The 21st International Fiesta will offer ethnic food, performances and games for Mississippi State University students and Starkville residents. Saturday the events will take place from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the Drill Field, and admission is free.
Joan Mylroie, geography instructor and vice president of the local World Neighbors Association chapter, said the goal of the International Fiesta is to facilitate activities that promote intercultural exchange between international students and community residents.
She said the event will be beneficial to students because it is a practical world geography class.
“What better way to learn about the world and to meet people, talk to them, ask them questions, see them in their native costumes and taste their food?” she said. “[It’s] a multi-sensual day of world geography.”
John Rodgers, physical geography associate professor, said the International Fiesta will benefit students by exposing them to things they would not see otherwise.
“I think they get to realize that there’s a lot of good outside of Mississippi, and a lot of the different cultures can bring a lot of things to the table,” he said.
Christa Haney, geosciences instructor, said the International Fiesta has three goals: bring people together from different cultures, celebrate the diversity of cultures at MSU and teach students about different cultures around the world.
The International Fiesta is open to the Starkville community as well.
“I think people from around the Starkville area [will have] a great experience,” Haney said.
Mylroie said the International Fiesta is a wonderful opportunity for MSU students to form bonds with international students.
“MSU students should take this opportunity at the fiesta to strike up a conversation with a foreign student,” she said in an email. “During this conversation [they may] discover [they] have a lot in common — we all have the same emotions and desires and love of family and friends.”
Rodgers said the International Fiesta benefits international students by allowing them to share information about their home countries.
Mylroie said she thinks students who attend the event will enjoy the food most.
“I believe we have more booths serving food this year than we ever have before,” she said. “My favorite is Thai food. It’s fabulous.”
Rodgers said the food offered at the International Fiesta is excellent.
The International Fiesta will have a variety of musical performances, including work from the Black Voices Gospel Choir, Korean Student Association, Vietnamese Student Association and others.
“We’ve got dancing, singing [and] instrumental groups [from] a variety of countries,” Mlyroie said. “We have Robert Damm’s percussion group which often will do the African connection but can [perform music] from anywhere around the world.”
A flag procession representing 120 different countries will begin at 11 a.m. on the Drill Field. Each person will wear his or her national costumes and will carry their native flag, Mylroie said.
The International Fiesta will have a variety of games for children to enjoy, including face painting, a piñata and a moon bounce, she said. Intellectual word games for adults will also be provided.
“There’s a word [game] where you make poetry or stories with words,” she said. “I think one of the booths is going to have somebody that will write your name in foreign languages.”
Mylroie said the International Fiesta was successful last year hopes for the same this weekend.
“Last year was the best year ever,” she said. “We had three weekends of rain in a row and then the sun came out and that was the weekend of the Fiesta. We had record crowds last year.”
Mylroie said students will have opportunities to be educated at the fiesta by people who are willing to speak.
“It is a truly magnificent day of learning about different people, different cultures, different foods, and with our world shrinking every day, globalization taking place, you need to know about the rest of the world,” she said.