Foxborough Celebrates Its Diversity

Foxborough Elementary School campus was transformed into a colorful pageant of cultures Thursday as students celebrated diversity at the school’s annual multicultural parade.

About 440 students, dressed in festive clothes, caps and sashes, marched around the school and entertained an audience of classmates and parents with folk songs and dances from Mexico, Germany, Native Americans, Russia, Israel and China.

“It was fun,” said Morgan Sheedy, 7, whose second-grade class studied about Russia. “I think it’s good to learn about a different life. . . . Now I want to go visit Russia.”

Not only did the multicultural event recognize different countries from around the world, it also celebrated the diversity found everyday on the Foxborough campus.

“In Aliso Viejo, we are one of the most diverse communities in south Orange County,” Principal Donald Mahoney said. “When you come to our playground it is like the United Nations.”

Foxborough’s student population is a tiny mirror of Orange County’s diverse population, with students from China, Cambodia, the Philippines, South Korea, Vietnam and Indonesia as well as Argentina, Guatemala, Columbia, Costa Rica and Mexico. Five students are from Afghanistan and a few from Armenia, Hungary and Iran.

Since the school opened in 1992, teachers and staff recognized the area’s melting pot of cultures.

Many school children don’t celebrate Christmas because of their religious or ethnic background, so the staff searched for a holiday activity that was educational, entertaining and inclusive for the entire student body.

In 1994, the multicultural parade was born.

“It’s an opportunity for kids to learn something about other cultures,” Mahoney said. “The kids’ minds are still open and they appreciate differences.” For three weeks before the parade, children studied their chosen country, reading books and learning about its history, customs, culture and language in preparation for the pageant. Joseph “Thunderbird” Archambeault, a 5-year-old kindergarten student, said his class studied the Northwest Indians, learning where they lived and what they ate and hunted.

“I had fun learning about Indians,” said the boy, adorned in paper vest and headband, “and I got to dress up too.”