On Nov. 20, 2024, the International Cultural Center hosted an International Culture Café in the Foy Hall lobby, serving students some of the traditional foods of an American Thanksgiving. The event introduced international students to Thanksgiving dessert pies and gave international students the opportunity to secure their I-20/DS-2019 forms.
The International Cultural Center is a program for international students that helps them acclimate to life in the United States and provides them with academic resources, intercultural competency and experiences.
The Office of International Programs hosts the International Culture Cafés monthly. The goal is to connect international and local residents to foster integration and interaction between domestic and international communities.
Typically, the International Culture Cafés serve foods from multiple cultures, usually focusing on a different cultural experience each month. However, this event did not focus on international foods. Instead, the event focused on an annual American food tradition, allowing international students to experience Thanksgiving, which they normally wouldn’t.
The Café also was a great opportunity for national students to partake in the Thanksgiving celebrations and eat traditional Thanksgiving meals. For the past few years, the ICC has served international students Thanksgiving desserts around the holiday.
Dr. Adeola Fayemi, a professor at Auburn University and the Director of Intercultural Education and Inclusion, was in charge of the event.
“We have a lot of events that highlight different countries as a way of internationalizing the campus. So they can get hamburgers, they can get a pizza anywhere," Fayemi said. "The educational piece is to see that the food and the culture of people coming from all over the world, it’s not really that different, it’s just a different way of doing things. In the end, we are all more alike than we are different.”
The event ran from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. and opened with Fayemi welcoming students and explaining the event. Laura Fuller, coordinator of the Graduate School’s InterConnect Program, then gave the international students a brief presentation on the history of Thanksgiving in America.
Fuller had a table set up for students if they had any further questions, which also provided visual aids of the timeline of Thanksgiving in the United States and historic paintings, “The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth” by Jennie Augusta Brownscombe, and an artist’s depiction of the “survivors of Mayflower voyage from England and members of local Wampanoag tribe.”
The event also provided students with the opportunity to receive their I-20/DS-2019 forms, which are forms that the university must approve for international students who are visiting their home country to be allowed to return to the United States for their studies in the spring.
The Thanksgiving International Culture Café and the I-20/DS-2019 forms used to be two separate events, but recently the events were combined since they were done around the same time.
Chloe Dion, a pharmacy student and international student from Mirabel, Quebec, Canada, gave some insight into the form.
“We have our visas, but when you’re an international student and you’re going [back to] your country for the holidays or whatever, you need to have one yearly signature from your school to be allowed to return into the country," Dion explained. “So the border usually, or if you’re at the airport or something, the embassy will just look if you have that signature, so we’re just getting that signature done to be able to come back.”
The International Culture Café provided seven traditional Thanksgiving pies: apple pie, pumpkin pie, sweet potato pie, buttermilk pie, pecan pie, key lime pie and cherry pie. Apple cider with cinnamon sticks and coffee were also offered. Students were allowed to try as many pies as they wished.
“International students, you know, a lot of them are coming and they don’t necessarily know what the American culture is and they learn as they go. For example, with the [Thanksgiving] pie day, a lot of them are like, reading the little piece that we wrote, they’ve never heard about Pecan pie before, so it's a way of, an acculturation event to the [American] culture,” Fayemi said.
Students sampled the pies while waiting for their forms to be signed and approved. Because of the volume of forms being processed, those not completed during the event were available to be picked up in the International Cultural Center’s office the next morning.
Dion shared that they also celebrate Thanksgiving in Canada.
“Since I’m from Canada, we kinda have the same backstory [as the United States], so it wasn’t anything new for me, but maybe I guess the blessing part is a little bit different since we are in the South and I feel like, back home is way more…they were talking about the agriculture and the abundance of being able to grow food and stuff like that, so I guess that was the only difference, but everything else is pretty much the same,” Dion said.
However, some foods provided were different from what they traditionally serve in Canada.
“[The food] was delicious and, like I said, it’s pretty similar to home, I always love apple cider and apple pie so I was happy to see it here,” Dion said. “My mom makes a cheesy broccoli casserole and a green bean casserole, those are pretty good. The only thing that was different that we’ve never had at my house is the sweet potato casserole with the marshmallows on top.”
Emilia Clavijo, a civil engineering graduate assistant and an international student from Ecuador, shared that she tried traditional American Thanksgiving food last year with her American host family and was excited about the event.
“This drink, apple cider, I’d never seen that [before] but it looks so good. This was cool because some desserts, like key lime pie, is common everywhere, but like pecan pie is new [for me], and pumpkin pie is new [for me]," Clavijo said. "I think I’ve liked everything I’ve tried so far. I tried last year some casserole—I was in my advisor's house last year for Thanksgiving, and they served food and I think everything was great, and dessert is great too, so I really like everything, to be honest.”
Clavijo plans to attend the Thanksgiving café next year.
“You not only get your signature for your I-20, but you get to try new things and see a lot of people that are international that you probably know, or you meet new people, so it’s very cool," Clavijo said.
The next event for the International Cultural Center is a culture quizzing class in February, where students will learn how cultural foods have changed and traveled across the globe over the years.
For more information about the International Cultural Center and International Culture Café, click here.
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