Festival explores world’s cultures

The UNM International Festival goes beyond cultural sharing to provide a bridge between the international students.

International students and scholars activities coordinator Hardo Teets said the annual festival was held outdoors for the first time in 2007. UNM alumus David Hartwig will volunteer at this year’s festival for the fifth time, and said he flew from Germany to help.

“They have a microcosm here in New Mexico — white culture, Mexican culture, everything kind of mingled together, they can actually see how it’s going to be transferred all over the world,” Hartwig said. “We’re sharing culture, we’re sharing values, we’re sharing habits. There’s not a big difference between Western and Eastern cultures.”

Student representatives who have visited the country they are representing share that culture with attendees at each booth. Teets said the organizers of this year’s festival have planned for 22 booths with 100 student volunteers, many of whom are international students.

Besides the information booths, Teets said this year’s festival showcases culturally representative food and performances. The event received a lot of support from the University’s administration, he said.

“UNM’s dean has made a commitment to diversity, and this event shows how this University is diverse and has all of these cultures, that people from different countries are here to be a part of the UNM community,” he said. “Our voices are being heard.”
Teets said he hopes this year’s festival can help inspire students to study abroad.

“The really cool thing about this is that some students, American students, they come to these events, they ask for information, they try the food, get a sense of their culture, and they decide they really like it and become exchange students and go study abroad for a semester,” he said. “This event is really life impacting.”

Teets, who is from Estonia, said the International Festival helped him meet new people during his first year at UNM. While the festival educates UNM students about other cultures, Teets said he hopes the festival also helps bring international students together.

“I try to make people meet other people, to have a good time, which is the whole purpose of the event,” he said. “We just want to make sure they have a good time before they leave UNM.”

Student volunteer Mariana Madrel, who is representing Colombia, said she helped spread the word about the event by creating fliers and recruiting friends to help run booths. Madrel, who has studied in South America, Europe, India and Singapore through UNM’s study abroad programs, will perform flamenco at the festival. Madrel said students will gain interest and an understanding of other cultures through the festival’s displays of food, dance, song and art.

“I hope that they get a curiosity to learn more about the world, I hope that they get a good desire to visit all of these places that they’ve been learning about, and more than anything I hope that they can embrace the likeness we all have,” she said.