Unity Day exposes campus to different cultures

By Julia Ernst

The University encouraged unity and diversity on Wednesday, Oct. 11, during its ninth annual Unity Day celebration.

Several activities throughout the day exposed the campus community to diverse cultures. One of these activities was the Multicultural Food Fest in the Bart Luedeke Center (BLC) Cavalla Room from 5-7 p.m., which was sponsored by the Student Entertainment Council (SEC).

“Since it’s Unity Day, we thought the different ethnic foods were an important thing to have,” said Marie Baker, the multicultural chair of SEC.

The fest offered students the opportunity to taste many foreign cuisines, including Chinese, Spanish and Italian.

“SEC got six local restaurants of different nationalities to contribute food,” said Baker.
Students were pleased with the variety of food.

“I had no idea there was going to be food from so many different cultures here. I thought it would just be a dinner of typical American food,” said freshman Brett Raczynski.

Rider’s Black Student Union (BSU) also brought two step teams to the event. The members of Phi Beta Sigma performed three different routines, and the girls from Paramus Catholic High School’s step team provided one routine of its own.

Other Unity Day activities promoted the idea of eliminating stereotypes. One such activity was Fran de Leon’s one-person show “Faces of America,” which took place in the BLC Theater at 7 p.m. The premise of the show was to introduce stereotypes as well as the need to break them.

The show also introduced today’s population of teens and young adults as the “why?
generation” that is “in need of roots.”

“Generation ‘Why?’ If it stands for anything, it stands for acceptance,” said de Leon.

De Leon performed the show in seven personas, including a Japanese-Hungarian, a young Latino, a Filipina- American and a mixed-blood lesbian American. Each of these characters dealt with issues specific to their race that highlighted the kinds of stereotypes society imposes upon different races.

De Leon focused primarily on the problems that minorities encounter. She introduced the concept of the “Why?” generation’s connection to the stereotypes theme. The current generation of young people don’t have a collective identity like other generations did, such as the “hippies of the 1960s” and “the disco kids of the 1970s,” according to de Leon.

Other Unity Day activities included a multicultural lunch with music by The Steel Kings; a series of workshops addressing such issues as community service, the great immigration debate, freedom of religion and hate speech; and a workshop on a student global village conference.

According to Dr. Marvin Goldstein, chair of the Unity Day Planning Committee, the activities were created to purge society of its biases.

“The aim of these programs is to counter prejudices that people have toward others who came from different races, religions, backgrounds, etc.,” he said.