This course is an introduction to Ethnic Studies that will survey selected historical moments in order to explore the complexities of life in the United States. Analyzing the entangled histories of colonialism, slavery, imperialism, racism, disenfranchisement, and labor, we will examine how different peoples become American. We will focus on the racialization of American Indians, African Americans, Pacific Islanders, Chicanos and Latinos, and Asian Americans with regard to conceptions of identity and citizenship across multiple categories of difference including gender, class, ethnicity, and sexuality. We will delve specifically into the histories of Oakland's communities of color, and study their stories of agency, resistance, struggle, and triumph.