My daughters’ school held a cultural and diversity festival where we got to see Aztec dancers from the group Mixcoatl Anahuac perform. Mixcoatl Anahuac means the Milky Way or cloud serpent.
I absolutely adore that my daughters go to a public school that not only embraces the diversity of the community it serves, but celebrates it. I don’t remember my cultural background being recognized or celebrated at school other than Cinco de Mayo and most Mexicans don’t even celebrate Cinco de Mayo.
When I was growing up, the whole “melting pot” concept of this country seemed to be trying to melt out the parts of my biculturality that didn’t fit with the dominant culture. That might explain why I’ve never been a fan of the melting pot concept. For my daughters it’s different: they don’t have to melt, they can just be who they are without being expected to become some kind of gooey glop of sameness.
Thank you to Mixcoatl Anahuac for proudly and beautifully keeping and sharing cultural traditions.
Mixcoatl Anahuac
San Francisco, CA
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I always thought melting pot meant we all took on bits of each others culture – so we all eat chinese/japanese/italian/whatever and we all celebrate the Lunar New Year/St PatricksDay/Bastille Day/whatever and we wish the relevant people happy xmas, happy Eid, happy Diwali or whatever is relevant to them. Does melting pot mean everyone melts to become the dominant culture? Surely not….
The alternate concept of melting pot is the salad bowl concept, where all these fantastic ingredients come together to create something delicious, but where you can still distinguish the different ingredients. So we’re all tossed together and it’s all good, but you can still celebrate the differences and appreciate what each “ingredient” brings to the whole. I get why the melting pot concept was coined, but I don’t think it’s as good a metaphor as a salad bowl. We’re on the same page philosophically in the end.
I think that definition of salad bowl was what I thought melting pot meant. I wonder if it had a different meaning in Australia to the US? Will investigate later today….
You’re right, US schools have only recently started celebrating the communities that make up the student population. I enjoyed the video of the dancers, and your pictures are wonderful!
New Zealand does relatively well with embracing the maori culture but it is still infrequent. I love the headdresses of those Aztec dancers.
Loved to read about the dance of Mexicans. Do you know there is a blog about Cinco de mayo sayings
andrecipes of 5 May