Asian Student Union President Jerika Nguyen has teamed up with eleven on-campus student organizations to form the event We Are One.

We Are One is the first collaborative cultural and educational event of its kind that has been held at Grand Valley State University and is aimed to break down cultural barriers and social stereotypes.

“We Are One is on Monday, November 26, so it is right after the Thanksgiving break and it is from 6-9 p.m. in the Grand River Room,” Nguyen said. “After talking to everyone who was interested, we starting having weekly and bi-weekly meetings to plan it.”

Nguyen thought of the idea after seeing an activity similar to this at another college and felt that bringing it to GVSU would be important to students.

“I wanted to do this with Grand Valley students too, a collaborative cultural educational event,” Nguyen said. “I contacted all the E-board members from pretty much all the cultural organizations on campus. We had a meeting and that was the beginning of a weekly committee.”

Jeff Domagala is a graduate assistant in the Office of Integrative Learning and Advising and he helped Nguyen approve and start the event.

“Our office approves the LIB 100 and 201 events and she basically came to me for help and I said sure,” Domagala said. “We sat down the two of us and kind of worked on a program description and we developed some learning outcomes together based on the summary of what her program was going to be about.”

The three hour event is aimed to help rid GVSU’s campus of cultural stereotypes and to have people look at individuals for who they are and not for their background or skin color.

“I want students to differentiate between not just cultures but people as individuals,” Nguyen said. “I want students to recognize people for their accomplishments, contributions and not attribute them to their background or cultural origin.”

Andrew Bouwens is an officer of the Latino Student Union and he helped Nguyen come up with ideas and plans for the event.

“I think that it is great that people see the importance in diversity and cultural diversity at Grand Valley’s campus,” Bouwens said. “It is very easy take one glance at the campus’s ethnic composition and racial make up and make a statement about how undiverse it is. I think it is important that there are people willing to make a change be it by putting on programs and even being involved in their own organizations because there are so many organizations involved.”

The event will feature an introduction by Nguyen, a special performance by Act on Racism, food ranging from baklava and meatballs, and even a cultural version of the game show Pyramid.

“Instead of categories that are like things you find in the fridge or supermodels, they will revolve around cultural traditions or cultural foods or locations,” Nguyen said. “The only catch to the game is, we are going to have members of the audience play and compete for raffle prizes and when they are describing the words, they cannot refer to it as a cultural stereotype.”

Nguyen used the word “taco” as an example. Participants could describe it by saying its a food served in a tortilla shell but they could not say it is a Mexican food.

“The purpose of this game is to get students to refer to popular concepts and ideas and people and traditions without referring to generalizations and stereotypes,” Nguyen said.

The event will close with a photo session where students can write down their stereotypes and have a photo taken much like the We Are One promotional poster.

“I think the impact this can have on students is just really, it’s a break down of stereotypes,” Domagala said. “I think so often as students we get into the mindset or into the process of associating people with a certain type of culture or a certain type of work or depiction and I think this is really going to break it down and get rid of those stereotypes.”

For more information and details about the event, visit the We Are One facebook page at www.facebook.com/events/436693319728986/?context=create.
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