Ethnic Studies: The Why Told By a White Marinite.

Teaching elements of Critical Race Theory and Ethnic Studies is not teaching people to be hateful and prejudice against white people. People who think this have a deep ignorance on the topic or are buying into the panic being spread by people who benefit from the people not being able to think critically about systems. 

Let me explain this by using my own story. I am white with a dominant ancestral roots in Europe and I am fairly confident that the Anderson branch were early Arkansas/Tennessee Scotch-Irish settlers pre-Civil War. What does this mean? I definitely had ancestors who fought on the Confederate side. Yet, when I talk to people about race or learn about the Civil War I do not feel like my identity is being attacked or that I should shoulder the shame of the past. I instead wanted to learn more. I wanted to know why Poor Whites in the South would back an institution that really did not benefit them as much as it did the planters. I wanted to know why people would allow race based slavery to be created and implemented. Then as I learned more about history I wanted to know why people wanted to separate the race as if blackness was a cold you could catch. I just wanted to know more. I wanted to understand my ancestors. I wanted to know what I could do to not fall in those same ignorant traps. I wanted to think critically about race. 

Part of why I wanted to think critically about race was that I wanted to understand my home county. I grew up in San Rafael, California in one of the most wealthy counties in the state of California and probably the entire country. The beautiful Marin County. The first thing you will realize is that there are definitely racial divides yet the county is filled with Ex-Hippie liberals who turn their nose at the confederate flag and boast about their colorblindness. To my mind, I was confused, if we were as open minded as we said we were then why in the world did we have pretty strict lines of discrimination. 

I mean why were the majority of black Marinites in Marin City? Why were the majority of Latinx/Hispanic Marinites in an area called The Canal? Well, the history tells you. 

Marin City was a city that was created for housing for those who worked at the shipyard during World War II. Many of those workers were African Americans and when the shipyard closed the population stayed. Across the freeway, though, in Sausalito when the Shipyard closed it quickly became the tourist destination most people know and became an affluent area. You have to drive pass Marin City to get to Sausalito if you go Southbound on Highway 101.You can see the economic disparities between the two areas that was simply divided by a freeway. You can also see more police patrolling Marin City as well. 

The Canal was a mystery to me. As a kid I probably only went to the Canal because there was a bowling alley, but other than that it was not a place I went. Not until I was much older when I volunteered to teach English at the Canal Alliance. The fact, there was a place in my county that it seemed like we proactively stayed away from also speaks volumes. This is the place where Marin County kept the poor besides Marin City it is also the least white area of the county. Another thing you should know about the Canal is that it is located where two major highways meet. Highway 101 and I-580 as people go from Marin County to the East Bay across the Richmond Bridge. It is also closest to the prison, San Quentin. It also the home of the transportation and waste management facilities of Marin County and the North Bay. The place is dirty. Most of the congestion pollution sits right there over it while the rest of the county is free from it thanks to the winds. Turns out Marin County also had its own practice of redlining which have led to two pockets of low-income non-white communities. I could see it as a teenager. I was aware of it. I just did not understand why. 

Marin County is also home to the Coastal Miwoks before the Spaniards came who still exist and have claim to the land we are blessed to live on. It is also home to the Mission San Rafael Arcangel which the Miwoks built. 

Marin County is also home to China Camp which was a Miwok settlement before the Spaniards took over. Then became a Chinese immigrant settlement. This settlement was created due to the desire to escape anti-Chinese sentiment. They could live sustaining lives in this small remote area and take care of themselves. In 1911, though anti-Chinese laws got so bad that many of them could not survive so the population began to decrease until almost all the original Chinese Immigrant residents left completely. On top of it, across the bay just a little bit is Angel's Island the Asian Ellis Island that sits in our bay. 

I learned all of this not from school, but in college and because of my own critical research. As you can see, the history of Marin County is African American history, its LatinX/Hispanic history, it is Native American history, it is Asian American history, and all Ethnic Studies asks of us is to examine these stories to ask why certain things exist the way they do. 

Why do the majority of people of color live in the Canal and Marin City in Marin County? Systemic racism.