March 5, 2017 • Life

Embracing Global Diversity 🌎

Last night, I attended the International Cultural Evening, it was pretty cool.

The International Cultural Evening (ICE) is an annually organized show which features multicultural performances. I enjoyed the competitive edge to the show – the energy the different societies (representing different cultures) was amazing and contagious too. I naturally have a lot of energy so having everyone else’s energy rubbing off on me made me super hyped 😝

Each society dressed in their national dress bringing their culture, history, and stories to Sheffield.

The show made me think about my own culture – moving and growing up in the UK with my parents originally from the Philippines and Spain, I’ve always struggled to “find” where I belong. Often feeling that I don’t really belong anywhere because of the diverse, complicated background I come from.

I still find it hard to answer the question, “So, where are you from?” Do I say, Sheffield, because I grew up here? Or my roots? Chynna wrote a blog post a month ago, “Being Mixed Race” which really resonated with me. I can relate to everything in the post, but especially:

“Throughout periods of my life I have always felt that I do identify with one race more than the other. This was not something that I actively sought to do.
If we’re getting into stereotypes, I don’t even think I fit into any of them…
…This is not to say that they are dismissing me in a bad way, but more like they can’t figure out who I am. Much like myself.”

The evening made me worry less about “fitting” in a certain group because of the international world we live in – we’re all global citizens, right? This was also demonstrated in the fact, each society wasn’t strictly all from one culture, there were a mix of different races in each but did they still own that cultural dance-off? Hell yeah, they did.

I also became more aware that I haven’t been in touch with my Filipino or Spanish side for a long time, the internationalism around me inspired me to reconnect! If I start throwing in Tagalog/Spanish into conversations, this will be why.😆