Studying the melting pot

In general, I’m not a big fan of Princeton’s system of certificates. If we cannot double major, then the certificates should be minors that mirror actual departments instead of concentrating on such specific areas of study. However, the existence of specific cultural studies programs, such as African American or Latino Studies, seems the most unnecessary. Having entire departments focused on such small swatches of history seems, frankly, a bit pointless. However, within this American Studies program, perhaps these programs could be combined into a sizeable department that would be worth having.

While I believe that the history and culture of African-Americans is an important area of study — especially for students concentrating in politics, sociology or the Wilson School — I don’t think AAS deserves its own program, separate from the main history and social science departments. All of the current AAS courses could be incorporated into the politics, history, sociology or Wilson School programs; several of them are already cross-listed anyway. Princeton might have established the AAS program with the intention of fostering the study of African-American history and culture, but the actual impetus for its creation — which occurred in 1969, during the end of the civil rights movement — could have been political. Many colleges began establishing AAS programs around the same time, and if Princeton had not joined the trend, then the accusations of racism and discrimination would have probably started immediately, especially given its reputation as a white, elitist school.

The Latino Studies program seems to be even more superfluous than African American Studies, since we already have a Latin American Studies program. In theory, Latino Studies would cover Hispanic history and culture only within the United States, and Latin American Studies would cover those same topics in Latin America. However, a quick glance through the Latino Studies course offerings shows that this clearly isn’t the case. When there are only six Latino Studies courses offered over two semesters, and when five of those six are cross-listed with Latin American Studies — the sixth was a cross-listed theater class on “playing Latino” — I don’t think there should be a separate program. Many courses at Princeton are cross-listed, but the entire point of cross-listing is to allow interdisciplinary classes. For example, most Wilson School courses are cross-listed as politics, economics, sociology or history courses, but if all of them were cross-listed with, for example, politics, one could argue that the Wilson School might as well not exist. I understand that Latino Studies is in its infancy, but it does seem unnecessary to establish a new program since there is quite a bit of overlap already. As for the certificate, I doubt there is too much of a difference between the two programs — it seems like it would be pretty difficult to qualify for a Latino Studies certificate but not a Latin American Studies one.

The proposed Asian-American Studies certificate doesn’t warrant its own program either. I am Asian-American myself, and I believe we do have a unique culture of our own, but it belongs within the context of American culture as a whole. After all, we don’t create separate programs to study Middle Eastern or Jewish immigrants in America, or American immigrants in other countries, because there isn’t enough content to justify it. That is the main issue with all of these cultural studies programs, including American Studies: They currently lack the content necessary to merit their own departments.

If some of these cultural studies programs were combined under one department, then perhaps we would have a program worthy of study. Some colleges do this by grouping immigrants to America with their non-immigrant counterparts — for example, Harvard has an African and African American Studies department — but American culture affects immigrants so profoundly that one generation is enough time for an immigrant community to develop its own unique culture. It makes much more sense to group America’s minority cultures together as Americans, instead of Africans or Asians or Latinos, and to list classes on the different subjects under the American Studies program.

This is not only a pragmatic solution — the curriculum would be consolidated under one department — but also an ideologically sound one. All of these immigrant communities in the United States interact extensively with each other and with white America, so combining them would allow for a much more in-depth, intercultural program that would ultimately benefit students more than splitting up these closely connected areas of study into separate programs.

Spencer Shen is a freshman from Houston, Texas. He can be reached at szshen@princeton.edu.