN WONG is Director of Creative Writing and a full professor in the English Department at the University of Washington in Seattle. Wong has published two novels, Home Base and American Knees, and edited a number of anthologies of Asian-American literature. Wong is a pioneer of Asian-American Studies.

  QUOTE: I decided to major in something called Asian-American literature, except there were no teachers, no assignments, no credits, no classes. I just had to know if there was a generation of writers before me, because I wanted to learn from them.

  Books discussed or seen in the Shawn Wong segment of "Shattering the Silences":

  Eat a Bowl of Tea, a novel by Louis Chu (Secaucus, N.J.: Carol Publishing, 1995)

  The Chickencoop Chinaman and The Year of the Dragon Two plays by Frank Chin (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1981)

  Songs My Mother Taught Me, stories, plays, and memoir by Wakako Yamauchi (New York: The Feminist Press, 1994)

  No-No Boy, a novel by John Onada (Seattle: University of Washington Press)

  Selected Bibliography

  American Knees (a novel, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995)

  Editor, The Literary Mosaic: An Anthology of Asian-American Literature (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1995)

  Editor, with Ishmael Reed and Kathryn Trueblood, The Before Columbus Foundation Fiction Anthology: Selections from the American Book Awards 1980-1990 (New York: W.W. Norton Co., 1992)

  Editor, with Jeffery Paul Chan, Frank Chin, and Lawson Fusao Inada, The Big Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Chinese-American and Japanese-American Literature (Meridian/NAL, 1991)

  Homebase, (a novel, Oakland: Reed & Cannon, Inc., 1979)

  Back to Top

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  RESOURCES

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  The Pipeline Problem

  As "Shattering the Silences" makes clear, there are relatively few minority scholars on the faculties of American colleges and universities, and those few are under enormous pressure. At least in part, the situation results from what has been called "the pipeline problem," succinctly summarized in a report of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation:

  "College presidents frequently cite [a] general decline in the numbers of minority students earning doctorates in the arts and sciences as the single greatest obstacle to their efforts to recruit more diverse faculties. . . . Several causes are often cited to explain the dearth of minority students enrolling in doctoral programs in the arts and sciences. Most basic is the small number of minority students at the earlier stages of the education pipeline: the underrepresented minority groups start out behind, in that significantly smaller percentages of them go to college and earn BAs--in part because of attrition at earlier stages in the educational process. The shares of all BAs earned by both African-Americans and Hispanics are less than half their corresponding shares of the college-age population. Statistics such as these justify major efforts to address the underlying problems that have affected minority groups at all levels of educational attainment. . . .

  "At the college level, many of the most talented minority undergraduates, who come disproportionately from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, have opted for careers in business, law, or medicine. These professions offer better income prospects and also are seen by many as offering clearer opportunities for upward mobility. Moreover, minority students find few role models on arts and science faculties, and they are also less likely to have grown up knowing academicians as members of their families or communities."

  And so the cycle continues. To help increase the flow through the pipeline, and to support those who have made it through, we have assembled resources ranging from career and financial-aid information for minority high-school students and their parents and counselors to professional organizations and opportunities for minority scholars in the humanities and social sciences. Click on one of the links below to get started.

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  RESOURCES FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS, PARENTS, AND COUNSELORS

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  Academic careers are not typically on the minds of any but a few high school students who are already aware of their gifts. But parents and counselors should consider teaching and research as college/career options for their promising students and explore ways to ease the transition - academic, social, and financial - from high school to college and university studies. Here are a few starting points:

  • American School Counselors Association
  • National Association of College Admissions Counselors
  Both organizations provide information and resources to help members, students and their families think about higher education and careers.
  • Chuck Eby's Counseling Resources is a comprehensive annotated Web directory of resources for parents, students, and counselors, including test preparation, college selection, financial aid, career information, and sources for study skill help. Eby, a guidance counselor at Allentown High School in New Jersey, cautions: "Most 'career' sites on the Web are job-hunting sites. In fact, I haven't found much out there in printed matter either. I constantly search . . . for Web information on this subject. It doesn't seem to matter whether I am seaching for minority or majority [student] information, there just isn't that much."

