Student Engagement & Leadership hosted its fifth annual Cultural Identities Fair on Oct. 9, with cultural clubs, career-oriented organizations and Greek life, tabling and fundraising for their organizations.
Cultural clubs tabled to increase their involvement on campus and recruit potential members.
Dmitri Anh-Minh Tran / Daily Nexus
The fair took place at Storke Plaza from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and featured dance performances by members of multicultural sororities Sigma Lambda Gamma and Delta Sigma Theta as well as fraternity Sigma Lambda Beta. There was also a churro stand operated by UCSB Campus Concessions.
Cultural clubs tabled to increase their involvement on campus and recruit potential members. Nine organizations, including the Nigerian Student Association (NSA), held fundraisers.
NSA President Zino Asidi, a third-year sociology and political science double major, said the fundraising opportunity at the fair helps them raise money to host events.
“Here, we have a fundraising opportunity, to get a chance to promote our culture while also making some money for our organization to use for future events,” Asidi said.
Russian-Speaking Student Association (RSSA) sold Russian crepes to raise funds. Third-year financial mathematics major and RSSA Co-President Kirill Vorobyev said that his club aims to bring together Russian-speaking students regardless of national origin.
“Our main goal is to socialize between Russian-speaking students. It’s not only Russian students, because there are a lot of post-Soviet countries that all share the same cultural background and the same language,” Vorobyev said.
Vorobyev said he hopes the fair will improve RSSA’s visibility, since the association is “relatively new.”
American Indian and Indigenous Student Association (AIISA) member McKinley McPherson, a third-year sociology major, said that the Cultural Identities Fair is an important opportunity for AIISA to reach out to Native students and raise awareness about campus resources available to them.
“Honestly, it’s really crucial. There are a lot of Native students who we’ll meet later on in the school year and they are either near graduation or went all year without knowing that there was a space for them on campus,” McPherson said. “That’s something that we definitely want to avoid.”
AGNI, the Indian classical dance team at UCSB, was also tabling and fundraising at the fair, selling samosas. Ihita Varada, a third-year political science major and member of AGNI, described the group’s broad stylistic range.
“We basically practice and teach different forms of Indian classical dance. We do Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Kuchipudi, different dance forms from all different parts of India,” Varada said.
Varada said AGNI has an extensive performance schedule and that fundraising is important for supporting their performances.
“We perform in the I.V. Community Center when there’s a cultural dance showcase. We perform with [South Asian cultural and social organization] Indus,” Varada said. “This year, we are actually hoping to do a fall showcase, and so to get costumes and venues, we’re hoping to fundraise.”
The eight organizations the Nexus spoke to reported using Instagram as their main form of publicity. NSA Event Co-Coordinator and fourth-year mechanical engineering major Akinwole Akinbolagbe said that word-of-mouth has also contributed to the growth of NSA.
“Every once in a while, we post our events on Shoreline as well. But mostly, word-of-mouth and Instagram, I think, are the main ways of getting word around,” Akinbolagbe said.
Vietnamese Student Association (VSA) Co-Activities Chair and third-year economics and accounting major Michael Ma said that VSA attracts students by partnering with other Asian cultural organizations.
“We have more community-bonding events that just really provide a home to any students, whether they’re Vietnamese or not,” Ma said.
Akinbolagbe also said that NSA attracts students from other West African countries and from the West African diaspora as well.
“We have members of our club who are from the Caribbean,” Akinbolagbe said. “We have members of the club who are from Ghana, from Togo, and we also have members who are obviously from Nigeria as well. Some of them came directly, some of them grew up here, everything in between.”
Several career-oriented organizations, such as Los Ingenieros, an organization for Latinx individuals in S.T.E.M. fields, tabled at the fair. Fourth-year applied mathematics major and treasurer of Los Ingenieros Christopher Orellana said that the organization seeks to provide professional opportunities for Hispanic students.
“We’re mainly targeted for S.T.E.M., but anyone can be included, really. We’re focused on professional development of incoming students,” Orellana said. “We have different opportunities, like internships.”
Several clubs drew flags on their posters or laid out flags on their tables. Nikkei Student Union displayed Japanese flags, Pakistani Student Association displayed a Pakistani flag and NSA displayed a Nigerian flag. RSSA displayed the flags of fifteen post-Soviet countries, ranging from Armenia to Uzbekistan. VSA painted cardboard cutouts of their acronym in yellow with three narrow red stripes across the middle — the color scheme of the former Republic of Vietnam’s flag.
A wide range of cultural organizations, including Los Ingenieros, said the Cultural Identities Fair would contribute to their organizations’ growth.
“It gets our name out there. It helps us promote what we’re about, and also to get some money out of it too, to help promote different events for our members as well,” Orellana said.
A version of this article appeared on p. 6 of the Oct. 17, 2024 edition of the Daily Nexus.
