Marshall's International Festival Draws 25 Countries to Don Morris Room

Marshall University's sixty-third International Festival filled the Don Morris Room of the Memorial Student Center on Saturday, Oct. 24, with booths and performances from 25 countries and groups. A parade that day included 22 countries walking through campus.

Shaunte Polk, director for access connection and engagement at Marshall, coordinated the event. She said she began planning for this year's festival immediately after last year's concluded. The festival drew its largest number of participants across her four years running it.

"My main goal was to make sure we have representation from a lot of places," Polk said. "I didn't have places in mind, but I just wanted to make sure we had a lot of representation."

Polk said the festival serves a purpose beyond campus borders. She said gatherings like this remind people of the diversity present in their communities. She also said she could sample food from Yemen or watch dances from Nigeria without leaving Marshall's grounds.

Ayah Jammal, a Lebanese-American senior, ran a booth with books, a cultural drink, and Lebanese currency from different periods. She said the numbers printed on older bills shifted sharply because of inflation, a detail she said gave visitors a fuller view of the country.

"It kind of shows that, although we have a lot of pretty stuff.. I think also the currency and seeing what kind of things that hurts us, helps pull it together," Jammal said. "Every country has pros and cons."

Clemmence Laisney, a French exchange student studying at Marshall, set up a booth with cookies and a presentation about French words used in English. She said she wanted France represented at the school. Her booth sat next to a Venezuela display run by Alana Romero Lozano, and both students were the sole representatives for their countries.

Lozano won the festival's best booth competition. She said the vote carried weight for her. "It felt wonderful to be able to represent my country, even though I'm thousands of miles away, and I felt really close to my culture," Lozano said.

Trinity McDevitt can be contacted at [email protected].