Cruel Optimism, K–12 Classrooms, and the Soul of Ethnic Studies

Ethnic studies at the K–12 level has seen an unprecedented surge in interest over the past decade, leading to new curricula mandates, a body of celebratory research, and new devotees and allies taking up the discourse of ethnic studies as a cause du jour. Yet as our wildest dreams of “ethnic studies for all” seem poised to become reality in some places, real concerns about how this proliferation may challenge the integrity of the discipline seem to be fully overshadowed by blind enthusiasm. Connecting the current dynamics facing K–12 ethnic studies and a history of similar initiatives in educational history, this paper examines whether the wide expansion of ethnic studies into K–12 spaces—which has involved assenting to a subordinate relationship with the deeply colonial, overwhelmingly white K–12 educational industrial complex—may actually be a dynamic of cruel optimism, threatening to damage the very coherence and epistemic soul of our field. The paper concludes by reflecting on what actions the field of ethnic studies might consider as it continues to navigate the colonial tensions necessarily present in an expansion of ethnic studies into the K–12 landscape.