Project Background

Illustration showing a person who appears to be lying on their back at the bottom of the poster and speaking through a megaphone. Red roses are billowing out of the megaphone, accompanied by this quote by Dolores Huerta: "Every minute is a chance to change the world."

Hallie Jay Pope, "Hear Our Voice," Amplifier Art.

Ethnic Studies in Minnesota

The bill MN HF3434 called for the creation of Ethnic Studies programs in schools across the state and the formation of an Ethnic Studies task force by July, 2022.

The bill’s text defined Ethnic Studies as “the critical and interdisciplinary study of race, ethnicity, and indigeneity with a focus on the experiences and perspectives of people of color within and beyond the United States. Ethnic studies analyzes the ways in which race and racism have been and continue to be powerful social, cultural, and political forces, and the connection of race to other groups of stratification, including gender, class, sexuality, and legal status.”

This definition of Ethnic Studies' goals and intentions aligns with mission of the University of Minnesota's Center for Race, Indigeneity, Disability, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (RIDGS), an academic community "dedicated to bringing faculty and students together to pursue lines of inquiry that challenge systems of power and inequality, assert human dignity, and imagine social transformation."

These lesson plans were developed by research assistants at the Center for RIDGS Studies in collaboration with many other scholars and supervised by RIDGS Directors Keith Mayes and Jimmy Patino and RIDGS Program Coordinator Jacob Oertel.

Sarah Pawlicki was hired as RIDGS' research assistant for the Center's Ethnic Studies K-12 education initiative in the fall of 2022, and worked on the project through August, 2023. Sarah is a white settler scholar whose graduate research focused on Indigenous, religious, queer, labor, and disability histories.

Many of the lesson plans included here draw on projects created by colleagues in the University of Minnesota's Heritage Studies and Public History program.

Thanks are also due for the many insights provided by educators in Minnesota's high schools, including Abby Gaul, Brandy Siddiqui, Cherise Ayers, Rebecca Biel, and Shaun Walsh.

Thanks to Shana Crosson for contributing her geospatial expertise to several lesson plans.

Thanks to Meixi for her guidance on pedagogy, which greatly improved the structure and content of the project's lesson plans.

Thanks to Jigna Desai for her guidance in widening the project's focus on immigration histories and Asian American histories.

A digital painting showing lit candles floating against a stylized night sky, with white stars against a blue-gray background. The word "Solidarity" is written at the bottom of the illustration, in the same shade of orange as the candles' flames.

Shyama Kuver, "Solidarity 2," Amplifier Art.

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