It took a long time to get into the Lee Road cafetorium on Tuesday night, Feb. 27. Guests waited patiently for ID tags. They didn’t need them for security, but they wanted them as keepsakes. As kids and parents reached the front of the line, the greeters wrote their names in four different languages — English, Indian, Japanese and Uzbek. It’s what you would expect on Multicultural Night. The greeters, who were writing the tags, all had roots in different parts of the world. One of them, Foziljion Fayzullaev, became a member of the National Honor Society soon after he arrived in this country.
Some activities, like science fairs, occur in almost every school. But Multicultural Night is fairly unique. Lee Road introduced it last year, Assistant Principal Lauren Donohue told us, “because a lot of people in the building had interesting backgrounds they wanted to share.”
The diversity of the school is remarkable. The PTO leaders who organized the event said there were 31 dishes from 22 different nations. What was even more surprising was that youngsters, who can be finicky eaters, tried almost everything — even the foods that were hard to pronounce. Of course, the desserts went quickly.
Family members did the cooking and serving, and were glad to identify the ingredients. Faculty members gave students a homework assignment to prepare for the event.
The kids cut out a tracing of one of their hands and then used each finger to list a country where their family members had lived. Some youngsters needed all five fingers to describe their origins.
The hands are now mounted in the school lobby. And kids are still checking the display to find their contributions. “Your background,” Principal Megan Argenio told them, “is what makes you you. But in some ways we’re all the same.”
Mrs. Argenio said that several adults thanked her for the chance to participate. She also assured us that Multicultural Night (which included dances and karate exhibitions) will continue to be an annual event. With that in mind, she offered an invitation to the community. “Next year come hungry,” she said.
