IRVINE : Culture Mix Blends at UCI Festival

Deepa Savani didn’t know much about her Indian heritage and felt adrift.

But since joining UC Irvine’s Indian Subcontinental Club last year, Savani says she has found the missing link to her past.

“It’s given me a connection to a culture that I knew was a part of me but I didn’t know a lot about,” she said.

Savani is one of many students on the ethnically diverse campus who are learning more about their heritage. This week, the university is holding “Rainbow Festival 1990,” a weeklong event designed to recognize the various cultures represented on campus and encourage interaction among their members.

“We want to introduce the campus to itself,” said Corina Espinoza, director of the university’s cross-cultural center, which organized the event. “We want to let everyone know who’s on campus and highlight the ethnic diversity.”

The festival, in its sixth year, features the food, music and dance of the university’s various ethnic groups. The festival culminates Thursday with a series of seminars about various issues facing multicultural campuses.

This year, UC Irvine enrolled a record 16,761 students, with the number of white, Asian and black freshmen on the rise. While whites make up the biggest ethnic group with 7,153 students, there are also 4,858 Asians, 1,382 Latinos, 439 Filipinos, 429 blacks, and 83 American Indians enrolled.

Enrollment statistics on international ethnic groups were not available.

“We have a student body that is reflective of our surrounding community,” Espinoza said. “There are different kinds of people out there, and they will always be out there. This is not something that will pass.”

Recent immigrants said they have found comfort in sharing their culture as they adjust to life in the United States.

“We are here now, but we want people to know where we come from,” said Guita Tabassi, a member of the Iranian Culture Club.

“There are many Persian students here, so you don’t feel like you’re in a foreign country. There are friends all around, and this helps you not to forget about Iran, its music and traditions,” said Tabassi, a 20-year-old biology major.

Karen Tsay was one of five students who performed the Chinese Fan Dance in front of about 75 students on opening day. Although the 20-year-old biology major was dressed in a traditional Chinese costume and danced with precision and skill, she later confessed that she hadn’t ever done the dance before last week’s rehearsals.

“I never really had the opportunity before,” said Tsay, who came to the United States from Taiwan when she was in the fifth grade.

“In high school, I just hung around all the other kids but now, it’s sort of nice going back and learning about all the traditions,” said Tsay, a member of the Chinese Assn. of UCI.

The Vietnamese Students Assn., with its 500 members, makes up one of the university’s biggest clubs. Member Phong Ta said members feel at home on the college campus and are seeking to have an active voice.

“One of the most important things to us is to not lose our identity and to share our views with the rest of the campus,” Ta said. “We want to create harmony among the different groups and share a part of what we are.”

Espinoza said that the college is striving to recognize cultural diversity and that the sharing of cultural perspectives will help all students grow.

“Cultural diversity should not be viewed as negative,” Espinoza said. “Part of increasing interaction is making people aware of the differences and respecting them.”