By: Maira Ramos
MHS students and staff engaged in various cultural activities for Diversity Week on Feb. 4 through 8. The ‘Taste of the World’ food sale and multicultural rally represented some of the cultures present on campus.
All clubs and organizations had an opportunity to showcase their cultures through lunchtime activities, ASB Clog Commissioner Tanya Saharan said. A form was open for clubs to sign up to host an activity in their advisor’s room and ASB publicized them, she said.
“When I was a freshman, I don’t remember having anything that was related to celebrating your culture,” Saharan said. “I think it’s important because we have more than 3,000 people and there’s so many different cultures on campus and so to celebrate them is important.”
It is up to the groups and organizations on campus to help encourage this week to be successful, Student Activities Director Joanna Butcher said. The success of the week depends on the clubs’ involvement and willingness to host and open their doors to the student body, she said.
“Diversity Week, hopefully, is the start of everyone being able to embrace and recognize the strength and beauty within themselves and feel comfortable in their own skin,” Butcher said. “It may be a week of celebration, but the goal is that it becomes an every day event.”
The Tahitian club Manava hosted a writing systems workshop where they teach how to write words in the Tahitian language, Senior Jessica Aceves said. They also taught how to say words in Hawaiian and Tahitian languages, she said.
“I think a lot of people like the idea of Hawaii and Tahiti but they don’t know the culture itself,” Aceves said. “I wanted to teach how to say certain words and how to say phrases that aren’t commonly used in our own vocabulary every day.”
Desi Union showed the Indian movie “Jab We Met” and taught Bollywood dance moves, Junior Roshini Gopala said. They also participated in the ‘Taste of the World’ food sale by selling vegetable puffs, she said.
“I think [the food sale theme] fits perfectly with the theme of the rally and it’s important,” Gopala said. “People at this school want to know that their culture is being represented.”
Diverse ideas and values bring innovation because people are able to trade different ideas and approaches, Principal Francis Rojas said. The challenge of diversity is because of those differences in opinion or values, he said.
“There’s a lot of miscommunication,” Rojas said. “So having things like Diversity Week is a good way to make, not only the students, but also the adults on this campus aware of the types of diversity.”
The lunchtime activities could have been publicized better since not everyone knew about them, Saharan said. If the clubs and organizations that participated had a good time, then it was a success in her eyes, she said.
“Overall, I’ll say it was a good start,” Saharan said. “But it could potentially be improved next year!”