Students from eight cultural backgrounds showed off their traditions at International Day at MHS. Here, a Kurdish group performs a traditional dance. (Photos/Renee Grover.)

A Taste of Many Cultures

Nancy Edmonds Hanson

On the eve of Syttende Mai, Moorhead High School demonstrated just how far its student body has come in opening up their community to the world beyond its historic European roots.
Groups of teens shared a glimpse – and a taste – of their cultural traditions at International Day on May 16. Hundreds of their fellow students, parents, siblings and members of the school district staff spent the evening perusing fact-filled posters, treasured family artifacts, ethnic dress, music and – especially – foods that their fellow Spuds brought from their homes.
At last count, Moorhead’s enrollment includes girls and boys from homes where a total of 42 languages are spoken. They brought together a smorgasbord of diverse favorites in a glimpse of each other’s family cultures and roots.
Senior Emina Mohammad contributed her Kurdish mother’s version of everyone’s favorite, meatballs. “She did all the cooking,” she reported. “I washed the dishes.”
Emina coordinated planning for the Kurdish contribution to the event, now in its eighth year. During her years in the school system, she says, “We’ve become way more diverse. When I was younger, others seemed to have more trouble fitting in. That’s not true anymore. Moorhead has grown exponentially. The best part of our school is how everyone is so welcoming and so kind.”
Emina’s mother came to Fargo-Moorhead at the age of 9. “She didn’t know English at all,” she notes. Now, that woman’s U.S.-born daughter is already taking nursing courses at Concordia College as she looks forward to graduation this weekend.
Greta McGary’s mother, too, arrived in Moorhead from Liberia in 1997 while civil war was tearing apart the African nation. Greta, a junior, provided information on Liberian life along with favorites provided by a friend’s mother: fried rice, pepper chicken, and her own top choice, milk candy.
“Moorhead is becoming more accepting and diverse,” Greta reflects. “There is a big difference even between when I was a freshman and today. Cultural Day brings all of us together.” She adds that her friends come from many family backgrounds, among them Kurdish and Somali.
She plans to go into social work after graduating. “Helping people makes me feel good. It makes me proud,” she says.
Last week’s event was the eighth occasion on which the high school has celebrated its students’ cultures. Zikri Ahmed, the security officer who helped organize it, says this year’s event – the first in the new high school, as well as the initial celebration held after school hours – drew an estimated 200 attendees of all ages, from classmates and staff to parents, younger siblings, and proud aunts and uncles.
Zikri has experienced the school’s growing diversity and acceptance firsthand. After coming to Fargo-Moorhead as a 5-year-old, he went on to graduate from Moorhead High in 2006. He has worked for the school system for 13 years, including two at Horizon Middle School and the past 11 at MHS.
“There’s a lot of interest among students in learning more about each other,” he suggests. “International Day gives everyone a chance to come together socially. They can tell each other who they are. You can’t assume. Learning from each other brings us closer as a community and makes us stronger.”
Acceptance of the variety of Spud cultures has grown dramatically since his own student days.
“Diversity has increased outrageously over the years,” he observes. “It has changed a lot, and in a good way. We’re very welcoming here, no matter who you are.”
Zikri adds, “Now, most students were born here. When I was a student, most of us had come from back home. It was hard to adapt to a different culture at school.
“International Day doesn’t just show where people come from, but what has made them who they are. Our students may have different backgrounds and different experiences, but at the end of the day, we are all one.”