“No, professor, I never have,” said the fourth-class cadet. “I’ve never read a book by an author of Asian descent. And to tell you the truth, sir, I’ve never read anything by a Native American author either.”
My eyes widened, but the other students in the class, “Ethnic Literature of the U.S.,” did not appear surprised. When it was their turn to talk about books they had read written by authors of color they shared similar stories. Every now and then, a student would break the pattern and talk about how they had read books by some popular diverse authors, such as Leslie Marmon Silko or Amy Tan. And then, with a look of pride in their faces, one or two would add that by being exposed to these books, their high schools had done a good job of preparing them for college.
As someone who had been teaching at the U.S Coast Guard Academy for 20 years, I should have expected that most students had not been exposed to diverse curricula prior to stepping on base. After all, few schools or states mandate reading curricula by authors from multiethnic backgrounds. And the Coast Guard Academy, for decades, had not been much different. Still, the year 2019, offered renewed promise. As part of its core curriculum redesign, the Academy began requiring cadets to take Cultural Perspectives Courses, and they would be allowed to select from a short list of humanities courses including “Ethnic Literature of the U.S.” to fulfill that requirement. But that was not the only change.
The core redesign opened the opportunity to offer new courses. In my case, I proposed two: “African-American Literature,” and “Public Speaking in a Diverse Society.” With “Ethnic Literature of the U.S.,” it would be the first time I would have a schedule that focused exclusively on topics related to diversity. It would also be the first time in my career that I would see students of all races come to an understanding of how diversity means more than just learning with the mind. My students would come to see that diversity means learning through your hearts about the people you are defending, the people you are saving, the people you are serving, and the people in your service who expect nothing but the best from you.
If one were to judge how students might react to such courses based on the vast news coverage of riots and protests, one might conclude that the resistance would be too great and that society is too divided to delve into topics of diversity. Or one might presume that reading, writing, and speaking about topics such as immigration, Black Lives Matter, Native American land rights, and Japanese internment might be too controversial to broach among a group of law enforcement personnel. Yet, the opposite is true. Most students in these courses have been cheated out of a well-rounded education and they are quick to acknowledge how little they know about such matters. What they are not always prepared for is the epiphany that, unlike other courses where learning arguably centers on the material that is funneled into the mind—in courses about diversity, the one crucial part of the learning process is having both an open mind and an open heart.
It is easy to measure the intellectual growth that takes place in these courses. Assessment tools ranging from true-false questions to long, researched essays can be used to figure out a student’s grasp of the material. And given the dearth of student knowledge in ethnic and racial studies, there is much that can be covered and measured. Yet, in my view, those assessments do not fully capture how much these students will take with them as they go into their assignments years later. Do not get me wrong—I do think these tools are necessary. But diversity is not simply about what one knows; it is also about how one internalizes their knowledge of the lives of those who are underrepresented. Much of this is achieved through sharing stories.
In “Public Speaking in a Diverse Society,” for example, students deliver speeches that deal exclusively with diversity. They begin the course expecting to be challenged on the principles of effective speech delivery and to share their views on different aspects of diversity with their peers. They do get that, but they also get more—an understanding of and an appreciation for how diversity has been a part of their classmates’ lives in ways they had never imagined. They see how a fair-skinned cadet gets up and talks about how he is biracial, how that means that throughout his life he has heard racist remarks from people who have no clue about his racial background. Or they hear from an African American student about how when he gets pulled over he has to make a special effort to display his hands and move them slowly. They hear from classmates who share how difficult it is to be gay, but not openly. Students leave the class with an energized outlook on their careers, knowing that diversity breathes all around them.
The notion that diversity is a matter of the heart might sound like a romanticized, if not overly idealistic, view. I have heard colleagues at too many institutions mark their classroom territories as intellectual spaces, making statements about how their course content is not about feelings. But that is a misinterpretation of what it means to touch the heart. After all, there is little debate that leaders must have acceptable levels of emotional intelligence to be effective. In the past decade alone, many studies on the role of emotional intelligence in the military have come to similar conclusions (see “Embedding Emotional Intelligence into Military Training Contexts”), with some advocating for it to be included in leadership training. And, what is emotional intelligence, universally accepted as a measure of either emotions or empathy, if not a matter of the heart?
I should fully disclose that this is both a professional and personal opinion. As a young boy, I was first separated from my parents. During my kindergarten days, my father left my home country of El Salvador for the United States to earn a better living, leaving me alone with my mother and sister. Within a couple of years, my mother followed him, and my sister and I were left with my grandmother. It would be years before we were all reunited in the United States. When I share that information with students, or when they read such stories in my classes, I can see the empathy in their eyes. The words become more than concepts and ideas. Teaching these courses has not been a personal discovery of how diversity is a matter of the heart; it has been a professional affirmation that within the core of diversity studies is a gateway to the heart.
Maya Angelou once said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” I have found this to be true with my students. Years after having taken these courses, they have shared memories, not by reciting exact quotes of what people said in person or in writing, but by referring to emotive moments that shape core values, such as honor and respect. In other words, they have pointed to the hearts of authors and classmates, and, ultimately, to their own. In doing so, they have shown me the value of diversity in their personal and professional lives.
