By Ashley M. Casey
Associate Editor
Foodies and Francophones rejoice: The Festival of Nations returns to Cicero-North Syracuse High School on March 5. The festival features authentic cuisine and cultural representation of more than 30 countries.
Now a senior at C-NS, James Corl III has coordinated the festival since he was an eighth-grader at North Syracuse Junior High School.
“This is going to be our fifth Festival of Nations. I can’t believe that five years has passed at this point,” he said.
While many of the booths at the Festival of Nations will be operated by C-NS students and staff, this year the festival is partnering with outside agencies such as Refugee and Immigrant Self-Empowerment (RISE) Syracuse, Destiny’s African Nation Church and the North Side Learning Center.
“I’m really fortunate and lucky to make so many great connections with people not just within my own school but in the community as well,” Corl said.
Outside partnerships allow the festival to bring more countries and cultures to C-NS. For example, RISE will have a booth about Kenya.
“Nobody in my local school district would be representing that country because we don’t have students of that heritage,” Corl said.
Organizations like RISE will be able to share their mission with students and community members who attend the festival. RISE assists immigrants and refugees with employment and economic opportunities, interpretation services and education initiatives.
“They’ll be able to share their message with other people. They get to showcase what they do in their local community,” Corl said. “They get to represent a country or two for us and in turn they get to show what they do in their community which is fantastic.”
Members of the African Nation Church, which meets at the Destiny Christian Center in Syracuse, will lend their talents to the festival.
“The African Nation Church is going to be having dancers and people coming to sing — traditional worship and praise dances,” Corl said. “They’re extremely lively and it brings an element of culture that’s not normally seen at the festival.”
Returning to the festival this year is the Keyna Hora Klezmer band, which will perform traditional Yiddish and Eastern European Jewish folk music and dances.
Corl said the most rewarding part of his years coordinating the festival has been “getting to know people, listening to their stories and how they’ve integrated themselves with the local community.” He said he recently attended a RISE tutoring night, where he met a Somali immigrant who is hoping to become a doctor.
“It’s amazing how she is working toward her dream and able to hold onto her culture,” Corl said.
As for his classmates and their families, Corl is hoping they leave the festival with “a more open mind [and] an awareness of the world around them.”
“In my school community, there are kids that you wouldn’t even know have such a rich cultural background from the Middle East or Africa. If you never took the time to ask them about that you would never know. You can gain a real insight into the world around you and how it works,” he said. “There’s a little international community in each community, even one as small as ours.”
The Festival of Nations takes place from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 5, in the cafeteria at Cicero-North Syracuse High School, located at 6002 Route 31 in Cicero. It is free and open to the public.
