Skyline hosts annual Culture Day to celebrate diversity

Skyline High School held its annual Culture Day event on May 11 to spotlight the wide range of cultures within the student body, as well as the growing diversity of Sammamish.

A variety of booths were stationed around the cafeteria during lunch. Each booth was created by clubs or individual students who wanted to showcase their unique cultural background and traditions. 

Maria Markina, 16, a sophomore, was inspired to create a Russian culture booth after watching videos online of how students celebrated culture day at other schools. Markina’s booth contained Russian books and toys from her childhood, as well as a variety of Russian candy from European Deli in Redmond.

“I was always pretty involved [in my culture] because I was born there [Moscow, Russia]… It makes me feel better about my roots rather than the political connotations and the bad things happening with Russia and Ukraine,” Markina said.

Eddie Ni, 16, a sophomore, helped to run the Chinese culture booth for Skyline’s Chinese Club. It contained a poster, Chinese candy, ancient Chinese scripts, and a resonance tank, which is a bowl filled with water that vibrates when the handles on the side are rubbed. 

“[My culture] is like a second identity for me, so I like to teach others about Chinese culture,” Ni said.

Karan Malhotra and Faiza Imran, both 17-year-old juniors at Skyline, represented the school’s Indian Culture Club. They thought this was a great opportunity to promote their club, and included a variety of Indian snacks, a poster, and a sign-up sheet for their Holi event.

Holi is an Indian festival that celebrates the arrival of spring and a fresh start. The celebration typically involves dancing and throwing colored powder at each other. At the event, they played many games with the traditional colored powders and ordered Indian food, such as Can-Am pizza, which is a blend of American pizza with Indian toppings.

“It’s cool to see all the other cultures, see people dress up, and to observe and learn about new cultures,” Malhotra said.