A Love Letter to the youth impacted by attacks on Ethnic Studies:

The 2020-21 attacks on Ethnic Studies organizers, scholars, educators, and departments who have spoken up against Israel’s settler colonial violence across Historic Palestine--especially in East Jerusalem and Gaza--remind us that Palestine continues to be at the heart of what ethnic studies fights for. We know that you will continue to advocate for truth and with dignity for the struggle of the Palestinian people and for the principles of ethnic studies. And in spite of the ongoing effects by Zionists to silence histories that call out injustice, white supremacy, settler colonialism, militarized and violence, we affirm our commitment--now more than ever--to Palestine, the Palestinian people, and indigenous sovereignty and racial justice everywhere.

Since its inception, the field of ethnic studies has been about people coming together to speak truth to power in the face of settler colonialism, white supremacy, racism, capitalist exploitation, sexism, heteropatriarchy, militarized violence, imperialism, and other structural forms of violence and oppression that disproportionately impact the lives of people of color. The ethnic studies organizers, scholars, and educators who have come before you continue to speak out in this vein despite the different mechanisms of silencing that we persistently confront. The field of ethnic studies stands for deliberate, intentional, careful, and serious writing, teaching, and studying of the history of all forms of racialized violence by the people who have resisted it. We understand our obligation to resist and refuse the geopolitical, military, and ideological investment of the United States in the Israeli state and its settler colonialism of Palestine. We know that the systemic violence against Palestinian bodies, lands, and narratives are connected to the attacks on Arab American Studies. As UCSC’s Critical Race and Ethnic Studies program recently stated, “As we oppose policing and prisons, Indigenous dispossession, and racialized violence, from Turtle Island to Palestine, we refuse to use objective language that would render us silent as Palestinians continue to experience an ongoing Nakba.” We call out the role of the US nation-state in settler colonialism both locally and globally. We also call out US corporations that continue the ongoing social media censorship against Palestinians and their/our supporters These conditions are unacceptable. Despite such efforts to silence our voices, we remain steadfast in our dedication to critical ethnic studies knowledge.

We know that the truth cannot be denied and y/our beautiful histories and knowledges will prevail in these attacks on ethnic studies. Palestine endures and persists despite relentless assault and erasure. We stand with you in solidarity and in struggle against this ongoing and violent campaign of repression. We remain certain that you will be undiminished in your commitment to building a more just and liberatory future together. We stand and uphold the statements made by the Palestinian Feminist Collective, Palestine and Praxis: Scholars for Palestinian Freedom, National Women’s Studies Association, Association of Asian American Studies, Middle East Studies Association, Gender Studies Departments in Solidarity with Palestinian Feminist Collective, UCSC Feminist Studies, UCSC Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, UIC Global Asian Studies, UCSD AAPI Studies Program, UC Berkeley Ethnic Studies, UC Davis, UIUC Asian American Studies Department, Princeton University, Yale Ethnicity, Rights, and Migration, UCLA Asian American Studies, and the Society of Sinophone Studies.

With our utmost respect, solidarity, and commitment for better,

CES Editorial Board