On February 29, Decatur High School (DHS) held its third annual Culture Night in the cafeteria, celebrating multicultural clubs and unions across the school.
Decatur’s first Culture Night was held in April of 2022 and organized by The Multicultural Union. Since then, the Student Government Association (SGA) has taken over and continues to host annual Culture Nights.
Max Barros, a junior Black Student Union’s Co-president, and an active SGA member, spearheaded the event’s planning and invited DHS clubs to host tables to share their cultures. The event held tables from the Jewish, Black, and Asian Student Unions. The Origami Club also held a table, their club presidents Logan Cesare and Leisel Cook giving paper crane tutorials to event attendees.
The event offered a diverse spread of food, the most popular among guests being collard greens and Mac and Cheese supplied by Black Student Union and kugel and latkes from The Jewish Student Union. The Asian Student Union’s (ASU) table representing Indian culture had members Romila Rama-Baski and Bala Singh serving hot Masala Chai and Pani Puri. Elsa Mathew-Lewis and Prachi Patel served snacks like fryums, gulab jamun, and papadam. Decatur’s own Sushi Avenue supplied sushi for ASU’s table representing Japanese culture.
Aside from food, the event’s other attractions gathered attention later on. ASU’s co-president Sara Deshpande created henna designs, a type of temporary tattoo used since the ancient Egyptian period. Other tables offered additional hands-on experiences, like exposure to the Japanese wooden game, Kendama, used to improve response time and hand-eye coordination.
DHS SGA plans to continue hosting Culture night.
