WAESN’s Relentless Mission: Demanding Authentic Ethnic Studies in Washington State

by Dr. Tracy Castro-Gill

It’s late August, and, yes, elections are on everyone’s minds, but here, at WAESN, we’re laser focused on local and state politics, which is where decisions are made about public education and Ethnic Studies.

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As you may have heard by now, WAESN has a champion for our K–12 Ethnic Studies certification in Representative Sharon Tomiko Santos. WAESN has been hyper critical of Rep. Santos in the past, and we’re grateful she is willing to see that for what it was—accountability and a call to work more closely with K–12 Ethnic Studies experts and community-based organizations (CBOs). The new relationship we have with Rep. Santos is a perfect example of the fine line WAESN must walk as a political advocacy organization that wants to also remain rooted in community movements.

When WAESN incorporated in 2020, there was already progress being made at the state level on Ethnic Studies. At that point we knew the state was moving forward with or without us. We saw our role as an accountability mechanism to prevent the state from whitewashing and appropriating authentic, decolonial, and critical Ethnic Studies. Fortunately, we were able to intervene in the first process to implement Ethnic Studies: The Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction’s (OSPI) Ethnic Studies Framework. Our intervention led to a problematic framework that WAESN can live with. This is the nature of working on the edges of a White supremacist system: cautious compromise.

There was a time in my life as an educator when I did not speak about politics and education. It was my most naive moment. . . For me, now I say that education is politics. Today, I say education has the quality of being politics, which shapes the learning process. Education is politics and politics has educability.

Paulo Freire—A Pedagogy for Liberation

WAESN caught a lot of shit for that intervention, however, and earned such titles as aggressive, political, confrontational, and some even suggested we were domestic terrorists. I mean, if that’s what it takes to make sure students and educators of color are centered in these decisions and processes, I’ll take it. I’m currently reading A Pedagogy for Liberation, and Paulo Freire is reminding me that there are no components of politics to education. Education is politics. If it weren’t, why would we need to lobby legislators and political entities such as OSPI and the State Board of Education (SBE)?

WAESN’s Grassroots Advocacy Shaped Ethnic Studies and Political Change in Washington

While we waited for folks to come around to the reality that they didn’t have all the answers, we continued our grassroots work, building relationships with educators, school districts, school board directors, student organizations, and education-focused CBOs. We trained thousands of educators on Ethnic Studies, which is important for teaching, but also important for advocacy. While our professional development doesn’t explicitly discuss organizing and advocacy, we know that when more people understand what Ethnic Studies actually is, the more people there will be to hold policy makers accountable to authentic and decolonial Ethnic Studies (hint: it’s not multiculturalism).

We conducted a pilot in 2021 on an Ethnic Studies endorsement funded by the Professional Educators Standards Board (PESB) and wrote a report about our findings. We also wrote a policy brief outlining the need and recommendations for a K–12 Ethnic Studies endorsement or certification pathway. We used the policy brief to shop around for a sponsor. That’s when we discovered that Rep. Santos and WAESN have one very important thing in common: we understand the importance of Ethnic Studies and the need to get it right the first time. Rep. Santos also understands that if teachers aren’t properly trained to teach Ethnic Studies, it will do more harm to students of color, the very students it purports to serve.

Oliver Miska joined the WAESN board in 2022, and together, we took a crash course in the political process of Washington State by literally going all in and learning by doing. Neither one of us had any training or experience with the process, but we were both willing to ask stupid questions, make mistakes, and fail. And the latter is exactly what we did the first year. That failure helped us become more determined in 2023, and we were prepared to address issues as they arose. 

By 2024, WAESN was everywhere in the news because of our involvement in advocating for the opportunity for genocide survivors to tell their own stories. This brought us together with a broader community of advocates, and Oliver was able to leverage that movement into tangible results. Because of WAESN’s newfound lobbying skills, we won a $180,000 budget proviso for anti-Islamophobia to be taught in schools that will be created by the Muslim community. This proviso was the first of its kind in Washington State, which had previously funded the Holocaust Center for Humanity, a Jewish-led organization, to create and teach lessons on anti-Islamophobia. WAESN became a player.

Playing the Political Game for Authentic Ethnic Studies in Washington Classrooms

In addition to working with Rep. Santos on a K–12 Ethnic Studies certification, we are also in talks with the SBE and OSPI on various ways they can support implementation of authentic Ethnic Studies. 

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We recently met with Superintendent Reykdal who, after listening to various WAESN members, asked why we would want to partner with OSPI if Ethnic Studies should be led by grassroots CBOs. Rep. Santos asked a similar question in our early talks with her about Ethnic Studies. This brings us back to that fine line we walk and the fact that Ethnic Studies in Washington State began in the legislature before WAESN existed. 

People want Ethnic Studies, and they want it to be systematized. How do you systematize a grassroots movement? Cautious compromise. But in order to achieve a compromise and not a total take over and appropriation, someone has to be at the table to fight for it. We know that district leaders do not give a single fuck about what WAESN says. They do, however, care about what the legislature, OSPI, PESB, and the SBE say. Someone has to be there to push these political bodies in the right direction. We may not get exactly what we want, but we can work to prevent as much harm as we can while continuing to push them closer and closer to our vision: Ethnic Studies in every classroom of WA State taught by anti-racist educators committed to centering the history and lived experiences of people of Color.

How You Can Help

WAESN has developed a one-, three-, and five-year plan for statewide implementation of K–12 Ethnic Studies. We are working with various political bodies, education associations, youth groups, and CBOs to help us achieve our goals. If you’d like to become part of our accountability mechanism you can:

• Join our Legislative Committee co-chaired by myself and Oliver Miska. 
• Join our Executive Board! We are especially in need of a treasurer. To start the application process, send a letter of interest and resume/CV to: director@waethnicstudies.com.
• Join our Youth Advisory Board if you are between the ages of 12 and 21.
• Become a WAESN sustaining member. Political advocacy costs a lot of money! While we are a 501(c)(4) organization and receive grant funding, we are prohibited from using most of that funding for political advocacy. We rely entirely on member donations to support this work.
• Subscribe to this blog and our newsletter for important updates and calls to action.
• Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for important updates and calls to action.
• Purchase our curriculum and swag!
• Tell people about WAESN! Simply sharing what you know about us and sharing our social media posts helps us build our collective!