  • The Russellville, Ark. schools maintain School Counselor Resources, including links to searchable scholarship databases. Among them is MOLIS, the Minority On-Line Information Service, "a user-friendly, one-stop source of current information about Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Hispanic-Serving Institutions." MOLIS includes an on-line scholarship search which specifically retrieves data on scholarship sources the computer finds relevant to the personal information the user enters on line. MOLIS is a service of Federal Information Exchange, Inc.

  • The United Negro College Fund supports the historically black colleges and universities that produce more t.han 40 percent of the nation's African-American Ph.D.'s. UNCF "provides research and publications on black higher education; administers nearly 300 scholarship and fellowship programs; promotes support of its mission through public service advertising; conducts student recruitment workshops, and offers specialized programs that directly benefit students."

  • The Asian American Educators Association in the Los Angeles public schools has found innovative ways to support a scholarship fund that last year awarded ten $1,500 scholarships to L.A. students.

  • The High School Puente Program is a demonstration project in 18 California high schools with large Mexican-American and Latino populations that brings together educators and community-based professionals as mentors to enhance student interest in education. The project is directed by Patricia Gandara, associate professor of education at the University of California, Davis, and author of Over the Ivy Walls (Albany: State University of Nerw York Press, 1995), which details the pathways for 50 Mexican Americans who, she says, "shouldn't" have been successful in school, but wound up becoming real scholars.

    Puente (Bridge) has been operating for three years; so far, Gandara says, "retention of students in school has been higher compared to statewide figures, but we are hoping to have some careful comparative data on other things such as progress toward meeting requirements for entry in colleges, gpa's, etc. by the end of [December]. We have produced two interim evaluation reports with considerable data on all aspects of the program and it is being watched very carefully all over the state. We are meeting . . . on Jan. 24 with funders from all over the country to talk about where the program goes next." Contact pcgandara@ucdavis.edu.

  • The Urban Partnership Program, established by The Ford Foundation in 1991, aims to help underserved, urban students successfully complete baccalaureate degrees. It operates in 16 cities around the country by linking high schools with colleges and community, corporate, and political leaders.

    The urban centers involved are Seattle, Wash.; Los Angeles and Santa Ana, Calif.; Phoenix, Ariz.; Denver, Colo.; Houston, Tex.; San Juan, P.R.; Memphis, Tenn.; Chicago, Ill.; Minneapolis, Minn.; Miami, Fla.; Richmond, Va.; Rochester and the New York City boroughs of the Bronx and Queens, N.Y.; and Newark, N.J. For more information contact:

    The National Center for Urban Partnerships
    Bronx Community College,
    The City University of New York,
    University Ave. at West 181 St., Bronx, New York 10453
    718-289-5164

  • The Native American Preparatory School in Los Alamos, N.M. has designed its program to foster conventional academic skills without undermining Indian identity. "We seek to challenge students mentally through a rigorous academic program. We challenge students artistically with the goal that each student should excel in a chosen art form. We challenge students physically through the use of a wide range of sports games and encourage healthful living. We also challenge students to be spiritually strong enough to achieve all their goals in a changing society. The tasks we present our students will prepare them for the changing future of Native America and the world. This 4C approach (Culture, Community, Creativity and Challenge sets the stage to prepare Native American students for lifelong learning and achievement."

  • The American Indian College Fund was established to support the 29 Indian colleges and universities which together created the non-profit Fund. The Fund continued to grow in 1995, its sixth year supporting this country's Native American colleges and their students. The Fund has a three-fold mission: "providing private support ans scholarships, growing endowments for long-term security, increasing public awareness of the colleges' role in improving reservation and Native Life."

