Please help! I only have a few days until this needs to be turned in.
"ĄNo olviden que mańana es el día de comida cultural!" my AP Spanish teacher said as we left class. Cultural food day! I was excited. We were done with AP testing and have finally earned the time to do something educational but also fun. I've always been fascinated by languages, and culture has always been my favorite part of history. What's the use of memorizing people and places you don't know? To me, the lifestyle of the common people is the gateway to understanding key historic events. Happily humming my favorite Spanish song, I went home to prepare Chinese mooncakes. I had already written out the two minute presentation to fill everyone in on the history of the food.
They weren't traditional mooncakes, but in my opinion they tasted better than the traditional pastry version which people unaccustomed to Asian flavors might not like. They were a huge success the next day, I only had three left over! As I looked around the room, I was surprised by how many curious-looking edibles I didn't recognize. I thought it was going to be another one of those secret parties filled with the typical cupcakes and cookies teachers can only get away with by giving it a name like "cultural food day," but this one was legitimately cultural. There was the boy from Mongolian descent who brought milk tea, the Jewish girl who brought brisket and rice, and the good old pure American (for as far as he knows at least) who brought in Betty Crocker Brownie Mix brownies. There was so much food that day that by the time I was stuffed, I still haven't tried all of them. The best part was listening to the presentations, which explained the history of each delectable dish. I hadn't even realized how much diversity we had in the Spanish class until that moment.
And to think that just a hundred years ago, we wouldn't have been able to all sit down and have a friendly food gathering with each other. Racism would have been alive and well in the early 1900's, and many of us would have had stereotypes about each other that result in hostility. I really started to appreciate what we had. People were complimenting each other on their food. Not to be nice, but because they really enjoyed it. The best teachers can be found among our peers, and we learned so much from each other that day. If we were all the same, cultural food day would have been boring. We wouldn't have anything to learn from each other, no surprises, no variety. But our diversity added so much more. No matter how much you think you know about someone, there's always more to learn. And it's so important that we keep doing that.
"ĄNo olviden que mańana es el día de comida cultural!" my AP Spanish teacher said as we left class. Cultural food day! I was excited. We were done with AP testing and have finally earned the time to do something educational but also fun. I've always been fascinated by languages, and culture has always been my favorite part of history. What's the use of memorizing people and places you don't know? To me, the lifestyle of the common people is the gateway to understanding key historic events. Happily humming my favorite Spanish song, I went home to prepare Chinese mooncakes. I had already written out the two minute presentation to fill everyone in on the history of the food.
They weren't traditional mooncakes, but in my opinion they tasted better than the traditional pastry version which people unaccustomed to Asian flavors might not like. They were a huge success the next day, I only had three left over! As I looked around the room, I was surprised by how many curious-looking edibles I didn't recognize. I thought it was going to be another one of those secret parties filled with the typical cupcakes and cookies teachers can only get away with by giving it a name like "cultural food day," but this one was legitimately cultural. There was the boy from Mongolian descent who brought milk tea, the Jewish girl who brought brisket and rice, and the good old pure American (for as far as he knows at least) who brought in Betty Crocker Brownie Mix brownies. There was so much food that day that by the time I was stuffed, I still haven't tried all of them. The best part was listening to the presentations, which explained the history of each delectable dish. I hadn't even realized how much diversity we had in the Spanish class until that moment.
And to think that just a hundred years ago, we wouldn't have been able to all sit down and have a friendly food gathering with each other. Racism would have been alive and well in the early 1900's, and many of us would have had stereotypes about each other that result in hostility. I really started to appreciate what we had. People were complimenting each other on their food. Not to be nice, but because they really enjoyed it. The best teachers can be found among our peers, and we learned so much from each other that day. If we were all the same, cultural food day would have been boring. We wouldn't have anything to learn from each other, no surprises, no variety. But our diversity added so much more. No matter how much you think you know about someone, there's always more to learn. And it's so important that we keep doing that.