Since 2024, Culture Day has been a student-led and student-organized event held here at Southeast Polk High School. Sponsored by the Culture Club at the high school in coordination with the social studies department, Culture Day is a time dedicated to celebrating one’s cultural heritage and getting to see the diversity that makes up our community here at Southeast Polk.
The day is filled with presentations, open discussions, and showcases of various cultural heritages, whether it is through fashion, dance, song, or even food. With the day’s proximity to the end of the year, it is a nice way to close out the school year by breaking away from the mundane cycle the school typically follows and taking time to see how beautiful and vibrant the community is here at Southeast Polk. However, for some people, outside of a celebration of diversity here at Southeast Polk, they do not understand the reason behind Culture Day.
Throughout my years helping to organize Culture Day and my years as president of the Culture Club, I cannot keep up with how many times I hear this. With every year, I hope everyone can understand why Culture Day is even a thing here at Southeast Polk, yet the question is always brought up: why?
Now, in years past, I tried my best to just let the question slip by, how I saw it, some people just won’t understand, and that’s okay, as it is just a fact of life that not everyone thinks the same or understands the same things. However, as of this year, I am taking a stronger approach to looking at the question. The reason is a fear I had about some people not understanding that Culture Day has become a reality, and that is the ignorance of the importance of Culture Day has led to hate of the event.
Now, I am not clueless. Before this year, I had been aware of some pushback towards the event, and I simply did not think much about it, telling myself that these were just growing pains as people came around to something new. Yet the pains seemed to have never really wavered. I heard some peers talk about Culture Day, one saying that they are excited about it and cannot wait for the event, while another said they do not get it and think it is “weird,” saying that it is just an excuse for people to wear “weird outfits” and skip out on class for a bit. Their tone as they said it carried some tinge of disgust and bitterness.
Of course, it was disheartening to hear, yet I was not all too upset with what was said by my peers. I was concerned, however, with the connotations that were behind those words.
See, Culture Day is not about the outfits, the flags, or the food; what it is all about is the people. The background of people, their customs, their traditions, their memories, their souls, this is what this day is dedicated to. The pomp and circumstance that comes with the day is only a manifestation of that. Each fabric sewn, each flavor, every beat of a song, all that encompasses the beauty and depth of soul that is found in every culture.
It is that soul that we celebrate with Culture Day, and our main goal is to show others this through the event. We want this day not to just show off nice clothes or to snack on exotic food, but to use these elements to help learn and understand the depth and story behind each of those items, and how each one of those items is just a piece in a larger picture.
