Many people and moving parts have to work together in order to make Multicultural Nights happen.
This year Multicultural Night has been scheduled for Tuesday, March 21st from 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm.
Multicultural night is an event where culture clubs meet in the cafeteria and share food and performances from their culture with each other.
Ms. Chaudhry, Gifted and Talented Research teacher here at Atholton and advisor for Muslim Student Association said that when she started at Atholton in 1998, “we didn’t have to have all these different clubs back in those days. We had one club called the Multicultural Club and I was their sponsor.”
Ms. Chaudhry said that the Multicultural club originally started when students came up with the idea in the 1998 to 1999 school year, “we would have booths of different cultures and religions and whoever wanted to participate during lunchtime, and we would set up in the gym every lunch shift.”
At that time students could go in and have lunch and then they could walk over and have food at the Multicultural club that was in the gym.
Over the years it evolved into an evening event because, “the kids wanted to add performances and I said we can’t do performances during lunch,” said Ms. Chaudhry. Multicultural night then became an annual event for Atholton
“Then what happened was the Multicultural club as things happened and community and societies kids started to break off because they wanted their own separate clubs,” Ms. Chaudhry stated.
That’s how all the clubs now became. At this point Ms. Chaudhry went to the principal at the time and said “ it’s me and two kids left. We cannot organize a cultural night so is this something that the student leadership in the building would like to take over.” This is how SGA started to take over the annual event.
Betania Adane, president of the African Student Association (ASA) and SGA Executive Board Treasurer. As well as Fetina Andemariam, Executive Board SGA Secretary and African Student Association Co-Vice President, and Elelan Mulleta, African Student Association Co-Vice President said that how they prepare for Multicultural night is their
“first step is to make sure you have some sort of schedule/plan for the event, possible dates you can discuss with admin/sponsors, and a timeline. Once you have all of that figured out, you present what you have to the admin/sponsors, take their thoughts on the event and see if there are any dates that would work best for the students and the school. You also have to contact the various clubs that you believe would be interested in the event and have regular ‘check-in’ meetings to ensure they are preparing for booths/performances.”
Betania’s favorite part of Multicultural Night is the performances, I love seeing people showcasing their culture in so many diverse ways whether it’s through dance or music. Learning about different cultures through booths, activities and food is also super fun and I loved going around station to station trying different foods while also seeing the creative booths.
Betania said that the way students or clubs participate in Multicultural Night is they can “create a poster/trifold to represent their culture, bring traditional foods, showcase a cultural game/activity, or create a performance.”
Ms. Chaudhry has noticed changes that what used to be one big Multicultural club is now a variety of different clubs that have come together on Multicultural Nights to celebrate. Ms. Chaudhry said that her favorite aspect about
Multicultural Night is seeing the beauty of the community come together and the looks on parents’ faces as their kids are performing traditional dances.
Ms. Chaudhry said that one year she saw, student who was an expert in competitive Chinese yoyo and I remember her presenting and throwing up the yoyo and everybody’s in awe and it just celebrating that and the look on her parents face just to see that this is such a niche thing, Chinese yoyo and yet here’s our daughter sharing that with her teachers, and her peers and everybody’s just amazed by it so it’s that kind of the synergy.
For performances, Betania said “we have rehearsals before the event that help ensure everyone understands when they’re performing and get a full grasp on the spacing. We also set an hour beforehand to ensure booths have the time to set up before people start coming. Most importantly we have regular meetings before Culture Night to check in with clubs and ensure they’re on track to be ready for the day.”
Alexa Shaheen, a senior at Atholton and part of the French Honors Society, says that last year for Multicultural Night she “made crepes and presented them in different French speaking countries.”
This year The French Honor Society is still making crepes but this year “we are also doing a presentation on Mardi Gras.”
To Alexa it’s important to learn about “different cultures and have opportunities outside of school to get to know other students and form a strong community.”
Alexa likes learning about different cultures and trying “all the different foods” offered at Multicultural Night.
Multicultural Night is a wonderful opportunity for students here at Atholton to share their cultures with peers, teachers, and parents and share cuisine from their cultures as well! It is also an opportunity to learn other cultures and see performances and cuisine from students and peers.