During the week of February 12th, Dublin High School hosted its first annual DubLove Week. Each day of the week was dedicated to “spreading the love” to a different on-campus communities, and Thursday the 15th was designated as a Multicultural Day focusing on students from different ethnic backgrounds.

The spirit day was simple: students were encouraged to wear ethnic clothing to show their cultural background to emphasize that DHS is a place where all students, regardless of race or nationality, are welcome. Dublin is extremely diverse, and due to some tension on campus early in the school year, school leadership found it necessary to hold this show of support.

More subtle tension is prevalent as well. One student noted that while “one of the great things about Dublin High is its diversity and how [it] accepts all different types of cultures, genders, and races, one thing this school could improve upon is stereotypes and how students classify cultures with certain characteristics.” She wished that students would understand that “while our races are a significant part of us, they do not completely define who we are.” This is a common sentiment among students, and was considered a primary reason that the spirit day was held.

Few students found this day consequential, and most found a clear message behind it. A student pointed out that the day was to “acknowledge cultures at the school,” and she believed the message was vigorous.

After all, this day was planned to appreciate the many ethnicities at Dublin High School and to show how diverse the school is. Multicultural Day added an insight to the numerous people at the school, and how each person may believe different religious or values. The student found this day important. The need for a day to appreciate people of all kinds was extremely meaningful and necessary.

However, while the sentiments behind the day were more than welcome, many students felt as if the day did very little to combat the real issues at hand. Freshman Rhea Mistry noted that while DHS did welcome different cultures and that she saw the point of Diversity Day, it didn’t actually do anything. She felt that “it was pointless” and that she “didn’t know why [leadership] thought people would participate. Even most of the kids actually in leadership didn’t participate.”

She had a point, as while there was a decent amount of student participation during the rest of the week, when they were instructed to wear different colors to show support for different communities, very few students wore ethnic clothes on Thursday.

However, though some people may feel that school administration didn’t do enough to drive the message home, it should be noted that the Dubversity assembly held just a few weeks ago was strongly geared towards accepting students of different ethnicities. In light of this, it is worth thinking about whether it is the staff who could do more to address these issues or whether the issue is the students themselves.

Freshman Rhea Mistry wondered about the point on the spirit day. She stated that dressing up in cultural clothing “just makes people judge you.” While that was not the intention of the spirit day, she felt that others would judge instead of welcome. She is not the only one that felt this way. As Spandana Janapati noted, “if [leadership] were to do it again, they should not make it a spirit day,.” pointing out that the majority of the students do not participate in spirit days.

Multiple people noticed the lack of cultural clothes on Thursday, and felt that the day would have been better with more participation. Many students were not inclined to wear due to the fear of not being accepted, being uncomfortable, being judged and stereotyped. Though this was not the intention of Multicultural Day, students felt that the day was not needed. Instead, Dublin High School should hold an assembly, to allow students to learn about the numerous ethnicities and cultures that make Dublin High School diverse.

Multicultural Day was, overall, not the most successful of events due to low student participation. Perhaps DHS students don’t care enough about these issues to put significant effort into amending them. Perhaps students do not understand how essential and valuable these days are. Or perhaps they realize that issues like stereotypes and racism are not some that can be fixed by wearing cultural clothes for a day.