The sun shines bright on the student-run booths, showcasing nations from across the globe. Some 30 booths, spanning from Canada to Morocco, many doling out food samples or conducting activities and games, lined the borders of the gym quad.
A crowd of MVHS students spent their tutorial walking around the booths and interacting with the thoughtfully created posters. Peers share facts and culturally significant information amongst each other as they wait for a performance to begin.
Mission Viejo High School’s cultural fair began last year, with Irene Kim wanting to bring the enriching experience that she felt with her middle school’s, La Paz Intermediate, annual Multicultural Fair to Mission. “I thought it would be a really great way to bring together the diversity on our campus and [it’s] a great way to make sure everyone feels heard and included.”
Irene and the rest of the ASB class created a procedure for the fair from the ground up last year, with Irene handling the advertising and organizing of the event. A large reason that this fair was so successful was due to the fact that many teachers and organizations like CSF and NHS collaborated with the fair to encourage their members/students to create booths. This year Eduardo Alva Calderon joined in as co-director of the fair and coordinated the featured dancer, Lupita Martinez, for this year,
Students were able to sign up to perform or host a booth, and many had cultural food or games on display. Many booths provided cultural insight rather than historical facts, and allowed a space for students to share their own culture, which Irene hopes can show a new view of many cultures to many of the students at Mission.
Another great attribute about the cultural fair is the collaboration with the English Learners program; Irene commended EL program director Mrs. Dargavel, “Mrs. Dargavel had a huge hand in encouraging her students from the EL program to participate…that was especially exciting since a lot of those students aren’t fluent in English and so it was really great to see them step out of their comfort zone and interact with other students.”
Mission’s Cultural Fair acts as a reminder to just how diverse America is. “Living in America it’s pretty easy to forget about your cultural roots and I think that is something really important; especially in high school when it’s so common to reject your culture, to learn to love it and to learn to love other cultures [is something that we really should value].”
