CBU students celebrate Indian culture with colorful event
Riverside, Calif. (March 28, 2022) – California Baptist University hosted the Festival of Color on March 25 to celebrate Indian culture. During the event, students received free T-shirts and visited booths featuring different aspects of Indian culture, including henna and food. The event also featured dance performances by Indian students as well as the traditional tossing of color.
The event is a collaboration between Community Life and the International Center.
Mia Tamayo, a biomedical sciences sophomore, is one of the Community Life interns who began planning the event at the beginning of the semester.
“When we started planning the event, we started with our why. It’s to intentionally create a space for our Indian students to showcase their culture and also for all students on CBU campus to just learn and grow and celebrate cultural diversity,” Tamayo said.
Reuella Jacob, a software engineering senior from India and International Center intern, worked with Community Life to plan the event. They incorporated day-to-day things from life in India such as the booths and the bartering, she said.
“All of that mimics going to a market in India and trying to get snacks or something. Henna is super popular for (events) like weddings, so we try to incorporate a lot of those things,” Jacob said.
Festival of Color has not taken place since March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Maxine Auer, a Christian behavioral science senior and Community Life intern, said she has witnessed more participation and eagerness from the student body at events this year. She said she was excited to watch students experience Festival of Color, especially those who were doing so for the first time.
“I think it has been really special to have the privilege of planning the event that was kind of the last event before COVID hit and we lost a lot of our community,” Auer said. “It has been really cool getting to relive the memories of that year and we just (wanted) to replicate the excitement of that Festival of Color and just try to make it even bigger.”
Auer said this year, they focused on creating an event that would be both fun and educational for students.
“I think it is really rare that students get to encounter and experience other cultures,” Auer said. “I just hope the students are able to appreciate all of the work that goes on to plan events like this, and just be able to take away something they learned about Indian culture they probably otherwise wouldn’t have.”
Jacob said that through this event, she and the International Center aimed to create more community and facilitate connections among those from different backgrounds and cultures.
“For us as the International Center, our why was to help the international students integrate, and the hope around that is that it opens conversations up for our students to ask domestic students where they’re coming from and the domestic students to do the same for international students,” Jacob said. “It builds community. That can be a bonding moment for them, to help communities integrate better with each other.”