Collegiate Times

Last weekend, the annual Dance of Nations multicultural performance showcased the hard work of talented Hokie students sharing the art of dance from various cultures.

The dances — accompanied by smiling faces, gyrating moves and colorful garments — entertained those packed in Squires Student Center’s Commonwealth Ballroom. During the show, I could not help but wonder if this jam-packed string of glimpses into different cultures serves as the main outlet for the audience’s cultural enrichment. I would like to hope this is untrue, because such traditional summaries of different cultures might reinforce the foreign nature of what being from a different culture means.

Admiring clothes and dance moves unlike those at any dance parties we have been to is enjoyable, but this exposure is shallow as a means of cultural education if left alone.

In thinking further about cultural displays such as Dance of Nations, it occurred to me their appeal lies in the fact that we like to entertain ourselves with cultures that feel foreign by sampling small bites of them we find digestible — in forms such as food and dance. This is unfortunate, however, as these should instead serve as lures inspring further intrigue into the culture as opposed to being the core of our cultural education.

There is no substitute for realizing what other cultures truly have to offer, which is best achieved by face-to-face interaction rather than an audience looking at a stage. If we leave our education at snippets of traditional ideas of a culture, we risk reinforcing our stereotypes of its people.

Is it better to view these shows as a source of initial intrigue or to treat them as a supplement to what we already know or hope to understand about other cultures? Self-immersion is important; go beyond initial understandings and appreciations. Once we leave our bubbles of racial similarity, real education is possible. Interactions with people from different backgrounds on a regular and more informal basis provides much deeper and richer insight.

The need for this interactive understanding perhaps is especially true in America. As a people, we pride ourselves for living in a “melting pot.” Many Americans, particularly children of immigrants, have adopted hyphenated identities, such as Chinese-American and Indian-American.

We have all heard these terms, and I would hope we all understand the true implications behind them. Children of immigrants who have retained their heritage, particularly living and growing up in America, embody a very interesting and hard-earned blend of what it means to be American as well as someone from another culture.

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A version of this article appeared in the Nov 18 issue of the Collegiate Times.