Tufts Blogs

During my time at Tufts I have mostly been involved in academic groups like the Tufts Middle East Research Group, the Tufts Latin American Committee, and the International Relations Student Advisory Board. However, the only cultural club I have been involved in is the Tufts International Club, one of my families at Tufts. I joined in the Fall of my Junior Year since I had participated in the Parade of Nations Flag show the previous Spring Semester and had absolutely loved the event. Parade of Nations is a celebration of the different cultures at Tufts through student performances, food, and a flag show in which students take their country’s flag and present it before the audience followed by a dance.

When I joined in the Fall, I-Club was going through a radical change and evolution. It created a vertical structure so the team would organize all sorts of events for the community—the main objective of these were to create spaces for students. I was part of the Campus Relations committee, which meant that we would be in charge of collaborating with other groups on campus. However, I was quickly asked by the committee heads to become the head of the committee in the following semester. So I became the Campus Relations committee head for my Junior Spring. During that semester, we developed a series of nights called the (Un)cultural Nights, which gave students from underrepresented backgrounds a platform to showcase their culture however they saw fit. We hosted a Capoeira night with the Brazilian Student Association, and also a Burmese movie screening followed with a conversation with the director. We also helped organize the first Parade of Nations Week. So, compared to how it was before, now we celebrate the different cultures at Tufts for an entire week prior to the Parade of Nations celebration itself in order to create more spaces for students to share and learn about different cultures and engage in intercultural education and exchange.