Dinner helps to dispel cultural biases

• Becky Leach / Scrll Staff
• posted: 06 Mar 2007
• scrollcampus@byui.edu

Each semester, the BYU‑Idaho Cultural Associations holds a traditional cultural progressive dinner. This semester, the event was held on Feb 23.

BYU‑I is home to many cultural associations and seven participated in the dinner: the Latino, Polynesian, French, Brazilian, Caribbean, Russian and South East Asian associations.

The night included food such as Borsch, a Russian beet soup; Horchata, a Mexican drink; Maracuja, a Brazilian passion fruit mousse dessert and more. The displays involved music, pictures, clothing and flags from the different countries.

One of the purposes of this dinner is to help BYU‑I students and the public in general to become acquainted with the different cultures that reside on campus, said Carmelo Diaz-Tamara, a sophomore from Rivera, Uruguay, and the Latino Association president.

The dinner’s purpose was to make students knowledgeable.

It really is important to make the students aware of different cultures on the campus. I don’t think a lot of people know about the associations provided on campus, and I think that it is neat that we get to share our heritage with them at this dinner, said Lavenia Rareba, a junior from Los Fresnos, Texas, and member of the Polynesian Association.

Not only was this dinner a chance for students to get to know international students, it was an opportunity for international students to meet others who are interested in their culture.

Students who came were able to gain knowledge and eliminate some of the ignorance, biases and prejudices that some students said they had before their experience.

In my opinion, BYU‑I students are more ignorant about different cultures than they realize, and this is a good opportunity to be reminded that, regardless of skin, we are all equally children of God, said Alan Kemsley, a sophomore from Hong Kong, China.

Becky McCabe, a senior from Shelley, Idaho, is a cultural heritage coordinator for student activities and was in charge of the cultural progressive dinner. She said the main goal the cultural associations have is to get the students together.

This is an activity that is fun and invites the spirit, McCabe said. This was a great opportunity to unite all of the cultural associations together and to let the BYU‑I students know that there is a variety of diverse students on this campus.

She said it helped not only the students who came to the dinner but also the associations to learn about and enjoy other cultures. Another goal was to help the associations get back to where they came from, to get back to their roots, learn about their ancestors and gain knowledge and experience about all of the cultures. We can learn so much by how they grew up in different cultures, McCabe said.

More information about the cultural associations can be found at www.byui.edu/associations.