Thread: It's Not ALL Doom and Gloom

A celebration of cultures
By Sarah Newell Williamson | Hickory Daily Record
Published: December 20, 2008

Southwest students explore Hmong, Hispanic traditions


Southwest Elementary School fifth-grader Magda Banderas passes out samples of nopales, a type of cactus, to other students on Friday.
Alan Rogers

HICKORY - Zoua Yang helped 8-year-old Mikayla Almanza pull on a black and cream pleated skirt, a brightly patterned woven apron and a jacket with silver beads down the arms. Almanza grinned shyly in the Hmong outfit.

"I like the beading," she said. "It's pretty."

She then ran off to show a friend how she looked.

Second-graders at Southwest Elementary School enjoyed a multicultural celebration sponsored by the fourth- and fifth-grade English learners at the school Friday.

Yang and Tor Yang, both students at Challenger High School, helped some of the Hmong students at Southwest Elementary learn a Hmong dance to show their peers.

They were at the school Friday to help the students with the multicultural celebration and answer questions about traditional Hmong clothing.

"We wear it primarily for dances and celebrations. Different pieces represent different clans," Yang said. "They're mostly handmade, and can cost $200 an outfit."

Jennifer Xiong showed off story cloths from Laos, where her dad is from.

"They're sewn to tell a story," she said. "This one shows the Vietnam people are shooting houses and we're escaping to Thailand.

People are pleading with them to come to America."

In the Hispanic room, students celebrated their Mexican, Honduran and Dominican Republic heritages.

Ten-year-old Michelle Galan helped make a few dozen sugar skulls at Centro Latino for the celebration.

"I poured in the sugar and water mix into the skull shapes and let them harden for a day," she said.

On Friday, students got to decorate the skulls, drawing in faces and designs with red, blue and yellow icing that dried quickly so they could take the sugar skulls home.

The skulls are traditionally used on Dia de los Muertos, on Nov. 1, to remember the dead.

Students also got to sample nopal — a type of cactus found in the fields and deserts of Mexico.

To eat them, they have to be pilled, cut and boiled for about 30 minutes to an hour, said Magda Banderas.

"It's a traditional dish we have around Cinco de Mayo," she said. "We cut it up and serve it Mexican-style, because of the red, white and green — with tomatoes and cheese."

Seven-year-old Kirsten Coyler said the food was one of her favorite parts of the multicultural celebration.

"I liked seeing how the food was made," she said. "I thought the cactus was good."

hickoryrecord.com


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