As Cobber students got ready to leave school early to avoid the snow storm for Thanksgiving break. My friends and I were getting ready to be on our way down to the Twin Cities for the annual Hmong New Year Celebration in St. Paul Minnesota held at the Excel Center. Every single year during Thanksgiving the Hmong people celebrate their biggest holiday. It is a 3 day celebration starting the day right after Thanksgiving until Sunday. This event, like how the elders would say, is to bring in the New Year and let go of the old. The New Year involves traditional and modern competition in dancing and singing as well as a popular pageant for the girls. The pageant is one of the most important aspects of the New Year where girls show off their talent, self-design clothing, and their clan name. When I say clan name it is because there are 18 clan names in the Hmong culture, which is the last name. Girls and guys with the same clan name are not allowed to get married. It is a traditional rule within the Hmong culture.

During the 3 day event, there are also a lot of different food booths and a huge market area for purchasing traditional clothing, movies, music, and miscellaneous things. Not only is it for entertainment, but also for courtship. Back in the old days, parents would go to the New Year with their son and scope out the girl that they thought was best for their son. Some people call it “wife-hunting.” The courting starts off when a girl is chosen to play ball toss. A clothed ball is used to play a game of exchanging items and singing folk songs to each other. If the ball is a good throw and is not caught an item is exchanged. This way the boy and the girl can converse and get to know each other. The girl can refuse to ball toss if a boy asks and she is not interested. It is also not okay for a boy to ball toss with another boy because it is consider taboo. But it is okay for girls to ball toss with each other. The game can end whenever one wants to end it. This is a little bit about the Hmong culture and how its traditions are carried out. The Hmong New Year is an exciting and learning experience for those who do not know. This particular Hmong New Year in St. Paul is the most popular one aside from ones in California, Oklahoma, North Carolina, etc.

After a weekend of learning about the Hmong culture my friends and I were ready to get back to campus and finish our pile of homework.

Every single year the International Student Organization on campus hosts a festival for Concordia’s campus and extends it to family and friends out in the community. Two years ago in 2008, the “Cultural Runway” was known for its many fashion trends from all over the world. Many students showed off their culture by wearing traditional clothing. The colors were stunningly radiant and bold. And then just last year in 2009 the students got together with the African Student Union group and hosted an “African Night” with emphasis on traditional marriage ceremonies. The skits performed were a tremendous eye opener to the cultural customs of African wedding ceremonies.

This year the International Student Organization took a different twist to the annual festival and took us on an exciting “Tour Around the Globe.” The brochures were designed like plane tickets and the program of the show was like being on a plane ride, flying from each continent to another. They even involved turbulence during the airplane ride in bringing awareness to the Hmong Genocide. A variety of performances were showcased from many cultures.

If you have not been to the annual festival that Concordia’s International Student Organization holds every year. I strongly encourage you to seek it out next year.

Here is a YouTube clip from this year’s “Tour the Globe” of an old Irish love song sung by an international student from Irish accompanied by another student from Paraguay.

(click link below this)

Irish Song

This past spring semester I was able to attend a diversity discussion group on Concordia’s campus. The students apart of this discussion group were handpicked from students involved in different organizations to students who were interested about the topic or students who just heard about it and tagged along with friends.

Many topics were brought up, such as students of color, sex, GLBT, religion, etc…

These discussions included particular things like how Concordia’s brochures have too many pictures of color students when the campus does not even have a show for it. Students did not like the fact that Concordia was advertising something that was not true about their campus. It is okay to have a few, but it was a false advertisement with too many photos of a student population that did not really exist.

A particular conversation I had with the small group that we broke into was when someone had asked, “Why don’t students attend the International Student Organization events or other cultural events as much? “Or one particular question that got me pondering “Why?” is when someone mentioned something like, “Why is it that the students who do go to those events, are majority students of color?” These kinds of events are put on to educate those who do not know about the different cultures, and to also celebrate the various cultures we have on campus. Yet the people who do attend are the ones who already know.

Example: When you are a student of color, you know you are a minority within the majority group. You also know how it feels like every day to be a minority. If you are in the majority group, when a cultural event happens, you may not want to attend, because within that event you will feel like a minority, you will feel uncomfortable with this feeling.

But we minorities feel this way every day. One event for you to attend a learning experience of our culture and it makes you uncomfortable, so you won’t go?

Hummm….do we have a problem here? I think so.

Diversity comes in many aspects and when we become uncomfortable we hide from it. But one will not know if one does not allow oneself to learn.

So, as students brainstorm about how to better diversity on campus and where to start for this change, just know Concordia cannot have diversity if you don’t make diversity.