On March 26, Longfellow Middle School celebrated Heritage Night to highlight and observe cultural diversity at Longfellow. Heritage Night was celebrated with snacks, displays, and performances, put together by a dedicated team of students and staff.
“[Heritage Night] is important because we all have different cultures,” said Ms. Paz, Student Services Assistant and one of the former planners for the Heritage Night talent show. “We all have different backgrounds.”
Heritage Night featured a talent show made up of student performers. One of the performers, eighth-grader Isabel R., played a piece on her instrument. She had been practicing after school on Wednesdays and Thursdays in order to prepare for the big night.
“I come from Bolivia and right now my country has many political issues,” Isabel said. “So, the song I performed tried to give hope to people in Bolivia.”
Heritage Night gives an opportunity to people like Isabel to promote peace, diversity, and cultural appreciation.
“I wanted to show my heritage to people who probably believed it’s not important at all,” Isabel said. “But it is.”
Another student, seventh-grader Alexandra C., performed a musical Korean taekwondo routine with her friends in Heritage Night.
“We did a lot of this practicing in the studio,” Alexandra said. “But it’s pretty hard to memorize the local music.”
Students participating had to complete challenging tasks to curate performance. They put in many hours after school, as did the staff that organized the event. Staff members, Ms. Gangwani-Colaco, Ms. Paz, and Ms. Fortune conducted auditions, collected music to play during performances, and made Heritage night an all around victory.
“It was a lot of practicing and preparing,” said Ms. Gangwani-Colaco, After-School Specialist at LMS and planner for Heritage Night. “Heritage Night was a busy night. We had to prepare the gym and make sure all the music was set.”
The Heritage Night viewers were dazzled and impressed by the cultural performances.
“It was very exciting to see it all together and to watch,” Ms. Gangwani-Colaco said. “And to see it all is an experience of what our student body believes in and what is important to them and how important their culture is to them.”
Heritage Night ended in an overall success, bringing together students’ cultures from every edge of the world. Heritage Night organizers encourage students to participate next year to showcase their culture and make it better than ever.
