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In this respect, e Day School was way ahead of its time. When I was in the 5th grade, I remember the Middle School faculty screened e Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, a novel-turned-TV-movie about an enslaved Southern black woman who becomes part of the civil rights movement. I also remember that we were able to see Roots, an award- winning television miniseries and cultural sensation based on Alex Haley's 1976 New York Times best- selling novel about an enslaved 18th-century African teen and generations of his descendants in the United States. I can't imagine how they got the rights to show it. (is was the 1979–80 academic year, and Roots had just come out in 1977. ere was no YouTube back then. ere were no VCRs, no DVDs. Yet, e Day School had it on reel-to-reel film!) When I had my first class in African American Studies at college, I was hooked, and I immediately decided that it was going to be my major. Two of my professors were my mentors, and because of them, I realized I wanted to become an African American Studies educator myself. It's a matter of giving back. I wanted to become them and become to my own students what they were for me. After I received my undergraduate degree, I went straight to graduate school at Cornell University, where I received my master's degree in Africana Studies. It was there that I met my wife. I continued my graduate work in Ethnic and African American Studies from 1996–2000 at Claremont Graduate University. During my third year in grad school, I was offered the opportunity to teach a course in African American History at a nearby community college. Initially, I was hesitant. I was not sure I could do it, but my wife insisted that "you're going to take that job!" And that's when I found my passion. I got in front of that classroom, and was able to impart information to my students the same way that my professors at Bowdoin had done for me. Part of that information became an amalgamation of them and myself, but I was able to see the response in my students. From that day forward, I knew I was teaching. At the end of 2001, the opportunity for a full-time position became available at Cypress College in the Ethnic Studies Department. It was the first time I was ever in the job market for a full-time position, and after a lot of preparing and rehearsing for the interview, I got the job. at's when I found out that the job description was not entirely accurate. It turned out I was the only full-time professor in Ethnic Studies, and I was hired to create the department! I knew I had my work cut out for me. e field of Ethnic Studies is not just African American Studies; it's the interdisciplinary comparative study of racially underrepresented populations in the United States. You're not only examining the historical and contemporary experiences of African Americans, but also those of Asian Pacific Americans, Latinas/os/xs, and Native Americans. I had to create courses in those areas, which were outside of my field of specialization. e good thing was that the course I was forced to teach is called American Ethnic Studies. Preparing to teach that class, I studied the histories of Asian Americans, Native Americans, and Mexican-Americans. I saw how similar our histories were–how interconnected we all were and how race really shaped American history, not just for African Americans, but for so many other groups. It's telling that even to this day, I have students in their 20s and 30s who ask, "Why am I just learning this now?" In California, the state recently passed AB 1460, legislation that requires students to is page, left: Daniel and his wife Kelly; Middle: Daniel with his son Mark; Right: Daniel with Cypress students at Alabama A&M University, part of a historical week-long HBCU tour during spring break. ey also visited schools such as Tuskegee University, Morehouse College, Spelman College, Clark Atlanta University, and Jackson State University; Opposite page, clockwise from top: Daniel's 8th-grade photo from the1983 Yearbook; Images in box: Various promotions for the Ethnic Studies Department, showing its growth.

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