Friday afternoon marked the first International Festival at NC State, an event including over 30 booths set up by volunteers representing different cultural identities, ethnicities and student organizations in Stafford Commons.
Briana Garcia, a junior studying social work, and Suha Ahmed, a sophomore studying biological sciences, independently organized the event. With sponsorship from Student Involvement, Student Government, Multicultural Student Affairs and the Office of International Services, Ahmed and Garcia drew inspiration from their past experiences volunteering for UNC-Greensboro and Raleigh international festivals.
“The [Raleigh] International Festival has become a large-scale event that everyone in the community looks forward to attending,” Ahmed said. “I hope that NC State’s International Festival can continue to grow in that aspect.”
More than 1,000 students attended the event. The event provided an opportunity for students representing many cultural campus organizations and cultural identities to share them with the campus, according to Ahmed.
“There have been previous international-related events in residence halls and villages, however, they were not on a scale as large as this one nor were their intended audiences the entire campus community,” Garcia said. “I was inspired to see the International Festival take place this year because now more than ever, it is vital for the Wolfpack to show that we value diversity, inclusivity and cultural competence, not bigotry, hatred and divisiveness.”
Various cultural student organizations presented alongside general campus organizations, such as Engineers Without Borders. Alireza Garmabi, a graduate student studying fiber and polymer science, presented along with several other students from the Iranian Students Association to share landmarks and his perspective of his country.
“Most people don’t know about Iran, or maybe they don’t know a lot of things about its cultures, and we’re trying to given them the right picture about it,” Garmabi said. “This event is a great opportunity to get together people of different cultures and a great chance to see what we are really about.”
For smaller organizations like the Hmong Student Association, a group of 15 students with family roots in the mountains of Southeastern Asia, the event was invaluable, allowing them to share their culture with a larger campus audience.
“We try to promote cultural awareness and competency to the NC State community in events like this,” said Crystal Thao, a junior studying business administration and president of the Hmong Student Association. “I think the most important thing is for events like this to be including of all because I know that, as a small group, it can be more difficult to reach out to others without having any economic support at all. We want students to be more culturally aware of the people around them by seeing people like us and participating in our culture.”
The organizers of the event implemented a ticket system that they called the “boarding pass,” emulating a passport that students could have hole-punched for each booth visited. If a participant in the International Festival visited six tables and received six hole punches, they would receive a free T-shirt.
Some of the booths also included food from various countries and cultures. For instance, the Bangladeshi table showcased and distributed Shondesh, a sweet dessert made with milk, sugar and cheese; Jhal Muri, a puffed rice mixed with spicy peppers and peanuts; and Lebu Shorbot, a sweet Bengali drink with a hint of lime.
Throughout the day, there were several performances from some of the organizations, including Sunny, a Chinese performing arts group and Karma, a South Asian musical group. Karma displayed an intersection of Western and Eastern cultures by opening with a rendition of the Game of Thrones theme song, performed on Melodica, an instrument popular in Asia, and which that sounds like an accordion but resembles a small piano that a player blows air into with a flexible tube.
After this year’s event, the organizers hope to host annual festivals, continue to grow their participation and positively influence students’ attitudes toward multiculturalism.
“I would love to see the International Festival being an annual event,” Ahmed said. “However, cultural appreciation is not something that we acknowledge once a year. We need to constantly seek knowledge about other cultures and understand their value in our community.”
Tyrell Creary from England tells Michaela Brown, a freshman studying psychology, about his country during the International Festival at Stafford Commons on Friday. The International Festival, sponsored by Student Involvement, Student Government, the Multicultural Student Affairs Office and the Office of International Services, gave students the opportunity to learn about different cultures around the world.
