During the winter 2018 term, I taught a course I designed from scratch entitled “Colonialisms and Resistance” for UCLA’s Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance. Situated as a non-Indigenous scholar, I addressed the intersections of Indigenous worldviews, colonialisms, and resistances to colonialism, encouraging frank and open discussion about colonial structures and processes.
Units featured readings by Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars, focusing on law; land and water; love and violence; DNA, ethnicity, and personhood; ontology and worldview; performance; and language, education, and the mind. Students learned to think critically about, and discuss, colonialisms and their histories.
One assignment, the “urban colonialism journal,” required students to analyze their experience of a place of importance to local Tongva people, such as Tongva Park or the San Fernando and San Gabriel Missions. Their responses addressed Indigenous erasure and US colonial and empire-building projects. Another assignment required students to find and respond to news item on Indigenous peoples, colonialism, and/or resistances to colonialism.
