By: Sydney Soysouvanh
Date: 11-15-2024
The Multicultural Fair is an event run by the Multicultural Club (MCC). This club celebrates and supports the diversity that AMHS has for its students and where they come from. As well as aims to bring a diverse community together through events, such as the fair.
The first of the two annual school year’s Multicultural fair came up on October 24th 2024. This free event was held after school for two hours, which showcased students' backgrounds with food, performances, clothing, and much more. Families and students were able to walk around the commons and fully immerse themselves in each beautiful culture that resides inside of AMHS.
In past years at AMHS, the first MCC fair would have started during lunch nearing winter break. However this year was a bit different; as this fair was only starting a month after school had started. Club officers shared that they are “ hoping that everything goes well. It's going to be way different than how we usually do it.”
When preparing for this event, each culture had to quickly create poster boards filled with facts and history about their culture. And optionally scramble groups together have dance performances and decide their foods of choice. Such as Somalia's group, who prepared for the dancing performance and food. “We’re just doing a cultural dance for fun [and] I’m cooking my famous Suugo!” Needless to say, members of the club felt a bit rushed with the timing. “It’s kind of stressful with cramming stuff with posters or anything” stated by members of the Philippines club. Contrasting to other groups, where they “had a great and really fun time making the poster” shared by members of China’s group.
This fair was planned in advance to give more time to have families experience the fair for longer, compared to the 35-40 minutes that students had to face in previous years. But club officers worry since “there’s going to be way more people” so they “want everyone to have fun and experience all the diversity.”
As the fair commenced, it was lively and jam-packed with people experiencing the cultures the club officers hoped for. Almost everyone had plates full of little pieces from each booth around the commons. Each booth was almost full of empty trays! The performances represented cultures splendidly and marvelously. Additionally, it gave insight and greater knowledge about these cultures for the audience.