World Citizens - DePaul University

tThe Chinese studies major in the modern languages department
launched in fall 2006 is a prime example of how the university is
developing resources to meet those needs. A recognition not only of
the fast-growing power and influence
of China, but also of its rich culture,
the new program builds on the existing
Chinese language minor and Chinese
teaching programs, integrated with
relevant courses in other disciplines
such as history, the arts, religious
studies and political science.
“We’ve combined talents and
disciplines to create the strongest
curriculum of any Chinese program in
the Midwest. The program emulates
our highly successful interdisciplinary
Japanese studies major, which enrolls
nearly 300 students each year and
is the largest program of its kind in
the Midwest,” says Johnston.
Like the Japanese studies
program, which has been in existence
for more than a decade, one of the new
Fojas
program’s goals is to generate K-12
teachers capable of preparing incoming
students for advanced international
studies. Already, several Chicago-area
schools offer Chinese, and the Chinese
language program in Chicago Public
Schools is one of the largest in the
nation. “We are the only university
in Illinois that offers certification for
Chinese language teachers,” notes
Johnston. “This will feed back into
our Chinese studies program.”
McCloud
DePaul also has created three
separate majors in Spanish or
Latino studies to recognize a population that is too often lumped
into one culture, and which today is so intertwined—commercially and
otherwise—with the United States and with Chicago.
“Chicago is the third largest Latino market in the United States,
behind only Los Angeles and New York. Above Miami, even.
That’s astonishing,” says Johnston. “And the people—whether they’re
Mexican, Honduran, Cuban and on
and on—the frequency with which
they go home and how freely we
move across the border now demands
that we know each other.”
The pursuit of profit is often the
driving force behind this flattening
of the globe, but commercial success
shouldn’t come at the expense of
everything else, Camilla Fojas, associate
professor and director of Latin
American and Latino studies, points
out. “We are living in a globalized
world. This is especially so in a global
city like Chicago that is the recipient
of people, goods and services
from all over the world,” she says.
“That said, it is cynical and
perhaps mercenary to think that
literacy in other cultures and
languages is useful only as a means
to success in a globalized market.
The critical appreciation of the
experiences, history, politics and
cultural work of racial and ethnic
minorities is crucial to becoming a
thoughtful, intellectually curious,
empathic and culturally literate member
of a global society,” Fojas says.
Course offerings such as those
which cover such issues as the
nature of the immigrant experience,
social diversity in Latin America,
and the Hispanic experience in
music, literature and art are just a few examples of the ways in which
the curriculum addresses this need for Latino studies students.
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