Our Mission

The Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder is dedicated to centering the epistemologies, histories, and lived experiences of marginalized communities of color and Indigenous nations in order to challenge and critique all forms of oppression and to advance emancipatory, self-determining futures for all people. Ethnic Studies is an interdisciplinary field that is built upon four core disciplinary pillars of scholarship: Africana studies, Native American & Indigenous studies, Asian American studies, and Chicanx/Latinx studies. Our department stresses the unique contributions and perspectives of each pillar, while training our students to think and research across them in transdisciplinary and intersectional ways. We draw upon our strengths in engaged scholarship and culturally-sustaining pedagogy to examine how race and the interrelated categories of culture, ethnicity, indigeneity, gender, class, sexuality, religion, dis/ability, and legal status impact the past and present lives of people locally, regionally, and globally.