Mtn . View Multicultural Festival
By IdaRose Sylvester MVHA Membership Commitee Chair
Thank you to the City of Mountain View for giving the MVHA an opportunity to host a very popular booth at the glorious return of Mountain View ’ s Multicultural Festival , on Saturday , March 26 . Hundreds of attendees fi lled Civic Center Plaza , watching musical and dance performances of many cultures , and many groups exhibited their programs and services . It was a perfect day in the sun , and so good to be back out among so many happy faces !
Mountain View history is the history of the many cultures who lived here and shaped our diverse city from the very beginning . We showcased this in a culturalhistorical display featuring historic photos of some of Mountain View ’ s cultural landmraks . We also had new Mountain View history themed coloring pages and crayons for historians of all ages .
Perhaps most popular was an interactive world map where people marked the places they felt represented their cultural heritage . We know cultural heritage can be a loaded topic , and have wildly different meanings to people . Culture transcends biology , history , geopolitics , and personal challenges , and we allowed people to share their thoughts with us . We watched a family mark their ancestral homeland , then mark their own complex journey to Mountain View . We saw a dad of a toddler proudly mark his home country and explain , while beaming , what this meant . The map , in its fi nal form , proved that Mountain View remains incredibly diverse , a true strength of our community , and this diversity will continue to shape our future history .
Visitors to our booth placed red dot stickers on our world map to mark places important to their cultural heritage .
Above : Human Relations Commissioner Nirvana
Nwokidu marks on our world map a place important to her cultural heritage .
Above : MVHA volunteers ( L to R ) Marina Marinovich , Robert Cox , Eric Flint , Jamil Shaikh , and Pamela Baird at our booth . Right : Pamela shares our display board with a family visiting our booth .
MVHA volunteer Nick Perry helps hand out crayons and local history coloring pages to a family visiting our booth .
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