When it comes to learning from the immigrants and refugees that currently call our city home, there are a number of ways to engage their cultural differences. You could visit their restaurants. You could help to teach them a language. You could shop at one of their stores – it seems as if a new market is popping up on a monthly basis.
National Public Radio (NPR) has published a piece (also a radio program) by Joel Rose that points to how this city continues to be transformed by its newest settlers (see here). The article talks about where these people have come from, why they are here, and what they are doing to change the face of this city.
Since its inception in 1918, the International Institute of Buffalo (IIB) has helped refugees to resettle here in Buffalo. Beyond that, the IIB has been instrumental in aiding the immigrants to retain their cultural ways and beliefs by offering arts programming that includes concerts, cooking, language, and textile classes. The IIB also offers a home to numerous ethnic clubs that have been established along the way, including the Dante Alighieri Cultural Club, The Polish University Women, Japanese Women’s Club, Hungarian Club, and the Lithuanian Club. The classes and the clubs offer ways to celebrate culture, and pass along ethnic identity.
In 2016, one of the IIB’s missions will be to reintroduce its cultural programming – something that could help to enhance the relationships between the community and the various ethnic people that now live here. These cultural nights and cooking classes translate to fun filled affairs in which people who are unfamiliar with each others’ cultures come together to share cultural knowledge though music, food, art, etc.
“In an increasingly global world, the Institute will remain a place that celebrates diversity and works to remind the WNY community we all share an immigrant past. That is why over the past century, our halls have been filled with sounds from all over the world and smells of international flavors. Whether it is learning how to make ginger coffee or pierogis, watching a concert or dance performance, or learning a few new words in another language, the International Institute’s cultural programming will bring communities together and remind us of long-held family traditions that are a part of Western New York’s cultural fabric.” – IIB