Heritage Days celebration brings cultures together at Vincent Massey High School

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This article was published 21/03/2018 (3057 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Isak Abraham stood on the sidelines and grabbed tickets from hungry students as they gathered around the Ethiopian pavilion, helping themselves to rolls of flatbread and servings of lentils at Vincent Massey High School’s 12th Heritage Days event.

Things went fairly smoothly for the small group of Ethiopian students and Abraham, a Grade 12 student who has been a part of Heritage Days for four years running, said what he enjoys most about it is the chance to see different cultures come together as one.

“It’s just really amazing and the reactions that people get once they try our food, it makes me really happy,” he said.

Heritage Days officially started at noon on Tuesday inside the Vincent Massey school library with eight pavilions representing Honduras, Ethiopia, Colombia, China, Vietnam, Ukraine, Canada and its Indigenous community.

At the same time, students put on a set of performances in the school gymnasium, featuring highland dancers, the Vincent Massey Choir, a Spanish tango and alegrías, piano solo and Cuban dance.

More than 200 students are involved in putting the event together and most are in the English as an Additional Language program.

From its modest beginnings in 2006, Heritage Days has grown from an original four pavilions — German, Irish, Scottish and Indigenous — to 14 spread over two days.

“It has gotten so big that we are running out of space to organize things,” said EAL teacher Agnieszka Desjardins.

Desjardins took over as lead co-ordinator of Heritage Days in 2009 and said the event takes at least two-and-a-half months of planning.

Much of the work happens behind the scenes, with students meeting with their teachers and parents to organize their pavilions and cook the meals.

“At the end, we can make it work always,” said Grade 12 student Camila Lopez, as her fellow classmates served helpings of arepas, empanadas and rice pudding at the Colombian pavilion.

Meanwhile, Emily Yang stood at the foot of a long table wearing a traditional Chinese dress, as students grabbed plates of sou buns and bowls of wonton soup.

“I feel proud that we get to dress up in our traditional clothing and show other people our culture,” Yang said.

The Grade 12 student said putting on Heritage Days takes a lot of work, and she was grateful to all of her team members and teachers who helped out.

When Yang moved to Brandon from China in 2011, she said her English wasn’t great at first and she didn’t know anyone in the city.

“Now I feel that this country, this city, this society, they want us to be ourselves, proud of who we are,” she said.

“Here you can see a lot of different faces from different countries in the world.”

An estimated 24 languages are spoken at Vincent Massey and of the school’s 941 students, nearly one-third of them — 279 — speak a first language other than English, Desjardins said.

And for many students, Heritage Days has become a source of pride for them as they look back on their time in high school.

“So it is really, for me, an event that I take great pride in, just because of the whole school involvement,” Desjardins said.

“Everybody comes together to make this event a success, because I couldn’t do it alone.”

Heritage Days continues today with Mexican, Filipino, East Indian and Pakistani, El Salvadoran and Cuban pavilions, as well as a second Chinese pavilion.

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