Celebrating Your Roots

Every September, a new class of Harvard students arrives on campus with a beaming smile and an ambitious look in their eyes. Yet between academic pressures and unfamiliar environments, one challenge many students do not realize awaits them: staying connected to their cultural identity when home is now a college dorm.

Language, for many students, is the first culture shock they encounter. For Tibetan student Tenzin Yiga ’27, everyday conversations were the first indication of change: “The biggest [change] I can think of is being able to speak Tibetan with my peers. I don’t really get the chance to do that as much here on campus,” she said to the “Independent.” “Tibetan was my first language growing up … I still speak [it] at home with my parents and family.” 

Although about 22% of Americans speak a language other than English at home, nearly 70% of university students report experiencing homesickness at least once. For many students, language can be a powerful way to reconnect with home. “If I ever do feel a disconnection, I have my family a phone call away … I like getting to talk to someone in Spanish again. [It] always helps me, you know, re-emphasize that feeling [of being Mexican] and re-establish myself if I’m ever feeling lost,” Mexican-American student Joseph Barrera Jr. ’29 shared.

Recognizing not only the language barrier but also the cultural differences upon arriving at a distinctly American institution, ethnic and international student organizations strive to preserve the native backgrounds of foreign undergraduates. The College is home to more than 50 cultural spaces, spanning from affinity groups such as the Black Students Association to internationally focused communities like the Harvard Organization for Latin America. 

For Barrera, he found his “home” as a first year—in the cultural performance group, Mariachi Véritas. “It’s one of my most comforting activities. If I ever feel like I’m just down in the dumps, mariachi is always there, and it always brightens my spirit and makes me feel like I’m at home,” he said. 

This desire to re-establish oneself in the roots that guided their upbringing is shared by many of Barrera’s peers. “I’m involved in Harvard Society of Arab Students, and I’m also involved with Arab Conference at Harvard,” Arab Middle Eastern student Saarah Hassan ’28 explained. “[It] has gotten me a lot closer with my Arab friends, and it’s made me a lot closer to the community itself, because we’re constantly put in places where we’re all together.”

Yiga is a part of the Harvard Undergraduate Tibetan Cultural Association and serves as its current president. “There is a Tibetan Culture Association here at Harvard, and obviously, [it’s] a very small community of 10 students. But the association itself is open to all,” Yiga said. “All of our events are very welcoming, and they center on cultural awareness and sharing different parts of Tibetan culture, whether it’s food, music, dance, or more educational teachings and film screenings.”

As Yiga shared, beyond celebrating and practicing traditions and rituals, these organizations also foster a sense of inclusivity across campus. They are a space to celebrate individuals’ identities while also allowing a sense of cross-cultural exchange. 

Collaborations and mixers between organizations allow for an organized exchange of traditions by bringing students of different backgrounds together through shared experiences. “We just had an Iftar [for Ramadan] which was a combination of the Society of Arab Students, E.S.S.A, which is the Ethiopian and Eritrean Group, and also B.A.S.H.A, the Bengali Student Association,” Hassan said.

“I think every year I very much look forward to when we get closer to Tibetan New Year … we always have Guthuk, a nine-ingredient soup dish … we have little dough balls, and within those dough balls we have little words that represent different fortunes or predictions of the year,” Yiga added. “That’s always an event I look forward to because we invite all of our friends and the public to the broader Harvard community. It’s always so exciting for everyone to cook together and then open up their fortunes.”

For Harvard undergraduates, events like these draw countless students from all backgrounds, looking to not only honor important events and traditions but also promote a larger ethnic awareness. Peers arrive in reserved rooms across campus to learn from one another while enjoying international cuisine, music, dances, and games that they might not have otherwise known. “I think that the students that I’ve been around are some of the most excited to learn about new cultures, and they’re all very appreciative of things that they didn’t know [about before],” Barrera said.

“I think that Harvard does quite a good job of allowing students to meet new people [and] learn about different people’s backgrounds and cultures,” Yiga said.

Though students carve out distinct communities across campus, the University brings together all demographics through the Cultural Rhythms Festival—thrown by the Harvard Foundation to prompt intercultural engagement on campus. 

The festival starts with the Cultural Rhythms Fashion Show, in which students can sign up to showcase their traditional attire down a runway. The Cultural Rhythms Food Festival follows. Ethnic clubs on campus bring traditional dishes to share with the rest of the student body. The festival ends in Sanders Theatre with student groups performing their music and dance in a vibrant showcase. For students feeling far-from-home, Cultural Rhythms marks a critical turning point.

“The main thing that’s the hardest about being away from home is finding other people who also are not afraid to showcase their culture,” Hassan explained. The variety of events and opportunities on campus allows students to express their cultural identities while also deepening their understanding and appreciation of other identities.

This creates a space for cultural discovery and exploration of languages, traditions, and cuisines. As Hassan shared, “A lot of us are still discovering what our cultural identity is.”

Jocelyne Delgado ’28 (jidelgado@college.harvard.edu)cannot wait for this year’s Cultural Rhythms Festival.