Hue Knew?

In front of a crowd of young students Thursday morning, a boy named Michael hammed it up in the name of multicultural tolerance.

Portraying the conflict between the fictitious residents of Purpleville and Orangeland, rivals with different skin colors, the 13-year-old took the stage. He played a Purple father whose daughter wants to befriend an Orange girl. But the other girl’s father objects, and Michael tries to convince him that friendship must be colorblind: “We’re all people here. If you prick us do we not bleed? It’s purple blood, but we still bleed.”

The scene was part of a symposium called “Walk In My Shoes,” an event devoted to promoting cultural tolerance among middle school students through theater, music and other activities. This year’s program, hosted by the Orange County Human Relations Council, drew close to 400 Orange County students and faculty.

During the theater piece, members of the Anaheim Stop-Gap Theater Company asked for students’ dramatic help. In addition to role playing, kids offered different scenarios and provided solutions to the action. “The fathers should argue while the girls play together off to the side,” is how one student suggested resolving the Purpleville vs. Orangeland dispute.

Throughout the day, students attended workshops that focused on dispelling ethnic and social stereotypes and encouraging students to appreciate their differences.

Student Melinda Munroe, a 13-year-old from Rancho Santa Margarita Intermediate showed her handiwork from the workshop “Express Yourself Through Art.”

“We made pictures of how we looked at ourselves,” Munroe said of her collage of magazine cutouts. She pointed first to an image of comedian Phyllis Diller as she screamed for the camera. “This is how I see myself when I’m wild and outrageous.” There was also a more subdued black-and-white of screen legend Grace Kelly. “This is when I’m feeling more relaxed and glamorous.”

Conference organizers used the artwork to stress how self-image influences cultural tolerance, an increasingly important issue for Orange County as it becomes more diverse. In 1997, whites made up 45% percent of public school students, while Latinos constituted 39% of the population and Asians, blacks and others made up the remaining 16%.

Teachers in attendance Thursday said they hoped the activities would help ease tensions among their students, who are ever-conscious of fitting in.

“I’m hoping they’ll get specific skills and suggestions on cultural relations to bring back to the school,” said Amparo Ames, a teacher at Ensign Intermediate in Newport Beach.

“At this age, tensions are subtle, but there--some name-calling, what they call ‘mad dogging,’ and assuming that other people cannot do what they can.” At the symposium, Ames said, “they’ll see firsthand what the ethnic mix of their county is and hear opinions that they wouldn’t otherwise hear.”

The workshops and materials were modified from a high school version of the same program the council started eight years ago.

“Middle school is an intense time,” said Mike Matsuda, a teacher attending the symposium from Orangeview Junior High in Anaheim. “It’s not a long period of time, but an important one.”

Matsuda, who taught high school before going to Orangeview, added, “Gang kids are difficult to reach at the high school age. They’ve given up reaching out.” At the middle school level, he said, “gang kids and gang wannabes are still reachable.”

The centerpiece of the event was “What Do You See?,” a video presentation and poster campaign that the council will distribute to middle schools throughout the county. The posters use different images of young students to provoke discussion among students, who are asked to draw opinions using only appearances as a guide.

One boy portrayed in the photos was thought to be Latino, and pegged as a possible gang member, while a blond boy with freckles was thought to be impressionable and physically uncoordinated.

When they read more about the youths in the posters, many of the students said they were taken aback.

“I thought it was pretty cool,” said Elliott Tyson, 12, from South Junior High in Anaheim. For the most part, Tyson said, he wasn’t really surprised at the real personalities behind the posters.

“Except for the kid with the freckles,” he said about the blond boy’s true talent--the ability to imitate some of pop star Michael Jackson’s most difficult moves. “That surprised me. It takes a long time to be able to dance like Michael Jackson.”