Opinion

Opinion Roundup : Cultural representation in events and extracurricular activities

Diana Saidi, Amaya De Lorenzo, and Angelina Pierantoni • December 5, 2024

Students share their opinion on cultural events in THHS.

With Festival of Nations (FON) rehearsals just around the corner, celebrations over various student cultures will soon be seen across the school. However, with so many diverse groups at Townsend Harris, can all cultures be represented throughout the year? Recently, students have organized events to celebrate Diwali and Holi, and this year, New York City students had off for Diwali for the first time. Below members of the THHS community shared their opinions on cultural events at the school and how much they feel represented:

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“I don’t feel like Turkey is well represented at Townsend, something which would be important to me as my father grew up there. I feel like the school can include more cultures through small things, such as offering different cultures foods in the lunchroom during specific weeks. There can also be efforts made to host more cultural events besides FON. We can have new conventions where students can experience the uniqueness of different cultures. I like the cultural events Towsend has, but there is definitely room for improvement. Nonetheless, I do thoroughly enjoy FON and am excited to experience it soon; it remains my favorite cultural event the school has to offer.”

— Freshman Onur Kirkhan

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“I feel that although there are some cultural events around the school, there aren’t [enough] specific events. The most I’ve seen for cultural events is the Holiday Market that was done last year and FON. I have hosted and organized different cultural events in my time at Townsend so far. In my freshman year, I worked with freshman grade leaders and multiple freshmen and sophomores to do a Holi Celebration. Recently, I hosted a Diwali Celebration alongside HSA and Dhamaka. As the year progresses, I am trying to implement more inclusive and diverse events for students to embrace their own cultures and learn about others’ outside the classroom.”

— Sophomore Uma Hardeo

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“I believe that my culture is pretty well represented through the school’s events, and I think for such a large school, I have many opportunities, like during Spirit Week in order to represent my culture. I do wish that there were more cultural events such as the Asian culture festival at Townsend, and I believe that If we could have more cultural events, where people of all cultures could express themselves, that would be really cool and fun to try out. My current favorite cultural event Townsend offers is the International Food Festival, as it’s one of the opportunities students have to share cultures with one another.”

— Junior Shaw Williams

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“I think the school does an okay job at representing my culture. There’s clubs that represent Hispanic culture and in Spanish classrooms, they learn about the culture as well. Even so, I don’t recall seeing any events really that revolve around Hispanic heritage. During Hispanic heritage month as well: all they did was play Hispanic music near the end of the month. The school should add an event during Hispanic heritage month to celebrate it. I’m not sure exactly what cultural events the school has to offer. The only thing I can think of is Hennafest which I find really enjoyable. It’s a great way to learn about someone else’s culture and enjoy great food. The school can improve their selection by celebrating different cultures during their heritage months. They can also allow for cultural clubs to host bigger events and lend a helping hand in promoting and encouraging such events.”

— Senior Katherine Giler

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“I think there’s so many cultural events and so much diversity in the cultural events that almost everyone’s culture is represented. For example, in FON, there’s a wide variety of cultures represented there. FON is a very popular one and makes our school special as many other schools don’t have an event like this. Over the past few years, I’ve noticed that there’s more cultural events being created outside of FON. For instance, two years ago, we started the Asian culture festival which students are still trying to continue. It’s great if students want to organize these kinds of events to celebrate their culture. There’s already a lot of events and it’s already hard to find a day on the school calendar to have an event. There are certainly cultures that might not be celebrated as much but if students take the initiative to form clubs and organizations, the selection of events could be improved.”

— Chief of Student Activities Jaime Baranoff

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Samira Li, Photography Editor

Samira is a senior at Townsend Harris High School. She’s been into photography since joining the Classic and loves to explore new cameras. She enjoys spending time with her friends and exploring new things as they come.