A&E

With speakers ranging from Holocaust survivors to participants in now-legendary civil rights triumphs, Diversity Week 2008 was a conglomeration of events centered on the theme of diversity. Organized by senior Michael Blech, Diversity Week consisted of six guest speaker presentations, a student run talent show, and an art, poetry and essay contest. Diversity Week ran from Tuesday, March 4 to Friday, March 7.

The Diversity Week Committee met with a representative from Facing History and Ourselves, a non-profit organization that promotes greater tolerance and understanding through studying history. Together, they looked for speakers who had first-hand experience with racial injustice.

“Our goal was to get Stuy students thinking about issues of diversity by exposing them to a group of speakers and presenters who had interesting takes on the subject,” Blech said.

Diversity Week 2008 saw several speakers who were new to Stuyvesant, including Dr. Terrence Roberts, Dr. Leon Bass and Yvonne Campbell, as well as returning speakers, including Sarah Jones, Frank McCourt and Judith Sloan. The visitors all spoke during the afternoon, mainly between fifth and ninth periods.

The events began Tuesday with a speech by Dr. Bass. An African-American who fought in World War II, Bass offered a unique perspective on both anti-Semitism and racism.

“What I saw in the camp was something that was led up to by my service in the military,” Bass said. “I was constantly demeaned and I was constantly told I wasn’t good enough to drink water or to have a seat on the bus.”

Bass’s solemn presentation about racism was followed by a visit on Thursday by a more whimsical speaker—Frank McCourt, a former Stuyvesant English teacher and the author of “Angela’s Ashes.” “[Sometimes] I say to myself, ‘How the hell did you last for 30 years?’” McCourt said, reflecting on his long career with the Department of Education.

Though McCourt’s quirky tales weren’t entirely related to diversity, his experiences as an immigrant reflected the ordeals that a large percentage of immigrants face. “His particular experience shed light on the experiences of many immigrants to this country at that particular time,” Blech said. “[He] struggled with many of the same issues as other immigrants.”

When Judith Sloan, author of “Crossing the Boulevard,” visited on Thursday, images of locals from her diverse Queens neighborhood appeared on the projector screen behind her. Her book is the product of years spent listening to the stories of immigrants living in Queens.

Sloan’s stories ranged from the tale of a Jewish man who started a punk gypsy band to the plight of an Afghan woman whose village had been invaded by the Taliban. “A few of the stories she told really freaked me out,” sophomore Hyde Kwan said. “I can’t imagine how it must have been for those people.”

After Sloan’s acute portrayal of Queens’s diversity, Holocaust survivor Yvonne Campbell came to Stuyvesant on Friday. “If your parents had to make you disappear, where would they hide you?” Campbell said, as she told students about her unique position during World War II. Campbell was a Jew who posed as an orphan in order to escape the Nazis’ infamous concentration camps.

“I don’t even recognize race,” Dr. Terrence Roberts, a member of the Little Rock Nine who also spoke on Friday, said. The Little Rock Nine was a bold group of African American students who enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957, despite having to be escorted by the U.S. Army to school.

Now a clinical psychologist, Dr. Terrence Roberts moved the audience by describing the discrimination he had faced since birth. “[Race] is all bogus that we believe in for some odd reason, except me,” Dr. Roberts said. “I don’t believe in it.”

Poet, playwright and actress Sarah Jones performed a miniature version of her one-woman show, “Bridge and Tunnel,” originally produced Off-Broadway by Meryl Streep, on Friday. Jones began her performance by fooling the audience into thinking she was British. “Her accents are really cool, and she seems really sincere,” freshman Miryam Coppersmith said.

“All of [the characters] are real people to me,” Jones said. “I’m like a proud parent to them.”

Though Jones’ abbreviated show consisted mainly of her different characters musing on diversity, her voices were the real attraction. The audience seemed enthralled by Jones’s accuracy of accents, which she learns by listening to people with the accents she seeks. One particularly funny impression of an Asian woman had several students murmuring “Oh my god, that sounds just like my mom.”

The art, poetry, and essay contest offered students a chance to express their opinions about diversity. The first through fifth place winners were, respectively, Loren Oumarova, who submitted a poem, Mosammad Rahman (poem), Ksenya Ostrovska (art), Patrick Lee (poem), and Shwie Zhang (art). “Many of the submissions from students who immigrated to the U.S. discussed the diversity and vibrancy of New York City in contrast to the homogeneity of the countries where they were born,” Blech said.

Diversity Week concluded with Friday’s student-run talent show. The show’s diverse acts ranged from an animated and fun mini-concert by the A Capella club to an original reggae song called “Restore Our Rights,” written and performed by junior Dimitri Wijesinghe. The audience was small, but the crowd’s support helped foster an intimate atmosphere.

The talent show was a great finish to Diversity Week because the show was open to anyone who wanted to perform, attracting some of the most diverse performers Stuyvesant has to offer. “I liked that there was no limit to what was allowed in the [talent] show,” freshman Priscilla Odinmah said.