How Do You Learn About a Culture?
By TMP 43rd Editorial Board
During last Thursday’s head monitor elections, the six candidates were asked, “How do you plan on making Milton a more anti-racist and inclusive community?” One sentiment united their answers: that Milton needs authentic cultural learning. We at The Milton Paper wholeheartedly agree that Milton’s multicultural makeup presents an invaluable opportunity for students to gain deeper global perspectives. Yet we must ask: what does authentically learning about a culture actually look like? Last Tuesday’s Culture Fest presented both successes and failures on the cultural learning front. We applaud the event’s organizers’ efforts to highlight global perspectives within Milton, particularly with the advent of student-led workshops. Still, some elements of Culture Fest, by virtue of problematic expectations for the event among students, fail to push attendee engagement and understanding beyond simple consumption—literally—of culture. Milton: we could significantly improve Culture Fest by embracing authentic – if inconvenient – learning
The format of Culture Fest encourages students to package their cultures into easily marketable features, such as food, dance, or pop culture, in order to appeal to a larger Milton audience. This selective generalization of cultures, though authentic, abridges complex history into symbols catered to Western tastes. For instance, Western representation of Chinese culture frequently involves martial arts, which are undeniably a meaningful aspect of Chinese tradition. Yet its prominence can overshadow the complexity of other Chinese performing arts and traditions. Meanwhile, this format discourages student leaders from highlighting more difficult aspects of their cultures’ histories, such as the role of colonialism, due to their lack of appeal to a broad student audience. When students overly rely on readily accepted signifiers—matcha for Japan, dance for the Caribbean, K-pop and K-dramas for Korea—to communicate cultural identities, their repetition can unintentionally reinforce stereotypes and flatten the full complexity and historical significance behind each culture.
We are all products of cultures from around the world, meaning we all experience each other’s cultures differently. A Jamaican student watching Ritmo, for instance, may recognize elements of rhythm, identity, and historical continuity rooted in Caribbean traditions. By contrast, students without that awareness may interpret the same performance as nothing more than an aesthetic novelty. Insofar as this tension exists, some degree of contextual grounding is necessary for authentic cultural learning.
To be clear, The Milton Paper does not advocate for Culture Fest to become a series of lectures. Excessively structured academic programming risks making Culture Fest indistinguishable from the very classroom environments we seek to learn beyond. Rather, we argue for cultural learning opportunities like Culture Fest to become two-way exchanges, retaining fun elements like food and performance to attract students, but also requiring attendees to give something in return—whether that may be demonstrated learning or logistical support. For example, table leaders could print out infographics on the historical and cultural significance of the dishes served, while insisting that attendees ask questions before tasting the food. Limiting crowds could help, too; smaller stations divided across multiple spaces instead of the single rink space can foster more conversation, reducing overcrowding while eliminating a setup that encourages people to rush from one table to the next. Additionally, requiring attendees to stay to help clean up the rink after the event could both reduce the workload of table leaders and prevent the alienating dynamic of the (predominantly POC) table leaders’ serving the attendees.
Ultimately, we believe that Culture Fest epitomizes one of Milton’s greatest strengths – our eagerness to share our unique perspectives in service of others’ learning. But, to represent diversity is easy; to facilitate real learning – inconvenient, transformative learning – from this diversity is hard. If student leaders, attendees, and event organizers reorient the event toward the latter goal, then we are certain that Culture Fest can achieve it.