Interview with Emily Stark

Another really good one. Emily Stark's story is an interesting one. She was adopted by Caucasian parents while she is Chinese. Two things here that were memorable. First, is that Emily attends Chinese camp every summer in order to have that cultural bond. Her parents can't provide that for her, so she faces more pressure than the average multi-cultural student. Second, is that she finds a lot of what Lovett does is a little watered down. For example, the Chinese food isn't authentic and the cultural events aren't either. I recently spoke with Mrs. Hawkins, Director of Diversity Learning, about this. While Mrs. Hawkins explains that such events are actually planned by Chinese people (as an example), many of the planners do this because of the crowd they cater to. That's right folks. Kids aren't getting the actual cultural experience because we are afraid of what they might think of the actual version. By doing so, we only perpetuate the stereotypes (such as Panda Express) and cause a cyclical problem. They get a watered down version because people (I think) are afraid of if that culture might be "rejected". Emily would like to see these events reflect the actual versions. That way, when kids that aren't in that culture are exposed to it somewhere else, they can decide whether it's genuine or not.