Friday’s Cultural Fusion assembly at West Hartford’s Hall High School was planned over the course of two years, and gave students from a variety of backgrounds the opportunity to share aspects of their culture with the entire school. 

By Ted Glanzer

Cultural Fusion, a dazzling event held at Hall High School on March 29, was two years in the making.

Junior Samah Mohamedzein, president of the school’s Multicultural Club, said he experienced culture shock when she emigrated from Oman to the U.S.

“In order to feel more accepted, I tried hard to assimilate,” she said in a statement. “However, as I educated myself and gained confidence, I realized that it’s fine being different. Oftentimes we are taught that we are the same but instead we should teach that even with our differences we are equal. It does more harm than good to erase our differences, because that erases our identity. We should move beyond tolerance and start embracing and even celebrating our cultural differences.”

It may have taken her two years and overcoming numerous obstacles, but Mohamedzein organized Cultural Fusion, a 40-minute assembly held over two sessions during which 15 students from countries other than the U.S. or who have different backgrounds – as well as the entire Chinese class – shared an aspect of their culture to their peers through song, dance, poetry, fashion, or other visual performance.

This year Cultural Fusion included, among other things, an Indian dance (Sami Pant, Crystal Thomas and Arshwarya Shaji), Vietnamese spoken poetry (Luke Udell and Kiet Ha), a Sudanese dance (Mohamedzein), a Chinese song by the Chinese class, a Nepali song and dance (Suvekshya Rai), and Afro-American dance (Jayden Chan).

The event concluded with a fashion show that highlighted the vibrant attire worn by the girls who took part in the event.

A much-relieved Mohamedzein said after the program that she wanted to “showcase” her culture.

“I feel erased in a lot of ways in assimilating and coming here,” she said. “By doing this event, I feel like I can have people who are from other countries relate to it. By doing this they can feel like they are actually seen.”

Mohamedzein said she got a lot of help from teachers and advisers, as well as people within the community such as the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom. In the end, she was thrilled to have it go off without a hitch.

“There’s so much relief,” she said. “I’ve been trying to do this for a while. It takes a lot of work. …  I was trying to get people and I didn’t have many club members. It was really hard, but now that it’s over I feel so much joy and so accomplished that it happened.”

If the event weren’t enough of an accomplishment, Mohamedzein also was also provided the 2019 Youth Human Relations Award by the National Council for Community and Justice, which gives out the award to high school students who distinguished themselves in their daily lives by the principles of the group. Just 61 youths have received the award.

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