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  RESOURCES FOR STUDENTS, FACULTY, AND ADMINISTRATORS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

  • General Resources
  • Scholarships, Fellowships and Grants
  • Diversity and Ethnic Studies
  • Additional Reading

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  GENERAL RESOURCES

  • Diversity Web is an ambitious, multi-faceted, and still developing resource for people concerned about issues of diversity in higher education: educational mission, campus climate, curriculum focus, and connections with the larger society. The site is a collaborative project of the Association of American Colleges and Universities and the University of Maryland at College Park in cooperation with Diversity Connections. Resources on this site are organized around the following priorities:
    • Institutional vision, leadership, and systemic change
    • Recruitment, retention, and affirmative action
    • Curriculum transformation
    • Faculty and staff involvement
    • Student experience and development
    • Campus-community connections
    • Diversity reearch, evaluation, and impact
    • Making diversity news

  • The American Asssociation for Higher Education is a national organization of faculty, administrators, and students as well as policymakers and leaders from foundations, government, and business convinced that higher education should play a more central role in national life and that our institutions can and must become more effective. The AAHE caucuses are organizations managed by and for AAHE members with support from the AAHE national office. The caucuses sponsor sessions, workshops, and social activities at AAHE's conferences. The larger caucuses sponsor additional activities throughout the year and some produce a newsletter or other communication to caucus members. AAHE currently offers membership in the following caucuses: American Indian/Alaska Native; Asian and Pacific; Black; Hispanic; Student; and Women's. The Black Caucus has arranged a study tour to Africa this year (1997); the Hispanic and Asia/Pacific caucuses are considering similar programs. All the caucuses have presences at the annual convention. Membership in a caucus carries an additional fee over basic dues; the membership brochure has the details.

  • The Office of Minorities in Higher Education of the American Council on Education is observing its tenth anniversary supervising ACE's Minority Initiative, a response to declining rates of minotity participation in higher education. The Office provides reporting and extensive assistance to colleges and universities seking to improve their recruitment and retention of minority students, faculty, and administrators. It also sponsors a biennial national conference on "Educating One-Third of a Nation."

  SCHOLARSHIPS, FELLOWSHIPS, AND GRANTS

  The World Wide Web is a gold mine, and not just for Bill Gates. Diligent digging will turn up every major and many minor programs of financial assistance for minority undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty. These sites are primary:

  • National Research Council -- Fellowship Office administers a Ford Foundation predoctoral and dissertation fellowships program designed to increase the presence of "underrepresented" minorities (excludes Asian-Americans but includes Polynesians and Micronesians if not Melanesians) on college and university faculties. There are 55 predoctoral and 20 dissertation fellowships, awarded annually in nationwide competition.

  • The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Minority Undergraduate Fellowship Program

  • Financial Aid for Minority Students is a section of the FinAid: Financial Aid Information Page, a copious reference to many sources of funds.

  • Fellowships for Minority Students is a Web page of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), a consortium of mostly Midwestern research universities plus Penn State. Now approaching its twentieth anniversary, CIC offers predoctoral fellowships to African-Americans, Native Americans, Mexican-Americans, and Puerto Ricans who seriously intend to pursue careers in teaching and academic research. The site includes information on the CIC/GE Foundation predoctoral fellowships in the sciences and engineering; the Dorothy Danforth Compton Fellowship Program of the Danforth Foundation; the Ford Foundation doctoral fellowships; the Fund for Theological Education; the National Physical Science Consortium's graduate fellowships for minorities and women in the physical sciences; the Patricia Roberts Harris Fellowship Program of the U.S. Department of Education Office of Postsecondary Education; the National Hispanic Scholarship Fund; two State of Illinois programs providing support for minority students in Illinois colleges and universities and for graduate students who agree to seek and accept appropriate employment at an Illinois college or university upon completion of the Ph.D.; the National Science Foundation Minority Graduate Fellowships; the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business Minority Fellowship Program; the Trustee Fellowship and Benjmin E. Mays Fellowship programs at the University of Chicago; the GEM Ph.D. Science Fellowship Program for undergraduates (extremely lucrative, including the required summer internship); and the AT&T Bell Laboratories (now presumably Lucent Technologies) Cooperative Research Fellowship Program for Minorities in science and engineering.

