In the last issue of La Voz Weekly I wrote a story about a speech Dr. Jeff Duncan-Andrade made at De Anza College, but not everything he said made it into the article. 

In this case, what was left out was Duncan-Andrade’s argument that in the U.S., people are taught to be ahistorical or know “no history before America.” This stuck with me.

As many of you know, the California Sate University system requires De Anza students to have taken history 17A, B, or C before they can transfer. These classes collectively cover the entire history of the U.S. and the same subjects that many U.S. students are taught from the first grade.

College is an incredible opportunity to learn about cultures that aren’t even touched on in one’s remedial education. Yet instead of encouraging students to become better versed in the history of a foreign country, De Anza pushes the history of the U.S. upon every student wishing to transfer.

Now, as a U.S. citizen it is clearly important to have some grasp of U.S. history and government, but the history doesn’t change from grade school to high school, and, as someone whose German and Portuguese grandparents didn’t move to America until after World War II, I don’t want to be forced to relearn the the American Revolution for the 10th time in my academic career because I couldn’t get into one of the slightly more interesting history classes that every other transfer seeking student is cramming into.

America’s founding fathers are not my forefathers, and I’m not sorry for having a greater interest in the latter.

I don’t blame De Anza for not offering history of Germany or Portugal classes, or for having these transfer requirements. De Anza does a decent job of offering courses reflecting the background of its students with classes such as modern Latin history, history of Asian civilization and history of Africa. 

No, the problem is systemic in U.S. education. Instead of requiring that students learn the history of the U.S. colleges should require studetns to learn the history of a different country, perhaps even one that they actually have ancestors from.