Last Thursday, representatives of several student organizations gathered in the Dustbowl to celebrate the 10th annual World Fiesta Day, an event aimed at promoting Boston College's international and multicultural community and helping to spread cross-cultural awareness. World Fiesta is an event that hosts both the graduate and undergraduate student bodies and showcases all the international programs, intercultural clubs, and relevant departments from around campus, as well as outside vendors. The event was sponsored by the Office for AHANA Student Programs (OASP), which oversaw the cultural displays, including food, music, art, costumes, and live dance performances.
The coordinator of the event and representative of the OASP was Iris Gisela Tavarez, LGSOE '10 and a graduate assistant for OASP. Tavarez said that this was the first year that the OASP was the main coordinator for the Fiesta, a change from past years when the Office of International Students and Scholars (OISS) was in charge of organizing the various student groups and outside vendors. "We had a variety of culture groups such as Organization for Latin American Affairs, Chinese Student Association, Korean Student Association, and several international students that just got together by country, so there was a group of French students who had a table," Tavarez said.
The goal of World Fiesta this year and in past years, Tavarez said, is to give students a venue to showcase the diversity of culture here at BC. "This is an event for the students so we are here to cater to their needs and to whatever interests that they have," Tavarez said. One of the many clubs that had a table at the event was the International Club of Boston College (ICBC). The ICBC is a new club on campus that is hoping to bring together and foster the community of international students at BC.
Patricia Lopez, president of ICBC and CSOM '10, said that ICBC also wants to increase global sensitivity and bring an end to ignorance of global issues. "We don't want to just isolate the international students, however, but also provide ourselves as a resource to the greater community through providing information to those going abroad to our home countries and creating stronger bonds with American students," Lopez said.
The World Fiesta Day was the first event for the ICBC and their goal was to provide a more educational table than showcasing one specific culture, since the club views itself as representative of all international cultures at BC. "We wanted to have a presence at World Fiesta and incorporate more of a global aspect. We were trying to actually depict culture; we wanted to have a more educational and globally aware table. It was our first event for ICBC and I think it was very successful," Summer Fakhro, OISS representative for the ICBC and A&S '10, said.
The ICBC worked with many other cultural clubs and hopes to continue to do so in the coming months and years. "We're talking about co-sponsorships for next year and working together in the future to bring the culture clubs together with the students who are actually from those countries, the International Students," Lopez said. The World Fiesta is one of the many events that the culture clubs put on throughout the year and it is only a small part of what the ICBC plans to do for the international students. "This is the first step in a long process," Lopez said.
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