  • ARTSEDGE Funding Resources Directory of the Kennedy Center includes funding resources for academics in arts disciplines.

  • Grants Web of the Society of Research Administrators is a universal resource for research grants in all disciplines.

  DIVERSITY AND ETHNIC STUDIES

  • The National Association for Ethnic Studies is the leading organization for faculty, students and others interested in ethnic studies programs. Headquartered at the University of Arizona in Tempe, it sponsors publications and conferences and serves as a forum for promoting reserch, study, curriculum design, and publications. The Executive Council includes scholars and professionals from everal disciplines who are available to serve as consultants.

  • A number of Web sites offer directories and links to ethnic studies programs:
    • Multicultural Studies -- Selected Asian, Latino, and Native American Resources on the Web
    • Asian American Studies
    • Native American Studies
    • National Association for Chicana & Chicano Studies

  • Many universities have Web sites for their own ethnic studies programs. Typical are:
    • Program in African-American Studies at Princeton University
    • Harvard University Native American Program

  • The Contact Center Network Nonprofit Directory has Web links to hundreds of nonprofit groups, organized by field of activity. Pertinent listings include:
    • United States Education Resources
    • United States Race and Ethnicity Resources

    ADDITIONAL READING

    • Smith, Daryl G. with Lisa E. Wolf and Bonnie E. Busenberg, Achieving Faculty Diversity: Debunking the Myths. Washington, D.C.: Association of American Colleges and Universities, 1996.
    • Padilla, Raymond V. and Rudolfo C. Chavez, Editors. The Leaning Ivory Tower: Latino Professors in American Universities. Albany, New York: N.Y. SUNY Press, 1995.
    Back to Top

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    Feedback

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    Please send your comments about Shattering the Silences to Gail Pellett, producer.

    COMMENTS / JANUARY 25, 1997.

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    From: Giacomo Rondinelli (limacom@pacbell.net):

    I was simply blown away by this program. I'm currently finishing my A.A. degree at Rio Hondo Community College and preparing to go to U.C.Santa Barbara. This program gave me a needed boost and direction to why I am going to school. Now I'm totally convinced that I could earn a PhD degree. Thanks for the program.

    Question. . . it was by accident that I caught your program. . .do you [know] if and when KCET 28 (Los Angeles) will re-air your show?

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    From: Victor Manalo (vmanalo@csulb.edu):

    I just watched the documentary this evening, and it was just what I needed to see. I am a first generation Filipino-American, and I am pursuing a Ph.D. in Social Work at the University of Southern California. Not only will I be trying to find Filipino professors for my own mentor, I would like to use the documentary in my Social Welfare Policy class. I am truly inspired! Thank you.

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    From: "Frederic Thompson PC" (efpc@pixi.com):

    I am a 41 year old African American woman pursuing a Ph.D in medical microbiology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. However I'm in a nonsupportive academic environment. If things do not change soon I don't think I will be able to last past a Masters degree. Is there any way you can send me the email addresses of the two or three African American professors that appeared on your program "Shattering the Silences"?

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    From: Rodney Michael Heines (heines@borg.com):
    

    Thank you for making the program. It is time for America to stand up and sing about itself in all colors. We have been modeling our culture on Europe alone for too long and it is nice to see that universities are truly becoming universal.

    It was interesting to hear Mr. Searle's comments about ethnic/minority classes being anthropological areas of study. What then are sociology, pyschology, history, art, philosophy, political science, writing and other areas of the humanities? It seems as though some professors believe that we should only study mathematics and sciences in higher education.

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    From: "Nicki Rivers" (rivervn@auburn.campus.mci.net):

    I watched the program on Friday, Jan.24th. I thought that it was an insightful program. It seemed to me that success for minority professors was bittersweet.

    For the minority women, success in the higher level world of academics meant sacrificing a family. Why was it that all of the minority women professors featured on the show were single? Can a minority woman not have it all? Successful career and family? The [male] minority professors that were featured on the show were both husbands and fathers. (most of them).

