Kingsway’s World Cultures Club is an incredibly popular club at Kingsway, celebrating the immense beauty in the cultures and diversity in the students at Kingsway.
While the club’s potlucks are renowned at Kingsway, attracting students from all over Kingsway, the biggest production, and arguably the most important of this club is the Multicultural Assembly.
This assembly displays different performances from a wide variety of cultures, from dancing to singing to poetry, and a mix of all. Taking place on April 17 during the school day, participants did four performances for each of the grade levels and staff members, inspiring and dazzling the audience.
The set of cultures and performances included a diverse poem, K-Pop, Indian song, Southeast dance, Hip Hop, Folkloric, Indian Fusion, Bollywood, Reggaeton, and a Chinese Fan Dance.
As the long-time advisors and founders of Kingsway’s multicultural programs, Patricia Villarreal and Ms. Cheng radiate immense passion for the club, engaging with the production themselves and coordinating countless practices for groups.
For many students, this performance is the first stage they will enter and perform on at Kingsway. For others, this stage will showcase their last performance at Kingsway. However, most of all, to every world cultures club member, the club feels like home.
Cheng noted that the assembly is meaningful to her because it celebrates the diverse backgrounds, traditions, and voices within our school community, and even the leadership and initiative students take, where they develop their very own programs. Her favorite aspect of it is that it is a space where students can share their cultures and learn from one another, and, as an advisor, she is able to support the creativity and passion of the students, seeing it play out in the final show.
Villarreal, as one of the organizers of the Multicultural Assembly at Kingsway Regional High School, says this event holds a very special place in her heart. She began the assembly in 2019 to create a space where students could celebrate and share the rich diversity that exists within our school community.
She wanted to expose the Kingsway student body to the beauty and value of our many different backgrounds. To her, it’s an incredible experience to see students proudly share who they are, while others learn about their classmates in a way that is joyful and engaging.
While she often jokes that it’s her favorite day of the year, in truth, it genuinely is. Seeing the pride on students’ faces and the curiosity sparked in the audience reminds her of why she started it in the first place, and the value of the event itself.
The multicultural assembly can capture a glimpse of each culture, but the most spectacular aspect of it is that it is almost entirely student-run. Students pick the type of performance, the music, and the choreography, and practice on their own. The multicultural ‘for students by students’ motto is what makes it so memorable and impactful here at Kingsway.
by Nethiri Umashanger
