By Michael Beeli
Copy Editor
The Clinton Foundation, OurBeautyMB and the Manhattan Beach Education Foundation hosted the event “Our Beauty” in Mira Costa’s Small Theater on March 11, in order to present and celebrate diversity of residents in the local community.
OurBeautyMB club presidents Jennifer Marer and Asha Berkes organized the event with the assistance of the Clinton Foundation and MBEF. In the small theater, speakers shared their experiences of diversity and adversity.
“The main purpose of Our Beauty is to promote positive cultural and social inclusion,” Berkes said. “The message is that cultural diversity is important and we have to face discrimination together and come together to be stronger.”
After a short introduction by English Teacher Shawn Chen, senior Jennifer Marer, and juniors Brianna Cruz and Mareda Michael, the event opened with an introductory video documenting examples of diversity in the arts. The video was a compilation of celebrities of color in moments of achievement and accomplishment, including clips of Viola Davis and Lin-Manuel Miranda.
The first speakers were Cruz and Michael, who detailed their experiences at Mira Costa on account of their personal backgrounds as hispanic and black females. They were followed by junior Katherine Harfouch, a female of Iranian descent, who described her own similar experience.
“Everyone has a different background and a different story and a different culture,” Michael said. “The more that we embrace people’s backgrounds the better we can accept them and understand them, so we can come together and be more of a unit.”
After Harfouch, the next Speakers were Berkes and Marer, who gave a presentation to the audience about the Cartoon Network animated show, Steven Universe, which, according to Marer, is one of the few forms of media today that respectfully depicts diversity in all forms. Following Berkes and Marer, the technical operator played a video of junior Kavita Sarathy singing a song that was not named.
“What’s so important about Steven Universe, is that it represents diversity in all of it’s forms, but the characters aren’t in any way solely defined by their diversity or what makes them different,” Marer said.
Interview with Steven Universe Creator Rebecca Sugar
After Sarathy, senior Merita Lundstrom detailed her experience as female of mexican and caucasian descent and senior Allie Yamato shared her Japanese heritage by singing “Home”, by Japanese-American artist Angela Aki. Both of their presentations focused on retaining the sense of their heritage despite being American-born.
“Ethnicity is not a competition, everyone’s experience is personal and varied,” Lundstrom said. “Still, I know that In my I experience, because I am white passing, I receive certain privileges that darker Mexicans do not. I wanted to demonstrate how so much of ethnicity is really just the way we look.”
The final three speakers were senior Omar Ahmed, former Mira Costa student Karie Lee Krome and Hermosa Beach City School District technology teacher Nizhona Tsosie. Ahmed presented a video about his aspiration to be a filmmaker, Krome documented her struggles as a lesbian and Tsosie discussed her observations about racial diversity as a woman of Navajo descent.
“What I wanted people to get from my video was that, no matter who you are, what race you are, what your skin is, you can follow your dreams you can chase your dreams and you shouldn’t let anyone tell you that you can’t,” Ahmed said.
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