    Of course there was the usual comment made that affirmative action is not fair when it allows an underqualified minority applicant to obtain a position over a highly qualified white applicant.
    

    While I can understand this point, what non minorities seem to forget is this:

    Up until recently, as late as the 1970's, opportunities were closed for minorities in just about every aspect of life. educational, financial, sports. And this was upheld legally by the government. Whites who cry out against affirmative action seem to have forgotten that they have had the upper hand in the United States for years (and still do). Opportunities for qualified minorities were closed, because of racial discrimination.
    

    In the south, Jim Crow laws were enforced and it was actually legal to suppress minorities because of their color.

    Now that the government is trying to provide opportunities that were denied for so long to minorities (remember the civil rights movement is barely 30 years old; suppression of minority rights has gone on for much longer) whites are beginning to feel threatened.

    Maybe that is why they suppressed minorities in the first place, because they were afraid of their intelligence, afraid of what they were capable of doing if given the opportunity.

    Minorities who have achieved high positions in society are not taking away from anyone reguardless of race, because they give back.
    

    Thank you for providing such an insightful program.
    

    Nicki Rivers
    www.auburn.edu/~rivern
    Sarah Vaughan is the greatest!!!!

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    From: Neal Becker (nbecker@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU):

    I enjoyed your program very much. The professors you profiled were incredible stars, and I enjoyed hearing about their trials and successes. I hope that I can invite some of them to speak on my campus.

    However, I would also have liked to hear more about minority scholars who are not working specifically on cultural issues, but are in the trenches of the mainstream. How do they fare there? What sorts of problems do they face being recognized as authorities? Also, it would be interesting to see what changes and different perspectives minorities bring to the sciences. Or is science impenetrable by/impervious to multicultural issues?

    Perhaps you can do more programs. Do you have any plans for more?

    Sincerely,
    Ann Cudd
    acudd@raven.cc.ukans.edu

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    From: Robin Wilson (robinwil@umich.edu):

    As an African-American Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan, I find your documentary most timely. Indeed, on the night of the broadcast premiere of "Shattering the Silences", I was attempting to explain to my Dept. Chair, a European-American woman, what was so difficult about being on faculty there. Many of my colleagues "jump board" after a few years of working in such an oppressive and high-pressured environment. Your documentary presents the point of view of many of my friends and colleagues in a compelling and thorough fashion and brings to the fore many questions that are long overdue.

    Thank you and congratulations on a job well done and for getting such an overdue issue out into the mainstream.

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    From: pbrax234@aol.com (Patricia Taylor Braxton):

    The presentation of "Shattering the Silences" on 1-24-97 was a riveting depiction of the reality so many of us face as a minority presence in American academia. So often, when we present ourselves in graduate classes, there is the perception that we are there by some type of societal largesse, when actually we are there because we are in fact qualified to be there. The statement by Prof. Kelley about affirmative action: "AA does not give privileges to unqualified people, but rather, it allows people access to the competition. If we don't measure up, we don't stay." -- this paraphrasing of what he said resonated within me.

    As an educator with students on the secondary school level, i would like to obtain a copy of the tape to share with my students.

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    From: S. Bailey (blkbak@aol.com):
    Colorado

    I just finished viewing subject documentary and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Can you tell me if, and when, it will air again?

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    COMMENTS / JANUARY 26, 1997.

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    From: ksl (ksl@igc.apc.org)

    This was an excellent program. I only wish it had been shown during our struggle to prevent the passage of Prop.209 which ended gov't Affirmative Action.

    However, I saw it almost inadvertently. It should have been promoted and marketed more strongly. Perhaps it can be reshown frequently.

