Torrance Students Cheer Diversity : Education: West High School shows off its rich blend of cultures during a week highlighting homeland traditions.

Titters filled the West High School library as students twisted in their chairs, casting questioning glances at classmates on the sidelines who were decked out in fancy costumes that glistened with color.

Their giggles gave way to admiring smiles as two Hungarian students twirled through a traditional folk dance. Other classmates read a poem in nine languages about cultural understanding, and the president of the school’s Club International performed an exotic dance wearing an ornate costume from her native India.

Although they are accustomed to hearing lunchtime conversations conducted in everything from Hindi and Persian to Korean and Japanese, students said they had not truly realized how diverse their Torrance campus has become.

That was exactly the point of Cultural Diversity Week, said Club International President Sona Saha.

“It’s been excellent,” said Saha, 16, her face and head gleaming with the garnets, emeralds, pearls and diamonds of her traditional dance jewelry. “We have so many kids from so many different cultures; we just wanted to show them what everyone has to offer.”

Saha, who moved to the United States from India when she was 8, speaks five languages fluently, including English without a trace of an accent, and picked up “a little Danish” as an exchange student to Denmark last year.

Fifteen years ago, West High School students would have been hard-pressed to put on any kind of cultural show.

Back when Margaret Harrell, now the supervisor of the campus Asian Cultural Club, began teaching at the school in 1972, its students were “solid blue-collar white,” she said.

Now, nearly half of West High’s 1,625 students are members of minority groups. Assistant Principal Dick Rose said that figure should surpass the 50% mark next year.

Enrollment in the school’s English as a Second Language program has grown from a dozen students in 1972 to 183 today, representing 64 different countries and more than 40 different languages.

“We’ve had really significant changes, and that is one of the main reasons we give the time to things like this,” Harrell said. “We want to be sure that, instead of hearing, ‘These are the outsiders and we’re being threatened,’ that we view it as, ‘Isn’t this great? We’re joining the world.’ ”

Michael Simek, 17, whose family emigrated from Czechoslovakia to Sacramento five years ago, said he has thrived in West High’s diverse ethnic environment.

“I like to travel a lot, and this is like traveling for free,” he said. “You learn so much from everyone. . . . This would never happen in Europe.”

For most students, however, culture is rarely an issue.

“We just all hang around together,” said Nathan Spann, 16.

“I mean, you know, he’s one of my best friends,” he said, gesturing toward an Asian boy standing nearby. Asked whether the friend was Chinese, Japanese or Korean, Spann frowned.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Does it matter?”