Based on the work of a 22-member research team in the San Diego Community College District, this booklet offers guidelines for developing cultural awareness and presents instruments for conducting an ethnic heritage search, i.e., a systematic examination of a culture to, for example, reveal reasons for customs or practices or clarify the modes of thinking and expression within a language. After providing the narrative of a sound-strip on the importance of ethnic heritage searches, the booklet explores sources of information for such a search available in the San Diego area, including libraries, museums, colleges, ethnic communities and restaurants, and the media. The next section outlines the procedures used by the research team members in the English discipline to raise their own cultural awareness and apply their research in the classroom. The section includes questions about Chicano literature, Vietnamese folk tales, and Black English used by the English discipline team to conduct oral interviews; and a questionnaire about black culture. Next, the social sciences team's discovery approach is outlined, a questionnaire about Vietnamese culture is presented, and a survey of 28 females and 22 males about black culture is summarized. Next, survey questionnaires used by the consumer and home economics discipline are presented, covering clothing, food and nutrition, and parenting. Finally, selected references for ethnic studies are provided. (AYC)