By Amy Flis
<[email protected]>

Cultural diversity is a fantastic thing, and it wasn’t until I had fluorescent-colored powder ground into my hair and down my shirt that I realized how thankful I am for that. The reason for the colorful powder was Holi, also called the Festival of Colors, a Hindu celebration for the arrival of spring. Apparently all of India erupts in frenzy, throwing powder at everyone and everything and covering whole neighborhoods in a splash of color.

As my own experience has shown, there is a great diversity in students’ cultures and backgrounds at this school. Despite stereotypes that we are a bunch of preppy, rich kids, the students here form a rich community of different ethnicities, social classes and beliefs. Personally, I still feel like I am sheltered living in Carmel, but it is disconcerting to discover how ignorant some other people are, simply because they have never been exposed to many cultures.

For the past several months, I have attended a class called Anchors Away, which prepares Christians to maintain their faith as they go to college, and many of the students there are shockingly sheltered. For example, when asked who knew a Muslim, only a handful of them raised their hands. Most of them had never met a Muslim, and the same was true for Mormons.

It is difficult to foster a respect for different religions and beliefs when the only personal exposure to the people who practice them is through television and public perceptions, and I am sad to see these inherently good people be deprived of such an enriching opportunity. Many went to private school and will go to a small, Christian college and will never get the chance to understand and accept the variety of cultures that public school has allowed me to see.

From that Indian celebration, I left with a red eye, a Technicolor face and a new appreciation for the people around me. After that day, I became an “honorary Indian;” throughout high school, I have been classified as a bit of a white Asian; and some day, maybe none of that will be significant, and this world will be able to completely break down the cultural divisions. I dream of the day when people will simply be people, judged by who they are and not by what the world has made them out to be. Amy Flis is the editor-in-chief of the HiLite. Contact her at [email protected].