ES 327 - Decolonize Your Diet

Units: 3 ; Breadth Area: GE-UD-D; Sustainability
Examination of Mesoamerican food traditions in Mexican and Central American communities in the US. The course considers individual and community benefits of growing and eating traditional foods and critically analyzes the US food system and social structures promoting assimilation.

Strongly Recommended Preparation: Upper division status (greater than 60 earned semester units) and completion of lower division Area D1-3 requirements.
Prerequisites: Completion of GE Areas A1, A2, A3 and B4 with grade C- (CR) or better.
Possible Instructional Methods: Entirely On-ground, or Entirely Online, or Hybrid.
Grading: A-F or CR/NC (student choice).
Breadth Area(s) Satisfied: GE-UD-D - Upper Division Social Sciences, Overlay - Sustainability
Course Typically Offered: Fall & Spring

Student Learning Outcomes - Upon successful completion of this course students will be able to:

Define and apply key Ethnic Studies disciplinary terms such as sustainability, environmental justice, colonization, health disparities, the Latinx immigrant paradox, assimilation, decolonization, ancestral knowledge, racism, and gender oppression.
Explain and critique the US food system;
Demonstrate an understanding of and the ability to effectively plan research and collect data using social science methods;
Write research-based hypotheses pertaining to the health benefits of ancestral diets for Chicanx, Latinx, and/or Indigenous peoples in the US; and
Explain in writing, using examples, how Latinx/Chicanx and/or indigenous communities maintain their culture, their physical health, and the health of the planet by maintaining and reclaiming ancestral practices.

UD-D. Upper-division Social Sciences Learning Outcomes

analyze how power and social identity affect social outcomes for different cultural and economic groups using methods of social science inquiry and vocabulary appropriate to those methods;
demonstrate an understanding of and ability to apply accurately disciplinary concepts of the social or behavioral sciences; and
demonstrate an understanding of and ability to effectively plan or conduct research using an appropriate method of the social or behavioral sciences.

Sustainability Overlay Learning Outcomes

identify the environmental, social, and economic dimensions of sustainability, either in general or in relation to a specific problem;
analyze interactions between human activities and natural systems;
describe key threats to environmental sustainability; and
explain how individual and societal choices affect prospects for sustainability at the local, regional, and/or global levels.