Upcoming event to celebrate diversity

Cultural festivities are coming to Bowie

Rachel Baschnagel, Copy Editor|April 17, 2019

(Left to right) Kiara Gonzales, Kaeleigh Chambers, Lisa Wilkerson, Nyah Bernucho, Camron Sneed, Seun Odufuye, and Gia Spencer dance as part of the Multi Awareness club for hundreds of students in the JBHS Black History Month assembly in front of the main podium. Both gyms were open for the event, with the performance covering the small gym’s floor while students are seated, elevated in the larger gym.

The first ever Culture Day will be held on Thursday, April 18 at 10 a.m. in the courtyard. Multiple booths will be set up to represent various cultures, with students stationed at each to educate their peers about their culture and traditions.

Teachers are invited to bring their students to the courtyard as early as 10 a.m. There’s no sign-up required to attend, and all students and staff are welcome to attend on their own at 10:30,. Culture Day will run through FIT and end at 10:58.

“As leaders of Bowie Multi-Cultural Awareness Club (MCAC), Nyah, Keilyn, and I recognized that the campus lacked awareness and celebration for cultures,” senior Seun Odufuye said. “We wanted to bring awareness and celebrate the various cultures found at Bowie through Culture Day. Knowing more about different cultures, as well as celebrating them, brings about a certain type of unity that bigotry and ignorance destroy.”

Odufuye’s idea for Culture Day stemmed from the Culture Day that Mills Elementary holds each year. Multiple elementary schools in the area put on multicultural education events, and the MCAC believes this type of event would be just as beneficial to students now as it was when they were elementary school students, according to an email invitation for Culture Day sent out by MCAC co-sponsor Amanda Pfeiffer.

“The goal for culture day, hosted by MCAC, French, and Spanish Honor Society is to enlighten, educate, and entertain,” senior Lin Tran said. “There will be cultural music from different countries playing as students visit each booth and learn about different cultures.”

In addition to various types of music, traditional wear, and presentations, attendees can expect to see interactive games like Cultural Bingo at Culture Day.

“[Cultural Bingo] is basically our incentive to have kids actually learn,” Odufuye said. “So basically we will combine answers and have bingo boards and a person calling out questions.”

Tran explained the importance and value that she sees in implementing a Culture Day.

“Our world is so diverse and it’s beautiful, however, there is always miscommunication [and] misunderstanding between cultures that leads to a generalization or stereotype of cultures,” Tran said. “Therefore to me, it is extremely important to let others have the opportunity to learn and really immerse themselves into different cultures to understand what makes each culture so different; what makes every individual so unique from one another.”