As long as I've been teaching United States history in the college classroom, I've found great satisfaction in placing traditionally silenced voices into the national narrative. But my experience teaching at an urban community college in 2018 and 2019 challenged my ideas about diversity and inclusion far beyond anything I had encountered before. My experience made it clear to me that a college instructor can—and must—serve as a "change agent," a catalyst for social transformation. 

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At this community college, I discovered students only moderately interested in the American historical narrative—even one broadened to include marginalized voices. These students wanted to experience, at every step of the way, an account of the past directly related to the world of the present. In particular, they wanted to be convinced that they themselves were implicated in United States history. This presented me with a new challenge. I had to do more than incorporate in-class activities that unpacked the texts that we studied. I had to spend nearly half of each class session letting the students talk about themselves and their lives, and I had to spend much the remainder demonstrating the connection between their lived experience and the historical texts and events that we were studying.

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Most of the students I encountered were people of color; many were immigrants or children of immigrants. In seeking to know history's relevance to them personally, they were not being self-centered or complacent. They simply wanted to know how history might provide insights into the challenges they faced as minority members of a mostly white, native-born society. Some of my students conveyed discontent, and even anger, with what they saw as oppressive social and political conditions. If America's past couldn't somehow speak to their struggles, then they weren't going to give America's past much consideration.

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As their instructor, it was up to me to respond (or not respond). I chose, mid-quarter, to revamp my course. I saw that these students had something to teach me. They impacted me more than leftist theory ever did. I recognized, in practical terms, that college education can help repair a world in which members of certain social sectors are routinely deprived of the physical and emotional capital they need to thrive. Telling stories about America's past must confront that condition.