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    From: Rosa Maria Pegueros (PEGUEROS@URIACC.URI.EDU)

    Ms. Pellett--
    Below you will find a note I sent about the video to the women's studies internet list, which has some 4000 members.
    ----------------------------
    To: Women's Studies List (WMST-L@UMDD.UMD.EDU)

    "Shattering the Silences," a program about minority faculty in the universities (see detailed description below), is getting short shrift. I was hoping that I would be able to see and tape this program as well as encourage my students to see it. Then I found out that it is not scheduled to be played on Rhode Island Public Television, and only one of the Boston public television stations--that one that most Rhode Islanders DON'T get on their cable service--is running it DURING THE SUPERBOWL! Since the numbers of tenured women in the the university is still disproportionately small, and the number of minority women is infinitesimally smaller, I think it is a program that not only deserves wide viewership but that we SHOULD show to our students. Check your listings and if your local station isn't showing it, or is showing it during the Superbowl, raise a ruckus. This, to me, is a typical example of an important documentary buried because some pointy-headed bureaucrat decided it wasn't important.

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    From: Lisa Marie Hibbard (bird@odin.thor.net)

    I am a white female but can relate to circumstances presented. Great show, great timing (african-american history month), great insight, unique. Lisa

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    From: rfrowein@ix.netcom.com
    Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1997 01:40:50 -0800

    As a woman of African descent preparing for a doctoral program, it was wonderful to see the generation before. I am also saddened, that my aspirations are still so politically charged. I wish the challenge could be my research and not the representation of a people. Every individual who seeks higher learning adds diversity and new perspectives to knowledge. One would imagine that academia in particular would embrace different ethnic backrounds within the US, as openly as it embraces international scholarship. Shattering the Silences was a welcome intrusion into my life. It is not only the professors who must brave isolation to succeed. Thank you for such insipiring and, in these times, daring program.

    Sincerely Yours,
    Ruth Frowein

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    COMMENTS / JANUARY 27, 1997

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    From: Boshdog@aol.com

    Thanks for an inspiring & insightful program. I am a Counselor for an Upward Bound Program and a Puente Program. I can't wait to show this to my Puente Students at the community college. This program reminds me and reinforces the reasons why I went into this field. Our voices must be heard. Many thanks.

    Maria Jasso - Puente Counselor
    College of the Desert
    Palm Desert, CA.
    mariaj@dccd.cc.ca.us

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    COMMENTS / JANUARY 30, 1997

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    From: Balaji Ganesan (gbalaji@asu.edu)

    This program took my breath away. As an undergraduate student at Arizona State University pursuing degrees in both Literature and Decision and Information Systems Technology, I was both distraught to see the faults present in my state institutions and proud of the efforts the ASU West professors have made. I was reminded of how precious and awe-inspiring the work of educating others can be AND of how often the work of these dedicated professionals is ignored or unappreciated. Thanks to the producers and contributors of the program for reminding all of us in academic situations or considering academic careers just how vital learning and teaching are to the survival of our collective souls.

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    COMMENTS / FEBRUARY 1, 1997

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    From: Archie Bishop (drstu@bway.net)
    Organization: YoFaxRaps

    Loved what I saw of the show. Am also very impressed with your web page.

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    From: Brenda Durosinmi (bdurosin@fs.scs.unr.edu)

    I am very interested in obtaining a copy of "Shattering The Silences" for our Cooperative Extension Department at University of Nevada, Reno. I think this may be material to share with faculty in a time of need as our department wrestles with issues of trust, team building and inclusion. Our university administration is committed to supporting a warmer climate for faculty of color and diversity to thrive in the university area. Information from a variety of sources can only assist the process.

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    COMMENTS / FEBRUARY 2, 1997

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    From: Fiddlwoman@aol.com

    Thank you for this powerful and insightful documentary. It made me cry, laugh, sad and also feel proud of my Cuban heritage. Although Cuban-Americans have had different shared experiences from some other Latino groups, I think this presentation speaks to all of us who have struggled to get here and keep our heritage alive. I hope the producers and the writers of this documentary feel proud of the work they have done in providing all of us with a glimpse of these remarkable academicians' lives and the work they continue to do.
    

