If you will consider the dualistic thinking which undergirds Western philosophical tradition, then it comes as a surprise to no one that the periodization of history is based on white male experiences as the sum of western civilization, especially the glorification of war and the celebration of unbridled “raw-power.” So, too, it is not surprising that Aristotelian logic and Cartesian metaphysics form the godhead for monocultural and unisexual education in U.S. society, which is at the least bisexual and multicultural. For a decade-and-a-half now, ethnic, minority, and women's studies proponents have suggested that their purposes for existence were to challenge and change the status quo . But ethnic and minority studies people, for the most part, became parties to the evils of the academy rather than revolution aries against them during the past fifteen years.

Peter Nazareth is an associate professor in the English Department and the Afro american Studies Program at the University of Iowa. His job includes being an advisor to the International Writing Program, which brings published writers from thirty to forty countries to Iowa City each fall. During the fall of 1984, he accompanied Michael Anthony (Trinidad) and Flora Nwapa (Nigeria) to Iowa State University for readings, and it was a golden opportunity to get some insights about the growth and development of both Goan literature and its primary catalytic agent to date.

Missionary, teacher, professor, strikebreaker, cook, waiter, and author are embodied in the national treasure interviewed here. Lorenz Graham received an honorary Doctorate of Letters from his alma mater forty-seven years after receiving the B.A. degree. He is almost as old as the twentieth century in years of age and as young as a college freshman in spirit. Graham is a recognized giant as a writer of literature for young readers. His major works include South Town (Chicago: Follett Publishing Company, 1958), North Town (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1965), Whose Town: (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1969), Return to South Town? (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1976), and John Brown: A Cry for Freedom (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1980). In the following interview Graham shares aspects of his life with those who share the dream of a better society.

This issue of Explorations in Ethnic Studies brings into focus the vision NAIES has had from the onset, i.e., the pursuit of “explorations and solutions” to problems within the context of oppression as they relate to the coloured ethnic minority experience in the US. and other places. In two separate essays, lack Forbes and Vine Deloria present issues which ethnic studies proponents must address if such study is to be viable. These writers recognize ethnic studies as being about the business of empowering individuals to be creatively involved in their futures. Forbes and Deloria present varying perspectives, recognizing the history and implications of fascism and institutional racism on a global scale as well as the more immediate policies such as affirmative action and ethnic minority preference.

The issues affecting ethnics, minorities, and the poor have changed little throughout the years; the primary issue, undergirding all others, however, is social Justice and its attainment. We are hopeful that the membership will share with others the celebration of ethnicity provided in this issue of the Journal, for ethnicity is more than an academic concern.

The first decade of coloured ethnic studies has passed quietly . This uncelebrated passing is probably more related to what did not occur in conceptual, methodological, and theoretical developments during the ten-year period than what did , in fact, happen. The decade can be characterized as one in which the ethnic studies movement suffered from intellectual dropsy. The politics of ethnic studies are all of those activities which have served to restrict its development.

Back to the Basics … is a provocative presentation which focuses on the role of the Black church as a socio—cultural, politico-economic institution in an historic context. Not focused in Williams' paper are the spiritual, religious aspects of the Black church, but the solutions proposed certainly lead toward a liberation theology. Williams' primary focus is on how the Black church, in a modern context, has drifted away from its original raison d'etre , and he attempts to show what can be done to restore the Black church, as an agent or institution for the people, to a position which serves the people.

Carl O. Sauer, the late dean of North American anthropogeography, noted that: We are touching upon a very serious topic that Americans, with their emphasis on acculturation, Americanization, and so forth, have never explored properly. Our own cultural minorities, living and surviving, persisting in some of their own attitudes of values and consciences, have a seminal as well as a historical significance as long as they resist absorption into the general pattern, but we pay little attention to them.

The National Association of Interdisciplinary Ethnic Studies (NAIES)was organized at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse during the third annual meeting of the Minority Studies Conference in the spring of 1975. The founding of the “association,” with its unwieldy title that was changed a year later, resulted from a meeting of about a dozen persons.