By: Adeline Melton, Tiffany Melton, and Grace Stamm
Did you know Loganville High has a Multicultural club? It’s sponsored by Mrs. Ruiz. Our school represents a lot of different cultures. You may pass someone everyday without knowing anything about them. Mr.Ruiz’s mission is to promote cultural awareness. The club encourages confidence in who you are, and they share their culture for those who don’t have the money to travel the world and experience it for themselves. Her goal for her students is, “Help them to promote themselves and to also learn about other cultures themselves. It’s to figure out what commonalities they have and what differences they have, and you know, experience different things.” This all-inclusive club features students who are Asian, Hispanic, and even Islanders. She told us that there are some students who tell her that they can’t be a part of her club because they don’t have a culture. However, they aren’t culture-less. She reminded us, proudly, that, “Everyone has a culture. There’s no ‘I’m white, I don’t have a culture’ because that's not the truth. It’s not about skin color, it’s about your traditions, the things you do, the food you eat.” Even in the South, there’s a whole culture of its own! The club is involved in the school in ways you may not realize. For two years, they’ve promoted Hispanic heritage and shared their culture with ECE. The club put together the announcements we heard in the mornings, and the power point we saw on the way to lunch for Black History Month. Mrs. Ruiz, smiled, “I wanna say that was our original idea, but it wasn’t, it was my oldest daughter’s friend. [She] started this a couple years ago, and nobody picked it up. She kinda expressed that she wished it would continue, so I pitched it to the club and they were excited about it.” Before Mrs.Ruiz taught here, she worked at 21st Century with the ESOL (english as a second language) students, and she noticed they had a hard time integrating with other students. This inspired her to form a club that married an appreciation of language and culture. She stressed to us the notion, “I teach Spanish, but I don’t want it just to be about a Spanish teacher. I wanted it to be about all the cultures.” Multicultural Club is trying to grow awareness and reach out to more students. They want to be impactful school-wide. She admitted, “We’re kind of in our hallway and sometimes in announcements, but we want to do that a little bit bigger.” We interviewed: Radiance Bouldin, A'yianna Hopson, and Delila Phonthibsvads, three students from Multicultural Club, to get an inside look on their thoughts towards the club and what it’s all about. The students wanted to join this club to learn more about each other. Radiance Bouldin said, “I wanted to learn about other people that you don’t always get to see. To know more about my culture and experience others.’’ Her favorite thing about this club is seeing a different variety of people, not just one race or ethnicity and embracing their cultures. A'yianna Hopson told us she saw it as a way to tell others her story. She wanted to learn more about what her culture was and how it was different from others. A'yianna’s favorite accomplishment was creating presentations for Black History Month. Delila Phonthibsvads, another member of the club, loves doing service projects and fun club activities. She enjoyed the fiesta they had for Hispanic Heritage Month. They discuss what cultures they will feature, and what they will discover each meeting on the search to find what our differences are and what makes us all the same.