    Magalys Perez

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    COMMENTS / FEBRUARY 3, 1997

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    From: Zakiya Carr (ZCarr@childrensdefense.org)
    Organization: The Children's Defense Fund

    Your documentary represents the type of programming our children need to watch. I majored in film production at Howard University (a historically black university) and although I did not encounter the same hardships that these professional scholars have faced, I was not completely ignorant of the difficulty of feeling accepted, worthy, and needed that other students of color face on a daily basis.

    I believe that you all thoroughly researched the climate of the day and what this new climate will mean for scholars and academia and especially for "minority" students like myself who want to keep reaching for the next level of education. I hope that you continue to make pertinent, informative documentaries that seek to bring about an awarenes of the problems America faces in the 21 century. All did not dissolve after the civil rights struggles. We still have a long way to go.

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    COMMENTS / FEBRUARY 6, 1997

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    From: Lana Ford (LFord@ZIP01,FERRIS.EDU)
    Big Rapids, MI 49307

    Dear Sirs:
    What an excellent documentary! Would there be a way to purchase a video of this program? Unfortunately my local PBS channel did not air "Shattering the Silences" so many of my colleagues were unable to view the program. Every higher education institution should have access to this outstanding program.

    I would appreciate any assistance you could provide me. Please keep up the excellent programming.

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    COMMENTS / FEBRUARY 21, 1997

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    From: Rafael Otero (otero.11@osu.edu)

    I am currently a graduate student at Ohio State University in Columbus, OH and had the great opportunity to catch the show as it aired on PBS. Growing up as a Puerto Rican child not many persons expected much from me. Fortunately, I was inspired at an early age by my educators to set my own expectations. Needless to say the individuals you highlighted in your show are also great inspirations for us all. My motivation to get a copy of the show is to share it with others - minority and non-minority group members.

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    COMMENTS / FEBRUARY 24, 1997

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    From: sa3944@lorien.lyon.edu

    I saw this program last night around midnight. It was the first time I had heard of it and was very inspired. I am a second generation Mexican- American junior biology major at a little, private, vastly Anglo college. Your program really made me realize the sacrifices those before me made and the responcibility I have to help my people and those in similar situations. I am convinced now more than ever that I can and need to earn my Ph.D. Thank you.

    Sincerely,
    Sergio Y. Alcoser

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    Teacher's Guide

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    Karen Hudlin, who teaches eleventh- and twelth-graders at The Urban Academy, an alternative public high school in New York City, suggests that teachers set up the documentary with a set of questions:

    • If you had an opportunity to do anything you wanted to do for a living, what would that be?
    • What's your dream job?
    • Would you consider teaching? Why/why not?
    • Who have some of your favorite teachers been?
    • Why did you like them?
    • Who were some of your worst teachers? Why didn't you like them?
    • What makes a good teacher?
    • Have you had a minority teacher?
    • Do you think that it's important to have minority teachers in the school? Why? Why not?
    • What kinds of information do you think students should be learning?
    • Are there certain types of subjects that you think all students should have to take? If so, what are they and why do you think that they are important?
    • Are there certain subjects that you think should be dropped from the curriculum altogether? Which ones and why?
    After students have viewed the documentary, teachers might pose questions like these:
    • What percent of college students are minorities?
    • Of that percentage, how many actually graduate?
    • What difficulties do these students encounter during their time at the university?
    • Having seen the documentary, what does the term "cultural war" mean?
    • Who are the people involved in this war?
    • What are the weapons being used to fight this battle?
    • For those who had to fight this battle in the past in order to enter the world of "the ivory tower," what techniques did they use in order to fit in?
    • Is this a question really of fitting in?
    • How would you define "affirmative action"?
    • Do you think that it should be saved or abolished?
    • If minority professors make up only 10 percent of college professors, why do many whites feel so threatened?
    • What do you need to do in order to become a professor?
    • David Wilkins, the Lumbee Indian who is a political science professor, says in the documentary that his research is not considered to be "quite as valid" as the research done by his white faculty colleagues. Are there "valid" and "invalid" kinds of research, or subjects of research? If so, how should people in universities decide which is which?

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